Month: August 2022

Nearly three months ago, when tabulating real-time mass layoffs data…

… Piper Sandler chief economist Nancy Lazar concluded that “post-covid rightsizing means that lots more layoffs are coming” and added that “many companies overhired and overpaid during the Covid crisis.”

Since then, it’s only gotten worse for those who track corporate layoff announcements, such as the following:

• #1 Ultratec Inc. says that it will be laying off more than 600 workers.
• #2 Electric truck maker Rivian will be laying off approximately 840 workers.
• #3 7-Eleven has announced that it will be eliminating 880 corporate jobs.
• #4 Shopify is laying off about 1,000 people.
• #5 Vimeo says that it will be eliminating 6 percent of its current workforce.
• #6 Redfin will be reducing the size of its workforce by 8 percent.
• #7 Compass will be reducing the size of its workforce by 10 percent.
• #8 RE/MAX will be reducing the size of its workforce by 17 percent.
• #9 Robinhood will be reducing the size of its workforce by 23 percent.
• #10 It is being reported that Ford “is preparing to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks”.
• #11 Geico has closed every single one of their offices in the state of California, and that will result in vast numbers of workers losing their jobs.
• #12 Walmart is eliminating about 200 corporate jobs as it contends with rising costs, bloated inventories and weakening demand for general merchandise.

… and yet while initial jobless claims have indeed moved notably higher in recent months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stubbornly refuses to report the true state of the US labor market, where despite continued softness in the Household Survey where no new jobs have been added since March, the far more politicized Establishment survey – which, after all, is what the Biden administration points toward as the only silver cloud in an otherwise recessionary and hyperinflating economy – has continued to show remarkable resilience and growth in recent months. So much so, that the differential between the Household and Establishment surveys has grown to a record 1.8 million jobs since March.

And while one possible explanation for this bizarre divergence is the record surge in multiple jobholders who now hold both a primary and secondary full-time job…

… even as full and part-time job gains have slumped…

… the truth is that there is no comprehensive explanation for the variation in data. Which, needless to say, is problematic because the “solid” jobs market is one of the very few things that is preventing the Fed from substantially easing back on its hawkish policies (now that peak inflation has clearly been reached… if only for the time being), and the Fed’s sharply higher rates are already wreaking havoc on the housing market not to mention various stock sectors that have also gotten walloped.

But what if the BLS data is not merely “off” due to benign factors such as “residual seasonality” or a post-covid hangover? What if it is intentionally manipulated to make Biden’s economy appear stronger than it is for midterm election purposes even if it means distortions across the entire market?

We bring up all these rhetorical questions because a new survey released by consultancy PwC confirms our previous observations about rampant mass layoffs in the US labor market, and suggests that the true state of the job market is far, far uglier than the alleged 528K job gain reported by the BLS in July would suggest.

In the PwC survey released last Thursday, which last month polled more than 700 US executives and board members across a range of industries, half of respondents said they’re reducing headcount or plan to, and 52% have implemented hiring freezes. At the same time, more than four in ten are rescinding job offers, and a similar amount are reducing or eliminating the sign-on bonuses that had become common to attract talent in a tight job market.

At the same time, though, about two-thirds of firms are boosting pay – for those who keep their jobs – or expanding “mental-health benefits”, because we now live in a liberal dystopia where a growing number of workers are batshit insane.

The findings, as even Bloomberg concludes, illustrate the contradictory nature of today’s labor market, where skilled workers can still largely name their terms amid talent shortages (in high demand sectors like line cooks and bartenders), even as companies look to let people go elsewhere, particularly in hard-hit industries like technology and real estate.

“Firms are playing offense and defense with their talent strategies,” said Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader of PwC’s people and organization practice, noting that employers have to weigh reputational damage and employee morale when planning layoffs. “People have long memories, and social media plays a much bigger role now.”

Of course, reputational damage won’t matter if a company is facing bankruptcy damage by having far too many workers and not enough cash flow.

One big reason for the ongoing crunch in the job market is the treatment of “work from home” – having become a staple during the Scamdemic courtesy of overpaid charlatans such as Anthony Fauci, corporations are increasingly seeking a return to the “old normal” which however is proving to be quite a challenge. As a result, the PwC survey found “contradictions” in companies’ approaches to remote work. While 70% of those surveyed said they’re expanding permanent remote-work options for roles that allow it, 61% said they’re requiring employees to be in the office or job site more often.

