Month: September 2022

Authored by Tho Bishop via the Mises Institute (emphasis ours),

On Thursday night Joe Biden was propped up behind the presidential seal in front of historic Independence Hall and gave the most provocative and divisive speech in modern American history. With the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence cloaked in an ominous blood red, Biden sputtered his way through an attack on “insurrectionists” he labeled as threatening American democracy, political norms, and the rule of law.

The optics of the event were likely the idea of a proud Biden staffer, fresh off receiving a $10,000 subsidy to their student loan debt, leaning into the “Dark Brandon” aesthetic that has become popular among regime loyalists on Twitter. To Americans outside of this Very Online echo chamber, the imagery drew connotations of sinister authoritarian regimes ranging as Nazi Germany, the Empire of Star Wars, or the fascist regime of V for Vendetta.

The substance of the speech supported these comparisons. It was the display of a weak regime projecting strength at a time of mass unpopularity and rising polling numbers of political opponents in pivotal midterm elections.

None of this is a surprise.

As I noted after the chaotic 2020 election, the federal government faced a threat it has not seen in over a hundred years. Concerns over the integrity of the 2020 election struck at the core of the institution’s democratic legitimacy. The result was a Biden inauguration fortified with thousands of national guard members that the Democrat Party didn’t trust with ammunition.

The path the Biden administration took could have gone one of two ways. The regime could have fallen back on the power of moderation, restoring the isolated Washington uniparty by staffing the executive branch with prominent Republicans who always preferred the Clintons and Bidens over Trump—even if the smart ones refused to say so explicitly—while pursuing a standard policy agenda of foreign intervention, reckless spending, and fortifying the supremacy of the federal government over state control. These policies would have continued American decline but could have served to lull Americans to pre-Trump apathy by reminding them that federal elections have no real consequences for Washington.

Instead, the Biden regime doubled down on the excesses of the Obama era, attacking hot-button issues such as gun rights, tying state funding to public school promotion of child mutilation and sterilization, and leveraging their control over large corporations to censor political opponents and mandate covid vaccinations of employees. Along the way, they secured funding to increase, arm, and expand the scope of federal agencies—an Imperial Guard for Washington elites to remind red states who is truly in charge.

From the golf courses of Mar-a-Lago, the specter of Donald Trump continues to animate Capitol Hill. C-SPAN hearings over January 6 have been coordinated for prime-time viewing, while his supporters have been subjected to federal prosecution, solitary confinement, and financial ruin.
These concerns may be justified. Outside of Washington, “MAGA Republicans” have found success, particularly in the high-profile senate and governor races.

In Arizona, Blake Masters and Kari Lake conquered John McCain’s former state running on a platform against the 2020 election and the anarcho-tyranny of Biden-era policies while being viciously attacked by both the corporate press and establishment Republicans. In Ohio, Peter Theil-backed J.D. Vance leaned into opposition to American financing of the Ukrainian government while overcoming two more traditional Republican candidates. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has secured the position as the only Republican with the popularity that rivals Trump by translating Trump-style rhetoric into aggressive state policy, with a particular focus on attacking the public healthy tyranny of the soon-to-debate Dr. Fauci.

A common theme of this new class of Republicans has been their explicit calls to stand against the “regime,” railing against Washington’s “administrative state,” and their interest in the intellectual works of “dissident right-wing thinkers.” They have been supported by a maligned by a vocal group of MAGA House members, such as Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massie, and Lauren Boebert, who have seized on the overzealousness of the Biden administration to normalize calls to defund the FBI and other cherished Washington institutions.

The primary success of a potential new class of MAGA Senators has created new pressures for Mitch McConnell. Long established as the kingpin of beltway Republican politics, his criticism of the “quality” of candidates has earned him strong public rebukes from Florida Senator Rick Scott—a political figure with both the ambition and financial resources to threaten McConnell.

All of this is creating a unique moment in American history.

The overreach of the Biden administration has led to the dropping of the executive mask. No longer is there any pretense of governing all Americans—the notion of liberal persuasion is dead. Brute force and the abolishment of governing norms—such as the facade of a politically independent Supreme Court, state control of elections, or the role of the filibuster in the Senate—are now accepted by mainstream Democrats as necessary to usher in a modern version of reconstruction on the parts of America that still fly Trump flags.

