Month: August 2024

Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

Schools in the United Kingdom will begin teaching students about so-called “misinformation” and “extremist content” as the nation faces widespread race riots by Islamic immigrants.

According to Fox News, the new initiative will attempt to instruct students on how to discern real information from fake news, by “embedding” critical thinking into pre-existing curriculum, including English and math classes.

“It’s more important than ever that we give young people the knowledge and skills to be able to challenge what they see online,” said Bridget Phillipson, the secretary of state for education and minister for women and equalities.

“That’s why our curriculum review will develop plans to embed critical skills in lessons to arm our children against the disinformation, fake news and putrid conspiracy theories awash on social media.”

Phillipson explained that each major subject would incorporate this new “misinformation” curriculum in some way.

English classes will focus on the language used by “real” articles and “fake” stories, while computer classes will separate websites that are considered legitimate from websites that are considered “biased.”

Math classes will incorporate statistics in order to compare and contrast the numbers of right-wing protests and the numbers of left-wing protests.

This effort is in response to widespread riots across the country following a mass stabbing at a dance party in Southport on July 29th, where three children were killed and 10 more were injured. The suspect is an 18-year-old male whose parents are Rwandan immigrants.

As it was the latest and most egregious example yet of violence as a result of mass migration to the U.K., a number of right-wing citizens began protesting in the streets, particularly outside of mosques and hotels housing migrants. Although the right-wing protests remained peaceful, Islamic migrants began forming their own counter-protests, which quickly descended into widespread violence and led to multiple instances of non-White migrants viciously attacking random White civilians in the streets.

The government, now led by the left-wing Labour Party and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has already ordered U.K. citizens to stop sharing videos and images of the Islamic riots, under threat of prosecution.

“Content that incites violence or hatred isn’t just harmful – it can be illegal,” the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service declared on X on Wednesday.

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

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) posed a series of questions to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking clarity on the recent arrest of a Pakistani national regarding his attempts to assassinate high-ranking U.S. government officials, allegedly including former President Donald Trump, in light of the fact that he was flagged on a federal watchlist and recently granted immigration parole.

The alleged Pakistani plotter, Asif Raza Merchant, 46, was apprehended on July 12, 2024, when he attempted to leave the United States. Currently in federal custody in New York, Merchant’s plot was foiled when he allegedly conspired with undercover agents, who posed as assassins, to attempt to murder high-ranking U.S. citizens.

The alleged scheme was conducted as part of a larger Iranian ploy to retaliate against the killing of General Qasem Soleimani, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, according to an Aug. 6 Justice Department (DOJ) statement that revealed the incident. Soleimani was taken down in 2020 during the Trump administration for aiming to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

On Aug. 9, Grassley wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking him for more information regarding Merchant’s immigration parole status. Citing media reports, Grassley said that Merchant was interviewed by the Joint Terrorism Task Force upon his arrival in the United States on April 13 because he was flagged in the federal database as a “Lookout Qualified Person of Interest.”

Despite this, Merchant was granted Significant Public Benefit Parole on April 13 by the DHS, which he overstayed after it expired on May 11, Grassley said. He asked the DHS to provide answers to the following:

1. Did the DHS grant Merchant Significant Public Benefit Parole before or after his placement on the terrorist watchlist and being listed as a “Lookout Qualified Person of Interest”?
2. On what basis was Merchant granted Significant Public Benefit Parole?
3. Provide the entire Alien Registration File (A-File) for Asif Raza Merchant.
4. How many individuals on the Terrorist Screening Database have DHS granted parole and allowed entry into the United States?

Following Merchant’s arrest, Garland said, “The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said of the incident: “This dangerous murder-for-hire plot exposed in today’s complaint allegedly was orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is straight out of the Iranian playbook.

“A foreign-directed plot to kill a public official, or any U.S. citizen, is a threat to our national security and will be met with the full might and resources of the FBI.”

Assassination Attempts on Trump

The Pakistani national’s plan to assassinate Trump has not been confirmed by federal agencies. The Epoch Times reached out to the DHS and the DOJ for comment regarding the issue. The FBI declined to comment.

According to court documents, Merchant’s plot involved “three different criminal schemes: (1) stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home; (2) planning a protest; and (3) killing a politician or government official.”

