“If you believe what you like in the Gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
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Site: Zero HedgeIt’s Time For A U.S. STEM Talent Strategy To Compete With ChinaTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 21:40
Authored by Dan Reed & Dario Gil via RealClear Wire,
U.S. innovation fuels our economic strength and is vital for our national security. Released last earlier this month, the National Science Board’s congressionally mandated State of U.S. Science and Engineering Indicators report shows that an accelerating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) talent crisis is imperiling America’s economy and security.
Let’s start with a bit of perspective. The U.S. STEM workforce is now one quarter of the total U.S. workforce – 38 million people at all degree levels who use STEM skills in their jobs, including 19 million skilled technical workers without a bachelor’s degree. That number will only rise as companies expand their STEM workforce and their R&D investments in response to rising global competition. The CHIPS & Science Act is now funding one response to global competition and national security risk -- the reshoring of our semiconductor production.
Meanwhile, key technological sectors, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, face major challenges in filling urgently needed job openings, and making the promise of economic development a reality. Let’s be clear –China is gaining on us, and it has articulated plans to increase its R&D investment even further. Indicators data show that China recently surpassed the United States in research publications and patent applications, and China’s growth in high impact articles is outpacing its overall growth in publications. These overall trends are also true for the specific field of artificial intelligence – a field that is critical to national security. We cannot risk falling behind.
We must address this crisis now. How?
First, we must increase the flow of domestic talent into the STEM workforce. To start, Congress must fully fund the remaining parts of CHIPS & Science Act – investing in developing the STEM workforce, from preK-12 education through skilled technical workers and college STEM graduates to doctoral-level researchers in industry and academia. Sadly, the spending bill that Congress just passed cuts some of our most important science federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation, moving us backwards.
Second, we need new policies that double-down on one of our nation’s greatest strengths: attracting and retaining top STEM talent from around the world, including from countries that are emerging science partners. We must do more to entice and enable science and engineering students to work in the U.S. after they receive their degrees.
Third, we need a modern-day National Defense Education Act (NDEA) to spur private and public collaboration and provide the specific skills and talent needed by American industry.
An NDEA that would: invest in preK-12 STEM education and increase our STEM teacher supply across the country. Build capacity for the gateways into STEM training across the country: community colleges, technical schools, and other geographically and financially accessible institutions. Expand graduate fellowship programs, with a focus on critical and emerging technologies. Create national service programs like the Defense Civilian Training Corps and increase scholarships for low-income individuals. Increase options for foreign-born STEM talent to stay after their education and training and reduce barriers for doing so.
This is a national call-for-action. We need all-hands on deck – no group alone can solve this problem. Business, government, and academia must come together in a collaborative partnership and commitment far beyond the scale in which we are investing now. Otherwise, we risk ceding U.S. science and engineering leadership to China, with deep and lasting negative effects on our national security and our economic competitiveness.
Dr. Dan Reed is a former Microsoft Executive and currently serves as the chair of the National Science Board (NSB). Reed previously served as Provost at the University of Utah where he now is Presidential Professor of Computational Science and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering.
Dr. Darío Gil is the IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research and a member of the NSB.
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Site: Zero HedgeInflation Check: Doctors Making $350,000 Per Year Can't Find Homes In Long Island As Prices Surge 50%Tyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 21:20
While every news anchor and talking head in the world of finance continues to congratulate the Fed despite inflation still not being under control, prices are telling another story.
Specifically, housing prices. In fact, a new report from Bloomberg is now detailing how even doctors making $350,000 per year are "struggling" to find places to live in locales like Long Island.
The report cites the region's "chronic housing shortage" and detailed the story of Paul Connor, who helps run Stony Brook's Eastern Long Island Hospital.
“The single most difficult impediment to get around right now is the housing prices," he said of the area.
Long Island's North Fork, including Greenport, epitomizes New York's severe housing crunch, with home prices surging by 50% to nearly $1 million, and available listings plummeting by 60% for its 50,000 residents, the report says.
This crisis mirrors a broader state issue, characterized by a mismatch of job growth to housing availability, leading to historically low rental vacancies in New York City and skyrocketing rents - and spitting in the face of the narrative that inflation is cooling.
Upstate areas like Buffalo and Syracuse also face soaring property prices, compounded by restrictive zoning in the suburbs and mortgage rates nearing 7%, making homeownership increasingly unattainable. Suffolk County's meager housing growth rate, one of the lowest in the state, further underscores the acute challenge of expanding the housing supply to meet demand.
Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference added: “It’s a huge concern. It’s not just a New York City issue anymore. Affordability is an issue across the state.”
“Part of the squeeze with the North Fork is the spillover effect from the Hamptons because prices have risen so rapidly that the North Fork became this cheaper alternative — until it wasn’t," added Jonathan Miller, President of Miller Samuel.
Connor concluded: “Whether you’re a cardiologist or you work in one of the local restaurants, it’s to the advantage of everyone in our community to have people who live and work locally.”
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Site: Zero HedgeSean 'Diddy' Combs Loses 18 Brand Partnerships Amid Sexual Assault AllegationsTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 21:00
Authored by Jessamyn Dodd via The Epoch Times,
Amidst a whirlwind of controversy swirling around Sean “Diddy” Combs, the mogul behind the Empower Global project, at least 18 brands have severed ties with his e-commerce platform. Empower Global, which champions black-owned businesses, has faced a significant setback with the departure of notable partners, including Tsuri, Nuudii System, No One Clothiers, Fulaba, and House of Takura., according to a report by Rolling Stone.
Annette Njau, the force behind House of Takura, cited Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit against Sean Combs as the pivotal moment that guided their decision. Ms. Njau emphasized their stance, stating, “We take the allegations against Mr. Combs very seriously and find such behavior abhorrent and intolerable. We believe in victims’ rights, and support victims in speaking their truth, even against the most powerful of people.”
In a statement regarding No One Clothiers’ decision to leave the platform, spokesperson Lenard Grier addressed the complexities involved in such a move: “While this decision was difficult due [to] the reverence we once held for Mr. Combs as a leader in business and entertainment, it was clearly the correct choice.”
Ashli Goudelock, at the helm of skincare brand Tsuri, discussed their impending exit, underscoring an unyielding commitment to gender equality and dignity. Ms. Goudelock remarked: “As a company owned and led by women, we refuse to dwell in ambiguity regarding the mistreatment of our gender.”
Rebecca Allen, founder of the eponymous shoe brand, said: “We enjoyed working with the team but have not seen meaningful sales, so we were already planning to terminate our relationship at the end of this year. These harrowing allegations have expedited our decision, and we ended our partnership with Empower Global earlier this month.”
In a bid to salvage his reputation, Mr. Combs took to Instagram on Dec. 6 to assert his innocence and vow to defend his name against what he perceived as baseless attacks. Denying accusations of sexual assault, trafficking, and abuse leveled against him by Cassie Ventura, Mr. Combs declared his unwavering resolve to combat what he views as a concerted effort to besmirch his character and legacy.
“For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
Meantime, the company is facing a period of uncertainty as it addresses these challenges. The future of Empower Global remains unclear.
In November, Mr. Combs temporarily stepped down as a co-chair of Revolt, a music-oriented digital cable television network that he co-founded. The company posted a statement on X reading, “While Mr. Combs previously has previously had no operational or day-to-day role in the business, this decision helps to ensure that Revolt remains steadfastly focused on our mission to create meaningful content for the culture.”
Police and media members gather outside the home of U.S. producer and musician Sean "Diddy" Combs in Los Angeles on March 25, 2024. Homes belonging to Sean "Diddy" Combs were being raided by federal agents, media reported on March 25, with the U.S. hip hop mogul at the center of sex trafficking and sex assault lawsuits. (David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)
This comes as Mr. Combs has been accused in four separate civil lawsuits of sexual abuse. Legal action began on Nov. 17, 2023, when Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’ former girlfriend, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleged rape, sex trafficking, and physical abuse. The parties reached a settlement later that same day for an undisclosed amount.
Two additional women filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse against Mr. Combs in late November of that same year. The lawsuits coincided with the expiration of the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that provided a one-year window for victims of sexual abuse to file civil claims regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred.
Adding another layer to the legal saga, an unnamed woman lodged another lawsuit against Mr. Combs. This time, the allegations include rape and sex trafficking, with the plaintiff asserting that Mr.Combs and two accomplices gang-raped her when she was just 17 years old.
In addition, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a lawsuit against Mr. Combs in February, alleging sexual abuse and harassment.
In March, federal agents executed search warrants at the Miami and Los Angeles homes of the music mogul. These investigative actions are linked to a federal probe of allegations ranging from sex trafficking and sexual assault to the solicitation and illicit circulation of narcotics and firearms.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Deficit Tops $1.1 Trillion For First Six Months Of Fiscal 2024 As Spending Hits 2024 HighTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 20:40
It's oddly fitting that in a time when the interest on US debt just hit a record $1.1 trillion, that the US deficit for just the first six months of fiscal 2024 is also $1.1 trillion.
According to the latest Treasury Monthly Statement, in March the US deficit hit $236 billion, some $40 billion more than the $196 billion expected, if below February's $296 billion...
... which was the result of $332 billion in govt tax receipts - translating into $4.580 trillion in LTM tax receipts, and which was down 5% compared to a year ago...
... offset by the now traditional ridiculous monthly outlays, which in March amounted to $568 billion, up from $567 billion in February and the highest monthly spending total in calendar 2024, which translated into a 6 month moving spending average (for smoothing purposes) of $542 billion. Take a wild guess what will happen to the chart below during and after the next recession.
This, incidentally, is a reminder that the US does not have a tax collection problem - it has a spending problem, and no amount of tax changes will fix it; in fact all higher taxes will do is force more billionaires to move to Dubai where they pay zero taxes.
Putting the YTD deficit in context, in the first six months of fiscal 2024, the US deficit hit $1.065 trillion, just shy of the $1.1 trillion reached last year, which was the 2nd highest on record and only the post-covid 2021 was worse. Annualized, we expect total deficit to hit $2.2 trillion in fiscal 2024, a year when the US is supposedly "growing" at a nice, brisk ~2.5% pace. One can only imagine what the GDP growth would be if the US wasn't set to have a wartime/crisis deficit...
... and we can't even imagine what US deficit will be after the next recession/depression.
Meanwhile, as reported previously, total US interest continues to explode, and after surpassing total annual defense spending about a year ago, just the interest on US debt will soon become the single largest government outlay as it surpasses social security by the end of 2024, when according to BofA's Michael Hartnett it hits $1.6 trillion...
... and surpasses Social Security spending as the single largest spending category in the US government.
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Site: Zero HedgeDemocrats Commit Vastly More Dark Money Than Republicans For 2024Tyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 20:20
Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)
Democratic dark money groups, megadonors, and unions are funding a massive spending effort aimed at reelecting President Joe Biden and advancing the Democratic Party’s power in Washington.
So far, nine major outside spending groups say they will together spend nearly $800 million to support the reelection of President Biden. This is in addition to the massive financial resources the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will likely pour into the rematch of the 2020 election.
The progressive organizations—American Bridge 21st Century, Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, Climate Power, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, Republican Voters Against Trump, Service Employees International Union, Unite the Country, and VoteVets— have pledged to spend a total of $792 million on the 2024 election to boost President Biden and the Democratic Party.
Former President Donald Trump, who is supported by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its affiliates, is not seeing nearly as many commitments.
Groups pledging to back President Trump’s campaign or to hinder President Biden add up to less than a quarter of the amount pledged by the Democrat money powerhouse.
All told, about $160 million has been formally pledged to explicitly help President Trump’s campaign, and Republicans in general. One major group has said it will spend “eight figures” to go against President Biden.
An Epoch Times analysis of the financial records of the various groups shows many are a combination of federally regulated political action committees (PACs) and 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
Under federal law, PACs must report regularly to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), disclose their donors, and declare their overall finances.
The nonprofits, which are classified as charitable organizations and social welfare organizations by the IRS, report much less often and aren’t required to name their donors. For this reason, 501s are frequently called dark money groups.
PACs that do share donor information are getting money from some of the most prolific donors and organizations in the United States.
American Bridge
American Bridge 21st Century, a group specializing in researching and publicizing negative information about opponents of the Democratic Party candidates, said it will spend $200 million on the 2024 election.
When American Bridge made its announcement in January, it said $85 million was already raised and committed.
(L–R) Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton attend a campaign fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 28, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
American Bridge’s release said $140 million of its 2024 expenditure will go toward television, digital and streaming ads, radio, and direct mail placements in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It could extend its effort to North Carolina.
“These ads will feature the true stories of women voters and their families living in these key swing states and will use their voices to expose the truth about Trump’s agenda,” the release said.
American Bridge is registered with the FEC as AB PAC, a hybrid PAC. According to its latest financial statement filed with the FEC, it had about $5.9 million in cash on hand at the end of February.
Between January 2023 and the end of February 2024, AB PAC received numerous donations of more than $1 million.
The most prominent supporter was the super PAC, Democracy PAC, an entity largely financed by George Soros. Between January 2023 and February 2024, Democracy PAC gave about $4 million to AB PAC.
According to data collected by the watchdog organization OpenSecrets, Mr. Soros was the biggest spender in the 2021 to 2022 election cycle, spending about $178.8 million. Mr. Soros, the founder of the Open Society Foundations, is a prolific donor to Democratic and progressive causes.
In 2023, according to FEC records, Democracy PAC had only one donor: George Soros. In 2021 and 2022, according to FEC records, DemocracyPAC had two donors: Mr. Soros and the Fund For Policy Reform.
Fund For Policy Reform sent DemocracyPAC $25 million. Alexander Soros, George Soros’s son and the chair of Open Society Foundations, is a director of the Fund, according to its tax documents.
Additionally, Michael Moritz, a longtime partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and now a senior advisor at Sequoia Heritage, gave AB PAC $2 million in June 2023, according to FEC records.
(Left) Billionaire George Soros attends a discussion with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and a group of American business leaders at the Blair House in Washington on May 20, 2015. (Right) Alexander Soros, founder of the Alexander Soros Foundation, speaks onstage during a climate event at the Ford Foundation in New York City on April 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Ford Foundation)
According to donor records maintained by OpenSecrets, Mr. Mortiz has sent $8 million to AB PAC between 2019 and 2023.
Two other Democratic Party megadonors are bankrolling American Bridge. FEC records indicate Reid Hoffman and Deborah Simon both sent $1 million or more to the hybrid PAC.
Ms. Simon, an heir to the Simon family real estate fortune, sent $2.5 million in 2023. Mr. Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn Corp., sent AB PAC $1 million in 2023.
OpenSecrets ranked Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Simon among the top 25 largest spenders on the 2021–2022 election cycle. Together, they sent $35.7 million to liberal causes in that period.
American Bridge is also tied to the 501(c)(4) nonprofit American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. According to its most recently filed tax returns, the Foundation had about $1.3 million in net assets at the end of 2022.
Representatives of American Bridge didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Service Employees International Union
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents 2 million workers in the United States and Canada, according to the union. Its membership is primarily employed in health care, public services, and property services.
In a March 13 announcement, the union said it will spend $200 million—its most extensive campaign ever—to reach as many as 6 million voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
“The union will engage multiracial working-class voters who are less likely to vote or have never voted at all through field programs, relational organizing, earned media, and paid media, partnering with community groups who are trusted messengers in their communities,” an SEIU release said.
A woman casts her ballot in the state's primary election in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024. (Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The Democratic National Committee, Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The SEIU operates a labor organization political action committee—Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE)—and is linked to the super PAC United We Can.
According to Federal Election Commission records, both of the groups are financed by SEIU members and the SEIU’s local unions.
The two funds, led by SEIU COPE, collectively retained about $35.3 million in cash on hand at the end of February, according to their latest FEC disclosures.
In the 2020 election cycle, covering 2019 and 2020, together, the funds raised about $78.5 million. Those funds, according to the FEC, spent about $7.7 million to support President Biden.
Representatives of the SEIU didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
League of Conservation Voters
On March 19, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental group that typically promotes liberal candidates for federal office, announced its plans to spend $120 million on reelecting President Biden.
LCV is a complex organization composed of nonprofits and FEC-registered PACs. Its two federal PACs—LCV Victory Fund and LCV Voters Action Fund—had about $14.7 million on hand at the end of February, according to the groups’ FEC filings.
LCV also includes the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the League of Conservation Voters Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.
According to the FEC, most of the money raised by the PACs between January 2023 and February 2024 came from the League of Conservation Voters Inc. It sent LCV Victory Fund about $12.7 million during that period.
LCV has received funding from multiple organizations tied to Arabella Advisors. In 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the most politically active accounts, sent LCV about $3.5 million, according to its IRS records.
Representatives of LCV didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Read more here...
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Site: Public Discourse
America is a hostile environment for young men. Feminists have long denounced the “patriarchy” and erroneously cited disparate outcomes between men and women as proof that men enjoy vast social, legal, and institutional privileges that enable their success. The long women’s march through the institutions has sought to counterbalance disproportionate representation in various realms, whether on corporate boards or academic faculties.
With the rise of second-wave feminism, scholarships, grants, mentorship programs, and strategic hiring practices have sought to elevate women and entailed denying opportunities to men—even those who were better qualified. The era of “girl boss” feminism convinced young women that they could dismantle the patriarchy by conquering it, and as men were subjugated, they became irrelevant. “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” feminists cheered, boasting that “the future is female.”
But feminists have never been satisfied with merely reforming the statistics of professional success. From their perspective, the problem has never really been that men dominated in certain spheres. The problem was men themselves, so feminists have attempted to repair the broken system by breaking men. As women championed adopting stereotypically masculine roles, they simultaneously branded everything associated with males as “toxic.” A man was demonized for the slightest social errors: should he dare occupy more than one seat on a subway, he committed the grand moral crime of “manspreading” and deserved to be photographed, then publicly shamed. In all its excess, the “#MeToo” campaign endorsed believing—not merely listening to—any female with a grievance, eroding the social presumption of innocence and deeming men guilty in the court of public opinion. Accordingly, contemporary feminists have taken to unabashedly asserting the lazy generalization that “all men are trash.”
