Zero Hedge

Global CBDC Rollout Continues Apace

Global CBDC Rollout Continues Apace

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Terror attacks in Moscow, ongoing genocide in Gaza, and cancer in the Royal family are dominating the headlines.

Meanwhile, on the financial back pages, all over the world the implementation of Central Bank Digital Currencies draws nearer.

China, whose digital Yuan was the major flagship CBDC, is in the middle of an immense trial covering over 25 million people. This week they released new guidelines for tourists using CBDCs for the first time.

A journalist for the crypto-focused DLNews wrote of her experience using it, and while functionality might seem limited right now we should note that she talks up the “de-dollarization” aspect of CBDCs, aligning digital currency with the “multilateral world” plan.

Hong Kong has its own CBDC program, the second trial stage of which launched last week. They are developing the ability to use “tokenised deposits” to add $160bn to their GDP.

In Europe, following late February’s Digital Euro Conference (DEC24), the European Central Bank has announced the development of the “digital euro rulebook”.

In Sweden, the Riksbank’s e-Krona program published its final report on its CBDC pilot a few days ago. Coin Telegraph reports they working on making its CBDC available offline.

The Central Bank of the UAE announced they are launching their own CBDC pilot a few days ago.

That’s just the technical developments, saying nothing of the ongoing propaganda campaign.

As I already said, in order to appeal to the anti-Imperialist left, we’re being told that CBDCs will help the world “de-dollarize”.

Another angle is that CBDCs will help developing nations prosper.

For example, BusinessMagnates.com reports that CBDCs will help “revive Latin American economies”.

All this is just from the past week. It goes on and on and on.

The only slight hold-out seems to be the US, where CBDCs remain somewhat contentious.

The e-dollar has stuttered along in progress compared to the rest of the world, with contradictory reports from officials emerging all the time.

This could be genuine opposition from US Imperialists due to the threat of de-dollarisation, it could be a natural response to a far more cash-based economy than most of the developed world, or it could be a deliberate propaganda campaign designed to promote CBDCs in anti-America quarters.

Of course, it’s an election year state-side, and Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr have both come out against CBDCs. While RFK jr is doubtless sincere, this would not be the first time the “deep state” has tried to discredit an opinion by having Trump endorse it.

But America or no America, the global CBDC roll-out is coming.

According to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC Tracker, 134 countries representing 98% of global GDP are currently working on their own digital currency.

While an Atlantic Council report from March 14th underlines the importance of “interoperability”:

Central banks and international financial institutions are realizing that uneven and dispersed technological advancements in digital currencies could actually create further fragmentation of the financial system, deepen digital divides, and create systemic risks. This would undercut the premise of digital currencies, which are supposed to create more efficiency in the existing system. Fortunately, there are some new models of interoperability across borders.

Interoperability isn’t just an important part of the CBDC plan, according to the Atlantic Council, it is the whole point.

Just yesterday, reported by Business Wire, SWIFT published their findings on “Seamless Introduction of CBDCs for Cross-Border Transactions”:

Interoperability is critical to Swift’s strategy for instant and frictionless transactions. The cooperative has focused its innovation agenda on interoperability between digital currencies and tokenised assets to overcome the potential risk of fragmentation, caused by the development of digital currencies on different technologies and with different standards and protocols. Swift’s solution has already been shown to enable cross-border transfers and connect CBDCs on different networks with each other, as well as with fiat currencies.

As we wrote in 2024: The Year Global Government Takes Shape, interoperability is the name of the game – there is no real practical difference between 195 interoperable digital currencies and one global currency.

Global currency is coming. It’s not on the front pages, but that’s hardly surprising.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/26/2024 - 16:20

Stocks Drop As 'Soft' Data Slumps, Trump's 'Wealth' Pumps'n'Dumps

Stocks Drop As 'Soft' Data Slumps, Trump's 'Wealth' Pumps'n'Dumps

'Soft' data slumped today: Consumer confidence crumbled and there was a regional Fed rout - Philly Fed Services was really ugly, Richmond Fed Manufacturing was ugly, and Texas Services was negative for the 22nd straight month...

...as 'hard' data improved with durable goods orders rebounding and home prices accelerated once again (but that is offset by a decline in core shipments, which will weigh on GDP)...

Source: Bloomberg

The STIRs market focused on the bad news and pushed rate-cut expectations modestly higher (dovish)...

Source: Bloomberg

The stock market initially loved it either way - bad was good and good was good - but the majors could not hold on to their overnight highs and late-day sell programs took all the majors red on the day...

That is the 3rd down day for the S&P 500 in a row.

There were two sell programs in the last 30 mins...

Source: Bloomberg

Another day, another opening short-squeeze faded...

Source: Bloomberg

Mag7 stocks were dumped late on spoiling the party...

Source: Bloomberg

The longer-end of the bond curve outperformed today (with the short-end modestly higher in yield) with 30Y -2bps on the day, helped by a strong 5Y (record size) auction. The stronger than expected durable goods orders print snapped yields to yesterday's highs but the soft-date weakness (and the auction) wore yields lower as the day went on...

Source: Bloomberg

After yesterday's big surge (on net zero ETF inflows), bitcoin held on to the $70,000 level today...

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended practically unchanged, rallying back from modest weakness overnight...

Source: Bloomberg

Spot gold prices surged up to $2200 intraday before giving a lot of the gains back to end marginally higher....

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices dipped ahead of tonight's API inventory data...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) rocketed higher today... only to be dumped late on, erasing half of the day's gains...

Source: Bloomberg

...with the company with barely any revenues now worth almost $10BN at its peak today, according to Bloomberg data...

Source: Bloomberg

...and Trump owns 69% of it (but is unable to sell... yet).

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/26/2024 - 16:00

Activist California Judge Tosses Musk's X Censorship Lawsuit Against Dark Money 'Anti-Hate' Group

Activist California Judge Tosses Musk's X Censorship Lawsuit Against Dark Money 'Anti-Hate' Group

A California judge has tossed out a lawsuit from social media platform X against the Center or Countering Digital Hate, contending that X is not entitled to seek restitution against the organization because third-party advertisers left the platform following CCDH's campaign against it.

The lawsuit alleged that CCDH had unlawfully accessed and scraped data from X in order to conduct misleading studies that found a rise in hate speech following Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media platform in late 2022. The company says CCDH has "cherry-picked" posts ot drive advertisers away, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.

"This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech," said judge Charles Breyer in California, citing a Nov. 2023 Reuters survey that found "social media researchers have canceled, suspended or changed more than 100 studies about X" as a result of Musk's policies as CEO.

Breyer also insinuated that X filed the suit "perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism."

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed celebrated his win, saying in a post-decision statement that "The courts today have affirmed our fundamental right to research, to speak, to advocate, and to hold accountable social media companies for decisions they make behind closed doors that affect our kids, our democracy, and our fundamental human rights and civil liberties."

CCDH is a dark money nonprofit with an outsized influence over the digital advertising space and political sphere, which popped up seemingly out of nowhere.

X responded to the ruling, posting: "Today a federal court in San Francisco issued a decision in the case X brought against the Center for Countering Digital Hate for illegally obtaining platform data to create misleading research. X disagrees with the court's decision and plans to appeal."

Meanwhile, Musk - who has called CCDH a "truly evil organization that just wants to destroy the first amendment under the guise of doing good!" did not immediately respond.

As Paul Thacker noted in October in Tablet, Ahmed - a former British Labour party operative, released a report in 2021 about online misinformation that quickly reached the pre-Musk Twitter regime, and was used to silence divergent opinions - including those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who the report named as one of "The Disinformation Dozen." The report was then cited by by the Biden administration.

CCDH also targeted ZeroHedge with a false report initially claiming that we were demonetized by Google for peddling hate speech, when in fact the CCDH took passages from our comments section and claimed they were the views of ZH. The report was laundered through NBC's "verify" fact check unit. NBC News was internationally condemned for going after a rival using CCDH research, and written by a 25-year-old (trust fund) UK journalist who has since bounced around various outlets without much in the way of actual journalism to show for it.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/26/2024 - 15:45

TIME To Panic: Joe Biden's Campaign "In Trouble" Despite Obama Warning

TIME To Panic: Joe Biden's Campaign "In Trouble" Despite Obama Warning

"Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up." -Barack Obama

With less than eight months before the 2024 election, the Biden re-election campaign is in big trouble. Not only is Biden lagging in the polls vs. Donald Trump, the border crisis he created by shredding all of Trump's Executive Orders on immigration has resulted in 10 million illegals flooding into the United States - which has left even Democrats livid.

Illustration by Klawe Rzeczy

What's more, Biden is quickly losing the support of young Americans, and the latino vote.