Merchant told the confidential source, an undercover agent, that “trusted” people would be needed to conduct the killing and perform protests after the incident as a distraction, and that they would need “a woman to do ‘reconnaissance.’”

Merchant paid the agent an advance sum of $5,000 to hire hitmen and told him that the final plans would be revealed after Merchant left the country.

He was subsequently arrested on July 12, a day before Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“The failure of the Secret Service in Butler, Pennsylvania, is even more outrageous in light of suspected Iranian-backed assassins targeting former Trump Administration officials, including President Trump himself. That day, the threat of sniper attacks was even higher than normal,” House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in a statement after the DOJ unsealed its charges against Merchant.

“I was previously briefed concerning the Iranian threat and the circumstances of Mr. Merchant’s arrest and questioned then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on whether she had reviewed the intelligence concerning the Iranian threat. She confirmed to me that she read the intelligence and was aware of this Iranian murder-for-hire plot.”

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

China-owned video-sharing app TikTok is using its algorithms to suppress content exposing China’s human rights violations, in order to shape the views of its targeted users, according to a new study.

Researchers from Rutgers University and the school’s Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that TikTok’s algorithms “actively suppress content critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while simultaneously boosting pro-China propaganda and promoting distracting, irrelevant content,” according to their study.

“Through the use of travel influencers, frontier lifestyle accounts, and other CCP-linked content creators, the platform systematically shouts down sensitive discussions about issues like ethnic genocide and human rights abuses.”

In recent years, TikTok has been facing scrutiny and accusations of being a threat to national security, as it exploits the minds of American teens and its China-based parent company, Bytedance, could be forced by the CCP to hand over data on U.S. users. The U.S. National Security Agency has previously called the app the CCP’s “trojan horse” that threatens America’s long-term security due to the CCP’s anti-U.S. views, while some lawmakers have likened the app to a form of “digital fentanyl” that makes addicts of its users.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill into law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or be banned from U.S. mobile app stores and web-hosting services. ByteDance and TiKTok have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.

The report also found that TikTok had carried out “successful indoctrination” of its users, particularly heavy users, given the changes in their attitudes towards China, based on the results of a psychological survey.

“These users, through targeting or information environments engineered to sublimate free speech, appear to absorb these biased narratives unwittingly, leading to a distorted understanding of critical global issues,” the researchers wrote.

A TikTok spokesperson responded to the findings, telling The Epoch Times by email that the study was a “non-peer reviewed, flawed experiment … clearly engineered to reach a false, predetermined conclusion.”

“Previous research by NCRI has been debunked by outside analysts and this latest paper is equally flawed,” the spokesperson added.

Study

To conduct the study, researchers created 24 accounts across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, mimicking 16-year-old users in the United States. The accounts were used to test the three social media platforms’ algorithms when inputting four different search keywords often mentioned along with the CCP’s human rights abuses—“Uyghur,” “Xinjiang,” “Tibet,” and “Tiananmen.”

The Trump and the Biden administrations have characterized the CCP’s suppression of Uyghurs in its far-western regions of Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” In Tibet, the Chinese regime has turned the region into a surveillance state and installed labor camps.

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese regime ordered its troops to open fire on student protesters and unarmed civilians at Tiananmen Square in China’s capital. The Chinese regime denies having initiated the violent crackdown despite the thousands of witnesses, and any discussion about the protest movement is considered taboo in China and Hong Kong.

Researchers collected over 3,400 videos from their search results using the four keywords and classified each video as either “pro-China,” “pro-China,” “neutral” or “irrelevant.”

In terms of Xinjiang, a “pro-China” video could include showing minorities’ folk customs or idyllic portrayals of rural life, and an “anti-China” video could show the Uyghurs’s plight in China or calls for boycotting products made in Xinjiang, according to the report.

Only 2.3 percent of search results for “Xinjiang” on TikTok were considered “anti-China,” in comparison to 21.7 percent on YouTube and 17.3 percent on Instagram, according to the report.

Meanwhile, more than 26 percent of search results for “Tiananmen” on TikTok were considered “pro-China,” while only 7.7 percent of research results on YouTube were “pro-China,” and 16.3 percent on Instagram, according to the report.

According to the report, a “pro-China” video on Tiananmen could be “denials of the massacre and revisionist historical takes,” or “scenic pictures of the square that bear no mention of the massacre.”

