Month: November 2024

In the digital era video games are the most consumed form of entertainment by far, and gamers who spent their formative years playing the first generation Nintendo, Sega and Playstation are all now adults with careers, businesses, families and voting status.  A lot of them still play. 

While surveys suggest that this demographic is made up almost evenly of men and women, the reality is that most women who do play games do so casually, focusing predominantly on less intensive and non-competitive media.  Meanwhile, the vast majority of competitive gamers are men.  “Competitive” generally means combat games featuring combat mechanics and weapons.  In other words, they are the same demographic that Democrats have been demonizing as “toxic incels” for the past ten years.   

The 2024 election is perhaps the first election in which both major political parties are vying for the attention of gamers for votes.  Trump has done live events with popular video game streamers and the group is increasingly leaning conservative.  Let’s not forget the “Gamer Gate” controversy in which gamers were attacked relentlessly by the mainstream media for pointing out that the gaming industry had been invaded by woke activists.  In 2024 this agenda is thoroughly exposed but in those days the culture war was just a tiny spark.

At the time the political left denied that they were infiltrating and controlling pop media.  Gamers were one of the first groups outside of the alternative media to openly challenge the political left’s subversive dominance in the entertainment space.

True to form, even when Democrats court gamers for their affections the party does so with nefarious intentions.  Kamala Harris in an odd campaign stunt has partnered with the company behind the popular Fortnite franchise; an online third person shooter which requires players to eliminate all their competition on a map and be the last person standing.

Harris’ map, ironically labeled “Freedom Town”, set the players on a mission to “squad up, go vote and fight for freedom.”  However, the combat game lacks one important item in Freedom Town: Guns.

 

That’s right, Harris banned guns in her own virtual video game world.  Players no longer fight competitively; rather, they scour a city covered in Kamala propaganda while they collect items like lost Harris campaign posters “scattered by the wind.”  Hopefully the game is a portent of the Harris campaign being scattered to the winds instead of a representation of the world to come.

If Harris is banning virtual guns in her video game, what would she do with real guns in the real world as President…?

Not surprisingly, the gaming gimmick was a complete failure.  The number of players participating?  A maximum of 383.  To put this embarrassment in perspective, Fortnite has over 400 million registered players worldwide and the average established map has over 300,000 participants in a 24 hour period.  Harris couldn’t even break 400 players in 24 hours.

 

The amount of money put into the stunt must have been sizeable.  Securing a partnership with Fortnite, paying for the programmers that created the special map, renting the server space, and the background music is a track from Megan Thee Stallion.  All for nothing.  

The woke movement’s relentless mission to inject progressive ideology and LGBT messaging into video games has not helped to endear gamers to Democrats – It’s done the opposite.  A majority of these video games are now imploding, with development studios shutting down after  losing hundreds of millions of dollars on AAA titles.  Get woke, go broke.

Kamala Harris may end up being the ultimate get woke go broke allegory if she loses the election on November 5th.  It’s difficult to find a demographic (beyond childless cat ladies and Hollywood celebrities) that actually respects the candidate.  Gamers have shown she’s certainly not popular with them.            

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Corporate buybacks have become a hot topic, drawing criticism from regulators and policymakers. In recent years, Washington, D.C., has considered proposals to tax or limit them. Historically, buybacks were banned as a form of market manipulation, but in 1982, the SEC legalized open-market repurchases through Rule 10b-18. Although intended to offer companies flexibility in managing capital, buybacks have evolved into tools often serving executive interests over broader shareholder value.

This article explores the mechanics of buybacks, how they impact markets, and whether they truly return capital to shareholders—or merely enrich insiders.

The Rise of Corporate Buybacks: By the Numbers

Since 2003, U.S. corporations have spent over $11 trillion on share repurchases. Corporate buyback activity has surged in recent years, even in volatile markets:

• 2021: $881 billion

• 2023: $795 billion

• 2024 (Projected): Expected to exceed $988 billion

Introducing a 1% excise tax on corporate buybacks in 2023 has barely slowed the trend. Companies prioritize repurchases over reinvesting in business growth, raising wages, or developing new technologies. Apple and Meta, among others, regularly allocate billions toward buybacks, supporting their stock prices and meeting shareholder expectations.

