liberty Archives - The Automatic Earth

Victor Davis Hanson says we’re watching a modern-day French Revolution play out as socialists hijack the Democratic Party.

Once you see it, the similarities are impossible to ignore.

HANSON: “We’re watching a modern-day French Revolutionary-like takeover of the Democratic… pic.twitter.com/giicypyYGW
— Overton (@overton_news) July 2, 2026

While the world was watching bombs fall on Iran,

Trump was attempting the biggest financial heist in 100 years. https://t.co/LBaMivJrza

2 July 2026#Iran #RussiaChina #IStand @ShawnRyan762 @CryptoRichYD @the_irascible @RealAlexJones pic.twitter.com/IBiCOtXKAk
— Steven Eugene Kuhn (@StevenEKuhn) July 2, 2026

US golf courses use 531 billion gallons of water per year. That’s down from 759 billion gallons per year in 2005 and is 0.5% of total annual water withdrawals in this country. And somehow, the country manages to not look like the Sahara Desert.

Meanwhile, data centers – the… pic.twitter.com/BxdtHv0S6W
— Rod D. Martin (@RodDMartin) July 2, 2026

I very much like she includes Dr. King as someone who fought for liberty in America.,

• 250 Years of Fighting for Liberty (Ashley McCully)

The pursuit of freedom has inspired every step of America’s journey and, as we all reflect on what the last 250 years have produced, it is imperative that we view our history through the lens of liberty. America’s story is vastly different from other countries because our definition of freedom is vastly different. From individual colonies to our 47th president, the United States is founded on the idea that our rights come from God, not government. For more than three centuries, we have fought to preserve this belief, and if we want to keep it, the fight will continue for at least another three.

Consider the colonists. They endured filthy, deadly conditions to cross the Atlantic to find freedom. Monarchies consolidated power and exercised it tyrannically, limiting how people could and could not worship God, imprisoning, beating, or fining anyone who did not comply. Rigid European class structure mandated that anyone born in poverty would die in poverty because there was no reason the upper crust should tolerate individualism. These people finally broke free of the Crown only to be hounded and taxed an ocean away, so they fought back with the greatest breakup letter of all time.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
—The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
It’s straightforward: our rights come from God, and men form a government to protect those rights, not to issue or infringe upon them. After winning the Revolutionary War, America’s quest for freedom was only beginning. Yes, we were no longer under the jurisdiction of the Crown, but we did have to secure our sovereignty on the world stage. We wanted to regroup economically, so we opted to stay out of the British-French trade squabble, but neutrality soon became impossible. The British, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped as many as 9,000 American sailors, claiming they were British deserters and forcing our ships into their ports, requiring us to pay their duty tax. Not even 30 years after we threw off the yoke of tyranny, they were after us again, so we fought back in the War of 1812.
“There shall be a firm and universal Peace between His Britannic Majesty and the United States, and between their respective Countries, Territories, Cities, Towns, and People of every degree without exception of places or persons. All hostilities both by sea and land shall cease as soon as this Treaty shall have been ratified by both parties as hereinafter mentioned.”
—Treaty of Ghent, December 24, 1814
Finally free to sit at the grown-up table in world affairs, the United States set out to make its fortune, and it did, on the backs of slaves. Chattel slavery robbed men and women who were created in the image of God—the same God who supposedly endowed all of His creation with inalienable rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence — of their freedoms and dignities. The North and the South both willingly engaged in the slave economy, but enough people understood how egregious and contradictory the practice was and fought back.
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”
—Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
It would be more than two years before the Civil War came to an end and the last remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, were notified of their freedom. We added the 13th Amendment to our Constitution, finally and forever abolishing slavery in America. We added the 14th Amendment to afford those born into slavery in America the status of citizens. The 15th Amendment granted citizens the right to vote regardless of the color of their skin.
Women were the unsung heroes of the American abolitionist movement and, once they saw freedom secured for black people, they continued to cast off their own chains. Fighting against assumptions of intellectual ineptitude and the idea that women were far too busy in the home to cast well-informed votes, women pushed themselves across the finish line in 1920 with the 19th Amendment, giving them the right to vote.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice. He has taken from her all right in property, even to wages she earns…
—The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls Convention, July 20, 1848
Close readers will pick up the thread of freedom shifting ever-so-slightly from rights in life to rights in politics. It is this shift, wherein the government begins to issue rights to participate, that we must pause and reflect, especially when it comes to questioning the next 300 years of freedom in America.
Regardless of laws declaring a person’s right to vote, pervasive Jim Crow laws were unofficial statutes designed to keep black people down. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. picked up the thread and moved it back toward rights in life. The Civil Rights Movement in America reminded us that God does not only care about votes, but about how His children are treated. We watched growing numbers of citizens link arms and peacefully march across bridges, endure dog attacks and fire hose boundaries, sit in chairs they were supposedly not good enough to sit in, and people fought back.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 1964
Today we are still fighting for freedom, at home and abroad. Brave men and women wearing the cloth of a sometimes-grateful nation work to protect us from terrorists who seek to kill us for no reason other than that we are not one of them. God-fearing patriots stand up every day for the unborn and their right to be born. Good guys with guns have to remind politicians and special interest groups that the right to keep and bear arms is not about hunting. As AI increases and privacy is decreasing, it is up to us to come together and protect that which no one has a right to: intrusion of personal information and space.
The definition of freedom has never changed; it has always come from God and will forever need to be protected against government. Our lives, though, have changed substantially, and we are facing new threats to our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. We have a constitutional republic, if we can keep it—if we want to keep it. No one said this road would be easy, but we all know in the core of our selves that freedom is worth its price.

The world was ready for it.

• US At 250: Why America Has Been So Successful And Can It Continue (ZH)

So what has caused this incredible success?

The first reason, and one of the most critical historically, has been the US’ political and institutional stability. Clearly, there have been moments of intense turmoil, most notably with the Civil War in the 1860s. Its historical path also should not be over-romanticised, with US territorial expansion during the 19th century having many similarities to that of the Old World colonial empires. Nonetheless, the US is incredibly rare in that its political system is recognizably the same over the last 200 years. This relative stability and early development of property rights provided a fertile environment for long-term investments, which in turn has aided economic growth over the centuries.
The second reason is its geographic advantages. The US possesses vast arable land, navigable rivers, large coastlines, and access to two oceans. It therefore found itself more insulated from the destructive effects of the world wars, with productive capacity not impacted in the same way. Moreover, the country borders Mexico and Canada, who in both population and GDP terms are much smaller than the United States, meaning it didn’t face the security risks that many European powers faced over the 19th and early-20th centuries.
The third reason has been its abundance of energy resources, particularly relative to Europe. In large part a corollary of its geographic strengths, this energy abundance has given the US several advantages. First of all, lowering costs for households and industry, which has helped the economy be more resilient against geopolitical shocks. Moreover, with the US becoming a net energy exporter in recent years, it also strengthens the external position.
The fourth reason for the US’ relative success was that its main competitors in Europe were deeply affected by the world wars and wider political turmoil. Their productive and financial capacity was severely degraded, with the destruction causing huge loss of life as well. Even among those who survived, many scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs left for the US in the first half of the 20th century. Whilst not a US “success” as such, this meant that on a relative basis, the US’ divergence widened considerably. Indeed, in the first half of the 20th century, the US economy grew by 5.7 times, Germany by 3.4 times, the UK by 2.0 times, and France by 1.8 times.
The fifth reason for the US’ outperformance is scale. It has a large domestic market of over 300m people, with high average incomes, a common language, and low internal barriers to trade. This has given firms the ability to reach a large-scale domestically before expanding abroad. Indeed, it is notable that 8 of the world’s 10 largest firms are based in the US, whereas none are in Europe.
The sixth reason is the structural advantage of the US Dollar, which remains dominant in global trade and FX reserves. This dollar demand matters because it lowers borrowing costs and raises demand for US Treasuries. In turn, it leaves the US with an exceptional capacity to run bigger fiscal and external deficits without facing a funding crisis, and expands the geopolitical leverage that the US possesses. This has been dubbed the “exorbitant privilege”, and has been a major advantage in recent decades.
The seventh reason is financial depth. The US has a large banking system, but also a wide range of non-bank financing, which means startups have access to other sources of capital. In fact, in the decade from 2013 to 2023, annual venture capital financing was 0.7% of GDP in the US, compared to just 0.2% in the EU. This financial depth is important because innovative firms can often be loss-making for lengthy periods, so countries with bigger pools of patient risk capital are better placed to commercialise new technologies.
The eighth reason is its self-compounding advantages in education and research. The US has many of the world’s strongest research universities, including 7 of the top 10 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2026. Moreover, this research also has an economic angle, as scientific discoveries feed into startups, workforce training and industrial scale-ups. In turn, this becomes self compounding, because top global talent is attracted to the US, and ensures it remains at the forefront of new sectors such as artificial intelligence.
The ninth reason is its pro-business architecture, including a greater tolerance of business failure than many European systems. For instance, Chapter 11 reorganisation is designed to preserve and restructure viable firms rather than liquidate them. This more positive approach to business failure ties into the empirical literature, which suggests that more debtor-friendly and efficient insolvency frameworks are associated with greater entrepreneurship and innovation.
The tenth reason is adaptability. The cultural acceptance of failure and capacity to reinvent itself have boosted US ability to adapt to the changing world. This has allowed it to navigate repeat boom-and-bust cycles, as well swings of the policy pendulum – between openness and isolationism, between protectionism and free trade – without threatening overall the institutional stability we highlighted above. And while capitalism has been a key underlying driving force, it is pragmatism rather than ideology that have driven continued success over time.
It is also important to note that these advantages do not play out individually, but are mutually reinforcing, with the interaction between them allowing the US to benefit from network and externality effects that few if any countries can match.

He talks like it’s his annniversary.

“America, in Mamdani’s view, is a sad place where heartless, racist, xenophobic plutocrats rule the roost ..”

• Mamdani Gives 250th Anniversary Speech (Robert Spencer)

New York City’s Communist Twelver Shi’ite Mayor Zohran Mamdani has bestowed upon a waiting world his speech commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, and it is just as small, petty, grievance-laden, fantasy-based, and angry as you’d expect a speech from a man who hates America to be.

The visual effect was even worse, as Mamdani delivered the speech while seated at a desk that seemed to be turned the wrong way around, while surrounded by a social studies-book array of glum-looking, unsmiling, unhappy people, all black and brown and hijabed and whatnot and all forlornly holding small flags of the country their mayor despises, with a single grim-faced white guy standing in the back (as is his place). But even if one didn’t avail oneself of the joys of watching Mamdani, who was just as grim as his prop companions, what the young Commie mayor said was bad enough.

Communist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who just came to this country, chose to become an American, is deciding he is the foremost authority to tell Americans what it means to be American.

