Month: October 2024

Authored by James Bovard,

Blindfolds and systemic deceit are the death of self-government…

President Biden has been derided for being a Potemkin president, a figurehead in a vast charade portraying him actually running the government.  Biden was forced to withdraw from the presidential race after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June.   But is a Potemkin presidency being followed by a Potemkin election?

Biden’s expulsion from the presidential race did not herald the arrival of truth. Most of the media still tolerates pervasive secrecy on prime issues of the 2024 campaign.

In bygone times, elections were about self-government.  Nowadays, voters merely have a cameo role to sanctify the nearly boundless power of officialdom.  Every year, the federal government slaps a “secret” label on trillions of pages of information – enough to fill 20 million filing cabinets.  And since the government is automatically benevolent (if a Democrat is president), there is no need to trouble citizens with the grisly details of how they are being served.

At the same time Special Counsel Jack Smith is racing to fling all possible dirt at Trump before Election Day, each week we learn of new cover-ups designed to deceive Americans about how badly they have been misgoverned:

1. Biden administration has mostly succeeded in covering up the crime wave by illegal aliens ushered into the nation since 2021. Former Border Patrol Sector Chief Aaron Heitke testified to Congress last month that the Biden administration hid the adverse impact from deluging U.S. cities with illegal aliens, including those with terror ties.

2. The National Archives announced on Wednesday that it would delay until after the election the release of potentially damning records on Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings with his son and foreign wheelers-dealers – records that have been sought for more than a year by conservative lawyers and activists.

3. Biden’s Justice Department sought to bury all the tax charges against Hunter Biden but were thwarted thanks to courageous IRS whistleblowers.  Hunter’s guilty plea last month to the tax charges confirms that the Justice Department’s offer a wrist-slap plea bargain to Hunter last year was a shameless obstruction of justice.

4. Biden’s FBI last year created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek reported. FBI whistleblowers have exposed the politicization of an agency that even secretly targeted traditional Catholics who prefer to hear mass in Latin. But the vast majority of FBI surveillance and entrapment abuses remain shrouded.

5. Team Biden is covering up both Trump assassination attempts. Biden appointees have stonewalled bipartisan congressional investigations into the abysmal Secret Service failures at Butler, Pennsylvania.  The Justice Department has indefinitely delayed hearings for Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old guy caught waiting to shoot Trump on his Florida golf course.  Delaying proceedings against Routh assures that Americans will not learn before the election whether the would-be assassin had ties to the CIA, Pentagon, State Department or other agencies that assisted Routh with his massively-publicized campaign to recruit foreign soldiers to fight for Ukraine.

6. The Biden administration continues covering up almost everything regarding its support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.  The best info Americans have received was thanks to a young military computer technician who leaked revelations that the Ukrainian military was in far worse shape than Team Biden claimed. Americans have been forced to pay hundreds of billions of dollars but are left in the dark regarding Biden administration machinations that risk pulling this nation into World War Three.

7. The House Oversight Committee this week subpoenaed DHS for its records on Tim Walz’s possible ties to the CCP after being contacted by a whistleblower.  There is zero chance that the Biden administration will release any of those records before Election Day.

8. Political convenience is practically the sole determinant of what Americans are permitted to learn nowadays.  After Biden dropped his re-election bid, the administration disclosed records showing that his son Hunter sought U.S. government handouts for Burisma when Joe Biden was Vice President.  That scandal was buried until Joe Biden was no longer politically relevant.

Is censorship the biggest X factor for this election? Four years ago, the presidential election may have been swung by the coverup of the damning revelations in Hunter Biden’s laptop.  The FBI and the CIA hustled to censor and defuse that story with false rebuttals in October 2020.  According to multiple federal court rulings, federal agencies tampered with the 2020 election by censoring millions of comments by Americans who raised doubts about the trustworthiness of mail-in ballots and other election procedures. Federal judge Terry Doughty noted that  “virtually all of the free speech suppressed was ‘conservative’ free speech.”  A federal appeals court issued an injunction prohibiting federal officials from acting “to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce . . . posted social-media content containing protected free speech.”

