Category: zerohedge

Authored by Alexander Desanctis via NationalReview.com,

In an article reporting on Kristi Noem’s decision to veto the “Fairness in Girls’ Sports” bill, CNN breaking-news reporter Devan Cole claimed yesterday that there’s no way to determine a child’s “gender identity” at birth.

“It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth,” Cole asserted, in a statement better fit for an unhinged opinion article than a news article by a breaking-news reporter.

CNN is a parody website pic.twitter.com/djUrqI0jlt

— B (@aheapofthings) March 30, 2021

In fact, as most of us are willing to acknowledge, for all of human history we’ve all relied upon a very simple way of actually knowing sex at birth.

There is indeed consensus for knowing biological sex at birth: just gotta look between the legs, it’s really not that hard.

— Just a Fluffy Shiba Inu 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇰🇭 (@fluffy_shibainu) March 31, 2021

The concept of “assigning” sex at birth, far from being based on any “consensus criteria,” is a progressive invention designed to inculcate new parents into believing that a child’s biological sex and gender are sometimes, or even often, misaligned, and that it would be damaging to them to merely accept the reality of their biology at birth.

You… you do know women can get ultrasounds while the baby is still in utero to find out the sex of their child, right? The criteria is pretty cut and dry here.

— Krizzと (@konkarrne) March 31, 2021

Cole has more to offer in this vein, critiquing two orders that Noem signed in an effort to require that biologically male athletes and biologically female athletes compete against others of their own sex:

Though the two executive orders signed by Noem do not explicitly mention transgender athletes, they reference the supposed harms of the participation of “males” in women’s athletics – an echo of the transphobic claim, cited in other similar legislative initiatives, that transgender women are not women. The orders also reference “biological sex,” a disputed term that refers to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates.

To Cole, the activist phrase “transphobic” is a matter of simple fact, fit for use by a hard-news writer, but the phrase “biological sex” is apparently disputed.

Of course, contrary to what Cole and his editors at CNN would like us to swallow wholesale, biological sex is a defined, observable, scientific reality – regardless of what anyone might believe about how best to deal with the policy issue of athletes who identify with the opposite sex.

To pretend that we as a society are incapable of knowing whether a child is a male or female at birth is lunacy. More than that, it’s lunacy in service of the left-wing project to redefine sex and gender as being entirely a creation of each individual, totally untethered from any biological or metaphysical reality.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning, Margaret Harper McCarthy hits on exactly what is so problematic about this effort, especially as codified in the Equality Act, which Democrats are attempting to push through Congress:

At stake in the so-called Equality Act, currently before the Senate, is neither women’s sports nor bathrooms, at least not ultimately. At stake is the freedom of rational human beings to use a common vocabulary when speaking about what all can see…

The Equality Act doesn’t concern such invisible mysteries as the Holy Trinity, for example. That is a matter of belief in the strict sense, though it isn’t irrational or private. Rather, the Equality Act concerns things everyone can see and understand. Infants don’t need instruction to know that their mothers are the ones who are nursing them, and their fathers are the ones who are not. Sexual difference is obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

McCarthy is right. The debate over the Equality Act – or over the South Dakota bill Noem vetoed – isn’t ultimately a debate about bathrooms or sports teams.

It’s a debate about whether we as a society are on board with the program of pretending that men and women are interchangeable, that the realities of biological sex and human nature can be erased if we pretend hard enough.

We know which side CNN is on.

Toronto is the most overheated housing market among any metropolitan city in Canada. The latest example of this is the recent sale of a home that sparked a bidding war among buyers in Banbury Don Mills, a suburb in Toronto’s North York district. 

The Globe and Mail report the 3,500 sqft home located at 42 Apollo Dr., Toronto, was listed for $1,998,000 in January and immediately saw massive interest among prospective homebuyers. 

Real agent Belinda Lelli said she had 112 showings on the suburban home with more than 17 offers. 

“The strategy was to put it on the market before the spring,” said Lelli, because inventories were low in January.

“It was buyer mayhem from the onset,” she said. “I fielded 112 showings and 17 offers.”

She said the house quickly sold for $612,000 over list or a 30% premium versus the initial list price. 