Things are so bad that TIME magazine has just devoted 3,700 words to let us know that Barack Obama 'warned' the Biden campaign last June that defeating Trump would be harder in 2024 (because no pandemic or hoax dossier to set him up?). Six months later, Obama 'saw few signs of improvement.'

Obama returned to the White House in December, with a 'more urgent' message: the re-election campaign was behind schedule in building out field operations, and that an 'insular group of advisers' in the West Wing was hamstringing the effort.

Now, it's really bad...

Three months later, the 2024 general election is under way, and Biden is indeed in trouble. His stubbornly low approval ratings have sunk into the high 30s, worse than those of any other recent President seeking re-election. He’s trailed or tied Trump in most head-to-head matchups for months. Voters express concerns about his policies, his leadership, his age, and his competency. The coalition that carried Biden to victory in 2020 has splintered; the Democrats’ historic advantage with Black, Latino, and Asian American voters has dwindled to lows not seen since the civil rights movement. -TIME

Meanwhile, Biden's inner circle is "defiantly sanguine" as a "fog of dread" descends on Democrats.

The rest of the TIME article is full of anecdotes of dissatisfied Democrats, particularly young voters such as 20-year-old Aidan Kohn-Murphy.

It has nothing to do, as many assume, with the President’s age. With palpable frustration, Kohn-Murphy enumerates the list of perceived policy “betrayals” as though they were “tattooed on the back of my hand.”

According to the report, GenZ voters "don’t understand why they should be compelled to cast their ballot for a candidate who has done so many things that are against their values," said Kohn-Murphy.

Losing the minority vote

In 2020, Biden carried 87% of the black vote. Now, he's polling at just 63%, a sharp decline. Meanwhile four years ago he won hispanic votes by a ratio of 2 to 1. He now trails Trump in that bloc.

Biden's support of Israel amid the Gaza war has "tanked his standing with Muslim and Arab voters," particularly in "must-win Michigan."

Overall, Biden’s advantage over Trump among nonwhite Americans has shrunk from almost 50 points in 2020 to 12, according to the latest Times/Siena poll.

"It boils down to voters of color, and those voters are pissed," said one former Biden campaign and White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I think it’s very likely he’ll lose."

What's more, nearly two dozen senior Democratic sources told TIME that Biden's "campaign mechanics, structure, and staffing over most of the past year are partly to blame as well."

While Obama was marching to re-election over the summer of 2012, his campaign head count topped 900. Despite plans to hire 350 new staffers, the Biden campaign ended 2023 with only around 70 paid employees, according to campaign finance filings.

Biden advisers don't care about the president's dismal numbers with young and nonwhite voters, as the "Biden brain trust" thinks they'll vote for him again regardless.

"We’ve reached out to this group of nonwhite and young voters earlier than any presidential campaign ever has," according to senior adviser Becca Siegel.

Good luck with that...

Illustration by Tim O'Brien for TIME Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 13:25

The Insanity In Our World Is Driven By Money Printing

The Insanity In Our World Is Driven By Money Printing

Authored by Marty Bent via BombThrower.com,

Fix The Money, Fix The World

This chart has been making the rounds on Twitter this week and I think it’s a good image to send you freaks into the weekend with.

It’s easy to get swept up in the chaos of the day-to-day volatility that exists in our world. Recently, our minds have been inundated with headlines about illegal immigration, squatters and the degradation of private property rights, war across the world, small battles within the larger “culture war”, increasing prices, and the decisions made by central banks around the world. In the midst of all of this chaos it is important to take a step back and remind yourself of what lies at the core of most of these issues; the fact that we’ve completely broken money.

When you break money, the most important tool humans use to facilitate economic activity, a ripple effect of negative consequences begins to emanate from the root of the world’s engine. Those ripples create the momentum that leads to chaos that we are witnessing today.

Broken money leads people to store their value in sub optimal vehicles like housing. This drives the cost of real estate up unnaturally and increases the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”. Sowing seeds of animosity. Seeds that, when left to germinate and grow via the further degradation of the money people use, blossom into ugly flowers of Anarcho Tyranny.

This has manifested in the trend of people claiming other’s houses by squatting in them when they are left unattended for an extended period of time. The preferential treatment that has been given to squatters over homeowners in recent years can be seen as the regime which controls the money printers throwing the plebs a bone as they struggle to get by, an attempt to push the productive class to violence against a state unwilling to respect private property rights, or a combination of the two.

Broken money incentivizes governments to allow their borders to be bum rushed by cheap laborers who will take low paying jobs that enable the systemically fragile economy to keep chugging along while simultaneously increasing the chaos that already exists and diluting the values that the natives of this country believe in.

The excess and decadence enabled by a world run on broken easy money allows people to live in a detached reality that leads them to push objectively false narratives. This is why there are running debates about gender and a retreat from merit based compensation.

All of this stems from broken money.

The chart above should act as a reminder to you all that the biggest problem in the world right now is the money. The chart above should also prove to you that the most powerful people throughout the economy are going to fight tooth and nail to protect the broken money because they benefit massively from the fact that it is broken.

Keep this in mind as the chaos increases and narratives begin to form around using bitcoin as money.

*  *  *

Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here and receive a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto, which outlined all this. However, by the time you read this it may already be too late to sign up for The Bitcoin Capitalist Letternew subscriptions will be closed once Bitcoin hits a new all-time high.
Follow Marty’s Bent via TFTC.io

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 12:50

US & NATO Issue Rare 'Solidarity' Messages After Moscow Attack As Death Toll Rises To 137; Bizarre Terrorist 'Confessions' Emerge

US & NATO Issue Rare 'Solidarity' Messages After Moscow Attack As Death Toll Rises To 137; Bizarre Terrorist 'Confessions' Emerge

Russian state media has underscored that "partners and geopolitical rivals alike have joined the chorus expressing horror in the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack."

This has somewhat surprisingly included a statement of solidarity from Washington, as the death toll has has risen to 137 killed. "The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Saturday statement. "We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event."

Reports: The Burj Khalifa lights up in the colors of Russia and says: "UAE stands in solidarity with Russia."

Even NATO issued a statement of condolence, with NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah saying on X that the Western military alliance "unequivocally condemn the attacks targeting concertgoers in Moscow." 

"Our deepest condolences to the victims and their families," she said, adding that "nothing can justify such heinous crimes." Pope Francis too has offered special prayers for victims on Sunday.

But still Western officials hit back at President Putin's attempts to link the terror attack, which ISIS-K has reportedly taken responsibility for, to Ukraine. Both the president and Kremlin officials have alleged the gunmen were trying to escape through Ukraine territory, utilizing a 'window' of support from across the border.

The fire which raged for many hours in the wake of the terror attack gutted the Crocus complex and part of the roof caved in. Below is stunning video of the aftermath:

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has told Sky News that Britain has "very little confidence in anything the Russian government says."

"We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a tragedy when innocent people lose their lives, when you have horrible bombings," Hunt said. Hunt further emphasized that London takes "what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt… after what we have seen from them over the last few years."

Meanwhile Russia continues to investigate who was ultimately behind the attack as it currently has eleven people in custody, and among them are said to be the four gunmen.

Videos have emerged online showing some of their apprehensions as well as confessions, surrounded by several Russian security service personnel.

While Russian authorities are still very early in their investigation, the 'confessions' and claims and counter-claims which are still emerging remain bizarre and murky:

On Saturday, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan posted footage of the interrogation of one of the suspects. The man in the video claims that he went on the killing spree after he was promised 500,000 rubles ($5,400).

The suspect also claimed that his handlers had instructed him as to where the attack should take place. He said he was ordered to “kill people there… doesn’t matter who.” The suspect claimed that the terrorist act was organized on Telegram with an unknown person who provided weapons.

Russia has said the attackers are not Russian citizens...

The gunmen had later the same day of the attack been apprehended in Bryansk Region, "not far from the border with Ukraine," according to Russian official statements.

Amid an ongoing flurry of speculation over the circumstances surrounding the Crocus Hall massacre, and the question of whether state actors or intelligence services may be involved, more videos have emerged which appear to tie the attackers to the Islamic State.

Prior social media claims that asserted one or more attackers were Ukrainian appear to have been debunked. Various theories continue to be advanced, also by mainstream pundits. Independent journalists such as Glenn Greenwald have pointed out that there are many more questions than there are answers at this point, but an MSM narrative has already quickly solidified.

In a statement released Sunday, the Russian Investigative Committee detailed that "Four sets of combat ammunition, with more than 500 bullets and 28 magazines, and two Kalashnikov assault rifles, which the attackers were armed with, were confiscated from the scene of the tragedy."

