Category: zerohedge

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

With August in the rear-view mirror, Senate candidate Dave McCormick (R-PA) admits he never really made much of “brat summer,” the amorphous Gen Z meme that no one can exactly define but that Vice President Kamala Harris has adopted while in pursuit of younger voters.

A catch-all term for “cool” that is also sort of kitsch, “brat” is one of the vibes that Harris has cultivated amidst a slow policy rollout to capture the imagination of voters and catapult herself in front of former President Donald Trump in the polls.

The term is trendy, meme-able, and, according to the Republican running for Senate in Pennsylvania, “not serious” at a moment when inflation lingers, the cost of living creeps ever higher, and the southern border remains porous. McCormick said of his pitch to voters during an interview with RealClearPolitics, “People are thirsting for a serious discussion about the future of the country.”

Plenty of Republicans say they want to focus on policy, not vibes, complaining that Democrats have gotten an early pass on substance from the moment Harris replaced President Biden as the nominee. Many have struggled all summer to reframe the conversation.

But while the GOP has lost ground nationally this summer, McCormick is gaining ground in Pennsylvania.

He tied incumbent Sen. Bob Casey in a recent CNN/SSRS poll at 46% and pulled within three points of the Democrat, who leads by just 48% to 45% in the RealClearPolitics Average, after trailing in some polls by as much as double digits earlier this year.  

Things are not as encouraging atop the ticket for Republicans. Harris has not only made up the ground that Biden lost to Trump in the critical swing state, but she is now tied with him in Pennsylvania. Nineteen electoral college votes, and possibly the White House, hang in the balance there. It is quite the turnaround.

Trump had successfully defended a slim lead for seven straight months. Biden never surpassed the Republican a single time in the RCP Average. Harris pulled ahead of him in just two weeks as Trump slowly switched gears to attack his new rival. The nicknames tell the story. None of the early ones stuck.

“Laffin Kamala” gave way to “Lyin’ Kamala” and finally “Crazy Kamala” throughout the summer as Republicans griped that the “Harris Honeymoon” wouldn’t end. When he wasn’t talking about Biden’s exit, Trump struggled to define Harris. For his part, McCormick did it in less than three days.

“This is what voters down ballot will be seeing in every Senate race from [Nevada] to [Pennsylvania] until November,” a Republican operative texted RCP less than 72 hours after the Biden switch for Harris. It was a link to a 90-second McCormick ad that was about to drop online. The Republican doesn’t say a single word in the spot. Instead, the GOP campaign cut an ad to give Harris and Casey the spotlight.

“Kamala Harris is inspiring and very capable. The more people get to know her, they’re going to be particularly impressed by her ability,” Casey says at the beginning of the ad before a supercut follows of the vice president offering some of her most progressive policy prescriptions like ending the Senate filibuster, banning fracking, decriminalizing illegal immigration, and mandating gun buyback programs.

“There were no Republican voiceovers, no dark lights or ominous language,” McCormick said of the ad. “It was just her in her own words, saying what she believes. And then it was Senator Casey saying, she’s ready to be president today.”

The quotes from Harris were from her failed 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination. The goal was guilt by association: Tying Casey to Harris, who was once rated the most liberal member of the Senate.

A spokeswoman for the Casey campaign responded by saying that “McCormick is grasping at straws” before noting that the senator has voted against fracking bans already and supported the bipartisan Senate border bill, which Harris pledges to sign into law if elected. The spokeswoman added that “Casey is actually delivering for the Commonwealth by holding greedy corporations accountable, lowering costs, and supporting our veterans and seniors.”

The incumbent certainly hasn’t held the Democratic nominee at arm’s length. In Pittsburgh earlier this week, Casey told a crowd that Harris “has proven” she is ready not just to be “our commander in chief” but is “ready in these next 60 plus days to take on Donald Trump and win.”

