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[Uncategorized] Dems in Disarray as Backlash Against Barack Obama’s Lecture to Black Men Grows Louder

"And it is an outrage that they are trying to pin this on black men. If Harris loses, it will not be on black men or any other group of voters. The fault will lie squarely with the candidate and the party she represents."

The post Dems in Disarray as Backlash Against Barack Obama’s Lecture to Black Men Grows Louder first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:10/12/2024 9:49:03 AM
[2024 Election] Obama Scolds Black Men for Not 'Feeling the Idea' of 'a Woman' as President

Former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally supporting Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, at the University of Pittsburgh's Fitzgerald Field House in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
Former President Barack Obama scolded black men Thursday night for not "feeling the idea of having a woman as president."

The post Obama Scolds Black Men for Not ‘Feeling the Idea’ of ‘a Woman’ as President appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:10/11/2024 1:28:09 PM
[Markets] 'Not Acceptable': Obama Scolds Black 'Brothers' For Not Backing Harris - Blames Sexism 'Not Acceptable': Obama Scolds Black 'Brothers' For Not Backing Harris - Blames Sexism

Former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail for Kamala Harris on Thursday -- and hit some flat notes, as he condescendingly scolded black men for their lackluster support of the vice president, even going so far as to accuse them of sexism.  

While Harris seems certain to win the overall black vote, she's on course to do so by a significantly slimmer margin than recent party standard-bearers. In 2008, 95% of blacks voted for Obama. This year, only 63% of blacks say they'll vote for Harris, according to a recent NAACP survey. What's particularly alarming to Democrats is that, among black men under 50, only 49% support Harris, with 26% saying they'll vote for Trump.   

"We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all corners of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running," said Obama at an unannounced, pre-rally stop at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh. “I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”

Appealing to race, Obama then told the mostly-black group at the campaign office that the choice in 2024 was clear, given that, "on the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences…"

Having exhorted black men to embrace racism in the voting booth, Obama then suggested the same group's sexism was at the heart of Harris' problem with them: 

“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that. Because part of it makes me think— and I’m speaking to men directly— part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

“...And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable."

Obama's remarks seem to reflect a growing sense of desperation -- and they seem likely to backfire. It's bad enough for him to publicly spotlight Harris' weakness compared to his own performance, but it's even worse that he felt the best way to remedy the situation was to publicly shame black men -- to the point of saying, "you're lucky Michelle's not here" -- and to accuse black men of sexism. 

Reggie Jones, a black "brother" selling Harris products at the Pittsburgh rally, attributed weak black support for Harris to her record in California. “[It’s] because she locked a whole lot of us up as a prosecutor,” Jones told the New York Post before adding, "I’m just selling her stuff for the money." 

Meanwhile, the black vote is just one of several crumbling cornerstones of the Democratic electoral coalition. Democratic campaign operatives are sweating bullets as they also see Harris underperforming with Hispanics, Muslims, young people and labor union members.

All aboard the shame train!

[ ADOS = American Descendants of Slavery ]  

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/11/2024 - 08:45
Published:10/11/2024 8:16:13 AM
[World] Obama blasts men for finding 'all kinds of excuses' to avoid voting for a female president

Obama said he had a problem with men who are "coming up with all kinds of excuses" to sit out the election or to vote for Trump.

Published:10/10/2024 9:46:58 PM
[7501d08b-0f89-5cfd-8885-d4ad7a9c2c82] Obama, stumping for Harris in key battleground, charges Trump 'will makes problems worse' On the campaign trail for the first time for Vice President Kamala Harris, Barack Obama repeatedly slammed former President Trump in arguably the most crucial battleground state in the 2024 election. Published:10/10/2024 9:46:57 PM
[54c7100e-58d2-5202-8fb9-5d223487b953] Obama calls out ‘brothers’ apprehensive to vote for Harris: ‘You’re thinking of sitting out?’ Former President Barack Obama took heat for appearing to admonish Black voters who are apprehensive about supporting Vice President Harris. Published:10/10/2024 8:59:59 PM
[Markets] Is Gavin Newsom Hoping That Kamala Harris Loses The Election? Is Gavin Newsom Hoping That Kamala Harris Loses The Election?

Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

Two minutes of airtime during the Democrat National Convention in Chicago gave California Governor Gavin Newsom his latest opportunity to build his national stature. As part of the announcement of Kamala Harris’s clinching of the Democrat presidential nomination during a symbolic roll call of state delegates, Newsom portrayed Harris as a “star” who “has always done the right thing” for civil rights, LGBTQ rights, social justice, racial justice, and on just about every pet cause on the left.

It says something unspoken that this was Newsom’s only official speaking role at the four-day DNC. It put his high-energy delivery on display, lionizing Harris as the future of the Democrat Party but it seemed to us that he was choking on those words as he spoke them. The contrast between his support for Harris and his thinly veiled presidential ambitions was hard to ignore.

Newsom repeatedly denied that he was ever in the running for the 2024 nomination, yet his high-profile nationwide travels and meetings with government officials in Israel and China demonstrated otherwiseHe bought ads in Florida alongside a debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, further adding to the speculation of Newsom’s real intentions.

His passionately vocal support for Joe Biden after Biden’s June 27 debate disaster seemed tailor-made for Biden to hand his post-campaign withdrawal endorsement to Newsom, and perhaps that was Newsom’s intention all along. All he had to do was stay as close as possible to Biden, keep shouting his praises, and the endorsement would surely be Newsom’s.

It wasn’t meant to be. Biden, upon announcing his re-election withdrawal, endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democrat nominee for president within hours, forestalling any attempt at an open convention to nominate Biden’s successor. As we have previously suggested, Biden’s move was intentional as a form of revenge for being shoved out of his re-election efforts by Democrat Party bosses (Obama, Pelosi, and Schumer especially, but there were many Democrats who greased the skids for Biden’s exit after his disastrous debate performance).

Would Newsom have been a better Democrat presidential candidate than Harris? Absolutely.

Now that Harris is the nominee, does Newsom hope that she wins? Absolutely not.

Newsom had everything to gain by supporting Biden at his bleakest moment. Even with missing out on Biden’s endorsement, which we believe caught Governor Hair Gel off guard, Newsom has positioned himself well among Democrats as a dynamic campaigner, a capable fundraiser, and having a strong appeal among Democrat base voters. His purported loyalty to Biden only gave him more visibility and differentiation from other leading Democrats who publicly called for Biden to stand down from his re-election effort. But in the larger scheme of things, was this a political miscalculation on Newsom’s part or a calculated move to best position himself for a 2028 run should Harris lose in four weeks? Time will tell.

With Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee, Gavin Newsom has only to keep his Harris support superficial and work to repair his record at home, letting Harris and others take a majority of the blame for California’s problems. This will be much easier for Newsom if Trump defeats Harris while Newsom makes a token effort to support her.

This also provides Newsom with four convenient years of runway toward a potential presidential run in 2028. His term as California governor expires in 2026, providing an opportunity to shed much of his poor reputation of contributing to California’s demise and to create a new persona. We’re not sure if it will work, but we are sure it will be tried.

And it will require Kamala Harris to lose to Donald Trump. Newsom could pull off this trick in 2028 after a Trump presidency while facing a new Republican candidate, likely JD Vance, who had a great night last week in crushing Tiananmen Tim Walz. But he can’t pull this off in 2028 against an incumbent Harris presidency or in 2032 after two Harris terms in office. That window of opportunity will have closed by then.

A lot of planets will align in 2028 for a Gavin Newsom presidential run, including the entire world’s attention on California for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. His state will be glamorized, his failures will be sanitized, and his presidential run will be romanticized in a way only Hollywood can produce. But not if Kamala Harris is the incumbent president, no matter how much she screws things up. That’s what’s called Democrat Political Inertia.

With so many of the serial failures of the Biden-Harris administration piling up and having no capability to convince voters that their misery is simply not happening, Democrats are probably thinking the same thing as Newsom: Take the loss to Trump, unleash more chaos, and hang their lousy economy and the world on fire around Trump’s neck. Then it’s Gavin Newsom to the rescue in 2026! Most Democrats are too stupid and misguided to believe otherwise. We know; we both live here in California and have seen the damage that Newsom has wrought during his two terms as governor.

That is why it is utterly critical to Newsom that Harris loses to Trump this year. Gavin Newsom’s presidential ambitions—and they are significant—rest solely on a Harris defeat. Given his naked ambition and historical disdain for Harris, don’t be surprised to see Newsom torpedo his California rival in some below-the-radar manner to save his political future. We don’t call him Governor Hair Gel without reason. He gives new meaning to the definition of the word “slimy.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/10/2024 - 19:15
Published:10/10/2024 6:42:40 PM
[] Sharyl Attkisson OWNS CBS News With BRUTAL Obama Reminder As They Conspire to Make Kamala Look LESS DUMB Published:10/10/2024 8:51:00 AM
[Politics] Obama Returns to a Different Western Pennsylvania

When former President Barack Obama comes to Pittsburgh on Thursday to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in the home stretch for next month’s election,... Read More

The post Obama Returns to a Different Western Pennsylvania appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Published:10/8/2024 4:23:37 PM
[Uncategorized] Biden Reportedly Blames Obama for Putin Invading Ukraine in 2022

“They f*cked up in 2014. That’s why we are here. We f*cked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously.”

The post Biden Reportedly Blames Obama for Putin Invading Ukraine in 2022 first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:10/8/2024 9:29:42 AM
[Markets] Musk PAC Offers $47 Bounty For Every Swing-State Voter Referred To Sign Petition Musk PAC Offers $47 Bounty For Every Swing-State Voter Referred To Sign Petition

In a head-turning move as we head down the stretch of the 2024 presidential election, the Elon Musk-financed America PAC announced it will start paying $47 to anyone who refers a registered, swing-state voter to sign a petition embracing free speech and gun rights. With no limit on the number of referrals, the program seemingly offers individuals the chance to rack up hundreds of dollars in bounties with little effort. 

"Our goal is to get 1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms," America PAC states on the petition page. "This program is exclusively open to registered voters in PennsylvaniaGeorgiaNevadaArizonaMichiganWisconsin and North Carolina."  

The program seemingly has two complementary aims:

  • Building a list of registered voters to be used in get-out-the-vote initiatives for Donald Trump
  • Indirectly incentivizing voter registration among conservative-leaning swing-state residents -- by paying people who may encourage others to register to vote so they can sign the petition

Importantly, that registration-motivation element is roundabout. It's against federal election law to pay someone to register to vote or to vote, but the America PAC program merely pays people for referring registered voters to sign a petition. Nonetheless, some are struggling to grasp that rather glaring distinction: 

Signing the petition requires providing your name, email address, mailing address and cell phone number. The online form says the phone number "will only be used to confirm you are the legitimate petition signer. No other purpose." There's also a place to provide the email address or phone number of the person who referred you to the petition. The page cautions that "before payment is made, America PAC will verify the accuracy of all information of the referrer and referee."

The petition's language is almost comically brief, merely stating "the First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments." While the language is naturally meant to appeal to conservatives, there's apparently nothing to stop Democrats from signing the petition, diluting the voter list and scoring some cash along the way. Some are already looking to exploit that angle: 

According to Forbes, Musk is the world's richest person, with an Oct 1-estimated net worth of $270.5 billion. Though he'd previously voted for Barack Obama and once said "I get involved in politics as little as possible," Musk has become an ardent backer of Trump's reelection campaign, and scathing critic of leftist ideology and tactics. On Saturday, he joined Trump onstage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the very site where Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin. 

The America PAC was launched in May to focus on voter registration and turnout -- to include encouraging mail-in balloting. While the Wall Street Journal's sources said Musk had committed to contributing $45 million a month to America PAC, he denied the report, calling it "a fiction made up by the Wall Street Journal." The Journal reported that other donors include Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale and the Winklevoss twins.  

Voter registration windows are starting to close. Here are the registration deadlines in the swing states (you can see the details on any state's deadlines here): 

  • Arizona: Monday, Oct 7
  • Georgia: Monday, Oct 7
  • Michigan: Monday, Oct 21 (in-person registration allowed through Election Day)
  • Nevada: Wednesday Oct 23 (in-person registration allowed through Election Day)
  • North Carolina: Friday, Oct 11 (in-person registration allowed during early voting period)
  • Pennsylvania: Monday, Oct 21
  • Wisconsin: Wednesday, Oct 16 (in-person registration allowed through Election Day)
Tyler Durden Mon, 10/07/2024 - 09:45
Published:10/7/2024 9:02:55 AM
[5e1a60eb-aace-5c69-9b2f-06ed16f37a8b] Jennifer Aniston responds to tabloid romantically linking her and Barack Obama Jennifer Aniston was forced to dispel a rumor that she and former President Barack Obama were romantically involved. Published:10/6/2024 12:19:00 PM
[Markets] As Empire Of Lies Crumbles, Hillary Clinton Warns: "We'll Lose Total Control" If Social Media Stops Censoring Content As Empire Of Lies Crumbles, Hillary Clinton Warns: "We'll Lose Total Control" If Social Media Stops Censoring Content

About nine months ago, the WSJ Editor-in-Chief admitted to Davos elites that legacy media outlets no longer had a monopoly on information and narratives. In other words, misinformation and disinformation campaigns to brainwash the masses were no longer working.

"We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well ... Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news. And they're much more questioning about what we're saying," WSJ EIC Emma Tucker said. 

Questioning is right. These Davos elites, along with the 'Censorship blob' embedded deep within the Capital Beltway of DC and extending to Silcon's big tech, have been hellbent on dividing the nation for years and tricked the populace into endless foreign wars. At some point, folks must say, 'Enough is enough' as inflation crushes the nation and federal debt spirals out of control amid an illegal alien invasion.

Fast-forward to late September, and the far-left elites and their MSM cheerleaders are infuriated by Elon Musk's 'free speech' platform X. 

Former presidential climate envoy John Kerry expressed frustration to fellow globalists at a World Economic Forum event in NYC during the United Nations General Assembly. 

"Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win...the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change," Kerry said. 

He noted, "It's very hard to govern today."

And now, far-left elite 76yo Hillary Clinton told CNN host Michael Smerconish that social media companies must moderate content on their platforms or else "we lose total control."

We wonder who Clinton is referring to when she says "We"?

We're sure it's not 'We The People' - it's more or less the Censorship Blob, a mixture of the Feds, MSM, big tech, and 'fake news' fact-checkers, that have had a monopoly on narration control for decades, such as more recently, attempting to convince the American people that Covid was from a seafood market, Hunter Biden's laptop was 'Russian disinfo,' inflation is not a problem, Ukraine needs billions more, there is no migrant invasion, Biden doesn't have dementia, Kalama is not a communist, and the list goes on and on. 

"We can look at the state of California, the state of New York, I think some other states have also taken action," Clinton told CNN, adding, "But we need national action, and sadly, our Congress has been dysfunctional when it comes to addressing these threats to our children." 

Clinton called for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Act, which protects social media platforms from liability for third-party content.

"We should be, in my view, repealing something called Section 230, which gave, you know, platforms on the internet immunity because they were thought to be just pass-throughs, that they shouldn't be judged for the content that is posted," the 76yo baby boomer said. 

"But we now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the platforms, whether it's Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don't moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control," she warned, noting, "And it's not just the social and psychological affects, it's real life."

It's not a surprise that Clinton and her pals of the progressive far-left regime hate free speech, better yet, more simply, despise Western values. These are the same globalists who support open borders to flood the nation with ten-plus million illegal aliens to usher in a one-party country.

Also, last month, Clinton called for anyone spreading "misinformation" to be criminally charged as a "better deterrence" ahead of the election.

George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley commented on Clinton's comments this weekend:

Hillary Clinton is continuing her global efforts to get countries, including the United States, to crackdown on opposing views. Clinton went on CNN to lament the continued resistance to censorship and to call upon Congress to limit free speech. In pushing her latest book, "Something Lost and Something Gained," Clinton amplified on her warnings about the dangers of free speech. What is clear is that the gain of greater power for leaders like Clinton would be the loss of free speech for ordinary citizens.

Clinton is a two-time failed presidential loser who recently noted her description of Trump supporters in 2016 as 'deplorables' was too kind.

We explained in depth how the 76-year-old baby boomer has been one of America's foremost censorship advocates.

You know it's just one big club... 

Musk chimed in on X on Sunday morning, "So many prominent Democrats want to destroy the First Amendment!" 

He added:

"We lose total control" implies that they have almost total control already, which seems true based on how the legacy media all mysteriously have the exact same talking points at the exact same time.

The media all said Biden was "sharp as a tack" right before the debate where it became obvious to the public that he has serious dementia.

Then they tossed out Biden against his will, like an old newspaper, and installed Kamala as the candidate, even though no one in the Democratic primary voted for her. Super shady and undemocratic!

Here's what X users are saying:

Musk concluded, "Yeah … news flash, Hilary, you're not supposed to have total control!!" 

The United States of America was founded on freedom and transparency. Someone needs to tell the Democrats who want to usher in Marxism that the First Amendment is non-negotiable.

Tyler Durden Sun, 10/06/2024 - 11:05
Published:10/6/2024 10:19:28 AM
[Markets] Visualizing US Net Immigration By President Visualizing US Net Immigration By President

Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, immigration policies are top of mind for American voters. But how has immigration to the U.S. looked over the past two decades across both Republican and Democratic presidencies?

This chart, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows net immigration figures in the U.S. from 2001 to 2024, broken down by immigrant status. Data for 2021 to 2024 are projections.

The figures come from a report authored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) called Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054 with data and projections as of January 2024.

Methodology: How U.S. Immigrants are Categorized

The CBO categorizes immigrants to the United States of America into three groups:

  • LPR+: Lawful permanent residents (LPRs) plus people who are eligible to apply to become LPRs on the basis of their current status, such as asylees and refugees. LPRs include those who are granted that status while within the United States as well as people who have gained admission from abroad.

  • INA nonimmigrant: Comprises temporary workers, student exchange visitors, qualifying family members, and others admitted as nonimmigrants under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)—for example, officials of foreign governments—while they remain in that status.

  • Other foreign national: People in the U.S. who are not in the first two categories and who have not subsequently become U.S. citizens or received LPR, asylee, or nonimmigrant status—such as those who entered the U.S. illegally or those who entered legally in a temporary status and then remained after that legal status expired.

Net Immigration to the U.S. from 2001 to 2024, by President

Below, we show net immigration figures for the U.S. from 2001 to 2024, broken down by immigrant type, along with the current U.S. president at the time.

President Year LPR+ INA nonimmigrant Other foreign national Total
Bush 2001 794,000 50,000 529,000 1,373,000
Bush 2002 728,000 302,000 278,000 1,308,000
Bush 2003 575,000 182,000 398,000 1,155,000
Bush 2004 749,000 321,000 259,000 1,329,000
Bush 2005 869,000 463,000 552,000 1,884,000
Bush 2006 910,000 449,000 329,000 1,688,000
Bush 2007 800,000 -273,000 362,000 889,000
Bush 2008 835,000 -411,000 -250,000 174,000
Obama 2009 832,000 529,000 -462,000 899,000
Obama 2010 786,000 117,000 -100,000 803,000
Obama 2011 791,000 42,000 -104,000 729,000
Obama 2012 766,000 -125,000 13,000 654,000
Obama 2013 748,000 -63,000 132,000 817,000
Obama 2014 769,000 824,000 46,000 1,639,000
Obama 2015 813,000 376,000 289,000 1,478,000
Obama 2016 877,000 -18,000 26,000 885,000
Trump 2017 840,000 473,000 -213,000 1,100,000
Trump 2018 810,000 -339,000 200,000 671,000
Trump 2019 713,000 -64,000 -234,000 415,000
Trump 2020 537,000 58,000 213,000 808,000
Biden 2021 551,000 20,000 600,000 1,171,000
Biden 2022 714,000 60,000 1,900,000 2,674,000
Biden 2023 807,000 90,000 2,400,000 3,297,000
Biden 2024 809,000 90,000 2,400,000 3,299,000

Overall, net immigration had the biggest increase under current U.S. President Joe Biden’s term. The CBO estimates that for 2021 to 2024 that the U.S. added over 10 million immigrants across all three categories.

During Biden’s term, there has been a significant increase in unauthorized immigration, with border authorities encountering record numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This surge is attributed to factors such as post-pandemic migration, economic and political instability in countries of origin, and the perception of more lenient policies, leading to over 4.4 million repatriations.

The CBO estimates that net immigration to the U.S. was 2.6 million in 2022 and 3.3 million in both 2023 and 2024, for an estimated 9.27 million net immigrants from 2022-2024—higher than net immigration from 2010 to 2019 which saw 9.19 million immigrants enter the country.

U.S. Immigration Under Donald Trump

Net immigration saw its lowest levels during Trump’s presidency (3 million net immigrants during his term) as the former president enacted 472 administrative changes that impacted U.S. immigration policies.

These include the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration hearings, travel bans, significant reductions in refugee admissions and resettlement programs, and the implementation of Title 42 which allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants who came to the U.S.-Mexico border on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic also led to a dramatic decline in net immigration to the U.S., with immigration levels dropping to record lows in 2020 due to travel restrictions, consulate closures, and visa processing suspensions, before beginning to recover in 2022.

To learn more about migration patterns, check out this graphic that visualizes annual net migration by region, from 1950 to 2023.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/05/2024 - 18:05
Published:10/5/2024 5:23:03 PM
[Markets] 'The Biden/Harris Doctrine' Has Brought The World Closer To World War III 'The Biden/Harris Doctrine' Has Brought The World Closer To World War III

Authored by Fred Fleitz via American Greatness,

By a strange turn of fate, on October 1, 2024, the day that Iran launched the largest ballistic missile attack ever against Israel, Foreign Affairs magazine published an article by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which he claimed “the Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago” and that Iran is being held in check.

A year earlier, Foreign Affairs published another tragically erroneous article by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, which said, “Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades.” Six days after this article was posted, Hamas launched a sneak attack against Israel, massacring more than 1,200 people and maiming and injuring many more. In a stunning violation of journalistic ethics, Foreign Affairs allowed Sullivan to revise his article after the Hamas terrorist attack. Here is a link to the original version.

In these articles, Biden officials are trying to rewrite history by manufacturing false narratives of a successful Biden national security doctrine that they claim has enhanced U.S. and global security.

This is, of course, preposterous. Not only has there been a huge increase in global instability since Donald Trump left office in January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has brought the world closer to World War III because of an increased chance Russia could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the real prospect of an Israel-Iran War, a new Russia-China-Iran-North Korea Axis, a growing chance that China will attack Taiwan, and other current and potential crises.

Several Biden allies have tried to invent a so-called Biden Doctrine since 2021. Most made fatuous claims that Biden was reversing the damage done by President Trump to the country’s alliances, deterrence, and global leadership despite clear evidence that Trump strengthened alliances and had a successful foreign policy that brought global stability and kept U.S. troops out of new wars. Others asserted that Biden “restored trust abroad for the U.S.,” a claim that many U.S. allies would dispute. Several experts, including Blinken and Sullivan, wrote that President Biden enhanced American foreign policy by strengthening the American economy. The huge advantage that Donald Trump currently has in the polls over Kamala Harris on the economy proves this isn’t true either.

In January 2024, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote an article titled, “A Biden Doctrine for the Middle East Is Forming. And It’s Big” on a supposed new Biden Middle East peace initiative to quickly end the Hamas/Israel war. Under this plan, the Biden administration would bring peace to the Middle East with a tough stand on Iran, push for recognition of a Palestinian state, and greatly scale up the U.S. security alliance with Saudi Arabia. None of these things happened. Instead, Middle East security has deteriorated in 2024 to the worst level in decades.

If there is a Biden/Harris national security doctrine, it is a doctrine of abysmal failure. There are four reasons for this.

Incompetence.

The Biden/Harris approach to U.S. national security has been dominated by profound incompetence. It was clear to the world at the start of Biden’s presidency that Joe Biden was not mentally fit to be U.S. commander-in-chief. This was obvious at a Biden-Putin summit in Geneva in June 2021, when Biden’s incoherent and doddering performance made him look weak to a huge global audience while Putin came off as competent and confident.

This was just part of many public displays of national security incoherence and confusion by this administration. This included Biden’s insults to the Saudi Crown Prince early in his administration, hostility toward the Egyptian government, mishandling of U.S. relations with China, and the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden undermined a key diplomatic mission to China by his secretary of state in 2023 by calling Chinese President Xi a dictator just after this trip. There has been little serious diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia and China. Biden has not spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since February 2022 and has closed off the possibility of high-level talks with the Russian leader by calling him a war criminal and likening Putin to Hamas.

Biden’s worst foreign policy faux pas probably was when he made the bizarre statement in January 2021 that the U.S. might tolerate a “minor incursion” of Ukraine by Russia. A month later, Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine.

His extremely weak top national security advisers have exacerbated the effect of Biden’s mental decline on U.S. foreign policy: Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. This group does not include foreign policy geniuses like Henry Kissinger, James Baker, George Schultz, George Marshall, or Dean Acheson. It is a collection of third-string officials chosen to not outshine Biden.

Biden’s national security incompetence and mental decline have not gone unnoticed by world leaders. Russian officials frequently ridicule Biden over his mental health. The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2022 that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman mocked Biden in private and “made fun of his mental acuity.”

The perception of a mentally infirm American president with an incoherent foreign policy and surrounded by a weak foreign policy team has significantly damaged American and global security.  Not only has this eroded American leadership and deterrence, Biden officials are now routinely ignored in global affairs. When Joe Biden calls for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon or tells Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, no one takes him seriously.

Knee-jerk rejection of Trump and his foreign policy successes. 

Trump-hatred has been a significant theme of Biden’s foreign policy, especially at the start of this administration. This led to several irrational and dangerous policy decisions.

Biden officials condemned and tried to reverse most of Trump’s foreign policies, even successful ones. These include Biden’s decision in May 2021 to reverse Trump’s sanctions that shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline built to transport Russian gas to Germany. In February 2021, Biden lifted Trump’s designation of Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist group. The Biden administration was forced to partially reverse this decision in January 2024 after the Houthis began firing Iran-supplied missiles at Israel and ships in the Red Sea.

President Biden also ended President Trump’s diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and downgraded U.S. diplomacy with the country by naming a part-time special envoy.  This led to an increase in North Korean belligerence and the largest number of North Korean missile tests in a single year in 2022.

Other knee-jerk reversals of Trump policies include resuming funding for and rejoining the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which Trump officials cut off because of this organization’s anti-Israel bias and collaboration with and funding of Hamas. The Biden administration also rejoined the UN Educational, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which the Trump administration withdrew from due to anti-Israel bias.

In addition, the Biden administration rejoined the World Health Organization that the last administration withdrew from due to its mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, its refusal to hold China accountable for the origin and spread of the COVID-19 virus, and China’s control of this international organization.

Naïve globalist and far-left policies. 

Related to the Biden administration’s reversal of successful Trump administration foreign policies has been the implementation of many naïve globalist and far-left policies that have hurt American global interests.

The first and most significant of these policies was Biden’s decision to designate climate change as the top threat to U.S. national security and to concentrate American diplomacy on this issue.

President Biden also decided to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office. I am sure that Chinese leaders have been very pleased that most Biden administration diplomatic missions to Beijing were sent to discuss climate goals that China never intends to meet instead of more serious issues such as growing military threats from China, Chinese threats to Taiwan, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, China’s growing nuclear arsenal, intellectual property theft by China, origins of the COVID-19 virus, etc.

President Biden and Vice President Harris have promoted the moribund two-state solution for Middle East peace and the creation of a Palestinian state over the objections of the Israeli government. They continued to press for a two-state solution even after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.

The Biden/Harris administration also resumed the Obama administration’s appeasement of Iran in an attempt to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. This included refusing to enforce oil sanctions against Iran, which made the country an estimated $100 billion richer than it was when President Trump left office. In September 2023, the Biden administration agreed to pay Iran $6 billion in ransom to free five innocent Americans imprisoned in Iran. Iran has used this windfall to expand its military missile and nuclear programs. These funds also were sent to support Iran’s terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels.

The Biden administration has alienated many countries by using U.S. diplomats and diplomatic facilities to promote far-left positions on social issues. This includes flying Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ pride flags at U.S. embassies and U.S. ambassadors meddling in the politics of their host nations to promote liberal views on social issues. In June 2023, the U.S. diplomatic mission to the Vatican flew an LGBTQ pride flag outside its building in Rome. According to a Heritage Foundation report, the Biden administration has used U.S. Agency for International Development funds to promote far-left gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Third World.

Biden officials have also tried to reform the United Nations to make it “fair” for the Third World by changing the membership of the U.S. Security Council and the use of the council’s Permanent Member veto.  These proposals would have weakened American power and influence in the U.N. Fortunately, they could not be implemented due to opposition from China and Russia.

Arrogance and lack of situational awareness. 

Another unfortunate characteristic of the so-called Biden/Harris national security doctrine has been instances of Biden officials ignoring the views and assumptions of other states and assuming that other states would automatically abide by or defer to the wishes of the Biden administration.

This was demonstrated by the abysmal mishandling of Russian President Putin before he ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Although Putin gave plenty of indications that he would never agree to Ukraine joining NATO and objected to Ukraine working with NATO, Biden ignored him and dangled NATO membership before Ukrainian President Zelensky. As Russia made preparations to invade Ukraine, the Biden administration threatened to respond with tough sanctions and to begin sending lethal aid to Ukraine. Although Putin probably was also motivated to invade Ukraine by the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden and his national security team miscalculated in believing Putin would defer to empty warnings from Biden not to invade and threats of new U.S. sanctions.

There have been many examples of arrogance and lack of situational awareness in the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In addition to examples of this previously discussed, there are the weird warnings of “don’t” by Biden and Harris to Iran and its terrorist proxies not to engage in hostilities against Israel after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack. This strange, incoherent one-word directive had no effect in lowering tensions in the Middle East and further undermined American deterrence in the region.

There has been similar arrogance in the Biden administration’s claims about promoting alliances. Although Biden officials deserve some credit for forming and strengthening alliances (such as AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.), most of the improvements in alliances were the work of other states in response to the Biden administration’s policy failures.

For example, NATO is stronger today in response to a war in Ukraine that the Biden administration helped cause and mostly due to the work of European NATO members.

Similarly, although President Biden helped promote a closer trilateral security relationship between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, this relationship was mainly the work of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in response to the Biden administration ignoring the Asia-Pacific region in 2021 and 2022. Kishida and Yoon devoted a lot of time to building this alliance and put their reputations on the line. Biden played a very minor role.

President Trump was right when he said the Biden/Harris national security policies are so bad that they have brought us closer to nuclear war and World War III. The American people see this in the increasingly dangerous security situations in the Middle East and the Russia/Ukraine War. When most Americans cast their votes for president this fall, they will not be fooled by a fantasy Biden/Harris national security doctrine promoted by Biden officials and their allies to explain away one of the worst foreign policy records of any U.S. administration.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/04/2024 - 20:05
Published:10/4/2024 7:37:43 PM
[Markets] October Surprise October Surprise

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s brand-new VP pick, is a fanatical far-left lunatic wearing the friendly armor of hapless, bloated oaf from the sticks”

- Peachy Keenan

“Normally, Western politics gives us actors who are trying to play the role of politicians. Walz is like an actor who is trying to play the role of an actor trying to play the role of a politician. Almost everything about him is just a few degrees off-centre. He’s like what would happen if you endowed Chat GPT with a human body and sent it off to campaign for political office.”

- Eugyppius on Substack

Tuesday night’s veep palaver could be the last time you see the frightened animal known as Tim Walz for the duration of the campaign. He’s famous for his wild body language - jumping around on stage, flapping his arms - but this time the action was all concentrated in his face. You saw his eyes bug out, dart left and right, as if something fierce was coming at him (it was), and more than a few times, his head jerked around sideways so hard you wondered if it might do a whole three-sixty. His mouth, a pain-inflected frown in repose, turned down so deeply it looked like he had sashweights hanging from the corners. Altogether, his face said more than the embarrassing mishmash of mangled English that came out of it. I expect to see a few Tim Walz masks on the little goblins begging for Kit-kat bars the night of October 31.

That same obvious void of conviction you see on Tim Walz’s labile face is on display with the feds’ response to mass tragedy in the Appalachian hurricane zone. It was a point in my book, The Long Emergency, that our national government would become increasingly impotent, ineffectual, and incompetent as conditions worsened — and now here it is. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), could not bestir itself to aid stricken citizens around the flood-ravaged region in North Carolina and Tennessee. Sec’y Mayorkas of Homeland Security said that FEMA was out of money which, in this season of political weirdness, is especially weird, seeing as how the nation’s fiscal year began Oct 1, and Congress’s continuing resolution for funding US agencies should assure that FEMA’s checkbook is full. What was up with that?

Well, everybody and his uncle has heard by now that FEMA (and many other agencies under Mayorkas’s DHS) commits tons of money to pamper the millions of mutts from foreign lands sneaking over the US border, with lots of assistance from NGO cut-outs funded by your tax dollars, who marshal groups of aliens south-of-the-border for the crossing, and then fly or bus them around our country for the special purpose of distributing them in swing voting districts to then coordinate with other NGOs devoted to registering non-citizens to vote in order to “harvest” their ballots. Quite an operation. Completely lawless and corrupt. And official!

So, no aid for you, baskets of deplorables, shivering in the dark in your hills and hollows of Appalachia, your houses splintered, scant chattels lost, and your beloved hound-dogs carried away in the roaring torrents. The money that might have helped you begin to recover from the complete devastation of your lives is paying for Guatemalans to bunk in the Roosevelt Hotel and order-in quesadillas and churros, and refill their government-issued debit cards so they can afford a few nice things as they wait for mysterious others to cast ballots in their names.

This is the work of your Democratic Party, the party of chaos, party of the Woke mentally ill, party of wrecking the country, of America’s end times. And you’re going to vote for more of it? Of course not. And despite the attempts to knock him out of the arena with scores of utter bullshit lawfare cases, and efforts to shoot him dead, Mr. Trump keeps coming at them, an implacable, relentless force, the true Golden Golem conjured up by their catamite news media. Their inability to destroy him has wrecked their minds.

One surprising October surprise is advanced by whistleblower Mike McCormick on Substack (Midnight in the Laptop of Good and Evil).  Mr. McCormick was White House stenographer under Presidents Bush II, Obama, and Trump. His job was to transcribe meetings, speeches, and interactions between major political figures. He was the proverbial fly-on-the-wall for years and years. He has seen and heard a lot and still hears a lot from people who know a lot. He says the Obama-Biden-Harris faction of the Deep State blob is anti-Israel and that Israel understands what this means. He says that Benjamin Netanyahu has told “Joe Biden” (or, let’s say, told errand-boys Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan) that if the blob engineers a phony victory for Kamala Harris, he will blow up the oil fields in Iran and the anti-Israel Democrats will have to pick up the pieces.

There it is, raw power politics, like so much meat on the table. “Joe Biden” cannot control Bibi. “Joe Biden” is too far gone and two weak, and Israel does not aim to let itself get wiped off the map, as Iran’s leadership never tires of saying. The blob, McCormick says, has to ask itself: does it help rig the election for Harris or stand down on all its ballot harvesting and other trickery and actually allow a real election to roll out? Surprise! Now, take your Kit-kat bar and go home.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/04/2024 - 16:20
Published:10/4/2024 3:48:38 PM
[3ccfa072-16df-5242-a432-472ac5900e7e] Obama to campaign for Harris in Pennsylvania, other key states Former President Obama will stump for Vice President Harris on the campaign trail over the next month, focusing on key battleground states in the lead up to Election Day. Published:10/4/2024 8:45:43 AM
[] How to Blow Up the Middle East War in Five Easy Steps Published:10/4/2024 12:11:19 AM
[Markets] Kucinich: Mistaking Militarism For Statecraft, Empire For Democracy, & Debt For Prosperity Kucinich: Mistaking Militarism For Statecraft, Empire For Democracy, & Debt For Prosperity

Authored by Dennis Kucinich via Scheerpost.com,

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. All things fall apart. The center cannot hold.”

- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

As of May 2024, the United States has committed over $175 (borrowed) billion to escalating the proxy war against Russia, and, as in the case of the Iraq and Afghan wars, with little regard for accountability pertaining to tracking military hardware,  equipment, funding, or  fraud prevention.

One of the most grotesque moments in this bloody global Punch and Judy show preliminary to nuclear war, was the recent arrival of Vladimir Zelenskyy, former president of Ukraine, making a campaign stop at an ammunition factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where some of the three million 155mm artillery shells the US has given Ukraine are produced.   

Alongside Zelenskyy, in an incitement-op photo promising further escalation of war, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania autographed one of the high-velocity artillery shells which will be aimed at Russia. Pennsylvania, which is home to the City of Brotherly Love, was unwitting re-Christened by its top official, with a cursive flair, as the state of brotherly hate.  

The fervor of warmongering, fueled by machismo and high bravado illustrates the failure of leadership and a fatal ignorance of the diplomatic process. We should be exercising the science of human relations, not propelling a hubristic  and ego-driven brinkmanship which accelerates the dialectic of war. 

For decades I have led opposition to war and advocated for the transformation of America’s prevailing policy of “Peace through Strength” to a forward-looking  policy of “Strength through Peace.” 

I challenged the Bush II Administration’s foreign policies, and introduced Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush  and Vice President Dick Cheney over Iraq and the lies which led us into war. Illegal and unnecessary, the Iraq war (debt-funded and authorized by both Democrats and Republicans) has cost our nation over $3 trillion, and the loss of 5,000 of our brave men and women who serve and injuries to countless more troops.

The war caused the deaths of over one million Iraqis.  Let that sink in. One million Iraqis perished in a war based on lies. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The war further damaged America’s global reputation and set us upon a path where, since 9/11, America has borrowed $8 trillion to keep the war machine in tune as our own nation’s pressing domestic needs for housing, health care, education, child care, and retirement security have been set aside.

When I heard Vice President Harris brag about former Vice President Dick Cheney endorsing her candidacy, that put the exclamation point on the fact that the leaders of the Democratic party are for war.  I am not.    

Why else would Vice President Harris become the front person for such virulent bravado, invoking lethality abroad?

A paradox of this campaign is that the much-villainized former President Trump, (representing a party that has also taken us into unnecessary wars) is the one who speaks to the need to negotiate and to talk directly with potential foes in order to avoid war, or to end it.   

I ran for President twice, in 2004 and 2008, to bring a halt to endless wars,  to stop the hemorrhaging of our nation’s wealth and to redirect our attention to our needs at home. During the Obama Administration, I fought against his expansion of war, against attacks on Libya, and Syria. That Administration’s surveillance and state-sponsored black-ops reached new heights, drawing America  further into the depths of a murky military abyss. 

All believers in the Judeo-Christian ethic are taught the equivalency of thought, word and deed. . A sin is a sin is a sin. Words create worlds and actions, and, well, they also create reactions. 

Whether a missile arrives in Russia is separate from the fact that the news of the Pennsylvania governor signing a warhead reached the Kremlin instantaneously.  Congratulations Governor, you just made your state a target. 

It is a faulty military strategy which is based upon baiting one’s targets to have an excuse to attack preemptively. This type of thinking isn’t about taking care of and protecting our allies. I would call it lunacy but it happens far more frequently than once every full moon!  We need level-headed leadership, not political actors mindlessly playing in the flash of WWIII, pandering for votes or for cash from the military industrial complex.

The U.S. government’s endless quest to instigate, fulminate or otherwise set our nation on a path of either participating in or of funding endless war has become an inconscient force which is now sweeping up nations in its maw and, if left unchecked, with soon draw in American troops and inevitably a world war will come home in ways that no one in the continental United States has ever experienced, far exceeding the horrors of 9/11.

W.B. Yeats’ poem, written over one hundred years ago, also pertains to the present moment, the breakdown of international law, the slaughter of innocents, open genocide, mocking humanity for its primal human instincts and instead preferring a descent into the maelstrom of kill or be killed, of “do unto others before they do unto you.”  Our nation’s leaders have lost their capacity for diplomacy.  And we have lost many chances for peace.

Ronan Farrow, in his brilliant book “War on Peace, the End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence,”  traced the catastrophe of substituting militarism for statecraft.

So we arrive at a point where we fully fund war in the Middle East, and, astonishingly stand helpless, vainly begging the recipients of our billions of dollars, our weapons, “intelligence,” and of our strategic advice – not to expand the war we are paying for, not to visit death upon innocents.  

We call for cease fire, to come to terms, to end the conflict, while the bodies pile up, and tensions escalate with all nations. Our collective voice is muted.  We confess futility to effect events which we have set in motion, as a Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and when tidal forces break loose, no thought is given to an end game which could lead not only to the destruction of our closest allies but to the undoing of our own nation.

Like pre-programmed robots from a 1950s B-movie, blind to our own extinction drive, immune to the signs of failing empire, and with notions of exceptionalism justifying colonization, Democratic bosses proudly  escalate war against Russia, the country with 5,580 nuclear warheads, about 1/3 of which are “launch ready.”  

Two years ago, the US, with the back door machinations of Britain’s Boris Johnson, rejected a peace agreement which would have kept Ukraine neutral, restored the peace and spared the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. 

Instead, we now trot out muddle-headed EU politicians and our NATO sock puppets to support advancing the war deeper and deeper into Russia, sending missiles with more and more destructive power, hyping the fantasy of capsizing the government of a country which remembers losing nearly 30,000,000 people in World War II, during which Russia was on our side.  

To create an enemy is to provoke fear everywhere.  To misjudge an “enemy” is to court disaster and destruction.  As we give freedom and fortune to the egocentric war mongers, the military industrial complex and those naive enough to think that war equals peace for Ukraine – – life and liberty are ebbing at home.

We help our “friends” aggress, and cynically celebrate their victimhood, actively preventing diplomatic resolution, putting our avowed friends at great risk of destruction. 

Do you remember how back in October 2022, thirty Members of the U.S. Congress’ Democratic Progressive Caucus signed a letter calling for President Biden to consider diplomacy, and then in a matter of hours were pressured to retract the letter? The Members were reprimanded by the Administration and the Democratic leadership for their advocacy of peace.

In that withdrawn, forbidden letter, the Progressive Members stated,

 “The risk of nuclear weapons being used has been estimated to be higher now than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Given the catastrophic possibilities of nuclear escalation and miscalculation, which only increase the longer this war continues, we agree with your goal of avoiding direct military conflict as an overriding national-security priority. Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we also believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict. For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”

Later in April 2023, nineteen Conservative Republicans, including now VP candidate Senator J.D. Vance, similarly communicated to the Administration the perils of escalating the war without diplomatic strategy, stating in their letter

“Our military assistance goes beyond tangible assets to include military training and intelligence support. The extent of our aid makes it increasingly difficult to deny Russian accusations of U.S. complicity in a proxy war. Vladimir Putin’s advisors are already framing the conflict as “a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain.” Russian tolerance for fighting a proxy war with NATO could run out at any point. The decision to invade Ukraine should be evidence enough of Putin’s willingness to use military force and should give us pause in continuing to push the limits at the risk of catastrophe.”

Ukraine is a pawn, politicized for Democratic presidential electoral gain, blood for ballots. Ukraine should have been free to choose its own destiny, its own government, protect its own agriculture and precious resources, free to live without fear of an invasion and control from Russia or any other country. Instead, denied the promise of true sovereignty, it has been forced to sacrificed the flower of its youth to war.

While the people of the US are being played by politicians who are giddy with the notion of stuffing the November ballot box with bombs rockets, missiles, artillery shells and national debt, our government is also being played by the equally unstable and craven leaders of foreign countries.

And so, the U.S. forks over endless rivers of U.S. taxpayers’ cash for endless wars, without any thought of how this all ends, or how or who ultimately pays. Red or blue, there are no winners in a war devouring our lives, our blood and our national wealth.

There is madness to all of this.  Our so-called leaders are whistling merry tunes through the graveyard of history, mocking the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because it happened to THEM, not us. Because something like that could never happen to us. Because we are smarter and stronger and have God on our side.

It is time to wake up, America. It is time to stop this madness which presents as legitimate governance, and to think, to speak and to stand for peace, diplomacy and the continuation of life on our small planet.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/03/2024 - 20:55
Published:10/3/2024 8:44:18 PM
[Markets] Industrial-Size Staffing Firms Reportedly Support Biden-Harris' Mysterious Nationwide Migrant Network Industrial-Size Staffing Firms Reportedly Support Biden-Harris' Mysterious Nationwide Migrant Network

Large staffing companies that thrived during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under the Bush-Obama years retooled their business models as the US involvement and war funding in the Middle East wound down. Now, these staffing firms seem to be profiting off the Biden-Harris administration's open-border migrant invasion by providing essential services, such as private security, transportation, and many other services, to ensure the fed's migrant network nationwide operates smoothly.

These companies are likely awarded handsome federal contracts, paid for by the US taxpayer. 

Bussing and housing millions of illegal and legal aliens is big business for staffing companies and non-profits. Americans have to realize their tax dollars are paying for all of this while the migrants displace and replace blue-collar workers in small-town factories nationwide. The folks in Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania, know firsthand just how devastating globalist open border policies can be for them.

Real America's Voice host Ben Bergquam posted on X, "More breaking footage of the Democrats harboring illegals in Chicago. Now using unmarked brand new hotels like this Holiday Inn at [XXXXXXX] to disguise Kamala and Biden's illegal invasion operations." 

Bergquam's video of the Holiday Inn filled-migrant hotel in the Chicago metro area is very intriguing. First, the security guards appear to be sourced from staffing firm GardaWorld. 

Second, a person who seems to be another worker said the Holiday Inn is "federal property." 

The focus should be on industrial-sized staffing companies that provide security and other services to keep the fed's migrant network operational. 

But let's take a step back and realize that some of these staffing companies could be part of the DC swamp that profited off the endless wars in the Middle East.

In 2012, the head of GardaWorld told Reuters that Middle East conflicts had kept the staffing firm "busier than ever and has never been greater," adding, "I don't want to say it's a gold rush, but business is very good."

Sticking with the staffing companies, just recently, Muckraker's Anthony Rubin dropped a bombshell in a report titled "Finding The Feds' Missing Children | CHILD TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA."

He provided intel that MVM, a private security contractor with ties to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Homeland Security, was caught moving unaccompanied migrant children around the country. 

There's a theme here because MVM is another big staffing firm that crushed it during the Middle East wars, providing personnel to the region to protect assets in the 2000s. 

Read this story here...

However, when the war funding dried up in the Middle East, like GardaWorld, MVM pivoted to catering to the federal government's next big globalist idea: profiting off the migrant invasion by providing migrant solutions.  

Their website reveals their 'Mission Solutions,' which include "Transportation and care for vulnerable populations [migrants]." 

MVM has operated a migrant bus network nationwide. 

Read this story here...

Even though we cited only two large staffing companies that profited off Middle East wars and pivoted to providing domestic migrant solutions to the Biden-Harris administration, smaller staffing companies are operating nationwide, providing transportation for migrants, and even some firms are providing housing solutions. Taxpayers must realize the feds are funneling their monies to support open borders and operate a complex network of transportation and housing for millions of migrants. Blue-collar workers across the country are waking up to the fact that the feds are perfectly okay with displacing and replacing them with low-cost migrants at factories across small town America.

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/03/2024 - 06:55
Published:10/3/2024 7:28:39 AM
[] Comer Subpeonas DHS Memos About Tim Walz's Endless Junkets to Communist China The Deep State accused Trump of being a Russian agent based only on him saying what Obama and Hillary Clinton said -- he wanted better relations with Russia. The Democrats have long been a patron party of the Soviet Union,... Published:10/1/2024 4:28:39 PM
[Markets] Escobar: Watching The China River Flow Escobar: Watching The China River Flow

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Leading website Guancha has published the transcript of a first-class lecture at Renmin University on China-U.S. relations by Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World. Jacques is one of the very few Westerner scholars with on the ground experience who actually understands the Chinese psyche and way of life in contrast to the West.

A particularly intriguing section of the lecture concerns research by Danny Quah, the dean of the widely respected Lee Kuan Yew Institute in Singapore. This is the money quote:

“Between 1980 and 2020, Europe’s share of global GDP fell from 26% to 15%. In other words, it fell by 11 percentage points, a very large drop. Although the decline in the United States was smaller, it fell from 21% in the 1980s to less than 16% in 2020. From another perspective, Asia and East Asia are constantly rising. The share in 1980 was 11.5%, and it has risen to 25% in 2020. Among this 25%, China has made the largest contribution, accounting for 18% of the world.”

What this graphically illustrates is the acute swing in the world’s center of economic gravity – no matter the rhetorical tsunamis emanating from the Hegemon. In 1980 the economic center was Atlanticist. Quah though believes that the economic center will reach the Sino-Indian border only by 2050.

When we take China compounded with the 10 members of ASEAN, without even considering South Asia, it’s fair to argue that the economic center will already be in the East by 2030, and will be Sino-Indian before 2040.

Jacques is correct that by then “the ‘Asian Age’ will replace the ‘Western Age’, and since 1750, the world has always been in the Western Age.” On a personal note, after living and working in Asia for most of the past three decades, I qualify our century as “The Eurasian Century”.

And that, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Hegemon/Atlanticist elites are in Deep Panic mode. The free lunch – of exploiting the wealth of the Global South – is coming to an end.

Hong Kong back in the spotlight

China has already designed the masterplan of its development strategy all the way to 2035 and in many aspects all the way to 2049. The current juncture though is extremely tricky.

The People’s Bank of China is taking the necessary master tweaks of the economy very seriously. Earlier this week the PBoC announced cuts to the outstanding mortgage rate and the reserve requirement ratio: that’s the amount of cash commercial banks need to hold as reserves. The PBoC also cut the benchmark policy rate and boosted capital markets.

Then the Politburo, chaired by President Xi Jinping himself, intervened in full force, vowing to protect China’s private enterprises; finally stabilise the always wobbly property sector; and adopt the necessary fiscal expenditures.

That’s the domestic front. On the external front, China is on a roll. The top priority is the slowly but surely internationalization of the yuan. And that’s where the crucial role of Hong Kong comes in – as detailed in a report by Renmin University.

China is already de-dollarizing at nearly breakneck speed. The U.S. dollar’s share of bilateral trade has already fallen from 80% to less than 50%.

China is now trading with the world mostly in yuan – and the petroyuan is not even in full force. Since the start of the SMO by Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the yuan is the de facto Asian reserve currency for Russia. In parallel, Beijing is accelerating currency swaps all across the spectrum and designating more clearing banks around the world.

Hong Kong is in a class by itself when it comes to state of the art financial institutions. Hence the connection is inevitable for global investors: all sorts of deals are open in China via Hong Kong, with the added bonus of avoiding Hegemon sanctions.

So from now on Hong Kong will be even more of a Holy Grail for all sorts of yuan-denominated transactions. Talk about a magnet for finance tech wizards.

Hong Kong is already the world’s top market for the offshore yuan – processing nearly 80% of all settlements. Three months ago, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Special Administrative Region had $151.7 billion in offshore deposits.

A top HKMA executive not by accident attended the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok earlier this month. With high U.S. interest rates and low PBoC interest rates, offshore yuan bonds will be issued like there’s no tomorrow.

Nuclear destruction or an imperfect evolving new order

From Beijing to Hong Kong, Chinese politico-economic elites are quite comfortable with the fact that for the first time in History, the rise of a great power is not being conditioned by imperialism, war, slavery, looting and all of the above, but under what has been codified since the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping’s late 1970s reforms as “peaceful development.”

That is mirrored in several concepts such as win-win; mutual prosperity; equality; “community of shared future for mankind”; and as a master geoeconomic project, the interlocking connectivity corridors across the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

While China invests in infrastructure development around the world, the Hegemon imposes sanctions, engages in bombing, supports variations of the Forever Wars, finances and weaponizes color revolutions.

Hegemon “strategy” barely qualifying as utter mediocrity ranges from the U.S. government funding a $1.6 billion campaign to smear China to Republicans divided on whether regime change in Beijing is their ultimate goal and the Democrat ambassador in Beijing convinced that Washington’s China policy is not too hawkish.

Then there’s puny functionary and Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the man who invented the “pivot to Asia” during the first Obama administration – ordering the Europeans to go hawkish on China and defining Beijing in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as “the most significant challenge in our history”.

Very few IQs above room temperature across Asia pay attention to such clowns. In contrast, what is now emerging in informed discussions from South to Southeast Asia is that BRICS progress will not be steady enough if the emphasis remains on consensual decisions.

A daring proposition is emerging that Russia and China – the actual BRICS leaders – should announce at the summit in Kazan next month that they are backing a yuan/ruble/gold alliance: as in if the world needs to choose between NATOstan hegemony or a BRICS alternative, better start with sound (real) money.

Beyond the feasibility of such proposal, there’s a serious critique of Utopia; the Global Majority must be pushed to face the harsh reality it faces – nuclear destruction or an imperfect evolving new order – and make a stand, fast.

Meanwhile, like a river undisturbed while traversing a rocky wilderness, China silently flows away on its path to peaceful primacy.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/30/2024 - 22:35
Published:9/30/2024 10:16:17 PM
[] Monday Overnight Open Thread (9/30/24) A request from a commenter Fenderbender for the following repost: Previously posted on September 23, 2024.
Pass this along to someone on the fence about voting for president in November. A RACOON PROBLEM CAN EXPLAIN TRUMP'S ATTRACTION Like many citizens, I've wondered and tried hard to understand why Trump has such a remarkably large and loyal following. It's obvious why he probably should not! I, personally, do not like Trump or his persona. I wish he would just "go away" and spare us the embarrassment of having him show up on TV. However; it doesn't look like he's about to leave the scene..... I still struggle to understand.... Then a friend sent me this raccoon story. It makes no difference about your political leanings, this is just a good explanation of WHY... (or it's as good as any I can come up with). Do you really want to know how the majority of American citizens feel? This applies to both Democrats and Republicans; read below, it says it all. You've been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement. And they have learned to get to the top floor of your once beautiful, middle class home. You want no them gone immediately. You call the city, 4 different exterminators, but nobody can handle the job. But there is this one guy that specializes in racoon eradication and he guarantees you to get rid of them. So you hire him. You don't care if the guy smells, you don't care if the guy swears, you don't care if he's an alcoholic, you don't care how many times he's been married, you don't care if he voted for Obama, you don't care if he has a plumber's crack, you don't even care if he's a misogynist. you simply want those raccoons gone! You want your problem fixed! He's the guy. He's the best to solve the problem. Period. Here's a corollary story for why Trump has such a large following of patriotic American citizens. Yes he's a bit of an ass (maybe a total ass). Yes, he's an egomaniac, an adulterer, a loud-mouth and abusive but we don't care because he makes sense with "Make America Great Again". The country is a mess because politicians totally suck and produce only self-serving rules. The Republicans and Democrats can be two-faced & gutless, and illegals are everywhere. Washington DC is infested with self-serving pests. We want it all fixed! We don't care that Trump is crude, we don't care that he insults people, we don't care that he once was friendly with Hillary, we don't care that he has changed positions, we don't care that he's been married 3 times, we don't care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O'Donnell, we don't care that he doesn't know the name of some Muslim terrorist. Also, we don't care if the guy has bad hair. This country is weak in resolve and bankrupt. Our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegals (probably even terrorists), we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo, and Hasid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don't even recognize the country we were born and raised in; "AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED"!!! And Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want. We're sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, sick of the Republican Party, sick of identity politics with self-identified special groups, sick of trying to guess the preferred pronoun and sick of illegals. We just want this thing fixed!!!! Trump may not be a saint (he's definitely NOT), but he doesn't have lobbyist money holding him and he doesn't have political correctness restraining him. All you know is that he has been very successful, is a good negotiator, and he has built a lot of things. He's also not a politician.......he's not a cowardly politician...... And he says he'll fix it. And, we believe him because he is too much of an egotist to be proven wrong or looked at and called a liar. We just want those raccoons gone, out of our house, NOW!!!! The raccoons have got to go!!!!
Published:9/30/2024 9:02:18 PM
[Markets] Inside The Biden Admin's Plot To Destroy Silvergate And Debank Crypto For Good Inside The Biden Admin's Plot To Destroy Silvergate And Debank Crypto For Good

Submitted by Nic Carter

  • New bankruptcy filings and exclusive interviews with confidential sources suggest Silvergate could have survived if not for pressure from regulators, which allegedly included an informal mandate to cap its crypto deposits at 15 percent
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren all but accused Silvergate of aiding and abetting FTX’s crimes, creating an “atmosphere of concern” around Silvergate that possibly contributed to a run on the bank
  • Sources told us the FHLB (Federal Home Loan Banks) refused to renew their monthly loan agreement with Silvergate due to political pressure from Warren, accelerating the bank’s losses
  • Claims of criminal wrongdoing related to Silvergate’s association with FTX have never been proven, and no criminal charges have ever been filed against the bank
  • Silvergate’s downfall may have been a primary cause of the 2023 regional banking crisis, which ultimately took down Signature, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic

In late 2022, Silvergate Bank was on top of the crypto world. Once a small California savings and loan association, Silvergate had transformed itself into the most important bank in the crypto sector, allowing it to stage an IPO and claim a majority of the sector’s institutional deposits. The bank’s Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) had grown to become a crucial piece of infrastructure for crypto’s institutional players, and shares in the company had surged from $35 at the end of 2020, to $220 at the end of 2021.

Today, Silvergate no longer exists. Although its depositors were made whole, common shareholders were completely wiped out, and preferred shareholders are getting back pennies on the dollar. The bank paid out large fines to its regulators: $43 million to the Federal Reserve, $20 million to California’s Department of Financial Protection, and $50 million¹ to the Securities and Exchange Commission. After having announced their intent to voluntarily liquidate in March 2023, they finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week.

Those who still remember Silvergate see the bank as emblematic of crypto’s worst elements and the most reckless behavior exhibited by regional banks during the crisis of 2023. A perfect storm of risk-seeking, turning a blind eye to crypto criminals, and compliance failures. Or at least — that’s how the story goes.

