Month: September 2024

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

Caterpillar Inc. has introduced new guidelines that refocus the company’s various employee programs on core business goals as part a broader review of its Code of Conduct and other underpinnings of corporate culture.

With the move, the company joins a growing number of U.S. companies that are rethinking policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as such initiatives come under pressure from conservative activists.

The updated guidelines, laid out in a Sept. 19 internal memo from the company’s executive office to employees that was viewed by The Epoch Times, include mandating senior management approval for external speakers at company events, concentrating employee training programs on promoting “high performance,” and establishing new rules for employee resource groups.

Caterpillar executives wrote in the memo that the new guidance comes after a “comprehensive review” of programs and policies, with the changes meant to better align the company’s culture with its enterprise strategy.

“All training, both formal and informal, must be focused on our business and designed to foster high performance and execution of our enterprise strategy,” the memo reads.

Initiatives related to external recognition for employees, such as surveys and awards, must be focused on the company’s business objectives and be approved in writing by upper level management.

The use of any external speakers must also be approved by managers, who are responsible for ensuring that speakers are properly vetted and that the content “aligns to our enterprise strategy and our purpose.”

Employee Resource Groups (ERG), which Caterpillar says exist “to foster an inclusive culture” through networking, mentoring, and staff development opportunities, must now operate explicitly “in support of enterprise strategy,” with the memo indicating that the company will provide more detailed ERG guidelines for staff in the near future.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who has campaigned against DEI programs at other companies, claimed in a post on social media that the changes at Caterpillar were made after he began communicating with the company last week and threatened “to expose their woke policies.”

Starbuck characterized the changes as amounting to doing away with “woke” trainings, banning donations to “divisive” events, and ensuring that there’s nothing “divisive or politically charged” in the material presented by external speakers.

“Those employees will no longer be subjected to the insanity we found during our investigation,” Starbuck wrote. “Work going forward should be a neutral place for everyone to co-exist without any ideology or divisive issues shoved down their throat. This is a massive win for sanity.”

Caterpillar did not respond to a request for comment on the changes and on whether they were prompted by Starbuck’s actions.

Starbuck recently put John Deere into his anti-DEI crosshairs, accusing the company of having “gone woke” and being all-in on DEI, with the agricultural machinery maker subsequently dialing down on its DEI programs.

He also launched a similar campaign against Tractor Supply, which led to a boycott that prompted the company to back away from its DEI initiatives.

Other companies, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, and Molson Coors have revised their DEI-related policies in recent months.

As companies such as Caterpillar pull back on DEI efforts, advocacy groups have warned of potential consequences. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in a letter co-signed by other civil rights organizations, claimed that abandoning DEI efforts could prove harmful.

​​”Abandoning DEI will have long-term consequences on business success—ultimately shirking fiduciary responsibility to employees, consumers, and shareholders,” the letter stated, pointing to studies showing that companies with diverse workforces tend to outperform their peers financially.

“Businesses that fail to include women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people neglect their financial duty to recruit and retain top talent from across the full talent pool and limit their company’s performance overall,” the letter states.

HRC puts out a Corporate Equality Index that gives companies DEI scores, with points for having an LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group, for instance. The group calls the index the “national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer employees.”

HRC claims that an “extreme group of right-wing activists” is trying to pressure companies into abandoning their DEI programs.

Starbuck wrote in his message on social media that Caterpillar had also ditched participation in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

A spokesperson for Caterpillar told Bloomberg that the company has been in communication with Starbuck and confirmed the content of the executive office memo to staff. However, the spokesperson denied that the company’s decision to withdraw from the the Corporate Equality Index—which took place last year—was related to Starbuck’s activism in any way.

When it comes to emission reductions, some countries aim high but miss the mark by a long shot while others reject big commitments on the international stage but still receive better grades for their greenhouse gas records. Sadly, the countries which do not stick to their emission reduction plans are still numerous. Sufficient goals, like those associated with limiting global warming to a maximum of 2° Celsius, are missed by many and insufficient goals, like limiting it to 3° Celsius, continue to exist for many nations.

Some scientists believe that a global warming of 2° Celsius in total would already raise sea levels by 56 centimeters, increase heat days by 25 percent and threaten drought periods of an average of four months per year. A warming of 3° Celsius is believed to lead to massive disruptions of ecosystems, food production and weather patterns, while one of 4° Celsius might seriously limit the habitable zones on the planet.

The Climate Action Tracker publishes the goals and projected achievements of countries until 2030 based on concrete policies and actions already put in place.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, according to the website, Egypt has rejected the accountability that comes with climate goals but is on track to limit their emissions to levels associated with global warming of 3° Celsius, an outcome defined as insufficient but still better than the 4+° Celsius increase associated with changing nothing. On the other end of the spectrum are the United Arab Emirates, which pledged to reach the 2° Celsius goal, but whose actions and policies until 2030 would suggest a development in line with a 4° Celsius warming.

You will find more infographics at Statista

None of the larger, industrialized countries or the European Union as a whole are currently on track to meet the 2° Celsius goal.

