Month: September 2024

Via Eurasianet.org,

• Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s visit to Uzbekistan aimed to strengthen ties and promote Uzbekistan’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

• Uzbekistan maintained a cautious stance, prioritizing its strategic partnership with Russia but avoiding commitments on EAEU membership or specific joint projects.

• The visit resulted in minor agreements on rail transport, medicinal product labeling, and medical personnel training, with a protocol signed for the construction of nuclear reactors in Uzbekistan.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s two-day visit to Uzbekistan highlights the limits of the Kremlin’s geopolitical leverage these days. Mishustin arrived with high hopes of drawing Uzbekistan closer into Russia’s orbit, but he left with little of substance.

Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states have walked a fine line since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, striving to remain on the sidelines of the conflict without riling the Kremlin and provoking Russian leader Vladimir Putin into taking some sort of punitive action. Helping to keep Moscow happy is the fact that Central Asian states have acted as a backdoor trade conduit, tacitly helping Russian leaders soften the impact of Western sanctions, and keeping the Russian war effort going. 

Mishustin arrived in Uzbekistan on September 9 with a declared aim of securing Tashkent’s commitment to becoming a full member of the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). “Uzbekistan’s participation in Eurasian integration can give additional advantages for business. First of all, thanks to the opening of new sales markets, the creation of conditions for fair competition,” the TASS news agency quoted Mishustin as saying during a September 9 meeting of the joint Russian-Uzbek governmental commission.

And unnamed experts cited by the Russia-based URA news agency said the main reason Moscow wants Uzbekistan to join EAEU boils down to population numbers: Russia is facing a demographic disaster exacerbated by already large, and constantly rising, wartime losses. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, has a young and rapidly growing population. Russia needs more bodies to ensure a stable economic future.

“Russia is interested in Uzbekistan’s accession to the EAEU because it is a country with a population of 35 million, and according to forecasts, by 2035 it will already have more than 40 million inhabitants,” URA quoted the expert as saying.

“The total population of the [Eurasian economic] union would exceed 200 million people [if Uzbekistan became a member]. For Russia, this is an opportunity to strengthen the combined weight of that side of the multipolar world that is being built around our country as a regional leader.”

At the joint commission meeting, Mishustin also expressed hope that the two countries could develop a venture to produce drones for “civilian” uses.

“We are exploring the possibilities of organizing the high-tech production of polymers, localizing the production of civilian unmanned aircraft systems and their components,” TASS quoted Mishustin as saying.

The suggestion raised eyebrows among some local observers, given that an entity in Kazakhstan has already come under US sanctions for supplying Russia with dual-use components, including parts for drones used against Ukrainian forces. 

Uzbek officials appeared to listen politely to Russian proposals, but provided no indication that they would go along with Moscow’s wishes. A statement issued by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s office following a September 10 meeting with the Russian prime minister offered the usual platitudes on the importance of the bilateral “strategic partnership” without mentioning the EAEU or specific joint projects. About the most specific the presidential statement got was an acknowledgement that “an exchange of views occurred on issues of mutual interest.”

The joint commission’s outcome the previous day was similarly modest. There was lots of discussion about boosting trade and investment and following up on joint projects agreed upon during Putin’s visit to Uzbekistan last May. But the talks produced few results. 

An Uzbek government statement noted that three relatively minor agreements were signed at the conclusion of the commission session, including one on accelerating the rail transport of agricultural products and another covering standardized labeling of medicinal products. The third item was a protocol on the training of medical personnel.

Perhaps the most significant development arising out of the visit was the signing of a protocol concerning implementation of an agreement signed back in May under which Russia pledged to build up to six low-power nuclear reactors to generate electricity in Uzbekistan. The protocol “will allow us to begin direct work on the construction site in the near future,” a report published by the Spot.uz new outlet quoted Otabek Amanov, a top Uzbek official overseeing the project, as saying. Uzbek officials say they hope the first reactor will be ready to go online within five years.

During the commission meeting, Mishustin expressed satisfaction with bilateral energy cooperation. “Our energy partnership is progressing successfully. Including the supply of natural gas, oil, and petroleum products from Russia to Uzbekistan,” Mishustin stated.

Uzbek officials have no reason to argue on that point. Uzbekistan is buying up Russian natural gas at a bargain-basement rate of $160 per thousand cubic meters (tcm), according to local media reports. By comparison, the Russian energy behemoth Gazprom sold China gas at an estimated rate of just over $286/tcm in 2023. The low purchase price of Russian gas helps explain why Uzbekistan, itself rich in gas reserves, has turned into a net importer of the blue fuel. Low-cost Russian supplies are enabling Uzbek leaders to offer domestic customers highly subsidized rates for gas consumption.