But the Supreme Court refused to recognize that the censorship victims had any legal standing and canceled the injunction.   Americans will likely have no idea how many muzzles and blindfolds were secretly attached by federal agencies and federal contractors before Election Day.

Don’t expect journalists to suddenly get hot to thwart those Biden cover-ups. When the media shrouded Biden’s mental debility, it directly endorsed de facto secret rule. How much effort has the New York Times or Washington Post or National Public Radio exerted to reveal who is actually exercising the supreme power nowadays? Exposing that issue could derail Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign so it is ignored. But ​​​​​Biden is as oblivious as ever. When asked by a reporter on Thursday about the situation in the Hurricane Helene storm zone, Biden replied that those states “are getting everything they need. They are very happy across the board.”

Earth to Uncle Joe?!?

But as long as Donald Trump is not elected next month, most of the Washington media doesn’t care who is in control. If the Wizard of Oz was a contemporary political campaign story, the media would overwhelmingly side with the guy behind the curtain.

As long as the Wizard recited “Orange Man Bad,” the media would cover up all his abuses.

But “informed consent” is a mirage if the feds blindfold voters.

As long as Team Biden keeps a lid on its worst outrages until Election Day, Democrats can snare four more year to abuse the Constitution, the law, and the American people. Unfortunately, self-government is not retroactive.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Mises Institute,

Many citizens want more government control of the economy to curb rising prices. It is the worst strategy imaginable. Interventionist governments never reduce consumer prices because they benefit from inflation, dissolving their political spending commitments in a constantly depreciated currency. Inflation is the perfect hidden tax. The government makes the currency less valuable by issuing more units of fiat money, partially dissolves its debt in real terms, collects more taxes, and presents itself as the solution to rising prices with subsidies in an increasingly worthless currency.

That is why socialism and hyperinflation go hand in hand.

Socialism rejects human action and economic calculation and sells a false image of a government that can create wealth at will by issuing more units of fiat currency. Obviously, when inflation arrives, the socialist government will use its two favorite tools: propaganda and repression. Propaganda, which accuses stores and businesses of driving up prices, and repression, which occurs when social unrest intensifies and citizens legitimately hold governments accountable for scarcity and high prices, are the two main strategies.

If you want lower prices, you need to give less economic power to the government, not more. Only free markets, competition, and open economies help decrease consumer prices. Many readers might think that we currently have a free market with competitive and open economies, but the reality is that we live in increasingly intervened and overregulated nations where central banks and governments work to perpetuate unsustainable public deficits and debt. Therefore, they continue to print more money, leading many to question why it is getting harder for families to make ends meet, buy a home, or for small businesses to prosper. The government is slowly eating away the currency it issues. They call it “social use of money.”

What is “social use of money”? In essence, it means abandoning one of the main characteristics of money, the reserve of value, to give the government preferential access to credit to finance its commitments. Therefore, the state can announce larger entitlement programs and increase the size of the public sector relative to the economy, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The state issues more currency, which makes people’s money less valuable. Citizens become more dependent on the state, and they will demand more subsidies paid in the currency the state issues. It is, in essence, a process of control through debt and currency depreciation.

When governments and central banks talk about price stability, it means a two percent annual depreciation of the currency. Aggregate prices rising an average of two percent is hardly price stability because it is measured by the consumer price index, which is a carefully crafted basket of goods and services weighted by the same people who print the money. That is why governments love CPI as a measure of inflation. It fails to fully reflect the erosion of the currency’s purchasing power. This is why the CPI’s basket calculation fluctuates so frequently. Even if it accurately measures, it will underestimate the rise in prices of non-replaceable goods and services by adding them to a basket of things we consume maybe once or twice a year at best. When you put together shelter, food, health, and energy with technology and entertainment, there will always be distortions.

Thus, governments and central banks are never going to defend price stability. If aggregate prices fell, competition soared, and citizens saw their real wages rise and their deposit savings increase in real value, their jobs would disappear.

When a central bank like the Fed cuts rates and increases the money supply after an accumulated 20.4% inflation in four years, it is not defending price stability; it is defending price increases. This strategy serves to conceal the government’s financial insolvency. A currency with a declining value.