African nations Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco and Kenya as well as Costa Rica and Nepal are named by the Climate Action Tracker to be on track to meet the 1.5° Celsius goal using a fair share approach.

The website analyzed the climate policies of 35 countries and the EU.

Authored by Kane McGukin via BombThrower.com,

As human civilization has evolved, one thing has remained constant; change…

During major shifts, the root desire for change is typically ignored. I believe that these generational shifts, our societal shifts, are tied to a mismatch in the speed with which people and money need to move. Let’s take a moment to look at our major revolutions.

• Agrarian Revolution: a move from hunter-gatherer to farmers.

  

• Industrial Revolution: a move from farmers to factory workers.

  

• Digital Revolution: a move from assembly lines to skilled/knowledge workers.

  

Each of these waves caused a drastic shift in how society operated. They disrupted every industry and old line of thinking. These periods experienced major shifts in lifestyle, access, and money.

Each major revolution was propelled by our ability to harness new technologies and resources. In turn, allowing us to apply and realize the potential of mathematical principles that had been understood, but not fully utilized, in previous eras. For example, the Industrial Revolution leveraged Newton’s laws of motion to develop machinery that transformed production processes. Calculations, known for decades and centuries, became the powering force behind modern tools.

When we apply known calculations to new tools and technologies we typically see an unlocking of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or “value” in a way never experienced before.

During each revolution, GDP trajectory seems unsustainable in the moment. Having a trajectory that resembles the path of a rocket ship. However, as time passes and we have the ability to zoom out, we find that the distant past looks much more normalized. Over long periods the chaos of the moment smooths, providing the continuous up and to the right movement for our economic systems.

As we enter into the revolution of money, we should expect a surge similar to the impact of the internet in the 1990s.

For instance, the adoption of e-commerce, enabled by the internet, contributed to a substantial increase in GDP, with online retail sales in the U.S. growing from $27.6 billion in 2000 to $1.1 trillion in 2023.

Integration of digital currencies into the global economy is expected to reform banking and create new industries, reduce transaction costs, and open up previously inaccessible markets. This shift can be seen in dashboard data from Coinmetrics.io which shows the Stablecoin market having grown from roughly $0 prior to 2019 to about $160B+ today. Thus, Bitcoin and protocol innovations should continue to be big drivers of innovation for our next major wave of growth.

How Does This Relate to Today?

Much of the math that drove the industrial revolution was understood in 17th Century. In 1687, Isaac Newton published “The Principia“, laying the foundation for the laws of motion and gravitation. His work provided a mathematical framework for understanding force and motion in a way that led to the creation of mechanical systems which powered the industrial revolution of the 1800s.

Much of the math that drove probability theory and our understanding of the distribution of outcomes (Pareto’s Principle) was derived between 1500 and the late 1800s. The work of math mathematicians Gerolamo Cardano, Blaise Pascal, Christiaan Huygens, and Vilfredo Pareto powered much of our understanding and calculation of business margins in the 20th century. One could argue the genius of their work was not fully appreciated until post-1950 and again post-1980. A time when the American middle class was built. When sales and consumerism became the primary goal.

Much of the math that powers our digital and telecom networks was formulated between the mid-1800s and mid-1900s by mathematicians like George Boole, Harry Nyquist, Claude Shannon (the godfather of AI), Ralph Hartley, Alan Turing, and John von Neumann. Their foundational works were later expanded on by Paul Baran, Donald Davies, Richard Hamming, Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and Robert Metcalfe. These pioneers stood on the shoulders of giants before them and integrated our understanding of information (bits and bytes) with global business, enabling the digitization of industries and business models between 1970 and the early 2000s.

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude Shannon

While probability theory served us well in the analog and early digital eras, the complexities of today’s networked world demand a more sophisticated approach. This is where Information Theory offers a framework that can support exponential growth and the interconnectedness of our modern economy.

Previously, Information Theory was not widely understood, nor were the resources and compute power available to make it work at scale. Its math, formulated in the early to mid-1950s, gave us what we know today as Artificial Intelligence (AI), noded networks, social graphs, and graph-based database technologies.

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude Shannon

Why is this Important?

Each revolutionary moment brought major change to the world, creating a new state. During these major shifts, we often see confluence of human understanding of past fundamental laws (math), availability of resources (technology), and the ability to serve human needs (money/value). In short, today’s shift is because of a broader understanding of math derived by Claude Shannon, power laws, and the availability of new age chipsets and compute resources.

Today, we are transitioning from a digital/analog world, where systems operate independently or in linear sequences, to a ‘networked world’ where everything is interconnected through complex, node-based systems. In this new paradigm, relationships—both social and economic—are managed through decentralized networks, much like the structure of the internet.

However, our base money still operates off of probablistic principles rather than exponential laws. As our economic system evolves, it’s clear that traditional forms of money are not a good fit. Given the limitations of speed, scalability, and adaptability of fiat currency it makes sense that we commonly refer to our money as broken. Paper money no longer meets the need of our increasingly digital and interconnected world. We need to transition to a new form of currency that can grow and adapt at the pace of technological advancements. There is a critical need to shift from traditional monetary systems, which grow linearly or incrementally, to one that operates in an exponential nature. One we can refer to as ‘exponential money’—a form of currency that grows and scales at a much faster rate due to its integration with digital networks and information theory.

