Month: March 2024

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

So the Deep State is good, but the Total Surveillance State is even better.

The Deep State and The Total Surveillance State are viewed unfavorably for self-evident reasons: the unelected Deep State is anathema to democracy and the Total Surveillance State (and its oh-so-profitable handmaiden, Surveillance Capitalism) are anathema to democracy, freedom and personal liberty.

Let’s play devil’s advocate and consider the positives of the Deep State and the Total Surveillance State. As devil’s advocates we must set aside our negative emotions and assessments, and conjure up a case for favoring the Deep State and the Total Surveillance State.

A recent attempt to cast a favorable light on the Deep State breezily conflates public/civil service with the Deep State, a purposeful misdirection of the definition of the Deep State: the Deep State is not the sum total of public/civil servants or federal employees; it is the unelected governmental structure that makes decisions on behalf of the nation’s citizenry without their knowledge, input or approval.

It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome (NYT.com)

The Deep State’s job is to keep the Imperial Project humming along regardless of whomever has been elected to the Presidency or Congress. The protocols of the Republic require some appearance of oversight by the elected branches of the state over the unelected branches of the state, but elected officials aren’t about to shut down the Imperial Project–the maintenance and expansion of all forms of cultural, economic, financial, diplomatic and military power, a.k.a. soft and hard power. Oversight boils down to “don’t do anything which embarrasses us optically.”

The positive potential of the Deep State lies in the asymmetry of competence and functionality between the elected and unelected branches of the state. If the elected state devolves into a circus of incompetence, PR charades, self-aggrandizement and dysfunction, then having a competent, well-managed Deep State is a very good thing, as the incompetent, dysfunctional elected state can provide entertainment value without doing irreparable damage to the nation.

The problem, of course, is that since we never really know what the Deep State is up to, it’s impossible to tell if it is operationally competent or not. But since we know the political circus is dysfunctional and corrupt, the possibility that the Deep State is still competent and less compromised by corruption is cheering.

A recent video posted by an American visiting China made a splash by summarizing the positive changes that have transformed China in the past five years. The 7 major ways China has changed between 2019 and 2024. The seven positive systemic changes: 1) widespread automation of services and transactions, 2) rise of EVs (electric vehicles); 3) cleaner air; 4) public behavior is “more civilized” (given China’s role as a wellspring of civilization, I would rephrase this as “more courteous”); 5) fewer foreigners; 6) manufacturers are selling directly to consumers, and 7) everything is more harmonious and better.

While extolling the advance of public courtesy, comparing it favorably to famously polite and well-ordered Japan, Mr. Hart mentions public campaigns promoting civil behaviors and the role of automation in reducing the opportunities for ripping off consumers.

He did not mention the primary driver of improved public behavior, China’s transformation into a Total Surveillance State, the happy marriage of Surveillance Capitalism and the Surveillance State, in which millions of cameras record and identify citizens’ behaviors, and those who break the rules find their ability to buy a train or airline ticket has been rescinded, or they get a friendly invitation from the local police to “come by for tea” to receive a suggestion to clean up one’s act lest life becomes much less pleasant and much more difficult.

Where rudely cutting in line once generated no real consequence, now it does. So cutting in line now offers a very poor risk-return ratio: the gain is minimal compared to the potential costs / consequences. Given humans’ keen alertness to windfalls, gains and losses, cutting in line is no longer a common transgression.

It is thus unsurprising that the public broadly approves of the Surveillance State’s social credit system penalizing anti-social behavior. Bad behavior diminishing benefits everyone, and it provides employment to all those public servants staffing local police stations, monitoring video, screening social media, and so on. What’s not to like?

The tricky part, of course, is who gets to define anti-social behavior? Those in charge of the Total Surveillance State tend to view criticism of their efforts as undeserved ingratitude, and so criticism of the Surveillance State becomes a form of anti-social behavior that must be stamped out.

Other potential threats to those in charge slide easily into the programming of automation and surveillance, and so dissatisfaction is no longer expressed in action (protests, etc.) but inaction: people drop out of being productively employed, marrying and having children.

There are many reasons for the collapse of marriage and birth rates in East Asia and elsewhere, but courteous public behavior, automation, EVs, cleaner skies, factory-to-consumer supply chains and a well-ordered society don’t seem to have the power to reverse this mass opting out.

So the Deep State is good, but the Total Surveillance State is even better. Everyone obeys the rules, society becomes harmonious, and for reasons that escape those in charge, people give up on work, marriage and having children. Other than that, it’s all blue skies for Deep States and Total Surveillance States.

Deep States and Total Surveillance States share one consequential structural characteristic:

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The federal government authorized $60 million for salvage efforts for the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore, which collapsed on Tuesday after being struck by a large container ship. A massive CIA-linked floating crane has arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, along with other cranes, and it will soon begin clearing the mangled bridge from the shipping channel, which has paralyzed the entire port.  