Lelli said the suburban area is very sought after in a post-COVID world. “It’s on a very quiet, family-friendly street, and it has five bedrooms, plus one bedroom in the fully finished basement,” she added. 

In addition to being in the suburbs, the home can support two at-home offices, bedrooms for two kids, and even a finished basement for a housekeeper, nanny, or an in-law suite. 

Lelli correctly points out that the low inventory and cheap mortgage rates resulted in the home’s bidding war. Also, being in the suburbs, city-dwellers are finding the area attractive. 

Earlier this month, BMO Senior Economist Robert Kavcic pointed out the “boiling” Canadian housing in one chart, which shows housing prices across Canada have erupted in recent months. 

Kavcic said: “that is, the 1-month change is faster than 3-month; which is faster than the 6-month; which is faster than the 12-month. In all cases but the 12-month (and that won’t be long either), price growth had accelerated through the rates seen in 2017, when policymakers were working on multiple fronts to tame the market.”

Rapid home price increases have alarmed the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in a recent Housing Market Assessment report. The agency singled out Toronto and called it the most overheated market in the country. 

Royal Bank of Canada economist Robert Hogue finds real estate prices are moving the fastest in suburbs and rural communities. 

“Surging prices are also pulling demand forward, with many buyers opting to act now for fear they’ll miss out,” said Hogue, outlining how people can work remotely and want more land in a post-lockdown environment. “The factors driving the current frenzy will eventually reverse or run their course.”

Hogue warns the frenzy won’t last forever as overheated conditions usually result in a correction. 

A similar frenzy is happening to Canada’s neighbor in the south, that being the US. The Federal Reserve sparked a housing boom with historically low mortgage rates as the remote-work phenomenon is pushing city dwellers to the suburbs. 

In one instance, a home in the Citrus Heights, a suburb of Sacramento, California, was recently listed for $399,900, and in just two days, received a mindboggling 122 offers. The home ended selling well above the list price. 

The bottom line is that the Canadian housing market is boiling, and once demand languishes, a correction will be seen. 

Authored by Patrick Armstrong via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In short, we are supposed to believe that in 2016 the Russian hacked nothing but the election and in 2020 they hacked everything but the election.

The US intelligence community published a report on 10 March, widely reported in the US free speech news media, on foreign interference in the US election (how many oxymorons so far?).

The report establishes a new level of idiocy on the long-running “Russiagate” nonsense.

 

The idiocy began when Trump, campaigning, remarked that it would be better to get along with Russia than not. A sentiment that would not have surprised Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan or any of the others who recognised that, like it or not, Moscow was a fact. A fact that had to be dealt with, talked to, negotiated with so as to produce the best possible result. Why? Well, apart from the diplomatic reality that it is better to get on with your neighbours, the fact that the USSR/Russia was a nuclear power that could obliterate the USA was adequate reason to keep communications alive. If relations could be improved, all earlier US Presidents would agree, so much the better. But for Trump – the outsider – to dare to say so was an outrage. Or more accurately, a hook on which to hang enough simulated outrage to cost him the election. Then, upsetting all expectations, he won. Immediately pussy hat protests, blather about tax returns, Electoral College speculations, 25th Amendment, psychiatrists opining unfitness (COVFEFE: Bizarre Trump Behavior Raises More Mental Health Questions): an entire industry was created to get Trump out, or, if he couldn’t be got out, then at least prevented from doing any of the things he campaigned on. All the swamp creatures were mobilised. The most enduring of these efforts was the Russia allegation. A Special Counsel was created to investigate Russia, Trump and the election. Leaks from this and other investigations fuelled outrage and talk shows.