He has the AUDACITY, on America's 250th birthday, to call our great nation "an arena of… pic.twitter.com/sayf6IDu90
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 3, 2026

America, in Mamdani’s view, is a sad place where heartless, racist, xenophobic plutocrats rule the roost and oppress the rest of us to the degree that you wonder why anyone from elsewhere would want to immigrate in the first place. Mamdani does hold out some hope in the end, saying that the foes of these cruel tyrants can throw off their yoke and remake this unhappy land in their own image. And that, of course, is just what Mamdani has set out to do.
Mamdani began by painting a verbal picture of the “land, lush and teeming with life” to which newcomers arrived, only to encounter “men waiting at the docks to take them into bondage” and “tenements rife with squalor.” As you’d expect, he claimed that the Declaration of Independence established “the ideals our nation still strives to fulfill,” with no indication of how marvelously it has fulfilled them already, or how it has inspired the world in doing so.
The mayor goes on to fill in all the expected blanks, telling the story of how a freed slave made a new life for himself, thereby showing America to be “a place each of us has the power to make.” Immigrants poured into America, not yet seeing “the nativism they would face — the jobs they would be refused, the landlords who would not rent to them, and the abject labor and living conditions they would withstand.” Still, they kept coming.
Mamdani goes on to mock and misrepresent the idea of American exceptionalism, and here he begins to claim that “we are told” a series of things that few people, if any, have ever been told. “We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else.” On the contrary, in less fractious days, we were told that we were “richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else,” because we were a uniquely just society in which anyone could make something of himself.
Mamdani, however, couldn’t possibly admit that without betraying his Marxist ideas, which tell him that America is inherently oppressive, and his Islamic beliefs, which tell him that only a Sharia society is truly just. And so instead, he claims that “the powerful” view America as “an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit.”
This is pure leftist rage fantasy. Who ever says any of that? Can Mamdani produce even one “powerful” person who says even one of those things? Donald Trump doesn’t (contrary to leftist claims). Elon Musk doesn’t. Mamdani would be hard pressed to substantiate his smear here, and he prudently refrains from naming any names as he continues to lambaste these imaginary capitalists: “How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal.”
Apparently hoping you won’t notice how divisive his hateful speech really is, he goes on to slam his fantasy foes for supposedly fostering “division.” This apparently involves wanting sensible immigration controls, so that the country isn’t overwhelmed with criminals, terrorists, and people who do nothing but put an added burden upon American citizens: “And yet today, too many of our leaders do not believe in a vision of this nation as an asylum for the persecuted — but rather as one that persecutes those seeking asylum.” Persecutes, i.e., by not letting them in and paying for their every need.
Mamdani then goes on to offer a frankly Marxist vision: “We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world — one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more.” By all means, the wealth this trillionaire has earned must be confiscated! “We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.”

We’ve read about this Andy Burnham guy as a leader for 2+ weeks now, but he hasn’t shown his face.

What’s wrong with him? Something must be.

• UK Labour Party Proves Why America Was Right to Ditch Parliament (Queen)

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our last day as colonists on Friday, the UK is giving us a huge reason to be glad that we got out from under the crown and the parliamentary system. The current leadership turnover in the Labour Party makes our republic look more sensible than ever. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stepping down as leader of the Labour Party — and as prime minister along with it — and the frontrunner to replace him is newly minted Member of Parliament Andy Burnham. My friend and colleague Stephen Green pointed out that Burnham stands to drag Labour further to the left and take the UK along with him.

The trouble is that Burnham has been awfully quiet on policy. As Michael Gove and Madeleine Grant put it on The Spectator’s Quite Right! podcast, Burnham acts like he can lead a major political party on vibes alone. Charles Moore writes at The Spectator: “The British constitution is an admirably flexible thing, so I would not claim that Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign, and the coverage thereof, is unconstitutional, but it is certainly unseemly. Why did a BBC helicopter follow his train from Manchester to London (which arrived, of course, late) as if he were Lenin heading for the Finland Station? And why was he allowed to pre-empt his result with a mass selfie with about 200 of his supporting MPs in Westminster Hall?
He is merely a new Member of Parliament, until he isn’t. Turning the place into his stage set is a way of intimidating possible challengers. If he is challenged, he will surely still become leader, but the point of a challenge is to force him to say what he means to do. So far, no one – not even, one suspects, Andy Burnham – knows what Andy Burnham stands for.” Moore suggests that Burnham might abandon the UK’s horrific net zero climate policy. The biggest blowback to that might happen at home; Burnham’s wife is on the board of an NGO and an EV company executive who expresses a “passion for sustainability and the green economy” and for “championing the fair and accessible transition to electric vehicle ownership.”
In a Spectator column, Grant likens Burnham’s campaign launch to the sickly sweetness of Tony Blair’s campaign. The optimism of this leadership challenge is at odds with the way many Britons feel about the state of their nation. “His promise of ‘a new era of possibility’ was a lot of style – mingled with some inevitable Burnhamite sentimentalism: ‘hope in every heart and good growth in every postcode,’” she writes. “It made me long for a gun in every hand and a cyanide capsule in every drawer.” Ross Clark has plenty of daggers for Burnham in a Spectator column. He sees Burnham as a different sort of throwback.
“Whoever thought of putting him in a grey outfit against the backdrop of a grey door for [Monday] morning’s speech in Manchester certainly wasn’t thinking of injecting a bit of colour into national life,” he writes. “It was like watching Harold Wilson: the last PM before colour TV was introduced to Britain.” Clark also has his doubts that Burnham’s big vision will get many people excited (although I wouldn’t mind something like this in the U.S.):
Burnham’s big mission for the country – to devolve power to the regions and localities – also wasn’t exactly calculated to set pulses racing. Rightly or wrongly, few things can be relied upon to provoke a yawn in British life than local government. Just look at the turnout in local elections and the increasing tendency for the electorate to use them as little more than a referendum on national government. It was, after all, the local elections which finally did for Keir Starmer and put Burnham in the position he is now.
If Burnham can really make the British public excited about local government, he will have achieved something genuinely impressive, but I would say he has an uphill task.

Quantum computing is not a reality, despite what the article suggests.

Which is good, because we’re nowhere near ready.

“.. whoever gets there first could lock in “irreversible strategic superiority.. ”

• The AI-Quantum Race Is About Who Governs the Future (Jeff Dornik)

President Donald Trump’s June 22, 2026, executive orders on quantum computing should be understood for what they are: not a shiny technology announcement, not a photo-op for the federal innovation class, and not another soothing Washington press release telling us that “America remains competitive,” which is usually government-speak for “we found the cliff and are now forming a task force to admire it.”

Executive Order 14413 directs the federal government to accelerate quantum innovation, commercialization, deployment, manufacturing, and national-security applications, while Executive Order 14412 warns that large-scale quantum computers in adversarial hands will threaten widely used cryptographic systems and enable hostile actors to collect encrypted American data now and decrypt it later. The White House’s companion post-quantum cryptography effort requires federal agencies to prioritize migration of vulnerable cryptographic systems with the objective of mitigating quantum risk by December 31, 2030.
That is the right level of urgency, because quantum computing is not merely faster computing, and artificial intelligence is not merely better software. AI is already becoming the decision layer of the digital world, shaping what people see, how companies operate, how banks assess risk, how governments investigate threats, how militaries plan, and how institutions increasingly outsource judgment to machines that speak with the confidence of a consultant who has never once been interrupted by reality. Quantum computing, once mature enough for practical cryptographic and scientific use, becomes an amplifier for problems that classical computers cannot solve at a useful scale.
Put them together, AI as the mind and quantum as the accelerator, and the winner does not simply build a better tool, but actually builds the operating system for global power.The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has already noted that nations that integrate quantum with AI-driven research platforms will compound their advantages exponentially, and that the country achieving quantum supremacy in quantum computing and AI will gain disproportionate and likely enduring advantages in intelligence collection, encryption, precision targeting, materials science, energy, medicine, and the digital economy.
The Commission also warned that whoever gets there first could lock in “irreversible strategic superiority,” especially because current global infrastructure remains exposed to attacks on public-key encryption. That is why this is an all-or-nothing race. America is not competing against a friendly research consortium at a science fair where everyone claps politely and shares their grant proposals over room-temperature coffee. We are competing against the Chinese Communist Party, a regime that does not have our Constitution, our courts, our churches, our independent press, our civil society, our due process traditions, our free-speech protections, or our national gift for holding seven hearings before deciding whether a light switch is racist.
China can centralize resources, compel cooperation, absorb civilian research into state priorities, hide its most sensitive work, and deploy technologies against its own people without any meaningful legal restraint from the governed. Human Rights Watch reports that under Xi Jinping, there is no independent civil society in China and no freedom of expression, association, assembly, or religion, while critics and human rights defenders are persecuted.
The technological edge is narrowing because China has made quantum a state priority and is building the infrastructure to match. CSIS reports that China’s superconducting, photonic, trapped-ion, and neutral-atom quantum computing efforts are moving from laboratory prototypes toward commercial use, with Chinese systems including Zuchongzhi, Origin Wukong, and Tianyan-504 supported by universities, research centers, state-linked firms, and companies such as China Telecom Quantum Group and Origin Quantum. The Special Competitive Studies Project has also noted that China has made quantum computing a strategic priority since the 14th Five-Year Plan, with government funding showing China’s strategic prioritization of quantum technology at a projected $15 billion compared to $4 billion in the United States.

Never enough money for never enough electricity (power).

“Virginia’s “Digital Gateway” project, a mega site roughly twice the size of New York’s Central Park with city-sized power needs.”

Zero Hedge take from almost a year ago.

• World’s Largest Data Center Project On Verge Of Collapse (ZH)

Up until now, when it comes to real estate, Blackstone was best known in recent years for dumping many of its trophy office properties – which in the aftermath of work from home never recovered their projected cash flow potential – at a huge discount. Now, it may be pulling a page from its old, pre-Lehman playbook by calling the top in yet another commercial real estate segment: data centers.

Two days ago we reported that Blackstone was selling its stakes in a trio of data centers across Northern Virginia for $3.5 billion, cashing out of part of a bet it made less than three years ago. According to Bloomberg, Digital Realty Trust would pay $1.2 billion of cash and offer $2.3 billion of its shares (which the PE giant has largely cashed in by now) to Blackstone funds; in exchange, the data center company will acquire Blackstone’s 80% interest in two 96-megawatt data centers in Manassas, Virginia, and a 50% interest in a 96-megawatt center in nearby Sterling.
We said that “the question is why did Blackstone decide to pull the cord now, just as fresh doubts are creeping whether the Mag 7s will continue funding the AI expansion with virtually unlimited capex.” Two days later we have an answer. The digital ink is barely dry on its Virginia data center sales, and we learn that Blackstone’s QTS (QTS Realty Trust) is again quietly fading its AI exposure by walking away from plans to build its portion (which at this point is the only portion left after its partner already pulled out days ago) of a 2,100-acre data center campus in Virginia – also known as Prince William Digital Gateway which would house as many as 37 data-center buildings – handing a win to residents who fought for years to topple the project.

