Month: September 2023

In the fast-paced realm of job hunting, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. And if you are an entry-level job applicant, the pressure is a notch higher.

New entrants in any job market today compete with groundbreaking technology like ChatGPT in addition to their peers. In the United States, these applicants have to also wade through an uncertain labor market, inflation, and long lists of job requirements.

Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes and Bhabna Banerjee, using data from Indeed.com, have identified the most sought-after entry level positions for applicants both with and without a degree in the U.S., and the year-on-year growth of these job postings.

Most Sought-After Entry-Level Jobs With a Degree

As the U.S. job market recovers from its pandemic slump, some careers are now booming. This in turn has opened up numerous opportunities for entry-level job applicants.

The demand for sales jobs multiplied this year as customer-facing businesses slowly returned to their pre-pandemic levels.

At the top of this list is the job for an Outside Sales Representative. Paying upwards of $60,000, postings for this job have grown by over 250% in a year, making it the most sought-after position for applicants with a degree.

The healthcare industry has secured its place in the top ranks too. Careers including mental health case managers, speech pathologists, behavioral therapists, and patient access managers dominate the Top 20 list.

Let’s not forget about the tech sector. While entry-level network technicians can earn upwards of $85,000 on average, while IT engineers are paid an entry package of over $90,000.

Most Sought-After Entry-Level Jobs Without a Degree

Nearly 65% of the U.S. working population does not have a four-year degree. However, millions of these workers continue to be highly skilled across professions and have a shot at some of the most sought-after entry level jobs in the country.

One example of this job is that of an Inventory Manager. The demand for skilled inventory managers in warehouses and companies post-pandemic has doubled the position’s job share in a year.

One of the highest paying non-degree jobs in this list—Auto Body Technician—can fetch highly-skilled entry-level workers a salary of $82,000 per year.

These jobs don’t seem to require a degree according to Indeed. However, the rising competition for these positions might give the upper edge to applicants with one, especially for jobs on the list such as Business Analyst and Relationship Banker.

Authored by David Williams via RealClear Wire (emphasis ours)

Once again, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is bilking taxpayers to infinity and beyond. NASA has been busy preparing for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, which is designed to collect samples of Martian soil to determine whether there is life on the Red Planet. According to a recent report, costs are through the stratosphere. The independent review board tasked with evaluating the program concluded in the review that the mission has been marred by “unrealistic budget and schedule expectations from the beginning.” The reviewers found that there is “a near zero probability” that the mission will launch by NASA’s stated 2028 goal. It’s time for NASA to ditch its costly payload and commit to keeping costs down to earth.

For years, NASA has been planning and studying how best to return samples from the Martian surface. Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine even called the endeavor, “a civilization-level changing capability” that may “help us become the first to discover life on another planet.” But talk is cheap, unlike the projected program costs that won’t stop rising. According to a report released by independent reviewers in 2020, the MSR mission was slated to cost $3.8 to $4.4 billion. By June 2023, NASA was busy pushing back against credible reports that the cost had ballooned to $8 to $9 billion. The latest report identifies an upper bound of $11 billion, further eroding the credibility of an agency notorious for underestimating costs.

NASA could lower costs by moving the launch of the lander and orbiter to 2030, but even then, the mission would likely cost at least $8 billion and require $1 billion in steady annual spending between fiscal years 2025 and 2028. The report authors miss an important opportunity to hold NASA accountable for their galactic blunders. Rather than critically assess the importance of the mission, the authors warn that, by abandoning the MSR mission, the US would “abandon…the preeminent role that JFK ascribed to the scientific exploration of space…” At a time when multiple private companies are charting missions to Mars, it is unclear why it is the job of taxpayers to foot the bill for this technical, challenging task. These private ventures have every incentive to keep costs under control, unlike an agency known for chronic cost overruns.

NASA’s mission back to the moon has already been plagued by scheduling delays and cost overruns. Taxpayers will likely have to shell out $100 billion before another “small step” can happen. According to a new audit by NASA’s Inspector General (IG), the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket slated to ferry astronauts to the moon is an astounding $6 billion over budget. NASA had originally thought that using some of its older technologies (e.g., Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs) would save the mission money and incorporated these savings into initial cost estimates. But “the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated” and costs have skyrocketed out of control. NASA has also had an exceptionally difficult time keeping its contractors at budget. The IG notes, “NASA used cost-plus contracts at times where we believe fixed-price contracts should have been considered to potentially reduce costs, including the addition of 18 new production engines under the RS-25 Restart and Production contract and acquisition of Artemis IV booster long-lead materials under the BPOC letter contract.” Award fees are out of control, and contractors have no incentive to adhere to a bottom line. The IG found that NASA has already spent $40 billion to get astronauts back to the moon and will likely spend close to $100 billion total on the endeavor.