To be sure, some organizations could be doing both of those things at once: Roles that don’t require much in-person collaboration could go remote for good, while other staffers could be required to get back to their desks a few times a week. September is shaping up to be a line in the sand for many companies’ return-to-office plans, even though previous so-called RTO deadlines came and went.

One thing is certain: the coming labor shock will have dire and wide-raning consequences on the broader office market: with fewer employees in offices, organizations don’t need as many far-flung locations. As such, more than one in five respondents told PwC that they plan to decrease their investment in real estate, making it the most common area of cutbacks, and yes, fewer employees.

As for the divergence between the rosy official government labor “data” and the dire jobs picture painted by mass-terminating corporations on the ground, we are confident that the delta between the two data sets will promptly and magically resolve itself… right after the midterm elections.

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The price tag of a taxpayer-funded project to build a barrier around President Joe Biden’s Delaware beach house has grown to nearly $500,000, federal spending records suggest.

In September 2021, the Homeland Security Department paid $456,548 to Delaware-based construction company Turnstone Holdings for the purchase and installation of “security fencing” surrounding the president’s Rehoboth Beach property, according to USAspending.gov, an online database operated by the Treasury Department.

The database entry shows two additional payments since then. One bill of $6,844 was paid in late November 2021 to cover expenses resulting from extra “gravel pads” and “crane services.” This was followed by another $26,933 bill in June, described as simply “to add funds to current project.”

The overall cost of the fence now stands at $490,324. Although the project was originally expected to be completed by the end of 2021, its “potential end date” has been pushed back to June 6, 2023, marking a delay of more than 18 months.

The exact reason for the setbacks remains unclear. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Homeland Security Department, listed as the main awarding agency and funding office for the contract, for further information.

Amid a record influx of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, the costly presidential residence fence has drawn mockery from critics of the president’s border policy.

“So walls work at Joe Biden’s beach house but not the Southern border?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote on Twitter.

“You’re building $500,000 fence around your perimeter, and I don’t regret you for that—you’re the president, you deserve the security,” Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, a Republican, said on Sunday in an interview with Fox News. “But you can’t have a fence and the rest of us don’t.”

“People at the border need a fence,” she added.

According to data released by the Biden administration, the number of apprehensions at the nation’s southern border is reaching the 2 million benchmark for the first time in history.

In July, Border Patrol reported 181,552 arrests of individuals who tried to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border, a 5.6 percent drop from the 192,418 reported in June. With just two months before the fiscal year 2022 wraps up, the agency has already made more than 1.81 million arrests, beating fiscal year 2021’s record of 1.66 million.

In the border town of Yuma, Arizona, the state is spending $6 million to fill a quarter-mile gap in the border barrier with shipping containers. Those 8,800-pound, 40-by-9-foot containers will be topped with razor wire once tractor-trailers move them into position.

Tim Roemer, Arizona’s director of Homeland Security, told Phoenix radio station KTAR-FM that his state couldn’t wait any longer.

“It’s about time they supported our border state, local law enforcement and to do something about the humanitarian crisis,” Tim said.

Read more here…

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in his annual “National Day Rally” speech on Sunday that he would lift a colonial-era ban on sex between men in the city state. As the country has become more accepting of homosexuality, Loong said that overturning the law was the “right thing to do”.

However, Loong also said his country will amend its constitution to ensure the existing definition of marriage cannot be challenged in court.

LGBT groups applauded Singapore’s repeal of its colonial-era penal code that criminalizes sex between men, but they expressed concern over the constitutional amendment, arguing that it would help perpetuate discrimination, Reuters reported.

Despite its economic prowess and increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyles, Singapore has held on to conservative politics and strict penal codes. The country remains among the practitioners of the death penalty, another draconian law that has drawn criticism in the country.

However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, while Singaporean laws are changing, homosexuality remains punishable with imprisonment in other Asian nations, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and neighboring Malaysia. In February of 2021, small Himalayan nation Bhutan had been the latest on the continent to abolish a ban on homosexuality .

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to Equaldex, Africa, the Middle East and Persia meanwhile are the regions where laws against homosexuality are still the most widespread.