QTS’s proposed facility at 9400 Godwin Drive in Manassas

The data center developer had planned to transform more than 800 acres in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County, a project that would have spanned 22 million square feet, making it the largest data center campus in the world. Located on the edge of an historic Civil War battlefield and on what used to be land protected from development, the project ignited strong pushback from homeowners and has been stalled by lawsuits.
As part of Wall Street’s broader push into data centers, investment has poured into Northern Virginia, which is considered the country’s largest data center market, and is better known as “Data Center Alley”. But in a strategic U-turn, in recent days QTS executives decided that it isn’t worth pressing forward in court, the Bloomberg sources said. The firm’s attorneys plan to inform the court of their decision as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be named discussing non-public information. QTS’s rapid growth has made it a poster child of how private equity has fueled the data center industry’s breakneck expansion. Those ambitions are colliding with public anxiety over strains to electricity grids and home prices from AI data centers.
The retreat may be the final blow to Virginia’s “Digital Gateway” project, a mega site roughly twice the size of New York’s Central Park with city-sized power needs. The initiative was supposed to bring in some $100 billion in spending and create one of the world’s largest technology corridors. Not any more. The project had sparked contentious, drawn-out public hearings. A clerical blunder related to a key zoning meeting created setbacks for developers. Already, Brookfield-backed Compass Datacenters, which was supposed to build on more than 800 acres at the site, had pulled out in May. The U-turns by both firms, Bloomberg writes, amount to one of the most dramatic retreats by developers from a data center project.
It’s a reminder of how tech firms’ race for the computing infrastructure to support AI advances is increasingly facing the same bottlenecks, from power shortages to supply crunches, we have been warning about for the past two years and which Citadel Securities warned about just yesterday. Organized opposition is mounting, forcing firms and developers to be more deliberate about where they choose to build. This is precisely what we warned one year ago would happen as more grassroots organizations pushed back against the relentless data center rollout. At least we haven’t gotten to the arson stage (yet).

between exploding electricity bills and lack of jobs for grads, a new luddite revolution is coming – they will be burning down data centers within a year
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 25, 2025

Paint me skeptical. I can take missing 1 or 2 warnings, maybe even 5. But 102?

“The Homeland Security Department report lists communications failures and security lapses that led up to the gunman opening fire from a rooftop.”

• Secret Service Missed 102 Warnings Before Trump Assassination Attempt (ET)

The U.S. Secret Service missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024, including missing more than 102 radio transmissions warning of a suspicious person, a Department of Homeland Security report concluded. The report, released on July 2 by the department’s Office of Inspector General, chronicles a series of communication failures, inadequate planning, limited intelligence sharing, and security lapses that combined to create the conditions that allowed gunman Thomas Crooks to open fire from the roof of a nearby building during a July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler. Crooks was fatally shot by a Secret Service agent.

Among the report’s most significant findings was that Secret Service members did not receive 102 radio transmissions “that local law enforcement officers in a separate communications room received concerning an increasingly intense search for a suspicious person. Instead, we found that the Secret Service received only five phone calls and three text messages about Crooks. As a result, Secret Service members did not alert President Trump’s protective detail about concerns of a suspicious person.” The Secret Service would have delayed Trump’s speech or removed him from the stage had they been aware of the search for Crooks, the report stated.
The report also said the Secret Service failed to detect a drone that Crooks flew over the rally site about two hours before the shooting. Investigators said the agency’s counter-drone system was inoperable because of a malfunction, and the lone operator assigned to the event lacked sufficient training to repair the equipment. The system remained offline while Crooks flew the drone for nearly nine minutes, allowing him to survey both the stage and the rooftop he later used to carry out the attack.
The report also found serious communication breakdowns between the Secret Service and local law enforcement. The Secret Service never received three radio reports from law enforcement that Crooks had climbed onto a roof with a rifle. The inspector general also found that classified intelligence concerning a long-range threat to Trump was not shared with the Pittsburgh field office or agents responsible for planning security at the rally. The report said broader dissemination of that intelligence likely would have resulted in additional security personnel being assigned to the event.
Investigators further concluded that the Secret Service failed to ensure the American Glass Research complex, where Crooks launched the attack, was secured by state and local law enforcement. In addition, the agency did not use available resources to block the rooftop’s line of sight to the stage, despite recognizing it as a potential vulnerability. The inspector general issued seven recommendations to improve protective operations. The Secret Service agreed with all of them, and the report said some have already been implemented while others remain in progress.

I wonder how Tulsi now views what’s becoming of her work.

• Tulsi Gabbard Outlines the Mechanics of the Deep State (CTH)

Former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, gives a speech outlining the mechanics of the Deep State and how the people within it operate. At around 3:30 of the presentation, Gabbard gives a specific example of the attitude of the employees on assignment to the ODNI. Obviously, I am not certain, but Tulsi seems to be describing the FBI liaison desk within the DNI as she explains how this federal government employee refuses to participate in the DNI request. Listen and you gain an appreciation of the challenge that exists for any appointed leadership. WATCH:

There is no apple; it’s all worms!

This goes back to 2024, and the Biden FBI. So of course Newsom accuses…Trump.

• FBI Mole Wore Wire Inside Newsom’s Inner Circle: Lawyer (ZH)

A mole working for the Biden FBI was secretly recording Gavin Newsom’s inner circle before the agency expanded its corruption probe into the California governor and his wife, according to a bombshell report by the NY Post. Democrat insider Alexis Podesta, a 45-year-old Sacramento consultant and Newsom appointee – no known relation to John Podesta – secretly taped conversations for the FBI as early as June 2024, while Joe Biden was still in the White House, according to McGregor Scott, the former US attorney now representing Dana Williamson. Williamson, 53, ran Newsom’s office as chief of staff until late 2024; in May she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and lying to federal agents.

Federal prosecutors accused Williamson and others of orchestrating a scheme to siphon roughly $225,000 from a dormant campaign account which belonged to former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra -disguising the payments as legitimate consulting fees while routing the money to benefit Becerra’s former chief of staff, Sean McCluskie. According to Podesta’s attorney, she was placed in charge of overseeing the account in question – but did not know the payments were improper. Becerra is now the Democratic nominee to succeed Newsom as governor. “Alexis wore a wire, and Dana did not,” said Williamson’s lawyer and former US attorney for the Eastern District of California, McGregor Scott.
“A lot of people received letters essentially informing us that there were certain periods of time where the FBI was given access to follow phone calls,” said assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), who said he was among those who received a letter even though he had never spoken with either Podesta or Williamson. “I don’t know how these investigations work, but it sounds like they cast a pretty broad net across the Capitol community to see what they could find.”
A separate source with knowledge of the matter said they knew of four Sacramento insiders who also received FBI notifications confirming they had been recorded.= One recipient told the source: “Dude, I got this f—ing letter. I never even met with Dana Williamson!” “Their curiosity was that they never even met with Dana Williamson, so they were wondering what this is all about,” the source said. “And now you have the answer.” -NY Post. News of the wire comes just over two weeks after Newsom claimed that the Trump administration is punishing him because he may run for president in 2028.
“They’re demanding records, they’re abusing the grand jury process, digging through years and years of random documents. Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets, he’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president, because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit,” Newsom said, before sending a mass email asking for political donations. Sources close to the investigation, however, told The Post that the feds have spent the past year digging into Newsom, his staff, and his wife’s taxes after whistleblowers reportedly dropped the dime that led to the probe. Williamson’s attorney told the outlet that his client declined to cooperate because she didn’t have anything on Newsom.
Podesta – a former staffer for the late Dianne Feinstein, is a longtime Democratic power broker who remains on California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund board – to which Newsom appointed her in January 2020. She also held senior positions in Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, and served as secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. While she hasn’t been charged with a crime, her attorney identified her as an uncharged co-conspirator in the Williamson indictment.
Of note, Podesta is still getting paid $60,797 by the state while cooperating with the FBI, while she sits on the Insurance Fund Board. nCampaign finance records show Becerra’s committee making $10,000 monthly payments to ‘Podesta Company’ during 2023 and 2024. During this period, Williamson – while Newsom’s CoS – shared confidential info with Podesta regarding a corporate client that has now been identified as Activision Blizzard.

FYI.

• Need Another Reason to Loathe Michelle Obama? (Matt Margolis)

I’m sure you don’t, but I’ll give you one anyway.

Michelle Obama has spent years selling herself as America’s warm, approachable former first lady. Remember the whole “when they go low, we go high” thing? We knew then it was just an empty slogan, because whenever she had a chance to prove she’s the bigger person, she just proved the opposite. According to a Daily Mail report, Barack Obama’s wife personally torpedoed Cheryl Hines’ return to the small screen when Larry David’s new HBO series, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America, began casting. The show premiered last week. Higher Ground, the production company the Obamas own, produces it.
Hines, 60, spent all 12 seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm playing Larry David’s wife, and having her return for the new show made sense. But apparently, Obama couldn’t handle the fact that Hines is married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. According to unnamed sources cited by the Daily Mail, that was disqualifying. One insider claims that Obama wanted Kennedy’s wife banned from the cast outright because she is “all-MAGA, all-the-time.” Another source says Obama reacted sharply when production staffers who knew Hines from Curb floated the idea of bringing her back.
According to one insider, Obama’s message was simple. “She’s not one of us,” she reportedly said. Funny thing is, Hines is most definitely a leftist herself. She spent decades as a reliable Hollywood liberal long before she ever said “I do” to Kennedy. None of that bought her a pass. In Obama’s world, being married to someone in the Trump administration gets you blacklisted. A third source confirmed to the Daily Mail that the exclusion had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with Hines’ perceived politics, tied to her marriage and her proximity to Trump’s circle. Obama reportedly stayed out of the writers’ room and never touched a script. But casting, including guest stars, was hers to control. She used that control to keep Hines off the set.
An insider says Hines felt devastated when she learned producers had cut her, and who could blame her? She reportedly believed that David could look past his own politics for the sake of a 12-season friendship. Another source says that David didn’t have that option. Michelle made the call, and David felt that he had no room to overrule her. David has made his own politics abundantly clear. He’s a rabid leftist who despises Trump. Could he have fought for Hines? Probably. But it may not have done any good, and he shouldn’t have had to fight for Hines anyway.
In the end, this just gives us another reason to loathe Michelle Obama, who says, “when they go low, we go high,” one day, then blacklists an actress over her husband’s Cabinet post the next. That’s the opposite of going high. Hines has learned the hard way just how horrible her side is. Back in November, she told Bill Maher that while Republicans have treated her with basic kindness and respect (even when RFK Jr. was running as a Democrat), her fellow Democrats reacted with spite and the urge to exile anyone who steps out of line. Hines indeed has become living proof that the party that preaches “tolerance” has become a cult of cancellation, while the people they demonize are the tolerant ones.

He’s dragging the country to its grave. It is too late.

“Merz was shocked not only by the technological capability, but also by the Chinese industrial work ethic and capabilities of the workforce.”

• Chancellor Friedrich Merz Delivers Statement to German Workforce (CTH)

This next storyline needs context to understand appropriately what just happened. In February of this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled for the first time in his business and life to China. Merz a lawyer by training, worked in business and corporate life doing mergers and acquisitions (Blackrock), but had never been to China. Despite his upward climb in German politics, his worldview was always dominated by an internal acceptance that Germany was the industrial heart of the European Union.