The salvage operation may not begin as seamlessly as government officials hoped. As Captain John Konrad, CEO of gCaptain, a website specializing in tracking the shipping industry, states, the 984-foot Singapore-flagged container ship Dali is apparently “sitting atop a high-pressure underwater gas line.” 

“Sources at ICS reports ship salvage effort will likely be delayed while line is surveyed and additional risk can be assessed,” Konrad wrote on social media platform X. 

BREAKING: MV DALI IS POTENTIALLY SITTING ATOP HIGH PRESSURE UNDERWATER GAS LINE

Source at ICS reports ship salvage effort will likely be delayed while line is surveyed and additional risk can be assessed

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) March 30, 2024

He said, “The weight of steel/concrete pinning down bow of the vessel is estimated to be 3-4 thousand tons.” 

weight of steel/concrete pinning down bow of the vessel is estimated to be 3-4 thousand tons

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) March 30, 2024

Konrad reported this late Friday night. He said this news will soon be released on the “state of Maryland’s website.” 

No. That’s why is breaking news

But was told it will be posted to the state of Maryland’s website

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) March 30, 2024

The National Pipeline Mapping System database shows Konrad is correct about an underwater natural gas pipeline under the bridge. 

Here’s a regional view of the NatGas pipeline network. 

Besides fears about salvage delays, there are mounting structural concerns about the vessel’s hull and whether it’s still seaworthiness. 

Next week, President Biden will travel to the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Biden has been criticized for not visiting disaster sites in a timely fashion, including the toxic train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via mishtalk.com,

The Biden administration just issued a new directive. If 25 percent of a school is low income, then everybody gets a free lunch.

Free Lunch for Everybody

The Wall Street Journal comments on Biden’s Free Lunch for Rich Kids

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but the Biden administration insists otherwise. The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to provide free lunches to children—including many whose parents earn six-figure incomes—year-round.

As usual, this story begins with a supposedly temporary program. As schools closed in 2020, Congress allowed states to send extra payments to families whose children qualified for free and reduced-price school lunches. The following year, it added summer payments to the package, depositing money directly onto families’ electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, cards, which are used for food stamps. Finally, in December 2022, Congress made this “Summer EBT” program permanent—beginning in mid-2024. The USDA would automatically enroll millions of families and create a separate, means-tested application process for others.

The White House is now exceeding what Congress intended. In September 2023, the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service finalized a rule that expands the number of students who qualify for reduced lunches during the school year.

[New Rule] If a mere 25% of a public school’s students meet the requirements, 100% of its students will be eligible to receive the benefit. The rule imposes no income limits, meaning middle- and upper-class children will get subsidized meals. The Biden administration also is preparing to add the summer months to the expansion.

No Means Testing, Just Free

Biden’s goal is free lunches for everybody, including summer programs, and he just found a way to do it for all the big cities.

Rich suburbs and parochial schools may be on the outside, but that’s about it.

The cost of this boondoggle is not yet known, but it will cost something, at least tens of billions of dollars. And with that, Biden just usurped power that belongs to Congress.

These executive orders and administrative rulings by decree have been very difficult to challenge because of standing.

A Question of Standing

Before the Supreme Court will hear a case, it must find that the parties have a tangible interest at stake in the matter, the issue presented must be “mature for judicial resolution” or ripe, and a justiciable issue must remain before the court throughout the course of the lawsuit. The final point means there must be a clear, easy remedy.

The Court has ruled that taxpayers do not have standing, nor do third parties not directly involved. It is on this point many lawsuits fail.

Who Has Standing Here?

Conventional wisdom suggests no one has standing in these maddening decrees.

I am not a constitutional lawyer (nor lawyer of any kind), but logic says this is an easy case to pursue, and with this set of Supreme Court justices, arguably winnable.

Q: So, who has standing by my reasoning?
A: Anyone in Congress.

Congress has a “tangible interest at stake in the matter” because Biden repeatedly and flagrantly usurps budget powers that the Constitution says reside with Congress, not the executive branch.

I await the day a Senator or House member files suit in a friendly district and wins. The ruling will be challenged in an unfriendly appeals court and the Supreme Court will have to take the case.

Perhaps this is not the ideal case for reasons I do not understand. But I am positive Biden has provided ample cases. Someone in Congress needs to pick the correct case to fight.

Politically Speaking

Politically speaking, the timing may not be correct.

People like perceived free lunches even though someone always has to pay for them.

The Left Is Suddenly Going to Like a Supreme Court Abortion Ruling

The question of standing also came up yesterday.

For discussion, please see The Left Is Suddenly Going to Like a Supreme Court Abortion Ruling

Standing is a copout though. I expect a wider ruling.

