Month: March 2023

Authored by Chris Hedges via ScheerPost.com,

The media caters to a particular demographic, telling that demographic what it already believes – even when it is unverified or false. This pandering defines the coverage of the Trump-Russia saga…

Reporters make mistakes. It is the nature of the trade. There are always a few stories we wish were reported more carefully. Writing on deadline with often only a few hours before publication is an imperfect art. But when mistakes occur, they must be acknowledged and publicized. To cover them up, to pretend they did not happen, destroys our credibility. Once this credibility is gone, the press becomes nothing more than an echo chamber for a selected demographic. This, unfortunately, is the model that now defines the commerical media.

The failure to report accurately on the Trump-Russia saga for the four years of the Trump presidency is bad enough.

What is worse, major media organizations, which produced thousands of stories and reports that were false, refuse to engage in a serious postmortem. The systematic failure was so egregious and widespread that it casts a very troubling shadow over the press. How do CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times and Mother Jones admit that for four years they reported salacious, unverified gossip as fact? How do they level with viewers and readers that the most basic rules of journalism were ignored to participate in a witch hunt, a virulent New McCarthyism? How do they explain to the public that their hatred for Trump led them to accuse him, for years, of activities and crimes he did not commit? How do they justify their current lack of transparency and dishonesty? It is not a pretty confession, which is why it won’t happen. The U.S. media has the lowest credibility — 26 percent — among 46 nations, according to a 2022 report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. And with good reason.

The commercial model of journalism has changed from when I began working as a reporter, covering conflicts in Central America in the early 1980s. In those days, there were a few large media outlets that sought to reach a broad public. I do not want to romanticize the old press. Those who reported stories that challenged the dominant narrative were targets, not only of the U.S. government but also of the hierarchies within news organizations such as The New York Times. Ray Bonner, for example, was reprimanded by the editors at The New York Times when he exposed egregious human rights violations committed by the El Salvadoran government, which the Reagan administration funded and armed. He quit shortly after being transferred to a dead-end job at the financial desk. Sydney Schanberg won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Cambodia on the Khmer Rouge, which was the basis for the film “The Killing Fields.” He was subsequently appointed metropolitan editor at The New York Times where he assigned reporters to cover the homeless, the poor and those being driven from their homes and apartments by Manhattan real estate developers. The paper’s Executive Editor, Abe Rosenthal, Schanberg told me, derisively referred to him as his “resident commie.” He terminated Schanberg’s twice-weekly column and forced him out. I saw my career at the paper end when I publicly criticized the invasion of Iraq. The career-killing campaigns against those who reported controversial stories or expressed controversial opinions was not lost on other reporters and editors who, to protect themselves, practiced self-censorship.

But the old media, because it sought to reach a broad public, reported on events and issues that did not please all of its readers. It left a lot out, to be sure. It gave too much credibility to officialdom, but, as Schanberg told me, the old model of news arguably kept “the swamp from getting any deeper, from rising higher.”

The advent of digital media and the compartmentalizing of the public into antagonistic demographics has destroyed the traditional model of commercial journalism. Devastated by a loss of advertising revenue and a steep decline in viewers and readers, the commercial media has a vested interest in catering to those who remain. The approximately three and a half million digital news subscribers The New York Times gained during the Trump presidency were, internal surveys found, overwhelmingly anti-Trump. A feedback loop began where the paper fed its digital subscribers what they wanted to hear. Digital subscribers, it turns out, are also very thin-skinned. 

“If the paper reported something that could be interpreted as supportive of Trump or not sufficiently critical of Trump,” Jeff Gerth, an investigative journalist who spent many years at The New York Times recently told me, they would sometimes “drop their subscription or go on social media and complain about it.” 

Giving subscribers what they want makes commercial sense. However, it is not journalism.

News organizations, whose future is digital, have at the same time filled newsrooms with those who are tech-savvy and able to attract followers on social media, even if they lack reportorial skills. Margaret Coker, the bureau chief for The New York Times in Baghdad, was fired by the newspaper’s editors in 2018, after management claimed she was responsible for its star terrorism reporter, Rukmini Callimachi, being barred from re-entering Iraq, a charge Coker consistently denied. It was well known, however, by many at the paper, that Coker filed a number of complaints about Callimachi’s work and considered Callimachi to be untrustworthy. The paper would later have to retract a highly acclaimed 12-part podcast, “Caliphate,” hosted by Callimachi in 2018, because it was based on the testimony of an imposter. “‘Caliphate’ represents the modern New York Times,” Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor,said in announcing the launch of the podcast. The statement proved true, although in a way Dolnick probably did not anticipate.

Gerth, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who worked at The New York Times from 1976 until 2005, spent the last two years writing an exhaustive look at the systemic failure of the press during the Trump-Russia story, authoring a four-part series of 24,000 words that has been published by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is an important, if depressing, read. News organizations repeatedly seized on any story, he documents, no matter how unverified, to discredit Trump and routinely ignored reports that cast doubt on the rumors they presented as fact. You can see my interview with Gerth here.