This story — today presented as established fact in the financial press and by the government² — goes like this:

Silvergate was a sleepy, small regional bank until it discovered crypto. When the space experienced surges of interest in 2017 and again in 2020, balance sheet expansion caused Silvergate’s deposits to swell. The bank then turbocharged its usefulness to the crypto space when it created SEN, allowing its clients — which now included many of the world’s largest crypto exchanges and trading firms — to settle between each other 24/7/365. (Because crypto settles 24/7, and bank wires only clear during banking hours, firms linking fiat and crypto often experience serious friction. SEN helped alleviate these issues.) Most crypto firms that mattered were clients of Silvergate, lending SEN powerful network effects.

In 2017, Silvergate onboarded Alameda Research, a secretive trading firm run by Jane Street alum Sam Bankman-Fried. Alameda quickly grew to become one of the most active trading shops in crypto, deepening its dependence on Silvergate. When Bankman-Fried launched FTX, a flashy offshore exchange in the vein of Bitmex or Binance, Silvergate started processing wires for them, too.

Silvergate grew to occupy a critical position in the domestic crypto industry. In the two years following Q4 2019, deposits ballooned from $1.8 billion to $14.3 billion. By year-end 2021, digital asset customers at Silvergate maintained $11.7 billion on deposit with the bank, equivalent to 82 percent of total deposits.

Not long after, things began to go south in crypto. In May, the ponzi-esque “stablecoin” UST, issued by Do Kwon’s Terra, went belly up. Then, over the summer and fall, lenders Voyager, Celsius, and BlockFi blew up in quick succession as a credit crunch hit the industry. In June, “proprietary” trading firm Three Arrows Capital collapsed due to its remarkably stupid long bets on Terra/Luna, causing further reverberations as the firm absconded with investor cash. The coup de grâce came in November 2022, with the messy and extremely public collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire in the Bahamas.

Throughout this period, balance sheets at crypto banks shrank as firms tried their best to satisfy their obligations and pay down their debt — or went out of business. Consequently, Silvergate suffered dramatic outflows, with non interest-bearing deposits (a large portion of which were attributed to crypto firms) falling from a peak of $14 billion in December 2021 to $7.4 billion in December 2022.

Silvergate faced significant problems on both the asset and liability sides. The liabilities were deposits owed to crypto firms in the process of shrinking their balance sheets or outright failing. The assets were treasury bonds, agency securities, and municipal bonds cratering in value due to dramatic federal interest rate hikes aimed at stemming advanced inflation. As the bank’s crypto depositors withdrew, Silvergate was forced to sell its newly depreciated long-dated bonds for a fraction of their original value, resulting in a net loss in calendar year 2022 of $948 million.

Simultaneously, questions began to emerge about Silvergate’s role in the FTX fiasco. Was it just a bank with a settlement network, or something more sinister? When Sam Bankman-Fried was processing funds in and out of FTX via Alameda, had Silvergate deliberately looked the other way? Had Silvergate been aware of the holes in Alameda’s and FTX’s balance sheets? Had the bank been party to the litany of ancillary crimes committed by SBF et al., which included campaign finance violations and bribing Chinese officials? As one of the most important banks for the Alameda/FTX apparatus, it was certainly plausible Silvergate was a co-conspirator.

These were the questions posed by an unlikely confederation of short sellers and high-level members of Congress. First, the bombastic short seller Marc Cohodes implied Silvergate was not only doomed, but actually implicated in SBF’s crime syndicate. Then, Cohodes’ claims found surprising support from one of the most important political voices in finance: Massachusetts Senator and member of the Senate Banking Committee, Elizabeth Warren. Warren wrote two letters to Silvergate CEO Alan Lane in December 2022 and January 2023, lambasting the bank and lending credence to claims that it might have criminal liability stemming from its relationship with FTX.

Reacting to these concerns, the Federal Reserve, FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), and OCC (Office of the Comptroller of Currency) issued a joint statement warning banks they faced significant risks if they served the crypto space. Two days later, Silvergate slashed costs and downsized to adapt to their shrinking depositor base. Another joint statement from federal bank regulators, again on the risk crypto posed to banks, soon followed. Meanwhile, shares in Silvergate were collapsing, falling to $16 by the end of 2022.

For the plucky Silvergate, this all proved too much to bear. On March 8, 2023, Silvergate leadership announced its intention to voluntarily liquidate the bank. This was an unusual move — normally failed or failing banks are sent into receivership (placed under the control of a government-appointed entity, typically the FDIC), then sold off to larger, sounder banks. But given the risks of criminal liability from the FTX fiasco hanging over the bank, perhaps it made sense to just shut it down completely.

To the average pundit, there’s nothing wrong with this story. Silvergate bet big on a risky industry and faced the consequences when a credit crunch led to a depository flight. It had onboarded the odious Sam Bankman-Fried, and possibly become party to his crimes. Meanwhile, the bank had greedily backed its short term liabilities (customer deposits) with long term, higher yielding instruments, and were forced to realize huge losses as they honored withdrawals. As a relatively small bank, Silvergate didn’t have the capital buffer to absorb these losses, so it chose to wind down.

The warnings from Senator Elizabeth Warren had proved prescient. By 2024, Silvergate had settled with the Fed, California’s financial regulator, and the SEC, with individual executives paying fines and being barred from the business. This was all the confirmation anyone needed that Silvergate had lied about its compliance program and had experienced significant surveillance failures in their engagement with FTX/Alameda. Silvergate took on inadvisable risks by serving the generally fraudulent crypto space, got greedy by betting on long-duration, higher-yielding bonds, and paid the ultimate price.

But what if that’s not the whole story?

What if there’s another version of events, in which Silvergate was a victim of FTX, not an accomplice to their crimes?

What if Senator Warren’s warnings about Silvergate served as a self-fulfilling prophecy, hastening the run on the bank?

What if the Biden administration deliberately killed off Silvergate — and some of its peers — in an attempt to decapitate the domestic crypto industry? What if this was the spark that lit the flame of a gigantic regional banking crisis?

And what if the settlements Silvergate made with its regulators effectively covered the government’s tracks, allowing it to continue to deny the existence of Operation Choke Point 2.0?

This is the version of events no one is talking about, and one that official government accounts rebuke, but it’s what I’ve come to believe. Aside from a relative few on Crypto Twitter, it’s a story no one seems interested in — the mainstream financial press most of all. But in my mind, the official narrative is historical fiction at best, and recent events have only further convinced me of the fact.

Until now, Silvergate executives have been muzzled by regulatory actions and litigation, unable to tell their side of the story. Based on conversations with confidential sources, and new revelations in Silvergate’s recently public bankruptcy filings, I believe Silvergate could have survived its drawdown — and was on a path to do so — before being hamstrung by regulators continuing to advance the covert Biden admin scheme to destroy the US crypto industry we now know as Operation Choke Point 2.0. In so doing, government officials eliminated Silvergate’s ability to operate as a bank focused on the crypto industry, and forced their “voluntary” liquidation.

I further believe the targeted harassment of Silvergate which led to its downfall was a primary cause of the 2023 banking crisis, which ultimately took down Signature, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic, and threw the broader banking system into disarray.

In short: the government’s desire to decapitate the domestic crypto industry through covert rulemaking aimed at crypto-focused banks both initiated and worsened the banking crisis of 2023, the largest since the great financial crisis in 2008.

I first started hearing from individuals at Silvergate, Signature, Silicon Valley Bank, and First Republic that they were under inordinate pressure from regulators in early 2023. At the same time, multiple regulatory agencies were firing warning shots across the bow of crypto-adjacent banks. There was Elizabeth Warren’s hostile letter to Silvergate, the January 2023 joint statement from three regulatory bodies regarding crypto risk to banks, the Fed’s denial of crypto-focused Custodia’s application to become a Federal Reserve member bank, and the National Economic Council (NEC) cautionary statement on banks and crypto.

In response, several banks that provided services to crypto firms began to curtail or eliminate their digital lines of business entirely. This retreat was reminiscent of Operation Choke Point, an Obama-era program aimed at marginalizing politically disfavored industries like firearm manufacturers not by passing legislation, but by using financial regulators to threaten banks providing services to those industries. In my first piece of reporting for Pirate Wires on the topic, I coined “Operation Choke Point 2.0” to describe how these same tactics were being used against the crypto space. At the time, Silvergate was under significant pressure, but still operational.

Thirty days after I published Choke Point 2.0, Silvergate would announce its voluntary liquidation. The following day, Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse began in earnest, and on Sunday night, New York regulators sent Signature Bank following into receivership, despite protests from board member Barney Frank that the bank was still solvent, and that the move was politically motivated.

Based on discussions with individuals with knowledge of the affected banks, I wrote a follow-up piece for Pirate Wires, alleging that Silvergate had been forced to close due to a secretly imposed 15 percent cap on crypto deposits, and that Signature had been wrongly put out of business. Additional provocations included the FDIC’s unwillingness to allow Signature to sell off its crypto-focused deposits or its SigNet product, a 24/7 settlement layer similar to Silvergate’s SEN. Instead of maximizing value for taxpayers by securing a price for the assets, the FDIC instead allowed these crypto-related lines of business to wither on the vine. Signature’s crypto deposits were forcibly returned to clients rather than being inherited by its acquirer, Flagstar Bank. By threatening the banks themselves, these actions not only looked like a covert attack on the crypto space, but they also potentially hastened, or even caused the demise of, the two most pro-crypto banks in the US.

The Silvergate story was particularly vexing because, unlike at Signature, no one was able to speak out and tell their side of the story. I later learned that key elements of the regulatory crackdown, in particular the 15 percent threshold on crypto deposits (conveyed to Silvergate by the SF Fed, with apparent assent from other regulatory bodies) were considered “confidential supervisory information” (CSI)³, and hence ineligible to be shared publicly. Perversely, CSI is intended to protect banks themselves from leaks of information surfaced in examinations — routine procedures where regulators evaluate bank management, safety and soundness, and regulatory compliance — that could hurt their standing, but in this case, it was weaponized against the banks to protect the regulators’ reputation in the eyes of the public.

So far, we have seen no acknowledgment from the Fed, its regional branches, or the FDIC regarding the 15 percent deposit caps, which government authorities primarily messaged verbally to a number of crypto banks, rather than in writing. Why did Silvergate and others feel compelled to comply with these informal deposit caps? An insider explained it to me this way: “They have eight million ways to shut us down, any way they want. When they say you gotta do something, you do it.” The caps were never publicly discussed or formally opposed as a rule, but when your primary regulator threatens you, you comply. “The regulators can pick anything and say, ‘Your compliance program is broken’ as a pretext for shutting you down,” the source told me.

According to people briefed on the situation, though the 15 percent threshold on crypto deposits was issued to Silvergate by the SF Fed, it originated in DC. It is now widely suspected that the architect of this policy was Bharat Ramamurti, then-deputy chair of Biden’s National Economic Council, a powerful advisory body that coordinates economic policy across many executive agencies. Ramamurti was senior counsel for banking and economic policy in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office from 2013 to 2019 and economic policy director on her 2020 campaign. Now, he's an advisor to the Harris/ Walz presidential campaign.

Bharat Ramamurti

When I reported on Choke Point 2.0, there was little on the record to corroborate my findings, as Silvergate leadership and other insiders were ensnared in regulatory settlements and litigation, prohibiting them from speaking publicly. But Silvergate’s recent bankruptcy filings allowed them to tell their side of the story for the first time.

The first-day bankruptcy filing from Silvergate Chief Administrative Officer Elaine Hetrick lays out the company’s side of the story, to the extent legally permissible. She starts by noting the difficulties Silvergate faced due to the crypto market downturn and the significant interest rate hikes, but maintains the bank had sufficient assets to operate as a going concern in early 2023. The bank’s challenges, however, “reached an inflection point in early 2023 following further regulatory scrutiny regarding its business model.”

Hetrick states that in early 2023, Silvergate “had stabilized, was able to meet regulatory capital requirements, and had the capability to continue to serve its customers,” but maintains that “the increased supervisory pressure on Silvergate Bank and other banks focused on servicing crypto-asset businesses forced Silvergate Bank to a point where it would have needed to remake its business model away from its focus on crypto-asset businesses.”

After the phrase “the increased supervisory pressure on Silvergate Bank,” Hetrick adds a footnote: “Silvergate is prohibited by law from disclosing confidential supervisory information, which broadly includes correspondence and communications with the Federal Banking Regulatory Agencies as well as reports of supervisory examination.” This means there’s more to be said about the nature of the pressure — which in my view would include the verbally-messaged 15 percent cap on crypto deposits — but Hetrick is prohibited from going into detail here, due to the supervisory pressure being considered CSI.

Hetrick is adamant that sudden regulatory shifts, not the financial difficulties it had faced from the drawdown in deposits, forced Silvergate to shutter. In initial filings, she explains: “This public signaling and sudden regulatory shift made clear that, at least as of the first quarter of 2023, the Federal Bank Regulatory Agencies would not tolerate banks with significant concentrations of digital asset customers, ultimately preventing Silvergate Bank from continuing its digital asset focused business model.”

She also points to the failure of Signature Bank as indicative of an anti-crypto stance on the part of regulators, referring to Chair Barney Frank’s comments that its closure was at least partially due to a desire to “send an anti-crypto message.” Hetrick notes that, tellingly, the FDIC refused to include $4 billion in crypto-related deposits in the sale of Signature to Flagstar Bank. As one confidential source told me regarding the FDIC’s refusal to sell crypto-related deposits or Signature’s SigNet, “The government is setting policy not based on law, but through selective sales.4”

For now, Hetrick is unable to share the full extent of regulatory pressure the Fed applied to Silvergate, but her testimony, given under oath, is still extremely revealing. Notably, it’s a stark departure from the official government account as written by the GAO (Government Accountability Office), which makes no mention whatsoever of the novel regulatory pressures that ultimately doomed the bank.

One of the first clues something with Silvergate’s downfall was suspicious was that it chose to voluntarily liquidate in March 2023, rather than entering FDIC receivership. This is so uncommon that I had to dig deep to find similar examples, and even then, I could only identify a tiny handful in the last 30 years. The most notable was West Virginia’s First National Bank of Keystone, a small bank with $1.1 billion in assets which voluntary liquidated in 1999 before eventually being taken over by the FDIC. Aside from First National, I couldn’t find any voluntary liquidations of banks with over $100 million in assets. It’s truly a rare thing. In fact, a source told me that when Silvergate leadership expressed its intention to voluntarily liquidate the bank, their California regulator, having no experience with the procedure, was completely unsure of how to proceed.

Why is this notable? In my view, how rarely banks choose voluntary liquidation is further evidence Silvergate was ultimately killed by regulatory mandate, not the bank run it suffered. After all, in March 2023 — when the bank voluntarily liquidated — it had already survived the run. In fact, deposits had ticked up quarter over quarter from Q3 to Q4 2022.

Instead, I learned the economics of the business simply didn’t make sense after regulators imposed the new 15 percent crypto deposit limit. SEN would be rendered useless, as the bank wouldn’t be able to maintain accounts with all the relevant firms that would be transacting. And the drastically reduced revenue streams would no longer justify the high fixed costs of supporting crypto firms (especially from a compliance perspective). Sources told me leadership even considered charging large clients high fixed fees for banking access — believing they would be willing to pay, since so few other banks served crypto at that time — but they couldn’t make the numbers work. So they chose to wind the bank down in an orderly manner and make all depositors whole, which they were able to do.

We don't know what would have happened had Silvergate been given the opportunity to rebuild its business after it right-sized following the bank run, rather than being permanently hamstrung by the 15 percent crypto deposit cap. We do know that the balance sheets of crypto firms recovered strongly in the US in 2023 and 2024, as the credit crunch ended and large caps like Bitcoin rallied once again.

“If the [15 percent] limit hadn’t been imposed, Silvergate would be thriving right now,” someone familiar with the matter told me. I tend to believe this. There has been a gaping hole in domestic crypto banking since the imposition of Choke Point 2.0, and any firm brave enough to offer banking to crypto firms would have done tremendously well — had any been allowed to survive. Anecdotally, connections to domestic banks willing to onboard crypto clients is the number one request from portfolio companies at my blockchain-focused venture capital firm Castle Island. Unfortunately, regulators haven't allowed the market for crypto-friendly banks to recover. As a result, crypto startups are moving offshore, where more banks are willing to support digital asset firms.

On the first day of 2023, there were three major banks commonly known to serve crypto firms: Silvergate, a smallish bank almost exclusively focused on crypto; Signature, a relatively large bank with a significant but not exclusive concentration of deposits from crypto firms; and Metropolitan Commercial Bank, another boutique with a crypto arm. Silicon Valley Bank also had a single large crypto client in stablecoin network Circle. Four months later, they were all gone, reminiscent of the Henry VIII nursery rhyme about his doomed wives — “divorced, beheaded, died.” In this case, it was “liquidated/ collapsed/ acquired, exited the crypto business, and collapsed/ acquired.” At the two most notable crypto boutiques — Silvergate and Signature — there is strong evidence they were actively destroyed by regulators, rather than dying of natural causes.

Any bank looking to fill the hole left by these three institutions would have faced a frigid regulatory environment and the presumed informal 15 percent cap on crypto deposits that rendered the economics infeasible. Previously, a bank could orient itself toward the crypto space and justify the investment in a tech stack and compliance overhead if they could expand their depository base, as Silvergate and Signature did. They could also create valuable intra-bank settlement networks like SEN and SigNet if they were able to get a meaningful share of the crypto industry under one roof.

With hundreds of crypto firms in the US suddenly without banking access after Signature et al. went down, many chose to move over to fintech firms like Mercury, but things were still extremely tenuous. Even today, few banks are willing to onboard crypto firms, especially if they need more bespoke services beyond simple cash management. Those that serve the crypto industry do so quietly, cognizant of the fact that if they become known as a “crypto bank,” they’ll be maimed by regulators.

This is exactly what happened to the two banks that tried to fill Silvergate’s and Signature’s shoes. After they ceased operations, Customers and Cross River were the two firms known to still bank crypto firms. And both were punished by their regulators.

In May 2023, the FDIC hit Cross River with a consent order, which kneecapped the bank’s crypto efforts. Although the order didn’t mention Cross River’s crypto business, and it covered the bank’s fintech partnerships, it’s still plausible that it came on the FDICs radar due to its prominence as one of the few remaining pro-crypto banks.

More directly, in August 2024, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia issued an enforcement action against Customers Bank, citing deficiencies with the bank’s “risk management practices and compliance with the applicable laws, rules, and regulations relating to anti-money laundering” in connection with its digital assets business. Just like Silvergate’s SEN and Signature’s SigNet, Customers operated an instant settlement business for clients called Customers Bank Instant Token (CBIT).

Such intra-bank settlement networks appear to be utterly toxic to regulators. Sources with knowledge of the Cross River and Customers matters to whom I spoke surmised that the Fed’s July 2023 release of FedNow — an instant payment service that allows banks and credit unions to settle transactions in real time, 24/7 — could explain the Fed’s particular hostility toward banks that had created their own instant settlement networks. Certainly many view the timing as suspicious. I’m not entirely persuaded by the theory, but the fact that SEN, SigNet, and CBIT were all eliminated or defanged around the time FedNow launched did raise eyebrows.

Since the imposition of Choke Point 2.0 in early 2023, other banks have tentatively sought to fill the gap left by Silvergate and Signature, and later by Customers after it curtailed its crypto efforts. It’s become a running joke at this point — I periodically hear about certain banks launching a crypto practice, then invariably, months later, they will abruptly reverse course. I can personally attest that this has been the case at MVB Bank and Axos Bank, but there are undoubtedly more.

These days, if a bank does serve crypto clients, it keeps the service to a deliberately small portion of its depository base, and tends to downplay it in public. As a result, crypto startups find it difficult to even identify banks willing to serve them, and the few banks who still support institutional crypto clients are slow-moving, expensive, and unwilling to offer services beyond mere cash management.

As an aside, it’s worth noting that in 2023 and 2024, the FDIC extended its Choke Point 2.0 playbook from banks serving crypto to banks serving non-crypto fintech startups as well. In April 2024, the American Fintech Council (AFC) wrote a letter to the FDIC accusing it of using its enforcement powers to quietly curb fintech activity in the US by bringing selective enforcement against banks serving fintech firms. As the AFC said in their letter: “While your agency has not issued public guidance or other statements explicitly admonishing or limiting banks from engaging in partnerships with fintech companies we have identified a distinct ‘regulation by enforcement’ approach from the FDIC.” The AFC noted that banks not partnered with fintechs had a 1.8 percent chance of facing an enforcement action from the FDIC, whereas fintech-partnered banks had a 15 percent chance of a regulatory rebuke.

Just as with Choke Point 2.0 efforts against crypto, the government’s mode of engagement with fintech has been unusually antagonistic and ideological in nature. Instead of proposing new legislation and hosting a public debate, or even engaging in notice-and-comment rulemaking where affected parties would have the right to provide feedback, these agencies make arbitrary new rules and impose them by enforcement — and whispered “advice” which banks have no choice but to follow.

Critics reading this article could point out that Silvergate did end up facing a consent order from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (CA DFPI), which carried a $20 million fine. They also paid a $43 million fine to the Federal Reserve, and settled with the SEC for $50 million (though the bank was able to ‘apply’ the $63 million it had already paid to the latter, so they never actually paid the SEC anything). It’s worth noting that Silvergate has well over $100 million remaining on the balance sheet and has already paid out the $63 million in fines, so these fines would not have put them out of business had they still been operational.

So what if regulatory pressure doomed Silvergate? They clearly made mistakes, and so the short sellers and Senator Warren were right… right? If you dig into the settlements, the actual charges against the bank fall short of the critics’ worst claims — and none are criminal. (In February 2023, the Justice Department initiated a fraud probe to investigate the bank’s dealings with Alameda/ FTX, but nothing has since materialized.)

As for the SEC and California Fed settlements, Silvergate neither admitted nor denied any of the allegations made.

The SEC case against Silvergate hinges on the fact that the bank and its CEO Alan Lane made “misleading statements to the investing public that the bank’s BSA [Bank Secrecy Act]/ AML [Anti-Money Laundering] compliance program was adequate,” a far cry from the most hysterical charges levied by Warren and the bevy of critics. As one source briefed on the situation explained to me, the core of the SEC’s allegation was that Silvergate’s regulatory examinations showed “matters requiring attention” in their BSA program, so it was misleading to represent to the public that they had a “robust AML program.” However, virtually every bank examination includes some nominal “matters requiring attention,” as there are always areas for improvement.

Regarding Silvergate’s failure to detect FTX’s various schemes, banks are not expected to catch every single instance of suspicious activity among their clients, although leaders at the bank did tell me they regretted not detecting FTX’s sketchy behavior. The SEC did initially attempt to claim that Silvergate was aiding and abetting the fraud at FTX, but they were unable to prove anything to that effect.

“Where we were not as buttoned up as we should have been was in regards to the FTX/Alameda clients. That was a function of the bank growing incredibly quickly,” a Silvergate executive told me. “Probably we could have figured out FTX was brokering deposits via Alameda. In retrospect I think we could have pieced this together and figured it out. But this is not a legal failure and we’re not required to catch everything. Our program passed legal muster. That’s something we could have done a better job of. But there was no intentional wrongdoing or cooperation with the bad guys.”

In the FTX investigation, Silvergate was listed as a victim, not a co-conspirator.

Of the three settlements, executives at Silvergate felt the SEC’s case was the least warranted. “The SEC was crazy. They wanted headlines. They were hitting us unnecessarily,” one told me. As I mentioned above, the SEC’s case didn’t concern Silvergate’s compliance failures, but instead perceived falsehoods in what their leadership said about its BSA/ AML program. According to a Silvergate executive that I spoke with for this story, “The SEC was stretching mild conclusions from the Fed and exaggerating them.” One wonders why the SEC would invest energy in suing a defunct bank that did not lose money for depositors — especially if the agency didn’t actually collect any fines for the trouble.

The Federal Reserve settlement hinges on “deficiencies in Silvergate’s monitoring of internal transactions through the SEN.” As one source described it: “When you read the language, it’s pretty milquetoast” — the settlement contains no allegations of affirmative wrongdoing. The actual issue, I discovered, was that Silvergate’s transaction monitoring system for SEN had gone through an upgrade and experienced an outage. Because SEN was a settlement network for Silvergate’s own clients, every transaction on SEN was between clients known to the bank that had gone through rigorous KYC (Know Your Customer) and onboarding processes. So even during the monitoring outage, it’s not like the transactions were between unknown firms. One source told me that SEN volumes were around $2 trillion in the aggregate; massive transfers were common, so FTX/Alameda transfers would not necessarily have stood out as suspicious.

Why would three regulators sue a bank that had already agreed to voluntarily liquidate, and ensured that depositors were made whole? The fines came out of investors’ pockets, mainly hurting common shareholders — ordinary members of the public. Deterrence, perhaps. But there’s a darker interpretation: regulators wanted to publicly establish unlawfulness to stand in for the real reason Silvergate was doomed — the secretly-imposed crypto deposit limit. “The Fed changed their policy based on OCP 2.0, but they don’t want to admit that,” a source told me. “So they looked around and tried to find wrongdoing. The settlement is a big number — but they didn’t find anything.” It makes sense: if the Fed could extract a settlement from a defunct bank, they could point to it as evidence the bank failed through mismanagement, rather than due to regulation-by-bullying.

Another source told me, of the settlements: “For people in Congress, the fact that Silvergate got fined ‘proves wrongdoing’ and vindicates their anti-crypto stance. They wanted to be able to show people they had gotten justice for FTX.”

The settlement with the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation is almost identical to the Fed complaint, citing “deficiencies with respect to Silvergate’s monitoring of internal transactions.” Initially, sources told me, California wanted a $200 million fine, even though they couldn’t prove negligence or any wrongdoing beyond “deficiencies.” The governor’s office was directly involved, and the first set of proposed charges included “elder abuse” and “elder fraud” — despite the fact that Silvergate had no retail customers.

In all the settlements Silvergate ultimately assented to, there was no accusation of a criminal violation nor any claim that Silvergate had knowingly facilitated money laundering.

One particularly bizarre subplot in this entire affair is the intersection of short seller Marc Cohodes and Senator Elizabeth Warren. As we now know, Senator Warren wrote a letter in December 2022 to Silvergate accusing the bank of breaking the law. From the letter (superscript removed):

The arrangement between FTX and Alameda, which depended on your bank’s depository services, is just one example of the “lax record-keeping and poor centralized controls at the heart of the [FTX] empire’s unraveling” – and may have been illegal. Alameda’s depository account with your bank appears to be at the center of the improper transmission of FTX customer funds. Silvergate’s failure to take adequate notice of this scheme suggests that it may have failed to implement or maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, as required under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). What’s more, your bank’s failure to report these suspicious transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) may constitute yet another violation of the law.

On January 30, 2023, Warren wrote a second letter, complaining about Silvergate’s responses to her first one, this time appearing to pressure the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB), which Silvergate was using for last-resort liquidity. It seems her objective was to get the FHLB to pull the rug on Silvergate, forcing them to close. The FHLB eventually declined to renew their monthly facility with Silvergate, which may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Someone was putting pressure on the FHLB,” one person familiar with the situation told me. “If Silvergate had been allowed to hold to maturity the government-backed securities, they would have been able to stem their losses. They were trying to liquidate them slowly to minimize losses. But the FHLB started getting pressure, so they pressured them to pay back the loans.” To me, it certainly appears like the FHLB responded to Warren’s pressure campaign and cut Silvergate loose. (At the time, FHLB claimed it “did not request or compel” the bank “to prepay its outstanding advances.”)

At the same time, Cohodes was also waging a public campaign against Silvergate, writing numerous memos and tweets, and making video appearances containing all sorts of allegations about the bank.

Cohodes went far further than simply claiming Silvergate (and Signature, his next target) would collapse. He had a habit of calling the two banks “publicly traded crime scenes.” “You have terrorists, you have drug dealers, you have human traffickers,” he said in one interview, referring to SEN. In another interview with The Block, Cohodes repeated the “publicly traded crime scene” aphorism and argued that Silvergate CEO “Alan Lane belongs in prison.”

These extraordinary claims, of course, have never been proven. Silvergate has not faced any criminal liability for either FTX/ Alameda (the DoJ came up empty after its highly touted investigation), nor has any liability regarding human trafficking or terrorism since materialized. Obviously this could change, but as of yet nothing has validated Cohodes’ most extreme claims.

We also know that Cohodes reached out to Warren’s office directly. In January 2023, he emailed her staffer a link to a DoJ complaint (which does not mention Silvergate). “Have you seen this?” he wrote. “Would not be all that surprising if money from ISIS moved through Silvergate, and that would be attention getting.”

Sources with firsthand knowledge told me that Cohodes emailed a slide deck entitled “Silvergate-101” with his allegations against the bank to various members of Congress around the same time. The deck, which I have reviewed, cites anonymous Twitter accounts like @bitfinexed, an account known primarily for spreading conspiracies about the stablecoin Tether.

One individual told me about the Warren-Cohodes relationship: “For sure Warren’s letters intensified the run [on Silvergate]. What makes me sick is that Cohodes put together a deck and was shopping it to members of Congress including Warren. Much of his information was crowdsourced from Twitter.” Regarding Cohodes’ claims that Silvergate had done business with terrorists or human traffickers, the individual told me “there’s no basis for that whatsoever.”

Cohodes doesn’t appear to be particularly shy about his role in Warren’s December 2022 letter. “Who do you think inspired that letter?” he wrote in a quote tweet of the letter in June 2024. Whether or not he actually spoke with Warren’s office, he appears happy to take credit for her work harassing the bank. Cohodes is also a Warren supporter, having told the New York Times during her 2020 presidential run, “She would be great, I think she would be a breath of fresh air.”

Cohodes certainly has a habit of trying to enlist regulators in his short selling campaigns. In January 2023, he sent the Federal Reserve a memo with accusations against Silvergate, and one to the OCC in March 2023 regarding Signature. He also admits to having sent memos to the SEC and FDIC. Many of these celebrity short sellers try to make their predictions into self-fulfilling prophecies by looking for allies in their campaigns; Cohodes appears to have played the game very well.

We don’t know if Warren reciprocated Cohodes’ entreaties. But we do know that she either wittingly or unwittingly helped short sellers by launching a campaign against Silvergate with two blistering letters in which she effectively accused them of aiding and abetting FTX’s crimes. Arguably, she also precipitated the ultimate collapse of Silvergate by pressuring the FHLB to cut off its line of credit, which was the thrust of her second letter. Her standing as member of the Senate Banking Committee gave her words huge weight. If she actually did coordinate with Cohodes to destroy a bank — causing losses to shareholders and creditors, and orphaning depositors — it would be extremely troubling.

After Silvergate filed for voluntary liquidation, Senator Warren pounded her chest, tweeting, “As the bank of choice for crypto, Silvergate Bank’s failure is disappointing, but predictable. I warned of Silvergate’s risky, if not illegal, activity — and identified severe due diligence failures. Now, customers must be made whole & regulators should step up against crypto risk.” Far from being “disappointed” by Silvergate’s failure, she seemed practically thrilled by it. To her, the bank’s failure was evidence that crypto was an unacceptable risk to the banking sector, and so should be ringfenced from the financial system. Of course, she wasn’t a mere impartial observer — her own allegations against Silvergate helped create the atmosphere of concern around the bank that led to the run, especially her claims that they were engaged in illegal activity. It’s easy to take credit for predicting a bank’s collapse when you may be, in fact, one of the reasons the collapse occurred.

This isn’t the first time a Senator has been accused of fomenting a bank run. In June 2008, Senator Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to federal regulators expressing concerns over IndyMac, which likely hastened that bank’s collapse. Consequently, he faced a serious backlash for his role in the failure. But Warren hasn’t been dealt any such recriminations. A Senator can question the solvency of a bank, but it’s self-evident such statements risk becoming self-fulfilling prophecies, especially when made so bombastically, as Warren did.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

The collateral damage wrought by the Silvergate wind down was catastrophic. The immediate effect was the destruction of shareholder capital in the business. Additionally, depositors were left scrambling to find new banking partners. The loss of SEN also hurt stablecoin liquidity and likely intensified the liquidity issues faced by USDC as it temporarily de-pegged during the SVB crisis. More damagingly, Silvergate’s collapse was the first trigger in a grave banking crisis that would ultimately take down SVB, Signature, and First Republic, banks which had $538 billion in deposits at the time of the collapse.

Would these banks have collapsed, anyway? It’s possible, but the fact remains: Silvergate was the first bank to suffer a run in that volatile spring of 2023. Banking panics are contagious. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that Warren’s fear mongering caused more than a few depositors to pull their funds from Silvergate. Whether or not she actually colluded with Cohodes — and the public deserves to know the extent of their relationship — a powerful Senator effectively encouraging a bank run which escalated into a serious banking crisis is a complete betrayal of duty.

Sticking up for a bank that did business with FTX, suffered a bank run, was voluntarily liquidated by management, then settled with three different regulators is not an enviable task. But an injustice visited upon a flawed subject is no less of an injustice. Silvergate could perhaps have tightened up its money laundering controls or detected SBF’s improper transfers earlier. But that doesn’t mean it deserved to be harrassed out of existence. One Silvergate insider told me: “We were a group of people that were trying to do the right thing and we understood risk management. It really was a pretty conservative place. And that stems from Alan Lane, and his 40 years of banking expertise.”

Even when I was initially investigating Silvergate and Signature, a number of bankers, sympathetic to my cause, told me it wasn’t worth publicly supporting Silvergate, muttering ominously that the bank may have indeed done some reprehensible things. But this ended up not to be the case. Silvergate was the victim of a scathing and unconstitutional regulatory crackdown — an imperfect victim, but a victim nonetheless. What’s more, Washington’s desire to take down the crypto banks — which they accomplished deftly in March 2023 — was the spark that lit the fire of a massive regional banking crisis, which spread far beyond crypto. Yet today, no one levels criticism at President Biden, Senator Warren, or the Fed for starting a banking crisis in their attempts to stymie the crypto sector.

At the end of the day, if policymakers in Washington want to ringfence the crypto industry and withhold its access to traditional banking, there’s a valid way to do that: through public debate and legislation. If they had passed a law through Congress limiting crypto firms’ access to banks, it would have been devastating to the sector, but it would have at least been valid under the rules of our democracy. But that’s not how the Biden administration officials went about doing things. They effectuated their crackdown through covert backroom dealings, by deputizing the bank sector, and using threats and intimidation rather than public rulemaking. Some portion of the crackdown was disseminated through various agency statements, but much of it was simply handed down verbally with no paper trail, like the presumed 15 percent cap on crypto-related deposits. Other measures were simply taken in the ordinary course of business, such as the refusal to sell on any of Signature’s crypto business.

Ultimately, it’s precisely these marginal cases — the ones that no one wants to stick up for — where we have to draw the line. What happened to Silvergate was a travesty, and the public deserves to know the truth. Sympathetic members of Congress should hold a hearing and give executives at affected banks the chance to testify, with a waiver on criminal liability for sharing confidential supervisory information.

¹ The SEC fines did not involve the transfer of value, as Silvergate was able to ‘apply’ credit for the fines already paid.

² The GAO’s post-mortem on Silvergate blamed rising rates alongside idiosyncratic crypto risks and flighty depositors for the Silvergate collapse. They did not mention regulatory changes which adversely affected the bank’s business model.

³ Note that criminal liability for sharing CSI can be waived if, for instance, the House or Senate calls a hearing on the topic of the banking crisis and offers immunity to individuals invited to testify.

4 It’s also worth noting Silvergate purchased the Diem (stablecoin) IP from Facebook based on recommendations made by Biden’s Presidents Working Group, seemingly giving the green light to bank-issued stablecoins. This stance shifted dramatically in 2023 as the Fed ended up effectively banning banks from engaging with stablecoins. This caused the Diem assets to become effectively worthless.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/29/2024 - 19:50
Published:9/29/2024 7:19:41 PM
[] Kamala Harris Is a Lying Liar Who Lies! Wharton and Goldman Sachs Correct Her Claims About Economic Plan Published:9/25/2024 3:14:40 PM
[Markets] The Madness Of Antony Blinken The Madness Of Antony Blinken

Authored by Joe Lauria via Consortium News,

On March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a "green light" to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft. 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then also backed the no-fly zone. But within days the Pentagon shot down the idea as it engaged in a consequential battle with the State Department and members of Congress to prevent a direct NATO military confrontation with Russia that could unleash history’s most unimaginable horrors.

A no-fly zone "could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO," according to then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. President Joe Biden was caught in the middle of the fray. Pressure on the White House from some members of Congress and the press corps was unrelenting to recklessly bring NATO directly into the war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 24, 2024. Official State Department photo

Biden ultimately sided with the Defense Department, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because "that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine."

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin  backed him up:

“President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia.”

(The administration plan was, and apparently still is, to bring down the Russian government through a proxy counteroffensive and an economic and information war, not a direct military one.)

Blinken, who stepped out of line to speak above the heads of the president and the Pentagon, lost that round. It’s surprising he kept his job. But he survived and now he’s come back for more. 

Relentless 

Blinken’s recklessness emerged yet again last week when he peddled a story — eagerly picked up by The Guardian and The New York Times — that Biden would approve a British request to fire its Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia.

The Guardian story on Sept. 11 said: 

“The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.

Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had ‘from day one’ been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. ‘We will continue to do this,’ he emphasized.”

To fire British Storm Shadows, Ukraine would have to depend on British technical soldiers on the ground in Ukraine to actually launch them and on U.S. geolocation technology. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed those British soldiers are already in Ukraine.

In other words, it would be a NATO attack on Russia, dressed up as a Ukrainian one. It would mean the U.S. and Britain were at war with Moscow, something Blinken seems to want and said was going to happen. 

The next day Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that launching such missiles into Russia “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Nevertheless, The New York Times ran a story on the same day with the headline: “Biden Poised to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Western Weapons in Russia.” 

The Guardian added:

“British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.”

Blinken’s words evidently raised British Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s hopes that he would satisfy his desire to strike Russia with his nation’s arsenal of long-range missiles, despite Putin saying that meant direct war with NATO.

Blinken and the British are trying to lead us to the brink. 

Sanity in Arlington

Except that the Pentagon, the purveyor of the most monstrous violence in world history, has pulled the world back from it. For at least the second time — publicly known — the Department of War secured peace from neocon recklessness fronted by Blinken

Starmer was sent back on his chartered British Airways flight from the White House meeting licking his wounds. He’d evidently been led by Blinken to believe that it was a done deal: the U.S. would let Britain attack Russia with its long-range missiles using U.S. technology — even if the U.S. wouldn’t allow its own long-range ATACMS to be used. 

The Times of London reported that Biden withholding approval “surprised British officials who had listened closely to hints from Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, that America was edging towards authorizing Storm Shadow, an Anglo-French weapon which relies on American GPS guidance systems.”

Starmer’s mania to strike Russia illustrates the British elite’s continuing pathological hatred of Russia, extending back centuries, compared to a perhaps more tempered, though determined, American geostrategic rivalry with Moscow. 

Biden’s Limits With the Neocons 

Biden has proven himself a supreme warmonger, his advocacy for the illegal invasion of Iraq and his complicity in the genocide in Gaza as the most egregious examples. 

Like the two presidents before him, Biden allowed neocons to worm themselves into positions of power in his administration. But the extent to which Biden himself is a neocon, as opposed to a traditional warmonger, is subject to question.

As a creature of Washington of more than half a century, he seems to respect the military’s judgement about military matters and, on his good days, understands that even America has limits. 

Barack Obama let Hillary Clinton, the “Queen of Warmongers,” bring Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland into his administration. Donald Trump let neocons John Bolton and Mike Pompeo into his.  And Biden has Blinken (and for a time Nuland too.)

Instead of banishing these people, they are allowed to linger and drag the U.S. into evermore perilous failures: Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Ukraine, leaving behind a mountain of squandered dollars and an ocean of blood.

As a careerist, Blinken said what he had to say to get to where he is. Obama in 2015 wisely decided against arming Ukraine after the Nuland and Biden-led 2014 coup because he did not want to antagonize Russia, for whom he said Ukraine was a vital interest, while it was not for the U.S. Obama also feared U.S. arms would fall into the hands of “thugs” — meaning neo-Nazi Azov types, whom Obama was well aware of.

Blinken at the time was Obama’s deputy secretary of state.  To support the president’s position, he told a conference in Berlin:

“If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.”

But once he was freed of the restraints of Obama, he joined Biden’s aggressive Ukraine policy at the top of the State Department. From that position, and with a power vacuum in the White House because of Biden’s dementia, Blinken has been openly pushing the neocon agenda, laid out plainly in the 2000 report of the Project for a New American Century. 

And what is that agenda? In another age, before it became a dirty word, it would have been proudly proclaimed as imperialism. It contains all of the hubris and sense of invincibility and impunity of any empire in history.

PNAC plainly promulgates that no power or alliance of powers will be allowed to rise up to stand in the way of the neocons’ mad quest to harness American power to achieve world domination. An alliance of powers such as that of China, Russia and the BRICS countries, which has only accelerated in opposition to unhinged, neoconservative adventurism.

No matter the many disasters piling up, notably Iraq, Palestine and now Ukraine, the neocons are undeterred and unrestrained. It’s about power and murder but it is made palatable to themselves with flowery language about America saving the world for democracy.

Their belief in their own supremacy, cloaked in an American flag, remains fanatic, no matter the death and destruction they cause. They do not understand that American power has limits and to test that, they risk everything.

In 2019, Blinken teamed up with arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan to write a Washington Post op-ed arguing for more aggressive use of U.S. power abroad and against U.S. domestic trends towards non-interventionism.

With Kagan’s wife Nuland out of the Biden Administration and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan crucially siding with the realists, Blinken has emerged as the undisputed leader of who George H.W. Bush called the “crazies in the basement.”

That was 30 years ago. The neocons are in the penthouse now and only the restraint of the Pentagon and Sullivan’s persuasion brought Biden back from the brink.

This time.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/23/2024 - 23:25
Published:9/23/2024 10:59:01 PM
[Markets] Just Weeks Before Election, AG Garland Says (Un-Sarcastically): He 'Won't Allow DoJ To Be Used As Political Weapon' Just Weeks Before Election, AG Garland Says (Un-Sarcastically): He 'Won't Allow DoJ To Be Used As Political Weapon'

Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearinvestigations,

To Many, the Justice Dept. Is Honoring Political Neutrality in the Breach Again

Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. Attorneys’ National Conference in Washington – pointedly speaking publicly rather than privately in a departure from his usual practice.

Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon,” he said before a packed house, gathered in the Great Hall of DOJ headquarters on Sept. 12. “Federal prosecutors and agents may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution for the purpose of affecting any election or the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”

Garland’s words came in response to former President Trump’s assertion during his debate with Kamala Harris that the FBI and Justice Department had been weaponized against him. But in issuing a fiery rebuttal, the attorney general put himself squarely where he said he didn’t want to be: namely, in the crossfire of a partisan political campaign. 

Moreover, in the view of many, his assertions clearly belie the Justice Department’s deeds. These critics say it’s obvious that the FBI and DOJ have repeatedly put a thumb on the scale of justice to defeat Trump. In 2016, it was the Russia-gate collusion hoax. In 2020 it was the FBI’s refusal to say not only that it was in possession of Hunter Biden’s incendiary laptop, but that it had verified its contents, even as Joe Biden claimed erroneously that it was a Russian plant.

Most recently, after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment against Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election, just 74 days before Election Day. DOJ guidelines advise against filing politically relevant charges 60 days before an election. 

In recent weeks, DOJ, led by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, has accelerated the arrest of those who protested at and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Several new defendants live in swing states, which reintroduces Jan. 6 in local and national headlines while bolstering key talking points of Democrat standard-bearer Kamala Harris and others in this year’s campaign.

Such Trump antagonists regularly describe the former president as a “threat to democracy” – rhetoric echoed by the second and latest alleged would-be Trump assassin to emerge in the campaign, before his arrest Sunday.

On the same day Garland addressed the conference, the FBI arrested Justina Guardino, a 34-year-old member of a North Carolina chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nationwide group of moms defending their children from “woke” ideology and government overreach; Trump spoke to the group in Washington last month.

According to DOJ charging documents, Guardino nonviolently entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stayed inside for approximately 10 minutes.

Despite being interviewed by law enforcement in the summer of 2022, the FBI waited more than two years to make and announce her arrest, raising questions as to whether the DOJ is delaying arrests to coincide with the election. Early voting begins in North Carolina in mid-October.

Since Aug. 1, Graves’ office has announced the arrest of several more J6ers, including individuals from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan, considered must-win states for Harris.

Appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, Graves appears to be fulfilling his pledge to bring the overall J6 caseload to 2,000 defendants before the statute of limitations runs out; the total number of defendants just exceeded 1,500 last week. Meanwhile, his office has brought one federal charge against a single pro-Hamas demonstrator despite hundreds being involved in unlawful activities such as attacking federal police officers, vandalizing property, and illegally occupying government buildings on numerous occasions in 2023 and 2024.

Graves also handled the prosecution of Trump allies Peter Navarro and Steven Bannon on contempt of Congress charges for defying subpoenas issued by the Democrat-controlled House January 6 Select Committee. Although both prosecutions resulted in prison time for Navarro and Bannon, critics note that the cases were brought at the discretion of the department. Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence in a Connecticut federal prison, successfully shutting down his popular “War Room” program during the height of the campaign season.

In what might also be considered election interference by the DOJ, Graves, who rarely conducts interviews, appeared in a J6 segment on “60 Minutes” on the evening of September 15 – just hours after the alleged assassination attempt against Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course.

Graves defended his ongoing J6 investigation and prosecution as fair and free of White House influence. (Graves said he has never met Joe Biden, but as RCI reported last year, Graves’ wife, Fatima Goss Graves, is a regular visitor at the White House.) “No one is being prosecuted for their views,” Graves told reporter Scott Pelley. “They’re being prosecuted for their acts.”

The “crime was severe,” Graves continued. “It was an attack on our democracy.”

But the DOJ recently hit a major roadblock in the J6 prosecution, calling into question Garland’s claims of a careful adherence to the rule of law devoid of bias.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States reversed how the DOJ applied a statute, 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding, in the Capitol Breach probe. Since early 2021, at least 340 Jan. 6 protesters and Donald Trump have been charged with the post-Enron statute, once understood to apply to document-altering. In many instances, the felony was added to otherwise misdemeanor cases to turn nonviolent protesters into felons. Prosecutors also used the threat of adding the felony enhancement to secure plea deals on lower-level charges.

At least 130 individuals have been convicted at trial or accepted plea deals on the obstruction count with many sentenced to prison time.

Since the Fischer decision was published, prosecutors have been dismissing the count in pending cases. Last week, the D.C. appellate court vacated 15 1512(c)(2) convictions. Dozens more will see their convictions vacated over the next several weeks.

But the relief did not come soon enough for defendants who already served prison time on the charge. Further, the DOJ is asking judges to keep defendants currently in jail on the 1512(c)(2) behind bars by seeking longer prison time on their remaining charges.

For example, Thomas Robertson, a former police officer from Virginia, was sentenced to 87 months following his conviction by a D.C. jury in 2022. The 1512(c)(2) conviction represented the bulk of the prison sentence since it is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

This month the DOJ dismissed the obstruction count against Robertson, but prosecutors asked Judge Christopher Cooper to keep Robertson incarcerated for the full term by applying several sentencing add-ons to his conviction.

“I think what happened that day was an attack on democracy, and, as this Court found, the defendant advocated for an armed rebellion and counterinsurgency, and he came with the intent to do violence,” assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told Cooper on Sept. 4. “Robertson was an avid and willing participant in an unprecedented crime. His offenses specifically targeted the peaceful transfer of power, an essential government function and one of the fundamental and foundational principles of our democracy.”

Cooper, whose 1999 wedding was officiated by then-Judge Merrick Garland, consented to most of the DOJ’s sentencing enhancements. He sentenced Robertson to 72 months in federal prison.

“The historical significance of the certification and the effect that your conduct had on our democratic principles and the country more generally, this is not just hyperbole,” Judge Cooper told Robertson. “These are very real harms that not just you, but including you, caused on January 6th.”

The DOJ is expected to make the same argument in several other cases.

“The continued harsh treatment of Jan. 6 prisoners is a glaring example of the egregious weaponization of our justice system under the Biden-Harris administration,” Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, who recently was denied access to a section of the D.C. jail that houses J6 defendants, told RCI. “This politicized use of the Department of Justice, spearheaded by Kamala Harris and her allies, has turned the legal system into a tool for silencing dissent and punishing political opposition.”

Critics say Garland’s ongoing prosecution of Trump also contradicts his insistence that the DOJ steers clear of national elections. Special Counsel Smith, appointed by Garland in November 2022, just renewed the stalled case against Trump related to the events of Jan. 6 in Washington. Smith could have waited until after the election to file his new indictment, and critics say his timing can be an interpreted to bolster J6 as a campaign issue.

The Justice Department continues to allocate resources to the special counsel’s office; recent financial disclosures show Smith and DOJ spent more than $35 million in the first 14 months of the special counsel’s investigation. That figure likely could double by the time his appointment ends, which is at the discretion of the attorney general, or include the amount spent on the  dual investigations before Smith was appointed.

Smith’s continued pursuit of Trump has drawn renewed scrutiny and skepticism since the Supreme Court challenged his original indictment as a broad attack on presidential immunity. 

On July 1, the court published its decision in Trump v. United States. Authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the 6-3 opinion for the first time in history established three categories of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution: official acts, outer perimeter acts, and private acts. Official acts, the court held, are covered by immunity while outer perimeter acts – such as Trump’s communications with Vice President Mike Pence related to the J6 indictment – are what Roberts described as “presumptively immune.” On that score, Roberts continued, “it is ultimately the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity.”

The court further concluded that former presidents are not immune from prosecution for “unofficial” or private acts.

In order to hew to the decision, Smith filed a superseding indictment on Aug. 28 that partially gutted his original indictment, which had been handed up a year earlier. Since the Supreme Court determined Trump’s interactions with DOJ officials fell safely within the core constitutional authority of a sitting president, Smith had to cut nine pages of evidence and drop a co-conspirator, former Assistant Associate Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.

Although the watered-down indictment contains the same four counts as the first version, the case remains on uncertain legal ground given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and opinion in the Fischer case.

But the special counsel, presumably with the consent of Attorney General Garland, is reinvigorating the case to coincide with the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign. Long-standing DOJ rules preventing the department from interfering in national elections are once again being ignored as Smith reappears in the headlines as early voting begins this month in several states including Virginia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In early October early voting commences in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada.

Smith found a like-minded ally in Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the Obama appointee presiding over the unprecedented case. It was Chutkan’s 2023 order denying Trump’s claims of immunity from prosecution that the Supreme Court overturned and sent back to her for further proceedings. 

Chutkan, who has a record of making anti-Trump statements in court and who imposed a gag order on the former president last year, told Trump’s lawyers at a Sept. 5 hearing that the election is not a factor in her calculation as to the next steps.

“I understand there is an election impending, and I’ve said before and I say again that the electoral process and the timing of the election and what needs to happen before or shouldn’t happen before the election is not relevant here,” Chutkan informed John Lauro, Trump’s lead attorney in the J6 case. “This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule,” she added.

In a follow-up scheduling order, Chutkan issued a series of deadlines leading right up to and a few days beyond Election Day. The special counsel will file a brief later this month articulating why he believes the existing elements of the J6 indictment are not protected under the Supreme Court ruling.

By permitting the filing of what even Chutkan herself described as a “procedurally irregular” document, Smith’s brief is likely to contain cherry-picked passages from grand jury testimony and other allegations to create damaging headlines that again claim Trump tried to stay in power by breaking the law.

The brief is expected to be filed before Sept. 26; Trump’s attorneys will have a chance to respond, further dragging the matter into the headlines.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/21/2024 - 23:20
Published:9/21/2024 10:38:24 PM
[Markets] The Sins Of The Gray Lady (Or Why The Press Hates You) The Sins Of The Gray Lady (Or Why The Press Hates You)

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics,

The following is a chapter from the recently released book, “Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You.”

Readers of the New York Times know the news may change, but the message is always the same in their paper of record. It will play up every Republican kerfuffle and downplay Democratic scandals while presenting the choice between the two parties as a Manichean struggle between good and evil. Now clad in rainbow colors, the Gray Lady will, in the name of inclusion, celebrate a wide range of heretofore marginal behaviors – homosexuality, polyamory and transgenderism – while sowing divisions by separating Americans into warring camps based on race, gender, and ethnicity.

The transformation of the Times, and much of American journalism, during the last decade from a traditional newspaper that largely reports the news into the daily call sheet for the “woke” revolution that seeks to undermine the traditional pillars of American society is now so complete that it may seem unremarkable. Both its defenders and critics know exactly what to expect when they open its pages. Such acceptance, or resignation, is dangerous because it normalizes the great sin of the New York Times: the betrayal of hitherto bedrock journalistic principles of fairness, objectivity and pluralism that made the Fourth Estate a pillar of American democracy during the 20th century.

The paper’s radical reinvention of itself into a results-oriented tool serving leftwing social change has happened quickly – the Times of 2010 bears little resemblance to the paper published today. But enough time has passed so that we can identify both the key incidents and the dynamic political, cultural and economic forces that have transformed America’s most influential newspaper, and thus the nation itself.

That story began to come into focus on August 7, 2016 – the day American journalism crossed the Rubicon. That’s when the New York Times published a front-page article arguing that Donald Trump was such an “abnormal” candidate that “normal standards” of reporting on him were henceforth “untenable.” From now on, the paper made clear, the news columns of the Times would be taking sides. “If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous,” Jim Rutenberg wrote, “then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional.”

The article never explained why the normal standards of objectivity were insufficient. If Trump were truly a danger to the Republic, wouldn’t an honest accounting of his behavior be enough to expose him? As would become clear in the years that followed, the true danger to the nation would come from the license Rutenberg’s piece gave to reporters at the Times and the many news outlets that followed its lead to betray the core tenets of modern journalism not just in covering Trump, but regarding a wide array of issues. “All the news that’s fit to print” became redefined as all the news that advances the left’s narrative on race and crime, climate change and gender, capitalism, and even the history of the United States.

The breadth of this effort was suggested by researcher Zach Goldberg, whose keyword searches of the Times’ archive revealed the newspaper’s politically correct embrace of hot-button terms associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2010, Goldberg found that fewer than two hundred articles per year mentioned the word “social justice”; by 2018, the recorded total had more than quadrupled. He found similar increases in articles that mentioned “diversity and inclusion,” “whiteness,” “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” “systemic racism,” “discrimination,” “critical race theory,” “unconscious bias” and “implicit bias.” In 2010, Goldberg found some four hundred Times articles which included the word racism; by 2018, the total had risen six-fold.

The Times did not just radically change what it covered, but also how it covered it. Views on race and other issues that conflicted with the progressive narrative were increasingly seen through the Trumpian lens as “abnormal” and “potentially dangerous.” As Rutenberg suggested, journalism’s time-honored commitment to “objectivity” fell before the argument that respectfully airing a range of views on consequential issues was to fall prey to the sin of “both-siderism,” “whataboutism,” or “moral equivalence” – i.e., giving people deemed as liars (conservatives) the same space as truth-tellers (progressives). 

Echoing language once restricted to discussion of the Holocaust, the Times brands anyone who questions global warming orthodoxy or the results of the 2020 presidential race as “climate-change deniers” and “election-deniers.” Those who challenge the wisdom of allowing young children claiming gender dysphoria to receive irreversible “medical treatment” or who assert that America has, in fact, removed racial impediments to advancement, are cast as bigots.

Yes, the Times has always had a liberal bias, and its history is filled with egregious examples of distorted coverage. As Ashley Rindsberg documented in his 2021 book, The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History, these include the downplaying of Stalin’s crimes during the 1930s, largely ignoring the Holocaust during World War II, romanticizing Fidel Castro during the 1950s, and retailing a long history of anti-Israel coverage.

But its recent turn is different thanks to its aggressive ambition and scope. Rather than serving as an honest broker whose mission is to provide readers with the information needed to make decisions about important issues, it insistently puts its thumb on the scale, both in terms of the stories covered and those ignored. By replacing skepticism with ideology, the Times seeks not to inform, but to persuade. Its aim is not to reflect society but to transform it, and views to the contrary are verboten, beyond the pale of acceptable discourse.

Because the Times is, by far, the most influential news outlet in the United States, its embrace of progressive ideology has had a cascade effect, transforming the coverage and sensibility of thousands of newspapers and websites, TV and radio stations, entertainment companies, and corporations that follow its lead. Deliberately, it has legitimized and mainstreamed far-left views.

As Goldberg demonstrated, the Times’ commitment to the ongoing cultural revolution is deeply embedded in the sensibility and assumptions of almost every article it publishes. These include unnuanced celebrations of polyamory and drag queens and mainstreaming gender confusion among children in its “New York Times for Kids” special section. But two especially significant failures – The 1619 Project and the paper’s coverage of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory – capture the extreme, dangerous path the paper of record now follows. 

In August 2019, the newspaper devoted an entire issue of the New York Times Magazine to The 1619 Project. Its stated “goal” was “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 [the year enslaved sub-Saharan Africans first landed in North America] as our nation’s ”real” birth year. Doing so,” the magazine’s editor Jake Silverstein wrote in an introduction, “requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.” Through eighteen articles and fifteen artistic contributions that spanned the length of American history, the project abandoned journalism’s traditional mission of presenting the complexity of consequential issues in order to make the argument that the nation’s past, present, and future have been and forever will be defined by anti-black racism. There were no dissenting views, and few countervailing facts.