Chancellor Merz believed that Germany was unrivaled within industrial manufacturing, particularly in aeronautics and mechanical engineering (auto sector). So, when Merz went to China -while he held no trade capabilities as an outcome of the EU collective controlling everything- he also had no idea what Chinese industrial capacitary actually looked like. To say Chancellor Merz was stunned by the advancements in robotics and industrial manufacturing within China would be an understatement. Merz was shocked not only by the technological capability, but also by the Chinese industrial work ethic and capabilities of the workforce.
Merz returned to Germany and immediately began discussing how Chinese industrial capacity was far beyond anything he previously estimated. Merz was shook. His reaction was, essentially, the #1 industrial nation within the EU confronting a reality of years of industrial complacency. Immediately he began talking about how things in Germany must change; how the German workforce must immediately start to get serious about productivity and production capacity. That was late February and early March.
Today, Friedrich Merz announced a series of reforms, radical modifications within the German industrial workforce. German workers are no longer allowed to call in sick. The German government will now adopt a policy to make sure all workers report to their jobs, or else. The German workforce may not like this at all. There is a certain, shall we say, “Fascist irony,” when you think about mandated private sector productivity compliance and the relationship with official government policy.
Germany’s coalition government has announced a wide-ranging package of pension, tax and labor reforms aimed at boosting economic growth and strengthening competitiveness. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the measures would create jobs, reduce bureaucracy and preserve key social welfare protections. The 34-point plan includes income tax relief for low- and middle-income households as well as a gradual increase in the retirement age.

Expect fighting in the streets.

“As the AfD heads to its party congress in Erfurt, Germany’s collapsing mainstream braces for protests, panic, and a deeper political rupture..”

“..every sixth German is at risk of poverty.”

• Germany’s Rotten Center Is Heading For A Reckoning (Amar)

In the summer of 2026, Germany is a punch-drunk country reeling from harsh knocks, many of which are self-inflicted. In the short term, it has just suffered a humiliating defeat at the UN General Assembly, where it was punished for Berlin’s brazen arrogance, political provincialism, and last but not least, steadfast support for Israel and its crimes, including genocide. At the World Cup, the German team was booted out of the tournament early and crushingly. To make things worse, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz felt this was just the right moment to release some X posts apparently meant to be reassuring but stunning the nation by their cack-handed ineptitude and sheer disconnect with reality.

Why settle for a mere national depression if you can trigger a raging s**t-storm in addition? Germany’s fundamentals are also thoroughly catastrophic. According to Handelsblatt, Volkswagen, a traditional flagship of the German car industry at the core of the national economy and national pride, is stuck “in the greatest cost and structural crisis in decades.” Around 100,000 jobs are on the chopping block. And yes, that is representative of the economy as a whole.
The country’s birth rate – at 1.35 children per woman – is the lowest since the mid-1990s, which reflects the mood of anxiety and pessimism across the country. Even Germany’s public (de facto state) broadcasters, not known for unbiased reporting or serious criticism of the powers that be, are admitting that poverty is becoming entrenched. In what was once a country of economic success and optimism, according to official statistics, every sixth German is at risk of poverty.
And all of the above is happening under a succession of textbook-centrist governments, based on coalitions of parties and politicians that share a fundamental lack of convictions (apart from the blind urge to fight Russia again), egotism, careerism, and a coldhearted indifference, if not disdain, for the worsening problems and hardships that shape the lives of ordinary Germans. At this point, the latest iteration of centrist uselessness warming seats in Berlin unites deeply unpopular Social-Democrats (SPD) – 12% in the polls – and widely scorned mainstream conservatives (CDU/CSU) – 22% and falling. No wonder that a whopping 53% do not trust any political party, while an abysmal 77% are dissatisfied with Merz.
It is this catastrophic decline, ruling fecklessness, and national frustration that will really be at stake in what is soon going to happen in the eastern German city of Erfurt, where the AfD (Alternative for Germany) will hold its party congress July 4-5. Ahead of the meeting, Germany has the jitters. While the AfD is expecting hundreds of party delegates as well as guests, the authorities are predicting that 35,000 to 70,000 protesters will gather as well. That is a significant number by any measure. But it is even more impressive – or concerning – if you consider that Erfurt is historic (with one of Germany’s oldest universities) but not big, with a population of not quite 220,000.
It is extremely unlikely that all the anti-AfD protests about to converge on Erfurt will remain peaceful. While calling for calm, the local authorities and police are clearly trying to prepare for disturbances and violence, including blockades and worse. Bjoern Hoecke, the key representative of the AfD Right and the powerful leader of the party in Thuringia, where Erfurt is located, may have been a touch hyperbolic when speaking of “civil war-like conditions.” Yet leaked documents show that Thuringia’s police are warning of thousands of violent activists who they believe will stage firebomb attacks from roofs, accept severe injury and death among their targets, and even execute an “endgame scenario” of storming the AfD congress.
The police union is concerned about not having enough officers on the ground. Whatever happens in Erfurt, it is already clear that the scene has been set for some big symbolic showdown theater. According to centrist and mainstream narratives, the battle lines are as Manichean as the best of Tolkien: Here, the forces of Mordor of the AfD, widely labeled as hostile to democracy and the constitution if not outright fascist; and there, the Hobbit forces of light of conformist protest, civil society, and a wholesome resistance that knows its place. If the latter features serious violence as well, then that will be written off as the exception, and ultimately the fault of the AfD.
So much for the childish story you will hear a lot about in the mainstream media.

President Trump tells Joe Kernen that he sent Elon Musk a note congratulating him when he became a trillionaire.

He says he maintains a “very good” relationship with Musk to this day.

KERNEN: “Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire?”

TRUMP: “I haven't.”

“No, I… pic.twitter.com/otCEQDYUHi
— Overton (@overton_news) July 2, 2026

https://twitter.com/MrJohnJnr/status/2072671824870084962?s=20

RFK Jr: "If you look at the studies of the Pfizer vaccine — the people who got the vaccine had a 23% percent higher death rate from all causes."

Bill Maher: "But that could be the disease itself…"

RFK Jr: "Then the vaccine doesn’t work, does it?" pic.twitter.com/Rb7wAtww41
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) July 2, 2026

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/2072645371432522193?s=20

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Debt Rattle February 2 2022

Feb 022022

February 2, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: bitcoin, El Salvador, Freedom Convoy, lab leak theory, liberty, lockdowns, mitzvah, myocarditis, Ottawa, Soros, truckers 95 Responses »

Jan van Eyck Madonna and Child at the Fountain 1439 (height: 7.4“, 19cm)

• Truckers Are Lighting “Brushfires of Freedom” In Millions of Minds (Rossini)

• Ottawa City Councillor Wants To Seize Freedom Convoy GoFundMe Funds (RTN)

• COVID Affects Your Memory (Gutentag)

• Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Could Be Linked To Childhood Trauma (G.)

• Lockdowns Had Little Or No Impact On Covid-19 Deaths (WT)

• Big Tech Purges Anti-lockdown Scientists (JTN)

• Scientists Speak Out On Being Silenced On Lab Leak Theory (Fox)

• Watch The Diversion! (Denninger)

• Top Doctor Calls for Reinstatement of People Fired Over Vaccine Mandates (TH)

• Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis Injuring Record Number of Young People (CHD)

• 47 Million Americans Quit Their Jobs Last Year: ‘Uncharted Territory’ (CNBC)

• It’s a Mitzvah, Not Anti-Semitism, To Attack Soros’ DA campaigns (Dov Fischer)

• Soros Calls For Regime Change In China (RT)

• New York Times Sues To Get Hunter Biden Information (Turley)

• El Salvador Angrily Rejects IMF Call To Drop Bitcoin Use (AP)

A lot of farmers will not grow wheat at present fertilizer prices. In the US, many will switch to soy beans.

“Retail fertilizer is ripping in the Midwest as growers begin to put on purchases for spring product. Anhydrous has set a new record at $1492/ton, which is 200% more than this time last year. With harvest delivered corn in the low $5/bu range right now, it doesn’t pencil.”

Trucker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1488672963801104385

Urso

Worrisome… pic.twitter.com/JsK6n4FfXM

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 1, 2022

“..it’s impossible to centrally plan human life. Yet, there’s never a shortage of misguided individuals who are willing to give it a try.”

• Truckers Are Lighting “Brushfires of Freedom” In Millions of Minds (Rossini)

Tyranny is nothing new. People who embrace it, and who lust after power, tend to follow a similar pattern. There are no brakes. They always push it too far. They always overplay their hand. They can’t seem to stop themselves once they have a grip on the population. Canada experienced a shocking amount of tyranny over the last several years. And yet, under the extreme pressure that the Canadian people were forced to endure, it appears that a diamond has been formed. Out came a force for liberty that has caught the attention of the entire world! We are born free, and meant to always stay free. Authoritarians, no matter how much data they chase after, can never know or anticipate everything.

Who could have predicted that a major spark would emerge in Canada? Yet, that is how the history of Liberty vs. power has always been. Who could have predicted that 13 colonies would secede from the biggest empire on earth back in 1776? In our world of perpetual uncertainty, it’s impossible to centrally plan human life. Yet, there’s never a shortage of misguided individuals who are willing to give it a try….and create mass human suffering in doing so. It’s hard enough to plan one’s own life, let alone venturing out and foolishly sticking your nose into someone else’s business. But this fact never seems to dawn on authoritarians, no matter how much logic, theory, and history backs it up.

The desire for freedom is innate. It can be suppressed, but not abolished. Life and Liberty are two sides of the same coin. Without Life, there is no Liberty. Without Liberty, there is no Life. When backed into an impossible corner, Life and Liberty always finds a crack to burst through. After 2 years of hardcore tyranny around the world, the ideas of freedom are bursting forth, first in Canada…

Justin’s not the only Little Napoleon in town…

• Ottawa City Councillor Wants To Seize Freedom Convoy GoFundMe Funds (RTN)

The public participation in online crowdfunding for public protests related to the Freedom Convoy taking place in Canada continues to be hit with roadblocks and is becoming a further threat to free expression and the right to protest. After first having GoFundMe temporarily block the release of some of the funds that Canadians have donated to help support the livelihoods of the truckers taking place in the demonstration, GoFundMe began to pay out the funds, with the first payment of $1M in Canadian dollars being released, the campaign organizer tweeted on Friday. However, the campaign has raised more than $7.3 million in Canadian dollars and those funds could now be at risk of being seized by the local government if some politicians get their way.

Mathieu Fleury, the Ottawa City Councillor of Rideau-Vanier Ward, has today announced his support for the government to launch a legal challenge to seize the remaining GoFundMe donations that had been collected online. “This morning, I have asked the city manager and city solicitor to immediately launch court proceedings targeting the millions of dollars in funds frozen by @GoFundMe so Ottawa taxpayers are not left holding the bag for these protests,” Fleury tweeted, before locking his account after facing backlash.

“While COVID testing may be clinically valuable for people with symptoms, testing millions of asymptomatic people can lead to large-scale, unnecessary quarantines and disruptions (as Fauci has now admitted).”