The New York Times, for example, in January 2018, ignored a publicly available document showing that the FBI’s lead investigator, after a ten month inquiry, did not find evidence of collusion between Trump and Moscow. The lie of omission was combined with reliance on sources that peddled fictions designed to cater to Trump-haters, as well as a failure to interview those being accused of collaborating with Russia.

The Washington Post and NPR reported, incorrectly, that Trump had weakened the GOP’s stance on Ukraine in the party platform because he opposed language calling for arming Ukraine with so-called “lethal defensive weapons” — a position identicalto that of his predecessor President Barack Obama. These outlets ignored the platform’s support for sanctions against Russia as well its call for “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning.” News organizations amplified this charge. In a New York Times column that called Trump the “Siberian candidate,” Paul Krugman wrote that the platform was “watered down to blandness” by the Republican president. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, described Trump as a “de facto agent” of Vladimir Putin. Those who tried to call out this shoddy reporting, including Russian-American journalist and Putin critic Masha Gessen were ignored.

After Trump’s first meeting as president with Putin, he was attacked as if the meeting itself proved he was a Russian stooge. Then New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote of the “disgusting spectacle of the American president kowtowing in Helsinki to Vladimir Putin.” Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s most popular host, said that the meeting between Trump and Putin validated her covering the Trump-Russia allegations “more than anyone else in the national press” and strongly implied — and her show’s Twitteraccount and YouTube page explicitly stated — that Americans were now “coming to grips with a worst-case scenario that the U.S. president is compromised by a hostile foreign power.” 

The anti-Trump reporting, Gerth notes, hid behind the wall of anonymous sources, frequently identified as “people (or person) familiar with” — The New York Times used it over a thousand times in stories involving Trump and Russia, between October 2016 and the end of his presidency, Gerth found. Any rumor or smear was picked up in the news cycle with the sources often unidentified and the information unverified.

A routine soon took shape in the Trump-Russia saga.

“First, a federal agency like the CIA or FBI secretly briefs Congress,” Gerth writes.

“Then Democrats or Republicans selectively leak snippets. Finally, the story comes out, using vague attribution.”

These cherry-picked pieces of information largely distorted the conclusions of the briefings. 

The reports that Trump was a Russian asset began with the so-called Steele dossier, financed at first by Republican opponents of Trump and later by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The charges in the dossier — which included reports of Trump receiving a “golden shower” from prostituted women in a Moscow hotel room and claims that Trump and the Kremlin had ties going back five years — were discredited by the FBI.

“Bob Woodward, appearing on Fox News, called the dossier a ‘garbage document’ that ‘never should have’ been part of an intelligence briefing,” Gerth writes in his report.

“He later told me that the Post wasn’t interested in his harsh criticism of the dossier. After his remarks on Fox, Woodward said he ‘reached out to people who covered this’ at the paper, identifying them only generically as ‘reporters,’ to explain why he was so critical. Asked how they reacted, Woodward said: ‘To be honest, there was a lack of curiosity on the part of the people at the Post about what I had said, why I said this, and I accepted that and I didn’t force it on anyone.’”

Other reporters who exposed the fabrications — Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone and Aaron Mate at The Nation — ran afoul of their news organizations and now work as independent journalists.

The New York Times and The Washington Post shared Pulitzer Prizes in 2019 for their reporting on “Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connection to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”

The silence by news organizations that for years perpetuated this fraud is ominous. It cements into place a new media model, one without credibility or accountability. The handful of reporters who have responded to Gerth’s investigative piece, such as David Corn at Mother Jones, have doubled down on the old lies, as if the mountain of evidence discrediting their reporting, most of it coming from the FBI and the Mueller Report, does not exist. 

Once fact becomes interchangeable with opinion, once truth is irrelevant, once people are told only what they wish to hear, journalism ceases to be journalism and becomes propaganda.

*  *  *

NOTE TO READERS FROM CHRIS HEDGES: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my now weekly Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, The Chris Hedges Report.

Increased military interactions with the US, including ramped-up American naval sail-throughs and flyovers of the contested Taiwan Strait, appear to have hastened Beijing’s timeline for Taiwan “reunification”. 

A top Chinese lawmaker and adviser, National People’s Congress deputy Li Yihu, announced this week, “The [Communist] Party’s overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan issue in the new era has basically taken shape, and the strategic goals and focus of the future reunification cause have also become very clear.”

He specified the process will be sped up, saying ahead of the annual National People’s Congress meeting which kicks off March 5 that “The mainland will promote national reunification on a fast development track.”

Notably this also comes after then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ultra-provocative visit to the self-ruled island in August, and further after multiple weapons packages have been announced by the Biden administration. Current Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is also said to be planning a Taiwan visit in the near future.

Li Yihu specifically cited an “extraordinary” year for tensions in the region, as well as heightening global events and rivalries:

A series of new policies, including on Taiwan, are expected to be unveiled during the gathering, along with the defense budget and a government reshuffle. Comments made by NPC deputies such as Li can provide some insight into Beijing’s policymaking, which remains largely secretive.

In the interview, Li – who is also dean of the Taiwan Research Institute at Peking University – said 2022 was an “extraordinary” year for cross-strait ties and that its major events would “have a certain impact on the future direction” of the relationship.

Without doubt he also had in mind the Russia-Ukraine war, and the comparisons which some US officials as well has pundits have increasingly made between the Ukraine and Taiwan situations.