One of the indications that the story was actually an information operation and not based on fact was its imprecision. Was Trump merely too friendly with Putin, or was he his puppet? Was Trump just a fool to think that relations with Russia could be improved, or was he following instructions? In short, was he a dupe or a traitor? How exactly had Russia interfered in the election and to what effect? Had a few voters been influenced or had the result been completely determined by Moscow? In short was Moscow running the USA or just trying to? Proponents of these crackpot theories never quite specified what they were talking about – it was all suggestion, innuendo, rumours and promises of future devastating revelations. Some of the highlights of the campaign: Keith Olberman shouting Russian scum! Morgan Freeman solemnly intoning that we were at war, and, night after night, Rachel Maddow spewing conspiracies. Some media headlines: Opinion: Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset. Trump is ‘owned by Putin’ and has been ‘laundering money’ for Russians, claims MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch. Mueller’s Report Shows All The Ways Russia Interfered In 2016 Presidential Election. A media firestorm as Trump seems to side with Putin over US intelligence. Trump and Putin, closer than ever. All signs point the same way: Vladimir Putin has compromising information on Donald Trump. And so on. Four years of non-stop nonsense promising, tomorrow, or the next day, the final revelation that would disgrace Trump and rid the country of him forever: my personal favourite is this mashup of TV hairstyles telling us that the walls were closing in. Information war. Propaganda. Fake news.

All this despite the fact that the story as presented simply made no sense at all. As I pointed out in December 2017, if Moscow had wanted to nobble Clinton, it had far more potent weapons at its disposal than a too-late revelation of finagling inside the DNC.

And it wasn’t just TV talking heads; the US intelligence community participated. There were two laughable “intelligence assessments”. The DHS/FBI report of 29 December 2016 carried this stunning disclaimer:

This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.

The DNI report of 6 January 2017 devoted nearly half its space to a four-year-old rant about RT and admitted that the one Agency that would really know had only “moderate confidence”. In short: ignore the first report, and don’t take the second one seriously. Were people inside these organisations trying to tell us it was all phoney? No matter, the anti-Trump conspiracy shrieked out the reports immediately.

One by one, it fell apart. Mueller, despite the prayer candles, came up with nothing. The “Dirty Dossier” was a fraud. The impeachment for something that Biden actually did failed. These dates should be remembered – Crowdstrike CEO Shawn Henry told the House committee that he had no evidence on 5 December 2017; this classified testimony was not made public until 7 May 2020. Simply put: the key allegation, the trigger for all the excitement and investigations that followed, was a lie, many people knew it was a lie, the lie was kept secret for 884 days. But the lie served its purpose.

There were no investigations of this fraud, only pseudo investigations that went nowhere. When the Republicans had a majority on the House of Representatives there were serious investigations but the testimonies – like Henry’s – were kept secret because they were “classified”. When the Democrats gained control, there were continual boasts that the evidence of collusion was overwhelming, but nothing happened either. Trump’s first Attorney General recused himself and the investigation was conducted by the conspirators. His second Attorney General promised much, set up a Special Counsel, but nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing: a junior conspirator had his knuckles rapped for faking a FISA warrant. In short, the Deep State ran the clock out: the swamp drained Trump.

Ran it out quite successfully too: relations with Russia got worse and Trump himself was hamstrung. His orders were ignored everywhere: on investigating the conspiracy and on removing troops; here’s an insider telling us that the Pentagon ignored his orders on Afghanistan. He was stonewalled on Syria: “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” The “most powerful man in the world” was blocked on almost every initiative and the long false Russia connection story was a powerful weapon in the conspiracy to impede his attempts to change course.

In 2021 Trump left office and there was no need to mention any of it again. But here’s where it gets really stupid. In December 2020, the NYT solemnly told us: Russian Hackers Broke Into Federal Agencies, U.S. Officials Suspect: In one of the most sophisticated and perhaps largest hacks in more than five years, email systems were breached at the Treasury and Commerce Departments. Other breaches are under investigation. At the same time we were equally solemnly told by US officials “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history”.

In short, we are supposed to believe that

in 2016 the Russian hacked nothing but the election

and in 2020 they hacked everything but the election.

How stupid do they think we are? Even stupider evidently. Instead of retiring the Trump/Russia/collusion/interference nonsense when it had achieved its purpose, the Intelligence Community Assessment on Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections takes us right back down the rabbit hole. I haven’t read it and certainly don’t intend to (see oxymoron above), but Matt Taibbi has and eviscerates it here; he’s read far enough to have mined this gem “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact”. (Is this a hint from insiders that it’s all fake?) The report claims that Putin authorised, and various Russian government entities conducted, a campaign to denigrate Biden. Specifically by using Ukrainian sources to talk about corruption of Biden and his son Hunter; despite the video of Biden boasting about firing the investigator, we’re assured that this is all disinformation. And the consumers of the NYT and CNN will believe what they were told. Or, actually, will believe what they weren’t told: the media kept quiet. (Now that’s interference and interference that actually might have changed votes.) The report goes on to say that China did something or other and Iran, Hezbollah, Cuba and Venezuela also chipped in. But fortunately no foreign actor did anything to affect the technical part of the election.

