Month: April 2024

Data from nearly 200 mobile devices reveal the exact path taken by visitors to Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious ‘pedo island,’ which was tracked to 80 cities around the world spanning 26 states or territories.

The data, obtained by Wired, came from recently bankrupt company Near Intelligence, which allegedly traced the phones which went to and from Little Saint James island, where Epstein allegedly ran an underage sex trafficking network.

Near Intelligence, which rebranded itself Azira amid an internal fraud scandal and other controversies, mapped out more than 11,000 coordinates from 166 locations. Some of the locations point to gated communities in Michigan, Florida, as well as homes in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantuckett and a nightclub in Miami, according to the report.

The coordinates that Near Intelligence collected and left exposed online pinpoint locations to within a few centimeters of space. Visitors were tracked as they moved from the Ritz-Carlton on neighboring St. Thomas Island, for instance, to a specific dock at the American Yacht Harbor—a marina once co-owned by Epstein that hosts an “impressive array” of pleasure boats and mega-yachts. The data pinpointed their movements as they were transported to Epstein’s dock on Little St. James, revealing the exact routes taken to the island. -Wired

The tracking data, which dates back as early as July 2016, also includes routes taken inside Epstein’s ‘waterfront temple’ to toe beaches, pools and cabanas located on the 71-acre island. The surveillance data ends on July 6, 2019 – the day Epstein was arrested (for the second time).

Of course, the report excludes “any precise location data that could be used to identify properties or individuals, to protect the privacy of anyone uninvolved in Epstein’s crimes,” however Wired suggests they document “the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender.”

The data also tracks people to Epstein’s 8,000-acre New Mexico ranch as well as his waterfront mansion on El Brillo Way in Palm Beach, where Epstein was accused of trafficking and sexually abusing numerous “minor girls” as part of his scheme.

As Wired also reports, “Near’s data is notably missing any locations in Europe, where citizens are safeguarded by comprehensive privacy laws.”

Several ad exchanges, according to The Wall Street Journal, have reportedly terminated arrangements with Near, claiming that its use of their data violated the exchanges’ terms of service.

Officially, this data is intended to be used by companies hoping to determine where potential customers work and reside. But in October 2023, the Journal revealed that Near had once provided data to the US military via a maze of obscure marketing companies, cutouts, and conduits to defense contractors. Bankruptcy records reviewed by WIRED show that in April 2023, Near Intelligence signed a yearlong contract with another firm called nContext, a subsidiary of the defense contractor Sierra Nevada. -Wired

“The pervasive surveillance machine that has been developed for digital advertising now enables other uses completely unrelated to marketing, including government mass surveillance,” according to Vienna-based researcher Wolfie Christl of Cracked Labs.

The disgraced financier was mysteriously found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial for sexually abusing and trafficking young women and girls for years along with his partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Near Intelligence filed for bankruptcy in December amid liabilities of around $100 million, less than 12 months after being listed by Nasdaq. An independent investigation commissioned by the board concluded that multiple executives engaged in a years-long “concealed scheme” by which they allegedly cheated the company out of tens of millions of dollars. One of said executives has filed a claim against the company alleging defamation.

Since the BK was filed, the company ‘quietly resumed operations,’ rebranding itself as newly incorporated Azira.

 

 

 

 

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In February, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged federal regulators to investigate Near Intelligence over allegations by the Wall Street Journal that its data had been used by a third-party to geofence “sensitive locations,” which included roughly 600 reproductive clinics at the behest of a conservative group.

Authored by Adeline Von Drehle via RealClear Politics,

The North Hall of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut, acts in 2024 much like the town of Gettysburg acted in 1863: as a space to handle our differences as citizens of the United States.

Braver Angels is one of several grassroots organizations to crop up over the past few years that places focus on the depolarization of Americans. They host debates – like the one at St. Stephen’s – where people on different sides of the political aisle can come and respectfully argue with one another under the watchful eye of a moderator. Their volunteers lead workshops, like “Skills for Disagreeing Better,” in which attendees are taught how to navigate a conversation with a political opposite. Members can attend weekly lunches and TED-esque speeches.

“We are not trying to make everyone a moderate,” said Jessie Mannisto, Braver Angels’ director of debates. “We want to take the emotion out of politics – what we call affective polarization – while we address the difficult questions that are facing us as a society so we can function as a single country.”

Affective polarization refers to the phenomenon where one’s feelings toward members of their own political party trend positive, while their feelings toward the opposing party become increasingly negative. Readers will be deeply familiar with the sensation, even if they’ve never heard its name before.

It is affective polarization that leads a conservative voter to think of their liberal counterpart as a morally corrupt person, and the liberal to return the favor by slinging insults ending in “-ist” and “-phobic.” On a personal level, it can dissolve friendships and family bonds.

While it can be unreliable to gauge how divided a society is by looking at numbers alone, polling shows a historically polarized nation.

The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions doubled in two decades from 10% to 21%, according to Pew Research Center. In 1965, about 65% of married couples had the same party registration. Today, the figure is greater than 85%. Republicans and Democrats were asked by political scientists Lilliana Mason if they agree that members of the other party “lack the traits to be considered fully human – they behave like animals,” and about 30% in both parties agreed.

If numbers aren’t your thing, some anecdotal evidence ought to bolster claims of a deep American divide.