The relevant question is not whether missions to the moon or Mars should happen, but who should blaze the path into the cosmos. NASA has all the wrong incentives that enable cost overruns and mission creep. Funding forays into space is a mission for investors, not taxpayers.

David Williams is the president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. 

25 years after launching its DVD-by-mail rental service, Netflix is finally pulling the plug on what has become a mere hobby to the global streaming juggernaut.

As announced earlier this year, the company will be shipping its final disc on Friday, September 29, marking the end of the iconic red envelopes that paved the way from brick-and-mortar movie rental (RIP Blockbuster) to the age of limitless streaming.

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, the end of the DVD-by-mail service has been a long time coming, and if anything, it lasted longer than many people would have expected. After all, it’s been more than 15 years since Netflix introduced video streaming and 12 years since the company (controversially at the time) split the DVD business from the streaming service. Back then, the streaming part got to keep the Netflix name, while the DVD business was renamed Qwikster, albeit just for one very turbulent month.

“DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible,” Netflix co-founder and then CEO Reed Hastings said in a blog post at the time, before explaining in more detail why the company is going all in on streaming: “For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”

And while Hasting’s big bet on streaming was controversial at the time, it did pay out handsomely, as Statista’s chart illustrates.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Back in 2011, Netflix’s revenue from its combined DVD and streaming service amounted to $3.2 billion. Last year, the company made $31.5 billion from streaming alone, with the DVD business contributing less than $150 million or 0.5 percent to Netflix’s total revenue.

While immensely popular in its day, the DVD-by-mail business could never have scaled the way that streaming has.

In January 2016, Netflix went live in 130 countries simultaneously. Try doing that with a DVD-by-mail service.

Authored by James Fitzpatrick via RealClear Wire,

As those who have ever served in the military know, the United States Armed Forces is one of the most culturally and socioeconomically diverse institutions in America. It is full of patriotic Americans from all walks of life who come together to serve their country, fight for it, and ultimately die for it if called to. To have served in the military in any form is to be a member of an exclusive club in this country. Although there are some barriers to entry, race is not among them.

The Armed Forces have also provided countless opportunities for citizens in our nation who—through hard work, grit, and merit–rise through the ranks, provide a meaningful and fulfilling life for themselves and their families, and are justly proud of their calling. No matter their race, Americans have found comfort in the idea that if you are willing to work and serve your country with honor, the military will reward merit. 

Since January 2021, the Biden administration has made a concerted effort to inject “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” (DEI) into almost every facet of military life. This includes mandatory trainings, a DoD-wide “Equity Action Plan” and an entire day dedicated to “Leadership Stand-Down to Address Extremism in the Force.” Recently, this radical DEI advocacy was taken to a new level.

On August 9, 2022, in his previous role as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, CQ Brown sent a memo to both the Headquarters Offices for the Air Force Academy and the Air Education and Training Command titled “Officer Source of Commission Applicant Pool Goals,” the memo directed officials at those institutions to “develop a diversity and inclusion outreach plan aimed at achieving these goals no later than 30 September 2022.” Among these “goals” Brown directed the offices to implement specific racial quotas broken down by percentage for each race. For example, the goal for “White” officer candidates is 67.5% and for “Black/African American” officer candidates is 13%.

This is disturbing for several reasons and could be potentially catastrophic for the reputation of the military at a time when recruitment and retention is at an all-time low. Just this week, the Navy reported that it will miss its recruiting goal by 7,000 sailors this year and the Air Force reported that it will miss its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999.

First, the military is one of the last institutions that Americans revere. A July 2023 Gallup Poll found that 60% of Americans have a “high confidence” in the military. This is a good thing and is likely due to the military having a reputation for being a nonpolitical meritocracy where decisions are made in the best interest of protecting the country and not based on ideology.

Second, our military exists to protect the American people, our homeland, our interests, allies abroad, neutralize our enemies wherever they hide, and ensure a safe and prosperous future for our children. We will do this by finding, enlisting, training, and retaining the best and brightest men and women the country has to offer regardless of their race. Straying from that principle in the name of filling racial quotas is a disservice to the American taxpayer and makes Americans less safe.