Meanwhile, the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans have faced brutal defeats electorally but still have a home in the comfortable confines of Washington. While Liz Cheney’s blowout primary defeat means she will be giving up the pretense of representing Wyoming, she has been welcomed to the friendly confines of AEI. The View or CBS News are willing to welcome various former Trump administration figures so long as they engage in the public ritual of condemning their previous boss. The impact of these decisions, however, is declining interest in traditional conservative think tanks, respect for corporate media, and the legacy of formerly prominent Republican legislators and dynasties.

The regime’s most powerful tool—a federal uniparty that fights on Sunday News Shows but works together and socializes in the real world—is fraying fast.

Republican Congressional offices are being flooded with calls and emails attacking once noncontroversial issues such as foreign aid, the FBI, and the security of elections. While the wiliest of Washington creatures know how to pretend to sympathize with these concerns, the more mediocre ones flounder—with numerous Republican incumbents now forced to move their office from Capitol Hill to K Street.

The real question will be what comes after 2022. While the sulfur and brimstone tones spewing from Joe Biden may spark news cycles, economic distress continues to dominate the concerns of voting Americans. At the same time, Hispanic Americans, many of which are alarmed about the cultural radicalism of the modern Democratic Party, are undermining the assumptions of the “demographics are destiny” framework that has dictated so much of the Left’s political strategy in the recent decades.

Attempts to smear new-Republican Hispanics as the new “white nationalists” is surprisingly having little impact.

While Joe Biden mocks “brave, right-wing Americans” that cling to the notion that their AR-15 can protect them from the F-15s he controls, the mentally declining commander-in-chief should pay more attention to his government’s failures in Afghanistan. The Afghan military surrounded billions of dollars in high-tech military supplies to Taliban forces not because they were out-armed but because the incompetent and kleptomaniac “liberal” regime America installed lacked the true support of the people and was not a cause many saw dying for.

Likewise, the collapse of military enlistment in the American military reflects the sincere and growing disillusionment with Washington itself. While state propaganda may be trying to make the military appeal to America’s growing transgender population, they don’t seem up to the task of replacing young, white working-class men the modern class of Generals dismisses as privileged.

As Murray Rothbard noted in Anatomy of the State, the state needs more than guns and bureaucrats to thrive. It needs the implicit consent of the people.

Thanks to Joe Biden, and his friends in both political parties, instead tens of millions of Americans are growing increasingly comfortable considering themselves enemies of the state.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi says that a team of inspectors which arrived Thursday will stay present at the embattled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on an indefinite basis in hopes of ensuring its safe operation. He returned from the site and briefed reporters in Vienna, outlining the looming concerns.

“The gravest risk to the embattled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is physical damage to equipment from shelling that could lead to a release of radiation,” he warned.

“It is obvious there is a lot of fighting in general in this part of Ukraine,” Grossi said, and observed that “The military activity and operations are increasing in that part of the country, and this worries me a lot.”

“It’s obvious that the plant, and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated, several times. [Whether] by chance [or deliberately], we don’t have the elements to assess that. But this is a reality that we have to recognize, and this is something that cannot continue to happen,” he told the Friday press briefing, without assigning blame for which side shelled the facility.

He further affirmed of the IAEA team he led to the site that “six of the agency’s experts remain at the plant” to maintain “permanent presence on site… with two of our experts who will be continuing the work.”

“We’re glad that Russian Federation did what it needed to do to keep our inspectors safe…” pic.twitter.com/yDZyUPOpGA

— ДражаМ (@DrazaM33) September 1, 2022

While no unsafe radiation levels or any kind of leak has yet been detected, Grossi still painted a picture of the crisis at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – which before the war supplied 30% of Ukraine’s electricity needs – as a potential disaster waiting to happen if extra measures aren’t taken to restore operations up to standard: 

Overall, not one of what the nuclear monitoring agency calls the seven pillars of nuclear safety, which include physical integrity, reliable external power and availability of spare parts, remains intact, Grossi said.

He said that most of the shelling of the plant occurred in August, which was when each warring side intensified accusations that the other was behind the attacks.

Some 500 Russian troops have occupied the site since March, with mostly Ukrainian engineers still operating it. He praised the plant’s technicians for coping under wartime stresses, saying it is “admirable for the Ukrainian experts to continue to work in these conditions.”