And many men––especially young men––were disillusioned upon realizing they confront a culture that effectively punishes their masculinity, ambitions, and achievements. They asked, why work hard when major institutions actively work against you? Accordingly, young men reasoned that the only way to win the game is not to play at all; then they submitted to unfulfilled lives and opted out of society, by preoccupying themselves with porn, drugs, and video games.
Unsurprisingly, this led to a loneliness epidemic. Recent data confirm that men are dejected, depressed, and desolate in comparison to women. National statistics show nearly 40,000 suicides among American men annually, roughly four times that of women. In 2021,15 percent of men said they have “no close friends,” compared with 10 percent of women. In 1990, only 3 percent of men said that. Roughly 63 percent of men under age 30 consider themselves single, nearly double that of their female counterparts. Men are outperforming women in the worst possible metrics.
So feminists concluded that they didn’t need men. But men have always needed men, so lost boys found an online refuge: the “manosphere,” a right-wing sliver of the internet where (mostly) nameless and faceless accounts defend masculinity—or, a specific brand of masculinity. It promotes what feminists seek to destroy, namely “alpha males.” Indeed, some accounts brand themselves as “pro-patriarchy.” Although they offer insightful cultural analysis accompanied by valid instructions for personal growth, the manosphere’s remedy is an over-correction. Ironically, it suffers from the same flaws as feminism by demonizing the opposite sex as categorically bad. More devastatingly, the alphas betray the struggling men they claim to help by prescribing rigid conduct that prevents genuine interpersonal bonding, thereby exacerbating loneliness.
The self-described alphas accurately identified a nationwide problem: “Most of the anxiety and depression in men stems from a lack of purpose” that then leads them to “seek fulfillment by chasing pleasure.” According to the manosphere, the two available paths are to “sink into a swamp of wimpiness” or become a man through achievement. This oversimplifies the options available, but I applaud the commentators who, in a Jordan Petersonian fashion, act as shepherds guiding a flock of sheepish men toward self-improvement with unobjectionable directions. For example, the user “Manliness Norms” states that rules for men include “don’t throw your friend under the bus to impress someone,” “don’t take out your phone during a conversation,” and “never insult the cooking when you are the guest.” It isn’t obvious to me why this is branded as guidance for manliness as opposed to politeness, since these standards are equally applicable to women; regardless, I have no substantive complaints about promoting etiquette, and perhaps young men are most in need of hearing it.
Parts of the online manosphere offer valuable constructive criticism and practical solutions. As the account “Modern Man” advises, “There will always be people who are objectively more attractive than you but that doesn’t mean you yourself cannot become more attractive over time. Better to put some effort in and look like a 6 than completely let yourself go and look like a 3.” Put crudely: stop bemoaning your loss in the genetic lottery and make yourself presentable. Some accounts prompt introspection and encourage personal development, questioning what obstacles are preventing a man from “hitting the gym.” There are threads telling guys how to gain confidence, particularly around “hot girls”; improve your mindset with a “positive attitude” and “learn from failures” that “provide valuable opportunities for learning and growth.”
The responses to men’s grievances within this niche internet community can be summarized neatly: you’re a man, so toughen up and do something. At a time when young men are noticeably unambitious, the motivational tweets are particularly healthy.
But the manosphere has noticeable faults: the support for men is premised on degrading women, the self-improvement (like “get some exercise”) is wrongly directed toward securing women in the sheets, and rigid instruction manuals suppress the personal expression that cultivates relationships. By some evaluations, a man who adopts the alpha mindset might no longer be considered “wimpy.” But there’s no reason to believe he isn’t still lonely.
At a time when young people have fewer sexual partners and less casual sex, managing to “score” is a mini countercultural rebellion that represents a man’s enviable “game.” The alphas are correct that the HR-ification of society sterilized romance, insofar as the over-regularization of mixed-sex spaces (such as the workplace) entailed the decline of risk-taking due to possible consequences for a misinterpreted gesture. For many men, especially those outside of blue-collar jobs, initiating one unwanted romantic advance in the office can have devastating effects. Accordingly, they largely stopped pursuing innocent crushes, and they pretended their skimpily dressed female coworkers were unnoticeable while entertaining devilish fantasies. The sad attempts to build a workplace community, like decorating Easter eggs, are severely limited in their ability to cultivate interpersonal connections because romantic interest is effectively prohibited. The standard is untenable: you should like your co-worker, but don’t you dare experience attraction.
The alphas rebel against the social castration in corporate culture by insisting that a real man does not cater to women’s hypersensitivities. To compensate for the widespread feeling of subordination in a society committed to accommodating women, the manosphere persuades powerless men to obtain dominance through seduction and subjugation.
The same account that provided a strategy for developing confidence around women has also written a book titled The Art of Fishing, with instructions that will allow men to effortlessly sleep with beautiful women. Stirling Cooper, a self-described “award-winning professional pornstar,” advertises that “my goal is to help men everywhere embrace unapologetic masculinity and achieve mastery in the bedroom.” He doesn’t offer many suggestions for embracing masculinity, but he claims sexual prowess can be accomplished with his $97 e-book on “porn industry secrets” and his $399 “Dirty Talk 101” course, even the descriptions of which are too vulgar to repeat.
The manosphere’s philosophy—if it even deserves to be called that—is contradictory. The alphas claim in the same breath that “there is no good or evil,” but “men are drawn to goodness and repulsed by evil,” whereas “women are amoral.” Supposedly, men should “stop expecting loyalty & honesty from women” because “women don’t care about your struggles, they hang out at the finish line and **** the winner.” But these men want to be the winners; they author manuals on “winning with women,” and a gold medal is awarded to the “top 20% of men that women swipe right for on online dating.” The alphas want to spotlight a woman and proclaim “She chose me over men,” but they denounce the framework through which she made that choice.
There is another disastrous error. By insisting that detailed manuals be followed for casual erotic encounters, the alphas exacerbate male loneliness by suppressing individual expression and discouraging investment in relationships. Loneliness cannot be corrected by following a particular conversational script because the lack of genuineness precludes interpersonal connections, both platonic and romantic. Will a man feel confident or nervous as he anxiously flips through a mental Rolodex of “sexy” pick-up lines? Can an erotic encounter be fun if the man is preoccupied trying to remember the “tricks” he learned from an online course? The absence of authenticity aggravates the passionless culture among young people by doing precisely what feminized corporate culture has done: prescribing rules to obey.
Ultimately, the alphas are responding to a pressing need: young men crave self-worth in a culture that condemns their mere presence. We can appropriately attribute some blame to feminists for relentlessly bashing men, as well as the policies that unfairly rewarded women, prioritized their emotions, and censored attraction in mixed-sex spaces.
Still, the manosphere’s decent guidance about personal development is defeated by ordering precise conduct for the sake of casual sex because the crisis of male loneliness is a crisis of intimacy. Both the speech codes and the aim of one-night stands obscure emotional, intellectual, and romantic compatibility. At best, brief erotic pleasure can be achieved, but nothing more. In the end, this will only facilitate men’s withdrawal from society, for they will feel unsatisfied in other respects.
I won’t resort to the “be yourself!” platitude or argue that anyone should unleash the waterworks on a first date. However, I will suggest that the relationships (particularly romantic ones) that alleviate despondency cannot be cultivated while adhering to manifestos and maintaining derogatory views of the opposite sex. And that applies to both women and men.
Image by Jacob Lund and licensed via Adobe Stock.
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Site: Zero HedgeRadical Left Group Demands Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge To Be Renamed Over Racism ClaimsTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 20:00
Far-left group Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County (CAAL), which has been on a multi-year rampage across Maryland, removing controversial statues (read: here) and pushing reparations resolutions (read: here) in Annapolis, has called on state officials to rename the recently collapsed 1.6-mile Port of Baltimore bridge because the current name "Francis Scott Key Bridge" is racist.
The new bridge hasn't even been built yet and might not even get built for years. Still, CAAL is already arguing that Francis Scott Key, the man behind the lyrics to 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' "demeaned black people" with the song's lyrics and that he enslaved people, according to local newspaper The Baltimore Banner.
CAAL called on progressive Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly to rename the bridge after late Rep. Parren J. Mitchell. She was the first African American from Maryland elected to the US House of Representatives.
On Monday, reporters asked Gov. Moore about the potential name change of the Key Bridge. He said that's not even a topic yet, as salvage crews are still trying to reopen the commercial shipping channel.
"I think any other conversations along those lines, there will be time for that but now's not the time," he told reporters.
In a lengthy Facebook rant, CAAL claimed that "taxpayer's dollars were being used to honor racism" and noted that it expected "backlash whenever there is an effort to bring about change in America." They said that backlash "will see an immediate response from right-wingers."
CAAL's website says it "fights for the human rights of African-Americans and to create a just society" and is "driven by progressive ideas and bold actions." However, where are those bold actions while Baltimore City implodes into crime chaos? The leftist organization has been around since 2011, and since then, those bold actions to help blacks has yet to materialize in Baltimore.
Some questions we have:
Why isn't CAAL taking bold actions to address rampant black-on-black gang crime in the metro area or address the education scandal in Baltimore City Public Schools that robs black children of their future? What about soaring violent crime, unleashed by failed social justice reforms, has transformed part of the metro area into a warzone? What about defunding the police measures that have collapsed the police force? Or tens of thousands of vacant row homes and a collapsed inner city economy that provides limited opportunity to young black males (some of whom have chosen a life of crime instead).
Perhaps the challenges facing Baltimore are to big for the leftist group to tackle. It appears, instead, they focus their agenda on rewriting history...
"Why do you always trying to make our history racist ? Good or bad , our history is what made us a great nation. Changing names of bridges, schools, removing statues,etc just promote racism," one Facebook user wrote on CAAL's post.
The American Historical Association explains why Americans should know their history:
"Laymen and educators are generally agreed that knowledge of our own history is essential in the making of Americans. The reasons for this belief may be summed up under four main heads. History makes loyal citizens because memories of common experiences and common aspirations are essential ingredients in patriotism. History makes intelligent voters because sound decisions about present problems must be based on knowledge of the past. History makes good neighbors because it teaches tolerance of individual differences and appreciation of varied abilities and interests. History makes stable, well-rounded individuals because it gives them a start toward understanding the pattern of society and toward enjoying the artistic and intellectual productions of the past. It gives long views, a perspective, a measure of what is permanent in a nation's life. To a people it is what memory is to the individual; and memory, express or unconscious, guides the acts of every sentient being."
Marylanders should demand that CAAL do more in Baltimore City before tearing down any more statues, pushing reparation bills, or trying to rename non-existent bridges.
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Site: Zero HedgeHow Trump Could Beat The Deep StateTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 19:40
Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,
Let’s say that Trump wins the November election. What would a second Trump presidency actually look like?
Today we’re going to investigate that question. Let’s first back up to the 2016 election.
Trump ran the most incompetent presidential transition process in my lifetime and perhaps the worst in history. The problems began with the fact that none of Trump, his family members and inner circle actually thought he would win the 2016 election with the exception of campaign manager Steve Bannon.
I predicted Trump would win but I was almost alone in that regard.
Trump picked Chris Christie as his transition manager, seemingly oblivious to the fact that as a prosecutor, Christie had put Jared Kushner’s father in jail. Given Kushner’s role as Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, this was a recipe for failure.
A well-run transition doesn’t start the day after the election. It begins a year or more advance with a list of loyal appointees ready to go. Trump had no preparation and no team. Christie was fired as transition manager and Mike Pence took over, but the entire process was bungled.
The other problem was that Trump applied the New York real estate developer mentality to his administration. He never worried much about his appointees because if they failed, he could always yell, “You’re fired!”
That may work in New York, but it doesn’t work in Washington. Appointees are protected by politicians, lobbyists and the media. If you fire someone, you can expect a barrage of leaks, policy paralysis and opposition to any new appointee.
Even if a bad choice is fired, the lower levels of the deep state take over and run rings around you while waiting for a replacement who will take months to get a handle on the job in a best case.
Trump never understood any of this.
Trump also trusted the wrong people. He installed James Mattis as secretary of defense, Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, H.R. McMaster as national security adviser and John Kelly as chief of staff. They were all RINOs from the Bush wing of the party.
They were brought in as “adult supervision” of the supposedly reckless Trump, but they all stabbed Trump in the back. Meanwhile, loyal supporters like Steve Bannon and K.T. McFarland were shoved aside.
Trump didn’t learn. He did fire James Comey as head of the FBI (three months too late) but then appointed Christopher Wray as the new FBI director. Wray now works for Biden and puts Trump supporters in jail. But Trump was the one who appointed him.
Trump should have fired the lying Anthony Fauci after one meeting. Instead, he gave Fauci the keys to the U.S. economy. Fauci then implemented lockdowns, school closings, vaccine mandates, masking and social distancing in ways that ruined the U.S. economy and gave Trump’s enemies an excuse to change election laws to favor mail-in ballots, which permits more widespread cheating.
The list goes on. The bottom line is no one was worse at transition planning, appointments, endorsements and tolerance of gross incompetence than Trump. He was his own worst enemy and seemed incapable of learning the ropes in how to deal with Washington bureaucracy and the deep state.
This leaves one overriding question. Has Trump learned anything since leaving office in 2021? Will he have a successful transition this time or simply repeat the blunders of 2017–2021?
Read on to see how Trump could pull it off...
How to Take on the Deep State
Has Trump learned anything since leaving office in 2021? Will he have a successful transition this time or simply repeat the blunders of 2017–2021? To answer those questions, we turn to two books that hold the key to possible success in a new Trump administration. The first is called The Plum Book. The second is called Mandate for Leadership 2025.
“Plum Book” is a nickname for a publication from the Government Printing Office based on the fact that it has a plum-colored cover. The official title is United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions.
It’s a 232-page directory of about 8,000 jobs in the U.S. government with an emphasis on the executive branch (controlled by the president) and independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It’s literally page after page of job listings by title, department and pay grade.
What makes the Plum Book special (and indispensable to a presidential transition team) is that the jobs listed in the book are those that are open to political appointment and not subject to a competitive process.
These are the jobs where the president can just pick the person he wants and install that person in a key policy position without going through normal civil service channels. Some of the positions may be subject to Senate confirmation, but that usually poses no difficulty, especially if the new president’s party also controls the Senate.
The Plum Book is like a secret guide to understanding the deep state and putting your own people in place to control it.
Even the most obscure federal agencies have top positions to be filled. They all have a director, one or more deputies, board members, executive assistants, etc. That’s how deep the deep state really is. When Biden calls for an “all of government” approach to climate change or DEI, the Plum Book tells us that means 8,000 hands on deck.
The executive office of the president involves a lot more than 10 or so close assistants in the West Wing such as counsel to the president, chief of staff and a few special assistants. The Plum Book lists 83 separate jobs (not including clerks, interns and executive assistants).
These jobs support the president only and do not come close to covering the entire executive branch. Among these positions are “special assistant to the president and assistant communications director for strategic messaging,” and “special assistant to the president and deputy director of White House information technology.” As you can see, even the assistants and deputies have assistants and deputies.
So if Trump wins the election, the Plum Book will be an important tool to put the right people in place..
Still, the Plum Book is only the beginning of a successful transition. It tells us what positions need to be filled but does not offer a guide to policy. The selection of individuals for appointments needs to be guided by a set of policies that can act as a filter for choosing the right individuals.
Who is doing the hard work of outlining policy initiatives for hundreds of agencies, commissions and offices that comprise the executive branch and ultimately the deep state? It’s fine to win an election and use the Plum Book to fill key positions with competent loyalists, but what policies will they actually implement?
Fortunately for Trump, the Heritage Foundation has done this work. The Heritage Foundation is just one of hundreds of think tanks and policy centers in Washington, D.C. But in 2024 they’ve taken the lead in collecting and publishing policy papers on hundreds of key issues.
Their work is called Mandate for Leadership 2025. I call it the Trump playbook. It’s available online at the Heritage Foundation website. It’s 887-pages long and every page is filled with technical discussion.
The content is conservative but not ideological. There is a fair balance and even competing perspectives. In the section on trade, there is “The Case for Fair Trade” by Peter Navarro and “The Case for Free Trade” by Kent Lassman. It’s likely that the best policy includes some content from both perspectives depending on the specific trading partner, reciprocity and the impact on U.S. jobs.
The Heritage Foundation playbook Mandate for Leadership, combined with the Plum Book and Trump’s apparent willingness to learn from his past mistakes when it comes to appointments completes the Trifecta needed for success in a second Trump administration to destroy the deep state. Investors should hope that Trump stays on that path and listens to the hundreds of experts and institutions that are working hard to make that success a reality.
The difference for investors between another Biden administration and the return of Trump to the White House could not be more stark. The Biden administration has been characterized by excessive regulation, pointless mandates as part of the Green New Scam, open borders bringing crime, drugs and cartel influence into the United States, disastrous wars in Ukraine, Gaza and now the closing of the Red Sea-Suez Canal passage, increased segregation of Blacks in colleges, the destruction of 50 years of progress in women’s sports by allowing competition by men and a long list of other ruinous policies.
The first Trump administration was characterized by business and personal tax cuts, reduced regulation, no new wars, outreach to nuclear rivals such as Russia and North Korea, tariffs on unfair trade by China, a concerted effort to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, demands that NATO members pay their fair share for mutual defense and a secure southern border with Mexico.
Trump also made an historic three appointments to the Supreme Court, which has emerged as practically the last bastion of constitutional order and the rule of law. There’s no reason to expect any improvement in another Biden administration. In fact, policies will almost certainly grow worse as Biden fails physically and mentally and opens the door to a possible acting president in the form of Kamala Harris, a known dunce.
There’s good reason to believe that a second Trump administration will offer the growth-oriented policies of the first administration with a much more effective decision-making apparatus resulting from attention to the Plum Book, the playbook and the transition process.
A better transition process in a second term means the biggest threat to the deep state in decades.
