Netflix Reveals It Removed These 9 Films At Foreign Government Requests
The world’s top streaming service Netflix revealed in a new internal report it calls Environment Social Governance that it has taken down nine pieces of content around the world in response to written complaints and demands from governments.
The 23-year old company began conforming to such controversial censorship requests after 2015, in order to better conform to various countries’ laws and societal norms, according to Axios. It’s the first such revelation of active censorship admitted by the company.
The majority of government requests for removal came from the religiously diverse but staunchly morally conservative island city-state of Singapore. Other movies or series were taken down at the request of New Zealand, Vietnam, Germany, Brazil and Saudi Arabia— the latter instance for politically embarrassing and sensitive jokes about crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Full Metal Jacket”. Warner Bros. Taken off Netflix in Vietnam.
Netflix conformed, for example, to a Saudi government request last year for the 2019 removal of comedian Hasan Minhaj “Patriot Act” standup special, related to references to the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had defended the controversial move by saying, “We’re not in the truth to power business, we’re in the entertainment business.”
In another instance, a Brazilian court ordered Netflix to remove the comedy special “The First Temptation of Christ,” after complaints from conservative Catholic groups over it’s portraying Jesus as gay and other issues seen as sacrilegious. But the ruling was recently overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court. Singapore has, however, removed the film for its viewers.
Also of note is that in 2017 Netflix complied with the removal of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket at the request of the government of Vietnam.
“In 2015, we complied with a written demand from the New Zealand Film and Video Labeling Body to remove The Bridge from the service in New Zealand only. The film is classified as ‘objectionable’ in the country.”
2) “Full Metal Jacked” – removed by Vietnam in 2017
“In 2017, we complied with a written demand from the Vietnamese Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (ABEI) to remove ‘Full Metal Jacket’ from the service in Vietnam only.”
3) “Night of the Living Dead” – removed by Germany in 2017
New Line
“In 2017, we complied with a written demand from the German Commission for Youth Protection (KJM) to remove ‘Night of the Living Dead’ from the service in Germany only. A version of the film is banned in the country.”
4, 5, & 6) “Cooking on High,” “The Legend of 420,” and “Disjointed” – removed by Singapore in 2018
“In 2018, we complied with a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘Cooking on High,’ ‘The Legend of 420,’ and ‘Disjointed’ from the service in Singapore only.”
7) “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” episode titled “Saudi Arabia” – removed by Saudi government request in 2019
“In 2019, we complied with a written demand from the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission to remove one episode—’Saudi Arabia’—from the series ‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj’ from the service in Saudi Arabia only.”
8) “The Last Temptation of Christ” – removed by Singapore in 2019
“In 2019, we received a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ from the service in Singapore only. The film is banned in the country.”
9) “The Last Hangover” – removed by Singapore in 2020
Netflix
“In 2020, we complied with a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘The Last Hangover’ from the service in Singapore only.”
One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.
To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which was that most Americans think that the federal government is basically incompetent and staffed by career politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell who should return back home and get real jobs.
Worse still, it is useless, and much like the one trick pony the only thing it can do is steal money from the taxpayers and waste it on various types of self-gratification that only politicians can appreciate. That means that the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country’s infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space.
It sure doesn’t look like Kansas anymore.
The fact that opinion polls in Europe suggest that many Europeans would rather have Vladimir Putin than their own hopelessly corrupt leaders is suggestive. One can buy a whole range of favorable t-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin on Ebay, also suggesting that most Americans find the official Russophobia narrative both mysterious and faintly amusing. They may not really be into the expressed desire of the huddled masses in D.C. to go to war to bring true U.S. style democracy to the un-enlightened.
One also must wonder if the Democrats are reading the tea leaves correctly. If they think that a slogan like “Honest Joe Biden will keep us safe from Moscow” will be a winner in 2020 they might again be missing the bigger picture. Since the focus on Trump’s decidedly erratic behavior will inevitably die down after the impeachment trial is completed, the Democrats will have to come up with something compelling if they really want to win the presidency and it sure won’t be the largely fictionalized Russian threat.
Nevertheless, someone should tell Congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to shut up as he is becoming an international embarrassment. His “closing arguments” speeches last week were respectively two-and-a-half hours and ninety minutes long and were inevitably praised by the mainstream media as “magisterial,” “powerful,” and “impressive.” The Washington Post’s resident Zionist extremist Jennifer Rubin labeled it “a grand slam” while legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called it “dazzling.” Gail Collins of the New York Timesdubbed it “a great job” and added that Schiff is now “a rock star.” Daily Beast enthused that the remarks “will go down in history” and progressive activist Ryan Knight called it “a closing statement for the ages.” Hollywood was also on board with actress Debra Messing tweeting “I am in tears. Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country.”
Actually, a better adjective would have been “scary” and not merely due to its elaboration of the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Trump, much of which was undeniably true even if not necessarily impeachable.