We are transitioning from relying primarily on probability theory—which deals with predicting the likelihood of different outcomes—to leveraging information theory, which focuses on quantifying, transmitting, reducing noise in communication and processing information. Particularly in complex and interconnected digital systems.

During the digital era from 1980 to 2009, probability theory played a central role in business and decision-making, as it was well-suited for predicting and optimizing likely outcomes in a relatively stable, linear environment. Businesses relied on algebraic models to maximize profit margins and manage risks based on historical data and statistical analysis. With money that’s lightly integrated into the system and conditioned to handle probabilities this works. However, in the cloud era our lifestyles became integrated and the connectivity to our money fell behind in it’s ability to compute.

Post 2000 as the world shifted to exponential systems that were increasingly connected, the money no longer moved at the pace of human need. More importantly the heart of the modern economic system shited from oil to Data. “Data is the new oil”, or rather, information is the new oil and money is information.

As digital data became integral to our economy, the limitations of traditional currencies, which were not designed for rapid scalability, became increasingly clear. The introduction of Bitcoin in 2009 provides a solution to this problem. By utilizing principles of Information Theory and Power Laws we have a currency that can scale for the digital age. For instance, Bitcoin’s decentralized network relies on the exponential increase in network participants, as described by Metcalfe’s Law, which helps explain its growing value and adoption. This is evident in Bitcoin’s market capitalization growth, which surged from nearly zero in 2009 to over $1 trillion in 2024, reflecting the currency’s ability to scale alongside the digital economy.

Prior to now, these scaling behaviors and distributions were only common in nature, viruses, physics, and network theory. Though this type of scaling was also common in economic theory, it was foreign to our money.

Money Powered By Networks

Moving forward, all our people, business, and money will operate off the same math that powers our networks. As AI and Bitcoin become integral to our financial systems, we can expect a dramatic increase in economic growth and efficiency, similar to the productivity gains seen during previous technological revolutions. Bitcoin and stablecoins’ ability to facilitate near-instantaneous cross-border transactions at lower costs than traditional financial systems offers a glimpse into the future of more efficient global trade. A 2020 report by PwC estimates that AI alone could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, demonstrating the potential scale of these technologies.

This is the crux of the chaos and geopolitical battle we see. Multiple parties are jocking for power and control of the joystick of the new world order. Log of time and price will bring forth another revolution. A revolution of money.

For us to progress as economies and to unlock the full GDP value of the future, we will need money that operates at its core on mathematics that is conducive with principles rooted in network theory. Dollars, fiat money in general, cannot by nature of the math basis do this. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which operate at their core using digital information (bits and bytes), are built on the principles of Information Theory.

With the internet, in the 1980s, we broke the barrier to information. Exploding the world with new growth and business opportunities. As we enter into the revolution of money. We will do the same. As we break the barrier to money, with these technologies, we will witness another explosive round of growth and business opportunities that will power the next wave of GDP. For the first time, we will see value, information, and energy integrated seamlessly within our networked systems, creating the conditions for rapid economic expansion. A precedent for this can be seen in the rapid adoption of the internet, which led to the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Companies like Amazon and Google, which harnessed the power of digital networks, grew exponentially and reshaped entire industries. Similarly, the combination of blockchain technology and AI is expected to unlock new levels of economic productivity by enabling secure, real-time data exchanges and automated decision-making across global markets.

Our relationships are now deeply interconnected, both socially and financially. Yet, our monetary systems still rely on outdated probabilistic principles and human subjectivity rather than embracing the exponential laws that drive modern communication technology. It’s time to transition from a flawed, morally bankrupt currency to a new form of ‘exponential money’ – one rooted in the same mathematical principles that govern nature.

As we stand on the brink of another revolution, it’s clear we must move beyond the limits of probability theory to something far more profound.

*  *  *

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The head of Boeing’s space and defense business is leaving the company after years of losses from fixed-price contracts and a high-profile debacle with its space capsule that left two astronauts in space…

Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new president and CEO, said on Friday that Ted Colbert, the head of the corporation’s troubled space and defense unit, will leave the company effective immediately.

As Caden Pearson reports via The Epoch Times, the move marks the first major leadership change under Ortberg, who took over in August.

“I want to thank Ted for his 15 years of service at The Boeing Company, supporting our customers, our people, and our communities,” Ortberg wrote in a memo to employees.

Steve Parker, the unit’s chief operating officer, will assume Colbert’s responsibilities until a permanent replacement is named.

Boeing’s space business has suffered repeated setbacks, including NASA’s recent decision to send the Starliner capsule back to Earth without astronauts after years of issues.

Colbert’s exit also comes as Boeing grapples with a broader financial crunch.

The company announced furloughs for thousands of white-collar workers, while more than 32,000 workers remain on strike.

“At this critical juncture, our priority is to restore the trust of our customers and meet the high standards they expect of us to enable their critical missions around the world,” Ortberg wrote.

“Working together we can and will improve our performance and ensure we deliver on our commitments.”

