Month: September 2024

Authored by John Konrad of gCaptain,

gCaptain has received multiple reports that the US Navy oiler USNS Big Horn ran aground yesterday and partially flooded off the coast of Oman, leaving the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group without its primary fuel source.

First reported on the gCaptain forum and by maritime historian Sal Mercogliano, a leaked video and photos show damage to the ship’s rudder post and water flooding into a mechanical space. US Navy vessels don’t typically transmit AIS signals, so we don’t know the exact location of the ship but a Navy source confirms she is anchored near Oman awaiting a full damage assessment.

Fortunately, no injuries or environmental damage have been reported for the ship. This is significant because the 33-year-old vessel is one of the single-hull versions of the Kaiser-class oilers.

“USNS Big Horn sustained damage while operating at sea in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations overnight on Sept. 23. All crew members are currently safe and U.S. 5th Fleet is assessing the situation,” according to a statement from a Navy official provided to Sam Lagrone at USNI News.

It’s not looking good. I’ve been told by a shipowner the Navy does not have a spare oiler to deploy and is scrambling to find a commercial oil tanker to refuel the Abraham Lincoln carrier group.

Updates over at gCaptain forum: https://t.co/nNG6uSYGJJ https://t.co/wGP2GTYyAw pic.twitter.com/ec2oN3CpSf

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) September 24, 2024

Kaiser-class oilers, named after Henry J. Kaiser, were introduced in the 1980s and have long been the backbone of the Navy’s underway replenishment (UNREP) capabilities. These vessels refuel carrier strike groups and other naval assets at sea—a crucial task ensuring the Navy’s global reach and operational readiness. However, as single-hull tankers, they’ve been considered environmentally vulnerable since, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the 1990 Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90) mandated double-hull designs for commercial oil tankers.

The John Lewis-class, a modern replacement for the aging Kaiser-class, features double-hull construction, improved safety, and enhanced fuel capacity. Named after the late civil rights leader, these ships are designed to meet the Navy’s future logistical needs, reflecting a broader push to modernize the fleet and enhance operational resilience.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the Big Horn is the only oiler the Navy has in the Middle East. One shipowner told gCaptain that the Navy is scrambling to find a commercial oil tanker to take its place and deliver jet fuel to the USS Abraham Lincoln.

If the Navy resorts to using a commercial oil tanker as a temporary replacement, it would need to install a Consolidated Cargo Handling and Fueling (CONSOL) system for underway replenishment operations. This system includes specialized refueling rigs, tensioned fueling hoses, and high-capacity fuel pumps—all essential for safely transferring fuel to warships at sea. The tanker would also require robust communication and control systems to ensure precise coordination during refueling maneuvers.

This retrofitting process is no small feat. It requires significant modifications to the commercial vessel, enabling it to withstand the unique stresses and operational demands of pumping fuel while sailing at full speed. Moreover, a U.S. Merchant Marine crew trained in CONSOL UNREP procedures—a complex and high-risk operation—would need to be flown to the Middle East to supervise the operation. This adds another layer of complexity to an already challenging situation.

Commercial tankers are significantly slower than Navy oilers, which could leave the USS Abraham Lincoln more vulnerable to attack during aviation fuel loading operations.

The Navy currently faces a severe shortage of oilers and crew to operate them. Earlier this month, the Navy announced it might lay up 17 replenishment and supply ships—including one oiler—due to difficulties recruiting U.S. Merchant Mariners. While the Navy has launched five new John Lewis Class oilers – including the USNS Lucy Stone (T-AO 209) this week – and awarded NASSCO a $6.7 billion contract for eight more, challenges persist.

Official Navy and Military Sealift Command sources have repeatedly assured gCaptain that the John Lewis program is on schedule. However, two marine inspectors who have examined the new oilers tell gCaptain they’re encountering numerous problems, delaying the vessels’ overseas deployment. Despite the lead ship, USNS John Lewis, being launched in January 2021, it’s currently sitting idle at a repair shipyard in Oregon. As of today, none of the new oilers have been cleared to leave the continental United States.

The Broader Navy Tanker Crisis and Strategic Implications

The grounding of USNS Big Horn is a stark reminder of the broader tanker crisis facing the U.S. military, as highlighted by Captain Steve Carmel, a former vice president at Maersk, in an editorial for gCaptain last year. The Department of Defense is projected to need more than one hundred tankers of various sizes in the event of a serious conflict in the Pacific. However, current estimates indicate that the DoD has assured access to fewer than ten, a dangerously low number that threatens to cripple U.S. military operations. Without sufficient tanker capacity, even the most advanced naval capabilities—including nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which still rely on aviation fuel—will be rendered ineffective.

This problem became significantly more accute with the closing of the Navy’s massive Pacific fuel depot – Red Hill – after poor maintence resulted in fuel leaking into the local water supply, poisoning thousands including children, in Hawaii.

The shortage of both oilers and tankers demands urgent action. The United States must build a larger U.S.-flagged fleet capable of replenishing aircraft carriers and support joint wartime operations. Expanding the Tanker Security Program, enforcing cargo preference, and prepositioning fuel-laden tankers are potential solutions, but they require immediate implementation. With the looming threat of conflict in the Pacific, securing a robust tanker fleet is not just a logistical necessity—it’s a strategic imperative.

This crisis—coupled with the equally troubling US Merchant Marine crewing crisis—poses a significant challenge for the US Navy. Encouragingly, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has called for a bold new Maritime Statecraft. Moreover, with the leadershipof RepresentativeMichael Waltz and Senator Mark Kelly, Congress is working on a bill to address our maritime dilemmas—a bill this incident makes more compelling than ever. However, major obstacles remain. These solutions take time, and other federal agencies—including the US Coast Guard but most notably the US Maritime Administration under Secretary Pete Buttigieg—are under-resourced and lack motivation to do the heavy lifting required to solve these problems.