• COVID Affects Your Memory (Gutentag)

In December 2021, the CDC announced a change in quarantine guidelines from 10 days to five, with Fauci confessing that the purpose of the change was to “get people back to jobs” and Walensky stating that the guidelines were based on “what we thought people would be able to tolerate.” These statements came after months and years of restrictions based on the idea that no concern superseded the mitigation of COVID risks—that COVID policies were, by definition, above cost-benefit analysis. In 2020, Fauci and Francis Collins (then director of the National Institutes of Health) had orchestrated a media-assisted smear campaign to this effect against the scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration, who argued for more focused protection of the elderly and immunocompromised instead of blanket lockdowns.

This effort to quash dissenting viewpoints lasted well past the point when vaccines became available for any adult who wanted them. Now, having attempted to damage the reputations of these scientists, Fauci believes that COVID mitigation policies must be balanced by other priorities. The CDC has also determined that Americans no longer have to test themselves at the end of the new quarantine period because they can stay positive for up to 12 weeks after infection. But this change in testing protocol only confirms that detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has never meant that someone is ill or contagious. A clinical case of a disease almost always involves symptoms, but for COVID, the definition of a “case” for the past two years has been a positive PCR test, symptoms or no symptoms.

In other words, while major news outlets presented rates of “cases” as synonymous with rates of illness, the number of positive PCR tests has never necessarily reflected the number of people sick with COVID (because the SARS-CoV-2 material detected by PCR may not be intact, abundant, or infectious). This was a problem in 2007 when the use of PCR tests to detect pertussis led scientists to believe they were observing an epidemic, only to discover that the tests had been generating false positives and patients most likely had other respiratory infections like the common cold. While COVID testing may be clinically valuable for people with symptoms, testing millions of asymptomatic people can lead to large-scale, unnecessary quarantines and disruptions (as Fauci has now admitted).

Nevertheless, state and city governments used “rising cases” to rationalize shutdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. Public health officials and the media portrayed these raw case numbers as a meaningful metric and presented testing as an infallible tool. In the past month, this approach has abruptly changed. When questioned about child hospitalization rates, Fauci recently cited broken bones and appendicitis as among the reasons for high hospitalization numbers, telling MSNBC, “It’s over-counting the number of children who are, quote ‘hospitalized with COVID,’ as opposed to because of COVID.” By the first week of January, data released by New York state showed that about half of all COVID patients in New York City hospitals were admitted for reasons other than COVID; in Los Angeles, the same was true for about two-thirds of COVID patients. The Los Angeles Times argued that the number of incidental hospitalizations during omicron means “this surge is different.” But how different is it, really?

The craziest thing in quite some time. Those involved in its research and publishing should either get a big Stupidity Award, or be prosecuted.

• Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Could Be Linked To Childhood Trauma (G.)

Refusal or reluctance to have a Covid-19 vaccine may be linked to traumatic events in childhood, such as parents separating, neglect, or physical, verbal and sexual abuse, new research suggests. Those who suffer in childhood are also least likely to trust official NHS coronavirus information, follow the rules of restrictions or wear masks during the pandemic, public health experts found. Two years after the virus first reached the UK and a year after vaccines to protect against it were made available for free on the NHS, millions of people have yet to be vaccinated. Almost one in 10 people in the UK – 9% – have still not had a single dose. Health experts and policymakers are urgently trying to figure out why.

Now the findings of a new study funded by Public Health Wales and published in the journal BMJ Open suggests that Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy may be linked to childhood trauma. Researchers surveyed 2,285 people aged 18 and over in Wales during lockdown restrictions between 2020 and 2021. They were asked about nine different adverse childhood experiences (Aces) as well as low trust in NHS Covid-19 information, whether they backed the removal of social distancing and mandatory face coverings, and breaking Covid rules and vaccine hesitancy. Aces include neglect, physical, psychological or sexual mistreatment, and growing up in a household affected by domestic violence, substance or alcohol abuse and other criminal justice problems.

Parents separating or divorcing, abandonment, or having a parent with a mental health condition are other examples of Aces. The nine Aces included in the study were: physical, verbal and sexual abuse, parental separation, exposure to domestic violence, living with a household member with mental illness, alcohol and/or drug misuse, or a family member in prison. Half of those in the study had not experienced any childhood trauma, one in five had suffered one type, about one in six reported two or three, and one in 10 reported four or more. The results showed that the more trauma people had experienced in childhood, the more likely they were to mistrust NHS Covid-19 information, to feel unfairly restricted by the government and to support the end of mandatory face masks.

“..lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument..”

• Lockdowns Had Little Or No Impact On Covid-19 Deaths (WT)

Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies. “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills. “They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded. Early on, many states and 186 countries imposed bans on work, socialization, in-person schooling, travel and other restrictions to limit the spread of the disease, citing recommendations by top health care experts. Researchers at the Imperial College London, for example, predicted that such steps could reduce death rates by up to 98%. That never happened, according to the new study by researchers Steve Hanke, Jonas Herby, and Lars Jonung at Johns Hopkins. “Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote.

“the whole history of the pandemic and the response are being rewritten in real time by Big Tech to cover up what happened..”

• Big Tech Purges Anti-lockdown Scientists (JTN)

The campaign to get Joe Rogan booted from Spotify may have failed for now, but Big Tech appears to be ramping up its COVID-19 “misinformation” crackdown on medical and other figures. Two permanent social media bans bookended Rogan’s interview with mRNA vaccine pioneer-turned-critic Robert Malone, which birthed the trending phrase “mass formation psychosis.” Twitter cited Malone for COVID misinformation shortly before the interview, while LinkedIn “flushed my 30,000 connections and de-platformed me” days after, Malone wrote in his newsletter. “No explanations, no warnings were given.” The last complete archive of his page was Jan. 3.

Malone said he had rarely posted anything “controversial” on the Microsoft-owned professional social network due to his brief suspension last summer, which a LinkedIn “senior executive” blamed on the platform’s purported difficulty in “detangling complicated, subtle scientific claims.” YouTube reportedly removed uploads of the Rogan episode as well, and Malone and others claimed Google was manipulating search results for “mass formation psychosis” to hide the episode, contrasting the search engine’s results with competitor DuckDuckGo. The censorship has not chastened Malone, who has since claimed he “almost died” following his second Moderna vaccine dose, likely due to a “bad batch.”

LinkedIn shut down former Harvard Medical School epidemiologist and lockdown critic Martin Kulldorff’s account last week, allegedly reinstating it without explanation several hours after his affiliated Brownstone Institute noted the removal. It was also Kulldorff’s second brush with LinkedIn, which censored two of his posts for purported misinformation last summer. Twitter suspended his account for a month last spring for disputing the protective powers of commonly worn masks — a position that is now mainstream. The actions suggest “the whole history of the pandemic and the response are being rewritten in real time by Big Tech to cover up what happened, who wrote what and when, and how the thing fleshed itself out in real time,” wrote Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker.

Malone Big Tech
https://twitter.com/i/status/1488548271505170433

I bet most people still don’t believe the lab leak theory. Propaganda is sticky.

• Scientists Speak Out On Being Silenced On Lab Leak Theory (Fox)

Some scientists have begun speaking out about efforts to silence researchers who raised concerns about the possibility that COVID-19 could have originated in a Chinese lab. “It shot from every direction from people who we now know were actually thinking exactly the same thing but have chosen to say the opposite, which is extraordinary,” Australian Dr. Nikolai Petrovsky, a Flinders University Medicine professor, told Fox News of the backlash he received for voicing concerns that the pandemic may have originated in a lab. Petrovsky was not alone, according to reporting from Fox News’ Benjamin Hall, who spoke with scientists from Israel, the U.S., Australia, Germany, the U.K., Australia and Germany. The scientists told Fox News that they received backlash and resistance to getting their work published, even from those who quietly believed in the possibility of the “lab-leak theory.”

“It’s taken two years for that to finally come out and be exposed,” Petrovsky said. The scientists say that there was a top-down effort aimed at protecting the scientific community from negative public attention, with fears spreading among scientists that a public realization that the pandemic may have spread due to gain-of-function research in a lab could hamper future experiments. Many in the scientific community who attempted to speak out about COVID-19’s origins were labeled conspiracy theorists in the media and by fellow scientists early on in the pandemic, even though the possibility of human error has now gained renewed attention from experts. The scientists expressed fear to Fox News that the silencing of such voices has led to little change, with gain-of-function research continuing both in the U.S. and abroad despite growing calls for international regulation.

DARPA.

• Watch The Diversion! (Denninger)

Let’s cut the crap eh? It’s established that DARPA was handed a proposal from Ecohealth, Duke, UNC and Palo Alto Labs that intended for work to be done at the WIV and then intentionally released into bat caves in China related to coronaviruses. It’s also established that DARPA told them to pound sand, because, as I’ve pointed out, it not only violated gain-of-function but also raised grave concerns about being dual use (that is, bioweapon use) and that Ecohealth was apparently claiming the right to do same on a foreign land where they neither owned the cave or the people around there that might get screwed. As it turns out people did get screwed and it appears to have initiated right there. There is evidence NIH funded this after DARPA told them to go to Hell. The evidence points to that how Covid-19 occurred.

Proved? Not yet. But if not… it’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it — both on what was being done and the timing. But note well that Trump, and Fox, are all over the Wuhan Institute only. Oddly silent is that institutions right here in the United States appear to have been part of it. They most-certainly were in the original proposal which has surfaced, I remind you. Exactly nobody has called for a full and open investigation into that, and there is evidence that they were involved after DARPA rejected the work too in the form of transfer agreements in late 2019, just before everything went to Hell. Where be the subpoenas out of Congress, may I ask? Where be anything other than the focus on China? Yeah, China was involved and covered it up. That’s clear.

But what’s also clear is that China has also not released the information including exactly what was transferred back, to whom and when. So yeah, let’s bag on China because they deserve it. But at the same time where’s the big fat wrecking ball and even criminal charges for those in the so-called “public health” and “research” community right here in the United States that got involved in this crap and, it appears, may well be equally responsible for what happened? Oh, you want to know why not? Here you go: The scientists expressed fear to Fox News that the silencing of such voices has led to little change, with gain-of-function research continuing both in the U.S. and abroad despite growing calls for international regulation. There you are. They’re still doing it.

Very obvious. But who’s first?

• Top Doctor Calls for Reinstatement of People Fired Over Vaccine Mandates (TH)

After instruction from President Joe Biden and federal government regulators, a number of corporations fired workers who refused the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine. They did so before the Supreme Court ruled Biden’s vaccine mandate for large companies was unconstitutional. Now, with worker shortages and long delayed scientific evidence from the Centers for Disease Control that the vaccine does not prevent the transmission of the virus, a number of companies are hiring back previously fired workers. Dr. Marty Makary, a top doctor for John’s Hopkins University, has been calling on companies to rehire fired employees for weeks. Now, he’s calling for workers to not only give people their jobs back but to issue an apology.

“Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear. By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those least likely to infect others. It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology,” Dr. Makary writes in the Wall Street Journal. “None of this should surprise us. For years, studies have shown that infection with the other coronaviruses that cause severe illness, SARS and MERS, confers lasting immunity. In a study published in May 2020, Covid-recovered monkeys that were rechallenged with the virus didn’t get sick. Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do.”

Medical debt.

• Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis Injuring Record Number of Young People (CHD)

In one-fourth (or more) of consumer bankruptcies, medical debt is the predominant causal factor, often triggered by “sudden adverse events.” As of 2022, vaccine adverse event reporting of heart disease following COVID vaccines had increased 15,600% in young people under the age of 30, compared to the previous 31 years of heart injuries reported following receipt of FDA-approved vaccines. Autism, linked to vaccines as well as other toxic exposures, furnishes a cautionary tale, potentially saddling families with lifetime care costs of $1.4 to $2.4 million. In 2010, a government study estimated 1 in every 38 vaccine doses (2.6%) produced an adverse reaction. However, the sluggish and adversarial vaccine injury compensation process and a sky-high burden of proof leave two-thirds of claims dismissed or in limbo.

Emergency Use Authorization COVID shots are even less likely to garner vaccine injury compensation. Attorneys caution, “If you have suffered a serious injury from a Covid-19 vaccine, you are basically on your own.” With over a million COVID-vaccine-related adverse events reported since December 2020, households are racking up extraordinary debt and turning to crowdfunding for help. Heart conditions, among the 20 most expensive conditions treated in American hospitals, pack a financial wallop. According to CDC, 96% of those under age 30 who experience heart injuries following COVID vaccination are hospitalized. Children tend to have a more sudden and severe myocarditis presentation than adults, with an estimated 7% to 15% mortality rate. Children hospitalized with myocarditis are more likely to die than children admitted with other diagnoses.

Studies of children and adolescents who developed myocarditis following COVID vaccination show a “potentially poor prognosis despite the heart seeming to have returned to normal.” According to Mayo Clinic, “the greatest burden of myocarditis may not be apparent for 6-12 years after diagnosis when children die or need to undergo cardiac transplantation.” Cardiac injuries triggered by dangerous COVID injections appear to be good for business. A July 2021 BusinessWire report forecast a booming market for cardiac assist devices, noting “increasing incidence of heart failure is driving growth.” Families, however, are left holding the bag not just emotionally, but financially, blindsided by financial impacts they surely never anticipated.

Great Migration.

• 47 Million Americans Quit Their Jobs Last Year: ‘Uncharted Territory’ (CNBC)

Another historically high 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in December, according to the Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, closing out a record-shattering year when roughly 47.4 million people voluntarily left their jobs for better work during the pandemic and Great Resignation. For comparison, 42.1 million people quit in 2019, at the time considered the tightest labor market on record. “All of this is uncharted territory,” says Rucha Vankudre, a senior economist at Emsi Burning Glass, a labor market analytics firm. The U.S. saw record-breaking months of turnover throughout 2021, with early signs of trouble kicking off in April as vaccination efforts improved, consumer activity rebounded and businesses scrambled to re-staff to meet demand.

Workers, especially in low-wage service roles, quit their jobs for higher pay and better work conditions. Employers responded to record turnover by “trying to get employees in the door” with signing bonuses, higher salaries, the option to work remotely and expanding their geographic hiring boundaries for teleworkers, Vankudre tells CNBC Make It. They’ve increased retention efforts by offering more employee training and development opportunities. “Employers are doing what they can at this point,” Vankudre says. She expects pay increases to continue unabated as a means of attracting new hires, retaining workers and pulling people back into the workforce. “What else can they do? We’ll have to see. They’ve done the things we’ve expected them to do at increasing rates, but what’s next?”

Even still, rising wages may not be enough to keep pace with the rate of inflation. Though wages rose 4.7% from a year prior, according to the Labor Department, consumer prices reached a 40-year high in December, when the consumer price index (which measures the cost of goods and services) showed a 7% jump year-over-year.

Rabbi Dov Fischer is western regional vice president of Coalition for Jewish Values.

• It’s a Mitzvah, Not Anti-Semitism, To Attack Soros’ DA campaigns (Dov Fischer)

Ever since Jonathan Greenblatt, a woke former Obama White House official, took over the Anti-Defamation League, it reflexively screams “Anti-Semitism!” when critics fault Soros’ political work — and the left loyally follows suit. It therefore falls upon established rabbis with authentic Jewish lifetime bona fides, like yours truly, to assert unequivocally that it’s a mitzvah (a righteous act) — not “anti-Semitism” — to castigate George Soros for his radical attempts to undermine public safety and the American republic. I’ll be clear: Political pundits, ranging from columnists to cartoonists to on-air talent, should not hesitate to condemn Soros as perhaps the most despicable person in public affairs.

Disbursing tens of millions of dollars, Soros has funded local campaigns across America to elect progressive district attorneys who agitate for the lethal cocktail of defunding police and decriminalization. These prosecutors tend not to prosecute property crimes or severe misdemeanors. Instead, they purposefully undercharge felonies as misdemeanors, then plead them down to disorderly-conduct violations. The result? A new term, “smash and grab,” has entered the crime lexicon. Soros just poured a whopping $125 million into a super PAC called Democracy PAC, noting the donation is a “long-term investment.” Prior to this, between 2015 and 2019, he and his affiliated PACs spent more than $17 million on local DA races. That number is believed to have topped $20 million from just 2020 to 2021.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner received $1.7 million from a Soros PAC for the 2017 campaign that put him into office, an unheard-of sum for such a race. Last year, 559 people were murdered in his city, the most in history. Cook County, Ill., State’s Attorney Kim Foxx received $2 million from a Soros PAC. In 2021, 797 people were murdered in Chicago, 25 more than in 2020. Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was one of the first individuals Soros supported by when in 2014 he decided to fund progressive prosecutors’ election efforts. Despite progressive Mayor Brandon Scott’s attempt at “violence reduction” strategies, Baltimore’s homicide rate rose for a second year in a row, climbing to 337 in 2021.

The damage one old man can do…

• Soros Calls For Regime Change In China (RT)

Liberal billionaire George Soros called for the replacement of Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, comparing the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. In a speech delivered at the conservative Hoover Institution, Soros called China the “world’s most powerful authoritarian state” and “the greatest threat that open societies face today.” Soros claimed that China, “like Germany in 1936,” will “attempt to use the spectacle” of the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games “to score a propaganda victory for its system of strict controls.” He also called Xi “a true believer in communism,” unlike former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who introduced free market reforms, and warned that “Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin are his idols.”

Soros concluded his speech with a call for regime change in China – echoing the current line of many American conservatives, who also oppose Xi’s leadership. It is to be hoped that Xi Jinping may be replaced by someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad “This would remove the greatest threat that open societies face today and they should do everything within their power to encourage China to move in the desired direction,” the billionaire declared. Soros is the founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundation, which backs liberal and left-wing causes in the US and around the globe, including Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood and immigration reforms. He has also taken an interest in US district attorney races, pouring millions into these contests, with some of these Soros-backed candidates now overseeing prosecution in America’s major cities.

China’s Xi Jinping is the greatest threat that open societies face today. The country’s roiling real estate market, falling population, and fast-spreading omicron variant might be his undoing, all during his prestige project of the Winter Olympics. https://t.co/1Pf0XEy29M pic.twitter.com/WMyWpPKg0y

— George Soros (@georgesoros) January 31, 2022

But only on “Romanian dealings”?

• New York Times Sues To Get Hunter Biden Information (Turley)

We have repeatedly discussed the virtual new blackout on the influence peddling by the Biden family, particularly Hunter Biden. Despite overwhelming evidence of millions given by foreign companies and officials, the media has preferred to cover literal scoops over a story of breathtaking levels of self-dealing and corruption by the Bidens. Now, however, the New York Times has sued to force the Biden Administration to turn over information on Hunter Biden’s Romanian dealings. The lawsuit comes after another report that, in 2019, the FBI subpoenaed JP Morgan for records on Hunter Biden’s Chinese dealings.

In a new lawsuit on Monday, the Times sued the State Department to obtain emails from Romanian embassy officials sent between 2015 and 2019 mentioning a number of international business figures, including the president’s son and his former business associate Tony Bobulinski. While the request was sent in December 2021, the Biden Administration told the Times that the soonest that it could possibly turn over the information is April 15, 2023. That is after the mid-term elections. This story could be a bit awkward for the White House staff. When the New York Times Ken Vogel wrote about Hunter Biden’s dealings as a potential “significant liability,” Biden officials viciously attacked him while others suggested that he was a pawn of Russian or Trump disinformation. Of course, the allegations proved to be true and the infamous laptop is now considered authentic.

One of the most outspoken aides denying the entire story was Kate Bedingfield, who is now the director of White House Communications. She denounced the story as an “egregious act of journalistic malpractice.” Andrew Bates, who is now deputy director, tweeted “SCOOP from Philadelphia: KEN VOGEL (@kenvogel ) is a COWARD.” They will now handle questions on this story as White House officials. That includes why President Biden repeatedly said that no one had accused Hunter or his family of “doing anything wrong” when he was presumably aware of the FBI subpoena and the seizure of the laptop. Given these investigations, there is also the question of why a special counsel has not been appointed given President Biden’s past comments that have been contradicted by witnesses (as well as references to his own financial accounts in these emails).

The media and FBI investigations now cover transactions ranging from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and other countries. Millions flowed to the Biden family while Joe Biden was Vice President and later as he prepared for a presidential run. Biden is still running out for ice cream and the media is dutifully covering it. The question however remains whether this will remain just desserts . . . or whether Hunter and others will receive their just deserts for influencing peddling.

How hard will the IMF and World Bank come after El Salvador?

• El Salvador Angrily Rejects IMF Call To Drop Bitcoin Use (AP)

The government of El Salvador on Monday rejected a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund to drop Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country. Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya angrily said that “no international organization is going to make us do anything, anything at all.” Zelaya told a local television station that Bitcoin is an issue of “sovereignty.” “Countries are sovereign nations and they take sovereign decisions about public policy,” he said. The IMF recommended last week that El Salvador dissolve the $150 million trust fund it created when it made the cryptocurrency legal tender and return any of those unused funds to its treasury.

The agency cited concerns about the volatility of Bitcoin prices, and the possibility of criminals using the cryptocurrency. After nearly doubling in value late last year, Bitcoin has plunged in value. Zelaya said El Salvador has complied with all financial transaction and money laundering rules. The trust fund was intended to allow the automatic conversion of Bitcoin to U.S. dollars — El Salvador’s other currency — to encourage people wary of adopting the highly volatile digital currency. The IMF also recommended eliminating the offer of $30 as an incentive for people to start using the digital wallet “Chivo” and increasing regulation of the digital wallet to protect consumers. It suggested there could be benefits to the use of Chivo, but only using dollars, not Bitcoin.

“In the near-term the actual costs of implementing Chivo and operationalizing the Bitcoin law exceed potential benefits,” the report said. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had been dismissive of the IMF’s recommendation’s concerning Bitcoin. Government officials told the IMF that the launch of “Chivo” had significantly increased financial inclusion, drawing millions of people who previously lacked bank accounts into the financial system. They also spoke of the parallel tourism promotion targeting Bitcoin enthusiasts.