It was scary because it was a warmongers speech, full of allusions to Russia, to Moscow’s “interference” in 2016, and to the ridiculous proposition that if Trump were to be defeated in 2020 he might not concede and Russia could even intervene militarily in the United States in support of its puppet.
Schiff insisted that Trump must be removed now to “assure the integrity” of the 2020 election. He elaborated somewhat ambiguously that “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”
Schiff also unleashed one of the most time honored but completely lame excuses for going to war, claiming that military assistance to Ukraine that had been delayed by Trump was essential for U.S. national security. He said “As one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry, the United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
Schiff, a lawyer who has never had to put his life on the line for anything and whose son sports a MOSSAD t-shirt, is one of those sunshine soldiers who finds it quite acceptable if someone else does the dying. Journalist Max Blumenthal observed that “Liberals used to mock Bush supporters when they used this jingoistic line during the war on Iraq. Now they deploy it to justify an imperialist proxy war against a nuclear power.” Aaron Mate at The Nationadded that “For all the talk about Russia undermining faith in U.S. elections, how about Russiagaters like Schiff fear-mongering w/ hysterics like this? Let’s assume Ukraine did what Trump wanted: announce a probe of Burisma. Would that delegitimize a 2020 U.S. election? This is a joke.”
Over at Antiwar Daniel Lazare explains how the Wednesday speech was “a fear-mongering, sword-rattling harangue that will not only raise tensions with Russia for no good reason, but sends a chilling message to [Democratic Party] dissidents at home that if they deviate from Russiagate orthodoxy by one iota, they’ll be driven from the fold.”
The orthodoxy that Lazare was writing about includes the established Nancy Pelosi/Chuck Schumer narrative that Russia invaded “poor innocent Ukraine” in 2014, that it interfered in the 2016 election to defeat Hillary Clinton, and that it is currently trying to smear Joe Biden. One might add to that the growing consensus that Russia can and will interfere again in 2020 to help Trump. Absent from the narrative is the part how the U.S. intervened in Ukraine first to remove its government and the fact that there is something very unsavory about Joe Biden’s son taking a high-paying sinecure board position from a notably corrupt Ukrainian oligarch while his father was Vice President and allegedly directing U.S. assistance to a Ukrainian anti-corruption effort.
On Wednesday, Schiff maintained that “Russia is not a threat … to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again.” Not surprisingly, if one substitutes the “United States” for “Russia” and “Kremlin” and changes “Ukraine” to Iran or Venezuela, the Schiff comment actually becomes much more credible.
The compulsion on the part of the Democrats to bring down Trump to avoid having to deal with their own failings has brought about a shift in their established foreign policy, placing the neocons and their friends back in charge. For Schiff, who has enthusiastically supported every failed American military effort since 9/11, today’s Russia is the Soviet Union reborn, and don’t you forget it pardner! Newsweek is meanwhile reporting that the U.S. military is reading the tea leaves and is gearing up to fight the Russians. Per Schiff, Trump must be stopped as he is part of a grand Russian conspiracy to overthrow everything the United States stands for. If the Kremlin is not stopped now, it’s first major step, per Schiff, will be to “remake the map of Europe by dint of military force.”
Donald Trump’s erratic rule has certainly dismayed many of his former supporters, but the Democratic Party is offering nothing but another helping of George W. Bush/Barack Obama establishment war against the world. We Americans have had enough of that for the past nineteen years. Trump may indeed deserve to be removed based on his actions, but the argument that it is essential to do so because of Russia lurking is complete nonsense. Pretty scary that the apparent chief promoter of that point of view is someone who actually has power in the government, one Adam Schiff, head of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.
We Are Wall-E – Cali Gov. Newsom Wants To Halt School Physical Education Tests
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom wants to turn a generation of kids into obese adults, that by the time 2050 rolls around, these hopeless folks will be wheeled around in self-balancing strollers, first popularized in the animated film Wall-E.
Newsom plans to cancel physical education tests for students for three years over new concerns of bullying and discrimination against disabled and non-binary students.
The move to cancel physical education tests comes as annual test results suggest California’s youth is becoming obese.
H.D. Palmer, the spokesman for the Department of Finance, told Bay Area KPIX 5 that the current measurement of body mass index (BMI) is discriminatory to some students, most notably to non-binary students, as BMI screenings require students to select “male” or “female,” he said.
AP News noted that annual state physical education reports show that around the 2014/15 period, health scores of students started to decline.
Students’ scores in “aerobic capacity,” which can be described in layman’s terms as the one-mile run, have dropped over the years. Tests for push-ups and sit-ups have also declined.
“In the last five years, the percentage of fifth-graders scoring healthy in the aerobic category has dropped by 3.3 percentage points. In seventh and ninth grades, the drops are 4.4 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points, respectively. Meanwhile, the percentage of students identified as “needing improvement” and having a “health risk” went up: by 3.3 percentage points among fifth-graders, 4.4 for seventh graders and 3.8 among ninth-graders,” KPIX 5 said.