As we await the implementation of these crucial solutions, our dedicated Merchant Mariners, operating a dwindling fleet of aging logistics ships, will undoubtedly face increased operational demands and heightened pressure to work harder. More stress on the mariners and military logistics system will inevitably lead to more incidents similar to yesterdays USNS Big Horn grounding. And that’s before we even consider the Navy’s severe shortage of working ships – salvage ships, ocean tugboats, fireboats, tenders, and floating drydocks — all crucial for quickly repairing and returning damaged ships to service.

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

With just weeks to go until the general election, election offices across the country are making their final preparations, and in some cases, accepting ballots.

Here are the answers to some common questions voters may have as they gear up to cast their ballots.

When Is Election Day?

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Who Can Vote?

Only U.S. citizens ages 18 or older are permitted to vote in federal elections.

Can I Vote Early?

That depends on your state.

Most states offer early or absentee voting for any reason, though a few (Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire) require voters to meet certain eligibility requirements.

To vote absentee, you will need to request a ballot before your state’s deadline unless you live in one of a handful of states that automatically mail out ballots to all voters.

Those states include California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia, which allow all elections to be conducted by mail.

You can check your eligibility and request an absentee ballot through your local election office or via Vote.org. Ballots can be returned via mail, in-person at your local election office, or via a drop box, if your state uses them.

In most states, you can track the status of your absentee ballot online. Some may also offer text or email alerts to keep you updated as your ballot is processed.

Early in-person voting is also available in most states, though dates vary. Check this calendar to see when early voting begins and ends in your state.

What Do I Need to Do?

The first step to voting—early or otherwise—is to make sure you are registered. All states and territories, save North Dakota, require voters to register.

You can check the status of your voter registration here. Online registration is also available up until your state’s deadline.

Most states also either require or request that voters present some form of ID to vote in person, though rules vary.

In some cases, voters may be allowed to vote without any form of identification. Check your state’s requirements here.

Lastly, before heading to the polls, verify your polling location and the hours it will open with your local elections office.

What Are the Top Races?

With control of the House, Senate, and White House up for grabs, there are many races on this year’s ballot that could prove critical to the balance of power in Washington.

Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris is seeking a promotion to the role of president, while former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, is hoping to secure a second term.

Their running mates, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio will also be on the ballot.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans’ control of the House and the Democrat majority in the Senate are both hanging by a thread.

With all 435 House seats up for election, Democrats need only flip four to take control of the chamber.

New York’s 4th Congressional District is one place they are eyeing for a gain.

There, freshman Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican, is defending his seat against Democrat Laura Gillen, former Hempstead town supervisor, in a rematch of 2022.

The race for Arizona’s 1st District seat, currently held by Republican Rep. David Schweikert, is another where Democrats could pull off an upset.

Schweikert won the district by about 3,200 votes in 2022—a thin margin that could bode well for his Democrat challenger, former state Rep. Amish Shah.

Republicans, on the other hand, are hoping to expand their majority by flipping Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where former NASCAR driver and Republican state lawmaker Austin Theriault is taking on three-term Democrat Rep. Jared Golden.

Pennsylvania’s 8th District is also on Republicans’ radar.

Trump carried the district twice, and with the 45th president on the ballot again, Democrat Rep. Matt Cartwright could lose his seat to Republican businessman Rob Bresnahan.

In the Senate, Republicans are targeting the seats of several vulnerable Democrats and independents in hopes of retaking the upper chamber.

One they are expected to win handily is the seat of West Virginia’s newly independent Sen. Joe Manchin, who is not seeking reelection.

Before Manchin’s affiliation change in May, he was West Virginia’s sole remaining Democrat in a statewide office.

Although he endorsed Wheeling’s Democrat Mayor Glenn Elliott to take his place, West Virginians are widely expected to pick Republican Jim Justice, the current governor, to fill the seat.

In Montana, another GOP stronghold, Democrat Sen. Jon Tester is in danger of losing his race against Republican Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and entrepreneur.

The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Tester trailing his challenger by more than 5 points.

Ohio’s Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown is in a similar position. He’s defending his seat against Trump-endorsed entrepreneur Bernie Moreno in another state that tends to lean Republican.

However, in that case, the RealClearPolitics average of polls favors Brown by 3.6 points.

Meanwhile, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are looking to stave off Democrat challengers in two reliably red states.

And the race to replace Arizona’s independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is also sure to be closely watched, with Trump ally and former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake set to take on Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego.

Other Senate battlegrounds include Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Wisconsin.

When Will We Know Results?

With the recent rise in the popularity of mail-in voting, it’s unlikely every race will be decided on election night.

Each state has different laws governing how long absentee ballots may be accepted and when election offices may start counting them.

Some states allow that process to begin before Election Day, whereas others require officials to wait until after the polls close.

Because of those rules, counting continued days past Election Day in many states in 2020, prompting questions about the accuracy and validity of the results.

The U.S. Postal Service encourages those voting by mail to mail their completed ballots before Election Day and at least one week before their state’s deadline to ensure their vote is counted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

As we outlined in Part One, here in California, we have an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if it were to be separated as a standing nation. Home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, world-class agriculture, and medical schools, California is an economic powerhouse.

Yet we, in California, have the highest poverty rate in the nation. We have a majority of the nation’s homeless people. We have the highest overall tax rates in the nation. Our energy costs are double that of the national average. Our per-student spending in schools is well above the national average, yet our students consistently have below-average grade-level test scores. Our major cities are crime-ridden, our power grid is woefully vulnerable, and our beaches are regularly closed due to raw sewage contamination.