Beijing has consistently rejected such comparisons, stressing that Taiwan is under Chinese sovereignty, also finding the idea that the situations are parallel to be an offensive.

It may have “become very clear” to Li Yihu what the plan is, but this scmp article doesn’t provide any information at all about what it might be https://t.co/gbAMv5m5CF

— Joel Atkinson 舟綽 (@Joel_P_Atkinson) March 1, 2023

President Xi Jinping and his officials have long emphasized a Chinese plan of peaceful unification via political processes, also as the mainland has deep involvement with opposition movements and parties in Taipei. But it’s unclear whether Washington’s pushing past “red lines” have changed the calculus. Certainly we are witnessing the beginnings of a more assertive and aggressive Chinese posture vis-a-vis the Taiwan question.

By Howard Wang of Convoy Investments

I anticipate that inflation will gradually decrease over the next year and a half to an equilibrium rate of approximately 3%. This path will be bumpy, with month-to-month fluctuations. We believe that the markets continue to expect inflation to decrease more quickly than it will. Below I show the actual inflation rate vs the market’s expectation of future inflation over the next 5 years. This mispricing of inflation expectations mean that inflation-linked bond remains an attractive asset class for us.

The primary driver of inflation is money supply. After the 2020/21 printing spree, during which the Fed was calling for transitory inflation despite all signs pointing to inflation, we saw a delayed effect of approximately a year or so. I believe there is now a similarly delayed but inevitable disinflationary process as most inflationary factors are eliminated. We are now facing high-interest rates, falling stock markets, low savings rates, slowing housing markets, decreasing money supply, lower fiscal spending.

Commodity inflation is now significantly lower than service inflation. So the primary question this year is what happens to the labor market.

I believe services inflation is partly caused by a misallocation of labor in our society, which has been building up for many years due to an education bubble. This effect was amplified by Covid. There are simply too many people who have college degrees and too few jobs that require them. As a result, we are seeing layoffs in certain sectors like tech and finance while other blue-collar service sectors are still struggling to find enough workers. This issue will take some time and some pain to resolve as the money supply falls and the overall economy slows down. For now, the labor market continues to be tight. Below, I show our labor cost pressure gauge, which indicates some progress, but there is still a long way to go.

While many people think high payroll numbers are inflationary, I believe they are a sign of disinflation because it means that more people are returning to the labor pool. Below I show the civilian participation rate in the US, which is steadily rising but still substantially below Covid levels.

In terms of consumer financial health, we are getting close to pre-Covid levels. Below, I show the household financial obligations as a percentage of income. This metric dropped significantly during Covid and has been rising fairly rapidly since then, as high inflation and high finance costs are pressuring consumers from all sides.

The shortage of manual labor will create a crop of companies that can use AI/tech or clever labor management/ outsourcing to provide cheaper labor. These are opportunities that we will keep an eye on.

In 2023, we can expect volatility with ups and downs on a month-to-month basis, but the market will remain relatively range-bound. The Fed needs to make a real effort to contain inflation, as uncontrolled inflation in a country with $31T in debt is a recipe for disaster. At the same time, they need to ensure that the markets and the economy do not crash too hard, and they need to make sure that inflation does not tank too much, which would make debt servicing even more challenging. As I mentioned in my last letter, the Fed has to walk a tight rope, and the markets will follow.

Therefore, I expect the markets to be volatile but sideways, with long rates remaining high and sideways, offering attractive yields if you can stand the volatility from the duration. Cash/Treasury bills will continue to be a strong performer as they offer excellent returns and safety.

The longer the markets remain sideways while inflation is high, the more time inflation has to eat away at its real valuation. Over time, I expect the stock market to grow at a rate of something like real GDP + inflation + 3-4%, which currently translates to about 10% nominal returns a year. For example, below is a chart showing the S&P 500 nominal price versus where the S&P500 should be based on the economy. While the price is -16% below its peak, on a growth/inflation-adjusted basis, it has already seen a -26% adjustment. If inflation remains high and markets remain sideways, we may not need to see a drastic drop in prices for the valuation adjustment to happen.

The traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio will continue to face challenges. The 60/40 portfolio is based on the idea that stocks generate returns while bonds provide protection during recessions, so they are negatively correlated and diversify each other. While this thesis worked in the two decades before 2022, it does not hold true if the recession is caused by inflation, as in those scenarios, both bonds and stocks drop. Looking back to the 70s and 80s, we find that stocks and bonds were positively correlated. Below, I show a loose relationship between how stocks and bonds correlate with each other over time and the inflationary environment. While bonds now provide relatively attractive long-term yields, it will struggle to diversify against short-term drops in the stock market. Investors may need to have an explicit allocation to real assets as an inflation hedge.

Ford Motor Company filed a US patent application that shows autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles could potentially repossess themselves if their owners miss lease or loan payments.

The idea of self-driving cars repossessing themselves might sound dystopian, but it is not surprising that automakers are considering this technology to ensure payment. Repossession is a common practice, and as we’ve described recently, cracks are beginning to form in the subprime auto loan market (read: here & here). 

While this patent application was first filed in Aug. 2021 and formally published on Feb. 23, it could be years before Ford implements such a technology. 