The vast ambition of The 1619 Project underscores the Times’ transformation into a tool of the cultural revolution whose aim is to disrupt traditional understandings and beliefs about almost every aspect of American life. The hubris is astonishing. While newspapers have often revisited episodes of the past in response to scholars having unearthed new information, the 1619 Project started with an ideological position about the sweep of American history which it then set out to demonstrate through tendentious pieces. The lead essay was not written by a scholar, but an activist black journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones.  

The backlash was immediate, as many leading historians wrote lengthy critiques of nearly every article. This included a letter to the Times signed by five prominent scholars – including James M. McPherson and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University and Gordon Wood of Brown University – which challenged two of Hannah-Jones’ most sweeping assertions regarding the Revolutionary War and Abraham Lincoln.

“On the American Revolution, pivotal to any account of our history, the project asserts that the founders declared the colonies’ independence of Britain 'in order to ensure slavery would continue.' This is not true. … The project criticizes Abraham Lincoln’s views on racial equality but ignores his conviction that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal equality, for blacks as well as whites, a view he upheld repeatedly against powerful white supremacists who opposed him.”

The historians wrote that “These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’ They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism. They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.”

Rather than engage these prominent scholars, Hannah-Jones dismissed them as “white historians.” A few months later, their interpretation of the Project’s ideological spirit was underscored by Leslie M. Harris, an African-American historian at Northwestern University who helped fact-check Hannah-Jones essay. She wrote in Politico that she was stunned by Hannah-Jones’  assertion “that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America,” because “I had vigorously argued against [it] with her fact-checker.”

In response to a letter from the five historians, Silverstein admitted that “we can hardly claim to have studied the Revolutionary period as long as some of the signatories, nor do we presume to tell them anything they don’t already know. … we disagree with their claim that our project contains significant factual errors and is driven by ideology rather than historical understanding.”

Instead of directly engaging their scholarship built on decades of professional experience and research, Silverstein advanced the postmodern view that there is no truth. “As the five letter writers well know, there are often debates, even among subject-area experts, about how to see the past. Historical understanding is not fixed; it is constantly being adjusted by new scholarship and new voices.”

Scholarship and journalism, however, are not supposed to be echo chambers for any current view, they are professional disciplines because they employ multiple processes of verification. They compare interpretations and opinions against the known body of facts – which can change – to determine the most accurate version of reality. Silverstein rejected that standard because he and his team didn’t want to search for the truth, they wanted to make an argument. “The very premise of The 1619 Project, in fact, is that many of the inequalities that continue to afflict the nation are a direct result of the unhealed wound created by 250 years of slavery and an additional century of second-class citizenship and white-supremacist terrorism inflicted on black people.”

This helps explain why the Times ignored most leading scholars of the period when preparing its sweeping reframing of American history. In interviews after publication, Hannah-Jones was even more explicit in the results-oriented structure of The 1619 Project when she stated that her goal “is that there'll be a reparations bill passed” compensating African Americans for past mistreatment. In another sign of the power of the Times, the call for African-American reparations, long a fringe movement, became a mainstream issue in the wake of publication as many communities and states openly considered the idea, including California, which assembled a commission that called for more than $800 billion in payments.

The Times’ influence and power were also apparent when Hannah-Jones was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her lead essay despite her profound errors.

The Times shared another Pulitzer Prize, with the Washington Post, in 2018 for its coverage of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory. Although reports from two special counsels, Robert S. Mueller and John Durham, rejected the claim that Donald Trump had conspired with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election, the two papers earned journalism’s top prize for what the Pulitzer board described as their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

As with The 1619 Project, the Times’ Russiagate coverage was so one-sided, so driven by the goal of making the case against Trump, that the news that Mueller cleared Trump of the major claims against him came as a shock to many Times readers. Still, its corruption is easy to see in its refusal to address failures and to correct clear errors.

For one thing, the newspaper often relied on anonymous sources for its assertions. On Feb. 14, 2017, it published one of the foundational articles of the conspiracy theory, reporting that, “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.” Four months later, then-FBI Director James B. Comey, told Congress that “in the main,” the Times report “was not true.” Documents declassified in 2020 show that Peter Strzok, the top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia probe, described the article at the time as "misleading and inaccurate.”

Similarly, on Dec. 30, 2017, the Times published another article based on anonymous sources that purported to describe the event that led the FBI to open the probe Strzok led. It began:

“During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.”

The Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, directly contradicted these details in subsequent interviews. He said he and Papadopoulos each had one early evening drink at the London bar, during which Papadopoulos never mentioned “dirt” or “thousands of emails,” just that “the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging.” The electronic communication the FBI used to officially open the probe on July 31, 2016, was even less precise. It stated that Papadopoulos had "suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama). It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means.”

In fairness to the Times, the Russiagate hoax was advanced by current and former officials at the highest reaches of government – including the CIA and the FBI – who almost certainly served as anonymous sources for the newspapers. Because reporters rely on others for information, they can be duped. But, once such manipulation is clear, all promises of confidentiality are off, and journalists are under no obligation to protect sources who intentionally used and misled them. Indeed, they have a public duty to identify the source for many reasons. The first is to make their first draft of history as accurate as possible. In the case of the Russiagate hoax, this meant identifying those who perpetrated the fraud. What did they seek to gain? What weaknesses in current systems did they exploit? There are also journalistic concerns: to keep faith with their audience, news organizations must explain why they transmitted false information. They also have a professional interest in exposing liars to deter other sources from misleading them. Not only has the Times never revealed its deceitful sources but years later, the newspaper has still not corrected these and other identified errors in its reporting.  

This willful refusal to set the record straight is a stark illustration of the newspaper’s ideological transformation. The Times, of course, famously runs a column of corrections each day. During its long history, it has also, on several occasions, reinvestigated and owned up to lapses in its own work, including a very public reassessment of its reporting on whether a Taiwanese-American atomic scientist named Wen Ho Lee had spied for the Chinese communists; and, in a seven-thousand word front-page story about how a troubled affirmative-action reporter named Jayson Blair had produced a number of fabricated and plagiarized stories. That led to his forced resignation in May 2003.

The Times, however, engaged in no such soul-searching regarding Russiagate – even after one of its former star reporters, Jeff Gerth, wrote a twenty-four thousand-word piece in the Columbia Journalism Review that took the newspaper and other news outlets to task for their Trump-Russia coverage that “includes serious flaws.” It appears the story was too big to correct. Nevertheless, the problems with the Russiagate coverage were so apparent that the Pulitzer board took the highly unusual step of commissioning what it called two “independent reviews” of prize-winning articles submitted by the Times and the Washington Post. However, in yet another sign of how the Times’ corruption has become standard operating procedure at the highest levels of American journalism, the board refused to release the reports or to identify their writers. Instead, it simply issued a brief statement declaring that “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”

The Pulitzer Board’s cover-up for the Times shows why the newspaper’s sins are especially grave and consequential. As journalism’s pied piper, the Times plays the tune – sets the narrative, normalizes the practices that others follow. If the Times had simply not rejected the “normal standards” of journalism – if it had accepted that its primary role is to inform, not to persuade – our national conversation would be far less angry. Instead, Americans are being gaslighted at the highest level, as the Times embraces the Rutenberg approach while at the same time invoking the traditional values it violates at every turn. For even as the Times twists the news, its authority still depends on being seen as an honest broker of the news – which is yet another reason why it is so loath to admit serious errors. As it betrays that trust, it must double down on claims of being trustworthy. In his 2023 State of the Times address, the paper’s chairman and publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, declared:

“The information ecosystem has been overtaken by misinformation, propaganda, punditry and clickbait, making it harder than ever to sort fact from fiction. And in this increasingly polarized era, fewer institutions are engaged in the difficult work of searching for the truth with an open mind and a first order commitment to independence, fairness and accuracy.”

Sulzberger, however, diagnosed the illness without any suggestion as to how the Times is spreading the disease. Instead of responding to legitimate critiques of its coverage, the newspaper continues to dismiss them as right-wing talking points. That said, it would be wrong to blame the Times for all of these ills. Despite its enormous influence as a thought leader,  it is also a fragile follower, trying to remain profitable at a time when the news business continues to suffer significant financial losses during a period of social and technological change.

The Times did not invent the post-modern critiques of objectivity. It did not create the social media platforms that have empowered radical activists. It did not corrupt America’s education system – from K-12 to most colleges and universities – which have become factories of leftwing indoctrination. It did not spark the “Great Awokening,” that culture of identity and tribal politics, of grievance and guilt, which increasingly defines the worldview of its readers. It has, instead, capitulated to and facilitated the mainstreaming of these dangerous and dishonest forces.

Part of this is a business decision. As the Times has transformed itself into a digital operation, it is now far more dependent on revenues from partisan subscribers than advertisers who have long balked at controversy. These readers increasingly demand that the paper present news that confirms their views. Former opinion editor Bari Weiss described how the Times has changed in her 2020 resignation letter to Sulzberger:

“Twitter has become its [the newspaper’s] ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.”

Weiss noted that the newspaper’s staff – which, like the paper’s readers, increasingly sees journalism as an instrument of social change – also have pressured the newspaper to abandon traditional values. On June 3, 2020, for example, the newspaper asked GOP Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas to write a piece responding to the riots then spreading across the country following the death of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis. Cotton opined that “these rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. … One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”

The backlash inside the newsroom was immediate. Dozens of Times journalists Tweeted a screenshot of Cotton’s piece with the comment: “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.”

The claim that words with which one disagrees are a form of violence is both an assault on the First Amendment and a common tool of censorship for the left. On June 4, Sulzberger felt compelled to defend Cotton’s piece in a staff memo. “I believe in the principle of openness to a range of opinions, even those we may disagree with, and this piece was published in that spirit,” he wrote. “But it’s essential that we listen and to reflect on the concerns we’re hearing, as we would with any piece that is the subject of significant criticism.”

When that failed to mollify the mob, editorial page Editor James Bennet, whose department had commissioned the piece, issued an abject apology at a June 5 staff meeting. “I just want to begin by saying I’m very sorry, I’m sorry for the pain that this particular piece has caused,” he said, adding, “I do think this is a moment for me and for us to interrogate everything we do in Opinion.” Although Cotton described a rigorous back-and-forth process that included at least three drafts of the op-ed and line-by-line editing, the Times asserted that an internal review “made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards.”

On June 7, Bennet, who had once been seen as a strong candidate to become the paper’s executive editor, was forced to resign. Reflecting on the experience in a 2022 interview with the online media site Semafor, Bennet said:

“My regret is that editor’s note. My mistake there was trying to mollify people,” he said.

The Times and its publisher, Bennet said, “want to have it both ways.” Sulzberger is “old school” in his belief in a neutral, heterodox publication. But “they want to have the applause and the welcome of the left, and now there’s the problem on top of that that they’ve signed up so many new subscribers in the last few years and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids.”

The Times steadfastly refuses to grapple with the critiques of former insiders such as Bennet and Weiss, who have pointed out how its stated commitment to traditional standards is at odds with the daily journalism it produces. Lewis Menand echoed these concerns in a 2023 essay in The New Yorker, “When Americans Lost Faith in the News”:  

“What people want is advocacy. … In the end, we don’t care what the facts are, because there are always more facts. You can’t unspin the facts; you can only put a different spin on them. What we want is to see our enemy—Steve Bannon, Hunter Biden, whomever—in an orange jumpsuit. We want winners and losers. That is why much of our politics now takes place in a courtroom.”

During the last decade, the Times has transformed itself into a very different publication. It is not an honest broker but an organ of advocacy. To its critics, this is a tragedy for journalism and the nation. But, as a free-standing business, that is also its right. Perhaps the Times could defend these changes. Its refusal to do so, to report on the world as it is, not as it would like it to be, does a grave disservice both to journalism and the nation. 

J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/21/2024 - 17:30
Published:9/21/2024 5:41:36 PM
[Markets] The Silent Insurrection: General Milley's Hand On January 6 The Silent Insurrection: General Milley's Hand On January 6

Authored by Haley McLean via Deaclassified with Julie Kelly,

In the days and weeks leading up to January 6, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, was moving in lockstep with the political anxieties of top Democratic leaders.

These Democrats grew anxious as over 140 House Republicans planned to contest the election results during the electoral college certification that day. Milley was then deeply engaged with a circle of confidants including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others—all of whom shared a unified disdain for President Donald Trump.

At a House Oversight Committee hearing in April addressing the 3-hour and 19-minute delay in mobilizing the D.C. National Guard on January 6, Colonel Earl Matthews, one of four Department of Defense witnesses, testified about an “irrational” fear among a “clique” of senior military officers concerning the potential misuse of the National Guard by the president. He indicated that these concerns were influenced behind the scenes by Milley, who often made disparaging remarks about the president and regularly referred to his fear of a so-called potential “Reichstag moment.”

Meanwhile, Milley has insisted he maintained a posture of strict neutrality, vocally distancing his leadership of the military from the political turmoil surrounding the 2020 presidential election. "My job is to stay clean by ensuring that the uniformed military remains out of domestic politics," Milley stated during his testimony before the January 6 Select Committee. "The United States military has no role in domestic politics, period, full stop."

Nevertheless, accounts of Milley’s approach to the unfolding situation during the late days of the Trump administration, as detailed in Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker's I Alone Can Fix It and Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s August 2022 report in The New Yorker, present a picture of Milley that is much different from the disinterested persona he has disingenuously cultivated.

Some excerpts follow:

  • Considering resigning in the summer of 2020 during the height of the George Floyd riots, Milley ultimately decided against it. “Fuck that shit,” he told his staff, “I’ll just fight him.” Despite assurances to confidants that he would never openly defy the president—a move he considered illegal—he was “determined to plant flags.” Milley envisioned a scenario involving either a declaration of martial law or a presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act with “Trumpian Brown Shirts fomenting violence.” 

  • Embodying a self-styled narrative of heroic defiance, Milley was prepared to face severe consequences to counter what he perceived as a grave threat. “If they want to court-martial me or put me in prison, have at it,” Milley told his staff, “but I will fight from the inside.” 

  • Milley saw himself as “tasked” with safeguarding “against Trump and his people” from potentially misusing the military, something he confided in a “trusted confidant” to ensure he remained true to this plan. “I have four tasks from now until the twentieth of January,” he affirmed, “and I’m going to accomplish my mission.” 

Milley’s Cohort of Confidants

I Alone Can Fix It highlights how Milley, as the joint session approached and more than 140 House Republicans were pledged to contest the election results, shared his anxiety with “senior leaders” in Congress who sought his “comfort” amid fears of “attempted coups.” The New Yorker’s August 2022 report further reveals Milley’s communications with key Democrats, specifically Pelosi and Schumer.

Additionally, the New Yorker report describes Milley’s continued outreach to "Democrats close to Biden," which included “regular” interactions with Susan Rice, former Obama national security advisor. Known for her role in helping to orchestrate the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, Rice’s expertise in activities aimed at undermining the former president raises this question: What was it about her that made Milley want to seek her guidance in the days leading up to January 6? 

The report also references Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense during both the Obama and Bush administrations, as another key figure in Milley’s circle of confidants. Gates reportedly advised Milley to remain in the Pentagon as long as possible, citing President Trump’s “increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior.” I Alone Can Fix It also depicts Gates as a mentor to Milley, urging him not to resign during the final months of the Trump administration. He’s quoted advising Milley, “Don’t quit. Steel your back. It’s not going to be easy, but you’re the right guy in the right place and at the right time.”

Liz Cheney and Milley’s “Nightmare Scenarios”

During Trump’s final months in office, the New Yorker report notes that Milley had two “nightmare scenarios” running through his mind: One was that Trump might spark an external crisis, such as a war with Iran, to divert attention or to create a pretext for a power grab at home, and the other was that Trump would manufacture a domestic crisis to justify ordering the military into the streets to prevent the transfer of power. 

On December 26, 2020, the two “nightmare scenarios” then preoccupying Milley transitioned from his personal concerns to the public domain in a column by Washington Post reporter David Ignatius—a journalist with close ties to both (you guessed it) the Obama and Bush administrations.

Ignatius's extensive connections within these administrations are detailed in a March 2012 Politico report, which highlights his significant access to senior White House and Pentagon officials, including being tapped by the Obama White House for exclusive access to the Bin Laden documents in 2012. Additionally, former Vice President Dick Cheney mentioned Ignatius in his 2011 memoir, In My Time, co-authored with his daughter, former House Republican Liz Cheney. In the memoir, Cheney recounts concerns about leaks to the press during the Bush administration and reveals that a source had spoken to Ignatius at the president's instruction.

Coincidentally, in her 2023 memoir, Oath and Honor, Liz Cheney also references Ignatius's December 26, 2020, Washington Post column that unveiled the “nightmare scenarios” Milley had envisioned. That evening, she notes, the column “caught my attention” as Ignatius, “a longtime journalist well-sourced at the Pentagon, reported that senior government officials feared Trump was ‘threatening to overstep the constitutional limits of his power.’” Cheney cites her discovery of Milley’s concerns in this article as the catalyst to her mobilization of all 10 living former Secretaries of Defense to sign a letter warning the current Defense Department leadership and President Trump to stay within bounds. Additionally, she reveals that when Robert Gates, a mentor to Milley, was approached to join this effort, he responded, “If Cheney’s on, I’m on.”

I Alone Can Fix It reports that on the evening of January 2, 2021, Milley was “tipped off” by a “former defense secretary” about an impending Washington Post opinion piece authored by those same 10 living former defense secretaries Liz Cheney mobilized for the purpose on the basis of Milley’s “nightmare scenario” fears. The book also notes that on January 7, 2021—the day after the chaotic events of January 6—Cheney called Milley to check in. “How are you doing?” he asked her. “That fucking guy Jim Jordan. That son of a bitch,” Cheney responded. What more might we learn about Milley’s interactions with Cheney in the days leading up to January 6? Surely, this was not their first conversation about the events that would ultimately unfold that day.

The January 6 Committee’s “Investigation”

In the months following January 6, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who previously had received assurances from Milley that he would not use the military for domestic purposes politically favorable to Trump, established the Select Committee on January 6 to “investigate” the day's events. Remarkably, Liz Cheney was appointed vice chair of the panel, a position typically reserved for a member of the majority party.

According to a November 2022 Washington Post report, Cheney exerted a “remarkable level” of control over much of the committee’s work. Staffers, frustrated with Cheney’s insistence on centering the final report on President Trump, expressed concerns that important findings unrelated to Trump would be withheld from the public.

Consistent with Cheney’s objectives for the committee’s investigation, General Milley offered his own criticisms of President Trump. “You know, you’re the Commander-in-Chief,” he told the committee, “you’ve got an assault going on at the Capitol of the United States of America, and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?”

Milley and McCarthy’s January 5 Memo

During his interview with the January 6 Committee, Milley explained that in preparation for January 6, the role of the D.C. National Guard was defined in a memorandum he described as “very strict on the use of the military.” Milley detailed how the memorandum prohibited the use of any riot control agents, stating, “We’re not doing it … and not only not doing it, you’re not going to have it. You’re not going to have the opportunity to use it.” Additionally, he mentioned that while such measures might be authorized under different circumstances on another day, they were explicitly forbidden “at that time, on this day.” 

This directive was ultimately issued by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy to Major General William Walker, commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, on January 5, 2021. Milley disclosed to the committee that he was actively involved in advising McCarthy on the memorandum, “line by line going through this, lining it out, editing, and stuff like that, resulting in this memo.”

The January 5 memo, carefully crafted by Milley and McCarthy, authorized 340 D.C. National Guard personnel to assist law enforcement with traffic control points and metro station support, and stationed 40 personnel at Joint Base Andrews to serve as the Guard’s Quick Reaction Force (QRF) in case of an emergency. However, this memo restricted General Walker from employing the QRF without explicit personal approval from Army Secretary McCarthy—a condition previously not imposed. 

In March 2021, General Walker testified before the Senate Rules and Homeland Security Committee, stating that he had the authority to employ the Guard’s QRF before January 6 and described the new restrictions as “unusual.”

He also testified to the January 6 Committee about his inability to reach Secretary McCarthy on January 6, revealing that it was the first time he found the phone number he had for McCarthy to be out of service. Additionally, General Walker noted that Colonel Earl Matthews, who had McCarthy's private number due to their social acquaintance, was also unable to reach him.

This breakdown in communication occurred just one day after McCarthy had issued the memorandum requiring General Walker to obtain explicit approval from him for employing the Guard’s QRF. What could possibly account for McCarthy's unavailability during those critical hours? Did McCarthy somehow overlook the crucial role he had defined for himself with the new restrictions imposed just a day earlier?

Where’s McCarthy?

On January 6, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller approved the deployment of the D.C. National Guard by 3:04 p.m. The protocol then required Army Secretary McCarthy to convey this authorization to General Walker to enable the deployment of the D.C. National Guard. However, McCarthy never conveyed this authorization, resulting in the more than 3 hour delay.

The January 6 Committee's final report states that after Defense Secretary Miller authorized the deployment at 3:04 p.m., Secretary McCarthy called General Walker, instructing him to “mobilize the entire Guard.” However, General Walker "categorically denies" receiving such a call. “Here’s the bottom line,” he said, “The Secretary was unavailable to me, and he never called me.”

It appears, however, that McCarthy changed his story after initially telling the committee that he had called General Walker. The committee's final report addresses this inconsistency by detailing McCarthy's actions and whereabouts on January 6 to explain the delay. It explains that starting around 3:00 p.m. on January 6—shortly after Defense Secretary Miller approved the Guard’s deployment at 3:04 p.m.—“25 minutes of Army Secretary McCarthy’s time was spent reassuring members of Congress that the Guard was indeed coming,” even though he had not yet conveyed the order to General Walker. The report continues, stating that by 3:45 p.m., McCarthy had completed his calls—none of which were to General Walker—and after picking up some items from his office, he headed to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) headquarters to draft a concept of operations, a process that took an additional 20 minutes.

However, when Brigadier General Aaron Dean, another Defense Department witness who testified before the House Oversight Committee, was asked whether he ever saw the plan McCarthy claims to have prepared, he responded, “Not only did I not see the plan, but he was also at the wrong agency.” He elaborated that the lead federal agency for this particular event was the United States Capitol Police, and questioned why McCarthy was at MPD headquarters instead of coordinating with Capitol Police, who were responsible for the security of the Capitol.

The January 6 Committee report also touches on this oversight, noting that no plan from Army leaders ever made it to the troops. “If they came up with a plan, they never shared it with us,” General Walker said, “I never saw a plan from the Department of Defense or the Department of the Army.”

The committee’s report further states that by 4:35 p.m., McCarthy was ready to authorize the deployment of the Guard, but “miscommunication” led to yet another half-hour delay. McCarthy told the committee that he tried to issue the "go" order through his subordinate, General LaNeve—a claim General Walker disputes, insisting the call never occurred. McCarthy rationalized not communicating directly by stating he was at the time drafting his talking points for a planned press conference with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, explaining, “I wanted to get my thoughts collected.”

Authorization finally came at 5:09 p.m. during an ongoing video teleconference that had started at 2:30 p.m.. Defense Department witnesses present with General Walker on January 6 testified to the House Oversight Committee that General James McConville, Chief of Staff of the Army, mentioned during the conference that they had received authorization. Colonel Earl Matthews, who was present in the conference room next to General Walker, clarified that, "General McConville is not in the chain of command, so it wasn’t his order to give." He added that General McConville was merely conveying that they were authorized to deploy. Matthews further specified that the actual authorization did not come from Secretary McCarthy but instead from Secretary Miller.

Who’s To Blame?

While the January 6 Committee admits that the delay in mobilizing the D.C. National Guard “seems unnecessary and unacceptable,” it attempts to rationalize and excuse McCarthy’s actions. The report suggests his preoccupation with making phone calls to members of Congress, gathering items from his office, crafting a supposed concept of operations that never reached the troops, and preparing remarks for a televised press conference as mitigating factors, justifying his absence from the day’s critical chain of command communications.

This communication breakdown, stemming from McCarthy, unfolded just one day after he, with General Milley's input, issued the memorandum requiring General Walker to receive personal authorization from McCarthy to deploy the Guard. Despite these circumstances, the January 6 Committee concluded that the military's processes that day were merely "imperfect" and found “no evidence that the delay was intentional.”

The January 6 Committee attributes the delay to “military processes, institutional caution, and a revised deployment approval process”—specifically, a process meticulously designed by Milley and McCarthy. Yet, the committee pins the blame on “Trump’s eagerness” to engage the U.S. military, alleging it compelled senior military leaders to take extreme “precautions” for the joint session. “Trump’s eagerness” must also have led McCarthy to remain completely unavailable to General Walker just one day after imposing restrictions that effectively stripped Walker of the authority to deploy the Guard without McCarthy’s explicit approval, thereby cementing the hours-long delay.

Never mind Milley’s explicitly stated mission to “fight” against the president “from the inside” and his intent to “plant flags”—intentions that appear to have materialized in the January 5 memo he meticulously outlined with McCarthy, directly undermining the D.C. National Guard’s ability to restore order that day.

Milley’s Insurrection 

Milley’s perception of President Trump as a classic authoritarian leader, his willingness to entertain the possibility of Trump engaging in a "Reichstag moment," and his fears of supposed "Trumpian Brown Shirts fomenting violence," seems to have influenced his command decisions in the days and weeks leading up to the joint session. While Milley is entitled to his personal political prejudices, it raises the question of whether he lost sight of the fact these were, after all, just his own politically inspired opinions about the president. Did he believe his convictions were so righteous that they justified overstepping legal boundaries and authorizing actions that could be seen as undermining the president's authority?

The chaotic events of January 6, exacerbated and prolonged by the National Guard's delayed response, evidently served no benefit to Trump or his allies and instead significantly bolstered the objectives of his adversaries. It’s no wonder the January 6 Committee, which appears solely focused on preventing Trump from ever taking office again, shows little interest in highlighting that Milley, who swore an oath to obey the orders of the President of the United States, embarked on a mission to defy the former Commander-in-Chief, and ultimately seems to have sabotaged President Trump on that day.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:40
Published:9/21/2024 11:12:18 AM
[] THE MORNING RANT - Another Generation of Solyndras: Government Subsidized “Clean Fuel” Startups Are Failing Do you remember Solyndra, the “green energy” company which received over half a billion dollars from President Obama’s “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” in 2009? Solyndra was going to revolutionize the solar panel manufacturing industry. Of course, there was... Published:9/20/2024 10:05:38 AM
[Markets] Modern Slavery & The Globalist Scam Modern Slavery & The Globalist Scam

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Yesterday, the Fed did what I predicted it would do and cut interest rates. The “pivot” has finally arrived, ending the rate hike cycle that began in March 2022.

I’ll have much more to say about it going forward, but today, I want to talk about the dangerous globalist threats to our freedoms that we presently face. Let’s start with a question:

Do you know these initials: GBI, MMT, WTO? If you do, you understand the neoliberal globalist effort to make sovereign governments obsolete and effectively harness the population of the developed world in a kind of slavery to mega-corporations and soulless wealth managers.

If not, here’s your opportunity to learn how the world works.

GBI stands for guaranteed basic income. It’s a kind of government welfare with no questions asked. It’s a 21st-century version of the ancient Roman dole that handed out free grain to poor citizens to keep them contented.

Along with grain (later bread), Rome provided free games such as gladiator contests and chariot racing. This combination caused the Roman poet Juvenal to refer to Roman public policy as “bread and circuses.” Today, we have the NFL.

The idea behind GBI is that there’s not enough value-added work to employ the population. But if everyone were unemployed, there would be no consumption and no economy.

We might always need workers in bars, restaurants, elder care, plumbing and landscaping, but computers and robots powered by AI will soon be able to do almost everything else including legal, accounting and writing. (Don’t worry; I’m writing this myself. I’m not a robot).

Instead of scrounging for work, individuals would receive a monthly check from the government. There would be no conditions on receipt of the check. If you happened to have a job, you’d get one anyway.

Children would get them also, to be held in special accounts until reaching legal maturity. No income requirements, no floors or ceilings, just a check. The idea, of course, is to create dependence on the government. In many cases, the check would be enough money, and people could simply quit their jobs.

With government money come government strings attached including acceptance of vaccine mandates, censorship of social media accounts and voting support for the ruling party. Most people accept these conditions willingly, as we saw during the pandemic.

It will not surprise anyone to learn that the leading advocate for GBI is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook who’s worth about $100 billion. He won’t need the check. He just wants everyone to be as dependent on the government dole as they now are on Facebook and other social media.

Zuckerberg is one of the corporate giants who stand to benefit from a population addicted to government checks.

Below, I show you the globalist scheme that wants to make you a modern-day slave. Read on.

The Globalist Scam

Where’s all this money coming from? That’s where MMT comes in. MMT stands for Modern Monetary Theory although it’s not particularly modern (it was first proposed in Germany in the 1920s), the practitioners don’t seem to know much about money (they view it as an asset rather than debt) and it’s not really a theory (it’s more of an ideology that cannot be tested empirically until the crash comes — then it fails). Whatever. MMT is the flavor of the month in Washington, D.C.

The idea behind MMT is that there’s no limit on government debt provided the debt is in the same currency you print. This condition applies to the U.S. but does not apply to countries such as Argentina that print pesos and borrow in dollars. That’s why Argentina defaults about every 10 years like clockwork.

The U.S. has no need to default — we can always just print whatever money we need to redeem the debt. This approach effectively merges the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve into a single money machine (although there is no statutory authority for this).

The Treasury borrows in dollars, the Fed monetizes the Treasury debt with printed money and holds the bonds on its balance sheet until maturity. Problem solved.

With unlimited borrowing power comes unlimited spending power. (That’s one way to finance GBI.) How long can this go on? Forever, says the MMT crowd, unless inflation arises, in which case their solution is to fight inflation by raising taxes. Are you following this? Good, because it gets crazier.

MMT claims that we don’t even need a Treasury bond market. The Treasury can just give the Fed wire instructions to send money to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin or General Motors and out goes the money. The bond market is just a favor to investors so they have some place to put their money. We don’t actually need it — the Fed can just send the money.

Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University and former top adviser to Bernie Sanders, is the bright light of MMT. I recommend her book The Deficit Myth (2020). Almost everything in the book is dead wrong, but I recommend it so readers can see just how untethered MMT really is.

Kelton got her ideas during a house visit with Warren Mosler in St. Croix. I was a nearby neighbor when I lived in St. Croix in the early 2000s and recall his local radio ads when he was running for Congress. Mosler was a successful hedge fund manager at Adams, Viner and Mosler and one of my customers when I was a bond dealer at Greenwich Capital Markets.

Mosler used to pay his children with his own business cards instead of cash when they did chores. Of course, he never ran out of business cards because he could always print more. But his children were stuck. If they wanted to go out or buy presents, they had to go to Daddy and redeem the cards (bonds) for real cash (printed money).

Kelton thought this arrangement was charming. The kids were trapped in the business card system and could not escape unless they went to Daddy (the Fed) for money. Mosler could impose whatever further conditions he wanted. Kelton thought, Why can’t governments do the same thing? Her answer: They can.

What’s not to like? Under MMT, you get unlimited debt (if you even want any), unlimited spending, unlimited debt-to-GDP ratios (hey, look at Japan. They’re at 300%!), and you can offer GBI, welfare, Medicare for all and anything else. So Kelton says.

Here’s what’s missing: When your debt-to-GDP ratio goes over 90% (the U.S. is currently at 130%), the growth from additional spending is less than the amount spent. This means the debt-to-GDP ratio goes higher and growth slows down even more. You can’t borrow your way out of a debt trap. The collapse of the dollar is not the most immediate danger. The immediate danger is the collapse of growth.

MMT’s idea of fighting inflation with tax increases is also fatuous. Inflation is already a hidden tax; it robs your money of purchasing power just as surely as the IRS taking it away. Tax increases to fight inflation are doubling down on taxes. If inflation does drop, it won’t be a “soft landing.”

It’ll be a hard landing with higher unemployment, slower growth (or recession) and possible deflation (which increases the real value of the debt, making the original problem worse). I guess Shelton wasn’t around in the late 1970s when we had high inflation, high unemployment and a crumbling dollar all at the same time.

Shelton’s biggest blind spot (she has many) is the idea that the monetary system is a closed loop and investors have nowhere else to go. That may be true of Mosler’s children (unless they ran away from home) but it’s definitely not true of the U.S. dollar.

It may be the case that the Fed can control short-term interest rates. It may be the case that JPMorgan and Citi can prop up the Treasury debt market. But no one is big enough to control the $7.5 trillion per day foreign exchange market (far larger if derivatives are included).

The U.S. dollar system isn’t a closed circuit. There are several off-ramps, including reducing balance sheets and buying gold. The collapse of the dollar due to MMT will not emerge through the bond market or stock market at least initially. It’ll emerge in the foreign exchange market.

Finally, we come to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO mandates “most favored nation” treatment, which means that if you offer low tariffs to one trading partner, you must offer those same low tariffs to every trading partner that belongs to the WTO.

The WTO also oversees negotiation of successive rounds of across-the-board tariff reductions (which have not been successful in recent years) and offers an arbitration forum for settling trade disputes to avoid escalation into full-scale trade wars. The WTO can impose penalties and other remedies on countries found to have violated the rules.

China was admitted to the WTO in 2001. Since joining, China has broken WTO rules consistently with government subsidies, theft of intellectual property, slave labor, accounting fraud and more. The U.S. was relaxed about this on the view that, in time, China would modernize and become “just like us.”

China has modernized but it has become more stridently communist than ever. The U.S. was played for a sucker, U.S. industry was stripped bare and U.S. jobs were lost by the millions. The globalists (Clinton, Bush, Larry Fink, Obama, Yellen) still support this scam.

China supplied the slave labor, Fink supplied the money and together they were off to the races. Indeed, they are enriched by it. The nationalists (Trump, J.D. Vance, Robert Lighthizer, Peter Navarro) are pushing back with some success, but the outcome is undecided as of now.

The WTO is an example of what globalists call encasement. The idea is that national governments don’t matter. Democracy is fine but it’s really not that important to the globalists. What’s important is that all global powers — democratic, communist, socialist, kleptocratic — play by the same supranational rules that encase the system of sovereigns.

These rules require free trade, open borders and free capital flows or as close as you can come. In theory, this allows for price discovery, lower costs and higher returns to capital. In reality, it causes lost jobs, lost competitiveness and lower wages, especially for Americans.

If Trump wins, he and his advisers will break free of the encasement with high tariffs, expanded U.S. manufacturing, U.S. jobs with higher wages and reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio with higher growth. China may suffer, but that’s their problem. America first.

So that’s the globalist plan. GBI will make everyone a welfare slave. MMT will make everyone a debt slave. WTO will make everyone a wage slave. The super-capitalists will get even richer and the politicians will take their share.

This system will prevail unless Trump and the MAGA team he’s assembled win the election on Nov. 5. Until then, investors should hedge their bets with cash, gold and reduced equity exposure.

That’s the best posture until the all-clear signal sounds.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/19/2024 - 12:45
Published:9/19/2024 11:58:17 AM
[Markets] Kamala-Bucks Are Coming... Kamala-Bucks Are Coming...

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

We’re still trying to process the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which took place on Sunday in West Palm Beach. But while that’s important to dissect as the election gets closer, it’s important to consider a development I’ve been warning about for over two years.

President Trump has long been an opponent of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or as I call them Biden Bucks. (Now that Biden is essentially out of the picture, maybe I should rename them Kamala Bucks.)

I called them “Biden Bucks” because I wanted Biden (and his partner Kamala) to take full credit for what I consider to be crimes against American citizens. More on that shortly. For now, let’s focus on Trump.

At a New Hampshire campaign rally earlier this year, Donald Trump reiterated what he’s been saying for months: CBDCs are dangerous and he would never allow one if elected.

For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It’s time we take a stand — together. This would be a dangerous threat to freedom, and I will stop it from coming to America. Such a currency would give a federal government absolute control over your money. They could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone.

In fact, Trump recently pledged to ban CBDCs, promote the creation of a national crypto reserve and guarantee that the government will not sell crypto obtained through law enforcement seizures.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: “Welcome aboard, Mr. President.” Again, I’ve been sounding the alarm about Biden Bucks for over two years. I’ve been warning about Joe Biden’s plan to control your money and take away your privacy rights completely.

A Threat to Your Freedom

President Trump is right. Biden Bucks are a dangerous threat to freedom. They’re a threat to our constitutional liberties and give the government total control of our private financial information.

A change in leadership is probably our last hope in stopping this madness from continuing.

Maybe you’re a new reader who’s not familiar with Biden Bucks, or maybe you’re an existing reader who hasn’t thought of them for a while. To catch you up, here are the basics: They would replace physical cash with new electronic currencies.

These Biden Bucks would have the full backing of the U.S. Federal Reserve. To be clear, they won’t just be a complement to cash. They will entirely, or very nearly entirely, REPLACE the cash (“fiat”) dollar we have now.

In other words, the dollar will be strictly digital. This digital dollar would be the sole, mandatory currency of the United States. What does this mean for you?

It would put your money under direct government control as President Trump has said. You could use it only at the government’s discretion.

We are already seeing how many retailers are no longer accepting cash across America. What happens when physical cash is eliminated from any payment transactions?

Declined!!!

Imagine this. To further advance the Biden/Harris Green New Scam, what if the Dems and their deep state enablers decide that gasoline needs to be rationed?

Your Biden/Kamala Bucks could be rendered useless at the gas pump once you’ve purchased a certain amount of gasoline in a week. You want gas, but all you get is a one-word message: Declined.

How’s that for control? That’s just one example. Biden Bucks would create new ways for the government to control how much you can buy of an item or even restrict purchases. They would keep score of every financial decision you make.

In a world of Biden Bucks, the government will even know your physical whereabouts at the point of purchase. It’s a short step from there to putting you under FBI investigation if you vote for the wrong candidate or give donations to the wrong political party.

If any of this sounds extreme, fantastical or otherwise far-fetched, I promise you it’s not. It’s happening right now. And given all the abuses of power the government’s engaged in over the past few years, why should you be surprised that Biden/Kamala Bucks wouldn’t invite even more abuse?

Kamala Would Be Even Worse

I don’t want to exaggerate, but the U.S. is moving closer and closer to an authoritarian-style government. We’re not there yet, but things are trending in that direction. And if you thought it was bad under Biden, it’ll be worse under a possible Kamala Harris presidency.

Biden was basically a puppet of top Democratic insiders, mostly holdovers from the Obama administration.

He never had any real core beliefs, he just did what he was told to do. He just wanted to be president.

Harris is different. She’s a true believer in the progressive causes the Biden administration put forward. You’d never know that if you listened to her running for president (she’s trying to position herself as a centrist), but you just have to look at her record.

As a senator, Harris had the most liberal record, even further left than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Pertaining to Biden Bucks specifically, she pushed unsuccessfully in 2020 for a 400% funding increase for the U.S. Digital Service, an agency that did early work on payment technology, setting the stage for a central bank digital currency.

So Kamala is all in on Biden Bucks and the threat to your money and freedoms. With Biden Bucks, a Harris administration and the Federal Reserve would become both money printer and central bank, destroying any checks and balances to their power over Americans’ financial holdings.

You CAN Fight Back

But we can fight back against Biden/Kamala Bucks by adopting a variety of alternative currencies including cash (while it lasts), gold coins, silver coins and commodity barter.

That’s one reason the government is trying to eliminate cash and kill crypto. It may come down to gold and silver. I urge you to get yours while you still can.

The bottom line is the federal government is coming after our money and rights. Again, that’s not hyperbole or some conspiracy theory. We can already see it happening.

It’s up to us to preserve our freedoms as Americans and fight back. No one will save us but ourselves.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/19/2024 - 08:50
Published:9/19/2024 8:20:29 AM
[Markets] CNN Worries That Trump Assassination Attempts Are Helping Him Politically CNN Worries That Trump Assassination Attempts Are Helping Him Politically

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A former Obama administration official turned CNN shit talker expressed a concern Sunday that all these pesky failed attempts to assassinate Donald Trump are helping him politically.

Yes, really.

Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official under Obama, labelled the situation a “problem” and “unfortunate” because it is making Trump more popular.

“I really don’t care what you feel about him, or Harris,” Kayyem said referring to Trump, adding “I mean, this is, this is the expectation that he will be safe.”

Kayyem continued, “And the reason why this is, you know, in some ways, you know, you said how close the election is, the problem is this is a safety issue that is being thrown into a very intense political environment in which the very fact of an assassination, a constitutional moment, because it’s, it could have impacted voters, will be used for political purposes.”

“And that, to me, is, is just as not as a, you know, exceptionally unfortunate, because whatever your beliefs are, we do deserve to have campaigns that are not part that where violence isn’t being used as either a sword or a shield,” she added.

Watch:

How unfortunate that Trump keeps dodging bullets fired by radicalised deranged leftists and then… talking about it!

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer expressed the same concern that Trump is using the assassination attempts “as a way to rile up his base.”

So, the only reason why CNN Democrats believe attempting to murder a political rival is bad appears to be because it could help them in the polls.

It’s good to see they have their priorities straight.

The media reaction to this second attempt to shoot Trump to death is just incredible.

They’re actually running with the narrative that it is Trump’s OWN FAULT that a blue haired Harris supporter hid in a bush with an AK47 and tried to shoot him in the head.

It’s absolutely fascinating, and hideously disgusting at the same time.

Their followers, the people listening to their incessant 24 hour ‘Trump is Hitler’ loop, are literally trying to murder him, yet somehow Trump is the one who needs to tone it down.

It’s the equivalent of saying “she got raped because her skirt was too short.”

Lets check where we are now on the leftist news cycle:

You see, it’s ALL Trump’s fault. These shooters just have unclear political ideologies.

It’s not like this latest nutcase just parroted the exact same phrases as the Democrat controlled leftist media while cosplaying as some sort of NGO official coordinating a Ukraine war effort response… is it?

Oh.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/17/2024 - 13:05
Published:9/17/2024 12:27:57 PM
[Politics] Harris campaign turns to former Obama advisers to help in White House bid The hope is that experienced Obama and Clinton hands can help recreate the magic of Obama’s historic 2008 White House win. Published:9/13/2024 4:11:57 AM
[Markets] Enabling A "Brutus" To Slay The Elon Musk "Caesar" Enabling A "Brutus" To Slay The Elon Musk "Caesar"

Submitted by Alastair Crooke

In the Washington Post on Monday, the headlines read: Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators. Former US Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in the British Guardian newspaper, published a piece on how to ‘rein-in’ Elon Musk, suggesting that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest” on lines of that which befell Pavel Durov recently in Paris. 

As should be clear to all now, ‘war’ has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it. Rather, there is evident glee at the prospect of a crackdown on the ‘Far-Right’ and its internet users: i.e. those who spread ‘disinformation’ or mal-information that ‘threatens’ the broad ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (which is to say, what the people think!).  

Make no mistake, the Ruling Strata are angry; they are angry that their technical expertise and consensus about ‘just about everything’ is being spurned by the ‘deplorables’. There will be prosecutions, convictions and fines for cyber ‘actors’ who disrupt the digital ‘literacy’, the ‘leaders’ warn.

Professor Frank Furedi observes

“There is an unholy alliance of western leaders – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz – whose hatred of what they call populism is undisguised. In his recent visits to Berlin and Paris, Starmer constantly referred to the threat posed by populism. During his meeting with Scholz in Berlin on 28 August, Starmer spoke about the importance of defeating “the snake oil of populism and nationalism”.

Furedi explained that as far as Starmer was concerned, populism was a threat to the power of the technocratic élites throughout Europe:

“Speaking in Paris, a day later, Starmer pointed to the far Right as a ‘very real threat’ and again used the term ‘snake oil’ of populism. Starmer has never stopped talking about the ‘snake oil of populism’. These days virtually every political problem is blamed on populism  The coupling of the term snake-oil with populism is constantly used in the propaganda of the technocratic political elite. Indeed, tackling and discrediting snake oil populists is its number one priority”.

So, what is the source of the élite’s anti-populist hysteria? The answer is that the latter know that they have become severed from the values and respect of their own people and that it is only a matter of time before they are seriously challenged, in one form or another.

This reality was very much on view in Germany this last weekend, where the ‘non-Establishment (i.e. non Staatsparteien) parties -- when added together -- secured 60% of the vote in Thüringen and 46% in Saxony. The Staatsparteien (the nominated establishment parties) choose to describe themselves as ‘democratic’, and to label the ‘others’ as ‘populist’ or ‘extremist’. State media even hinted that what counted more were ‘democratic’ votes; and not non-Staatsparteien votes, so the party with the most Staatsparteien votes should form the government in Thüringen. 

These have co-operated to exclude AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) and other non-Establishment parties from parliamentary business as far as legally possible -- for instance by keeping them out of key parliamentary committees and the imposition of various forms of social ostracism.

It reminds of the story of the great poet Victor Hugo’s membership rejection -- no less than  22 times -- by the Académie Française. The first time he applied, he received 2 votes (out of 39) from Lamartine and Chateaubriand, the two greatest men of letters of their time. A witty woman of the time commented: “If we weighed the votes, Monsieur Hugo would be elected; but we’re counting them.” 

Why war?

Because, after the 2016 US election, the US political backroom élites blamed democracy and populism for producing bad election outcomes. Anti-establishment Trump had actually won in the US; Bolsonaro won too, Farage surged, Modi won again, and Brexit etc., etc.  

Elections were soon proclaimed to be out of control, throwing out bizarre ‘winners’. Such unwelcome outcomes threatened the deep-seated structures that both projected and safeguarded long-seated US oligarchic interests around the globe, by subjecting them (oh the horror!) to voter scrutiny. 

By 2023, the New York Times was running essays headlined: “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”.

Rod Blagojevich explained in the WSJ, earlier this year, the gist of what it was that had broken with the system:

“We [he and Obama] both grew up in Chicago politics. We understand how it works—with the bosses over the people. Mr. Obama learned the lessons well. And what he just did to Mr. Biden is what political bosses have been doing in Chicago since the 1871 fire:  Selections masquerading as elections”. 

“While today’s Democratic bosses may look different from the old-time cigar-chomping guy with a pinky ring, they operate the same way: in the shadows of the backroom. Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rich donors—the Hollywood and Silicon Valley élites—are the new bosses of today’s Democratic Party. They call the shots. The voters, most of them working people, are there to be lied to, manipulated and controlled”. 

“The Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month will provide the perfect backdrop and place [for appointing a] candidate, not the voters’ candidate. Democracy, no. Chicago ward-boss politics, yes”.  

The problem was that the revealing of Biden’s dementia had pulled the mask from the system. 

The Chicago model is not so very different from how EU democracy works. Millions voted in the recent European parliamentary elections; ‘Non-Staatsparteien’ parties chalked-up major successes. The message sent was clear -- yet nothing changed. 

Cultural War

2016 represented the onset of cultural war, as Mike Benz has described in great detail. A complete outsider, Trump had crashed through the System’s guardrails to win the Presidency. Populism and ‘disinformation’ were the cause, it was held. By 2017, NATO was describing ‘disinformation’ as the greatest threat facing western nations.

Movements designated as populist were perceived as not simply hostile to the policies of their opponents, but to élite values too.

To combat this threat, Benz, who until recently was directly involved in the project as a senior State Department official focused on technology issues, explains how the backroom bosses pulled an extraordinary ‘sleight of hand’: ‘Democracy’ they said, was no longer to be defined as a consensus gentium -- i.e. a concerted resolve amongst the governed; but rather, was to be defined as the agreed ‘stance’ formed, not by individuals, but by democracy-supporting institutions.

Once re-defined as ‘an alignment of supporting institutions’, the second ‘twist’ to the democracy re-formulation was added. The Establishment had foreseen a risk that were a direct info-war on populism pursued, they themselves would be portrayed as autocratic and imposing top-down censorship. 

The solution to the dilemma of how to pursue the campaign against populism, according to Benz, lay in the genesis of the ‘whole of society’ concept whereby media, influencers, public institutions, NGOs and allied media would be corralled and pressured into joining an apparently organic, bottom-up censorship coalition focussed on the scourge of populism and disinformation. 

This approach -- with the government standing at ‘one removed’ from the censorship process -- seemed to offer plausible deniability of direct government involvement; of the authorities acting autocratically.

Billions of dollars were spent in raising up this anti-disinformation eco-system in such a way that it appeared to be a spontaneous emanation out of civil society, and not the Potemkin façade that it was.  

Seminars were conducted to train journalists on Homeland Security disinformation best practices and safeguards -- to detect, mitigate, dismiss and distract. Research funds were channelled to some 60 universities to found ‘disinformation laboratories’, Benz reveals.

The key point here is that the ‘whole of society’ framework could facilitate a blending back into the policy mainstream of the long timeframe and largely unspoken (and sometimes secret) bedrock structures of foreign policy -- on which foundation many key élite financial and political interests are leveraged. 

An outwardly bland ideological alignment focussed on ‘our democracy’ and ‘our values’ would nonetheless allow for the re-integration of these enduring structures to foreign policy (hostility to Russia; support for Israel; and antipathy towards Iran) to be re-formulated as the appropriate rhetorical slap in the face to the Populists.

The war may escalate; It may not end with a disinformation eco-system. The New York Times in July posted an article arguing how The First Amendment is Out of Control and in August another piece entitled, The Constitution is Sacred. Is it Also Dangerous?

The war, for the moment, is targetted at the ‘unaccountable’ billionaires: Pavel Durov, Elon Musk and his ‘X’ platform. The survival or not of Elon Musk will be crucial to the course of this aspect of the war: The EU’s Digital Service Act was always conceived to serve as ‘Brutus’ to Musk’s ‘Caesar’.

Throughout history, self-regarding and self-enriching élites have become dangerously contemptuous of their peoples. Crackdowns have been the usual first response. The cold reality here is that recent elections in France, Germany, Britain and for the Euro-parliament reveal the deep distrust and dislike of the Establishment:

“The alienation is worldwide, against the postmodern West. Europe will either distance itself from it, or become embroiled in the detestation of the “privileged ci-devant”. The end of the dollar is indeed the analogue of the abolition of feudal rights. It is inevitable, but it will also cost Europeans dearly”.  

An eco-system of propaganda does not restore trust. It erodes it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/12/2024 - 06:30
Published:9/12/2024 5:56:27 AM
[] The Morning Report — 9/12/24 Good Morning Kids. Lest we forget, 9/11 is also the anniversary of the 2012 Benghazi attack that took the lives of four Americans, thanks to Obama's and Hillary Clinton's gun-running scheme to Syrian terrorists gone south. All blamed on a... Published:9/12/2024 5:30:08 AM
[] 'If You Support Kamala, Share Some Info' - Jon Favreau Needs You To Crowdsource Harris' Policies Published:9/9/2024 8:21:53 AM
[Markets] A Harris Victory In 2024 Makes The US A One-Party State A Harris Victory In 2024 Makes The US A One-Party State

Authored by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer via American Greatness,

The election of 2024 will be epochal for the United States. It will be as impactful on the course of the nation as the election of 1860 and the ensuing Civil War. This November’s election will determine whether the U.S. remains a viable constitutional republic or becomes a one-party state.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins, the result will be the realization of President Obama’s intent, voiced in his famous 2008 remark, to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Thus, the election is important for all Americans, particularly the voting public, to be aware that should Harris win, then 2024 is likely to be the last free, fair, and competitive election in the U.S.

If she does win, then the U.S. by 2028 will be a one-party country, with the Democrats in permanent control, as California,

Illinois, Massachusetts, or Hawaii are at the state level today.

In the wake of her 2024 election, Harris, by her own words, is certain to take the following actions in pursuit of the agenda of the one-party government.

  • Harris will target the Supreme Court, as that is the most potent source of resistance to Democratic rule. To defeat the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the Harris administration will push to pack the Court so that it may nominate justices who support judicial activism and oppose originalism—that the constitution, or subsequent laws, be interpreted by their original meanings. A Harris administration that packed the Court, with new Justices confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate, would usher in the one-party state that would never give up power.

  • Additionally, a Harris administration would seek to add states to the Electoral College. Specifically, the Harris administration supports the push to add the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, adding four Senators and at least two Representatives to the House of Representatives. The addition of these states to the Union would give the Democrat Party permanent control over the presidency. Again, another example of a one-party state, something that is anathema to freedom and liberty and has always resulted in death and destruction to the citizens of the people of other countries.

  • Given the decisions by the Biden-Harris administration to open America’s border, illegal immigration will continue and be accelerated. Although no one knows the total numbers, at least 10-12 million illegal aliens have entered the U.S. during the Biden-Harris presidency. These illegal aliens will be placed on an immediate path to citizenship so that they may vote legally. Conceivably, at least 12 million more illegal aliens can be expected to enter the U.S. during a Harris presidency, and this will only accelerate a permanent pathway for illegal aliens to become citizens. This will open the doors to many more scores of millions of people to enter the U.S. in numbers that are certain to destabilize American society, economy, and politics and forever change the country.

  • Regarding the economy, Americans can expect a Harris administration to make good on their pledges to institute federally mandated price controls and dramatically increase tax burdens on average Americans, including taxes on unrealized income, also known as wealth taxes. These actions will culminate in even worse hyperinflation, devaluation of the dollar, and the essential establishment of a state-run economy like that run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the PRC—the disastrous results notwithstanding.

  • Her Department of Justice will build on Biden’s efforts to decapitate the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement by imprisoning President Trump, senior Trump officials, attorneys, and prospective Republican rivals whose support is rooted in the MAGA movement. Lindsay Graham and other RINOs will be safe, at least in the near term, but not J.D. Vance or Josh Hawley.

  • Censorship in all forms will worsen. Government interference in social media will tighten so that all media, including social media, are de facto state-controlled. Orwell’s “thought police” would become a reality.

  • Policies to destroy American culture, including the nuclear family, and Western civilization will be expanded to bring America to a “Year Zero” moment, where American society, culture, and family life may be remade in accord with Marxism-Leninism.

  • A Harris administration’s policy towards the People’s Republic of China will continue President Biden’s swath of Engagement policies. The consequence of this will be that the dictatorship of the illegitimate CCP is saved from the crises that they themselves created due to many decades of their political tyranny over the Chinese people. In turn, this will result in Taiwan’s fall to the PRC and introduce tremendous strain on U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Americans will find that the world will be very different, very quickly, and for a very long time.

  • The Beijing-Moscow axis will be emboldened to commit additional aggression in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Philip Gordon have been rumored to receive major positions, Sullivan as Secretary of State and Gordon as National Security Adviser. This will ensure the deepening of Biden’s disastrous Engagement policies.

The rapidity with which a Harris administration will be able to advance this agenda will depend to some degree on its control of Congress. Much will depend on whether the House stays in the Republican hands with a sufficient majority to guarantee that weak Republicans do not cross the aisle. If the House does not remain in effective Republican control, the Democrats’ ambitions will be realized immediately. But if it does in 2024, the principal aim of the Democrats will be to ensure its capture in 2026.

In the meantime, Harris will work through executive orders, pressure, and workarounds to achieve these aims.

Harris, who is now 59 years old, will run for reelection in 2028, further solidifying what she achieved since 2024 so that the 2032 election will be decided in the Democratic primary as the Republican party will no longer be a national party, just as it is not a true state-wide party in states like California and New York.

At the time that they occur, elections are very difficult to perceive as having a historical impact. For instance, the voters of 1860 did not know that a Civil War was coming. Those voting for Woodrow Wilson in 1916 on his campaign of staying out of World War I did not know that he would take them into World War I. Americans should understand how important this choice is, despite Harris-Walz doing their best to minimize how radical they are by not giving interviews, not being honest about what their policies are, and how radical they would be.

Their campaign is one of profound deceit. Their expectation is that supportive media, pollsters, popular culture, and donors will carry them through the election. In that expectation, they certainly are correct. Their deception reveals that they have nothing but contempt for the Declaration and Constitution and, thus, the American people. Americans must consider why Harris and Walz are so contemptuous of them, whether it is wise to vote for them, and whether they will be better off in 2028 than they are now, or whether that future might be a far worse one—one from which they may never recover.

The American people have a choice at the polling booth. 2024 is everything for the future of the American Republic. It is a fork in the road for the U.S. and the American people to choose to continue the path our Founders established in 1776 or a radically different one that will take the U.S. into the ever-worsening tyrannical rule of a one-party state.

Tyler Durden Sun, 09/08/2024 - 21:00
Published:9/8/2024 8:29:32 PM
[Entertainment] Malia Obama Makes Rare Red Carpet Appearance in France Malia Obama, Deauville American Film Festival 2024 Malia Obama has made her return to the red carpet in style. Former U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama's eldest daughter made her second major public appearance Sept. 6 at...
Published:9/8/2024 4:53:37 PM
[2024 Election] Political Realignment: 88 Big-Business Leaders Endorse Kamala Harris

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris laughs during the arrival of President Obama in San Francisco, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 for fund raising events. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Eighty-eight big-business leaders signed a letter Friday endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president, underscoring the ongoing political realignment since 2016.

The post Political Realignment: 88 Big-Business Leaders Endorse Kamala Harris appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:9/7/2024 3:21:16 PM
[Markets] John Mearsheimer & Ron Paul Invade Washington, Blast Permanent War State: "Social Engineering At The End Of A Rifle Barrel" John Mearsheimer & Ron Paul Invade Washington, Blast Permanent War State: "Social Engineering At The End Of A Rifle Barrel"

The man who for decades had been an almost lone Congressional advocate of non-interventionism in American foreign policy is former Congressman Ron Paul. When he ran for president in 2008, he took what the late Justin Raimondo called "libertarian realism" to the masses in the famous moment wherein he tangled with Rudy Giuliani on the GOP debate stage. Paul described that "blowback" resulting from Washington militarism and adventurism abroad was a contributing cause of 9/11. But for a population fed on a steady diet of the world-saving messianism of Wilsonian internationalism, in which America’s mystic destiny is to "make the world safe for democracy" (to quote Raimondo)—Rep. Paul's policy positions were deemed somehow 'too radical' for American voters to swallow at the time (or rather, the mainstream gatekeeping pundits assured their viewers of his "fringe" views). Fast forward to well over another decade of the failed GWOT later, and now a common refrain heard on social media and even in the halls of Congress and occasionally the State Department is: Ron Paul was right

The US 'forever wars' in the Middle East led to a jaded, war-weary, and questioning public which tends to be ever-more skeptical anytime the political class starts talking a new major foreign intervention. This is perhaps why, ever since the Obama presidency Washington has shown a preference for covert and proxy wars, or involvement from the shadows, instead of Bush-style 'shock and awe' outright invasions. But currently, the Pentagon and US intelligence are involved in two disastrous hot wars (on a proxy and covert level) which could escalate into massive regional wars, or even world wars, at any moment: Ukraine and Gaza.