The company’s troubles extend to its commercial division, with a new Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 experiencing a mid-air emergency in January due to missing bolts. Boeing also faces ongoing scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has restricted the company from increasing production of the 737 Max until it makes substantial safety and quality improvements.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay $243.6 million in penalties after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. The U.S. government alleged that Boeing knowingly misrepresented information to the FAA about key software on the 737 Max, the same plane involved in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Ortberg, in a separate email to employees on Friday, emphasized the need for Boeing to regain its leadership in managing defense programs.

“Historically, Boeing held a superior reputation for our ability to manage programs, and we need to ensure it remains a key differentiator for us in the future,” Ortberg wrote.

He said he had learned more about future investments for the company to be more competitive in the future, as well as near-term challenges engineers face with first-time quality and execution.

Parker, who joined Boeing’s industrial leadership team two years ago, was tapped to help overhaul Boeing’s defense programs and improve production efficiency.

He had previously led Boeing’s bomber and fighter programs as well as its defense plants in St. Louis.

Colbert joined Boeing in 2009 after working at Citigroup and Ford Motor. He served as Boeing’s chief information officer and lead its global-services business before running the defense unit from April 2022 after the previous leader was ousted.

As The FT reports, Boeing’s defence business reported losses in 2022, 2023 and the second quarter of 2024.

The division has laboured under fixed-price contracts for several large programs, which represent just 15 per cent of revenues but have racked up nearly $14bn in charges over the past decade.

Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu estimated the fixed-price programs could consume $2.6bn in cash this year, and $1.8bn in 2025.

The programs include the KC-46 refuelling tanker, the T-7A Air Force training aircraft and the MQ-25 refuelling drone, as well as the US president’s Air Force One jet and the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft that was built to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Boeing suffered a black eye last month when Nasa decided to forgo bringing astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore back to Earth on Boeing’s spacecraft.

Due to technical problems, the agency now plans to bring the pair home in February on a SpaceX spacecraft.

Of course, given the color of Colbert’s skin, we assume there will be an imminent tirade from leftists that (structural) racism played a role in his dismissal (as opposed to his role running the group that literally lost billions of dollars for shareholders)… Or, perhaps we should ask the families of the stranded astronauts how they feel about his ‘work’?

Via Evergreen Gavekal blog,

US presidential elections are terrific entertainment. Given their cost (a couple of billion US dollars for either side), this is just as well. This uniquely elevated price point might help to explain why every election is “the most important in our lifetime” and a “genuine toss-up” between the two main candidates. If a candidate were thought to have the election sewn up months in advance, there would be nothing to keep the viewers glued to their screens—and the advertising dollars rolling in.

Electoral drama is a big component of the US media business model. I was too young to remember the 1984 presidential election, but I would not be surprised if in the weeks before Ronald Reagan’s near-total wipe-out of Walter Mondale, the vote was described as “too close to call” and “a genuine nail-biter” (at least ahead of Reagan’s famous debate quip).

Of course, some candidates are more prone to drama than others. But the media conglomerates can rejoice, as the current electoral cycle has been rich in dramatic events. The lawfare against Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s defenestration are both unprecedented. And then there is the blurring of party lines with former Democrats including Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard jumping ship for the Trump campaign, while the liberal-left’s one-time favorite arch-villain, Dick Cheney, has publicly endorsed Kamala Harris. Yet amid all this excitement, it feels from the recent meetings I have had that investors may be overlooking one of the most important developments of the campaign so far: the change in the people around Trump, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

Back in 2016, Trump’s foreign policy team was made up of the likes of Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Mike Pence and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner. Most of these characters were confirmed hawks, always ready to argue for new wars, armed interventions and deployments of US military strength. When it came to China—and economically and financially, the US-China relationship is the most important in the world—most of this crew were eager to confront Beijing. Between Pompeo’s call for the US to recognize Taiwan as an independent state (something Taiwan is not asking for), Mike Pence’s combative Hudson Institute speech, and Bolton’s description of China as an “existential threat” to the US, there was clearly no love lost for China among Trump’s first-term circle of advisors.

Since then, Trump’s inner sanctum has been completely upended. Today, his advisors include JD Vance (who actually served in a war, unlike Trump’s earlier arm-chair warriors), Gabbard (the same), Kennedy, Donald Trump Jr, Tucker Carlson and Dana White. These individuals tend to have a less Manichaean view of international relations, and are less keen on war as “the continuation of policy by other means,” to paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz.

This matters because for now most investors seem to assume that the foreign policy of a Trump 2.0 administration will simply be a repeat of the Trump 1.0 first go round.

Threats of tariffs, more isolationism, rattling China’s cage… all these will be on the menu should Trump carry the day in November.

But if Trump does win, he is highly unlikely to promote neo-conservatives to positions of power and influence this time round. At least, if he does, he will be breaking the promises he has clearly made to the likes of Kennedy and Gabbard. And an administration that is not rampant with belligerent neo-cons may be much easier for the rest of the world to engage with in genuine diplomacy.

This brings me back to the all-important US-China relationship.

Here, it is possible to envisage two main scenarios.

