Month: September 2024

Authored by Jonathan Lesser via RealClearEnergy,

Like the Jeopardy! game show, green energy subsidies have been Congress’ answer to every energy policy question. The first OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74 catalyzed decades of energy policy, including the formation of the Department of Energy. Wind, solar, and hydropower subsidies began in earnest with the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978. Similarly, subsidies for corn-based ethanol were enacted as part of the National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978. Both were designed to reduce the country’s dependence on Middle East oil.

The PURPA subsidies set off a race by independent developers to construct small generating plants whose output electric utilities were required to purchase at administratively set prices. In some cases, the subsidies were independent of how much electricity the plants actually produced, creating the moniker “PURPA machines,” because their real purpose was to extract subsidies; producing electricity was secondary.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 modified those subsidies, creating a “temporary” production tax credit for wind power and certain types of biomass generation. Congress also enacted an Investment Tax Credit, initially for solar energy, but later extended to all renewables, which could choose between the ITC and the PTC. Although the PTC was supposed to expire in 1999, it has been repeatedly extended and expanded, most recently in the Inflation Reduction Act. The PTC now includes all zero-emissions generation, including new nuclear plants. Under the IRA, the ITC has been increased, with qualifying green energy investments able to claim a credit of as much as 60% of their construction cost.

Moreover, the IRA extends the PTC and ITC until greenhouse gas emissions from electric generation fall to just 25% of their 2005 levels, after which they will be decreased gradually. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the expected date for reaching that goal is 2048.

The IRA also provides subsidies for “green” hydrogen, that is, hydrogen produced from emissions-free electricity, battery storage facilities, and facilities that capture carbon and bury it underground.

Ethanol subsidies have similarly been extended and increased, with the government now subsidizing various types of biofuels and numerous states enacting clean fuel standards, which, like renewable portfolio standards, require increasing percentages of transportation fuels to be biofuels.

Congress has not been the only institution shoveling subsidies to green energy. Many states have provided their own subsidies, especially the mid-Atlantic states that are forcing ratepayers to purchase electricity from offshore wind projects at prices many times higher than the market. States have also enacted renewable portfolio standards forcing electric utilities to increasing percentages of electricity from renewable sources that would otherwise never be built.

This subsidy smorgasbord is supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting new clean energy technologies. It’s also supposed to accelerate economic growth by creating new “green” industries and high-paying jobs.

There is little evidence for the former. U.S. energy-related greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by almost 20% from 2005 levels primarily because natural gas has supplanted coal as the primary fuel for generating electricity. Between 2005 and 2023, electricity generation from natural gas was six times greater than generation from wind and solar combined. In 2023 alone, electricity generated using natural gas was three times greater than wind and solar generation.

Moreover, growth in subsidized wind and solar generation has distorted wholesale electric markets, begetting the need for subsidies to ensure existing nuclear plants continue operating, lest their owners shutter them and eliminate thousands of high-paying jobs. Enacting subsidies required to offset the distortions caused by other subsidies is surely one definition of economic insanity.

As for spurring new industries and economic growth, today, the U.S. solar manufacturing industry is moribund, with almost 90% of the solar panels installed in this country now produced in China. All but one of the offshore wind projects under construction or slated to be built are owned by European companies that their respective governments control.

The economic costs of these subsidies are borne by taxpayers, who must finance the additional deficit spending; electric ratepayers who, despite claims that renewable energy resources are less costly than traditional generating resources, have seen their electric rates soar; and drivers, who pay more for gasoline and diesel fuel as refineries have closed or been modified to produce subsidized biofuels.

Those higher costs for electricity and transportation fuels raise the costs of producing and distributing almost everything else, which ripples through the entire economy, reducing economic growth and destroying jobs.

As for green energy subsidies spurring the development of new, lower-cost clean technologies, there is nothing new about wind and solar generation that receives the lion’s share of subsidies. After almost half a century, neither are cost-competitive, especially when the additional costs of addressing their inherent intermittency are included—costs that others must pay. And new technologies, such as direct air capture of carbon, will only be commercially viable if the U.S. imposes carbon taxes of several hundred dollars per ton, which few politicians will be willing to do.

The overwhelming majority of green energy subsidies reward politically powerful constituencies and businesses whose primary purpose is not to build better energy mousetraps but to build only ones that qualify for the largest subsidies.

The government could instead target subsidies solely on true research and development efforts of new clean energy technologies, such as advanced and small modular nuclear reactors.

With the country deeply in debt, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on subsidies for green energy, as the Inflation Reduction Act calls for, is an idea whose time is long past. Green energy Jeopardy! may be a lucrative game for the lucky recipients, but eventually everyone loses.

Jonathan Lesser is a senior fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics and the president of Continental Economics.

In a move that we can’t help but think looks suspiciously like war prep, two Chinese state-owned shipbuilders announced Monday plans to merge, according to a new report from Nikkei Asia.