The SITE Intelligence Group, which is often cited and relied upon in Western media, claims that the Islamic State through its official channels has "revealed the four fighters involved in the Moscow concert hall operation" and is "boasting" about its "fiercest attack in years." Russia has long been an avowed enemy of ISIS, especially after the Russian military intervention in Syria starting in 2015, when Putin joined Assad in battling jihadists in the war-ravaged country.

ISIS propaganda channels have reportedly released cell phone videos from the attackers themselves...

Meanwhile, the Russian government has continued to question what intelligence concerning the planned attack that Washington may have had ahead of time. In a March 7 emergency alert, the US Embassy in Moscow said it was "monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts."

The embassy further urged all US nationals in the country to remain vigilant and "monitor local media for updates." The Kremlin has demanded answers and even raised the possibility of Western involvement, given also the current claims that the terrorists may have had a 'Ukraine connection'. 

Some of the newly released footage is extremely graphic, in one instance showing a man's throat being slit (the below is censored for online release):

Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov has on Sunday issued a statement saying that it was the United States which first destroyed anti-terrorism cooperation between the two countries. However, anonymous US intelligence officials who spoke to major US media outlets claim that Moscow was notified that a big terror act was going to happen. But Antonov has said "some things [in this cooperation] worked out… and it is all destroyed today through no fault of our own."

"We did not receive any notifications or messages in advance," Antonov told RIA. However, White House spokesman John Kirby has sought to clarify, "I’m not aware of any advance knowledge that we had of this."

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 12:15

Some Democrats Say They Would Save Speaker Johnson From Ouster

Some Democrats Say They Would Save Speaker Johnson From Ouster

By Jacob Burg of the Epoch Times

An unlikely source of aid for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—who is facing a motion from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to oust him after bringing the government funding package to a floor vote—might come from House Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) (L) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) listen during remarks at a menorah lighting ceremony at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Dec. 12, 2023.

After all House Democrats voted with a gang of eight Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023, several House Democrats are signaling they would save Mr. Johnson from a similar fate.

“It’s absurd he’s being kicked out for doing the right thing, keeping the government open. It has two-thirds support of the Congress, and the idea that he would be kicked out by these jokers is absurd,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) told CNN on March 22. He said he would vote to retain Mr. Johnson as House Speaker and hoped other Democrats would do the same.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) expressed a similar sentiment in a March 22 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.  “I do not support Speaker Johnson, but I will never stand by and let [Ms. Greene] take over the people’s House,” he said.

However, some Democrats said their support would be predicated on Mr. Johnson reconsidering the Senate’s foreign-aid package passed in February.

“I’d want to see his good-faith action before that happened,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said, referring to the possibility of voting to retain Mr. Johnson as speaker.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), before Ms. Greene filed her motion, mentioned that he would vote to prevent Mr. Johnson’s ouster depending on the speaker’s actions regarding aid for Ukraine.

“If we get a vote on the appropriations bills and we get a vote on the supplemental, there’ll be enough Democrats that Johnson will not be removed as speaker,” Mr. Smith told The Hill in February.

“That’s just my view.”

Republicans Against Johnson Ouster

Ms. Greene filed her motion to vacate Mr. Johnson from the speaker’s chair the morning before the House approved the funding package, 286–134, which is now headed to the Senate before the 11:59 p.m. shutdown deadline.

However, not all Republicans are eager to face the same gridlock and uncertainty that bedeviled the GOP caucus in the weeks after Mr. McCarthy’s ouster. Even some of Mr. Johnson’s harshest critics from the House Freedom Caucus have dismissed Ms. Greene’s efforts.

Mr. Gaetz, who initiated Mr. McCarthy’s downfall, said he would not support a motion to vacate Mr. Johnson.

“When I vacated McCarthy, I made a promise to all of you, to the entire country, that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker,” Mr. Gaetz said on his “Firebrand” podcast on March 22, after the House vote.

He expressed concern with the dwindling House GOP majority and the possibility of at least a few Republicans voting for a Democratic speaker in the event of Mr. Johnson’s potential ouster.

“And because I’m not sure of that, do not count me among those who would support a motion to vacate at this time,” Mr. Gaetz added.

Some Republicans, however, were not nearly as restrained in their responses to Ms. Greene’s motion to vacate.

“It’s not only idiotic, but it actually does not do anything to advance the conservative movement. And in fact, it undermines the country and our majority,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) of the House Freedom Caucus said Mr. Johnson is the only House Republican capable of leading the caucus “through these dark and challenging times” and that Ms. Greene “just made a big mistake.”

“To think that one of our Republican colleagues would call for his ouster right now—it’s really ... it’s abhorrent to me, and I oppose it,” he said in a video posted to X.

Ms. Greene told reporters on the Capital steps on March 22 that she is not the only Republican supporting her motion to vacate Mr. Johnson but stopped short of naming anyone.

“I’ve talked to many who probably won’t go public, but silently, they’re breathing a sigh of relief,” she said.

That support, at least so far, does not appear to come from others who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy last year.

Continue reading at The Epoch Times

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 11:40

Kamala Harris Announces DOJ-Funded Office To Push 'Red Flag' Gun Laws, Gets Slammed By Parkland Dad Over 'Photo Op'

Kamala Harris Announces DOJ-Funded Office To Push 'Red Flag' Gun Laws, Gets Slammed By Parkland Dad Over 'Photo Op'

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday announced a new national office that will assist states in implementing "red flag" laws - which allow for a judge like this...

...to approve the temporary removal of firearms from a person believed to be a danger to themselves or others, by a prosecutor like this:

New York AG Letitia James

Harris announced the new office, the federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center (Erpo), at a Saturday visit to Parkland, Florida, where she toured the site of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting that killed 17.

"The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school occurred after there were clear warning signs, but there were no tools to remove the shooter’s firearm," the White House said in a statement announcing the resource office.

The office is being funded by a Justice Department grant, and will be operated through the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. It will help state and local governments, as well as law enforcement and others (including behavioral health and social service providers), to "optimize" the use of red flag laws, and will provide training and technical assistance "for a wide variety of stakeholders."

Red flag laws have already been implemented in 21 states, of which the White House said that just six had taken advantage of $750 million in funding made available by the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act enacted by the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, the father of a victim of the Parkland shooting, Ryan Petty, slammed Harris in an interview on Fox News, telling the outlet "The vice president and the White House's Office of Gun Violence Prevention made it very clear to families early on that nothing short of new gun control was going to satisfy them in protecting our nation's schools. And that is just a slap in the face to those of us that have worked for six years now to try to protect our nation's schools."

"There are so many ways that we can protect our kids and our teachers at school that don't require the infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners around the country," Petty added. "But the vice president and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention don't want to hear any of those solutions. What they want to do is create an opportunity for the vice president to spout gun control talking points at a site that, quite frankly, is hallowed ground at this point.

"What's frustrating to me is that this building should have been demolished years ago, and it's now being used as a photo op for politicians that want to push an agenda," he continued.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 11:05

Why Social Trust Is Cratering: The Difference Between Elites And Commoners

Why Social Trust Is Cratering: The Difference Between Elites And Commoners

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We trust what we own / control, and the difference between elites and commoners is the elites own / control the wealth and power that dominate our daily lives.

It sounds too obvious to be profound: we trust what we own / control. Of course we do. But it becomes profoundly consequential when we add the shadow half of the statement: we don't trust what we don't own / control without constant feedback providing verifiable evidence that it is worthy of our trust.

Absent this positive verifiable (i.e. factual evidence based on both data and personal-anecdotal experience) feedback, we have good reason to assume whatever we don't own / control is primarily serving the interests of those who do own / control it. And since this means the product/service's trustworthiness is suspect despite claims that it serves our interests, we must seek a steady flow of feedback substantiating that the product/service is still providing the value the owners / managers are claiming, either explicitly or implicitly.

In other words, hands-on knowledge about the inner workings of the product/service generates trust. Absent this experiential knowledge, we're flying blind as to the true value of the product/service. If the actual value is less than the owners / managers claim, both the owners / managers and the product/service they're providing are unworthy of our trust.

Consider a simple example: the food we put in our mouths to sustain ourselves.

When I collect fruits and vegetables I've grown here in our yard, I have direct knowledge of what went into the care and nurturing of the plants/trees/soil, so I know that there are no pesticides or herbicides and there are an abundance of micronutrients in our food due to the careful management of compost and fertilizers.

The food we eat from our homestead is therefore trustworthy.

We get lettuce and beets from a longtime family friend who has been farming for decades. He takes great pride in his produce and works extremely hard to raise te highest quality produce. Though I don't have direct knowledge of his day-to-day practices, I know and trust him and I can see the vibrancy of his produce and taste its quality.

These are the people in our trusted personal network.

You see the gradient of trust: first level is first-hand experience/knowledge, second level is trusted personal network.