Third, this directive is potentially illegal on its face. The United States Equal Opportunity Commission states on its website, “It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant because of his or her race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.” With this memo, Brown is advocating for just that. Air Force Officer applicants would be literally discriminated against because of their race if this new directive is implemented. There is seemingly no way to meet the quotas outlined in the directive without engaging in discrimination against certain applicants because of their race, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Most members of the Air Force and the military generally are honest, hard-working people who do not believe our future airmen should be reduced to racial statistics. Recently promoted, Brown will now leave behind this divisive policy and force those below him, who likely had nothing to do with the idea, to implement the policy. This is wrong.

We must do better. That is why my organization, Center to Advance Security in America, has filed a series of FOIA requests to further investigate the implementation of these discriminatory policies.

The American military is the most powerful force for good the world has ever seen. If we want it to remain that way, we must shift our focus back to recruiting and retaining based on skill, merit, and future abilities – not race. It is not too late to shift course. If we do not, these out-of-control initiatives will continue, and military readiness will suffer.

*  *  *

James Fitzpatrick is an Army Veteran and the Director of the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), an organization dedicated to improving the safety and security of the American people.

In an 11th hour Hail Mary in the hopes of averting a government shutdown, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced that the only way the House will pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through October is to drop Ukraine funding.

“I think if we had a clean one without Ukraine on it, we could probably be able to move that through,” McCarthy told CNN‘s Manu Raju.

The comment comes hours after McCarthy lost a game of chicken with the House Freedom Caucus, failing to pass a CR which left McCarthy will few options to try and avert a shutdown in less than 36 hours. McCarthy was hoping that the House bill’s border security provisions would win over enough holdouts to pass.

Meanwhile, the White House slammed the failed bill over the ‘elimination of 12,000 FBI agents,’ and ‘almost 1,000 ATF agents.’

White House budget director:

Republicans’ bill “would eliminate 12,000 FBI agents, almost 1,000 ATF agents!” pic.twitter.com/y5ymbTIDYM

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 29, 2023

Of note, House Republicans on Thursday narrowly passed the annual defense spending bill, but only after they removed $300 million in Ukraine aid from the legislation (which then cleared in a separate vote because a bunch of Democrats then voted).

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who failed twice last week to advance the bill to the floor, finally locked down enough Republican votes to pass the bill after the House stripped $300 million to arm Ukraine from the text.

The separate bill carved out to allocate those funds for Kyiv passed Thursday in a 311-117 blowout bipartisan vote. Republicans had won a close procedural vote earlier in the day to separate the Ukraine money from the Pentagon bill, a move meant to flip a handful of GOP holdouts. –Politico

Democrats framed the optics as Kremlin-friendly, with House Armed Services ranking Democrat Adam Smith saying “The Russians are good at propaganda… It will be played as America backing off of its commitment for Ukraine.”

Republicans responded that by carving Ukraine out of the defense bill, it allows opponents of either measure (Ukraine aid or the defense bill) to voice their opinions on each independently.

“Why don’t we make sure this gets through? I mean, I’m just mystified that this is somehow a problem,” said House Rules Chair Tom Cole (R-OK), according to Politico. “We guarantee you something you want is going to pass the House and you’re upset about it.”

And now, McCarthy says there’s no way to avert a government shutdown unless the House, and the Senate, agree to nix Ukraine aid from the 30-day stopgap.

Fire and Brimstone…

On Friday, White House top economic adviser Lael Brainard said that a shutdown would pose an “unnecessary risk” to what he described as a resilient economy with moderating inflation.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen then chimed in, warning that all of Bidenomics could be negatively impacted.

“The failure of House Republicans to act responsibly would hurt American families and cause economic headwinds that could undermine the progress we’re making,” Yellen said from Port of Savannah, Georgia, adding “A shutdown would impact many key government functions from loans to farmers and small businesses, to food and workplace safety inspections, to Head Start programs for children.

“And it could delay major infrastructure improvements.”

Goldman has predicted that a shutdown will last 2-3 weeks, and that a ‘quick reopening looks unlikely as political positions become more deeply entrenched.’ Instead, as political pressure to reopen the government builds, pay dates for active-duty military (Oct. 13 and Nov. 1) will become key dates to pay attention to.