We already know that emission free or EV trucking isn’t a cost efficient endeavor, which is why many companies like Pepsi have done token purchases of a couple of EV semis, but are still using ICE 18 wheelers to get product to shelves. 

Today a new article from Reuters lays out the numbers behind why emission free trucking remains a fallacy: emissions-free trucks need to drop in price by up to 50% to compete with diesel models, according to a McKinsey study.

Currently, less than 2% of the EU’s heavy freight vehicles are electric or hydrogen-powered, but this must rise to 40% of new sales by 2030 to meet EU climate goals. Electric trucks cost 2.5-3 times more to produce than diesel ones, and logistics companies are reluctant to bear the higher costs, making this target challenging, the report says. 

McKinsey suggests electric truck prices should be no more than 30% higher than diesel models, requiring major battery advancements. 

Reuters writes that a 25% reduction in charging costs and 900,000 private charging points by 2035, needing a $20 billion investment, are also key to the EU’s CO2 strategy. Additionally, European truckmakers face competition from Chinese manufacturers, who have captured 20% of the bus market with cheaper products.

A co-author of the McKinsey study said: “I don’t think it’s impossible that this could actually happen in electric trucks over time.”

Recall we wrote earlier this year that demand for electric semis was plunging. 

“The economics just don’t work for most companies,” Robert Sanchez, the chief executive of Ryder, said in May. 

Ryder’s experience highlights the difficulties state and federal governments encounter in encouraging truckers to transition from polluting diesel rigs to zero-emissions vehicles, the report says.

It also indicates that significant improvements in battery weight, range, and charging times are necessary for battery-electric trucks to effectively compete with diesel rigs in the cost-sensitive freight industry.

Rakesh Aneja, head of eMobility at Daimler Truck North America, told Wall Street Journal: “Quite frankly, demand has not been as strong as what we would like.”

Authored by Wanjiru Njoya via The Mises Institute,

Many people were shocked when over 1,000 protesters were arrested in the UK and jailed for various offenses including “violent disorder” and stirring up racial hatred. Most shocking were the cases of those arrested for posting social media comments on the riots, despite not being present at the scene and there being no evidence that anybody who joined in the riots had read any of their comments.

In societies which uphold the value of individual liberty, the only purpose of the criminal law should be to restrain and punish those who commit acts of aggression against other people or their property.

The criminal law should not be used to prevent people from “hating” others or to force them to “love” each other. In announcing yet another raft of laws “to expand the list of charges eligible to be prosecuted as hate crimes,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that “During these challenging times, we will continue to show up for each other. We are making it clear: love will always have the last word in New York.” To that end, she introduced “legislation to significantly expand eligibility for hate crime prosecution.”

Attempts to promote love between different racial or religious groups in society, for example, by charging people with stirring up “hate” when they protest against immigration, misunderstands the role of the criminal law. Threats to public order entail violating the person or property of others—as happens in a violent riot—not merely the exhibition of “hate” towards others. Yet increasingly, public order offenses are linked to hate speech or hate crimes.

Laws prohibiting hate speech and hate crimes typically define “hate” as hostility based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Often, hostility is understood simply as words that offend others. For example, in the UK, the Communications Act 2003 prohibits sending “a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.” The Online Safety Act 2023 targets illegal content online including both “inciting violence” and the publication of “racially or religiously aggravated public order offenses.” Conduct online includes writing posts or publishing blogs or articles on websites.

Given that inciting violence is already a crime—“conduct, words, or other means that urge or naturally lead others to riot, violence, or insurrection”—there seems to be no discernible purpose in adding the concept of “hate” to such crimes. To give an example, writing “burn down the store” on social media might be seen as inciting violence, but writing “burn down the Muslim store” in the same circumstances would be categorized as a hate crime. Arson (actually burning down the store) is a crime, but based on the racial or religious identity of the store owner arson is deemed to be a “worse” crime—a hate crime—even though the harm in both cases and the loss suffered by store owners who are victims of arson does not vary based purely on their race or religion.

Therefore, no “hateful conduct” laws are needed to further “criminalize” what is already a crime. The conclusion is inescapable that the only goal of these types of “hate” laws is to create a special category of crime based entirely on the identity of the victim. Identity politics is now part of criminal law. “Hate” based on race or religion is now a priority in criminal law enforcement with resources increasingly diverted towards it. For example, New York has devoted a budget of $60 million to “fight hate.”

