Month: July 2024

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine.”

– Olivia Nuzzi, NY Magazine

There’s a reason that the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes is so potent: it describes a mentally ill society that retreats into abject unreality, to avoid contending with truth.

Alas, this archetypal human quandary shoves such a society towards nemesis: downfall and punishment.

And that is exactly the consequence of our news media’s craven, dishonorable, degenerate behavior the past decade.

They have disordered our nation’s consensus about reality with peremptory lying about everything, in service to a political party that lies to its citizens about everything. The big question is: who or what recruited them into serving the Party of Chaos, and why did they go along?

You can explain the media’s initial repugnance to Donald Trump going back to his 2015 debut in politics. Much about him had a low-class odor, despite all the gold-plating — his origins in tawdry Queens, his career as a builder in Manhattan where the trades are mob-controlled, the Atlantic City casino debacle, bankruptcy, ditching Ivana and his mid-life playboy reputation, the tacky TV show, the increasingly mystifying hair-doo, his rough, jumbly manner of speech. Everything about him repelled the Ivy Leaguers who increasingly filled the ranks of national-level journalism.

Despite all that, Mr. Trump raised five kids successfully. The grown ones had careers and they all visibly loved him. With that and his overt masculinity, he assumed the lineaments of the archetypal Daddy, which enflamed the enormous cohort of feminists who had taken over the Democratic Party behind their avatar Hillary Clinton. And when he squeaked out an electoral victory over her in 2016, they were sure it was a cheat. The menace of Daddy in da (White) house pushed them over the edge psychologically.

Daddy was all about setting boundaries, which was the antithesis to the “progressive” (and transgressive) agenda of the Dems, and was probably the reason that his talk of “building the wall” along the Mexican border drove them nuts. It signaled patriarchal control of a whole lot of other things, too. Boundaries galore!

Now, it happened that the Democratic Party was also the favored party of the DC permanent bureaucracy, which had been growing and growing for decades and had become overtly politicized during the eight years of Barack Obama. Mr. Trump threatened to downsize this leviathan government, meaning many patronage jobs might be lost. (Boundaries would be imposed!) The warrior branch of this Deep State was the Intel community. The FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the State Dept, and elements of the military were commissioned by the Democratic Party to destroy Mr. Trump.

They used the machinery of the law to lay one trip after another on the president and effectively hog-tied him — RussiaGate, the Ukraine phone call impeachment, the George Floyd anarchy — and when those operations failed to oust him, they ran the Covid-19 caper (with enormous collateral damage to the people and their economy), which enabled rigging the 2020 election with mail-in ballots. Once Mr. Trump was squeezed out-of-office, the FBI turned the J-6 protest at the Capitol into a riot, which Nancy Pelosi then converted into an “insurrection” using the House J-6 committee. The J-6 incident, they dearly hoped, would rid them of Mr. Trump once and for all.

The news media went along with every bit of that, year after year, converting each mendacious act of the party and the bureaucracy into consumable narrative, and lying either overtly about all the ops, or just omitting to report on the dark truth behind it all. Any reality-based thread that happened to leak into public view from independent alt-news reporters was branded by CNN, The New York Times, the WashPo, and many others as “misinformation” — a newish concept produced by a cadre of language Stasi skilled at inverting the meaning of anything to bamboozle the public. It appears that the news media became so invested psychologically in its own dishonest product that it began to believe its own bullshit.

Or, at least, they wanted to pretend to believe it. One of the big problems was that absolutely everything they labeled “misinformation” or “conspiracy theory” turned out to be truthful, and that was becoming an inescapable embarrassment. And then the biggest blunder they made was going along with the Deep State’s selection of “Joe Biden” in the very sketchy Super Tuesday primary of 2020. The old grifter had next-to-zero support in all the preceding preliminaries and somehow (abracadabra !) he swept the field.