In 2022, homosexuality is still punishable by death in several countries and remains illegal in some form in a total of 69 nations. Especially in Africa, both a tightening and a relaxing of relevant laws are happening side by side. Between 2019 and 2021, Gabon and Botswana legalized homosexuality, while Sudan and Uganda made it punishable by life in prison.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Apple Inc. and a top U.S. cybersecurity agency are urging iPhone, iPad, and Macbook users and administrators to update their iOS software amid recently discovered security vulnerabilities.

“Apple has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in macOS Monterey, iOS and iPadOS, and Safari. An attacker could exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected device,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement on Aug. 18.

Users and administrators are urged to review Apple’s security updates page and apply the updates—MacOS Monterey 12.5.1, iOS 15.6.1, iPadOS 15.6.1, or Safari 15.6.1—as soon as possible.

Apple released two security reports about the issue on Wednesday, although they didn’t receive wide attention outside of tech publications.

Apple’s explanation of the vulnerability means a hacker could get “full admin access” to the device.

That would allow intruders to impersonate the device’s owner and subsequently run any software in their name, said Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Security experts have advised users to update affected devices—the iPhone6S and later models; several models of the iPad, including the 5th generation and later, all iPad Pro models and the iPad Air 2; and Mac computers running MacOS Monterey. The flaw also affects some iPod models.

Commercial spyware companies such as Israel’s NSO Group are known for identifying and taking advantage of such flaws, exploiting them in malware that surreptitiously infects targets’ smartphones, siphons their contents, and surveils the targets in real-time.

NSO Group has been blacklisted by the U.S. Commerce Department. Its spyware is known to have been used in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America against journalists, dissidents, and human rights activists.

“The flaws were found in the kernel, a program at the core of the OS (CVE-2022-32894) and WebKit, the engine that powers the Safari web browser (CVE-2022-32893). Both flaws allow hackers to remotely execute malicious code on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac and potentially take over your device,” according to Forbes tech security writer Gordon Kelly.

How to Update

To update the software on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, go to the Settings section. From there, tap General before tapping Software Update.

Read more here…

Sichuan’s worst drought in over half a century forced the Chinese province to extend power cuts for industrial plants. Power rationings are essential to ease electricity demand due to a menacing heatwave and limited rainfall that is driving down hydropower generation while cooling demand skyrockets — the combination is dangerous in terms of grid stability and is primarily why power cuts were prolonged. 

Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Lee told clients Sunday that the provinces with 84 million people and a key manufacturing hub for semiconductor and solar panels faced “the hottest temperatures and the worst drought of the past 60 years.” 

Sichuan heavily relies on hydropower generation for 82% of its power needs. About half of the renewable energy source has been slashed because rainfall along the Yangtze River since July has been 45% below average, the lowest since 1961. Falling hydropower generation comes as electricity demand in the province jumped 65 gigawatts, nearly a quarter higher than last year. 

Goldman Sachs’ Trina Chen wrote power curtailments pose the most significant risk to rice supplies, followed by aluminum and battery materials. 

Bloomberg outlines the largest impacts of the heatwave and power rationings on an industrial basis. 

Lithium & Batteries

Sichuan produces more than a fifth of China’s lithium, according to BloombergNEF, making it one of the industries most exposed to the province’s power cuts. Top global battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., which has its second-biggest production base in Sichuan, has already halted production there. 

Goldman said the power curbs could cost about 5% of China’s monthly output for lithium chemicals, but flagged a potentially bigger impact on lithium hydroxide and so-called “LFP” cathode used in batteries. But it also said EV-related sectors will probably get priority when industries are allowed to ramp up again.

The Sichuan disruptions add fuel to lithium’s blistering rally in the past year. The price of lithium carbonate reached its highest since April by the end of last week, and isn’t far from a new record.

Aluminum & Copper

Power-intensive aluminum smelters are often at high risk when governments want to cut electricity use. Goldman says some 360,00 tons of annualized aluminum capacity has been closed, with a further 300,000 tons at risk — adding up to about 1.5% of China’s capacity. While Sichuan is a notable aluminum producer, it lags far behind top provinces Shandong and Xinjiang. And neighboring Yunnan — a major source of new output — hasn’t been hit by weather disruptions.