And a new team will put us on the road back to sanity. But powerful people won’t go quietly. A more experienced Trump will conduct a second war to destroy them. Unless they destroy him first.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS 'Considering' Dropping Prosecution Of Assange, Biden SaysTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 19:20
Wednesday saw a rare and unexpected positive development in the Julian Assange extradition case. President Joe Biden has affirmed the US is "considering" dropping its prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder.
Currently, Assange is awaiting a final ruling from the UK high court over his possible extradition to the US, coming at the end of a lengthy appeals process. But the following exchange with President Biden and reporters just happened:
When asked about the request by reporters at the White House on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said "we're considering it" - comments described as "encouraging" by Mr Assange's lawyer.
Image: Creative Commons
Biden issued the response in a press briefing while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for an official White House visit, where the two leaders are expended to deepen defense ties.
It is widely perceived this was all set in motion when in February Assange's native Australia saw its parliament vote to issue formal request that charges against Julian Assange be dropped by the US. The motion adopted by parliament emphasized "the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia."
The country's prime minister Anthony Albanese immediately backed the motion calling for his return to Australia.
Amnesty International also recently renewed its call to drop the charges against Assange. "The risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance. Should Julian Assange be sent to the U.S. and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial, too," a statement said.
We detailed in March that the Biden administration might be looking for a way to bring the 14-year long legal drama to an end. A WSJ report at the time said, "The U.S. Justice Department is considering whether to allow Julian Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information, according to people familiar with the matter, opening the possibility of a deal that would end a lengthy legal saga triggered by one of the biggest classified intelligence leaks in American history."
A plea deal means the whole crisis for him and his family could finally come to an acceptable and peaceful end after all of these years. But Assange's legal team never gave any level of confirmation to the prior WSJ reporting.
Julian Assange's freedom has been powerfully supported by press freedom organizations, but many organizations with a wider remit recognize the threats the US prosecution poses to our rights everywhere
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 10, 2024
Quick thread summarizing some of the support for the work of Julian Assange: pic.twitter.com/RqWBkJPcYiHowever, this fresh Biden statement seems to confirm the reporting that a plea deal could be on the table.
A May 20 hearing which has been scheduled by the UK High Court and is expected to take up whether the US 'assurances' that Assange would not face either the death penalty or torture if transferred to US custody are satisfactory. His lawyers have long argued that confinement in a US federal 'Supermax' facility would indeed be torturous and would also severely degrade his mental health.
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Site: Henrymakow.com
A 1839 painting by the Scot David Roberts depicting destruction of Jerusalem.Christians have been taught to embrace the Great Tribulation because, before that happens, they will all be removed or raptured from the planet. But, it's all a hoax because, the predicted great tribulation already took place in the horrific years of the Roman siege that ended with the complete destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The rapture was made up to pacify Christians.The Rapture and Other End Time Hoaxesby Peter Boothroyd(henrymakow.com)Christians across North America believe that one day they will be raptured and will be spared the "Tribulation" and "Antichrist."They might be surprised to learn that the false doctrines of the rapture and dispensationalism were invented in 1830 by John Darby.In fact, you won't find the word "rapture" in the Bible. It's a hoax. But this didn't stop Cyrus Ingerson Scofield from stealing Darby's deceptive doctrines and incorporating them in his Scofield Reference Bible which was first published in 1909 and revised in 1917. Labeled a charlatan and heretic by Christian author Stephen Sizeman, shyster Scofield even conferred a doctorate on himself in 1892. You can read more about this scoundrel here.In spite of Scofield's sordid background, the erroneous rapture doctrine was popularized by Hal Lindsay in his book The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 and sensationalized by Tim LaHaye with his apocalyptic Left Behind series of books beginning in 1995.The heretical Scofield Reference Bible was even picked up by the Dallas Theological Seminary as a textbook for its students. Many other Bible colleges in the United States also teach students about the rapture and dispensationalism as if they are facts.
(left, C.I. Scofield)Not only is there no rapture. The "Antichrist" is a make-believe character promoted by the Scofield futurists. A quick check in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible reveals that the Bible warns that not just one but many antichrists will emerge over the ages.The spirit of antichrist is already in the world, the Bible says. Anyone that denies God and His Son is antichrist. And antichrist systems are alive and well today. However, don't expect a guy who calls himself the real Antichrist to pop up any time soon.But the lies don't stop there. Many evangelical Christians like to talk about the "Great Tribulation" which they say is a 3½ year-period that is still to come marked by the appearance of the Antichrist. Well, guess what? Those 3½ years of great tribulation have already come and gone and culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The famous historian Flavio Josephus observed and recorded in great detail the terrifying Roman siege of Jerusalem which lasted from the spring of 67 AD until the fall of 70 AD (3½ years).In his book The Destruction of Jerusalem, written in 1805, George Peter Holford explains that the Olivet Discourse of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, is a prediction of the events that would soon come to pass and lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and its magnificent temple.But the heretical Scofield futurists would have you believe that Jesus was speaking of events 2,000 years or more in the future. Holford's book contains much information from Josephus. Why does the Olivet Discourse not appear in the Gospel of John, you might ask? Because John's detailed account of the soon-to-arrive destruction of Jerusalem is contained in the Book of Revelation.Well, what about 666, the "number of the beast"? Surely, the beast of Revelation 13 is still to come. No, many theologians think not. That's another instance of how many of us have been hoodwinked to believe the lies of the dispensational futurists.The last verse of Revelation 13 in the King James Version doesn't say the number of the beast is 666. It says "let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast for it is the number of a man, and his number is Six [sic] hundred threescore and six" (or six hundred and sixty-six). John was speaking in code to the seven churches in Asia Minor. He knew that, if his readers were smart enough to use Hebrew gematria, the number six hundred and sixty six would give them the name Nero Caesar.It was Nero, the wicked beast, who punished John by banishing him to the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea where he wrote Revelation. Before that, Nero had tried to kill John by boiling him in oil but he didn't succeed. And the siege of Jerusalem began in 67 AD when Nero was Emperor of ancient Rome until he committed suicide in AD 68.Don't let the futurists fool you. The rapture is a hoax and most of the Book of Revelation has already come to pass.Don't let the futurists fool you. The rapture, the "Great Tribulation" and the coming "Antichrist" are all hoaxes perpetrated by the evangelicals who have been duped by the heretical Scofield Reference Bible.The dispensational futurists would have you believe that John wrote the Book of Revelation to forecast events that would take place more than 2,000 years after it was written. The truth of the matter is most of the events in the Book of Revelation had already taken place by the time Jerusalem and its magnificent temple had been utterly destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. In the opening chapter of the Book of Revelation, John indicates that he is writing about events that must "soon take place", not 2,000 years later.-Peter Boothroyd is the author of the spy thriller novel The Iran Imperative under his alias Laurence Atelier. -
Site: Zero HedgePopular Paper On Ivermectin And COVID-19 Contains False InformationTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 19:00
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A popular study that claims ivermectin has shown no effectiveness against all-cause mortality contains false information but remains uncorrected.
The meta-analysis, published in 2021 by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, explores how groups in randomized, controlled trials fared after receiving ivermectin compared to control groups.
Among five trials included for the portion on all-cause mortality, none showed an effect for ivermectin, the authors claimed.
Ivermectin “did not reduce all-cause mortality,” they wrote.
But the claim is wrong. One of the five trials was described as finding ivermectin recipients were more likely to die, but actually found that ivermectin recipients were less likely to die. “The risk base estimation ... confirmed that the average mortality obtained in all of ivermectin treated arms was 3.3%, while it was about 18.3% in standard care and placebo arms,” the authors of that paper said.
Dr. Adrian Hernandez, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Pharmacy, and other authors of the meta-analysis are aware of the false information. The group released their study as a preprint before the journal published it. The first version included the false information. A corrected version properly portrayed the trial’s results for all-cause mortality in a figure summarizing the results, but still falsely said none of the trials showed a benefit against all-cause mortality.
Dr. Hernandez and Clinical Infectious Diseases did not respond to requests for comment.
The lingering false information is in a paper that has attracted numerous citations in other studies, in the press, and on social media. Altmetric, which tracks engagement, scores it at 5,900. A score of 20 or means a paper is doing “far better than most of its contemporaries,” according to the company.
Morimasa Yagisawa of Kitasato University and other researchers pointed out the issue in a March review of ivermectin trials, saying they were “concerned about the spread of misinformation and/or disinformation” about trial results.
“The articles on systematic reviews and meta-analyses are often erroneous or misleading. This is perhaps because the authors were not involved in the clinical trials or patient care and only searched for and analyzed articles and databases on clinical trial results,” they wrote. The problems are “particularly serious” in the paper for which Dr. Hernandez was the corresponding author, the researchers said.
“Although it was a clear error, the wrong content of the preprint was published as a major article in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the official journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, without being changed,” they wrote. “Many comments were made questioning the insight of the reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief for publishing a paper with such inconsistencies, but the paper is still published without correction. Since this is a prestigious journal of a prestigious society, an early corrective action is required.”
“There have been several fraudulent meta-analyses, and this is a striking one,” Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief officer of the FLCCC Alliance and author of the book The War on Ivermectin, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“In this meta-analysis, they selected only 10 of the 81 controlled trials, 33 of which were randomized, on ivermectin that were available at the time. Eight of the ten they selected involved mild COVID-19. Typically, mild COVID does not lead to death. And here they were looking at death rates and, as expected, saw very few. The inclusion criteria they used were intended to show no effect. And they succeeded. Conflicted researchers have been doing this to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin since the beginning of the pandemic,” he added.
Issues in other meta-analyses include the improper inclusion of papers that did not describe clinical trial results, Mr. Yagisawa and his co-authors said.
They noted that a number of trials have found ivermectin recipients were better off. That includes trials cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its position that ivermectin is not effective against COVID-19.
The FDA recently settled a lawsuit over that position, agreeing to take down several web pages and social media posts.
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Site: non veni pacemIn case the lying media have you fooled, please know that abortion is totally legal in Arizona. The 1864 law was stayed for two weeks, and it is a foregone conclusion the stay will be extended until the November election, where it will be on the ballot as an amendment to the state constitution, and worded in such a way that there will be way more abortions in Arizona than there ever have been before. But enjoy the video.
More action from Arizona House floor pic.twitter.com/JOtlJadisO
— Cameron Arcand (@cameron_arcand) April 10, 2024 -
Site: Zero HedgeBridge Collapse: Moody's Cuts Maryland Transportation Authority's Debt Outlook To NegativeTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 18:40
The fallout from the Port of Baltimore bridge collapse has sparked supply chain snarls and economic pains in the Maryland area, forcing Moody's Ratings to downgrade the outlook of the Maryland Transportation Authority's debt from "stable" to "negative" because of mounting "uncertainties around the Francis Scott Key Bridge's replacement project's costs, including their funding and timing."
"Any negative impact from the replacement project would be on top of financial metrics that were expected to narrow from capital investments prior to the loss of the bridge," Cintia Nazima, a Moody's analyst, noted in a report initially mentioned by Bloomberg.
Moody's maintained the Aa2 rating for the MTA's revenue bonds, linked to about $2.2 billion in outstanding debt. Nazima explained that this rating "reflects the essentiality of the authority's road network, the fundamental strength of the service area, and its history of strong financial and operational management and performance."
The analyst said the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) Key Bridge comprised about 7% of MTA's total revenue in 2023. They expect traffic to be rerouted on adjacent highways and tunnels, adding the MTA will likely recapture most of the lost toll revenue.
The bridge was the primary land feeder into the Port of Baltimore. It connected the port to the I-95 highway network in the Mid-Alantic.
Source: Bloomberg
For more than two weeks (since March 26), container ships, vehicle transport ships, bulk carriers, and other large commercial vessels have been diverted to other East Coast ports. Last week, the US Army Corps of Engineers provided a timeline for reopening the port, potentially at the end of May. However, there is no timeline on when the bridge will be rebuilt, with some figures in the 3-5 years range.
In a separate note last week, Moody's warned the bridge collapse "has the potential to hurt the transportation and warehousing sector" in the Baltimore region.
How does the MTA recapture the lost toll revenue? Well, higher toll fees, of course.
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Site: Zero HedgeBiggest Corporate Welfare Scam Of All TimeTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 18:20
Authored by Stephen Moore via The Epoch Times,
President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes.
It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.
But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart.
They pay billions in taxes.
The culprits here are the very companies that President Biden is in bed with: green energy firms.
It turns out that despite all the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in America, by far the biggest tax dodgers in the country are the wind and solar power industries.
Over the past several decades, the green energy lobby—what I call the climate-change-industrial complex—isn’t paying its fair share. That’s because the vast majority of these companies pay nearly ZERO income taxes.
But they wade in rivers of federal direct and indirect subsidies that keep these zombie companies alive. Over the past two decades, the renewable energy lobby has collected more than one-quarter trillion dollars in subsidies—payments that we’ve been assured over and over would be temporary. The argument for these grants, loans, tax abatements and other sweetheart kisses is that these were “infant industries” in need of a Head Start program for CEOs.
Except these companies have never even reached puberty after all these years.
What’s worse is that President Biden keeps spoiling the children with lavish gifts for bad performance.
A new report by tax expert Adam Michel at the Cato Institute finds the green energy subsidies—mostly created by Biden policies like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act—will drain the Treasury of as much as $1.8 trillion over 10 years.
The Cato report finds that since its passage, “the estimated cost of the IRA’s new and expanded energy tax credits increased dramatically.”
These tax shelters are just a form of Aid to Dependent Corporations. They never seem to want to cut the umbilical cord.
What have we gotten for this mountain of taxpayer-funded green energy largesse?
Nothing, really.
Today, we still get 80 percent of our energy in America from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Wind and solar are stuck at less than 10 percent. This is some investment we’re making.
Meanwhile, President Biden keeps railing against companies that pay no income tax. He’s advocated a mandatory 15 percent minimum corporate tax. But guess what industry is explicitly exempt from the minimum? The green energy lobby.
It’s just a reminder that a lot of people are getting really, really rich off climate change hysteria.
The “green” in green energy doesn’t stand for a cleaner environment.
It stands for the color of money. Yours and mine.
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Site: Zero Hedge"Obviously, This Is Very Bad News For Biden": Wall Street Reacts To Today's Red Hot Inflation PrintTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 18:15
Coming into today's CPI number, which followed three previous red-hot inflation prints, we said that it's time for a "miss" (the first of 2024) not because the data demands it - on the contrary, prices continue to rise at a frightening pace - but because a dovish CPI print today would be the last opportunity for the Fed to set a timetable for a rate cut calendar ahead of November's election.
Well, you can wave goodbye to all that, because we just got the 4th consecutive "inflation beat" in a row...
... with supercore inflation coming in blazing hot...
... thanks to a boiling inflation print which saw every single CPI metric coming in hotter than expected - was a shock, not because it reflected reality, but because it effectively sealed Biden's fate because as Bloomberg's Chris Antsey writes, "obviously, this is very bad news for Joe Biden... we’re approaching the point where high inflation is bound to still be in voters’ minds when they head to the polls, regardless of how the price figures come in over summer."
With that in mind, here is a snapshot of kneejerk reactions by various other Wall Street economists and strategists to today's print courtesy of Bloomberg.
Morgan Stanley economist Ellen Zentner is the first sellside to warn her June rate-cut call is in jeopardy:
“The upside surprise in core CPI is moving the inflation data further away from the convincing evidence the Fed needs to start cutting in June. Dependent on the PPI data tomorrow, this print tilts the Fed toward a later start to the cutting cycle than our current forecast for June.”
Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch:
“The so-called ‘Super-core’ CPI measure – services excluding rents – jumped from 3.9% y/y in February to 4.8% in March. This latter metric is heading the wrong way and quite quickly at that.”
David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist at JPMorgan asset management:
“I wish the Federal Reserve would pay more attention to what they do to financial markets with their manipulation of interest rates and not worry too much about what they are doing to the economy. Last decade, we mispriced housing terribly and now a large chunk of younger Americans can’t buy a house.”
Anna Wong, Bloomberg economist:
“March is a month where the CPI enters a seasonal window that’s favorable for disinflation. The fact that core CPI remained the same in March as February — even if it maps to about 0.3% in core PCE inflation terms – is not a good development. This report, more than February’s, is likely to feed Fed concern that progress on disinflation is stalling — even though the core print for the two months was the same.”
Marvin Loh, State Street economist:
“While the rent component shows a strong disinflationary trend, the more important owner’s occupied component is stubbornly unchanged and well above what is needed to get towards a stable 2% level.”
Ira Jersey, Bloomberg rates strategist:
“The 3-month annualized core CPI climbing to 4.5% is going to keep early Fed-cut calls muted coming up. 50 bps of cuts in 2024 currently being priced may not occur until later in the year. The yield curve flattening isn’t surprising as we continue to price out early and deep cuts.”
* * *
“The timing of 2024 rate-cut expectations are front of mind for market participants, with linear markets pricing just below even odds of a first cut in July. Still, the stickiness of ‘supercore’ inflation, now north of 8% on a 3-month annualized basis, may continue to put upward pressure on expectations of the Fed’s terminal floor.”* * *
“A retest of 4.51% is nearly assured with the higher-than-expected CPI. If that doesn’t hold, 4.7% is the next stopping spot for the 10-year yield.”
Seema Shah, economist at Principal Asset Management:
"Today’s print sealed the fate for the June FOMC meeting with a hike now very unlikely. In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the US election will begin to heavily intrude with Fed decision making.”