How Buybacks Affect Markets

The impact of buybacks extends beyond individual companies. Since 2000, net corporate buybacks have accounted for 100% of the equity market’s net asset purchases—a reflection of the diminished participation from pensions, mutual funds, and individual investors:

• Pensions & Mutual Funds: –$2.7 trillion

• Households & Foreign Investors: +$2.4 trillion

• Corporations (Buybacks): +$5.5 trillion

• Net Flow: +$5.2 trillion

There are often statements made that corporate buybacks have only a limited impact on stock prices. However, the evidence is pretty overwhelming to the contrary since 2012, when corporations became very aggressive about buybacks.

This trend raises important concerns. While buybacks temporarily support share prices, they can crowd out investments in innovation, capital expenditures, and employee compensation, contributing to long-term economic stagnation and inequality.

Who Benefits Most from Stock Buybacks?

Many analysts argue that buybacks return excess capital to shareholders. However, the reality is more complicated. Buybacks primarily benefit insiders through carefully timed stock sales, inflated earnings metrics, and compensation triggers:

1. Timing Insider Sales with Buybacks

   • Insiders, aware of buyback schedules, can sell shares during repurchase periods when prices are temporarily elevated.

   • This practice boosts insider profits without triggering price declines or regulatory scrutiny.

2. Boosting Earnings Per Share (EPS) to Unlock Bonuses

   • Buybacks reduce the number of outstanding shares, artificially inflating EPS.

   • Since many executive compensation packages tie bonuses to EPS growth, buybacks help executives meet targets and secure stock awards.

3. Offsetting Dilution from Stock Options and RSUs

   • Buybacks reabsorb shares issued through stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs), preventing dilution and keeping share prices elevated for insiders.

Despite these benefits to executives, the average shareholder sees little return unless they sell their shares during buyback periods. This creates an uneven distribution of profits, favoring insiders and short-term traders over long-term investors.

Companies often market corporate buybacks as a “return of capital to shareholders,” but this framing is somewhat misleading. Unlike dividends, which distribute cash to all shareholders equally, buybacks benefit those who sell their shares. As a result, buybacks:

• Prioritize short-term stock price gains over long-term investments.

• Signal a lack of business reinvestment opportunities—or a deliberate choice not to pursue them.

• Concentrate benefits among insiders and executives, whose compensation is tied to stock performance.

A study from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) found that executives often sell significant amounts of stock shortly after buybacks are announced, reinforcing the idea that buybacks serve insiders more than ordinary shareholders.

Alternatives to Buybacks: Real Ways to Return Capital

To promote sustainable growth and equitable returns, companies could shift their focus from buybacks to more transparent and shareholder-friendly strategies.

1. Tender Offers

   • Tender offers involve buying back shares at a pre-determined premium, ensuring all shareholders have a fair opportunity to participate.

   • This process reduces the risk of manipulation and aligns better with shareholder interests.

2. Dividends

   • Dividends provide predictable income to all shareholders, promoting financial stability, especially for retirees and long-term investors.

   • Regular dividend payments encourage companies to focus on profitability rather than temporary stock price boosts.

3. Long-Term Investment in Growth

   • Companies can create sustainable value over time by reinvesting profits into research, innovation, and employee compensation.

   • This approach aligns corporate management with broader economic growth rather than short-term financial engineering.

While corporate buybacks can support stock prices in the short term, they do little to enhance long-term business performance. Studies, including the Bank for International Settlements research, have shown that buybacks prioritize EPS manipulation over actual value creation. This emphasis on stock price gains discourages investment in productive assets and innovation, weakening companies’ ability to grow sustainably.

William Lazonick, in his seminal article “Profits Without Prosperity,” highlighted how stock buybacks divert corporate resources away from economic growth and into executive compensation. Between 2003 and 2012, S&P 500 companies allocated 54% of their earnings to buybacks and another 37% to dividends (91% of total earnings), leaving little for business expansion, wages, or job creation investments.

Conclusion: A Shift Away from Buybacks Is Necessary

While corporate buybacks are marketed as a “return of capital,” they primarily benefit insiders and short-term traders. Their rise reflects a broader shift in corporate priorities—from investing in growth and innovation to maximizing executive compensation through financial engineering.

To promote long-term shareholder value and economic prosperity, companies should adopt more transparent capital return strategies, such as tender offers and dividends. These methods distribute profits more equitably and encourage sustainable growth. A shift in focus could rebuild trust between corporations and shareholders, aligning business strategies with broader economic health.

With the news cycle dominated by election coverage, let’s shift gears and focus on developing tropical activity in the southwestern Caribbean. Forecast models are already showing a potential landfall along the US Gulf Coast.

The National Hurricane Center has designated the weather disturbance in the southwestern Caribbean as Invest97L.