Earlier in August, one of China’s biggest copper producers based in Anhui province cut output as local authorities ordered power curbs.

Solar Sector

About 15% of polysilicon used in solar panels comes from Sichuan, and prices for the material were already at a decade-high on strong demand for clean energy. The extension of the electricity curbs will reduce supply and likely offer more support to prices of both polysilicon and lithium, Daiwa Capital Markets wrote in a note.

Jinko Solar Co., one of the world’s largest solar module manufacturers, said two of its plants in Sichuan have been affected by the power shortage, and said it was unclear when the units could return to full capacity. At least two polysilicon plants — run by GCL Technology Holdings Co. and Tongwei Co. — face production interruptions, the China Silicon Industry Association said last week. 

Rice

The six areas suffering drought — Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Henan, Jiangxi and Anhui — accounted for almost half of China’s rice output in 2021, Goldman wrote in a note. China’s agriculture ministry said over the weekend that high temperatures and unusually low rains since July have posed “a severe challenge” to fall grain production.

The ministry has asked local authorities to strengthen capital and resources investment to combat the drought, and properly allocate drought-resistant equipment and seeds. In Henan province, more than 15 million mu (1 million hectares) of crops have been affected, according to a CCTV report. 

Diesel

There’s also a demand boost for some sectors. Diesel purchasing is on the rise in Sichuan as industries seek alternative fuels. Local suppliers of diesel generators have already sold out after electricity rationing spurred some business owners to find alternative power supplies, industry consultant OilChem said in an online note. Some industrial users were loading diesel into barrels from retail stations, and demand has risen by up to 6%, it said.

The ongoing drought and power curtailments across a large swath of southern China compound economic woes for an economy already decelerating at an alarming pace, forcing the country’s central bank to cut its key interest rates last week. 

Capital Economics believes more policy support is ahead, yet “it will probably be too late too little to prevent output from stagnating this year.” 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

The Los Angeles Public Health Department is facing growing criticism over its decision to offer free COVID-19 testing for animals, despite there being no positive cases reported among animals in the area.

LA Public Health announced the initiative on Aug. 20 and said it has received funding from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor COVID-19 in animals in Los Angeles County.

“This project will help us to learn more about COVID-19 from a One Health perspective, meaning that we can learn more about the significance of COVID-19 in human, animal, and environmental relationships,” the public health body said.

“Some of the funds will support local testing of animals for SARS-CoV-2. We will partner with and offer free testing to various animal care facilities and agencies throughout LA County. Our goal is to test many different species of animals including wildlife (deer, bats, raccoons), pets (dogs, cats, hamsters, pocket pets), marine mammals (seals), and more,” LA Public Health stated.

The department noted that pet owners may be eligible to get their furry friends tested if they were exposed to a human or animal with COVID-19 or has symptoms of COVID-19.

The tests are also eligible for “pocket pets” such as “fancy mice/rats, hamsters, hedgehogs” and more that have contact with people, even if none of those people have tested positive for COVID-19 recently.

Out of the 177 animals that have been tested in Los Angeles County so far, including dogs, cats, bats, raccoons, skunks, rats, and sea lions, none have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Aug. 18.

The new program has been heavily criticized on social media, with one Twitter user complaining about taxpayer funds being “frivolously spent,” while another stated that free testing “means your tax dollars.”

“How many ways can they waste money?” one individual wrote of LA Public Health, while another joked that unicorns would be the next animals to be tested by the health body.

Elsewhere, another Twitter user who claimed to work in veterinary medicine said she knew “nothing about this [expletive] …animals don’t get Covid-19.”

According to the CDC, “there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to people,” although there have been a limited number of reports of the virus being spread to people from infected mammalian animals during close contact. The public health agency noted that this is rare, though.

The agency advised that people with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 should avoid contact with animals, including pets, livestock, and wildlife, pointing to documented cases of animals becoming infected with the virus after contact with people with COVID-19.

“We don’t yet know all of the animals that can get infected,” the CDC noted.

“There is a possibility that the virus could infect animals, mutate, and a new strain could spread back to people and then among people (called spillback),” the agency added.

“More studies and surveillance are needed to track variants and mutations and to understand how SARS-CoV-2 spreads between people and animals.”