Priya Misra, JPM rates strategist:
”This was a pivotal report for the market since the last 2 reports were a little high (0.4% mom) and the Fed viewed those readings as a ‘bump in the road’ rather than a change in the trend towards inflation moderation.Rates have risen in the last few weeks as cuts have been priced out but there is more room to go. I also think risk assets will be sensitive to rates if the 10y moves above 4.5%. So far risk assets could ignore the high inflation prints since the Fed was dismissing it. But I think that changes now... Most of the strength in the core explained by firmer motor vehicle insurance costs and medical care -- both of these do not feed into the core PCE deflator in the same way. So incoming Fedspeak will be very important”
Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Asset Management:
“To be clear, this number did not eclipse the Fed’s confidence; it did, however, cast a shadow on it. When it comes to spread risk, one hotter CPI print does not derail the bigger story which is the economy is strong, defaults remain benign, and the technicals continue to cast sunshine on spreads maintaining this range.”
Erik Norland, chief economist at the CME Group:
"Given the recent trend in fuel prices, there’s a risk that headline inflation readings on a year-on-year basis surpass 4%. The narrative up to now has been danger of sticky 3% but few are talking about a reacceleration to the 4s.
Florian Ielpo at Lombard Odier Asset Management:
“If the Fed remains committed to its ‘one cut in June’ stance, real interest rates could remain stable while inflation compensation may increase. This would be supportive for equities, as real financing conditions would not tighten further, and profit margins could benefit from higher-than-expected inflation.”
Torsten Slok of Apollo Global
“Easy financial conditions continue to provide a significant tailwind to growth and inflation. As a result, the Fed is not done fighting inflation and rates will stay higher for longer.”
It's about to get even worse: recall today we have a $39 billion 10-year auction which is already being dubbed “sloppy” and a definitive break of 4.5% could easily extend if underwriting dealers are left holding the bag. As it stands, the 10yr has popped above the 4.5% parapet. Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets says:
“We expect the setup to the auction will break 4.50% in 10-year yields with ease.”
And George Goncalves, head of US macro strategy at MUFG, adds:
“Price action tells you two things - positioning wasn’t as concentrated or in line with the mini rally we had heading into the number over the last 24hrs and at same time very little in auction setup either.. . Bottomline if no dip buyers show up this morning, and we keep drifting, the risk is a 4.5% this afternoon.”
* * *
The bottom line, as Bloomberg's Sebatian Boyd writes is the following:
"today’s CPI print adds to the evidence that US monetary policy just isn’t as restrictive as the Federal Reserve thinks it is, and that interest rates will therefore need to stay higher for longer. There are lots of reasons that might be: The great resignation during the pandemic may well have heightened productivity in the US economy as people found new jobs where they’re a better fit. Higher government spending would also push up the neutral rate of interest. But every time we get a hot indicator, the case builds that it has happened and that conventional measures of neutral interest rates are too low. If that is the case, the upshot is higher yields and a flatter curve, because not only would the Fed be able to cut by less than expected in the short term, but yields will need to be higher in the long term too."
Finally, we conclude where we started, and echoing what we said in our CPI preview, namely that the BLS had Biden's fate in its hands, it appears the bureaucrats just voted for Trump. Here is BBG's Chris Antsey:
Obviously, this is very bad news for Joe Biden. It’s still only April, and we’ll have another half-a-year’s worth of inflation reports before the election. But we’re approaching the point where high inflation is bound to still be in voters’ minds when they head to the polls, regardless of how the price figures come in over summer.
To underscore how calamitous today's data is for Biden, here also is BBG's Enda Curran:
Let’s be clear -- today’s data has both economic and political implications. The economics are straight forward: It looks unlikely that the Fed will be cutting rates near term (barring a shock). The political implications are less clear but no less meaningful: Poll after poll has found that voters are grumpy on the economy and news that it could be a while yet before the inflation story is over won’t brighten their mood.
And with Biden's goose now thoroughly cooked, the next question is how long before somebody raises the possibility of a rate hike.
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Site: Zero HedgeMercedes Plant In Tuscaloosa Files Formal Request For Unionization Vote To Join UAWTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 18:00
Just when you thought the extortion labor negotiations with automakers, led by UAW President Shawn Fain, were in the rear-view mirror, giving automakers some breathing room on having to figure out labor costs for a couple of years, Tuscaloosa's Mercedes Benz plant is now looking to join the UAW.
Tuscaloosa Thread reports that a representative from the United Auto Workers said that the workforce at the Mercedes factory exceeds 5,000 individuals.
Following indications that 70% of this workforce for unionization, a formal request for a unionization vote was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this past Friday.
This major change follows the union's big strike at Detroit's three major automakers last year, which resulted in significant increases in pay and benefits for workers. And the shit is not just happening at MBUSI; workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee also sought to unionize and will vote on it later in April, the report says.
MBUSI measurement machine operator Jeremy Kimbrell said: “We are standing up for every worker in Alabama. At Mercedes, at Hyundai, and at hundreds of other companies, Alabama workers have made billions of dollars for executives and shareholders, but we haven’t gotten our fair share. We’re going to turn things around with this vote. We’re going to end the Alabama discount.”
Moesha Chandler, an assembly team member at MBUSI, said: “We are voting for safer jobs at Mercedes. I’m still young, but I’m already having serious problems with my shoulders and hands. When you’re still in your twenties and your body is breaking down, that’s not right. By winning our union, we’ll have the power to make the work safer and more sustainable.”
Jacob Ryan, a KVP team member at Mercedes concluded: “We’re going to make Mercedes better with this vote. Right now, the company keeps losing good people because they force them to work Saturdays at the last second, to take shifts that mess with their family lives. And the only choice people have is to take it or quit. With the union, we’ll have a voice for fair schedules that keep workers at Mercedes.”
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has been against the shift as the state leads the nation in car exports, Tweeting: "It's no wonder the UAW wants a piece of the pie here in Alabama. And let's be clear about something: This threat from Detroit has no interest in seeing the people of Alabama succeed, our OEMs succeed, and in turn, the state to succeed like we are now."
It's time for change at Mercedes.
— UAW (@UAW) April 5, 2024
It's time for justice in Alabama.
It's time for Mercedes workers to Stand Up.
That's why Mercedes workers have filed for their vote to join the UAW, and to win a better life.#StandUpMercedes pic.twitter.com/LHgbm0sKNI -
Site: Zero HedgeJudge Orders Witness Names To Remain Secret In Trump Classified Docs CaseTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 17:40
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The federal judge overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has ordered that the names of potential witnesses remain secret, marking a victory for special counsel Jack Smith.
Republican presidential hopeful and former President Donald Trump celebrates his victory at a primary election night party in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
In a 24-page ruling on Tuesday, Judge Aileen Cannon said potential government witnesses’ names will be redacted in the case involving President Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office in 2021, in line with Mr. Smith’s request, which had cited safety concerns.
However, he will still need to justify the redactions of every witness’s identity, the judge ruled.
“This evaluation contemplates the balancing of several relevant factors, including the safety of witnesses and third parties; a particular danger of perjury or witness intimidation; the protection of information vital to the national security; and the protection of business enterprises from economic reprisals,” the judge wrote.
Judge Cannon also ruled that significant parts of the substantive witness statements to investigators may still be made public, as they do not identify the witnesses or other third parties mentioned.
In her ruling, the judge—who was nominated to the bench by President Trump—took aim at Mr. Smith’s “wholesale request” for complete anonymity of the witnesses via full redactions, noting that redacting identifiable information would sufficiently address safety concerns.
“Confident that such redactions will address the witness-safety concerns at the center of the Special Counsel’s seal request, the Court exercises its discretion to decline the Special Counsel’s wholesale request to seal non-identifying substantive witness statements, for which no particularized factual or legal support has been presented,” she wrote.
Trump Lawyers Call for Release of Witness Names
Judge Cannon also criticized the special counsel’s office for failing to raise all of their concerns regarding the possible release of the names of witnesses during the first round of legal arguments in the case against President Trump.
“Although the record is clear that the Special Counsel could have, and should have, raised its current arguments previously, the Court elects, upon a full review of those newly raised arguments, to reconsider its prior Order,” Judge Cannon said.
The ruling resolves a month-long dispute between the special counsel and President Trump’s legal team, who in January attached information about the witnesses to a legal filing seeking information that they argued would help their client’s defense.
While Judge Cannon had initially agreed to make the information public, citing public interest in the case, Mr. Smith argued that doing so could potentially expose the witnesses—which reportedly include FBI agents, and Secret Service agents, among others—to threats and unnecessary harassment.
Witnesses Could Face ‘Intimidation, Harassment’
“That discovery material, if publicly docketed in unredacted form as the Court has ordered, would disclose the identities of numerous potential witnesses, along with the substance of the statements they made to the FBI or the grand jury, exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment,” the special counsel’s office argued in a February court filing.
Witnesses for now will be referenced in court papers using pseudonyms, Judge Cannon said in Tuesday’s ruling.
The Epoch Times has contacted a spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith’s office for comment.
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, on June 9, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Prosecutors from the Department of Justice allege President Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election result on Jan. 6, 2021, and have charged him with four counts of obstructing the government, conspiracy to obstruct the government, conspiracy to defraud the government, and conspiracy to violate the voting rights of Americans.
President Trump, the Republican challenger to Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the charges. His legal team has also argued that he maintains presidential immunity in the case.
The trial in the case against President Trump was initially scheduled to start in May, but it remains uncertain when it will begin.
Elsewhere, President Trump is facing charges related to his alleged attempts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election, alleged civil fraud in New York, and alleged hush money payments made to adult actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.
He has also denied any wrongdoing in those cases.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusThis post concludes the Palm Sunday part of the this year’s series of Holy Week photoposts, and as always, we want to thank all the contributors for sharing these beautiful pictures with us. We will start in with the Triduum soon, and there is always room for more (we just got a large batch of Tenebrae photos yesterday), so please feel to send in yours to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org,Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Zero HedgeSwiss-Hosted Ukraine Peace Summit To Include 100 Countries, But Not RussiaTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 17:20
The much anticipated Switzerland-hosted international Ukraine peace conference is finally coming together, the Swiss government announced Wednesday; however, it will not include Russian representation.
"Switzerland’s government said Wednesday it will host a high-level international conference in June to help chart a path toward peace in Ukraine after more than two years of war, in hopes that Russia might join in the peace process one day," The Associated Press reports of the announcement.
The conference is set for June 15-16 at the lakeside Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne. The Swiss are expected to invite the participation of more than 100 countries, in accord with a plan proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, which has been worked on for months.
Zelensky has been meeting with Swiss leadership for months, laying the groundwork for the peace conference.
President Joe Biden might actually attend in person, given he's expected to already be in Italy just days before attending a G7 summit set for June 13-15.
The Swiss government confirmed Wednesday, "At its meeting today, the Federal Council took note of the results to date and discussed the next steps. There is currently sufficient international support for a high-level conference to launch the peace process."
While admitting that there remain "some unknowns" ahead of the conference, the statement said "in view of Switzerland’s long-standing diplomatic tradition and the encouraging feedback received during the exploratory phase, it considers it its responsibility to contribute to the peace process in Ukraine."
One thing is certain — if the Swiss hope to actually produced peace negotiations, this remains an impossibility without the other participant in the war. Moscow's absence sets the stage for a mere empty exercise is affirming Zelensky's own vision for what an end to the war would look like.
Zelensky has previously laid out Ukraine's "10-point peace plan" which was first presented by Zelensky in 2022. It includes the following points:
- Radiation and nuclear safety
- Food security
- Energy security
- Release of prisoners and deportees
- Implementation of the UN Charter
- Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities
- Justice
- Ecocide and the protection of the environment
- Prevention of escalation
- Confirmation of the end of the war
Russia has repeatedly rejected it as a non-starter, given especially it calls for all Russian troops to leave Ukraine and the cede back captured territory. Zelensky has in the past even pressed the 'return of Crimea' issue - which is another impossibility from the Kremlin's point of view.
In February, President Vladimir Putin told American journalist Tucker Carlson that Ukraine Western supporters must understand it is "impossible" to defeat Russia in Ukraine. "Up until now, there has been the uproar and screaming about inflicting a strategic defeat to Russia on the battlefield. But now they are apparently coming to realize that it is difficult to achieve, if possible, at all. In my opinion, it is impossible by definition," he said according to the transcript.
One key country that Switzerland and the Ukrainian government want to see present for the June peace conference is China. Zelensky officials have voiced a desire to see China intervene with Russia to get it to exit Ukraine. If China refuses to attend in June, there can be little hope that the conference will actually produce anything beneficial.
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Site: PeakProsperityThe Covid narratives are falling apart and it feels as if a dam is about to burst. Couple that to stubborn and punishing inflation and there's plenty for the average person to feel angry about. At times like these, sometimes a few sacrificial people have to be tossed under the bus...
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Site: Zero HedgeHouse Conservatives Tank FISA Bill in Blow to Speaker JohnsonTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 16:20
By Joseph Lord of The Epoch Times
House conservatives on April 10 tanked a procedural vote to advance a surveillance power reauthorization bill in protest against its lack of warrant requirements. The development is another blow to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) who already faces an ouster threat from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
In a 193-226 vote, lawmakers voted not to advance Rep. Laurel Lee’s (R-Fla.) “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America” Act, which would extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA’s) controversial Section 702 for a period of five years. The warrantless surveillance power is due to lapse on April 19.
While such procedural votes normally advance along party lines, 19 Republicans joined all Democrats to block the bill, employing a tactic increasingly used by GOP factions to apply pressure on leadership.
Conservatives who voted against the bill’s advancement were Reps. Greene, Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Dan Bishop (R-N.C), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), Bob Good (R-Va.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Chip Roy (R-Texas.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Clay Higgins (R-La.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Cory Mills (R-Fla.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Matt Rosendale (R-Md.), and Greg Steube (R-Fla.)
It’s yet another failure for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who in February had to pull a similar bill from the floor.
FISA Section 702 is one of several post 9/11 surveillance authorities that have come under scrutiny as some lawmakers from across the political aisle have raised alarm over its potential to violate the civil liberties of Americans.
Section 702, which was last authorized in 2018, was intended to permit warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals located outside the United States. However, in practice, it also sweeps up communications with U.S. citizens.
This vulnerability has allowed FBI agetnts to extensively misuse the tool in recent years, using it to search for the names of Black Lives Matter and Jan. 6 protesters.
The agency asserts that the program is vital to national security and that it has since undergone reform. Nevertheless, critics across the political spectrum have been apprehensive regarding the possibility of further constitutional infringements.
Former President Trump earlier on April 10 called on House Republicans to “KILL FISA,” pointing to how the FBI misused Section 702 to spy on his 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr. Mills, who voted against the bill, said after the vote that the result “isn’t a defeat for Johnson. It’s a victory for Americans.”
Mr. Roy told reporters after the failed vote: “We’re here to stand up for the people who are tired of [the] situation ... where the defense industrial complex, the Intel Committee, they get to see all this stuff behind closed doors and tell us what they’re going to do.
“The Founders were very clear about what we need to fear ... about how they will use foreign conflicts, foreign power as a smokescreen for going after our civil liberties. And that’s what we saw happening here.”
When the House Rules Committee on April 9 advanced the legislation for a floor vote, they left the issue of whether to require a warrant to a vote of Congress.
The warrant issue has spurred the creation of unlikely alliances, bringing such disparate lawmakers as House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) into agreement.
“When you have the history we have with this organization relative to not following the rules, we think you need a separate and equal branch of the government … to approve a warrant,” Mr. Jordan said in defense of the amendment during his opening remarks. “The warrant requirement has to be in the legislation or I don’t think we’ve done our job.”
Mr. Nadler agreed, saying that without a warrant requirement, the changes in Ms. Lee’s bill would be “so modest they would prove ineffective.”
The failure of the rule vote marks another loss for Mr. Johnson, who has already faced several failed rule votes during his roughly six months as speaker.
Continue reading at Epoch Times
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Site: LifeNews
This Thursday, 11th April, the European Parliament is due to vote on a resolution “on the inclusion of the right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights”.* This is the last item on the voting session of this Brussels mini-plenary and was tabled as a joint resolution by MEPs from the groups Renew Europe, S&D, GUE/NGL, and the Greens/EFA.
Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said:
“With an increasingly competitive European Parliament election being held in Ireland on 7th June, thousands of voters in Ireland will want to know where our EU representatives stand on whether a so-called ‘right’ to abortion should be placed in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Any Irish MEPs voting in favour of this extreme measure will need to justify it to their constituents.
REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.
“If adopted, this motion would misconstrue a deeply contentious issue, the legal regulation of the ending of unborn human life, as a ‘right’. This places undue pressure on member states such as Poland, Malta and Slovakia. It would generate significant opposition from millions of EU citizens who fundamentally reject the false premise that abortion should be considered a ‘fundamental right’.
“All candidates seeking election to the European Parliament across Ireland’s three constituencies should unambiguously explain where they stand on this issue and how they will or would vote on it. The Pro Life Campaign will consider the voting record and public statements of candidates a matter of critical importance as we seek to inform pro-life voters ahead of the European elections on 7th June.”
The post Pro-Life Group Calls on EU to Oppose Making Abortion a Constitutional Right appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero Hedge'All Bets Are Off' - Market-Mayhem After Consumer Prices Crush Dovish-DreamsTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 16:00
Borrowing a phrase from one of our favorite movies "all bets are off" after this morning's hot-hot-hot CPI print
The fourth hotter-than-expected core inflation report in a row got investors reevaluating expectations around the Fed's first rate cut...
Source: Bloomberg
Goldman's Diana Asatryan noted that their Research group pushed its first rate cut forecast to July from June, expecting two cuts this year.
The market is now pricing in just 38bps (1.5 rate-cuts) in 2024...
Source: Bloomberg
But do not worry, President Biden promised a rate-cut:
Fed Chair Jeo Boden https://t.co/dIkgCmyg5o pic.twitter.com/RRhJcX8s0m
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 10, 2024And that all sparked a massive surge in TSY yields with the short-end/belly underperforming (2Y +22bps, 30Y +13bps)...
Source: Bloomberg
The 2Y Yield got within a tick of 5.00% today for the first time since mid-Nov...
Source: Bloomberg
The 10Y Yield was double-buggered as a really ugly auction added another leg to the sell-off...
Source: Bloomberg
Today was the biggest yield jump for the 10Y since Sept 2022, 2Y's biggest absolute jump since March 2023.