The patent, titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle,” explains how a future lineup of Ford vehicles would be capable of “[disabling] a functionality of one or more components of the vehicle.”

If a driver misses a car payment, the vehicle will disable air conditioning, radio, GPS, and cruise control to irritate the driver.  

If the owner misses more payments, the repossession cycle will worsen. The car would emit an “incessant and unpleasant sound.” Worse, the vehicle might lock out the driver on certain days until payments are made. 

And still, if the lockout doesn’t work and payments are missed, the vehicle could drive to a safe, nearby location for a repo team to seize it and avoid confrontation with the owner. 

It is worth noting that filing a patent application does not necessarily mean the technology will be implemented, but the takeaway is a glimpse of the dystopic future. 

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Never is a very, very long time in politics. Yet whenever the topic of secession or so-called national divorce comes up, how often do we hear that “secession will never happen.” It’s difficult to tell if people using the term “never” actually mean it. If they mean “not in the next ten or twenty years,” that’s plausible. But if they truly mean “not in the next 100 (or more) years,” it’s clear they’re working on the level of absolutely pure, unfounded speculation. Such statements reflect little more than personal hopes and dreams.

Experience is clear that the state of most polities often changes enormously in the span of a few decades. Imagine Russia in 1900 versus Russia in 1920. Or perhaps China in 1930 versus China in 1950. If someone had told the Austrian emperor in 1850 that his empire would be completely dismembered by 1919, he probably would have refused to believe it. Few British subjects in 1945 expected the empire to be all but gone by 1970. In the 1970s, the long-term survival of the Soviet Union appeared to be a fait accompli. For a visual sense of this, simply compare world maps from 1900 and 1950. In less than the span of a human lifetime, the political map of the world often changes so as to be unrecognizable.

Yet there are always those who are quite comfortable with the status quo and who tell themselves it will continue indefinitely. Many find comfort in the hope that their favorite national regime will be a thousand-year reich, living on indefinitely into the rosy future of “progress.” Claims to political immortality are also frequently important as rallying cries in support of the state. As French Marxist philosopher Régis Debray noted, the idea that “France is eternal” may be empirically untrue, but the sentiment nonetheless serves to motivate the French soldier or French nationalist to preserve his regime.

Meanwhile, the opposite impulse, a recognition of the regime’s mortality is seen by many as a kind of heresy against the national political idols. It may be obviously true, but to say it out loud is “treason.” The cry of “traitor,” of course, has long been the go-to strategy for those with an emotional attachment to the regime. Like many heresies before it, this one must not go unpunished. Thus, “traitor” was the cry of the French republican who thought it better to butcher women and children in the Vendée rather than allow that portion of France to be independent. It was the cry of the Turkish imperialist who carried out a genocide against Armenian separatists.

The reality is that the current shape of any regime is more tenuous than many hope. The debate is not whether the US regime will fundamentally change in size and nature. The question is when and in what way. Those who are willing to examine the possibility of gradually unwinding state power peacefully through decentralization—rather than letting internal national conflicts explode into violence and revolution eventually—display a far better grasp of political history than the knee-jerk unionists.

The emotional nature of this opposition to secession can be seen in the fact that the opposition grants no middle ground in the debate. The only allowable options are the status quo or war.

Options for the “middle ground” include a confederation built on a consensus model in the style of the old Dutch Republic. There is the model of the very loose confederation in the style of the old Swiss confederation. There is the option of a customs union with voluntary membership, such as the European Union. There is the option of a mutual defense compact among independent polities, as we find in a multitude of defense leagues. None of these options require a state that imposes nationwide regulation and taxation in the manner of the enormous administrative state that we have today.

Yet most of those who oppose secession also oppose all of these options. We don’t hear, “Well, secession is too far, so let’s move toward a much more decentralized model.” Why do we never get this olive branch from the centralizers? Because their opposition to secession is more about supporting the status quo. They want a national government to impose nationwide policy in a way that reflects the national ruling class’s values. It’s the colonialist mindset all over again: “Oh, we can’t let those people in state X set their own rules for elections/abortion/trade. Those people are too unenlightened/racist/stupid to be allowed local autonomy.”

This intransigence can also be found in the way that the opposition often delights in the idea of using violence against potential separatists. Congressman Eric Swalwell, for instance, suggested the US government use nuclear weapons against internal separatists. And then there are those who make light of the idea of a second blood-soaked civil war. Indeed, the insistence on tying twenty-first-century decentralization to a war in the mid-nineteenth century (160 years ago) implies that the unionist “solution” back then justifies the same solution now. Note the emphasis is always on the American Civil War and not on the many examples of peaceful secession movements: Iceland from Denmark, Norway from Sweden, Singapore from Malaysia, Malta from the British Empire, and the Baltic states from the Soviet Union (to name a few). Instead, the average American antisecessionist is apparently obsessed with making war against his own neighbors. 

I guess Marjorie Taylor Greene and the rest of Northern Georgia did not learn their lesson about secession the first time.