Republicans are still thrilled with the McCormick blueprint. Trump delegate Christian Ziegler called it “one of the most brutal and effective ads I’ve seen in a while” before suggesting that the advertisement should be played “every moment from now until November.” That strategy did not materialize immediately, at least on the national stage. Before Trump dubbed his opponent “Comrade Kamala,” her campaign quietly disavowed her more liberal positions in written statements to the press.

During a CNN interview at the end of the summer, Harris finally disavowed her previous calls to ban fracking and decriminalize border crossings, stressing, however, that “my values have not changed.”

McCormick doesn’t make much of those denials, of course. He again defined the race during the RCP interview by asking if voters “are willing to take the risk that she actually believes in all the radical stuff she once said she believed in.” His opponent, he added, “has been a sure vote for the policies of Kamala Harris.” He said he will leave it to other Republicans to run their own races, but at least for him, McCormick said, running a tape of vintage Harris “is the playbook in Pennsylvania.”

Other Republicans wish Trump would have copied and pasted the McCormick attack earlier. “The Trump team got caught flat-footed. That’s a fact,” a Republican operative close to that campaign told RCP. “They lacked the ability to message properly, or to get in front of this, or to get the president on message in a reasonable timeframe. Weeks went by before the ship could be righted again.”

Trump and Harris will meet for the first time on a debate stage next week in Philadelphia, and the former president previewed what the current vice president is likely to encounter. “Communism is the past. Freedom is the future,” Trump told the Economic Club of New York Thursday while hitting his opponent for embracing price controls. “It is time to send ‘Comrade Kamala Harris’ back home to California.”

McCormick and Casey, for their part, have already agreed to a debate next month in a state that is seen as key not only to Republican chances of retaking the Senate but also to winning back the White House.

“Pennsylvania is going to be super close,” McCormick predicted. “I suspect it’ll be super close for President Trump. I think he will win, but it is going to be a close race, and I think he knows it. That’s why he is spending so much time here.”

Defining the opposition will be key for Republicans in the state and nationally.

“I’m pretty confident that when people see who Kamala Harris is, President Trump will prevail,” McCormick said of the contrast. “And I’m hoping that if I continue to run a strong campaign, and they see how weak and liberal Bob Casey is, that I will prevail.”

Thus ends “brat summer” for McCormick. The confusing term defies definition. The poll numbers do not. He is the candidate who has surged to a tie in Pennsylvania and likely represents the best chance Republicans have to retake the Senate.

Powering up America by upgrading power grids for artificial intelligence data centers, onshoring manufacturing trends, and electrifying the broader economy will require thousands of miles of new transmission lines nationwide. Existing transmission lines will be upgraded, but new lines will also be needed, resulting in the seizure of private property through eminent domain.

Several state lawmakers in Maryland plan to introduce new legislation that will address developer Public Service Enterprise Group, or PSEG, which is seeking to build 70 miles of new high-voltage power lines that zigzag through Baltimore, Carroll, and Frederick Counties in a project called the “Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.” The upgraded transmission lines will increase power load capacity in the state by importing power from surrounding states, such as Pennsylvania, to power new AI data centers in Frederick. 

According to local media Fox Baltimore, Baltimore County Del. Nino Mangione is preparing to propose legislation to give dozens of small farms and other landowners along the 70-mile stretch of the proposed transmission line a fighting chance against PSEG. The legislation will combat the “threats of PSEG to utilize eminent domain to destroy rural Maryland.”

Mangione plans to propose the “Protect Maryland Farm Act,” which requires a 350% premium to be added to the highest appraisal of land to compensate small farms for their “loss of income, gainful employment and disruption of their lifestyles.” The legislation would be retroactive for projects proposed in 2024.

“Many of these farmers, that is their business and way of life,” he said, adding, “We can make sure people are getting their money’s worth when it comes to disrupting their entire life.” 

Del. Michele Guyton, who also represents Baltimore County, told the local media outlet that she, too, opposes the use of eminent domain for the transmission line project and has “already submitted legislation about this to General Assembly bill drafters for prefiling this session.”