Governments are the ones that create inflation by spending a currency that is constantly losing purchasing power because the state issues more than what the private sector demands. No corporation or allegedly evil oil producer can make aggregate prices rise and continue increasing annually at a lower pace. Only the one that prints the money, and central banks don’t print money because they want to; they increase the money supply to absorb rising public deficit spending.

Inflation is a hidden tax, a slow process of nationalization of the economy, and the perfect way to increase taxes without angering voters and blaming private businesses in the meantime. The consumer will likely blame the store or business for higher prices, not the issuer of a currency that loses purchasing power.

Why would governments want higher prices? Because it gives them more power. Destroying the currency they issue is a perfect form of control. That is why they need more debt and higher taxes. High taxes are not a tool to reduce debt, but rather to justify rising public indebtedness.

You may have read numerous times that the government has unlimited borrowing power and can manage inflation to allow you to live comfortably. It is false. The government cannot issue all the debt it wants. It has an inflationary, economic, and fiscal limit.

Inflation is a warning sign of declining currency confidence and a loss of purchasing power. The economic limit is evidenced by lower growth, lower employment, weaker real wages, secular stagnation, and declining foreign demand for public debt.

The fiscal limit is evidenced by soaring interest expenses even with low rates, weaker receipts every time they hike taxes, and citizens and businesses leaving the country to more friendly tax systems, all of which add to the poor or negative multiplier effect of government spending.

If you want lower prices, you should give less economic power to governments, not more.

A government that tells you it will borrow $2 trillion per annum in a growth and record receipt economy and will continue to increase debt and borrow well into 2033 with the most optimistic assumptions of GDP and receipt is telling you it will make you poorer.

When a politician promises that he or she will cut prices, they are always lying. A weaker currency is a tool to increase government power in the economy. By the time you find out, it may be too late.

Money is credit, and government debt is fiat currency. Currency depreciation is inflation, and inflation is equivalent to an implicit default. No interventionist government or central bank wants lower prices because inflation allows the government to increase its power while slowly breaching its monetary commitments.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Boeing and the union representing striking machinists have reached a tentative agreement that union leaders say should be presented to members for a ratification vote, paving the way for a potential end to the more than month-long strike.

“With the help of Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su, we have received a negotiated proposal and resolution to end the strike, and it warrants presenting to the members and is worthy of your consideration,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 751 said in a statement on Oct. 19.

Around 33,000 of Boeing’s unionized workers walked off the job on Sept. 13 after nearly 95 percent of the mostly West Coast workers rejected Boeing’s offer of a 25 percent pay hike over four years. The strike halted production of the company’s 737 Max, as well as the 767 and 777 widebody aircraft, with the company losing an estimated $1 billion per month due to the labor action.

Union leaders said the tentative deal features “key improvements” over an earlier Sept. 12 proposal that are “aimed at resolving the strike.” The latest proposal includes a 35 percent wage increase over four years, a $7,000 ratification bonus, and reinstated incentive payouts. It also includes improved 401k contributions, a $105 pension multiplier, and restored call-in provisions.

While Boeing’s latest proposal makes a number of concessions, it does not include a dedicated pension plan for new members, which was a key demand in previous negotiations. Instead, it emphasizes enhanced 401k contributions, including a 100 percent company match up to 8 percent and a one-time $5,000 contribution for eligible members.

The union said it plans to hold a vote on the proposal on Oct. 23 that, if approved by a simple majority of members, will cement the tentative deal into a contract and end the strike.

Union leaders said they are still finalizing the strike settlement agreement and, along with additional contract details, will present it to members for their consideration ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

“The future of this contract is in your hands,” they said.

In a statement issued on Oct. 19, Boeing said: “We look forward to our employees voting on the negotiated proposal.”

The strike began at a challenging time for Boeing, which has been trying to ramp up production after a series of safety incidents and increased regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Analysts have warned that a prolonged strike could lead to lasting financial impacts, while credit-rating agencies have warned of potential ratings downgrades.

Shortly after the strike began in mid-September, the plane maker announced a hiring freeze, a halt to nonessential spending, and teased the possibility of layoffs, in a bid to conserve cash and preserve the company’s long-term operations. At the time, Boeing also said it will temporarily release nonessential contractors and consultants, and pause employee retention programs, catered meals, and team events.