Back in 2014, another realist accurately predicted the tragic and disastrous Russia-Ukraine war which would eventually erupt in February 2022 when he said in a University of Chicago lecture: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked." Professor John J. Mearsheimer's now famous 2014 hour-and-fifteen minute lecture, once it was popularly 'discovered' on YouTube after the Russian invasion of 2022, has since racked up nearly 30 million views. We wrote about his insights and forecasts in Mearsheimer's Ukraine Crystal Ball. And now in 2024 more and more people continue to say: John Mearsheimer was right

It was perhaps only a matter of time before these two great thinkers who have done so much to expose the follies and dangers of US interventionism abroad would meet and share the same stage.

This past weekend that's exactly what happened. They addressed the Ron Paul Institute's Liberty Platform Conference in the Washington D.C. area, with an audience of several hundreds of people in attendance. It was Dr. Mearsheimer's first time at the annual Ron Paul Institute conference hosted in Dulles, VA.

Paul in delivering his usually strong "end the Empire and end the Fed" liberty message agreed with Mearsheimer's words, who said of Washington action in the world, "We decided we are going to use that awesome military power that we had to run around the world and do social engineering." The University of Chicago professor further pointed out: "And of course it's social engineering in many cases at the end of a rifle barrel."

Both also agreed, as the nation enters a charged election in November, that fundamentally there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats on the question of foreign policy and Washington's penchant for constant military interventionism.

Mearsheimer explained that when he references the foreign policy establishment, "your talking about tweedle dee and tweedle dum."

He also observed, "Both the Republicans and the Democrats love their 'color revolutions'." But given that nation-states do not like other countries running around interfering in their affairs, the enduring blowback and forever wars has led to a "permanent state of emergency"

"People who don't understand the limits of what you can do with the military... and think that we have the right and responsibility and the capability to reorder the world in our image, are going to end up creating a highly militarized society. Remember I said that in international anarchy the United States is always going to have a large military. But that's different from saying we are always going to have a large military that's fighting wars," Mearsheimer told the Ron Paul Institute audience.

Interestingly, though Mearsheimer has lectured all over the world, the only time he ever had to cancel a trip and event altogether due to potential threats to his life was when he was set to give a talk in the NATO 'eastern flank' country of Poland. He told ZeroHedge that "they could not guarantee my safety"—in reference to the event organizers and Polish police.

A packed house to hear Dr's Paul & Mearsheimer end the event as the keynote speakers. Judge Andrew Napolitano was the first speaker.

Below are key excerpts from John Mearsheimer's address given to the Ron Paul Institute's "Liberty Platform" conference on Saturday Aug.31. [Transcribed by ZeroHedge with subheadings added]

* * *

US power & international anarchy

It's great to be here. I appreciated all the people who come up to me and talk to me, and I look forward to talking to you about international anarchy and limits of military power. What I want to do here is I want to explain to you why I believe that international anarchy means that the United States will always have a very large and powerful military. And then I want to talk about what the limits are regarding how you use that military.

So to start, what do I mean by international anarchy. As I'm sure many of you in the audience know international anarchy is a catchword for saying that in international politics there is no higher authority that sits above states that can rescue them if they get into trouble. The international system is basically comprised of states - states are the principle actors in international politics. So anarchy, in the lexicon of international relations scholars is the opposite, it's the opposite of hierarchy. If you live inside the United States you have hierarchy - you have a state that is very powerful that sits above you. It has a police force associated with it, it has courts and so forth and so on. In the international system there's not higher authority.

Furthermore, it's very hard to know the intentions of other sates and it is impossible to know the future intentions of other states, because you don't even know who's going to be running China, or the United States, or Russia - in five years. So how can you know what their intentions are going to be? So you're in an anarchic system there's no higher authority to rescue you if you get into trouble. And there are states out there that may have malign intentions, and furthermore there may be states out there that are really powerful.

China demonstrated what happens to a weak state

So if a really powerful state decides it's going to come after you, and you dial 911, you know who's at the other end: nobody. And in a system like that you have no choice but to have a powerful military. Your goal is to be the most powerful state in the system. And you want to be the most powerful state in the system because you understand that if you're weak and you get into trouble, nobody can help you. It is what we call a 'self-help system'.

If you have any doubts about this go to China and ask them about the 'century of national humiliation'. The Chinese were very weak from the late 1840s until the late 1940s: they call it the century of national humiliation. What happened then? China was weak and it was preyed upon - it was preyed upon by the United States, you know the open door policy - Japan, and the European great powers. The Chinese are never going to let that happen again. They want their own state and they want that state to be powerful.

US History: a voracious appetite for conquest

The same basic logic applies to every other state in the system. And this includes the United States of course. The United States you all understand worked very hard to become powerful. It started out as thirteen measly colonies strung out along the Atlantic seaboard. We marched across North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean, acquiring and conquering territory all the way. We invaded Canada in 1812 for the purpose of making it part of the United States. And all those island countries in the Caribbean today would be part of the United States were it not for the slavery issue, because the northern states did not want more slave-holding states admitted into the Union. And course because of the sugar industry there were a huge number of slaves in the Caribbean. So the Caribbean did not become part of the United States.

But we had a voracious appetite for conquest and we built a very powerful military once we became the dominant state in the Western hemisphere. This is just the way international politics works. Now for most of you that's bad news. But from my point of view that's not the really important issue. The really important issue is how you use that military power. What I'm telling you is we're always going to be powerful militarily - the question is what do you do with it? And this is where the United States has gone off the rails - at least since the end of the Cold War and many would argue, before the Cold War.

America's Unipolar Rise

And what's happened since about 1989 when the United States became the unipole. You all remember remember the unipolar moment, when we were incredibly powerful relative to every other state on the planet? What the foreign policy establishment in this country decided it was going to do is that we decided we were going use that awesome military power that we had to run around the world and do social engineering. What we were gonna do is we were gonna try and remake the world in our own image. We were gonna spread democracy here, there, and everywhere.

We were gonna spread capitalism and economic independence all over the planet. We were going to take these institutions that we created during the Cold War and we were going to integrate countries all around the world into those institutions, and turn them into 'rule-abiding citizens'. But the most important thing we were interested in doing was spreading Liberal Democracy. And when I say the foreign policy establishment it's very important to understand I'm talking about Republicans as well as Democrats. As far as the Republicans and Democrats go on the issue of foreign policy, you're talking about tweedle dee and tweedle dum [laughter]. 

Republicans & Dems are the same on Foreign Policy

Just think of the Bush doctrine - and as you all know George W. Bush was a Republican. The Bush doctrine, right, which was enunciated after the Afghanistan war - that was in 2001 - and before the Iraq war, which was of course was March 2003. The Bush doctrine said that what we're gonna do is gonna go into the Middle East. We're gonna topple the regime in Iraq, right, we're going to put in its place a democracy. Right, we're gonna create democracy, get rid of Saddam, just as we had done in Afghanistan? Remember? [...laughter]  We toppled the Taliban and we put Hamid Karzai in power in Afghanistan.

We're gonna do that in Iraq, and then maybe we have to do it in one more country: Syria maybe? Iran? And pretty soon everybody in the region would get the message, they'd throw up their hands for fear that the United States would come after them, and they'd all turn into Liberal Democracies. That's what the Bush doctrine was about. This is Republicans, and of course the Democrats were no better.

Below: AntiWar.com News Editor Dave DeCamp (with Mearsheimer, right) spoke during the conference's Friday session...

Color Revolutions & Social Engineering by force

Both the Republicans and the Democrats love their 'color revolutions'. What color revolutions? This is where you run around the world, overthrowing regimes, and putting in place pro-Western Liberal Democracies. It's social engineering. And of course it's social engineering in many cases at the end of a rifle barrel. That's what the Bush doctrine was - it was social engineering at the end of a rifle barrel. And you ought to think about what's going on here. You're pursuing... a policy which me and my friends call liberal hegemony.. you're saying you can take this big stick that you have and you can use that big stick - you can use military force - to turn a political tide inside particular countries in ways that are favorable to you.

Nationalism is the fly in the ointment 

There's a fundamental problem with this approach to dealing the world. The fundamental problem is political. Clausewitz said war is an extension politics by other means... he's telling you that it's the politics that really matter... Now that's the real fly in the ointment that the foreign policy establishment faced. That is that the most powerful political ideology on the planet is nationalism... a remarkably powerful force. It's very hard for Americans to understand this... It basically says the world is divided into nations. The highest social group that we identify with is the nation. Sam Huntington talked about the 'clash of civilians'. Civilians are not the highest social unit that people will really identify with in a meaningful way: it's the nation. And what nations want is their own state... think about the concept of a nation-state... that's nationalism. It has nationalism embedded. 

Theodore Hertzel, who was the father of Zionism... his most famous book is called "The Jewish State"... nation-state.. Jewish nation state.. Jewish state. The Palestinians want their own state. They view themselves as a nation, as in they want their own state. You live in a liberal state, in a liberal country... you live in a liberal nation-state. Madeline Albright who was a card carrying liberal of the first order, she was famous for her statement that we are an exceptional nation, we stand tall, we see further than other nations. She understood that we were a nation-state. She was not only a liberal, she was a nationalist par excellence...

And the problem that you face is that nationalism has deeply embedded in it the concept of self-determination: 'we're sovereign'. And nation-states do not like the idea of other nation states coming into their territory and doing social engineering. You know how exercised American get when there's talk about the Russians interfering in our elections? [laughter]...this is American nationalism at play. Countries around the world... they don't want us doing social engineering... can you imagine us allowing someone doing social engineering inside the borders of the United States? Well as my mother taught me as a little boy what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Unsurprisingly people outside the United States don't like that at all. 

Vietnam: not about Communism, but Nationalism

In Vietnam... we weren't fighting communism, we were fighting nationalism. The Vietnamese wanted their own nation state, they wanted self-determination. They drove the French out at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and they had every intention of drive us out. They didn't want a bunch of Americans in their country telling what color toilet paper they could use [laughter]. They thought they could figure that out for themselves - that's nationalism. You go into Afghanistan, you go into Iraq, you are really asking for big trouble. You think you're gonna do social engineering in those countries? You think you're going to be able to tell them what kind of political system they can have? It's not gonna work! [clapping]

Putin doesn't want Western Ukraine

Take the Russians. The Russians during the Cold War - as many of the old dogs in this audience like me remember - occupied a huge portion of Europe. Most of it Eastern Europe... they were up to their eyeballs in alligators dealing with protests. They had huge trouble in east Germany in 1953. In 1956 they had to invade Hungary. In 1968 they had to invade Czechoslovakia. They almost invaded Poland three separate time. And the Albanians and Romanians were a total nightmare for the Soviets. They were glad to get out of there! [laughter].

You think Vladimir Putin wants to go back there? Putin, as I've said on numbers occasions, did not want to invade Ukraine, he knows what happens when you start invading other countries. And he'll take a big chunk of territory in Eastern Ukraine but he's not gonna take a big chunk of territory in Western Ukraine cause it's filled with ethnic Ukrainians.

And you know what that means? That if he goes in there he is going to have an insurgency that is gonna be impossible to stamp out. Because those ethnic Ukrainians are as nationalistic as you can get, and they don't want Russia running their politics. One of the principle reasons that the Ukrainians are fighting so fiercely - it's truly remarkable how they've been able to stand up to the Russians - is because of nationalism... this is the way the world works. 

Israeli plan didn't work

And just one final example: look at the Israeli case... The Israelis long thought they could use a big stick, they call it the iron wall, to beat the Palestinians into submission to get the Palestinians to accept that it is a Jewish state, that Israeli Jews run the place, and that Palestinians are third class citizens. They have been unable to win with that policy. And what happened on October 7th is just the latest manifestation of Palestinian resistance - which is another way of saying Palestinian nationalism. 

Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia bishop Metropolitan Jonah (center), speaks with John Mearsheimer (right) and ex-CIA officer Phil Giraldi (left).

Blindness of foreign policy elites spells more trouble ahead

What's really amazing is the foreign policy elite does not seem to have gotten the message. There's just no healthy appreciation of the power of nationalism inside the American foreign policy establishment, be they Democrats or Republicans. The end result is we are likely in the years ahead to have more trouble because of our inability to conceptualize just what a powerful force nationalism is. 

Blunt killing machines & social engineering? 

Militaries are good at breaking things [laughter]. These are giant killing machines. For anybody who spent any time in a military organization, it's very important to understand: that's what their good at. You want lots of people who are good at killing people on the other side. When you go to war you have these two huge organizations clashing into each other, armed to the teeth with all sorts of sophisticated weapons. And the A's are trying to kill the B's and the B's are trying to kill the A's. They're trained to do that. Well, do you think that that military - just think of the people who will be at the front lines of that military - is gonna be good at doing social engineering in a foreign country... where nobody knows the culture, nobody speaks the language. Really? A bunch of American GIs running around in south Vietnam... what do you think that's going to end up doing? You are more likely to get a Mai Lai massacre with Lieutenant Calley than you are... and have successful social engineering. Furthermore, even if you brought in a bunch of trained people, and you replaced those GIs with trained experts at social engineering, and you set them at the task of doing social engineering in south Vietnam or Afghanistan. Do you think they'd succeed? I don't think so [laughter].

Think about the United States. Think about doing social engineering in our own country. Our system is broke and we can't even fix it. But we're going to go into Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. ...The Soviets figured this out in Eastern Europe... This is the way the world works [nationalism as the driver]... and it's a relative recent phenomena - you don't want to lose sight of that, but it is the most powerful political ideology on the planet. 

Permanent State of Emergency

People who don't understand the limits of what you can do with the military... and think that we have the right and responsibility and the capability to reorder the world in our image, are going to end up creating a highly militarized society. Remember I said that in international anarchy the United States is always going to have a large military. But that's different from saying we are always going to have a large military that's fighting wars. That's they key distinction you want to keep in mind. 

And what's happened to the United States over time is that we not only have a large military but we're fighting wars all the time. And the end result is that we're in a permanent state of emergency... it happens to be worse now than it was two years ago or four years ago... but we're in a permanent state of emergency... when you're in a permanent state of emergency liberalism begins to erode in serious ways [that is, the classical Liberalism which undergirds the rise of the modern West]. ...Liberalism is in my opinion under threat in the United States, and what's quite remarkable here is that the foreign policy elite, Republicans and Democrats - that have taken us into these wars - have had a worldview that is thoroughly infused with liberal values and liberal thinking... and as I said to you... [they] missed the importance of nationalism. So these people are not anti-liberals at heart, but the policies that they are pushing this country to pursue... those policies are undermining liberalism in the end, which in my opinion is a great tragedy. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/05/2024 - 15:15
Published:9/5/2024 2:25:53 PM
[Biden-Harris Administration] Kamala Harris Embraces Popular Communist Slogan

Kamala Harris has served as vice president since 2021, but that hasn't stopped her from running for president as the "change" candidate who will "turn the page on the last decade." In doing so, the Democrat has embraced a communist slogan popularized by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and American tyrant Barack Obama.

The post Kamala Harris Embraces Popular Communist Slogan appeared first on .

Published:9/4/2024 2:26:15 PM
[Markets] 'Over Ruled': Who Guards The Guardians? 'Over Ruled': Who Guards The Guardians?

Authored by John Maxwell Hamilton via RealClearPolitics,

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – Who guards the guardians? – is an old question that began as amusing repartee and has bedeviled democratic government from the beginning of its formation.

The phrase originated with the Roman satirical poet Juvenal, who was presented with the idea that wives should be chained to keep them faithful. Fine, the poet replied, but who will guard husbands?

The question for democracy lies at the heart of a new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law.” Too many laws and regulations administered by unaccountable government officials, he writes, have “swallowed up ordinary people.”

Gorsuch, with help from his former law clerk Janie Nitze, makes his case in a series of parables. They feature individual Americans who have been victimized by government laws that they did not know existed and that should not have been written in the first place. The courts in many stories are too aggressive in adjudicating cases that should have been considered minor infractions, at best.

In one such story, an agent from the U.S. Department of Agriculture informed a young magician, Marty Hahne, that he needed a license for using his rabbit in the act he had just performed at a local library. Hahne subsequently learned he also needed an evacuation plan for the animal in case of a hurricane or some other disaster. This requirement originated in a federal statute, the Animal Welfare Act, which regulates the treatment of dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals for research, teaching, testing, and exhibition. Congressional lawmakers called on the USDA to apply the law to such venues as “carnivals, circuses, and zoos.” USDA regulators interpreted those exhibitions to include magic shows.

In other stories of misplaced rules and courts run amuck, people’s lives are more than inconvenienced. They are ruined. Gorsuch believes these stories show that a surfeit of laws is sucking the life out of democracy.

“Over Ruled” will be catnip for readers who fear the so-called deep state is out to subvert democracy. It also is convenient for Donald Trump, who, if elected, promises to “drain the swamp” by firing career civil servants and installing his own unelected supporters in their place.

But Gorsuch’s book should be taken seriously, both for its strengths and weaknesses. He certainly makes a valid point that the number of laws and regulations has exploded in recent years. The first federal criminal statute, written when the Republic was established, contained fewer than fifty crimes. Now the total number is, by some counts, 5,000. In the process, Congress has delegated powers to executive department agencies to write administrative laws and rules as well as apprehend suspects and judge them.

Having made the case for the problem, however, Gorsuch does not dig into the complexity of implementing workable solutions. He acknowledges that our society is much more complicated than it was at the nation’s founding, and therefore we need more measures to protect citizens. He does not tell us how we sort the good from the bad or how we regulate the regulators.

Perhaps most damaging to his argument, “Over Ruled” does not provide readers with the context needed to understand the longstanding tension between government by the people and the need for expert mediation on social, economic, and political problems.

Gorsuch, who believes judging involves close adherence to the original intent of the Constitution, takes us back to an earlier era that he characterizes as local people solving local problems. He considers this a good time for “ordinary Americans.” What he fails to say, however, is the Founding Fathers were elitists who doubted that ordinary white, male citizens, not to mention minorities and women, were up to the task of making good government decisions.

Gorsuch liberally quotes James Madison about the evils of too much law. But equally important, Madison and others hoped that elections would put the “best” in office. Only members of the House of Representatives were directly elected. Under the original Constitution, senators were elected by state legislatures. The Electoral College can “elect” a presidential candidate who did not win the popular vote – something that has happened already twice this century.

Thomas Jefferson, among many others, promoted national education schemes to create “a natural aristocracy” – what we would today call civil servants – to manage government. What Jefferson vaguely foresaw has come to pass, whether it is experts monitoring environmental degradation and food purity or ferreting out unfair trade practices.

This reliance on experts – people who have the training to determine facts – has not gone uncontested. It fueled populism in the United States in the late 19th century as well as today. Disaffected citizens feel government is not taking them into account and that the bureaucracy is an untethered fourth branch of government, a phrase Gorsuch used frequently. This mentality has given resonance to Donald Trump’s message that his intuitive common-sense ideas about interest rates are more sound than Federal Reserve System economists who have studied monetary policy all their lives.

Readers who want a fuller exploration of the longstanding social and political tension that arises from depending on experts can turn to “Democracy and Truth” by historian Sophia Rosenfeld. Or readers may choose a new volume by Stephen Breyer. The recently retired justice is an expert on administrative law and helped Sen. Ted Kennedy deregulate the airline industry. His “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism” thoughtfully weighs the difficulty of balancing fealty to the Constitution with the needs of modern society.

The willingness to rely on common sense over expertise is not infinitely elastic. Most people prefer to go to trained doctors when they are ill rather than consult someone they pass on the street. Most people like some aspects of government expertise and intervention. They may, for instance, place a high value on fighting animal abuse, which is the motivation behind the well-intentioned (if misused) Animal Welfare Act. Various professions require training and education in order to acquire a license to practice; in addition to adding to their credibility, this restriction reduces competition. One of Gorsuch’s examples of overreaching administrative law concerns an African American woman who was “apprehended” for braiding hair in her salon without having attended cosmetology school.

In regard to preferences, it is worth noting that Justice Gorsuch has some of his own, namely enlarging the power of presidents beyond anything the Founders conceived. Insofar as administrative power is concerned, he and other conservatives believe that the president should have more control over quasi-independent agencies.

A recent Supreme Court decision raises concerns about maintaining the protections that administrative law provides. The court found that it was unconstitutional for the Securities Exchange Commission to levy fines against a financier whom they deemed to have violated antifraud and pro-transparency rules. The court said the SEC had to pursue its case in federal court. This dramatic switch in thinking by the Supreme Court could make it difficult – and in some cases impossible – for agencies to police offenders. As law professor David Cole has noted, “some agencies’ statutes do not authorize them to sue in federal court.” It is worth asking, do we want our already flooded courts to deal with all these issues, when more efficient ways exist to get the job done?

Gorsuch has not written a legal analysis so much as a stump speech. His examples are akin to those used by political leaders to give a human dimension to policies they are promoting. Many of the stories are trivial to the point of being frivolous.

Is it really worthwhile to dwell on a law, long ago passed by Virginia legislators, to outlaw hunting bears with dogs on Sundays? A few reform-minded states have wiped laws like these from the books. At the federal level, Gorsuch notes, President Obama directed agencies to “eliminate rules that don’t make sense.”

These steps are relatively easy. The difficult part Gorsuch leaves untouched. His cases are largely cartoons. They do not demonstrate how to balance the injustice growing out of a law with the legitimate concerns it is trying to address.

The solutions he offers sound like Fourth of July speeches. His call for more civic education, as valuable as that would be (see my RCP column on the subject), emphasizes school-age children spending more time reading the Constitution.

Gorsuch argues that the expansion of laws and regulations undermines the credibility of our legal institutions. “Everyone feels like a criminal,” he told the C-SPAN audience.

The growth in law-making is a problem, but it is questionable that most Americans feel like criminals. How can they feel like criminals if they don’t know about all the laws that exist, as Gorsuch insists is the case?

If the justice is worried that we are moving “from a world in which law is revered into one in which it generates disaffection and feeds distrust,” he could profitably focus on the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to police itself. Feeble ethical standards govern justices’ behavior, which is well known and heavily criticized.

The Supreme Court has enormous power. Justices are appointed, not elected, and may serve until they die. They are given their jobs because of their expertise in nuanced application of the law. For Gorsuch, who belongs to this powerful elite, one might expect a deeper exploration of the trade-offs between too much law and too few protections.

“Who guards the guardians” is a much more profound subject than Justice Gorsuch lets on.

John Maxwell Hamilton is an RCP columnist, a professor at the Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, and an award-winning author of eight books, including “Manipulating the Masses: The Origins of Government Propaganda,” which won the Goldsmith Prize.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/03/2024 - 21:45
Published:9/3/2024 9:13:07 PM
[Markets] Is Kamala Very, Very Afraid? Is Kamala Very, Very Afraid?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“On many subjects important to public life today, vast numbers of people know the truth, and yet the official channels of information sharing are reluctant to admit it.”

- Jeffrey Tucker

You might wonder, as I do, whether Kamala Harris can even stay in the race until November 5. Based on her grim appearance in last week’s “interview” with Dana Bash, slumped at the table of a crummy Georgia café under poor lighting, her trademark cackle suppressed, she looked psychologically wilted. Don’t be surprised if late this week she “catches Covid” and asks to “postpone” the September 10 debate with Mr. Trump.

Consider the depressing reality of her situation, lately cloaked by the farcical “joy” motif put out by her party’s campaign spin doctors: First, the cabal running the White House bum-rushed “Joe Biden” out of the campaign, just hooked him offstage like a broke-down vaudevillian annoying the audience with his tired antics. Then, the same gang buffaloed Kamala onto center stage by some mystical process that disregarded her lack of preparation, her proven unpopularity in the 2020 primaries, and her near-invisibility in 3.5 years as veep.

For a couple of weeks her head must have been spinning with sheer intoxication at the amazing turn of events. Who wouldn’t be amazed to find him or herself unexpectedly selected to run for president? But now, post the artificial hoopla of the convention, the dread steals in. If she was previously used to self-medicating with chardonnay during the irksome veep years, imagine the pressure now on those campaign bus trips.

She has a lot to be afraid of. She’s not nimble of mind in the spotlight, and she knows it. When she tries to riff on anything off-the-cuff, all that comes out are laughable tautologies. She really doesn’t know much about the world, even about simple geography, certainly not the complex interplay of national interests. Her economic notions are a kind of Frappuccino® of processed Marxian sludge from the Berkeley cafés. If exposed regularly to even friendly reporters, she’d ignite howling embarrassment for herself (and the party). And, after all, there’s her record, including hundreds of videos on the Internet showing plainly the crazy policies she supports and now has to pretend to dissociate from.

Lurking behind her is not only the American intel blob of dark forces and sinister figures, but an international blob made up of malevolent groups within and throughout Western Civ, clearly working to bring it down — the Eurocrats wrecking their own countries’ agriculture and their industrial economies while jailing their opponents for thought crimes; the WEFers pushing the demented climate change agenda and ruinous migrant invasions; the bankers looking to seize the “collateral” (property, chattels, investment portfolios) of a billion everyday citizens when the bond Ponzi scheme blows up, as it must; the WHO steered by Bill Gates seeking to inject unsafe vaccines into everybody in order to greatly and quickly reduce the population; the Soros NGO legions working to subvert the public interest here, there, and everywhere; the NATO warmongers trying like hell to start World War Three. . . . Kamala Harris surely understands — if she understands anything — that she has become their chosen pawn, and is at their mercy (they have none).

She should be afraid especially of the American blob. That combine of higher-ups in the CIA, the DOD, the FBI, the DHS, the State Department, and Gawd knows how many lesser-known agencies and “black op” back offices, knows that it is in great danger if Mr. Trump happens to get elected (despite their best efforts to rig things). After all the trips laid on him, all the way up to attempted assassination, you can be sure that Mr. Trump will be coming after the cabal for committing real and serious crimes. They are running scared now. Despite all the power seemingly at their command, nothing has availed so far — not lawfare, not bullets — to stop Mr. Trump’s implacable march back into the Oval Office, where he could possibly succeed in turning the USA back into a functioning republic

Poor Kamala Harris is the blob’s wholly inadequate instrument to fend off this fate. If she continues to perform badly, the blob might not hesitate to try getting rid of her. That may be the blob’s last chance of stopping the election from happening altogether. The nation has never been in the predicament of having the head of a ticket resign or die in the homestretch of an election campaign. There is no provision in the Constitution for it because there are no provisions in the Constitution for political parties per se. It would all be a kind of improv.

And then, of course, America would be stuck with the unfit and incapable “Joe Biden,” heading the government, at least until something else can be worked out. Maybe that working out would just be the final stage of the coup that has been in motion, really, since 2016 when John Brennan, Barack Obama, and James Comey attempted to oust Mr. Trump with RussiaGate. Some kind of “interim commission” might be formed to “solve” the problem of the cancelled election. They’ll look for someone with “proven ability” to serve as provisional president — maybe, someone who has already been president. . . say, Mr. Obama. Voila and fait accompli! If he finds himself appointed rather than elected, he would not be in defiance of the 22ndAmendment. Okay, now try re-thinking how scared Kamala Harris must be.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/03/2024 - 15:45
Published:9/3/2024 3:10:12 PM
[Markets] Can They Really Reinvent Kamala Harris In 70 Days? Can They Really Reinvent Kamala Harris In 70 Days?

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

An Opportunistic Mediocrity

In theory, it should be hard for Kamala Harris to win the presidency of the United States.

Under pressure, Harris just completed her first “live interview”—a disastrous performance that was mysteriously taped, edited, and emotionally supported by her co-interviewed running mate. During the interview, she claimed that her values remain the same even though her manifestations of them have admittedly changed. Translated, that means for the next 70 days, she will advocate for popular policies antithetical to her own values, which will inevitably resurface after the election once the current façade fades away.

She is a Berkelyite who, as attorney general of California, had a proud far-left tenure. The lifelong large corpus of Harris’s left-wing enthusiasm and causes are only now being unearthed. But they are singular in that her riffs of embracing wokism, being a radical, erasing ICE, doing away with private health insurance, or being the last person in the room when Joe Biden made his disastrous decisions were all given to sympathetic media or pandered to crowds.

As a result, she often doubled down. Her emphatic statements were intended to stun audiences. Unlike other leftists, she really was a proud woke, radical and wanted everyone else to be one as well—broadcasting her leftism as openly as she is now cloaking it.

In one respected survey, Harris’s voting record was rated as the most left-leaning in the United States Senate. If she voted to the left of the admitted hardcore socialist Bernie Sanders, what exactly does that make her?

Otherwise, Harris was undistinguished, and often overtly so, as she was exposed as inane in Senate hearings. Her envisioned 2019-2020 primary bid proved an utter disaster. When liberal Democrat voters nationwide were first made aware of her radical record, her left-wing agendas, and her weird wash/rinse/spin word-salad chats, they ran.

Harris’s well-funded 2019 campaign quickly blew up early. Indeed, she never entered much less won a single primary–and captured no delegates through voting.

In the frenzy following George Floyd’s death, and the mayhem and nationwide rioting and violence of late spring and summer, panicked 2020 nominee Joe Biden announced in advance he would select a diversity candidate as a running mate. And in no time, and under increasing pressure to trump his braggadocious promise, he boxed himself in by assuring his handlers that his running mate would be preselected as a black woman.

Given there were then no black female governors and only two black women in the Senate, Kamala Harris was a choice of last resort—even though, as a candidate and competitor of Joe Biden, she had condemned him before a nationwide audience as a veritable racist who had habitually cozied up to segregationists. When she labels her own running mate a racist it becomes hard to take her charges of racism against Trump seriously.

As vice president, Harris predictably proved inept. In a variety of tasks as “border czar” and point woman on space exploration, she proved not merely clueless but embarrassingly so—sappy, cackling, and variously labeled by ex-staff and Democratic insiders as “out of her league” and “way over her head.” Her chief role was to break a sometimes 50/50 deadlocked Senate and therefore, in every one of those votes, owns the passage of hard-left legislation that often turned disastrous.

As Biden’s cognitive decline accelerated at a geometric rate, a widely derided Harris was seen by the Bidens as Joe’s Spiro Agnew insurance policy: a vice president so bumbling and unimaginable as a future president that if Biden only breathed, he would be still judged preferable to the travesty of a Harris succession.

Biden utterly imploded on June 13 during a stress-test national debate. His collapse ended the 42-month-long charade that he was “fit as a fiddle.” In 24 hours, Biden was transmogrified by his handlers from an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like health nut to physically and mentally unable to continue as the Democratic nominee.

Left unsaid was that his diving polls, not his debility, doomed Biden. Otherwise, he would have survived his latest public humiliation had his approval ratings been respectable. Harris’s race, gender, and status as vice president made it impossible not to anoint her as the new Democratic candidate.

Her machinations to preempt any challengers were achieved almost instantaneously in the same anti-democratic fashion as the removal of Biden himself from the ticket. In the way of the current Democrats, whatever the billionaire donor class and the DEI apparat decide is reified almost instantly by fiat.

We now suffer a zombie presidency for the next five months. Biden’s own party insists that he is too enfeebled to campaign as a nominee but not too demented to serve as president. Weirder still, a presidential candidate, who has never in her life won a primary and just days ago was written off by her own party as linguistically challenged, is being reinvented in 70 days as the second coming of Barack Obama.

Harris 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…

So, the Democratic political establishment of Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer, the Obama consortia, and the Hollywood, Wall Street, and tech billionaire insiders quickly devised strategies to get Harris elected. And that too was not easy.

Given what they had to work with, their efforts centered around avoiding all press conferences, interviews, and unscripted talks. She is to stay wide of anything that might expose her inanity to the public or remind the nation of her dismal record as vice president and the disastrous Biden tenure that she co-owns and loudly, emphatically, and proudly so.

Winston Churchill once said of Admiral Jellicoe, who commanded the Home Fleet at the gigantic sea-battle of Jutland, that he was the only man who could lose Britain the war in an afternoon; so too Democrat elites know ten minutes of an unscripted, unedited, and televised Harris could sink the entire left-wing cause.

So here we are, witnessing the most anti-democratic effort in modern electoral history—a full-fledged, tripartite effort to:

a) keep Harris silent and out of the public eye, and outsource her persona and views to a corrupt fusion media, to billionaire-funded ad campaigns, and to political surrogates;

b) superimpose pseudo-conservative views upon her lifelong record of leftist advocacies and policies—a brief 70-day transformation designed to fool a voting public for which Democratic grandees harbor utter contempt;

c) reinvent the campaign from Harris versus Trump to fixations on Donald Trump as a Satanic figure that justifies any means necessary to defeat and destroy him.

Will the ruse work?

That’s an open question. There are formidable hurdles that beset and many advantages that aid Harris. In her favor, the campaign cycle has been aborted from one traditionally lasting nine to ten months to a mere three, given her last-minute coronation.

Her first co-interview was mostly a story of dissimulation, soft-ball questions, and no follow-ups to her non-answers—with plenty of stonewalling about what was edited and why. And that may well be as close as the public ever gets to fathoming the ‘Being There’ Harris candidacy.

Biden proved in 2020 that he could avoid the press for almost a year by using COVID as a pretext, all while reinventing himself in absentia as a moderate and unifier.

Moreover, Harris will be inundated with two to three billion dollars, most of it globalized wealth from left-wing billionaires in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the idle, drone elite who inherited late 20th century fortunes.

Insulting the American people

Harris enjoys two other advantages besides a run-out-the-clock campaign and big money. She can count on hundreds of millions of dollars in free media publicity as network anchors spar with Trump, Vance, and Republican senators nonstop. They no longer make any pretense about objectivity but openly distort and prevaricate, again on the reasoning that the orange prince of darkness justifies becoming Pravda.

No one seems to care that for the second time in four years, the Democrats have sought to nullify and warp their own primary process, mask the nature and true condition of their anointed but challenged candidate, and then enlist the media to get elected a phantom president.

But “reimaging” Harris in 2004 also has its challenges.

First, can Harris like Biden really hide for two more months?

In 2020, Biden sought to mask his cognitive decline by claiming he had to stay in his basement due to COVID lockdowns. Harris is just as tongue-tied, but she lacks the COVID lockdown excuse to avoid the public and media.

And whereas Biden ran in Democratic primaries and was a candidate for two years, Harris again neither entered a single primary nor won a single delegate in an election. She cannot claim any experience campaigning, given she may be the first modern president never to have entered a single primary election.

In theory, a normal candidate with such a dismal and abbreviated past would be demanding interviews.

Instead, Harris’s compulsive-obsessive fixation on avoiding the media becomes a doom loop: the more she knows a presidential candidate must at least occasionally speak off the cuff, the more she knows, given her limitations, that to do so endangers the entire progressive project. As a result, Harris haggles over proposed interviews demanding notes, the reassuring presence at her side of Tim Walz, no live transmissions, and a final edited and truncated version released to the public.

So, her paralysis may annoy and then anger the electorate. The more she calls Trump a “coward,” the more she is seen as a craven projectionist.

In 2008, the blank-slate Obama did the hopey/change schtick as an antithesis to the unpopular Iraq War, the 2008 financial meltdown, and eight years of Republican rule. In 2020, Joe Biden reinvented himself as good ol’ Joe the centrist healer as a supposed antidote to four years of the “disrupter’ Trump and the purported “armed insurrection” of January 6.

But Harris is the current vice president. She has five months left on her term. Joe Biden is either on vacation, asleep, or suspended in a zombie state.

Theoretically, she is in control and could implement right now all of the bromides of her equity campaign agendas. And when she trashes high prices, open borders, the national debt, or high interest rates, she is indicting her boss who lifted her out of obscurity and herself as the proverbial and self-acclaimed “last person in the room” who co-owned those decisions.

Note that in her first and likely last (co-) interview, Harris, like a medieval palimpsest, imprints her pseudo-MAGA agendas on top of her real leftist history and policies.

That is, she never quite disowns her prior and innate positions on banning fracking, abolishing ICE, the disastrous Afghanistan humiliation, or any of her unpopular leftist positions.

Instead, Harris simply pastes their antitheses onto them and then has aides contextualize the jumbled mess of discrepancies so as to not alienate her extremist base.

Harris is not so much a flip-flopper as a padder, who supports anything, without any worry about framing each new position by renouncing her original and opposite one.

Her politics are now like an overgrown sandwich, with too many trimmings squashed on top of each other that eventually cause the entire jumble to fall apart.

Her sudden pivot to support Israel and stop illegal immigration exists simultaneously with siding with Hamas and destroying the border. But as political reality pulls her to the right and her innate leftist pulls to the left, she is beginning to split down the middle. When one is for everything, one is for nothing.

So, it will be hard to convince the American people that Harris is not an incumbent but another Obama-like newcomer here to save us from old white guys in their seventies. And even harder will be her task to fuse socialism with MAGA if even for only 70 days.

Rawness Beats Dishonesty

Finally, Trump is running for a third time and better so than he did in 2016 or 2020. His team is more experienced and so is Trump himself. He has a record of four years that polls on the economy and foreign policy far better than Harris’s tenure with Biden.

The five civic and criminal court trials are increasingly seen as Biden-inspired vindictive abuse of the law and illegitimate. For all the Biden-Harris caustic slurs of “convicted felon” more than half the country sees Biden and Harris as more culpable for discrediting our judiciary in their efforts to do in court what they fear they cannot at the ballot box.

Experts insist the race is even or in favor of Harris. But aside from the polls’ history of underestimating Trump’s real support, the current deadlock, and the right/left politics of the race, Trump is running authentically, transparently, and bluntly, Harris disingenuously, covertly, and duplicitously.

Trump’s challenge is to expose Harris for the radical she is; Harris’s is to mask the radicalism that she once proudly asserted and will do so again immediately upon election.

Ultimately, the American people should choose in-your-face honesty and competence over smiley-face dissimulation and incompetence.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/03/2024 - 11:05
Published:9/3/2024 10:20:59 AM
[] Oh Brother, Shut Up Now! Coup Co-Conspirator George Clooney Praises Biden's 'Selfless Act' Published:9/2/2024 8:24:49 AM
[Democrats] Barack Obama's Monument to Himself Is a Hideous Eyesore

Barack Obama is a celebrity multimillionaire these days, but he's also a former president. He just hasn't gotten around to doing the things most ex-presidents have already accomplished at this point in their post-White House careers.

The post Barack Obama's Monument to Himself Is a Hideous Eyesore appeared first on .

Published:8/30/2024 3:45:53 PM
[] Obama Trolls Twitter with Matching Brown Suit Selfie with Kamala Harris, Sparking a Collective Eye-Roll Published:8/28/2024 7:59:40 PM
[Markets] Kamala Grants Joint Interview With Walz To Leftist CNN Anchor Dana Bash Kamala Grants Joint Interview With Walz To Leftist CNN Anchor Dana Bash

Authored by Luis Cornelio via HeadlineUSA.com,,

Vice President Kamala Harris has finally agreed to an interview after weeks of avoiding the press since being anointed as the Democratic nominee for president. 

Those expecting a tough interview with hard-hitting questions might find themselves disappointed because it will be held on CNN and hosted by left-leaning anchor Dana Bash.

In an unusual move, Harris will also share the spotlight with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The pre-taped interview will air at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, roughly 39 days after President Joe Biden exited the 2024 race and endorsed Harris as his successor.

Since announcing her presidential bid, Harris has avoided major media interactions. Instead, she has opted to speak off-the-record, meaning reporters cannot report or repeat her statements.

Despite clinching the Democratic nomination, Harris has yet to issue a major policy platform or thoroughly explain why her aides have walked back some of her most radical policies. 

Harris, once dubbed the most liberal senator, has reversed her positions on a range of issues, including Medicare-for-Allfrackingre-structuring ICE, and more recently, her criticism of the border wall and support for an electric vehicle mandate. 

She has also distanced herself from decriminalizing illegal border crossings, packing the Supreme Court, defunding the police and the Green New Deal.

On social media, several Harris critics pointed out that Bash suggested that Bash is unlikely to challenge Harris on her frequent flip-flopping or clarify which policies she currently supports.

Some noted that Bash was once married to Jeremy Bash, an Obama administration operative involved in the infamous letter incorrectly suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. 

Bash’s leftist bias is further highlighted in a video compilation by the Media Research Center.

And recently, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, criticized Bash after she defended Walz in a baffling response to his stolen valor scandal.

In contrast, President Donald Trump has praised Bash for her “fair” interviews during the first presidential debate that ultimately led to Biden’s ouster from the 2024 ticket. “They were very fair,” Trump said before jesting about Bash’s first name. “Is it Dah-Na? Of Dana?”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/28/2024 - 08:25
Published:8/28/2024 7:59:11 AM
[Markets] Recent Events Prove Western Nations Are Highly Vulnerable To Cyber Calamity Recent Events Prove Western Nations Are Highly Vulnerable To Cyber Calamity

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

As most people are aware, this month there was a sweeping internet outage across the US which led to a failure in roughly 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices. Disruptions included banks, airline networks, emergency call centers, online retailers and numerous corporate networks. The outage is estimated to have caused at least $5.4 billion in profit losses and it only lasted about a day.

The alleged cause of the breakdown was Crowdstrike, a cyber-security company that uses large scale data updates to Microsoft Windows networks to counter cyber threats. Instead, the company uploaded bugged code and caused a cascading outage. Mac and Linux machines were not affected.

The scale of the shutdown was immense – Over 25% of Fortune 500 companies were frozen. Travel essentially stopped. Business transactions for many companies ceased. Some banks including Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, TD Bank and Wells Fargo could not function and customers could not access their accounts.

The event reminded me of the panic surrounding the Y2K scare 25 years ago. Of course, that was all nonsense; US systems were definitely not digitized to an extent great enough to cause a disaster should there be an internet crash or a software crash. But today things are very different. Nearly every sector of the American (and European) economy and many utilities are directly dependent on a functioning internet.

The fear that prevailed during Y2K was unrealistic in 1999. Now, it makes perfect sense.

I often hear preppers talk about the impending danger of an EMP leading to a grid down scenario. However, this kind of attack is highly overblown. Even major solar storms have not caused the kind of electrical breakdown that theorists suggest might happen. Instead, I would recommend worrying a lot more about cyber threats. I believe these events will become far more common in the next few years for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, there is the potential for random error like the Crowdstrike incident. Then there’s the potential for a foreign attack on US and European digital infrastructure. Then, there’s the potential for a false flag event BLAMED on random error or a foreign government in order to foment war or economic collapse.

In 2021 in my article ‘Cyber Polygon: Will The Next Globalist War Game Lead To Another Convenient Catastrophe?’ I warned that if the pandemic crisis failed to achieve the centralization goals of the World Economic Forum and other globalist institutions, they may use a cyber crisis instead. WEF head Klaus Schwab incessantly compared the idea of a “Cyber Pandemic” to the covid pandemic. He suggested that governments would have to respond to both in a similar fashion (i.e. lockdowns and extensive controls on individual freedoms).

In the past I have mentioned a very interesting event that was barely covered by the corporate media called the “Fastly Outage.” I examined the implications of this and more in my article ‘Obama’s Weird New Movie And America’s Extreme Vulnerability To Cyber Attack’.

In June of 2021 there was an internet outage that led to large swaths of the web going completely dark, including a number of mainstream news sites, Amazon, eBay, Twitch, Reddit, etc. A host of government websites also went down. All this happened when content delivery network (CDN) company Fastly experienced a “bug.” Although Amazon had its website back online within 20 minutes, the brief outage cost the company over $5.5 million in sales.

A content delivery network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. They make up what is known as the “backbone” of the internet. Only a handful of these company’s support a vast majority of internet activity. All it would take is for a few to go down, and the internet goes down, taking our economy with it.

The recent Crowdstrike situation is perhaps the worst web disruption of all time, and that was just a bug in a software update. Imagine if someone wanted to deliberately damage internet functions for an extended period of time? The results would be catastrophic.

With supply chains completely dependent on “just-in-time” freight deliveries and those deliveries dependent on efficient digital communications and payments between retailers and manufacturers, a web-down scenario for more than a few days would cause an immediate loss of consumer goods. Stores would empty within hours should the public realize that new shipments might not arrive for a long time.

Keep in mind, I’m not even accounting for payment processing between customers and retailers. If that shuts down, then ALL sales shut down. Then, whatever food you have left in your pantry or in storage is what you will have to live on until the problem is fixed. If it is ever fixed…

Network attacks are difficult to independently trace, which means anyone can initiate them and anyone can be blamed afterwards. With the increasing tensions between western and eastern nations the chances of an attack are high. And corrupt government officials could also trigger an internet crisis and blame it on foreign enemies – Either to convince the public to go to war, or to convince the public to accept greater authoritarianism.

I believe a cyber attack is the next most likely global disaster. We weathered covid and defeated the draconian mandates. The economy is in the midst of a stagflation crisis but the system is still operating. But what if the next ploy is a complete shutdown of the web and a fast moving financial collapse?

Figuring out who triggered the breakdown would be nearly impossible. We could suspect, but proving who did it is another matter. In the meantime, western officials controlled by globalist interests could lock down internet traffic and eliminate alternative media platforms they don’t like, giving the public access to corporate news sources only.

There are millions of Americans out there ready for a systemic collapse. According to surveys around 30% of adult Americans now consider themselves preppers. But that leaves 70% of the population in a daze, unaware and panicking should the supply chain break. Will they care who was behind the attack? Probably not. They’ll be far more concerned with simple survival.

What are the most practical solutions to this? As always we can store necessities to protect our families and friends. To protect data, I recommend shutting OFF Windows Updates to prevent something like a Crowdstrike error from affecting your devices. You can also set up a Linux-based device with all your important data storage secured.

You can purchase an exterior hard drive and clone your computer data, then throw it in a closet or a waterproof case. Then there is the option of building a completely offline device (a computer that has never and will never connect to the internet).

These options protect you and your valuable files, but there’s not much that can be done to prevent a national scale cyber attack and the damage that one could cause. Organizing for inevitable chaos and violence is all you can do.

With a cyber-event there is the distinct danger of communications disruptions – No cell phones, no email, no social media, nothing. So, having knowledge in ham radio and radio communications is a must. I’m a general class ham and I’m still finding there’s more to learn, but a basic knowledge of radios, frequency bands and repeaters will help you to at least listen in on chatter and get important information outside of controlled news networks.

The people who used to claim it’s “doom mongering” to examine the threat of cyber attacks have been proven utterly wrong this past month. We just witnessed one of the worst internet implosions of all time and more are on the way. Prepare accordingly and remember that technological dependency is a double-edged sword. Use your tech wisely and don’t let it run your life.

*  * *

One survival food company, Prepper All-Naturals, has proactively dropped prices to allow Americans to stock up ahead of projected hikes in beef prices. Their 25-year shelf life steaks currently come at a 25% discount with promo code “invest25”.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/27/2024 - 23:25
Published:8/28/2024 12:16:40 AM
[Markets] Dear Democrats, Things Are Not Looking Good... Dear Democrats, Things Are Not Looking Good...

Authored by Jenna McCarthy via Jenna's Side Rocks blog,

Dear Democrats,

I hope you’ve got your organic, ethically-sourced stress balls and fair trade lavender calming spray handy, because I think you’re going to need them. The anti-vax black sheep of Camelot has thrown his support behind the felonious, mean-tweeting Cheeto, and despite laughable heroic MSM attempts to convince the masses otherwise, the unlikely duo appears to be unbeatable. Even if you cheat harder than you did in the last election—and let’s be real, you set the bar pretty high for yourselves there—it’s looking like you might have to make good on that threat to move to Canada come November.

I can only imagine how that makes you feel. Probably like someone decided to mix peanut butter and ketchup and everyone else is like holy crap you have to try this it’s actually delicious but you’re allergic to peanut butter and ketchup and now you’re about to throw up.

I know you’re clinging to your MOMALA yard sign like Rose on that wooden door after the Titanic went down, and frankly, I don’t blame you. We both know the list of things you cherish *that’s about to vanish like socks in the dryer* is longer than a CVS receipt.

DEI? Yeah—Discriminate, Exclude, and Ignore

In an RFTrump administration, you can expect your beloved Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to disappear faster than the free Italian meatball samples at Costco. How much do you want to bet that despotic duo will try to install some sort of transphobic meritocracy where pronouns, chromosomes, and sexual preferences don’t even matter, and hard work and talent will determine how successful you’ll be? I know! Imagine this dystopian future world where job promotions are handed out based on skills and accomplishments rather than skin color or relative neurodivergence or how well your beard compliments your breasts. Go get yourself a paper bag and breathe into it. I’ll wait.

Not anymore, I’m afraid.

KKKritical Race Theory? RIP.

I hope you’ve gotten your fill of those engaging CRT discussions, because I've a hunch they’re about to go the way of the flip phone. Bobby-loves-Donny will surely put their privileged, white-cloaked heads together (God help us all!) and declare CRT a national threat—right up there with climate change which, by the way, they’ll likely rename something like “ weather”. (I know, for a minute there you thought that Bobby, a lifelong tree hugger, was going to immediately ban gas-powered cars or at least start taxing cow farts or something, but sadly the guy has repeatedly disappointed and angered environmentalists, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.) All that progress you made trying to shame white people for being born melanin deficient and encouraging minorities to feel ever more oppressed, bitter, and victimized? Poof! Gone. (Maybe tissues will become affordable again.)

Open Borders? More Like a Swiss Bank Vault Inside Fort Knox.

Remember when the United States was all about welcoming and helping the huddled masses yearning to breathe free? Yeah, you can tuck that away on a shelf with your model pyramid and replica Rosetta Stone. Get ready for a giant, impenetrable wall complete with laser beams and possibly a moat filled with piranhas. Instead of the government spending our collective money to import, welcome, house, feed, clothe, educate, connect, and otherwise support strangers who pay no taxes and may or may not have come here to kill us, now those funds are probably going to be used to [gasp!] benefit American citizens. It’s so narcissistic and xenophobic, I don’t even know where to start. The good news is once they eliminate that censorship that kept you so safe during Covid, at least you’ll be able to virtue signal express your displeasure online by using a variety of hashtags like #ImmigrationIsBeautiful and #NoHumanIsIllegal and #I’mStuckInACountryBeingLedByAPairOfRacistWhiteDudesSendHelp.

Fear not, snowflakes. This is not an actual thing.

Just Make Rich People Pay for Everything? I Don’t Think So.

With two famously flush white guys running the show, you just know that hyper-taxing the affluent (like AOC’s brilliant and clearly fair and not in any way punitive proposed 70% income tax on the country’s highest earners) is not going to happen. Obviously it’s way better to force those snooty, fat-cat uppercrusters to fork over exponentially more of their hard-earned money to support social programs and reduce income inequality and put gay pride flags in all our classrooms. Now you’re going to have to contribute to all of that, too! It’s so not fair, I honestly can’t even.

Second Amendment Rights? Don’t Tread on THOSE.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Seriously? But… but… that means people will continue to be able to defend themselves against criminals and tyrants! If they would just ban guns completely, everyone knows all the murderous thugs would turn in their weapons and violent crime would cease to exist. Thanks to this nauseating turn of events, the next thing you know, everybody and their granny will be packing heat and folks will be shooting each other over parking spaces instead of just stabbing each other, which is obviously far more civil and less scary. The only safe solution is to lock yourself in your home and never leave again (except for during elections, because they’ll definitely be banning mail-in ballots, those bigoted trolls). Or move to Canada.

You can bring this one up in therapy.

Foreign Policy? You Mean Nasty Nationalism [shudders].

I know. We were (still are!) thisclose to going to war with China Russia Iran Syria … somebodyThey were about to start drafting our daughtersWhat an exciting and patriotic time to be alive and to be given the opportunity to fight for… something surely extremely important! I know, America’s meddling nose doesn’t really belong in every other country’s politics; in fact, Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong Un have been begging the US to MIOB for basically ever. Now, not only won’t you have any fun, colorful flags to superimpose over your Facebook profile picture; you just know Trumpedy is going to insist on selfishly putting America First (so anti-Semitic!) and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (so rude!) and the WHO (again). Oh, and they’ll tax the hell out of Chinese imports, so you can say a sad so long to all those sweet Shein and Temu deals. Sorry, boo. It was fun while it lasted.

Free Speech? You Mean, Mean Tweets Are Coming Back.

It’s a frightening thought but one we must all come to terms with: The leader of the free world will be able to communicate with people—openly and without censorship—on the largest and most influential free speech platform in the digital universe. Not only that, but you can bet the channel’s formerly progressive founder isn’t merely going to allow this; that suddenly right-wing sycophant will amplify it. (Although surely there’s lots of overlap, Trump, Musk, and Kennedy Jr. have a combined 288 million followers on X. Timala, in comparison, have a sort of embarrassing 16M collective fans. Go ahead and fact-check that while you still can, because I’m pretty sure fact-checking will soon be a thing of the past.)

McSeriously? You Can Kiss Your Fast Food Addiction Goodbye

I know, your kids live for Chick-fil-A Fridays at school. It’s the highlight of the whole week, practically the only way you can get those little rugrats to the bus stop on time—with tantalizing promises of soggy waffle fries and greasy poultry nuggets awaiting during the midday break. Well, just listen to what that Fauci-bashing anti-vaxxer had to say:

“Two-thirds of American adults and children suffer from chronic health issues. Fifty years ago that number was less than 1%. In America, 74% of Americans are now overweight or obese, including 50% of our children. One-hundred and twenty years ago, when somebody was obese, they were sent to the circus. When my uncle was president, our country spent $0 on chronic disease. Today, government healthcare spending is almost all for chronic disease, and it’s double the military budget, and it is the fastest growing budget item in the federal budget. Chronic disease costs more to the economy as a whole, at least 4 trillion dollars, five times our military budget. We’re going to bring healthy food back to school lunches. We’re going to stop subsidizing the worst foods with our agricultural subsidies. We’re going to get toxic chemicals out of our food. We’re going to reform the entire food system.”

There’s no getting around it: Friday mornings are going to suck.

Spoiler: There’s a NEW New World Order Coming to Town.

I know the dramatic and shocking Kennedonald combo is going to take some getting used to. I mean, we were about to have our country’s first Black Indian, female assigned-female-at-birth cackler commander-in-chief. It was going to be historic; unprecedented! I’ll bet Kamalamadingdong was packing her visit-the-border bag when this bombshell dropped—now she’ll never get to go! (Maybe Doug can take her to Europe instead?)

That woman had plans, dammit. She was somehow going to lower the cost of living that skyrocketed under her veepdom and fix inflation (apparently, by defining it—simplistically and repetitively) but now she won’t get the chance to do that, either! She was going to completely reform our healthcare and criminal justice systems while also ensuring socialism economic equality for all (but not, you know, at her luxurious level or anything, don’t be ridiculous). She promised to expand Medicaid which would guarantee that more people—especially kids and lower income families—would have access to wonderful pharmaceuticals like Ozempic and vaccines! For free!

With RFK Jr. in or around the White House, now everyone’s going to have to learn about (ugh) healthy eating and (yuck) preventative health, which is so much harder and more annoying than jabbing yourself with skinny serum. Alas, the curtain is about to fall on that glorious and golden age. If vaccines even survive at all (which they probably won’t because Kennedy likes to claim—based on nothing but peer reviewed literature the CDC refuses to look at which he actually compiled into a bestselling book you’ve never heard of—that unvaccinated kids are healthier across the board in nearly every metric you can think of), you definitely won’t be getting a donut with your next series, I’m afraid.

You Can Retire Your MAKE AMERICA OBAMA AGAIN hat.

I wish I had some soothing words of comfort for you, but there’s no getting around it; this is a terrifying time to be alive. Even though Trump was already president and didn’t do any of these things, he could literally declare martial law the day he takes office. He could imprison his political opponents and critics, refuse to leave the White House ever again, and basically destroy democracy by continuing to point out that our beloved news media is fake and corrupt. And Kennedy? That psychopath actually muttered the following words in his (definitely don’t watch it) campaign suspension speech: “Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other.”

(Can you imagine that level of rhetoric spewing from the Oval Office on a routine basis? I mean, sure your side is filled with hatred, but it’s toward specific, hate-worthy things like white privilege, toxic masculinity, police officers, Christians, and Trump!)

Sadly, it’s looking like this is our future. I guess the good news is, it’s only four years.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/27/2024 - 16:20
Published:8/27/2024 3:43:19 PM
[2024 Election] David Plouffe, Architect of 'Zuckerbucks,' Now Advising Kamala Harris


David Plouffe, who managed President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and advised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's controversial "Zuckerbucks" effort in 2020, is now advising Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign.

The post David Plouffe, Architect of ‘Zuckerbucks,’ Now Advising Kamala Harris appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:8/27/2024 11:24:29 AM
[Uncategorized] The crafting of the new Kamala narrative

Even more striking to my mind is Obama's use of metaphors involving narrative, of both movies and books. A sequel. A new chapter. A new story.

The post The crafting of the new Kamala narrative first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:8/25/2024 2:37:12 PM
[Uncategorized] ‘Let Them Eat Joy’: Devastating Fisk Of Comrade Kamala And The Democrat Elite

"To the extent that a pitch was made to the American people about what a Harris/Walz administration would look like, it was that it would be filled with the joy of the rich and the famous, of Kerry Washington and Hillary Clinton, JB Pritzker and Michelle Obama."