“Disorganized showers and thunderstorms continue in association with a broad area of low pressure over the southwestern Caribbean Sea,” NHC wrote in a Sunday morning update. 

NHC noted, “Gradual development of this system is expected, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next couple of days while moving generally northward to northwestward over the central and western Caribbean Sea.” 

Invest97L’s formation odds are very high for the next couple of days:

• Formation chance through 48 hours…high…80 percent.
• Formation chance through 7 days…high…90 percent.

Computer forecast models show the storm will likely be organized in the coming days and will track northwest over Cuba, potentially making landfall across the US Gulf Coast.

“There is a general consensus in the computer forecast model projections that the system will be at or near tropical storm strength when it reaches the southern Gulf on Wednesday or Thursday,” FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross wrote in a note. 

Norcross said, “A dense plume of tropical moisture is forecast to rotate north with the potential storm. This will enhance the flooding threat on the Caribbean islands west of Puerto Rico beginning Monday. Some of the moisture could reach South Florida by midweek.”

The potential impact area is home to major offshore oil/gas platforms across the Gulf Coast and about 60% of the US refining capacity. 

The track and intensity of Invest97L are still subject to change and should be monitored into the new week. 

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

The Harris-Walz campaign claims late-deciding voters are breaking their way, and by a lot.

Former Obama campaign manager and current senior advisor to the Harris-Walz campaign made a rather bold claim on X/Twitter on Friday.

It’s helpful, from experience, to be closing a Presidential campaign with late deciding voters breaking by double digits to you and the remaining undecideds looking more friendly to you than your opponent.

Close race, turnout and 4 days of hard work will be key. But good mo.

— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) November 1, 2024

According to Politico, Plouffe’s comments “echo[ed] those shared by senior campaign officials earlier Friday on a call with reporters.”

“We have believed all along that there were still undecided voters here, and that the close of this race was really, really important,” said one of the senior campaign officials, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state of the race. “And we are seeing that be the case as we are closing out in the last week.”

The official said that a recent focus group with undecided voters in a battleground state showed that the racist, misogynistic and vulgar language at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York over the weekend isn’t just impacting Puerto Rican and Latino voters, but undecided voters as a whole.

“It really kind of crystallized for them the choice in their minds between the vice president, who they’re seeing talk about being a president for everyone, someone focused on them and solving their problems, and Trump, and these really kind of dark, divisive language and events and activities,” the official said. “We don’t always see, when we’re talking to swing voters, anything that you can really see them kind of finalize their point of view or finalize their opinion.”

According to the Harris campaign, we’re supposed to believe that a comedian’s joke holds more significance than pressing issues like the economy, immigration, and foreign policy.

During a 2WAY livestream, Mark Halperin took aim at the media for uncritically accepting David Plouffe’s claims, saying the assertion “seems questionable on the face.” He argued that proving whether undecided voters were truly swayed by the Madison Square Garden event would require precise analytics, but that hasn’t stopped the media from treating Plouffe’s statements “like it’s a fact” despite lacking hard evidence. Halperin also shared that, based on his conversations with the Trump campaign, they believe undecided voters lean 2-to-1 in Trump’s favor. He may not believe that’s entirely true, but was clearly less convinced by Plouffe’s suggestion, which Halperin believes was intended to create a “bandwagon effect” for Kamala, shifting the narrative to portray her as gaining momentum.

Consider this: if the Access Hollywood tape couldn’t derail Trump’s campaign in 2016, there’s little reason to believe that a comedian’s joke at one of his rallies would, either. Americans recognized Trump’s comments as “locker room talk” back then, just as they understand that a comedian known for crude humor is simply aiming for laughs.

When Halperin asked Trump’s campaign advisor, Chris LaCivita, for his take, LaCivita responded bluntly: “What the hell is he going to say? He’s losing? Fact of the matter is David can’t do anything but bulls**t until Tuesday because we are kicking his a**. The only thing the Harris campaign has functional at this point is a bulls**t machine that is dutifully repeated by the legacy media as if fact.”

In the end, both campaigns believe, or are at least claiming, that they have the edge with late-deciding voters. Ignore it all. Just get out there and vote, and make sure every Trump supporter you know votes.

The majority of official surveys monitoring American and European support for Ukraine are many months old now.  The last time we saw a flurry of polling on the issue was this summer and the media has been rather quiet on the issue since.  Why?  Because public support for the proxy war is in steep decline. 