As the strike dragged into October, Boeing announced that it will cut around 17,000 jobs and further delay the launch of the 777X, a new model that is already several years behind schedule.

“Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in an Oct. 11 memo to employees, which came on the same day that the plane maker announced in a press release that it expects to recognize negative impacts to its financial results when it reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 23.

Boeing attributed the impacts to charges related to certain commercial and defense programs, as well as the ongoing strike. The company now projects revenues of $17.8 billion, an operating cash flow deficit of $1.3 billion, and a loss of $9.97 per share.

A major leak of US classified documents has appeared online Saturday… or we should qualify alleged leaks of at least two TOP SECRET documents, with both marked NOFORN – which is among the highest classifications – given it indicates the specific intelligence cannot be shared with allied foreign intelligence agencies. 

A breaking Axios report suggests their authenticity: “U.S. officials are extremely concerned about a potentially major security breach after two alleged U.S. intelligence documents about Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran were published by a Telegram account affiliated with Iran,” Barak Ravid, who maintains close Israeli military and intelligence sources, writes.

The documents include one which was reportedly authored by the Department of Defense National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), dubbed a “Visual Intelligence” report and distributed among the US intelligence community (IC) earlier this week, and dated to Oct.14-16.

Neither the Pentagon nor NGA have offered official confirmation or comment, nor are they likely to. The documents first appeared on a pro-Iran Telegram channel. Axios has identified the channel name as “Middle East Spectator”. 

The docs first appeared online Friday, but the Axios report has strongly pointed to the authenticity of leak.

The region has remained on edge as Israel prepares to retaliate against Iran for its Oct.1st ballistic missile attack which saw some 200 projectiles pummel various sites in central Israel, some of which were said to be Iranian hypersonics. Axios has noted that “The leak could be an attempt to disrupt the Israeli operation.”

A US official told Axios that the alleged leak is “extremely concerning” – again implying authenticity. The leak is also being described as potential very serious breach within the US intelligence community.

Two of the documents have appeared on social media as follows:

⚡️ Hebrew media expresses frustration as ALLEGEDLY leaked American intelligence documents expose Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran.

Here are two of the “SUPPOSED” leaked documents. pic.twitter.com/xA8d9M04cB

— Warfare Analysis (@warfareanalysis) October 19, 2024

Israeli media has also begun to spotlight the leak.

Did Iran just hack and breach restricted US intelligence community servers?

As for content of the documents, they contain information on Israel’s military transferring advanced munitions, possibly readying them for a planned attack on the Islamic Republic. One of the classified docs has the following header:

Defense Forces Continue Key Munitions Preparations and Covert UAV Activity Almost Certainly for a Strike on Iran, 16 October 2024

Axios has further commented on the top secret documents as follows:

• It also states that according to U.S. signals intelligence, the Israeli Air Force conducted a large exercise this week involving intelligence planes and likely fighter jets trained for a possible attack against Iran.
• The alleged intelligence report also detailed preparations in Israeli drone units for an attack against Iran.

The Washington think tank community is outraged over the apparent major breach…

Classified U.S. intelligence documents about #Israel‘s response to #Iran‘s regime’s attack on Oct. 1 found their way onto a pro-#IRGCterrorists Telegram channel. Whether by hacking or by leaks, this is a very serious incident.

There better be a robust investigation. Recall…

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) October 19, 2024

The documents, if accurate, reveal the efforts by US intelligence to closely monitor the preparations of US ally Israel for an attack on Iran. In this scenario the US Geospatial-Intelligence Agency using its spy satellites to track movements at Israeli Air Force bases.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Three U.S. citizens are among five people detained by Venezuelan authorities over their alleged connection to a terrorist plot to destabilize the country, Venezuela’s interior minister announced on Thursday.

Appearing on state television, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello identified the U.S. citizens as David Guttenberg Guillaume, Gregory David Werber, and Jonathan Pagan Gonzalez.

Cabello did not state when the five individuals were detained or what charges they faced but said Gonzalez was captured in the border state of Zulia.