Events in the UK over the past month chillingly illustrate the consequences of an identity-based approach to law enforcement. In the ongoing police purge of rioters, those who wrote “hate speech” posts on social media platforms were charged with “inciting racial hatred” and sentenced to prison terms of up to two to three years. Far from fighting against “hate,” this is likely only to further fuel resentment and racial antagonism.

Free speech and the first amendment

The U.S. has so far avoided going down this socially destructive path, like the UK has, owing to the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The importance of the first amendment in thwarting attempts to outlaw “hate speech” can be seen in New York’s Assembly Bill A7865A (2021-2022), which provides that humiliating or vilifying anyone on social media based on their identity is hateful conduct and, therefore, illegal. The bill requires social media networks to report “hateful conduct on their platform,” and defines hateful conduct as “the use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” This attempt to regulate “hateful conduct” is a clear restriction of free speech, and it was predictably opposed by free speech groups on grounds that it violates the first amendment.

In linking criminal law to the protection of property rights, Murray Rothbard argues that “incitement” is an element of free speech. Under the principle of free will, no one should claim that the reason he committed arson (a crime against the property of another) was that he read a post on social media saying “burn down the store.” The arsonist would be responsible for his own crime. He may have read the post but the choice to go out and commit the crime was his own. Rothbard explains:

Should it be illegal, we may next inquire, to “incite to riot”’? Suppose that Green exhorts a crowd: “Go! Burn! Loot! Kill!” and the mob proceeds to do just that, with Green having nothing further to do with these criminal activities. Since every man is free to adopt or not adopt any course of action he wishes, we cannot say that in some way Green determined the members of the mob to their criminal activities; we cannot make him, because of his exhortation, at all responsible for their crimes. “Inciting to riot,” therefore, is a pure exercise of a man’s right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime.

Rothbard adds that much would, of course, depend on the context: “there is a world of difference between the head of a criminal gang and a soap-box orator during a riot.”

One of the British people in jail for social media posts wrote on Facebook that “Every man and his dog should smash the f—k out of Britannia hotel,” which was a hotel well known for housing immigrants. The writer of the post—a 28-year-old with no notable following—was not himself present at the riots, nor was there any reason to think those present at the riots had read his post or intended to follow his exhortation. In that sense, he seems to have been nothing more than a “soap-box orator” offering commentary on the riots from the safety and comfort of his armchair. Yet he was charged with “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending thereby to stir up racial hatred” and jailed for 20 months.

That social media commentary is now treated in this way as a reason to jail people for “racial hatred” represents a grave threat to individual liberty, and illustrates the folly of criminalizing “hate.”

China has shrugged off accusations issued by the United States this week that it is directly supporting Russia’s ‘war machine’. US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell told reporters Wednesday that China is providing more than just dual use items, but instead is transferring “component pieces of a very substantial effort on the part of China to help sustain, build and diversify various elements of the Russian war machine.” This allegedly included submarine and missile technology.

On Thursday, Chinese state media confirmed the start of joint China-Russia naval patrols in the Pacific. Global Times says that Chinese warships and warplanes have arrived in the Peter the Great Bay and Vladivostok just ahead of the exercises, which will run through September.

But it was Russia which verbally hit back directly against Washington accusations in a new, ominous warning. Russia and China could “combine their potential” if faced with aggression, Moscow’s foreign ministry asserted.

“I would like to remind you that Moscow and Beijing will respond to ‘double containment’ by the United States with ‘double counteraction’,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

While the two powerful countries as yet have no formal military treaty, President Putin recently declared Russia and China to be “allies in every sense of the word” while Xi has touted the “no limits friendship”. 

Zakharova in the latest explosive remarks (issued in a Wednesday briefing) spoke about combining forces. Here are the words in their full context:

“It is clear that both Russia and China will react to the emergence of additional and very significant missile threats, and their reaction will be far from being political, which has also been repeatedly confirmed by the two countries.

“Our relations are not directed against third countries… and double counteraction does not contradict this. This is a defensive position, this is not an initiative to target other countries.

“But if an aggressive policy of attack is being implemented against us from one centre, why don’t we combine our potential and give an appropriate rebuff?” 

It seems that among the original questions from reporters which triggered this response was an inquiry related to the possibility that the US will deploy US Typhon mid-range missiles to Japan.