This will benefit Trump by taking some of the steam over the Dodd decision if he either stays out of it or better yet says the matter is up to the courts.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

On May 5, 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a mob-like warning to social-media companies and information distributors generally. They need to get with the program and start censoring critics of COVID policy. They need to amplify government propaganda. After all, it would be a shame if something would happen to these companies.

These were her exact words:

“The president’s view is that the major platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation and misinformation, especially related to Covid-19 vaccinations and elections. And we’ve seen that over the past several months. Broadly speaking, I’m not placing any blame on any individual or group. We’ve seen it from a number of sources. He also supports better privacy protections and a robust antitrust program. So, his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation, disinformation, damaging, sometimes life threatening information is not going out to the American public.”

On the face of it, the antitrust action against Apple is about their secure communications network. The Justice Department wants the company to share their services with other networks. As with so many other antitrust actions in history, this is really about the government’s taking sides in competitive disputes between companies, in this case Samsung and other smartphone providers. They resent the way Apple products all work together. They want that changed.

The very notion that the government is trying to protect consumers in this case is preposterous. Apple is a success not because they are exploitative but because they make products that users like, and they like them so much that they buy ever more. It’s not uncommon that a person gets an iPhone and then a Macbook, an iPad, and then AirPods. All play well together.

The Justice Department calls this anticompetitive even though competing is exactly the source of Apple’s market strength. That has always been true. Yes, there is every reason to be annoyed at the company’s hammer-and-tongs enforcement of its intellectual property. But their IP is not the driving force of the company’s success. Its products and services are.

Beyond that, there is a darker agenda here. It’s about bringing new media into the government propaganda fold, exactly as Psaki threatened. Apple is a main distributor of podcasts in the country and world, just behind Spotify (which is foreign controlled). There are 120 million podcast listeners in the United States, far more than pay attention to regime media in total.

If the ambition is to control the public mind, something must be done to get those under control. It’s not enough just to nationalize Facebook and Google. If the purpose is to end free speech as we know it, they have to go after podcasting too, using every tool that is available.

Antitrust is one tool they have. The other is the implicit threat to take away Section 230 that grants legal liability to social networks that immunize them against what would otherwise be a torrent of litigation. These are the two main guns that government can hold to the head of these private communications companies. Apple is the target in order to make the company more compliant.

All of which gets us to the issue of the First Amendment. There are many ways to violate laws on free speech. It’s not just about sending a direct note with a built-in threat. You can use third parties. You can invoke implicit threats. You can depend on the awareness that, after all, you are the government so it is hardly a level playing field. You can embed employees and pay their salaries (as was the case with Twitter). Or, in the case of Psaki above, you can deploy the mob tactic of reminding companies that bad things may or may not happen if they persist in non-compliance.

Over the last 4 to 6 years, governments have used all these methods to violate free speech rights. We are sitting on tens of thousands of pages of proof of this. What seemed like spotty takedowns of true information has been revealed as a vast machinery now called the Censorship Industrial Complex involving dozens of agencies, nearly one hundred universities, and many foundations and nonprofit organizations directly or indirectly funded by government.

You would have to be willfully blind not to see the long-run ambition. The goal is a mass reversion to the past, a world like we had in the 1970s with three networks and limited information sources about anything going on in government. Back then, people did not know what they did not know. That’s how effective the system was. It came about not entirely because of active censorship but because of technological limitations.

The information age is called that because it blew up the old system, offering hope of a new world of universal distribution of ever more information about everything, and promising to empower billions of users themselves to become distributors. That’s how the company YouTube got its name: everyone could be a TV producer.

That dream was hatched in the 1980s, gained great progress in the 1990s and 2000s, and began fundamentally to upend government structures in the 2010s. Following Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in 2016—two major events that were not supposed to happen—a deep establishment said that’s enough. They scapegoated the new systems of information for disrupting the plans of decades and reversing the planned course of history.

The ambition to control every nook and cranny of the internet sounds far-flung but what choice do they have? This is why this machinery of censorship has been constructed and why there is such a push to have artificial intelligence (AI) take over the job of content curation. In this case, machines alone do the job without human intervention, making litigation nearly impossible.

The Supreme Court has the chance to do something to stop this but it’s not clear that many Justices even understand the scale of the problem or the Constitutional strictures against it. Some seem to think that this is only about the right of government officials to pick up the phone and complain to reporters about their coverage. That is absolutely not the issue: content curation affects hundreds of millions of people, not just those posting but those reading too.

Still, if there is some concern about the supposed rights of government actors, there is a clear solution offered by David Friedman: post all information and exhortations about topics and content in a public forum. If the Biden or Trump administration has a preference for how social media should behave, it is free to file a ticket like everyone else and the recipient can and should make it and the response public.

This is not an unreasonable suggestion, and it should certainly figure into any judgment made by the Supreme Court. The federal government has always put out press releases. That’s a normal part of functioning. Bombarding private companies with secret takedown notices and otherwise deploying a huge plethora of intimidation tactics should not even be permitted.