The post ‘Let Them Eat Joy’: Devastating Fisk Of Comrade Kamala And The Democrat Elite first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:8/24/2024 9:30:20 AM
[2024 Election] Trump Steals Kamala's 'Joy,' Obama's 'Hope': To Have Them, Harris Must Be Defeated

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Donald Trump is riding high after Democrats' failure to utilize the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to springboard Vice President Kamala Harris's struggling campaign.

The post Trump Steals Kamala’s ‘Joy,’ Obama’s ‘Hope’: To Have Them, Harris Must Be Defeated appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:8/23/2024 11:38:54 PM
[] YIKES: Matt Taibbi Tweeted About Forced 'Joy' and Whoa Nellie, Check Out the Media Hive Mind Published:8/23/2024 3:56:53 PM
[Politics] If You Missed the Dem Convention Here's an EXCELLENT Front-Page Summary Published:8/23/2024 9:58:46 AM
[Border Crisis] How Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Lost 300K Migrant Children

In 2014, Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to Guatemala by President Barack Obama to implore Latin American countries and their citizens to stop smuggling... Read More

The post How Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Lost 300K Migrant Children appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Published:8/23/2024 7:50:47 AM
[Markets] Protests, Pandering, Past-Presidents, But No Policies: Summing Up The 2024 DNC In 2 Words - 'Not Trump' Protests, Pandering, Past-Presidents, But No Policies: Summing Up The 2024 DNC In 2 Words - 'Not Trump'

Objectively, if prediction sites can be trusted in any way (perhaps more so than biased polls), the last four days of speeches, musical performances, and delegate celebrations were a 'failure' of sorts for the Democratic Party as during the DNC, Kamala Harris odds of success in November dropped while Trump's improved (though we note the incumbent VP remains a favorite)...

Source: Bloomberg

Perhaps, 'we the people' realized that the goal of the whole week was for party lawmakers, community leaders, past presidents, and cultural figures to convince Americans that Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden... and has not been in The White House for the last almost-four-years... is the not the lowest-approval-rated VP in history... and is not in any way responsible, or tied to any of the policies that left the vast majority of Americans questioning the direction of the country just a week or two before the mainstream media anointed her 'Mamala'

Most directed pointed attacks at former President Donald Trump, tying his candidacy and campaign to the controversial Project 2025, which Trump has disavowed, while illustrating differences between a potential second Trump term and a Harris White House.

While light on specific domestic and foreign policy discussions, the convention highlighted the Democratic Party’s commitment to ensuring abortion access after the 2022 Dobbs decision overthrew Roe v. Wade.

For four straight days, protesters rallied in the streets against the Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel during the Israel–Hamas war, pushing for a Palestinian speaker at the Chicago convention.

As Jacob Burg and Nathan Worcester detail below via The Epoch Times, here are the key takeaways from the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Big Night for Harris

After securing enough delegate support to become the party’s presidential nominee earlier this month, the convention served as a coronation ceremony for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

With a little more than 70 days remaining in the election, Harris is moving fast to define herself, her platform, and her vision for America.

Speaking about her family and their impact on her life, she said it was those who loved and believed in her the most that “told us we could be anything and do anything.”

In her acceptance speech, Harris described her parents meeting at a civil rights gathering and attorneys like Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, who inspired her to become a lawyer. When Harris’ best friend revealed sexual abuse by a parent, Harris set out to be a prosecutor.

“And every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge, and I said five words, ‘Kamala Harris, for the people.’”

She added, “And to be clear, my entire career. I’ve only had one client, the people.”

“On behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks … I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” Harris said.

In a coalition-building effort as her campaign inches closer to election day, Harris vowed to unite a divided country.

“Our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”

3 Presidents Speak

The convention featured speeches from President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and former President Bill Clinton.

Much of Monday evening was dedicated to Biden, with multiple speakers emphasizing their appreciation for the president as delegates and attendees waived signs emblazoning the phrase, “Thank you, Joe.”

Amid chants of “We love Joe,” Biden took the stage Monday night to ceremoniously pass the torch to Harris after he withdrew from the presidential race on July 21 and endorsed her as his successor.

“The ancient Greeks taught us that character is destiny,” Biden said, “selecting Kamala … was the best decision I made my whole career.”

Obama and Clinton spoke on Tuesday, with the Chicago native and first black president championing Biden, his former second-in-command.

“Looking back, I can say without question that my first big decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best. And that was asking Joe Biden to serve by my side as vice president,” Obama said.

Clinton also lauded Biden, saying he “did something that’s really hard for a politician to do. He voluntarily gave up political power.”

Harris, he added, is committed to public service, quoting the line she said while working at McDonald’s as a teen, “How can I help you?”

Other than Trump, there is only one other living past Republican commander-in-chief, former President George W. Bush. Bush did not speak at the Republican National Convention this year.

Abortion Takes Center Stage

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 with the Dobbs decision, the Democratic Party has sought to make abortion a primary focus of its campaigning efforts, with states like Florida looking to pass ballot initiatives this year to guarantee access to the procedure.

The convention was no different. EMILY’s List, an organization that works to elect pro-abortion Democrats to political offices, sent their president to speak on Wednesday night. Planned Parenthood set up a mobile clinic near the convention, providing free vasectomies, medication abortions, and emergency contraception by appointment.

On Monday, Hadley Duvall told her story about getting pregnant at age 12 after her stepfather sexually abused her. She said she miscarried the baby and criticized Trump and Republicans for supporting abortion bans, saying, “What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?”

A pro-life Democrat group, Democrats for Life of Florida, criticized the party for supporting abortion.

“Incest, a non-viable fetus, and a physical threat to the mother’s health are part of less than 10 percent of abortions involving dire circumstances,” they wrote in a post on X.

Democrats, including Walz, have argued that Trump would support a federal abortion ban if elected. Speaking with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said he would not support a federal ban but did not leave out state-level prohibitions.

“This is now back in the states where it belongs,” Trump said.

Project 2025

Democrats also sought to link the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to Trump. The 900-plus-page project was written as a proposed policy guidebook for a future Republican president.

Multiple speakers during the convention used a full-size hardcover edition of the plan as a prop, including Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson on Wednesday and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) on Thursday.

Thompson used the project for a skit where he fielded calls from Americans and discussed ways its proposals could affect their lives. Crow criticized the book directly, including its plans to implement widespread firings across multiple government agencies to replace existing bureaucrats with ones believed to be less committed to policies that Republicans view as progressive.

In an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, Trump pushed back at Democrats for linking the project to his campaign.

“They know I have nothing to do with it. I had no idea what it was,” Trump said.

Democrats have contended that his campaign is more closely aligned to the project than he suggests. Some, including Walz, have pointed out that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), wrote the foreword to an upcoming primer on the project by Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts. Paul Dans, director for Project 2025, is a former Trump administration official. He resigned from the Heritage Foundation in July.

The book’s publication date - originally slated for a September release - has been postponed until Nov. 12, a week after the presidential election.

Pro-Palestinian Protests

Protesters outside the convention mainly focused on the Israel-Hamas war, calling for a cease-fire and a halt to U.S. aid to Israel. While mostly peaceful, protests turned violent on Tuesday evening, with clashes with police outside the Israeli consulate.

Monday’s march from Union Park toward the United Center included a breach of fencing between a park and, across multiple parking lots, the arena where national Democrats had gathered.

Tuesday’s protests outside the Israeli consulate turned chaotic as demonstrators clashed with law enforcement, leading to dozens of arrests, including of many out-of-towners and multiple journalists. During some protests, demonstrators celebrated “intifada.”

What unfolded on Wednesday and Thursday proved much calmer.

The protest on the final night of the DNC had some incidents, like some flag burning under the Lake Street Green Line, and a confrontational man waving a black flag with his face obscured. No arrests were witnessed by The Epoch Times or other media.

As conventioneers left the United Center after Harris’s acceptance speech, they were greeted by a mixture of protesters. Some were part of the pro-Palestinian mix, while others were anti-abortion progressives, alienated from a party increasingly hostile to pro-life voices.

Celebrities Stump for Harris

Promoting this year’s convention were numerous celebrities and cultural figures, including actors, former athletes, musicians, and comedians who spoke or performed onstage for Harris.

Winfrey, in her speech on Wednesday night, called for independents and undecided voters to support Harris.

Delegates and attendees heard speeches from Golden State Warriors and Team USA Basketball coach Steve Kerr, actors Eva Longoria and Mindy Kaling, comedians D.L. Hughley and Thompson, and Ana Navarro.

Billy Porter, Patti LaBelle, Common, P!NK, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, and the Chicks performed on the stage at the United Center this week.

Multiple celebrities, including director Spike Lee, rapper Lil Jon, and actors Sean Astin, Wendell Pierce, and Longoria, joined their state delegations on Tuesday for the candidate roll call.

NBA star Steph Curry made a surprise appearance via video on Thursday to endorse Harris.

But No Policy Discussions

With her website still lacking a policy platform, speculation continues over what Harris plans to do in the White House.

Her campaign rallies in the last four weeks have touched on policies including reproductive rights, gun control, housing affordability, middle-class tax cuts, and price gouging bans.

Ameshia Cross, former Obama campaign advisor, told The Epoch Times that Harris has a “very short amount of time” to outline her policies and convince voters to support her.

While gun control and abortion were key topics throughout the 2024 convention, few speakers discussed foreign policy until Panetta and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) made it a focus during their speeches on Thursday.

Panetta said Harris “worked with President Zelenskyy to fight back against Russia. She knows that protecting their democracy protects our democracy as well.”

When Harris took the stage, she blamed Trump for the bipartisan border bill’s failure and pledged to finally sign it into law if elected president. Republicans blocked the bill, saying it did not go far enough to secure the border.

“I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence, that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century, and that we strengthen not abdicate our global leadership,” Harris said.

“As president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”

She also vowed to “take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”

It's worth noting that she accepted the nomination without ever facing an unscripted corporate media interview - even with MSM leaning heavily to the left, a clear sign that the Democratic Party has little confidence in her ability to convey policies that resonate with Americans in an unscripted manner.

“I will bring together labor and workers and small business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow our economy, and to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries," she said.

She continued, “We will provide access to capital for small business owners and entrepreneurs and founders and protect Social Security and Medicare."

Then vowed to pass a middle-class tax cut “that will benefit more than 100 million Americans,” pass border security legislation, and safeguard abortion access.

However, low/mid-tier voters, drowning in insurmountable credit card debt, drained personal savings, and struggling to put food on the table, buy fuel at the pump, pay power bills, and shelter costs, are asking where VP Harris has been for the last 3.5 years.

Focus on Trump

Democrats levied significant criticisms against Trump during the convention, characterizing his policies and those of the GOP as hateful and anti-freedom while pushing associations between him and Project 2025 despite his campaign’s efforts to distance itself from the plan’s originator, the Heritage Foundation.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump walks along the U.S.–Mexico border south of Sierra Vista, Ariz., on Aug. 22, 2024. Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta chastised Trump’s “America First” foreign policy platform, comparing it to the isolationism touted by many conservatives prior to World War II.

Trump has advocated for a “peace through strength” foreign policy platform that includes getting tough on China and ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

In discussions on abortion, speakers targeted Trump for appointing the conservative-majority Supreme Court that overthrew Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the U.S. Capitol breach spurred her to resign.

On Wednesday, criticizing the breach, retired Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said, “I had seen violence while serving in Iraq, but nothing ... nothing prepared me for Jan. 6.” Gonell accused Trump of inciting the events of that day, telling the audience he almost lost his life in the process.

The former president urged his supporters to organize “peacefully and patriotically” after the initial clash began.

Harris took aim at Trump in her speech, criticizing him for Jan. 6, the verdict in his Manhattan criminal trial, his floating the idea of closing the U.S. Department of Education, and the recent Supreme Court ruling that gives presidents presumed immunity for official acts while in office.

As Harris was concluding her remarks, Trump took to his social platform TruthSocial, posting, “Why didn’t she do something about the things of which she complains [as vice president]?”

Meanwhile, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated that VP Harris has no reason, politically, to deviate from President Biden's policies - so buckle the heck up Americans because more reckless government spending and disastrous 'green' energy policies are likely coming down the pipe if she is elected.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/23/2024 - 07:45
Published:8/23/2024 6:57:02 AM
[Harris, Kamala D] 5 Takeaways From the Democratic Convention A history-making candidate told grounded stories. Democrats expanded their anti-Trump playbook. And even if something “magical is in the air” for the party, as Michelle Obama said, there’s a hard road ahead. Published:8/23/2024 5:23:10 AM
[Columns] Kamala Harris's Obama Makeover

The DNC's goal was to revive the faded tropes of Obamamania and use them to aid Kamala Harris in November. Entertainment figures who appeared on stage and in the audience turned the proceedings into not just a political event, but also a cultural one. Harris has her own Shepard Fairey poster. Stevie Wonder, who rocked Mile-High Stadium when Obama was nominated in 2008, spoke and sang in Chicago. Oprah Winfrey campaigned with Obama at a critical point in his ascent. She endorsed Harris from the dais. "We won't go back," Winfrey told the adoring hometown crowd. "We won't be sent back, pushed back, bullied back, kicked back. We're not going back."

The post Kamala Harris's Obama Makeover appeared first on .

Published:8/22/2024 11:42:40 PM
[Markets] Defense Budget Talks Reignite Debate Over Military Draft For Women Defense Budget Talks Reignite Debate Over Military Draft For Women

Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Provisions in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require women to register for the military draft, while carving out an exemption from serving in front-line roles, have sparked vigorous debate among combat veterans and enlisted personnel about the wisdom of such changes and their likely impact on the armed forces.

Female Marine recruits stand in line for lunch in the chow hall during boot camp at MCRD Parris Island, S.C., on Feb. 26, 2013. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) announced the filing of the bill, S. 4638, last month. On Aug. 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously, 28–0, to move its version forward for a full Senate vote in the near future. The House of Representatives approved its own version of the bill on June 13.

The 607-page bill authorizes topline funding of $911.8 billion for the military and contains a number of provisions aimed at improving military life. They include an increase in monthly pay for junior enlisted personnel, housing allowances for junior personnel on sea duty, extensions of bonus schemes that were set to expire, and making promotions that were subject to delays in Senate confirmation effective retroactively.

The bill also pushes back slightly against the efforts of the Biden administration, often through executive orders, to bring the military into line with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals by amending the United States Code to forbid use of Department of Defense money and facilities for gender alteration surgeries.

In other ways, the bill dramatically widens the front of the Biden administration’s push for inclusivity and diversity by revising selective service requirements to include women.

Subtitle J of the bill reads, “The committee recommends a series of provisions that would require women to register for selective service under the same conditions as currently applied to men.”

Section 529B of the bill contains an exemption that would, in theory, limit the impact of the proposed change.

It states, “The committee recommends a provision that would specify that women drafted into service under the Selective Service System may not be compelled to join combat roles that were closed to women prior to December 3, 2015, train or become qualified in a combat arms military occupational specialty, or join a combat arms unit.”

This stipulation notwithstanding, members of the military community are sharply divided on what effect the bill will have if passed in its current form.

Upholding Standards

The impact of gender integration on physical fitness requirements and standards in the military has been a source of controversy for years.

Even after President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, announced in December 2015, that previously all-male combat positions would be open to women, the number of women seeking entry to the Marine Corps was small and the number who passed fitness tests was even smaller.

Members of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2023 complete squad combat course training as part of a program to transition the candidates from civilian to military life, in Annapolis, Md., on Aug. 1, 2019. ENS Marion Bautista/Released/U.S. Navy

As of August 2017, nearly two years after Carter declared the far-reaching policy change, fewer than one percent of female inductees into the corps sought out combat roles, and of the number who did, only 25 percent met the physical requirements, according to a Marine Times report citing Training and Education command data. Fully 96 percent of male Marines who took the same tests passed, the report said. Those women who did not pass had to seek out noncombat roles.

Given these realities, and the exemption from combat roles in the new NDAA bill, some observers do not see the change to the selective service criteria as especially significant.

“There are plenty of noncombat and support roles in the U.S. military, and expanding the draft to include women does not mean putting women in the infantry or the Rangers,” Keith Naughton, the principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a Germantown, Maryland-based consultancy, told The Epoch Times.

“When conservatives slap the DEI label on everything they don’t like, it loses its effect and makes it more difficult to stop the growth of DEI where it matters.”

Recruitment Challenges

The danger of aggression from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, various terrorist groups, and other hostile powers pushes the Department of Defense to ensure a large enough military to protect American interests.

In fiscal year 2023, the Department of Defense missed its recruitment goals by no fewer than 41,000 personnel.

“The Military Services continue to face unprecedented recruiting challenges,” the department’s recruiting and retention report for the year ending in May 2023 states.

As interest in national service dwindles among the younger population, the danger of an understaffed military incapable of carrying out its functions grows, said Scott McQuarrie, a former officer in both the Army and the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, who now works as an attorney.

A police officer stands near a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square on July 26, 2017. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

We must have a sufficiently sized, adequately trained and equipped military in order to deter potential adversaries from drawing us into what would be a devastating conflict or, in the event of a conflict, to protect and defend the homeland and our national security interests,” McQuarrie told The Epoch Times.

“If we cannot fill the ranks with volunteers and/or afford a volunteer force, what are the alternatives? The American people must answer that difficult question,” he said.

McQuarrie said trying to maintain military readiness while relying exclusively on the pool of young men who volunteer for service might lead to an unpalatable outcome: lowering the standards and requirements for male inductees.

The armed forces took such a course during the Vietnam War under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in a program known as Project 100,000. McQuarrie described Project 100,000 as nothing short of a disaster for the military and the country.

He suggested that drafting a small number of women to serve in noncombat roles could be one way to address the personnel shortfall and maintain the highest standards for men who do take on frontline combat roles.

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen practice running an IV line during a medical response team training aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort. U.S. Navy via Getty Images

“I believe the political climate today is conducive to addressing these questions, but it will happen only if enough leaders have the political will and moral courage to put the issues on the table for the American people to discuss and decide,” McQuarrie said.

Maintaining Cohesion

Others who are familiar with the realities of training and combat are sober about the practical challenges of upholding standards while incorporating larger numbers of women into the armed forces.

If the NDAA passes in its current form, it is not impossible to envision a near future where more women seek entry to—and are granted—frontline combat roles.

But given time-tested differences between the sexes’ physical aptitudes, this is all but certain to require adjusting physical standards, they say.

“I think the message that citizenship sometimes comes with an obligation to one’s country is an entirely healthy message to send to both sexes, not just young men,” Sebastian Junger, a journalist and documentarian who spent years embedded with U.S. forces in combat zones in Afghanistan, told The Epoch Times.

But there can be no illusions about the arduous nature of frontline duty and the immense physical exertions it involves, he stressed. Junger drew an analogy between the U.S. military and fire departments, which are subject to calls for diversification, often from people who have never been firefighters themselves.

“Combat, like firefighting, is incredibly rigorous and demanding, and efforts to integrate fire departments with women have found themselves at a kind of crossroads. Do you scale down the physical requirements in order to get more women into firehouses, or keep the number of pull-ups you have to do exactly the same and have virtually no women passing?” he said.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/22/2024 - 23:25
Published:8/22/2024 10:50:15 PM
[Politics] Oprah says in surprise DNC speech to choose ‘joy’ and vote Harris In ways both literal and figurative, Winfrey’s Wednesday night speech was indeed a homecoming in which she fulsomely returned to the political arena 16 years after her debut political endorsement of Barack Obama to once again bestow the full force of her celebrity and cultural power. Published:8/22/2024 12:01:44 AM
[Politics] Obama Is Still a Condescending Totalitarian

The former president’s DNC speech was more coherent than any Democratic message so far—and darker.

The post Obama Is Still a Condescending Totalitarian appeared first on The American Conservative.

Published:8/21/2024 11:22:25 AM
[Politics] The Mystery of Michelle Obama

The former first lady didn’t seem like someone who wants to be president in her turn at the DNC.

The post The Mystery of Michelle Obama appeared first on The American Conservative.

Published:8/21/2024 10:32:02 AM
[Politics] Column: Barack and Michelle Obama are done turning the other cheek — and Democrats couldn't be happier

Barack and Michelle Obama delivered a blistering attack on Donald Trump at the DNC. They endorsed Kamala Harris' election as a repudiation of his rage and resentment-filled politics.

Published:8/21/2024 10:23:49 AM
[World] With six words, Michelle Obama rewires America’s conversation on race Most of us, Obama said, “will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.” Published:8/21/2024 9:50:34 AM
[2024 Election] Nolte: Obama Makes Penis Size Joke While Trashing Trump as 'Childish'

Former US President Barack Obama speaks during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, US, on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. The Democratic National Convention this week marks the ceremonial crowning of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the party's presidential nominees, capping off a whirlwind month for Democrats who quickly coalesced behind the new ticket after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former President Barry Obama went mighty low by inferring former President Trump has a small penis during his speech on the second night of the issue and policy-free Democrat National Convention.

The post Nolte: Obama Makes Penis Size Joke While Trashing Trump as ‘Childish’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:8/21/2024 9:42:15 AM
[695c1d47-9299-51d2-a1a0-1cf22b7798d9] Michelle Obama tells DNC her parents were 'suspicious' of the wealthy despite own $70M net worth, luxury homes Michelle Obama in her DNC speech said her parents were "suspicious" of the wealthy but left out that she and Barack Obama have a $70 million net worth. Published:8/21/2024 9:24:44 AM
[World] ‘Black jobs’ and ‘basement dwellers’: Memorable lines from DNC Night 2 Michelle Obama turned Donald Trump’s comment against him. Barack Obama framed the election as a stark choice. And Doug Emhoff described his first date with Kamala Harris. Published:8/21/2024 9:24:44 AM
[Politics] Here are GREAT Counterpoints After Barack Obama Slams Claims Gov't Is 'Inherently Corrupt' Published:8/21/2024 8:17:33 AM
[Markets] "The Torch Has Been Passed" - Protests Escalate As Obamas & RINOs Take The Stage On DNC Day 2 "The Torch Has Been Passed" - Protests Escalate As Obamas & RINOs Take The Stage On DNC Day 2

Democrats saw continued momentum during day two of their convention in Chicago on Aug. 20, as delegates from across the country officially coronated Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee.

The packed crowd in the United Center heard from former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and two notable Republicans who crossed party lines to endorse Harris this year.

Amid the euphoria sweeping across the arena, protesters continued to clash with police, resulting in multiple arrests as a frantic atmosphere brewed throughout the streets.

Jacob Burg and Nathan Worcester of The Epoch Times, lay out the five key takeaways from day two of the Democratic National Convention (DNC).

The Obamas Take the Stage

When Michelle Obama stepped up to the podium, she told the crowd, “Something magical is in the air.”

“You know, we’re feeling it here in this arena, but it’s spreading all across this country. We love a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep or far too long.”

The former first lady called it the “contagious power of hope” for the anticipation, energy, and exhilaration for being on the cusp of a brighter day.

“Hope is making a comeback,” Michelle Obama said.

“To be honest, I am realizing that until recently, I have mourned the dimming of that hope, and maybe you’ve experienced the same feelings in that deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future,” she said, explaining that it was her first time back in Chicago since her mother’s death.

She attended the convention “to honor her [mother’s] memory and to remind us all not to squander the sacrifices our elders made to give us a better future.”

Michelle Obama added, “My girl, Kamala Harris, is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.”

When Barack Obama took the stage, he honored his former vice president, Joe Biden.

“It’s been 16 years since I had the honor of accepting this party’s nomination for president … and looking back, I can say without question, that my first big decision as your nominee, turned out to be one of my best. And that was asking, Joe Biden to serve by my side, as vice president,” he said.

Barack and Michelle Obama hug on stage at night two of the 2024 DNC held in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 20, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

“We needed a leader with the determination to drive what would become the world’s strongest recovery, 15 million jobs, higher wages, lower health care costs,” he added.

“We needed a leader who was steady and brought people together and was selfless enough to do the rarest thing there is in politics, putting his own ambition aside for the sake of the country.”

He criticized former President Donald Trump, and said only Harris has a vision for the future.

“The torch has been passed,” Obama said, referring to Biden’s exit from the race in favor of Harris.

“Now it’s up to all of us to fight for the America we believe in.”

“America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a president, Kamala Harris.”

Obama drew an indirect comparison during his remarks.

“I am feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything’s possible,” Obama said, recalling the self-deprecating description he used to introduce himself to America in 2008.

Harris Roll Call, Emhoff Speech

Moments after delegates officially nominated Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, she appeared on video from a Milwaukee rally to address the crowd.

Harris said she was honored to be the party’s nominee.

“This is a people-powered campaign, and together we will chart a new way forward, a future for freedom, opportunity, of optimism, and faith. So to everyone in Chicago and across America, thank you.”

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illi., on Aug. 19, 2024. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

She emphasized the importance of the present election and her uphill battle taking on the former president in November.

“So we know what we’re dealing with in this moment, and we must remember as the generations of Americans before us who led the fight for freedom, the baton is now in our hands,” said the vice president.

“We carry the baton. And so much is on the line in this election.”

Harris’s husband Emhoff spoke around 9:30 p.m. CDT on Tuesday night, beginning with the story of how they two met roughly 10 years ago on a blind date.

“[Harris] stands up to bullies,” Emhoff said. “She likes to see people do well, but hates when they’re treated unfairly. She believes this work requires a basic curiosity and just how people are doing. Her empathy is her strength.”

“She’s always been there for our children, and I know she'll always be there for yours, too,” he added.

Republicans Speak

Two notable Republicans joined their colleagues on the other side of the aisle on Tuesday,

Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham and Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles.

Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham departs after speaking on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 20, 2024. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Grisham said she wasn’t just a Trump supporter but a “true believer.”

“I was one of his closest advisors,” she said.

“The Trump family became my family. I spent Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s all at Mar a Lago. I saw him when the cameras were off, behind closed doors.”

Grisham alleged that she was asked to lie in her job and that she finally reached a tipping point.

“On January 6, I asked Melania [Trump] if we could at least tweet that while peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence. She replied with one word, ‘no,’” Grisham said, displaying the text message on screen behind the stage.

“I became the first senior staffer to resign,” she added.

“Now here I am behind a podium advocating for a Democrat, and that’s because I love my country more than my party. Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people, and she has my vote,” Grisham said.

Giles said as a lifelong Republican, he felt a little out of place that night, but “more at home here than in today’s Republican Party.”

“Trump made a lot of lofty promises, unlimited economic growth, American manufacturing reborn, a secure border,” Giles said.

“Turns out Donald Trump was all talk. He wanted our votes, but he couldn’t deliver a thing.”

The mayor said he goes to ribbon-cutting ceremonies every week due to infrastructure investments from the Biden-Harris administration.

“So let’s turn the page. Let’s put our country first.”

Rogue Protest Unfolds Outside Israeli Consulate

A non-permitted pro-Palestinian protest outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago led to violent clashes and arrests on the evening of Aug. 20.

The Chicago Police Department did not immediately clarify how many protesters had been taken into custody when asked via email. The Epoch Times, however, witnessed numerous arrests as speeches continued inside.

Police line up amid a protest at the Israeli consulate during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 20, 2024. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Organized by the group Behind Enemy Lines, the march began at 7 p.m. Dozens to a few hundred demonstrators, some with faces covered by keffiyehs or other garments, listened to speeches and chanted. Chants included “Long live the intifada!” and “The whole world is watching”—the latter taken straight from 1968, when confrontations between police and protesters over the Vietnam War marred an earlier Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The protesters then marched directly into a line of Chicago Police Department officers at the Madison Street and Clinton Street intersection, just west of the Chicago River. At the head stood Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, who also led the pushback of journalists.

After some initial arrests, a remaining group of protesters moved east on Madison, and were soon surrounded by law enforcement. Behind one police line was a group of pro-Israel demonstrators, who eventually moved back a block.

After a long standoff, a more hardcore group ended up reversing west. Chased by police and journalists, protesters maneuvered through the streets south of the Israeli consulate.

At various points, one police representative threatened to strip journalists of their credentials if they stepped off a narrow sidewalk into the street.

As protesters were being handcuffed near a police vehicle, law enforcement indicated that only “green hats”—members of the progressive National Lawyers Guild—could cross a police line.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators ended up near Union Station, where, after more than two hours, things began to die down. At one point, the Chicago police and the Illinois State Police formed lines perpendicular to each other.

More protests are expected over the remaining days of the convention, including on Aug. 22

The Chicago Police Department did not immediately clarify how many protesters had been taken into custody when asked via email, saying a summary of the events would come during the Aug. 21 morning press conference.

Democrats Thank Biden, Turn Focus to Harris

Many at the convention, including state delegates, honored Biden after he delivered the headlining speech on Monday night to pass the party’s torch to Harris.

“I think Biden made a wonderful decision when he decided to step down and let a younger generation of Democrats take over,” Henry Fries told The Epoch Times.

President Joe Biden speaks during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Wisconsin delegate and Dane County Supervisor added that the candidate switch worked.

“We see that younger people are getting fired up to support Kamala Harris, who may have sat out before. You see that even the older Democrats are ready to welcome in these new ideas and new people, new faces, to politics. So, it’s really great. It’s really fun.”

Sandra Green Thomas, a delegate from New Orleans, Louisiana, agreed that the retooled campaign has energized young voters.

“It’s the same message they need to send all around this country. I think young people are the key to them winning this race and young people are the key to preserving our democratic traditions. It’s time to pass … the baton,” she told The Epoch Times.

Deborah McGrath, an alternate delegate from Menomonie, Wisconsin, said the atmosphere in the arena during Biden’s speech was energizing and remembered seeing the president hold his great-grandson’s hand as the two smiled.

“It was just such a poignant moment. I’ll never forget it.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/21/2024 - 08:25
Published:8/21/2024 7:43:07 AM
[Democrats] The Question on Everyone's Mind as Democrats Gather in Chicago: Where Is Jussie Smollett's Pardon?

CHICAGO—The second night of the Democratic convention on Tuesday featured some of the party's biggest names and brightest stars. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff roused the faithful, as did Bernie Sanders, the socialist U.S. senator who nearly won the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Emhoff's daughter Ella, an affirmative-action fashion model, goofed around in the audience. Michelle Obama and her husband also spoke.

The post The Question on Everyone's Mind as Democrats Gather in Chicago: Where Is Jussie Smollett's Pardon? appeared first on .

Published:8/21/2024 6:02:44 AM
[2f1ddbf6-ad06-50be-a72a-58731c8d329f] Michelle Obama's 3rd consecutive DNC speech slamming Trump rips his 'racist lies,' 'narrow view of the world' Former first lady Michelle Obama took aim at former President Trump in her DNC speech on Tuesday night suggesting that he is driven by racism and "generational wealth." Published:8/21/2024 5:34:09 AM
[Obama, Barack] ‘I Am the Only Person Stupid Enough to Speak After Michelle Obama’ So said former President Barack Obama after his wife electrified the Democratic National Convention. The delegates loved him, but they really loved her. Published:8/21/2024 2:07:03 AM
[World] Michelle Obama lifts up Harris while lambasting Trump Michelle Obama delivered a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention, praising Vice President Kamala Harris and criticizing Donald Trump. Published:8/21/2024 1:28:55 AM
[a5f8da37-a02d-56bf-80bc-e48a20bc3ca9] Obama lauds 'brother' Biden at DNC weeks after reported role ousting him for Kamala Harris Former President Barack Obama took the DNC stage in Chicago on Tuesday evening where he lauded President Biden following reports he played a role in his campaign exit. Published:8/21/2024 12:07:48 AM
[Politics] Obama, ‘Kid With a Funny Name,’ Returns to the DNC

The former president threw the weight of his own legacy behind Kamala Harris.

The post Obama, ‘Kid With a Funny Name,’ Returns to the DNC appeared first on The American Conservative.

Published:8/20/2024 11:17:48 PM
[2024 Election] *** DNC Livewire Night 2 *** Fantasy Night: The Return of the Obamas, the 'Dream Candidate' for Democrats Not Named Kamala Harris


Night two of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) probably cannot go any worse for the wayward Democrat Party than night one did … but it just might. On the second night at the “mostly peaceful” gathering of leftists in Chicago, Illinois, former President Barack Obama will return to the main stage and spotlight to give the keynote address at the end of the evening. His wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, will speak earlier in the evening. Interestingly, several Democrats are quite openly referring to Michelle Obama as their “dream candidate,” which means despite the hullabaloo from across the media that Vice President Kamala Harris is not in fact the “dream candidate” for the party. The Democrats are just kind of stuck with Harris, as they had no other options when they staged a coup against the guy who happens to be the sitting president of the United States who’s from their party President Joe Biden. It’s worth noting that they, perhaps conveniently perhaps not, shoved Biden in the trunk of the car at the end of the night well after primetime on Monday night to hasten his march to being yesterday’s news. Speaking of the media, cracks are beginning

The post *** DNC Livewire Night 2 *** Fantasy Night: The Return of the Obamas, the ‘Dream Candidate’ for Democrats Not Named Kamala Harris appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:8/20/2024 9:11:46 PM
[Politics] Follow Our Live DNC Night 2 Coverage Starring the Obamas and Bernie Sanders

Democrats convened for night two of their convention in Chicago on Tuesday, featuring the Obama family, Sen. Bernie Sanders, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, and Illinois... Read More

The post Follow Our Live DNC Night 2 Coverage Starring the Obamas and Bernie Sanders appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Published:8/20/2024 7:55:41 PM
[] Foreign Policy Genius Joe Biden Ordered U.S. Troops to Prep for Nuclear Confrontation With China, Russia Published:8/20/2024 6:40:06 PM
[Harris, Kamala D] Harris and Obama’s Long Friendship Is Rooted in a Kindred Political Spirit Kamala Harris’s decision to support Barack Obama in a 2008 primary race dominated by Hillary Clinton was a political risk. It paid off, and the former president never forgot it. Published:8/20/2024 11:43:55 AM
[World] Election 2024 live updates: Obamas to speak on Day 2 of Democratic National Convention Barack and Michelle Obama will speak on Day 2 of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago Tuesday. Published:8/20/2024 5:36:48 AM
[Markets] Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country Time For NeverTrump Republicans To Put On Their Big Boy Pants & Think Of Their Country

Authored by Brian C. Joondeph via American Thinker,

My flak jacket is on as I write this since I am sure to offend or piss off some friends, family, and colleagues who are ostensibly Republicans or conservatives but have a visceral aversion to Donald Trump.

Some tell me they are Republican and miss Ronald Reagan but also admit they “couldn’t” vote for Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Nothing says one is Republican like voting for a liberal Democrat.

This is the NeverTrump wing of the Republican Party, emerging shortly after Trump secured the GOP nomination in 2016. Reasons for NeverTrump-ism are myriad.

Some were offended by his mean tweets, name-calling, and brash Queens personality. Others disliked his confidence and determination to punch back twice as hard when attacked, particularly when the attacks were bogus (Russian collusion, fine people, grab em by the p***y, etc).

Many establishment Republicans only wanted a nominee who was part of George Carlin’s “big club,” with the last name of Bush, or endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, or the Koch brothers.

Still others bristled at Trump’s desires to secure America’s borders, avoid foreign wars, achieve American energy independence, and level the playing field of global trade. After all, globalists and the military-industrial complex are happy with and profit immensely from open borders, endless wars, high energy prices, and China-centric trade deals.

Screenshot The Last Refuge, by permission

In two and a half months, there will be a reckoning, America First versus America Last. The comparisons to four years ago are legion.

Trump attempted to build a border wall, despite NeverTrump resistance from his own party. Biden opened the border to the tune of 10,000 known illegal crossings per day.

Trump nominated three Constitutional Supreme Court justices while Biden nominated one who doesn’t know what a woman is. Democrats want to stack the high court with leftists who will rewrite the U.S. Constitution to resemble Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto.

Trump’s economy had high employment and low inflation. The Biden/Harris/Obama economy provided the opposite. Trump did not start any foreign wars during his four years in office. Harris/Obama/Biden started wars between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Iran, and Yemen and the Western world.

Our national debt has eclipsed $35 trillion. Congress spends $12 million per minute. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 1.37, red line territory. GDP represents all federal income, personal and government, but federal receipts or income is only $4.4 trillion, an eighth of the debt.

If the federal government aimed to eliminate the debt, it would take eight years with zero spending on anything the government currently funds. Our rapidly growing debt is not sustainable without some serious course correction. Who is more likely to steer America in the right direction? Obama/Harris/Biden or Trump? This should be an easy answer.

The current Democrat presidential ticket is two Marxists. They want to command and control all aspects of American economics and life. They will weaponize the government even further to achieve their Orwellian dystopia. The U.K. is imprisoning those who post critical or mean comments on social media. Harris/Walz will say, “Hold my beer” and double down on censorship, punishing anyone who disagrees with Big Brother.

They will regulate the airline industry to the point that air travel is either unaffordable or impractical. Price controls will be added to food and groceries, limiting choices and creating shortages. How did government control of food distribution work in Venezuela and the U.S.S.R.?

Taxes would rise under a Harris administration. So would the minimum wage, making small business so small it no longer exists, while big business simply passes on increased wage costs to consumers, a stealth tax.

Under a Democrat administration, America will send money and U.S. soldiers to defend other countries’ borders, while leaving America’s borders wide open. Illegal aliens will continue terrorizing, injuring, or killing Americans, whether at a Missouri laundromat, a Wisconsin home,  or at a Florida motel.

Cutesy time is over, as Dan Bongino would say. In a few months, America will either have a reset, or a quick slide into tyranny and chaos.

Trump is Trump, his personality almost 80 years in the making. He will not suddenly become Ronald Reagan, with a smooth voice and disarming charm. But so what?

Trump’s brashness is a breath of fresh air compared to career politicians who offer a word salad of platitudes and promises while actually accomplishing nothing.

When you are dying from some strange disease that no one can diagnose or treat, who do you want caring for you? You could have warm, empathetic, fatherly Dr. Marcus Welby, who doesn’t know what’s wrong with you but holds your hand as you die. Or you could have rude, abrasive, obnoxious Dr. Gregory House who, while making fun of you with zero bedside manner, makes the correct diagnosis and prescribes the proper treatment, allowing you to walk out of the hospital a week later.

We are not choosing a prom date, a spouse, a roommate, or a valentine. We are choosing the leader of America and the free world. You may not like Trump’s calling his opponents mean names. But did you object when Bush was called 'Hitler,' Trump 'a Nazi,' or Paul Ryan “pushed” granny off a cliff?

Politics ain’t beanbag. If your opponent is fighting dirty, you had better step up or you will lose. It seems many NeverTrump Republicans, rather than get their knuckles bloody, would rather take the high road and deliver a kindly concession speech.

What’s more offensive? J.D. Vance tweeting about the new Democrat base of childless cat ladies? Or the U.K. imprisoning one of her citizens for 20 months for posting on Facebook, “Every man and their dog should be smashing f*** out Britannia Hotel.” While at home we have no problem with Daily Beast and CNN contributor Reza Aslan tweeting, “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f***ing thing down.”

Assuming the election actually happens (not derailed by pandemic, cyberattack, or war) and that Harris/Walz is the ticket (rather than Obama, Clinton, or Biden), America is faced with a binary choice. At least the Republican ticket was chosen by voters, unlike the Democrat ticket selected in a smoke-filled room by DNC muckety-mucks.

NeverTrumpers can pout that their preferred guy or gal was rejected, not by the Chamber of Commerce or Wall Street Journal but by Republican voters, instead nominating someone who speaks to the concerns of millions of Americans and is willing to fight for them. It’s a simple choice and not that complicated.

Insurrection Barbie on Twitter concluded a rant with this:

When Trump was president, your streets were safer, your border was secure, your wallet had more money in it, you could buy more goods with your paycheck, and the entire world was at peace instead of on fire.

Voting for communism is not the solution to your precious feelings.

Get a therapist.

Time for NeverTrumpers to put on their big boy pants and think of their country, their children, and grandchildren. Do they want the Marxist world the Democrats are eager to usher in, displayed in real time in the U.K.? Or do they want to push back in the only way practical?

As Ronald Reagan spoke in 1964, it’s “a time for choosing.” Choose wisely.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, and LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/19/2024 - 23:25
Published:8/19/2024 10:46:39 PM
[World] Trump portrays Harris as foreign, echoing past attacks on Democrats of color The Republican nominee reprised tactics that resembled his previous attacks against Barack Obama and other Democrats of color. Published:8/19/2024 6:00:56 PM
[World] No, every Trump budget did not seek to cut Social Security and Medicare The Democrats misleadingly label good-government proposals, mostly borrowed from Obama, as budget cuts affecting seniors. Published:8/19/2024 4:32:28 PM
[Markets] Judge Napolitano: When Presidents Kill Judge Napolitano: When Presidents Kill

Authored by Andrew P. Napolitano

Sometime before he withdrew from the presidential race, President Joe Biden secretly reaffirmed his own self-willed and self-created authority to kill persons in other countries, so long as the CIA and its military counterparts have "near certainty" that the target of the homicide is a member of a terrorist organization. That standard was concocted by the George W. Bush administration in 2002.

There is no "near certainty" standard in the law, as the phrase is oxymoronic and defies a rational definition – like "nearly pregnant." Just as one is either pregnant or not, one is either certain or not. There is no "near" there.

The White House lit in red, white and blue in July, via Flickr

Yet, the creation of this standard underscores the lamentable absence of the rule of law in government today. The Biden administration and its three immediate predecessors have all deployed drones to kill persons who were not engaged in acts of violence at the time of their killing, irrespective of the near certainty of their membership in any organizations.

“Terrorist” cannot be a standard for extrajudicial murder because it is subjective. To King George III, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were terrorists. To the poor folks in Libya and Syria, to the popularly elected governments toppled by CIA-inspired violence in Iran in 1953 and in Ukraine in 2014, to the innocents tortured by the CIA at black sites around the world, the CIA is a terrorist organization.

The presidential use of drones to kill persons overseas began in 2002 with Bush-ordered targeted killings. It continued under President Barack Obama – who even killed Americans overseas. The rules for killing were made up by each president. They were relaxed under President Donald Trump, who gave CIA senior personnel and military commanders the authority to kill without his express approval for each killing. Trump’s folks infamously murdered an Iranian general and his companions on their way to lunch with Iraqi generals to negotiate peace between the two countries.

The Biden administration quietly took back the Trump grants of authority so that today only the president can authorize targeted killing. Yet, there is no moral, constitutional or legal authority for these killings. But presidents of both political parties do it anyway.

The laws of war – a phrase itself that is oxymoronic – which are generally codified in the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter, all of which were spearheaded, written and ratified by the United States, mandate essentially that lawful wars can only be defensive and must be proportional to the threat posed or the harm already caused. Stated differently, treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory restrain the president from killing persons in other countries with which the U.S. is not lawfully at war.

Under the Constitution, treaties sit alongside the Constitution itself as the supreme law of the land. The last four occupants of the White House have ignored this when it comes to secret killings. Each has claimed publicly or secretly that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, or its cousin, the AUMF of 2002, somehow provide congressional authorizations for presidents to kill whomever they please – and somehow Congress can lawfully authorize these killings.

Yet the AUMF of 2001 purported to authorize Bush to hunt down and kill the folks whom he failed to see coming on 9/11 (those would be his friends, the Saudis), and whom he reasonably found caused 9/11. The AUMF of 2002 authorized Bush to invade Iraq in pursuit of the weapons of mass destruction that he was told by experts inside and outside the CIA Saddam Hussein did not possess. Both AUMFs no longer have a valid purpose today, yet they remain the law.

The Constitution authorizes Congress to declare war against foreign countries, not random killings of persons. Neither of the AUMFs was or is a valid declaration of war, which the Constitution requires as a predicate for all extrajudicial presidential killings. A declaration of war defines the target and sets the end. It is not open-ended as the last four presidents have claimed with respect to these two Bush-era statutes.

If the presidents are right, and the AUMFs authorize them to kill whomever they wish – including Americans – then they are not presidents answerable to the law and the Constitution, but kings who can kill on a whim without transparency or legal consequence.

The whole purpose of confining the war-making power to Congress and the war-waging power to the president was to keep those powers separate. History is littered with examples of tyrants using the powers of the state to kill for no moral purpose. American presidents have given themselves the power to kill. It is the functional equivalent to a loaded gun in a drawer of the president’s desk.

Abraham Lincoln was the first head of state in world history to target civilians militarily and the first to engage in the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians of his own country. Franklin D. Roosevelt slaughtered thousands of innocent helpless German civilians at the end of World War II by carpet-bombing German cities, rather than targeting the German military. Harry Truman slaughtered many thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

All these murders were met with popular approval, as the targets had been demonized by the machinery of government – just like the “terrorists” Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have killed.

But demonization of human targets and popular approval of their murders cannot turn an immoral act into a moral one. An act is moral when it is consistent with the Natural Law. According to the Declaration of Independence, under the Natural Law, all persons are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The right to live is the foremost natural right and the great divine gift to all persons – not just Americans.

No person may morally be targeted for death by government for any reason unless it is presently necessary to stop that person from actively killing an innocent. In the cases cited above, the presidential killings were done to terrify political opponents, as the civilian targets were helpless. And the killers were lauded as heroes.

Today, American troops are on the ground in Ukraine showing Ukrainian forces how to use American weapons to kill Russian troops and in Israel showing the IDF how to kill civilians in Gaza. This was done by secret presidential orders that have never been publicly acknowledged. Russian troops and Gazan civilians pose no threat whatsoever to life, liberty or property in America.

Why do American presidents kill? Because they can get away with it.

* * *

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/18/2024 - 23:20
Published:8/18/2024 10:22:12 PM
[Markets] The Most Dangerous Question Of 2024 - What If Kamala Harris Isn't An Idiot? The Most Dangerous Question Of 2024 - What If Kamala Harris Isn't An Idiot?

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, after a coup against their former standard-bearer Joe Biden, we face a very disturbing question.

What if Kamala Harris isn’t the idiot the media has made her out to be?

Harris was clearly chosen for this role. She’s been groomed for it for nearly two decades. She isn’t the best of a list of bad choices. The Democrats drove the good choices from the party and blocked others becoming a part of it.

There were no Democratic primaries, folks.

She was placed as Biden’s Vice-President to have the inside track on this gig when they decided Joe finally had to be dragged from the stage.

The coup was penciled in on the Gantt Chart at Evil Corp. Central for the weekend of July 13th.

In 2020, Harris voters roundly rejected her for President, getting zero delegates before being roasted by Tulsi Gabbard.

She dropped out despite being the darling of the media and the donor class. Going into those primaries, she was the establishment’s pick.

Once she failed they moved to Plan B: rig the game for Biden.

They said, “We’ll install a mushroom so corrupt we can make him do whatever we want Joe just wants his money and his ice cream.”

So you force Harris onto Joe. Or the other way around… never mind she’s too old for him.

Meanwhile Harris waited. She let Joe take the heat. She said little, did less and then is installed, tabula rasa, into a campaign just days after a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump to steal even that thunder.

We were never allowed to discuss her culpability, along with the cabinet, as to how Biden could have been running the country for the past three years without them invoking the 25th amendment out of pity for the man if nothing else.

Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot Democrats don’t have emotions other than hate and envy.

She was installed as the candidate to front-run an insurgency at this week’s convention by Hillary Clinton and her merry band of Neocons. Don’t expect them to take this sitting down, there are likely to be some sparks this week in Chicago, even if they don’t turn into a bonfire.

So, that leads me to ask my question, not because I think Harris is some latent IQ160 or anything. I asked my question because this is a woman who faced zero real voters and is one vote-rigging operation away from the presidency.

So, maybe she’s a genius when measuring her political intelligence.

What if we’ve all been led down the primrose path of stooping to Trump’s level coming up with cute memes about her vast collection of knee pads or her inappropriate laughter at tragedy?

What if that is exactly the means to lull us all into thinking there’s no way anyone will vote for this woman?

And if this was any normal (a nebulous term these days at best) election, I would agree with you. But, for 90% of the fifty elections the US is going to hold for its president, who you vote for doesn’t matter.

This is, as always, a five state race.

All that matters is printing/counting the right number of votes in those five states and the rest is just a Benny Hill skit.

Harris chose uber-commie and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to what, exactly? Shore up the only state that voted for Walter Mondale in 1984? Really?

No, it was to do a few things:

  1. Signal that they didn’t need Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to win there.

  2. Continue Obama’s antipathy towards Israel. They don’t need “The Jews” anymore.

  3. Put the Quarter-Black HR Nanny in charge of the cucked White Guy.

After that, all you have to do is use AI and special effects to make fake crowds supporting fake polls and faker ads to sell everyone on the idea that this woman is what Americans want to rule them over this…

The sad part is that too many people still think this is all just part of the game. But it isn’t. It’s nothing more than the same playbook run in 2020 to create just enough plausible deniability that Harris can win this election before they steal it and dare us to do one damn thing about it.

Or did you miss how upset the French and British are at their recent outcomes?

So, Kamala cackles her way through scripted interviews. She and Walz dance around bringing “joy!” to the world. But when you actually get her talking about policy, about what she believes in, the cackling stops, the fangs come out, it’s just communism all the way down.

I was asked by Sputnik News to comment on her announced economic plan. In short, it’s the same warmed-over ‘Eat the Rich,’ politics of envy the Democrats have used for decades to set the table for a class war where the soon-to-be permanent underclass is used to finish off destroying the middle class so that they both can live in squalor and be thankful for whatever thin gruel is left over.

Those that don’t like it can go die in a meat grinder overseas somewhere else. Hey, at least it’s ‘3 hots and a cot’ right? Or is her ascension to the throne the moment when everyone gets just uncomfortable enough for the wolf to come out in a few million of us?

No, I don’t think Harris is at all stupid. And I think we’d all do well to put away the memes and get serious about making sure that we make this a November 5th to her not to remember.

Sputnik’s Questions and my full answers:

1) Harris presented something that she called an “opportunity economy”. How different do you expect this to be from “Bidenomics”?

Not much, to be honest. Democrats are looking to rebrand the same agenda they had during both Obama’s two terms and “Biden’s” one term. It’s all an extension of the original plan, which is to nationalize all the important sectors of the economy – housing, health care, energy, transportation – that the Federal Government didn’t already control, e.g. communication and defense.

This strategy is simply to break the private economy — dislocate trillions of investment capital, displace millions of workers, disrupt supply chains – and then create new “opportunities” for those most harmed by these policies, the lowest strata of wage earners young people, by giving them handouts. This is classic ‘divide and rule’ politics engaged in by the oligarch class to set the lower class, in their terminology the ‘proletariat,’ against the middle class, the “bourgeoisie.’

Nothing new here. Typical “Break your legs and hand you a crutch” politics.

2) How are the measures that Harris’ economic plan includes going to be paid for?

Debt at first and the hoped for transition to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) after the debt passes the point of sustainability, where they just print money and tax your earnings at whatever rate they need to in order to maintain power, via programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

3) Harris promised to push forward a federal government law against price gouging as a solution to Americans’ frustration with the high cost of living. What effect would a law like this have on prices? How would a small business react to such a law?

The Democrats have been prepping this talking point for more than a year by sending out Elizabeth Warren to complain about corporations gouging us on food prices. But if you look at retailer, especially supermarket, corporate profits you’ll see their costs rising with our costs. The average bottom line margin for a supermarket chain is around 2%. If Harris and Warren think this is “Price Gouging” then they have no idea what the term means.

Real costs of production will rise. Prices will rise. The government will then use a flat fining structure to punish the bad guys.

Because of this small businesses will go under. Larger firms can always absorb the cost of new regulations better than smaller businesses. They are the primary target because they are the engine of economic growth. Harris is nothing new, just another in a long line of doctrinaire communists promoted via anti-democratic processes to serve an overclass desperate to hold onto power as their old system of wealth extraction reaches its terminal stage.

4) How do you assess the possibility that a federal law against price gouging might backfire and trigger shortages?

All price floors and price ceilings lead to shortages, never surpluses. This is literally first semester macro-economics. Harris and her handlers know this. In fact, they are counting on creating shortages. It’s part of the strategy in the end to destroy the country they lead.

This is not stupidity or incompetence. It is policy.

5) Harris promised to address housing affordability by issuing $25K support for first-time house byers. How would you expect such a measure to affect the housing market?

It can’t stop the deflation of housing prices, it will only further dislocate the market by keeping prices up and suckering people who can’t afford a home into thinking they can. What needs to happen is sincere price corrections which reallocate scarce capital back to generating jobs that create wealth rather than subsidizing the things you buy once you have wealth.

Starter homes now cost $180-200 per square foot to build in the US. At those prices, there are no new affordable homes. The tiny home industry in the US is booming. People are trying to right size their debt with their income. And are now coping with the insanity by telling themselves they can raise a family in 500 sq.ft. They can’t.

So, again, what’s the goal? It’s not to put people in new homes. It’s to put people in smaller homes and/or choose to live in a rented space whose cost is subsidized by the government in the medium-term to nudge them towards the preferred outcome… living in cities with no food security, no real security, and constant/total surveillance.

6) How realistic do you find Harris’ promise to build 3 million new houses?

We can build any number of houses. The US has more than enough productive capacity to build 3 million houses. That’s not the right question. The right question is should we build any new houses, and for what price?

It’s a talking point. A pathetic attempt to buy young voters who are increasingly looking at them and thinking they are crazy people.

7) How successful do you expect Harris to be in distancing herself from the criticisms and negative effects that the Biden/Harris administration’s policies had on the US economy in recent years? How would you describe her target audience and why would this tactic work for it?

She won’t be. You can’t run as the “reform candidate” when you are the incumbent. And nothing she has proposed is functionally any different than what was done previously while she was in office. Her target audience for this is the wholly unsophisticated young voter who is entering a broken workforce and economic landscape today and seeing nothing but a lack of real opportunities. They are hoping for a new round of “Obama Youth” to marshal into an effective fighting force for “Hope and Change.”

What they are doing is purposefully increasing the possibility of full-blown civil war.

8) How should we expect Harris’ economic plan to increase the US national debt?

Exponentially. Again, that is the goal. They will use ruinous fiscal policy to run out the clock on Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve who are telling them that if they want their Communist revolution they will pay for it at 5.5% or higher. All of these ‘subsidy’ programs –food, housing, etc.—are meant to extend the current pricing regime until after the end of Powell’s term in 2026 and then close the loop, bringing the Fed back into the fold.

*  *  *

Join my Patreon if you hate Communism

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/18/2024 - 19:50
Published:8/18/2024 7:24:13 PM
[World] Shephard Fairey Helps Kamala Lean Into Communist Image Published:8/16/2024 7:02:51 PM
[Markets] Trump To Be Surrounded By Bulletproof Glass At Outdoor Events Trump To Be Surrounded By Bulletproof Glass At Outdoor Events

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The Secret Service is to implement a raft of new security measures for upcoming outdoor rallies featuring President Trump, including surrounding him with bulletproof glass, according to a source.

The Washington Post reports that the USSS has begun storing the glass in locations around the country in order to prepare for Trump campaign events.

The source stated “Former presidents and candidates don’t normally get bulletproof glass or support from DoD [Department of Defense],” adding “This glass needs to be brought in on trucks and vans.”

The report further notes that acting USSS head Ronald Rowe has overseen the plans after convening with Trump’s team.

The report claims that Trump aides said he wants to do more outdoor rallies again, including a return to Butler PA where he was almost assassinated. However, he stated that he did not want to go on a stage outside again without the protective glass.

Previous presidents, including Trump himself have utilised the glass before.

Trump spoke about the assassination attempt again during a press conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club on Thursday afternoon.

A reporter asked him “You’ve spoken about God saving your life and I’m wondering, have you put much thought into why God saved your life? As in for what purpose has he been shielding and protecting you?”

“That was a miracle,” Trump responded, adding “It’s a miracle and God had something to do with it and maybe it’s – we want to save the world.”

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/16/2024 - 17:40
Published:8/16/2024 4:57:37 PM
[] Embrace the Agitprop: Artist Shepard Fairey Copies Himself With New Kamala 'Forward' Poster Published:8/16/2024 2:36:20 PM
[Markets] Make America Socialist Make America Socialist

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

When a relatively unknown individual steps on the political stage as a candidate for high office, both sides race to “define” the candidate and stamp his image in the public mind.

Since the Democrats knew they would pick Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for their VP candidate, they had time to pre-produce the public image.

He’s not particularly fit or good-looking. No problem! They pushed him as a folksy, down-to-earth Midwestern type who could relate to everyday Americans and understand their problems.

Maybe he’s a bit on the heavy side but that’s OK, so are millions of Americans, and it just shows he likes to chow down on popular meals like burgers, hot dogs, chili and whatever else you might find at a barbecue.

Well, it took the Republicans a few days to catch up, do the needed research and tell us about the real Tim Walz. It turns out he is one of the most far-left radical politicians in the history of America.

Some “Moderate”

During COVID, he enforced mask mandates, vaccine mandates and lockdown rules in more draconian ways and for far longer than any other governor. He even set up a “snitch” hotline so citizens could rat out their neighbors for not wearing masks or for going outside for a walk.

This is what we came to expect in communist countries during the Cold War; and under Walz, Minnesota was no different.

He also discarded the traditional Minnesota state flag and replaced it with a new star-on-blue motif that closely resembles the national flag of Somalia (Somalis are a large part of the population of Minnesota, thanks to Obama’s policy of concentrating immigrant nationalities in targeted areas to gain political power. This is how we ended up with politicians like the Mogadishu-born Ilhan Omar.)

That’s just the beginning of how radical Walz is. He favors “abortion” up to and beyond a live birth (that’s infanticide). He lied about his military record (something called “stolen valor,” which is condemned by all who have served honorably).

He made Minnesota a “trans sanctuary” state (to permit genital mutilation of out-of-state minors without parental notification) and spent his honeymoon in Communist China.

During the George Floyd riots in 2020, Walz did nothing to stop the burning and looting and his wife even opened the windows in their home so she could enjoy the smell of burning tires.

The Democrats and the mainstream media can give you a false narrative about Walz being the “Midwest Dad.” The facts say otherwise.

Why Walz?

Why did Kamala pick Walz?