There have been three impeachment inquiries and two impeachment trials in seven years. News juggernauts like MSNBC and Fox have been written off by one side or another as completely biased. An estimated 30% of Americans believe Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate, and about 2,000 of those people felt so strongly about this fact that they stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in attempt to stall democratic processes.

This isn’t the most divided time in American history, though people like to say it is. Your neighbors probably aren’t ready to take up arms against you. But this growing problem feels important enough to some that they would seek out an organization like Braver Angels.

One woman, Rachel (who preferred her last name be left out), decided to search for a depolarizing organization when she noticed she was completely surrounded by like-minded people in a world she described as “fully liberal.” She found it difficult to express her views to her parents, who live in a conservative Illinois town.

“I would like a society where people with disagreeing viewpoints talk to each other and get to know each other,” said Rachel. “It’s so easy to demonize each other when you don’t know each other.”

The hope is that by getting people together who disagree with one another and facilitating “repair in citizen-to-citizen relationships,” as the Braver Angels website puts it, there will be less animosity between political parties. 

We might be able to take an example from a historical social experiment in which the psychologist Muzafer Sherif divided Boy Scouts into two camps. At the end of one week, they learned there was another group at the far end of the campsite. Each group was irrationally disgusted with the other, and the ice only thawed when they were forced to problem-solve together.

This is kind of like what Braver Angels and organizations like it are attempting to do with the American public. By hosting events where a passionate liberal can have a calm, respectful, face-to-face conversation with their conservative counterpart, volunteers hope to mend our fraying republic.

“One powerful thing we do is dissolving stereotypes,” said Justin Conner, a Braver Angels workshop facilitator. “Asking yourself why someone thinks differently from you can stimulate self-awareness as the listener. Then ask, where do I see truth and value in what they’re saying and where are some of my ideas flexible?”

It is incredibly easy to dismiss a post on X or leave a nasty comment on someone’s Facebook page. It is much harder to demonize a person you have spent one or two hours having a civil conversation with, whose eyes have met your own. This is the goal of a depolarization organization.

“It really is about creating compassion for different perspectives, and depolarization results from that,” said Conner. “Instead of trying to attack the other side, we want to have a much more healthy and robust debate of ideas, which is in many ways the foundation of the country.”

Just 38% of voters think President Ron Burgundy Joe Biden would survive a second term in office, according to a new poll by the Daily Mail and J.L. Partners.

Biden – who last month was essentially found too old and feeble to prosecute by the special counsel’s office investigating his mishandling of classified information, would be 86 at the end of a second term.

If he doesn’t make it, Kamala Harris would become the left’s new vessel to advance policies with the stroke of a pen. To that end, 36% of those polled believe that Harris will be president by the end of the term, while 29% say they “don’t know” (because they don’t understand how succession works?).

When it comes to Trump, 54% are confident that he would be alive after another term in office, with 21% ‘not confident.’

“Voters think Biden is too old, and they are not changing their mind,” said J.L. Partners co-founder James Johnson.

“The difficulty for Biden is that views of him are not shaped through events such as his State of the Union address—which people who had seen it felt was fiery—but through consumption of the hundreds of viral social media clips of Biden stumbling and slurring.”

“That solid perception that he is too old feeds through to a sense he is too weak, and it is a major problem for him going into November,” Johnson continued. “Frankly, they do not think he is up to the job—and that makes his re-election a much harder task.“

As Modernity.news notes:

A vote for Biden in November could be a vote for this as president…

SUPERCUT!@VP Kamala Harris, failed philosopher pic.twitter.com/dPDiCoybOj

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 25, 2022

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz/gold,

If you want to understand the direction of debt, rates, the USD, inflation, risk asset markets, gold and the US endgame, it might be better not to listen to the experts.

In fact, Johny Cash is a far better source…

Five Feet High & Rising

In a classic 1959 tune by Johny Cash, the singer asks: “How high’s the water mama?”

This question is then answered by a riff which chants, “she said it’s two feet high and risin.’”

And with each subsequent refrain, the water level goes to three feet, four feet and then five feet, “high and risin’.”

In short: An obvious flood.

And when it comes to debt in the land of the world reserve currency, Johny Cash may have something to teach Jerome Powell and the other DC children drowning the US (and its debt-soaked Dollar) into a slow but steady debt flood.

Boring?

I’ve often said that good journalism, like honest economics, is boring.

One has to understand “hard” indicators like bond yields (which move inversely to bond price) and the high-school level basics of supply and demand forces.

But as I’ve also said countless times, and will say countless times more: The bond market is THE thing, because bonds are all about DEBT.

If you understand bonds, and in particular, the Fed’s hidden (real) mandate to save Uncle Sam’s sovereign IOU’s from sinking in price, then you will be able to easily foresee (rather than date predict) the future of risk assets, gold, BTC, the USD and yes, inflation.

The complex truly is that simple.

How High’s the Debt Mama? 120% and Risin’

And if you turn to Johny Cash and ask “How high’s the debt level mama?” well… the blunt answer informs just about everything you need to know.

So, let’s keep it simple.

Simple, Not Boring

Debt is WHERE it all begins, and it tells you exactly HOW the American song ends.

And just how high is the water (debt) mama?

Ten years ago, US public debt was $17T “and risin’.”