Delegate Christopher Tomlinson, who represents Carroll and Frederick Counties, said the state’s energy policies will be a major topic for the 2025 General Assembly. 

“I know the Republican Caucus will be coming out with a package of different energy and utility-related bills,” Tomlinson said, adding, “We’ll just be covered in power lines unless we decide to pull our heads out of the sand and drastically change how we manage energy in the state.” 

What’s becoming more apparent is that local lawmakers are feeling pressure from 10,000 Marylanders in a Facebook group that has raised hell about failed ‘green’ energy policies by far-left Annapolis lawmakers. 

Stuart Kaplow and Nancy Hudes of ESG Legal Solutions recently noted that Maryland is sleepwalking into an energy crisis because of “apocalyptic environmentalism.” 

Goldman Sachs was out with a note to institutional clients in early August, first covering how failed power capacity auctions in the state will lead to much higher power bills for residents: 

“After a series of auction delays and relatively low clears (see chart below), PJM capacity prices appear to have finally caught up with the generative AI data center load growth story that has been central to parts of PJM.”

Goldman also warned that increased power capacity would be needed for grid stability. However, any new capacity could take years to come online, which essentially means, as the analysts pointed out, “higher prices are here to stay.” 

Great job, Marylanders. Over the years, voting blue has placed far-left activist lawmakers into positions of power in Annapolis who are ineffective managers, instead more concerned about spreading the woke religion and importing illegal aliens.

The direct consequence of activist progressive lawmakers running the state is eminent domain risk to small farms and high power bills. 

Authored by Todd Snitchler via RealClearEnergy,

At meetings of energy regulators, policymakers, consumer advocates, and industry this summer, the content and tone of the conversations around electric system reliability have changed dramatically. Executives from across the industry all agree that dispatchable generation is needed now and will be needed for many years to come.

Most prominently, the realization and willingness to say publicly that dispatchable resources like natural gas-fired generation will be needed as the energy expansion continues and load growth accelerates for the first time in decades is a welcome admission.

For several years the discussion around the future of the electrical grid was about how inexpensive it will be and how “out of political favor” resources would be moved off the grid in favor of politically favored ones without creating any disruptions or reliability challenges. And just like that, the story has changed – dramatically. Why?

First, load growth – and a substantial amount of it is expected in the short term. The second is the pace of dispatchable generation retirements, without replacement generation with similar performance characteristics. The third is consistent and increasing warnings coming from reliability organizations and grid operators that a crisis is coming and coming quickly if system planning does not improve.

What does this mean? In short, it is a long-awaited recognition of the reality of grid operations combined with the acknowledgment (albeit grudgingly in some circles) that dispatchable resources, like natural gas, will need to be retained and operated for a longer time horizon than many were willing to admit. This recognition matches the significant number of credible studies, including work done by McKinsey and EFI, that all said dispatchable natural gas generation would be needed even in a high renewable resource penetration scenario.

As the reality of load growth, supply chain issues, permitting, siting, and construction challenges impacting all types of resources settled in and the sharp warnings of imminent reliability issues combined, it became clear that the rhetoric was far ahead of reality. Recognizing the problem is the first step in solving it.

Because all resources are now accountable for reliability, including dispatchable, intermittent, and storage resources, the requirement to acknowledge and adapt to grid realities is no longer optional – it’s mission critical. The retirement of significant amounts of dispatchable resources without adequate replacements has pushed us ever closer to a system with zero margin of error. 

To correct this situation, policymakers and regulators should take steps to minimize the risk to customers. First, the timing gap between retirements and additions to the system must be addressed; we can’t let existing resources off the grid before the replacements are ready. The process for connecting new generation to the grid must be reformed to ensure projects match system needs, not just policy pronouncements. Permitting and siting reforms are needed so we can deliver development of all types of energy projects.

Second, policymakers must temper enthusiasm and set goals that align with the reality of system needs and operational constraints. This could mean pausing policies that hinder the deployment of needed resources or including offramps in legislation to ensure grid reliability.