During the three-year suspension of tests, Newsom and school officials will review whether to modify or completely withdraw the health exam.
Physical education classes will continue for the duration of the suspension, though the government won’t be able to track the health of kids.
Palmer told KPIX 5, “the issue of BMI screening plays a role in the issues of both body shaming and bullying.”
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s spokesman Daniel Ketchell said, “whether the state uses fitness tests or not, Governor Schwarzenegger believes that the most important thing is that our students have access to daily physical education classes to promote a healthy and fit lifestyle.”
With a staggering 75% of Americans already overweight or obese – California’s suspension of the obese test could lead to a continuation of deteriorating health trends for youth in the state, eventually lead to unhealthy lifestyles, that by the time this future generation hits retirement, they might be rolling around in self-driving chairs.
Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman funded the creation of ACRONYM, the group that sabotaged the Iowa caucus results, after bankrolling voter manipulation campaigns including the notorious online “false flag operation” in Alabama’s 2017 senate race.
At the time of publication, February 6, the winner of the Iowa’s Democratic Party caucus is still unknown. Senator Bernie Sanders, the clear winner in virtually every exit poll, is currently ahead in votes. Yet somehow Pete Buttigieg, a favorite of the party establishment who was unknown to most voters until last year, has claimed victory.
The force accused of sowing the confusion and disarray surrounding the first Democratic Party contest of the 2020 election season is a dark money nonprofit called Acronym. It was Acronym that launched Shadow Inc, the mysterious company behind the now-infamous, unsecured, completely unworkable voter app which prevented precinct chairs from reporting vote totals on caucus night.
The exceptionally opaque Acronym was itself created with seed money from a Silicon Valley billionaire named Reid Hoffman who has financed a series of highly manipulative social media campaigns.
The billionaire founder of LinkedIn, Hoffman is a top funder of novel Democratic Party social media campaigns accused of manipulating voters through social media. He is assisted by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a corporate consultant who pushed school privatization before joining Hoffman’s political empire.
One of the most consequential beneficiaries of Hoffman’s wealth is Acronym CEO Tara McGowan, a 33-year-old former journalist and Obama for America veteran.
Acronym CEO Tara McGowan with Barack Obama, her former boss
Once touted as “a weapon of a woman whose innovative tactics make her critically important to the Democratic Party,” McGowan’s name is now synonymous with the fiasco in Iowa. She also happens to be married to a senior advisor to Pete Buttieg’s presidential campaign.
Back in December 2018, McGowan personally credited Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s “Investing in US” initiative for the birth of her dark money pressure group, Acronym.
“I’m personally grateful and proud to be included in this group of incredible political founders + startups @reidhoffman and his team, led by Dmitri [Mehlhorn], have supported and helped to fund over the past two years,” she declared on Twitter in December 2018.
I’m personally grateful and proud to be included in this group of incredible political founders + startups who @reidhoffman and his team, led by Dmitri, have supported and helped to fund over the past two years. https://t.co/o0QApPbHWY
Hoffman and Mehlhorn have also faced scrutiny for their alleged operation of a series of deceptive pages which attempted to manipulate center-right users into voting for Democrats. Today, Acronym’s McGowan oversees a massive Facebook media operation that employs similarly deceptive techniques to sway voters.
Through youthful, tech-centric operatives like McGowan, Hoffman and Mehlhorn are constructing a massive new infrastructure that could supplant the party’s apparatus.
As Vanity Fair reported, “Hoffman and Mehlhorn, after all, are not just building a power base that could supplement traditional Democratic organizations, they are, potentially, laying the groundwork to usurp the D.N.C. entirely.”
‘Laying the groundwork to usurp the D.N.C. entirely’
Having fostered friendships with nationally known Silicon Valley oligarchs like right-wing libertarian Trump supporter Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, is now making his name as a top sugardaddy of the Democratic anti-Trump resistance.
Following Trump’s election in 2016, Hoffman plowed his money into an array of new Democrat-aligned social media groups through a funding hub he founded called Investing in US.
To run Investing in US on a day-to-day basis, Hoffman tapped Dmitri Mehlhorn, a venture capitalist and political strategist accustomed to walking the line between the corporate world and Democratic Party.
“There was no risk-capital or growth-capital arm of the resistance, and so that is what we’ve tried to build,” Mehlhorn told Vanity Fair.
“Now, in terms of what that implies, that implies that we are backing founders, so people who we think have big, potentially game-changing ideas.”
Mehlhorn’s career path tracked closely with neoliberal party favorites like Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. He studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, launched his career at McKinsey Associates, and became a leading advocate for school privatization as the chief operating officer of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.
According to Mehlhorn’s bio, he sits on the board of American Prison Data Systems, a company that claims to reduce recidivism by giving prisoners tablets to study coding for five hours a day.