Today it’s $34.5T “and risin’.”

America’s debt to GDP is 120%, its deficit to GDP is around 6%, and every 100 days we add another $1T in borrowing to our shameless bar tab of debt addiction masquerading as capitalism.

Even our own Congressional Budget Office will confess that unless we issue more debt (and print more debased money to monetize it), our Medicare and social security piggy bank will be empty by 2030.

Meanwhile, the USA is staring down the barrel of $212T in unfunded liabilities yet only $190T in assets.

In other words, and based on objective math, America literally has the balance sheet of a banana republic.

No Crisis?

Apologists (i.e., truth and math-challenged politicos), however, will tell you there is no crisis, even as the water levels rise past our closed eyes.

The clever ones will remind us that America’s USD comprises 85% of FX transactions, the vast bulk (80%) of international trade settlements, and is in constant “milk-shake” demand from the Eurodollar, derivative and SWIFT payment systems.

In other words, the Dollar is gonna be just fine.

Hmmm…

Facts vs. “Just Fine”

As warned from day-1 of the myopic (and suicidal) sanctions against Putin in which the US weaponized the world reserve currency, those days of a “just fine” USD simply ended.

Not all at once, but slow and steady, like a flood’s water line…

In just 2 years, we’ve seen undeniable signs of de-dollarization from the BRICS+ nations and an extraordinarily telling shift in the petrodollar dynamics (20% of 2023 global oil sold outside the USD), which would have been otherwise unimaginable in the pre-sanction era.

But, if you remain convinced that America and its reserve currency have magical immunity from the de-dollarization’s slow drip greenback demise, let’s get back to the oh-so boring but oh-so honest cries of the US Treasury market.

Why?

Again. Because the bond market is everything.

As important, the bond market has everything to do with debt, and current US debt is drowning the nation and diluting the USD, one slow trillion at a time.

Sound sensational?

Pounding A Fact-Based Fist

For years, I have pounded my fist reminding readers and viewers that debt destroys nations and currencies. Every time, and without exception.

And for years I have pounded my fist saying the Powell’s “war on inflation” was a ruse, as every debt-soaked nation needs to debase its currency to inflate away debt.

And from day-1 of Powell’s claim (lie) that inflation was “transitory,” I’ve been calling his bluff. 

For years, I’ve argued that the Fed would simply lie about inflation (i.e., grossly under-report it) in order to make it appear statistically lower than what we actually knew/felt it to be.

Even Larry Summers, who is the classic arsonist (from his repeal of Glass-Steagall to deregulating the derivatives markets) now playing at fireman, has publicly stated that the actual US CPI scale, using pre-1983 housing methods, peaked last year at 18%, not the official 3.7% range…

If we then tack on a US debt/GDP ratio that is 30% higher today than in 2009, we mathematically see that despite Powell’s repressive “higher-for-longer” rate polices, we’ve made zero dent in our debt—instead, we’ve increased it.

In other words, our war against inflation is a loss; and our debts have increased.

And in the last couple of years, I’ve been pounding my fist that Powell would pivot from rising rates, to pausing rate cuts to eventually cutting rates followed in turn by outright money printing (or rather mouse-clicking Dollars) to “pay” Uncle Sam’s debt at the expense of our currency via what Luke Gromen calls “super QE.”

And all modesty aside, I think I/we have been right…

Right or Wrong?

Already, and as of last week, Powell has openly projected rate cuts in 2024, and they are likely to come by or near September.

We’ll see.

For now, just the promise (words) of rate cuts have been enough to send Pavlovian (Fed-dependent) markets to all-time-highs despite a real economy already under water.

And the subsequent decline in the Market Option Volatility Estimate (“MOVE” Index) was a neon-flashing sign that the market is getting ready for a new flood of dollar-diluting liquidity…

Where’s the QE, Matt?

But what about my forewarned QE?

What about that ultimate moment when Powell admits full defeat in his so-called “war” on inflation (while quietly seeking inflation) and openly does what many off us (nod again to Luke Gromen et al) already know he will do, that is: Debase the currency to “save” a rigged-to-fail (i.e., debt-based) USA?

Clearly, it seems, I/we have been wrong about that QE, no?

Well…Not so fast.

Coming Through the Back Door

In fact, Powell, along with his former Fed colleague-turned-mind-numbing Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, have been doing un-noticed back-door QE at staggering levels too complex (or obvious) for the mental midgets in our so-called main stream media to even notice.

Shocker? Hardly…

Facts Are Stubborn Things

The fact is that five times in the last four years, DC has been doing QE by just another name (what I call “backdoor QE”) to avoid the embarrassment of direct QE.

Notwithstanding the “not-QE” (which really was QE) in 2019 when the Fed bailed out a cash-dry repo market (which, by design, no one understood), the DC magicians have been doing trillions worth of QE-like liquidity measures without having to call it, well QE…

That is, the Fed and Treasury Dept. have been pulling liquidity out of the drying Treasury General Account, the now retired “BTFP” measures, and the intentionally confusing reverse repo markets.

More recently (and equally as well intentionally confusing to the masses), the Fed is quietly on the verge of allowing the Fed banks to use unlimited leverage to buy unlimited amounts of USTs off the Fed’s balance sheet via the removal of what the fancy lads call “Supplementary Reserve Ratios.”