*SHERMAN INTENSIFYING* pic.twitter.com/ivz4NYEAVf

— Nunca Trumpismo (@NeverTrumpTexan) February 20, 2023

Of course, that sort of thing can only be carried out today if modern Americans are willing to die and kill—or have their children die and kill—in the name of “preserving the union.” How many are willing to do this? Hopefully not many. Those who are willing to do it can only be described as fanatics.

The presence of these proviolence antisecessionists does remind us of the continued danger of political union, however. Those who favor union may interpret mere discussions of disunity as a sign of the need for ever-greater federal control over the population. This is also the strategy preferred by states: tendencies toward disunion are countered by an ever-stronger and ever-more-unyielding state. The strategy is tried and true. This is how a fragmenting Roman Empire was preserved for another 150 years after a breakup seemed all but assured during the third century. The emperor turned the empire into a military dictatorship. The same method of imposing unity has been employed countless times across countless polities—and at great cost to human rights and self-determination. Yet not even Diocletian’s dictatorship could ultimately prevent the secession of the western regions of the empire. (Justinian’s later attempts at reunifying Italy with the empire failed as well, and only brought enormous and unnecessary death and destruction.) Secession and disintegration have always been inevitable for large diverse states. The Romans were not immune. The Americans are not immune.

The answer lies not in doubling down on political unity, maintained through endless violence or threats of violence. Rather, the answer lies in peaceful separation through expanded self-determination, regional autonomy, confederation, and consensus. The choice we now face is between a rearguard attempt at preserving political unity “forever” and facing the inevitable reality. On one side, there are the unionists with their devotion to the status quo and their colonialist mindset. On the other side are those who seek to temper the power of the central state and pursue local self-determination. The centralizers are on the wrong side and will ultimately be on the losing side as well.

Hunter Biden’s criminal defense attorney, Joshua Levy, has quit the ‘first son’s’ legal team amid an environment of “unease and dissent” among the 4-lawyer legal team.

Levy’s departure came after the addition of Abbe Lowell, who is also on Hunter’s team, and was hired in December to defend Hunter and the Biden family amid nine congressional probes which include wire fraud and money laundering.

Levy was hired to work on opposing congressional investigations looking into the complex web of Biden family dealings, the NY Times reports. 

Mr. Lowell’s addition led to the exit of another lawyer — Joshua A. Levy — who specializes in helping clients facing congressional inquiries.

President Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, had recommended Mr. Levy for the job. But Mr. Levy had clashed with Kevin Morris, a lawyer and close adviser to Hunter Biden who has lent him money to pay his back taxes and some other bills, according to a person familiar with the strategy. Mr. Morris and Hunter Biden brought on Mr. Lowell late last year, prompting Mr. Levy’s departure. -NY Times

According to the report, Levy was not pleased with Lowell’s legal strategies – such as bombarding Rudy Giuliani, former Biden associate-turned-whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, and 12 others with “litigation hold” demand letters in order to preserve records from the “laptop from hell” – a strategy seen by some critics as a desperate PR stunt to change the narrative in favor of the Bidens.

According to Mike Davis, founder and president of the pro-Trump Article III Project, the letters were a “desperate, frivolous, and laughable” effort that would end up damaging the Biden family position since the lawsuit will lead to discovery, including Hunter Biden’s on-camera deposition, Breitbart reports.

Lowell’s involvement in Hunter’s defense has not only forced the exit of Levy but has also triggered infighting with attorney Chris Clark, another high-profile attorney who leads Hunter’s criminal defense. Clark’s professional history includes working as a partner at the same Washington, DC, law firm where Rep. Liz Cheney’s husband works. The firm’s biography of Clark says he represents Hunter in the “grand jury investigation regarding tax issues.” -Breitbart

In December, NBC News reported that Lowell will be primarily responsible for coordinating Hunter Biden’s response to the anticipated congressional oversight investigations, as well as other legal issues.

The incoming House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said at a news conference in November that Hunter Biden and other Biden family members will be a major focus, specifically if the family’s business activities “compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.”  -NBC News

The White House in November accused Congressional Republicans of stoking long-debunked conspiracy theories” in regards to allegations from House lawmakers that President Biden was actively involved in overseas business dealings with his son Hunter.

“Instead of working with President Biden to address issues important to the American people, like lower costs, congressional Republicans’ top priority is to go after President Biden with politically-motivated attacks chock full of long-debunked conspiracy theories,” said White House Counsel office spokesman, Ian Sams.

Except, here’s former Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski explaining how the Biden family brought him in on a shady Chinese energy company deal.

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

Rapidly rising food, housing, medical, and tuition prices are squeezing Americans, and many do not understand the real cause of their falling living standards…

That confusion opens the door for opportunistic politicians who promise supposed freebies to ease the pain of inflation. Many, unfortunately, succumb to this siren’s call.

Perverse as it is, the policies offered to people suffering from inflation create even more inflation. In other words, inflation has a way of perpetuating itself, much like a heroin addiction.

We are already seeing cockamamie schemes in the US, like “inflation relief checks,” which attempt to solve the problems of inflation by creating more inflation.

The political-inflation cycle follows a clear pattern:

Step #1: In a fiat currency system, the government will inevitably print an ever-increasing amount of currency to finance itself.

Step #2: This makes prices and living costs rise faster than wages.