Third, grid operators must move more quickly to adjust markets to send the appropriate signals that will drive investment of the required resources. States must recognize the broader benefits of market participation and positive outcomes for their constituents and stop merely demanding grid operators do what one state wants to the detriment of another. States must again appreciate that the benefits of their utilities joining markets far outweigh their ability to dictate resources and timelines and then disclaim responsibility for the issues those decisions create.

To close, lest anyone accuse market participants of not wanting to reduce emissions or only wanting to profit from their current resources, this reality check in no way means walking away from striving to meet policy goals. Bottom line – we can set goals, but they must be tethered to operational reality to ensure success and reliability are both achieved.

Todd Snitchler is President and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA)

One month ago, when multiple discount retailers (here and here) were lamenting the sudden collapse in US consumer purchasing power, we observed the reason this unexpected hit to US consumption: as the US personal savings rate had collapsed, the growth in consumer credit was slowing, and in July, credit card debt growth posted its first decline since the covid crash, just in time for another month of record high credit card rates.

But fast forwarding just one month later, when in a stunning reversal, July consumer credit growth unexpectedly reversed the dramatic June slowdown, and soared more than $25 billion, to a new record high of $5.093 trillion.

Looking at the components, the sudden spike in revolving credit was most notable as credit card debt growth suddenly reversed its recent slowdown, surging by $10.6 billion, the biggest monthly increase since February and the 2nd biggest of the year.

But what may be even more notable is that after two years of gradual declines in the monthly rate of increase, non-revolving credit suddenly surged by almost $15 billion, ir biggest increase since June 2023 and second biggest since late 2022!

A closer look at the surge reveals that in Q2 there was also a reversal in the two components that make up non-revolving credit as total student debt unexpectedly dropped by $8.3 billion to $1.745 trillion, a reversal from the $24.2 billion increase in the previous quarter. At the same time, Car Loans accelerated, and after declining by $0.8 billion in Q1, rose by $8.5 billion in the second quarter.

And while the Fed’s first rate cuts is not just a matter of time, with Powell expected to cut the Fed Funds rate by 25bps on Sept 18, we have previously observed just how sticky consumer credit is on the way up, and how slow it is to decline on the way down. Sure enough, the sudden surge in credit card debt was a big surprise because according to the Fed, the average rate on interest-bearing credit card accounts just hit a new record high of 22.76%, which is a vivid reminder that while banks are happy to hike credit card rates, they rarely if ever cut them.

Yet with consumers ever more strapped for actual cash and equity, as the personal savings rate in the US collapses from over 5% to 2.9% – the lowest since the Lehman bankruptcy – in just one year, as all the excess savings from covid are long gone…

… there is only so much more credit card maxing out that can take place before reality finally sets in, as can be seen in the next and perhaps most striking chart yet: total credit card debt is at an all-time high while the personal savings rate is record low!

Then again, with the election less than two months away – one which ensures that any credit-card fueled spending must be encouraged – don’t be surprised if the White House directly orders banks to just ignore soaring delinquency and charge-off rates…

… only for the credit shock hammer to fall on the first day of Trump’s new presidency.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In the 1999 cult classic The Blair Witch Project, one character tells his friends “I could help you, but I’d rather stand here and record.” For free speech advocates, we often feel that other citizens have become passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right.”

One of the most infamous figures in this movement has been former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has long been the smiling face of censorship. As the head of the Labour Party, Blair pushed through some of the early crackdowns on free speech in the United Kingdom. He is now calling for global censorship to expand these efforts.

In an interview on LBC Radio, Blair declared:

“The world is going to have to come together and agree on some rules around social media platforms. It’s not just how people can provoke hostility and hatred but I think… the impact on young people particularly when they’ve got access to mobile phones very young and they are reading a whole lot of stuff and receiving a whole lot of stuff that I think is really messing with their minds in a big way.”

We recently discussed how the UK is already using recent rioting to crackdown further on those with opposing or “toxic” views.

