Remember the Teen Vaping ‘Epidemic’?


bottles of nicotine liquid for vaping devices | Richard B. Levine/Newscom

Remember the “epidemic” of underage nicotine vaping? For years, activists, politicians, and public health officials have been warning that a surge in e-cigarette use by teenagers would hook a generation of young people on nicotine and encourage them to smoke.

That never happened, as new federal survey data confirm. But policies adopted in response to that overblown threat continue to undermine the harm-reducing potential of vaping products by making them less attractive to current and former smokers.

According to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey, which is overseen by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 10 percent of high school students reported past-month e-cigarette use in 2023, down from 14 percent last year and more than 27 percent in 2019. Among middle school students, the 2023 rate was 4.6 percent, less than half the 2019 rate.

How many of those past-month vapers might reasonably be described as addicted to nicotine? A quarter of them—less than 2 percent of all respondents—reported vaping every day in the previous month, meaning that, as usual, the vast majority were occasional users.

This does not look like an epidemic of nicotine addiction. Nor did the fear that vaping would lead to smoking pan out.

Even at the peak of underage vaping, the downward trend in adolescent smoking not only continued but accelerated. In the 2023 survey, less than 2 percent of high school students reported smoking cigarettes in the previous month—down from 16 percent in 2011 and (according to a survey of 10th- and 12th-graders) more than 30 percent in 1997.

The CDC describes vaping as “tobacco product use,” even though e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco, and lumps it in with smoking, even though it does not involve combustion. But while the CDC is loath to admit it, the shift from smoking to vaping—in any age group—is indisputably an improvement in terms of health risks.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that vaping is far less hazardous than smoking, and it supposedly is committed to maintaining the availability of what it calls “electronic nicotine delivery systems” (ENDS) as a potentially lifesaving alternative for cigarette smokers. Yet to deter underage use, the FDA so far has approved only tobacco-flavored ENDS, even though former smokers overwhelmingly prefer other flavors.

That policy makes ENDS less appealing to people who already have switched from smoking to vaping or might be interested in doing so. The results are predictable: A recent FDA-supported study of sales data from across the country found that state and local restrictions on ENDS flavors were associated with increased purchases of conventional cigarettes.

“We find that ENDS flavor policies reduce flavored ENDS sales as intended, but also increase cigarette sales across age groups,” the researchers reported. “As cigarettes are much more lethal than ENDS, the high rate of substitution estimated here suggests that, on net, any population health benefits of ENDS flavor policies are likely small or even negative.”

Although “flavored ENDS products remain widely available in states that do not prohibit their sales,” the study’s authors noted, the FDA seems to be “paving a path towards a de facto national ENDS flavor prohibition.” That policy, they said, entails an “inequitable tradeoff” because it “prioritizes youth over the 11.2% of US adults [who] smoke.”

Since the FDA has not made a serious effort to enforce its de facto ban against the thousands of suppliers who are theoretically violating it, adults can still purchase ENDS in a wide variety of flavors from vape shops, tobacconists, and online vendors. Preserving those options for adults is consistent with efforts to reduce underage consumption, as the ongoing decline in adolescent vaping shows.

The flavor restrictions embraced by regulators and legislators threaten to harm public health in the name of protecting it. To save teenagers from an exaggerated danger, bureaucrats and politicians are sacrificing the interests, and perhaps the lives, of adult smokers across the country.

© Copyright 2023 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post Remember the Teen Vaping 'Epidemic'? appeared first on Reason.com.

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Malone: PsyWar & Washington DC’s Bureaucracy

Malone: PsyWar & Washington DC’s Bureaucracy

Authored by Dr. Robert Malone via Substack,

Lack of market force corrections combined with PsyWar propaganda yields unstoppable parasitic growth…

My Dearest American Friends and Colleagues:

Just in case you didn’t notice, since the 1980s we have developed a very big problem which is growing exponentially. The US national debt has become unsustainable.

To a significant extent this debt is enabled by irresponsible printing and injection of fiat currency into the overall US economy by an unaccountable private “Federal Reserve” Bank. Today’s Federal Reserve routinely acts as a willing enabler rather than a check on administrative and deep state spending. The management of the Federal Reserve has become integrated into the interests and culture of the permanent bureaucracy. But that is merely one of many symptoms of a deeper problem.

Many factors drive this explosion of debt, but near the top of the causation list is that the executive branch and its permanent bureaucracy (administrative state + deep state) just does not care. They have no pressing reasons to care. They have developed a whole special economic logic to justify and rationalize not caring, called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

Functionally, unlike either industry (market forces) or the military (failed wars), there are no external forces currently limiting the expansion of the dysfunctional, counterproductive and (frankly) parasitic behavior of today’s Executive branch. Legislative branch oversight has been emasculated by consent with lobbyists collectively clamping down the Burdizzo, and in 1984 the Judicial branch conceded its authority to serve as a functional check on Executive/administrative branch arrogance via the Supreme Court Chevron Deference decision. And like the Federal Reserve, the informal “fourth estate” (corporate media), which historically provided a separate and semi-autonomous oversight function, has also been captured by this permanent bureaucracy.

The administrative and deep state has been so successful in capturing and manipulating media and related communication (largely via CIA, FBI, CISA and intelligence community infiltration) that they are able to seamlessly deploy advanced modern propaganda, PsyWar technologies and financial giveaways to control all narratives and information which might otherwise cause the majority of the electorate to check their actions, and in this way they completely avoid accountability. The CIA, FBI, CISA and intelligence community have become enablers of administrative and deep state excesses and overreach. With this corrupted information ecosystem, there cannot be any accountability of the administrative and deep state. In cooperation with a variety of corporate and NGO partners via “public-private partnerships”, the executive branch has completely captured and co-opted all oversight mechanisms which could enable or enforce checks and balances. The “ballot box” is well on its way to being a mere inconvenience, because for the majority of voters the synthetic false reality projected by captured media is the only political “reality” they encounter.