We are a one-party state. Democrats have a supermajority hold in California politics, meaning that there is no Congressional opposition to whatever they wish to do. They are in charge.

California’s economy serves every Democrat’s whim and desire. 

• High-speed rail boondoggles? The line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, originally expected to cost around $40 billion, was expected to more than double in cost to at least $95 billion. Then the project’s scope changed after abandoning plans for dedicated high-speed tracks at both ends of the line, reducing costs to nearly $70 billion. This will make the mandated 2-hour and 40-minute trip virtually impossible. It might never be completed at all.

• Unworkable EV mandates and banning of gas-powered cars? On September 23, 2024, Governor Hair Gel, Gavin Newsom, signed an executive order to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) cars in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia by 2035. This insane executive order, which is not likely to stand up to judicial review, would ban all ICE vehicles from California’s roads by 2040. That is never likely to happen. What are the state’s poor people expected to drive?

• Over-regulating oil and gas companies out of the state? In another effort to cripple oil drilling and production in California, Governor Hair Gel issued an executive order in 2021 to stop hydraulic fracking. While it is claimed that fracking in California represents just 2% of production—a statistic that is disputed by the industry—it’s the long-term threat to the oil and gas industry that contributes to the exodus of almost 100 energy companies from the state (many to Texas). This contributes to the fact that residents of this state pay some of the highest prices for gas in the nation, much of it due to onerous state taxes (60¢ per gallon on top of state and federal sales taxes on the sale of gas at the pump).

• Mandating solar panels on all new construction? While on the surface this seems like a reasonably good idea, in reality, it is not. Why? Because the state does not have the electric energy infrastructure in place to support such a mandate. As increased loads are placed on the antiquated power grid, every summer, we suffer from rolling blackouts whenever temperatures climb over 100 degrees across the state. As the grid strains under the prospect of more EVs on our roads, this is a recipe for disaster.

• Issuing insane minimum wage rules and closing hundreds of small businesses? No better place to see the law of unintended consequences rearing its ugly head is California’s 2024 law mandating a $20/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. This small-business-unfriendly law has put pressure on the economy in a destructive manner. It has put upward pressure on wages paid for many entry-level jobs, pricing many first-time workers out of a job and raising costs beyond what the market will bear. Why would you work for $12/hour for a landscaping job (cutting grass in the hot sun) when you can flip burgers in air-conditioned comfort at In-N-Out for $20/hour? With labor being an important component in fast food costs, California’s residents have rebelled at paying $20 for a Big Mac combo meal at McDonald’s, crippling many small businesses in the fast food and casual dining sectors.

• Emptying and then closing prisons? California has a rampant violent crime problem and laws that have basically decriminalized retail theft up to $950 for a single theft. When you don’t have crimes being prosecuted by left-wing, George Soros-funded-and-supported district attorneys, you have less of a need for jail cells. While Governor Hair Gel has approved the closure of three prisons, he’s resisting closing more. Could the optics of closing more prisons be affecting his future political plans? We’ve noted the impact on local communities, many in rural areas, when prisons are closed and good-paying, not-easily-replaced jobs are made redundant.

• Offering zero-interest home loans exclusively to illegal aliens at the expense of actual California citizens? This one we can’t blame on Governor Hair Gel. As Newsom wants to burnish his prospects for his expected 2028 run for the presidency (should Kamala Harris lose in November), he smartly vetoed this insane legislation proposed by the California State Legislature. We think that at some point, long-time California residents will see the folly in such idiotic policies and make Democrats pay at the polls.

These policies are simply crazy.

California’s economy and the vast amounts of revenue generated by millions of citizens and their businesses allow for every bad left-wing idea to be realized, tried, failed, and then tried again. In this economy, taxpayer money is not used to provide a better quality of life to its population; it is a tool to be squandered repeatedly in pursuit of a leftist utopia while lining the pockets of favored industries, activist groups, and entrenched political players. Nancy Pelosi is the poster child for the power of the elite political class.

It does not matter if these programs fail. There is no accountability for failure, only praise for intentions. In California, those in power wield it aggressively while demanding to be worshipped for their generosity with taxpayer dollars. In essence, they’re control freaks with unlimited funding.

When Democrats are in charge, the quality of life for ordinary citizens plummets. Almost every major city in America is under Democrat control and are disasters—Chicago, Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Detroit, Seattle, Portland (we could go on and on)—all due to far-left control freaks using taxpayer funds to use as they see fit.

News of Democrat public officials directing tax dollars to friends and family is so common that, unless it is too egregious to cover up, the legacy media doesn’t qualify it as news anymore. The California news media considers this graft and corruption as business as usual. There’s a reason why many of the state’s more fiscally responsible residents have long called it the “People’s Republic of Kalifornia.”

The worst thing about corruption as a system of government is that it works so well. With so much consolidation of power and personal enrichment at stake, it’s no wonder why politicians work so hard to stay in office. It’s the cottage industry of the so-called Golden State and the power-intoxicated elites that have run the state into the ground over the last 50 years.

*  *  *

Richard Truesdell is a former consumer electronics retail executive and automotive travel photojournalist. In the last 25 years, he has visited more than 35 countries on six continents. A former high school history teacher with a BA in Political Science from Waynesburg University, he is a lifelong Conservative moderate who has turned his thoughts and keyboard to political commentary and popular culture. A cross-section of his writings can be found here.

Keith Lehmann is a retired consumer electronics industry executive who has written extensively on technology, transportation, and international travel. Living in Southern California for over fifty years, he has first-hand exposure to societal and cultural happenings of the left and submits decidedly realism-based, Conservative viewpoints, much of which can be found on his Substack.