By then, the Democratic Party, and its public relations arm in the mainstream media, had descended into florid mental illness. Everything they stood for post-World War Two flipped to its opposite. Suddenly, they were against free speech. They weren’t coy about it. They just made-up some new bullshit about free speech being “hate speech.” Similarly, they were against a free press. They went along with all the misinfo / disinfo bullshit the government cooked up and supported its role in suppressing the news. They were no longer anti-war, the party-of-peace. They were now pro-segregation and pro-discrimination (white people need not apply) according to Critical Race Theory (a childishly sketchy doctrine). Most of all, they were no longer skeptical of anything that the leviathan establishment wanted to do, including abridging the liberties of American citizens.

Then there was the campaign to use the most powerful human instinct, sexuality, as a weapon to disorder the minds of American children, leading even to the mutilation of their bodies — a program that unmistakably tipped toward genuine evil, suggesting that actual psychosis lay behind the Cluster-B crypto-Marxism used to justify it.

“Joe Biden” was fine with all of that, and the news media was fine with “Joe Biden” and whoever was using him as a front. Of course, it was evident during the 2020 campaign that “Joe Biden” was not up to a job as demanding as Chief Executive of the US government — and that was even apart from the dense criminal web of influence peddling discovered around him and his family, which the news media ignominiously ignored. But now the years have gone by and there’s no hiding “Joe Biden’s” rather gravely diminished mental abilities.

Last week’s debate gave away the game. It had the effect of finally turning off the gaslight that the news media has been shining over the republic lo these many years.

They can no longer pretend that this president is anything close to okay in body and mind. They can’t annul the gaslighted public’s delayed realization that they’ve been subject to a concerted program of deliberate lying for a long long time.

So now, inveterate pretenders and liars, such as Jake Tapper of CNN and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times — and many others — have to pretend that they were innocently duped into supporting all the turpitudes of the Democratic Party / Deep State axis-of-evil. It is really hard to imagine that they can successfully rehabilitate their reputations. They have done immense harm to our country. It’s hard to see how the Democratic Party might survive, too, no matter who they finally put up for election this year. Of course, there’s still plenty of time left for them to destroy the country altogether. Just keep giving American missiles to Ukraine to fire into Russia and see what happens.

*  *  *

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

A wild (holiday-shortened and illiquid) week of dismal macro data and dramatic market divergences.

It was 100% – a bad news week…’hard landing’ much?

Source: Bloomberg

…with ‘hard’ data hammered and ‘soft’ data’s rebound ended…

Source: Bloomberg

…which means ‘good news’ for rate-cut expectations (which dovishly soared)…

Source: Bloomberg

…and that sent stocks (some of them), bonds (all of them) and commodities (most of them) soaring while ‘currencies’ tumbled.

Nasdaq ripped to its best week since late April and second best week since the first week of November. Small Caps ended the week red as short-squeeze ammo ran dry…

Mag7 stocks drove the Nasdaq (and S&P) outperformance, ripping over 6% from Monday’s opening lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Which led Consumer Discretionary and Tech higher while Energy stocks were sold…

Source: Bloomberg

And its very concentrated still with the equal weight S&P going nowhere at all…

Source: Bloomberg

As a reminder, the first 10 days of July are historically the strongest period of the year for stocks…

It’s all Mag7, all the time…

Source: Bloomberg

This is Nasdaq’s best start to a year since the GFC…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields tumbled this week, led by the short-end of the curve…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was dumped this week…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were clubbed like a baby seal this week with Ethereum underperforming Bitcoin (despite all the Mt.Gox FUD over BTC and BCH)…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin broke below its 200DMA overnight and then spent the rest of the day session in the US trying to get back to it….

Source: Bloomberg

Oil ended the week higher, despite two good smackdowns around $84 (WTI) during the week…

Source: Bloomberg

Spot Gold prices soared on the week, back above the 50DMA and near record highs once again…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, this is an odd chart for you to keep an eye on. While the much-watched UMich inflation expectations index (median) has been stabilizing over the past year or so (fitting the narrative of disinflation and Fed victory); the mean longer-term inflation expectation has blown back out in recent months to its highest since February 1993…

Source: Bloomberg

The huge spread between mean and median implies that the distribution of inflation expectations has a very, very high right-tail (i.e. a relatively large number of respondents are expecting significantly higher inflation over the next 5-10 years). That is definitely not a narrative-confirming chart.