While reports have said these will be present on a temporary basis as part of drills, it remains the missiles were banned under the now defunct INF Treaty. China has of course vehemently condemned this, and independent analysts have pointed out it would be akin to China placing banned missiles capable of hitting Florida and the US Gulf coast in Cuba or Mexico.

In many ways, these recent displays of close coordination between Beijing and Moscow are but more blowback from round after round of US sanctions and punitive actions aimed at both countries.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Turkish President Erdogan has attempted over the years to present himself as the voice of the international Muslim community, or Ummah, most recently by calling for an Islamic alliance against Israel. His strong rhetoric about the latest Israeli-Hamas war has earned him the praise of many and also resulted in sharp responses from Israelis, which in turn feed into the perception that he’s seeking to form. All his tough talk is just pure demagoguery, however, since he isn’t willing to go to war with Israel.

 

The Palestinians claim that over 40,000 of their own have been killed in this nearly year-long conflict that most of their supporters consider to be a genocide. The living conditions in Gaza are atrocious, almost all of the strip has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombs, and Egypt continues to keep its border closed to prevent the outflow of refugees into its territory. By all indications, it’s more than a little late for anyone to suggest forming a multilateral alliance against Israel, whether they’re really sincere or not.  

Erdogan is a very clever politician and therefore predictably has a few tricks up his sleeve for proposing this so belatedly.

First and foremost, he wants to reaffirm Turkiye’s image as the historical protector of the Ummah from back during its Ottoman days, hence why he’s calling so loudly for forming such an Islamic alliance.

The second objective is to build upon the aforesaid in order to position Turkiye atop the regional military hierarchy in the minds of those who take his proposal seriously.

Third, he also knows very well that no Muslim country will voluntarily subordinate itself to Turkiye’s implied military hegemony, especially not the Gulf Kingdoms. Their rejection of his proposal or at least public indifference to it can then be spun as passing the buck along to them for supposedly “failing to save Palestine”. The fourth reason is related to the preceding one and concerns the public pressure that Turkiye is coming under from some to cut off Azerbaijan’s oil exports to Israel via Georgia and Turkiye.

Ankara owns neither the pipeline nor the oil that transits through it so any interference with these shipments would be a blatant violation of international law and a stab in its Azeri brother’s back. Its allied relations with Baku mean that Turkish officials can’t pressure their counterparts on this, let alone publicly condemn them for continuing to literally fuel the Israeli economy, but having the public see their lack of response to Erdogan’s proposed Islamic alliance might take some of the heat off of him on this.

And finally, the last goal that he’s seeking to advance is to wage psychological warfare on Israelis by making them fear the grand strategic consequences of continuing the conflict and thus ideally inspiring them to ramp up their protests to stop it, though this could also backfire. By exacerbating their existing siege mindset, he risks some reconsidering whether it’s worth ending the conflict now if all their country’s goals have yet to be achieved seeing as how this Islamic alliance is already forming anyhow.

Altogether, observers shouldn’t forget that Erdogan knows how to play to the Ummah’s crowds, so little of what he says about his plans against Israel should ever be taken seriously. There’s always an ulterior motive or several behind it like in this case as was explained. His strong rhetoric leads to extreme dopamine bursts from those who think that he’s being sincere, but the rush will inevitably wear off once they realize that he’s not, and some might in turn think less of him afterwards.

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics,

Like a Greek chorus, my Republican friends warn that “the America we’ve known and loved will be gone” if Kamala Harris is elected president. They are half right. Neither Harris nor Donald Trump is seeking to restore the traditional values and ideals of freedom and opportunity that have made our country exceptional. Both candidates reject our foundational ideal of a self-reliant people in favor of a politics of entitlement and grievance.

Just as hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue, the candidates pay lip service to our traditional value of opportunity – the freedom to see how far your talents might take you. That rhetoric still resonates in the American psyche. Harris speaks of an opportunity economy; Trump vows to bring more jobs back to our shores. But those words are window-dressing in their larger message that assumes success hinges less on talent and ambition than the corrupt ability to game a rigged system. Transforming conspiracy theory into conventional wisdom, both argue that if things aren’t working out, the fault is in malign dark forces, not ourselves.

Neither candidate seeks to unleash the animal spirits that made America the richest and freest country in the history of the world. Instead of inspiring us to fight for ourselves, they promise to be our champions, using tariffs, tax credits, and other powers of the state to solve our problems for us. In their view, America has become a nation of creditors owed vast debts by the government. Everyone, except maybe Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, are due reparations.