This latest trick, by the way, is just off-balance sheet QE, and yet another symptom of the big banks becoming branch offices of the Fed, as our already centralized America becomes even more grotesquely, well…centralized, which is a classic symptom of a desperate and debt-soaked regime.

But just in case none of the foregoing tricks of backdoor QE have convinced you of what basically amounts to just QE, we can get our clearest signals from—you guessed it: THE BOND MARKET.

That is, one of the most obvious examples of “backdoor QE” is the Treasury Department’s open yet ignored trick of issuing most of its recent debt from the short duration end of the yield curve.

What The T-Bills Are Saying

By issuing more short-term IOUs in the form of T-Bills, this takes the supply-push inflation pressure off the openly unloved 10Y USTs, whose price declines (and subsequent as well as fatally unpayable yield/rate spikes) not only crushed regional banks, but Uncle Sam’s wallet as well.

OK. Yield curves and duration implications may sound, well… boring, but stick with me because this really, really matters.

The extreme levels of T-Bill issuance (as opposed to 10Y IOUs) has immense implications and is a flashing neon sign that the US is not heading into an economic crisis, but is in fact, ALREADY in a crisis.

Today, T-Bill issuance is at a two-decade high, and comprises greater than 85% of all US Treasury issuance.

This short-end issuance is far more like QE, i.e. simple money printing—which, we remind you, is highly inflationary/reflationary.

Hard to believe? See for yourself:

The last time we saw such QE-like desperation from the T-Bill side of the yield curve was during the Great Financial Crisis and the COVID crisis.

No Crisis? Huh?

But according to our so-called “leaders,” we are not at all in a crisis today. As they keep reminding us, we are at “full employment” (eh-hmmm) and nominal GDP is growing at 6%.

Then again, nominal GDP “growing” on the back of over $23T in UST issuance (bonds, notes and bills) is simply debt-driven “growth,” and debt-driven growth is not growth, it’s just debt.

In short, and as Luke Gromen concluded far better than I: “You know the debt crisis is real when the US resorts to short-term debt issuance.”

Summing Up

Whenever one is dealing with truth-challenged profiles like the Fed, Treasury Dept or White House, it is far better/simpler to watch what they do rather than what they say, as the difference is approximately 180 degrees…

All of the evidence above (from debt levels, de-dollarization trends, petrodollar shifts, backdoor QE measures and T-Bill over-issuance) screams of an open and obvious debt crisis which ALWAYS indicates a consequent currency crisis.

Always.

And as I have said for years, including a public discussion with Brent Johnson, the US can’t afford a strong USD because its debt levels require a weaker, inflated USD, regardless of its “relative”/DXY “strength.”

The string cite of evidence above (and beyond just rate cuts) is simply a cleverly veiled way of the Fed and Treasury telling us they want (need) a much weaker USD to save their necks at the expense of the dollar in your portfolio, checking account or wallet.

Gold, of course, is sniffing this out.

So are the stock markets and BTC.

So are the global central banks, who are stacking gold and dumping USTs at record levels.

The COMEX and London exchanges are also sniffing this out, as physical gold and silver is going from churn motions to actual physical delivery at record levels.

Meanwhile, even the BIS has made gold a Tier-1 asset.

Just saying…

The empirical (rather than “sensational”) evidence of an unloved UST and distrusted (debased and weaponized) USD is there for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Gold has hit all-time-highs (and will go much, much higher) simply because the USD is going much, much lower.

But, of course, no one in DC will say the quiet part out loud.

Thanks to an influx of immigrants in 2023, Canada has experienced its most rapid population growth in six decades, according to True North.

As of January 1, 2024, the nation’s population reached a staggering 40,769,890, marking a 3.2% increase from the previous year, the highest annual growth reported since 1957. Canada’s real-time population clock shows that the country’s population has now broken 41 million, just months after breaking the 40 million threshold.

In Q4, 2023 alone, Canada’s population increased by 241,494 people between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.

“In 2023, the vast majority (97.6%) of Canada’s population growth came from international migration (both permanent and temporary immigration), and the remaining portion (2.4%) came from natural increase,” reads a report published last week by Statistics Canada.

According to the report, temporary immigration has primarily fueled the population increase – as a record 804,901 non-permanent residents, including temporary workers and international students, while 471,771 permanent migrants also arrived in alignment with targets set by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

According to a recent report by True North’s Candice Malcolm, the number of illegal migrants has exploded tenfold since Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. She said that the total number of newcomers in Canada is approximately 2.2 million people annually.

Amidst this rapid growth, interprovincial migration has also seen notable shifts, with Alberta recording a significant net gain, the largest seen since comparable data became available in 1972. -True North

That said, Ontario saw an exodus of 36,197 people to other provinces, which followed a loss of 38,816 people in 2022. 

Marc Miller, Canada’s Immigration Minister, previously said that the number of foreign workers and international students had resulted in a system that was “out of control,” and recently announced a new target to be introduced in September that would bring temporary residents from 6.2% of the population to 5% within three years.

Senior BMO economics Robert Kavcic suggested that this reduction could bring Canada’s population growth from more than 3% to around 1%.