Having been in the United States since Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is about to present his ‘victory plan’ to President Biden, as well as VP Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, likely in that order as the meetings unfold this week.

He said in an ABC News interview published Tuesday, “I think that we are closer to peace than we think.” But he caveated this by saying this will only be assured if Ukraine comes from a “strong position” with the help of Western backers.

He described his so-called victory plan as not being focused on seeking to negotiate with Russia, but rather it is “a bridge to a diplomatic way out, to stop the war.”

“We just have to be very strong, very strong,” Zelensky said, and this is largely dependent on the “quick decisions”. He has also of late said that “bold” decisions must be made by Washington, in reference to the request for NATO to greenlight long-range missiles strikes on Russia.

“Everybody’s looking up to [Biden], and we need this to defend ourselves,” he told ABC, in an obvious effort to increase pressure on a somewhat hesitant White House. Ukraine also wants a firm path to NATO membership.

He further said his plan is about “the strengthening of Ukraine, Ukrainian army and Ukrainian people. Only in the strong position we can push [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to stop the war – diplomatic way.” He emphasized: “That is why we are asking our friend.”

Despite this optimism about Ukraine’s battlefield chances from Zelensky, Reuters on Tuesday has more bad news for Kiev, centering on rapid gains in Donetsk as another key town is about to fall.

Zelensky is pulling out all the stops in a final push to wring U.S. taxpayers for more money.

He knows the policies of unlimited funding and escalation supported by the Harris-Biden Admin have an expiration date. https://t.co/GeeUC6lMEA

— Rep. Eli Crane (@RepEliCrane) September 24, 2024

“Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the 2022 war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media,” Reuters writes.

“Russian forces in eastern Ukraine advanced at their fastest rate in two years in August, according to multiple open source maps, even though a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region sought to force Moscow to divert troops.”

One well-known regional journalist and war observer, Leonid Ragozin—formerly of the BBC—agrees that things are looking bad for Ukraine forces in Vuhledar…

As confirmed by both Russian and Ukrainian sources, the Russians have entered Vuhledar – a key Ukrainian stronghold at the junction of eastern and southern fronts. The potential effect of its capture is hard to overestimate.

They are also closing the lid on the near-encircled…

— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) September 24, 2024

“The situation on the frontline couldn’t be worse for Zelensky-Biden summit,” Ragoniz writes.

So it seems Zelensky is busy in Washington ramping up the hawkish talking points even as his forces are against the ropes in the Donbass. “Russia can only be forced into peace, and that is exactly what’s needed — forcing Russia into peace,” Zelensky had told ABC further. But so far, it seems the opposition situation is unfolding.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

The American Founding Fathers built our nation on a core premise that has been long forgotten and this memory lapse is causing endless grief for current generations. What premise? That the rest of the world is not the responsibility of the US. We don’t owe the world anything, we don’t need to be involved in foreign wars, we are not beholden to foreign interests and we are not obligated to foreign peoples.

America is not a “melting pot.” It never has been a melting pot. This phrase is used by leftists and open borders activists to suggest that there is no American culture; that we are nothing more than an economic buffet for far flung tribes to feast upon.

America is its own very separate and very distinct culture with comprehensive tradition, principles and ideals. If foreigners want to come here they have to play by our rules, learn our language, assimilate into our culture and respect our heritage or they can go back to whatever cesspool country they are running away from. It’s that simple.

America started out with this vision because much of the world at the time of the Revolution was mired in empire, oligarchy and in some cases barbarism. Americans separated themselves from that world because it was hostile to the common man’s freedom and prosperity. The revolution was not just a war to secede from the British Empire, it was a means to stay isolated from the entanglements of foreign deviants.

Whether or not that plan was ever successful is up for debate, but the intent was real and consistently stated by the founders. As George Washington noted in his farewell address in 1796:

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government…”

This sentiment can and does extend to mass immigration.  George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be integrated into American life so that:

“…By an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”

Though they supported the idea of immigrants making a new life in the US, they asserted that restriction and requirements be met. Also, at that time the majority of immigrants were from Europe, were familiar with western customs and the vast majority were Christian. Open borders was NEVER a promise of American society. Thomas Jefferson warned against the effects of uncontrolled immigration and predicted quite clearly the crisis we are facing today.  He stated:

“Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours…is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural rights and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants.

They will bring with them the principles of government they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.

These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and tender it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.”

In other words, Jefferson knew that migrants indoctrinated into mindless peasantry and conflicting ideologies would have no concept of individual liberty. They would one day overwhelm American culture and destroy it from within if we allowed them to.

Somewhere along the way the idea of mass immigration became romanticized. The migrations from Europe in the last decades of the 1800s and early 1900s are constantly depicted as a golden era, but again, these were predominantly European immigrants with Christian backgrounds, not third world migrants from completely alien societies.

The period was still rife with problems and was only ultimately accepted because the Civil War had wiped out the military and the working population. It was glorified later by Hollywood as some kind of core symbol of the American identity – The “melting pot” lie was born.

Even if you believe immigration was advantageous over a century ago, that doesn’t mean it is advantageous now. Times change and so must government policies reflect those changes. Clinging to the fantasy of America as a golden isle with enough riches for all is pure stupidity. If the American dream is offered to everyone, it will be achieved by no one.

Americans should have learned this lesson well during the immigration disaster of the early 1980s under the Jimmy Carter Administration. The federal government opened the floodgates to mostly unvetted migrants from Cuba and Haiti. The event, called the Mariel Boatlift, sparked one of the worst escalations of criminal violence in our nation’s history and it led to the deaths of thousands of innocents.  Famously depicted in the 1983 film ‘Scarface’ and the 1984 drama television series ‘Miami Vice’, the crime wave that erupted in the face of the migrant surge was not fictional, it was very real and it made a long lasting impression on American society.