Compare this to produce labeled "organic" in a supermarket. We are making a great many assumptions about the produce this label is attached to. We assume the agency monitoring the actual farm practices is thorough and accurate, but this is quite stretch in the real world. Are inspectors onsite every day? What exactly do they test? Where are the results posted?

Produce, organic or not, is a commodity, and nobody is testing the nutritive content of the produce. Maybe one field hasn't been depleted of micronutrients, while the rest have been over-farmed and depleted of the micronutrients we need to be healthy.

Since all produce is a commodity in global markets, they're all interchangeable: one kilo of organic tomatoes or wheat is interchangeable with any other kilo of organic tomatoes or wheat, so there's no way to tell if the "organic" produce or meat has high or low nutritive value. All that's being claimed is that no pesticides or herbicides were applied and whatever compost and fertilizer were applied were organic. That's entirely different than claiming the produce/meat is high in nutritive value.

Plants have immune systems, too, and a healthy plant provided with sufficient nutrients and water will resist insect infestations, fungi, bacteria, etc. far better than plants raised in depleted soils. Anyone with experience in actually growing fruits and vegetables is keenly alive to signs of nutrient deficiency or infestation.

The point is "organic" doesn't mean the produce or meat is packed with nutrients. It just means the minimal guidelines qualifying the product as organic (or "bio") were met. Those guidelines don't guarantee a product packed with micronutrients. That takes extra care and tracking that isn't done in a commoditized economy.

Consider efficacy claims and side-effect labeling on pharmaceuticals. If you actually study the Phase III trial data (I have), you find that the medications were not actually tested in conjunction with other commonly consumed medications. The potential interactions are completely unknown. You also discover the statistical legerdemain that goes into claiming efficacy that may be just barely above random results.

Since we have very little knowledge or control of all the medications deemed "safe" by untrustworthy agencies, all these medications are intrinsically untrustworthy until proven otherwise by multiple independent sources over a decade.

How Two Pharmacists Figured Out That Decongestants Don't WorkA loophole in FDA processes means older drugs such as those in oral decongestants weren't properly tested. Here's how we learned the most popular one doesn't work.

Now consider social media sites such as Facebook or X/Twitter. You may have noticed that what appears in your feed/scroll changes. These changes are not within our control or transparent; we presume the algos are being tweaked to maximize the income being generated by our content and our attention.

When Big Tech notifies you that your content "violated our community standards," the violation is not specified, and if you ask, you won't get a reply or explanation. We have no idea who is seeing what we post, or what's being done with our attention-data. We have no knowledge or control of these algos and processes, and so they are intrinsically untrustworthy.

If we examine all the agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels that control the vast majority of our lives, we find that we have near-zero knowledge or control of any of their inputs, processes or outputs, and so all of these agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels are intrinsically untrustworthy until they consistently prove themselves trustworthy in some verifiable fashion.

Few of these agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels provide this feedback.

Consider the labels on processed foods for humans. Anyone caring for animals knows the labeling on food for animals is far stricter and more detailed than food for humans, for a good reason: those profiting from selling processed "food" to humans might have a harder time selling their low-quality products if we knew more about the low quality ingredients, high sugar and salt content, etc.

This is why commoners have lost trust in the nation's agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels, while the top 1% elites that own and control these entities still trust them: they trust them because they serve their interests.

The commoners intuitively sense these entities do not serve their interests, they only claim to do so to maximize profits / "shareholder value" or to divert attention from the poor quality service/products. We know the claims being made are false because we experience the absence of transparency and accountability first-hand, and the abysmally low quality of the products and services first-hand.

The only viable solution is to own/control as much as you can, and nurture our own trusted personal networks. The only way to escape being stripmined and shorn by the entities owned and controlled by the top 1% elites is to abandon those agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels as much as possible. That is the essence of what I call self-reliance.

We are blind to the decay of the hierarchy of trust because we've been trained to trust sprawling, unaccountable agencies and corporations without actually having any evidence that they are trustworthy.

At the top is owning / controlling the products/services ourselves. We trust our produce because we grew it. We trust our home repair because we did the work. Very few of us own or control anything other than our house or financial abstractions controlled by others.

The second level is personal trusted networks. Very few of us have personal trusted networks that provide the essentials of life. Virtually everything essential to modern life is commoditized and globalized; it comes from far away and we know nothing about its origin, quality or value.

The third level is local enterprises and agencies that are local enough to generate feedback we can access simply by listening to our neighbors and peers. On a very practical level, most communities once had local dairies and bakeries and broader networks of local businesses that provided services that are no longer available: shoe repair, etc.

The fourth and lowest level is commoditized feedback from a variety of sources that can be compared for completeness and accuracy, feedback that enables us to assess the relative trustworthiness of commoditized products and services sold by private monopolies and cartels theoretically monitored by unaccountable sprawling state agencies.

Our essential public services are also provided by other unaccountable sprawling state agencies that can fail in every way but are not influenced by their failure because we have no alternative to the DMV, tax office, etc.

These public-private monopolies and cartels provide very little feedback, and what little is available is itself suspect due to self-interest.

We control and own so little of what we need to live and what impacts our lives, and very few of these essentials are produced locally. We receive very little if any trustworthy feedback about the mega-entities (universities, hospital chains, Big Ag, Big Pharma, government agencies, Big Tech, Big Finance, Big Retail, etc.) that dominate our economy and our lives or the quality / value of the products and services they provide.

Professional elites still trust these mega-entities because they serve the interests of the elites who own / control them. The commoners no longer trust these entities because there is no reason or evidence to generate trust while there is a wealth of evidence supporting distrust.

We trust what we own / control, and the difference between elites and commoners is the elites own / control the wealth and power that dominate our daily lives.

As I noted in A Low-Trust Society Is an Impoverished Society, our only positive option is to regain as much ownership and control of our lives as we can manage, and nurture trusted personal networks and local enterprises and organizations. As I put it a few years ago: Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency).

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 10:30

Russian Cruise Missile Entered Polish Airspace During 'Massive' Missile Attack On Ukraine

Russian Cruise Missile Entered Polish Airspace During 'Massive' Missile Attack On Ukraine

Overnight, Ukraine's capital of Kiev as well as Lviv in the West came under a "massive" Russian aerial attack, Ukraine officials said, describing that in total 29 cruise missiles and 28 drones were launched

Ukraine's military said it was able to intercept 18 of the missiles and 25 drones, but significantly one of the Russian cruise missiles reportedly breached Polish airspace while en route, causing Warsaw to demand answers.

File image: Euronews/AP

Poland scrambled NATO F-16 jets in response to the breach which it said occurred at about 4:40am near the village of Oserdów on the Polish-Ukraine border. 

"The object flew into Polish [air]space near the village of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and spent 39 seconds in it," Poland's Operational Command said. "It was observed by military radar systems throughout its flight." Over half a minute is a very significant amount of time for a cruise missile to spend over Poland.

Poland’s Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters in a briefing, "As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish air space."

The incident occurred as other Russian missiles were raining down around the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, and the missile entered up to about one or two kilometers inside Poland, Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

The defense ministry in follow-up stated, "Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems."

Since the war began there's been a few similar incidents of an errant missile entering Poland. In one of the most notable, which occurred in November 2022, it was later determined that a stray Ukrainian anti-air missile hit a Polish border village, tragically killing two people.

The Zelensky government has meanwhile continued to desperately appeal for more anti-air defense systems and missiles from the West. 

In this latest overnight missile and drone raid, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced early Sunday that there are "explosions in the capital" while urging to populace, "do not leave shelters" - given that "air defense is not working."

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 09:55

The West's Nuclear Power Revival Could Be Slower Than Hoped

The West's Nuclear Power Revival Could Be Slower Than Hoped

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

  • At the COP28 climate summit at the end of last year, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacities by 2050.

  • Most Western governments – with the notable exception of Germany – are now betting on nuclear power to help them with the carbon emission targets.

  • The West has seen in recent years several cautionary tales of huge delays and cost overruns in looking to boost nuclear capacity.

Western nations may be getting ahead of themselves in their ambition to swiftly roll out new nuclear power capacity in the current push to reduce dependence on Russian uranium and meet net-zero targets with more nuclear-generated electricity.   

At the COP28 climate summit at the end of last year, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacities by 2050, saying that incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades.   

The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach,” the U.S. Department of State said.

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, says there are “trillions of dollars” available that could be used for investment in nuclear energy.

“We are not making the argument to anybody that this is absolutely going to be the sweeping alternative to every other energy source — no, that’s not what brings us here. But you can’t get to net-zero 2050 without some nuclear power,” he told reporters at the time.

“Too Optimistic”

Most Western governments – with the notable exception of Germany – are now betting on nuclear power to help them with the carbon emission targets.