Is there muscle behind the growing push for censorship? Certainly there is. This reality is underscored by the Justice Department’s antitrust actions against Apple. The mask of such official actions is now removed.

Just as the FDA and CDC became marketing and enforcement arms of Pfizer and Moderna, so too the Justice Department is now revealed as a censor and industrial promoter of Samsung. This is how captured agencies with hegemonic ambitions operate, not in the public interest but in the private interest of some industries over others and always with the goal of reducing the freedom of the people.

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Jan. 6 defendant seeking to be released from prison was granted in part by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia this week.

The order, signed by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden on March 26, will grant (pdf) the release of Kevin Seefried, a defendant convicted for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, pending the appeal of his conviction.

This decision comes despite stark warnings from the Justice Department regarding the implications of such a move.

Mr. Seefried received a three-year prison sentence for obstructing an official proceeding among other charges, facing a potential maximum sentence of 23 years.

After his conviction, he appealed and requested release pending appeal, a request that gained new relevance when the Supreme Court decided to review a related case, Fischer v. United States, which could impact many Jan. 6 defendants.

The high Court’s decision on this case may influence the outcome of Mr. Seefried’s conviction, suggesting it could be vacated depending on the justices’ ruling.

Judge Notes Deja Vu

The decision to release Mr. Seefried is grounded in the ongoing legal debate over the application of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), the obstruction of an official proceeding statute, beyond the context of “evidence impairment.”

“Seefried’s current motion is déjà vu all over again,” Judge McFadden wrote.

This legal question is currently under review by the Supreme Court in a related case, Fischer v. United States, which directly challenges the scope of § 1512(c) and its application to the Jan. 6 defendants.

Judge McFadden, in his memorandum order, outlined that the release is premised on two conditions mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b): a defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the community if released, and that the appeal raises a substantial question likely to result in a significantly lesser sentence or reversal.

Judge McFadden found that Mr. Seefried met both conditions, noting a lack of evidence to suggest Mr. Seefried would flee or pose a danger, and that the Supreme Court’s review of Fischer represents a substantial question of law that could materially affect Mr. Seefried’s conviction.

Judge McFadden noted the argument of the Justice Department that, in their belief, he now knew the “day-to-day reality of confinement in prison” and was therefore “more likely” to flee than return to prison.

Judge McFadden also noted U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves’s argument of 2024 being an election year involving “what will likely be another fiercely contested presidential election” and if released, the Court “would be releasing defendant into the same political maelstrom that led him to commit his crimes in the first place.”

Judge McFadden said those arguments were “unavailing.”

“The riot on January 6th was the culmination of a unique—indeed, never-before-seen—confluence of events,” Judge McFadden wrote. “The Government provides the Court no evidence suggesting that any of the events that led to that riot are reasonably likely to recur. Nor does it point to any evidence that Seefried would participate in another riot if they did.”

Furthermore, the decision reflects on the procedural aspects and standards for release pending appeal, challenging the Justice Department’s arguments against Mr. Seefried’s release.

Judge McFadden wrote he should be released on the one-year anniversary that he first surrendered himself to serve time, which is “on or before” May 31.

We all know the emails:

“Dear user, please click the following link to update your credentials. Otherwise your Office 365 account will be disabled.”

“Please sign the attached document” or

“Please review your payment information.”

And while many of those emails look legitimate at first glance, it’s always worth taking a closer look, because more often than not emails like the above are phishing attempts.

Millions of people fall for these kinds of phishing attempts, especially people who haven’t grown up using the internet.

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, phishing is among the most common cyber attacks, targeting both individuals and companies. The consequences of successful phishing attacks can be severe, ranging from loss of confidential information or intellectual property to breach of customer data or ransomware infection. Any of those outcomes can result in financial and reputational damages, which is why any organization should train its employees on the constantly evolving threat landscape.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In recent years, phishing mails have become a lot more sophisticated and some of them are really hard to distinguish from legitimate mails.

In many cases, such attacks involve the attacker imitating a well-known company/brand – a practice commonly known as “brand phishing” – in order to exploit the trust and familiarity that users have with certain brands. According to Proofpoint’s 2024 State of the Phish report, Microsoft was the most abused brand in 2023, appearing in 68 million malicious messages, with Office 365 alone appearing in 20 million malicious mails. Other often exploited brands include Adobe, DHL and Google, albeit none of them comes close to the volume of fraudulent messages sent in the name of Microsoft.

Authored by Chris Hedges via ScheerPost,

Prosecutors representing the United States, whether by design or incompetence, refused — in the two-day hearing I attended in London in February — to provide guarantees that Julian Assange would be afforded First Amendment rights and would be spared the death penalty if extradited to the U.S. 