In addition, they think a shutdown could subtract 0.2pp from Q4 GDP growth for each week it lasts (adding the same to 1Q2024, assuming it’s over by then).

What’s more, all data releases from federal agencies would be postponed until after the government reopens.

More via Goldman:

What are the odds the government shuts down?

A shutdown this year has looked likely for several months, and we now think the odds have risen to 90%. The most likely scenario in our view is that funding will lapse after Sep. 30, leading to a shutdown starting Oct. 1. That said, a short-term extension cannot be entirely ruled out. In the event that Congress avoids a shutdown starting Oct. 1, we would still expect a shutdown at some point later in Q4.

While there is likely sufficient support in both chambers of Congress to pass a short-term extension of funding—this is known as a “continuing resolution” (CR)—that is “clean” with no other provisions attached, the majority of that support would come from Democrats. The Senate is considering a CR that includes aid for disaster relief and Ukraine. House Republican leaders are under political pressure to pass a CR that includes Republican policy priorities that can pass with mainly or exclusively Republican support. At the moment, neither chamber looks likely to pass the other chamber’s CR.

The outlook seemed bleak ahead of the debt limit deadline earlier this year, but Congress resolved it in time; why shouldn’t we expect a last-minute deal once again?

The smaller economic hit from a shutdown puts less pressure on Republican leaders to override the objections of some in their party to reach a deal. Ahead of the debt limit deadline earlier this year, Republican leaders reached a deal over the objections of some in their party because the potential hit to the economy from an impasse would have been unpredictable and severe, and even lawmakers most strongly opposed to a compromise agreed that the debt limit must be raised. By contrast, the economic hit from a shutdown would be smaller and more predictable, as there have already been two protracted shutdowns over the last decade. While most lawmakers on both sides of the aisle would prefer to avoid a shutdown, both sides appear more willing to take the chance it occurs.

*  *  *

Stay tuned…

Authored by Jana J. Pruet via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

House Republicans have approved an amendment to slash U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s annual salary to no more than $1. The move comes as Congress remains in a gridlock over the budget, which could lead to a government shutdown.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday introduced the measure, which was approved in a voice vote as part of the 2024 fiscal year appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). (pdf)

“I’m proud to let you know my amendment to FIRE Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin just passed on the House floor,” Ms. Greene wrote on X following the amendment’s passage.

“Under his failed leadership, our military is being destroyed, and he doesn’t deserve to serve any longer. This is the first time in the 118th Congress the Holman rule has been used to hold a Biden official accountable. It’s time for more,” she continued.

The Holman Rule is a provision that allows members of Congress to reduce the salary, fire federal employees, or cut specific programs during the appropriations process. The provision was first adopted in 1876. It has been dropped and reinstated at various times since its inception. Earlier this year, the GOP-led House revived the measure for the 118th Congress. The order was not adopted for the 116th and 117th Congresses. (pdf)

“Secretary Austin has not fulfilled his job duties,” Ms. Greene said on the House floor. “As a matter of fact, he’s destroying our military. During Secretary Austin’s tenure, military recruitment has reached crisis levels of low recruitment.”

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) spoke in opposition to the move, citing Mr. Austin’s decades-long military career.

“Secretary Austin has dedicated his life to service in the United States,” Ms. McCollum said in a speech on the House floor. “For 41 years, he has served in the United States Army, which began as an appointment to West Point and rose to the rank of four-star general.”

Mr. Austin, who led the withdrawal from Afghanistan, has an annual salary of more than $221,000.

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay Defense Secretary Lloyd James Austin III a salary that exceeds $1,” the provision reads. (pdf)

Late last month, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) introduced articles of impeachment accusing Mr. Austin of “dereliction of duty including and resulting in abandonment of Americans in Afghanistan.”

“It’s not enough for Congress to hold committee hearings,” Mr. Mills said in a news release on Aug. 28. “We must start taking real action to address the complete failure of this administration.”

In December 2020, then-president-elect Joe Biden nominated Mr. Austin, who was retired at the time, to lead the Defense Department. He accepted the nomination and was confirmed by the Senate on Jan. 22, 2021, in a vote of 93–2.

“Despite having nearly 8 months as Secretary of Defense to prepare for and execute a smooth and orderly departure from Afghanistan, Secretary Austin failed to adequately prepare for such a withdrawal, including through his decisions during the catastrophic events of July and August 2021, which initially resulted in as many as 9,000 Americans being abandoned in Afghanistan,” reads House Resolution 666. (pdf)

“These actions recklessly abandoned the interests, security, and values of the United States of America and contributed to the unnecessary deaths of 13 United States servicemembers as well as uncounted American civilians who were targeted and murdered by the Taliban,” the document continues.