A Peruvian and a Bolivian citizen were also among those taken into custody alongside the three Americans, he said.

All of the individuals speak “perfect” Spanish and traveled to the South American nation under the pretense of either a holiday or visiting a romantic partner, the interior minister said.

“The detained foreigners speak Spanish perfectly, a necessary requirement for them to involve themselves in communities,” Cabello stated.

Cabello provided no evidence linking the detained individuals to alleged terrorist activities in the country.

Instead, he repeated previous claims that U.S. entities such as the CIA were behind the alleged terrorist plot – a claim that has been repeatedly refuted by the U.S. State Department.

Election Results Under Scrutiny

The detainments follow a clampdown on what Venezuela’s government has described as “anti-government activities” following the highly disputed July presidential election in which President Nicolas Maduro secured a third term in office.

The election results sparked nationwide protests and have been heavily scrutinized by the United States and its allies, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK.

The latest arrests bring the number of foreign detainees in Venezuela to at least 12 after three Americans, two Spaniards, and a Czech citizen were arrested last month.

One of those detained was later identified as Wilbert Joseph Castañeda Gomez, whom Cabello described as a Navy SEAL who had served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia.

Also in September, a fourth U.S. citizen was arrested for allegedly taking photos of electrical and oil installations and military units.

Officials accused those individuals of traveling to the country to assassinate Maduro, overthrow the Venezuelan government, and kill several members of its leadership.

The United States in September imposed sanctions on 16 individuals connected to Maduro, whom the Biden administration accused of obstructing voting during the July presidential election and carrying out human rights abuses.

The Maduro administration has previously used Americans imprisoned in Venezuela to gain concessions from the U.S. government.

Under a deal with the Biden administration in December last year, the Venezuelan government handed over 10 Americans and a fugitive wanted by the U.S. government to secure a presidential pardon for Columbian businessman Alex Saab, a close Maduro ally accused of a $350 million money laundering scheme.

The Epoch Times contacted the State Department for comment but didn’t receive a reply by press time.

California’s far-left governor, Gavin Newsom, has unexpectedly backed Elon Musk and SpaceX. The private spaceflight company, which handles the majority of US space launches and leads the space race in this solar system, filed a lawsuit against a California state commission early last week, accusing it of political bias. The suit alleges that Democrats are hindering SpaceX launches off the Pacific coast. 

“I’m with Elon,” Gov. Newsom said in an interview Thursday after campaigning for VP Kamala Harris in the swing state of North Carolina, which Politico quoted. He continued, “I didn’t like that.”

On Tuesday, SpaceX filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against the California Coastal Commission for alleged political discrimination. 

The lawsuit stems from the California Coastal Commission’s (CCC) decision to halt SpaceX’s plans to increase the number of rocket launches from the Space Force base in Santa Barbara County. 

SpaceX lawyers claimed that CCC made the decision based on political differences with Musk, a top supporter of Trump and anti-woke crusader on X, bashing Democrats for their nation-killing policies, such as open southern borders, lawless metro areas, out-of-control debt binge in Washington, and the list goes on and on. 

The lawsuit asserts CCC’s 12 members “engaged in naked political discrimination” in last week’s decision over the Department of Defense (DOD) proposal to increase the number of SpaceX launches at Vandenberg from 36 to 50. 

“Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,” the lawsuit reads.

Gov. Newsom added, “Look, I’m not helping the legal case … and you can’t bring up that explicit level of politics.” 

Newsom sided with SpaceX in the lawsuit and pointed out that an independent agency should have been involved, politics aside, in the decision-making process for rocket launches at the base. 

Newsom understands that, unlike many Democrats, SpaceX has become a critical part of national security rocket programs. In fact, Musk’s rocket company is quite literally America’s space program in terms of space launches and total mass catapulted into low Earth Orbit. SpaceX will even rescue Boeing’s stranded crew at the International Space Station early next year. 

Using data from BryceTech, SpaceX launched 525 spacecraft into orbit in the first quarter, far outpacing China and Russia. 

Musk is America’s rocket program: SpaceX launched about 429,125 kg of spacecraft upmass in the first quarter, significantly outpacing China’s rocket program (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation), which launched a measly 29,426 kg. 