In terms of search results using the word “Tibet,” TikTok contained the least amount of anti-China content (5 percent) and the largest amount of pro-China content (30.1 percent) across the three platforms, according to the report.

The report explained that a “pro-China” video on Tibet could “echo the CCP narratives that Tibet has been liberated,” while an “anti-China” video could be about footage of Tibetan protests or “details of Tibetan cultural erasure by the CCP.”

“It appears that TikTok’s algorithm uniquely favors pro-China content in terms of views per like, irrespective of the overall engagement levels. Moreover, this finding is significantly more pronounced on TikTok than YouTube, suggesting a TikTok-specific bias,” the report reads.

Survey

Researchers also surveyed 1,214 American TikTok users, seeking to understand their perception of China based on the time they spent on the app.

Heavy users of TikTok—those using the app for more than three hours a day—showed a 49 percent increase in positivity towards the CCP’s human rights records relative to non-users. For those using the app for 15 minutes to 3 hours, the percent increase was 36 percent.

“By contrast, use of YouTube and Instagram showed no significant relationship on users’ perception of China’s human rights record,” the report reads.

“This suggests that TikTok’s content may contribute to psychological manipulation of users, aligning with the CCP’s strategic objective of shaping favorable perceptions among young audiences,” it added.

Heavy TikTok users also showed a 48 percent increase in the perception that “Tiananmen Square is mostly known as a tourist site.”

Researchers recommended to creation of a Civic Trust funded by social media platforms and the public to help identify platforms that are manipulating user perceptions.

“If social media algorithms are found to be subverting the very democracies that provide them the freedom to operate, they are both unjust and dangerous,” the report reads. “There must be accountability and corrective measures to ensure that platforms are not exploited by state actors to erode democratic institutions and values.”

The US may be headed for a supply chain crisis this fall as a labor contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) approaches expiration on Sept. 30. This could ignite strikes as soon as Oct. 1 across major ports along the US East Coast and Gulf Coast, instantly paralyzing complex supply chains ahead of the Christmas shopping season. 

The ILA represents more than 45,000 dockworkers across the US at major ports. On Sunday, Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett addressed members in a Facebook post, indicating talks between the union and USMX are still far apart. 

Here is Daggett’s memo to union members: 

Attention ILA Members,

I want to address the recent communication from USMX and make it clear—do not be fooled by this letter. We are indeed continuing to bargain in good faith to settle all local contracts, but the reality on the ground is far different from the picture they are trying to paint.

Employers like APM Mobile have been dragging their feet on resolving critical issues. One such issue is their use of Autogate in TIR Lanes, which we consider a clear violation of our Master Agreement. This isn’t just happening in one location; many other ports are facing similar challenges in getting local management to agree on terms and conditions for local supplemental agreements.

On top of that, when it comes to the Master Contract negotiations, let me be frank—we are very far apart, particularly on the economic issues. In fact, we are at an impasse. The propaganda coming from USMX is just that—propaganda, likely the work of a PR firm trying to spin the situation in their favor.

Remember, unless you hear it directly from us, it’s not the truth. Stay strong, stay united, and know that we are fighting every day for the fair contract that you deserve.

In Solidarity,

Harold and Dennis Daggett

ILA workers “operate multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment with precision, maintain them with the expertise of highly skilled technicians, and clerks who manage complex operating systems for gates, vessels, and yards,” the union head said in a separate Facebook post from several days ago. 

Daggett continued, “What I find particularly appalling is that while CEOs like those from CMA-CGM are taking home bonuses in the billions, ocean carriers continue to rake in skyrocketing profits by raising rates on their customers due to global conflicts or natural disruptions.” 

Bloomberg noted, “Daggett has repeatedly warned of a strike if no deal is reached by the deadline and last weekend set a meeting in early September for union delegates to discuss wage demands and strike strategies.” 

USMX released a statement late last week: “We are very far apart, particularly on the economic issues. In fact, we are at an impasse.”

Major importers are paying close attention because any strikes at major ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports will instantly spark significant delays in the delivery of goods and the return of the inflation monster that still haunts Fed head, Jerome Powell. 

Logistics news site More Than Shipping outlined the widespread economic fallout that could occur if a strike materializes in the coming months:

1. Supply Chain Disruptions: A strike would cause significant delays in the delivery of goods, severely disrupting supply chains. This would particularly affect industries that rely on just-in-time inventory systems, such as retail and manufacturing​.