In a 2018 Medium post, announcing the “founders” that Investing in US planned to back, Mehlhorn resorted to distinctly neoconservative talking points to emphasize the mission of his organization.
After quoting Ronald Reagan, he declared, “Trump and his movement, borrowing heavily from other authoritarian criminals such as Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin, promised to hollow out America’s principles in favor of his own personal enrichment.”
Pledging to “inoculate our politics and our economy against corruption, white nationalism, and mass deceit,” Mehlhorn announced major donations to “diverse groups” with names like Woke Vote, PushBlack, and an “anti-Nazi” organization known as Integrity for America.
Among the top recipients of support from Investing in US was McGowan’s Acronym, which Mehlhorn described merely as a “media group.”
As The Grayzone reported, Acronym has ballooned since its founding into a massive dark money operation, even launching a Super PAC dubbed Pacronym that has raked in money from hedge fund billionaires like Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman.
What Mehlhorn and Hoffman never disclosed to the public, however, was their support for a Democrat-aligned group that waged a covert online disinformation campaign which aimed to influence the outcome of the 2017 special senate election in Alabama.
Project Birmingham: From New Knowledge to no knowledge
The 2017 senate election in Alabama was one of the most dramatic races of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. Treated by national media as a referendum on Trump in a red state, it pitted a far-right Republican, Roy Moore, against Doug Jones, a moderate Republican who ran as a Democrat. In the end, Jones won an upset victory in a deep red state, thrilling Democrats across the country.
As Dan Cohen wrote in a series of reports for The Grayzone, the outcome of the 2017 Alabama race was heavily influenced by an online disinformation operation. The campaign, which was unknown to voters at the time, was called Project Birmingham.
Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman provided $100,000 to the architects of this black ops campaign. His money was pipelined through American Engagement Technologies (AET), a company run by Obama administration veteran and Democrat tech operative Mikey Dickerson. Through AET, another firm comprised of Obama campaign veterans and national security state operatives called New Knowledge was contracted to carry out the secretive voter manipulation project.
In internal documents first covered by the New York Times, Project Birmingham’s architects described the scheme as an “elaborate false flag operation” which aimed to convince voters that the Kremlin was supporting Moore through thousands of fake Russian bots.
Project Birmingham went to absurd lengths to drive voters away from Moore. Its architects deployed a phony Facebook page encouraging Alabamians to vote for an obscure write-in Republican candidate, arranged interviews for the candidate in major newspapers, and even sought to arrange SuperPAC funding for his dark horse campaign.
The deeply un-democratic campaign was overseen by a cast of characters remarkably similar to those who bungled the 2020 Iowa caucus count. Like the staff of Acronym and Shadow Inc., the New Knowledge operatives who carried out Project Birmingham were 30- and 40-something techies who had worked in the Obama administration and on various Democratic campaigns. (New Knowledge was rebranded as Yonder after the scandal was exposed in national media.)
The devious tactics they waged in Alabama likely influenced the outcome of the election. A leaked “Project Birmingham Debrief” claimed that New Knowledge’s black operations “moved enough votes to ensure a Doug Jones victory.”
After the scheme was exposed, Hoffman issued a public apology and claimed he had no knowledge of the New Knowledge disinformation project. He said nothing about the Investing in US employee who worked directly on Project Birmingham, however.
This was hardly the first time Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s finger prints were discovered on a deceptive voter manipulation campaign.
Aiming to ‘mirror’ the tactics of Russia’s Internet Research Agency
Following the 2018 midterm congressional election, Reid Hoffman and his henchman Dmitri Mehlhorn faced further scrutiny in national media, this time for operating a fake news-style organization called News for Democracy.
This shady outfit managed an array of community Facebook pages initially focusing on sports, Christianity, patriotism, and other topics that were likely to generate interest from right-wing voters in swing states.
Yet the seemingly locally-branded cultural pages took a decisively political turn as election night approached. After racking up millions of likes, News for Democracy slipped in ads for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke on a Facebook page targeting evangelical Christians, and attacked a Republican candidate, Senator Marsha Blackburn, on a page focused on local Tennessee sports.
While Hoffman’s right-hand man, Mehlhorn, claimed to reject the spread of misinformation, he told the Washington Post that through projects like News for Democracy, he aimed to “mirror” the tactics of the notorious Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm.
Tech billionaire Reed Hoffman funded the @NewKnowledgeAI Alabama black op. His advisor, Dmitri Mehlhorn, has called for efforts to “mirror” the tactics of the Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm. This IRA Facebook ad is clearly worth emulating. https://t.co/rh90K8WND7pic.twitter.com/yq7cuOLPWQ
Facebook eventually launched an investigation into the insidious manipulation ploys of Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s News for Democracy.
The very tactics that landed the two in hot water are remarkably similar to those that Tara McGowan, the Acronym founder who disrupted the Iowa caucuses, has put on display.