Phoenix Police bodycam footage, published online by AZCentral, captures the moment when an officer pulls over a Waymo autonomous Jaguar I-Pace SUV that had recklessly veered into oncoming traffic on a busy Phoenix street.

AZCentral said the incident occurred on June 19. Phoenix police pulled over the driverless taxi with no occupants inside for driving in an oncoming traffic lane near Seventh Avenue and Osborn Road. 

Just after 11 am on June 19, a Phoenix police officer initiated a traffic stop on the Waymo, according to police dispatch records. The vehicle drove into oncoming traffic, ran a red light and “FREAKED OUT,” said the dispatch records, which are typed in all capital letters. -AZCentral

Waymo blamed the incident on “inconsistent construction signage” that forced the SUV into an oncoming lane of traffic. It added that the vehicle was “blocked from navigating back into the correct lane” for around 30 seconds.

“In an effort to clear the intersection, the Waymo vehicle proceeded forward a short distance and pulled into the next available parking lot,” Waymo said, noting the traffic incident lasted less than a minute. 

Two weeks ago, a Redditor posted an image of the traffic stop, questioning: “Saw a Waymo getting pulled over by cops this morning. How does it work?” 

Officers in the bodycam footage can be heard talking about the incident with Waymo staff in real time. 

NEW: Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road leading the nonexistent driver to roll the windows down to speak with the police.

This is hilarious.

Waymo has since released a statement, apparently blaming the incident… pic.twitter.com/JKF2JSEGCu

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 4, 2024

While this incident might be seen as relatively minor, General Motors’ autonomous car unit, Cruise, has faced negative press over collisions in the past year.

Meanwhile, next month (August 8), Elon Musk is set to unveil the much-anticipated “Tesla Robotaxi.”

Is the world ready for robotaxis?

Tesla surprised investors last week with better-than-expected deliveries for the second quarter despite a global electric vehicle market downturn. New estimates from Fed Lambert, the editor-in-chief and main writer at Electrek, speculates that after parsing through the delivery report, “Tesla Cybertruck might have become the best-selling electric pickup truck in the US.” 

Lambert breaks down the math of his 2Q Cybertruck delivery estimate, given what he said is the company’s “lack of transparency” and that it is “frustrating as it makes it harder to track the health of its vehicle programs.” 

Here’s the math: 

For Q2, the automaker confirmed deliveries of 21,551 “other models”, which include Model S, Model X, Cybertruck, and Tesla Semi sales.

However, we have a better idea of Tesla’s Cybertruck deliveries in Q2 because of a couple of recalls.

With a few recalls last month, Tesla confirmed that it had produced 11,688 Cybertrucks as of June 6.

A previous recall confirmed that Tesla had produced 3,878 Cybertruck as of mid-April.

This is a difference of about 7,800 Cybertrucks. If you subtract a few for the last few weeks of April and then add a thousand or two for the rest of June, it is safe to assume that Tesla delivered between 8,000 and 9,000 Cybertrucks during the second quarter.

Lambert then crossed the Cybertruck delivery estimate in the quarter with Ford, which reported 7,902 F-150 Lightning in Q2, explaining, “Tesla Cybertruck might have become the best-selling electric pickup truck in the US,” adding, “If it wasn’t last quarter, it looks like it will be this quarter.” 

*freedom intensifies* pic.twitter.com/hFFOQhcZ9s

— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) March 10, 2024

He noted that Rivian’s R1T EV pickup truck deliveries in the quarter were “certainly below 7,000 units and most likely closer to 4,000 units.” 

Lambert’s extended take on Cybertruck is that it will likely become (if not already) the best-selling EV truck in the world’s largest economy: 

I predicted that despite the Cybertruck coming a long time after the F150 Lightning and Rivian R1T, it would likely achieve higher volume than those quickly after its launch for the simple fact that Tesla is second to none when it comes to ramping up EV programs.

We can’t confirm it because of the lack of transparency in Tesla’s sale disclosure, but I think it’s likely true that Cybertruck has become the best-selling electric pickup in the US right now.