Many expected that she’d select Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. After all, Pennsylvania is a key swing state that could help deliver the election to the Democrats. Walz is from Minnesota, which is already a blue state (it’s possible Trump could win Minnesota, but not likely).

But Shapiro is Jewish and has publicly supported Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. That would have been deeply unpopular with much of the Democratic Party’s young base, which is for the most part fervently anti-Israel.

By going with Walz, it seems the strategy was to shore up the base, while hoping the “Midwest Dad” narrative would pick off enough uncommitted voters in swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan who would otherwise vote for Trump.

Democrats would try to frame him as a moderate alternative to voters who didn’t really like Trump, but would hold their noses and vote for him anyway.

The narrative about Walz being a moderate is collapsing, as I described above, but that seems to have been the strategy. Nice job, Kamala.

North Korea-Level Propaganda

Meanwhile, the mainstream has fallen predictably into line to support her. She’s opposing Trump, so that’s to be expected. They’d literally support a corpse if the alternative was Trump. The same people who announced in 2021 that Harris was being appointed the “border czar” are now trying to tell you that she was never the border czar.

It’s North Korea-level propaganda.

All Harris did was go to Guatemala and babble about “root causes” of immigration before washing her hands of the whole thing. The catastrophic results are all around us.

Of course, if you were Kamala Harris you wouldn’t want it known that you were the border czar. She failed miserably at her supposed mission to control illegal immigration. The level of illegal immigration we’ve had under this administration is nothing short of staggering.

In that sense you can say that she actually succeeded as border czar because much of the Democratic Party wants open borders and unfettered immigration (future voters — and in many cases probably current voters!).

But you won’t hear that in the mainstream media.

The Ditz Candidate

They also like to cite questionable polls claiming that Harris is now leading Trump in certain battleground states, attempting to give the impression that she really is a strong candidate and actually popular with voters.

But not too long ago, Harris had a favorability rating of only 29% in a CNN poll. That was lower than Joe Biden himself before he announced that he won’t seek reelection! Even Joe got 39% in favorability ratings.

Harris cannot speak extemporaneously, a key skill for debaters and candidates. She resorts to third-grade baby talk about “big yellow school buses” and “the big moon up in the sky.” She laughs in a high-pitched tone at inappropriate times, no doubt a nervous tick to cover for the fact that she can’t think on her feet.

Biden may be demented, but Harris is a dunce. The Democrats will have as much difficulty covering up her low IQ as they did covering up Biden’s dementia.

That’s why they’re carefully crafting her public appearances in order to limit opportunities for her to say something embarrassing.

Will Joe Step Down?

All Harris has done since being handed the baton from Biden is to read pre-prepared remarks off a teleprompter. She’s not taking questions from reporters or doing any interviews, even from a friendly host who’d ask her softball questions.

It’s clear that she’s being coached on how to act. Her handlers know how bad the cackling makes her sound, so they’ve probably been coaching her to dial it down.

One strategy to increase Harris’ popularity going into the election would be for Biden to resign the presidency in the days ahead (for “health” reasons maybe), make Kamala the president and let her reap the benefits of running as an incumbent president instead of an anointed elite outsider.

It would also be a way for Biden to get presidential pardons for the Biden Crime Family without having to pardon himself. That’s a smart strategy. For that reason, you can count on Biden not to do it.

I’m still predicting that Trump will win in November, but you can expect the media to do everything it can to get Kamala Harris elected.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/14/2024 - 14:25
Published:8/14/2024 1:25:47 PM
[] Politico: Biden Bitter and Angry About Democrat Oligarchs Forcing Him Out of the Race Joe, if you were a man, you would have told them to stuff it. But you're an old, feeble cuck. Biden harbors lingering frustration at Pelosi, Obama, Schumer Ahead of the convention that's meant to unify the party, tensions still... Published:8/14/2024 11:14:16 AM
[] The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition The Obama purge of our military has exacerbated the institutional flaws that are inherent in most military organizations. Pork Barrel procurement is probably as old as the first army, as is ridiculous weapons system design, the typical strategy of... Published:8/13/2024 10:07:10 AM
[246f30d7-a70a-5fbd-9020-3bb6c609a5f3] Democratic heavyweights to speak at party's convention; preparing for large Palestinian protests President Biden, former Presidents Obama and Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been confirmed as speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Published:8/12/2024 9:28:16 AM
[Markets] Russiagate Continues To Survive Like A Sci-Fi Monster Resilient To Bullets Russiagate Continues To Survive Like A Sci-Fi Monster Resilient To Bullets

Authored by Ray McGovern via Consortium News,

Russiagate continues to survive like a science fiction monster resilient to bullets.   

The latest effort at rehabilitating it is an interview by Adam Rawnsley in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine of one Michael van Landingham, an intelligence analyst who is proud of having written the first draft of the cornerstone "analysis" of Russiagate, the so-called Intelligence Community Assessment.

The ICA blamed the Russians for helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.  It was released two weeks before Trump assumed office. The thoroughly politicized assessment was an embarrassment to the profession of intelligence.

President-elect Donald Trump on post-election victory tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Dec. 16, 2016. Flickr

Worse, it was consequential in emasculating Trump to prevent him from working for a more decent relationship with Russia.

In July 2018, Ambassador Jack Matlock (the last U.S. envoy to the Soviet Union), was moved to write his own stinging assessment of the “Assessment” under the title: “Former US Envoy to Moscow Calls Intelligence Report on Alleged Russian Interference ‘Politically Motivated.’” 

In January 2019, I wrote the following about the ICA: 

“A glance at the title of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which was not endorsed by the whole community) — ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections’ — would suffice to show that the widely respected and independently-minded State Department intelligence bureau should have been included. State intelligence had demurred on several points made in the Oct. 2002 Estimate on Iraq, and even insisted on including a footnote of dissent.

James Clapper, then director of national intelligence who put together the ICA, knew that all too well. So he evidently thought it would be better not to involve troublesome dissenters, or even inform them what was afoot.

Similarly, the Defense Intelligence Agency should have been included, particularly since it has considerable expertise on the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency, which has been blamed for Russian hacking of the DNC emails.

But DIA, too, has an independent streak and, in fact, is capable of reaching judgments Clapper would reject as anathema. …

With help from the Times and other mainstream media, Clapper, mostly by his silence, was able to foster the charade that the ICA was actually a bonafide product of the entire intelligence community for as long as he could get away with it. After four months it came time to fess up that the ICA had not been prepared, as Secretary Clinton and the media kept claiming, by ‘all 17 intelligence agencies.’

In fact, Clapper went one better, proudly asserting — with striking naiveté — that the ICA writers were ‘handpicked analysts’ from only the F.B.I., C.I.A., and NSA. He may have thought that this would enhance the ICA’s credibility. It is a no-brainer, however, that when you want handpicked answers, you better handpick the analysts. And so he did.”

[See: The January 2017 ‘Assessment’ on Russiagate

Buried in Annex B of the ICA is this curious disclaimer:

“Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents. … High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”

Small wonder, then, that a New York Times report on the day the ICA was released noted:

What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission…”

Burying Obama’s Role

Mainstream journalism has successfully buried parts of the Russiagate story, including the role played by former President Barack Obama.

Was Obama aware of the “Russian hack” chicanery? There’s ample evidence he was “all in.” More than a month before the 2016 election, while the F.B.I. was still waiting for the findings of cyber-firm CrowdStrike, which the Democratic Party had hired in place of the F.B.I. to find out who had breached their servers, Obama told Clapper and Dept. of Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson not to wait.

FBI Director James Comey briefs President Barack Obama in June 2016. White House/Flickr

So with the election looming, the two dutifully published a Joint Statement on Oct. 7, 2016:

“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. … “

Obama’s role was revealed in 2022 when the F.B.I. was forced to make public F.B.I. emails in connection with the trial of fellow Russiagate plotter, Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann

Clapper and the C.I.A., F.B.I., and NSA directors briefed Obama on the ICA on Jan. 5, 2017. That was the day before they gave it personally to President-elect Donald Trump, telling him it showed the Russians helped him win, and that it had just been made public.

On Jan. 18, 2017, at his final press conference, Obama used lawyerly language in an awkward attempt to cover his derriere:

“The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked.”

So we ended up with “inconclusive conclusions” on that admittedly crucial point… and, for good measure, use of both words — “hacking” and “leaked.” 

The tale that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was then disproved on Dec. 5, 2017 by the head of CrowdStrike’s sworn testimony to Congress. Shawn Henry told the House Intelligence committee behind closed doors that CrowdStrike found no evidence that anyone had successfully hacked the DNC servers

But it is still widely believed because The New York Times and other Democrat-allied corporate media never reported on that testimony when it was finally made public on May 7, 2020.

Enter Michael van Landingham

Rolling Stone’article on July 28 about van Landingham says he is still proud of his role as one of the “hand-picked analysts” in drafting the discredited ICA.

The piece is entitled: “He Confirmed Russia Meddled in 2016 to Help Trump. Now, He’s Speaking Out.” It says: Trump viewed the 2017 intel report as his ‘Achilles heel.’ The analyst who wrote it opens up about Trump, Russia and what really happened in 2016.” 

Without ever mentioning that the conclusions of the ICA were proven false, by Henry’s testimony and the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that found no evidence of Trump-Russia “collusion,” Rolling Stone says:

“The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), dubbed ‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections,’ was one of the most consequential documents in modern American history. It helped trigger investigations by the House and Senate intelligence committees and a special counsel investigation, and it fueled an eight-year-long grudge that Trump has nursed against the intelligence community.” 

Rawnsley writes in Rolling Stone the following as gospel truth, without providing any evidence to back it up. 

“When WikiLeaks published a tranche of [John] Podesta’s emails in late October, the link between the Russian hackers and the releases became undeniable. The dump contained the original spear phishing message that Russian hackers had used to trick Podesta into coughing up his password. News outlets quickly seized on the email, crediting it for what it was: proof that the Russians were behind the campaign.”

Because Rawnsley didn’t tell us, it’s not clear how this “spear phishing message” provides “undeniable” proof that Russia was behind it. Consortium News has contacted Rawnsley to provide more detail to back up his assertion. 

Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and close friend of Julian Assange,  suggested to Scott Horton on Horton’s radio show in 2016 that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak came from two different sources, neither of them the Russian government.

“The Podesta emails and the DNC emails are, of course, two separate things and we shouldn’t conclude that they both have the same source,” Murray said. “In both cases we’re talking of a leak, not a hack, in that the person who was responsible for getting that information out had legal access to that information.”

Reading between the lines of the interview, one could interpret Murray’s comments as suggesting that the DNC leak came from a Democratic source and that the Podesta leak came from someone inside the U.S. intelligence community, which may have been monitoring John Podesta’s emails because the Podesta Group, which he founded with his brother Tony, served as a registered “foreign agent” for Saudi Arabia.

“John Podesta was a paid lobbyist for the Saudi government,” Murray noted. “If the American security services were not watching the communications of the Saudi government’s paid lobbyist in Washington, then the American security services would not be doing their job. … His communications are going to be of interest to a great number of other security services as well.”

Leak by Americans

Horton then asked, “Is it fair to say that you’re saying that the Podesta leak came from inside the intelligence services, NSA [the electronic spying National Security Agency] or another agency?”

“I think what I said was certainly compatible with that kind of interpretation, yeah,” Murray responded. “In both cases they are leaks by Americans.”

William Binney, a former U.S. National Security Agency technical director, told Consortium News this regarding Rolling Stone‘s assertion about the Podesta emails:

“Saying something does not make it so. There is no evidence the phishers or hackers were Russian. In today’s networks, you really have to have the underlying internet protocol (IP nr) or device medium access control (MAC nr) to show the routing to/from [sending and receiving] devices to show exfiltration plus trace route evidence to show if that data went any further.

[In other words, you would need the unique computer addresses of the hacked and the hacker and anyone they may have relayed it to, if it were a hack.]

[Rawnsley] gives none of this type of data.  So, until he provides this type of data, I view his statements as an opinion and not worth much at all. 

The whole world-wide network has to have these numbers to get data from point A to point B in the world. No one (NSA included) has shown this data going to Wikileaks for publication. The 5EYES have Wikileaks under cast iron cover/analysis and would know this and report it.”

Binney in 2015, via Wikimedia Commons

“There is one more aspect that’s important to take into account,” Binney added. “It’s the network log. This contains a record of every instruction sent on the network along with addresses for the sender and receiver. It’s held for a period of time according to storage allocated to it.”

Binney said:

“So, if there’s a hack, then the instruction to achieve the hack is in the log. Remember, Crowd Strike did the analysis of the DNC server all through this time and never talked about the network log. Now, Podesta’s computer does not have a network log, but the DNC and worldwide network providers do.”

Binney told CN that he proposed automated analysis of the worldwide log for the NSA in 1992, “but they refused it as it would expose all the money and program corruption in NSA contracts.”

Binney said he was putting that function into the ThinThread program in 1999/2000 that he was developing for the NSA, but the agency “removed it in 2001 after 9/11.”

report by the private cybersecurity firm SecureWorks in June 2016 assessed with “moderate confidence” that a group identified as APT28, nicknamed “Fancy Bear” among other names “operating from the Russian Federation … gathering intelligence on behalf of the Russian government” was behind the Podesta phishing, though as Binney points out, the NSA found no such evidence, when it would have had to, had Russia done it.   

The name “Fancy Bear” of the alleged hackers from GRU, the Russian defense intelligence agency, incidentally, was coined by Dmitri Alperovich, the anti-Putin Russian co-founder of CrowdStrike. 

“This whole Russiagate affair was a concoction of the DNC, the Clintons, the F.B.I. etc. and none of them have produced any specific basic evidence to support their assertions,” Binney said. “The idea that the word ‘Bear’ implies Russia is about the level of technical intellect we are dealing with here.”  

Binney said these are the key technical questions that still need to be answered: 

1. What are the IP and/or MAC numbers involved? And, what are the allocations of these numbers by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (network number allocation authority)?

2. What are the trace routes of the hacked packets going across the worldwide network?

3. What instructions are in the network log indicating data exfiltration of data?

4. Are there any other specific technical aspects that are relevant to a potential hack? No opinions or guesses, that’s not factual evidence of anything beyond the writers biases.”

Binney said in email:

“Even if you assume the Russians did the hack and have the DNC/Podesta emails, you still have to show the transfer of these emails to Wikileaks to know who really did the deed. So far, no one has evidence the emails were sent to Wikileaks.

Most importantly, Julian Assange publicly said it was not the Russians. Kimdotcom said he helped others (not the Russians) to get data to Wikileaks. Craig Murray talked about physical transfer of data. These statements by people involved in WikiLeaks is clearly consistent with the technical evidence I and others have assembled.”

Binny said that “until such time as those others produce specific technical evidence for peer review and validation (like we have), they are just pushing sludge up an inclined plane with a narrow squeegee hoping they can get it over the top and accepted by all.”

Binney noted that the ancient Greek school of sophism called this the fallacy of repetition. “That’s where they keep repeating a falsehood over and over again till it is believed (it helps when they say the same thing from many different directions especially by people in positions of authority),” Binney said.

So the head of CrowdStrike testifies that there’s no evidence anyone hacked the DNC and according to Binney and Murray, there is no definitive proof that Russia was behind the Podesta phishing expedition either.  WikiLeaks maintains that a state actor was not the source of either. 

And yet the Russiagate myth persists. It is useful in so many ways for those in the U.S. who still want to ratchet up even more tension with Russia (as though Ukraine isn’t enough) and for a political party to perhaps again explain away an election loss if it happens in November. 

Thanks to Bill Binney and two other VIPS very senior NSA “alumni”, and the detailed charts and other data revealed by Edward Snowden, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) was able to publish a memorandum on Dec. 12, 2016 that, based on technical evidence, labeled the Russian hacking allegations “baseless.” The following July we issued a similar VIPS  memo, with the title asking the neuralgic question, “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?” The question lingers.

I have now posted an item on X to call attention to this latest Russiagate indignity.

I cannot escape the conclusion that journalism is not like war: In war the victors get to write the history; in today’s journalism, the losers — who get it wrong — get to write it.

O Tempora, O Mores!

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/10/2024 - 23:20
Published:8/11/2024 12:10:08 AM
[Markets] The Trillion Dollar Coin: A Dumb Idea That Some Government People Take Seriously The Trillion Dollar Coin: A Dumb Idea That Some Government People Take Seriously

Authored by Mike Maharrey via Money Metals,

When I was about 7 years old, my friend Tommy and I decided we were going to dig a cave. We envisioned a massive cavern we could stand up in. It would be our secret fort. We went as far as digging a pretty deep hole in Tommy’s backyard. 

It was a dumb idea.

But our cave-building scheme wasn’t nearly as dumb as the notion that simply minting a trillion-dollar coin can solve America’s debt problem.

The idea is pretty simple. The U.S. Treasury could mint a $1 trillion platinum coin, deposit it at the Federal Reserve, and then the federal government could write checks against that asset.

Voila! Budget problem solved.

Now, it may sound a little bit like creating money out of thin air.

That’s because it is. But hey, if it’s legal, why not? 

I’ll be honest; when people were discussing the trillion-dollar coin during the 2023 debt ceiling fight, I thought it was just an attention-grabbing political gimmick. Even Janet Yellen eventually nixed the idea. Surely nobody seriously considered such a scheme, right? 

Wrong.

Documents obtained by Bloomberg investigative journalist Jason Leopold reveal that government officials discussed the feasibility of minting a trillion-dollar coin on at least two occasions in 2013 and 2015. 

According to a heavily redacted November 2013 memo, Treasury Department officials and Department of Justice lawyers discussed the legality of issuing a “large denomination coin in order to obtain funds for making debt payments and other expenditures if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.” 

A second memo dated Oct. 27, 2015, reveals another round of discussions about the legality of such a scheme.

It seems to me they should probably consider the economic ramifications before fretting over legal minutia, but that’s just me. 

Yale professor Jack Balkin promoted the $1 trillion coin scheme back in 2011. Here’s how it would work:  

“Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there’s a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

“Ironically, there’s no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds…

“The ‘jumbo coin’ [strategy works] because modern central banks don’t have to print bills or float debt to create new money; they just add money to their customers’ checking accounts.”

In effect, it would be no different than the quantitative easing operations (QE) the Federal Reserve currently runs to expand the money supply.

In a QE operation, the Federal Reserve buys securities (primarily U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities). The catch is the money to buy these assets doesn’t exist until the Fed “writes a check” for the purchase. Imagine your bank honoring a check you wrote even though your balance was zero. That’s QE in a nutshell. The central bank creates the money out of thin air and injects it into the economy.

The trillion-dollar coin scheme would have the same practical effect as QE, but the government would be off the hook from having to pay off bonds on the Fed balance sheet. Instead of having to borrow money by issuing bonds for the Fed to later monetize, the government would just create the money itself bypassing the Fed middleman.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, we just saw what happens when the Fed creates money out of thin air. During the pandemic, the central bank created nearly $5 trillion through quantitative easing. After that, prices went through the roof. This was inevitable because money creation is, by definition, inflation. One of the consequences of monetary inflation is price inflation. 

Minting a trillion-dollar coin would have a similar effect. 

The coin is just a prop for monetary kabuki theatre to make it all seem legal and above board. They wouldn’t even use 1 trillion dollars in platinum. If they did, it would weigh over 60 million pounds.

In fact, they don't even need the coin. As economist Robert Murphy explained, the Treasury could sell a paperclip to the central bank. Just imagine a QE operation using a paperclip instead of Treasury bonds.

“The Federal Reserve has the power to buy whatever assets it wants at whatever price it wants. In principle, [the Treasury Secretary] could sell a paperclip to the Fed for $2 trillion. The Fed would simply write a check made out to the Treasury, drawn on the Fed itself.

“When the Treasury deposited this check with its own bank — which just so happens to be the Fed — then its own ‘checking account’ balance would go up by $2 trillion. This money wouldn’t come from anywhere in the sense that some other account would need to be debited $2 trillion. On the contrary, the system’s total reserves (and what is called the ‘monetary base’) would have swelled by $2 trillion. The Treasury would be free to start paying bills by writing checks on the $2 trillion in its account.”

Nevertheless, some people think this is a great idea. In their minds, it would be “free money.”

But as the saying goes, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You would pay for the $1 trillion coin through the inflation tax – just like you’re still paying for the pandemic-era stimulus every time you go to the grocery.

Minting a coin or selling a paper clip and pretending it is worth $1 trillion doesn’t change the economic dynamics. When you boil it all down, it’s just a weird scheme to increase the money supply.

And I can’t emphasize this enough – increasing the money supply is inflation.

In theory, the government could keep price inflation under control by using the newly created funds judiciously and with restraint. In theory, they could just dribble the new money out slowly as they need it to minimize the inflationary effect. In theory, it could work!

And in theory, Tommy and I could have dug a cave fort.

Let’s be honest – judicious and restrained aren’t qualities you find in politicians. They'd blow through that $1 trillion like a spring tornado through Kansas. And when they spent it all, they’d mint another coin. And another. And another.

There would be no dribble. It would unleash a cascade of spending on top of the tidal wave we already have.

But this is what you get when you have an entire school of economics that disconnects money from stuff. 

Sure, the federal government could mint a $1 trillion coin. But it can’t mint stuff. It can't create stuff out of thin air. It can’t mint cars, food, clothing, houses, and cell phones. It can’t wave a wand a create vital services.

But don't you worry! We’re dealing with “smart” people here. They’ll tell you, “Don’t worry! This is different.” And then they’ll start spinning. They’ll offer up seemingly plausible reasons a $1 trillion coin will work. They'll couch it in academic speak and technical jargon to make it sound even more plausible. They’ll yammer about how the dollar is the global reserve currency and everybody wants more of them. They show you some convincing-looking accounting tautologies. They’ll babble and gesticulate. And suddenly, you’ll be thinking, “Heck yeah! Mint that $1 trillion coin! That’s the ticket!”

No.

It’s dumb. 

Tommy and I quickly realized our cave fort was a dumb idea. But unfortunately, dumb ideas spun out in the hallowed halls of government rarely die so easily.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/10/2024 - 16:20
Published:8/10/2024 3:30:50 PM
[Markets] The Justice Department Makes The Case Against Hunter Biden (And Itself In California) The Justice Department Makes The Case Against Hunter Biden (And Itself In California)

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Special Counsel David Weiss appears to have finally made the long-awaited case exposing years of concealment and political corruption.

No, it is not the case against Hunter Biden. The allegations of tax fraud in California are obvious and unavoidable.

Weiss just made the case against the Justice Department and himself in protecting Hunter Biden from the most damaging charges of being an unregistered foreign agent. In a new filing, Weiss released evidence on Hunter taking money to advance the interests of a Romanian on United States policy.

I have previously testified on the Foreign Agents Registration Act and have previously written about the disturbing disconnect in the treatment of the President’s son as opposed to figures like Paul Manafort.

The charge was always one of the greatest fears of the White House. If Hunter Biden was a foreign agent, it would magnify the influence peddling scandal and further link his conduct to work of his father as vice president and later president.

What was previously known about millions received from China, Russia, and other countries made such a charge obvious. In the past, the Justice Department has used the charge early and often in high-profile cases to pressure defendants and force cooperation or plea agreements.

The reason is the definition:

A “foreign agent” is defined as “(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person— (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or (iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States; and (2) any person who agrees, consents, assumes or purports to act as, or who is or holds himself out to be, whether or not pursuant to contractual relationship, an agent of a foreign principal as defined in clause (1) of this subsection.”

For years, I have expressed alarm at the special treatment afforded to Hunter Biden on the charges.  Many of us have also criticized Weiss for allowing the most serious tax charges to expire despite being able to extend the statute of limitations. He has yet to offer a compelling reason why prosecutors would ever allow viable felony charges to expire when they could have extended that period.

Now, Biden is seeking to avoid conviction under the tax charges in California. He is repeating the claims that failed in his recent gun violation. He is claiming that he was an addict and not responsible for his criminal conduct, even though he was flying around the world collecting millions from foreign sources.

To rebut that claim, Weiss’ team said they plan to introduce evidence showing his sophisticated scheme to tap foreign sources interested in influencing the government and federal policy.

In the filing below, Weiss opposes the Biden team effort to exclude the evidence of working for the Romanians. the allegation in Biden’s federal tax case next month. The office revealed the information about the unnamed businessman in a filing that urged the court to reject Biden’s request to omit certain evidence that he believes is prejudicial against him.

Senior assistant special counsel Derek Hines writes in the filing that “[t]he evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for [the businessman] demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendant’s actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars pursuant to an oral agreement.”

That sounds a lot like the work of a foreign agent. Here is the language from FARA:

“The first category of evidence the defendant seeks to exclude is any “reference to allegations that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion . . .” Motion at 3 (emphasis added). The government does not intend to reference allegations at trial. Rather, the government will introduce the evidence described above, including that the defendant and Business Associate 1 received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion and cause the United States to investigate the Romanian investigation of G.P in Romania.” (emphasis added)

The other foreign dealings reportedly involved Hunter reaching out to government officials while his father was vice president. That includes the controversy over Joe Biden sudden decision to issue an ultimatum to the Ukrainian government.

In a 2018 interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged that he unilaterally withheld a billion dollars in US aid from the Ukrainians to force them to fire prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.

The Ukrainians balked, but Biden gave them an ultimatum: “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

However, a State Department memo is shedding disturbing light on that account and shredding aspects of Biden’s justification for the action. It directly contradicts Biden’s insistence that he took this extraordinary stand because there was little hope for the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine if Shokin remained prosecutor.

The Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizes the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee that was handling the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine: “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee.” One senior official even complimented Shokin on his progress in fighting corruption. So Biden was told to deliver on the federal aid but elected to unilaterally demand Shokin be fired.

In testimony from Devon Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden, we learned that Burisma executives made the removal of Shokin a top priority and raised it with Hunter. He described how the need to neutralize Shokin was raised with Hunter and how “a call to Washington” was made in response. While Archer also said that “the narrative spun to me was that Shokin was under control,” he and others also heard concerns over Shokin and the risks of the investigation.

Other transactions directly requested intervention on matters being addressed by the Obama-Biden Administration.

So, now, the Justice Department is citing some of these dealings to show a conscious and premeditated effort to shake down foreigners to influence U.S. policy.

They have made more than the case against Hunter Biden.

They have made a conclusive and overwhelming case against themselves in slow walking and minimizing charges against the President’s son.

Here is the filing: gov.uscourts.cacd.907805.181.0

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/08/2024 - 11:00
Published:8/8/2024 10:16:02 AM
[] Tim Walz Will Replace the Dad You Lost to Fox News Published:8/7/2024 7:33:56 PM
[Markets] The GARMs Race: The House Moves Forward With Investigation Of Blacklisting Company The GARMs Race: The House Moves Forward With Investigation Of Blacklisting Company

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have been discussing media rating systems being used to target advertisers and revenue sources for certain cites and companies. NewsGuard and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) have been criticized as the most sophisticated components of a modern blacklisting system targeting conservative or dissenting voices. I recently had a series of exchanges with NewsGuard after a critical column.  Now, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is moving forward in demanding documents and records from leading companies utilizing the GARM system, a company that I have previously criticized. It is a welcomed effort for anyone who is concerned over the use of these blacklisting systems to curtail free speech. However, time is of the essence.

The demand to preserve evidence went to various companies, including Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors.

In my new book, I discuss the rating systems as a new and insidious form of blacklisting.

It is an effort to strangle the financial life out of sites by targeting their donors and advertisers.  This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.

Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.

Once GDI’s work and bias was disclosed, government officials quickly disavowed the funding. It was a familiar pattern. Within a few years, we found that the work had been shifted instead to groups like the GARM, which is the same thing on steroids. It is the creation of a powerful and largely unknown group called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which has huge sway over the advertising industry and was quickly used by liberal activists to silence opposing views and sites by cutting off their revenue streams.

Notably, Rob Rakowitz, head of GARM, pushed GDI and embraced its work. In an email to GARM members obtained by the committee last month, Rakowitz wrote that he wanted to “ensure you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI — both partners to GARM and many of our members.”

GARM is being used by WFA to achieve what GDI failed to accomplish. The WFA sites refers to Rakowitz as “a career change agent” who will “remove harmful content from ad-supported digital media.”

Rakowitz’s views on free speech are chilling and his work shows how these systems can be used to conceal bias in targeting the revenue of sites with opposing views.

Rakowitz has denounced the “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and how civil libertarians cite “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).”

He appears to be referring to free speech. If so, it is deeply troubling. Some of us believe that free speech is a human right, not just an American right. Those “white men” include philosophers from the enlightenment whose ideas were incorporated in the Framer’s view of inalienable rights like free speech.

The threat against free speech today is being led by private groups seeking to exercise an unprecedented level of control what people can read and discuss.

Pundits and politicians, including President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, have justified their calls for censorship (or “content moderation” for polite company) by stressing that the First Amendment only applies to the government, not private companies. That distinction allows Obama to declare himself last week to be “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist.” He did not call himself a “free speech absolutist” because he favors censorship for views that he considers to be “lies,” “disinformation,” or “quackery.”

The distinction has always been a disingenuous evasion. The First Amendment is not the sole or exclusive definition of free speech. Censorship on social media is equally, if not more, damaging for free speech. Those who value free speech should oppose blacklisting system, as was the case during the McCarthy period. Now that conservatives and libertarians are being blacklisted, it is suddenly less troubling for many on the left.

Rakowitz now wields massive influence over public discourse in this collaboration with corporations and groups like GDI. As was done to the left in during the McCarthy period, blacklisting systems are now being used to control public access to information by choking off the revenue of sites.

The current anti-free speech movement is the most dangerous in history due precisely to this sophistication and the unprecedented alliance of corporate, media, academic, and government interests.

GARM and other media rating systems have been embraced by many who would prefer to silence opposing voices than respond to them. Rakowitz was wildly popular at Davos in calling for a “safer” Internet that would target dangerous sites much like GDI: “GARM has been officially recognized as a key project for 2020 within the WEF’s platform on Shaping the Future of Media Entertainment and Culture.”

The House committees are pushing forward with a sense of urgency. It is clear that the investigations in government-supported censorship and these blacklisting operations will end if the Democrats retake the house. It is expected that these companies will seek to delay any disclosures in the hope that the House will switch hands and this system will again be allowed to recede back into the darkness.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/06/2024 - 11:25
Published:8/6/2024 10:50:15 AM
[12273bae-8aa5-5dde-b3fe-3f4e68e08b6b] Neil Gorsuch: ‘Rule by nobody’ undermines our nation’s respect for the individual Even President Obama remarked on the massive size of the federal bureaucracy. Now a new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch explores that largely unreviewable power. Published:8/6/2024 6:14:40 AM
[Markets] Report Finds Biden-Harris Released 99 Illegal Aliens On FBI Terror Watchlist Into American Communities  Report Finds Biden-Harris Released 99 Illegal Aliens On FBI Terror Watchlist Into American Communities 

A new interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, published on Monday, highlights how the Biden administration, with 'Border Czar' VP Kamala Harris, facilitated the greatest illegal alien invasion ever on the United States.

The report titled "Terror At Our Door: How The Biden-Harris Administration's Open-Borders Policies Undermine National Security And Endanger Americans" revealed that the failed southern border policies of President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris have flooded the nation with more than 5.4 million illegal aliens. Additionally, at least 1.9 million known "gotaways" also entered, bringing the total to 7.3 million illegal entries.

Fox News' Bill Melugin, who also reviewed the report, said the border data that dates back between 2021-23 shows "at least 99 illegal aliens on the FBI terror watchlist were released into the US after being arrested by Border Patrol at the southern border, and another 34 watchlisted aliens are still in DHS custody." 

And this. 

"With the border in chaos under the Biden-Harris Administration, the terrorist threat to the homeland has skyrocketed. This border insecurity has been the Administration's choice, and it is a mistake," the report stated. 

The report noted that 375 illegal aliens on the US Gov'ts terrorist watchlist have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents under Biden's first term with VP Harris as Border Czar. 

The report continued, "That is a more than 3,000 percent increase of watchlisted alien encounters compared to all four years of the Trump Administration." 

At the end of last month, leftist MSM spent days in an all-out propaganda media blitz to convince voters that VP Harris was never border Czar - that's because the nation killing open southern borders pushed by Biden & Harris is such a disastrous topic during the election cycle.

Meanwhile, national security 'experts' have warned countless times that the Biden-Harris Administration's open-border policies can only suggest it's only a matter of time before a terror event unfolds in the US.  

Just last week, we reported...

In June.

In April.

And in March.

This aged well. 

A majority of Americans care about two things ahead of the elections: 1) inflation and 2) the border. 

For Harris and Obama's Democrat party, there's no escaping that disastrous border issue.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/05/2024 - 19:25
Published:8/5/2024 6:32:10 PM
[World] Democrats and their news media don't even try to hide what they think of you In 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said he wasn't surprised that people from "small towns in Pennsylvania, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, clung to [their] guns or religion." Published:8/4/2024 6:01:59 PM
[Markets] Kamala Harris & The Masque Of Magical Thinking Kamala Harris & The Masque Of Magical Thinking

Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

Although the last few weeks have had their alarming aspects - chief among which was the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, the odds-on favorite candidate for president - they have also had their amusing moments.

In the latter category, I place the sudden queen-for-a-day-like coronation of Kamala Harris.

True, that coronation was in the nature of an anti-democratic semi-soft-coup (or anti-democratic “inversion of a coup”). Biden and his handlers, right up until  the morning of July 21, were insisting that he was not dropping out, that he was “in it to win,” etc.  But someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and out he went.

Here’s the amusing bit.  Until the moment Biden was chased out of the race, Kamala Harris functioned primarily as political life insurance.  “You might not like me,” Biden communicated, “but if I go, you’re stuck with her.”

Biden’s polls were in the toilet and, following his catastrophic debate with Donald Trump, were circling the drain, poised for oblivion. But Kamala’s polls were even worse. She was cordially disliked by—well, by everyone. Her staff, her colleagues, but above all, by voters. In the 2020 race, she got no delegates: none, zero, zip.  She dropped out of the race for president but was then tapped to be VP only because this half Indian, half Jamaican woman was swarthy enough to pass as black and Biden had promised to select a black female as a running mate. Kamala truly is, as Biden himself acknowledged recently, a DEI vice president.

And sure enough, Kamala was every bit the disaster people predicted she would be. As a matter of clinical interest, she proved that senility is not the only cause of supreme rhetorical incoherence. Some people, and she is one, come by it naturally.  Her tenure as vice president is littered with examples, and she provided another doozy just a couple of days ago when she attempted to comment on the prisoner exchange with Russia.

It’s painful, as are all the many video clips of Harris angrily denouncing people who say “Merry Christmas,” of her presiding as “border czar” over the disaster of our non-existent southern border, of her outlining how she wants to give Medicare, as well as the franchise, to all illegal immigrants, and how she wants to develop a national data base of gun owners so that she can confiscate firearms by force.

Can such a person win the presidency?  No.

Then, how can we explain the sudden efflorescence of Harrismania? Democrats are wetting themselves with glee over their sudden fundraising windfalls ($200 million in a week, it is said) and sudden surge in the polls.  New York magazine just beclowned itself with a cover showing Kamala sitting on top of the world with Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and even Joe Biden dancing and whooping it up below.  “Welcome to Kamalot,” we read: “In a matter of days, the Democratic Party discovered its future was actually in the White House all along.”

Was it? Again, the answer is no.  It is a temporary sugar high caused partly by the feeling of liberation following the sudden release from Joe Biden, partly by the slobbering media jumping all over the reinvention of Kamala like dogs vibrating over a bitch in estrus. The feeling of intoxication may linger through the Democratic convention, but there are already signs that it is fading.  I think James Piereson is correct. Kamala’s position now is akin to that of Michael Dukakis (remember him?) in 1988.

Dukakis was way ahead of George Bush in the summer of 1988.  Then it all unraveled.  His helmet-moment in the tank sealed the deal. But it was his whole left-wing outlook that really did him in.  And Dukakis was Ronald Reagan compared to Kamala Harris.  “Once her views are made known to the public,” Piereson notes, “Harris’s support will begin to melt away. . . . [B]y mid-September, Trump will have opened up a six-point lead in the polls that will remain intact for the balance of the campaign.”

Although I would hesitate to be quite so arithmetically precise, I think that Piereson is also by and large correct in his electoral prediction. “Notwithstanding the euphoria today,” he writes,

Trump will win the election by six points—forty-nine to forty-three percent—winning 339 electoral votes, including all of the so-called swing states, plus the Democratic-leaning states of Virginia, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.  Republicans will pick up three or four seats in the Senate and perhaps twenty seats in the House, giving them safe majorities in both chambers. This will give Trump the margins he needs to implement a good piece of his agenda in 2025 and 2026.

I think this is right—though, again, I hesitate to be quite so exact in attaching numbers to Trump’s victory.

Back in 2020, I wrote a column on “The Democratic Art of Magical Thinking.” Magical thinking, I explained, “is the irrational belief, rampant among primitive peoples and those exposed to too many woke college seminars, that our thoughts influence or ‘constitute’ reality.”

There can be a certain entertainment value to the phenomenon, which is why I added the word “masque” to the title of this piece.  A “masque” was a form of “courtly entertainment” that combined dance, music, fancy-dress, and architectural fantasy “to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron.”  That’s essentially what we have here with Kamala Harris.  That New York magazine cover depicting her cackling astride the globe would be a suitable playbill for this intended deep state entertainment. But I doubt that the Democrats will be able to maintain their willing suspension of disbelief far beyond the convention when the masque ends and the players disperse.

How did the magical thinking arise in the first place? One source is the habit of credulity that is a by-product of all utopian thought. The Democrats have mutated into the party of nowhere, so it is not surprising that they prefer pleasing fantasy to sobering reality.

The other chief source is the attack on objective truth that, in various ways, has been the gospel proclaimed by fancy professors for the past several decades. Students everywhere are taught to be suspicious of truth, to proclaim the relativity of values. This is a brain-addling teaching, but one that you would have to look far and wide to find a place it hasn’t reached.

As I noted in that earlier column on magical thinking, epistemic nihilism is the order of the day in all the best colleges and universities. But the result is not so much a failure as a promiscuity of belief. Hence the hyperventilating media shamans with their intoxicating potions. Some conservative pundits are fretting that Kamala Harris represents a credible challenge to the Trump juggernaut. Absent an assassin’s bullet, the successful rekindling of  Democratic lawfare, or some other praeternatural intervention,  I think the Democrats are setting themselves up not only for major disappointment but for staggering disillusionment. That’s the trouble with magical thinking. Sooner or later, reality intrudes and destroys the web of fantasy that the spurious magic has spun. Donald Trump is an avenging angel of reality. The Dems, as well as certain besotted anti-Trump conservatives, are dancing now.  They won’t be gyrating when the music stops and the hall empties.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/04/2024 - 17:30
Published:8/4/2024 6:01:59 PM
[Politics] [Josh Blackman] Today in Supreme Court History: August 4, 1961 8/4/1961: President Barack Obama's birthday. He would appoint two Justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Published:8/4/2024 8:39:16 AM
[3dea6029-7f8f-5f59-a662-113b63fc2d81] Barack Obama's political career kicked off in the Illinois State Senate, evolved into a two-term presidency Barack Obama began his career in politics as a senator in Illinois. He went on to serve two terms as president of the United States, from 2009 until 2017. Published:8/4/2024 8:39:15 AM
[Uncategorized] Kamala Harris Adding Obama Veterans to Campaign Staff

A fourth Obama term is coming.

The post Kamala Harris Adding Obama Veterans to Campaign Staff first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:8/2/2024 7:31:48 PM
[Media] 'Pod Save' Bros Flaunt Wealth, Bust Unions, Sleep With Subordinates: Bombshell Report

Pod Save America? More like Pod Damn America. The former Obama bros who started a podcasting empire have finally been exposed by their employees for flaunting their wealth, sleeping with subordinates, and flouting their progressive ideals like total hypocrites.

The post 'Pod Save' Bros Flaunt Wealth, Bust Unions, Sleep With Subordinates: Bombshell Report appeared first on .

Published:8/2/2024 1:57:46 PM
[Markets] Harris Has Enough Virtual Votes To Be Democratic Nominee Harris Has Enough Virtual Votes To Be Democratic Nominee

To the surprise of nobody, Vice President Kamala Harris has passed the threshold required to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

During a Friday Democratic National Committee (DNC) virtual roll call vote just two weeks after President Joe Biden was coup'd out of the race, Harris, who ran unopposed, secured the minimum required 2,350 votes after the roll call began at 9 a.m. on Thursday.

"I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States and I will tell you, the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders, and our staff has been pivotal to making this moment possible," Harris - or whoever wrote that, said in a Friday statement, adding that she will officially accept the nomination next week after the virtual voting period ends.

"As chair of this great party, as chair of this party that is built on hope, I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of the democratic party following the close of voting on Monday," DNC Chair Jamie Harris ejaculated, adding "Just one day after we opened voting that the vice president has crossed the majority threshold and will officially be our nominee next week, folks that is outstanding."

She had earned 3,923 delegates as of Tuesday, when the DNC announced that Harris was the only candidate to earn enough delegates to qualify for the virtual roll call.

She is the official nominee weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago begins on Aug. 19. And, she is expected to name her running mate within the next few days before she travels with the pick to seven swing states next week, starting with a stop in Philadelphia on Tuesday. -The Hill

The plan to hold a virtual roll call ahead of the convention in Chicago was originally intended to make sure Biden appeared on the ballot in Ohio, which had a deadline to certify the party's presidential nominee before said convention.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/02/2024 - 14:25
Published:8/2/2024 1:37:44 PM
[Democrats] Taliban Lawyer Tony West Has a New Client: His Sister-in-Law Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris has a "powerful" new campaign adviser: her brother-in-law Tony West, the former Obama Justice Department attorney who defended a convicted terrorist sentenced to 20 years in prison for fighting with the Taliban and colluding with al-Qaeda.

The post Taliban Lawyer Tony West Has a New Client: His Sister-in-Law Kamala Harris appeared first on .

Published:8/2/2024 1:18:11 PM
[Markets] Unburdened By Vocabulary: Kamala Harris Dishes Fresh Word Salad During Prisoner Swap Unburdened By Vocabulary: Kamala Harris Dishes Fresh Word Salad During Prisoner Swap

Ever since Democrats coup'd Joe Biden into stepping aside, they've done their best to shield frontrunner Kamala Harris from opening her mouth (a difficult ask), lest she remind everyone that she's actually an idiot whose vocabulary relies on a very limited random word generator.

Point in case - Harris was caught on camera in the wild - where she gave an unscripted answer while she and President Joe Biden greeted three American citizens and one permanent resident who arrived home after a prisoner exchange with Russia on Thursday.

"This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy," said Harris, using so many words to say so little.

Thursday's exchange of 24 prisoners was the largest such swap since the Cold War, and included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan and 14 other individuals who were being held in Russia, in exchange for 8 held by the west - including a Russian assassin and two hackers being held in the US, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland.

The plane carrying the formerly detained Americans landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 8PM local time.

The plane carrying the Americans from their Russian imprisonment landed late Thursday, after taking off from Ankara, Turkey around 8:00 pm local time

Whelan, a 54-year-old ex Marine, was sentenced to 16 years in 2020 after being detained two years earlier on suspicion of spying. Both were freed Thursday as part of the East-West prisoner swap - the largest since the Cold War.

After being freed from their Russian cells, the former prisoners took a four-hour flight from Moscow to Ankara. They then boarded a plane for a 10-hour trek back to the US.

She was seen running into the arms of her family Thursday, after embracing both Kamal Harris and Joe Biden upon exiting the plane.

But it was Whelan who disembarked first, followed by Gershkovich, and then Kurmasheva. All three were seen giving Harris and Biden handshakes before blissfully running into the arms of their respective families.

...

The prisoners were seen speaking with the president and vice president on the landing strip as onlookers cheered, in a display that, instead of occurring in private, was aired for the world to see.  -Daily Mail

On Friday, former President Trump said that the swap marked a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said he would have cut a better deal if he was in the White House.

"Well, as usual, it was a win for Putin…But we got somebody back. So, I'm never going to be challenging that. It wouldn't have happened with us," Trump told Fox Business. "We wouldn't have had to let some of the great killers of the world go."

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/02/2024 - 11:30
Published:8/2/2024 10:49:29 AM
[Editorial Cartoons] Shadow Government

by A.F. Branco at CDN -

Biden Sleeping who running the country

We now know that Biden hasn’t been mentally fit to run the country since he took office, so who has been running the country, and who is running it now? Obama? Kamala? Dr Jill? Hunter? The CIA? WHO?! See more Branco toons HERE!

Click to read the rest HERE-> Shadow Government first posted at Conservative Daily News

Published:8/2/2024 7:07:20 AM
[] Kamala's Ride on the Bright Yellow Economic Short Bus Published:8/1/2024 2:33:55 PM
[] Has Iran Penetrated Team Kamala? Published:8/1/2024 11:08:39 AM
[] The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition Iran is the progressive movement's favorite anti-American country, so it is no wonder that officials of the Biden/Obama junta are working diligently in its interest. And of course Chlamydia Harris takes her marching orders from the Obama minions sprinkled... Published:8/1/2024 10:05:49 AM
[] The Morning Report — 8/1/24 Good Morning Kids. Well, I suppose this proves that Barack Obama is still running the show, or does it given who and what Biden/Harris and the entire Democrat Left are. The mastermind of the most heinous mass terrorist attack and... Published:8/1/2024 5:17:16 AM
[Markets] Kari Lake Wins GOP Senate Primary In Arizona, Setting Up Showdown With Rep. Ruben Gallego Kari Lake Wins GOP Senate Primary In Arizona, Setting Up Showdown With Rep. Ruben Gallego

Authored by Nathan Worcester and Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In this combination photo, Kari Lake speaks in Dallas on Aug. 5, 2022, left, and Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is seen in the Capitol on July 14, 2022. (AP Photo)

PHEONIX—Kari Lake has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary, defeating Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and Elizabeth Reye.

“If you think this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans, you’re still sleeping,” Lake said in her victory speech, calling on Trump Republicans, traditional Republicans, “disaffected Democrats,” and others to come together.

Lake, a former Phoenix-area television news anchor and Republicans’ 2022 gubernatorial nominee, was favored to win the primary with a significant lead in most polls.

Her victory sets up a general election contest with Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who ran unopposed in the Democratic Senate primary.

During her victory speech, the Iowa-born Lake brandished what she described as an opposition research file on Gallego, calling him extreme and highlighting his Chicago origins.

Gallego’s victory was called shortly after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. local time. The Associated Press called Lake’s victory in the primary at 8:44 p.m. local time.

It’s official – my opponent is Kari Lake,” Gallego wrote on X shortly after Lake’s victory was projected. “Arizona, the choice is clear: Kari wants to ban abortion. I will always protect abortion rights.”

As of 9 p.m. local time, Lake had won 53.3 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press, and carried all but two counties in the state. Lamb had 40.7 percent as of that same time, while Reye had 6.1 percent.

Lake and Gallego are seeking to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who is not seeking reelection. Sinema was elected as a Democrat in 2018 but left the party after the 2022 midterm elections.

Matthew Martinez, who leads the legal ballot-chasing effort for conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, lauded Lake’s win in a speech at her victory party.

This is a good victory... but we have to win our general,” Martinez said on stage.

Senators from Arizona, a battleground state, have often received a spotlight in national politics. The late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran for president in 2000, where he was Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s primary opponent, and in 2008, when he won the nomination but was defeated in the general election by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

McCain later attracted national prominence for his criticism of candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and, later, during his presidency. McCain succeeded the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), who was the Republican nominee in the 1964 presidential election against President Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater later played a key role in defense policy and is often regarded as a pivotal figure in the conservative movement.

Arizona’s other senator, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), is named as a possible running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Most polls show Gallego with a lead over Lake. He has also significantly outraised Lake in terms of campaign contributions. Lake’s candidacy has attracted controversy for her legal challenges to the 2022 gubernatorial election, where she claims she won the race against Gov. Katie Hobbs. She has been endorsed by Trump as well as the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s Senate campaign arm.
Earlier on July 30, Gallego and his wife visited the South Phoenix Missionary Baptist Church to drop off their ballots, which were mailed to them ahead of time. In a subsequent press conference, Gallego criticized Lake’s unwillingness to commit to a general election debate hosted by the Arizona Clean Debates Commission.

I don’t understand why Kari Lake is afraid of an even, grounded debate,” Gallego said.

Lake said she didn’t want to work with the debate commission, citing her treatment during the 2022 midterms.

“We’ve seen how they treated people the last election cycle back in 2022, where people who decided not to do the debate, namely Hobbs, ended up getting her own half-an-hour. That was my problem,” Lake told reporters on July 30.

She indicated that her campaign would consult with Gallego about a possible debate in another forum.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
Tyler Durden Wed, 07/31/2024 - 23:20
Published:7/31/2024 11:08:45 PM
[Markets] The Mandarinate: The 3rd-Party That Isn't On The US Election Ticket The Mandarinate: The 3rd-Party That Isn't On The US Election Ticket

Authored by Amir Taheri via The Gatestone Institute,

Barring another surprise "event," the coming US presidential showdown is likely to be a duel between former President Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

That duel, if it goes through, will include a number of new features.

Harris is only the second woman to reach the last round in a US presidential contest. She is also the first "black" woman of Indian and Jamaican background to reach the penultimate rung of the ladder.

There are novelties on Trump's side as well.

He is the second former president after Theodore Roosevelt to seek a return to the White House, in the face of opposition from his party's traditional elite. But unlike Roosevelt who left the Republican Party to found his foredoomed Progressive Party, Trump did not leave and united it under his flag.

One of the paradoxes of this election is that Republicans enter the final round unexpectedly united while Democrats, including some on the left, are still yes-butting Harris as their standard-bearer.

American presidential elections have often been more about personality than policy.

Of the 46 presidents the US has had, 31 had a military background up to the highest grades. Only Bill Clinton made his refusal to enlist for service during the Vietnam War a badge of honor.

Barack Obama, who also had no service record, claimed military credit on behalf of his maternal grandfather who had served in the army. Grandpa's picture is on the cover of Obama's book, Dreams from My Father.

This time round, neither of the finalists has a military record, even through grandpas, to boast about.

What about other ingredients in an American presidential narrative?

The standard fable presents the aspirant as hailing from a modest, occasionally poor, family living in a log cabin but moving up the social ladder thanks to hard work and personal merit. Bill Clinton made much of the claim that he had been an orphan raised by a selfless and dedicated mother, a theme that helped secure votes from single mothers.

Such themes don't work this time.

Trump may have not lived in the penthouse of Trump Tower from the start, but certainly didn't grow up in a log cabin either. Harris's highly-educated parents managed to secure an upper-middle class status thanks to hard work and the luck to live in California, where positive discrimination is almost a creed.

Thus, one might have assumed that the contest this time would shift attention from personalities to policy differences.

The opposite has happened.

The two camps have chosen personal attacks of the kind and at a level seldom seen before. The list of charges made against Trump is too long for this column. He is castigated as guilty of every sin imaginable, including the original one.

As for Harris, she is caricatured as a Jezebel with a law degree and blamed for all the real or imagined failures of the Obama-Biden's 12-year joint tenure in the White House.

Since neither party allowed an open convention, key policy issues were not debated even at the party level.

What are those issues?

The first is that the US has been engaged in a cultural civil war for over a decade.

The traditional vision of the US as a melting pot of cultural, religious and ethnic identities is challenged by what Samuel Huntington's disciples present as a salad bar in which double-barrel identity is the rule. The clash of civilizations is happening inside the US.

In it, everyone claims to be, and often genuinely feels to be, a victim.

"We'll take our country back" implies that someone has stolen it.

The slogan "protect our social rights" means someone is trying to deprive Americans of public subsidies, positive discrimination and perks that almost half of the population receive.

"Black Lives Matter" implies a system of values based on skin color.

Another key issue is that of the nation's ethno-demographic persona, which has been reduced to tittle-tattle about how many illegal immigrants to round up and expel rather than how to use managed immigration as a source of strength, as it has been in the US since its inception.

One of the dangers that democracies face is that of the machinery of government morphing into a political party with its own culture, traditions, methods and, needless to say, interests -- above all that of self-perpetuation. Thus, the US has a third, invisible party, besides the Republicans and Democrats.

The Federal Government employs almost three million people. Of those, between 5,000 and 7,000 change when the White House changes occupants.

Tenured, at times life-long, jobs help perpetuate a Mandarinate that sees its task as keeping the ship of state on a course it has set.

That Mandarinate is especially well-entrenched in the State Department, the Pentagon, the Treasury and, more importantly, the judiciary.

It also has well-established, at times incestuous, relations with lobbyists, single-issue activist groups, universities with their tenured academics, and think tanks with rotating doors to government departments and the media.

The Mandarinate maintains close ties with those unmovable, effectively tenured members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Conspiracy theorists refer to this Mandarinate as "the deep state".

However, what we are dealing with isn't the product of a conspiracy by a cabal in a black chamber. It is the organic product of a system in which democracy is reduced to elections, and elections reduced to a beauty contest, just as a set of rituals is often marketed as a religion.

Winning an election is an art; governing is quite a different one.

Another key issue is the redistribution of power at the federal and state levels. In several states, especially in the South, confederal anxieties abide. This is often unjustly seen as "redneck" prejudice or even rank racism. But the fact is that the closer the decision-making process is to those affected, the stronger a democracy is.

Trump has tried to express that view in his bull-in-the-china-shop style, while advocating the opposite by calling for an increase in presidential power.

Elitist Democrats on the other hand preach the old federalist gospel of states close to water -- especially the two oceans and the Great Lakes.

This is why Democrats portray the recent decision by the Supreme Court on allowing some states to set their own rules on abortion as an attack on democracy rather than a move towards decentralization that could be extended to other issues.

Rebalancing power between Washington and the states has been an issue since the end of the Civil War.

The states of the defeated Confederacy suffered 12 years of military occupation by the Union army, not to mention plundering by "carpetbaggers," at the end of which they signed a treaty that, while ruling out fissiparous dreams, promised a rebalancing process that never happened.

While the two candidates fire abuse at one another, the voter isn't told what they actually mean to do about cracks in the structures of world order, the war in Ukraine, China as a threat or a rival, the exponential rise of anti-Semitic activities and the deepening of incivility in public life.

On November 5 the Mandarinate or the third party won't be on any ticket.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/29/2024 - 23:45
Published:7/29/2024 11:56:49 PM
[World] How Tesla stock became a ‘Trump trade’ despite GOP climate skepticism Elon Musk’s endorsement of Donald Trump for president was the capstone in a political transformation of a figure who once raised money for Barack Obama and who took heat from Fox News for borrowing from the Department of Energy to fund the manufacture of luxury electric cars. Published:7/29/2024 3:06:21 PM
[Markets] Treasury Estimates $1.3 Trillion In Borrowing Needs For The Remainder Of 2024 Treasury Estimates $1.3 Trillion In Borrowing Needs For The Remainder Of 2024

Ahead of today's big event - the Treasury borrowing estimates publication - we said not to expect any fireworks and also that unlike recent spikes, the most likely range of calendar Q3 and Q4 borrowing estimates is $750BN for the July-September quarter and $450BN for the October-December quarter (which assumes a year-end cash balance of $650 billion).

And at exactly 3:00pm the Treasury published the anticipated numbers, which came close to our estimates for Q3, but well above our forecast for Q4, specifically:

  • Q3 funding needs were revised lower to $740 billion (just below our forecast of $750 billion) from $847 billion projected last quarter.  According to the Treasury, the borrowing estimate was "is $106 billion lower than announced in April 2024, largely due to lower Federal Reserve System Open Market Account (SOMA) redemptions and a higher beginning-of-quarter cash balance." In other words, the QT taper is primarily responsible for the lower funding needs. As a reminder, the Fed’s plan hadn’t been in place when the Treasury released its previous borrowing estimate. The Treasury also kept its quarter-end cash balance estimate unchanged at $850 billion.
  • Q4 funding needs (released for the first time) are estimated at $565 billion, $115 billion above our estimate of $450 billion, which is quite a bit higher obviously than expected, but which is also due in part to the higher TGA estimate of $700 billion vs our assumption of $650 billion.
  • In summary, the Treasury expects to borrow just over $1.3 trillion by year-end (although this number will end up being much higher if Trump becomes president and the US "unexpectedly" collapses into recession in the first days of the new presidency).

The Treasury’s cash balance at the end of June, at about $778 billion, was also above the $750 billion level Treasury had targeted at the end of April. The holdings of the Treasury General Account stood at about $768 billion as of last Thursday.

There's more, because while the Treasury projects $850BN cash balance at end of Q3, this number then drops to $700BN at end of Q4 (which is above our estimate of $650 billion) and since the streetwide estimate for Q3 end of quarter cash was ~$650BN, this suggests that the real funding needs (on an apples to apples basis) is actually $515BN, which is modestly above the median Wall Street estimate. For context, JPMorgan expected a Q4 marketable debt borrowing need of $496BN, while Wrightson was on the high end at $670 billion. Of note, Societe Generale had forecast a year-end cash buffer of $550 billion, $150 billion below the Treasury's own forecast. On the other end, TD Securities predicted the Treasury would project a far more generous year-end cash balance of $850 billion (perhaps anticipating the prefunding of a much more drawn out debt ceiling battle).

Source: Treasury

“Treasury’s year-end cash balance was around the middle of the expected range and indicates a moderate decline relative to an elevated level of cash expected at the end of the third quarter,” said Zachary Griffiths, a senior fixed-income strategist at CreditSights.

Keep a close eye on the $700BN year-end cash balance, as it has potential implications for the next debt-limit battle: that cash stockpile would be rapidly drawn down after the debt ceiling by law kicks back in at the start of next year — unless Congress passes an increase or new suspension, which is unlikely if Congress is once again split.