The first scenario can be described as “more of the same.” 

In this scenario, the US continues to treat China as a pariah state on the grounds it is undemocratic. Trump tries to exert economic pressure on China by increasingly closing the US market to Chinese companies with tariffs and regulations, while pressing the (mostly spineless) Europeans to do the same. The US increases its naval patrols in the South China Sea, and opens more military bases in South Korea and the Philippines.

The US also further integrates the Australian armed forces into its command structure. It bribes India into shedding its historically neutral stance. It encourages US dignitaries to visit Taiwan, and sells more higher-tech weapons to Taipei. After the first four years of Trump, and then four years of Biden, this is essentially what the market is pricing in today—hence all the talk about China as uninvestible and the flight of both foreign and domestic capital (Chinese exporters are now more likely to build their next factory in Vietnam, Indonesia or Mexico than in Guangdong or Zhejiang).

However, given that the neo-cons have been shunted aside, it is possible to envisage a second scenario in which Trump acknowledges that he only has one term to change the US economy and society. 

From his speeches, it is clear that one of Trump’s main aims is the reindustrialization of the US economy. This makes sense (although whether it is achievable is another matter). If nothing else, the Ukraine war has shown that deindustrializing while retaining the crown of global military hegemon is a challenging equilibrium to strike. To cut a long story short, can the US hope to maintain its global military dominance while producing just 4% of the world’s steel? The Western world’s struggle to keep Ukraine in the fight with new weapons would suggest the answer is “probably not.”

So, assuming that Trump’s priority (apart from getting elected) is to reindustrialize and that all his talk of reindustrialization is not just electoral posturing to win union votes, then as president he will face a simple choice:

• The US can try to reindustrialize on its own, and will attempt to do so following an economic clash with today’s leading—and highly productive—industrial superpowers: China, Japan and South Korea. This path entails absolutely crushing the value of the US dollar and imposing much higher inflation on US consumers.

• The US can try and reindustrialize with China’s help, by encouraging China’s most productive companies to open factories across the US rust belt, South and Midwest. This will entail a very marked change of diplomatic tack from the course adopted over the past four years.

Interestingly, in several speeches over recent weeks, Trump has signaled he is very open to the second idea. This may be a direct reflection of the change in personnel around him.

To the John Boltons of this world, this second course is not even worth considering; in a fight between good and evil, there can be no question of compromise. US politics, it seems, still retains its entertainment value.

On Saturday Ukraine’s military claimed several more successful strikes on Russian ammo depots. They happened in southern Krasnodar and western Tver regions, resulting in significant evacuations of more than 1,000 Russian citizens.

Ukraine’s army said two Russian weapons depots were struck, among them one of Moscow’s “three largest ammunition storage bases” crucial for supplying its forces operating in Donbass, according to Ukrainian sources.

And a separate alleged attack on an arsenal in Tver region’s Oktyabrsky village resulted in a “fire and detonation” – Ukraine said.

The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, has confirmed that some 1,200 people were evacuated after a drone strike on the area resulted in a fire which “spread to explosive objects”. 

Gov. Kondratyev condemned the “terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” – and social media videos appeared to offer confirmation of a large-scale strike on a likely ammunition depot.

Russian passenger trains in the impact regions were disrupted according to regional reports. Kiev officials have of late said they desire to bring the war to the Russian people, in hopes of pressuring the Kremlin.

Social media video showed the overnight attack on southern Krasnador which resulted in a massive fireball lighting up the night sky…

BREAKING:

Several large Russian weapons depots destroyed in Ukrainian drone swarm strikes a few hours ago.

This video shows the weapons depot storing North Korean artillery shells exploding in Tikhoretsk, in the Krasnodar region nearly 500 km from the frontlines. pic.twitter.com/Kzsdsua7iT

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 21, 2024

Russia’s military said it was busy in Ukraine during the same period as the fresh drone attacks from Ukraine. Russia has continued pounding Ukraine’s energy and defense infrastructure.

“Last night, the Russian armed forces used high-precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles to strike energy facilities that ensured operations of enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industry complex, UAV-making workshops, locations of military personnel, weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces,” a Saturday defense ministry statement said.

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Navy on Sept. 19 released a new strategic document centered on countering communist China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

It directs the Navy to develop “readiness for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027,” pointing to China’s preparations for a possible invasion of Taiwan in the same year.

“The Navy emphatically acknowledges the need for a larger, more lethal force,” the document, titled “Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy,” states.

“By 2027, the Navy will be more ready for sustained combat as part of a Joint and Combined force, prioritizing the People’s Republic of China as the pacing challenge and focusing on enabling the joint warfighting ecosystem.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, claims that Taiwan is a part of its territory that must be united with the mainland through any means necessary.

However, Taiwan is self-governed by a democratically elected government and has never been controlled by the CCP.

CCP leader Xi Jinping has nevertheless ordered the communist regime’s military wing to prepare for war and to develop the capabilities required to invade Taiwan.

The regime has since engaged in a more than decade-long shipbuilding spree, massively expanding its fleet, drone capabilities, and nuclear arsenal.