This is how modern nation-states abruptly collapse. As one recent example, recall the history of the USSR and most of the former communist Eastern European states. Modern nation-states fail by suffocating under the weight of bloated unaccountable bureaucracies whose primary objectives are to serve and sustain themselves rather than to promote and defend the general welfare and security of the citizenry. The social contract is stomped into dust by the boot of an uncontrollably arrogant, authoritarian, self-serving bureaucracy.

To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?

-John Marshall, Chief justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835

To illustrate my point with one example of the current situation, please consider the following from “Heard Around the Hill”. This is a publication of the Council on National Policy, which has provided a snapshot of the current state of the Federal Budget stalemate between the Legislative branch – constitutionally tasked with managing the federal budget and funding the government, and the Executive branch (and it’s permanent administrative bureaucracy) – tasked with administering that budget.

House Republicans passed a plan to address the nation’s debt ceiling Wednesday, tying the increase to desperately-needed spending limits and reforms.

The package includes:

  • Limiting future spending to FY22 levels

  • Reclaiming unspent COVID money

  • Defunding 87,000 new IRS agents

  • Implementing work requirements for government assistance programs

The White House refused to negotiate, insisting Congress give them a blank check for future spending and betting that proposed reforms could not garner enough votes in the House.

Even Democrats have been critical of Biden’s refusal to negotiate. Senator Manchin described the approach as a “deficiency of leadership.” House Members have also disapproved of the tactic.

A Down Payment On Fiscal Sanity” is how economist and former Assistant Treasury Secretary Mike Faulkender detailed the Republican plan.

In discussing the current state of US Federal government, these terms “Administrative State” and “Deep State” are often tossed about as if they are one and the same, but that is most definitely not the case. As described by Kash Patel, the Deep State is a type of shadow governance made up of informal, extra-constitutional, secret and unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a nation state’s duly elected political leadership, acting in pursuit of agendas and goals which are separate from the interests of the citizenry.

Administrative State is a term used to describe the phenomenon of executive branch administrative agencies which exercise bureaucratic power to create, adjudicate, and enforce their own rules. The administrative state abuses congressional non-delegation, judicial deference, executive control of agencies, procedural rights, and agency dynamics to assert control over and above both republic and constitutional principles.

Another related term often used to describe the modern American bureaucratic state is “Leviathan”, a word with biblical origins repurposed as the title of Thomas Hobbes’ monarchist 1651 book which advocates a strong centralized government. Hobbes argues that civil peace and social unity can be best achieved through the establishment of a commonwealth via a social contract. Hobbes’ ideal commonwealth is ruled by a singular sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth, while being granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense.\

In many ways the modern American Administrative and Deep State, with its “public-private partnerships”, has come to resemble the 17th through 19th century British monarchy, with an entrenched bureaucracy (the permanent administrative state) functionally managed by a largely hereditary elite, surrounded by the concentric status rings of courtiers which comprise the Deep State (in the current embodiment). Within the growing hereditary ruling American oligarchy there is some degree of turnover and palace intrigue, as the fortunes of some wane while others rise. As with the rise of the British bourgeoisie and mixing of gentry with financially successful upper middle castes, this often reflects broader financial and technological trends within the overall geo-political and geo-economic context in which a globalized oligarchy competes.

The obvious irony being that this type of system was precisely what the American Revolution was intended to overturn, and precisely what the US Constitution was written to prevent.

And above all of this, we have now added a transcendently powerful new capability to the Leviathan of old. The rise of the CIA and its “Mockingbird/Mighty Wurlitzer” infiltration of both media and academia, the FBI and its politically weaponized COINTELPRO-type surveillance, infiltration and disruption capabilities, the DoD and its PsyOps/PsyWar capabilities designed for offshore conflicts but turned against domestic citizenry to support executive branch-defined “crisis” management, and the explosive growth of a new censorship-industrial complex has yielded a “Leviathan” with reality-bending information control capabilities the likes of which the historic British monarchy could only dream of. Propaganda has come a long way from the days of Edward Bernays’ seminal 1928 book by the same name.

The Washington DC-based Administrative/Deep State has emerged as a separate entity unto itself, with its own culture, purpose, privileges and prerogatives. A key characteristic of this separate cultural phenomenon and mindset- often geographically referred to as the “inside the beltway” set (referring to the I 495 freeway loop encircling DC and environs)- is a focus on self-preservation and personal advancement, rather than on achieving a mission, producing a deliverable, or serving the needs of outside-the-beltway flyover state serfdom.

Imperial DC beltway denizens form an incestuous culture, much like any historic imperial court. Passive-aggressive “slow walking” of initiatives has been refined to a fine art. Sexual favors are routinely exchanged to seal short-term alliances, both within agencies and between contractors and “Govies”. Nuances of administrative regulations are weaponized to enable petty counterproductive one-upmanship. “Beltway Bandit” corporations, lobbyists (registered and unregistered) and “think tanks” cultivate, collect and support Deep State “swamp monsters” when the political wing they are allied with is out of power for a period, anticipating that these courtiers will be rotated back in with the next political shift or Executive branch “change” in leadership. And all are tied together in a revolving maypole dance. Together, they collectively weave a Uniparty in which the commonalities of shared commitment to advancing the interests of the Administrative/Deep State court are far more important and lasting than any inconvenient superficial narrative about serving the interests of the general electorate and citizenry. In this beltway culture, actually solving national problems takes a back bench to the pageantry and Machiavellian machinations of the elite courtiers and their allies.