“The 400,000-500,000 range is just about the sweet spot for net immigration that provides needed long-run labour supply, while also being absorbable,” he said.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who prefers to be known as AMLO for short – issued to the Biden administration blackmail demands that sounded more like existential threats.

AMLO warned the U.S. that the current influx of some 10 million illegal aliens through the southern border will most certainly continue—unless America agrees to his ultimatums.

One, Obrador says the U.S. must now send $20 billion in de facto bribery payments to Latin American nations, many of them corrupt and dysfunctional.

Apparently, he thinks it is America’s fault that millions of Latin Americans are fleeing these failed states northward, not the inept and corrupt governments that create such misery.

Two, AMLO demands amnesty for vast numbers of Mexican illegal aliens currently unlawfully residing inside the U.S.

He apparently also thinks there is no such thing as U.S. immigration law. Or, if there is, such statutes do not apply to citizens of Mexico. Can we ask Mr. Obrador to simply grant permanent visa-free, no-questions-asked residence to any American living in a vacation complex in Mexico?

Three, he also requires America to lift sanctions against anti-American Venezuela. That communist government currently is part of the new China/Russia/Iran strategic axis. It is sending thousands of its citizens northward to enter the U.S. illegally.

Many of them are criminals, as the recent murder of Laken Riley by a felonious Venezuelan illegal alien attests. Dictator Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan regime recently threatened to invade and annex oil-rich Guyana, its smaller neighbor to the east. Maduro’s “security forces” have routinely murdered hundreds of political opponents. This rogue state is apparently Mexico’s newest ally.

Four, AMLO further requires the U.S. to stop its long embargo of communist Castroite-controlled Cuba, a decades-long avowed enemy of the U.S.

And what, AMLO was asked, would happen if the U.S. were to refuse Mexico’s blackmail threats?

Obrador abruptly snapped:

“The flow of migrants will continue” – an admission that Obrador himself has the power to stop or turn on illegal immigrant influxes into the U.S.

Translated, that means we can expect that another 2-3 illegal aliens will leave Mexican territory to enter the U.S. unlawfully in 2024. Or if Joe Biden is attuned to the political disaster he has created by illegal immigration for his party in November, we should expect this cynical administration quietly—in the fashion on the eve of the last midterms of cancelling student loans, draining the strategic petroleum reserve, or currently slow-walking resupplies to Israel—to send cash to Obrador to limit inflows before the election.

In his long interview, AMLO also denied that Mexico is one of the most violent countries in the world, despite currently having the ninth highest murder rate among nations. AMLO claims further that there is no corruption in America, although Mexico also ranks among the world’s most corrupt nations.

As far as the nearly 100,000 American deaths per year attributed to Mexican cartel-produced and illegally imported fentanyl—often deliberately disguised as both illicit and prescription drugs to mask its toxicity and increase its usage—Obrador claims that the fault is solely on Americans who take the drug. He believes Mexicans simply supply the demand regardless of its legality and in such a way to ensure thousands of accidental overdoses.

AMLO adds quite dishonestly that there is no real drug use in Mexico. Consequently, the cartels supposedly do not threaten the stability of his government. He apparently shrugs that they are an American, not Mexican, problem, despite the cartels’ annual murdering of several hundred Mexican politicians and candidates.

Finally, under his “Mexico First” policy, AMLO warns he will not pass any law or adopt any policy that is American-inspired.

Much of AMLO periodic tough-guy rhetoric—in the past he has bragged of the huge expatriate Mexican community and the power it now exercises over American politics—is simply the bluster of an insecure, smaller neighbor overshadowed by its northern colossus, and both mindful and resentful of an often shared troublesome history.

In addition, Obrador is a radical socialist. He believes a nation’s prosperity is achieved through forced state, or indeed, international redistribution from the wealthier to the poorer—not by guarantees of free markets, individual freedom, consensual government, or the rule of law. Thus, Mexico’s problem is not its misuse of rich natural resources, lack of the rule of law, corrupt federal, state, and local governments, or the cartels, but simply exploitation by its northern neighbor. Obrador never asks himself why a resource-poor Japan or Switzerland is rich and a resource-rich Mexico is poor.

Two further questions arise in response to Obrador’s unhinged hostility.

One, why is AMLO now so emboldened to threaten the United States with even more millions of illegal aliens leaving Mexico soil to enter the U.S. unlawfully?

And two, how will America answer such a belligerent neighbor?

Obrador is feisty and full of anti-American venom now for a lot of reasons.

One, he was easily able to transit from his country 10 million illegal immigrants into the United States. He believes that with the existing 50 million foreign-born American residents, America is rapidly becoming a country of enough Latin American ex-patriates to ensure Mexico’s influence over American policy.

In projectionist fashion, Obrador also believes that the American melting pot is dead, replaced by the tribalist salad bowl, in which ethnic groups form large, permanent, and unassimilated blocs and vie for government money and influence against rival ethnicities.

In such a Hobbesian U.S., Latinos, Obrador believes, will come out on top and thus greenlight Mexico’s agenda. The idea that Mexican immigrants will likely quickly assimilate, integrate, and replace their Mexican identity and allegiance with an American persona, he believes, is now passé.

More disturbingly, AMLO assumes that Biden deliberately destroyed the U.S. border in order to welcome in the world’s poor and needy en masse. Biden, he believes, is engineering the new demographics. He has enticed a constituency that will repay de facto amnesty with fealty at the polls, and in the next census, he will thus help redefine dozens of congressional districts to favor Democrats. Thus, Obrador thinks his open-border policies synchronize with the open-border wishes of the Biden administration.