Western Australia

Western Australian government have banned unvaccinated parents from visiting their sick children in hospital… The main stream media are laughing on air about it and saying that they hope it’s the last straw to change these parents “philosophy”. The world needs to see this… pic.twitter.com/lCtbdrnzMy

— Evelyn Rae (@_evelynrae) February 1, 2022

Healthy child

Is a healthy child at risk of serious illness from Covid? No

Do the vaccines stop a child from catching Covid? No

Is there any long-term safety data for the vaccines? No

Is there a risk of serious illness or death (however rare) from the vaccines? Yes#LeaveOurKidsAlone pic.twitter.com/7YZDBUC0Ar

— Mike Fairclough (@1MikeFairclough) February 1, 2022

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Debt Rattle July 5 2016

Jul 052016

July 5, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:06 am Finance Tagged with: Brexit, Clinton, Deutsche, Draghi, EU, liberty, pound, Standard Life, UK, war 1 Response »

Jack Allison “Utopia Children’s House, Harlem, New York.” 1938

• Don’t Panic. Britain’s Economy Can Survive Just Fine Outside The EU (Mody)

• The UK Desperately Needs A Lower Pound (Steen Jakobsen)

• Brexit Accelerates the British Pound’s 100 Years of Debasement (BBG)

• Meanwhile At The Most Systemically Dangerous Bank In The World… (ZH)

• Standard Life Shuts Property Fund Amid Rush Of Brexit Withdrawals (G.)

• EU Authority Fraying In Reaction To Brexit Vote (R.)

• Draghi Should Have Done More To Help Italian Banks In 90’S, Says PM Renzi (R.)

• Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? (NY Times)

• The Statue Of Liberty Was Built To Welcome Immigrants (Eggers)

• The Elites Hate Momentum and The Corbynites – I’ll Tell You Why (Graeber)

• In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve (NYT)

• Sydney Home Prices Just Keep On Rising (BBG)

• How Australia Is Sold Into Waging War In Ukraine (Helmer)

• US Economist Galbraith Sheds Light On Varoufakis ‘Plan X’ (Kath.)

• Wikileaks Publishes More Than 1,000 Hillary Clinton War Emails (Ind.)

• Who The F**k Is Charlotte? (Jim Kunstler)

“Between 2000 and 2014, the share of British exports to Europe fell from 60 to 45%.”

• Don’t Panic. Britain’s Economy Can Survive Just Fine Outside The EU (Mody

The European Union was not the principal reason why many felt economically and politically powerless, but its bureaucratic creep became a potent symbol of the overpowering force of globalization. The outgoing Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron, who likes to think of himself as modern-day Winston Churchill, had little understanding of these historical forces. Indeed, even Churchill had his historical blind spots. He petulantly called Gandhi a “half-naked fakir” and vehemently opposed Indian independence. But Cameron, seeking his petty political victories, was largely clueless about the larger stakes he ended up playing for. Tactical gains can lead to strategic advance only when guided by a larger vision. All Cameron wanted was greater hold over his party.

But once he let the genie out of the bottle, Cameron misjudged again by making an economic case for remaining in the European Union rather than attempting a serious political argument for Europe—one based on shared values. Perhaps there was no political argument to be made, but the effort to present an economic calculus for a political decision was bound to backfire. The economic numbers to make the case for Britain remaining in Europe were fanciful, however many economists and international organizations joined to endorse them.

Following Brexit, productive British trade with the European Union will survive just fine wherever it is based on long-lasting economic gains and social relationships. At the same time, the shift toward trade with the faster-growing United States and Asia will continue. Between 2000 and 2014, the share of British exports to Europe fell from 60 to 45%. Almost all new British trade is being created outside of Europe. The new tougher trade regime could even spur productivity growth. As the British economy inevitably disengages from Europe, empathy for European Union will decline further. A referendum five years from now will produce an even clearer decision to say out.

“The UK’s problem remains their double deficit. The chronic budget and the current account deficits.”

• The UK Desperately Needs A Lower Pound (Steen Jakobsen)

I am writing this chronicle from South Africa which is almost as far away from Europe and the constant and never ending Brexit talk as you can come. It’s hard even here to avoid the turbulence and never ending ‘need’ for investors and media to understand what comes next. The best analogy I can use is one from my extensive travels: When you arrive at an airport to check in, you have to pass security control when two options are at hand: The fast track or the slow version (economy class). Using the fast track gets you quicker to the gate and allows you pre-boarding, but what really should matter is that the actual flight time and route is the same for everyone in business and in economy. We arrive at EXACTLY the same time.

The point? What is now transpiring in an economic sense is that we have entered the fast track courtesy of Brexit, the selloff in GBP, the lowering of growth projections and in some places talk about reform and change which would have happened with or without the Leave vote. The UK’s problem remains their double deficit. The chronic budget and the current account deficits. The last time the UK ran a surplus on the current account was the year Italy won the World Cup in Spain and the top scorer was Paolo Rossi. you guessed it — 1982. The UK also has the lowest productivity of the G7 countries together with Japan.

Yes, the UK needs a lower GBP and desperately so and if the ERM crisis of 1992 is any guideline, what comes next for UK is more employment and a stronger GDP as seen in this chart from the excellent research done by Societe Generale. It would be naive to anticipate only positive changes from the increased political uncertainty but do realise that the slowdown in the UK but also Europe was happening before the surprise ‘Leave’ result.

Loss of empire.

• Brexit Accelerates the British Pound’s 100 Years of Debasement (BBG)

There have been few better ways to chart Britain’s decline from empire than its currency. Historians, economists and foreign-policy specialists point to the more-than 10% plunge since the June 23 referendum as signaling another downward leg in the U.K.’s global role and influence. “The history of the pound against the dollar over the last century is essentially a downward ladder with big permanent steps,” according to Rui Pedro Esteves, an associate professor in economics at Oxford University. The world’s oldest currency — sterling is derived from the old German “ster” for strong or stable – bought almost $5 during World War I. The day of the EU referendum, it traded at $1.50. It was at $1.3330 as of 4:33 p.m. on Monday.

HSBC analysts are among those forecasting $1.20 as a likely destination. Billionaire investor George Soros suggests $1.15, the equivalent of about a euro – about 60 cents below its average since 1971. “A country’s economic size measured in other currencies – for the U.K., measured say in dollars – is an indicator of its capacity to project power and influence internationally,” said Barry Eichengreen, a professor of economics at the University of California Berkeley. While some economists, including former BOE Governor Mervyn King, see the weaker currency as leading to more export competitiveness, others see the threat of recession and lower interest rates – combined with more insular politics and withdrawal from the world’s largest trading bloc – as undermining appetite for U.K. assets.

“If you look at the U.K. now, certainly part of what is going on is a result of the exchange rate’s adjustment to growth expectations,” said Maurice Obstfeld, chief economist at the IMF. The pound has been in steady decline, spurred on by a series of financial jolts, for most of the past century – just as Britain’s prominence on the international stage has diminished.

Correlation AND causation.

• Meanwhile At The Most Systemically Dangerous Bank In The World… (ZH)

Another day, another fresh record low in Deutsche Bank’s stock price… For comparison’s sake, Deutsche Bank is analogically equivalent to where Lehman was in August 2008… when the stock soared 16% on chatter of a Korean Development Bank bailout… which then was denied, crashing the stock and ending the party…

Shares in Lehman Brothers rose substantially Friday as investors renewed hopes that the troubled investment bank was moving closer to raising capital to buffer it against a deteriorating economic environment. Capping a volatile week, the stock soared 16% on a report that the state-run Korea Development Bank was considering buying the bank, an idea that a spokesman for the South Korean firm said was “erroneous.” Lehman’s stock closed the day up 5% at $14.41.

The spokesman for Korea Development Bank told The New York Times that the bank was in the process of being privatized and was looking at various acquisitions. But he denied that buying Lehman was an option. “We have various thoughts for our future, but we don’t have any specific institutions in mind,” said the spokesman, who declined to be named, citing company policy. Lehman’s suddenly soaring stock underscores the volatility surrounding the firm as it scrambles to assess its options in the face of an abysmal third quarter. Only days ago, its shares tumbled more than 13%.

We wait for chatter of a Deutsche Bank ‘offer’ rumor any day now. We are sure it’s nothing. How can it be a problem given that US equities are so strong? right?

Can’t be just one fund that has these problems.

• Standard Life Shuts Property Fund Amid Rush Of Brexit Withdrawals (G.)

Investors in Standard Life’s property funds have been told that they cannot withdraw their money, after the firm acted to stop a rush of withdrawals following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The firm halted trading on its Standard Life Investments UK Real Estate Fund and associated funds at midday on Monday, citing “exceptional market circumstances” for the decision. It said the suspension would remain in place until it is “practicable” to lift it, and that it would review the decision at least every 28 days. The £2.9bn fund, which invests in commercial properties including shopping centres, warehouses and offices, is thought to be the first UK property fund to suspend trading since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, when some of the biggest names in investment management stopped withdrawals because they did not have the money to repay investors.

Standard Life’s decision is the latest in a line of moves by investment firms to stem flows out of their property funds. Standard Life last week, together with rivals Henderson, Aberdeen and M&G, reduced the amount investors cashing in holdings would get back by up to 5%. In a statement, Standard Life said the decision followed an increase in redemption requests from investors. “The suspension was requested to protect the interests of all investors in the fund and to avoid compromising investment returns from the range, mix and quality of assets within the portfolio,” the company said.

Juncker’s days are definitely numbered. But nobody seems to either know nor agree what should be next.

• EU Authority Fraying In Reaction To Brexit Vote (R.)

[..] Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has fought to bend EU budget deficit rules and now seeks to pump billions of euros into his country’s ailing banks if needed to shore them up, said on Monday the EU was run by “a technocracy with no soul”. He also opposed sanctions against fellow southern members Spain and Portugal for violating the EU’s deficit limits last year – a step the Commission is due to consider on Tuesday in a German-backed drive to uphold the much-abused budget rules. Italy’s banks are saddled with €360 billion in bad loans and their share prices plunged after last month’s Brexit vote. Rome is in talks with the EU Commission to devise a plan to recapitalize its lenders with public money limiting losses for bank investors.

Dutch and German ministers have attacked a Commission decision that the European Parliament can approve a trade pact with Canada without referring it to national parliaments. The Dutch parliament was assured it would have a chance to weigh in on the treaty. But perhaps most worryingly for the EU, senior ministers in Germany, the bloc’s reluctant hegemon, are advocating shrinking the executive Commission, trimming its powers, and bypassing common European institutions to take more decisions by intergovernmental agreement. A call from veteran German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, long an advocate of closer integration, to shift more policy decision-making to governments for expediency’s sake was among the most striking indicators of the mood around Europe.

“If the Commission doesn’t get involved, then we should take the matter into our own hands and solve problems between governments,” Schaeuble told Welt am Sonntag newspaper, saying now was a time for pragmatism. “This intergovernmental approach proved successful during the euro zone crisis,” he added.

Renzi, in trying to save his career, becomes a danger to Brussels.

• Draghi Should Have Done More To Help Italian Banks In 90’S, Says PM Renzi (R.)