Though some Cubans became staunch anti-communists and integrated well into American society, many were violent convicts kicked out of Cuba by Castro and dumped on American shores along with Haitian gang members and even foreign spies. In Florida where most of the migrants first congregated, murder rates exploded for over a decade.

Racial tensions skyrocketed as black Americans in Miami argued they were being pushed out of the economy and that they were being targeted by Cubans and Haitians. 

Keep in mind, the event was composed of only 150,000 migrants. Compare this to the over 500,000 Haitians imported into US communities (along with 800,000 other refugee applicants), not to mention the tens of millions of illegal aliens, mostly from South America, that have entered the country under the Biden Administration.

What is the obvious conclusion? That the third world and the western world are completely incompatible. They cannot be reconciled and very few people from the third world should ever be allowed to settle in the US. There should be a list of countries that we rarely take migrant applications from, and illegal immigration in general should be punished severely as it is in many nations.

Due to open border policies, Americans are suffering under an unprecedented housing crisis as foreign demand drives up rental prices. We have rising crime in sanctuary cities and Democrats refuse to fully track and report that data to the FBI until 2025. We have Venezuelan cartels invading metro areas across the US. And, we have local reports of Haitian migrants eating park animals and people’s pets. The situation isn’t pretty.

These people are NOT our responsibility. If history is any indication, things are going to get a lot worse in the near term unless illegal migrants and Biden’s third world visa recipients are removed from the country.

The immigration policies under Jimmy Carter were an unmitigated disaster and the Biden Administration seems to be following the exact same trajectory. Leftists and globalists argue that it is a part of our national identity to accept and cope with mass immigration. They also argue that American “imperialism” is the direct cause of instability in the world, and thus we must “pay the price” by welcoming the third world into our backyard.

The supposed effects of “American imperialism” are irrelevant. They do not matter and such foreign policy is often initiated by the very same people that now claim the American public must pay the price for foreign entanglements. The elites create the problems and we are required to suffer for them.

Foreigners should be tasked with fixing their own countries just as we Americans are tasked with fixing ours. We owe them nothing. No reparations, no redistribution of wealth, no inclusivity, no American dream. They need to go out and fight for those things on their own.

The solution is clear: All illegal immigrants need to be extricated from US borders and a moratorium on immigration must be put in place (for at least five years) until we sort out the mess that has been created.

The American communities that are being invaded by migrants right now should also have a say. Those native born Americans have built and maintained the towns and cities under siege right now, and no one is asking them how they feel about the cultural replacement agenda on their doorstep.

Make no mistake, illegal migrants will be leaving the US one way or another. There is a peaceful way to do this, and there’s other ways. I have little doubt that conflict will be the most likely outcome. If the current federal policies remain in place the concerns of native born citizens will be ignored and people will snap, at which point they will do what the establishment fears most of all – They will organize. And when Americans organize things will turn interesting very quickly.

*  *  *

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Donald Trump is riding a wave of momentum across the Sun Belt, according to a new poll, which shows the former president ahead in key battleground states like Arizona and Georgia, with North Carolina also leaning in his favor. In a post-debate bump, Trump has solidified his lead in two of those states which he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, Arizona and Georgia, while Kamala Harris struggles to close the gap as she contends with both voter skepticism and a rising Trump campaign.

Trump’s resurgence in these states signals a sharp contrast to Harris’s relatively narrow lead in other battleground areas like Pennsylvania. The most recent poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College from Sept. 17 to 21 reveal Trump ahead in Arizona by five points, leading Harris 50% to 45%. This marks a significant shift from earlier polls where Harris was ahead, thanks in part to Latino voters shifting away from the Vice President.

Remember when Kamala “won” the debate? https://t.co/v5yi4tROVQ pic.twitter.com/BXFFdMM3Sx

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 23, 2024

Georgia, another crucial state, shows Trump maintaining a 49% to 45% advantage, while North Carolina — historically a Republican stronghold — remains more competitive, with Trump holding a slim lead of 49% to 47%.

As both campaigns focus heavily on these states, the pressure is mounting. Harris’s campaign has enjoyed a spike in donations and enthusiasm following her recent debate performance, but the polling suggests that Trump’s aggressive “America First” messaging is resonating deeply with voters worried about economic uncertainty, immigration, and the nation’s future.

According to the report, the Sun Belt states are key to a Harris victory in November.

While these three Sun Belt states have drawn a great deal of attention from both the Trump and Harris camps, North Carolina and Georgia are especially essential to the former president’s hopes of returning to the White House, analysts say. Ms. Harris could win even while losing all three of these states, though it would be difficult.

One Trump supporter in Georgia, Tyler Stembridge, expressed concern over the country’s trajectory. “Whatever road we’re on right now just, to me, does not look like it’s going to end well,” he told the NY Times.

The polls also reveal key vulnerabilities for both candidates. Harris’s challenge lies in winning over undecided voters, with about 15% of voters across these three states still undecided or open to switching. Trump’s character remains a sticking point, with concerns over his behavior looming largest in North Carolina, where 44% of undecided voters cited his personality as problematic.

For now, however, Trump’s economic message and promises to address inflation seem to be working in his favor. A majority of respondents in these Sun Belt states believe Trump would do a better job managing the economy, with 55% saying he is better equipped to tackle inflation compared to 42% who favor Harris.

Authored by Allen Gindler via The Mises Institute,

One of the central tenets of Marxism is the labor theory of value, which states that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it. In this framework, labor itself becomes a commodity—something that can be bought and sold in the marketplace. Marx argues that, under capitalism, workers are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists, who exploit them by paying wages that are less than the full value their labor produces. This difference – or “surplus value” – is appropriated by the capitalist as profit. However, this analogy between labor and commodities reveals deep flaws when examined critically.