2. Economic Losses: The East Coast ports handle a large portion of the nation’s imports and exports. A strike could result in economic losses running into billions of dollars, impacting businesses that depend on these ports for importing raw materials and exporting finished products. 

3. Retail and Consumer Goods: There could be delays and shortages in consumer goods, ranging from electronics to clothing and food items. Retailers might face empty shelves, leading to increased prices and reduced availability of products for consumers​.

4. Automotive Industry: The automotive sector, which heavily relies on parts imported through these ports, could face production halts and delays in vehicle availability, affecting both manufacturers and consumers​.

5. Agriculture: The export of agricultural products, including grains and produce, could be delayed, affecting farmers and exporters who rely on timely shipments to maintain market access and pricing.

6. Economic Ripple Effect: The strike’s impact would ripple through the economy, affecting jobs not just at the ports but also in transportation, warehousing, and other related industries​.

7. International Trade Relations: Supply chain disruptions could strain trade relationships with other countries, potentially leading to long-term consequences for US trade policy and agreements.

8. Shipping and Logistics: Shipping companies might need to reroute vessels to other ports, increasing transportation costs and times. This could lead to congestion at other ports and further complicate the logistics network.

Let’s not forget that President Biden pledged to be “the most pro-union president in American history.” Does the president still remember what he said a couple years ago?

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Marshals Service has announced the conclusion of “Operation Silver Shield,” a 90-day interagency operation that resulted in the arrest of 232 fugitives across Maryland, including individuals wanted for serious crimes such as rape and murder.

The large-scale, public safety initiative, which ran from May through August 2024, targeted non-compliant sex offenders and fugitives associated with violent crimes, the U.S. Marshals said in an Aug. 9 press release. Among the arrested were 36 individuals wanted for sex offender registration violations, 17 for rape, and 14 for homicide.

“The arrest of these fugitives represents a step in the right direction to keep Maryland safe,” Erek L. Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, said in a statement.

As part of the operation, law enforcement also seized seven firearms and successfully recovered four critically missing children.

Dozens of federal, state, and local agencies participated in the operation, with deputies from the District of Maryland prioritizing the arrest of non-compliant sex offenders, while members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, a unit of the U.S. Marshals, focused on catching violent fugitives.

“Throughout this operation, we worked hand-in-hand with local communities to take dangerous offenders off the streets,“ Mathew Silverman, chief deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of Maryland, said in a statement, adding that the results of the operation reflect ”the true power of our public safety partnership.”

The Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, which has apprehended over 78,000 fugitives since its inception in 2004, has partnership agreements with over 133 federal, state, and local agencies operating in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

Besides the U.S. Marshals Service, some of the law enforcement agencies involved in Operation Silver Shield include the Baltimore Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the FBI.

Operation Silver Shield was launched on May 3, 2024, aiming to protect the community by prioritizing the recovery of critically missing children and arresting offenders who pose the biggest risk to public safety.

A similar operation in 2023, dubbed “Operation We Will Find You,” led to the recovery of 225 missing or endangered children.

At the time, the U.S. Marshals noted that cases involving missing or endangered children are some of the most challenging due to the presence of “high-risk factors,” such as involvement in child sex trafficking, child exploitation, sexual and physical abuse, and serious medical and mental health conditions.

The passage of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act in 2015 strengthened law enforcement’s ability to recover missing children. The legislation enhanced the U.S. Marshals’ authority, enabling them to better address cases involving endangered children, even when a fugitive or sex offender wasn’t directly involved.

Since the law’s enactment, the U.S. Marshals, in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, have successfully recovered over 3,100 missing children.

A fresh Wall Street Journal report reveals just how desperate Washington officials are to see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro swiftly exit power, after the US has accused him and his officials of stealing the vote, keeping former diplomat Edmundo González from power while reportedly locking up thousands of opposition supporters.

“The U.S. is pursuing a long-shot bid to push Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to give up power in exchange for amnesty as overwhelming evidence emerges that the strongman lost last month’s election, people familiar with the matter said,” WSJ writes. 

“The U.S. has discussed pardons for Maduro and top lieutenants of his who face Justice Department indictments, said three people familiar with the Biden administration deliberation. One of the sources said that the Biden administration is putting “everything on the table” in order to peaceably persuade Maduro to step down before his term is up in January. To translate, Biden officials are asking nicely: please Mr. Maduro, won’t you cancel yourself?