The inability to give these assurances all but guaranteed that the High Court — as it did on Tuesday — would allow Julian’s lawyers to appeal. Was this done to stall for time so that Julian would not be extradited until after the U.S. presidential election? Was it a delaying tactic to work out a plea deal? Julian’s lawyers and U.S. prosecutors are discussing this possibility. Was it careless legal work? Or was it to keep Julian locked in a high security prison until he collapses mentally and physically? 

If Julian is extradited, he will stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years, along with another charge for “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” carrying an additional five years.

The court will permit Julian to appeal minor technical points — his basic free speech rights must be honored, he cannot be discriminated against on the basis of his nationality and he cannot be under threat of the death penalty.

No new hearing will allow his lawyers to focus on the war crimes and corruption that WikiLeaks exposed. No new hearing will permit Julian to mount a public-interest defense. No new hearing will discuss the political persecution of a publisher who has not committed a crime.

The court, by asking the U.S. for assurances that Julian would be granted First Amendment rights in the U.S. courts and not be subject to the death penalty, offered the U.S. an easy out — give the guarantees and the appeal is rejected. 

It is hard to see how the U.S. can refuse the two-judge panel, composed of Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, which issued on Tuesday a 66-page judgment accompanied by a three-page court order and a four-page media briefing. 

The hearing in February was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and many of the rulings of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser in 2021. 

If Julian is denied an appeal, he can request an emergency stay of execution from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is possible the British court could order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction, or decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard there.

Julian has been engaged in a legal battle for 15 years. It began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. 

Julian took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London for seven years, fearing extradition to the U.S. He was arrested in April 2019 by the Metropolitan Police, who were permitted by the Embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh, a high-security prison in southeast London.

The case against Julian has made a mockery of the British justice system and international law. While in the embassy, the Spanish security firm UC Global provided video recordings of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege. 

The Ecuadorian government — led by Lenin Moreno — violated international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permitting police into their embassy to carry Julian into a waiting van. The courts have denied Julian’s status as a legitimate journalist and publisher. The U.S. and Britain have ignored Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses. The key witness for the U.S., Sigurdur Thordarson — a convicted fraudster and pedophile — admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian in exchange for immunity for past crimes..

Julian, an Australian citizen, is being charged under the U.S. Espionage Act although he did not engage in espionage and was not based in the U.S when he was sent the leaked documents. The British courts are considering extradition, despite the CIA’s plan to kidnap and assassinate Julian, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London, with involvement by London’s Metropolitan Police. 

Julian has been held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial, although his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions after he obtained asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador. This should only entail a fine. 

Finally, Julian did not, unlike Daniel Ellsberg, leak the documents. He published documents leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. 

Three of the nine legal grounds were accepted by the judges as potential points for appeal. The other six were denied. The two-judge panel also rejected the request by Julian’s lawyers to present new evidence. 

Julian’s legal team asked the court to introduce into the case the Yahoo! News report that revealed, after the release of the documents known as Vault 7, that the then-director of the CIA Mike Pompeo, considered assassinating Julian. Julian’s lawyers also hoped to introduce a statement from Joshua Dratel, a U.S. attorney, who said that Pompeo’s use of the terms “non-state hostile intelligence service” and “enemy combatant” were phrases designed to give legal cover for an assassination. The third piece of evidence Julian’s lawyers hoped to introduce was a statement from a Spanish witness in the criminal proceedings underway in Spain against UC Global. 

The CIA is the engine behind Julian’s extradition. Vault 7 exposed hacking tools that permit the CIA to access our phones, computers and televisions, turning them — even when switched off — into monitoring and recording devices. The extradition request does not include charges based on the release of the Vault 7 files, but the U.S. indictment followed the release of the Vault 7 files. 

Justice Sharp and Justice Johnson dismissed the report in Yahoo! News as “another recitation of opinion by journalists on matters that were considered by the judge.” They rejected the argument made by the defense that Julian’s extradition would be in violation of Section 81 of the U.K. Extradition Act of 2003, which prohibits extraditions in cases where individuals are prosecuted for their political opinions. The judges also dismissed the arguments made by Julian’s attorneys that extradition would violate his protections under the European Convention of Human Rights — the right to life, the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to a free trial and protections against punishment without law respectively. 

The U.S. largely built its arguments from the affidavits of the U.S. prosecutor Gordon D. Kromberg. Kromberg, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia has stated that Julian, as a foreign national, is “not entitled to protections under the First Amendment, at least as it concerns national defense information.”

Ben Watson, King’s Counsel, who represented the U.K. government during the two-day hearing in February, conceded that if Julian is found guilty under the Espionage Act, he could receive a death penalty sentence. 

The U.S. and the U.K Secretary of State were urged by the judges to offer the British court assurances on these three points by April 16. 

If the assurances are not provided, the appeal will proceed. 

If the assurances are provided, lawyers for both sides have until April 30th to make new written submissions to the court. At that point, the court will convene again on May 20 to decide if the appeal can go forward.