No wonder the general populace often feels that their votes for elected Federal officials are irrelevant. Because they are, in fact, increasingly irrelevant. And as if that were not bad enough, the permanent administrative state considers elected and politically appointed officials to be “temporary employees”. The shadowy members of the unaccountable Senior Executive Service (SES) are the ones that actually administer the government.

But with the advance of PsyWar capabilities, bolstered by advances in modern psychology, and combined with algorithmic control, censorship, and manipulation of all information, Deep State beltway denizens have been able to achieve a propaganda capability which rivals the Atomic Bomb in its political implications.

These actors are now able to decouple their activities from objective truth. There can never be any accountability or consequences for mismanagement or misdeeds when they are able to effectively control all information and communication. Objective reality has become a theoretical post-modernist, surrealist construct, able to be contorted, moulded and enforced to comport with any synthetic version of reality which best supports Administrative State, SES and Deep State objectives. Corporate and social media lapdogs (rapidly becoming dominant via alliances with globalized investment funds), are bolstered and legitimized by coopted academia. Together they often act under the strong influence of Administrative State “intelligence” agencies and Deep State actors, and stand ever ready to create, control, propagate, and reinforce whatever narrative is needed.

Desire to achieve this sort of reality-bending groupthink or mass psychosis has been a common feature of bureaucracies, aristocracies, monarchies and oligarchies for as long as historical records have been kept. But what is different now is the power and penetration of modern digital algorithmic control mechanisms. We now witness creation of a lobotomized servant caste which enables an administrative bureaucracy nirvana of complete lack of accountability is now within reach. What could possibly go wrong?

I believe that a short answer is “paradigm shift”. This type of cognitive landscape, in which a synthetic reality is preserved and maintained despite increasing divergence from objective reality, is a setup for abrupt introduction of more adaptive alternatives. Examples of synthesized false realities include an unsustainable federal debt, a collapsing “safe and effective” COVID vaccine narrative, and the intrinsic contradictions of human activity-driven carbon dioxide levels representing a global existential crisis. Actively fabricated false realities create a situation where current governmental solutions drift further and further from optimal.

At some point, an abrupt disruption in perception, power, global finance or available technology will occur – a paradigm shift. And when a system, technical or political, has been prevented by externals from adapting to changing conditions (such as happens with propaganda), then a crisis can trigger catastrophic realignment of divergent synthetic and objective reality. In politics, these “earthquake” moments reflect abrupt resolution of shifting internal forces which have built up tension along a fault line, and often result in either revolutions or catastrophic failures of economies and civilizations.

Functionally, the US Government is now managed by disconnected Senior Executive Service (SES) “leadership”, acting in harmony with Administrative and Deep State castes, massive transnational financial institutions, public-private partnerships, corporate lobbyists and globalist non-governmental organizations such as the UN, WHO, WEF and Gates foundation. This supra-constitutional alignment has enabled permanent Administrative and Deep State “management” of an out-of-control federal budget which supports a grotesque obsession with their maypole dance, court drama, one-upmanship, and Machiavellian machinations. And all who object are censored, subjected to character assassination and labeled fringe outliers by captured media.

Rather than solving the missions and problems which plague the electorate that they currently parasitize, these erstwhile public servants have removed any ability of citizenry and electorate to provide the oversight, control and correction function originally designed into the US Constitution by those with lifelong experience in dealing with an earlier Leviathan. One that was also characterized by arbitrary and capricious administrative authoritarianism. And in the current embodiment we now have amazingly powerful psychological tools placed in the hands of venal, self-serving, immature and all too often sociopathic individuals seeking self-gratification.

Indeed, what can possibly go wrong?

Abrupt, catastrophic economic and/or military collapse, that’s what.

How many wars has the USA lost since WW II? And now this amazingly expensive and corrupt Ukrainian foreign adventure is deconstructing itself. Which (mis) adventure seems to have mostly worked to strengthen and hone Russian military might while depleting and fracturing NATO unity and capabilities. Biden sought to drain and exhaust Putin, thereby yielding Russian regime change. In an amazing feat of geopolitical jiu-jitsu, the precise opposite may well come to pass.

And then we have the obscenely bungled public health and financial responses to the COVIDcrisis. And growing awareness that the “climate crisis” has been synthesized and weaponized to advance a variety of geopolitical power, control and financial objectives.

This level of massive Administrative and Deep State mismanagement is not sustainable, even with US economic and natural resource muscle.

History and archaeology is littered with the bones of civilizations and bureaucracies which became inwardly focused and lost track of their function and purpose. I would love to believe in a fairy tale world in which modest modifications in administrative agency guidelines and practices could result in a more functional ruling bureaucracy. But I am too old for fairy tales, and have myself spent too many years in the bowels of the Federal administrative state.

I fear that the dysfunctional and fundamentally corrupt DC Beltway culture will not change until we have a massive paradigm shift of some sort or another. Resolving these structural problems will require a major correction. It could occur at the ballot box, but the power of the intelligence community/censorship-industrial complex to distort reality to protect itself may have already reached a stage where this cannot happen. However, the debt, the massive unsustainable debt, combined with the insatiable hunger of the Administrative and Deep State working cooperatively with the industrial masters of forever war and “biodefense” may soon trigger a global paradigm shift in power and finance.