But Maduro and his government have hailed him as the legitimate victor of the July 28th national election. He’s set to enter a third 6-year term. He has many times over the last several years accused Washington of plotting coup and regime change against his rule, and there is ample evidence that there is more truth than falsehood to these accusations.

Rather than present the US as in a position of power vis-a-vis Caracas, the whole WSJ report and its claims—largely the product of the usual ‘anon security and defense officials’—is a testament to just how pathetic, weak, and desperate US policy toward the ‘rogue’ state remains.

Maduro will supposedly turn himself in on cocaine charges in return for an ‘amnesty’ based on what he sees as total fictions of a fraudulent and ‘imperialist’ American system? The following could arguably be some of the dumbest and most fantastical lines ever cooked up by the gaggle of career national security pencil pushers in charge of Latin America policy:

Another person familiar with the talks said the U.S. would be open to providing guarantees not to pursue those regime figures for extradition. The U.S. in 2020 placed a $15 million bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest on charges of conspiring with his allies to flood the U.S. with cocaine. 

The talks represent a flicker of hope for a Venezuelan political opposition that meticulously collected voter tallies showing its candidate, little-known former diplomat Edmundo González, defeated Maduro in a landslide in the July 28 election. Over the past two weeks, Maduro has jailed thousands of dissidents, maintained the military’s loyalty and tasked the Supreme Court, stacked with his handpicked allies, with resolving the election impasse, buying him time.  

Flooding US streets with cocaine? …The CIA might have some past expertise on that.

As recently as Friday, Maduro put it very simply in a televised news conference: “Don’t mess with Venezuela’s internal affairs, that’s all I ask for,” Maduro said.

‘In Secret Talks, U.S. Offers Amnesty to Venezuela’s Maduro for Ceding Power’

I can’t stress how weak of a move this is for the U.S.

The U.S. is offering Maduro a pardon if he steps down. This is an absolute joke. “Kindly step down bc the coup we orchestrated didn’t work” pic.twitter.com/0bNfM65TMc

— Zagonel (@Zagonel85) August 11, 2024

Where does US policy go from here? Biden’s gambit to ease sanctions on Venezuelan crude, bring Maduro ‘in from the cold’, and tap cheap energy at a crucial moment of wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East appears at a standstill.

Now with a crack-brained plan to offer “amnesty” to Maduro having been floated (surely an object of laughter and mockery among Venezuelan officials), perhaps Washington is ready to try the whole Guaidó-style thing with González, who has even less name recognitions internationally, and declare him ‘Interim President’.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. gun maker Smith & Wesson asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 8 for “immediate review” of its appeal in Mexico’s ongoing $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. firearms companies.

The request was made after a lower court on Aug. 7 threw out the case against six out of eight gun companies in the lawsuit, which is pending in federal district court in Massachusetts. The decision left gun maker Smith & Wesson and gun wholesaler Interstate Arms remaining as defendants.

In the suit, Mexico is seeking $10 billion from U.S. gun companies for allegedly flooding that country with firearms. Mexico blames the companies for a violent crime wave, saying their actions benefited criminal cartels.

Although some gun control activists welcome Mexico’s lawsuit, gun rights advocates say it constitutes foreign interference in U.S. affairs and is aimed at crippling the U.S. firearms industry and weakening the Second Amendment protections enjoyed by Americans.

The gun companies say the suit is barred by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005, which was enacted to protect the industry from frivolous lawsuits.

The Supreme Court already is scheduled to consider on Sept. 30 whether to hear the appeal of the eight gun companies called Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

The appeal concerns the Jan. 22 decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Circuit Judge William Kayatta wrote that even though the PLCAA limits lawsuits that foreign governments may bring in U.S. courts for harm experienced outside the United States, Mexico could move forward because it made a plausible argument that the companies committed “knowing violations of statutes regulating the sale or marketing of firearms.”

Mexico claims that illegal gun trafficking into that country is driven largely by Mexican drug cartels’ demands for military-style weapons.

Kayatta wrote that a spike in gun violence in Mexico in recent years “correlates” with the boost in gun production in the United States that started when the U.S. assault weapon ban lapsed in 2004.