For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests.

A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”

Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”

Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:

“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”

Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.

After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”

Blair’s views have been echoed by Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle who declared:

“Misinformation is dangerous. Social media is good but its also bad when people are using it in a way that could cause a riot, threat, intimidation, suggesting that we should attack somebody, it’s not acceptable. What we’ve got to do is factually correct what’s up there, if not I think the government has to think long and hard about what they are going to do about social media and what are they going to put through parliament as a bill.

“I believe it should be across, it doesn’t matter what country you are in, the fact is that misinformation is dangerous and no misinformation, or threats, or intimidation should be allowed to be carried out on social media platforms.”

As with the effort in Brazil to block X entirely for refusing to censor political opponents of the government, Blair’s call for global censorship is where the movement is going next.

Notably, after Musk purchased Twitter, Hillary Clinton called upon European officials to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). Recently, Democratic leaders like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison praised Brazil for its action to prevent citizens from having access to unfettered news sources.

Interviews like the one with Tony Blair are not just meant to intimidate or scare others. They reflect a comprehensive campaign from our political elite to enforce censorship on a national and transnational scale. If you think that this latest Blair Witch Project is just another scary production, you have not been paying attention.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Since the start of 2023, UK-based OnlyFans, a major hub for porn content-creators, has paid more than $630 million in dividends to its owner Leonid Radvinsky, the company announced. 

The firm also said the number of content creators and fan accounts has leapt by almost a third over 2022 levels, to 4.1 million and 305 million, respectively. Pretax profits grew from $525 million to $658 million in the year ending November 2023. The enterprise has a lean structure, with only 41 employees a director. Though best known for its voluminous sex content, the site does has some other types of content, such as wellness, sports and music. 

Radvinsky bought 75% of OnlyFans in 2018, from Guy and Tim Stokely, a father-son duo who launched the platform in 2016 with $12,500. His purchase price is unknown, but thought to be in the millions. In its original form under the Stokelys’ ownership, the platform was family-friendly, but Radvinsky quickly mutated it into a “hive of pornography,” as Indy100 called it. 

OnlyFans is just the tip of 41-year-old Radvinsky‘s sprawling porn empire, which dates back before his 2002 graduation from Northwestern University, where he studied economics. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Radvnisky ran a group of websites offering access to porn sites via “illegal” and “hacked” passwords, Forbes has reported.

Some of the promoted sites dangled a promise of links to underage performers. One of them, Password Universe, promoted a link to a site supposedly catering to pedophiles with 10,000 “illegal pre-teen passwords.” Another site, Working Passes, included in its smutty universe a supposed link to “the hottest underaged hardcore” that featured 16-year-olds. Still another linked to “the hottest bestiality site on the web,” according to Forbes. 

The magazine noted that “there’s no evidence that any of Radvinsky’s sites actually linked to child pornography or bestiality.” Apparently, the business model was all about being paid for clicks that led to other porn sites, and the taboo links on Radvinsky’s sites seemingly led to other sites promoting still more links. His next known steps into porn profit came via sites promoting links to celebrity sex tapes, and the launch of MyFreeCams, a major porn-webcam platform.   

News of Radvinsky’s enormous cash haul comes months after UK regulators announced they were investigating “whether OnlyFans has contravened its duties to implement appropriate measures…to protect under-18s from encountering restricted material such as pornography.” 

In February, Radvinsky and his wife Katie Chudnovsky reportedly pledged to contribute $11 million to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the highly-influential political group promoting the agenda of the State of Israel in the United States. 

Since October 7th, Leonid Radvinsky has contributed more than any other individual to the Israel lobby group AIPAC, according to internal donor records.

The UK-based wealthy owner of OnlyFans contributed over five times the amount to AIPAC compared to the second-largest donor. pic.twitter.com/uYqbQoMcbO

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) May 14, 2024

While The Lever identified him as a donor via an internal donor list the outlet had obtained, Radvinksy denied it, saying, “I didn’t donate or pledge $11M” and adding that his statement “appl[ies] to me / my foundation / my family.” When The Lever asked Radvinsky to explain documentation of a wire transfer from Chudnovsky to AIPAC, he stopped responding.  