And if that happens, I can only hope that I have enough guns, ammo, farm infrastructure and a well developed network of like minded friends to ride out the following storm.

But in such a brave new world, getting diesel for trucks and tractors will definitely be a problem. Probably time to dust off my equine teamster skills and train some horses to pull.

*  *  *

Who is Robert Malone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:45

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Tlaib Censured By House For Saying Biden ‘Supports Genocide’ In Gaza

Tlaib Censured By House For Saying Biden ‘Supports Genocide’ In Gaza

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was censured by the House Tuesday night after posting a video on X claiming that President Biden “support(s) the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

The clip also shows pro-Palestine protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” – a refrain which Tlaib described as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate,” and Jews interpret as “kill all the Jews.”

She was reprimanded by a vote of 234-188-4, with 22 Democrats joining the majority of Republicans to support the resolution, and four Republicans voting against it on free speech grounds (Buck (CO), Duarte (CA), Massie (KY), McClintock (CA)). Four voted present. Joyce (R-OH), Norcross (D-NJ), Spanberger (D-VA), Wild (D-PA).

According to Business Insider:

McCormick’s resolution focused on three aspects of Tlaib’s rhetoric:

  • Her use of the word “resistance” in her statement on the Hamas attack, where she argued that the “suffocating, dehumanizing conditions” in the Palestinian territories could “lead to resistance.”
  • Her claim that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, despite contradictory evidence. She later acknowledged that the Gaza Health Ministry’s claims were in doubt and called for an independent investigation.
  • Her use of the slogan “from the river to the sea,” a slogan that many view as antisemitic but is viewed as a call for freedom and equality by many Palestinians.

In a floor speech earlier on Tuesday, Tlaib argued that Republicans were trying to censor her and dehumanized Palestinians, while fellow Democrats argued that she has a right to free speech.

“It’s a shame my colleagues are more focused on silencing me than they are on saving lives, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000,” wrote Tlaib in a statement “Many of them have shown me that Palestinian lives simply do not matter to them, but I still do not police their rhetoric or actions.”

Last week an effort to censure Tlaib failed, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a resolution accusing Tlaib of “leading an insurrection” on Capitol Hill during an Oct. 18 protest.

 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:25

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DOJ Launches ‘All Hands On Deck’ Initiative Cracking Down On San Francisco Open Drug Market

DOJ Launches ‘All Hands On Deck’ Initiative Cracking Down On San Francisco Open Drug Market

Authored by Lear Zhou via The Epoch Times,

A comprehensive response to the open air drug market in San Francisco, coordinated with joint federal, state, and local law enforcement was launched last week, announced Ismail J. Ramsey, the U.S. Attorney of California Northern District of California in a press conference.

“‘All Hands on Deck’ was designed to change the basic cost/benefit analysis for fentanyl dealers,” said Mr. Ramsey.

“Together with all our federal, state, and local partners, my office is using targeted wiretaps, arrests, and searches throughout the Bay Area to stem the flow of drugs and dealers coming into San Francisco from nearby counties.”

With the new strategy Mr. Ramsey revealed, not only drug suppliers but even low-level street fentanyl dealers arrested by local law enforcement may also face federal charges, if they’re picked up on a random day once a week.

U.S. Attorney of California Northern District of California, Ismail J. Ramsey speaks at the ‘All Hands on Deck’ initiative to crack down on San Francisco’s open drug market. He is joined by SFPD Chief Bill Scott (L) and FBI special agent Robert K. Tripp (R) on Nov 2 in San Francisco, Calif. (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

In the last four months, more than 30 suspects have been charged with federal crimes. Meanwhile, nearly 50 kilos of fentanyl and 12 kilos of methamphetamine have been removed from the streets in Tenderloin, nearly double or a 169 percent increase compared with the amount seized in the same period last year, said Mr. Ramsey.

From Feb. 12, 2020 to Feb. 12, 2023, there were 218 fatal overdoses in San Francisco, many of them due to fentanyl. There were another 8,974 non-fatal overdoses, and a map showed that hot zones of violent crimes overlapped with the locations where drug issues were dominant.

Map shown at the “All Hands on Deck” initiative to crack down on San Francisco open drug market at 450 Golden Gave Ave on Nov. 2 (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

“It is no secret that parts of this great city are infamously known for an open air drug market where substance use and crime have exploded,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Brian Clark of the San Francisco field division.

“That is due in large part to tolerance for drug trafficking, permissive attitudes, fast profits, and a lack of penalties, [which] has been an open invitation for organized crime to come in and operate in San Francisco.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has identified two primary organizations responsible for flooding San Francisco communities with fentanyl: the Sinaloa and Holy School cartels, according to Mr. Clark.

“These criminal enterprises rely on a global supply chain from chemical companies in China who supply the cartels with precursor chemicals, which are then manufactured in Mexico for distribution throughout the United States,” Mr. Clark added.

The Sinaloa Cartel is primarily responsible for manufacturing and drug trafficking in the Tenderloin district and is primarily controlled by Honduran organizations whose members commute into San Francisco to peddle their poison. Dealers have often lived together in East Bay Area homes and purchased drugs from their network, according to Mr. Clark.

This information was gathered with months of covert operations throughout the Tenderloin, Mr. Clark said.

“We’ve seen numerous firearms, a variety of drugs, and over 1.6 million lethal doses of fentanyl,” he said.

This operation has resulted in the arrest of more than 70 individuals in the past 90 days, many of whom are Honduran nationalists, Mr. Clark said.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed thanked multiple agencies at state and federal levels for their help. Ms. Breed said these have been “of significant importance to us here in San Francisco.”