Much of this is due to SpaceX’s Starlink deployment in LEO, as thousands of these satellites provide high-speed internet coverage to millions of customers worldwide. 

Just last week: 

• French Media Blames SpaceX For 2,500 Airbus Layoffs As Elon Musk Leads Rocket Race

And this. 

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

Jonathan Turley penned in a note last week:

The left will now kill jobs, cancel national security programs and gut the Constitution in its unrelenting campaign to get Musk. His very existence undermines the power of the anti-free speech movement. In a culture of groupthink, Musk is viewed as a type of free-thought contagion that must be eliminated.

If Democrats are indeed trying to sabotage America’s space program by weaponizing the government to restrict Musk and slow down rocket launches, it raises serious national security concerns. A deeper conversation must be had about whether this radical far-left party is being influenced by foreign adversaries with competing space programs—like China. 

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Russia appears to be trying to evade Western sanctions on its LNG tanker fleet by transferring ownership of vessels to a newly-created firm based in a free trade zone in Dubai, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Three LNG tankers, previously managed by the Russian companies Gazprom and Sovcomflot, now have a new owner, a Dubai-based firm. The vessels Velikiy Novgorod, Pskov, and La Perouse saw aspects of their management transferred to Matias Ship Management, the newly established company in Dubai, in September, Bloomberg reported, citing global shipping database Equasis.

Matias Ship Management’s registered address is at the Meydan Hotel in Dubai, a free trade zone, where other companies suspected of helping Russia amass its shadow fleet of oil and LNG tankers are based, according to Bloomberg. 

The three LNG tankers have been serving the smaller Portovaya LNG export plant on Russia’s Baltic Sea. Portovaya LNG is not subject to Western sanctions or export restrictions. 

Two of the tankers, Velikiy Novgorod and La Perouse, are under UK sanctions.

Velikiy Novgorod was slapped with sanctions just yesterday as the UK imposed the largest round of sanctions to date against Russia’s shadow fleet, designating an additional 18 oil tankers and four LNG tankers as it seeks to cut critical revenues for Vladimir Putin.

Russia has started to amass a dark fleet of tankers to ship its LNG in vessel ownership transfers similar to the moves that Moscow began after the invasion of Ukraine to create a shadow fleet to export oil and products in the face of Western sanctions.

Some tankers have recently departed from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 terminal in northern Russia, signaling Moscow’s continued efforts to circumvent Western restrictions. 

In August, the U.S. State Department intensified efforts to derail Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 exports by targeting companies involved in the development of the project and vessels found to have loaded LNG from the facility.

In what promises to be a major milestone in more than two-and-a-half years of war, Russia is closing in on the capture of a vital industrial asset: a Ukrainian coal mine that’s a cornerstone of the country’s steel industry. 

Owned by Ukrainian firm Metinvest, the modern facility — opened in 1990 — is Ukraine’s largest mine for producing coking-coal, a specific grade used to fuel blast furnaces. It’s near the village of Udachne, about 10 kilometers west of the city of Pokvrosk, which is itself a key supply hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. Per the latest reports, the Russian army is reportedly just 8 to 12 kilometers east of Pokrovsk. Defensive lines have already been dug to Pokrovsk’s west, so Ukrainian units will have positions to drop back to if Pokrovsk falls.  

In an interview with The Economist, analyst Andriy Buzarov noted that the Russians don’t have to actually occupy the mine to remove it from Ukraine’s economic equation: They can do that by severing its power or destroying the principal road used to haul its product westward.  

Steel is one of Ukraine’s principal industries, accounting for about a third of exports before Russia’s invasion. At that time, Ukraine ranked 14th in global steel production; by last year, it had fallen to 24th place. This year, Metinvest expected to unearth 5.3 million metric tons of coal in the mine near Pokrovsk. 

Oleksandr Kalenkov, the head of Ukraine’s metals and mining industry lobbying group, explained the implications for the country’s steel industry when the mine falls under Russian control, telling Reuters it could slash projected 2025 steel production by upwards of 80%:

“We could make up to 7.5 million metric tons of steel by the end of the year and, for next year, we saw an increase in production to over 10 million, but if we lose Pokrovsk, then … we will fall to 2-3 million tons.”