But many may have become too optimistic they would see a fast rollout of nuclear reactors and capacities in an industry notoriously known for years of delays and huge cost overruns.  

“Clients, governments and ourselves as the industry players . . . we all become too optimistic,” Ian Edwards, chief executive of Canada’s engineering giant AtkinsRéalis, told the Financial Times.

“We have this optimism bias towards being able to deliver faster.”Related: Big Oil Grows Bolder in Transition Pushback

The stakeholders need to plan better and get the execution phase done right, according to the executive of the company, which manufactures the CANDU reactor, the only nuclear reactor that doesn’t need enriched uranium.

The CANDU technology stands for Canada deuterium uranium because it uses deuterium oxide, or heavy water, as a moderator and coolant and uses natural – not enriched – uranium as a fuel.

The West has seen in recent years several cautionary tales of huge delays and cost overruns in looking to boost nuclear capacity. Two of the glaring examples are the UK’s Hinkley Point C project by French energy giant EDF and the Vogtle nuclear power plant in the U.S. state of Georgia.

Early this year, EDF pushed back – again – the probable operational start at Hinkley Point C to 2029-2031, depending on various scenarios, compared to the original intention to have the first unit at the plan running in 2025. The costs have gone through the roof – to an estimated $43.5 billion (£34 billion), from $23 billion (£18 billion) budgeted initially.

In Georgia, a new reactor at the Vogtle nuclear power plant began commercial operation last summer in what was the first new nuclear reactor to start up in the United States since 2016. Construction at the two new reactor sites at Vogtle began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. The total cost of the project is now estimated at more than $30 billion.  

New Technology Promises Revival of Nuclear Power

AtkinsRéalis, whose natural-uranium reactor design differentiates it from the competition, has a sales pitch advantage because of the Russian dominance in enriched uranium supply, Edwards told FT.

But he warned that demand for AtkinsRéalis’s technology is likely to exceed the company’s capacity to meet it.

Last year, AtkinsRéalis’s revenues from its nuclear division rose by 16.5% compared to 2022, thanks to higher sales volumes from Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Despite the West’s attempts to reduce its reliance on Russian uranium, the EU doubled its imports of Russian nuclear fuel last year, mostly due to former Soviet bloc countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia importing Russian fuel for their Soviet-era nuclear plants, NGO Bellona said in an analysis last week, citing data from Eurostat and the UN’s international trade service Comtrade.

The United States is doubling down on its own supply of nuclear fuel and technology, including innovative reactor designs.

Soaring uranium prices and a supply squeeze on the global uranium market have prompted U.S. uranium producers to revive abandoned mines that haven’t been operational in more than a decade.

Early this year, Uranium Energy Corp said it would restart uranium production at its fully permitted site in Wyoming as the resurgence in nuclear power has led to a new bull market in uranium.

“Uranium market fundamentals are the best the industry has witnessed,” Uranium Energy president and CEO Amir Adnani said in January.

The U.S. is also backing advanced nuclear technology and small-scale reactors, hyped to be the future of nuclear energy.

This week, TerraPower, a company working on small-scale nuclear reactor development backed by Bill Gates, said it would begin construction on its next-generation nuclear reactor in the United States as soon as June.

TerraPower has been developing the Natrium technology for advanced reactors, which features a sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The Natrium demonstration plant will be built near a retiring coal facility in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 09:20

New 'Morally Ambiguous' Star Wars Show Directed By Former Assistant To Harvey Weinstein

New 'Morally Ambiguous' Star Wars Show Directed By Former Assistant To Harvey Weinstein

There's a whole lot of former Star Wars fans out there today, and we say "former" because once George Lucas made the fatal (but lucrative for him) decision to sell the franchise to Disney the beloved brand was doomed to lose a majority of its existing audience.  To date, Disney has burned every ounce of fan capital it once had and each successive Star Wars movie and series has performed worse than the last in terms of box office and viewership.  And, it was all done in the name of going woke.

Disney as a company has become the mascot for "Get Woke, Go Broke" with an extensive list of theatrical and streaming service failures the past few years, and they continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes.  The bottom line?  Legacy companies like Disney are willing to destroy their own market share in the pursuit of political propaganda; they'll keep on pontificating about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion until they are bankrupt.  

Their upcoming Star Wars streaming format release called 'The Acolyte' is expected by many to become the worst woke/feminist disaster in the company's history handling the franchise.  And, it might not be a coincidence that their latest DEI endeavor will be directed by a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, the very man that the "Me Too" movement was created to admonish.

How aware was Leslie Headland of the casting-couch activities of her boss when she was his assistant?  It's hard to say.  However, Hollywood has determined that her status as a lesbian and queer activist negates any connections she might have had to that ugly association. 

Interviews with Headland suggest she will be bringing all her activism and politics to the latest Disney Star Wars installment along with a predictable interest in making the classic archetypal tale about good and evil "morally ambiguous."  As she notes in the Hollywood Reporter:

"People who are good guys can be bad guys, and people who are bad guys can be good guys. There’s a lot of moral ambiguity, which is why Jodie’s [Turner-Smith] line in the trailer is so important: “This isn’t about good or bad; this is about power and who is allowed to use it.” And I believe, of course, that the Jedi are a benevolent, well-intentioned institution, but they are an institution and they have amassed all the power..."

As with all woke activism, good and evil are considered relative social constructs that don't really exist, and Headland wants to bring that philosophy to Star Wars.  In other words, the Sith might do things that are considered evil, but did you ever ask yourself how they feel about it?  What if they have an emotional justification for their actions? 

Any normal person would say "Who cares?"  But writers and directors with narcissistic tendencies don't understand the world of heroism or moral principle.  They are also incapable of writing from another person's perspective and are only capable of injecting their own views into everything they touch.  Moral ambiguity is a completely counterintuitive interpretation to the symbolism of Star Wars, as well as contrary to what the vast majority of audiences connect with.

The entertainment media is also buzzing with excitement over the amount of LGBT representation in The Acolyte, with a number of gay and trans actors and crew members involved.  Not to mention, the show trailer is noticeably devoid of white male characters; par for the course in today's far-left content.  Kathleen Kennedy's mantra of "the force is female" is heavily present here.  

         

As usual, the show is being sold on the basis of its diversity rather than the merit of its storytelling, with cast and crew asserting that Star Wars is finally "safe for black nerds" and other minorities because now they can see themselves represented on screen.  Of course, if you can't relate to a well written story unless the characters share your skin color or ethnic background, then there's probably something very wrong with you.  

The production is tied directly to Disney's 'The High Republic' book series, which is widely regarded as an epic marketing blunder and dismal seller.  The books showcase an array of leftist ideological concepts that immediately turned off readers, and fans have long suspected that Disney's agenda was to eventually replace all Star Wars lore with High Republic wokism.  Added to the terrible base material is Headland's own fan fiction, which she admits she wrote when she was younger and is at least partially ingrained into the show. 

At this time, The Acolyte trailer has received 366,000 dislikes on YouTube, compared to 160,000 likes and Disney executives are allegedly scrambling to produce positive PR.  Disney denies that their DEI based content has anything to do with the growing public skepticism for the show.  In what has become an endlessly repeating cycle, Hollywood produces woke bomb after woke bomb, refuses to admit that wokeness is the problem, the movies or series are quickly forgotten and then they start all over again.   

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 08:45

Mob Rule Versus Survival Of The West: Why Americans Should Be Watching The UK

Mob Rule Versus Survival Of The West: Why Americans Should Be Watching The UK

Authored by Susan Harris via The Epoch Times,

It’s been hard to watch the effects of forced diversity, multiculturalism, and mass immigration on the tiny island of Great Britain—the most densely populated nation in Europe. At least in America we still have so much land area that most people are not yet feeling the effects of large-scale population displacement stemming from all forms of immigration.

In the UK, however, every day feels like an episode of “Survivor” as people who are being crammed in like sardines are increasingly made to fear that they’ll be voted off the island.

Recently, protests surrounding the Israel–Hamas war have exposed the fragility of a British culture—and nation—on the verge of capsizing from the weight of immigration and cultural divides.

Well-known British YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson has been covering events there, addressing the British prime minister’s remarks that his country is descending into “mob rule” and that the situation is urgent. The prime minister was referring to pro-Palestinian protesters currently flooding the streets of Britain.

Mr. Watson shared a genius chart from a user on social media platform X supposedly detailing the rise of mob rule in London. The user commented, “HOW DID WE GET HERE? After importing millions of people from countries with a culture of mob rule into London, mob rule has taken over London. Experts are crunching the numbers to figure out if systematically undermining basic law and order could have affected basic law and order.”