The report says up front the merger could “help them better serve the military”. Key details, such as pricing, asset handling, employee treatment, and protections for dissenting shareholders, have yet to be revealed.

The Nikkei report says that in nearly identical filings to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday night, China CSSC Holdings and China Shipbuilding Industry (CSICL) announced they had signed an agreement to merge.

On Monday, CSSC Holdings’ shares closed at 34.90 yuan, and CSICL’s at 4.98 yuan. The merger would involve CSSC Holdings absorbing CSICL through a stock swap.

Based on current prices, CSSC Holdings’ market cap is 156.08 billion yuan ($22 billion), while CSICL’s is 113.55 billion yuan. The companies aim to “further focus on major state strategy.”

“Promoting equipment for a strong military” was also mentioned as a priority in the filings, according to the report. 

The report says that the two companies are part of China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC), a central state-owned conglomerate overseen by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

SASAC has recently increased pressure on listed arms of central companies to enhance market value by improving governance, raising disclosure standards, conducting share buybacks, and increasing dividends. If the merger boosts efficiency and profitability, it aligns with government policy goals.

CSSC has a complex history, dating back to a 1950 government organization for shipbuilding, which was reorganized in the 1970s and later split into “North Ship” and “South Ship” entities in 1999.

These merged in 2019 to form the current CSSC, but CSSC Holdings and CSICL, from the original north and south entities, remained separate listed companies with overlapping businesses….until now.

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Negotiation is the art of getting an opponent to advocate for your position.  You want one thousand dollars for an old car.  You ask for two.  The buyer works you down to one, and you shake on the “deal.” 

Parents employ similar skills.  A toddler who is unhappy about being put in the stroller might be given a choice: we can either go to the park or take a nap.  Cries often disappear when the alternative to play is less fun.  Of course, children quickly learn this game, too.  Some will double-down on crying until mom throws up her hands and offers to renegotiate: and we can stop for ice cream on the way!  Teenagers realize that either-or offers invite workarounds.  “Do your homework or you’re grounded” succeeds as a negotiating position only if Junior can’t climb out the window after dark.  

From an early age, we grasp that successful negotiations take advantage of (1) asymmetric information and (2) asymmetric authority.  Individuals who know more than their opponents and who are capable of restricting the range of available outcomes to any dispute are likely to get what they want.

Governments use such asymmetries to maintain control.  By knowing more than the public and by exercising complete authority over what is permissible, their bargaining power far exceeds that of the lowly citizen.  In the United States, the Department of Justice maintains an almost perfect conviction rate.  Is that because prosecutors pursue only the guilty?  Or is it because lone defendants are up against federal law enforcement agencies with huge bureaucratic workforces and immense investigatory resources?  When the “United States of America” is a party to any case, the underdog sits on the other side.

Governments also relish playing parent.  Before their deaths, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Hugo Chávez embraced the role of father to their respective nations.  Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping assume that role today.  Even in so-called “democratic” countries, it is common to treat the heads of government as family patriarchs (or the matriarch, as was the case with the late Queen Elizabeth II).  Right now in America, the Democrat Party is doing its best to brand vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, “America’s Dad.”  Dictatorships, monarchies, and constitutional republics, it seems, all love to turn their rulers into daddy and mommy figures.

Why wouldn’t they?  There is a great deal of perceived authority and omniscience ascribed to parents.  Who else could get away with answering, “Why should I do that?” with this one-two punch: because I’m your mother, and I said so.  That’s the kind of power that governments adore.  How come we have to change our doctors and embrace socialized medicine?  Barack: because I said so.  Why can’t we talk about mail-in-ballot fraud and stolen elections?  Pelosi’s J6 committee: because we said so.  Why can’t we exercise free speech and engage in vigorous debate?  Disinformation Governance Board: because we said so.  Why can’t we enforce existing immigration law and secure America’s borders?  D.C.’s Uniparty and corporate paymasters: because we said so.  Why should we elect an unlikable and incompetent politician just because she’s a woman?  Hillary and Kamala: because we said so.  No wonder governments use a combination of regulatory sticks and welfare carrots to punish and reward their children.  Nobody dares to question Daddy Government when he scowls across the kitchen table and threatens to throw the misbehaving public over his lap!

Does this seem absurd?  I certainly think so!  I find it bizarre that so many adults are comfortable with others telling them what they can and cannot do.  I don’t need Facebook and Google to censor words because they might be “scary.”  I don’t need the Department of Homeland Security to “save me” from foreign points of view.  I don’t need self-described “public health experts” to filter knowledge based upon an article’s likelihood to “harm” my thoughts.  I don’t need some bureaucratic “parent” questioning my reasoning skills or decisions.  Adulthood requires some semblance of personal responsibility and a willingness to utilize the organ resting between one’s ears.  Human equality requires the exact same things.  It is no surprise, then, that governments of all stripes work so hard to infantilize their citizens.  When Daddy Government “knows best,” obedient children behave.  No civic or political equality survives government paternalism.