The idea that labor is a commodity has been criticized in the works of many prominent economists, both from the Austrian school of economics and from others. Friedrich Hayek, in his work “The Road to Serfdom” (1944), offers a broader critique of socialist economic planning, which includes the Marxist treatment of labor as a commodity. Hayek’s critique of Marxism is that it leads to the centralization of power, where the state controls labor and other aspects of the economy. He argues that treating labor as a controlled commodity within a planned economy undermines individual freedom and leads to a form of “serfdom.”

According to Hayek, economic freedom, including the freedom to choose one’s work and negotiate wages, is essential for political freedom. His critique implies that the Marxist approach to labor, which treats it as a commodity to be controlled by the state, is fundamentally flawed and dangerous to individual liberty.

Karl Polanyi, in his influential work “The Great Transformation” (1944), introduces the concept of “fictitious commodities“ to describe things like labor, land, and money that are treated as commodities in a market economy but are not truly commodities in the traditional sense. Polanyi argues that labor is a “fictitious commodity” because it is not produced for sale but is an inherent aspect of human life.

Polanyi criticizes the commodification of labor because it reduces human beings to mere inputs in the production process, ignoring their social and moral significance. He argues that treating labor as a commodity is unnatural and harmful, leading to social disintegration and exploitation.

Ludwig von Mises, in his work “Human Action” (1949), critiques the Marxist concept of labor as a commodity from the perspective of the Austrian school of economics. Mises argues that labor cannot be treated as a commodity in the same way as goods and services because it is intrinsically linked to human choice and action. Mises contends that labor is an expression of individual preferences and values, which cannot be reduced to a market price alone. He criticizes Marxist economics for failing to recognize the subjective nature of value in labor, arguing that labor is not a homogeneous commodity and varies in quality and value depending on the individual and the context.

This critique challenges the Marxist framework by asserting that labor cannot be commodified in the same way as physical goods. Mises’s emphasis on individual choice and the subjective theory of value suggests that Marx’s treatment of labor as a commodity is an oversimplification that ignores the complexity of human behavior and economic relationships.

The Strange Case of Labor as a Commodity

According to Marx, labor power is treated as a commodity that workers sell in exchange for wages. But this commodity is unlike any other. Marx himself acknowledges that labor power is unique because it is tied directly to human beings; it cannot be separated from the person who provides it. This intrinsic link between labor and the worker creates several contradictions in Marxist theory.

First, if labor power is a commodity, it is a very strange one indeed. According to Marx, this commodity is always sold below its value. In other words, workers are constantly selling their ability to work for less than it is worth, generating surplus value for the capitalist. But this raises a fundamental question: if labor is a commodity, why is it the only commodity that is consistently sold below its cost? In any other market, selling a commodity below its value would be considered an unsustainable business practice, leading to bankruptcy. Yet, in Marx’s theory, this is not only common but necessary for the functioning of capitalism.

This notion implies that workers are essentially “stupid businessmen” who sell their commodity—labor—at a loss, every working day. This characterization is not only demeaning but also illogical. It is difficult to conceive of any rational actor, let alone an entire class of people, who would consistently engage in such a self-defeating economic practice.

In other words, if we accept the premise that labor power is a commodity, then we must also accept that workers are engaged in a very peculiar form of business—one where they consistently accept less than the market value for their product. This runs counter to basic economic principles, where sellers seek to maximize the price they receive for their goods or services. The idea that an entire class of people would willingly and consistently sell their labor below its value defies logic and undermines the credibility of Marxist theory.

To illustrate the absurdity of treating labor as a commodity, consider the example of a self-employed plumber. A plumber who owns their tools and operates independently does not sell their labor power to a capitalist. Instead, they provide a service directly to customers and charge a fee for their work. In this scenario, the plumber is both the owner of the means of production (their tools and skills) and the provider of the service. They control the price of their labor and the conditions under which they work.

According to Marxist theory, however, this self-employed plumber would somehow be selling their labor power below its value, even though they set their own rates and work conditions. This makes little sense. The plumber, acting as their own “capitalist,” would naturally aim to charge a price that covers their costs and provides a profit margin. There is no inherent reason why their labor power should be sold below its value, and the concept of surplus value becomes irrelevant in this context. The self-employed plumber is not a “stupid businessman” but a rational economic actor who sets prices based on the value of their work.

The Socialist Experience: Selling Labor Below Cost

Marxists argue that the exploitation of labor is inherent to capitalism and that socialism would rectify this by abolishing private ownership of the means of production. However, the experience of socialist regimes, such as the Soviet Union, China under Mao, and Cuba, tell a different story.

Even in these ostensibly Marxist societies, workers continued to sell their labor power in exchange for wages. The state, rather than private capitalists, controlled the means of production and determined the distribution of surplus value. However, this did not eliminate the fundamental Marxist critique that labor was being sold below its value. In fact, Marxists would argue that this exploitation continued, with the state acting as the new capitalist, appropriating surplus value from the workers.

If workers under socialism continued to sell their labor below its value, then Marxism fails not only as a critique of capitalism but also as a guide for building a classless society. The persistence of this dynamic under socialism suggests that Marxism is deeply flawed, both in theory and in practice.

Marxism as Sophism

The entire Marxist framework rests on the premise that labor is a commodity. If labor is not a commodity, the logical consistency of Marxism collapses because its key concepts—surplus value, exploitation, contradictions in capitalism, and the inevitability of socialist revolution—lose their foundation.