Source: Bloomberg
The 5Y TSY Yield broke higher than the 30Y yield today (inverted) for the first time since September...
Source: Bloomberg
Inflation expectations surged to a new cycle high (its highest since June 2022)...
Source: Bloomberg
Small Caps (as you'd expect, most sensitive to rates) were the day's biggest laggards (-3.25%) with the rest of the majors down together around 1-1.5%...
Real Estate stocks suffered the most today (smashed over 4% lower with homebuilders worst day since Oct) as only Energy stocks managed gains...
Source: Bloomberg
And as also makes sense - 'most shorted' stocks (heavily weighted to small caps) - was clubbed like a baby seal...
Source: Bloomberg
Small Caps (IWM) closed below their 50DMA for the first time since November...
Source: Bloomberg
Interestingly, the MAG7 basket of stocks was practically unchanged on the day as the early puke was bid back...
Source: Bloomberg
...with NVDA seemingly the new 'safety' trade as TSYs were dumped...
The dollar soared on the (less dovish and maybe hawkish) CPI print to its highest close since Nov 2023...
Source: Bloomberg
The Bank of Japan has a real problem now as USDJPY surged up to 153 - a fresh 34-year-low for the yen against the dollar and below the level at which the BoJ last intervened...
Source: Bloomberg
Gold prices fell on the day - amid dollar gains - but we do note that the initial puke in precious metals was quickly bid back up before fading later...
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices bucked the trend today thanks to a spike in geopolitical tensions. The initial dump on CPI was worsened by a bigger than expected crude draw but then Iran-Israel missile headlines sent prices soaring back above $86 (WTI)...
Source: Bloomberg
And that won't help gas prices...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, this gaping wide crocodile's mouth is getting ready to snap shut again...
Source: Bloomberg
When will rates matter again?
And don't forget, its that time of the month/year again...
Will the tax on 'gains' from last year spook sellers more this year as rate-cuts are wiped off the table?
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Site: LifeNews
Former child star Dakota Fanning has her eyes set on the most important role of her life: becoming a mom.
“Having kids is probably more important to me than anything, even being an actor,” Fanning reflected in an interview with Porter. “If somebody said I had to choose, I would choose having kids. I’m one of those people who has always felt that pull.”
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Fanning said although she doesn’t have children yet, she’s looking forward to the different opportunities in her life that are yet to come and has set up her life and career to allow a path to motherhood.
“I don’t know how I’ll feel when that time in my life comes – and how much I’ll want to work. But, because I don’t have that at the moment, I’m trying to take advantage of the adventures now,” she added.
“I’m trying to push myself to keep saying yes to things that make me uncomfortable, to keep going to places for long periods of time that maybe I’m scared to do because — God willing — one day, it won’t be as easy.”
LifeNews Note: Kim Schwartz is the communications director for Texas Right to Life.
The post Dakota Fanning Says Having Kids Is ‘More Important’ Than Acting Career: ‘Always Felt That Pull’ appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
The San Antonio City Council will meet today to discuss the controversial “Reproductive Justice Fund” and reveal whether it will allow abortion logistics groups to apply for taxpayer grants.
San Antonio City Council included $500,000 for a “Reproductive Justice Fund” in its 2024 budget. Councilmembers said they intended to provide grants to organizations that pay for out-of-state abortions and even assist with illegal chemical abortions in Texas.
Texas became the first state ever to enforce a heartbeat bill. The Texas Heartbeat Act, which went into effect on September 1, 2021, prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected and empowers private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against anyone who performs or aids and abets an abortion in violation of the law.
Paying for abortions or costs associated with them is illegal in Texas. Any person or government that gives money to these organizations becomes complicit in their criminal acts.
Texas Right to Life sued the City of San Antonio in October to stop the government from giving taxpayer money to anti-Life organizations, regardless of whether the grants are used for abortion or non-abortion purposes.
Please follow LifeNews.com on Gab for the latest pro-life news and info, free from social media censorship.
The council’s action Wednesday could indicate whether members kowtowed to the Pro-Life lawsuit and will backtrack from funding pro-abortion groups or if they will double down on the illegal activity.
The organizations that lobbied for this budgetary provision and hope to obtain taxpayer funds include Jane’s Due Process, AVOW, the Buckle Bunnies Fund, Sueños Sin Fronteras, and the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity. These groups break Texas law by “procuring” out-of-state abortions, which is a criminal act when any part of the procurement process occurs within Texas. The Buckle Bunnies Fund also directs pregnant women to obtain illegal abortion pills in Texas, which violates the state’s criminal abortion laws and the murder statute.
The post San Antonio City Council Wants to Spend $500,000 in Taxpayer Dollars to Fund Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity
Julian Assange is very near the end of his appeal process in his effort to prevent his extradition from Great Britain to the United States, where he is set to be prosecuted for making public US government secrets — practicing journalism.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden made a comment that suggests there may be hope that US charges against the WikiLeaks founder will be dropped, meaning Assange can go free after years of horrid confinement in Britain. Asked about a request from the government of Australia — the country of Assange’s citizenship — that the US end its effort to prosecute Assange, Sky News reports that Biden answered, “We’re considering it.”
Biden’s answer could be virtually meaningless, as any request from another nation can be “considered” even if it is known from the beginning that it will have no influence. Yet, by not outright shutting down the possibility that the US would let Assange escape US prosecution, Biden’s comment offers a glimmer of hope for Assange.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity
The Vietnam War ended nearly 50 years ago. Still, the killing and maiming is not over. People continue to suffer from and succumb to injuries from the war long past. And others, often people born since the war’s end, are killed or injured by the explosion of some of the many bombs from the war that now clutter Vietnam.
A March 15 New York Times article profiles Chuck Searcy who, as a United States Army intelligence analyst in Vietnam, became disillusioned with the war. Years later, writes Seth Mydans in the article, Searcy is working in Vietnam on ameliorating the harm from the left behind bombs. Project Renew that he cofounded has been “deploying teams of de-miners, teaching schoolchildren how to stay safe, and providing prosthetics and job training to victims” for over 20 years. You can read the article here.
It is inspiring that people are dedicated to trying to minimize the long-term damage of the US government’s wars. It is unfortunate, though, that, since the Vietnam War, Americans have been suckered into allowing their government to pursue a series of devastating wars across the world. These wars, like the Vietnam War, have killed and maimed many people and then, after their conclusion, left behind new streams of suffering that flow into the future.
The world would do much better if there were a big uptick in one “illness” in America: the Vietnam Syndrome.
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Site: The Remnant Newspaper - Remnant ArticlesWithout a doubt, in this interpretation lies one of the most profound lessons of the darkness during the crucifixion of the Savior Christ: the “eclipse” of faith. There is no more terrible test, for any of us, than the Cross.
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Site: LifeNews
A prominent Catholic organization is calling on the Department of Justice to defend Catholic churches from anticipated pro-abortion attacks, pointing to the disparities in the DOJ’s enforcement of a law protecting both abortion clinics and churches.
In a letter first obtained by The Daily Signal, CatholicVote President Brian Burch calls on Attorney General Merrick Garland to detail what steps the DOJ plans to take to “combat the incessant attacks against Catholic churches.”
“How much more violence needs to happen before you will act?” he asks Garland. “Why is the FACE Act being enforced against Holocaust survivors, but not [against] those who attempt to destroy churches or even kill Catholics?”
The letter references President Joe Biden’s administration’s focus on prosecuting pro-life activists through the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. As recently as April 3, the DOJ announced that a federal judge found four pro-life activists guilty of violating the FACE Act—including an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Eva Edl.
“We have had enough of the Biden administration prosecuting pro-lifers while ignoring attacks against Catholic churches across the country,” Burch told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.
“Attorney General Garland’s silence on these hate crimes is deafening,” he added. “Many more attacks are expected this year if he continues to turn a blind eye. It is well past time for the Biden administration to act.”
CatholicVote points out to the DOJ that a man in Verona, New Jersey, set a Catholic Church on fire on April 4. This was the third time since 2018 that this individual, named Elliot Bennett, 42, had “engaged in violence and vandalism against the church,” Burch said. Bennett had been charged with criminal mischief and a hate crime related to prior incidents.
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“The Verona incident was the 21st attack on a Catholic church in 2024, the 247th attack since Catholic churches across the country were put under organized siege by pro-abortion domestic terrorists after the Supreme Court leak [of a pending ruling overturning Roe v. Wade] in May 2022, and the 412th attack since general civil unrest swept the nation in May 2020,” Burch wrote. “We have found evidence of arrests in only about 25% of these cases, and zero federal prosecutions.”
The FACE Act protects churches in the same way that it protects abortion clinics, Burch emphasized.
“And yet under your leadership, the Biden administration has refused to prosecute a single act of violence against a Catholic church despite many other cases of arson and firebombing; pro-abortion protesters blocking church entrances and disrupting Masses; and even physical assaults on priests and parishioners, among many other types of violence,” the CatholicVote leader said.
“These attacks have caused at least $25 million in quantifiable damage to churches and instilled fear into hundreds of Catholic communities,” he added.
Though the DOJ promised CatholicVote in December 2021 that it would conduct a 15-day review to ensure that appropriate resources are being deployed to protect houses of worship, this review apparently has not occurred. And according to Burch, the violence has not only continued, but “increased, unabated.”
“This problem is taking on new urgency this year,” he wrote. “Up to a dozen states will be voting on abortion-related ballot initiatives. We have seen surges of attacks against Catholic churches during voting on abortion ballot initiatives in Kansas, Michigan, and Ohio, which had signs expressing their opposition to abortion.”
CatholicVote argues that Catholic churches and individuals have an absolute right to practice their faith, and that these attacks against churches that stand for the right to life are “textbook examples of voter intimidation and voter suppression.”
He added: “You have sued multiple states which you allege are engaging in voter suppression, comparing their laws to those of the Jim Crow era, yet you have not devoted a single minute of federal time to addressing the intimidation and suppression of Catholic voters, which bears striking similarities to the prejudice and violence against African Americans during the Jim Crow era.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal.
Since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would soon thereafter be overturned, there have been at least 236 attacks on Catholic churches and at least 90 attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers, according to CatholicVote trackers.
Yet the Biden DOJ charged only pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, and has since charged only five individuals with violating the FACE Act for targeting pregnancy centers.
In February, conservative leaders called on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., to pass the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2023 “as soon as possible.”
“In the aftermath of additional pro-life activists being convicted by the Biden administration under the FACE Act for peacefully protesting outside an abortion business, we respectfully urge you to take immediate legislative action to protect peaceful pro-life activists from the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Justice and an unconstitutional law,” the leaders said in a letter first obtained by The Daily Signal.
“The Biden administration has weaponized the FACE Act against peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors and activists who want to save lives and change hearts and minds,” Advancing American Freedom Executive Director Paul Teller told The Daily Signal at the time.
The failure to prosecute attacks on Catholic churches under the FACE Act has drawn particular attention in light of the fact that Biden is the nation’s second Catholic president and is often described by the media as a “devout Catholic”—though the president heads the most pro-abortion administration in U.S. history; promotes transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, even for children; and celebrates transgender ideology.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a crime against human life, that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and that homosexual acts are “contrary to the natural law” and “close the sexual act to the gift of life.”
In an Easter weekend interview, the left-leaning archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Wilton Gregory, described the president as a “cafeteria Catholic” who “picks and chooses” which parts of Catholicism to adhere to.
“I would say there are things, especially in terms of the life issues, there are things that he chooses to ignore,” Gregory said.
“The issues of life begin at the very beginning. And they conclude at natural death,” the cardinal said. “And you can’t pick and choose. You’re either one who respects life in all of its dimensions, or you have to step aside and say, ‘I’m not pro-life.’”
LifeNews Note: Mary Margaret Olohan writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared.
The post Catholic Leader Blasts Biden: He Doesn’t Care About Attacks on Churches and Pro-Life Americans appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
We’ve all wondered if the fix is already in. Given the irregularities of the last election, and the manner in which the whole of the U.S. establishment rallied around one side, maybe a Biden victory in November is a foregone conclusion.
I’m guilty of believing this. I’ve doubted every prediction that Donald Trump or RFK, Jr. can win. This is not because they won’t get votes. It’s because those votes might not matter enough.
The power of haters is awesome and ubiquitous. The whole of legacy media, government, corporate tech, pharma, and both the administrative state and the deep state are dedicated to keeping them and their supporters from power.
We don’t even know if elections really work anymore. It’s entirely possible, in this view, that millions will slog to the polls in November and do their duty in what will only end up as theater. The regime controls the ballots, surely, and nothing can overcome that. A second Biden term, the most unpopular president in my lifetime, is inevitable, in this view. The system is too broken to generate any other outcome.
Admit it: you have been tempted by this outlook too.
Well, I’m here to bring you some good news. The deep state has blinked. I will present evidence to you that the bad guys are actually preparing for a full-blown assault on administrative state hegemony. They are working to protect themselves against a victory by someone other than Joe Biden.
Will it work? I don’t know but what’s super critical is that they are preparing. If it were not possible to win, they wouldn’t bother. In other words, this is very good news!
The evidence comes from a largely unnoticed press release from the Office of Personnel Management. The legacy media did not report on this at all.
It reads as follows:
“The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today announced a final rule that clarifies and reinforces long-standing protections and merit system principles for career civil servants,” says the press release.
It goes on to explain that this rule change makes it much more difficult or even impossible for any new president to reclassify “civil servants” as being under the control of the president. Instead, their jobs are permanent and thus protected against any efforts by a future president to reclassify anyone working for the federal government. None can be fired.
In particular, the press release explains, this is designed to thwart another attempt to change their employment status, as happened in November 2020.
“In the first week of the Biden-Harris Administration, President Biden revoked an Executive Order issued by the previous Administration that risked altering our country’s long-standing merit-based civil service system, by creating a new excepted service schedule, known as ‘Schedule F,’ and directing agencies to move potentially large swathes of career employees into this new excepted service status. This attempt would have stripped career civil servants of their civil service protections that ensure that decisions to hire and fire are based on merit, not political considerations.”
The “previous administration” means of course the Trump White House, which issued the greatest executive order in a hundred years.
After four years of being subverted and thwarted by the civil service bureaucracy, the White House finally figured out the core problem. There are more than 2 million permanent bureaucrats, ensconced in 430 agencies, who imagine themselves to live outside the democratic system and the U.S. Constitution itself. They believe they are the state and the elected leaders are mere decoration.
Trump’s executive order insisted that every agency do an internal audit and ferret out any employee who has something to do with making or interpreting policy; that is, anyone whose work impacts on whether the president actually has control of the executive department. All those employees would be reclassified as Schedule F, meaning that they could be replaced if need be.
That’s it. That’s the whole order. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much but it was actually brilliant. The Trump administration is the first to discover the great secret of American public life, which is that the administrative state has taken on a life of its own. After years of trying, the Trump White House finally happened upon a key lever to gain back control for the people. It’s as simple as that.
The Washington, D.C. political press freaked out. It was as if a president had found the engine room and the one switch that controls the whole thing. That was never supposed to happen. This produced mayhem inside the bureaucracy, and a doubling and tripling down on the conviction that he could never win a second term, lest this order be carried out.
That’s why one of the very first actions of the Biden administration was to repeal this executive order. That action made it very clear that Biden’s loyalties were with the deep state first and foremost. He would protect their jobs and power above all else. In fact, the OPM press release brags about this.
At issue here is a phrase from the initial Trump order. Any employee would be reclassified who deals with “confidential, policy determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating.” Notice this word confidential. This would apply to the whole of the intelligence community, perhaps. So wait, are we saying that the president should be in charge of the CIA, FBI, NSA, NSC, and the entire security apparatus, even to the point that he could fire anyone? Maybe so!
Such a situation would be intolerable to the bad guys. From their point of view, this would fundamentally upend the functioning of government in America.
Let’s face it. If the OPM and the whole of the bureaucracy believed there was no threat from Donald Trump or RFK, Jr., such a rule change would not be necessary. They believe it is necessary, which implies that the civil service thinks that the rising populist movement is a genuine threat that could succeed in taking back the country. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother.
What is the OPM? It was founded out of the Pendleton Act of 1883, which started the permanent bureaucracy in the United States. With it came the Civil Service Commission, the first name of what later was called the OPM.
Until that time, and under the Constitution, the U.S. president had full control of the bureaucracy. The new president would typically replace a vast number of bureaucrats with loyalists. This was denounced as the “spoils system” but it could also be called simple democracy in which the people rule themselves through their elected representatives.
The permanent class of rules grew through wars and crises over a hundred years to become the government that cares not a whit for who is technically elected or otherwise appointed as agency heads. As a matter of habit, they have come to ignore all the comings and goings of the people elected by the population. Elections are just a distraction to them.
The essential point: Donald Trump and RFK, Jr. represent a genuine threat to the gang that has subverted and nearly wrecked this country. Now we know that this threat is real, else we would not see these efforts to entrench the bad guys and protect them against all conceivable threats.
As this proves again, the main struggle alive in this country and all over the world is the one between the people and the deep state consisting of a vast network of elites in government, media, the corporate world, banking and finance, private foundations, and global bureaucracies, all working for their own interests at the expense of everyone else.
It’s a battle for control, and it is the underlying dynamic that shapes our lives right now.
The bad guys are scared. Now we know this for sure, or they would not be trying to pre-rig the system against fundamental change. The elites believe based on long experience that they can always outwit the rest of the population. We shall see.
It’s going to be brutal before and after the election. There will be one or several October surprises. If Donald Trump wins, the onset of Winter will kick off propaganda like you have never seen. As the inauguration approaches, absolute hysteria will dawn. The COVID racket will seem like child’s play. Every day and every hour after will consist of wild attempts to stop the administration from functioning. What a time to be alive.
Reprinted with author’s permission from The Epoch Times.