Regarding demand, a ZH reader contacted us last week. They said their Cybertruck delivery date was moved up from the estimated second half of 2025 to August.

For some context, the reader paid $100 for the Cybertruck reservation in late 2022. Recall that reservations first opened in November 2019. 

Curious about the new delivery time, they called Tesla who explained to them that tough financing conditions and reservation holders not pleased with the Foundation Series costing $20,000 more, were some of the reasons of moving ahead on the delivery list.

It appears that Tesla could be quickly burning through its reservation lists for a multitude of reasons —this has yet to be confirmed—but the example we provided is certainly an eye-opener. 

Via City News Service,

McDonald’s Corp. has filed a cross-complaint against an unidentified homeless man who allegedly attacked a customer at one of its stores near Los Angeles General Medical Center in 2023, asking that the assailant and other possible defendants compensate the fast-food chain for any damages it may be ordered to pay.

McDonald’s filed the legal action for indemnity and contribution in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 28, identifying the defendants only as “Roes.”

The court papers state that McDonald’s denies any liability or negligence toward the plaintiff, Donald Wilson, but that the company should be indemnified by the defendants for any monetary damages assessed against McDonald’s.

Mr. Wilson filed his underlying case on May 31, alleging negligence and premises liability, asserting that McDonald’s failed to ensure safety for customers, including Mr. Wilson. According to the complaint, Mr. Wilson and his son went to the McDonald’s on Marengo Street on Feb. 4, 2023, to await his spouse’s completion of a night shift as a shift supervisor at the Los Angeles General Medical Center.

While waiting in line to order coffee, Mr. Wilson heard loud screaming coming from within the restaurant that came from an “agitated, threatening and disruptive” homeless man wearing a sweatshirt and only a thin bed sheet below his waist, the suit states.

“Without any warning for plaintiff to respond, the disruptive homeless individual suddenly got up from the booth, rapidly approached plaintiff and punched him forcefully in the left jaw,” the suit states.

The blow’s force caused Mr. Wilson to “crash backward onto his back and lose consciousness,” according to the suit, which further states that Mr. Wilson’s son was himself injured after he intervened and removed the assailant from the restaurant.

“Throughout this ordeal, not a single staff member from the McDonald’s premises offered any assistance to plaintiff,” including any immediate aid, the suit states.

Mr. Wilson was later taken to Los Angeles General Medical Center for treatment of a traumatic brain injury that still affects him, according to the complaint, which further states that the plaintiff has suffered financially and also experienced mental distress.

The ‘problem-solving’ elites in Washington, DC, who advocate interventionist policies and overregulate the economy into oblivion, often cause unintended consequences. The latest example comes from the head of America’s largest retail bank, which has a warning for its 86 million customers: The era of free checking is likely over. 

Marianne Lake, head of Chase Bank, a division of JPMorgan Chase, was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying the bank is preparing to charge customers for now-free services, including checking accounts and wealth-management tools, if new rules pushed by politicians in Washington are enacted. These rules include capping overdrafts and late fees. 

“The changes will be broad, sweeping, and significant,” Lake said, adding, “The people who will be most impacted are the ones who can least afford to be, and access to credit will be harder to get.”

Agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have proposed an $8 cap on late credit card payment fees and a $3 cap on over-drafting fees. There are also talks of placing limitations on debit card fees and the amount banks can charge CashApp and Venmo for accessing and using their customers’ data. 

In March, the CFPB passed a rule capping credit card late fees, but a series of bank industry groups sued to stop it before it became law. The law is now pending an appeal before a judge.

Even though the credit card late fee cap is in the hands of a court, some credit card companies are already preparing to pass costs to their respective customer bases. 

“Chase has already sketched out plans to ratchet up interest rates and take a more conservative approach to underwriting credit card loans, according to an investor presentation,” according to WSJ. 

Dan Goerlich, a consulting partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who advises banks, noted that mega banks will “make up for a dent in consumer banking revenues with profit from their wealth management and investment banking arms.” 

However, Goerlich warned, “Smaller and regional banks will struggle to make up for that.”

Limiting what a bank charges deadbeat customers for not paying bills on time is essentially a failed progressive policy that ends up forcing everyone else to pay more. 