The US security organs expect us to believe,

giving no proof,

that there was lots of malign activity

which had no effect on the election whatsoever.

Which is telling us they think we’re even stupider. Russia swung the election four years ago but forgot how to this time? Putin’s attempt to keep Trump in was blocked by security measures adopted when his tool was President? This time Putin wanted Biden in? Russia’s efforts on behalf of Trump were countered by China’s on behalf of Biden and Iran’s interference broke the tie? But then, information operations don’t have to make sense, they just have to create an impression: Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela do bad things to good people.

Oh, and the latest is that Moscow cultivated Trump for over 40 years, Imagine that: in 1980 they were so perceptive as to see the future importance of a property developer; who’ve they got lined up in the wings now? And Rachel Maddow is back at the old stand pushing some conspiracy theory about Trump, Putin and COVID. I guess it’s not yet time to put away the tinfoil hats.

As I have said before, English needs a whole new set of words for the concept “stupid”: the old ones just don’t have the power any more.

US law enforcement officials are flying blind with limited to no human intelligence on Mexican cartels due to a new law passed in December by the Mexican government that requires US authorities to share contacts in the country with Mexican officials (who are often corrupt). 

Current and former senior officials in both countries tell Reuters US efforts to combat powerful drug cartels inside Mexico have come to a standstill since January as relations fray between them. 

Before December, US and Mexican authorities routinely shared intelligence on drug cartels, but the new law now requires US authorities to report their law-enforcement contacts to the Mexican government first. This has temporarily halted joint efforts to prevent the flow of drugs into the US. 

Two sources said, “on-the-ground operations, including raids on Mexican drug labs, have largely ceased, and US authorities are now struggling to track movements of U.S.-bound cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia through Central America and into Mexico.”

Sources said US drug agents working on the ground had been followed by local police (who are often paid off by cartels), raising serious concerns about their safety. There’s also been the issue of US law enforcement agents who have been denied visas to work in the country. 

“Most of our most important cases are at a standstill,” a senior US law enforcement official told Reuters. “If we have to report our sources to their foreign ministry, it jeopardizes our sources and methods. The system is set up intentionally now so that Mexican law enforcement can’t help us.”

A top Mexican military official told Reuters since the new law went into effect several months ago, most anti-drug efforts with the US have been postponed. 

“Without US support – in technology and intelligence – it will be more difficult to contain crime,” the official said.

Another Mexican official described the rift between both countries as more “administrative and temporary than substantive.” 

“It’s not that cooperation is now paralyzed,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that things will normalize. 

The new law came into effect shortly after the US arrested former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos on drug trafficking charges. The purpose of the arrest was to show close ties between drug cartels and Mexican government officials. However, in Mexico, the arrest was not well received and triggered a backlash. 

While the Biden administration is under pressure to control a migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border, US officials are having difficulty tracking shipments of drugs pouring into the US, which comes at a time when US drug overdose deaths have reached an all-time high. 

Former DEA head Timothy Shea said, “the big winners are the cartels.” He warned: “It’s just what the cartels wanted so they can expand their reach and smuggle more deadly drugs into the United States.”

He said, “human intelligence is drying up,” making it more difficult to intercept drug shipments. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Hillary Clinton has declared Republicans who are against gun control legislation to be “gun worshippers”, and ridiculed them for being “scared” that their rights are being taken away.

Appearing on her own former communications director’s podcast, Clinton declared “You know, democracy is the balancing of interests and rights, and unfortunately at this time, the gun worshipers have a huge advantage because of the filibuster and because of their shameless exploitation of people’s unwarranted fears.”

We talk so much about the right to bear arms in America. @HillaryClinton wants to change the narrative.

What about the rights of everyone else? The right to go to work, to school, or to the grocery store without fear?