The First Circuit returned the case to U.S. District Judge Dennis Saylor of Massachusetts, who had previously dismissed the lawsuit against all eight corporate defendants on Sept. 30, 2022.

Saylor found in 2022 that the PLCAA “unequivocally bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of individuals using guns for their intended purpose.”

When Saylor revisited the case on Aug. 7, he ruled that Mexico had failed to present enough evidence to show that six of the companies were connected to gun crime in Mexico.

The six defendants Saylor dismissed from the suit are Sturm, Ruger & Co.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc.; Glock Inc.; Colt’s Manufacturing Co. LLC; Century International Arms Inc.; and Beretta U.S.A. Corp.

Mexico indicated it may appeal the dismissal decision.

In the meantime, this means that Smith & Wesson and Witmer Public Safety Group, which does business as Interstate Arms, are still named as defendants in the suit pending in Saylor’s court.

In the Aug. 8 filing, Smith & Wesson attorney Noel Francisco of Jones Day in Washington told the Supreme Court that “immediate review … is still needed” because Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms are “unaffected by” the Aug. 7 decision.

“As a result, Mexico is still pursuing ‘joint and several’ liability—to the tune of billions of dollars, plus far-reaching injunctive relief—against those two defendants,” Francisco wrote.

With joint and several liability, a plaintiff who secures a judgment against the defendants collectively may collect the full value of the judgment from any of the defendants.

“So just as before, leading members of the American firearms industry are facing years of litigation costs and the specter of business-crushing liability,” Francisco wrote.

“And just as before, this Court’s review is warranted now, because Congress made clear in PLCAA that this sort of lawfare against any law-abiding member of the firearms industry has no business in American courts, and must be promptly dismissed.”

Lawfare is the strategic use of legal proceedings to undermine or frustrate the efforts of an opponent.

Mexico argued in a brief that it filed with the Supreme Court on July 3 that the First Circuit’s decision was correct.

The lawsuit should be allowed to proceed because the companies “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful … conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”

According to the brief, the gun companies were wrong to argue that the prospect of them being held “liable for negligence and public nuisance” presents “an existential threat to the gun industry.”

Mexico’s attorney, Cate Stetson of Hogan Lovells in Washington, didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Stephen Katte contributed to this report.

While there was much more talk about the soaring US budget deficit earlier this year, when debt seemed to rise by $1 trillion every other month, lately it appears that the topic has become almost taboo perhaps because neither presidential candidate has any plan or clue how to normalize the trend which assures fiscal collapse for the US and the loss of dollar reserve status.

But while others may have conflicts of interest in reporting on this most important topic, we don’t, and we are sad to inform our readers that July was another catastrophic month for US fiscal viability: that’s because US tax revenue of $330.4BN (down sharply from the $466.3BN in June, if higher than the $276.2BN a year ago), was far below the $573.1BN in government outlays (which was materially above the $537.2BN in June and also the $496.9BN last July)…

…. resulting in a monthly deficit of $243.7BN, the second largest July budget deficit on record, surpassed only by the record post-covid print in July 2021.

With two months left in the fiscal year, the US budget deficit for fiscal 2024 has hite $1.517 trillion, tracking last year’s blowout expansion almost dollar for dollar (one year ago the cumulative deficit was $1.613 trillion), and the 4th highest on record despite there being no raging emergency and no war demanding such a massive deficit spend.

Unfortunately, that’s as good as it gets, because when one takes a step back and ignores the monthly calendar effects, the picture remains the same: the US is spending far more than it is generating in tax revenues.

In fact, at $581BN, the 6-month moving average (to smooth out month-to-month changes) in US government spending has risen to the highest level since August 2021, when the US was still reeling from the covid shock.

So how is this possible? How can the US, which is now $35 trillion in the hole justify this kind of irresponsible, profligate spending? The only possible answer for why this level of explosive deficit (and debt) growth continues, is the admin’s ongoing attempts to buy as many votes as possible, as well as the relentless increase in interest on the US debt.