WSJ pointed out, “It is possible some of the rules could be watered down, or not become law at all, if Donald Trump takes the White House in November.” 

Trump has not released a detailed economic plan but has advocated for deregulation to address what he describes as Joe Biden’s broken economy.

Voters might have found another reason to vote for Trump instead of the current president, whose plummeting mental acuity worsens by the day. 

Crime continues to escalate in California and, in turn, so does the collateral damage that comes with it. And it isn’t just San Francisco, LA or Oakland anymore…the effects are being felt even in places like Newport Beach. 

This past week an elderly 69 year old tourist was killed at a shopping center in Newport Beach when a crew of “armed goons” ran her over with their car after they finished a “brazen broad-daylight robbery”, according to the New York Post. 

The woman and her husband, visiting from New Zealand, were attacked by three thieves outside of a Barnes and Noble. The husband fought back but the thieves dragged the woman into the parking lot and eventually ran her over with their white Toyota Camry before fleeing. 

All three suspects connected with the crime are now in custody, according to Sgt. Steven Oberon of the Newport Beach Police Department.

The woman, who has not been identified, suffered injuries, while her husband is believed to be uninjured. One suspect fled on foot while the others escaped in the vehicle.

Authorities notified residents around 4 p.m. to avoid the shopping plaza as the investigation was underway. Police were seen at the center directing the public to safety, with helicopters overhead providing aerial support.

According to the LA Times, one nearby witness said: “About 20 people were running and screaming, ‘Someone’s shooting!’ They locked us in the restaurant, and I hear for sure one person was dead and I think several injured.”

Newport Beach Mayor Will O’Neill concluded: “Newport Beach is a safe community and we’re mourning the loss of someone. Frankly, to hell with these guys. … These are thugs. Every community is now dealing with this. We have to do better as a society. We cannot tolerate this.”

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

Mexico urged the U.S. Supreme Court this week to let its $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers for allegedly flooding that country with firearms proceed in the lower courts.

Although some gun control activists welcome Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say the legal action by a foreign government is exploiting U.S. laws in an effort to cripple the U.S. firearms industry and weaken the Second Amendment protections Americans enjoy.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit allowed the case to move forward after it was dismissed by a federal district court.

The new filing by Mexico on July 3 comes after lead petitioner Smith and Wesson filed a petition with the Supreme Court on April 18 seeking to overturn the First Circuit ruling. Among the co-petitioners are Beretta U.S.A. Corp., Glock Inc., and Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc.

In its brief, Mexico argues the First Circuit ruled correctly and that it should be allowed to move forward with its claim that the petitioners “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful … conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”

The circuit court held that Mexico’s complaint made a plausible claim that the petitioners “deliberately aided and abetted the unlawful sale of firearms to purchasers supplying brutal cartels in Mexico” and that that country suffered harm as a result, the brief stated.

The gun makers are wrong to argue that the prospect of them being held “liable for negligence and public nuisance” presents “an existential threat to the gun industry.”

The First Circuit’s decision came after a federal district court threw out the lawsuit on Sept. 30, 2022.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Massachusetts dismissed the lawsuit that claimed U.S. companies were intentionally undermining Mexico’s tough gun laws by making “military-style assault weapons” that find their way to drug cartels and criminals.

Judge Saylor found that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005 “unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose.” The PLCAA was enacted to protect the industry from frivolous lawsuits.

But in January 2024, a three-judge panel of the First Circuit reversed, returning the case to the district court and allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

Circuit Judge William Kayatta wrote that the PLCAA places limits on the kinds of lawsuits that foreign governments may bring in U.S. courts for harm experienced outside the United States, but held that Mexico made a plausible argument that qualifies for an exception under the statute. The exception pertains to “knowing violations of statutes regulating the sale or marketing of firearms,” which is what Mexico accuses the firearms companies of doing.

In its ruling, the First Circuit pointed at the U.S. firearms industry. Despite strict laws that make it “virtually impossible” for criminals to obtain guns lawfully in Mexico, the country still experiences the third-highest number of gun-related deaths in the world, rising from fewer than 2,500 in 2003 to about 23,000 in 2019, Judge Kayatta wrote.