McGowan recently founded Courier Newsroom, a seemingly journalistic initiative that appeared to take on a more overtly partisan role with time. Like News for Democracy, Courier Newsroom has opened local news pages on Facebook with unassuming names like “The Virginia Dogwood” or “Arizona’s Copper Courier.” After seeding the pages with folksy local stories, Courier Newsroom bombards users with pro-Democrat political messaging.
As Bloomberg reported, McGowan used “her sizable war chest and digital advertising savvy to pay to have her articles placed into the Facebook feeds of swing-state users.” McGowan then used “that feedback to find more people like them.”
One of McGowan’s dubious news pages, the Virginia Dogwood, spent a whopping $275,000 on Facebook ads during the 2018 midterm elections.
“We’ll try it, see if we can make it work, and hopefully become a permanent piece of the new infrastructure,” McGowan told Bloomberg.
Tara McGowan’s shenanigans in Iowa could be seen in the light of a wider string of manipulations by the Silicon Valley-backed neoliberal network behind her. While Democratic Party elites blame incompetence for the fiasco in Iowa, the history of Acronym and its billionaire backers casts a disturbing shadow over the whole episode.
Smaller Restaurants Forced Into Bankruptcy As Foot Traffic Collapses
While the big names in eating out – McDonald’s, Popeye’s, Chick-Fil-A and Olive Garden, to name a few – are all working diligently to get customers through the door at a time when the American eater is staying home more, lesser known restaurants are bearing the brunt of not being able to find new customers.
Names like Bar Louie and American Blue Ribbon Holdings, which owns Village Inn and Bakers Square, both filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, according to Bloomberg. Both cited lower foot traffic in the U.S. as the reason for their downfall.
Michael Halen a senior restaurant analyst at Bloomberg, said: “The business is just over-built, especially casual dining and full-service dining. There are too many restaurants.”
American Blue Ribbon also said that competition, rising labor costs and unprofitable restaurants were all reasons for facilitating its bankruptcy. The company owns and operates 97 restaurants after closing 33 stores prior to filing Chapter 11.
The company’s majority owner, Cannae Holdings, Inc., has agreed to provide a $20 million loan to maintain the company during bankruptcy. Cannae generates about 30% of its revenue from various restaurant companies it is invested in and has said that American Blue Ribbon will focus on strategic options in bankruptcy.
Bar Louie has been opening new locations over the last few years which has grown its top line, but the increase in debt necessary to open new stores has suffocated the company.
Chief Restructuring Officer Howard Meitiner said: “This inconsistent brand experience, coupled with increased competition and the general decline in customer traffic visiting traditional shopping locations and malls, resulted in less traffic at the company’s locations proximate to shopping locations and malls.”
Bar Louie has 110 locations, 38 of which have “seen their sales and profits decline at an accelerating pace” since the company began a strategic review in 2018. Those locations expected a staggering same store sales drop of 10.9% in 2019 and were closed prior to the company filing for bankruptcy. Lenders are providing a loan of as much as $22 million to keep the company operating during the proceedings.
Other restaurant names like The Krystal Co., Houlihan’s Restaurants Inc., Kona Grill Inc. and Perkins & Marie Callender’s all filed for bankruptcy last year as well.
Halen concluded: “We need to see a correction in the restaurant industry. We’ve seen a lot in the last few months, and I think this is just the beginning. Once the economy softens, you’ll see this getting worse.”
The pro-gun demonstration drew twenty-two thousand people, who peacefully protested several gun control measures that Virginia governor Ralph Northam was proposing for the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly. The conclusion of this rally now has Virginia gun owners pondering where to go from there. The path to bringing about pro-gun policy at the state level appears to be at a dead end, at least in the short term, after Democrats secured control over all branches of government in the 2019 general elections.
Although there was tremendous euphoria right after Lobby Day concluded, Virginia Democrats did not waste time in showcasing their newly held political power, quickly passing a red flag gun-confiscation bill. Red flag laws are in vogue with gun control boosters, and Virginia is looking to be the eighteenth state that will implement it. In all likelihood, gun owners will have a rough time during the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly based on this political reality. There are tons of doomsday predictions of a demographic shift taking place in Virginia and the possibility that Republicans may never be able to take control of all branches of the state government again.
Virginia Could be Sailing in Uncharted Waters
Nonetheless, the highly publicized Second Amendment “sanctuary” movement has created a new set of opportunities for gun owners in Virginia to exploit. Recent developments indicate that gun politics could create a political realignment in Virginia.
First off, the president of Liberty University Jerry Falwell Jr. boldly called for Virginians to exercise civil disobedience in the case that the Virginia state government passes gun control this year. Falwell took it a step further, even suggesting that the limits of the District of Columbia be extended to include the entire DC metro region, which has effectively sprawled out into northern Virginia. “That’s what the founders intended, was for the federal district to be separate from any state because they have a conflict of interest and they never anticipated it would sprawl out as far as it has,” Falwell argued.