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Site: Henrymakow.com
Please send links and comments to hmakow@gmail.comMixed signals coming out of Israel. On the one hand, Israel responds to Biden threats to withhold support by withdrawing almost all troops from Gaza. On the other hand, Satanyahu says he has "set a date" for Genocide.02, invasion of Rafah.They must pretend peace is still an option to obscure the program for the third Masonic Jewish world war.Israeli commentator Caroline Glick says a feeling of defeatism has swept over Israel.-Disgusting! Many YouTube videos claim Israel and the Houthis are bombing Israel. Not true! This looks like Russia destroying Ukrainian tanks and troops. The voices are Russian!U.S OIL PLATFORM DESTROYED! Iranian Houthis Fighters Use New Fateh-110 MISSILES!--Benny Johnson's show covers many developments suppressed by the Lamestream MediaJanet Yenta in Bejing chiding the Chinese for supporting Russia at the same time as China and Russia cement their alliance!China Sending Message That 'It Has Russia's Back' If West EscalatesOn Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, sending a strong message to the West that the two countries will continue their strategic relationship. The meeting came a day after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to China and warned it against partnering with Russia.The Johnsons also highlight Marjorie Taylor Greene's solitary defence on America, attack on Speaker Johnson
In scathing letter, GOP's Marjorie Taylor Greene slams Johnson with speakership under threat"I will not tolerate our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson serving the Democrats and the Biden administration and helping them achieve their policies that are destroying our country. He is throwing our razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that elected him," Greene wrote in the letter."With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of 'leadership,'" Greene later wrote in the letter. "This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats' agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority."-Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror AttacksRussia says it has uncovered more damning evidence connecting the US and NATO to recent terror and assassination campaigns in Russia, including making connections to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack which resulted in over 140 Russians dead and hundreds more wounded and injured.Russia's Investigative Committee, which is the country's top investigative body, announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior US and Western officials who are believed to be "financing terrorism".The formal statement claims that an ongoing investigation has "established" that money from commercial organizations tied to NATO were used to "eliminate prominent political and public figures" inside and outside Russia, as well as to "inflict economic damage" against the country. Lately there's also been a spate of devastating cross-border attacks on refineries, ports, and oil facilities.--FM Katz says Israel will attack Iran directly if retaliation to consulate attack originates thereThe only way to stop Israel is to defeat Israel.-Biden Says Considering Australia's Request to End Julian Assange Prosecution--
French teen detained for demanding that foreign rapists be deportedThe 19-year-old activist held a placard calling for the deportation of foreign rapists from France at a carnival on Sunday, and was reported by the city's mayor for "inciting hatred"The campaign group highlighted the fact that 46 women could have been spared from rape by illegal migrants if the authorities had enforced their orders to leave French territory last year (OQTFs), including one incident that occurred in Besançon last August.The demonstration was denounced by the city's mayor, Anne Vignot, who has previously pushed a pro-mass migration agenda and who announced she would be filing a police complaint against the activists for an alleged hate crime against migrants.--UK Column newsNATO gearing up for world warUK training 30,000 Ukrainian recruits-
The tide has turned!Rutgers Unexpectedly Drops Student Vaxx Requirement, Litigation Proceeds-Denver considering $3.2M to house pregnant migrants and young childrenThe city first experienced an influx of migrants in December 2022, which caused it to open several emergency shelters throughout the city--------So what happens to our investment accounts after a giant cyber attack? Will public companies become defacto private companies owned by the boards or the Government? I wonder? Looks like a great way to complete the great taking.There's no need for the powers to do that. Let me explain...-
FBI is the American KGB/GestapoBombshell Video: CIA Officer/Former FBI Boasts: We "Can Put Anyone in Jail. Set Them Up"O'Blennis said of Infowars founder Alex Jones: The FBI "took his money away," and 'chopped his legs off.' O'Blennis stated at least 20 undercover FBI agents were at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and some of them are now with the CIA. He also said the FBI uses "embellished" news and "fake social media" to "really get people mad."-Idaho: 18-Year Old Planned Attacks on Churches for ISIS. FBI Sources Helped Plan 'Attacks'Reporter Ford Fisher wrote that at least three FBI confidential human sources (CHS) and an undercover FBI agent helped him plan the attacks before the FBI arrested him. The FBI has a history of orchestrating phony terror plots.-ACTRESS LISA BONET ABOUT THE JABS ON 80S PHIL DONAHUE TALK SHOW -
Site: Zero HedgeIs Gold Overpriced Or Can Its Price Go Even Higher?Tyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 14:20
Authored by Claudio Grass via The Mises Institute,
This question has been at the center of a great many conversations I’ve been recently having with clients and friends. The way I like to answer it is with another question: Expensive compared to what?
Despite its recent surge to record highs, there are compelling reasons why purchasing gold right now is a prudent decision, with strong indications that its value is poised to climb even higher. Making investment decisions solely based on the current price of any asset without considering its underlying value or future potential can be prove to be a very costly mistake.
For one thing, it is obvious that there is a reason why gold has skyrocketed to these new levels. Actually, there are many reasons, and all of them are bound to become increasingly important and clear to more and more people in the months and years to come. For example, it is (or it should be) by now blatantly clear to every thinking person that inflation is not under control. Prices in the real economy, as opposed to the cherry-picked and extremely unrepresentative CPI metrics, have been steadily climbing and pushing countless households to the brink.
This is only going to get worse, as central banks around the world have already paved the way for a policy U-turn and the return to expansive monetary policies, including quantitative easing and near-zero interest rates, in order to stimulate economic growth, or the illusion of it (a very useful ploy in a global election year like 2024). These measures invariably lead to further fiat currency devaluation and erosion of purchasing power. This in turn is also very helpful when it comes to the unsustainable debt burden that most advanced economies are saddled with - another great boost during election season. Gold, on the other hand, maintains its intrinsic value over time, making it an attractive alternative to fiat currencies.
Central banks themselves obviously understand the implications of their own policies better than the average investor and that’s why they have always increased their gold reserves in times of turmoil and in times of loose money. In the early days of the pandemic, and then again after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global central banks continued to add to their gold holdings while ETF investors were selling off theirs. Now, once again, we’re seeing a strong trend of ETF outflows. February marked the ninth month in a row, but the price has still been climbing.
As Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist, highlighted: “Over the last six months, China, Germany and Turkey have increased their gold holdings by the most (these are official holdings - when it comes to China, its true holdings are likely much higher than stated). Central banks want gold as it is a hard asset, not part of the financialized system when owned outright. But the dominant reason is a desire to diversify away from the dollar. If you’re not on friendly terms with the US, then it is a way to avoid your reserve assets being seized, as happened to Russia.”
This last point gives us a glimpse of a much bigger picture that investors need to bear in mind: Geopolitics.
It’s hard to think of another time in our post-cold-war history that the world has been so bitterly and so dangerously divided. The way the West responded to the Russian invasion of its neighbor, by weaponizing the US dollar and the entire banking system, has caused a lot of countries to think twice about how to safeguard their own assets. The obvious answer is gold, and that is what is behind this monumental transfer of real wealth we’re now seeing from the West to the East. In February, China’s central bank added gold to its reserves for a 16th straight month and it shows no signs of stopping its buying spree, as it is clearly on a mission to diversify its holdings and reduce its dependence on the US dollar.
And it’s not just the Chinese central bank that’s buying. According to the Financial Times, “in recent months, the precious metal has gained a second wind from what analysts describe as “phenomenal” purchases by Chinese consumers seeking a safe place to park their cash after local property and stock markets tumbled.” As ING analysts confirmed in a note, "We expect gold prices to trade higher this year as safe-haven demand continues to be supportive amid geopolitical uncertainty with the ongoing wars and the upcoming U.S. election.”
This is clearly a long-term shift in the gold market and the dynamics behind it have the potential to support much higher prices than what we’re currently seeing. This is precisely why investors need to look at the bigger picture and consider the current levels in their proper content and time horizon.
In other words: Sure, gold might seem expensive today, but today’s price is very likely to seem like a bargain in the not so distant future.
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Site: Zero HedgeBiden (Yes, Biden) Promises Rate-Cut By Year-End As Fed Minutes Signal Caution But QT Taper 'Fairly Soon'Tyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 14:04
Thanks to today's magnificent unwind, the market and monetary-policy landscape has changed dramatically since the last FOMC meeting on March 20th. Gold is still the biggest winner while bonds are a bloodbath with stocks flat and the dollar and oil up...
Source: Bloomberg
But that's just the start as expectations for rate-cut expectations (and timing) have collapsed in the three weeks since The Fed met...
From three cuts fully priced-in, the market is now pricing in one, with a 50% chance of second....
Source: Bloomberg
And June is off the table entirely for a cut (with May FF options even hinting at the chance of a rate-hike)...
Source: Bloomberg
The market is now significantly more hawkish than The Fed's dots from just three weeks ago suggested...
Source: Bloomberg
So, given how stale these Minutes are - what exactly is it that The Fed wants us to know from them?
The highlights:
On inflation goals:
Participants generally judged that risks to the achievement of the Committee's employment and inflation goals were moving into better balance (NOT ANYMORE)
Consumer price inflation continued to decline, but recent progress was uneven. (NOT ANYMORE)
Some participants pointed out that the recent increases in inflation had been relatively widespread, indicating that they should not be dismissed as “merely statistical aberrations.”
On delaying the start of cuts:
...all 19 Fed officials generally agreed that high inflation readings in January and February “had not increased their confidence” that inflation was falling steadily to their 2% target.
On the inevitability of cuts:
"In discussing the policy outlook, participants judged that the policy rate was likely at its peak for this tightening cycle, and almost all participants judged that it would be appropriate to move policy to a less restrictive stance at some point this year if the economy evolved broadly as they expected.
In support of this view, they noted that the disinflation process was continuing along a path that was generally expected to be somewhat uneven.
They also pointed to the Committee's policy actions together with the ongoing improvements in supply conditions as factors working to move supply and demand into better balance.
Participants noted indicators pointing to strong economic momentum and disappointing readings on inflation in recent months and commented that they did not expect it would be appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until they had gained greater confidence that inflation was moving sustainably toward 2 percent"
On the economic outlook:
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Some participants pointed to geopolitical risks that might cause more severe supply bottlenecks.
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Some participants noted concern that financial conditions might not be as restrictive as desired, which could put upward pressure on inflation.
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Most participants noted that, during the past year, labor supply had been boosted by increased labor force participation as well as by immigration.
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Participants further commented that recent estimates of greater immigration in the past few years and an overall increase in labor supply could help explain the strength in employment gains even as the unemployment rate had remained roughly flat and wage pressures had eased.
On tapering QT 'fairly soon':
Although most officials saw the process as proceeding smoothly, they “broadly assessed” it would be appropriate to take a cautious approach to further runoff given market turmoil in 2019, the last time the Fed tried to shrink its portfolio.
“The vast majority of participants thus judged it would be prudent to begin slowing the pace of runoff fairly soon,” the minutes showed.
Tapering QT will be in TSYs, not MBS:
In their discussions regarding how to adjust the pace of runoff, participants generally favored reducing the monthly pace of runoff by roughly half from the recent overall pace.
With redemptions of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) expected to continue to run well below the current monthly cap, participants saw little need to adjust this cap, which also would be consistent with the Committee’s intention to hold primarily Treasury securities in the longer run.
Accordingly, participants generally preferred to maintain the existing cap on agency MBS and adjust the redemption cap on U.S. Treasury securities to slow the pace of balance sheet runoff.
This was most notable:
FOMC says "majority of survey participants now expecting the [tapering of QT] to start around midyear."
But, The Fed previously has said it won't start tapering QT without cutting rates before/at same time.
Finally, this was very interesting!!!
President Biden chimed in on Fed policy...
“Well, I do stand by my prediction that, before the year is out, there’ll be a rate cut,” Biden said Wednesday at a White House press conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, adding that today's CPI report could delay a rate cut by at least a month...
So much for 'Fed independence' that Powell was spouting on about in his speech last week.
The Fed has been assigned two goals for monetary policy - maximum employment and stable prices.
Our success in delivering on these goals matters a great deal to all Americans. To support our pursuit of those goals, Congress granted the Fed a substantial degree of independence in our conduct of monetary policy. Fed policymakers serve long terms that are not synchronized with election cycles.
Our decisions are not subject to reversal by other parts of the government, other than through legislation.
This independence both enables and requires us to make our monetary policy decisions without consideration of short-term political matters.
Such independence for a federal agency is and should be rare. In the case of the Fed, independence is essential to our ability to serve the public.
Just a reminder...
Interesting pic.twitter.com/dSq89Qd2JM
— TeneX Trades (@TeneXTrades) April 10, 2024And finally...
“One of Chair Powell’s responsibilities is to protect the public standing of the Fed,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Dreyfus and Mellon.
“The closer the FOMC acts to the election, the more likely it is that the public will question the Fed’s intent.”
Read the full FOMC Minutes below:
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Site: LifeNews
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court put back in place a 160-year-old ban on abortion, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Abortion in the state has been allowed through 15 weeks of pregnancy under a law that the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature passed in 2022, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortion opponents and some Republican lawmakers argued that the recent law didn’t override one dating back to 1864 — before Arizona was a state — that banned abortion throughout pregnancy except in lifesaving situations.”
The ruling “agreed that the 19th century law still takes precedence,” WSJ added, but the “court delayed implementation of the ban for at least two weeks to allow for additional legal arguments.” In comments to The Washington Stand, Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, clarified, “The focus for [this decision] is that the Arizona Supreme Court did what justices are supposed to do: they upheld the rule of law. They did not make policy.”
She continued, “Arizona law clearly stated that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, our pre-Roe law would go back into effect. So, today’s decision was a statutory construction. It was not a constitutional one, and it was not a policy decision. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, so it’s very important to emphasize that this … is how we want judges to rule.”
Herrod went on to share how a proposed amendment called the Arizona Right to Abortion Initiative could nullify the court decision. “That amendment does not reflect Arizona values or where Arizonans are on the issue of abortion,” she contended. The amendment would “bring in unrestricted and unregulated abortion,” she emphasized. “It would overturn most — if not all — of Arizona’s pro-life laws. It would not require doctors to be part of the woman’s decision, examination, or the procedure itself. Moms and dads would have no role in the abortion of their minor daughters deciding whether or not to have an abortion. It would usher in taxpayer funding of abortion.”
Follow LifeNews on the MeWe social media network for the latest pro-life news free from Facebook’s censorship!
But given the dramatic effects of such a potential amendment, Herrod predicted, “When Arizonans read and see what the proposed abortion access amendment really is about, I’m confident Arizona voters will turn it down.”
In light of the decision by the Arizona Supreme Court, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, shared with TWS, “In a huge win for women and their unborn children, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the law on the books protecting unborn babies from the moment of conception will go into effect. Praise God!”
She added, “Acknowledging what an abortion is, the Arizona law states that an abortionist who kills an unborn child can be punished with two to five years in prison. In recognition of the fact that the intent of an abortion is to kill the child, not to save the mother, actions taken to save a mother’s life that sadly result in the death of the unborn child will not be punishable.”
Szoch concluded, “This ruling is on hold for 14 days, but we should all pray it goes into effect. With this decision, the importance of the upcoming election cannot be overstated. Unborn babies lives will be on the ballot. Pro-lifers must turn out to vote.”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.
The post Arizona Supreme Court Got it Right: There is No Right to Kill Babies in Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
A new longitudinal peer-reviewed study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute has shown that abortions are an independent risk factor for increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), the leading cause of death among women.
These findings are among a growing body of medical literature linking abortion to reduced cardiovascular health, including another U.S. study reporting a fivefold increased risk of death from cerebrovascular diseases within six years of an abortion. Another study found an 18% elevated risk of CVD following abortion or miscarriage that persisted for over twelve years.
This latest study examined medical records for over one million Medicaid-eligible women between 1999 and 2014 to detect treatments for CVD within six months of their first live birth. The researchers divided women into five groups.
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In every case, women with a history of abortion or miscarriage had higher rates of CVD following their first live birth compared to women with a similar CVD history but did not have a history of pregnancy loss. Among women with a history of CVD prior to their first pregnancy, those who had an abortion were over twice as likely to have additional CVD problems in the six months following a first live birth compared to similar women with a prior history of CVD who did not have an abortion.
The greatest difference was observed as a 174% increased risk of CVD among women whose first diagnosis of CVD occurred after their abortion or miscarriage and before their first live birth.
“While miscarriages are tragic and unavoidable, elective abortions are entirely avoidable and clearly contribute to the number one cause of death in our country,” said one of the study authors, David Reardon, Ph.D., a Lozier Institute associate scholar and director of the Elliot Institute. “The American Heart Association has been vocal in warning women of the link between miscarriage and heart disease. I hope that these numbers will motivate a similar warning on abortions.”
“Despite this in-depth data pointing to the clear negative health outcomes abortion places on a woman’s body, abortion activists continue to push abortions as a ‘cure-all.’ How long will they deny science and reality? I encourage them to stop lying to women, stating that abortion only produces positive physical and mental health outcomes,” said Emily Erin Davis, vice president of communications at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
“Those of us who are tethered to reality recognize that promoting abortion is not empowering nor is it a net positive to women and children’s health,” she continued, “I encourage abortion activists to stop portraying abortion as an always beneficial and healthy experience and to open their eyes to the negative mental and physical realities that it places on the woman and her child. Women deserve better and it starts with the complete unvarnished truth.”
The post New Study: Abortion Increases Risk of Cardiovascular Diseases appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeHamas Can't Locate 40 Israeli Hostages Needed For 1st Round Of CeasefireTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 13:25
Lebanese and Israeli sources are reporting that Hamas is open to releasing hostages as part of deal that would see IDF troops gradually retreat from the Gaza Strip, instead of its prior demand of full troop withdrawal as a precondition to letting the hostages go free.
But any potential forward progress has been stymied by a significant complication revealed by Hamas to negotiators on Wednesday. The group is unable to identify and locate some 40 Israeli hostages which would be needed to complete the first phase of the ceasefire deal.