As a negotiating strategy, however, government paternalism is highly effective.  Should a citizen question why we must rush into war, the NSA, CIA, or Pentagon can simply say, “That’s classified.”  If anyone asks why we must take an experimental “vaccine” with unproven effectiveness, the CDC and FDA can answer, “We’re working at the speed of science.”  If someone wonders why it’s okay for the government to ban certain political viewpoints, public censors can explain, “We’re experts in disinformation.”  Like any good negotiator, the more that government actors depend upon (1) secret knowledge and (2) special authority, the easier it is for them to get what they want.  Daddy Government is such a good negotiator that he can get peaceniks to cheer for war, medical doctors to wear six useless paper masks, and free speech enthusiasts to warn against the dangers of unregulated speech!

How does Daddy Government negotiate so well?  He’s a “nudger” really.  He always has been.  He asks, “Don’t you care about freedom and the American flag?”  And answers, “If so, you’ll agree to fight and die overseas.”  He will never suggest, however, that you fight and die for freedom right here!  He tells us every problem has a government solution.  Too much interstate crime?  That’s why we need the FBI!  Too much economic uncertainty?  That’s why we need the Federal Reserve!  Too many evil regimes plotting our demise?  That’s why we need the CIA!  Too many domestic enemies in our midst?  That’s why we need the NSA to spy on everything we say! 

Daddy Government succeeds when his children are conditioned to root for bigger and more intrusive government.  After all, negotiation is the art of getting an adversary to convince you that your opinion is right!  When more government is the only answer to any perceived problem, who wins the negotiation?  Daddy Government!  That’s why he’s a master negotiator!

When we speak about a “Great Awakening” happening in America and throughout the West, what we are talking about is a growing public recognition among citizens that their governments have long been “negotiating” in bad faith.  Censorship is not free speech.  Mandatory vaccination is not healthcare.  Energy cartels, fiat currencies, central banks, overseas slave labor, and heavily regulated domestic economies do not constitute free markets.  Endless war does not produce endless peace.  Governments that have long “nudged” us into believing such lies are being broadly exposed.  You take thirty years of a relatively open Internet, combine it with enlightened public conversations that transcend national boundaries, add a handful of technologies that provide workarounds to mass surveillance, mix in a few revelations from the likes of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and what do you get?  You get a large number of citizens who realize that they are in an abusive relationship with their government. 

Americans who once believed that tyranny could not happen here now know better.  Western Europeans who believed that totalitarianism had been beaten know better, too.  This change in social consciousness is why governments have swapped their “nudge patrols” for authoritarian armies that push and shove.  Government coercion and violence are on the rise because Westerners see through the rigged “negotiations” of their fake “democracies.”  It’s why Germany disenfranchises conservatives, France arrests the CEOs of free speech platforms, Brazil bans Elon Musk’s X, the UK treats “anti-Establishment rhetoric” as a crime, and the United States persecutes J6 political prisoners.  

Daddy Government is afraid because his “children” are done negotiating.

It looks like we’re doing September surprises now…

The DOJ has accused several conservative influencers of unwittingly working for a Kremlin-funded media outlet.

A federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that a Tennessee-based media company, later identified as Tenet Media, received nearly $10 million from employees of Russian state-backed media company, Russia Today (RT), as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.”

The DOJ claims that RT and two of its employees – Kostiantyn “Kostya” Kalashnikov and Elena “Lena” Afanasyeva – worked to funnel money to Tenet Media as part of a series of “covert projects” aimed at shaping narratives within Western audiences.

The indictment specifically notes that the influencers – including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern – had no idea they were taking Russian money, and were deceived. They were told by Tenet founder Lauren Chen – who allegedly knew the true source of the funds – that the money was from a wealthy private investor named “Eduard Grigoriann.”

The influencers named appear to have been deceived about funding sources by Lauren Chen, founder Tenet. Secondly, Lauren Chen, the alleged Russian agent receiving millions for propaganda (allegedly) has actively been discouraging votes for Trump and dividing the Right. Read the… pic.twitter.com/2JmVk2iml3

— Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) September 4, 2024

At least one of the influencers asked for a profile on Grigoriann before signing a contract – and was given a fabricated one-page profile.

This was apparently sufficient, as two of the commentators (believed to be Tim Pool and Benny Johnson) signed contracts which paid Pool $100,000 per podcast, while Johnson was paid $400,000 per month plus a $100,000 signing bonus for “four weekly videos.”

They let her off. Mostly likely, she entered some off the books deal, to protect a federal asset who Tenet media aggressively promoted, and for access to all her devices. Plus they were able to monitor her under FISA and no doubt did a few hops off that.

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) September 4, 2024

While Pool and Johnson have issued statements (below), it’s been pointed out that Lauren Chen has recently been trying to divide Donald Trump’s base…

Interestingly enough, in recent weeks, Lauren has been telling her followers to boycott Trump. It’s entirely unclear if she was doing so at the direction of the Russian government. Nonetheless, worth noting. pic.twitter.com/o9mLFw7gMH

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) September 4, 2024

Lauren Chen catching a break? Sounds like the typical leftist double standard in play! Trust the liberals to protect their own when the rest of us would be toast!