Clinton gets candid on #JSAH with @jmpalmieri this Thursday: pic.twitter.com/MFCJyj3KIC

— The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021

Hillary specifically singled out Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who last week labelled Democrats’ gun control efforts in the wake of shootings in Atlanta and Colorado as “ridiculous theater”.

Clinton proclaimed that “The opportunists on the other side, like Cruz and his ilk, they know better and they are in the position of trying to keep people really riled up and scared that sensible gun legislation like we had in the ‘90s for 10 years will somehow undermine their rights.”

“Well, what about the rights of all the rest of us? The rights of us to go to work, go shopping, go on dates to the movie theater, go to school, for heaven’s sake — what about the rest of us?” she continued.

After announcing he is considering executive action, Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday he believes Congress will pass “rational gun control” measures.

“The only gun control legislation that’s ever passed is mine. It’s going to happen again,” Biden Declared.

President Biden confident on passing “rational gun control.”

“The only gun control legislation that’s ever passed is mine. It’s going to happen again,” he told reporters. pic.twitter.com/46CchLrYrb

— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) March 28, 2021

*  *  *

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In news that is likely going to send shockwaves through the EV industry, Foxconn looks poised to be developing its own EV-use batteries. The giant electronic OEM is going to be developing both LFP (lithium iron phosphate) and solid-state batteries for use in electric vehicles, industry sources told Digitimes.

Foxconn and Hua-chuang Automotive Information Technical Center under Yulon Motor have established Foxtron Vehicle Technologies, the report says.

As most EV manufacturers, like Tesla, already know – battery packs can account for 50% of the total weight of an EV and 30% of its cost. Manufacturers are working on decreasing not only the cost of packs, but also the mass, which can lead to longer ranges per charge. 

Foxconn will reportedly introduce battery samples for EVs in 2021 and bring development to commercial use in 2024, the report notes.

Solid state batteries “will represent a $6 billion industry by 2030,” TechCruch recently wrote. Many of the recent promises in battery development – making them lighter, safer and more powerful, have “largely evaporated”, the report notes. Solid state batteries :lack a liquid electrolyte for moving electrons (electricity) between the battery’s positive (cathode) and negative (anode) electrodes”, making them less flammable and quicker to charge than li-ion batteries.

Colorado-based startup Prieto Battery told TC: “If you run the calculations, you can get really amazing numbers and they’re very exciting. It’s just that making it happen in practice is very difficult.”

So far, no large auto manufacturers have found success in developing solid-state batteries for EVs. If Foxconn can break through on solid state batteries, in addition to simply becoming an li-ion manufacturer, the shockwaves it sends through the industry could be profound. 

By Ye Xie, Bloomberg macro commentator and analyst

That seems the thinking behind U.S. President Joe Biden’s economic plan, which now includes a $2.3 trillion spending proposal for infrastructure, green investment and research. Of course, there are still questions about how much Congress can actually deliver, and the spending will be spread out over eight years, meaning the immediate impact on the economy is likely to be less than the headline number suggests. That perhaps explains why Treasury yields increased only modestly Wednesday. The fact that the stock market set new highs suggests that the improvement in earnings is likely to outpace any rise in yields or potential increase in taxes.

Back in China, good economic news continues to be treated as bad news for markets. Despite solid PMI data, the CSI 300 Index fell, making it the only major benchmark to post a loss for the year on Bloomberg’s WEI major equity ranking page. Part of the concern is that policy makers will tighten rates to contain financial leverage. China’s total debt increased 29% points last year to 315% of GDP, driven by companies and provincial governments borrowing during the pandemic, according to Citigroup.

Ironically, the very same debt overhang is a constraint on policy tightening. Those highly leveraged firms are vulnerable to rising interest rates and more stringent financial conditions.

Citigroup’s economists found about 600 listed Chinese companies with leverage ratios 20 points above their sector averages. Their combined market valuation amounted to 11 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion), or 17% of the stock market. Assuming their debt is mostly financed by banks, every one percentage point rise in the lending rate would boost their interest payments by 152 billion yuan, equivalent to 30% of their profits, economists led by Liu Li-Gang wrote in a note.