“Our local law enforcement agencies … they have been working really hard to help combat this problem in the best way that they could based on many of our local laws, which in some ways provide a number of various limitations,” Ms. Breed said.

“Well, this is happening, and it is here to stay. We are not letting up; even as APEC approaches, we are not letting up after APEC goes away from San Francisco.”

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said, “One of the challenges that my office has faced is having some of our judges take this issue seriously.”

Prosecutors in the San Francisco DA’s office have filed almost 300 motions to detail drug dealers being charged, but only approximately 30 of those were granted, Ms. Jenkins said.

From left to right: U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Shawn Bradstreet, ATF special agent Jennifer Cicolani, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins and SFPD Chief Bill Scott at the ‘All Hands on Deck’ initiative at the federal building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on Nov 2 (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

“We cannot allow our courthouses to be revolving doors for the people who are killing vulnerable San Franciscans and who are tormenting our neighborhoods and our children. The need for federal assistance in this effort was clear,” she added.

Police Chief William Scott had a message for drug dealers: “So if you think you’re going to outlast us, you’re wrong. If you think you’ve got to adapt and are smarter, you’re wrong. If you think we’re going to go away and let you continue to kill people in our city in record numbers, you’re wrong.”

“Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for adults in the United States between 18 and 49, and the entire Justice Department under the direction of Attorney General Garland is committed to focus our efforts to try to address the scourge,” Mr. Ramsey said.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:05

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New Dehli Implementing Driving Bans Due To Polluted Air

New Dehli Implementing Driving Bans Due To Polluted Air

In move that we’re sure we’ll eventually see in U.S. cities as the climate change rhetoric continues to go parabolic (especially heading into the 2024 election), New Dehli is now implementing license plate based driving bans in order to try and restrict the number of cars on its roads at any given time.

The measure, which separates cars into license plates ending with odd and even numbers, is going to be put in place on alternate days for a week beginning on November 13, Bloomberg reported this week. 

The goal is to “lower vehicular pollution”, the report says. In addition to the car ban, heavy vehicles have also been banned from the capital city, with exceptions for essential services. 

Bloomberg wrote that in recent days, Delhi has persistently emerged at the pinnacle of global pollution rankings, facing alarmingly toxic air quality conditions.

In response, the regional administration has enacted emergency protocols, including the suspension of educational institutions, a moratorium on construction activities, and a push towards greater reliance on public transportation systems, the report says.

Previously, the capital has resorted to episodic vehicular restrictions in an effort to mitigate the environmental crisis.

On the judicial front, the Supreme Court of India is slated to address the issue of Delhi’s escalating pollution on November 7th. Anticipated at this hearing, representatives from Delhi and contiguous states will brief the court on the progress and measures adopted to ameliorate the air quality disaster.

We’re certain shocked liberals in the U.S. will be beside themselves that there are other places in the world not “doing their part” to fight climate change. Has anyone in India considered taking a hammer to a piece or art to try and fix the problem?

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:45

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Yellen To Meet China’s New Economic Czar This Week Ahead Of Biden–Xi Meeting

Yellen To Meet China’s New Economic Czar This Week Ahead Of Biden–Xi Meeting

Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is set to hold economic talks with her Chinese counterpart this week before a potential meeting between the top leaders of the world’s two largest economies.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (L) shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on July 8, 2023. (Pedro Pardo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Ms. Yellen is scheduled to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Nov. 9 and 10, the Treasury Department announced on Nov. 6. The meetings will take place before the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, where Ms. Yellen will host the top finance officials and ministers from the 21 member states of APEC on Nov. 11.

The Yellen–He meeting was also confirmed by China’s Foreign Ministry. Mr. He will visit the United States from Nov. 8 to Nov. 12, the ministry’s spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said on Nov. 6.

The announcement came shortly after state media revealed that Mr. He became the head of two separate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committees that Chinese leader Xi Jinping created in March, a move to bring the financial system under the Party’s direct control.

‘Serious Concerns’

The upcoming Yellen–He meeting follows a series of diplomatic engagements between Washington and Beijing amid rising tensions. The U.S.–China relationship has been strained over issues ranging from the CCP’s military aggressions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to the U.S. export controls and investment bans on advanced technologies to counter the regime’s military modernization.

Ms. Yellen said ahead of the meeting that the United States is seeking “a stable and healthy economic relationship” with China that requires a “rules-based, level playing field.”

This week, I will speak to my counterpart about our serious concerns with Beijing’s unfair economic practices, including its large-scale use of non-market tools, its barriers to market access and its coercive actions against U.S. firms in China,” Ms. Yellen wrote in a Nov. 6 Washington Post op-ed.

“In certain sectors, these unfair practices have resulted in the overconcentration of the production of critical goods inside China.”

The United States has responded by seeking to diversify its critical supply chains with a target of not triggering “a disorderly, wholesale private-sector pullback from China,” she wrote

During her four-day trip to Beijing in July, Ms. Yellen told Chinese officials that the United States wouldn’t allow its national security to be compromised.

We continue to take targeted actions to secure our vital security interests,” she said.

At the same time, Ms. Yellen emphasized that direct conversations with the regime’s senior officials could help reduce the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation. To facilitate the communications, the U.S. Treasury Department and China’s Finance Ministry in September launched two joint working groups to deal with economic and financial issues.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (R) speaks during a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (not pictured) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on July 8, 2023. (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/Getty Images)

China’s New Economic Czar

Mr. He was recently appointed as the head of the office of the Central Financial Commission, a Party organ responsible for making policies and supervising the nation’s $61 trillion financial sector, state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Nov. 6.