According to a COVID-19 data tracking dashboard for cases in animals set up by the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society, there have been 717 “SARS-CoV-2 animal events” around the world since February 2020.

An “event” is considered by the university and society as “when one single case or several epidemiologically related cases were identified by the presence of viral RNA (proof of infection) and/or antibodies (proof of exposure) in an animal.”

Russia plans to raise the assassination of Darya Dugina at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) emergency meeting set for Tuesday. The session is expected to focus on the ongoing crisis and standoff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which has come under fresh shelling that damaged transformers at the site, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia. There’s growing alarm of a ‘Chernobyl-like’ catastrophic event. 

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, confirmed that Russia is seeking the UNSC emergency session, but said Russia will also highlight and condemn this latest in a series of “Ukrainian provocations” targeting civilians on Russian territory – after on Monday the FSB (Federal Security Service) claimed to have identified a Ukrainian operative behind the Dugin car bombing.

“We requested an urgent meeting on Zaporozhye, where Ukrainian provocations do not stop. Of course, we will talk about this episode [the murder of Daria Dugina],” Nebenzia said, as cited in Russian media sources. “This demonstrates the nature of the Ukrainian state, because the connection between their saboteurs and this murder is obvious, which, in fact, has already been disclosed by the FSB.”

Interestingly, US mainstream media pundits are already widely amplifying a theory that says Dugina’s killing was essentially an “inside job”. But it remains that there’s little in the way of hard proof for any of the currently competing claims and counterclaims:

FRANCE 24’s Russia correspondent Nick Holdsworth examines the FSB’s claim that the attack on Darya Dugina was carried out by a Ukrainian woman identified as Natalia Vovk.

“The FSB hasn’t presented any physical proof,” of its claims, explains Holdsworth. “This is an unusually quick result.”

Addressing Russian claims that the Ukrainian secret services were responsible for the car bombing,  Holdsworth says the attack “doesn’t really carry the modus operandi of Ukrainian special services”, noting that the Ukrainians are concentrating on cutting Russian supply lines in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

As for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the situation remains highly dangerous. Starting two days ago, President Putin signaled support for a UN-IAEA team to be dispatched to inspect the complex at a moment both warring sides have blamed the other for strikes on the plan.

Yet, so far no concrete action has been taken, though likely there are ongoing negotiations between Russia and the UN monitoring organization. Some 500 Russian troops have occupied it since March.

FSB claims they’ve solved the assassination of Darya Dugina, here’s what they’re saying: pic.twitter.com/iM6LPPQ1Ut

— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) August 22, 2022

The White House in unison with Western allies have since Sunday called on–

…“the need to avoid military operations near the plant” and the importance of a visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “as soon as feasible to ascertain the state of safety systems.”

We can expect full fireworks of hardline accusations to fly at Tuesday’s UNSC emergency session, also with stepped up Ukrainian attacks on Crimea looming large in the background, as well as the ongoing huge US-supplied arms flow into the conflict. But there are high hopes that sending an IAEA team to Zaporizhzhia could materialize as a result of the UNSC emergency session. 

Further, a Monday evening report in Reuters cites US intelligence alleging that Russia is preparing major strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure in the “coming days”.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Just a small number of Americans believe that the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will help lower inflation across the country, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov.

The survey was conducted Aug. 13–16, 2022, among 1,500 U.S. citizens age 18 and over and has a margin error of 2.9 percentage points adjusted for weighting 3 percentage points for registered voters.

The survey asked respondents whether they believe the $369 billion earmarked for climate and energy expenditures in the bill will increase or decrease inflation. Only 13 percent said they believe it will decrease inflation, and 26 percent said they are not sure.

A total of 38 percent of respondents said they believe it will increase inflation, while 22 percent said they think it will have no impact. In July, the annual inflation rate was at 8.5 percent.

Among Democrats, 23 percent said they believe it will decrease inflation, with 8 percent of Republicans in agreement.

Most Republicans, 68 percent, said the bill will increase inflation, along with 40 percent of independents and 17 percent of Democrats.

President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law on Aug. 16. Effectively a slimmed-down version of Biden’s $2.2 trillion “Build Back Better” bill, Democratic lawmakers claim it will help lower health care and energy costs for millions of Americans.