Most importantly, for a Taiwan invasion scenario, it has also launched its own advanced aircraft carriers and destroyers.

That poses a problem for the United States, as the U.S. Navy floats far fewer ships than the Chinese, and must spread them more widely to maintain its global military presence.

China, meanwhile, can position the vast majority of its naval and coast guard units close to home, where they can receive cover from land-based units and where it is easier to maintain their supply lines.

A congressional report published in July found that “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat” against China.

The July report also said that China is likely to increase its hostile behavior in the coming years to “normalize unlawful behavior” around Taiwan as it seeks to take advantage of the United States’ lack of ability to deter conflict.

Key to the new Navy document’s goals, therefore, is the fulfillment of Project 33, a naval initiative aiming to ready the force by eliminating delays in maintenance, scaling the use of autonomous and robotic systems, and increasing navy recruitment, among other things.

“We cannot manifest a bigger traditional Navy in a few short years, nor will we rely on mass without the right capabilities to win the sea control contest,” the document reads.

“Nearer-term operational challenges demand that we integrate proven robotic and autonomous capabilities as soon as possible.

“We must do so with a focus on how we will use these systems in war. By 2027, we will integrate proven robotic and autonomous systems for routine use by the commanders who will employ them.”

Scaling the deployment of autonomous systems is just part of the puzzle, with the document underscoring that the United States’ grim position in the Indo-Pacific “goes well beyond just the size of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] Navy fleet.”

The document notes that China’s joint forces are developing into an integrated fighting force “specifically designed to defeat ours” and are backed by China’s massive industrial base.

The document also calls on the Navy to work with Congress to secure critical supply chains and lays out a vision in which all fleet headquarters in the service will field their own maritime operations centers.

The goal of the latter directive is to ensure that the U.S. Navy can continue to maintain superiority in command and control, military intelligence, and maneuvers, even against a numerically superior foe in a vast and distributed region.

“We must meet all the objectives in this Navigation Plan to field the people and capabilities needed to fight and win today, in 2027, and beyond,” the document states.

Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearinvestigations,

To Many, the Justice Dept. Is Honoring Political Neutrality in the Breach Again

Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. Attorneys’ National Conference in Washington – pointedly speaking publicly rather than privately in a departure from his usual practice.

“Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon,” he said before a packed house, gathered in the Great Hall of DOJ headquarters on Sept. 12. “Federal prosecutors and agents may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution for the purpose of affecting any election or the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”

Garland’s words came in response to former President Trump’s assertion during his debate with Kamala Harris that the FBI and Justice Department had been weaponized against him. But in issuing a fiery rebuttal, the attorney general put himself squarely where he said he didn’t want to be: namely, in the crossfire of a partisan political campaign. 

Moreover, in the view of many, his assertions clearly belie the Justice Department’s deeds. These critics say it’s obvious that the FBI and DOJ have repeatedly put a thumb on the scale of justice to defeat Trump. In 2016, it was the Russia-gate collusion hoax. In 2020 it was the FBI’s refusal to say not only that it was in possession of Hunter Biden’s incendiary laptop, but that it had verified its contents, even as Joe Biden claimed erroneously that it was a Russian plant.

Most recently, after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment against Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election, just 74 days before Election Day. DOJ guidelines advise against filing politically relevant charges 60 days before an election. 

In recent weeks, DOJ, led by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, has accelerated the arrest of those who protested at and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Several new defendants live in swing states, which reintroduces Jan. 6 in local and national headlines while bolstering key talking points of Democrat standard-bearer Kamala Harris and others in this year’s campaign.

Such Trump antagonists regularly describe the former president as a “threat to democracy” – rhetoric echoed by the second and latest alleged would-be Trump assassin to emerge in the campaign, before his arrest Sunday.

On the same day Garland addressed the conference, the FBI arrested Justina Guardino, a 34-year-old member of a North Carolina chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nationwide group of moms defending their children from “woke” ideology and government overreach; Trump spoke to the group in Washington last month.

According to DOJ charging documents, Guardino nonviolently entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stayed inside for approximately 10 minutes.

Despite being interviewed by law enforcement in the summer of 2022, the FBI waited more than two years to make and announce her arrest, raising questions as to whether the DOJ is delaying arrests to coincide with the election. Early voting begins in North Carolina in mid-October.

Since Aug. 1, Graves’ office has announced the arrest of several more J6ers, including individuals from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan, considered must-win states for Harris.

Appointed by Joe Biden in 2021, Graves appears to be fulfilling his pledge to bring the overall J6 caseload to 2,000 defendants before the statute of limitations runs out; the total number of defendants just exceeded 1,500 last week. Meanwhile, his office has brought one federal charge against a single pro-Hamas demonstrator despite hundreds being involved in unlawful activities such as attacking federal police officers, vandalizing property, and illegally occupying government buildings on numerous occasions in 2023 and 2024.

Graves also handled the prosecution of Trump allies Peter Navarro and Steven Bannon on contempt of Congress charges for defying subpoenas issued by the Democrat-controlled House January 6 Select Committee. Although both prosecutions resulted in prison time for Navarro and Bannon, critics note that the cases were brought at the discretion of the department. Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence in a Connecticut federal prison, successfully shutting down his popular “War Room” program during the height of the campaign season.