Earlier this year, the State Department released its “After Action Review on Afghanistan,” which analyzed the decisions made between January and August leading up to the withdrawal (pdf). More than 150 voluntary interviews with current and former State Department officials, along with “relevant” documents and other materials, were compiled for the report.

The report states that decisions by the Trump and Biden administrations contributed to the disastrous situation in Afghanistan.

“The decisions of both President [Donald] Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission posed significant challenges for the Department as it sought to maintain a robust diplomatic and assistance presence in Kabul and provide continued support to the Afghan government and people,” reads the report.

When considering where to live, big cities are attractive to people for a number of reasons, but affordability is usually not one of them.

In the following map, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop highlights, using data from Demographia, the major cities ranked the worst for housing market affordability on a global basis.

Unaffordable Housing Markets

Demographia’s report looks at middle-income housing affordability in 94 cities in eight countries, many of which are known for having pricy housing markets:

•  Australia

•  Canada

•  China (Hong Kong)

•  Ireland

•  New Zealand

•  Singapore

•  United Kingdom

•  United States

For the 2023 report, it uses 2022 Q3 prices and income levels for evaluation, dividing the median house price by the gross median household income to find the median multiple for housing.

And for the first time in the history of Demographia’s reporting, not a single of the 94 cities scored below 3.0, the cutoff to be deemed “affordable.” Here’s a closer look at the least affordable markets in 2023:

For well over a decade now, Hong Kong has taken the top spot as the least affordable market globally. The only city to become even less affordable year over year was Los Angeles.

On the flip side, the most affordable city in the U.S. was Pittsburgh, with the median multiple sitting at 3.1. As people start to get priced out of certain markets, they may start to move to these more affordable cities.

Zooming out farther, here are the housing market affordability scores for all eight jurisdictions covered in this report:

Again, none of these countries are considered affordable, but within each there is a wide range of scores. Hong Kong is significantly less affordable than the second-place New Zealand and third-place Australia.

Scores across Canada, Singapore, the UK, Ireland and the U.S., however, are quite similar.

Better Cities for Housing Market Affordability

While many people flock to big cities, evidenced by the fact that many of the least affordable places are also among the most populous, others are opting to live somewhere more in their price range.

Here’s a glance at some of the most affordable housing markets worldwide:

Rank	City	Housing Median Multiple
1	🇺🇸 Pittsburgh, PA	3.1
2	🇺🇸 Rochester, NY	3.2
3	🇺🇸 Cleveland, OH	3.5
3	🇺🇸 St. Louis, MO-IL	3.5
5	🇺🇸 Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	3.6
5	🇺🇸 Oklahoma City, OK	3.6
7	🇺🇸 Buffalo, NY	3.7
8	🇺🇸 Detroit, MI	3.8
9	🇺🇸 Louisville, KY-IN	3.9
9	🇺🇸 Tusla, OK	3.9
11	🇨🇦 Edmonton, AB	4.0
11	🇺🇸 Hartford, CT	4.0
11	🇺🇸 Kansas City, MO-KS	4.0
14	🇺🇸 Columbus, OH	4.1
14	🇺🇸 Grand Rapid, MI	4.1
14	🇺🇸 Indianapolis, IN	4.1
14	🇺🇸 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	4.1
14	🇺🇸 Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	4.1

All of the top 18 most affordable cities covered in the report are located in North America.

While big, global cities will certainly continue to attract talent and residents from all over, the more affordable cities may gain new residents for more practical financial reasons.

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

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said Monday that his company has been “crippled” by American Express after it allegedly cut MyPillow’s credit line by about 90 percent.

Mr. Lindell, a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, has long said that extensive campaign is being waged by retailers and financial institutions to cancel him and his business ventures following his claims after the 2020 election.

“We really need everybody’s help right now. We have things going on I’m going to let you all know this week,” he told Steve Bannon on his “War Room” Rumble show. “American Express, I wasn’t going to say this, we’ve been with them 15 years and we do all of our online marketing, all our shipping with them, out of the blue they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000, just cripples MyPillow.”