Cost of Living Could Get Worse

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the bill will save working families an average of $1,000 a year in lower energy bills, while reducing the government’s budget deficit by $300 billion over the next decade.

Despite those promises, 41 percent of those polled by The Economist/YouGov said that they believe inflation will be at a higher rate within six months, while 23 percent said they believe inflation will be at the same rate.

Inflation is now costing U.S. households an extra $717 a month, according to a new analysis from the Joint Economic Committee Republicans.

A previous poll by The Economist/YouGov found that 95 percent of Americans said they’re being affected by the soaring cost of living, which has led to higher costs for everything from food to gas.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded in early August (pdf) that enacting the IRA would have a “negligible” impact on inflation in 2022, while in 2023, inflation would likely either increase or decrease by just 0.1 percentage points.

Experts have also warned that the IRA could worsen the situation for Americans, who could end up forking out even more for electricity and gasoline thanks to a number of taxes in the bill that could ultimately be passed on to consumers.

Fears are also mounting that the bill, which grants nearly $80 billion in funding to the Internal Revenue Service, including $45.6 billion for “enforcement,” may see the agency go after middle-income Americans and small businesses with increased scrutiny and audits. The Democrats have vehemently denied this.

An analysis by the CBO found that audits of taxpayers making under $400,000 annually will account for about $20 billion in revenue for the IRA, Fox Business reported.

The Biden administration has declared that the bill, which was not supported by any Republicans in the House or Senate, is a “win for the American people.”

One thing about leftist culture that never ceases to amaze is their ability to take a failure and pretend that it was actually a success.  This attitude is perhaps an extension of their penchant for propaganda – They lie so much about everything that they end up falling victim to their own disinformation.  They tell their enemies they are winning even when they are losing, and then they actually start to believe it themselves.  

It’s a bit like the old rule for drug dealers – Everything falls apart when you start smoking the drugs you sell.  

For CNN and outlets like them, the problem is that you can’t run from reality forever.  If no one wants to watch your content then you can’t force them to do so.  Leftists wish they could use force, but they can’t, so instead they try to use gaslighting and shame.  This has translated into the typical tactics we see today from the media, which include race baiting and accusations of bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, fascism, etc.  These tactics really took center stage from 2016 onward and they haven’t worked yet, but the political left continues to beat that dead horse in the hopes that it will one day win the Kentucky Derby.

They NEED regular consumers to watch their content, but they look down their noses at regular consumers and see them as untouchable peasants.  So, they don’t make content for the peasant, they make content for themselves and their friends.  This is not a recipe for a successful media network.

In a recent article on the CNN issue, Vox (a far-left outlet) remarked on Brian Stelter being fired and his show being shut down even though he still had three more years on a six-figure contract.   David Zaslav, an executive from Discovery,  has taken oversight of Warner Brothers and its properties and has been making extensive cuts to save money and streamline the bloated company.  Vox’s position really illustrates the deeper problem within leftist media:

“Stelter, who reportedly made close to $1 million a year, was an easy cut: His show, along with his daily media newsletter, was a big deal in media circles…but not a huge draw for normals.”

By using the term “normals” one might conclude that Vox sees themselves and and other journalists as “extraordinary” when compared to the rest of us.  Or, maybe they are just “abnormal” – It’s hard to say.  The statement is possibly a mistaken admission of how leftist journalists truly view the world, and their view is stunted.  They see their work as vital to the masses because their PEERS and Twitter buddies see it as vital to the masses.  But mainstream journalists are too far detached from the world and reality to make objective judgment calls.  They see themselves as the saviors of humanity, but no one else sees them that way.  

The audience numbers talk.  The money talks.  It doesn’t matter how important you think you are – You don’t own the audience, the audience owns you.  

CNN has been a consistent loser in terms of audience numbers and ratings; their ratings have plummeted while their profits continue to slump over the past few years.   The CNN+ project was supposed to draw in millions of viewers but only generated 150,000 subscribers, and of those subscribers only 10,000 were regular watchers. 

In other words, CNN+ would have been crushed by average YouTuber numbers and their projections for at least 29 million “super fans” were absolutely incompetent.  This is why the project was shut down within weeks by David Zaslav – It was an embarrassment from the start, built on inflated delusions of grandeur.  