Separately, Mr. He also assumed the leadership role of the Central Financial Work Commission, a super financial watchdog that’s tasked with strengthening the CCP’s ideological role in the finance sector, according to the agency.

The new appointments of Mr. He, a trusted ally of Mr. Xi, make him China’s new economic czar, heading the country’s top decision-making bodies in both economic and financial sectors.

Mr. He first met with Ms. Yellen in July, when the Treasury chief traveled to Beijing to meet the regime’s senior officials as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reopen the high-level communication lines between Washington and Beijing.

No ‘Smooth Sailing’ for Biden–Xi Meeting

Following visits by four senior U.S. officials, as well as a bipartisan Senate delegation, to Beijing this year, the CCP sent its top diplomat, Wang Yi, to Washington in October. During the three-day visit, President Joe Biden hosted Mr. Wang at the White House after talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also met with Mr. Wang.

President Biden is expected to meet Mr. Xi during the APEC summit, which would mark the first in-person meeting between the two leaders in a year.

However, Beijing has yet to confirm whether Mr. Xi will travel to Washington for the summit.

Mr. Wang, who also serves as China’s foreign minister, said the Biden–Xi meeting will be challenging.

Speaking on the last day of his trip in Washington, Mr. Wang told the U.S. strategic community that arranging a meeting between President Biden and Mr. Xi “will not be smooth sailing” and that the two sides can’t rely on “autopilot” to make it happen.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:25

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Supreme Court Appears Likely To Preserve Gun Law Disarming Domestic Abusers

Supreme Court Appears Likely To Preserve Gun Law Disarming Domestic Abusers

The Supreme Court spent much of Tuesday morning listening to the oral arguments from the Biden administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling striking down the law barring individuals with domestic violence protective orders from owning firearms. The Justices appeared unwilling to overturn the federal ban on firearm possession for people involved in domestic violence disputes. 

In the first major gun case since last year’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which fundamentally changed how courts view gun control laws, the justices suggested they would reverse a ruling from the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down a 1994 ban on firearms for people under restraining orders.  

Justices, conservative and liberal, appeared to be persuaded by the oral arguments of the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer to keep the longstanding practice of disarming dangerous people. 

Several members of the court’s conservative majority said they didn’t interpret the Constitution’s Second Amendment as covering the gun rights of dangerous/non-law abiding people. 

We previewed last Friday the Biden Department of Justice fast-tracked the case United States v. Rahimi to the Supreme Court in an attempt to nullify or limit the reach of the landmark NYSRPA v. Bruen decision from 2022. 

“You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked the lawyer for Zackey Rahimi, a Texas resident and drug dealer convicted of violating a domestic violence restraining order by possessing a firearm. The man is challenging the 1994 law after a judge imposed a restraining order to protect a former girlfriend he was accused of attacking. 

Biden’s top lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, told justices that the 1994 law is critical to the nation’s tradition of disarming dangerous people. 

“Throughout our nation’s history, legislatures have disarmed those who have committed serious criminal conduct or whose access to guns poses a danger. For example, loyalists, rebels, minors, individuals with mental illness, felons and drug addicts,” Prelogar said.

This is the High Court’s first test after the year-old NYSRPA v. Bruen ruling strengthened Second Amendment protections and established the constitutional right to carry across the US. 

However, the implications of the ruling could go well beyond the realm of domestic abuse. It has the potential to result in a re-interpretation of NYSRPA v. Bruen. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:05

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Jiu-Jitsu Associations ‘Lead By Example’ In Barring Males From Competing In Female Matches

Jiu-Jitsu Associations ‘Lead By Example’ In Barring Males From Competing In Female Matches

Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three national jiu-jitsu associations have recently enacted policies prohibiting males from fighting in female brackets after several competitors went public with their experience in fighting a male opponent who identifies mentally as a female.

Ansleigh Wilk and Jayden Alexander had to compete against a male in a July 2023 Jiu-Jitsu tournament. (Courtesy of Ms. Wilk and Ms. Alexander)

“It was a huge turnaround in a really short time,” Marshi Smith, a former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimming champion from the University of Arizona and co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), told The Epoch Times. “We’ve never seen a sport enact change as quickly as Jiu-Jitsu has.”

Ms. Smith co-founded ICONS with Kim Jones—herself a former NCAA tennis champion and mother of an Ivy League swimmer who had to compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

ICONS was set up to give women like Ansleigh Wilk and Jayden Alexander, both of whom fought a man in his early 40s at a July competition in Marietta, Georgia, a platform, support, and a voice.

I was launched into this after seeing Lia Thomas win the national title, standing on the same podium where I achieved my greatest swimming accomplishment,” Ms. Smith said.

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas (2nd L) of Penn University and transgender swimmer Iszac Henig (L) of Yale pose with their medals after placing first and second in the 100-yard freestyle swimming race at the 2022 Ivy League Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 19, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images)

Olympic gold medalists, American record holders, multiple world champions, and NCAA Women of the Year petitioned the NCAA for change but to no avail.

Despite no response, ICONS has become a resource for advocacy for women’s sports in a time when the trans ideology is challenging and encroaching on the domain of women, as seen in an adult male registering in a Jiu-Jitsu tournament and being placed to compete with young women.

It’s too shocking for the public to ignore at this point,” Ms. Smith said.

After Reduxx—a feminist media platform that spotlights the trans ideology’s corruption of women’s rights—began reporting on the issue, the Jiu-Jitsu associations responded with their change in policies.

On Oct. 28, NAGA stated, “We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions.”