It’s not just a matter of Ukraine switching to imports of the specialty-use coking coal. “We don’t know where to get coal if Pokrovsk is seized,” Urkraine coke association Ukrkoks head Anatoly Starovoit told Reuters. “It is difficult to bring it in by importing; today it is not so easy to bring it in by sea.” That’s because Ukraine’s ports are geared toward exports, to say nothing of military hazards. 

The handwriting was already on the wall...but Ukraine’s pending loss of this vital industrial asset will only accelerate growing Western resignation to the inevitability of a negotiated end to the bloody, US-led proxy war with Russia. 

Via Middle East Eye

Turkey aims to spend a total of $47 billion on defense and security for the next year, its highest ever spending, a government budget proposal showed on Thursday. 

Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said during a briefing at the presidency that the government aims to earmark 913.9 billion Turkish lira ($26.8bn) for defense spending. This would also include 165 billion lira needed for the defense industry support fund. 

The budget also envisions 694.5 billion lira for domestic security needs, which cover the interior ministry, the police, the national intelligence agency and other related agencies’ expenditure. 

Turkey’s defense spending has been steadily increasing in recent years. The 2024 defense and security budget was around $40bn, meaning 2025’s defense spending will see a 17.5 percent increase.

Ankara is running military operations in Syria and Iraq, and operates military bases in Libya, Somalia and Qatar. Additionally, it has a permanent presence in Northern Cyprus. 

Since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003, the Turkish government has been making large investments in the local arms industry, from armed drones, ballistic missiles and cannons to national warships, tank projects and armored vehicles. 

Regional escalations

Ankara is also concerned by the military escalations in the region. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in televised remarks on Thursday that Turkey has to ready itself for an Israel-Iran war, and would therefore take every measure available. 

The government earlier this month put forward a new tax venue to inject more cash into the Defense Industry Support Fund. The scheme proposed asking citizens who have credit cards with limits above 100,000 lira to annually pay 750 lira to cover the additional defense projects ordered by the government. 

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) withdrew the proposal earlier this week after severe criticism from the public. The opposition and experts said it was unconstitutional because it was seeking a fee from a credit line rather than an actual income. Ankara is currently exploring other means to satisfy the expenditure. 

Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek earlier this week said the government had ordered the defense industry to focus on building a “Steel Dome” to protect the country against possible aerial threats, including missiles and drones. 

“These are expensive systems in terms of advanced technology,” he told Turkish NTV. “We have been investing money in the 5th generation aircraft for a long time. Now the engine needs to be developed.”

Simsek added that over 1,000 projects in the defense industry were currently underway. “All of them are high technology,” he said. “From long-range instruments to 5th generation fighter jets to air defense systems…These are all expensive.”

Authored by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer via American Greatness,

Ronald Reagan’s query to the American people in his October 28, 1980, debate with incumbent President Jimmy Carter was so simple and so devastating that it is still employed today: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” While most Americans are far worse off today than they were four years ago, with rising prices, inflation, a hollow economy, and unchecked immigration, so too are the U.S., its allies, and its partner’s national security interests, which are far worse off than they were four years ago.

Four years ago, there was stability in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. Now Europe’s “long peace,” that is, no major war in Europe since 1945, has been shattered by Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. This war has resulted in the deaths of over one million humans and the displacement of millions more. The Middle East is roiling with conflict due to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, unprovoked attack on Israel and its consequences—the Iranian-backed Houthis interdiction of international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and ultimately unprecedented attacks from Iran against Israel with drones and missiles. The Indo-Pacific is rife with unrest principally due to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) hyper-aggression against key U.S. allies and partners like India, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and against the American people themselves.

The cause of this instability is the Biden-Harris administration’s ideological obsession to “manage America’s decline” and the subsequent policies they adopted in the last almost four years. The Biden-Harris administration failed to deter the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This war is a humanitarian nightmare for all concerned; it is a stalemated conventional conflict, evincing an intensity of combat not seen in Europe since 1945. The war also entails the risk of nuclear escalation, the tremendous cost of which the U.S. and its NATO allies would not escape. In addition, this administration has fundamentally failed to support Israel by not holding Iran to account—even worse by providing Tehran the funding to expand their terrorism against Americans.