In what might also be considered election interference by the DOJ, Graves, who rarely conducts interviews, appeared in a J6 segment on “60 Minutes” on the evening of September 15 – just hours after the alleged assassination attempt against Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course.

Graves defended his ongoing J6 investigation and prosecution as fair and free of White House influence. (Graves said he has never met Joe Biden, but as RCI reported last year, Graves’ wife, Fatima Goss Graves, is a regular visitor at the White House.) “No one is being prosecuted for their views,” Graves told reporter Scott Pelley. “They’re being prosecuted for their acts.”

The “crime was severe,” Graves continued. “It was an attack on our democracy.”

But the DOJ recently hit a major roadblock in the J6 prosecution, calling into question Garland’s claims of a careful adherence to the rule of law devoid of bias.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States reversed how the DOJ applied a statute, 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding, in the Capitol Breach probe. Since early 2021, at least 340 Jan. 6 protesters and Donald Trump have been charged with the post-Enron statute, once understood to apply to document-altering. In many instances, the felony was added to otherwise misdemeanor cases to turn nonviolent protesters into felons. Prosecutors also used the threat of adding the felony enhancement to secure plea deals on lower-level charges.

At least 130 individuals have been convicted at trial or accepted plea deals on the obstruction count with many sentenced to prison time.

Since the Fischer decision was published, prosecutors have been dismissing the count in pending cases. Last week, the D.C. appellate court vacated 15 1512(c)(2) convictions. Dozens more will see their convictions vacated over the next several weeks.

But the relief did not come soon enough for defendants who already served prison time on the charge. Further, the DOJ is asking judges to keep defendants currently in jail on the 1512(c)(2) behind bars by seeking longer prison time on their remaining charges.

For example, Thomas Robertson, a former police officer from Virginia, was sentenced to 87 months following his conviction by a D.C. jury in 2022. The 1512(c)(2) conviction represented the bulk of the prison sentence since it is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

This month the DOJ dismissed the obstruction count against Robertson, but prosecutors asked Judge Christopher Cooper to keep Robertson incarcerated for the full term by applying several sentencing add-ons to his conviction.

“I think what happened that day was an attack on democracy, and, as this Court found, the defendant advocated for an armed rebellion and counterinsurgency, and he came with the intent to do violence,” assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told Cooper on Sept. 4. “Robertson was an avid and willing participant in an unprecedented crime. His offenses specifically targeted the peaceful transfer of power, an essential government function and one of the fundamental and foundational principles of our democracy.”

Cooper, whose 1999 wedding was officiated by then-Judge Merrick Garland, consented to most of the DOJ’s sentencing enhancements. He sentenced Robertson to 72 months in federal prison.

“The historical significance of the certification and the effect that your conduct had on our democratic principles and the country more generally, this is not just hyperbole,” Judge Cooper told Robertson. “These are very real harms that not just you, but including you, caused on January 6th.”

The DOJ is expected to make the same argument in several other cases.

“The continued harsh treatment of Jan. 6 prisoners is a glaring example of the egregious weaponization of our justice system under the Biden-Harris administration,” Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, who recently was denied access to a section of the D.C. jail that houses J6 defendants, told RCI. “This politicized use of the Department of Justice, spearheaded by Kamala Harris and her allies, has turned the legal system into a tool for silencing dissent and punishing political opposition.”

Critics say Garland’s ongoing prosecution of Trump also contradicts his insistence that the DOJ steers clear of national elections. Special Counsel Smith, appointed by Garland in November 2022, just renewed the stalled case against Trump related to the events of Jan. 6 in Washington. Smith could have waited until after the election to file his new indictment, and critics say his timing can be an interpreted to bolster J6 as a campaign issue.

The Justice Department continues to allocate resources to the special counsel’s office; recent financial disclosures show Smith and DOJ spent more than $35 million in the first 14 months of the special counsel’s investigation. That figure likely could double by the time his appointment ends, which is at the discretion of the attorney general, or include the amount spent on the  dual investigations before Smith was appointed.

Smith’s continued pursuit of Trump has drawn renewed scrutiny and skepticism since the Supreme Court challenged his original indictment as a broad attack on presidential immunity. 

On July 1, the court published its decision in Trump v. United States. Authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the 6-3 opinion for the first time in history established three categories of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution: official acts, outer perimeter acts, and private acts. Official acts, the court held, are covered by immunity while outer perimeter acts – such as Trump’s communications with Vice President Mike Pence related to the J6 indictment – are what Roberts described as “presumptively immune.” On that score, Roberts continued, “it is ultimately the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity.”

The court further concluded that former presidents are not immune from prosecution for “unofficial” or private acts.

In order to hew to the decision, Smith filed a superseding indictment on Aug. 28 that partially gutted his original indictment, which had been handed up a year earlier. Since the Supreme Court determined Trump’s interactions with DOJ officials fell safely within the core constitutional authority of a sitting president, Smith had to cut nine pages of evidence and drop a co-conspirator, former Assistant Associate Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.