The last numbers show that 52% of Americans no longer want additional funding for Ukraine.  With Donald Trump increasingly likely to return to the White House in 2025 the Ukrainians are already preparing for steep cuts to military aid (the US provides the vast majority of arms to Ukraine).  This leaves the EU to pick up the slack.

However, Europe simply doesn’t have the capacity to provide enough military aid to make a difference in the war and is currently discussing schemes to transfer frozen Russian assets to the effort while simultaneously scaling back their own funding.  Central EU nations like Germany are already cutting their contributions in half in the coming year.  

The decline in aid follows two important factors:  Public support for the war in America and Europe is waning.  And, Ukraine is clearly losing the conflict with their defensive lines in the east collapsing.

Ukraine has received well over $200 billion in the past two years from NATO nations, which eclipses Ukraine’s annual GDP of around $160 billion.  In other words, the war cannot continue without NATO.  The disconnect between US and European governments vs the desires of the general public could not be more obvious.  Even the Washington Post admits:

“As they signaled enduring support for Ukraine last week, European leaders worried about how long they can sustain it…”

“European leaders promise to support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” but they are increasingly threatened by public fatigue, a weakening of the political center and the prospect of Trump’s return…”

“More than 2½ years into Russia’s war, public fatigue risks taking hold in some countries. Some European leaders are now in politically precarious positions and more constrained in what they can do. And across the continent, parties from the hard right to the hard left are pushing narratives against sending cash or arms…”

In the UK and Europe, protests have erupted over a number of problems, most importantly the threat of mass immigration from third world countries and the deliberate agenda to erase traditional European culture.  Some of the unrest has also been related to the Ukraine war and ongoing discussions about “conscription” among government officials. 

The UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is one of many bureaucrats that are trying to lump all civil actions together, labeling them a “threat to democracy.”  The narrative also seeks to tie these events to “Russian disinformation.”  In other words, according to David Lammy the public is being brainwashed by Vladimir Putin into protesting and this is a strategy by the Kremlin to sow discord within Europe.

The Kremlin’s disinformation is a desperate attempt to undermine our democracy.

I’m taking action to tackle it. pic.twitter.com/JvjNp3MEnU

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) October 29, 2024

The U.K. government sanctioned three Russian agencies and their senior executives this month, accusing them of orchestrating disinformation campaigns and seeking to fuel anti-Ukraine protests across Europe. 

The Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technologies, and Ano Dialog, alongside their directors, are accused of spearheading a “vast malign online network” commonly known as “Doppelganger.”  The network used “deceitful tactics… to mask the truth around Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and distract from the true nature of the war,” the U.K. Foreign Office said in a statement Monday.

Lammy and others claim this constitutes a “threat to democracy” and he says he will take action to shut down all sources of disinformation.  To be sure, Russia is involved in psy-ops as any country at war would be.  That said, so is David Lammy and his ilk and they aren’t only at war with Russia, they’re also at war with the UK and EU populace.

It should be noted that Lammy is becoming a regular fixture at The Atlantic Council, which has been deeply involved in the escalation of Ukrainian tensions with Russia for over a decade.  He is also on the advisory board for the European branch of the Council On Foreign Relations.  His relationships with globalist institutions helps to explain his hostility to conservative and anti-progressive movements.  

   

As Lammy argues in his recent conference with Ukrainian officials, any sense that allies are not united ‘only benefits Putin.’  Clearly this “unity” must also extend to the civilian population (by force if necessary), otherwise Lammy and his cohorts look rather ridiculous.

The tactic of attaching all civil dissent to the schemes of a foreign adversary is a tale as old as oligarchy.  It’s a way for governments to negate or dismiss public opposition to policy without losing face, because they can claim all the dissent is astroturf created by malicious foreign agencies. 

China did this with the Hong Kong protests in 2019, seeking to blame western governments after the citizens of Hong Kong opposed being placed under total control of the CCP.  In this way, the communist regime marginalized millions of people and their right to self determination simply by painting the protests as engineered.  This is exactly what David Lammy is doing with UK and EU citizens that want a reckoning for government trespasses.      

This brand of propaganda has been utilized regularly in the US as well, with Democrats consistently blaming Putin and Russia for the rise in conservative movements and the success of the Trump campaign.  If the elites were to ever admit that public dissent is legitimate, they would lose the illusion that they are the “protectors of the realm.”  Without a foreign enemy to blame, these same officials are exposed as the true enemies of “democracy”, and they certainly don’t want that.

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

– George Orwell

We interrupt today’s important election coverage for a story that could have impacts even longer-lasting than President Kamala Harris’s first ten-trillion-dollar budget.