They are telling us this because it is what we want to hear. Growing numbers of Americans don’t want to take responsibility for their circumstances. They seek to blame someone else and demand that others improve their lot.

This mindset has not sprung from the ether; politicians have long promised voters a free lunch. It is not unmoored from reality; there are powerful forces that can limit individual effort. But in recent years, these elements have risen to the forefront of American politics – especially after the Great Recession of 2007-09 delivered a crippling blow to our historic belief in a brighter future.

Since then, Democrats have spoken to these fears through an identity politics that casts large swaths of the population – especially minorities and women who together constitute the vast majority of people – as victims.

Rejecting Ronald Reagan’s can-do vision of our country as a shining city on a hill, Trump’s grievance-based populism reflects the triumph of this view across the land. Yes, Americans are angry at each other, but our real beef seems to be with the entire world that refuses to give us milk and honey.

Sadly, this view seems much more prevalent among native-born citizens with deep roots in our country rather than the immigrants who flock here because hard work still pays off. Tellingly, the ability of newcomers to make a better life here, to gain admission to top schools, to build and run thriving businesses, or just find work that pays a decent wage, is largely dismissed in our culture of complaint.

The dangers of this culture are manifold. History shows that government cannot fix our problems. For all their limits, free markets and a by-the-bootstraps mentality have been the great engines of our prosperity, not state and federal programs that can only redistribute the profits of labor. The problems roiling Europe show what happens when countries run out of other people’s money. That’s the canary in the coal mine.

Ironically, victimhood and entitlement make it almost impossible to fix our problems. Massive spending, first by Trump (in fairness, as a response to COVID) and then by Biden (to buy votes and create a “legacy”), fueled the inflation that voters rail against. Yet, neither Harris nor Trump are offering serious plans to reduce our deficit, much less our soaring debt. Calls for sacrifice are off the table.

Americans are not facing a choice this November between two competing visions, but about the pace of our decline. Harris would turbo-charge the Biden administration’s push to make government the be-all and end-all of our lives, perhaps even completing our transformation from a dynamic engine of growth into a tired welfare state like those in Western Europe. This will not end the good life in America; there are plenty of happy Belgians. Well-educated professionals – the What me, Worry? liberals – are thriving, insulated in their gated communities and high-rise buildings from the consequences of the leftwing policies they support that are hollowing out the working class. But year by year, Harris will continue to deliver death blows to American exceptionalism.

Trump would slow these changes, reducing regulatory strangleholds here and there without fundamentally changing the course we are on. He won’t and can’t do that because, as necessary as a correction may be, the voters don’t want it.

This sad state of affairs recalls the journalist H.L. Mencken’s observation more than a century ago that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

Authored by Joseph Lord, Madalina Vasiliu and Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

With its 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is shaping up to be the most critical swing state in the 2024 election for both major candidates.

In 2016, Pennsylvania—along with the rest of the Rust Belt—slotted into former President Donald Trump’s column, delivering him a sweeping Electoral College win. In 2020, the state swung to Biden.

Pennsylvania carries the most electoral votes of any state considered a swing state. The next closest are North Carolina and Georgia, with 16 electoral votes apiece.

The Epoch Times spoke to some of the Keystone State’s voters, traveling across eastern and southern Pennsylvania and the outskirts of Philadelphia. Here’s what they told us.

Several Pennsylvanians indicated frustration with the current election, and the two-party system more broadly.

Susan Diehl, a gas station employee in Newburg, seemed jaded with politics.

“Why can’t they just tell the truth about whatever they’re going to do or not do? I always feel that politicians, all of them, lie just to get elected,” she said.

The Epoch Times found mixed signs of support for both candidates.

Several independents indicated they have frustrations with Trump and his trademark communication style, which they described as too abrasive.

Many said they were ultimately undecided, and expressed dissatisfaction with both candidates.

Dave Brueggeman, a 60-year-old Army veteran from York, hasn’t made a decision yet.

Brueggeman, who described himself as “a Democrat, but … not the kind of Democrat today,” said that he had initially planned to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent before recently dropping out and backing Trump.

Following Kennedy’s departure from the race, Brueggeman said, “I’m not sure about Trump, I’m just not sure. I haven’t really made up my mind yet completely.”

Brueggeman thinks Harris will ultimately win the race—a situation he said would dissatisfy many, but which he blamed on the two-party system.

Brueggeman said he hopes both candidates will pursue Social Security reforms, specifically in changing the rules around how much income Social Security recipients can make each month.