The goals in this Dickensian nightmare remain unchanged. Erase Julian from the public consciousness. Demonize him. Criminalize those who expose government crimes. Use Julian’s slow motion crucifixion to warn journalists that no matter their nationality, no matter where they live, they can be kidnapped and extradited to the U.S. Drag out the judicial lynching for years until Julian, already in a precarious physical and mental condition, disintegrates. 

This ruling, like all of the rulings in this case, is not about justice. It is about vengeance.

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

Authored by Gregory Copley via The Epoch Times,

No fundamental form of human behavior, for better or worse, disappears forever.

Cycles of wealth, fear, or frustration force changes, and they bear an uncanny similarity to Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” We are, above all else, predictable.

The present decline, distortion, or much-heralded “end of democracy” is overstated. Still, it is difficult to disagree that the present cycle of democracy—beginning in the 18th century—has run its course. It is a human concept of behavior and, as with all things human, has its lifespan before it becomes feeble and sclerotic, corrupt and cynical, and ultimately a parody of what was intended in the flush of innocent youth.

Throughout the world, “democracies” now see themselves beset by the internal competition for office by career politicians whose goal, before all else, is to attain and retain power. The compromises of dignity, nobility of purpose, and service to the electorate are the hallmarks of the age. These compromises have led to the thing aspiring politicians once saw as the bane of human existence: autocracies or, worse, rampant and totalitarian tyrannies. But autocracies cloak themselves with the language of democracy.

Just as Africa, freed now from the coercion of major external powers, has resorted to removing governments by force, we see politicians in power using their office to suppress, deter, or remove their challengers for office.

The Communist Party of China (CCP) introduced the concept of “lawfare” to outmaneuver its domestic and international opponents: using legal mechanisms to constrain an adversary. This concept has been adopted vigorously by “democratically elected politicians” worldwide, so there are now few societies where “lawfare” is not used to eliminate legitimate opponents and constrain and channel society at large.

The spirit of democracy is nowhere to be seen.

Waste no time on mourning. Democracy has had its day and will return when the time is right.

But, equally, waste no time nurturing the self-delusion that moral or intellectual superiority lies in the pretense of democracy, the pretense that societies still embody what they once set out to represent. But we, most of us, insist on our certainty of the moral superiority of our own society because we have nowhere else to go. We cannot embrace our historical or geopolitical opponents’ rights to their own certainties.

But we do not know how best to reorganize our own society without the unthinkable collapse of that same democracy to force our actions.

The birth and death of states have been a preoccupation of scholars since humanity began to structure into durable communities. In 2006, I created—with the help of Greek Cypriot scholar Marios Evriviades—the words “cratocide” (the murder of nations) and “cratogenesis” (the birth of nations) for the book, “The Art of Victory.” Shortly afterward, we added the word “cratometamorphosis” to describe the total reorganization of societies.

Collapse is always the prerequisite to “cratometamorphosis.” Theoretically, this reorganization and revitalization of society should be feasible before total collapse creates a situation when no other option is available. But the very safeguards we have put in place over decades and centuries to protect our present structures also safeguard the corrupted wreckage they have become.

So if, as it appears, many societies—and by no means only those that thought of themselves as democratic—are waiting painfully for that total collapse so that they may be free to recreate themselves “closer to the heart’s desire,” then why is little thought given to that future society, that utopia?

During the years of difficulty that beset so many during the Industrial Revolutions, new concepts were conjured, speculatively, out of whole ideals. There were also years of uncertainty in societies in flux, during which new belief systems were devised.

These religions and ideologies all rippled down the ages and continue to inspire followers, often in the face of historical evidence that they failed here and there but were never revised to truly meet new requirements. Indeed, modern democracy itself—mirroring several iterations in the Hellenic states and earlier in the Indus Valley civilizations over the past 10,000 years—was just such a “revivalist creed,” and its new advocates failed to understand (or even question) why, in its earlier iterations, it had ultimately collapsed.

Is it possible that at our present impasse, there is some belief that technology—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and so on—will define or create a new social framework? Have we, in so embracing “technology,” outsourced responsibility for devising ways in which humans can best work together? Certainly, technology has enabled the implementation of mass guidance of vast numbers of the human population, like the “murmuration of starlings,” the uncanny, but now understood, mass coordination of flocks of starlings in flight.

This “mass guidance” of humans is the mass psychosis tendency, a fundamental self-protection mechanism in human behavior designed to create herd protection.

That mass psychosis, of course, is what we saw during the COVID-19 crisis. However, it presupposes that human societies can be made to walk willingly and fatalistically toward the scenario outlined in the book, “1984,” by George Orwell. It may be man’s good fortune that economic dislocations—now being evidenced in the tremblors that shake the values of currencies and the viability of major economies—will gradually erode the pace of technological progress, enabling human society to regroup on more elemental or human lines.