I’ll wash my keyboard out with soap later for typing the phrase “President Kamala Harris.”

When the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was hacked in early October, it looked at first like just another email-and-password smash-and-grab. But that was followed up by repeated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that crippled the service. The Internet Archive was hit again on Oct. 20, “this time with the threat actors gaining access to their Zendesk support email system.”

The Wayback Machine came back but as a read-only service.

What that means is, while you can search archived webpages from before the attacks, “you can’t currently capture an existing web page into the archive.”

That matters bigly. When the New York Times, Washington Post, or anyone else stealth-edits a news report to hide the truth, you could still find the original on the Wayback Machine. That’s no longer true. “For the first time in 30 years, we have gone a long swath of time – since October 8-10 – since this service has chronicled the life of the Internet in real time,” the Brownstone Institute reported this week.

As of this writing, fully three weeks of web content have not been archived. What we are missing and what has changed is anyone’s guess. And we have no idea when the service will come back. It is entirely possible that it will not come back, that the only real history to which we can take recourse will be pre-October 8, 2024, the date on which everything changed.

But it gets worse.

Google killed off its cache feature — similar to the Wayback Machine — right around the time the Internet Archive got hacked. Coincidence? Probably. But I’m making a tinfoil hat, just in case.

The White House just got caught altering Presidentish Joe Biden’s “garbage” remarks. “Nothing to see here,” Sean Davis quipped, “just the Biden-Harris administration deliberately falsifying federal records.”

They got caught this time, and sources like X still have the original video. But what happens next time, when some politician or MSM editor waits until the furor dies down before making their stealth edit — and there’s no Wayback Machine to catch them?

Wikipedia is the defacto internet encyclopedia but has proven time and again to be biased at best and subject to stealth edits at worst. 

More people are using AI to perform their web searches and summaries for them, but the large language models are scraping data from sources increasingly subject to manipulation. 

Reason’s Nick Gillespie wrote in 2019:

Is Donald Trump’s vision of what is wrong with America and how to fix it true or is Bernie Sanders’? I’d say neither is. But what the internet does (especially platforms like Facebook and Twitter) is enable more of us to directly enter the discussion—the argument over who is right and who is wrong. That’s a great and liberating development.

Indeed, it is. But our ability to have that argument — to sift through the raw data, past articles, news photographs, etc. — depends on having sources that are both shared and reliable. We used to settle arguments by pulling out a dictionary or a volume from the nearest encyclopedia. Or maybe the Guinness Book, which has reportedly settled more bar bets than any other resource.

But now everything has moved online and, despite what people believe, the internet is not forever.

“We can fact-check your a**,” pioneer blogger Ken Layne reminded Big Media back in 2001. We built an entire alternative media based on “navigating this thicket of censorship and quasi-censorship,” as Brownstone put it.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is weighing directly providing arms to Ukraine, amid the ongoing reports that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to Russia, readying them to fight against the Ukrainian military.

FT has noted of the decision in a fresh report that “Seoul has previously resisted entreaties from western allies to draw on its vast stockpiles of military armaments, preferring to contribute to Kyiv’s war effort through non-lethal aid.” 

Seoul’s “answer” to the north might indeed be to weaponize the other side, by providing badly needed 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine. So far this has only allegedly been done indirectly, by routing the shells to the United States. According to more from FT:

Yoon has vowed not to “sit idle” in response to the North Korean deployment. His office confirmed this week that Seoul intended to send a delegation to Ukraine to monitor the North Korean forces, following a call on Tuesday between Yoon and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But this has been consistently opposed by South Korea’s left opposition, which maintains a parliamentary majority.

Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the Democratic party, declared days ago that “[Arming Ukraine] is an incredibly dangerous idea that treats people’s lives like pawns in a game of chess.”

Yoon “shouldn’t engage South Korea in a proxy war with North Korea . . . in a faraway land,” continued Park. He warned that escalating Seoul’s involvement in any way would “risk starting a military conflict on the Korean peninsula.”

A defense source has pointed out that if Seoul decided to supply Ukraine with artillery shells, significant legal and bureaucratic hurdles would remain in the way:

South Korea’s Defense Procurement Act and Foreign Trade Act currently prohibit the transfer of arms and ammunition to Ukraine, either directly or through third parties. Both laws would need to be amended for the delivery of 155mm shells to be possible.