A similar jurisdictional shake-up could possibly take place, thanks to several West Virginia house delegates putting a resolution forward, HCR 8, which would allow Virginia sanctuary counties to join the state. These delegates believe that Virginia sanctuary counties’ rights would be better protected under West Virginia’s jurisdiction. West Virginia governor Jim Justice is also on record as being in support of these counties joining his state: “If you’re not truly happy where you are,” Justice said, “we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia.” The lawmakers do raise a good point about West Virginia’s pro-gun environment.
In 2016, West Virginia became a constitutional carry state—where law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry a firearm without having to obtain a permit. This, along with other pro-gun policies it has implemented during the last few years, has allowed West Virginia to build a solid reputation as a gun-friendly state. In 2019, Guns and Ammoranked West Virginia the fifteenth best state for gun owners, whereas Virginia occupied a mediocre thirty-first place—a ranking that will likely fall steeply if anti-gun Democrats have their way during the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly.
But it doesn’t have to end this way.
Are Sanctuary Counties the Way to Go?
Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center brought up some valid concerns about how so-called Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions employ a misleading term given that they don’t have legal force behind them. On the other hand, sanctuary cities dealing with immigration enforcement—where local law enforcement does not cooperate with federal immigration enforcers—involve a more decisive political action that is not symbolic in nature. We may need to cut the Second Amendment movement some slack, however. This is relatively new territory for Second Amendment proponents, who have traditionally operated under the premise that federal lobbying or petitioning of the courts will save them. There will be learning curves through this process, but gun owners will have to start somewhere.
Even politicians at the federal level, such as Kentucky senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie, are throwing their support behind Second Amendment sanctuaries. They recognize that there is only so much they can do politically in DC. Should any type of roll call vote come up on pro-gun legislation, they would almost assuredly be in the minority. That’s the political reality on Capitol Hill, and gradually more and more constitutionalists are starting to recognize where the winds are blowing. Hence their forays into more local and state-level forms of activism.
Second Amendment Activists Would Be Wise Not to Fall for the Federal Court Trap
Based on personal experience working within the gun lobby, I have noticed a tendency among activists to think that conventional methods of politics will bring constitutionalism back to America. Many envision repealing numerous infringements at the federal level, such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, as a first step in reversing decades of government overreach. Although well intentioned, this kind of mindset is outdated and ignores how detached both political parties at the federal level have become from upholding traditional American civil liberties. Further, it disregards how unreliable the Supreme Court has been, both in upholding Second Amendment rights and striking down unconstitutional measures that have been established through federal law or bureaucratic mandates.
Sure, DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago expanded the Second Amendment to state and local policy. The result was an expansion of legal protections for gun owners, for now. But it would behoove us to look at the bigger picture. The same federal courts that might “restore” positive freedoms on occasion are just as capable of reverting to their managerial tendencies by legislating from the bench and nullifying gun rights. These court cases make for great fundraising opportunities and public relations stunts, showing how a gun organization is sticking it to the gun control crowd, but they don’t do much to curb state growth. Litigation consumes time, talent, and treasure that could otherwise be allocated to more grassroots activities such as full-fledged nullification measures or even bolder efforts involving plebiscites in which certain jurisdictions break away from their oppressive state governments.
As the days go by, the School House Rock version of politics that Americans have been accustomed to has increasingly become a distant memory, thanks to DC’s thorough embrace of managerial politics. So, no matter who’s in charge, politics is business as usual, which means more government growth at the expense of local jurisdictions and civil society. However, politics is the art of the possible, especially when people appreciate the value of American federalism and all of its implications. The opportunities are endless, provided that people break free from the conventional wisdom they’ve been fed about political action and start acting locally. Gun rights issues could be the catalyst that kicks off a decentralization revolution America desperately needs.
Mike Bloomberg’s Campaign Is Paying ‘Micro-Influencers’ To Make Him Look Cool
It’s almost ironic because they basically represent the alpha and the omega of the political spectrum within the modern Democratic Party, but there’s no question that the Iowa Democrats massive fuck-up during the caucus hurt Bernie Sanders more than any other candidate, and helped Michael Bloomberg (and Biden, and Buttigieg) more than any other candidate.
That’s because Bloomberg wasn’t even on the ballot in Iowa, and has bet the farm on an unusual campaign strategy focused on winning a string of primaries in March. No candidate has ever clinched the nomination without bagging either Iowa or New Hampshire, but then again, no candidate has ever had an 11-figure fortune to throw around, either.
Aside from spending $10 million for an almost unbelievably brief Superbowl spot, what has Bloomberg’s coterie of overpaid advisors recommended? How about ’embracing a strategy that’s worked for hundreds of shady ‘fit tea’ hawkers’, Bloomberg is giving money to social media influencers in the hopes that they’ll make him look ‘cool’.