For men who believe they are women, NAGA said, “Transgender females must compete in the men’s division. We hope that the simplicity of this revised policy will help to avoid any future occurrences where transgender females enter women divisions. If NAGA staff is informed that a transgender female is in a women’s division, they will be given the choice to go to the men’s division or given a refund.”

‘Obvious Differences’

After Ms. Wilk’s post on X describing her experience, she was attacked as a bigot. But she also received support, getting the attention of J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, who told her, “You’ve done nothing wrong. This isn’t, and never was, about hate, it’s about fairness and safety for women and girls.

“You stood up to protect your fellow athletes, which makes you a heroine in all sane people’s eyes. I know backlashes aren’t fun (believe me, I know) but there are things far more important than pleasing all the people, all the time. All power to you x.”

Ms. Wilk, a former U.S. Archery World Champion, told The Epoch Times she began training in Jiu-Jitsu at 15.

“I feel like it gives me an opportunity to not have anxiety when competing,” she said. “The competition mat is a place where I’m truly comfortable. All my social anxiety goes away when I get on those mats.”

She was primarily at the July competition to coach her brother’s team but also sought to compete at a lower level to get back into the swing of sparring after her back surgery.

However, she realized halfway through the match that something wasn’t right.

Her opponent was too strong to be a person registered as a woman.

Ms. Wilk was able to beat him but noticed that younger competitors were afraid.

She felt blindsided, she said, and her suspicion was later confirmed when she looked up the person on Instagram and discovered that he was a man.

“I don’t care how trans people want to live their life, I just think there should be transparency,” she said. “There are obvious differences between the male and female body, and I’m hoping these policy changes can spread to other sports to really show the vast difference between men and women.”

‘Absolutely Unacceptable’

Ms. Alexander told The Epoch Times that her first impression was of her male opponent’s size.

I was just thinking, ‘Oh my God, that chick is huge,’” she said.

But because tournaments are chaotic, she said, with everyone just scrambling to get through them, she went along with the match. But quickly realized there was a problem.

The difference in hand sizes and strength eventually led her to realize that she was fighting a man, she said, and she began to feel unsafe.

“At that point, there was nothing I could really do about it,” she said. “There was adrenaline pumping and I was in fight or flight mode. I was starting to panic.”

A protester holds a sign outside the arena where Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas was competing in the 500-yard freestyle final at the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Ga., on March 17, 2022. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)

She went into automatic mode, she said, and focused on her coach’s words.

“Because my coach is super calm and precise in how he coaches, I was able to pull everything I had out of me to finish that match,” she said.

Ms. Alexander won, but the experience was enough to bring her to tears when she returned to her team.

Ms. Alexander self-excluded from later matches in which she would have had to fight males.

She didn’t know what to do next, she said, because she didn’t want to be called transphobic.

“If you know me personally, you know that’s not the case at all,” she said in her Instagram post. “The simple fact is that men signing up in a combat sport to fight women is absolutely unacceptable. We don’t deserve to be having to self-exclude from competitions to avoid fighting men. We deserve for there to be rules and regulations in place that keep us safe and that protect us from these situations happening in the first place.”

Ms. Alexander said she wasn’t surprised by the associations changing policies.

Jiu-Jitsu is a very tightly knit, supportive community,” she said. “I’m shocked by how fast it happened but not shocked that it did happen.”

It’s now set the bar for other sports, she said.

I think it’s leading by example,” Ms. Alexander said.

An Uphill Battle

But it’s been an uphill battle, Ms. Smith said.

“We’re hoping that this is a trend,” she said.

Earlier in October, Strongman Corp Canada created a separate category for trans athletes nine days after Maria Barwick, an ICONS-sponsored competitor, spoke out about having to compete against a male.

“Before Jiu-Jitsu, that was the quickest policy change that we’ve seen recently,” she said.

However, in February, Minnesota District Court Judge Patrick Diamond ruled that USA Powerlifting is no longer allowed to bar males who believe they are females from participating in the women’s category.

Internationally, some governing bodies are moving toward making rules for trans athletes more stringent, she said.

“They are relying on this 12-year-old timeline in which if you haven’t transitioned younger than 12, you can’t compete in the women’s category, which we do not advocate for,” she said. “What we believe at ICONS is, ‘female at birth,’ but they’re moving in the right direction.”

The problem in America is that the U.S. governing bodies aren’t following their international overseers, she said, resulting in the U.S. conflicting with international rules.

In addition, she said, there are sitting board members on national governing bodies for sports whose livelihood depends on their convincing children to medically transition, she said.

“I don’t like the word transition because no one can actually transition,” she said. “It’s basically just medicalizing children for life. And there’s a ton of money on the opposite side.”

Prisha Mosley had both of her breasts removed when she believed she was transgender, she is now hoping to receive reconstructive surgery. (Courtesy of Independent Women’s Forum)

Because the trans ideology flourished in the United Kingdom before the United States, it’s also been ahead on “correcting and redirecting” issues in accommodating for trans-identifying individuals, Ms. Smith said.

An organization in the UK with the same mission as ICONS called “Fair Play for Women” has been advocating for a change of policy in British sports.

“Though we’re a couple of years behind them, I’m hoping that we can get our national leaders to get there, too,” she said. “At ICONS, we’re trying to shorten that amount of time because this is unsustainable. We cannot continue seeing these kinds of stories in which girls are getting concussions in volleyball, their teeth knocked out, or put on a Jiu-Jitsu mat with men.”

ICONS continues to see men competing at every level in American sports, even taking national titles away from women, she said, “So, we still have a long way to go.”