FP/Getty Images: Keys are left behind in a door riddled with bullet holes and stained with blood on Oct. 10, after Hamas militants stormed a kibbutz in Kfar Aza, Israel.
A security source told CNN, "The inability - or unwillingness - of Hamas to tell Israel which hostages would be released, alive, is a major obstacle."
This possibly confirms prior reporting by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which in March said that Israeli officials believe only 60 to 70 Israeli hostages in Gaza are still alive.
"According to the IDF, a total of 134 hostages and bodies are being held in Gaza," Haaretz wrote Thursday. "Thirty-six of the people were confirmed by the army as killed – some on October 7, when their bodies were taken into the Strip. Of the 98 living hostages, 10 are foreigners (eight Thais, one Nepalese national, and one man with Mexican and French citizenship)."
The 40 'missing' hostages currently being discussed by negotiators may or may not be deceased, and it could be more of an issue of locating where they are being held. The past many months of grinding war has likely served to isolate the cells which are holding them separately, as CNN details:
The majority of the almost 100 hostages who remain alive are believed to be male IDF soldiers or men of military reserve age. Hamas is expected to try to use to them in later phases to try to negotiate more significant concessions, including more high-level prisoners and a permanent end to the war.
The more than 250 hostages captured or killed on October 7 are believed to have been spread out among different members and factions of Hamas, as well as other militant groups, gangs and even held by families.
So there may be this significant wartime logistical hurdle to overcome before the first phase of any potential hostage deal can even be implemented.
A working draft deal mediated by Qatar is said to stipulate as a first phase the release of 40 living hostages made up of women, the elderly, and the sick. This would happen during an initial six-week pause in the fighting. But at this point, per CNN sources, since Hamas is "unable to reach 40 in the proposed categories, Israel has pushed for Hamas fill out the initial release with younger male hostages, including soldiers."
There's a possibility that some of the hostages could have been killed by Israeli's relentless bombing campaign which has decimated entire neighborhoods. A horrifically tragic incident last December saw three Israeli hostages shot dead by Israeli forces who mistook them for Palestinian militants.
Israeli leadership under Netanyahu has been accused by the hostages' families of prioritizing the military operation to defeat Hamas far and above hostage recovery.
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Site: Zero HedgeYields Soar After Catastrophic 10Y Auction Shocks With 3rd Biggest Tail On RecordTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 13:20
Earlier today we said that while the CPI report would be the day's main highlight, the real shocker should inflation come in hot, would be today's 10Y treasury auction. And when the Treasury sold $39 billion in a 9-Year 11-Month reopening moments ago, all hell broke loose.
Stopping at a high yield of 4.560%, this was not only almost 40bps higher than last month's 4.166% and the highest since October, it also tailed the 4.529% When Issued by a whopping 3.1bps, a surge compared to last month's tail of just 0.9bps, but also the highest tail since the 3.7bps in Dec 2022 and also the third largest tail on record!
But wait, there's more: the Bid to Cover in today's auction tumbled to just 2.336, down from 2.512 in March and the lowest since Dec 2022; it was also well below the recent average of 2.49.
The internals were even uglier, with foreign buyers tumbling from an already low 64.3% to 61.8% the lowest since Oct 23 and far below the six-auction average of 65.9; and with Directs also sliding to just 14.2%, the lowest since Nov 21, Dealers ended up stepping up bigly and taking down a whopping 24.0%, the highest since November 22.
The market reaction was instantaneous and brutal with 10Y yields, already trading at session and 2024 highs, spiking by 6 bps to another day high of 4.56%, and fast approaching a level where not only stocks will tumble but the entire economy collapses as it grinds to a halt, similar to where Biden's approval rating will be in the very near future.
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Site: AsiaNews.itIndia ceded the atoll in 1974 when the Indian National Congress led by Indira Gandhi was in power. Experts believe the prime minister is using the issue to woo voters in India's southern states ahead of national elections, set to start on 19 April.
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Site: Zero HedgeInvesting Lessons From Your MotherTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 13:05
Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
Your mother likely imparted valuable investing lessons you may not have known. With Mother’s Day approaching and bullish market exuberance present, such is an excellent time to revisit the investing lessons she taught me.
Personally, when I was growing up, my Mother had a saying, or an answer, for almost everything… as most mothers do. Every answer to the question “Why?” was immediately met with the most intellectual of answers:
“…because I said so”.
Seriously, my Mother was a resource of knowledge that has served me well over the years, and it wasn’t until late in life that I realized that she had taught me, unknowingly, valuable investing lessons to keep me safe.
So, by imparting her secrets to you, I may be violating some sacred ritual of motherhood knowledge, but I felt it was worth the risk of sharing the knowledge that has served me well.
1) Don’t Run With Sharp Objects!
It wasn’t hard to understand why she didn’t want me to run with scissors through the house – I think I did it early on to watch her panic. However, later in life, when I got my first apartment, I ran through the entire place with a pair of scissors, left the front door open with the air conditioning on, and turned every light on in the house.
That rebellion immediately stopped when I received my first electric bill.
Sometime in the mid-90s, the financial markets became a casino as the internet age ignited a whole generation of stock market gamblers who thought they were investors. There is a vast difference between investing and speculating; knowing the difference is critical to overall success.
A solid investment strategy combines defined goals, an accumulation schedule, allocation analysis, and, most importantly, a defined sell strategy and risk management plan.
Speculation is nothing more than gambling. If you are buying the latest hot stock, chasing stocks that have already moved 100% or more, or just putting money in the market because you think you “have to,” you are gambling.
The most important thing to understand about gambling is that success is a function of the probabilities and possibilities of winning or losing on each bet.
In the stock market, investors continue to play the possibilities instead of the probabilities. The trap comes with early success in speculative trading. Success breeds confidence, and confidence breeds ignorance. Most speculative traders tend to “blow themselves up” because of early success in their speculative investing habits.
When investing, remember that the odds of making a losing trade increase with the frequency of transactions. Just as running with a pair of scissors, do it often enough, and eventually, you could end up hurting yourself.
2) Look Both Ways Before You Cross The Street.
I grew up in a small town, so crossing the street wasn’t as dangerous as in the city. Nonetheless, she yanked me by the collar more than once as I started to bolt across the street, seemingly anxious to “find out what’s on the other side.” It is essential to understand that traffic does flow in two directions. If you only look in one direction, you will get hit sooner or later.
Many people want to classify themselves as a “Bull” or a “Bear.” The savvy investor doesn’t pick a side; he analyzes both sides to determine what the best course of action in the current market environment is most likely to be.
The problem with the proclamation of being a “bull” or a “bear” means that you are not analyzing the other side of the argument and that you become so confident in your position that you tend to forget that “the light at the end of the tunnel…just might be an oncoming train.”
It is an essential part of your analysis, before you invest in the financial markets, to determine not only “where” but also “when” to invest your assets.
3) Always Wear Clean Underwear
This was one of my favorite sayings from my Mother because I always wondered about the rationality of it. I always figured that even if you wore clean underwear before an accident, you’re still likely left without clean underwear following it.
The investing lesson is: “You are only wrong – if you stay wrong.“
However, being an intelligent investor means always being prepared in case of an accident. That means simply having a mechanism to protect you when you are wrong with an investment decision.
You will notice that I said “when you are wrong” in the previous paragraph. Many of your investment decisions will likely turn out wrong. However, cutting those wrong decisions short and letting your right decisions continue to work will make you profitable over time.
Any person who tells you about all the winning trades he has made in the market – is either lying or hasn’t blown up yet.
One of the two will be true – 100% of the time.
Understanding the “risk versus reward” trade-off of any investment is the beginning step to risk management in your portfolio. Knowing how to mitigate the risk of loss in your holdings is crucial to your long-term survivability in the financial markets.
4) If Everyone Jumped Off The Cliff – Would You Do It Too?
Every kid, at one point or another, has tried to convince their Mother to allow them to do something through “peer pressure.” I figured if she wouldn’t let me do what I wanted, she would bend to the will of the imaginary masses. She never did.
“Peer pressure” is one of the biggest mistakes investors repeatedly make. Chasing the latest “hot stocks” or “investment fads” that are already overvalued and are running up on speculative fervor always ends in disappointment.
Investors buy stocks that have moved significantly off their lows in the financial markets because they fear “missing out.” This is speculating, gambling, guessing, hoping, praying – anything but investing. Generally, when the media begins featuring a particular investment, individuals have already missed the major part of the move. By that point, the probability of a decline began to outweigh the possibility of further rewards.
The investing lesson is to be aware of the “herd mentality.” Historically, investors tend to run in the same direction until that direction falters. The “herd” then turns and runs in the opposite direction. This continues to the detriment of investors’ returns over long periods.
This is also generally why investors wind up buying high and selling low. To be a long-term successful investor, you must understand the “herd mentality” and use it to your benefit – getting out from in front of the herd before you are trampled.
So, before you chase a stock that has already moved 100% or more, figure out where the herd may move to next and “place your bets there.” This takes discipline, patience, and a lot of homework, but you will often be rewarded for your efforts.
5) Don’t Talk To Strangers
This is just good, solid advice all the way around. Turn on the television, any time of the day or night, and it is the “Stranger’s Parade of Malicious Intent.” I don’t know if it is just me or if the media only broadcasts news revealing human depravity’s depths. Still, sometimes, I wonder if we are not due for a planetary cleansing through divine intervention.
However, back to investing lessons, getting your stock tips from strangers is a sure way to lose money in the stock market. Your investing homework should NOT consist of a daily regimen of CNBC, followed by a dose of Grocer tips, capped off with a financial advisor’s sales pitch.
To succeed in the long run, you must understand investing principles and the catalysts to make that investment profitable. Remember, when you invest in a company, you buy a piece of it and its business plan. You are placing your hard-earned dollars into the belief that the individuals managing the company have your best interests at heart. The hope is they will operate in such a manner as to make your investment more valuable so that it may eventually be sold to someone else for a profit.
This also embodies the “Greater Fool Theory,” which states that someone will always be willing to buy an investment at an ever higher price. The investing lesson is that, in the end, someone is always left “holding the bag.” The trick is to ensure that it isn’t you.
Also, you must be aware of this when getting advice from the “One Minute Money Manager” crew on television. When an “expert” tells you about a company you should be buying, remember he already owns it and most likely will be the one selling his shares to you.
6) You Either Need To “Do It” (polite version) Or Get Off The Pot!
When I was growing up, I hated to do my homework, which is ironic since I now do more homework than I ever dreamed of in my younger days. Since I wouldn’t say I liked doing homework, school projects were rarely started until the night before they were due. I was the king of procrastination.
My Mom was always there to help, giving me a hand and an ear full of motherly advice, usually consisting of many “because I told you so…”
Interestingly, many investors tend to watch stocks for a very long period, never acting on their analysis but idly watching as their instinct proves correct and the stock rises in price.
The investor then feels that they missed his entry point and decides to wait, hoping the stock will go back down one more time so that he can get in. The stock continues to rise. The investor continues to watch, becoming more frustrated until he finally capitulates on his emotion and buys the investment near the top.
The investing lesson is to be aware of the dangers of procrastination. On the way up and down, procrastination is the precursor of emotional duress derived from the loss of opportunity or the destruction of capital.
However, if you do your homework and can build a case for the purchase, don’t procrastinate. If you miss your opportunity for the correct entry into the position – don’t chase it. Leave it alone, and come back another day when ole’ Bob Barker is telling you – “The Price Is Right.”
7) Don’t Play With It – You’ll Go Blind
Well…do I need to go into this one? All I know for sure is that I am not blind today. What I will never know for sure is whether she believed it or if it was just meant to scare the hell out of me.
However, kidding aside, the investing lesson is that when you invest in the financial markets, it is very easy to lose sight of your intentions in the first place. Getting caught up in the hype, getting sucked in by the emotions of fear and greed, and generally being confused by the multitude of options available can cause you to lose your focus.
Always return to the basic principle you started with. That goal was to grow your small pile of money into a much larger one.
Putting It All Together
My Dad once taught me a fundamental investing lesson as well: KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.
This is one of the best investment lessons you will ever receive. Too many people try to outsmart the market to gain a small, fractional increase in return. Unfortunately, they take disproportionate risks, often leading to negative results. The simpler the strategy is, the better the returns tend to be. Why? There is better control over the portfolio.
Designing a KISS portfolio strategy will help ensure that you don’t get blinded by continually playing with your portfolio and losing sight of what your original goals were in the first place.
- Decide what your objective is: Retirement, College, House, etc.
- Define a time frame to achieve your goal.
- Determine how much money you can “realistically” put toward your monthly goal.
- Calculate the return needed to reach your goal based on your starting principal, the number of years to your goal, and your monthly contributions.
- Break down your goal into achievable milestones. These milestones could be quarterly, semi-annual, or annual and will help ensure you are on track to meet your objective.
- Select the appropriate asset mix that achieves your required results without taking on excess risk that could lead to more significant losses than planned.
- Develop and implement a specific strategy to sell positions during random market events or unexpected market downturns.
- If this is more than you know how to do – hire a professional who understands essential portfolio and risk management.
There is much more to managing your portfolio than just the principles we learned from our Mothers. However, this is a start in the right direction, and if you don’t believe me – just ask your Mother.
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Site: Zero HedgePlagiarism Scandal Hits The FedTyler Durden Wed, 04/10/2024 - 12:45
Another week, another plagiarism scandal in the ivory towers.
This time, journalists Chris Rufo and the Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak found that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook appears to have plagiarized her academic work in violation of her former university's policy.
Lisa Cook, governor of the US Federal Reserve. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Cook, who taught economics at Harvard and Michigan State before serving on the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers, went on to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2022. At the time, her academic record was so thin - and focused on race activism vs. 'rigorous, quantitative econ,' that she had trouble getting confirmed by the Senate (her nomination required VP Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote).
According to Rufo, "in a series of academic papers spanning more than a decade, Cook appears to have copied language from other scholars without proper quotation and duplicated her own work and that of coauthors in multiple academic journals, without proper attribution." (Click into the below thread on X for more examples).
In "The Antebellum Roots of Distinctively Black Names," Cook copied-and-pasted verbatim language from Calomiris and Pritchett, without using quotation marks when describing their findings, as required by her own university’s written policy. pic.twitter.com/1KwWCtTntU
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 10, 2024According to Michigan State's own policy on plagiarism, Cook is a plagiarist. In the past, administrators have warned students that "plagiarism is considered fraud and has potentially harsh consequences including loss of job, loss of reputation, and the assignation of reduced or failing grade in a course."
Cook's work is littered with these and other instances of plagiarism and self-plagiarism, according to MSU's policy. Some of the instances are minor, perhaps signifying sloppiness, but others are much more troubling, rising to apparent misconduct. pic.twitter.com/zoqwfVEX4Y
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 10, 2024Cook duplicates long passages verbatim without quotation or proper attribution, changing minor words and punctuation.
Cook's most famous "economics" paper is about how the number of black inventors purportedly plummeted suddenly in 1900 due to racism. In reality, one of the largest data sets of inventions Cook was relying on simply ended in that year.
— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) April 10, 2024What's more, Cook's rigor has also come under fire and she misrepresented her own credentials. As Rufo and Rosiak write in City Journal and the Daily Wire:
Her most heralded work, 2014’s “Violence and Economic Activity: Evidence from African American Patents, 1870 to 1940,” examined the number of patents by black inventors in the past, concluding that the number plummeted in 1900 because of lynchings and discrimination. Other researchers soon discovered that the reason for the sudden drop in 1900 was that one of the databases Cook relied on stopped collecting data in that year. The true number of black patents, one subsequent study found, might be as much as 70 times greater than Cook’s figure, effectively debunking the study’s premise.
Cook also seems to have consistently inflated her own credentials. In 2022, investigative journalist Christopher Brunet pointed out that, despite billing herself as a macroeconomist, Cook had never published a peer-reviewed macroeconomics article and had misrepresented her publication history in her CV, claiming that she had published an article in the journal American Economic Review. In truth, the article was published in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, a less prestigious, non-peer-reviewed magazine.
When asked for comment, Cook told the journalists: "I certainly am proud of my academic background."
As Rufo and Rosiak note in closing (emphasis ours):
Cook is no stranger to mobilizing such punishments against others. In 2020, she participated in the attempted defenestration of esteemed University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig for the crime of publicly opposing the “defund the police” movement. She called for Uhlig’s removal from the classroom, claiming that he had made an insensitive remark about Martin Luther King, Jr. (The university closed its own inquiry after concluding that there was “not a basis” to investigate further.) Uhlig, in a 2022 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, asked the pertinent question: Under the leadership of an ideologue such as Lisa Cook, would the Fed continue to pursue its mandate, or succumb to left-wing activism?
Time will tell if the gears of justice turn against Lisa Cook, or if repeated academic misconduct, defended by some as mere sloppiness or isolated mistakes, is fast becoming an acceptable part of the academic order—as long as the alleged author of that behavior is favored by the powerful.
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Site: AsiaNews.itThe prelate, who chairs the Episcopal Commission for Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue, released a statement to mark the end of Ramadan. In it, he says that promoting 'social fraternity and world peace' is a shared task. In addition to Eid celebrations, preparations are underway for Bengali New Year on 14 April.
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Site: LifeNews
Former President Donald Trump today said he disagrees with the ruling yesterday by the Arizona Supreme Court to uphold a law that protect babies from abortion. https://www.lifenews.com/2024/04/09/arizona-supreme-court-rules-state-can-enforce-abortion-ban-protect-babies-from-abortions/
As LifeNews reported, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the state can enforce its abortion ban and protect babies from abortions. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold the state’s pro-life law as written by overturning a lower court decision that misinterpreted the law.
“We conclude that [Arizona’s law] does not create a right to, or otherwise provide independent statutory authority for, an abortion that repeals or restricts [the law], but rather is predicated entirely on the existence of a federal constitutional right to an abortion since disclaimed by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” the court wrote in its opinion in Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Mayes. “Absent the federal constitutional abortion right, and because [the law] does not independently authorize abortion, there is no provision in federal or state law prohibiting [the law’s] operation. Accordingly, [Arizona’s law] is now enforceable.”