Property developers are particularly vulnerable, given their high debt levels and uncertainties regarding regulators’ “three red line” policy aimed at limiting indebted companies’ capacity to borrow. For developers, a rate hike of one percentage point rate will increase their interest costs by 49 billion yuan, or 42% of their profits.

“While rising leverage ratio is a concern, the very factor could also be used to argue for caution when the PBOC starts to exit its supportive monetary policy,” Liu and his colleagues wrote. “If not handled with care, we will not only see the Chinese version of ‘taper tantrum’ in the financial markets, but also potentially witness the rising risk of default from those highly indebted enterprises.”

It sounds like the PBOC will be walking a tightrope from here.

A day after The Washington Post featured an op-ed claiming that “the Kremlin may be slowly killing Alexei Navalny in prison,” the anti-Putin activist has announced on Wednesday that he’s begun a hunger strike to protest medical conditions at the prison facility, following his 2-and-a-half year sentence which was handed down last month.

He’s said to be protesting the refusal of prison medical staff at the notorious Penal Colony No. 2 east of Moscow to treat a suspected trapped nerve in his back. Navalny has also stated he’s lost sensation in one of his legs due to weeks of severe back pain, for which he recently went to so far as to voice fears his leg may have to be amputated.  

Prison authorities have shot back, saying Navalny is in “stable and satisfactory” condition, with top Kremlin officials recently chalking it up to his supporters still engaged in an anti-Russia propaganda war that has help from the West.

In a letter posted by his legal team to social media Navalny said, “I demand that a doctor be allowed to see me, and until this happens, I am declaring a hunger strike.”

In a prior message last week Navalny first accused prison authorities of “deliberate denial of due medical assistance” in order to ensure his suffering. He essentially claimed “torture” – though he related it to prison-orchestrated sleep deprivation. 

“My condition has worsened. I feel acute pain in my right leg, and I feel numbness in its lower part,” Navalny wrote. “I have trouble walking.” His lawyer Olga Mikhailova had added to this in follow-up televised remarks, saying that his condition is “extremely unfavorable”. She said, “Everyone is afraid for his life and health.”

A number of international headlines then seized on the torture allegations, reporting that the 44-year old outspoken Putin critic who previously alleged the Russian president ordered his poisoning with nerve agent last August is now being literally “tortured” as part of his confinement.

He’s also said to have been threatened with solitary confinement over bad behavior and repeat violations for failing to conform to the strict prison regimen.

Authored by Samuel Allegri via The Epoch Times,

Youtube, the video hosting platform owned by Google, announced on March 29 that they are going to test making the “dislike” count on videos invisible.

The tech giant says that it’s being done in response to “targeted dislike campaigns” and “creator feedback around well-being.”

“In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we’re testing a few new designs that don’t show the public dislike count,” YouTube announced on Twitter.

“If you’re part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks.”

It further states on a Google support page:

“Viewer feedback has always been, and will continue to be, an important part of YouTube. But we’ve heard from creators that the public dislike counts can impact their wellbeing, and may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video. So, we’re testing designs that don’t include the visible like or dislike count in an effort to balance improving the creator experience, while still making sure viewer feedback is accounted for and shared with the creator. ”

A majority of responses on both the Twitter announcement and on the support page disapprove of the idea, with some comments suggesting the move is a consequence of the tremendous imbalance of “dislikes” on the present administration’s videos on their White House channel.

Did you seriously do this just for Joe Biden? https://t.co/8b47YLkoZg

— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) March 31, 2021

Some other commentators expressed concerns that it would not be good for people who want to obtain feedback about the video quality, whether it be for creators or viewers.

In January, YouTube deleted what appears to be thousands of “dislikes” from videos on the official channel of President Joe Biden’s White House. The company said it’s a part of its regular efforts to remove engagement it considers inauthentic.

People on the platform noticed that dislikes have been disappearing by the thousands from several White House videos and started posting before-and-after screenshots on social media shortly after the incoming administration took over the channel and published its first videos.

The screenshots indicate a total of at least 16,000 dislikes were removed from at least three videos. Even after the adjustments, the five videos on the channel had about 14,000 likes combined versus nearly 60,000 dislikes as of 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 21.