Although the watered-down indictment contains the same four counts as the first version, the case remains on uncertain legal ground given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and opinion in the Fischer case.

But the special counsel, presumably with the consent of Attorney General Garland, is reinvigorating the case to coincide with the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign. Long-standing DOJ rules preventing the department from interfering in national elections are once again being ignored as Smith reappears in the headlines as early voting begins this month in several states including Virginia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In early October early voting commences in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada.

Smith found a like-minded ally in Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the Obama appointee presiding over the unprecedented case. It was Chutkan’s 2023 order denying Trump’s claims of immunity from prosecution that the Supreme Court overturned and sent back to her for further proceedings. 

Chutkan, who has a record of making anti-Trump statements in court and who imposed a gag order on the former president last year, told Trump’s lawyers at a Sept. 5 hearing that the election is not a factor in her calculation as to the next steps.

“I understand there is an election impending, and I’ve said before and I say again that the electoral process and the timing of the election and what needs to happen before or shouldn’t happen before the election is not relevant here,” Chutkan informed John Lauro, Trump’s lead attorney in the J6 case. “This court is not concerned with the electoral schedule,” she added.

In a follow-up scheduling order, Chutkan issued a series of deadlines leading right up to and a few days beyond Election Day. The special counsel will file a brief later this month articulating why he believes the existing elements of the J6 indictment are not protected under the Supreme Court ruling.

By permitting the filing of what even Chutkan herself described as a “procedurally irregular” document, Smith’s brief is likely to contain cherry-picked passages from grand jury testimony and other allegations to create damaging headlines that again claim Trump tried to stay in power by breaking the law.

The brief is expected to be filed before Sept. 26; Trump’s attorneys will have a chance to respond, further dragging the matter into the headlines.

Data from transportation analytics company StreetLight shows that residents of the District of Columbia and the states of New York and New Jersey walked the most in 2022, with an average of 42, 38 and 32 walking trips per day per 100 people in 2022.

The majority of the remaining states in the top 10 like California, Nevada, Utah or Massachusetts are either small or highly urbanized according to an analysis by Iowa State University based on 2010 data.

Additionally, Statista’s Florian Zandt reports that the StreetLight study, which uses proprietary movement data analyzed with the help of machine learning, also shows that between 2019 and 2022, walking trips declined by 36 percent on a national level.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Zooming in on the year-over-year change in specific states, only four states saw an increase in walking activity in 2022 compared to 2021. The District of Columbia, which was evaluated as a state by StreetLight, again led this ranking with a 32 percent rise in average annual daily walking trips, followed by Vermont, California and New York.

Possible reasons given by the study for the overall decrease in walking trips over the analyzed period are the rise of remote work due to the restrictions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic and “empty downtowns”. The former will likely play a less important role from 2023 onward due to many major companies implementing return-to-office policies, especially in the tech sector. Amazon, for example, will mandate five office days per week for office workers not covered by a “Remote Work Exception” starting January 2025, according to an official company memo by CEO Andy Jassy.

Even with selected states exhibiting a high ratio of average daily walking trips, transportation by foot is still the exception rather than the norm in the United States. According to the most recent National Household Travel Survey conducted in 2022, walking only made up seven percent of all person trips. Three quarters of all person trips, which is a journey by one person from one address to another, were conducted either by car, van or SUV.

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A district judge in Kentucky was fatally shot in the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg on Thursday, Kentucky State Police said. A local sheriff has been charged in relation to the shooting.

State police received a 911 call about shots being fired inside the Letcher County Courthouse just before 3 p.m. on Thursday.

“Several law enforcement agencies and emergency medical services responded to the scene and located District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, of Jackhorn, with multiple gunshot wounds,” Kentucky State Police spokesperson Sherry Bray said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

First responders attempted lifesaving measures, but Mullins was pronounced dead at the scene by the Letcher County Coroner’s Office.

“The preliminary investigation indicates that Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, of McRoberts, fatally shot Mullins following an argument inside the courthouse,” Bray said.

Local media, The Mountain Eagle, reported that Stines emerged from the judge’s private office with his hands up.

He was taken into custody without incident and charged with one count of first-degree murder, police said.

Kentucky State Police Detective Clayton Stamper is investigating.

The Mountain Eagle reported that Stines entered the courthouse, told court employees he needed to speak privately with the judge, and the two went into the judge’s office. Moments later, gunshots were heard.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear acknowledged the shooting on social media.

“Sadly, I have been informed that a district judge in Letcher County was shot and killed in his chambers this afternoon. There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” Beshear wrote.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will assist Commonwealth’s Attorney for the 27th Judicial Circuit Jackie Steele as a special prosecutor in the case. “We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” his office wrote on X.

The Kentucky Court of Justice said in a statement on Facebook that their officials are aware of the shooting.

“We are currently in contact with law enforcement agencies, including Kentucky State Police, and are offering our full support during this difficult time,” the statement reads.

The court officials said they could not share further details at this time.

“Our deepest sympathies go out to all those impacted by this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers are with the community during this challenging time,” court officials said.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Letcher County Sheriff’s Office for comment.