Lawrence Clark, a 52-year-old from Mt. Wolf, says he’s also still weighing his options, but the lifelong Democrat said one thing is certain: he won’t be voting for Harris.

“I don’t think she’s as qualified as Trump. Trump already has experience,” Clark said.

Clark was among those released from prison under Trump’s First Step Act, which allowed inmates to reduce their sentence by accumulating “good behavior” credits.

“The economy was better when [Trump] was in office,” Clark said.

He says he’s hopeful that the next president will continue to pursue criminal justice reform, and believes Trump will do so.

Marco Ceo, a 45-year-old from eastern Pennsylvania, says he’s leaning toward voting for Harris and that he dislikes Trump’s “edge.”

On the other hand, Ceo indicated ambivalence about Harris’s executive experience, noting it’s one area in which Trump has Harris beat.

“I think she has some experience there. And clearly the Republican candidate has experience being the former president, but … I like inspiration more than bullying,” Ceo said.

These considerations, Ceo said, have left him “really torn” about who to vote for.

Ceo was critical of the “non-stop assault with campaign messaging” directed at independents in crucial swing states like him. The ads, he said, don’t respect the intelligence of voters.

He hopes that the candidates will look more into rising tuition costs, which he says have taken a toll on his family’s finances.

Among those more open to Harris, some expressed a feeling of resignation.

Zach Miller, a 43-year-old from Lancaster, said that he’s primarily motivated to vote against Trump, rather than a preference for Harris.

“She doesn’t evoke any strong emotion from my being whatsoever,” the Pennsylvanian said of the vice president.

Mikki Breitmos was once a labor union Democrat. She left the party 18 years ago, however, and now has decided on Trump.

“I think that he is more of a businessman than a politician, and that’s why I voted for him the last time,” she said.

She expressed hope that Trump will tone down the rhetoric—and expressed optimism that former First Lady Melania Trump could help on that front.

“I feel that maybe with Melania’s influence, he would direct himself away from that and then make the country whole again,” Breitmos said.

Michael Nicolazzo, a 92-year-old Korean War veteran, has seen many presidential elections come and go in his lifetime. But his first time voting in one came in 2016, when he cast his ballot for Trump.

Nicolazzo lost his pension due to a clerical error and later a fire that destroyed his service records, but says he hopes Trump will be able to help during a second term.

“Nobody’s helped me. And I think Trump could be the only one, because he likes veterans,” Nicolazzo said.

McDonald’s is set to extend its $5 meal deal, originally a summer promotion launched in June, through December across all US markets. This move signals the fast-food giant’s acknowledgment that its core customers are struggling to afford Big Macs in a period of elevated inflation and high interest rates, thanks to failed Bidenomics. Recent data shows that broader low- and middle-income consumers are experiencing the financially devastating combination of insurmountable debts and depleted personal savings.

Value wars among fast-food chains are heating up and now extending: MCD rolled out the $5 meal deal in June, allowing customers to pick the following items: a McDouble or McChicken sandwich or 4-piece Chicken McNuggets, a small fry, and a small soft drink. Now, the promotion runs through December.

“Together with our franchisees, we’re committed to keeping our prices as affordable as possible, which is why we’re doubling down with even more ways to save,” Joe Erlinger, President of McDonald’s USA, wrote in a statement. 

Erlinger said, “The extension of the $5 Meal Deal, and the other offerings we’re announcing for our fall line-up, are just a few of the ways we’re working hard to offer great meals at a fair price.”

Value wars are heating up:

• McDonald’s Admits Consumers Are Broke With Planned Reintroduction Of $5 Meal Deal

• First McDonald’s, Now Burger King Admits Consumers Are Broke With Planned Reintroduction Of $5 Meal Deal

• KFC Unveils’ Finger-Lickin Good’ Meal Deal As Value Wars Heat Up

The proliferation of meal deals by fast-food companies early this summer marks the moment low/mid-tier consumers hit a financial brick wall in the eyes of management teams. The weight of inflation and high interest rates has led to a consumer pullback in spending.

Even Dollar Tree and Dollar General have warned in recent weeks about mounting consumer pressures. 

The latest consumer data shows that people have maxed out their credit cards and drained their personal savings to a record low. All of this is an ominous sign as storm clouds gather overhead.

Meanwhile, auto delinquencies have soared this summer as some consumers with those $1,000 monthly payments, likely drowning in negative equity, must choose between paying bills or putting food on the table. 

Earlier this week, Goldman cited new high-frequency data that analyzed foot traffic at brick-and-mortar stores, which only showed ‘thrift trends outperforming.’ 