Meanwhile, Pro-Palestinian protesters across Britain vowed more marches, ostensibly to protest Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Mr. Watson has also been covering reactions to another member of parliament recently claiming there were “no-go zones” in Birmingham. To support the existence of “no-go zones,” Mr. Watson cited the Birmingham Mail newspaper, which reported that “due to soaring crime being committed by ‘urban youths,’ parts of the city center are no-go zones and the areas immediately surrounding Birmingham are no-go areas for the same reason,” according to Mr. Watson.

All of this comes after a huge blow-up about a comment made by a Conservative member of parliament on conservative-leaning GB News. Lee Anderson told the news outlet (where he also hosts his own show) that “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of [Mayor of London Sadiq] Khan and they’ve got control of London. ... He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.”

Mayor Khan then responded with three strikes against Mr. Anderson, saying his remarks were “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and poured “fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred.”

It was all downhill from there. Mr. Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party after refusing to apologize and later defected to the Reform UK party.

After that, a GB News guest said Mayor Khan was “not British. He doesn’t support Britain.” Which led to calls for GB News to be investigated by Ofcom, Britain’s communications regulator, similar to our FCC. And it won’t be the first time; Ofcom seems to be targeting GB News for investigations quite a lot lately.

Another British YouTuber who’s been weighing in on the ongoing cancel culture wars in her country is Katie Hopkins. In a video titled, “How cancel culture (evisceration) REALLY works,” Ms. Hopkins outlines what she believes is “currently being done to GB News by those that want to see it done away with.” She also claims that “Ofcom is the weapon wielded in a war of attrition against GB News.”

And she should know.

The controversial celebrity, journalist, and comedian has done her share of shocking the public and angering many over these last many years, but she’s also become quite the conservative hero. She’s been re-tweeted by President Donald Trump multiple times, banned from Twitter, reinstated on Twitter (now X), and thrown out of Australia for mocking quarantine lockdowns. She’s called Islam the “single biggest threat” to Europe and was named as a target in a planned terror attack by ISIS supporters. Most recently, she’s done a hilarious must-see YouTube short dedicated to all the people who “pushed the jab.” It currently has over 1 million views.

In 2020, Ms. Hopkins told conservative host Candace Owens that her situation in Britain was so much more than the cancel culture that was overtaking America. She explained that in the UK it had become “acceptable” to think that a targeted physical attack against her would be “welcomed and applauded.”

She continued to explain to Ms. Owens that she lost her jobs, her home (which she said had to be sold due to litigation), and even experienced having her children reported to social services with the intent to have them taken away. She concluded by saying that, in the UK, “[T]he darkness is that when they come, it’s not something flippant that is cancel culture, it is taking you to the point where I truly believe they will only stop when they find that you will swing from a tree.” Her fundamental commitment, she added, was to not allow that to happen.

In the few short years since that interview, America has seen cancel culture morph from online censorship to real-life consequences: We’ve watched helplessly as former President Trump has been indicted in four separate prosecutions, 91 criminal counts, and threatened with financial ruin. We’ve seen the entire MAGA movement labeled “as something representing domestic, violent extremism” by our own government. And being banned on Twitter was nothing compared to the ongoing persecution of Jan. 6 rally attendees.

Keep an eye on the United Kingdom. Not unlike the dark days of World War II, that tiny island country may once again be the canary in the coal mine for predicting the survival of Western civilization.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 08:10

All The World's Endangered Languages, By Country

All The World's Endangered Languages, By Country

Almost half of the world’s approximately 7,000 signed and spoken languages are currently endangered.

Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti introduces this graphic, from Stephen Jones, CEO of Derivation.co, examines the current global landscape of languages that could become extinct.

Almost 90 million Speak Languages at Risk of Extinction

An extinct language is one that no longer has any first-language or second-language speakers.

In modern times, languages have usually become extinct due to cultural assimilation, leading to language shift, and the gradual abandonment of a native language in favor of a foreign language, primarily those of European countries.

For instance, numerous Native American languages were supplanted by English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, or Dutch due to European colonization of the Americas.

Currently, out of the world’s 7,168 living languages, 3,078 (43%) are classified as Endangered. Over 88 million people speak languages at risk of extinction.

Additionally, 100 of them face the genuine threat of extinction within a few decades if no action is taken.

While every language matters to the individuals speaking, writing, and signing them across the planet, 80% of endangered languages (2,484) exist within just 25 countries.

Of those, the top four countries alone – Indonesia (425), Papua New Guinea (312), Australia (190), and the U.S. (180) – account for well over a thousand endangered languages.

Just as during the colonization period, the majority of endangered languages are spoken in Indigenous communities, putting their inherent culture and knowledge at risk of loss.

Languages, however, can be revitalized.

Over the last 50 years, for example, government support to teach native languages in schools has helped increase the number of speakers of the Māori language in New Zealand, and Hawaiian in the American state.

Advancements in AI are also providing tools to preserve languages.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 07:35

Western Banks Warn Against EU Plans To Give Russian Funds To Ukraine

Western Banks Warn Against EU Plans To Give Russian Funds To Ukraine

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Some Western banks are lobbying against an EU plan to use profits made by Russian central bank funds that are frozen in Europe to arm Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The European Commission has proposed sending up to 3 billion euros to Ukraine per year using the revenue. About 90% would go to a fund called the "European Peace Facility" that can be used to buy weapons for Ukraine, and the remaining funds would go to the EU’s central budget for other types of aid.

Image source: The NY Times

Russia has slammed the plan and has vowed to respond. "This is outright banditry and theft. These actions are a gross and unprecedented violation of basic international norms. We said that we would respond, and so we shall," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

Sources told Reuters that banks fear they could be held liable by Russia in the future for being involved in the transaction. The report said once sanctions on Russia are eased or lifted, they could face decades of legal action.

The banks also worry the move would erode trust in the Western banking system. One source said it would set a bad precedent and that stealing the funds would amount to the "weaponization of foreign-held reserves and assets."

Another banking industry source was cited as follows:

A second person said their bank was seeking legal advice on indemnities it could demand to participate in the EU's plan.

"If these proposals move forward, the whole legal architecture would need to change," said Paul Feldberg, partner and head of Brown Rudnick's White Collar Defense, Investigations & Compliance practice in London.

Another sources said: "There isn't an immediately obvious way for banks to insulate themselves comprehensively from future challenges and clawback actions."

The US is looking to take an even more extreme measure by giving all of the Russian funds to Ukraine, not just the profit and interest. Last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came out strongly in favor of the idea. "It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction," Yellen said.

Legislation to give the Russian money to Ukraine has been introduced in Congress and has received bipartisan support, but the bills have yet to be voted on. About $67 billion in Russian central bank funds are held in the US, while over $200 billion is held in Europe.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 07:00

FDA Settles Ivermectin Case, Agrees To Remove Controversial 'Stop It' Post

FDA Settles Ivermectin Case, Agrees To Remove Controversial 'Stop It' Post

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

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to remove social media posts and webpages that urged people to stop taking ivermectin to treat COVID-19, according to a settlement dated March 21.

The FDA has already removed a page that said: “Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? No.”

Within 21 days, the FDA will remove another page titled, “why you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19,” according to the settlement announcement, which was filed with federal court in southern Texas.

“The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals,” the page currently states. It also says that data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19, despite how some studies it cites show ivermectin is effective against the illness.

The FDA in the settlement is also agreeing to delete multiple social media posts that came out strongly against ivermectin, including one that stated: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

In exchange, doctors who sued the agency are dismissing their claims, the filing states.

“FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and COVID, including its most popular tweet in FDA history,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, one of the doctors, said in a statement. “This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the doctor-patient relationship.”

We are extremely pleased with the outcome of the settlement as it is a victory for every doctor and patient in the United States,” added Dr. Paul Marik, chief scientific officer of the FLCCC Alliance and another plaintiff. “The FDA interfered in the practice of medicine with their irresponsible language and posts about ivermectin. We will never know how many lives were affected because patients were denied access to a lifesaving treatment because their doctor was ‘just following the FDA.’”

An FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency “has chosen to resolve this lawsuit rather than continuing to litigate over statements that are between two and nearly four years old.”

“FDA has not admitted any violation of law or any wrongdoing, disagrees with the plaintiffs’ allegation that the agency exceeded its authority in issuing the statements challenged in the lawsuit, and stands by its authority to communicate with the public regarding the products it regulates,” the spokesperson said. “FDA has not changed its position that currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. The agency has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19.”

Ivermectin was approved by the FDA in 1996 to treat several conditions, including onchocerciasis, a tropical disease caused by a parasitic worm.

In the United States, it’s common for doctors to prescribe medicine off-label, or for a different purpose than the one for which the medicine is approved.