Two, Obrador sees the U.S. decoupling from China. Billions of dollars in American overseas investment are leaving China and being rerouted to Mexico. Hundreds of new factories producing everything from cheap consumer items to cars are now appearing in Mexico entirely for U.S. export.

Obrador assumes that without such outsourcing and offshoring to Mexico, the U.S. would suffer supply chain disruption, higher consumer prices, and shortages of vital goods—and thus be forced to return to its unhealthy dependence on China. So he believes Mexican labor in the U.S. and Mexican factories at home are indispensable to the U.S. economy, and thus he can say or do what he wishes to any president he chooses.

Three, while Obrador was for a while scared of Trump, he has utter contempt for the bumbling Biden administration in general, and, in particular, for an enfeebled Joe Biden himself. On a recent Biden trip to Mexico, Obrador beamed as he was filmed personally propping up a shaky Biden as he descended from the stage.

In Obrador’s view, any country that would open wide its border, welcome in 10 million foreign nationals, without legal sanction, without audit, without even processing, deserves the contempt he extends to it.

Just as he scans the world stage and sees Biden’s humiliating exit from Afghanistan, its passive response to serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on American installations in the Middle East, and its passivity when China launched a spy balloon over the U.S., so too, like other American belligerents, Obrador feels Biden’s America is now there for the taking. Thus his emboldened threats that no Mexican president of the past has ever leveled.

Finally, what can the U.S. do to reestablish its sovereignty and remind Mexico that its belligerency, its export of deadly fentanyl, its deliberate sandbagging of U.S. immigration law, its alliances with America’s worst enemies, and its greenlighting of the Mexican cartels’ anti-American, transborder mayhem all have existential consequences?

So what should the next president do to restore mutual respect and cooperation between our once amicable two countries? Five easy steps.

1. Quietly finish the wall across the entire border.

2. Begin deporting to Mexico the ten million illegal aliens who have unlawfully entered and resided in the U.S. over the last three years. Let Mexico disperse them to their countries of origin.

3. Tax at 10% the $60 billion in remittances that annually flow into Mexico from the U.S. Remittances are Obrador’s largest source of foreign exchange and made possible only by American state and federal governments’ subsidization of Mexican national residents, that in turn frees them to send billions back home to Mexico.

4. Declare the cartels international terrorist organizations. Begin sanctioning all Mexican banks, corporations, and known Mexico officials that traffic and do business with the cartels.

5. Deploy the U.S. military to the border, not merely to create deterrence and aid the border patrol, but to end all cartel entry into the United States and to stop all unauthorized cross-border intrusions by Mexican paramilitaries.

Do all that, and paradoxically, Obrador will begin praising the U.S. and ask once again to cooperate in restoring a secure border.

Like so many passive-aggressive bullies, Obrador respects the strong adversaries he slanders but he has utter contempt for the weak leaders he praises.

The US, Japan, and the Philippines have inked an agreement to launch joint naval patrols in the South China Sea later this year in what’s being seen as a major initiative to counter China in the region, and as Chinese and Philippine coast guard boats have recently been engaged in tense stand-offs over disputed waters.

The patrols are expected to be formally announced in April during the first ever trilateral summit of President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marco Jr.

A White House announcement previewing the summit said the three leaders will discuss ways to “further peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.”

Japan continues to deepen its military and technological integration with the West with an eye on defense against China. There are new reports that PM Kishida could be invited to upcoming NATO summit set for Washington, DC in July. 

Politico reports of other areas of deepened cooperation with Western allies as follows:

The White House is also expected to announce that it will “seriously consider” having Japan as a technological partner in elements of the “AUKUS” security partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia, according to a Defense Department official and another person familiar with the planning, both granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.

In a recent incident, a Chinese vessel injured several crew members aboard a Philippine supply boat when it unleashed water cannon fire on the vessel.

Following this and other incidents, on Sunday Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said, “We warn the Philippines to cease making any statements that may escalate tensions and stop all acts of encroachment.”

“If the Philippines continues to challenge China’s bottom line, China will continue to take resolute measures to firmly defend its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” he continued.

Since coming into power in 2022 Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has taken a much harder line when it comes to China’s claims to the South China Sea. 

At the same time, Manilla has also been emboldened by the fact that the Pentagon is beefing up its assets both in the Philippines and in regional waters. China has meanwhile been on a years-long campaign to bolster its expansive claims by establishing a series of manmade islands and subsequently militarizing them.

The situation remains highly dangerous given that Washington and Manilla have a military treaty (called the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty). However, Philippine President Marcos told reporters last month, “I do not think that it is a time or the reason to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty.”

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Idaho Governor Brad Little signed a bill Wednesday that prevents individuals enrolled in the state Medicaid program from being covered for transgender-related treatments.

House Bill 668 prohibits Idaho’s Medicaid program from reimbursing or offering coverage for gender transition procedures, applicable to both minors and adults. Such procedures include both surgical and medical interventions. The prohibition applies to other public funds as well. The bill was passed with 58–11 votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate by 26–8. On March 27, Mr. Little signed the bill into law, which will come into effect on July 1.