I am finishing my first visit to #Ukraine’s #Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.@IAEAorg is here to stay and will maintain a continued presence at #ZNPP. pic.twitter.com/k4zO3IMe2I

— Rafael MarianoGrossi (@rafaelmgrossi) September 1, 2022

Interestingly, the assessment of his team appeared to directly contradict what Ukrainian officials have been alleging regarding Ukrainian engineers being tortured amid a Kremlin orchestrated ‘cover up’. The Associated Press wrote: 

But on some points, the agency’s initial assessment was more optimistic than the picture painted by Ukrainian officials, who had said that engineers and other employees had been subjected to harsh interrogation and even torture, raising stress levels when they returned to work in reactor control rooms and in other critical jobs.

Ukrainian officials have long argued that the plant’s engineers should be viewed as hostages who are being hindered from operating or speaking freely, but Grossi’s eyewitness account did not in any way back the claims.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy is leaving her position, the White House said Friday as it also confirmed reports that former Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta is joining the Biden administration.

“Gina is indeed leaving us,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing Friday in response to questions about McCarthy’s departure. “She, as you know, has been a leader in what we have seen as one of the largest investment in dealing” with the climate, Jean-Pierre said.

It’s not clear why McCarthy is leaving the White House. She has not issued a public comment about leaving.

At the same time, President Joe Biden said in a statement that Podesta, whose emails were leaked by WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 election and contained controversial material, will be joining the administration to serve as a senior advisor on “clean energy innovation and implementation.”

Podesta served as the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and was also a senior Obama administration official before he became Clinton’s campaign manager. Podesta was most recently at the left-wing Center for American Progress think tank, which he founded.

“We are fortunate that John Podesta will lead our continued innovation and implementation,” Biden said in a statement on Friday. “His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and his experience at senior levels of government mean we can truly hit the ground running to take advantage of the massive clean energy opportunity in front of us.”

Podesta was tapped to “oversee implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s expansive clean energy and climate provisions and will chair the President’s National Climate Task Force in support of this effort,” the White House said.

Podesta will not replace McCarthy. Her former deputy, Ali Zaidi, was named to be the White House’s national climate advisor, said Biden in a statement.

Read more here…

More than 70,000 Czechs are protesting in Prague, the capital, demanding the ruling coalition take a neutral stance on the Ukraine war to ensure energy supplies from Russia aren’t cut off ahead of winter. Protesters are outraged at the European Union for sanctions against Russia that have sparked soaring electricity bills and triggered a cost-of-living crisis. 

“The aim of our demonstration is to demand change, mainly in solving the issue of energy prices, especially electricity and gas, which will destroy our economy this autumn,” event organizer Jiri Havel told local news iDNES and quoted by Reuters. 

The protest, held at Wenceslas Square in the heart of the capital, comes one day after the Czech government survived a no-confidence vote over opposition claims of inaction to protect citizens against energy hyperinflation. 

Emerging political instability shows how Europe’s energy crisis fuels discontent among households. We noted a new study Friday that warned civil unrest could flare up in parts of Europe over the next six months because of the deteriorating macro backdrop of high inflation. 

Czechs are tired of Western sanctions on Russia that have sparked a devastating energy crisis. They want Czech interest first over the EU’s and demand cheap Russian gas and neutrality. 

“The entire Wenceslas Square demands the resignation of the government! We will demand that the current cabinet, which is working against us, resign”: A 70,000-strong rally was held in Prague Also demand lower gas and electricity prices and neutrality on the conflict in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/dDGJb650yM

— Dagny Taggart (@DagnyTaggart369) September 3, 2022

Smells like everybody is pissed off by NATO.
◾In Prague, 50 thousand people came to a rally: they demand that the authorities take a neutral position on the conflict in Ukraine

◾The rally that is taking place at these minutes is called “The Czech Republic first of all.” pic.twitter.com/q9xF6Dm0bR

— yugo antifascist ☭ 🚩komintern affiliated media. (@AntifaYugo) September 3, 2022

In Prague in 100,000 people for freedom. They require direct gas supplies from Russia and food and energy guarantees for the Czech Republic. They hold the EU solely responsible for the European economic disaster and the rise in energy bills. pic.twitter.com/3LlflMsJBZ

— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) September 3, 2022

Europe is on the brink

Over 70000 people came out in support of Russia in Prague and are forcing the Govt to resign for supporting Ukraine pic.twitter.com/lwMAjkBM2U

— Mahesh 🇮🇳 (@Mahesh10816) September 3, 2022

🇨🇿”This is not our war” — anti-government rallies are taking place in Prague right now pic.twitter.com/3Ldy3rXz4A

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZmilitary1) September 3, 2022

Western sanctions are backfiring, and some Europeans are awakening to how their governments sacrificed their livelihoods for NATO’s proxy fight against Russia in Ukraine. What’s happening in Prague could spread like wildfire throughout the EU. 