This development marks another chapter in South Korea’s internal debate on whether to support Ukraine militarily, which was first discussed in July 2023 and again in April 2022. However, despite this consideration, the likelihood of an immediate shift remains unclear as Ukraine continues to await the delivery of K600 mine-clearing tanks, which South Korea had previously pledged.

Zelensky has of late been advancing the idea that the ‘enemies’ of the West have formed an axis to fight in Ukraine and ultimately push back NATO. He’s identified them as Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

So far, the Western alliance is also resisting Ukraine’s demands to greenlight long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory. Putin has warned that this would cross all ‘red lines’ and unleash major escalation.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

He wanted to dispel whatever doubts some undecided voters might still have about his ties to Russia by reminding them that he imposed sanctions against that megaproject, which debunked the Democrats’ Russiagate claims and were even hypocritically waived by Biden for a nine-month period.

Trump boasted during his live interview with Tucker Carlson at a charity event in Arizona on Thursday night that he was responsible for “killing” Nord Stream II. In his words, “The Democrats] love to say that I was a friend of Russia, I worked for Russia, I was a Russian spy. The biggest job Russia ever had [was] Nord Stream 2. This is the biggest pipeline in the world, [it] goes from Russia to Germany and all over Europe. I killed it. Nobody would kill it but me. I stopped it.” He has a point that’ll now be elaborated on.

For starters, he clearly wasn’t referring to September 2022’s terrorist attack since he wasn’t in office then and therefore couldn’t have had anything to do with it. Rather, what he wanted to convey is that the Democrats’ false claims of him being a Russian puppet are debunked by the fact that he sanctioned Nord Stream II, which was done in an attempt to poach the European energy market from Russia. In an unexpected turn of events, Biden waived those sanctions in May 2021, one month before meeting Putin.

A senior State Department official told CNN that “While we remain opposed to the pipeline, we reached the judgment that sanctions would not stop its construction and risked undermining a critical alliance with Germany, as well as with the EU and other European allies.” At the same time, Biden justified the move by saying that “Nord Stream is 99% finished. The idea that anything was going to be said or done was going to stop it was not possible.”

The argument can be made, however, that this was just a “goodwill gesture” for facilitating his meeting with Putin in Geneva that June to discuss the gamut of their countries’ bilateral ties after Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border that spring. No breakthrough occurred, which can be attributable in hindsight to anti-Russian hawks in the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) prioritizing Russia’s containment over China’s in the New Cold War.

Reflecting on that lost opportunity, the US seemingly thought that it could lower Russia’s strategic guard by waiving sanctions on that megaproject in the hopes that Moscow would then ignore NATO’s creep towards its borders, including via its clandestine expansion to Ukraine. It was these military moves that set the stage for Putin to then share his security guarantee requests that December, which were rejected and followed by the reimposition of those same sanctions one day before the special operation began.

The reason why this is important to reference is because it proves that Biden hypocritically promulgated a Russian-friendly policy (regardless of the cunning motive behind it) after his party weaponized the Russiagate conspiracy theory to prevent Trump from improving ties with Russia. In particular, Biden waived the same sanctions that Trump imposed and arguably did so as a “goodwill gesture” for facilitating Biden’s meeting with Putin, who met with Trump without any such implied preconditions.

It also can’t be ruled out that Biden’s decision to reimpose sanctions against Nord Stream II one day before the special operation began is what pushed Putin into authorizing that ongoing campaign after the US took back the big carrot that it gave Russia just nine months prior for ignoring NATO’s expansion. From his perspective, there was no longer any reason not to go through with what he’d by then signaled were his possible plans for demilitarizing Ukraine, thus possibly making everything inevitable by then.

Trump sometimes struggles to convey the complexities of International Relations such as when he failed to explain the relevance of why he decided to boast about “killing” Nord Stream II during his interview with Tucker. All that he wanted to do was show how those sanctions debunked the Russiagate conspiracy theory. He could have elaborated more on that like this analysis did, but in any case, it was a valid point to make for dispelling whatever doubts some undecided voters might still have about his ties to Russia.

Authored by Bret Swanson via The Brownstone Institute,

Trump enjoys the momentum.

Four of the most recent major national polls show him up 2 to 3%, while Democratic-friendly outlets like the New York Times and CNN both show a TIE race in their final surveys.

The 2016 and 2020 elections were razor close even though Clinton (5%) and Biden (8%) had solid polling leads at this point.

We need to contemplate a Trump win not only in the electoral college but also in the popular vote.