Step #3: The average person feels the pain but doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Step #4: More people support politicians who promise freebies to relieve the pain inflation causes.

Step #5: The government prints more currency to pay for the freebies.

Step #6: This creates even more inflation, and the cycle repeats.

At this point, we have to ask ourselves whether the political situation in the US will improve.

Unfortunately, the data points to a troubling but inevitable answer… “no.”

Reason #1… is simple: a growing majority of US voters receive government money.

When you count everyone who lives off political dollars instead of free-market dollars, we’re already well north of 50% of the US population.

In other words, the US has already crossed the Rubicon. There’s no going back.

The growing majority of voters who collect net benefits from the government is a built-in constituency to perpetuate policies financed by ever-increasing inflation. That’s why I think the US has entered an unstoppable inflation death spiral.

The notion that people living off government largesse and political dollars will come around to a libertarian way of thinking is a pipe dream.

In short, there is simply no hope for positive change from the political system. That means one thing is sure: an ever-increasing amount of inflation to pay for all these government programs.

For many decades, Argentina has infamously been trapped in a perpetual cycle of hyperinflation and socialism from which it cannot escape. And now, the US has entered that same inescapable cycle.

Reason #2: Central Planning Doesn’t Work

Although many don’t realize it, interest rates are simply the price of money.

And they are the most important prices in all of capitalism.

They have an enormous impact on banks, the real estate market, and the auto industry. It’s hard to think of a business that interest rates don’t affect in some meaningful way.

However, interest rates are controlled by a politburo of central planners at the Federal Reserve, not set by the market like any other price.

It’s bizarre that most people don’t understand the implications of this or thoughtlessly accept it as a “normal” part of a supposed free-market economy.

Further, it should be self-evident to everyone that economic central planning doesn’t work.

In Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the 5th plank calls for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

That is a perfect description of the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

In reality, the Fed is nothing more than a politburo of bureaucrats attempting to centrally plan the economy by tinkering with the money and interest rates—the most important prices in all of capitalism.

Even if we presume the Fed has benign intentions—which it doesn’t—central planning is impossible, and failure is inevitable.

That’s why the Fed is in a mission-impossible situation—much like it was impossible for the Soviets to centrally plan their economy.

Here’s the bottom line…

The Fed can’t save the day any more than the State Planning Committee of the USSR could.

Reason #3: Inflation Is the Only Way To Manage an Impossible Debt Load

The media, politicians, and financial analysts often flippantly use the word “trillion” without appreciating what it means.

A trillion is a massive, almost unfathomable number.

The human brain has trouble understanding something so huge. Let me put it into perspective.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take 11 days to make a million dollars.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take 31 and a half years to make a billion dollars.

And if you earned $1 per second, it would take 31,688 years to make a trillion dollars.

So that’s how enormous a trillion is.

When politicians carelessly spend and print money measured in the trillions, you are in dangerous territory.

It took until 1981 for the US government to rack up its first trillion in debt. The second trillion only took four years. After that, the next trillions came in increasingly shorter intervals.

Today, Congress has normalized multi-trillion dollar federal spending deficits.

The US federal debt has gone parabolic and is well over $31 trillion.

If you earned $1 per second, it would take over 995,000 YEARS to pay off the current US federal debt.

And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.

The US federal government has the largest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.

The debt will keep piling up as the US government continues to pay for political promises. It’s virtually inevitable.

Below is a chart of the Congressional Budget Office’s deficit projections for the next decade. These estimates will almost certainly be too rosy, as they often are.

Even by the CBO’s optimistic projections, the US government will have a cumulative deficit of over $15 trillion for the next ten years.

Historically, there has been a vast foreign appetite for US federal debt, but not anymore.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government has launched its most aggressive sanctions campaign ever.

As part of this, the US government seized the US dollar reserves of the Russian central bank—the accumulated savings of the nation.

It was a stunning illustration of the dollar’s political risk. The US government can seize another sovereign country’s dollar reserves at the flip of a switch.

The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock,” noted:

“Sanctions have shown that currency reserves accumulated by central banks can be taken away. With China taking note, this may reshape geopolitics, economic management and even the international role of the U.S. dollar.”

China is one of the largest holders of US Treasuries, and it indeed took note of what happened to Russia. It’s probably why Beijing cut its Treasury holdings to a 12-year low.

Even US allies, like Japan, have also cut their Treasury holdings.

There are numerous other examples. But it’s clear the world isn’t hungry for more US debt right now.

So, who is going to finance these incomprehensible budget shortfalls? The only entity capable is the Fed’s printing presses.

In other words, the government has no choice but to finance itself through legalized counterfeiting and debasing the currency.

Allow me to simplify this fraud in three steps.

Step #1: Congress spends trillions more than the federal government takes in from taxes.

Step #2: The Treasury issues debt to cover the difference.

Step #3: The Federal Reserve creates US dollars out of thin air to buy the debt.

It’s also crucial to note that inflation is a big bonus to debtors. It allows you to borrow in dollars and repay in dimes.

And since the US government is the biggest debtor in the history of the world, it is the single largest beneficiary of inflation.

The US government can only finance itself with the Fed’s printing presses. It is also incentivized to debase the currency as it attempts to deal with its impossible debt burden.