And it only goes downhill from there, because as we have noted previously, the biggest risk factor is not so much spending on such discretionary items as social security, health and national defense (“how dare you say these are discretionary! these are mandatory, untouchable outlays” some will scream, but if and when the taxes dry up and the dollar loses its reserve status you will see just how discretionary they are), but on interest, and here recall what we said back in April: “interest on US debt – currently the second biggest government outlay at $1.2 trillion – will surpass social security and become the single biggest US expense before the end of 2024 at $1.6 trillion.”…

Now that rate cuts are off the table, interest on US debt – currently the second biggest government outlay at $1.1 trillion – will surpass social security and become the single biggest US expense before the end of 2024 at $1.6 trillion. pic.twitter.com/OQYjHhOks9

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 11, 2024

… and hit $1.7 trillion by April 2025, at which point it will be by far the single biggest outlay of the US government.

$1.7 trillion in interest spending next April.

This is the Minsky Moment pic.twitter.com/S3ChHjFbyg

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 26, 2024

So where are we now? Well, according to the latest Treasury Monthly Statement, in July the US spent a gross $88.6 billion on debt interest, bringing the YTD total to $956 billion and is on pace to hit $1.157 trillion for the full year.

And putting it in context, the $87 billion in gross interest spending (which follows June’s record $140 billion) was 25% of all US receipts (mostly taxes) in June…

… a staggering number fast approaching the threshold where everyone will be forced to admit the US has crossed into a Minsky moment.

Authored by James Rushmore via Racket News,

In March 2023, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) put out an article asserting that the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) — comprised of the CIP, the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) — was not a “government cut-out” controlled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Racket has sent out numerous Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests about the Election Integrity Partnership. Recently, we received several new batches of results from the University of Washington that cast doubt on their earlier assertions. These disclosures, which have been added to the Racket FOIA Library, hint at a dynamic perhaps more intimate than reported. This is the first of a series of disclosures we’ll be publishing this week.

On March 4, 2021, Shira Ovide of The New York Times emailed the EIP to ask what government officials and social media platforms did to “stop disinformation from having a material effect on the [2020] election.”

The response came from Matthew Masterson, at the time a non-resident policy fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Masterson then only just finished working as a senior cybersecurity advisor at CISA, a position he held from March 2018 to December 2020. He stayed at CISA through the 2020 election, then moved to Stanford just in time to receive Ovide’s inquiry as a private citizen. His response is humorous in its frankness (emphasis ours):

Happy to talk regarding the work we (the feds) did in coordination with social media companies to anticipate and respond to efforts to undermine the election.

Masterson’s choice of verb is interesting. For years, “anti-disinformation” activists have insisted that state actors merely contacted social media companies with helpful tips regarding troublesome accounts. Masterson’s response suggests CISA was in close contact with platforms like Twitter throughout the 2020 election cycle, though Ovide wasn’t told how close. (See the accompanying article by Matt Taibbi to learn more.) He’s explicit in his characterization of the EIP-CISA dynamic as a coordinated effort.

When reached for comment, Ovide directed Racket to an article she published shortly after her conversation with Masterson. The former DHS official told Ovide that “coordination was the biggest change that helped shore up digital defenses in [2020] election management systems.” At the time, Masterson said, “This is as good [sic] as the federal government has worked on any issue in my experience.” The piece doesn’t mention the EIP, but it still captures the degree to which federal law enforcement agencies like CISA were in contact with 2020 election officials.

You’ll find more evidence of the tight-knit relationship between CISA and the EIP in their communications the following year. On March 14, 2022, Nicky Vogt, the senior advisor for public affairs at CISA, reached out to the EIP in order to coordinate their messaging efforts on MisinfoDay. (MisinfoDay, for those unfamiliar, is an annual celebration intended to help students, educators, and librarians “learn how to navigate complex information environments and make informed decisions about what to believe online.”)

In an email marked with the subject line “Social Amplification on MisInfo Day?”, Vogt asked Julia Carter Scanlan, the CIP’s director for strategy and operations, if the EIP could “amplify” CISA’s MisinfoDay-themed graphics on its social media accounts. Vogt offered to return the favor by promoting the EIP’s MisinfoDay content on CISA’s accounts. Also worth noting is the “as our team may have mentioned” at the start of Vogt’s email. CISA and the EIP seemed to be on very friendly terms!

Carter Scanlan’s response was enthusiastic (emphasis ours):

I’m so glad we can coordinate on this to help get the word out on both fronts. I’m looping in here my colleague Michael Grass, the CIP’s Assistant Director for Communications. He’s managing all of the social and other media for MisinfoDay and will be point on this.

The word of the day is “coordination.”