If labor is not a commodity, then:

• Surplus value cannot be calculated in the way Marx described, undermining the concept of capitalist exploitation.

• Exploitation of workers, as Marx defined it, cannot occur if there is no surplus value being extracted from labor.

• The contradiction between productive forces and production relations may not exist in the form Marx theorized, removing the driving force behind the predicted collapse of capitalism.

• The justification for a socialist revolution is weakened, as the proletariat may not experience the chronic exploitation that Marx believed would lead to revolutionary change.

Marxism’s reliance on the flawed premise of labor as a commodity renders it fundamentally unsound. Given the theoretical and practical flaws in Marxism, it is reasonable to conclude that Marxism functions as a form of sophism in socio-economic theory. Sophism refers to an argument that appears plausible on the surface but is fundamentally misleading and ultimately unworkable. Marxism fits this definition well.

“This is potentially the end of the West. It’s now or never,” warns Bret Weinstein in an ominous reality check of just what’s at stake over the next few months.

“This is, in my opinion, absolutely urgent,” he adds:

“People’s fancy rationales for staying on the couch and not voting because they don’t think their vote counts. This is no time for that…

This is no time for what I have done in past elections, which is, you know, to vote my conscience and vote for people that I knew would not be elected.

There is a time and a place for that. I do not believe this is the time and the place.

This is the moment at which we have to defeat whatever that force is that has taken over our system and targeted all of our rights.”

Weinstein points out that “we are in a better position than Europeans are because our constitution is better thought out.”

“We are kind of last on the list from the point of view of the degradation of our rights…

This is the moment to realize that whatever our ideological differences may be, are completely unimportant if we lose the republic, right?

If we are to fight about the differences between what conservatives and liberals see, it has to be after the republic has been put back on a course with a future to it.”

Watch the full clip below:

Bret Weinstein: “This is potentially the end of the West. It’s now or never. This is, in my opinion, absolutely urgent. People’s fancy rationales for staying on the couch and not voting because they don’t think their vote counts. This is no time for that. This is no time for what… pic.twitter.com/3OfIemIYpA

— Camus (@newstart_2024) September 23, 2024

Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute, 

“You could drop Hillary into any trouble spot, come back in a month and…she will have made it better,” former President Bill Clinton declared in a 2016 speech championing his wife’s presidential candidacy. But Hillary’s entry into the brawls surrounding the 2024 presidential election will leave many Americans wishing to drop her elsewhere.

As the race enters the home stretch, Hillary Clinton is riding in like Joan of Arc to rescue truth—or at least to call for hammering government critics. But Hillary has been a triple threat to American democracy for fifteen years.

Last Monday evening, Hillary declared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC talk show that the federal government should criminally prosecute Americans who share “propaganda“—which she made no effort to define.

Hillary has long been one of America’s foremost censorship advocates. In 2021, she announced that there must be “a global reckoning with the disinformation, with the monopolistic power and control, with the lack of accountability that the [social media] platforms currently enjoy.” Hillary made her utterance at a time when freedom in much of the world had been obliterated by governments responding to a pandemic that occurred as a result of U.S. government funding reckless experiments in Chinese government labs. The U.S. denial of its role in the lab leak was perhaps the biggest deceit of the decade but Hillary never kvetched about that scam regarding a program that contributed to millions of deaths. But that wasn’t disinformation—that was public service.

In 2022, Hillary wailed that “tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability” and endorsed European Union legislation to obliterate free speech. But “disinformation” is often simply the lag time between the pronouncement and the debunking of government falsehoods.

That awkward fact didn’t deter Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz from declaring last month, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” Who knew the Minnesota version of the First Amendment has a loophole bigger than Duluth?

After the New York Post shot down Joe Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board in 2022, Biden appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as chief of a White House disinformation task force to find ways to protect women and LGBTQI+ politicians and journalists from vigorous criticism on the Internet (“online harassment and abuse”). Harris declared that such criticism could “preclude women from political decision-making about their own lives and communities, undermine the functioning of democracy.” To save democracy, the government must suppress criticism of women.

Five years ago, at an NAACP Detroit “Freedom Fund” dinner, Harris proclaimed, “We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.” She did not specify the precise degree of alleged rancor required to nullify a speaker’s constitutional rights. Based on Harris’s prior comments, she will likely sharply increase repression of her critics on social media if she wins in November.

Biden administration censorship schemes have been denounced by federal courts and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), chair of the House Cybersecurity Subcommittee, sent the White House a letter last week noting that the Biden administration always “advertised its willingness to manipulate the content of social media sites” and called for a cessation of all federal censorship tainting the 2024 election. Mace requested copies of all official “communications with social media companies…concerning the concealment or suppression of information on their sites.” At last report, nobody on Capitol Hill was sitting on the edge of their chair waiting for an informative White House response.

Hillary’s own career exemplifies a political elitist righteously blindfolding all other Americans.

When she was secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, Clinton exempted herself from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), setting up a private server in her New York mansion to handle her official email. The State Department ignored seventeen FOIA requests for her emails and said it needed seventy-five years to comply with a FOIA request for Hillary’s aides’ emails. The Federal Bureau of Investigation shrugged off Hillary’s aides using a program called BleachBit to destroy 30,000 of her emails under subpoena by a congressional committee. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth labeled the Clinton email coverup “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”

An Inspector General report slammed FBI investigators for relying on “rapport building” with Team Hillary instead of using subpoenas to compel the discovery of key evidence. The IG report “questioned whether the use of a subpoena or search warrant might have encouraged Clinton, her lawyers…or others to search harder for the missing devices (containing email), or ensured that they were being honest that they could not find them.” The FBI’s treatment of Hillary Clinton vivified how far federal law enforcement will twist the law to absolve the nation’s political elite, or at least those tied to the Democratic Party.