Official White House YouTube team gonna be overjoyed at this. https://t.co/wcnd1niCOi pic.twitter.com/i2Kw5ccRPH

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 30, 2021

In response to a screenshot of one of the videos, YouTube told The Epoch Times that it’s monitoring engagement on the site to detect and remove activity it considers spam so that only engagement it considers organic remains. The mechanism worked as intended in the case of the Biden video, the company stated.

“YouTube regularly removes any spam likes or dislikes from your videos,” the company stated in a 2019 tweet.

“It may take up to 48 hours for the numbers to be updated.”

It isn’t clear how YouTube discerns between authentic and inauthentic engagement; the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for further details.

“No one wants this,” Nerdrotic, a pop-culture YouTuber tweeted, adding, “Dislikes are helpful for a great many things and this is what puts YouTube above all others.”

YouTube and its owner, Google, have long faced accusations of political bias. The companies have said their products are developed and run as politically neutral, but employee accounts and leaked internal materials indicate the companies are indeed infusing their politics into their products.

Google shifted millions of votes in the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election by pushing its political agenda onto its users, according to research psychologist Robert Epstein, who assembled a team of more than 700 voters to monitor what results they were receiving from channels such as search results, reminders, search suggestions, and newsfeeds ahead of the election.

The recent rise in tensions between the US and Russia over continued simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to correspond with the Biden administration entering the White House. Many pundits have commented that on a foreign policy front things are eerily feeling like a throwback to the Obama years of 2014 or 2015, whether its the Ukraine and Crimea crises, or Syria returning to headlines again (including Biden’s ordered airstrikes on the country in February), or the growing Russia-NATO standoff. 

This past weekend we were among the very few to take notice of the Pentagon’s latest large military equipment delivery to Ukraine’s army via the port of Odessa, following Biden earlier pledging that “Crimea is Ukraine” and that he’d work to thwart Russian aims in the region. 

And now this week the US European Command (EUCOM) has issued a notification of a raised ‘threat level’ in Europe. The designation has been officially raised to one of “potential imminent crisis” this week. It comes just as The New York Times and others are reporting a serious escalation in fighting in Eastern Ukraine, which has signaled the collapse of yet another cease-fire.

The raised threat level centers on Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of national armed forces alleging that Russia has amassed more troops on its border this week, and further that “pro-Moscow separatists were systematically violating a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine,” according to Reuters.

Kiev’s parliament followed by announcing a sharp “escalation” in the east – a contested region which has seen 14,000 deaths going back to 2014.

The NY Times had linked the raised alert status by EUCOM specifically to Ukraine, writing “the U.S. military’s European Command raised its watch level from possible crisis to potential imminent crisis — the highest level — in response to the deployment of the additional Russian troops.”

The report also described the infusion of new Russian military equipment to the Kremlin-backed rebels, something which the latest follow-up statement by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed, charging that it is the Ukrainian side now taking “provocative actions that would lead to war”.

The Times report cited a US official who estimated that some 4,000 additional Russian troops remained behind along the Ukraine border region following the end of recent military drills, something which one retired Army general said could just be “posturing” designed to test the Biden administration. 

Meanwhile Washington has apparently put Moscow ‘on notice’ over a potential Ukraine escalation…

Russia MOD says Milley initiates phone call today just as concern grows again about Russian presence along Ukraine border https://t.co/pZm2NFZlJl

— Barbara Starr (@barbarastarrcnn) March 31, 2021

Despite long ago falling out of daily and weekly headlines, the war in the Donbass region has remained a ‘low-simmering conflict’ which has never stopped. Battle lines and disputed fronts, along with rival checkpoints, have been consistently manned.

The usual military exercises that take place this time of year, or larger than usual troop build-up?

Russian forces are deploying massive amounts of military hardware into #Crimea. One of the largest deployments I’ve seen in recent memory. pic.twitter.com/KKZnGzS7y1

— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) March 31, 2021

However, as the NYT noted, “Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another seriously wounded in a battle against Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk Region” on Tuesday, suggesting a severe flare-up on the horizon which could once again draw in external Western forces, especially as Biden has lately vowed to get “tough” on Putin’s Russia.