And what is CNN really built on?  What has been the company’s foundation for years?  It’s only product has been anti-conservative agit-prop.  That’s it.  That’s all they have.  This might work financially if the extreme left was as prevalent as they pretend, but if we look at the numbers and the cash flow, they are actually a tiny portion of the population puffed up and screaming as loud as they can to appear big and formidable.  CNN is failing because there is an unsustainable audience for their product.

Warner Bros. Discovery board member and media mogul John Malone stated in an interview with CNBC that he “would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”  CNN was always leftist, but it’s true that the social justice cultism was not all that present until the past five years.  The problem is, they see the new cultism as integral to their model and more important than making money or keeping an audience, or even being objective.

Brian Stelter wrote in his newsletter about Malone’s potential influence and examined it on his show. He said that Malone’s comments had “stoked fears that Discovery might stifle CNN journalists and steer away from calling out indecency and injustice.” In other words, Stelter believes that CNN’s mission is righteous, therefore their inability to bring in audiences and profits should be ignored.  But what is “indecency” to Brian Stelter?  What is “injustice” to the political left? 

Is the truth indecent?  Because there have been many times when the leftist media has attacked people for telling the truth (see CNN’s treatment of Joe Rogan’s position on covid).  Do they really want “justice,” or do they want special treatment and extra privileges while pretending to be victims?  Do they want to be treated as successful even when they are failures?  

A large number of Americans see this type of framework for media as fraudulent and agenda driven, and so we don’t watch CNN and platforms like them.  In their political zealotry they forgot to take into account the fact that elitism is isolating unless you have force to back it.  The only way most people would watch CNN is if there was a gun pointed at their heads, and even then some people would still refuse.  This is not the trademark of meaningful journalism, it is the trademark of a heavy-handed propaganda machine. 

Via Arron Maté’s Substack,

For my money, the early beneficiary of the FBI’s espionage investigation of Donald Trump is Donald Trump.

According to the Washington Post, “Trump has told advisers that in the nearly two years since leaving office, no issue had better galvanized Republican voters around him.”

A Politico poll of Republican voters in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago raid gave Trump a 10-point boost over his closest possible primary rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s ensuing fundraising campaign has done even better, quickly topping $1 million on at least two days, a jump of at least 700%.

Over the long run, it is difficult to form a conclusive judgment on Trump’s potential culpability in the absence of any confirmed detail about both the contents of the documents that Trump allegedly mishandled, and the evidence to support the Justice Department’s suspicions. But if the last six years of routine Trump standoffs with the national security state are any guide, the walls are nowhere closer to closing in.

Whatever your views on Trump, it is undeniable that the permanent military-intelligence bureaucracy in Washington does not see him as one of their own, and has gone to extraordinary lengths to target him when it sees fit. It is also undeniable that the national security state’s spats with Trump have distracted the public from vital issues that impact working people’s lives and the future of the planet. This includes, I have long argued, Trump’s most harmful policies as president, which were routinely overshadowed and even exacerbated by his standoffs with the “deep state.”  

Accordingly, it is reasonable to expect that this latest “scandal” over the potential mishandling of classified documents will continue the trend that has defined the Trump era: an intra-elite, symbiotic feud that simultaneous boosts Trump among his base, and the national security state among his foes.

Pundits and politicians are resoundingly confident that the FBI must have the goods on Trump to have taken the unprecedented step of searching the former president’s home. This argument can only be made by ignoring that the FBI and other intelligence agencies took far more unprecedented and consequential actions against Trump when he was president, on grounds that were not only baseless, but fraudulent.

The FBI investigated Trump as a suspected Russian conspirator and asset – and not just once, but twice: first as a presidential candidate, and then months after he took office.

To undertake this, they relied on the Hillary Clinton-funded Steele dossier’s conspiracy theories as source material; repeatedly lied to a FISA court; and, despite the full knowledge that they had come up empty, prolonged their investigation with media leaks and court filings that falsely suggested that a collusion “smoking gun” was within reach.

Russiagate apologists like to argue that the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier was an aberration that does not taint the whole enterprise. In fact, there are ample grounds to believe that Steele’s fabrications played an even greater role than the FBI has acknowledged – including, as I have detailed, possibly triggering the Russia investigation to begin with. But even taking the FBI’s official predicate at face value, the probe was baseless from start to finish.

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