According to the Daily Beast, Bloomberg’s team are utilizing “Tribe”, a “branded content marketplace” that helps politicians and brands coordinate influencer-based ad campaigns, and they’re optimistic about its prospects to really help their astronomically wealthy boss punch through the clutter (we thought that’s what his media behemoth was supposed to do?).
Specifically, the campaign is focusing on “micro-influencers”, that is, people with between 10k and 100k followers. That means the campaign is spending up to $15 million on this endeavor (that’s a lot of memes). They are offering $150 for these influencers to create original pieces of content’ that explain why Bloomberg is the best candidate to lead the USA.
The Bloomberg campaign has quietly begun a campaign on Tribe, a “branded content marketplace” that connects social-media influencers with the brands that want to advertise to their followers, to pitch influencers on creating content highlighting why they love the former New York City mayor—for a price.
For a fixed $150 fee, the Bloomberg campaign is pitching micro-influencers—someone who has from 1,000 to 100,000 followers, in industry parlance—to create original content “that tells us why Mike Bloomberg is the electable candidate who can rise above the fray, work across the aisle so ALL Americans feel heard & respected.”
“Are you sick of the chaos & infighting overshadowing the issues that matter most to us? Please express your thoughts verbally or for still image posts please overlay text about why you support Mike,” the campaign copy tells would-be Bloomberg stans under the heading “Content We’d Love From You,” asking influencers to “Show+Tell why Mike is the candidate who can change our country for the better, state why YOU think he’s a great candidate.”
Content creators have been asked to highlight Bloomberg’s credentials as a “middle-class kid who worked his way through college”, they’ve also been asked to avoid profanity and anything “overtly negative.”
The campaign post, reviewed by The Daily Beast, encourages submissions to be well lit, mention why the influencer thinks “we need a change in Government,” and for the creator to “be honest, passionate and be yourself!”
Influencers are asked not to use profanity, nudity, or “overtly negative content,” as well as be U.S. residents to participate.
The DB definitely has an agenda (like Buzzfeed and Deadspin, it roughly translates to ‘capitalism bad!’), but, credit where credit is due, at least the reporter highlighted the fact that this is a novel strategy that isn’t being used by any of the top-polling candidates, suggesting that Bloomberg’s unorthodox candidacy is generating some appropriately outside-the-box ideas.
The campaign also asked that influencers avoid topics like stop and frisk and Hizzoner’s failed campaign against oversized soft drinks. We suspect readers can do the math on that.
But at this rate, if Bloomberg keeps cranking out gaffes like ‘shaking a dog’s snout’ – gaffes that make him appear like an alien from the billionaire planet – he’ll manage to keep his name near the top of TikTok’s list of trending topics.
China’s state-owned gas importers are considering declaring force majeure on LNG imports, which would amplify the turmoil in global gas markets.
LNG prices have already plunged to their lowest levels in a decade in Asia as the ramp up of supply in 2019 came at a time when demand has slowed. That was true before the outbreak of the coronavirus. But the quarantine of around 50 million people and the shutdown of huge swathes of the Chinese economy has sent shockwaves through commodity markets.
Shipments of oil and gas are backing up at Chinese ports, which is creating ripple effects across the world. Now, Chinese state-owned CNOOC is considering declaring force majeure on its LNG import commitments, according to the FT. Sinopec and CNPC are also apparently considering the move.
Prices were already in the dumps. JKM prices recently fell to 10-year lows. But they have continued to decline, approaching $3/MMBtu for the first time in history. Just a few weeks ago, JKM prices were trading at around $5/MMBtu, itself an incredibly low price for this time of year.
LNG exports from the U.S. are uneconomical at these price levels. Many exporters have contracts at fixed, higher prices. But shipments can be cancelled for a fee. And any spot trade would be hit hard. The question now is whether shipments will come to halt. “Forward prices for summer are now at levels where U.S. LNG shut-ins begin to seem viable,” Edmund Siau, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultant FGE, told Bloomberg. “There is usually a lead time before a cargo can be canceled, and we expect actual supply curtailments to start happening in summer.”
But if buyers start cancelling their purchases, LNG exporters have to ramp down production. That could then ripple back to the shale gas fields in the U.S., where prices are already below $2/MMBtu and drillers can’t make any money. The CEO of Marcellus shale gas giant EQT said in December that “a lot of this development doesn’t work as well at $2.50 gas.” Henry Hub prices are now below $1.85/MMBtu.
There is little relief in sight.
“Even with our projected increase in power sector natural gas demand due to the current low price environment, we estimate natural gas stocks to end this summer with 3.85 tcf in the ground,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a recent note.
“Such inventory level would be more than 100 bcf higher YoY, and does not leave much room for bearish errors from mild weather, high renewable generation, or reduced LNG exports.”
Europe too is sitting on abnormally high inventories.