The lingering theme in the second half of this year is that low/mid-tier consumers are severely under pressure as the labor market cools and economic momentum trends in the wrong direction.

Authored by Kirsten Kukuwski via RealClearPolitics,

In six years, Tim Walz took our state budget from $44 billion to $70 billion, squandered a $19 billion surplus and turned it into a deficit even though Minnesotans overwhelmingly wanted tax cuts, raised taxes by $10 billion, increased state government spending by 40%, adopted a California emissions standard, created more government mandates and regulation including expensive leave policies, welcomed illegal immigrants and gave them drivers licenses, and cemented Minnesota as a sanctuary state, to name a few of his accomplishments.

The waste, fraud, and abuse in Walz’s administration shows just what his leadership could bring to Washington, D.C. He failed at government oversight of a massive Feeding Our Futures scandal, and another Walz administration program is under FBI investigation for potential fraud – the program saw 3,000% growth over the period of just a few years. 

Minnesota started following in California’s footsteps as a liberal bastion in the Midwest. Our neighboring states reaped the benefits. In two years, Minnesota lost more than 50,000 residents – and not to warmer states like Florida, but the majority moved to Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas – all with much friendlier economic policies and lower cost of living. IRS data shows Minnesota lost $2.1 billion in income migration, which will likely only be accelerated when Walz-approved taxes on businesses and high-income earners go into effect.

Two years ago, Tim Walz ran for reelection as an unpopular sitting governor. COVID-19 and Walz’s handling of it was very fresh in our minds. At the same time, Minneapolis and surrounding cities were literally burning after George Floyd’s murder accelerated the Defund the Police movement, during which there was no leadership from our governor. 

When Walz first ran for governor, he had positioned himself as a hokey member of Congress, a former educator with bad dad jokes. Now he had a record. Many thought he would be a one-term governor. What happened is very Minnesota Nice of Republicans.

I’ve worked in Republican politics for a long time, at the Republican National Committee and on campaigns in Minnesota and across the country. I have never seen such a futile effort to replace an unpopular sitting Democrat governor than when Tim Walz was reelected in 2022. 

As governor, Walz kept his COVID emergency powers in place for 400 days, was an empty plaid shirt when Minneapolis burned after George Floyd’s death, oversaw historic crime rates as a radical anti-police movement was encouraged by the Democrat party, brought the fifth-highest taxes in the country, and had more people leaving the state than moving to it. And he was reelected.

There were two lessons from the 2022 election cycle that allowed Tim Walz to catapult to the vice presidential nomination. 

First was the Minnesota Republican Party nearly single-handedly reelecting him with their broken endorsement process that they protect at all costs.

In 2022, there was a wide field of Republicans who were exceptionally qualified to take on Tim Walz. Instead of one of those candidates becoming the nominee, the convention endorsement process – that allows a couple thousand of the most right-wing Republican delegates to make the decision for the masses – nominated a candidate who couldn’t be elected statewide. 

Because of a gentleman’s agreement that says candidates will “respect the endorsement” and drop out of the primary after the convention, there was no actual primary that allowed the rest of the Republican Party to have a say on their nominee. So unfortunately, Minnesota was left with a false choice – Tim Walz, who wasn’t as moderate as he pretended, or someone who was automatically labeled as extreme.

The second lesson was a passive-aggressive Minnesota press corps that gave Tim Walz a pass. They let him talk out of both sides of his mouth and pretend to be something he wasn’t. They allowed the Democrats to completely change the size and scope of government in Minnesota unchecked. 

He shouldn’t get the same treatment nationally as he did in Minnesota. As many of us say, he will have his turn in the barrel where he’ll be getting questions from all sides. It will be the first time he will be tested. 

Walz’s approval rating before COVID-19 was 65%, and by 2021 he was under 50%. Today, he’s at 48%. There are many reasons why, and they should be examined for all Americans to see. 

Walz and Kamala Harris are doing their best to ride out their honeymoon. I don’t blame them. National Democrats will find they have one of the most untested and liberal tickets we have ever seen. Walz’s old congressional district is made up of the exact voters who oppose him today, and they vote a lot like Western Wisconsin. 

Now we will see if Donald Trump can be disciplined enough to expose it. 

Kirsten Kukowski is a former Republican National Committee press secretary and was communications director for former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign in 2016. She runs K2 and Company, a public affairs company based in Minnesota where she lives and works.