A few hours later, Vogt made contact with Grass, who promised to share the EIP’s MisinfoDay content on the CIP’s Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Grass also indicated that other schools would be participating in the day’s festivities through the #MisinfoDay2022 hashtag.

Here’s the tweet CISA asked Grass to promote.

These emails illustrate the synergies between the “anti-disinformation” industry and the national security state. In theory, the two factions are supposed to be separate entities, but in practice, they represent the same interests. It’s not often that a single disclosure offers evidence of the alacrity with which outfits like the EIP did the bidding of federal law enforcement agencies. We should be grateful for their candor.

Below are a few more excerpts from this latest batch of FOIA disclosures, which you can access in full at the Racket FOIA Library.

• In July 2020, shortly before the EIP officially launched, the key players debated what they wanted to call their partnership. Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council recommended against going with the “Election Disinformation Partnership,” arguing that it could “very easily be made to sound like [they] are spreading disinformation,” and suggested the “2020 Partnership.” His suggestion was co-signed by the SIO’s Alex Stamos (“[S]ounds a bit like an Olympics thing.”) and Graphika’s Camille François (“It will fit on a shirt”). The group ultimately settled on the “Election Integrity Partnership,” a name that Stamos described as generic and unlikely to be misinterpreted. (See page 109.)

• On November 17, 2021, Ashley Quarcoo, a senior director at the Partnership for American Democracy, reached out to the EIP to discuss how they could take steps to prepare for “election misinformation” in the 2022 cycle. (See pages 47 and 48.)

• On October 31, 2022, Mark Scott of Politico emailed the SIO’s Renée DiResta with some examples of Telegram channels that were spreading “election-related falsehoods” in swing states during the runup to the midterm elections. Scott asked DiResta if she could account for the spread of such theories “from fringe networks like Telegram to more mainstream networks.” (See page 17.)

Click here to access Racket’s library of University of Washington FOIA productions.

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Quick-service restaurant customers have been frustrated by rising Big Mac and chicken sandwich prices, which we dubbed ‘McFlation.’ As burger sales slide, chains like McDonald’s and Burger King have swiftly introduced meal deals to maintain market share amid a worsening downturn among consumers, especially low/mid-tier ones. 

With McDonald’s and Burger King already offering $5 meal deals, it was inevitable that Yum! Brands’ KFC would introduce its own $5 deal, signaling that the value wars in the QSR space are intensifying.

“KFC claps back in “Value Wars” with more deals for customers every day of the week this fall,” KFC wrote in a press release on Monday morning. 

KFC’s new $5 meal deal includes “finger-lickin’ good value and make KFC affordable for everyone,” the company said, adding the new deal includes three offers: KFC Chicken Nuggets, Famous Bowl with KFC Chicken Nuggets, and Two-Piece Drum & Thigh. 

“As customers are looking for more value from brands, we’re expanding our Taste of KFC lineup with new KFC fan favorites like our nuggets and Famous Bowls, each for just $5,” Nick Chavez, CMO, KFC US wrote in a statement. 

Chavez said, “These Taste of KFC Deals offer three choices – with something for everyone – at an incredible price.”

We suspect additional QSRs will soon offer meal deals, as corporate America has already warned numerous times about a consumer downturn on earnings calls.

Take, for instance, the number of times “consumer downturn” was mentioned on earnings calls, spiking to six this earnings season, the highest level since GFC. 

The number of times “cautious consumer” was mentioned 33 times, a record high. 

“Consumer pressure” mentions still lingers near record highs. 

Across industries—from luxury brands, airlines, and travel companies to fast-food chains, theme parks, and consumer goods companies—management teams have signaled profit warnings due to a consumer slowdown that continues to gain momentum. 

Low/mid-tier consumers seem to have reached their limit in absorbing price hikes on goods and services, thanks to depleted personal savings and maxed-out credit cards. This is due to elevated inflation and high interest rates under Bideonomics. 

Also, the second quarter has displayed unmistakable signs of a consumer slowdown, with the latest credit card data from the Federal Reserve also indicating that some consumers have hit a proverbial ‘brick wall.’ 

Even VP Harris recently admitted at a campaign rally that a cost of living crisis persists. So much for Bidenomics…

QSRs offering meal deals only reflect an economy trending in the wrong direction. The mid/low-iter consumer has tapped out under failed Bidenomics.