However, in the pantheon of Biden’s failures, it is towards the PRC that the Biden administration has made its greatest foreign policy fiascos. The Biden-Harris administration has continued the failed “Engagement” policies with the PRC that have aided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at a time of great peril. The Biden-Harris administration ignores the existential nature of the CCP threat because it seeks to continue the Engagement school of thought through what we call the Biden-Harris administration’s “neo-Engagement” policy.

With the exception of the Trump presidency, Engagement has been the dominant U.S. approach to the PRC since Bill Clinton. It asserts that the PRC is not an existential threat to the U.S. Far from it—the Engagement school contends the Sino-American relationship should be cooperative. Any troubles may be addressed by more cooperation with the PRC and accommodation of the interests of the CCP to sustain that cooperation. In essence, the Engagers are appeasers. Unfortunately, their arguments are ubiquitous and dominate U.S. foreign policy toward the PRC. Engagement dominates Wall Street, foundations, think tanks, universities, media, Silicon Valley, K Street, major law firms, and government. Even after the fiasco of allowing a PRC intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance balloon to fly over the entirety of America and the conga line of Biden-Harris cabinet officials traveling to Beijing to kowtow before Xi Jinping, the nadir was the November 2023 meeting between Biden and Xi near San Francisco. Beyond the obsession by Biden-Harris to resume military-to-military exchanges despite the People’s Liberation Army’s increased threatening behavior, 400 of America’s richest business leaders attended a dinner with the PRC’s dictator—Xi Jinping. These “titans” of America’s economy gave the CCP dictator two standing ovations while Xi explained his vision of tyranny—on American soil—and how the American business elite could help him sustain it.

The failed Biden-Harris neo-Engagement policies have allowed the CCP to escape the costs of its many decades of misrule but also provided the window for the CCP’s hyper-aggression over the last four years. Since assuming office, the Biden-Harris administration has overseen and done nothing as the PRC built over 300 nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) silos in central and western China, upgraded the submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) aboard their sea-based leg of their triad, expanded their ballistic missile submarine production facilities, and introduced a new nuclear bomber, the H-20. This aircraft very closely resembles the B-2 stealth bomber.  Additionally, the Biden-Harris regime has sat by as PLA Air Force H-6 bombers have for the first time flown nuclear bomber profiles with their Russian Long Range Aviation counterparts into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification zone.

By every metric, the CCP is flexing its strategic muscles by expanding its nuclear arsenal and strategic reach.  The PRC continues to agress relentlessly against U.S. national security interests. While the pace of their aggression is quickening, the Biden-Harris administration is cutting the size of the Department of Defense. For example, Biden-Harris continues to decommission more warships than it builds, as demonstrated by their Fiscal Year 2025 budget that procures just six warships, the lowest number of any budget submission since 2006.

This degradation of America’s maritime power is especially pernicious as the situation in the South China Sea, near Scarborough Shoal or Sabina Shoal, is dramatically worsening. Likewise, the PLA is increasing its pressure on Taiwan through unceasing operations to prepare for an invasion. In the past month, the PLAAF violated Japanese territorial waters for the first time ever. Moreover, the PLAN and Russian Navy sailed into the Gulf of Alaska, while it has been confirmed that PLA is supplying Russia with military weapons to aid Moscow in its war against Kyiv. There are also credible reports, including from the South Korean Minister of Defense, that the North Koreans are directly aiding the Russian war effort.

In his famous debate with Carter, Reagan also asked Americans if they believed America was as respected and whether America was as strong as four years ago. Once again, the answer to that question today is no. America was far more respected by its foes and was stronger four years ago than today. America was seen by its key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific as a far better, more reliable, and more confident ally than today. The result is that a Harris presidency would continue these neo-Engagement policies to embolden enemies and continue to punish allies and partners. Only a Trump presidency will end failed policies of neo-Engagement and return the U.S. to the Reaganesque certainty of the previous Cold War that “the U.S. wins, the CCP loses.”

***

James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure. The views expressed are their own.