To “start again” with new concepts for societal organization—governance—will inevitably involve considering concepts that, whether we realize it or not, have probably been played out before. However, it would be ideal to recognize that the framework begins with the sovereignty of each individual and the requirement for each individual to respect each other individually to achieve progress and human reproduction.

At least that optimistic framework can reemerge for a while until we see politics once more fatalistically reach the point where all respect is once again lost, and the desire for power outweighs the desire for societal wellbeing.

The U.S. is the second biggest exporter in the world, accounting for over 8% of global exports.

In this graphic by NeoMam Studios, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti analyzes the primary product exported by each state, as well as its main destination, utilizing data from the U.S. International Trade Administration.

Canada: The Primary Destination

Canada serves as the largest export market for most of the Midwest, while Mexico holds the top spot as the export destination for much of the Southwest and Southeast. Additionally, Canada stands out as the primary importer of products from 21 states, with China and Germany trailing behind as notable destinations.

State	Destination	Top Product Exported	Value (USD)
Alabama	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$3,649M
Alaska	🇨🇦 Canada	Minerals	$576M
Arizona	🇲🇽 Mexico	Minerals	$1,760M
Arkansas	🇨🇦 Canada	Processed Foods	$246M
California	🇨🇦 Canada	Computer & Electronics	$5,093M
Colorado	🇰🇷 South Korea	Processed Foods	$545M
Connecticut	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$1,581M
Delaware	🇰🇷 South Korea	Appliances	$419M
Florida	🇬🇧 UK	Chemicals	$2,447M
Georgia	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,629M
Hawaii	🇭🇰 Hong Kong	Transportation equip.	$68M
Idaho	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Computer & Electronics	$394M
Illinois	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$4,517M
Indiana	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$6,561M
Iowa	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,598M
Kansas	🇲🇽 Mexico	Agricultural	$1,543M
Kentucky	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$3,630M
Louisiana	🇨🇳 China	Agricultural	$11,300M
Maine	🇨🇦 Canada	Oil & Gas	$504M
Maryland	🇫🇷 France	Transportation equip.	$949M
Massachusetts	🇨🇳 China	Machinery	$1,298M
Michigan	🇨🇳 China	Transportation equip.	$15,361M
Minnesota	🇨🇦 Canada	Petroleum & Coal	$2,787M
Mississippi	🇵🇦 Panama	Petroleum & Coal	$2,106M
Missouri	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$2,390M
Montana	🇨🇦 Canada	Minerals	$153M
Nebraska	🇲🇽 Mexico	Agricultural	$933M
Nevada	🇨🇭 Switzerland	Metal	$1,399M
New Hampshire	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$695M
New Jersey	🇨🇦 Canada	Chemicals	$2,734M
New Mexico	🇲🇽 Mexico	Computer & Electronics	$2,014M
New York	🇨🇭 Switzerland	Metal	$18,262M
North Carolina	🇨🇳 China	Chemicals	$4,312M
North Dakota	🇨🇦 Canada	Petroleum & Coal	$1,441M
Ohio	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$5,990M
Oklahoma	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$418M
Oregon	🇨🇳 China	Computer & Electronics	$6,261M
Pennsylvania	🇨🇦 Canada	Chemicals	$2,280M
Rhode Island	🇮🇹 Italy	Waste & Scrap	$321M
South Carolina	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$3,774M
South Dakota	🇨🇦 Canada	Processed Foods	$297M
Tennessee	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$2,017M
Texas	🇲🇽 Mexico	Petroleum & Coal	$33,627M
Utah	🇬🇧 UK	Metal	$6,805M
Vermont	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Computer & Electronics	$447M
Virginia	🇮🇳 India	Minerals	$1,799M
Washington	🇨🇳 China	Agricultural	$10,553M
West Virginia	🇮🇳 India	Minerals	$657M
Wisconsin	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,802M
Wyoming	🇮🇩 Indonesia	Chemicals	$200M

When it comes to the types of exports, transportation equipment emerges as the primary source for the majority of states, with minerals and ores, chemicals, and computer and electronics following closely behind.

For instance, North Carolina ships $4.3 billion worth of chemicals to China, marking one of the longest-distance trade flows among states. Meanwhile, Florida boasts one of the most diverse export portfolios, engaging in trade with Europe, South America, and the Caribbean.

Louisiana heavily relies on the export of agricultural products to China, which contributes significantly to its total GDP. Similarly, Michigan’s transportation equipment exports to Canada constitute a noteworthy portion of the state’s GDP.

In Oregon, exports of semiconductors and other computer parts to China, driven by companies like Intel and Micron, play a crucial role in the state’s economy. Meanwhile, Utah predominantly exports primary metal manufacturing goods to the United Kingdom.

The biggest exporter in the country, Texas, sees a significant portion of its GDP attributed to exports to Mexico, further underlining the state’s economic ties with its southern neighbor.