The Financial Times curiously chose September 11 to run the following perhaps overly sensational headline, which pretty much checks every box of classic “global war on terror” fear-mongering, but which also pivots straight to the ‘next big war theater’ type rhetoric: US Navy Seal unit that killed Osama bin Laden trains for China invasion of Taiwan.

We are told in the article that “Seal Team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations.”

“The elite Navy special forces team, which is tasked with some of the military’s most sensitive and difficult missions, has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington,” the report continues. 

But then there’s the following admission that this could just be more typical training for repelling an amphibious assault landing of PLA forces on Taiwan’s shores, which would not at all be primarily fought by a small Seal team – no matter how elite:

The Pentagon has in recent years sent more regular special forces to Taiwan for missions that include providing training for the Taiwanese military. The Seal Team 6 activities are far more sensitive because its covert missions are highly classified.

All breathless talk of super classified Rambo-style secret missions aside, the real question is what are the American people being prepped for with such a headline which impressively manages to include bin Laden, elite Seals, military preparations, Chinese aggression, and Taiwan… and all on the day that Americans remember the deadliest terror attack in the nation’s history?

The answer lies, unfortunately, in this: the US national security state already appears in search of its next war even as two are still raging. Washington participates in both the Ukraine and Gaza wars by proxy – but neither is going very well.

Recall too that for much of the past year CIA director William Burns has consistently said US intelligence views China as the far bigger long-term threat to the United States than Russia. “While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat,” Burns wrote in a Foreign Affairs op-ed all the way back in January.

With this in mind, the CIA’s budget has recently been doubled over the last three years as part of preparations to take on China. “The CIA has committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations, and analysis around the world — more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget focused on China over just the last two years,” Burns revealed in his article. These efforts have involved the recruitment of more Mandarin speakers, and Burns further described that the agency is “stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.”

Interestingly, Burns in his public comments just days ago alongside MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore also urged the West to keep its eye on the ball: China. CNN summarizes of this segment of the Saturday FT event in London:

The CIA chief does not, however, see Putin’s grip on power weakening. “He does one thing really well, and that’s repress people at home.”

Both men expressed a continued need to focus their attention on China, with Moore warning that President Xi Jinping is likely China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and has an “ambitious agenda at home and also overseas.”

“He has a very tight control over his political system, and he has an ambitious agenda at home and also overseas. And that is why we devote so much effort into understanding China, because it’s such a hugely important actor on the international stage,” Moore said.

The MI6 chief added that China’s agenda is one that in most cases “contests our interests, contests often our values.”

It’s fascinating that given everything now happening in Ukraine and Kursk, and with the Western allies actively mulling giving Kiev the greenlight to use US/UK missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory, Burns appeared to brush off the Putin threat while warning that the threat Xi poses is on a global level.

Meanwhile, some China analysts have warned that a newly passed Congressional anti-China bill will result in a coming barrage of hawkish China/Taiwan-focused media stories…

Just remember the next time you hear “China is the biggest threat to America” the US government is investing billions in propaganda to portray China in the most negative light possible. It’s incredible sad and just ridiculous.

China is the most important trading partner for the… https://t.co/eKcKhWXuJn

— Cyrus Janssen (@thecyrusjanssen) September 12, 2024

Are we already witnessing the first fruits of this newly authorized $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas? Remember that in past historic instances of official US propaganda, it inevitably trickled back on the American populace. And there’s this not so small detail:

Crucially, HR 1157 doesn’t seem to contain any requirement that U.S. government financing to foreign media be made transparent to citizens of foreign countries (although there is a requirement to report grants to certain U.S. congressional committees). Thus, it’s possible that the program could in some cases be used to subsidize covert anti-Chinese messaging in a manner similar to the way Russia is accused of covertly funding anti-Ukrainian messaging by U.S. media influencers.

But getting back to the new FT piece in question, the author admits that a scenario wherein Seals train to join the fight against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be somewhat routine. “Seal Team 6” as a tier one force runs missions given to it by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and this command center regularly has elite operatives “prepare and train for a wide range of contingencies.”

FT further points out: “As the threat from terror groups has receded, special operations forces have joined the rest of the US military and the intelligence community in intensifying their focus on China.” But then there’s this highly revealing line buried deep in the report, quoting an expert on JSOC:

“With the Pentagon’s reorientation over the past few years to focus on great power competition, it was inevitable that even the nation’s most elite counterterrorism units would seek out roles in that arena, for that path leads to relevance, missions and money,” Naylor added.

We are being readied for the next war.