Here are some thoughts:

1. JD Vance ascendant, obviously. Big implications for the Republican trajectory. 

2. Will Trump replace Fed chairman Jay Powell? Or merely jawbone for a change in policy? In a new CNBC interview, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh argues that the Fed has juiced both the stock market and inflation. Would reducing inflation, which Trump has promised, automatically therefore lead to a stock market correction and economic slowdown? Not necessarily. If Trump unleashes productive economic activity and Congress ends the fiscal blowout, the Fed could normalize monetary policy without causing a major economic slump.

3. Will Trump impose the broad and deep tariffs he proposed? Or will he mostly threaten them as a bargaining tool with China? I’m betting on some of the former but more of the latter. We notice, however, Trump allies are floating a trial balloon to replace income taxes with tariffs. As impractical and improbable as that may be, we’re glad to see the mention of radical tax reform reemerge after too long an absence from the national discussion.

4. How will he organize the “deportation” of illegal migrants? In the best case, it will be difficult. There will be scuffles and chases. Critics will charge the new Administration as cruel and worse. How much stomach will Republicans have for a messy process? One idea would be to offer a “reverse amnesty” – if you leave peacefully and agree not to return illegally, we will forgive your previous illegal entry(s) and minor violations. This would incentivize self-identification and quiet departure. Plus it would help authorities track those leaving. Would migrant departures truly hit the economy, as critics charge? We doubt large effects. Substantial native populations are still underemployed or absent from the workforce. 

5. We should expect a major retrenchment of regulatory intrusions across the economy – from energy to crypto. Combined with recent Supreme Court action, such as the Chevron reversal, and assisted by the Elon Musk’s substance and narrative, it could be a regulatory renaissance. Extension of the 2017 tax cuts also becomes far more likely.

6. Trump has never worried much about debt, deficits, or spending. But he’s tapped Elon Musk as government efficiency czar. It’s an orthogonal approach to spending reform instead of the traditional (and unsuccessful) Paul Ryan playbook. Can this good cop-bad cop duo at the very least return out-of-control outlays to a pre-Covid path? Can they at least cancel purely kleptocratic programs, such as the $370-billion Green Energy slush funds? Might they go even further – leveraging the unpopular spending explosion and resulting inflation to achieve more revolutionary effects on government spending and reach? Or will the powerful and perennial forces of government expansion win yet again, sustaining a one-way ratchet not even Elon can defeat? 

7. What if the economy turns south? One catalyst might be the gigantic unrealized bond losses on bank balance sheets; another might be commercial real estate collapse. Although reported GDP growth has been okay, the inflation hangover is helping Trump win on the economy. But many believe the post-pandemic economic expansion is merely a sugar-high and has already lasted longer than expected. A downturn early in Trump’s term could complicate many of his plans. 

8. How will NATO and its transatlantic network respond? Or more generally, what will the neocon and neoliberal hawks, concentrated in DC and the media, but little loved otherwise, do? Does this item from Anne Applebaum — arguing Trump resembles Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin all rolled into one — portend continued all-out war on prudent foreign policy? Or will they adopt a more sophisticated approach? If the neocons move wholesale and formally (back) into the Democratic fold, how long will the coalition of wokes and militarists hold? On the economic front, Europe, already underperforming vis-a-vis the US, will fall even further behind without big changes. Reformers should gain at the expense of the transatlantic WEF-style bureaucrats. 

9. Can Trump avoid another internal sabotage of his Administration? Before then, if the election results are tight, will the Democrats seek to complicate or even block his inauguration? Can he win approval for his appointees in the Senate? Can he clean house across the vast public agencies? How long will it take to recruit, train, and reinvigorate talented military leadership, which we chased away in recent years? And how will Trump counter – and avoid overreacting to – taunts, riots, unrest, and lawfare, designed to bolster the case he’s an authoritarian? 

10. Will the Democrats reorient toward the center, a la Bill Clinton? Or will the blinding hatred of Trump fuel yet more radicalism? Orthodox political thinking suggests a moderation. Especially if Trump wins the popular vote, or comes close, pragmatic Democrats will counsel a reformation. James Carville, for example, already complains that his party careened recklessly away from male voters. And Trump’s apparent pickups among Black and Latino voters complicate the Democrats’ longstanding identity-focused strategy. Other incentives might push toward continued belligerence and extreme wokeness, however, and thus an intra-party war. 

11. Will the half of the country which inexplicably retains any confidence in the legacy media at least begin rethinking its information diet and filters? Or has the infowarp inflicted permanent damage?