What Happens Next

When you put together the pieces, the big picture becomes clear.

I believe the US has entered an inflationary death spiral for three reasons:

Reason #1: A growing majority of voters who collect net benefits from the government is a built-in constituency to perpetuate policies financed by ever-increasing inflation.

Reason #2: Even if we presume the Fed has benign intentions—which it doesn’t—central planning is impossible, and failure is inevitable.

Reason #3: The US government cannot finance itself without the Fed’s printing presses. It is also incentivized to debase the currency as it attempts to deal with its impossible debt burden.

In short, it’s game over.

The US government is fast approaching the financial endgame.

They have no choice but to “reset” the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.

Think of it like this.

Imagine a spoiled child playing a board game, and rather than admit he is losing, he flips the board.

This is what governments will do now that they are financially checkmated. They can’t win, even in their own rigged game, and now they are left with the choice of losing power or flipping the board. Since power does not relinquish itself voluntarily, we should presume they’ll choose to flip the board.

I suspect it could all go down soon… and it won’t be pretty.

It could result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.

What exactly will the “reset” look like?

What can the average person do about it?

I just released an urgent PDF guide, “Survive and Thrive During the Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years.” Download this free report to discover the top 3 strategies you need to implement today to protect yourself and potentially come out ahead.

With the global economy in turmoil and the threat of a “Great Reset” looming, this guide is a must-read. Click here to download it now. 

After a catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, early last month, President Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, corporate media outlets, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Environmental Protection Agency, and some local officials have ensured air monitoring and water sample tests show everything is under control. 

But is it? Well, not according to the local newspaper Ohio Star. Reporter Hannah Poling said a confidential source told her that a wildlife biologist and consultant for the federal forestry received hundreds of reports over the last several days from forestry workers discovering “hundreds of dead animals in Ohio’s parks.” 

Several labs across the country have received specimens of whole minks, deer, elk, worms and livers of such animals, and they are finding toxicities that are off the charts, the source said. 

“These highly toxic levels are the exact chemicals that were released from East Palestine. Wayne National Forest and Shawnee State Forest in Ohio, are downriver from East Palestine and are two parks where samples are from,” the source continued. 

Meanwhile, the BBC reported: 

Nearly 45,000 animals have died as a result of a toxic train crash this month in an Ohio town, environmental officials have said.

 The figure from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources updates the initial estimate of 3,500 animals dead after the 3 February derailment.

The source also told the Ohio Star that Governor DeWine attempted to block scientists from entering state parks:

The governor and the railroad were blocking scientists from getting soil samples in East Palestine, but they were able to still grab some for testing. Likewise, the soils are highly contaminated,” the source said.

The source claims that the Ohio governor only uses his own hand-picked scientists to “give him the results he wants.”

“It is heartbreaking to me that politicians like DeWine make an issue like this political. It should not be. He should be doing all he can to protect people, animals and the environment and not just cover his own behind,” the source added.

There have been countless reports of health concerns by the residents of East Palestine and surrounding communities following the derailment of ten railcars carrying hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, that first responders eventually burned off. 

After the burn, “some residents say they have been diagnosed with bronchitis, lung issues, and rashes that doctors and nurses suspect are linked to the chemical exposure,” said Ohio Star. 

According to local TV station WKBN, residents have sent a list of demands for Norfolk Southern and the federal government, outlining the much-needed help their community deserves after a botched response. 

Below is the list of demands:

1. Relocation for anyone who wants it. Folks don’t feel safe and aren’t getting their questions answered. Anyone who wants to be relocated to hotels or safe housing should have the opportunity to do so, paid for by Norfolk Southern.
2. Independent environmental testing. The EPA must immediately begin and continue to test soil, water, and air, including for dioxins throughout the region, and commit to regular public meetings to explain findings. Norfolk Southern must pay for an independent scientist, hired by residents, to represent the community and participate in all technical meetings regarding testing, cleanup, and safety plans.  
3. Ongoing medical testing and monitoring: We still don’t know what the short and long-term health impacts of this disaster will be. Federal Health & Human Services must provide ongoing health monitoring to evaluate those in the impacted region, guarantee health coverage, and Norfolk Southern must cover the cost.
4. Dispose of the toxic waste safely: The EPA cannot take the solid waste from the derailment and dispose of it in the Heritage Thermal toxic incinerator, in nearby East Liverpool, that has already been polluting our communities for years. This will only further spread the contaminants. Norfolk Southern must stop destroying evidence – we need a safety plan before resuming cleanup from the derailment site.
5. Norfolk Southern pays 100% of the costs. Taxpayers shouldn’t foot this bill. Norfolk Southern made this mess, they should clean it up. The company must commit to paying 100% of the costs for testing, relocation, cleanup, medical monitoring and costs, and an independent science advisor.

The Biden administration’s lack of leadership and physical presence after the train derailment was a crucial mistake. What happened is that Biden’s opponents, such as former President Trump, seized on this opportunity for political points ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Trump met with local officials and residents last week. Some have said this is “Biden’s Katrina.” 

Authored by Julian Adorney via The Mises Institute,

A new movement is emerging on the left.