Born in Odesa, Ukraine, the low-profile Radvinsky now reportedly lives somewhere in Florida and has a Forbes-estimated net worth of $3.8 billion. 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Markets are manipulated, yes, but they’re still structures of tightly bound, self-organizing complexity which lend themselves to sudden non-linear collapses.

Just as thunderstorms scent the air before their arrival, market crashes often announce themselves in the autumn zephyrs. Markets don’t crash when everyone’s in full-blown panic? they crash when the headlines and data are reassuring, analysts are confident in ever-higher profits, and complacency reigns supreme, evidenced by record-high household allocation in stocks and bullish sentiment readings.

Markets crash after a brief bit of panic selling is immediately bought and markets are returned to a permanently high plateau of valuation as we saw in August, as the S&P 500 shot back up within a whisker or two of all-time highs. Punters buy every dip because this quick reaction to any drop has been richly rewarded for 15 years, and everyone has confidence in the Fed Put , ie the belief that the Fed will move Heaven and Earth to restore “market confidence” and the wealth effect .

In other words, market participants have embraced moral hazard : there is no real downside, there is only upside to buying every dip.

Markets crash when the rot beneath the surface is invisible or goes unnoticed. The few doom-and-gloomers who note extremes are immediately mocked off the stage, and the headlines tout the resilience of the economy, markets, employment, profits, and the techno-wonders heading our way.

After the crash nobody predicted, analysts swarm like ravenous locusts to the digital airwaves to lay claim to their prescience: look, look, I added a one-line disclaimer about “irrational exuberance” at the end of my report!

I’ll spare you the analog charts and go right to the chase: the Oasis Indicator , brought to our collective attention by Joe Sullivan-Bennett via BondVigilantes.com: The Peculiar Relationship Between Oasis & Periods Of Extreme Market Volatility (Zero Hedge). (Fun fact: Before Oasis Wonderwall , there was George Harrison’s 1968 soundtrack LP Wonderwall .)

Those turning up their nose at the Oasis Indicator might benefit from pondering these “jaws of death” charts. Everything is extreme and stays extreme until it doesn’t. Consider the gaping pearly teeth of the SPX (S&P 500) and JPY (Japanese yen).

Or the Mack the Knife of SPX and Fed reserves: You know when that shark bites with his teeth, Scarlet billows start to spread…

And last but not least, the 2-year Treasury yield and the Nasdaq Index:a loaded mousetrap if there ever was one.

There’s no convincing the complacent. You either sense what’s coming or you don’t. It’s like a sixth sense in a way, an intuitive awareness developed by absorbing huge losses in previous “unpredicted” crashes.

Markets are manipulated, yes, but they’re still structures of tightly bound, self-organizing complexity which lend themselves to sudden non-linear collapses.

But never mind, a little autumn shower never hurts anyone. And so nobody carries an umbrella on a day that starts out sunny and clouds over too quickly to respond.

*  *  *

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A late Sunday night apparent Israeli aerial attack on Syria has left at least 18 people dead and 36 injured, Syrian state SANA news agency reported Monday. 

This marks the highest death toll in Syria from an Israeli strike since the Gaza war began last October. Several explosions were witnessed shortly before midnight on Sunday impacting the Tartous and Hama governorates, particularly in the area of the Masyaf countryside. Israeli strikes in this coastal vicinity is somewhat rare.

The target appears to have been a secretive facility long eyed by the West as part of the Assad government’s chemical weapons program.

“About half an hour before midnight, multiple airstrikes targeted the Syrian Military Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) and several nearby buildings. I heard at least eight explosions, followed by the sound of ambulances,” a local resident who spoke to CNN described.

Some of the injured remain in critical condition, and the unusually high death toll suggests there may have been employees and staff inside the research center building when it was hit. 