He added that the credit card firm lowered the line for “no reason” and “no explanation was given, adding it “just dropped it down last Tuesday.” The Epoch Times has contacted American Express, which hasn’t released a public statement on Mr. Lindell’s statement, for comment on the matter.

The move, he said, is part of an “all-out attack on MyPillow,” saying his company was also targeted by another company that he did not disclose in recent days.

Over the summer, Mr. Lindell announced he would be auctioning off 700 pieces of equipment, including forklifts, desks, and cubicle units. Speaking to a local newspaper in Minneapolis, he said the auction comes after he said MyPillow lost $100 million in revenue due to retailers and other companies halting sales of his products.

“It was a massive, massive cancellation,” he told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in July. “We lost $100 million from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels, all of them did cancel culture on us.”

According to a search of Walmart’s website, the big box retailer doesn’t sell MyPillow products. The company said last year it would stop selling MyPillow items at brick-and-mortar locations. In January 2022, one of his banks, the Minnesota Bank & Trust, described the MyPillow CEO as a “reputation risk” and cut ties with him weeks later.

Other retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Wayfair, H-E-B, and Kohl’s also stopped selling Mr. Lindell’s products, he has previously said. As one of the first companies to cut ties with MyPillow—days after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach—Bed Bath said it would discontinue sales due to a “number of underperforming items and brands.”

And earlier this year, Mr. Lindell told Business Insider that he had to sell a “building I had in Savage, in Minnesota, in October. And I had to borrow 2 million too. I’ve spent it all on fighting for this country.” In March, he told a left-wing news outlet that his business is doing fine after launching what he described as “MyPillow 2.0.”

About a year ago, the pillow magnate also said that agents with the FBI seized his cellphone at a fast-food restaurant, also posting a grand jury subpoena from a federal prosecutor in Colorado and what appeared to be a search warrant. The Denver FBI field office told news outlets at the time that “without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge.”

“The FBI came after me and took my phone,” Mr. Lindell wrote on Facebook. “They surrounded me in a Hardee’s and took my phone that I run all my business, everything with. What they’ve done is weaponize—the FBI, it’s disgusting. I don’t have a computer. Everything I do [is] off that phone. Everything was on there. And they told me not to tell anybody. Here’s an order: ‘Don’t tell anybody!’ ‘OK, I won’t!’ Well, I am.”

Washington has been sinking billions of dollars into the Ukraine conflict, in the name of defeating and ‘weakening’ Russia, and yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week highlighted China as the real “threat” to the US and the ‘liberal world order’. 

Biden’s top diplomat was interviewed by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who asked among other things whether Russia or China is a bigger “threat” to the United States. Blinken responded by saying China has a “much greater ability certainly than Russia to try to shape what the international system looks like.”

In reference to China, Blinken answered: “I think they want a world order, but the world order that they seek is profoundly illiberal in nature; ours is liberal with a small ‘L.’  And that’s the fundamental difference.”

On the question of what motivates China, Blinken said, “I think that what it seeks is to be the dominant power in the world militarily, economically, diplomatically.”

Below is the full exchange from the transcript: 

GOLDBERG:  Is Russia a bigger threat to the U.S. and to Western democratic interests now or is China actually the number one?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  They’re very different in their nature.  The – China has – by its military capacity, its economic capacity, although a little bit more challenged these days, its diplomatic capacity, its presence around the world – much greater ability certainly than Russia to try to shape what the international system looks like.  And I think they want a world order, but the world order that they seek is profoundly illiberal in nature; ours is liberal with a small “L.”  And that’s the fundamental difference.  The world that we hope to shape looks very different from the world that they might prefer so ‑-

GOLDBERG:  What does China want, ultimately?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I think that what it seeks is to be the dominant power in the world militarily, economically, diplomatically.  And depending on the purpose that it brings to that, that can move things in one direction or another.  But I think fundamentally that’s what China is seeking, that’s what Xi Jinping is seeking, and in a sense that’s not a surprise.  There’s an extraordinary history in China, and I think if you look and listen to the Chinese leaders, they are seeking to recover what they believe is their rightful place in the world.

This does reflect recent and broader Washington defense and think tank establishment thinking which sees China as the most severe long-term threat to the US, with Russia in second.

For example, a 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) document produced by the Pentagon identified China as the “most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security strategy” – again despite the bulk of the defense budget and foreign aid now being focused on Ukraine. Some Congressional hawks, particularly among Republicans, have questioned why more isn’t being spent to bolster Taiwan and counter China.