Asked if the state’s highest court “went too far” in the ruling, Trump replied:“Yes they did. And that will be straightened out.”
Please follow LifeNews on Rumble for the latest pro-life videos.
“And, as you know, it’s all about state’s rights and it will be straightened out,” Trump said. “And I’m sure the governor and everybody else have got to bring it back into reason and that it will be taken care of I think.”
His comments are ironic and confusing given that he said on Monday he supports state rights on abortion, yet now opposes a state’s highest court ruling that a state law protecting babies from abortions is valid.
After the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the state’s abortion ban yesterday, one of the big attacks against it is that the 1864 law supposedly doesn’t represent the will of the people and is antiquated.
But that contention is not true.
First, the judges on the Arizona Supreme Court represent the people. The seven justices on the state’s highest court are initially appointed by the governor to serve. They then stand for a retention vote for regular terms of six years and that is a ballot vote cast by Arizona voters. As a result, the justices represent the people via electing the governor and electing them directly.
Secondly, the law was affirmed twice after it was initially approved in 1864. As CatholicVote notes in an article:
The over century-and-a-half-old law is set to replace the state’s existing pro-life law which only protects most unborn children after 15 weeks gestation.
Republican then Gov. Doug Ducey signed the significantly weaker legislation into law in March 2022. Less than three months later, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade.
The Arizona Supreme Court held that the 2022 law “is predicated entirely on the existence of a federal constitutional right to an abortion since disclaimed” by the Dobbs decision.
Axios reported that “[a] provision of the 2022 law had affirmed it wasn’t repealing the 19th-century law.”
FOX News noted that the 1864 law “was codified in 1913 after Arizona became a state” and “includes an exception in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.”
Planned Parenthood was challenging the potential reinstatement of the state’s near-total abortion ban from 1864, which has exceptions for life-threatening emergencies, but had been blocked by 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The Dobbs ruling should allow it to go into effect but the nation’s biggest abortion business challenged it.
The appellate court’s ruling misinterpreted state law, against its plain meaning, to allow abortion in circumstances where the Arizona Legislature prohibited it. It also enjoined officials from fully enforcing the state’s pro-life law to protect unborn children. The Arizona Supreme Court reversed this ruling, allowing the law to be enforced as written.
“Life is a human right, and today’s decision allows the state to respect that right and fully protect life again—just as the legislature intended,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner, who argued before the court. “Life begins at conception. At just six weeks, unborn babies’ hearts begin to beat. At eight weeks, they have fingers and toes. And at 10 weeks, their unique fingerprints begin to form. Arizona’s pro-life law has protected unborn children for over 100 years, and the people of Arizona, through their elected representatives, have repeatedly affirmed that law, including as recently as 2022. We celebrate the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision that allows the state’s pro-life law to again protect the lives of countless, innocent unborn children.”
In September 2022, the Arizona Superior Court in Pima County appointed Dr. Hazelrigg as the substitute guardian ad litem to legally represent the best interests of unborn children in Arizona, a role Arizona courts have recognized for over 50 years.
The post Donald Trump Opposes Arizona Supreme Court Ruling Protecting Babies From Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network
Join us on Wednesday, May 29th for a private screening of The Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood, produced by The Center for Bioethics and Culture. This film completes the trilogy of films which explore the topic of the transgender “gender affirmation” therapy as the main treatment for minors and young adults experiencing a misalignment between their body and their feelings. After the film, there will be a panel discussion with the Director, Jennifer Lahl, including several of the movie’s most prominent experts:
- Graham Linehan
- Joe Burgo PhD
- Dr. Az Hakeem
- Gary Powell
The panel will be moderated by the funny and brilliant Mr. Menno.
Time:6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:00 p.m. with light refreshments served)Location:London, UK (Exact location will be disclosed 24 hours prior to the event start for privacy).COST: £10DonorboxEventWidget.embed({container: 'donorboxEmbed',embedFormSlug: 'https://donorbox.org/embed_event/582539'});The post Lost Boys Screening and Panel Discussion in London, May 29th appeared first on The Center for Bioethics & Culture Network.
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Site: Mises InstituteIn our present age, too many believe the “winner” of an argument is whoever unleashes the most insults. Norman Finkelstein’s recent “debate” with the online personality Destiny is Exhibit A.
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Site: LifeNews
Catholic nuns in New York State will be at the New York Court of Appeals next week to continue their fight against the state’s abortion mandate that forces them to fund abortions in their health care plans.
In Diocese of Albany v. Vullo, a group of Anglican and Catholic nuns, Catholic dioceses, Christian churches and faith-based social ministries sued New York after it mandated they cover abortion in their employee health insurance plans in violation of their religious beliefs
After state courts left the mandate in place their attorneys asked the Supreme Court to step in. In 2021, the high court reversed the lower courts’ rulings and told them to reconsider the case.
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When the New York State Department of Financial Services initially proposed the abortion mandate, it promised to exempt employers with religious objections. However, after facing pressure from abortion activists, New York radically narrowed the exemption to cover only religious groups that primarily teach religion and primarily serve and hire those who share their faith. This rule does not apply to most religious ministries that seek to serve all people, regardless of faith.
After New York courts refused to stop the mandate, the religious groups asked the Supreme Court to take their case. In 2021, the Court reversed the unfavorable rulings from New York state courts and told them to reconsider in light of Becket’s landmark victory in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. The case is now back before the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Noel J. Francisco, former U.S. Solicitor General and partner-in-charge at Jones Day’s Washington office, will argue on behalf of the religious groups at the hearing next week.
A decision is expected later this year.
Their attorneys applauded the 2021 Supreme Court decision.
“New York clearly learned nothing from the federal government’s own attempts to force nuns to pay for contraceptives and is now needlessly threatening charities because they believe in the dignity and humanity of every human person,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. “Punishing faith groups for ministering to their local communities is cruel and counterproductive. We are thankful that the Supreme Court won’t allow the New York Court of Appeals’ bad ruling to be the last word on the right of religious ministries to serve New Yorkers of all faiths.”
New York’s law has only a limited religious exemption—for religious groups that primarily serve and employ people of their own religion. This exemption, which is so narrow that Jesus himself would not qualify for it, excludes the Sisterhood of St. Mary because they sponsor a 4-H club and allow local youth to lease some of their prized Cashmere goats as part of their agricultural outreach ministry.
Other religious groups targeted by the abortion mandate include the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the First Bible Baptist Church of Hilton, New York, and Catholic Charities, the Catholic Church’s charitable arm, which all joined forces against the abortion mandate. What all of these diverse groups have in common is that they seek to serve all people in their communities: the First Bible Baptist Church conducts outreach via its local youth ministry, Catholic Charities provides adoption and maternity services to its community, and the Carmelite Sisters operate the Teresian Nursing Home in Albany. But because they offer these services to people in their communities regardless of their faith background, the state holds that they must offer abortion services in their insurance plans—or else.
“We believe that every person is made in the image of God,” said Mother Miriam of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, the oldest Anglican religious order founded in America. “That’s why we believe in the sanctity of human life, and why we seek to serve those of all faiths—or no faith at all—in our community. We’re grateful that the Supreme Court has taken action in our case and hopeful that, this time around, the New York Court of Appeals will preserve our ability to serve and encourage our neighbors.”
“We are gratified and grateful that the Supreme Court has recognized the serious constitutional concerns over New York State’s heavy-handed abortion mandate on religious employers,” said The Most Rev. Edward B. Scharfenberger, bishop of the Diocese of Albany, New York. “We are confident that now that the Court has ordered the case remanded for reconsideration in light of last year’s Fulton v. Philadelphia decision, the unconstitutional regulatory action taken by New York State will ultimately be completely overturned as incompatible with our country’s First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.”
The position puts Christian charities in an “intolerable position”; the state is forcing them to choose between paying for the killing of unborn babies in abortions or giving up their ministries that help people in need, lawyers for the Christian groups argued. Funding the killing of unborn babies in abortions for these and other reasons is “a grave moral evil,” and Christian employers should not be forced to pay for them, they continued.
Without relief, the charities and churches said they will be forced to either stop providing health insurance to their employees or close.
The charities and churches involved in the case include the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Albany and Ogdensburg; the Anglican Sisterhood of St. Mary; the Brooklyn, Albany, and Ogdensburg chapters of Catholic Charities; St. Gregory The Great Catholic Church Society of Amherst; First Bible Baptist Church; Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Albany; the Carmelite charity Teresian House Nursing Home Company; and the Catholic senior living nonprofit Depaul Housing Management Corporation.
The post Catholic Nuns Head to Court to Fight New York Mandate Forcing Them to Fund Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionAs Ireland debates legalizing euthanasia, a leading psychiatrist issued a warning that the recent case of a physically healthy 28-year-old autistic woman in the Netherlands, and a healthy 27-year-old autistic woman in Canada who have been approved for euthanasia could also become a reality in Ireland if euthanasia is legalized.
Maria Maynes was published by RIPT on April 9, 2024 concerning the debate to legalize euthanasia in Ireland. Maynes interviewed Consultant psychiatrist, Professor Patricia Casey, a specialist in Adult Psychiatry. Maynes reportes:recent cases unfolding worldwide involving physically healthy young people should provide evidence to Irish lawmakers that “the slippery slope exists,” as she expressed particular concern about those with autism choosing assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Last month, this publication also reported on the Canadian case of an unnamed 27-year-old woman, who was also autistic, and had chosen to die by physician assisted suicide. While the father of the unnamed woman tried to intervene through court action, arguing that she did not have the ability to consent to the death under Canada’s MAiD programme, his intervention was unsuccessful.
There have also been cases in Belgium, where Asperger’s (now subsumed under the autistic spectrum) is among the most common conditions for which Belgians seek euthanasia on mental health grounds, alongside personality disorders and depression.Maynes quoted Casey as stating:
“There is a danger that when young, autistic people see a problem that they will look for what they see is a simple solution, or a trendy solution,” she said.Casey also stated:
“I was struck by the photograph of 28-year-old Zoraya ter Beek in the Netherlands, who was pictured surreally embraced in the arms of her boyfriend while announcing that she was due to die on May 28th. This photograph conceals the turmoil and nihilism behind her decision and may well be used in the future to promote assisted dying as a calming answer to one’s problems.”Professor Casey compares the issue to the romanticizing of suicide that was successfully countered by national campaigns. Professor Casey fears that the same type of romanticizing of death by euthanasia will also occur.Professor Anne Doherty examined the issue of suicide rates in jurisdictions that have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide. Professor Casey referred to her research and stated:
“Prof Doherty found that the rate of non-assisted suicide increased after assisted suicide was legalised, and I fear we will see exactly the same pattern. I also think it is very nihilistic to say to people, ‘There is no help. Why don’t you go for assisted suicide?’ I mean, it is such a dark thing to say to anybody. I think it should be absolutely taboo, but instead of that, it is now becoming glamorised.”Professor also commented on the "bracket creep" in countries that have legalized euthanasia and stated:
“This is what has happened in a range of countries. The Netherlands, for instance, didn’t start with euthanasia for young people with mental illness. It legislated initially for those with terminal illness. Similarly in Canada and in Belgium. Now all of those countries are allowing assisted suicide for young people, or for people with mental illness – or a combination of both.”As for the concern that people with Autism are more susceptible to requesting euthanasia, Casey stated:
“One of the reasons a young person with autism may be more susceptible is due to the fact that a lot of those with autism have unusual interests and hobbies. For example, some would have an interest in the afterlife, or the occult, or similar. We also know that some individuals who are on the autistic spectrum have very fixed beliefs about things, and so can be quite suggestible.”
“Once something has been suggested, the person can fixate on that. I think the interest in unusual things, something we often see in those with ASD, and some of the things that are outside the norm, along with their tendency to fixate on things, would make that person particularly vulnerable. For instance, people with rigid thinking, such as many of those with ASD, find it difficult to consider alternative solutions to problems. And this may render them more than willing to choose this particular pathway to death.”
Professor Casey also commented on the Social Contagion that is likely to happen with euthanasia:
“There will be a social contagion aspect, because as we know, teenagers and young adults are always online now. One person engaging in, or planning, an assisted suicide, will be in touch with others in their group and that contagion effect is very toxic.”
“We must not forget that suicide clusters existed in the recent past, because of social contagion. And it is difficult to escape that prospect in relation to assisted suicide, also.”
Ireland is currently debating the legalization of euthanasia. A recent parliamentary report was released which advocated that euthanasia be legalized for a person diagnosed with a disease, illness or medical condition that is both incurable and irreversible; advanced, progressive, and will likely cause death within six months (or within 12 months in the case of someone with a neuro-degenerative disease, illness or condition; and suffering in a manner that the person “cannot be relieved in a manner that the person finds tolerable.”
The Irish report obviously decided to push for the legalization of euthanasia in a fairly wide open manner.
For further reading, Gordon Friesen, the President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition issued a warning to Ireland in his article: If euthanasia is legalized as a cure for suffering, then suffering people will be "cured" with euthanasia!
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Site: Rorate Caeliby Roberto de MatteiApril 10, 2024On April 8, 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, published the Declaration Dignitas infinita on Human Dignity, with the "ex audientia" approval of Pope Francis. Cardinal Fernández, dwelling in the Introduction of the Declaration on its genesis, clarifies that the first draft of the text, which dates back New Catholichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04118576661605931910noreply@blogger.com
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Site: LifeNews
On Saturday, March 23, police cars were seen arriving at Planned Parenthood Chapel Hill around 10 a.m. No ambulance arrived, leading witnesses to wonder what other type of emergency was taking place.
911 records obtained by Operation Rescue revealed that a 16-year-old girl confided in Planned Parenthood staff that she was being forced to have an abortion by others waiting outside of the building and procedure room. There were multiple people with her, including her boyfriend and at least one parent. The Planned Parenthood staffer stated she thought the boyfriend was also a minor, but she never confirmed it for the dispatcher.
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Planned Parenthood has been caught numerous times covering up sexual abuse and coercion, especially by failing to report abortions performed on minors. This staffer did seem somewhat concerned for the girl until she said this incredibly telling statement:
“…we have a minor who did, um, disclose to us that, um, she’s being forced to have her procedure today. Unfortunately, my provider will not do the procedure if she’s being forced.”
“Unfortunately?” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman asks. “Unfortunate for whom? For the terrified child being intimidated into choosing death for her own child, or unfortunate for Planned Parenthood’s bottom line after losing the blood money her coercers would have paid to destroy two lives that day?”
In July 2023, North Carolina passed an omnibus abortion bill which created new requirements for both surgical and chemical abortions. Under the new law, abortionists are responsible for screening women for coercion for chemical abortions, and a woman has a right to sue any “physician” who provided an abortion while knowing the woman has been coerced. It is not known which type of procedure the girl was scheduled to have. However, if it was chemical, then this new law may be at least one reason why the abortionist would, “unfortunately,” not do the procedure.
In addition, federal protections are also in place that could result in legal action against any parent that attempts to “force, coerce, exert undue influence or unduly pressure” their child to have an abortion.
Advocates on the sidewalk reported that at least four police cars arrived and stayed about an hour. According to these witnesses, none of those doing the coercion were arrested at the scene or made to leave, and the girl was never seen being escorted safely away from those who were forcing her to kill her child.
North Carolina’s new abortion laws also state that when it is believed that a woman is being coerced, she must be provided with a private telephone and information for services including rape crisis centers, shelters for victims of domestic violence, restraining orders, and pregnancy care centers.
In the recording of the police dispatch, at least one officer suggested calling the “crisis unit” to the scene, but another officer told dispatch to “stand by” on that request until he had more information. It is unclear what kind of resolution for the frightened girl, if any, was ever reached.
“Forced abortion is illegal in all fifty states,” Newman adds. “We have no way of knowing what happened to this little girl – whether she was protected from threatening family members or given the options for shelter and assistance the law dictates. What we do know is when a Planned Parenthood staffer found herself facing a teenager being coerced into abortion, she described the inability to do that abortion because of coercion as ‘unfortunate.’ When you kill babies for a living, of course you would think letting one live would be unfortunate.”
“We hope and pray that this young girl has found her way to a pregnancy center or group of people who will provide the support she needs. She has already shown what a wonderful mom she is by courageously choosing life and speaking up for her child in the face of intimidation and cruelty from her own family.”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Neely writes for Operation Rescue.
The post 911 Call Reveals 16-Year-Old Girl Being Forced to Have Abortion at Planned Parenthood appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: AsiaNews.itFighting is still ongoing after the military junta bombed the city, in Karen State. Thai authorities said yesterday that they expect 100,000 displaced people. Struggling in the country's border regions, the generals are betting everything on conscription, forcing civilians to enlist.
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Site: Edward FeserLiberalism is to the social order what AIDS is to the body. By relegating the truths of natural law and divine revelation to the private sphere, it destroys the immune system of the body politic, opening the way to that body’s being ravaged by moral decay and ideological fanaticism. I develop this theme in a new essay over at Postliberal Order.
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)
(L–R) Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton attend a campaign fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 28, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
(Left) Billionaire George Soros attends a discussion with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and a group of American business leaders at the Blair House in Washington on May 20, 2015. (Right) Alexander Soros, founder of the Alexander Soros Foundation, speaks onstage during a climate event at the Ford Foundation in New York City on April 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Ford Foundation)
A woman casts her ballot in the state's primary election in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024. (Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The Democratic National Committee, Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Image: Creative Commons
Source: Bloomberg 
Republican presidential hopeful and former President Donald Trump celebrates his victory at a primary election night party in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23, 2024. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, on June 9, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Zelensky has been meeting with Swiss leadership for months, laying the groundwork for the peace conference.
FP/Getty Images: Keys are left behind in a door riddled with bullet holes and stained with blood on Oct. 10, after Hamas militants stormed a kibbutz in Kfar Aza, Israel.
Lisa Cook, governor of the US Federal Reserve. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg 
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