The bill is applicable to gender transition procedures used for altering an individual’s appearance in order to affirm the perception of their sex, which is “inconsistent with the individual’s biological sex.”

Medicare and public health funds can be used for gender transition under three conditions—(a) where such procedures are “necessary to the health of the person,” (b) when the purpose is to treat any infection, injury, disease, or disorder caused or worsened due to previous gender transition procedures, (c) if the procedure is performed on a person born with a “medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.”

During a debate on the Senate floor, state Sen. Ben Toews told lawmakers the bill will ensure that taxpayer dollars “are not used to pay for medically harmful treatments,” Idaho Capital Sun reported.

“Responding to the brokenness of the world requires humility, compassion, and wisdom. We don’t have enough of these things by ourselves. And it is only by the power of our Creator, that healing is truly enabled. The answer to our affliction will not be contrived because wholeness is given, not manufactured.”

State Sen. Melissa Wintrow accused House Bill 668 of being discriminatory, insisting that it is part of a series of bills “that clearly violates the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.”

The bill prohibits any state property, facility, or building from being used to offer the banned gender transition procedures. Physicians and other health care professionals employed by state, county, or local governments are also not allowed to offer such procedures to individuals.

“Any intentional violation of the provisions of this chapter by a public officer or public employee shall be considered a misuse of public moneys,” the bill states, warning that such people will be punished.

Protecting Minors

In addition to House Bill 668, Mr. Little has approved other measures to protect minors from gender transition procedures. In April last year, he signed House Bill 71 which states that any individual who knowingly provides such procedures to minors will be considered guilty of a felony.

“In signing this bill, I recognize our society plays a role in protecting minors from surgeries or treatments that can irreversibly damage their healthy bodies,” Mr. Little said at the time.

“However, as policymakers, we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children.”

The law was supposed to come into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. However, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law in December. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit later affirmed the decision.

In February, Idaho asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to enforce the state ban. In its application, Idaho stated that rulings of the district and 9th Circuit courts “violate controlling precedent on the limits of equitable remedies. That violation matters because it harms non-parties, leaving vulnerable children subject to procedures that even [the] Plaintiffs’ experts agree are inappropriate for some of them.”

“Every day Idaho’s law remains enjoined, exposes vulnerable children to risky and dangerous medical procedures and infringes Idaho’s sovereign power to enforce its democratically enacted law,” it stated.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said that children suffering from gender dysphoria “deserve love, support, and medical care rooted in biological reality. Denying the basic truth that boys and girls are biologically different hurts our kid[s].”

On March 21, Mr. Little signed Senate Bill 1329 which recognizes that parents have a “fundamental right and duty” regarding the health care decisions of their minor children. Unless “otherwise provided by court order,” people are banned from offering or soliciting health care services to kids without obtaining the consent of their parents.

The law protects the parental right to access the health records of their minor children. Health care providers and government entities are prohibited from denying such records to parents when they make a request.

Alliance Defending Freedom praised the bill, with the group’s senior counsel Matt Sharp pointing out that there have been “instances nationwide of government officials actively seeking to replace parents as the ultimate determiners of what’s best for children.”

“We commend Idaho for safeguarding the vital role of parents to guide the medical care of their children … Now and always, a loving parent will always be the best advocate to ensure their child gets the care needed.”

If you’re not a criminal then you have nothing to hide, right?  This is the perpetual argument used in favor of state mass surveillance throughout history.  It’s the underlying justification at the birth of every surveillance agency from the Soviet Cheka to the German Stasi and beyond.  Don’t commit crimes and “you have nothing to worry about.”

Of course, this argument requires the public to overlook a simple and universal truth – That which is legal today can be made illegal tomorrow, and the people who make these decisions are often not good people.  With the ability to track and trace the behavior and movements of the citizenry in real time, the temptation to abuse that technology to increase government power is exponential.  That is to say, mass surveillance tends to inspire governments to abuse their authority and treat people like criminals even when they are innocent.

As we witnessed around the world during the pandemic lockdowns, authoritarianism can rear its ugly head without much warning and with incredible speed.  Some western countries (and even a few American states) aggressively sought to make resistance to covid restrictions criminal, to the point that authorities were legislating and even building “camps” designed to lock up covid offenders.  These plans were of course denied by political leaders even as they were putting the pieces in place to implement them. 

All of this was done in the name of a virus with a 99.8% survival rate.  What might they do when a legitimate crisis comes along?

We have seen how far our governments are willing to go to go to secure greater power over the populace; they have proven they’re not trustworthy enough to handle unilateral oversight. With real-time AI based surveillance in place the dangers are far greater.  Across the country there has been a quiet rollout of a new algorithm driven camera network from a company called Flock Safety.  

Flock offers AI integrated cameras with off-grid options (solar) that they say are meant primarily for license plate reading and vehicle identification.  California Governor Gavin Newsom recently applauded the creation of a new 480 camera network from Flock that will ostensibly focus on the Oakland metro area.

480 new high-tech cameras are being installed along freeways and in Oakland to make the area safer.

These will help law enforcement identify vehicles linked to crimes using real-time information and alerts.