— The Scoop (@TheScoopUS) September 4, 2024

This is likely backdrop to Garland’s “Russia, Russia, Russia.” To notes: 1) No one serious believes Russia backs Trump; 2) What I want to know is whether anything Russia paid for is FALSE. As I said: https://t.co/tRcXbg3Pjs https://t.co/RgZwaAWK5V

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) September 4, 2024

In a Wednesday statement on X, Pool says that should the allegations prove true, “I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” and ends by telling haters to “eat my irish ass.”

My statement regarding allegations and the DOJ Indictment

Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed…

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 4, 2024

Johnson says “Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated,” adding “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.”

A statement on the leaked DOJ indictment today:

A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s…

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 4, 2024

We’re sure the timing of this, two months before the election, was a total coincidence. How long has the DOJ been sitting on this? Why did it drop a day after we learned that a Chinese spy was working for NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, or that Poole was going to sue Kamala Harris for defamation?

So @Timcast announces he will be suing Kamala and her campaign for defamation and within 24 hrs the DOJ launches an assault calling him a paid Russian asset.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) September 4, 2024

And of course, the NeverTrumpers like Rick Wilson are giddy with joy…

Obviously we should be flushing out any foreign influence operation but let’s not pretend this is a problem exclusive to the right

— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) September 4, 2024

Hezbollah on Wednesday unleashed its largest volley of rockets on northern Israel since late August. At around noon local time, nearly 50 rocket sirens sounded throughout settlements and towns in northern Israel as around 65 missiles rained down.

The settlement of Kiryat Shmona was hit, according to Israeli media, resulting in fires in surrounding fields – which has been a common feature of the conflict with Hezbollah. The settlements of Malchia, Ramot Naftali, and Beit Hillel were also targeted, but it remains unclear how many projectiles made it through.

An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) statement indicted that anti-air systems were able to intercept many rockets while failing to shoot down others.

Before Wednesday’s attack, Hezbollah’s daily rocket fire had significantly dropped and was at a bit of a lull. The IDF had last month launched a large-scale ‘preemptive attack’ on Lebanon, and Israeli officials attribute this action to quieting the ferocity of Hezbollah attacks in the week after.

The Jerusalem Post explains of the recent daily stats as follows:

The military did not explain why it missed certain rockets, though given the context, the sudden large volume after a relatively quiet period may have partially taken the air defense apparatus by surprise.

Prior to August 25, Hezbollah had at times launched 100 or even 200 rockets in a day against Israel’s North and frequently was launching dozens per day.

In that sense, it was clear on Wednesday that Hezbollah had re-crossed a threshold of challenging Israel with more rocket attacks after a period of time in which it had seemed deterred by the August 25 IDF preemptive strike.

Still, the Israeli August preemptive strikes are having their intended effect of serving as a major warning to the whole of the Lebanese government and people.

Israel has since Oct.7 held the threat over the populating of “bombing Lebanon back to the stone age” – as Israeli officials have often repeated – should Hezbollah keep escalating its attacks which have left some 80,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes.

On Sunday the head of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces (LF), Samir Geagea, charged Hezbollah with “confiscating the Lebanese people’s decision on war and peace, as if there were no state”. He has accused the Shia paramilitary group of endangering the whole nation against the will of the Lebanese people.

Geagea described that the tit-for-tat conflict on the southern border is “a war that the Lebanese people reject, but has been imposed on them.”

“It is a war that the Lebanese people do not want and over which the government has had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota,” he added.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The Democrats have all of a sudden zeroed in on Green Party leader Jill Stein in the latest sign that they’re getting desperate.

Most polls had previously claimed that Kamala was leading Trump, but cynics suspected that this was all part of the party’s coronation of their new candidate after Biden dropped out. The truth is now coming out after even pro-Democrat Newsweek felt compelled to headline a recent article about how “Kamala Harris’ Lead Over Trump Being ‘Steadily Cut’—Poll” so as to retain some credibility.

Three factors have worked against her faux lead and inevitably exposed it as fraudulent:

1. Americans haven’t forgotten how Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt this summer;

2. influential former Democrats RFK and Tulsi Gabbard endorsed him; and

3. Kamala’s CNN interview was disastrous.

The first even inspired lifelong Democrat Mark Zuckerberg to praise Trump as a “badass”; RFK and Tulsi command a lot of sway among dissident Leftists; and Americans remembered how inept Kamala is.