“LNG exporters desperately need cold weather in Europe to draw down inventories and provide more breathing room this summer,” Bank of America warned.
But that is not happening. Europe just saw its warmest January on record, depressing gas demand. Fossil fuels are driving climate change, so it’s rather ironic that higher temperatures are now battering gas markets.
It’s all combining to create a “gasmaggedon,” according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“We are now more than halfway through the winter, and thus far Mother Nature has not been kind to natural gas prices,” analysts at the bank wrote.
The investment bank calls the U.S. Midwest power sector is the “true market of last resort,” which means that U.S. gas prices have to fall to such low depths that coal-fired power plants are forced offline in their last redoubt – the Midwest.
“We believe the US cannot sustain reduced LNG exports this summer,” Bank of America warned.
“Therefore, US natural gas prices might have to go low enough to stimulate sufficient Midwest power sector natural gas demand to balance the entire global gas market.”
While increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates are considered major achievements in modern science and healthcare, they will have a significant impact on future generations.
Today’s graphic relies on OECD data to demonstrate how the old-age to working-age ratio will change by 2060, highlighting some of the world’s fastest aging countries.
The Demographic Debacle
By 2050, there will be 10 billion people on earth, compared to 7.7 billion today—and many of them will be living longer. As a result, the number of elderly people per 100 working-age people will nearly triple—from 20 in 1980, to 58 in 2060.
Populations are getting older in all OECD countries, yet there are clear differences in the pace of aging. For instance, Japan holds the title for having the oldest population, with ⅓ of its citizens already over the age of 65. By 2030, the country’s workforce is expected to fall by 8 million—leading to a major potential labor shortage.
In another example, while South Korea currently boasts a younger than average population, it will age rapidly and end up with the highest old-to-young ratio among developed countries.
A Declining Workforce
Globally, the working-age population will see a 10% decrease by 2060. It will fall the most drastically by 35% or more in Greece, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. On the other end of the scale, it will increase by more than 20% in Australia, Mexico, and Israel.
Israel’s notably higher increase of 67% is due to the country’s high fertility rate, which is comparable to “baby boom” numbers seen in the U.S. following the second World War.
As countries prepare for the coming decades, workforce shortages are just one of the impacts of aging populations already being felt.
Managing the Risks
There are many other social and economic risks that we can come to expect as the global population continues to age:
The Squeezed Middle: With more people claiming pension benefits but less people paying income taxes, the shrinking workforce may be forced to pay higher taxes.
Rising Healthcare Costs: Longer lives do not necessarily mean healthier lives, with those over 65 more likely to have at least one chronic disease and require expensive, long-term care.
Economic Slowdown: Changing workforces may lead capital to flow away from rapidly aging countries to younger countries, shifting the global distribution of economic power.
The strain on pension systems is perhaps the most evident sign of a drastically aging population. Although the average retirement age is gradually increasing in many countries, people are saving insufficiently for their increased life span—resulting in an estimated $400 trillion deficit by 2050.
Pensions Under Pressure
A pension is promised, but not necessarily guaranteed. Any changes made to existing government programs can alter the lives of future retirees entirely—but effective pension reforms that lessen the growing deficit are required urgently.
Towards a Better System
Certain countries are making great strides towards more sustainable pension systems, and the Global Pension Index suggests initiatives that governments can take into consideration, such as:
Continuing to increase the age of retirement
Increasing the level of savings—both inside and outside pension funds
Increasing the coverage of private pensions across the labor force, including self-employed and contract employees, to provide improved integration between various pillars
Preserving retirement funds by limiting the access to benefits before the retirement age
Increasing the trust and confidence of all stakeholders by improving transparency of pension plans
Although 59% of employees are expecting to continue earning well into their retirement years, providing people with better incentives and options to make working at an older age easier could be crucial for ensuring continued economic growth.
Live Long and Prosper
As 2020 marks the beginning of the Decade of Healthy Ageing, the world is undoubtedly entering a pivotal period.
Countries all over the world face tremendous pressure to effectively manage their aging populations, but preparing for this demographic shift early will contribute to the economic advancement of countries, and allow populations—both young and old—to live long and prosper.
Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, Campus Reform Digital Reporter Eduardo Neret went to American University to ask students to react to claims that the nominees are “too white” and not diverse enough.
“I definitely think there’s a problem,” one student said of the mostly white and male Oscar nominees.
“I feel like, as a Latina woman, I want to see more representation in entertainment.”
“It’s not reflective of our actual population,” another student added.
WATCH:
Students also reflected on the need for more diversity in other areas of society.
“White men need to understand that not every thought that they have is worth saying,” one student said.
“I feel like there’s a lot of white males [on campus],” a different student said.
“The majority of my professors are white men,” one student said as an example of how the presence of white men was a problem on campus.
Others disagreed.
“Qualifications and the quality of the work should be the priority as opposed to your level of melanin or chromosomes,” one student said.