Syrian Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabbash described the strikes as a “brutal and barbaric aggression” against a sovereign state.

In the aftermath of the strikes, large forest fires erupted along the nearby Wadi al-Uyun highway in Masyaf. Syrian media sources released the below photograph of fires raging in the area…

The Associated Press has cited a UK-based anti-Assad monitoring group to claim that Hezbollah operatives were among those killed in the attack:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said 25 were killed, including at least five civilians, while the others included Syrian army soldiers and members of Hezbollah and other Iran-linked armed groups.

One strike targeted a scientific research center in Masyaf, and others struck sites where “Iranian militias and experts are stationed to develop weapons in Syria,” the observatory said. It said the research center was reportedly used for developing weapons, including short- and medium-range precision missiles and drones.

However, the reality is that these weapons program facilities have been targeted by Israel going back many years, in order to degrade the Syrian Army’s capabilities, also in the wake of Western allegations that Assad forces had deployed chemical weapons against ‘rebel’ strongholds.

However, Damascus has long rejected the accusations of Washington and its Western and Gulf allies, saying instead that West-backed jihadi insurgents have launched chemical weapons attacks and carried out mass atrocities.

At this moment, the region is still on edge bracing for a potential Iranian attack on Israel in response to recent major provocations. This fresh Israeli attack on Syria will certainly provoke Tehran and Damascus, and the escalation spiral might not be over.

Authored by Brenda Lebsack & Rebecca Friedrichs via RealClearPolitics,

The “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” according to Catholic Vote, is “a vile anti-Catholic organization.” Their motto is “Go and sin some more” and they use the cross for pole dances. The group satirizes Catholic beliefs for the sake of activism. They mock Easter Sunday with a Hunky Jesus/Foxy Mary contest. According to the Catholic League, they hold “Midnight Confessional Contests” awarding the “hottest confessions.”

So it makes sense that Dodgers fans came unglued when they heard their team would be rewarding the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian group. The Dodgers withdrew their award in response to customer outrage and disinvited the “Sisters,” but the California Teachers Association stepped in and strong-armed the Dodgers into standing with perverts against the will of their paying customers. CTA’s May 2023 New Business Item states, “CTA shall release a public statement condemning the Dodgers’ recent decision to rescind the Community Hero Award for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”

As veteran California teachers who’ve served within the unions and personally witnessed the radical agenda CTA imposes upon teachers, we find it suspicious that while the Dodgers are taking so much rightful heat for their June 16 celebration of the offensive “Sisters,” the CTA is getting away scot-free. CTA’s offensive intrusion into America’s national pastime and its endorsement of drag queens mocking nuns is scandalous. That’s why discerning Americans have had enough and are rising up in protest against teacher unions.

As Father Sebastian Walshe of St. Michael’s Abbey in the Diocese of Orange expresses, “The statement of the CTA should alarm every Catholic parent who sends their children to California public schools. No school should be a place where children are sexualized or taught anti-Catholic prejudice.”

The CTA rationalizes its stance with: “The Dodgers decision is rooted in the same bigotry that’s led to the LGBTQIA+ books being banned, drag shows being criminalized, and life-saving medical care being taken away from minors.” But this is a deceptive statement. Americans are pushing back on pornographic books, drag queen events, and sex transition surgeries on children because these things are destructive to children and an affront to families and American values.

Catholics are not the only Americans offended by the CTA’s endorsement. Jews, Muslims, Protestants and teachers like us are outraged as well.

Rabbi Dov Fischer, a senior congregational rabbi and law professor in California comments in his EdSource article, “The state’s school system, established to provide a safe learning climate for all students regardless of their ethnicity, race, language or religious affiliation, is now [thanks to unions] a social laboratory where students and families from devout faiths feel ostracized.”

Dr. Ahmed Soboh, the Chairman of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of 67 mosques throughout California, agreed with the rabbi: “Making fun of religious symbols or mocking religious figures should not be celebrated, especially by those who have the honorable job of educating our children.”