The confluence of these aforesaid factors is responsible for the Democrats attacking Stein all of a sudden despite having hitherto held off on doing so out of fear that it would give her free publicity. Trump’s real lead (i.e. not the manipulated polling put out by Democrat cut-outs) might already be “too big to rig” or is rapidly approaching that level. Stein might also once again siphon votes from disgruntled Leftists and thus lead to him winning back the presidency, which is the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

They’ve proven themselves unable to effectively counteract the three factors working against Kamala’s faux lead so their backup plan is to attack Stein like AOC and DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni began doing earlier this week. The first claimed that she’s “not serious”, “not authentic”, and “just predatory” in the sense that she could take enough votes from the Democrats to make a difference, while the latter defamed her as “a useful idiot for Russia” whose “spoiler candidacy” can help Trump win.

Neither would have crossed the Rubicon, let alone at the same time and not to mention given their influential roles in the party, had they not thought (or perhaps been told by the party elite) that the expected benefits outweigh the predictable detriments. They’re giving her free publicity, which could further amplify her ideas among dissident Leftists and thus lead to her siphoning off more votes from the Democrats, but with the goal in mind of ultimately scaring some of her supporters away too.

The fact of the matter though is that those who support Stein are already aware of these two information warfare narratives against her but don’t care since they see their vote for her as a form of protest against the Democrats and the US’ political system more broadly. They’re therefore not going to be scared away like AOC and Corridoni expect, but those two might have an ulterior motive in mind in going on the attack, or at least those who might have told them to do that could have such intentions.

It was explained late last month in this analysis here about why “The Justice Department’s Crackdown On Russian Media’s American Affiliates Is Frightening” that efforts are underway to concoct another Russiagate conspiracy theory for discrediting Trump’s potential victory and sabotaging his next term. To that end, the FBI raided the homes of Scott Ritter and Dimitri Simes, and unnamed administration sources told the New York Times that more people might soon be raided on this pretext too.

The abovementioned analysis concluded that “[Trump’s] actual lead might result in a victory that’s ‘too big to rig’ if it stays on track, hence the need to preemptively manufacture a backup plan”, which could be complemented by the Democrats’ attacks Stein in order to more compellingly concoct their narrative. It should be mentioned that these attacks followed her announcing that she’d attend a rally in support of the Uhuru 3, whose Russiagate-like case readers can learn more about from one of them here.

The narrative threads have yet to be explicitly connected, but one scenario is that the FBI’s latest raids and the Democrats’ sudden attacks against Stein are meant to lend false credence to another Russiagate conspiracy theory for discrediting Trump’s “too big to rig” lead in the event that he wins. The FBI raids can’t do this on their own, nor the Democrats’ attacks against Stein, hence the need to pair them together and perhaps include another forthcoming but as-yet unknown element into this mix.

After all, it was already explained how the Democrats’ attacks against Stein will only give her free publicity and risk more dissident Leftists defecting from their party to hers, but this interpretation reconceptualizes everything by enabling the Democrats to then blame it all on Russia. Her public support for the Uhuru 3 coupled with the latest attacks against her and the FBI’s raids could combine to make a remixed Russiagate scenario more believable to a greater segment of the population than the first one.

If Trump’s lead is “too big to rig” like was argued throughout this analysis might already be the case or rapidly approaching that level, then the Democrats’ fallback plan could be to craft this narrative as a last-ditch effort to influence some electors into not voting for him, or at least till everything is “investigated”. Stein is going to carry some percentage of the vote like she always does whenever she runs, and if Trump’s lead is “too big to rig”, then there’s logic in attributing her “spoiler vote” to “Russian influence”.  

To be clear, Stein and all other third-party candidates have the right to run for president, and this shouldn’t be discredited. That said, sour Democrats are known to resort to the dirtiest tricks to smear their opponents instead of taking their electoral losses in a sportsmanlike manner. Blaming Trump’s potential return to office on “Russian-backed Stein” and relying on “evidence” obtained from the FBI’s raids of Russian media’s American affiliates, the Uhuru 3 case, and whatever else is therefore possible.

It remains to be seen whether these threads are explicitly connected by that party or not, and there’s always a chance that their elite might decide not to go through with this for whatever reason, but it’s still plausible enough to be taken seriously and that’s why all Americans should be on alert. As Election Day nears and Trump’s lead over Kamala grows, or hers over him slips as some Mainstream Media outlets might frame it so as to retain some credibility, the Democrats will become more desperate than ever.

Two years after his ouster, CNN host Brian Stelter announced he’s returning to the network… but he’s different this time…

“I am thrilled to share that I am returning as the lead author of CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter, the digest I founded in 2015,” Stelter wrote in a “surprise” message to “Reliable Sources” readers on Tuesday.

“I’m returning to CNN in a brand new role as Chief Media Analyst, which means I’ll be appearing on air, developing digital content, and helming this newsletter.”

Stelter said his return to CNN, which officially starts Sept. 9, won’t be the same as his previous stint at the network, insisting “because I am different.”

As Fox News reports, Stelter was fired by CNN in 2022 by his then-boss Chris Licht, who at the time was “determined to tamp down spectacle” and tasked by his own bosses at parent company Warner Bros. Discovery to restore CNN’s journalistic credibility by shedding its left-wing partisanship.