The spike in gun violence “correlates” with the boost in gun production in the United States that started when the U.S. assault weapon ban lapsed in 2004. Mexico claims that illegal gun trafficking into the country was driven largely by Mexican drug cartels’ demands for military-style weapons.

“For example, Mexico claims that between 70 and 90 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico were trafficked into the country from the United States,” Judge Saylor wrote.

In this “gun-violence epidemic,” Mexico has had to pay the cost of additional medical, mental health, and law enforcement efforts, and has suffered diminished property values, and decreased revenues from business investment and economic activity.

The firearms companies make more than 68 percent of U.S. guns that end up in Mexico, or between 342,000 and 597,000 guns each year, he wrote.

The judge added that Mexico claims the companies are aware that their guns are trafficked into that country “and make deliberate design, marketing, and distribution choices to retain and grow that illegal market and the substantial profits that it produces.” Mexico argues the companies design their firearms as military-style weapons to cater to the drug cartels.

In the new brief, Mexico argues that the gun makers’ petition to the Supreme Court is premature.

Several legal issues, including jurisdiction, have yet to be resolved by the district court, and this would be followed by evidence-gathering and possibly a trial and appeal, the brief states.

“Petitioners’ challenges are best addressed on a developed factual record, if it proves necessary to address them at all. That is why this Court routinely denies petitions seeking review of a suit at such an early stage.”

On the other side, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and 26 other federal lawmakers previously urged the Supreme Court to grant the companies’ petition.

“Mexico’s lawsuit is an affront to the sovereignty of the United States of America,” the lawmakers’ May 22 brief states.

“It has no place in federal court, and it attempts to dragoon American courts to subvert the policy determinations of the political branches of the U.S. Government,” the brief states, referring to the PLCAA.

Mexico is attempting “to impose its view of law, the right to bear arms, and liability protection on the American people,” the document states.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will consider the petition in Smith and Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos. At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant the petition for it to advance to the oral argument stage.

By Frank Fang of Epoch Times

Cuba has upgraded and expanded four electronic surveillance facilities, including one near the Guantanamo Bay naval base, amid growing concern about China’s spying efforts in the United States’ backyard, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“While China’s activities on the island remain shrouded in secrecy, satellite imagery analyzed by CSIS provides the latest and most comprehensive assessment of where China is most likely operating,” the report reads.

The report pointed to four active sites at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay, and Calabazar. It added that the four locations are “strategically located” and are “among the most likely locations supporting China’s efforts to spy on the United States.”

In June 2023, the White House confirmed that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019. In the same month, the State Department warned that the Chinese regime will “keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba,” and the United States “will keep working to disrupt it.”

China’s surveillance activities in Cuba are a grave national security concern for the United States, given that Florida is home to numerous U.S. military bases, including the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command and the U.S. Southern Command, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and Eglin Air Force Base.

“Collecting data on activities like military exercises, missile tests, rocket launches, and submarine maneuvers would allow China to develop a more sophisticated picture of U.S. military practices,” the report reads.

Facilities

The facility near the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay has not previously been publicly reported, the report stated. It is located east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near a neighborhood called El Salao.

The El Salao facility, under construction since 2021, appears to be a circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA) with an estimated diameter of 130 to 200 meters (about 425 to 655 feet), according to the report. CDAAs of that size could track and determine the origin and direction of high-frequency signals coming from 3,000 to 8,000 nautical miles away, the report added.

“Once operational, this CDAA will serve as a powerful tool for enhancing air and maritime domain awareness in the region, where the U.S. military and its international partners operate regularly,” the report reads.

If China had access to the El Salao facility, CSIS noted Beijing would obtain a “highly strategic point” near the Guantanamo Bay naval base.

The report added that China has been building new CDAAs on its militarized outpost on Mischief Reef and Subi Reef in the South China Sea.

The facilities in Bejucal, Wajay, and Calabazar are all near Cuba’s capital Havana, according to the report.

The Bejucal facility is Cuba’s largest active signals intelligence collection site, the report said, and added that it has been connected to suspected Chinese intelligence activities for decades.