The law doesn’t dictate a precise amount of cash that the Treasury is allowed to have on hand when the debt limit kicks in. Some dealers - such as DB - had anticipated the department would provide a smaller estimate for its cash balance target for the end of December, just before the debt limit’s reinstatement in January. But that view wasn’t universal. A smaller cash pile would imply slightly less bill issuance at the end of the year, and therefore a higher Reverse Repo balance.

The targeted end-of-December cash balance level “is also its assumed cash balance upon the expiration of the debt limit suspension on January 1, 2025,” according to a footnote in the Treasury statement. “This assumption is based on expected cash flows under Treasury’s cash management policies and is consistent with its authorities and obligations, including those under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.”

Bottom line: contrary to its activist tactics to boost the market and to front-load debt needs, this quarter the Treasury reported numbers that came in line with expectations for Q3, and slightly above blended estimates for Q4.

Then again, the real question should be not what the Treasury projects for Q3 and Q4, but Q1 which is when as we now know Biden will finally leave the White House forever, and be replaced by either Trump or Kamala (or Big Mike) and when all the lipstick on this pig will finally wash off.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/29/2024 - 15:24
Published:7/29/2024 2:45:21 PM
[Markets] On Kamala's "Inspiring" Backstory & The Big Lie About "Unity" On Kamala's "Inspiring" Backstory & The Big Lie About "Unity"

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.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/26/2024 - 19:50
Published:7/26/2024 7:20:29 PM
[Politics] Obama Endorses Harris

State of the Union: Obama declined to endorse Harris immediately when Biden dropped out.

The post Obama Endorses Harris appeared first on The American Conservative.

Published:7/26/2024 2:24:58 PM
[Democrats] Hope and Cringe: Obama Endorses Woman He Belittled With Sexualized Remark

WARNING: The following article contains a graphic description of misogynistic language that many experts have described as the rhetorical equivalent of sexual violence. Please proceed with caution.

The post Hope and Cringe: Obama Endorses Woman He Belittled With Sexualized Remark appeared first on .

Published:7/26/2024 12:07:31 PM
[2024 Election] 'Proud' Barack Obama Endorses Kamala Harris for President

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 5: Former President Barack Obama hugs Vice President Kamala Harris during an event to mark the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House on April 5, 2022 in Washington, DC. With then-Vice President Joe Biden by his side, Obama signed 'Obamacare' into law on March 23, 2010. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement Friday morning endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic 2024 presidential nominee. The move ended days of speculation over whether he would support her.

The post ‘Proud’ Barack Obama Endorses Kamala Harris for President appeared first on Breitbart.

Published:7/26/2024 7:45:01 AM
[4c2c9815-59fc-5e76-ba47-a7a94c544bb8] Barack, Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris for president after days of silence In a video endorsement, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States. Published:7/26/2024 5:56:09 AM
[Politics] Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Harris: 'She gives us all reason to hope'

Though Obama was initially coy after Biden said he would not seek reelection, the Obamas' nod is unsurprising given their long relationship with Harris.

Published:7/26/2024 5:22:10 AM
[] The Morning Report — 7/26/24 Good Morning Kids. So the Obama's have now officially endorsed Kamala. I assume this means she's either agreed to become their puppet or else her staff is now comprised mostly of Obama loyalists, and not Clintonistas. Or is there something... Published:7/26/2024 5:22:10 AM
[] Biden Family Source: Obama Hasn't Endorsed Harris Because He Knows She Can't Win I don't get the whole Kamala Harris play. You staged a coup against Biden because he couldn't win, and now you anoint someone else who can't win? This is what Obama must be thinking: We didn't stage a coup against... Published:7/25/2024 5:51:40 PM
[Markets] The Future Of Bitcoin In America Will Be Decided At The Ballot Box The Future Of Bitcoin In America Will Be Decided At The Ballot Box

Authored by Senator Bill Hagerty via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As Americans head to the polls this fall, their decision regarding who will lead our country will also determine the fate of crypto here in the United States, and our security, prosperity, and freedom are at stake.

This week, I will join President Trump and thousands of crypto market participants in Nashville for Bitcoin 2024, the world's largest Bitcoin conference.

This year, the conference is held in my home state at a time that is clearly the tipping point for the future of crypto technology in the U.S. This fall, the future of crypto in America is on the ballot as our nation decides who will lead the Executive and Legislative branches of our nation. The contrast between Democrat and Republican approaches to crypto is stark. The Biden Administration has repeatedly demonstrated its hostility to crypto by refusing to provide a basic regulatory framework for the industry, while simultaneously taking enforcement actions against firms for allegedly violating nonexistent rules.

This combination of legal uncertainty and brass-knuckled enforcement has pushed many crypto innovators to the brink, leaving them little choice but to move their businesses overseas.

Meanwhile, Democrats have also taken extreme measures to stifle the adoption of crypto in the traditional financial system.

Biden’s regulators have forced crypto-engaged banks like Signature Bank into receivership while imposing crypto-hostile policies like the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121, which makes it prohibitively expensive for financial institutions to hold customers’ crypto assets. Altogether, the Biden Administration’s record makes clear what another four years of Democrat political control would bring: more political persecution of the industry on a scale reminiscent of Obama’s Operation Chokepoint.

In contrast, Republicans have taken concrete steps to develop constructive crypto policies that exemplify the party’s longstanding commitment to the principles of innovation, free enterprise, and individual liberty. House Republicans have passed promising bills that would provide legislative clarity for crypto market structure and for U.S.-Dollar-denominated private stablecoins. Republicans in both chambers have worked together to try to overturn Biden’s most egregious policies, address concerns about illicit finance, promote private-sector innovation in stablecoins, and prevent the development of a central bank digital currency. Republican control of Congress and the White House would enable the GOP to expand and implement these efforts, finally delivering constructive rules of the road for crypto and ending Biden’s oppressive regime of regulation by enforcement.

If Republicans don’t stop Democrats from trying to crush crypto in America, the consequences could be dire.

Four more years of hostility will force even more crypto innovators offshore. Prominent U.S. exchanges have already started opening businesses in other countries, seeking licenses in foreign jurisdictions, and shuttering their U.S. operations. In recent years, lawmakers in Washington have realized how allowing another critical industry—semiconductors—to go offshore has weakened our nation’s competitive edge and geopolitical leverage. We would be foolish to allow crypto—this generation’s new cutting-edge technology—to follow the samCryptoe path. Republicans understand that keeping innovation onshore is essential for our global competitiveness and for the creation of wealth and jobs for Americans.

All too often, voters dismayed with Washington’s dysfunction feel that their vote—and national politics more broadly—does not matter. That’s not true here.

No matter how much the status quo may frustrate us, the truth is that elections offer us the best opportunity to change course and get our country’s policies back on track.

In the case of crypto, the vote at the ballot box this year could quite literally decide its fate.

This November, Americans must make their voices heard and send their elected representatives to Washington with a mandate: secure a future for crypto in America.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/25/2024 - 15:25
Published:7/25/2024 2:37:13 PM
[Markets] 93% Of Top-Ranked University Presidents Donate To Democrats 93% Of Top-Ranked University Presidents Donate To Democrats

Authored by Kate Roberson via The College Fix,

About 93 percent of the 25 top-ranked U.S. universities’ presidents donated to Democrat campaign funds, according to a College Fix analysis of federal and state political campaign donation data.

Of the 15 presidents that The Fix found data on, 14 gave to Democrats, including 12 who gave exclusively and two who gave primarily to Democrats but also donated smaller amounts to Republicans;  only one donated only to Republicans. That amounts to about 93 percent donating to Democratic campaigns, according to the analysis.

Information for the analysis came from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan campaign research group Open Secrets, as well as individual state government campaign finance reports. Searches were conducted using the individuals’ names, including maiden and middle names, and current and past employers.

The Fix’s analysis includes donations records from 2002 to 2024. Donations were classified according to the listed party of the candidate or campaign.

The presidents included in the analysis were based on the top 25 universities listed in U. S. News and World Report’s Best National University Rankings, as they were ranked in June.

Chance Layton, spokesperson for the National Association of Scholars, told The Fix in a phone interview Tuesday the analysis is consistent with their research findings showing professors in the liberal arts and humanities also tend to skew strongly left politically.

“The numbers do not surprise me whatsoever, it’s just a further piece of evidence that shows the lack of diversity on college campuses,” Layton said.

And personal politics do affect how universities are run, he said, pointing to administrations “run amuck” with “hard-core leftist policies” that push out conservative and moderate scholars with things like diversity statements in hiring practices.

The largest set of donations came from Brown University President Christina Paxson, who collectively gave $26,750 to Democrat candidates and fundraising platforms, The Fix found.

Her largest individual donation went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the amount of $15,000 in 2014, according to FEC data. Paxon also donated to Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Kerry.

The second largest came from Princeton University President Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber, who gave $19,550 to various Democratic congressional candidates’ campaigns, and $3,500 to former President Obama.

The only university president who donated exclusively to Republican campaigns was Lee H. Roberts at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, who gave $17,650 to Republican candidates, including U.S. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina.

Two of the presidents gave to mostly Democratic candidates and funds but also made some donations to Republicans.

Paul Alivisatos of the University of Chicago donated $50 to the Republican platform WinRed in 2024 and $125 in 2023. The remaining $5,688 of Alivisatos’ donations went to Democratic candidates and funds including $200 to the Democrat fund ActBlue in 2024.

Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian also gave to both, including $2,000 to Democrat Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Doyle in 2019 and $3,400 to a campaign fundraiser for former Republican Michigan Gov. Richard Dale Snyder in 2010.

The Fix emailed Paxson, Eisgruber, Roberts, Alivisatos, and Jahanian asking about their reaction to the analysis’ findings twice this week, but none responded.

Other presidents who gave to Democratic campaigns were Martha Pollack of Cornell University, Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J. Larry Jameson of the University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Rosenbaum of California Institute of Technology.

Ronald J. Daniels of Johns Hopkins University, Carol Christ of University of California Berkeley, Santa Ono of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt University, Gregory Louis Fenves of Emory University, and James E. Ryan of the University of Virginia also gave exclusively to Democratic campaigns.

The findings are consistent with past College Fix analyses as well. In a 2022 analysis of public election donations records, The Fix found that 96 percent of approximately $2.5 million in political donations from Ivy League professors went to Democrats.

Meanwhile, only 4 percent of donations from a larger sample of U.S. colleges went to Republicans, according to another 2022 College Fix analysis of campaign contributions.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/25/2024 - 11:20
Published:7/25/2024 11:04:30 AM
[] Democrat Civil War Watch: Obama Doesn’t Think Kamala Harris Can Beat Trump Published:7/25/2024 7:49:42 AM
[Uncategorized] The Campaign to Make Kamala Harris the New Barack Obama is Doomed

She's beyond socially awkward and is complete cringe when speaking publicly.

The post The Campaign to Make Kamala Harris the New Barack Obama is Doomed first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:7/23/2024 6:20:31 PM
[Markets] The Party Of 'Democracy" Will Now Choose Your Candidate For You The Party Of 'Democracy" Will Now Choose Your Candidate For You

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

On Sunday, July 21, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign via a text-only post on Twitter/X.

Less than an hour later, Biden - also via a text-only post on Twitter/X - endorsed vice president Kamala Harris for the presidency. 

Thus, in just a few minutes, the ruling party in Washington completely erased the primary election process from one of the country’s major parties.

That is, the same Democratic party that tells us it is the party of “democracy” just completely cut ordinary voters out of the selection process for the Democratic nominee. 

Instead, the Democratic nominee in 2024 will be chosen by a small group of elite party insiders. We’re told there will be an “open convention” in Chicago to choose the nominee, but all that means is that that there is no pre-determined nominee going into the convention. In any case, however, the nominee will be chosen by delegates and superdelegates (i.e., wealthy party elites like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) behind closed doors. 

The Democratic party’s efforts to circumvent the primary process are quite remarkable for a ruling coalition that lectured the general public endlessly in 2020 about how Donald Trump was allegedly a “threat to democracy” and how “democracy is on the ballot.”

Yet, this is what we’ve come to expect from political elites who use the term “democracy” as a propaganda term. For these people, the term has no objective meaning, it just means “something we like.” “Anti-democratic,” in contrast, just means “something we don’t like.”

Moreover, its use as a propaganda term can be seen in the way that “democracy” is used in the same way as “revolutionary” by Marxist regimes. In such cases “revolutionary” is code for “in favor of the ruling elites” and “something we like.” Similarly, the opposite of “democracy” in a Marxist regime is “counterrevolutionary” or “bourgeois.” Those terms were essentially code for “against the ruling party” and “thing we don’t like.” 

Such terms have no actual content in the usual sense of a word.  Thus, the term “democracy” simply means “good” and “not democratic” means “evil.”

For example, President Joe Biden delivered two major speeches in 2022 on how “democracy” will supposedly be abolished if his opponents win. In November of that year, former president Barack Obama solemnly intoned that if Republicans win in Arizona, “democracy as we know it may not survive.” This is repeated among the party’s media allies. One writer at Salon chastised voters for daring to let their votes be influenced by economic concerns when “democracy is under threat.” One New York Times headline bemoaned the apparent reality that voters don’t seem interested in “saving democracy” when it’s supposedly all so clear that “democracy is in peril.” At no point in these jeremiads is it ever explained how a vote for the out-of-favor candidate will actually end elections or universal suffrage or any other event or institution associated with democracy. 

In Biden’s September 2022 speech in Philadelphia, he went on for twenty minutes about an imagined threat to democracy, without ever actually defining what democracy is. One was reminded of Fidel Castro howling in his multi-hour speeches about the threat to “the revolution” from insidious imperialists and counterrevolutionaries—by which he meant anyone who opposed his regime. The term “revolutionary” had no connection to actual revolution in this context. It simply meant “something my regime likes.” 

Meanwhile, the elites have gone to great lengths to ensure that no actual democracy—in the technical or traditional sense—has taken place in the nomination process. The Democratic Party made it clear that it would not allow any presidential hopefuls to challenge Biden to a debate. Early Democratic challengers Congressman Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson were told to get lost. The most significant challenger within the party, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was effectively expelled from the party in October 2023. He was forced to declare his candidacy as an independent candidate soon after. 

So, after denying Democratic voters the chance to vote on Kennedy or anyone else, the party has now also denied the voters the chance to vote on Harris or whoever else the party elites will decide is the nominee in 2024. 

I don’t mention any of this to burnish the reputation of the Republican Party, by the way. Those of us who remember the Ron Paul campaigns in 2008 and 2012 remember how the GOP conspired to torpedo his campaign, going so far as to change the convention rules, ex post facto, to deny Paul a prime-time speaking position and to disenfranchise his delegates. 

Yet, it’s not the GOP that’s claiming to be the guardian of the vox populi while conspiring to undermine that vox at every turn. 

Rather, the alleged protectors of democracy carry on the tradition of redefining the term “democracy” to serve the interests of the elites whenever it suits their purposes. We see this not only in America, but globally. Any time the “wrong” people win an election—”wrong” according to global elites—the outcome of the election is declared a “threat to democracy.” We see this repeatedly in European politics where “democracy” is defined as support for the unelected European commission. German political elites, meanwhile, have repeatedly declared the rightwing AfD party a “threat to democracy” because party members keep winning elections. In Latin America, “democracy” means to support the social-democratic left. When rightwing Jair Bolsonaro was elected in Brazil, that was denounced as anti-democratic. When leftwing Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was impeached by a democratically elected legislature, that was denounced as an anti-democratic coup. Democratically elected Javier Milei was denounced by uber-establishment magazine The Economist as “a danger for democracy.” 

It is now clear that to be in favor of democracy in 2024 is to support whatever the ruling party elites want you to support. To be “pro-democracy” now apparently means to vote for the candidate selected for you by party elites in secret meetings. According to the ruling elites, in a true “democracy,” there’s no voting allowed. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/23/2024 - 13:05
Published:7/23/2024 12:18:07 PM
[] Now That Biden Has Dropped Out, Were Trump’s Speech and the RNC Still Successful? Published:7/22/2024 5:13:48 PM
[Markets] Watch Live: Secret Service Boss Cheatle Faces House Grilling As DHS Forms Panel To Review Trump Shooting Watch Live: Secret Service Boss Cheatle Faces House Grilling As DHS Forms Panel To Review Trump Shooting

Watch Live (due to start at 10amET):

In a move seemingly timed to ease the immediate pressure on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle,  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday night announced the formation of an independent review panel charged with examining the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which appeared to illuminate an astonishing degree of Secret Service incompetence. 

The unusual Sunday night announcement came about 12 hours before Cheatle's 10 am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee, which Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has touted as "must-watch TV," telling CNN, "She's got a lot to answer for. And those concerns are bipartisan." Underscoring that notion, Oversight Committee member and Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle has already demanded that Cheatle resign, via a statement released Saturday:  

"The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures. I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position.

Clumsy under fire: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle infamously suggested there were no agents atop the building used by the Trump shooter because it had a "sloped roof at its highest point" (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

The creation of the panel will give Cheatle a flimsy shield she can use to try deflecting Monday's pointed questions about the Secret Service's damning actions and inactions surrounding the July 13 shooting at Trump's rally that wounded Trump and two spectators and killed a third.  

“We are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on July 13," said Mayorkas. "This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”

In his Sunday night statement, Mayorkas also made the deeply dubious assertion that the Secret Service is "the greatest protective service in the world." The victims and surviving family members of the shooting at Trump's rally would likely quarrel with that poorly-timed chest-thumping. It's also wildly inappropriate given the panel he just appointed should be at least theoretically free to reach an entirely different conclusion.  

That panel has been given 45 days to perform its review. While new experts may be added shortly, it initially has four members: 

  • Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

  • Fran Townsend, a homeland security advisor to President George W. Bush

  • Mark Filip, who was deputy attorney general to George W. Bush

  • David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the State of Delaware

Damning information about the Secret Service's handling of Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania continues to emerge. On Saturday, the agency was caught in a lie: Having repeatedly denied that Trump's campaign was denied additional security resources it had requested, the agency was exposed as having done just that, via a report from the Washington Post

On Friday, the world learned that would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was able to fly a drone over the event site just a few hours before he opened fire. The Secret Service typically bans drone flights at secured sites; but it's unclear if such a prohibition was at least nominally imposed at the rally.

Crooks was identified as a suspicious individual more than an hour before he opened fire from a rooftop only about 450 feet from Trump's podium. At the time, he'd already been observed in possession of a range finder and carrying a duffel bag. Later, he was spotted on a rooftop 20 minutes before all hell broke loose. As it did, female agents assigned to the DEI-focused protective detail appeared to falter under fire -- even struggling with holstering a weapon. 

In the aftermath of the shooting, Cheatle's credibility took a sharp downturn when, asked why no Secret Service agent was posted atop ideal sniper roost used by the shooter, she told ABC:

"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof." 

That flatly ridiculous rationale fueled a brewing public perception that an emphasis on stocking the Secret Service with diversity hires -- including Cheatle -- had greatly weakened the agency. "The initial excuses that [Cheatle] has given for the lapses that happened last Saturday are just unbelievable, so we're going to get down to the bottom of it," said Speaker Johnson. 

You can watch Cheatle's 10am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee here. She'll try dodging the fusillade of rhetorical bullets fired her way from both sides of the aisle, but could emerge more bloodied than Trump. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/22/2024 - 09:45
Published:7/22/2024 9:02:06 AM
[In The News] Obama Declines To Endorse Harris In Lengthy Statement On Biden’s Withdrawal

by Hailey Gomez at CDN -

Former President Barack Obama declined to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday in a lengthy statement on President Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race. Obama praised Biden’s career and time in office as president, and called him “a patriot of the highest order” following the former vice …

Click to read the rest HERE-> Obama Declines To Endorse Harris In Lengthy Statement On Biden’s Withdrawal first posted at Conservative Daily News

Published:7/21/2024 9:53:57 PM
[Harris, Kamala D] Kamala Harris Rapidly Picks Up Democratic Support as 2024 Race Is Reborn Endorsements cascaded in as the vice president took swift control of the Biden campaign in a transformed contest, though Democrats including Barack Obama did not immediately back her. Published:7/21/2024 9:41:40 PM
[] WATCH: JD Vance Asks Now-Presumptive Presidential Candidate Kamala What the Hell She's Done As VP Published:7/21/2024 6:31:01 PM
[7c0f9f12-e64d-51fb-8991-57356825e28b] Obama offers statement of support after Biden drops out of 2024 race: 'Patriot of the highest order' Former President Barack Obama said, "Joe has never backed down from a fight," but believed "it was right for America" after President Biden dropped out of the 2024 race. Published:7/21/2024 5:20:16 PM
[] Bill and Hillary Clinton Have Been 'Privately' Supportive of Joe Biden Staying in the Race Published:7/20/2024 3:35:52 PM
[] Biden ‘Seething’ At Pelosi As Campaign Chair Insists: ‘Absolutely, the President’s In This Race’ Published:7/20/2024 1:35:46 PM
[Biden Administration] WATCH: Joe Biden's Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 103)

Keep fighting, Joe! Crazy Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic establishment are trying to push you aside because they're afraid of what you might accomplish in a second term. They don't want you to be remembered as a much more successful president than Barack Obama, your ungrateful former boss. They're living in a fantasyland if they think they can bully you into retirement.

The post WATCH: Joe Biden's Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 103) appeared first on .

Published:7/20/2024 5:44:03 AM
[United States Politics and Government] Secluded in Rehoboth, Biden Stews at Allies’ Pressure to Drop Out of the Race As he recovers from Covid, the president has grown resentful toward Democratic congressional leaders and former President Barack Obama. Published:7/19/2024 8:11:53 PM
[Markets] The Federal Housing Agency Hasn't Gotten Its Economic House In Order, Under Both Parties The Federal Housing Agency Hasn't Gotten Its Economic House In Order, Under Both Parties

Authored by Bob Ivry via RealClearInvestigations,

Paul Fishbein’s conviction on rent fraud charges in New York City last year was a feast for the tabloids. 

The story was crazy enough to get readers to click. Prosecutors said that Fishbein, 51, somehow convinced local housing agencies that he owned dilapidated apartment buildings that he didn’t, enabling him to move in tenants and skim government rent subsidies meant for lower-income, disabled, and elderly residents. Fishbein kept the con going for more than years. His take: $1.8 million. 

In February, a judge handed Fishbein 70 months in prison and ordered him to pay back roughly double what he’d taken. The case was a win for city investigators and federal prosecutors. But one agency was conspicuously absent from the celebration: the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a source of the taxpayer money that Fishbein stole. HUD had nothing to do with bringing to justice the fraudster who’d made off with its cash. It was an indictment of the agency’s decade-long resistance to fighting fraud -- and a portent for any promise to tame the bureaucratic state, like the kind touted for a second Trump administration. 

HUD’s lack of involvement in the Fishbein case isn’t necessarily a reflection on field investigators from the agency’s Office of Inspector General, a nationwide force of 140 sleuths who carry guns and badges and are armed with subpoena power. After all, also in February, HUD OIG investigators participated in a massive dragnet that busted 70 current and former New York City Housing Agency employees for soliciting bribes. HUD’s absence from the Fishbein affair was more a result of the agency’s inability to properly track rental-assistance money that, because of error or fraud, ends up in the wrong places — what the government calls improper payments. 

HUD, like other agencies responsible for spending taxpayer money, is required to estimate improper payments and post the results. Auditing themselves in such a way is a sign that at least the agencies are following the money, even if a portion of it is lost to waste or crime. Most agencies are able to complete the task, but not HUD, which blames the failures on various snafus, both human and technological, and says the earliest it can start properly keeping tabs on the money is 2027, “dependent on funding.” 

HUD’s internal watchdog has already spent the past 10 years hectoring the agency to improve its fraud detection. Fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30, marks the seventh consecutive year that HUD failed to report improper-payment estimates and the 11th year in a row that the inspector general found that HUD was not in compliance with improper-payment laws. Without changes, HUD Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis told the Cabinet Department in a January management alert, “HUD may miss opportunities to identify and eliminate fraud vulnerabilities, leaving its funds and reputation at risk.”

That’s the watchdog’s gently diplomatic way of telling HUD to get its act together already. The lack of accountability spans the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. There’s little doubt that it can be tough to track taxpayer money once it’s sent out into the world: HUD’s flows through 3,700 local housing authorities and countless landlords on its way to putting a roof over some 3 million American households. But those complications are also a convenient scapegoat for HUD, as is the lag in upgrading technology systems that could make the accounting job easier.

Meanwhile, we’re talking about two rental assistance programs, which together constitute 68% of HUD’s annual budget. The programs’ combined fiscal budget for 2025, which starts Oct. 1, is slated to be $49.5 billion. Because the numbers are so high, undetected criminality can cause taxpayer losses in the multiple millions. 

Action is needed immediately,” Davis wrote in a January management alert addressed to acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman. 

One Bright Spot

There was one bright spot in the sometimes contentious relationship between HUD and its Office of Inspector General. Last month, HUD agreed to use a risk-management plan for fraud that the agency watchdog had put together during the COVID-19 pandemic. The inspector general said the move would improve monitoring in one of the two big rental assistance programs, laying the groundwork for improved fraud prevention.

Congress created the two HUD programs – Project-Based Rental Assistance and Tenant-Based Rental Assistance - in an effort to stem homelessness. The $16.7 billion PBRA helps house 1.2 million lower-income families. About 49% of the households that receive PBRA are headed by an elderly person and 16% by the disabled. One-quarter of the recipients are families with children. The assistance is attached to certain rentals; an eligible tenant must live in a specific apartment to receive help. That contrasts with the $32.8 billion TBRA, which provides aid that follows a tenant from home to home. Both programs are administered by local housing agencies, whose cooperation with the federal government in tallying up payment errors sometimes lacks enthusiasm.

Even though the law directs federal spending programs to estimate their improper payments, PBRA and TBRA aren’t the only ones that fail to do so. Among the transgressors are the Agriculture Department’s $111 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which skipped filing estimates in 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2021, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ $31 billion TANF, or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Both SNAP and TANF have blamed snags on a lack of coordination with the state and local agencies that manage the programs. 

For fiscal 2023, improper payments across the entire government amounted to $236 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office, which compiles agencies’ estimates. While that number is the only one we have, it’s not accurate. The GAO said that it received a full accounting from only 14 of the 24 departments required to report. Historical numbers come with the same flaw. Since 2003, cumulative estimates of improper payments by executive branch agencies have reached $2.7 trillion, the GAO said. Even though that figure is low, because it’s missing numbers that agencies failed to report, it’s still equivalent to about 10% of America’s Gross Domestic Product. 

Despite its failures in reporting improper payments, “HUD has oversight and monitoring in place to ensure the integrity of its rental-assistance programs,” an agency spokesperson said in an email statement. 

The spokesperson said that local housing agencies and not HUD are responsible for determining whether tenants are eligible for the programs and how much assistance they qualify for, with HUD providing oversight directly or through the local housing agencies. 

By reviewing compliance reports and audited financial statements, HUD is able “to ensure that improper payments are minimized and instances of non-compliance are identified and addressed,” the spokesperson said in the email. “In addition, HUD has requested more funding for system enhancements to modernize and improve HUD technology systems to support our oversight efforts.”

Artificial intelligence might help HUD identify fraudsters such as Fishbein before his swindle can reach its seventh birthday, but as the HUD spokesperson said, that takes money. The Biden administration kept the agency’s budget steady at $72.1 billion from 2023 to 2024. Its proposed fiscal 2025 budget of $72.6 billion is a 0.6% bump.

Joel Griffith said he knows where to find the money for expanding HUD’s computer-based fraud detection: the agency’s environmental programs. Griffith, a research fellow specializing in financial regulations for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank responsible for Project 2025, recommends taking the $250 million earmarked for “climate resilience and energy efficiency” in HUD’s latest budget and spending it instead on upgrading information technology. Add the agency’s green retrofitting project – as much as $50,000 for each targeted housing unit – and that should add up to enough for HUD to prevent, rather than chase, a lot of rental-assistance fraud, he said.

'Beef Up Enforcement'

Donald Trump slashed the budget of HUD’s inspector general by 3.6% in 2021, the last year of his budget oversight, while President Joe Biden proposes hiking it by 10% for 2025. Regardless, Griffith urged the next president, “whoever he is,” to “beef up enforcement.”

Prevent fraud by prosecuting bad actors and publicizing it,” Griffith said. “Enforcing the law is a responsible use of taxpayer resources.

Though HUD's Inspector General's office may have missed out on the publicity surrounding the splashy Fishbein conviction, they’ve been busy. They helped lay the groundwork in Georgia for an October conviction of a Milledgeville Housing Authority payroll clerk who admitted she paid herself $575,014 more than she was entitled; helped secure a guilty plea from a San Francisco man who received $341,455 in fraudulent payments for a residence that turned out to be worth $2.4 million; and saw convictions on bribery and fraud charges of four Pennsylvania men, including the director of the Chester Housing Authority and his chief assistant.

If those cases seem a tad small-fry for investigators hunting for misdeeds in the stereotypically shady rental industry – especially when solutions to systemic problems are called for – there’s the February arrest of 70 former and current New York City Housing Authority employees for bribery and solicitation of bribery. Prosecutors said the administrators pocketed a collective $2 million over 10 years in pay-for-play schemes to hand out work contracts at HUD-funded properties. The Department of Justice called it “the largest number of federal bribery charges on a single day in DOJ history.” 

Though the arrests gave the tabloids an opportunity for a thorough public shaming of the accused – and were another example that there’s big money in poverty – they might have also pointed to a bigger issue: a possible reason why it’s been so difficult, at least in New York, for HUD to estimate improper payments.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/19/2024 - 18:40
Published:7/19/2024 6:26:51 PM
[ab7fa55a-8a36-5f61-a0e1-4910fc712bec] Democrat godfathers make Biden offer they hope he can't refuse President Joe Biden didn't take the hint when Democrats asked him not to run in 2024, and now things are getting ugly. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have a lot of cards to play, but if Joe won't go, it's his call. Published:7/19/2024 12:22:33 PM
[Markets] Some States Embrace CO2 Cap-And-Trade Schemes, Others Reject Them Some States Embrace CO2 Cap-And-Trade Schemes, Others Reject Them

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

The United States is following Europe’s lead in instituting cap-and-trade regimes to reduce CO2 emissions, but America’s journey is split between two paths—Democrat-run states that have passed cap-and-trade mandates, and Republican-run states that appear to have no intention of doing so.

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

In the middle are several swing states that have entered, then exited, cap-and-trade pacts, depending on which party gains the upper hand.

As global demand for oil, gas, and coal hits record levels and shows no signs of slowing, cap-and-trade has been hailed as an alternative way to reduce the use of fossil fuels by setting caps on how much CO2 companies can emit, and then allowing those that exceed the cap to purchase credits from companies that emit less, or to invest in projects, such as preserving forests, that purport to offset emissions.

The financial currency of the cap-and-trade market is called an “allowance,” which gives companies the right to emit greenhouse gasses. Each allowance is valued in terms of tons of emitted CO2, currently priced at less than $10 per ton, though organizations such as the World Bank have said that pricing in the range of $50–$100 per ton is needed to meet the net-zero goals of the Paris Climate Accords.

Advocates of cap-and-trade hail it as a “market-based” solution.

“Cap and trade harnesses the power of the market to fight global warming,” a report by the Environmental Defense Fund states.

“The cap on emissions guarantees the environmental results we need,” the report states. “Trading gets it done in the cheapest way possible.”

But some critics are skeptical, arguing that it is essentially a tax on energy that gets passed on to consumers and commuters, and that insiders may benefit more than the environment from the enormous sums of cash paid into the system.

“Cap-and-trade is a very interesting theoretical model to try to solve a policy problem, but it’s one that ultimately ends up just moving the costs around,” Ryan Yonk, an energy economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Ultimately, the people that pay are the end consumers. The people that benefit are the market creators, and that’s really one of the major concerns,” Mr. Yonk said.

“If you’re going to have a cap-and-trade system, those that are facilitating the transactions, the middlemen that are involved, will ultimately be those that benefit most directly.”

And indeed, an industry has sprung up around carbon pricing regimes, with stock exchanges vying to become financial centers for carbon trading and financial firms looking to profit from making markets in this new currency.

In addition, accountants and consultants earn fees to develop investable carbon-offset projects and to quantify the environmental benefits. Companies that develop wind and solar production or carbon-capture technology are also often recipients of carbon-offset payments under these regimes.

European deputies take part in a meeting on EU emissions at the European Union Parliament in Brussels on June 22, 2022. (John Thys/AFP via Getty Images)

Following Europe’s Lead

Europe led the way in mandating cap-and-trade, establishing the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) in 2005, which regulates approximately 10,000 manufacturing and energy facilities, as well as air and maritime transport. According to the EU, this system has reduced industrial emissions by 37 percent since its founding.

The Obama administration attempted to implement a nationwide cap-and-trade system, but noted that Americans would end up paying more.

President Barack Obama stated in 2008: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

He said coal powered plants or the natural gas industry, for example, “would have to retrofit their operations—that will cost money [and] they will pass that money on to consumers.”

According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, enabling legislation in Congress “failed to reach President Barack Obama’s desk because constituents gave their members an earful that cap and trade would amount to a massive energy tax.”

Since then, Democrats have been successful in implementing these mandates only at the state level.

According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, more than one-fourth of Americans now reside in a state with a cap-and-trade program, which together comprise one-third of U.S. GDP.

In 2009, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland officially launched the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade pact that ultimately expanded to include a dozen states throughout the northeast and Mid-Atlantic region.

California enacted its own cap-and-trade regime in 2012, and advocates say it has generated significant results.

A May report by California’s Air Resources Board stated that the state’s cap-and-trade program has funded $28 billion in climate-related investments over the past decade. Of the money spent, $11 billion financed various projects to “fight climate change and cut pollution.”

The remaining $17 billion was designated for projects such as putting affordable housing near job centers, building high-speed rail, and “adding zero-emission transportation options in underserved communities.”

In 2021, Washington State established a similar program, calling it “cap-and-invest,” through its Climate Commitment Act (CCA). The state now conducts quarterly auctions of CO2 allowances that emitters must purchase if they exceed emissions caps. The caps will be progressively reduced so that the state can get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

“These 2030, 2040, and 2050 limits were set into state law before the CCA was passed, and they’re based on the latest climate science,” Caroline Halter, communications manager for Washington’s Department of Ecology Climate Pollution Reduction Program, told The Epoch Times.

“In other words, they’re what scientists have said all governments need to do in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/18/2024 - 22:20
Published:7/18/2024 9:23:41 PM
[World] Biden faces fresh wave of Democratic doubt as party’s fissures deepen Self-isolating with a case of covid-19, Biden appears more politically isolated than ever as Obama, Pelosi and other top Democrats fret over his candidacy. Published:7/18/2024 1:07:37 PM
[] The Morning Rant: Winston Wolf Edition The combination of the Biden/Obama junta's awful economic policies, their catastrophic foreign policy, a cultural and legal outlook that rewards racialist behavior, open borders, and a lunatic fixation on transgender cheerleading that leads inexorably to child mutilation has driven... Published:7/18/2024 10:01:05 AM
[Markets] "The Black Man, Ketanji": Biden Lost In Racial Jungle Of His Own Mind "The Black Man, Ketanji": Biden Lost In Racial Jungle Of His Own Mind

Joe Biden glitched hard whilst trying to pander to black voters, forgetting the name of his own Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and instead referring to him as "the black man."

Then, struggling to remember any black person's name, he whips out Supreme Court Justice "Ketanji Brown" who Biden nominated.

"And so, it's all about, it's all about treating people with dignity. It's about making sure that—look. I mean, for example, look at the heat I'm getting because I named uh, the secretary of defense, the Black man, I named Ketanji Brown, I mean, because of the people I've named."

And no Joe, you got heat because Austin is a former Raytheon board member.

Going back in time, recall that Biden - who started his career in Congress with a KKK 'Exalted Cyclops' mentor (Robert Byrd)...

In 1977, Biden said that forcing schools to desegregate schools with bussing programs would cause his children to "grow up in a racial jungle."

And of course, Biden referred to Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."

 Imagine what Biden calls Pete Buttigieg, or his transgender assistant Secretary of Health, Rachel Levine?

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/18/2024 - 09:45
Published:7/18/2024 8:53:25 AM
[Markets] A Time Of Shame And Sorrow: When It Comes To Political Violence, We All Lose A Time Of Shame And Sorrow: When It Comes To Political Violence, We All Lose

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily—whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence—whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.”

 - Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (1968)

There’s a subtext to this assassination attempt on former President Trump that must not be ignored, and it is simply this: America is being pushed to the brink of a national nervous breakdown.

More than 50 years after John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, America has become a ticking time bomb of political violence in words and deeds.

Magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality, our politically polarizing culture of callousness, cruelty, meanness, ignorance, incivility, hatred, intolerance, indecency and injustice have only served to ratchet up the tension.

Consumed with back-biting, partisan politics, sniping, toxic hate, meanness and materialism, a culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies. “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes professor Nicolaus Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.”

This casual cruelty is made possible by a growing polarization within the populace that emphasizes what divides us—race, religion, economic status, sexuality, ancestry, politics, etc.—rather than what unites us: we are all Americans, and in a larger, more global sense, we are all human.

This is what writer Anna Quindlen refers to as “the politics of exclusion, what might be thought of as the cult of otherness… It divides the country as surely as the Mason-Dixon line once did. And it makes for mean-spirited and punitive politics and social policy.”

This is more than meanness, however.

We are imploding on multiple fronts, all at once.

This is what happens when ego, greed and power are allowed to take precedence over liberty, equality and justice.

This is the psychopathic mindset adopted by the architects of the Deep State, and it applies equally whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

Beware, because this kind of psychopathology can spread like a virus among the populace.

As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

By failing to actively take a stand for good, we become agents of evil. It’s not the person in charge who is solely to blame for the carnage. It’s the populace that looks away from the injustice, that empowers the totalitarian regime, that welcomes the building blocks of tyranny.

This realization hit me full-force a few years ago. I had stopped into a bookstore and was struck by all of the books on Hitler, everywhere I turned. Yet had there been no Hitler, there still would have been a Nazi regime. There still would have been gas chambers and concentration camps and a Holocaust.

Hitler wasn’t the architect of the Holocaust. He was merely the figurehead. Same goes for the American police state: had there been no Trump or Obama or Bush, there still would have been a police state. There still would have been police shootings and private prisons and endless wars and government pathocracy.

Why? Because “we the people” have paved the way for this tyranny to prevail.

By turning Hitler into a super-villain who singlehandedly terrorized the world—not so different from how Trump is often depicted—historians have given Hitler’s accomplices (the German government, the citizens that opted for security and order over liberty, the religious institutions that failed to speak out against evil, the individuals who followed orders even when it meant a death sentence for their fellow citizens) a free pass.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.

Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. sermonized.

The darkness is winning.

It’s not just on the world stage we must worry about the darkness winning.

The darkness is winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies. It’s winning in the hearts of men and women the world over who are embracing hatred over love. It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.

John F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet five years before King would be similarly executed, spoke of a torch that had been “passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”

Once again, a torch is being passed to a new generation, but this torch is setting the world on fire, burning down the foundations put in place by our ancestors, and igniting all of the ugliest sentiments in our hearts.

This fire is not liberating; it is destroying.

We are teaching our children all the wrong things: we are teaching them to hate, teaching them to worship false idols (materialism, celebrity, technology, politics), teaching them to prize vain pursuits and superficial ideals over kindness, goodness and depth.

We are on the wrong side of the revolution.

“If we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution,” advised King, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.

Freedom demands responsibility.

Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.

JFK was killed in 1963 for daring to challenge the Deep State.

King was killed in 1968 for daring to challenge the military industrial complex.

Robert F. Kennedy offered these remarks to a polarized nation in the wake of King’s assassination:

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort … to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”

Two months later, RFK was also killed by an assassin’s bullet.

Fifty-plus years later, we’re still being terrorized by assassins’ bullets, but what these madmen are really trying to kill is that dream of a world in which all Americans “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.

But imagine…

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom.

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice.

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against government corruption and despotism.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/17/2024 - 23:40
Published:7/17/2024 11:16:11 PM
[Markets] RussiaGate 2.0: Donald Trump Has Opted For "Real Peace" Negotiations With A "Foreign Adversary" RussiaGate 2.0: Donald Trump Has Opted For "Real Peace" Negotiations With A "Foreign Adversary"

Authored by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky via GlobalResearch.ca,

Introduction

Normalization of diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation had first been proposed by Donald Trump in 2017.

Under RussiaGate (2016), President-elect Donald Trump had been accused of treason “after President Obama announced new sanctions [in late December 2016] against Russia and Trump praised Vladimir Putin’s response to the sanctions.” (Daily Caller, December 30, 2016, emphasis added)

Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leo Panetta had already intimated prior to the elections that Trump was a threat to national security. 

Even prior to the inauguration of president Trump, the US media in liaison with US intelligence had launched successive waves of smears directed against President-elect Donald Trump.

The objective from the very outset was to discredit president Trump, presenting him as a Manchurian candidate serving the interests of the Kremlin.

Vanity Fair November 1 2016

Donald Trump, The Manchurian Candidate: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Campaign to Destabilize the Trump Presidency. Regime Change in America

The Atlantic October 8 2016

RussiaGate 2.0

The RussiaGate objective as formulated in 2016 was: 

“to get rid of a President who intended to normalize relations with Russia, thus curtailing the budget and power of the military/security complex.”

(Paul Craig Roberts, emphasis added)

In January 2019, the FBI Russia investigation was quoted by the media as “evidence” that Trump was “wittingly or unwittingly” an agent of the Kremlin.

What is the stance of the FBI today in regard to the candidacy of Donald Trump? The FBI played a key role in sustaining RussiaGate. (P. C Roberts). I should mention that the FBI is also responsible (coincidentally) for the investigation of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

Let us wake up to REALITY.  

The levels of political manipulation, fraud and criminality have reached their pinnacle.

The ultimate intent of the campaign against Trump in 2016-19, led by the Neocons and the Dems Clinton faction was to destabilize the Trump presidency.

From RussiaGate 1.0 to RussiaGate 2.0

There is continuity: Under RussiaGate 2.0 (2024) which we are currently experiencing, various accusations of treason against Trump will once more go into high gear, ultimately with a view to sabotage the peace process as well as destabilize Trump’s candidacy to the presidency of the U.S. 

Trump has confirmed: …

“that if reelected, he would swiftly bring an end to the war in Ukraine by speaking with Putin.

“I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on January 20.

I’ll have that war settled,” Trump said on June 27 during a debate with Biden, adding,

“I’ll get it settled fast, before I take office.”

(Quoted by Newsweek)

Speaking with Putin is regarded as an act of treason. This courageous statement, reminiscent of Donald Trump –the alleged Manchurian Candidate— is unlikely to be accepted by the “Deep State”, the Military Industrial Complex and the powerful financial groups which support the Democratic Party leadership.

What will be the ultimate outcome? 

Real peace negotiations are an integral part of Trump’s election campaign.

Trump’s national security advisory team has prepared a balanced plan: if the Kiev regime does not enter into peace talks with Moscow, the U.S. would (under a Trump presidency) immediately suspend the flow of US weapons to Ukraine:

“Under the plan drawn up by [General Keith] Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who both served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council during his 2017-2021 presidency, there would be a ceasefire based on prevailing battle lines during peace talks, Fleitz said.

They have presented their strategy to Trump, and the Republican presidential candidate responded favorably”. (Reuters, June 23, 2024)

It is worth noting that this peace proposal - which is part of his election campaign - was formulated barely a few weeks prior to the failed attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/17/2024 - 20:45
Published:7/17/2024 8:04:05 PM
[Markets] Demand For Truth Is On Fire: ?? Usage Hits Another All-Time High Following Trump Assassination Attempt Demand For Truth Is On Fire: ?? Usage Hits Another All-Time High Following Trump Assassination Attempt

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday afternoon, streamed on various social media platforms and national television, once again exposed the biased coverage by leftist corporate media outlets for the world to see. 

Let's begin with CNN's reporting. 

Jeff Bezos' Washington Post. 

USA Today. 

The New York Times. 

Let's not forget these:

  • CNN: "Secret Service Rushes Trump Off Stage After He Falls at Rally"

  • Associated Press: "Donald Trump Has Been Escorted Off The Stage During A Rally After Loud Noises Ring Out In The Crowd"

Sigh... 

Meanwhile, on X, users were fed raw, unfiltered footage and commentary from unbiased reporters and citizen journalists who revealed details about the assassination attempt. At the same time, it took legacy media hours to catch up. 

In fact, the way Americans receive their news is drastically shifting to X, as the demand for truth and transparency soars.

On Monday, Musk revealed X's usage on Sunday "hit another all-time high yesterday with 417 billion user-seconds globally!" 

"In the US, user-seconds reached 93B, 23% higher than the previous record of 76B. In a single day," Musk said. 

The reason for the surge is straightforward and follows Trump's assassination attempt, as Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton explained:

Meanwhile, legacy media outlets mounted an all-out assault on X, blasting it for hosting conspiracy theories following the incident on Saturday. 

However, leftist media outlets have spread the most disinformation and misinformation to date, trying to persuade the world that Covid originated from a seafood market in China, Hunter Biden's laptop was a Russian disinfo campaign, Trump is a Russian asset, and Biden's mind is as sharp as a razor.

Folks are waking up to a future where the government has a more difficult time controlling the narrative:

The veil has been lifted. The demand for truth is on fire with X.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/16/2024 - 11:45
Published:7/16/2024 11:18:14 AM
[Markets] Elon Musk Pledges $45 Million Monthly To Pro-Trump Super PAC To Counter Dems In Swing States Elon Musk Pledges $45 Million Monthly To Pro-Trump Super PAC To Counter Dems In Swing States

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a source familiar with the situation has revealed Elon Musk's latest power move: a $45 million a month commitment to a new super political-action committee to support former President Donald Trump. This new super PAC will deploy large sums of money and other resources in critical swing states to counter 'get out the vote' campaigns by Democrats. 

Called 'America PAC,' the group is reportedly focused on registering voters and convincing constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots across swing states, according to the people. The group will counter get out the vote campaigns by Democrats in swing states.

Besides Musk, America PAC is supported by Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and former US ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft and her husband, Joe, the chief executive of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners.  

According to a Monday filing, America PAC received $8.75 million in contributions for the quarter ending June 30, as reported by the WSJ. Musk is rumored to begin his donations this month.

A recent Bloomberg News report indicated Musk had donated to the new super PAC last week, although the donation size was not mentioned. 

Following the failed assassination attempt on Trump, Musk wrote on X on Saturday evening, "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," adding, "Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt."

X user End Wokenes wrote, "Elon Musk went from being an Obama voter to pledging $180 million to elect DJT. The woke left really f*cked up. Badly."

Musk responded with a "Yeah"... 

Perhaps the Democrats miscalculated their assault on Musk.

Musk also praised Trump's selection of J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, calling it an "excellent" choice.

Vance has ties with Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir Technologies. In recent weeks, David Sacks has backed Trump, even hosting a fundraiser at his San Francisco mansion. Whether it's Thiel, Sacks, or Musk, they were all once part of a group dubbed the 'PayPal Mafia.'

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/16/2024 - 07:45
Published:7/16/2024 6:58:26 AM
[Markets] Is America Ready For A Return To Greatness? Is America Ready For A Return To Greatness?

Authored by Richard Truesdell via American Greatness,

In the aftermath of yesterday’s assassination attempt, I find myself asking: Why all the visceral hatred of Donald Trump? It manifests itself everywhere but is most visible among Hollywood elites and members of the Fourth Estate (the press and most of the mainstream media) and especially on social media.

What did this man with the orange hairdo do to these people?

First, I want to say that I am not a raving MAGA Trump supporter, not that there is anything wrong with being one. Some of my best friends are MAGA proponents. Despite what some of my friends and professional colleagues think, I’m pretty centrist in my political philosophies: conservative on some issues (staying out of needless foreign wars, putting reasonable limits on abortion), liberal on others (maintaining individual rights, being a staunch supporter of the First Amendment). I’m pretty much a “live and let live” kind of guy.

I think that as a nation, that’s where most Americans lie, from slightly left of center to somewhat right of center. Most of us lack a sense of ideological purity.

But I think Trump’s victory in 2016 was a reaction - to years of often invisible far-left control of the institutional levers of power - rather than any sort of revolution, January 6th notwithstanding. Trump was the vessel through which many centrist Americans vented their long-simmering frustrations.

But I digress…

Getting back to Trump, I believe his real troubles began in 2016 when this political upstart—who had previously been a liberal-leaning New York City real estate developer and popular reality TV host—defeated the anointed one, Hillary Clinton, the candidate destiny had chosen to be the first female president (funny how it seems that title has unofficially fallen to “Dr.” Jill Biden).

That triggered a reaction that has been unprecedented in our almost 250 years as a nation. It was best manifested in the fake news, a pre-printed Newsweek special edition proclaiming Clinton as Madam President. 125,000 copies were printed and had to be recalled. (It should be noted that there was no pre-printed President Trump special edition; it was rushed into print after the election because Clinton’s election was a foregone conclusion up until about 11 p.m. on Election Night.) Why waste ink and paper when it was going to be Clinton’s hand on the Bible on January 20, 2017?

From the minute that Donald and Melania came down the escalator, Democrats and the far-left tried to destroy Trump. It started with the Clinton- and DNC-funded Steele Dossier that was at the heart of the three-year-long RussiaGate scandal that was repudiated by the embarrassing Mueller Report. It continued right after the election when Deep State activists illegally surveilled Trump appointees, especially Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign as Trump’s National Security Advisor, hobbling the Trump administration during the transition period and beyond until Trump left office in 2021.

Working in conjunction with its handmaidens in the media, it was non-stop Orange-man-bad throughout Trump’s administration that accelerated after Republican losses in the 2018 midterm elections that allowed for two politically motivated impeachments where Democrats, especially in the House led by partisan clowns like Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin, flexed their political muscle in ways not previously seen.

These activities culminated in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, when any reference to the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was blacked out by the mainstream media. It spread to social media, where Trump was banned while intelligence community stooges were able to peddle the narrative that the story was a Russian disinformation operation. We, on the right, call them the 51 Spies Who Lied.

Then we have the unprecedented lawfare deployed against Trump during the Biden information, carefully coordinated by Biden’s completely corrupt Department of Justice led by Merrick Garland, the forum-shopped Alvin Bragg prosecution, and two Jack Smith prosecutions—the Florida documents case and the other in Washington, DC—and you wonder how Trump was able to respond. Throw in two more completely politically motivated trials—the outrageous Letitia James fraud prosecution back in New York City and the apparently compromised Fani Willis election interference case in Georgia—and you have a legal onslaught that would have destroyed a lesser man.

On Saturday, after failing to remove Trump from the 2024 race that polls now say he’s winning handily, a 20-year-old assassin took the election into his own hands. But this is not surprising when you watch this post-assassination-attempt compilation video posted on TikToK.

When I saw the cover of the June issue of the New Republic, the one with the AI-generated composite image with the faces of Hitler and Trump merged, it disgusted me. Trump is many things (not always ethical in his business affairs, bombastic, subject to exaggeration, a serial philanderer), but he is not a fascist. Far from it. His first administration proved that. He didn’t lock up Hillary Clinton or send Rachel Maddow to a reeducation camp (although, in the eyes of many, he should have done both).

As with all administrations, Trump’s first period in office had many upsides and a few significant downsides (the COVID responses under his watch were very damaging, he tolerated too many Obama holdovers for far too long, and he did not reform our armed forces as promised).

I would, however, highlight five significant Trump achievements that should make a rock-solid case for his second term in office:

1. Energy independence was arguably Trump’s greatest accomplishment. In under three years, our unleashing of oil exploration made America a net energy exporter, bringing the world into our bounty. Affordable energy is key to a higher quality of life, and you can thank Donald Trump for standing firm against environmental extremists and radicals in the Democrat Party who work hard to keep energy costs high. During Biden’s first week in office, bowing to environmental extremists based on the far left, the Keystone pipeline was scuttled, and exploration, especially in Alaska, was curtailed. The net result is that we now import rather than export petroleum.

2. Securing our borders was always going to be difficult, given the multi-generational push from the left to provide sanctuary for non-citizens. Trump’s DHS ensured that immigration laws were followed, the flow of immigrants was managed, and those who did not meet the criteria were kept in Mexico until their asylum cases could be heard. Humane, practical, and effective. Unlike today, under the leadership of Biden and his incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, immigration is a catastrophe. We have no idea exactly how many aliens have illegally entered the United States during the Biden administration. At a minimum, the number is eight million, but it could be as high as 12 million or more.

3. The creation of the Abraham Accords of 2020 was a miracle. Imagine having a host of Arab countries sign a normalization agreement with Israel, thus putting aside generations of aggression in the name of Abraham of biblical descent. By mismanaging the response to the October 7, 2023, Gaza attacks, Biden has thrown this away and alienated both Israel and the Palestinians, as well as much of the Arab world that was considering stronger ties with Israel.

4. Supreme Court appointments tend to define a presidency in perpetuity. Trump’s three appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) allowed for a moderate balance within the Court. It provided an opportunity to shield America from the left, using the Court as a way to push agendas that would not have withstood the legislative process. If re-elected, Trump will almost surely appoint two more justices to replace Justices Thomas and Alito, and conceivably two more to replace Sotomayor and Roberts, who will both be in their seventies if Trump serves to the end of a second term. Trump’s impact will last long after he is out of office.

5. Politicians, particularly Democrats, love to start wars. Not Donald Trump. Under his leadership, there were no new interventions, no new foreign invasions, and no new threats to our homeland. Due to the crisis on the southern border that has been boiling over for over three years, we have no idea how many terrorists have slipped across the border to do us harm. His America First agenda served as a warning to bad actors around the world: Don’t mess with the Orange Man.

Compare these accomplishments to those of the current inhabitants of the White House. There is nothing there to warrant giving the Biden administration more opportunities to, in the words of Barack Obama, “f*ck things up.”

Trump, like all of us, is a flawed man. Yet despite Saturday’s assassination attempt, he is on the cusp of being formally nominated to run for reelection by his party. If re-elected, as polls and Biden’s debate self-immolation would seem to indicate, he will be only the second president in US history to serve two non-contiguous terms. If he gets to that point, Trump will have surmounted unprecedented obstacles.

What can we expect from a second Trump term? Everything that the Biden administration is not: an America First governing policy (not the Project 2025 manifesto endlessly parroted by Democrat shills in lockstep with their stenographers in the compliant mainstream media), enforcement of federal law (imagine that!), and a renewed accountability of government to its citizens. It’s morning in America once again.

Only the most rabid partisans would claim that Trump is an authoritarian, a dictator, or a fascist. Those voices are sounding tired now, after three-plus years of one of the most authoritarian administrations in our history that has censored our speech, imprisoned its enemies, ignored the law, embraced non-citizens, enabled our enemies abroad, and created chaos in our cities. Those voices are fading into irrelevance. They are fading into a history we will remember as one of the most challenging times for the American experiment, and lucky for us, we have a way out.

America is ready for a better quality of life. America is ready for justice. America is ready for a return to greatness.

America is ready for the return of Trump.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/15/2024 - 23:00
Published:7/15/2024 10:41:41 PM
[Markets] Biden Finally Gives RFK Jr. Secret Service Protection Biden Finally Gives RFK Jr. Secret Service Protection

48 hours after a 'deluded gunman' with no internet footprint tried to assassinate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally from a nearby rooftop that should have been a layup for the Secret Service, the Biden administration is finally giving Secret Service protection to Robert Kennedy, Jr.

"In light of this weekend's events, the president has directed me to work with the Secret Service to provide protection to Robert Kennedy Jr.," said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, adding "We are in a heightened and very dynamic threat environment."

Earlier in the day, Trump said it was "imperative" that Kennedy be granted Secret Service protection.

"Given the history of the Kennedy Family, this is the obvious right thing to do!" he said on Truth Social.

Over the weekend, Kennedy security consultant Gavin de Becker told Politico that the campaign had a pending formal request with the DHS.

Kennedy has repeatedly asked for Secret Service protection throughout his campaign for president - including after a man was arrested twice in the same day for scaling the fence of Kennedy's Los Angeles home last October.

Kennedy had been twice refused by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

"It’s not right for the President to provide protection to his family and political favorites while denying it to political rivals. During his first week as Attorney General, my father assembled all the DOJ’s senior prosecutors to tell them that he would not tolerate any politicization of law enforcement," Kennedy wrote on X at the time.

The incident came roughly a month after an armed man posing as a US Marshall was arrested at a Los Angeles event

Kennedy made a third request for protection in an Oct. 25 letter to Mayorkas, detailing the September 15 incident, as well as the Oct. 25 incident involving a man named Jonathan Macht.

Mr. Macht, 28, was arrested on the morning of Oct. 25 at Mr. Kennedy’s Los Angeles property after being detained by the candidate’s security detail. He climbed a fence and asked to see Mr. Kennedy, according to the LAPD.

Authorities said the man was taken into custody at a nearby police station where he was cited for trespassing and then released. Police said he returned to Mr. Kennedy’s home and was arrested at 5:45 p.m. for violating a protective order. He is being held on $30,000 bail.

Mr. Macht is known to the U.S. Secret Service and Mr. Kennedy’s security Gavin de Becker and Associates (GDBA), Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said.

“GDBA had notified the Secret Service about this specific obsessed individual several times in recent months, and shared alarming communications he has sent to the candidate,” according to the press release. -Epoch Times

"After being released from police custody, the man immediately returned to Kennedy's residence and was arrested again. The candidate was home at the time of both arrests," Kennedy's campaign said in a statement.

Not the norm...

While the law dictates that all major presidential candidates and their spouses must be protected within 120 days of an election, history reveals that several have received Secret Service detail much further out than that - with Obama receiving it 551 days before an election, Trump and Ben Carson receiving it a year before the 2016 election (when Trump was a 'joke' candidate), and Ted Kennedy receiving it 410 days before the 1979 election.