In addition to re-hiring Stelter, new CEO Mark Thompson also promoted Jim Acosta to a weekday anchor role and elevated Laura Coats and Abby Phillips into primetime.

“I’m very happy to welcome Brian back to CNN in this new role,” Thompson said in a statement.

“Brian is one of the best global experts in media commentary, and as the founder of the Reliable Sources newsletter, he is the perfect choice to lead Reliable Sources into its next chapter.”

As a reminder, as host of “Reliable Sources,” Stelter hyped Russiagate, fawned over Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus response, and in Oct. 2020 called the Hunter Biden laptop story a “manufactured scandal” peddled by the “right-wing media machine.”

He even called disgraced anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti a “serious” presidential contender going into the 2020 election cycle.

But, hey, he says he’s “different” this time… so there’s noting to worry about.

…and I experienced the news more like an everyday consumer. In doing so, I learned a whole lot about the attention economy and the information ecosystem. So this time around will be different, because I am different.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 3, 2024

 

Authored by Robert Weissberg via American Thinker,

The Democrat party’s craving for power is insatiable so nothing is ever enough.

How else can you explain their infatuation with open borders with quick paths to citizenship, undermining the electoral process with mail-in voting or schemes to re-write the Constitution?

Consider the party’s 2024 party platform. The section “Making Higher Education Accessible and Affordable” advances two aims central to the party’s very existence: promoting political indoctrination and rewarding one of the party’s most crucial allies, college professors.

Today’s college campus is, with scant exception, a key instrument for pushing youngsters leftward so even physics majors must take course in the humanities and social sciences where they will learn how America was built on slavery with land stolen from the noble indigenous people while women continue to be oppressed by the white patriarchy.

Campus propaganda works.

In the 2020 presidential election college graduates favored Biden over Trump 56% to 42% while those with high school or less favored Trump 56% to 41%.  Given that historically Republicans did better among college graduates, this reversal is a remarkable event in American electoral history, and it can only be attributed to professors  indoctrinating their students. The Democrat party is obviously heavily indebted to college professors.  

Unfortunately for Democrats, this pool of supporters may decline since higher education itself is shrinking, and the decline seems inescapable. Between 2010 and 2021 college enrollment dropped by 15%.  A report from the National Center for Educational Statistics found that ninety-nine colleges have closed their doors.

Meanwhile, as the population shifted from the Northeast to the South, many small colleges can no longer survive on nearby populations, Americans also increasingly question the value of a college degree. Higher education is an industry in decline.

This decline has been partially mitigated by cutting programs and administrative overheads. 

In North Carolina, for example, two public universities have just eliminated more than a dozen programs that range from Mediterranean Studies to physics. Stanford University, one of America’s richest schools just terminated 23 positions in its popular creative writing program.

Particularly hard hit are Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs due to recent court cases.  Downsizing is not always obvious since colleges can replace tenured faculty with lowly paid part-time untenured adjuncts who teach multiple courses.

Shifting popularity of college majors may also be hurting Democrats. A recent Forbes study found a sharp increase in practical majors such as computer technology at the expense of majors heavy on PC indoctrination, notably English, the social sciences and history, ethnic studies and philosophy. The sociology professor who insists that sex is not biological may soon be fired for lack of acolytes. All and all, bad news for Democrats.

Fortunately for all those colleges facing bankruptcy and professors pontificating to near empty classrooms, the Democrats promise help to restore the higher education indoctrination industrial complex.  

As expressed in their 2024 party platform, the vision is truly lofty: “it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that every child, everywhere, is able to receive a world-class education that enables them to lead meaningful lives, no matter their race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability status, language status, immigration or citizenship status, household income or ZIP code.”

The platform insists that everyone (emphasis added) should earn a degree beyond high school and be tuition-free for families earning less than $125,000 yearly (over 80% of the American public). This includes trade schools and community colleges, but singled out for extra federal government financial help are the 107 HBCUs that largely serve black students.

If these enrollment-boosting measures fail to revitalize struggling colleges, “Democrats are committed to policies that make the United States welcoming to the more than one million international students, [who will contribute] to our higher education sector and to our nation’s intellectual and cultural vibrancy.”

To ensure that students stay around for as long as possible, there will be funding for child care, buying textbooks and for low-income students programs to combat “food insecurity” since you can’t learn on an empty stomach. Tellingly, federal generosity will reflect a school’s proportion of low-income students,

Predictably, student debt will be minimized, so after 20 years all college debt will be forgiven for those earning less than $125,000, together with all students who have attended HBCUs. Unlike current policy, this debt will also be dischargeable with bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that forgives loans for government employees and those in the non-profit sector will be expanded to cover college students with loan forgiveness up to $10,000 per year. This forgiveness will also, supposedly, help close the racial wealth gap.

Ironically, student debt may actual increase thanks to even more Pell Grants, especially those from under-represented groups, since such grants may be treated as loans that must be repaid.