Most teachers would agree with the reasonable statements of Father Walshe, Rabbi Fischer, and Imam Soboh. However, the CTA does not represent the majority of teachers. CTA’s endorsement of the “Sisters” is offensive to most teachers, and it demonstrates the radical, out-of-touch views of CTA leadership.

Families of faith have good reason to be appalled since CTA – and its national arm NEA – misrepresent most teachers while controlling the trajectory of public education. Sahara Medrano, a dedicated veteran teacher and a minority representative of the California Teachers’ Union State Council, sees the red flags: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that a politically charged anti-Christian culture of religious intolerance is spreading throughout public school districts across our nation. If this trend continues, our public school system will break confidence with the religious community they are entrusted to serve. Students of faith are starting to boldly speak out saying they don’t feel safe in public schools.”

Teachers don’t feel safe either. And we have to ask, what does forcing the Dodgers into submission to a political agenda that harms children have to do with representing us as educators?

As public school teachers who’ve also served in Christian ministry for years, we commend Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants for collectively taking a stand for true religious tolerance, by standing against the religious intolerance of CTA. And we’re calling on teachers to join in protest too.

Let’s follow the lead of fed-up Americans who are using their enormous power of the purse to deliver a financial sting to the Dodgers and companies like Bud Light and Target who cave to pressure from special interest groups instead of serving their customers. Teachers can stop the power of the intolerant CTA by refusing to pay union dues, but we need your help educating teachers that they no longer have to pay unions as a condition of employment. If we help teachers empty the purses of union overlords, Americans can restore childhood innocence and freedom of speech and religion, and get back to enjoying baseball.

Brenda Lebsack is a veteran teacher, former school board member, and founder of Interfaith Statewide Coalition.

In the latest $250 million weapons package for Ukraine approved and released by the Biden administration, noticeably absent were the longer range missiles which Zelensky has long been pleading for.

The package did include the typical HIMARS ammunition, air defenses, artillery rounds, and even some Stinger missiles, among other items, and was pulled through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which draws from American military stockpiles. It is part of the $61 billion for Ukraine (out of the total $95 billion foreign military aid bill) singed into law by President Biden last April.

On the same day the $250 million weapons package was released (Friday), Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered some rare pushed back against Kiev’s desperate requests to use US and Western weaponry to launch long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory.

Austin while at Ramstein airbase in Germany, where he met with officials representing states backing Ukraine, was asked if the US would allow long-range strikes on Russia. He responded by saying no one capability would be a game changer

“I don’t believe that one specific capability is going to be decisive,” he argued. “Our approach to integrating things and to making sure that they have the right skill sets to employ those capabilities and those capabilities are linked to specific objectives.”

“I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMS or even Storm Shadow for that matter,” Austin continued, while also explaining that the Russian army has of late pulled back much of its military assets, leaving them out of range of the ATACMS systems, which can strike at a distance of about 190 miles.

“There are a lot of targets in Russia, a big country, obviously. And there’s a lot of capability that Ukraine has in terms of UAVs and other things to address those targets,” the US defense chief explained.

Still, at the Ramstein base meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Zelensky made the appeal: 

“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” the Ukrainian leader said.

“We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.“

But the reality is that despite the Kursk incursion which has precisely sought to make ordinary Russians ‘think twice’ – nothing strategically has changed in the battlefield along the front lines in Donetsk. Weekend headlines were filled with accounts of Russian forces’ ongoing rapid advance in the east.

We will present a detailed plan for victory in the war to Biden, Trump and Harris, – Zelensky.

“We are very much looking forward to the results of the conversation with US Defense Minister Austin”, he added. pic.twitter.com/YwDOZXQFL0

— The Russian Invasion of Ukraine (@wogoa1) September 8, 2024

It appears that for now, no matter how loudly Kiev lobbies Washington, the consensus is that hitting deeper inside Russia has little or no upside and is full of downside, specifically of drawing NATO and Russia into a direct shooting war.