This movement sells guilt and self-flagellation and calls it antiracism. Its leaders present themselves as the absolute authority on race relations and claim that being a good white person means following their instructions. But when it comes to racism, “the elect” (to borrow Columbia University linguistics professor John McWhorter’s term for members of this movement) misdiagnose the problem and posit solutions that will make bigotry in the United States worse.

The commentators of the elect are myriad, but three books represent the face of the movement.

• The first is White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better, a New York Times bestseller by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao.

• The second is White Fragility, the bestseller by Robin DiAngelo that launched a movement.

• The third is lesser known but equally impactful. Is Everyone Really Equal? is a textbook for education graduate students in which DiAngelo and coauthor Özlem Sensoy lay out the intellectual underpinnings of this new movement.

The elect attempt to tackle bigotry, but their leaders assume we’re still stuck in the 1920s. Jackson is a black woman and Rao is a South Asian woman. They make a big deal of the fact that they’re willing to work together in spite of having different ethnicities. They call it an “incredibly radical act” that “can’t be overlooked.” The authors seem to think they live in a world where people of different skin colors all hate each other and that their personal willingness to bridge the gap is somehow transformative.

That’s a grim worldview, and luckily, it doesn’t match reality. In 2015, the Pew Research Center noted that 46 percent of newlywed US-born Asian Americans were in an interracial marriage and that 18 percent of African American newlyweds were married to someone of a different race. The plain fact is that lots of Americans are comfortable spending their lives with someone of a different racial background. What Jackson and Rao describe as “radical” is, for most of us, an ordinary fact of life.

It’s not just Jackson and Rao. DiAngelo sees racists everywhere. In White Fragility, she claims that all white people are racist. This is true, she stresses, even if you have a black spouse, have black children, or marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights in the 1960s. As she puts it, “Racism is unavoidable and . . . it is impossible to completely escape having developed problematic and racial assumptions and behaviors.” And if you think for whatever reason that you’re not racist, then you’re part of the group that “cause[s] the most daily damage to people of color.” God forbid we actually admit that people of different races can see each other as human beings.

In Is Everyone Really Equal? DiAngelo and Sensoy go even farther. They argue that different ethnic groups are locked in a bare-knuckle brawl for power. As an example, they note that children in wealthy schools often learn different things than children in poor schools, but they argue that children and parents in wealthy schools are actively maintaining this discrepancy.

“Because this system benefits the affluent child,” the authors claim, “she will be less invested in removing these barriers for others. In fact, she (and those who advocate for her) will most often resist removing these barriers.”

It’s true that people do advocate for their own interest, but DiAngelo and Sensoy go much farther. They posit a world of mustache-twirling villains who use their position on top to place a boot on the necks of the people on the bottom. DiAngelo and Sensoy seem blind to the possibility that people of different racial groups might have some empathy for each other, let alone friendship or love.

Fortunately, most of us don’t live in the hateful world that the authors imagine.

In the real world, members of different races do in fact care for each other, as shown by (for instance) the multitude of white people who advocate for criminal justice reform because they believe that doing so will help minorities in addition to creating a more just society.

To be clear, the United States does have real problems with racism and other forms of bigotry. Conservative commentator David French talks about how having a black daughter opened his eyes to the frequent racism of his fellow Americans. The American Jewish Committee reported that one in four Jewish Americans experienced anti-Semitism in the past year.

But it’s also important to note that we no longer live in 1920. According to Gallup, 94 percent of Americans approve of interracial marriage. According to an index created by the Anti-Defamation League (a nonprofit dedicated to measuring and combating anti-Semitism), 10 percent of Americans harbor anti-Semitic attitudes, whereas 24 percent of Western Europeans harbor the same. These numbers reflect a country that’s completely at odds with what DiAngelo, Jackson, Rao, and Sensoy seem to see.

Not only do the elect misdiagnose the problem, but their proposed solutions would exacerbate bigotry and racial tensions in the United States. None of these authors aspire to treat people of all races, genders, and ethnicities with equal dignity. Jackson and Rao say terrible things about white women.

In an interview with Forbes, they sneer at how white women react when they’re confronted by the authors. They call this reaction “the full white woman” and describe it as, “the Broadway musical, crying, eye-rolling, arms folded, just the whole thing.” In White Fragility, DiAngelo claims openly that all 204 million white Americans are racist and dismisses anyone who disagrees with her as suffering from “white fragility.”

Is Everyone Really Equal? is, if anything, even worse. Early in the book, DiAngelo and Sensoy critique the idea that “people should be judged by what they do, not the color of their skin.” They call this idea “predictable, simplistic, and misinformed.” For DiAngelo and Sensoy, the goal seems to be the opposite of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

For the elect, the goal is not a cosmopolitan society where everyone is seen as human first.

Rather, the goal seems to be a world where we are defined by our immutable characteristics first and where those immutable characteristics determine how we may be treated. Some races must be treated with respect, while others can be derided.

The elect position their solution as the only way to combat racism, but they’ve got it exactly backwards. Commentators on every side of the political spectrum offer real solutions to tackle bigotry. But we’ll never get to the tolerant and cosmopolitan society most of us want until we stop listening to people who think our immutable characteristics define who we are and how we should be treated.