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said on Friday it accidentally exposed but has since removed the confidential financial information of about 120,000 taxpayers.

In a letter to Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Treasury Department acting Assistant Secretary for Management Anna Canfield Roth wrote that the IRS “recently identified an inadvertent and now-corrected disclosure of a subset of Forms 990-T,” and that “the inadvertent disclosure included limited information for approximately 120,000 individuals.”

Form 990-T (pdf) is the business tax return form used by tax-exempt entities to report business income or investments that are unrelated to their exempt purpose. Tax-exempt entities include certain organizations, government entities, and retirement accounts. Individuals who use this form mainly include people whose individual retirement accounts (IRAs) have investments, including in real estate or other assets, that generate income.

While the IRS is required to publicly disclose the Form 990-T for 501(c)(3) organizations, Roth said on Friday that some Form 990-T data were “inadvertently published for a subset of non-501(c)(3)s, which are not subject to public disclosure.”

Specifically, the agency found that “some machine-readable (XML) Form 990-T data made available for bulk download on the Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) should not have been made public.” The section is mainly used by people with the ability to use machine-readable data. Other more widely-used sections of TEOS were unaffected, Roth told Thompson.

The IRS “took immediate steps” and “removed the errant files from IRS.gov.” It “will replace them with updated files in the next few weeks,” Roth said on Friday.

She noted that the disclosure included “limited information” for the 120,000 individuals, adding that in some instances, the data “did include individual names or business contact information.”

Read more here…

Last weekend, Credit Suisse repo guru published what may have been the most insightful snippet of the entire European energy crisis (to date) when he extended the infamous “Minsky Moment” framework to Europe, and specifically Germany, which he said “can’t cover its payments without Russian gas and the government is asking citizens to conserve energy to leave more for industry.” He then elaborated that “Minsky moments are triggered by excessive financial leverage, and in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage: in Germany, $2 trillion of value added depends on $20 billion of gas from Russia… …that’s 100-times leverage – much more than Lehman’s.” (Zoltan’s entire note is a must read for everyone with a passing interest in what comes next).

But while Germany still pretends it can somehow avoid a devastating crisis this winter besides bailing out Uniper, one of the country’s biggest utilities (after all, admission would make Trump’s 2018 warning accurate and prescient, and everyone knows that according to Western intellectual snobs Trump can’t possibly ever be correct), other European nations are succumbing to what Zoltan dubbed a “supply-chain Minsky moment.”

On Wednesday it was Austria, which announced it would bail out the country’s main energy supplier with a two-billion-euro ($2 billion) loan, the AFP reported. Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the loan to Wien Energie was an “extraordinary rescue measure” to ensure its two million customers – mainly Vienna households – continue to receive electricity. It will run until next April.

Wien Energie asked for a bailout this weekend after suffering financial trouble amid soaring energy prices and speculation the company mismanaged their funds. Nehammer said Wien Energie, which is owned by Vienna, would have to answer questions as to how they got into trouble.

“The goal was to help people quickly… It has now been agreed that all of these questions, which are rightly raised, must be answered promptly by Vienna (and) the energy supplier,” he told reporters.

The company – almost entirely dependent on Russian gas – said earlier this week that it had been hit by the “price explosion” which it has not yet passed on to customers, assuring it remained solvent. As part of its rescue, the company is expected to pass through soaring costs, which means a historic price shock is coming to Austria next… and soon Sweden.

Following in Austria’s footsteps, on Saturday morning Sweden announced it will give emergency liquidity support to electricity producers after the government said it feared Russia’s decision to halt gas deliveries to Europe could place its financial system under severe strain.

Prime minister Magdalena Andersson said the government would offer hundreds of billions of kroner in support to electricity producers, the FT reported. The PM warned that, left unchecked, rising collateral demands for electricity producers could ripple through the main Nasdaq Clearing market in Stockholm and, in the worst case, spark a financial crisis…. just as Zoltan warned almost half a year ago.