12. Will big business, which shifted hard toward Democrats over the last 15 years, recalibrate toward the GOP? Parts of Silicon Valley over the last year began a reorientation — e.g. Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, and before them, Peter Thiel in 2016. But those are the entrepreneurs. In the receding past, businesses large and small generally lined up against government overreach. Then Big Business and Big Government merged. Now, a chief divide is between politically-enmeshed bureaucratic businesses and entrepreneurial ones. Does the GOP even want many of the big guys back? The GOP’s new alignment with “Little Tech” is an exciting development, especially after being shut out of Silicon Valley for the last two decades. 

13. Industry winners: traditional energy, nuclear energy, Little Tech. Industry losers: Green Energy, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Food. Individual winners: X (nee Twitter), Elon Musk, RFK, Jr. 

14. How will the Censorship Industrial Complex react? A Trump win will pose both a symbolic and operational blow to governmental, non-governmental, old media, and new media outlets determined to craft and control facts and narratives. It will complicate their mission, funding, and organizational web. Will they persist in their “mis/disinformation” framing and their badgering of old media and social media companies to moderate content aggressively? Or will they devise a new strategy? A.I. is pretty clearly the next frontier in the information wars. How will those who propagandize and rewire human minds attempt to program and prewire artificial ones?

15. How will Trump integrate RFK, Jr. and his movement? Will RFK, Jr. achieve real influence, especially on health issues? Big Pharma and Big Public Health will wage a holy war to block reforms in general and accountability for Covid mistakes in particular. 

16. Trump has promised to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. On one hand, it should be easy. Despite what you hear from DC media and think tanks, Ukraine is losing badly. Hundreds of thousands are dead, and its military is depleted and faltering. Ukraine should want a deal quickly, before it loses yet more people and territory. Russia, meanwhile, always said it wants a deal, even before the war started, focusing on Ukrainian neutrality. Why Ukrainian neutrality should bother the US was always a mystery. And yet even critics of the West’s support for Ukraine, who want an agreement, think it will be difficult to achieve. The Western foreign policy establishment has invested too much credibility and emotion. It will charge “appeasement” and “betrayal” and make any deal difficult for Trump. Russia, meanwhile, has secured so much territory and now has Odessa and Kharkiv in its sights. Putin will not be eager to accept a deal he would have taken in 2021 or before. The far better path for all involved was a pre-war agreement, or the one negotiated but scuttled in April 2022. 

17. What if A.I. launches a new productivity boom, enabled by an agenda of energy abundance, including a nuclear power revival? The economic tailwinds could remake politics even more than we currently see.

18. Can Trump, having run and won his last campaign, consolidate gains by reaching out and uniting the portions of the country willing to take an extended hand?

Republished from the author’s Substack

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A witness in the ongoing Sean “Diddy” Combs case says that he has several sex tapes that allegedly feature “intoxicated” and “victimized” celebrities, including two who were underage.

During an interview with NewsNation, Courtney Burgess, who testified against Combs before a grand jury in Manhattan, claimed that he has in his possession flash drives featuring videos of eight celebrities with Diddy.

Burgess said the flash drives originally belonged to Kim Porter, an ex-girlfriend of Diddy.

Explaining his relationship with Diddy, Burgess said “I’ve been knowing him for 35 years. I think we probably entered into the music business at the same time.”

Burgess said he is willing to turn over eleven flash drives to the court, claiming that the videos on them feature six well known males and two celebrity females.

Burgess said “I think all, to be honest — all,” those in the tapes seemed “victimized” and “intoxicated.”

Burgess also claimed that the flash drives include a manuscript from Porter that outlines Combs’ alleged crimes.

Burgess’s attorney, Ariel Mitchell, was also featured in the interview, and claimed that the federal government sent U.S. Marshals to serve Burgess a subpoena for the flash drives.

As we have previously highlighted, a former bodyguard of Combs has claimed that the rapper has footage of not only celebrities, but elite politicians and state figures engaging in compromising activities.

The bodyguard, Gene Deal, says the secret footage was captured at Diddy’s various so called “freak off” parties, which are claimed to have involved victims being forced to engage in sex acts while Combs masturbated and recorded the events.

“I don’t think it’s only celebrities gonna be shook. He had politicians in there, he had princes in there. He also had a couple of preachers in there,” said Deal, adding that “he had every room bugged.”

One alleged victim of Combs has filed a lawsuit claiming that the rapper raped her when she was 13 years old while a male and female celebrity pair watched and joined in.

The suit claims that the male celebrity also raped her while the female and Diddy observed.

Combs has been denied bail twice on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

He remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.

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