During Clinton’s tenure, the State Department gave grants to promote investigative journalism in numerous developing nations as part of its “good governance” programs. But exposing abuses was only a virtue outside U.S. territorial limits. Clinton vigorously covered up debacles in the $200 billion in foreign aid she shoveled out. From 2011 onward, AID’s acting inspector general massively deleted information on foreign aid debacles in audit reports, as The Washington Post reported in 2014. Clinton’s machinations helped delude Washington policymakers and Congress about the profound failures of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.

Pirouetting as a champion of candor is a novel role for the former secretary of State. Shortly before the 2016 election, a Gallup poll found that only 33% of voters believed Hillary was honest and trustworthy, and only 35% trusted Donald Trump. The Clinton-Trump tag team made “post-truth” the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2016 word of the year.

Hillary believes that the lesson of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is that good citizens should shut up and grovel. In her 2017 memoir, Hillary claimed that Nineteen Eighty-Four revealed the peril of critics who “sow mistrust toward exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves.” Did Hillary think Orwell dedicated the novel to Stalin? Hillary’s book noted that the regime in Orwell’s novel had physically tortured its victims to delude them. Hillary is comparatively humane, since she only wants to leave people forever in the dark—well, except for the scumbags who undermine the official storyline.

Hillary was a key player in the Barack Obama administration that believed that Americans had no right to learn the facts of the torture committed by the CIA after 9/11. When she was secretary of State in 2012, she declared, “Lack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government.” But the more secrets politicians keep, the less trust they deserve.

Hillary’s vision of democracy permits only token interference by underlings. She believes that poohbahs like her have the right to rig elections to sanctify their power. In 2015, when she was running for the presidency, she condemned voter identification requirements as part of a “sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people.” A Washington Post headline aptly summarized her message: “Hillary Clinton Declares War on Voter ID.” This is the bargain Hillary offered; voters didn’t have to identify themselves and she didn’t disclose what she did in office. Subsequent Democratic Party attacks on Voter ID were more successful, leading to sixty million ballots for Biden, millions of which were counted but not verified.

To sanctify censorship, Hillary is again invoking the Russian peril. A 316-page report last year by Special Counsel John Durham noted that in mid-2016, after the shellacking she suffered from her email scandal, “Clinton allegedly approved a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to tie Trump to Russia as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” President Barack Obama was briefed on the Clinton proposal “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” FBI officials relied on the “Clinton Plan” to target the Trump campaign even though no FBI personnel apparently took “any action to vet the Clinton Plan intelligence.”

The first three years of Trump’s presidency were haunted by constant accusations that he colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. In 2019, an Inspector General report confirmed that the FBI made “fundamental errors” and persistently deceived the FISA Court to authorize surveilling the Trump campaign.

Hillary’s scams were even too much for federal scorekeepers. The Federal Election Commission last year levied a $113,000 fine on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee for their deceptive funding to cover up their role in the Steele dossier, which spurred the FBI’s illegal surveillance of Trump campaign officials.

Clinton’s call to arrest people for disinformation was a crushingly ironic moment since it was her campaign that funded the infamous Steele dossier and spread false stories of Russian collusion during her presidential campaign…https://t.co/gxe33x5VuA

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) September 18, 2024

In Hillary’s new improved version of the Constitution, there is no free speech for “deplorables”—the vast swath of Americans she openly condemned in 2016. But this is the same mindset being shown by the Kamala Harris presidential campaign. Harris has scorned almost every opportunity to explain how she would use the power she is seeking to capture over American citizens. Instead, she is entitled to the Oval Office by acclimation of the mainstream media and all decent folks—or at least those who drive electric vehicles and donate to her campaign.

Is “disinformation” becoming simply another stick for rulers to use to flog uppity citizens? Denouncing disinformation sounds better than “shut up, peasants!” But if politicians have no obligation to disclose how they use their power and can persecute citizen who expose their abuses, how in Hades can American freedom survive? How can we permit our rulers to selectively squelch citizens based on alleged hateful comments when, as historian Henry Adams pointed out a century ago, politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”

Ambitious politicians never lack pious pretenses for destroying freedom. But will censorship by the Biden administration steal the 2024 election for Harris? Unfortunately, according to Hillary Clinton, you are not worthy of knowing the answer.

Oil pries rallied to one-month highs today after China’s stimmy package prompted demand hope (and OPEC doubled down on forecasts that global oil demand will keep growing to the middle of the century).

Additionally, the threat of another hurricane in the Gulf Coast, “dealt a blow to the bearish sentiment that dominated the oil markets in the past three weeks,” Claudio Galimberti, global market analysis director at Rystad Energy, wrote in a market update Tuesday.

“The stimulus is good news for oil demand, which has been weaker than expected, specifically in China, for the past three months,” he said.

Will the draws in Crude and at the Cushing hub continue…

API

• Crude -4.34mm (-800k exp)

• Cushing -26k

• Gasoline -3.44mm (-500k exp)

• Distillates -1.12mm (-1.2mm exp)

API reports inventory draws across the board with a large crude and gasoline draw…

Source: Bloomberg

‘Tank Bottoms’ loom at the Cushing Hub…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI traded off the highs into the API report

“Though oil rebounded last week, we do not see the current price as accurately reflecting a wider Middle East war scenario. Many market participants have seemingly written off a threat to regional oil supplies,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note.

“While we are not forecasting a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we do think that direct Iranian involvement would raise the prospect of a repeat of the 2019 scenario when the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and allies targeted tankers and critical energy infrastructure in the region,” she wrote.

Finally, as a reminder, all these bullish biases are hitting with hedge fund shorts at record highs.