Authored by Janice Hisle and Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Monday’s dramatic bond reduction for former President Donald Trump did nothing to dissipate the dark cloud that his civil-fraud case has cast over New York business deals.

Although investors won’t publicly admit it, the case is having a chilling effect, said Charles Trzcinka, professor of finance at Indiana University-Bloomington.

“If you talk to people in this market, they are very, very upset … and these are people who are neutral or even opposed to Trump,” Mr. Trzcinka told The Epoch Times. “They’re just angry about it.”

In his role at the university, Mr. Trzcinka said he places students in the corporate lending market in New York, making him aware of trends in that sphere.

An appeals court’s decision to slash the bond by about 60 percent, reducing it to $175 million, still left a massive penalty intact while President Trump continues a legal challenge of Justice Arthur Engoron’s ruling.

Judge Engoron ruled that President Trump and his associates fraudulently overvalued their assets. But Mr. Trzcinka said anyone who thinks President Trump’s activities in that case were irregular or fraudulent may lack an understanding of typical New York business transactions.

A source familiar with the case explained to The Epoch Times that, normally, business-related cases are handled in the New York courts’ commercial division.

There, cases are decided by judges who have specific, “sophisticated” knowledge of commercial law and business practices.

But the case didn’t go that route because New York Attorney General Letitia James found a novel way to use New York’s anti-fraud law.

Researchers examined other alleged fraud cases in New York over a 70-year period and found the Trump case stands alone. The Trump Organization was the only company that confronted the possibility of being forced out of business despite no victim suffering major financial harm.

Because of Ms. James’ unusual application of the law, the case was channeled to a court that would rarely, if ever, handle business-related matters.

Thus, the source said, “This case proceeded in just a highly irregular fashion from the start.”

‘A Degree of Horror’

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley agreed the case is atypical and its repercussions far-reaching.

“This has really done great damage to the New York legal system … Businesses are looking at this with a degree of horror—that a judge could come up with a figure so large you have to sell parts of your business just to get an appeal,” Mr. Turley told Fox News.

However, people who dislike President Trump are cheering on Ms. James. She ran for election on a promise to prosecute the former president if she won the post of attorney general.

Before the court-ordered bond reduction, the original $464 million bond amount included a $363 million judgment that Judge Engoron levied against President Trump and his associates, plus 9 percent interest.

Speaking to reporters after the March 25 appellate court’s decision, President Trump called Judge Engoron’s original decision a “disservice” to New York.

“Businesses are fleeing,” he said.

The case promises to continue discouraging investors from doing business in the Empire State, Mr. Trzcinka and two other knowledgeable sources told The Epoch Times.

That’s not only because of the crippling dollar amounts involved, the sources said, but also because President Trump and his associates were behaving within the bounds of normal business practice and victimized no one.

“All the parties under this civil case were satisfied,” Mr. Trzcinka said. Yet Ms. James “brought a case without a victim” and secured a judgment approaching $500 million.

“I have never heard of a victimless civil case that even won $500,” he said.

Silently Worrying

Businesspeople are afraid to express concerns about the ramifications aloud. Doing so would paint targets on their backs—an underlying reason why President Trump was unable to persuade bonding companies or banks to cover the original $464 million bond, Mr. Trzcinka and the sources said.

“I don’t think a bonding company [or a bank] is willing to be associated with Donald Trump … because the attorney general could turn around and sue them, go after them,” Mr. Trzcinka said.

Judge Engoron ruled that President Trump and his associates committed fraud by overvaluing his properties.

Parties involved in real estate transactions tend to exaggerate values in one way or the other, and they “hit each other over the head” with dueling appraisals, Mr. Trzcinka said.

And, in a case such as this one, “everyone had the same information and just came to different conclusions” as to the valuations, he said. Then the parties negotiated figures and agreed to them.

Unaffordable for a Multi-Billionaire?

Even before interest was added, Judge Engoron slapped President Trump with “the largest penalty in history” for a case of its kind, said Mr. Trzcinka.

He had never heard of such a high penalty imposed for a “syndicated loan,” which involves civil contracts between a corporate borrower and corporate lenders.

About $355 million of the total order specifically applied to President Trump. In addition, the judge ordered $4 million to be recovered from each of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and $1 million from former Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg.

Even the ultra-wealthy would rarely, if ever, have rapid access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in liquid assets, Mr. Trzcinka and other financial experts say.

Marshaling that much cash to post the bond in just 30 days proved to be a daunting task for President Trump; the appellate court’s ruling granted him 10 more days to post a reduced $175 million bond.

That decision moved the amount from “the realm of the impossible” into a different category; “it’s expensive but it’s feasible,” a source said.

A number of bonding companies said that the most they could shoulder would be $100 million, President Trump’s lawyers said in court filings, adding that many people worked countless hours to find possible solutions to the former president’s predicament.

Read the rest here…