Based on satellite images from March 2024, CSIS concluded that the Bejucal facility has “undergone major updates” in the past decade, signaling “a clear indication of an evolving mission set.”

The report also pointed to the “growth of space-monitoring equipment” at Bejucal and Calabazar, meaning that these two facilities are “likely intended to monitor” space-active countries, like the United States.

NEW: #China appears to be operating 4 electronic, signals intelligence sites in #Cuba to spy on the US, per a @CSIS @HiddenReachCSIS report based on satellite imagery pic.twitter.com/MfnDGl3Mgy

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) July 2, 2024

The Wajay facility has also expanded in the past 20 years, going from one antenna and several small buildings in 2002, to 12 antennas of various sizes and orientations and a “robust complex,” according to the report. CSIS said that there have been unsubstantiated rumors that China “played a role in either the [Wajay] site’s construction or its modernization.”

“Even if China does not have direct access to facilities there, the data collected by Cuban counterparts could be readily shared with Beijing,” the report reads, noting that two U.S. blacklisted Chinese tech firms, Huawei and ZTE, make up “the backbone of Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure.”

Responses

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Cuba’s ruling Communist Party have deepened their ties over the years.

In 2021, the two countries signed a cooperation plan to push forward construction projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to the State Department, China’s BRI “preys on other countries via unsustainable and corrupt lending while ignoring global labor and environmental standards.”

In February, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report naming Cuba as one of several countries that China is reportedly considering setting up military installations.

He Weidong, vice chairman of China’s top military body, the Central Military Commission (CMC), met with Cuban General Víctor Rojo Ramos, in China’s capital in April. According to China’s official military news website, the two talked about how China and Cuba enjoyed an “unbreakable friendship” and should support each other’s “core interests.”

The Biden administration and some Republican lawmakers from Florida have responded to CSIS’s findings.

continue reading at Epoch Times.

Well, well, well – the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with its liberal majority, issued a ruling on Friday that reinstates the use of unstaffed drop boxes ahead of the 2024 election.

In a 4-3 decision that reverses their own 2022 prohibition on unmanned dropboxes, the justices agreed with Democrats who argued that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had previously misinterpreted the law in its 2022 ruling, and wrongly concluded that absentee ballots can only be returned to a clerk in their office, and not to a drop box that is located elsewhere.

“What if we just got it wrong?” said Justice Jill Karofsky during May arguments. “What if we made a mistake? Are we now supposed to just perpetuate that mistake into the future?”

Attorneys representing Republican backers of the 2022 ruling argued that there have been no changes in the facts or the law to warrant overturning the ruling that’s less than two years old.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Misha Tseytlin, attorney for the Republican-controlled Legislature, argued that if the court overturned the ruling, it would have to revisit the issue again the next time the makeup of the court changes.

There will be a vacancy on the court next year as Justice Ann Walsh Bradley won’t be running for reelection.

But Justice Karofsky asked what the court was to do if it believed the earlier decision was “egregiously wrong from the start, that its reasoning was exceptionally weak and that the decision has had damaging consequences.”

“I see this as check, check, check here, so what are we to do?” she asked Mr. Tseytlin.

David Fox, attorney for the groups that brought the challenge, said the current law is unworkable because it’s not explicitly clear where ballots can be returned.

Several justices questioned the need to revisit the earlier ruling.

“You are asking this court to be a super Legislature” and give “free rein to municipal clerks to conduct elections however they see fit,” Justice Rebecca Bradley said.

The case was brought by Priorities USA, a voter mobilization group, and the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Voters. Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which administers elections, support allowing drop boxes.

Election officials from four counties, including the two largest counties, filed a brief in support of overturning the ruling. They argue absentee ballot drop boxes have been used for decades without incident as a secure way for voters to return their ballots.

More than 1,600 absentee ballots arrived at clerks’ offices after Election Day in 2022, when drop boxes were not in use, and therefore were not counted, plaintiffs’ attorneys noted in their arguments. But in 2020, when drop boxes were in use and nearly three times as many people voted absentee, only 689 ballots arrived after the election.