After some doctors began prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19, the FDA ramped up its campaign, including the Aug. 21, 2021, post on Twitter, now known as X.

Dr. Bowden and two other doctors sued the FDA, arguing the agency’s actions went beyond its authority, as conferred on it by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown dismissed the case in 2022, ruling that the FDA did not act outside the authority. But an appeals court in 2023 ruled in favor of the doctors, finding that the agency “has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ‘stop’ taking medicine.”

Between the time of the ruling and the settlement, the FDA refused to change any of its statements on ivermectin, and asked for a fresh dismissal of the suit.

The Case

Drs. Robert Apter, Bowden, and Marik brought the case in 2022. They said they suffered repercussions after prescribing ivermectin to patients with COVID-19, and that the FDA was to blame.

Dr. Apter, for instance, said that pharmacists refused to fill the prescriptions, citing the FDA.

This refusal delays his patients in obtaining their prescribed treatment—when early intervention is paramount—while they look for a pharmacy to fill their prescription, if they can find one at all,” the suit states.

He also said that insurance companies were refusing to pay for ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

The suit said the FDA illegally interfered with the relationships between the doctors and patients. The doctors said with regard to ivermectin, the FDA overstepped the authority conferred on it in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Government lawyers argued that the FDA was acting within the confines of the law, and succeeded in getting the dismissal.

Judge Brown, appointed under President Donald Trump, said the FDA’s powers were only limited with regard to medical devices.

As there is no statute limiting the FDA’s actions here, it cannot have acted outside of any statutory limitations,” he wrote in his ruling. “Further, it cannot be said that the FDA had no colorable basis of authority. The FDA is charged by Congress with protecting public health and ensuring that regulated medical products are safe and effective, among other things.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit disagreed, finding that the law did not authorize the FDA to give medical advice.

“FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ‘stop’ taking medicine,” U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett, appointed under President Trump, wrote for the court. The appeals court remanded the case back to the district court.

Tyler Durden Sun, 03/24/2024 - 07:00

China Behind Super Highway That Targets US With Mass Migration, Economic Warfare

China Behind Super Highway That Targets US With Mass Migration, Economic Warfare

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan American Highway ends at Yaviza in Panama.

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock)

Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River.

An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa told The Epoch Times the construction project will cut 4 miles into the Darién jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River.

That would leave some 55 miles to finish the Pan American Highway, also known as Highway 1, through the mountainous rainforest to connect it to Turbo, Colombia.

If it’s ever completed, the Pan American Highway will stretch about 18,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina, opening up a land corridor the length of the Americas.

It has gone unfinished for decades due to American and Panamanian concerns over the environment, crime, and disease—and more recently mass migration. The dangerous, rugged terrain acts as a natural barrier to travel from South to Central America.

The bridge and road expansion will end near the town of Bocas de Cupe, in the Darién Gap. However, bridging the rivers has been considered one of the major obstacles blocking completion of the highway.

The new project has worried some who fear completing the road into the Darién Gap will be a win for China and a loss for America.

Michael Yon, a former war correspondent, has been covering mass migration through Panama for several years and has used social media to bring attention to the bridge’s construction and its implications.

China would benefit through an alternate trade route around the Panama Canal, which is essential to global trade. But for the United States, it could open the floodgates to migrants from South America, he told the Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, U.S. leaders have grown increasingly wary of the military implications tied to Chinese infrastructure projects being built in America’s backyard as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), particularly around the Panama Canal.

In 2018, Panama signed on to China’s ambitious BRI project, dubbed a modern Silk Road, after publicly recognizing Taiwan as part of China, much to the surprise and concern of the United States.

Workers prepare abutments for a bridge spanning the Chucunaque River at Yaviza, Panama, on Feb. 20, 2024. An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa said the project will cut four miles into the Darien jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

The CCP aims to utilize the BRI “to amass power and influence at the expense of the world’s democracies,” U.S. Southern Command Commander Army Gen. Laura Richardson warned in March.

She and other commanders in recent years have been sounding the alarm about China’s incursion into the Western Hemisphere.

China “seeks to supplant the United States as the world’s leading economic and military power,” Gen. Richardson noted in a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee.

Closing the Gap

Last year alone, a record 500,000 migrants traveled through the Darién Gap on their way to the U.S. southern border, documents show.

Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, believes China’s economic development in the region threatens America’s influence and security.

If China displaces the U.S. in the Western hemisphere as the dominant economic power, then we lose our leverage,” Mr. Howell, formerly an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, told The Epoch Times.

China is encircling the United States with infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Howell said.

“It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States,” he said.

In the 2019 book, “China’s Belt and Road and Panama: A Strategic and Prospective Scenario between the Americas and China,” author Eddie Tapiero touts the rise of China’s BRI in utopian terms.

Mr. Tapiero, a Panamanian professor and international economist who wrote his book after a BRI meeting in China, called the initiative a catalyst for “global public good,” envisioning a world where “borders no longer exist, nor do countries.”

Migrants walk by the jungle near Bajo Chiquito village, the first border control of the Darien Province in Panama, on Sept. 22, 2023. (Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)

The book includes a BRI scenario with a map titled “Globalized Belt and Road,” showing Panama and its canal connected to Colombia by rail through the Darién Gap.

On the Colombian side of the Darién Gap, Chinese companies are working to build highways and ports.

Roadwork near the Pan American Highway in Turbo is part of the “Autopistas al Mar 2” highway project.

The project will connect Colombia’s second-largest city of Medellín to ports in Urabá, including Turbo, where the Pan American Highway ends.

China’s state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), along with four local companies won the 2015 bid to build the Autopistas al Mar 2, according to the nonprofit Colombia Reports website.

The project was delayed until late 2019, when the Chinese-led consortium obtained the necessary loans from the China Development Bank.

Mr. Tapiero sees Panama, bookended by Colombia and Costa Rica, as a central hub in Latin America for the BRI. He suggests the United States could “reduce geopolitical uncertainty” if it, too, joins the BRI.

His globalized BRI map also showed rail routes slicing through the United States, to significant markets on America’s east and west coasts.

Infrastructure “connectivity” through air, land, and sea is a central theme of the book, which is playing out in Panama.

The bridges into the Darién are part of a contract for the rehabilitation, improvement, and maintenance of the East Pan-American Highway.

(Top) A ship is guided through the locks in the Panama Canal on Feb. 21, 2024. (Bottom) Traffic crosses the Bridge of The Americas on the Pan American Highway as an eastbound ship enters the Panama Canal on Feb. 21, 2024. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

It was awarded to Intervial Chile, S.A. under a public-private partnership with the government of Panama, according to government documents.

The investment for the project stands at more than $262 million as part of Panama’s Performance Standards Maintenance Program, which aims to promote agricultural, commercial, and tourist development.

Funding for the project is through the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of World Bank Group. China has ties with both banking establishments. In 2009, China pledged $1.5 billion to IFC to boost global trade and more recently has intensified collaboration with IFC on climate friendly bonds.

Global Choke Points

A highway through the Darién Gap stands to diminish the importance of the Panama Canal, which the United States still protects under a neutrality treaty.

The canal was returned to Panama in 1999 under a treaty brokered in the 1970s with President Jimmy Carter.

The Darién Gap by land is similar to the Panama Canal by sea as a choke point, which holds military and economic value.

China’s attempt to minimize or control the canal’s strategic importance to the United States could be significant should a conflict break out over Taiwan in terms of China’s ability to shut down sea lanes, said Andrés Martínez-Fernández, the Heritage Foundation’s senior policy analyst for Latin America.

That’s a very concerning issue in particular,” he told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Martinez-Fernandez noted that Chinese companies have been busy building infrastructure on either end of the U.S.–built Panama Canal.

The canal has become a point of tension between China and the United States, which has retained the right to enforce operational neutrality on the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal Authority controls the administration and maintenance of the waterway’s resources and security, independent of the Panamanian government.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/23/2024 - 23:20

Philadelphia Sets 11PM Curfew For All Businesses In Drug-Riddled Kensington Section Of City

Philadelphia Sets 11PM Curfew For All Businesses In Drug-Riddled Kensington Section Of City

Slowly, but steadily, Philadelphia's drug-ridden Kensington section is all but shutting down. The area, best known for its zombie-like appearance, is now forcing 24 hour businesses like gas stations and convenience stores to shut down between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Because what better way to address the drug problem than to shut down law-abiding businesses in the area? Once again, government is thinking 'outside the box' with your tax dollars. 

The proposal was put forward by Councilmember Quetcy Lozada of the 7th District, representing Kensington, during a Council Stated Meeting on Thursday and is aimed at curbing crime, mitigating litter issues, and moderating nocturnal activities in the community.