It remains to be seen if this grandiose scheme becomes a reality, but if it does come to pass, certain outcomes are inevitable.

Clearly, it will cost tens of billions, and it is, however, debatable if this “better credentialed workforce” will improve our economy versus just adding more people with diplomas. It will also likely achieve its twin goals of rescuing countless colleges from bankruptcy and re-energizing the Left’s indoctrination campaign particularly since many of the newly admitted students will be academically “challenged” and thus wisely gravitate to easy courses where embracing wokeness guarantees a decent grade.

On the educational downside, however, is that the huge uptick of ill-prepared, academically weak students invites academic disasters. Guaranteed.

Consider what occurred when the City College of New York City (CCNY), once called “Harvard of the poor,” when faced with mounting racial strife, adopted an “open admission” policy that admitted countless second-rate students, many who could barely read or write. Huge resources were then reallocated to remedial education, for example, 105 sections of remedial English were created staffed with 21 full-time faculty. Indeed, nearly 90% of all students required remediation. All told, some 1,200 faculty were hired for remedial teaching plus countless tutors and counselors together with administrators to oversee these programs.

Entire departments of remedial education were created but to no avail. Everything failed to bring troubled students up to speed and classed were soon dumbed down to hide this shortcoming. Even then, graduation rates were terrible, and the once respected CCNY degree declined in value.  CCNY soon ran out of money and had to briefly shut down. Ultimately, open admissions ended and was judged a total failure.

Something more serious informs this ill-advised plan to expand American higher education: an insatiable appetite for political power. This is not just trying to win elections to accomplish a worthy, practical goal. They are chasing the Utopias of egalitarian leveling, and everything will be sacrificed to this end, including American higher education. A parallel exists with eating disorders—technically called polyphagia— where gorging oneself only whets the appetite for yet more gluttony. It is as if the compulsive eater believed that, yet one more chocolate cream pie would finally bring happiness but if the pie fails to deliver, perhaps a gallon of ice cream will do the trick. 

The Democrats’ quest for endless power cannot end well.   

After a blockbuster year in 2021, with athletes and celebrities promoting blank-check offerings, the SPAC bubble imploded and has since been depressed under a high interest rate environment that the Federal Reserve kicked off in early 2022. But more than three years later, signs of life have returned to the black-check market ahead of the Fed’s interest rate-cutting cycle that could begin in just weeks. 

Bloomberg data shows $2 billion was raised across nine US-listed special-purpose acquisition companies in August, the largest flow of deals and proceeds since early 2022.

Avi Katz’s GigCapital Global closed five deals, while Howard Lutnick and Asia casino magnate Lawrence Ho’s family office each priced their own offerings last month.

Here’s more from Bloomberg:

Cantor Fitzgerald LP, where Lutnick is CEO, has been a key player in the SPAC space as a bank and backer, sponsoring at least nine blank-check companies, the data show. Rumble Inc., the Peter Thiel-backed conservative video network, is among the companies Cantor brought public through SPACs, though most of the stocks have slumped since debuting.

Black Spade Acquisition II Co., which raised $150 million, is sponsored by an affiliate of Ho’s Black Spade Capital. The firm’s first SPAC brought Vinfast Auto Ltd. public at a $27 billion valuation last year.

Josef Schuster, founder and CEO of IPOX Schuster, an index provider focused on new listings, noted, “The SPAC structure isn’t being put on the shelf — companies are realizing that the IPO may not be for everyone,” adding, “Smaller deals in riskier areas or larger industrial mergers make sense as companies look for a public listing.”

Some of the main drivers of the SPAC downturn included rising inflation and a high interest rate environment, disappointing performance by newly de-SPACed companies, rising macroeconomic uncertainty, and increased regulatory scrutiny from the SEC. 

SPAC Research data show that SPAC proceeded have been rising, somewhat unevenly, since May. This suggests that financial conditions are loosening just enough that companies feel more confident that going public through a SPAC won’t end in total disaster, with the Fed expected to begin cutting interest rates on Sept. 18. 

Fed swaps show 1.4 cuts are being priced this month, with as many as 4.2 by the end of the year. 

The Fed was instrumental in inflating the SPAC bubble and deflating it… 

According to SPAC Research data, around 100 blank-check companies are currently searching for deals, with 20 new ones launched in the last three months. This is a far cry from the SPAC bubble days of more than 600 pre-deal vehicles in the market.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The ‘novel, apocalyptic situation which has now arisen’ goes largely unrecognized.

A truly staggering amount of content is aimed at predicting what happens next , aka the future , and justifies their prediction by referencing models that are presented as rock-solid predictive tools. The majority of these models are based on historical examples that have been distilled into models of “how the world works,” ie claims that these were not one-offs or outliers but examples of dynamics that will play out tomorrow as they played out 10 years ago, 100 years ago or 1,000 years ago.