We’re building safer, stronger communities for all Californians. pic.twitter.com/x6kekxUK3e

— California Governor (@CAgovernor) March 29, 2024

First, it’s clear that Newsom’s ongoing claims that California crime rates are dropping are not accurate.  There are a number of ways states and cities manipulate this data to hide rising crime, but they can’t hide the increasing public complaints or the measures they are forced to take to appease the public.  Installing hundreds of AI cameras are, in a way, an admission that all is not well in the Golden State.

Second, it’s also clear that this is an attempt by Newsom to address the exploding crime concerns within California without necessarily increasing law enforcement budgets.  The expansion of AI cameras is funded in large part by the Biden Administration’s infrastructure legislation passed in 2022. Biden authorized states to utilize up to 10 percent of the bill’s $15.6 billion highway safety funds to purchase cameras and other “automated traffic enforcement” tools. 

Similar to Amazon’s “Ring” cameras and Alexa devices, these cameras combine to create a vast connected system of private and government surveillance that can be legally accessed by local law enforcement as well as federal agencies.  The difference with the Flock cameras is that they are connected to cell phone towers and use AI to identify pre-designated vehicles, immediately alerting authorities to their presence.  In other words, it’s a live centralized tracking system that is always watching.

Flock in an effort to mitigate public concerns states that their cameras are not to be used for simple traffic violations and do not contain facial recognition software.  However, law enforcement agencies can easily run Flock footage through their own facial recognition systems and the potential for abuse is high.  

The ACLU has recently opposed the cameras, and though some of their complaints are based on ridiculous far-left talking points like “racial profiling” or cameras being used to “track people leaving red states to get abortions,” some of their arguments are valid. 

The danger of AI mass surveillance being used as a traffic citation machine and revenue generator for cities that are broke is one concern.  Another is the constant interstate tracking of individuals simply because they ended up on a government list for the wrong opinions.  The ACLU notes that the fine print within Flock’s contract allows them to use collected data for essentially any purpose they see fit.  They deny this would happen, but there’s nothing legally stopping them from selling data or disclosing data to malicious parties.      

Because the system is owned by a private corporation, cities and states are able to dodge a large number of regulations and restrictions on surveillance which has made the option enticing to politicians and police departments.  The next obvious step (which is likely already in place at least in limited form) is a comprehensive real time national biometric tracking system integrated into already existing cameras.  This is exactly what has been put in place in Orwellian societies like China, and the west is not very far behind.

 

The Flock cameras also represent the ongoing merger between governments and corporations in an effort to assert greater control over the populace.  The problem is not only relegated to Big Tech and social media platforms censoring speech at the request of politicians; there’s also the problem of governments using corporate partners to circumvent legal restrictions on surveillance.  Closing this loophole is a difficult issue dealing with the rights of private companies vs the rights of individuals and the public, but it needs to be addressed all the same. 

Authored by Monica Showalter via American Thinker,

Is there anything Joe Biden can’t do?

Get a load of what he funded in his latest bloated budget spending bill passed last week, according to Breitbart News, which opened the hood of that jalopy:

Slipped into a $1.2 trillion budget signed by Biden last weekend is about $380 million for “enhanced border security” projects in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, and Tunisia — about $150 million of which must go to border security in Jordan.

Meanwhile, the budget puts strict limitations on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ability to construct physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration.

“The Biden administration wants nothing more than the ability to ‘manage’ an invasion here at home, all while helping nations abroad build walls,” RJ Hauman with the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) told Breitbart News. “Make it make sense.”

Why, exactly are we paying for some place like Tunisia’s enhanced border security, which is a cost they can bear themselves, while failing to build a border wall amid millions of foreign invaders rolling into the U.S. from some of those very same countries?

The irony is incredible here. Biden knows that border security works, which is why he’s taking cash from the U.S. taxpayer and handing it over to foreign countries to ensure that their borders stay secure from terrorists and other foreign invaders.

Meanwhile, he spends tremendous time, money and energy to ensure that our border wall is open as can be. He’s fighting Texas through the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court to ensure that they can’t defend their border from crime and terrorism from “newcomers” from more than 100 countries still rolling on in without papers.

The latest news is that he has a master plan for amnesty and free green cards for those who slipped through the border earlier, and plans to issue an executive order, making illegal immigration nothing more than stop on the express subway to U.S. citizenship and Democrat votes.

According to the Daily Caller:

President Joe Biden is currently considering granting amnesty to illegal migrants in a bid to act on the worsening immigration crisis, according to Politico. Biden and his administration are weighing several ideas to take a tougher stance on the southern border crisis and illegal immigration amid criticisms he has thus far failed to act on either. The administration could start dolling out green cards to illegal immigrants who have long stayed inside the United States, thereby giving them amnesty to stay in the country, three people familiar with the planning told Politico.

It’s insane, given how unpopular the idea is, and it comes on the heels of this fund-everyone-else’s border security buried within the budget, except for ours. Didn’t we just get through a failed border bill that came about because of the public’s demand for border security before handing Ukraine $60 billion for its border security? Joe doesn’t care. He’s not doing things to be popular anymore, he’s doing things to reward big-money campaign donors and special interest groups with an interest in open borders.

It may go to show that he knows he’s losing, so he’s blowing up the border as much as he can on the way out. It’s hard to see what the logic of his terrible moves and their terrible optics really are.

Image: Screen shot from ABC News video, via YouTube