Her remarks came after Russia said on Friday evening that it would no longer supply gas via the Nordstream 1 pipeline. That announcement came after energy markets had closed for the weekend.

“Yesterday’s announcement not only risks leading to a ‘war winter’ but also threatens our financial stability,” Andersson said, standing alongside Sweden’s financial regulator, central bank governor and finance minister at an emergency press conference on Saturday.

Sweden’s dramatic action underscored the seriousness of the situation facing Europe as it scrambles to secure enough energy ahead of the winter and tries to avoid the spread of distress among electricity producers.

As we reported previously, Germany already bailed out one of the country’s biggest utilities, Uniper, and its majority shareholder, Finnish energy group Fortum, in turn asked the government in Helsinki for support. Fortum warned on Monday that its collateral requirements had risen by €1bn to €5bn in the previous week, and that a default by a smaller player would cause “severe disturbances to the Nordic power system”.

Andersson said the support would apply to all Nordic and Baltic players, and would need approval by the Swedish parliament’s finance committee on Monday.  Even the country’s central bank was forced to chime in: “We need to isolate this in one market so it doesn’t infect the financial sector,” said Stefan Ingves, governor of the Riksbank.

While Swedish authorities said they saw no immediate risk to financial stability (translation: financial stability is on the verge of collapse), but were worried that otherwise-solvent companies could struggle to find enough liquidity, causing potential ripple effects. “Russia is waging an energy war against Europe to divide us. But we will not let Putin succeed,” Andersson said.

Andersson’s comments come a week before parliamentary elections in Sweden with polls pointing to a surge in the anti-Immigrant, Eurosceptic Sweden Democrats, who are set to become the nation’s 2nd largest party. She said her centre-left government stood ready to act, just as it did over the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s unclear if she will even get the votes to be in majority.

Erik Thedéen, head of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority, said power prices in Sweden had risen 11-fold in the past year, leading to a jump in collateral demands. He added that without liquidity support electricity producers could face bankruptcies and large losses that could lead to the collapse of the clearing house. “It is under very severe stress,” he said.

In hopes of easing Eurpope’s “Minsky Moment” energy crisis, last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday the bloc was preparing to take “emergency” action to reform the electricity market and bring prices under control. Also, on Friday, G7 members unanimously decided to impose price caps on Russian oil imports (an absolutely idiotic scheme as explained yesterday, and one which will send oil prices sharply higher). In response, Russia shocked markets when, late on Friday, it said that the previously scheduled resumption of natgas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline won’t happen due to an “accidental” oil leak. This ensures that European nat gas and power prices are set to hit new all time highs come Monday.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said he believes the FBI “didn’t find what they were looking” for during last month’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s home.

“I was a former federal prosecutor, United States attorney. Let me tell you what this is about. Good prosecutors with good cases play it straight. They don’t need to play games,” Ratcliffe told Fox News on Wednesday, referring to officials within the Department of Justice (DOJ). “They don’t need to shop for judges, they don’t need to leak intelligence that may or may not exist.”

Because of the DOJ’s arguments against having Trump appoint a special master to review allegedly classified documents, it “tells you that the government didn’t find what they were looking for,” Ratcliffe said. “There weren’t nuclear secrets” kept at Mar-a-Lago, he added, “and they’re trying to justify what they’ve done. They’re not playing it straight before the American people. I think that that’s going to play out.”

Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who later headed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Trump, did not provide any specific evidence for his claims and appeared to be speculating on the DOJ’s case.

Since the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, neither the DOJ nor the FBI has revealed what materials agents were trying to find. A heavily redacted affidavit used to obtain the search warrant last week provided few details, but it said prosecutors believed there were allegedly classified documents being kept in Trump’s Florida residence.

The former president and some former White House aides say that Trump had a standing order to declassify any materials that left the Oval Office and were taken to Mar-a-Lago.

Court Hearing

A photo included in the latest DOJ filing appeared to show documents—some marked “TOP SECRET” and “SECRET”—scattered on the floor during the raid. Trump wrote Thursday that it was the agents who took the documents and put them on the floor, while former White House aide Kash Patel suggested the picture appears to have been staged to mislead the public about the incident.

Prosecutors argued Tuesday that the 45th president “has no property interest in any presidential records (including classified records) seized from the premises” and said that a former president cannot assert executive privilege against the executive branch itself.

Read more here…