History is complex and thus open to interpretation. The victors / survivors write the histories to suit their interests (protecting their reputation, covering their mistakes, etc.) and historians who follow gather new bits of information and then present a new interpretation that inevitably reflects the zeitgeist of their era.

Those hazarding predictions typically start with a model (Keynesian economics, for example) and then seek data to support their model of choice. It is relatively rare for an analyst to start with a mass of often incomplete and contradictory data points and hazard a prediction about what happens next without proposing a model, for without a theoretical model, skeptics can quickly claim the data was nothing more than a one -off and therefore of little predictive value.

This is how we become so wedded to models that we defend them vociferously. Without a model, then history quickly decays into one damn thing after another , ie quasi-random events devoid of causal patterns. Since our desire to piece together causal chains as the means to develop predictive tools is innate, we seek universal models of how the world works , even if the data is scarce and our understanding is limited.

Lacking evidence and understanding of invisible dynamics, we conclude thunder means the gods are angry , and so our response is to make a sacrifice and beg the gods’ forgiveness.

We tend to think we’ve risen so far above such causal errors that our understanding is now essentially god-like. That our models are proven goes without saying, and the only debate is which model will be more successful in predicting what happens next .

But suppose none of our models are actually as predictively useful as we imagine. Suppose the Keynesian economic model will completely miss the mark, and following that model is simply doing more of what’s failed . Perhaps competing models will come up short as well.

The possibility that all of our models will fail to accurately predictwhat happens next rarely happens to us, for it moots the entire project of making accurate predictions and mapping our responses. If we admit the possibility that the next few years cannot be accurately predicted for a variety of reasons, then our Plans A, B and C (and our own thinking) must necessarily be contingent and flexible.

We must be willing and able to throw overboard our entire edifice of models, data and expectations, and respond without any confidence in the models we married and are loathe to surrender. This is difficult for us because it demands capacious stores of humility and a willingness to say “I was wrong, the models I’ve staked my entire career on are incorrect.”

Consider the keystone’s role in arches and ecosystems. We understand that removing the keystone from the arch causes the arch to collapse, but we’re stunned when removing a species from an ecosystem collapses the ecosystem because we did not recognize the species was the keystone species of that self-organizing system: without that species doing its part, the whole system collapses.

Our ability to discern the many keystones in sprawling, complex systems is not as god-like as we imagine. This is the source of the multi-century debate about what caused the western Roman Empire to collapse. Like many others, I have often referenced the decline and eventual collapse of the western Roman Empire in my work, with the caveat that I don’t propose any one cause was the sole keystone that when removed, collapsed the entire empire.

Based on my reading of various authors, it seems the empire was beset by what we now call a polycrisis , a set of independent crises that fed back into one another, exacerbating the overall situation from one that the empire could have managed, with sufficient time and effort into one that overwhelmed the remaining Imperial resources.

New aspects of the polycrisis continue to come to light. In The fall of the Roman Empire: a new history of Rome and the Barbarians , author Peter Heather argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse, what brought it to an end were the so-called Barbarians gaining the expertise to field large armies from their Roman neighbors.

But it’s impossible to dismiss the other material factors described by author Kyle Harper in The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire . Climate change that reduces crop yields and pandemics that kill a third of your armies and populace can ruin your day to the point that the Barbarians who suffered fewer losses due to their more widely dispersed villages had the upper hand regardless of other conditions.

My point here is that each of these causal chains ran through systems which each had a keystone. There wasn’t just one keystone that supported the weight of the entire empire? there were keystones in a vast range of systems, each of which was itself a keystone in the entirety of the empire.

This is why I doubt any of the predictions about what happens next in the global and US economies, geopolitics, etc. will prove accurate. Every prediction is based, explicitly or implicitly, on a model with shaky foundations and therefore shaky causality, a model that fails to identify the keystones in each complex subsystem that makes up the system the model is modeling.

I have quoted from Michael Grant’s succinct book The Fall of the Roman Empire many times, for it strikes me as the keystone of insight into western Rome’s collapse: the elite’s complacent belief in Rome’s eventual success and their inability to recognize the novel challenges they faced.

“Enmeshed in classical history, all he can do is lapse into vague sermonizing, telling the Romans, as many a moralist had told them throughout the centuries, that they must undergo an ethical regeneration and return to the simplicities and self-sacrifices of their ancestors

There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself single new idea.

This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.

This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all.”

And so here we are, wandering from room to dust-choked room, each one stuffed to the ceiling with predictions based on blind adherence to the ideas of the past presented as “scientific” because the data has been neatly organized and the adherents are so confident in the correctness of their diagnosis and proposed cure.

The novel, apocalyptic situation which has now arisen goes largely unrecognized. The technical-managerial experts all share a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea , as their confidence in their models is so great that there is no need for new ideas.

Show me the keystones in each subsystem of a highly complex, tightly bound system, and then maybe we’ll have a few hints about what happens next . Rather than pile up more predictions, it might be wiser to start stocking up humility and preparing to jettison all the old models and solutions before they sink the lifeboat.

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