“But with every win, as we saw in Jiu-Jitsu and Strongman, it’s building a stronger and stronger foundation, and giving other governing bodies more and more security to be able to defend their women faster,” she said. “But it’s not fast enough. We need everybody to agree that women and girls deserve safe and fair competition.”

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 21:45

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Ohio Becomes the 24th State To Legalize Recreational Marijuana


cannabis leaves | MIS Photography

Ohio, where legislators authorized medical use of marijuana in 2016, went further on Tuesday, becoming the 24th state to legalize recreational use. According to projections by NBC News and The Hill, voters approved Issue 2, which allows adults 21 or older to publicly possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants at home. With 57 percent of ballots counted, 56 percent of voters had said yes to the ballot initiative, which also will create a system to license and regulate commercial sales.

That’s assuming Ohio legislators do not rewrite or override the rules established by Issue 2, which they have the power to do with any “initiated state statute,” as opposed to a constitutional amendment. Before Issue 2 was submitted to voters, the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly passed up a chance to enact it, and now the measure returns to the legislature, which can revise it before it takes effect.

“I definitely think that if it passes, there are problems in it that need to get addressed,”  Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman (R–Lima) said before the election. “I will advocate for reviewing things or repealing things or changing things that are in it.”

Which things? Huffman was not specific. But in a speech last month, he warned that marijuana legalization could precipitate a “mental health crisis” in Ohio. “When we see more drug use, when we see more teenage mental illness, more teenage suicide,” he said, “people may say, ‘We should bring this back a little bit.'”

Unsurprisingly, the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group that ran the Issue 2 campaign, thinks the measure should be implemented as is. “We think that Ohio voters have a right to expect that their elected officials follow election results and respect the will of the people,” coalition spokesman Tom Haren said in response to Huffman’s comments.

Issue 2 was backed by the Marijuana Policy Project, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, the Green Party of Ohio, and two members of the state’s congressional delegation: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rep. David Joyce (R). Their argument was pretty straightforward: that marijuana should be treated like alcohol, which would replace the black market with a regulated industry, generate tax revenue, and “end unfairly harsh punishments for minor marijuana offenses.”

Opponents included a bunch of Republican legislators, several law enforcement groups, and Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, who worried about “increased use by underage kids”—a fear that has not materialized in other states that have legalized marijuana. Three Republican legislators employed starkly anti-capitalist rhetoric, complaining that Issue 2 “puts profits over people” by legalizing “an addiction-for-profit industry” that will “make a few greedy investors rich.”

Unless state legislators intervene, Issue 2 will establish a Division of Cannabis Control within the Commerce Department, which will be charged with licensing and regulating growers, manufacturers, testing laboratories, distributors, and retailers. Sales will be taxed at 10 percent, in addition to standard state and local sales taxes that average 7.24 percent. Local governments are not authorized to impose additional marijuana taxes, although they can claim a share of the revenue if they allow pot shops to operate within their borders.

The taxes in neighboring Michigan, where voters approved marijuana legalization in 2018, are similar: a 10 percent retail tax, plus a 6 percent standard sales tax. “We’re taking money away from drug dealers and Michigan dispensary owners and putting it back into the pockets of our local governments,” Haren said before the election.

Legalization of possession takes effect in Ohio on December 7. State regulators are supposed to start issuing commercial licenses within nine months.

“This isn’t groundbreaking,” Haren said after Issue 2 qualified for the ballot. “We’re just trying to get Ohio in line with neighbors like Michigan and Illinois.”

Once people can legally buy marijuana, where can they legally consume it? That question has presented a puzzle in other states that have legalized recreational use without allowing businesses analogous to bars or restaurants that serve alcohol. The problem is especially acute for out-of-state visitors, who are apt to find that their hotels frown upon marijuana use.

The Ohio initiative obliquely addresses that issue. It says marijuana use in “public areas” is a “minor misdemeanor,” punishable by a $150 fine. It explicitly does not permit marijuana use on “federal, state, or locally owned land.” It says landlords may not reject tenants based primarily on their cannabis consumption, although they would be allowed to prohibit pot smoking as long as that is a condition of the lease. Finally, the initiative says it does not “prohibit any public place from accommodating an individual’s use of [recreational] cannabis,” which seems to leave room for businesses where people can legally use marijuana.

“Cannabis legalization is an issue that unites Democrats, Republicans, and Independents,” Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in a press release tonight. “Ohioans have seen similar legalization laws adopted in neighboring states and they know that regulating the cannabis market is preferable to the failed policy of prohibition. It is imperative that elected officials respect the voters’ decision and implement this measure in a manner that is consistent with the sentiments of the majority of the electorate.”

The post Ohio Becomes the 24th State To Legalize Recreational Marijuana appeared first on Reason.com.

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Possible Cyberattack? Massive Telecommunication Outage Leaves Millions In Australia Without Cellular Service

Possible Cyberattack? Massive Telecommunication Outage Leaves Millions In Australia Without Cellular Service

Global internet monitor NetBlocks has reported in a post on social media X platform that millions of Optus customers cannot make calls or use the internet due to a major nationwide outage. 

“Metrics show Optus mobile services are down across much of Australia, leaving millions of customers unable to make calls or access internet since early morning; authorities said to be investigating possible cyberattack as trains and infrastructure disrupted,” NetBlocks said. 

Optus is aware of an issue that may be impacting some of our mobile and internet customers,” the telecommunications company wrote in a statement. 

Australian Broadcasting Corporation said, “Federal authorities are checking whether the outage is the result of a cyber attack, although, at this stage, they do not believe it is a hack.”

*Developing… 

 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/07/2023 – 21:25

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/1VKD0bH Tyler Durden