Maybe they'll do a better job than they did on Saturday, should an assassin target Kennedy.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/15/2024 - 16:45
Published:7/15/2024 3:59:11 PM
[Markets] Will The Left Respect Democracy If Trump Wins? Will The Left Respect Democracy If Trump Wins?

Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via AmericanGreatness.com,

The left and its mocking bird media are fond of asking whether the GOP and MAGA movement will “accept the results of the election.”

Their question’s assumptions are two-fold:

  • one, there will be no voter “irregularities” in the election;

  • and, two, the Democrat candidate will win the presidency.

Their first assumption would constitute a historical first. America has a long history of such electoral irregularities by both parties. In addition to the Jim Crow civil rights violations against African-Americans starting during Reconstruction, various “bosses” from both parties orchestrated patronage systems designed to facilitate electoral wins by any means fair or foul to keep the graft gravy train running: phantom voters, ballot box stuffing, multiple voting by individual voters in the same election, etc.

In the 18th Century, New York was a hotbed of “bossism.” One of the earliest and most successful was former Whig and later GOP boss, Senator Thurlow Weed. Later, and ironically, the chief executive who signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a product of New York Senator and state GOP boss Roscoe Conkling’s machine, namely President Chester A. Arthur, who was known as “the Gentleman Boss.” Meanwhile, in New York City, William M. “Boss” Tweed helmed the Democrats’ legendary Tammany Hall.

Yet, while the above instances were predicated on greed, today ideology and fear can spark the baser instincts of many politically driven individuals to “win” elections by any means necessary. Thus, in our politically divisive time, wherein many on both sides of the aisle believe the defeat of their party will result in the death of democracy and/or the republic, it is naïve to believe not one solitary individual, be they left or right, would endeavor to engage in voter irregularities to win.

For example, in a nation of more than 330 million citizens and millions more individuals who are in the nation illegally, it would be presumptuous to assume no individual would avail themselves of the opportunity to have non-citizens and/or “undocumented arrivals” illegally cast a vote, especially since many Democrats support non-citizens voting in American elections at the local, state, and national level. Further, in this and other instances, the former COVID-19 “emergency” voting procedures that have now been formalized in several states engender the temptation to engage in and hinder the ability to detect such voting “irregularities.”

Finally, it is inane to ask anyone if they accept as a fact a hypothetical. How can anyone state they will accept the rectitude and the outcome of an election that has not happened yet? Granted, in demanding Republicans and MAGA supporters concede this determination in advance, the left is attempting to promote its “insurrectionist” narrative. But it is also endeavoring to insulate itself should any of its supporters become, shall we say, overzealous in their harvesting of ballots. In doing so, they are implying that they, too, have already conceded the rectitude and the outcome of the election.

Yet, the left has most certainly not conceded this point.

This brings us to the left and their mocking bird media’s second assumption: the Democrat candidate—whoever it may be—will win the presidency; and only the GOP and MAGA election-deniers would refuse to concede the legitimacy of this win. This assumption has lately been shaken by Mr. Biden’s debate debacle. Nevertheless, Democrats have not been required to affirm their preemptive allegiance to the election’s conduct and outcome. Why?

Well, if recent history is any guide—and it is—the left is reserving its rights to dispute any 2024 election procedure, real or imagined, and the election of Mr. Trump.

Consider:

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Democrats in the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign’s partisans to launch the Russiagate lie that Mr. Trump was a pawn of Vladimir Putin. After Mr. Trump won the election, the Russiagate lie was used to falsely discredit his election and subvert his presidency through baseless investigations by a politically weaponized federal bureaucracy. All the while, after they took time off for grief counseling, Democrats took to the streets and declared they were the “Resistance” to the duly elected President Trump.

To cite but the most notorious examples, during the 2020 presidential campaign, even as the BLM “mostly peaceful” riots roiled the nation’s streets with the approval of the left’s health care “experts,” who deemed protests more important than stopping the spread of the pandemic, and while leftists and Antifa razed statues with impunity and tacit approval of like-minded officials, Democrats, their mocking bird media, and Big Tech censored the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop and, instead, spread the deceit that it had all the “hallmarks of Russian disinformation” to discredit its revelations and facilitate Mr. Biden’s presidency.

Then, again to cite but a few egregious examples, Mr. Biden’s administration implemented their political indoctrination of their DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity) secular religion within the federal government and military and have now engaged in and/or facilitated the “lawfare” persecution of political opponents and dissenters, including Mr. Trump, thereby establishing the despicable precedent that some Americans are “below the law” and its protections due to their political and/or religious beliefs.

Heading into the 2024 election, even as leftists are engaged in pro-Hamas protests that spew virulently anti-Semitic tropes and veiled threats of violence, having sparse policy achievements to cite, the Democrats are further fueling domestic division and discord with their paranoia-addled appeals to their base, such as the “loss of their rights,” and, recently, the risible claim a recent Supreme Court decision will allow a re-elected President Trump to order “death squads” to eliminate his opponents with impunity.

In sum, Democrats, who already believe anything they do to defeat Mr. Trump is justified, are afraid democracy will destroy “our democracy” (i.e., “their party”). In consequence, it is both valid and imperative to ask whether the left will respect democracy if Mr. Trump wins. And, if they don’t, what next?

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/15/2024 - 07:20
Published:7/15/2024 6:46:05 AM
[Markets] "Joe Biden" Offers Hope For All Americans Now Suffering With Stage 4 Incredulity "Joe Biden" Offers Hope For All Americans Now Suffering With Stage 4 Incredulity

Authored by Marc Crispin Miller via 'News From The Underground' Substack,

Having long kept all its eyes wide shut to “our” president’s spectacular debility - despite his triple-pratfalls, stunned expression, physical and verbal wanderings, frequent “inappropriate touching” and (pardon me for writing this) loud public farts - “our free press” is now suddenly fixated on the fact that he’s too old to stand for re-election, as if (a) this hasn’t long been obvious to anyone not crazed by Trump Derangement Syndrome, and as if (b) “Biden” was elected in the first place.

Of course, the reason for this sudden, total shift from deference to contempt was that (literally) unspeakable “debate” two weeks ago (with “Biden” barely capable of speech, while Trump was barely capable of shutting up) and the swift grim verdict by the audience. That face-off between rank senility and aging juvenility was, to put it mildly, no barrel of laughs, in part because there was no audience in the room, no doubt so that no MAGA-heads would be there to pump Trump up even more, reminding everybody of his greater popularity.

That eerie absence of the usual two rival mobs—an unnatural quiet reminiscent of Biden/Harris’s locked-down inauguration—deprived us of the evening’s only possible guffaws, as it (maybe) would have been a hoot to listen to the anxious hush of all those Democrats, hand-picked for their partisan intensity (as if some able bio-engineer had cloned Joe Scarborough for the occasion), faced with the impossibility of mustering anything but gloom at the macabre sight of “Joe Biden” struggling to come off as “presidential,” or alive.

In this dismal moment there was actually some cause for hope, and not just for Trump and his true believers; but before we get to that, and in preparation for it, let’s hark back to the forgotten struggles of his less-disabled, yet far more popular predecessor, Ronald Reagan—who, though capable of often rallying grandly, tough old trouper that he was, showed signs of his Alzheimer’s from the start. (Mark Lloyd, employed by CNN in 1980, told me at the time that he was shocked not just by Reagan’s addled state at the Gipper’s first encounter with the press, but, no less, by his colleagues’ blithe indifference to it.) In August of 1984, some three months prior to Election Day, Reagan, grinning vacantly, with Nancy at his side, went blank before a scrum of journalists when asked a question about arms control.

“We’re doing everything we can,” his helpmate quietly prompted him, enabling him to say, not too convincingly, “We’re doing everything we can.”

Having turned a blind eye to his illness at the start of his long run, the press now underplayed it:

“Nancy Reagan says she did not prompt President Reagan's recent response to a question on arms control but was simply talking softly to herself,” UPI reported a day later (the New York Times running only that terse item), and that was the end of it for the moment.

The issue then blew up big-time after Reagan’s first debate with Walter Mondale, when the usually-hale-seeming Chief Executive, though still looking agedly boyish at 73 (eight years younger than “Joe Biden” is today), rambled, stumbled, looking lost, thereby giving rise to the “age issue,” as the ever-helpful media delicately termed it. Great actor that he was, he finally put that roadblock behind him at the next debate, when he turned the tables on his uppity young rival (a mere lad of 56) by stoutly quipping that he “would not make an issue of his opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Whoever crafted that bon mot, it brought down the house, ensuring Reagan/Bush’s landslide re-election victory in November.

From Politico:

Thus Reagan jigged away from his unnerving likeness to such ancient, highly perishable Soviet heads of state as Brezhnev/Andropov/Chernenko, and that was that, his Alzheimer’s staying largely out of sight until Nancy managed his sad post-presidency. Unluckily for “Joe Biden” and his true believers, Ronald Reagan’s was the last major presidential ailment that “our free press” was eager not to magnify, after having totally blacked out FDR’s polio and JFK’s Addison’s disease (along with his astounding sex life, as people never tire of pointing out). Especially now that he performed so poorly opposite the snidely jabbering Trump, and on top of all the falls upstairs and weird remarks (“God save the queen, man!”) and—here I go again—loud farts that have defined “his” presidency (along with his flagrant non-election), “our free press” has been piling on with a zest unprecedented in the history of the US president-and-media.

Whereas, before what we might call his Waterloo (although that reference gives him too much credit, since, unlike Napoleon, “Biden” really had no prior smashing victories to speak of), this president’s “senior moments” were played up mainly by Fox News and other outfits on the right, that fatal contest has now freed many on the “left,” if not most of it, to cry up every sign of his infirmity, both past and present, as fiercely as any tribune of “conservatism.”

“I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president—first black woman—to serve with a black president,” “Biden” mumbled on the Fourth—a comic slip providing CNN’s Jake Tapper with a pithy intro to the network’s blistering montage of such moments post-debate.

(That inadvertent statement of trans/cross-racial pride apparently caused people not to notice what “Biden” said right after that: “[I’m] proud to have been involved with the first black woman on the Supreme Court.”)

Such has been the tone throughout the Anglo-American media machine. “The other weird thing about Biden, which nobody seems to be talking about,” nattered BBC veteran Emily Maitlis (famed for skewering Prince Andrew on Newsnight, and played by Gillian Anderson in the Netflix movie Scoop), “is that he has been, from what I can see, Botoxed up to the eyeballs,” making his face “very, very rigid. It is not a good look.” (Over here, that catty shot was headlined in the ultra-“liberal” Daily Beast.) “I’ve seen Joe Biden up close,” confessed the Guardian’s Joanna Coles. “Nobody can deny his decline” [emphasis added].

Further glaring evidence of “his decline” is everywhere you look. “Biden didn’t show up for an early evening meeting with the German chancellor because he had to go to bed,” giggles Business Insider. “Staff provides Biden with instructions ‘on how to enter and exit a room’ with large print and pics ahead of events,” reveals the New York Post. “He can’t say ‘Afghanistan’ anymore,” claims his former stenographer. Thus “our free press” continues to ignore the myriad big scandals simmering beneath the surface of the “Biden” White House—the mind-boggling corruption (putting even Richard Nixon in the shade), the open brinksmanship, the ongoing treason at the border, the relentless push for censorship, the enablement of genocide—in favor of the trivia of “his decline.”

And just as “our free press” is all about the second childhood of “Joe Biden,” so, suddenly, has most of “Hollywood” been hammering that gong since the “debate,” a celebrity “revolt” (as the Washington Post terms it) led, seemingly, by George Clooney, and joined by such “liberal” stalwarts as Stephen King, Rob Reiner, Michael Moore, Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, along with the leading lights from the CIA’s Comedy Desk. “Stephen Colbert, other late-night hosts turn on Biden as they mock train-wreck debate,” exults the New York Post. “Excuses for Biden’s ‘shocking display of cognitive difficulty’ are ‘bulls—-,’” according to Jon Stewart (as headlined in The Hill). “Seth Meyers Lays Into Democrats Over Their Indecision on Joe Biden's 2024 Candidacy,” headlines the Hollywood Reporter—and on and on and on.

Clearly, such loud complaints disprove Joanna Coles’ overstatement that nobody can deny his decline,” since “Joe Biden” also has a fretful chorus of defenders on the “left,” who either don’t believe that he’s a total wreck, or think it really doesn’t matter all that much, since “Biden” isn’t Trump. Those holdouts include Gretchen Whitmer (who concedes that cognitive testing “wouldn’t hurt”), Jen Psaki, Mika Brzezinski (who sees Obama’s cunning hand behind George Clooney’s leadership of that celebrity “revolt”) and her jut-jawed consort Joe Scarborough, the patently insane Keith Olbermann (who blames the president’s undeniable debility on CNN, barking, with his usual subtlety, “Burn it down!”), the yapping heads on MSNBC and—not least—the brain trust on “The View,” all desperately denying the undeniable, as we have seen them do for some four years.

And therein lies the only sign of hope in this preposterous episode—not that it means Trump can win, or that Kamala Harris, or Gavin Newsom, or any other leading Democrat can save the party’s bacon. Let’s note here that both sides in this acrid “liberal” conflict actually agree, since every single one of them is, as ever, terrified of Trump, with most believing that “Joe Biden” can’t win “re-election” (although, with our disastrous voting system, “Biden” can “beat” Trump, just as he seemed to do before), while the minority believes he (really) can, farts and all. (Again, forgive me.) What’s hopeful here bears no relation to the outcome of the next election (if any), since there’s no hope in the victory of either party, the two being one, with We the People losing out in any case.

If so many "liberals" can now (painfully) admit that he's a wreck, what other taboo truths will people finally see, because of all that EVIDENCE?

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/14/2024 - 12:50
Published:7/14/2024 11:52:14 AM
[Markets] Tulsi Gabbard Gets Real About The Veepstakes, Demplosion, And America's Future Tulsi Gabbard Gets Real About The Veepstakes, Demplosion, And America's Future

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

If Tulsi Gabbard is the running mate whom presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is expected to unveil next week during the Republican National Convention, she had yet to be notified as of Friday night.

Tulsi Gabbard / PHOTO: Ben Sellers, Headline USA

Asked in an exclusive interview with Headline USA whether she was going to be traveling to the GOP convention in Milwaukee, she replied, “I don’t plan to at this time. We’ll see what happens.”

Of this much, one can be certain: Gabbard was being her usual forthright self.

She will look you in the eye and she will tell you the truth,” said former Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., shortly thereafter, during the introduction of his former congressional colleague at a book-signing event and political fundraiser in Greensboro, N.C., which also featured state-level candidates including lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Hal Weatherman.

In an era where gaslighting is the norm, Walker’s characterization of Gabbard would be a powerful testament to anyone. Although it may seem simple, underpinning those 14 words is a reputation that is very difficult to earn—and even more difficult to retain.

More remarkable yet, however, is that Walker was making it of a one-time nemesis of sorts, none other than the former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.

If ever the Trump administration were taking a risk on letting a mole into its ranks, on paper at least, Gabbard, the red-pilled ex-representative from Hawaii, would be a likely candidate.

Yet, time and again Gabbard has proven herself to be an anomaly who flouts expectations while following her own moral compass, most notably in her disavowal of the Democratic Party in October 2022.

“Today’s Democratic Party is led by this elitist cabal of warmongers, and in my book, For Love of Country, I go into detail in my own personal experiences and the reasons why I could no longer call myself a Democrat,” she told Headline USA—a statement that closely tracked with her original blog post outlining those reasons.

However, Gabbard is far from unique in that regard. In fact, she noted that she encountered ex-Democrats on an almost daily basis reaching out to her in solidarity.

Much like Ronald Reagan famously quipped in 1962, they often feel that the party left them.

The Democratic Party of today is wholly unrecognizable to the party that I joined over 20 years ago,” Gabbard said.

“And I hear from or meet Democrats from across the country, almost every day—whether people send me a DM on Instagram or send me an e-mail, or I run into them in the airport—who express the same thing,” she continued. “People who may have been lifelong Democrats or people who were raised in a Democrat family, just saying that they don’t recognize today’s Democrat party and they have no connection to the insane, woke, warmongering policies of today’s Democratic Party.”

In a question-and-answer session with Walker, Gabbard offered a similar reflection, recalling how she was once berated by the Obama administration for daring to question its foreign policy.

And she recalled her frustration with the Democratic mantra “vote blue, no matter who.”

Gabbard told the packed house on Friday—many of whom paid $100 for entry to the event, which included a copy of the book to be signed by Gabbard, as well as catered refreshments from host venue the Painted Plate—that American freedoms currently faced what seemed to be an unparalleled threat in the nation’s history.

“Growing up, I never would have imagined that we would be debating free speech in America and whether or not it should exist,” she said, referencing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Murthy v. Missouri, which said the government did nothing wrong in colluding with social-media companies like Facebook and Twitter to suppress vital information about the COVID-19 pandemic, Hunter Biden laptop, 2020 election and more.

As Walker noted in his introduction to Gabbard, she has done more than simply cultivate a sterling reputation as a truth-teller—she’s turned it into a veritable brand.

Because of her candor, honesty, integrity and valor (serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and currently as an active military reservist), she has become the very antithesis of the modern leftist in the Biden era.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that Gabbard has been called upon frequently to comment on the recent implosion of the Biden campaign following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump last month.

Although she has every reason to feel vindicated by it, given her own tumultuous history with the Democrats, Gabbard said it was no cause for joy, even seeming to take pity on Biden—whom she said she has “known … for a long time”—despite his extensive track-record of corruption during his more lucid moments.

“What we are seeing is the lies coming from the Democrat elite have been exposed,” Gabbard told Headline USA. 

“We are seeing how, in broad daylight, it is not actually Joe Biden making the decisions and calling the shots—whether it be related to economic or foreign policy—it’s the Tony Blinkens and the Jake Sullivans and the Hillary Clintons and Lloyd Austins who are making these decisions, which should be troubling to every American because we didn’t vote for any of those people,” she added.

On one hand, Gabbard seemed alarmed at the idea of having an empty vessel at the Resolution Desk, noting it was “a huge problem for us as Americans to have someone in that position who is incapable of fulfilling that responsibility.”

She said she was particularly troubled that the commander in chief could not even recall during the debate the 13 service members whose lives were lost in Afghanistan and the three whose lives were lost in Jordan—among the known U.S. military casualties to occur on Biden’s watch, although others are likely to have fallen in America’s shadow war in Ukraine.

He couldn’t even remember a single one of their families,” Gabbard said.

“He should not be in that position, but we also shouldn’t be under any kind of illusion that, should he be forced out or choose to leave, that anything will be different with a President Kamala Harris or anyone else that they choose to fill that position,” she continued. “The Deep State—the military industrial complex—they will continue calling the shots. They only care about power. They don’t care whose face—whose picture is hanging on the wall.”

As for the prospects of her own service in the Trump administration, Gabbard didn’t rule out the possibility that she might yet have an outside shot at the running-mate offer, even though Trump’s campaign has floated several other names as finalists.

“I think that is a question for one man and one man alone,” she said.

“It’s not something I’m thinking about,” she added. “My goal—this is the most important election of of our lifetimes because it is our freedom, and our safety and security, that’s on the line.

Gabbard said that one position she would love to be offered was the role of secretary of State, citing her eight years of service in Congress on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees—as well as her more than two decades in uniform, including as a current battalion commander.

“I could directly wrestle control away from the military–industrial complex and the neocons of Washington and actually be in a position to help effect the kind of policies President Trump talks about: to actually bring about peace, to walk us back from the brink of nuclear war—an issue he talks about quite strongly and with great concern—and to get our country back on track,” she said.

In her interview with Walker, Gabbard said that wherever the years ahead may take her, and whatever may happen in the most important election of our lifetimes, she will continue to serve to the best of her ability.

Whatever role, whatever opportunity, whatever title or position I have, my goal is to try to be of the best service I can to our country,” she said.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/13/2024 - 18:40
Published:7/13/2024 7:19:47 PM
[Markets] More Soul-Crushing News For Dems: Musk Enters 2024 Fight With 'Sizable' Gift To Trump Super PAC More Soul-Crushing News For Dems: Musk Enters 2024 Fight With 'Sizable' Gift To Trump Super PAC

There's been another major plot twist in the 2024 election saga, as Elon Musk has made a "sizable donation" to a super PAC working to return Donald Trump to the White House.

Completing something of a Black Friday for Democrats, the story broke just hours after the New York Times reported that major donors had frozen $90 million pledged donations commitments to Biden's top super PAC, having concluded that Biden is a dead man walking -- politically if not otherwise. The news comes four months after Musk said he was staying on the sidelines: 

The world's richest man clearly had a change of heart: Citing anonymous sources "close to the matter," Bloomberg on Friday evening broke the potentially game-changing news that Musk had given money to America PAC, which is largely focused on "ground-game" initiatives, such as voter-canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts. Among the constellation of Trump-backing groups, America PAC is spending the most money of any of them on direct voter outreach.  

The amount of Musk's donation wasn't disclosed, but Bloomberg said sources "characterized the figure as a sizable amount." Per Federal Election Commission rules, the PAC will provide its updated list of donors on Monday. While super PACs aren't allowed to contribute directly to candidates or parties, or "coordinate" their efforts, they can collect unlimited contributions

With a Forbes-estimated net worth of $250 billion, Musk has obvious potential to fundamentally alter a fundraising war in which Democrats were already reeling from the mushrooming effects of President Biden's disastrous performance in his June 27 debate with Trump, his poor interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos and gaffe-filled NATO summit press events on Thursday. 

The donation seemingly completes a political metamorphosis: Musk has said he voted for Barack Obama, gave money to and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and voted for Joe Biden in 2020. 

However, Musk has displayed growing discontent with Democrats' approach to a variety of issues. One of them is border control: Earlier this year, Musk told an audience that "unvetted immigration at large scale is a recipe for disaster." He's also called out Democrats' opposition to photo-ID requirements for voting, saying the "far left" wants to make it "impossible to prove voter fraud."  Over the weekend, he expressed dismay at Biden's commitment to veto a bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote. 

In 2022, Musk tweeted that he voted for a Republican for the first time, backing Texas Republican Mayra Flores in a special US House election. Last month, Musk told Tesla shareholders that he's "had some conversations with [Trump], and he does call me, out of the blue, for no reason... I don't know why, but he does."

In what may be a more potent motivator than policy issues, Musk repeatedly finds himself in the crosshairs of Democrats' weaponized government, with a federal target on his back since buying Twitter in 2022 with a goal of ridding it of its leftist, government-serving censorship regime.

Within two weeks of Musk closing on the purchase, Biden told reporters that "Elon Musk's cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at. Whether he is doing anything inappropriate, I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting they're worth being looked at." With an ominously whimsical tone, he concluded, "there's a lot of ways..." 

Summarizing the breadth of the attacks at The Hill in December, Liz Peek said Musk and his companies were under investigation by the Department of Justice, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Musk has expressed concern over Trump's own victimization via politically-motivated lawfare, as he did in May when the former president was convicted in New York on mindbendingly-contrived charges relating to his 2016 funding of hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, who'd claimed the two had a one-night intimate encounter in 2006. 

The Trump campaign's financial fortunes changed dramatically after that conviction, as irate sympathizers expressed their outrage with dollars, vaulting him into the lead. Musk's entry into the game exacerbates Democrats' dire situation, and is certain to accelerate efforts to jettison Biden from the top of the ticket...while exponentially increasing the anguish of leftists who thought things couldn't possibly get any worse.  

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/13/2024 - 08:45
Published:7/13/2024 8:17:09 AM
[Markets] Why Viktor Orbán Deserves The Nobel Peace Prize Why Viktor Orbán Deserves The Nobel Peace Prize

Submitted by Russian Market,

Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, stands out for his audacity and persistence in the realm of contemporary politics. His tireless efforts in diplomacy and steadfast commitment to national and global stability merit serious consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize. His relentless pursuit of peace, even amidst widespread criticism, underscores the kind of leadership the world desperately needs today.

The Nobel Peace Prize, despite its controversies, remains one of the highest accolades for contributions to global peace and reconciliation. Historical recipients, from the European Union in 2012 for turning Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace, to Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama for their diplomatic endeavors, have set a precedent for recognizing transformative efforts in international relations. While some decisions have sparked debate, the prize continues to honor those who genuinely strive for global harmony.

For over two decades Viktor Orbán has been a central ?gure in Hungarian politics. His tenure has seen Hungary navigate through the 2008 ?nancial crisis and emerge with strengthened national sovereignty and economic stability. Orbán’s policies have focused on reducing national debt, increasing employment, and supporting families, thereby fostering a social cohesion that is essential for lasting peace. Economic stability, after all, is a cornerstone of societal tranquility.

Recently, Orbán’s diplomatic missions have further highlighted his unwavering commitment to peace. As the head of the rotating EU presidency, he has been at the forefront of international diplomacy, particularly concerning the Ukraine con?ict. His proactive visits to key leaders—including Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev, Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Xi Jinping in Beijing, and next, Donald Trump in Floridademonstrate his dedication to engaging with global leaders and promoting dialogue. These are not mere photo opportunities but substantive efforts to foster real change.

Orbán’s vigorous diplomatic activities have undoubtedly stirred the waters in Brussels. Critics argue that Orbán’s methods sometimes breach diplomatic protocols, but his engagement with pivotal ?gures in the Ukraine con?ict illustrates the kind of bravery and initiative that many modern politicians lack. Orbán’s actions transcend super?cial diplomacy; he is actively striving to move continents towards real solutions during a time of great division.

Orbán’s peace efforts have drawn signi?cant criticism, especially from European and German political leaders. However, his bold and relentless pursuit of peace positions him as a modern-day Robin Hood, ?ghting for stability and harmony in Europe. While many leaders prefer the comfort of their o?ces, Orbán is on the global stage, engaging with world leaders and taking decisive steps to bring about peace.

Many politicians focus on short-term gains and super?cial gestures, but Orbán stands out as a leader willing to take bold actions for the greater good. His approach to diplomacy—meeting with adversaries, challenging the status quo, and prioritizing long-term stability over ?eeting popularity—lays the groundwork for meaningful peace talks and steps toward the de-escalation of the Ukraine con?ict. These substantial contributions to peace warrant recognition.

Viktor Orbán embodies the spirit of a modern-day Robin Hood, daring to undertake actions that many politicians shy away from. For his relentless pursuit of peace and stability, Orbán deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/13/2024 - 07:00
Published:7/13/2024 6:41:11 AM
[] Senator James Lankford Speaks Out About Recent Terror Designations At Fort Liberty Published:7/12/2024 11:09:42 PM
[7bbb50c2-2321-5a9b-b33f-da43356da75f] Yearslong tensions boil over as ex-Obama staffers gang up on Biden: 'Clooney was exactly right' The tensions between President Biden and former President Obama go back nearly two decades and are once again in the spotlight as the former faces calls to end his re-election bid. Published:7/12/2024 5:57:35 PM
[] White House Officials Leak to CNN: Everything Biden Does is Scripted and Tightly Stage-Managed, Including Meetings With His Own Cabinet It's really Obama's cabinet, not Biden's, but you get the idea. After Biden declared that talk of him withdrawing "must end," Jesse Watters, I believe, predicted that White House officials and cabinet members would begin leaking against Biden. Well, his... Published:7/11/2024 4:34:04 PM
[f9dbe81d-5c47-5034-b57c-5d6b2337d522] Obama silent over reports he's working 'behind the scenes' to force Biden out of the 2024 race Former President Obama is staying silent over reports he's working to force President Biden out of the 2024 presidential race, even as allies and former staffers ramp up their rhetoric. Published:7/11/2024 12:17:40 PM
[] Murdering Joe: Biden Believes That Obama Is Orchestrating the Coup Against Him Well, you know: this is Obama's third term. You put him in charge, Joe. He can pull the plug. BREAKING: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough: "What's going on behind the scenes is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that... Published:7/11/2024 12:17:40 PM
[Markets] House Oversight Subpoenas Top Biden Handlers To Find Out Who's Running The Country House Oversight Subpoenas Top Biden Handlers To Find Out Who's Running The Country

The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed three top White House aides on Wednesday, and has demanded that they sit for depositions concerning President Joe Biden's health - and who's actually running the country.

Aide Annie Tomasini, who referred to Hunter Biden as a 'brother' in emails, has been subpoenaed.

As Axios reports, Oversight chair James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed First Lady Jill Biden's top aide Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams, who the outlet described as "low-profile but very influential" inside the White House.

According to Wednesday letters, Comer cites Bernal and Tomasini's access to the first family's residence - which White House residence staff found 'unusual,' as 'political staffers often don't have such access.'

According to one former Biden aide, these three employees – Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, and Ashley Williams – have created “a protective bubble around” President Biden and he is “staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence.” -House Oversight Committee

Comer also writes that the committee is "concerned" that each official is "one of several White House staffers who have taken it upon themselves to run the country while the President cannot."

In his letter to Bernal — whose influence extends well beyond the first lady's office — Comer wrote: The "Committee seeks to understand the extent of Mr. Bernal's influence over the President and his knowledge of whether the President is personally discharging the duties of his office." -Axios

Tomasini, a close friend of the Biden family, maintained close relations with Hunter throughout the Obama administration - sometimes referring to him as her "brother," and often ending emails with "LY" (Love You), according to emails dating from 2010 to 2016.

"The White House has shielded three key aides from testifying about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and now we’ve learned through reporting these same aides are also seeking to cover up President Biden’s declining cognitive state inside the White House. President Biden is clearly unfit for office, yet his staff are trying to hide the truth from the American people. Key White House staff must come before our committee so we can provide the transparency and accountability that Americans deserve," said Comer in a statement.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/10/2024 - 20:00
Published:7/10/2024 8:09:17 PM
[Uncategorized] George Clooney Tells Biden to Step Aside Only Weeks After Hosting Fundraiser That Raised $14 Million

Clooney is also buddy buddy with Obama.

The post George Clooney Tells Biden to Step Aside Only Weeks After Hosting Fundraiser That Raised $14 Million first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.
Published:7/10/2024 2:08:35 PM
[] Reuters: Biden Is Now Deporting More People Than Trump Published:7/9/2024 9:22:00 PM
[Markets] Summer Feeling Hotter Than Usual? Gold Could Be Too... Summer Feeling Hotter Than Usual? Gold Could Be Too...

Via SchiffGold.com,

Certain climate scientists, research economists, and precious metal investors agree: This year could be one of the hottest on record.

Climate change has long been a popular theme among left-wing media outlets, and this transitional El Nino-La Nina season has provided plenty of fuel for the fire. 2024 stands a fighting chance of seeing the highest temperatures ever recorded, climate researcher Zeke Hausfather told CNN, beating out a blazing 2023. The earliest Cat. 5 hurricane recorded in the Atlantic has already shattered the Caribbean islands, striking during carnival season and leaving a wake of “apocalyptic scenes,” according to The Guardian’s Caribbean reporter.

Here’s the real surprise: Fluctuating temperatures and ferocious summer storms may be valuable economic indicators in the gold market.

In times of uncertainty, investors flock to all that glitters, driving supply down and boosting price—especially when that uncertainty turns political.

“Gold’s carbon profile and decarbonization potential may reinforce or amplify gold’s role as a safe haven asset, risk hedge and store of value during periods of market stress,” according to the World Gold Council. 

“This lends further credence to our analysis suggesting that gold’s long-term returns may be more robust than those of many mainstream asset classes in the context of a range of climate scenarios.”

It’s not just weather that has investors pricking up their ears. In fact, price volatility is far more closely linked to how global leaders and public discourse respond to climate events.

A 2023 study found a strong correlation between return volatility and two types of climate change risk: transitional (i.e., the political and social move toward green energy) and physical (actual devastation caused by climate events). Researchers found that gold prices fluctuate more in the face of green energy policy, and less under severe weather conditions that aren’t widely discussed.

That’s likely because no one knows exactly what to believe. Despite alarmist media reports, life so far remains largely uninterrupted by climate change. But if politicians really believe we’re heading for “submerged countries, abandoned cities, fields that no longer grow”—to quote former President Barack Obama—they must also believe they’re doing humanity a favor by burning up paper money in a slow-fire of inflationary “green” policy. In politics, not climate itself, lies the real uncertainty that drives investors to make sharp, aggressive moves in the market.

From the White House this week on its nearly apocalyptic green energy concerns:

 “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate agenda in American history—an agenda that is lowering energy costs for hardworking families, bolstering America’s energy security, creating thousands of good-paying jobs, and strengthening community-driven climate resilience across the country.”

What Biden had to say about this mountain of new legislation: 

“It’s going to be significant … We’re going to face a tough summer, but we’ve taken significant steps to ameliorate the concerns.”

Significant handouts = significant inflation = significant need for a stable store of value.

Particularly during an election year, legislation presents a major “transition risk,” and that’s where gold comes in.

A second reason for gold’s price fluctuations when harsh weather hits the news and policy stage is its role in decarbonization, the process of reducing potentially climate-altering emissions from industrial manufacturing.

Mining is notoriously emissions-heavy, but as the World Gold Council points out, there’s potential to develop eco-friendly methods that could be especially pertinent to gold.

“It is credible that gold mining might reach net-zero by 2050,” report authors wrote.

“The opportunity for sectoral decarbonization [in gold mining] is clear, concentrated and, compare[d] to many sectors, relatively simple and accessible.”

With gold becoming an increasingly “clean” metal, also playing a significant role in “green” tech, demand for the metal will surely rise during the clean-energy transition, driving prices skyward.

Then, finally, there’s the worst-case scenario.

Suppose resources do become scarce. In an economy where governments and citizens alike are scrabbling for a healthy food and water supply, basic industrial metals, and functional transportation, paper money will be the last “store of value” on anyone’s mind—except for stoking fires. Gold stands a better chance of survival should global tensions escalate, whether the cause is climate, pandemics, or war.

The 2023 study suggests that during times of real physical risk attributable to climate change, gold prices tend to hold steady. That’s a sign to watch out for—and an economy to invest in early.

Come rain or shine, climate policy decisions and public discourse will significantly shape precious metal prices, as green energy agendas surge ahead and receive ever larger media coverage.

“We note that an increase in climate risk has no definitive effect on the economy until the component of climate risk being considered [i.e., discussed in political circles] is factored in,” according to the 2023 study authors.

“An increase in news coverage of the physical risk factors [for example] will create a societal concern which can impact investor sentiments and consequently the entire economy.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/06/2024 - 10:30
Published:7/6/2024 10:19:37 AM
[Markets] Can Biden Clear The Next Hurdle? Stakes High For Friday Primetime Interview Can Biden Clear The Next Hurdle? Stakes High For Friday Primetime Interview

Though he separately assured staffers and governors on Wednesday that he's staying in the race all the way to Election Day, President Biden has privately conceded to close allies that he must excel in his public appearances over the next several days if his campaign is to survive, according to the New York Times.  

Those upcoming events include weekend campaign stops in swing states Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but the most attention by far will be paid to a Friday night sit-down interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos. After taping the interview on Friday, July 5, ABC will provide a first glimpse of the conversation that evening via "World News Tonight with David Muir." The full interview -- after ABC's edits -- will air as a "primetime special" on Friday at 8pm ET, and again on Sunday morning's "This Week."  

As ABC's Friday sit-down interview approaches, the stakes are high for both Biden and Stephanopoulos (photos by Getty Images via Fox News)

In contrast to last week's debate -- when Americans who hadn't been paying attention were shocked by Biden's shuffling gait, periodic incoherence, weak voice and slack-jawed stares -- the ABC interview will be pre-recorded, and it will be edited. However, seemingly in response to backlash about that taped-and-edited format, ABC has committed to releasing a full transcript of the interview on Friday.

As Fox News notes, that's a decision with some significant historical context where both ABC and Stephanopoulos are concerned: 

In 2018, ABC News was heavily criticized for a massive editing job when former FBI Director James Comey sat down with Stephanopoulos for his first interview since he was abruptly fired by then-President Trump the previous year. The full transcript released by the network revealed it chose not to air several key moments during its Sunday night special, such as when Comey ripped former President Obama. 

Readers will naturally view the idea of a Stephanopoulos interview with justifiable wariness of soft-pitch questions and friendly editing. However, we're in a different political world than last week, one where liberal media has abandoned its monolithic shielding of Biden's mental health from public scrutiny. It's a world where Stephanopoulos won't be uniformly pressured by his peers and leftist mobs on social media to make Biden look "sharp as a tack," to borrow the propaganda line that Biden's defenders regularly employed in the months leading up to the debate.  

To appreciate how much has changed, consider that the cornerstone leftist media institution -- the New York Times -- crossed the Rubicon last weekend. Its editorial board, noting Biden's "infirmity" that Americans had "[seen] with their own eyes," urged Biden to quit the race, saying that would be "the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now provide."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Boston Globe followed suit, along with columnists and pundits across the country, from Paul Krugman to James Carville and Joe Scarborough. Emboldened by the media's lead, elected Democrats have started to issue their own pleas for Biden to quit, starting with Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett and Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva. A draft letter, intended to be signed by multiple members, is circulating on Capitol Hill. At least two House reps have publicly said Biden can't win after what Americans saw in the debate. 

Given the debate-triggered earthquake that's altered the leftist landscape, Stephanopoulos will likely feel significant pressure to act something like a real journalist, for once. Indeed, the interview could prove to be the most historically significant of his career. 

On the other side, Team Biden has every interest in molding the event to its benefit. On Wednesday night, the Daily Beast reported that Biden's handlers are pulling on one very significant lever -- the length of the interview, which will take place in Wisconsin as Biden is on the campaign trail:

The Beast has learned that behind the scenes there is deep concern inside ABC News’ upper echelons that Stephanopolous could get as little as 15 minutes to conduct what should be a searching interview offering insight into the president’s mental state...

One source suggested it would be more in the range of 20 minutes—still a relatively short period of time for even an accomplished interviewer to cover questions both over Biden’s cognitive state and his ability to stay in the campaign

The Biden campaign is forced to balance two huge risks. A longer interview increases the odds of a major Biden flub, while a shorter interview could anger Democrats who -- wary of not only losing the White House but also suffering consequences up and down the ballot -- are demanding that Biden quickly and urgently make a strong case that he's mentally fit to serve another term. 

In the week following the debate, Biden's response has disappointed Democratic leaders and major donors alike, with a senior campaign advisor telling the Washington Post that Biden had met widespread panic with "deafening silence." 

His few efforts to shore up public opinion during that stretch have been terribly underwhelming. Attendees at a celebrity-laden fundraiser in the Hamptons on Saturday said Biden's appearance only reinforced their deep worries about his fitness. The event was tightly orchestrated, and Biden did his speaking with the aid of a teleprompter, reminding attendees that he struggles to manage unscripted dialogue -- even with a friendly audience. 

Similarly, when Biden took to a White House podium to address the Supreme Court ruling providing a large degree of legal immunity to former President Trump, he read from a teleprompter and left without taking any questions from the press.   

ABC is certain to garner high ratings on Friday night; Biden's chance of prospering from the opportunity is much lower. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/04/2024 - 10:15
Published:7/4/2024 9:57:55 AM
[Markets] Fact-Checking The 'Fact-Checking' New York Times Fact-Checking The 'Fact-Checking' New York Times

Authored by Daniel Oliver via American Greatness,

“They” just can’t let Donald Trump go. For them, Donald Trump is Evil personified.

But not for the rest of the world.

Here are some of the New York Times’s fact-check charges against Trump; here is why people no longer trust the New York Times.

Social Security

Trump said: “But Social Security, he’s [Biden’s] destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country and they are putting them onto Social Security.”

The Times: “Mr. Trump has this backward. Undocumented workers often pay taxes that help fund Social Security. But, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office once noted, ‘Most unauthorized immigrants are prohibited from receiving many of the benefits that the federal government provides through Social Security and such need-based programs as food stamps, Medicaid (other than emergency services) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.’

The facts: Biden has repeatedly pushed for giving illegal immigrants pathways to citizenship, including a plan and proposed legislation to provide up to 11 million illegal immigrants with U.S. citizenship and an executive order providing a pathway to citizenship for more than half a million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. Biden has specifically claimed that illegal immigrants have “increased the life span of Social Security because they have a job, they’re paying a Social Security tax.”

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “Illegal immigration unambiguously benefits the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. However, amnesty (legalization) would reverse those gains and add extra costs.”

They note that “illegal immigrants tend to earn less and work fewer years in the U.S. than the average participant” and “if 10 million illegal immigrants receive amnesty, the total cost to Social Security and Medicare would be roughly $1.3 trillion, equivalent to a one-time transfer of 6 percent of GDP.”

In addition, a November 2023 report from the House Committee on Homeland Security found that “the annual cost just to care for and house the known gotaways and illegal aliens who have been released into the country under Mayorkas’ leadership could cost as much as an astounding $451 billion.”

How should Trump be graded on his assertion? Surely a B-, perhaps even a B. He raised the obvious issue, which is that the Biden administration, or any successor Democrat administration, will surely grant citizenship to all the illegals if it has the votes. The cost will be huge.

Nancy Pelosi’s responsibility for January 6

Trump: “Nancy Pelosi, if you just watched the news from two days ago on tape to her daughter, who’s a documentary filmmaker, or they say—what she’s saying, ‘Oh, no, it’s my responsibility. I was responsible for this.’ Because I offered her 10,000 soldiers who are National Guard. And she turned them down.”

The Times: “Mr. Trump is distorting what Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, said. Ms. Pelosi did not admit to turning down National Guard troops. She does not have such authority.”

The facts: In a video filmed by Pelosi’s daughter, Pelosi, responding to someone who said “they (the Capitol Police) thought they had sufficient resources,” says, “They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them prepare for me, because it’s stupid because we’re in a situation like this.”

The former Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, has claimed that Pelosi was influential in rejecting a proposal to send National Guardsmen to the Capitol. And what evidence there is suggests that Pelosi seems to hold herself responsible for the National Guard’s not being present to deal with the rioters sooner.

What grade should Trump receive? At least a B. Perhaps even an A.

The Paris Climate Accord

Trump: “The Paris Accord was going to cost us $1 trillion, and China nothing, and Russia nothing, and India nothing.”

The Times: “This is misleading. . . . Under President Biden, the United States has pledged $11.4 billion annually by 2024 to assist vulnerable countries in developing clean energy and preparing for the consequences of climate change.”

The facts: The Heritage Foundation has estimated that staying in the Paris agreement would cost the U.S. over $2.5 trillion in aggregate GDP loss by 2035.

An analysis by McKinsey looking into the cost of reaching “net zero” emissions found that global spending by governments, businesses, and individuals would need to rise by $3.5 trillion a year, every year, in order to get to net zero by 2050.

China is no longer accepting international pressure through the Paris Climate Accord with respect to its own carbon emissions. And Putin has joked that 2 to 3 degrees of global warming would be “not so bad in such a cold country as ours.”

Trump’s grade? Obviously, a B. His basic point is correct: the costs are staggering, whether that cost is a trillion dollars or only half a trillion (and of course it depends on the length of time under discussion). He was also obviously correct about China and Russia—the point being that in the end, it would be the U.S. sacrificing economic progress to benefit the rest of the world, which has no plans whatsoever to sacrifice a penny of progress to appease the climate lobby’s dire predictions.

Iran

Trump: “Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke, they had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything, no money for terror.”

The Times: “Even under sanctions that were imposed by the Trump administration, Iran’s economy plugged along. It wasn’t strong, but it wasn’t broke, and it kept trading with many nations. Mr. Trump made no mention of the fact that his withdrawal from an Obama-era nuclear deal freed Iran to resume nuclear production.”

The facts: Trump is obviously exaggerating slightly here, but it is entirely factual that his actions to leave the Iranian nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions crippled the Iranian economy. Iran’s GDP contracted sharply in 2018 and 2019 (after Trump reimposed sanctions). Iranian oil exports dropped from 3.8 million barrels per day (early 2018) to 2.1 million barrels per day (October 2019). The Iranian currency, the rial, lost 50 percent of its value between early 2018 and December 2019. And inflation rose to an estimated 30.5 percent in Iran in 2018.

Trump’s grade. Probably a B. Definitely better than the grade of Iran’s economy.

Inflation

Trump: “He [Biden] caused this inflation.” (Fact: For 42 consecutive months of Biden’s presidency, inflation has remained above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent.)

The Times: “This is misleading. Independent economic research has found that government stimulus spending approved by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden contributed to the soaring inflation the nation experienced in the first two years of Mr. Biden’s presidency. But no evidence blames government spending, by Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump, for the majority of the inflation the country experienced.”

The Facts: Even Democrat-friendly economists blasted Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” before he signed it. Jason Furman (chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors) said: “It’s definitely too big for the moment. I don’t know any economist that was recommending something the size of what was done.”

Larry Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council director, said: “We’re taking very substantial risks on the inflation side. . . . We are printing money, we are creating government bonds, we are borrowing on unprecedented scales. Those are things that surely create more of a risk of a sharp dollar decline than we had before. And sharp dollar declines are much more likely to translate themselves into inflation than they were historically.”

Reading Trump’s blue book as a whole, we’d have to give him a grade of B. That’s about as good as it gets for a campaigning politician. Scored on a curve for politicking, he probably gets an A.

Be embarrassed New York Times. You flunked. If you were working for Trump, you’d be fired!

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/03/2024 - 14:30
Published:7/3/2024 2:28:18 PM
[5d6fe42b-d7e3-5750-8668-3f6eaa2792fe] Obama cautiously advises Biden after shaky debate performance, looming rematch with Trump: report Despite showing support and encouragement for his once VP, former President Barack Obama is reportedly concerned about Biden's road to re-election following his poor debate performance. Published:7/3/2024 8:09:17 AM
[9bfe75af-0cb3-5a2f-aefa-551008cd2aa6] Presidential debate: Incumbent usually struggles with first faceoff, even Reagan and Obama, expert says Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama struggled in debates but went on to strong re-election wins. Reagan recorded a 49-state landslide over Democrat Walter Mondale. Published:7/3/2024 4:42:30 AM
[2024 election] Let’s talk about immunity, beginning with Obama

  Oh my. Liberals haven’t thought this through at all. There is a flood of limp wristed hand wringing transpiring among liberal circles following the SCOTUS ruling on Presidential immunity. ...

The post Let’s talk about immunity, beginning with Obama appeared first on Flopping Aces.

Published:7/2/2024 9:48:02 AM
[Markets] The Long Sordid Career Of Creepy Joe Biden The Long Sordid Career Of Creepy Joe Biden

Authored by Donald Jeffries via substack,

I get complaints from people that I concentrate too much on Donald Trump. Basically, the message is, “But what about Biden?” I do write more about Trump, because he’s the face of the perceived opposition. The only Emmanuel Goldstein in town. I assume everyone reading me understands just who and what Joe Biden is.

But people might not remember quite everything about Joe Biden’s lengthy career as a beloved resident of the Washington, D.C. swamp that Trump promised to drain. Biden was first elected as a U.S. Senator from Delaware in 1973. Even I was very young then. In 1981, the great “liberal” senator strongly supported the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, passed in the wake of CIA whistleblower Philip Agee’s disclosures about the Agency is his best-selling book Inside the Company. Biden declared that “I do not think anybody has any doubt about Mr. Agee. We should lock him away in my opinion.” The good senator really liked locking people up, it seems. As a strong supporter of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, he took credit for a draconian provision that mandated a five year sentence for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.

Little did Biden know that, decades later his own troubled son Hunter would be caught with enough crack cocaine to garner a long prison sentence under the original 1986 Act, which was softened a bit in 2010. With every ounce of “liberal” ardor that he could muster, Biden bragged at the time, “If you have a piece of crack cocaine no bigger than this quarter that I’m holding in my hand, one quarter of one dollar, we passed a law — with leadership of Sen. Thurmond and myself and others — a law that says: you’re caught with that, you go to jail for five years. You get no probation, you get nothing, other than five years in jail. Judge doesn’t have a choice.” Senator Biden also authored the horrendous 1994 crime bill which featured “three strike you’re out” and mandatory sentencing, significantly increasing the prison population.

A JFK assassination researcher attended a Joe Biden seminar in 2005. He was able to briefly question Biden about the assassination. As recounted on a discussion forum, this was the short conversation: “Senator Biden, do you believe JFK was killed as a result of a conspiracy?" Answer:  "No." "So do you believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, alone and unaided, killed President Kennedy?" Answer:  "Yes." This is hardly surprising, of course, but reflects Biden’s ironclad establishment mindset. In 2019, the American Prospect published a piece headlined, “Joe Biden’s Love Affair With the CIA.” Biden was very helpful to Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey, who praised him in a classified early 1980s memo to his intelligence staff. Biden would state, in a speech at Stanford, that the intelligence community had been compromised by leaks.

So Joe Biden was never one of the Democratic Party politicians I admired back in my misguided youth. He wasn’t going to expose the abuses of the intelligence agencies, like a Frank Church. He wasn’t interested in any “sunshine” laws that would make it easier for the People to be informed about their government. His concern then about “leaks” would evolve into concern over whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. In a January, 2023 tweet, Snowden would comment on Biden’s classified documents scandal, accusing the Department of Justice of suppressing the story until after the election, and declared, “Worth noting that the President seems to have absconded with more classified documents than many whistleblowers.” Biden is on the record as saying that Snowden should “face the consequences of his actions.”

Following Julian Assange’s release from exile last week, some assumed that the Biden administration had been responsible for it, given Biden’s recent statements that he was “considering” dropping the charges against the Wikileaks founder. However, the White House would issue a statement maintaining that they had not played a role in Assange’s plea deal. A deal which, incidentally, made the disappearance of all those troubling DNC emails a prerequisite for his release. So if you’re tempted to think that perhaps, after over fifty years of serving the interests of the corrupt Deep State, Joe Biden finally did something good, you’d be wrong. Why spoil a perfect record? Even Barack Obama commuted Bradley/Chelsea Manning’s sentence.

So we get to the Joe Biden we’ve come to know and love.

Apparently beset with relatively early dementia, he has bumbled, mumbled, and stumbled his way through an embarrassing series of verbal and physical gaffes. He has also avoided being held accountable for some pretty blatant criminality. As far back as when Hunter and his late brother Beau were little boys, Daddy Joe had a disturbing habit of “crashing” into vacant mansions that were on the market. They literally sometimes entered through unlocked windows. As a long time realtor, I can tell you that it’s pretty simple to make a call and schedule an appointment to see a property, especially a vacant one. It is unknown why the then United States Senator engaged in such bizarre behavior, but it speaks to some kind of odd personality flaw.

Hunter wasn’t the only Biden offspring to become addicted to the drugs the young senator wanted to crack down on (pun intended). Biden’s daughter Ashley wrote openly about the “inappropriate” showers her father took with her when she was a young girl in her journal. This triggered an unfortunate promiscuity in her, as well as an addiction to illegal drugs. We only know about this journal, because Ashley left it behind at a drug rehab center, and the woman who found it sold it to Truth Veritas. Being as we are living in America 2.0, and not some vaunted “democracy,” the woman was prosecuted and served thirty days in jail. Joe Biden remains unscathed by what should be a very serious scandal. It’s not like he bounced his daughter on his knee, like Donald Trump and every other father has.

Left free to his own devices, Creepy Joe resumed his long history of inappropriately touching little girls, much of it documented on videotape. Our beloved president has a rarely known perverse kink for sniffing their hair. Again, this is all clearly shown on film. If only the Washington Generals were an actual opposition party, they might want to use those damning film clips in their campaign ads. I don’t know what kind of evidence existed against any pedophiles who were given long prison sentences, but how much more incriminating can you get than an adult grabbing the undeveloped chests of minor girls, while their facial expressions register their discomfort? Sure, there is supposedly the filmed rape of a ten year old girl by Hunter Biden on his laptop, but that’s been sent down the memory hole along with those DNC emails.

Men have been prosecuted and given lengthy prison sentences for less clear evidence of child abuse than what can be seen freely online, in numerous past instances, from our current president. Either this is the heinous crime most of us think it is, or it’s no big deal. So release all the pedophiles. Unless you have video of them actually raping children. Like the alleged rape of a child on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or the still never seen videos of our glorious troops raping Iraqi boys while their mothers scream. Seymour Hersh claims to have seen them. Some pedophiles are more equal than others. Just keep repeating, “grab ‘em by the pussy” and click your heels three times. Creepy Joe’s rather sensual kissing of his own granddaughter was also notable. Maybe he forgot it was his granddaughter. Or he was hoping to shower with her.

Biden was caught, again, on videotape, boasting about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Who was looking into his son’s (and his) financial improprieties in that wonderful democracy presided over by a former actor, who has a legendary proficiency for penis piano playing. That’s pretty damning evidence. But no, it was Donald Trump instead, who was impeached because of a “perfect” telephone conversation to the very same crisis actor/comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For asking the astute pianist to look into any possible corruption by the Bidens. I think there’s an obvious message there. But that’s what happens when you play for the Washington Generals. It’s a Harlem Globetrotters thing, you wouldn’t understand.

I have written many articles over the years for the American Free Press, detailing Hunter Biden’s financial shenanigans in Ukraine. They are intermingled with the “Big Guy,” the same timeless statesman who has sniffed more girlish hair than any other political leader in the history of the formerly free world. Hunter Biden’s emails reveal that the “Big Guy”- his loving father- always got a cut of the booty, no matter what. Just like court historian hero William Sherman, who always got a cut of all the personal property his Union troops stole from southern civilians. As my new book American Memory Hole will show, this theft is a grand American tradition going back at least to the Mexican-American War. The Bidens obviously know their history.

Joe Biden, when he has been comprehensible, has said some remarkable things during his terrifying presidency. How many times has he claimed that “White Supremacy” represents “the greatest danger to democracy?” Now, keep in mind this is the corrupt elite’s definition of democracy, not any form of government the ancient Greeks would recognize. That speech he made, with the bright red backdrop and sinister lighting, was perhaps the worst speech any U.S. president has ever made, when factoring in the background. All that was missing was the hammer and sickle, or a Lenin-style goatee on Creepy Joe’s chin. The Stupid Party objected a bit to that speech, in their weak, customary manner, but it should have offended every American. If only the sane remaining among us were allowed to be offended in America 2.0.

On occasion, Creepy Joe’s attention is distracted from the hair and undeveloped chests of little girls, onto adult women. Dr. Jill was an adult (I think) after all, when she started babysitting the Biden children. Maybe he loved her shampoo. But then there was Tara Reade. Reade accused then Senator Biden of doing something remarkably similar to what E. Jean Carroll would accuse Donald Trump of. Only Tara could recall the year it happened, unlike Carroll. And she has never been videotaped writhing around on the floor like a lunatic, unlike Carroll. I seriously doubt she has a dog named Tits or paints her trees blue, like Carroll does. Reade was ridiculed by the same state controlled press and feminists who believed Carroll. A ridiculous jury awarded Carroll millions of dollars. Reade fled to Russia for her own safety.

Hollywood and the kept media make fun of Trump’s sons. There are inferences about Eric being “special.” Riding the short bus. Those distasteful remarks are just fine, as long as they’re made against the “right” people. They are free to joke all they want about young Barron Trump, for instance, regarding whether he’s on the autistic spectrum. You know, the spectrum that didn’t exist until about thirty years ago. You’ll lose your medical license if you suggest there’s a connection there to all the massive increases in vaccines doled out to our children. But no comedian jokes about Ashley Biden’s numerous brushes with the law. Or the unmentioned Biden, Creepy Joe’s brother Frank, who has a crime record the sainted George Floyd would have envied. The “Big Guy” has a niece, Caroline, who also has had several run-ins with the law.

Have you heard anyone, including Fox News, Breitbart, or other conservative outlets, talk about the Biden crime family? Remember poor Billy Carter? He was ridiculed and considered a real embarrassment to the still living former peanut farmer. He never wracked up all the DUIs that Frank Biden has. But Billy Beer was pretty putrid, for those of you old enough to remember it. Even young Amy Carter and young Chelsea Clinton had their looks cruelly mocked by comedians. No comedian is about to mock Hunter Biden, famously photographed asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth, let alone Ashley Biden. Can you imagine what the hysterical shrews on The View would say if Ivanka Trump had written about inappropriate showers with her father?

Now, all Biden’s greatest crimes appear to have been committed before he developed dementia, Alzheimer’s, or whatever it is that he has. I doubt if Hunter or anyone else is even giving him his ten percent cut nowadays. Over the course of his presidency, Biden has been caught on film uttering inanities that often sound alien in nature. Maybe it’s the Reptile in him coming out. How many times have we seen him wandering off, like a misguided toddler. He did this recently at an international gathering, and despite the fact that the president of Italy was captured on film grabbing him by the arm, and leading him back to safety, Biden’s ridiculous DEI press secretary insisted that the video had been altered. His doddering was termed a “cheap fake,” or “deep fake,” depending on the source. Who can argue with that?

Joe Biden, in fact, has been so absurd in his role as president that many suggest he is a cheap or deep fake. Some say the real Biden died a while back, and has been replaced by a clone or robot. Boy, you’d think they could make a more realistic and competent clone or robot than that. It makes one cringe to watch him try to express himself. He reminds me very much of the Peter Sellers character in the film Being There. Although Biden is not known to have been mentally challenged during his life, and nothing he’s said as president could ever be mistaken for profundity, as was the case with the Sellers’ character. He is also prone to making his key points in a menacing whisper. No, his stutter isn’t a lifelong thing, as his old filmed speeches demonstrate. It is unknown at what age he began inappropriately touching little girls.

Biden has issued more racist comments than Donald Trump could ever dream up. He has stated that those Blacks who don’t vote for him are not really Black. He called inner city schools “jungles.” He compared poor students to White students. Senator Joe Biden helped put untold numbers of nonviolent Black crack cocaine addicts in prison. He simply makes up stories about his past, depending on his audience. He obviously didn’t go to a historically Black college, as he told a Black audience. He wasn’t practically raised in a synagogue, as he bragged to a Jewish audience. At least the “Corn Pop was a bad dude” story was funny. Fictional, but funny. Funnier than the mil