Approximately 90 businesses will be affected, a new report from NBC Philadelphia said. Establishments holding a liquor license within the specified zone will be exempt from these new rules, allowed to keep their operations open until 2 a.m., which is the current law for bars and restaurants with liquor licenses. 

The bill was conceived in February and was developed with feedback from local residents, businesses, and non-profit organizations, driven by concerns related to the opioid crisis, as noted by city representatives.

The proposed regulations are set to affect the vicinity enclosed by East Lehigh Avenue, Kensington Avenue, D Street, E Tioga Street, and Frankford Avenue, encompassing businesses along the blocks bordering this area.

Kensington-based nonprofit IMPACT Services Roberto Rodriguez commented to NBC Philadelphia: “The businesses in the Kensington Corridor are in support of this initiative. They are thankful that Councilmember Lozada has included them in the conversation and considered their opinions. During the meeting that she held at our office with them, it was clear that they are supportive of this and future public safety measures.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/23/2024 - 22:45

Dangerous Levels Of Toxins Found In General Mills ‘LOADED’ Cereal: Report

Dangerous Levels Of Toxins Found In General Mills ‘LOADED’ Cereal: Report

Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new report is raising concerns over General Mills’ new cereal line after testing revealed that Trix LOADED cereal is literally loaded with high levels of heavy metals and agrochemicals.

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

General Mills, Inc. on Feb. 1 launched “LOADED,” a new cereal line with “puffed-up larger-than-life squares” of General Mills’ Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs cereals filled with artificially flavored vanilla creme. Trix LOADED boasts 17 grams of whole grain per serving and 12 vitamins and minerals. Yet testing by Moms Across America (MAA), an organization dedicated to educating and empowering others to create healthy communities, found the artificially flavored creme-filled breakfast food also contains measurable levels of aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, lead, glyphosate, and pesticides shown to be harmful to humans.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, MAA director Zen Honeycutt said her organization tested two samples of General Mills’ Trix LOADED cereal because they were alarmed that the company, which had previously seemed very committed to supporting regenerative organic agriculture, launched a cereal “loaded with creme, food dyes, and highly-processed foods.”

Pesticides Found in General Mills’ Trix LOADED Cereal

In test results obtained by MAA, scientists found residues from eight different pesticides in both samples of Trix LOADED cereal.

The following six pesticide residues were found in trace amounts:

  • Imazalil-1
  • Metconazole-1
  • Pyraclostrobin-1
  • Pyrimethanil-1
  • Pyriproxyfen-1
  • Tebuconazole-1

Two pesticides, piperonyl butoxide-1 (PBO) and fluopyram-1, were detected in higher amounts. Fluopyram-1 is a broad-spectrum fungicide that can cause liver problems, endocrine disruption, and thyroid cancer.

Piperonyl butoxide (PBO) is a man-made pesticide synergist that enhances the potency of certain pesticides designed to kill insects. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies PBO as a “possible human carcinogen” as studies in rats show PBO can induce thyroid and liver cancers, as well as noncancerous tumors.

More recent animal model studies suggest PBO exposure can cause neurodevelopmental abnormalities in utero and liver cancer. A 2021 study published in Reproductive Toxicology found PBO may cause male infertility and reproductive toxicity.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center, PBO is found in over 2,500 pesticide products, including foggers and mosquito control programs. Yet PBO is exempt from the EPA’s maximum residue limits, which determine the amount of pesticides allowed to remain in food. This means PBO pesticide residue is freely permitted in cereals consumed daily by children and adolescents across the United States.

Heavy Metals Exceeded EPA Allowable Levels

According to test results obtained by The Epoch Times, scientists also detected measurable levels of aluminum, cadmium, lead, and arsenic in both samples of Trix LOADED cereal that in some cases far exceeded the EPA allowable levels in drinking water. The United States does not consistently regulate heavy metals in food or assess the long-term cumulative effects of heavy metal exposure in children, but it does regulate the amount of heavy metal contaminants allowed in water.

For example, the EPA sets the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water at 10 parts per billion (ppb). Trix LOADED cereal samples contained 21.5 and 23 ppb of lead—more than double the EPA’s allowable level. The samples contained cadmium levels 400 percent higher than the EPA’s allowable level.

The EPA allows 0.05 to 0.2 mg/L of aluminum in drinking water, equivalent to 50 to 200 ppb. Cereal samples 1 and 2 contained 2,930 ppb and 3,500 ppb of aluminum, respectively. These were 1,365 percent and 1,650 percent higher than the agency’s allowable level of aluminum in drinking water.

In 2008, the European Food Safety Authority established a “tolerable weekly intake” of 1 mg of aluminum per kg of body weight per week, based on combined evidence from animal studies that assessed dietary administration of aluminum compounds.

Using European Union standards, if a child eats a 40-gram serving of Trix LOADED cereal daily, the weekly consumption of aluminum would be 0.98 mg/week based on one sample and 0.82 mg/week based on the other. This is roughly equal to the EU’s limit without considering other sources of aluminum exposure, such as flour, baking soda, medications, processed foods, and aluminum pots and pans.

Trix LOADED Exposes Children to Toxic Glyphosate

Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world, was found in both samples of Trix LOADED cereal at 15.83 ppb and 17.47 ppb. It is a key inactive ingredient in weedkiller products such as Roundup.

The EPA has not classified glyphosate as a human carcinogen, but the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably” carcinogenic to humans.

Studies have confirmed a link between glyphosate and numerous health conditions, including cancers and nervous system disorders. Additionally, Monsanto, now Bayer, agreed to pay roughly $11 billion to settle claims filed by individuals who say Roundup caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma or other related cancers. As of March, there are 4,253 cancer lawsuits, out of the 4,800 claims originally filed, still pending in the California Roundup multi-district litigation.

In research published by the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, scientists found that childhood exposure to glyphosate is linked to liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in adulthood that could lead to liver cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases later in life. Researchers found high levels of glyphosate residue in the urine of children and adolescents and reported that diet was a key source of exposure—as levels were higher in those who consumed more cereals and carbohydrates.

Glyphosate is routinely used on genetically modified crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, legumes, and produce.

Moms Across America Contacts General Mills

In an email to General Mills provided to The Epoch Times, MAA called on the company to source suppliers who use safe, nontoxic ingredients, despite the lack of laws and regulations that would otherwise require them to do so.

MAA requested General Mills do the following:

  • Require that suppliers of ingredients avoid using glyphosate or other agrochemicals as a drying agent or preharvest weedkiller.
  • Transition away from using glyphosate as a weedkiller within one to two years.
  • Perform quality testing on fertilizers for heavy metal contaminants and direct the safest possible fertilizer to be used.
  • Support and promote regenerative organic farming practices.

“We hope consumers will learn the truth about the contents of ‘loaded cereal’ and make choices to support their family’s health,” Ms. Honeycutt told The Epoch Times. “We also hope they [consumers] will alert their elected officials that these types of foods, with high heavy metals and agrochemicals, have no place in the American food supply.”

Ms. Honeycutt said she believes consumers should know the truth about what’s in their cereal so that they can make choices to support their family’s health, and hopes policymakers will “exercise the political will needed to clean up the food supply.”

The Epoch Times reached out to General Mills for comment.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/23/2024 - 22:10

House Speaker Confirms He'll Invite Netanyahu To Address Congress

House Speaker Confirms He'll Invite Netanyahu To Address Congress

Late this week House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that he will go through with inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington in order to address a joint session of Congress, and to emphasize solidarity with Israel amid its ongoing war against Hamas.

Johnson's Thursday statement suggests the invitation has already been extended: "I would love to have him come in and address a joint session of Congress. We’ll certainly extend that invitation," he said to NBC News. "We’re just trying to work out schedules on all this."

Getty Images

Johnson has in turn recently been asked by Israeli officials to speak at Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Even though all of this has come in direct response to Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's scathing anti-Netanyahu speech issued earlier this month, Schumer now says he welcomes the idea of Netanyahu addressing Congress.

Schumer had said Israel risks becoming a "pariah" under Netanyahu's failed policies, and highlighted the soaring Palestinian civilian death toll in the war against Hamas. He even called for new elections in Israel.

"Israel has no stronger ally than the United States, and our relationship transcends any one president or any one Prime Minister," Schumer has responded in a statement. "I will always welcome the opportunity for the Prime Minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way."

It must be remembered, however, the Netanyahu once addressed Congress - all the way back in 2002 - where he helped the Bush administration deceive the American public concerning Saddam Hussein and WMDs.

He had testified during that appearance over two decades ago, "There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards to the development of nuclear weapons."

Netanyahu had also dubiously said, "If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region."

That alone should disqualify him from ever being welcomed to speak to Congress and the American people again. But apparently both sides of the aisle are welcoming Johnson's plan.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/23/2024 - 21:35

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