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi criticized ECB Governor Mario Draghi for not having done more to resolve Italy’s banking woes when he held a key Treasury job in Rome in the 1990s. Renzi’s rare public criticism of Draghi came on the day Italy’s third-largest lender, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), said that the ECB had asked it to cut its bad debts by 40% within three years, heaping more pressure on Rome to stabilize its banking system. After taking power in 2014, Renzi’s government introduced reforms aimed at strengthening the country’s cooperative banks, but several are struggling to stay afloat and a bailout fund took control of Veneto Banca last week after the ECB said it had to raise capital or close.

“If the measures concerning the cooperatives had not been taken by us but by the centre-left government that first put them forward, but was not strong enough to enact them in 1998 … then we would not have this problem,” Renzi said. The prime minister said that Draghi was director general of the Treasury at that time, with Carlo Azeglio Ciampi serving as economy minister. “And if people had the strength and intelligence to keep politics out of the banking system a bit before we did it … we would not have had cases like Monte dei Paschi di Siena,” Renzi told a meeting of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

How things are seldom what they seem. Or people, for that matter.

• Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? (NY Times)

For more than two centuries, we have been reading the Declaration of Independence wrong. Or rather, we’ve been celebrating the Declaration as people in the 19th and 20th centuries have told us we should, but not the Declaration as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams wrote it. To them, separation from Britain was as much, if not more, about racial fear and exclusion as it was about inalienable rights. The Declaration’s beautiful preamble distracts us from the heart of the document, the 27 accusations against King George III over which its authors wrangled and debated, trying to get the wording just right. The very last one — the ultimate deal-breaker — was the most important for them, and it is for us:

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” In the context of the 18th century, “domestic insurrections” refers to rebellious slaves. “Merciless Indian savages” doesn’t need much explanation. In fact, Jefferson had originally included an extended attack on the king for forcing slavery upon unwitting colonists. Had it stood, it would have been the patriots’ most powerful critique of slavery. The Continental Congress cut out all references to slavery as “piratical warfare” and an “assemblage of horrors,” and left only the sentiment that King George was “now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us.”

The Declaration could have been what we yearn for it to be, a statement of universal rights, but it wasn’t. What became the official version was one marked by division. Upon hearing the news that the Congress had just declared American independence, a group of people gathered in the tiny village of Huntington, N.Y., to observe the occasion by creating an effigy of King George. But before torching the tyrant, the Long Islanders did something odd, at least to us. According to a report in a New York City newspaper, first they blackened his face, and then, alongside his wooden crown, they stuck his head “full of feathers” like “savages,” wrapped his body in the Union Jack, lined it with gunpowder and then set it ablaze.

Reflecting on Lady Liberty’s right foot.

• The Statue Of Liberty Was Built To Welcome Immigrants (Eggers)

Though she is the most recognisable symbol of the American experiment, there is something about the Statue of Liberty that goes largely unnoticed. And that is that she is moving. The torch in her right hand, symbolising enlightenment, cannot be ignored and is never overlooked. The book in her left hand, with 4 July carved in roman numerals, is not likely to be missed. Nor are the seven spikes of her crown, matching the world’s seven continents and seven seas. And though, if pressed, we remember that she is wearing sandals, we forget, if we ever knew, that the Statue of Liberty is on the go. Take the ferry to Liberty Island. As your boat rises and falls on the rough waters of New York Harbor, you will see, with undeniable clarity, that her right foot is striding forward.

And around her feet are chains, broken, which sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi meant to symbolise the breaking of the chains of bondage and tyranny. She is caught, forever, in the moment of becoming free. The 305ft statue is a marvel of artistry and engineering, and there are many details to admire, but none is more important than her right leg, which is stepping forward, and stepping forward not casually but with great striding purpose. This right foot, though largely unheralded, might be its most important feature. For what would it mean if the symbol of liberty were standing still? That would imply that freedom is static, that once established, it’s a settled thing. But freedom is not a settled thing.

It would imply that once the first few million immigrants arrived on American shores, fleeing religious bigotry or political violence or ethnic persecution, then the United States should or could close its gates. It would imply that the welcoming of new arrivals, the poor and tired and struggling to be free, was a temporary thing, that the welcoming of the world’s oppressed was a thing of the past. But the welcoming of the world’s oppressed is not a thing of the past. We live in a moment when shrill voices tell us that not only should immigration be stifled, but that millions of current residents should be deported, returned to their country of origin, no matter the consequences for their souls or our consciences. These fearful voices put forth a direct repudiation of the origin and elemental purpose of this country, and to the meaning of the statue that we accept as our talisman.

The coup against Corbyn is also linked to Tony Blair’s possible indictment, and the risks that brings for those in the party who are linked to him.

• The Elites Hate Momentum and The Corbynites – I’ll Tell You Why (Graeber)

As the rolling catastrophe of what’s already being called the “chicken coup” against the Labour leadership winds down, pretty much all the commentary has focused on the personal qualities, real or imagined, of the principal players. Yet such an approach misses out on almost everything that’s really at stake here. The real battle is not over the personality of one man, or even a couple of hundred politicians. If the opposition to Jeremy Corbyn for the past nine months has been so fierce, and so bitter, it is because his existence as head of a major political party is an assault on the very notion that politics should be primarily about the personal qualities of politicians. It’s an attempt to change the rules of the game, and those who object most violently to the Labour leadership are precisely those who would lose the most personal power were it to be successful: sitting politicians and political commentators.

If you talk to Corbyn’s most ardent supporters, it’s not the man himself but the project of democratising the party that really sets their eyes alight. The Labour party, they emphasise, was founded not by politicians but by a social movement. Over the past century it has gradually become like all the other political parties – personality (and of course, money) based, but the Corbyn project is first and foremost to make the party a voice for social movements once again, dedicated to popular democracy (as trades unions themselves once were). This is the immediate aim. The ultimate aim is the democratisation not just of the party but of local government, workplaces, society itself.

In a nutshell: “..One reason for the aggressive tactics is that the state depends on Wall Street investors to finance student loans..”

• In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve (NYT)

New Jersey’s loans, which currently total $1.9 billion, are unlike those of any other government lending program for students in the country. They come with extraordinarily stringent rules that can easily lead to financial ruin. Repayments cannot be adjusted based on income, and borrowers who are unemployed or facing other financial hardships are given few breaks. The loans also carry higher interest rates than similar federal programs. Most significant, New Jersey’s loans come with a cudgel that even the most predatory for-profit players cannot wield: the power of the state. New Jersey can garnish wages, rescind state income tax refunds, revoke professional licenses, even take away lottery winnings — all without having to get court approval.

“It’s state-sanctioned loan-sharking,” Daniel Frischberg, a bankruptcy lawyer, said. “The New Jersey program is set up so that you fail.” The authority, which boasts in brochures that its “singular focus has always been to benefit the students we serve,” has become even more aggressive in recent years. Interviews with dozens of borrowers, who were among the tens of thousands who have turned to the program, show how the loans have unraveled lives. The program’s regulations have destroyed families’ credit and forced them to forfeit their salaries. One college graduate declared bankruptcy at age 26 after struggling to repay his debt. The agency filed four simultaneous lawsuits against a 31-year-old paralegal after she fell behind on her payments.

Another borrower, Chris Gonzalez, could not keep up with his loans after he got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was laid off by Goldman Sachs. While the federal government allowed him to suspend his payments because of hardship, New Jersey sued him, seeking $266,000 in payments, and seized a state tax refund he was owed. One reason for the aggressive tactics is that the state depends on Wall Street investors to finance student loans through tax-exempt bonds and needs to satisfy those investors by keeping losses to a minimum. Loan revenues also cover about half of the agency’s administrative budget.

How to kill a city.

• Sydney Home Prices Just Keep On Rising (BBG)

Sydney home prices resumed their upward march as dwindling supply outweighs tighter loan approvals by lenders. Dwelling values climbed 1.2% in June, taking gains for the second quarter to 6.8%, according to data from CoreLogic. The market is getting a leg up after a slowdown at the end of last year in Australia’s largest city, as new listings fell more than 16% from a year earlier to the lowest in five months in June, according to the data.

How to kill a country: “..it is financed by grants from the Australian Department of Defence, the Australian Army, the Australian Federal Police, the Dutch Foreign Ministry, and the Japanese Government; plus Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing..”

• How Australia Is Sold Into Waging War In Ukraine (Helmer)

Among Turnbull’s last-minute ploys to attract votes, one was the leak last month of Australian cabinet plans for an Australian Army force to fight in eastern Ukraine, alongside Dutch and other NATO units, to destroy the Donetsk and Lugansk rebellion against the regime in Kiev. Turnbull’s leak had suggested that Tony Abbott, the prime minister Turnbull had pushed aside to take the job, dreamed up the plan of Australian war at the Russian frontier by himself. The new report by Dibb now corroborates the idea of an Australian military expedition against Russia, in exchange for improved American commitments to defend Australia from the Chinese closer to home, in the Pacific.

“How things work out in Europe,” Dibb claims, “will affect Washington’s ability to reassure allies and partners everywhere, including those in our region who must contend with increasing coercion by China.” Unless Australia does more fighting with the Americans on the Russian front, he concludes, “China will take advantage of this, and allies and partners of the US in the region -including Australia- would be subject to further uncertainty about American military commitments to Asia.” Combating “Russia’s aggressive military behaviour “is necessary because, otherwise, “both Moscow and Beijing will be seen as getting away with it.” The 40-page Dibb report is entitled “Why Russia is a threat to the international order”. Read it in full. The publisher is a think-tank headquartered in Sydney called the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

It says “ASPI was established, and is partially funded, by the Australian Government as an independent, non-partisan policy institute.” The institute’s financial reports reveal it is financed by grants from the Australian Department of Defence, the Australian Army, the Australian Federal Police, the Dutch Foreign Ministry, and the Japanese Government; plus Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing — the leading arms-exporting corporations of the US. European arms builders also funding ASPI include the European missile-maker MBDA, BAE Systems, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Rheinmetall, Airbus, and Navantia, the Spanish state shipbuilder. When Australians march into the field against the Russians, these suppliers aim to provide the best kit Australian money can buy.

Tsipras might have done well to pay some more attention.

• US Economist Galbraith Sheds Light On Varoufakis ‘Plan X’ (Kath.)

The Plan B for Greece that was drafted by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis foresaw the declaring of a state of emergency, the immediate nationalization of the Bank of Greece, the transformation of bank deposits into a New Drachma and emergency public order measures, according to a book by American economist James Galbraith, Varoufakis’s chief coordinator for the plan. In the book, “Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe,” which has been translated into Greek, Galbraith describes in detail Varoufakis’s plan for moving Greece to a parallel banking system last year.

Those privy to the Plan B – or Plan X as Varoufakis is said to have called it – would meet in conditions of high secrecy involving secure communications and the depositing of cell phones in hotel refrigerators. According to Galbraith, during the transition phase, the ministries of Defense and the Interior would have been responsible for public order, fuel supplies would be controlled, while employees at important public institutions (schools, hospitals, police) would be mobilized. Even though there was a high-level meeting about the plan, Galbraith said the prime minister did not ask to be briefed, so work on the endeavor ended with the submission of an extensive memo in May.

At some point, indictment or not, enough people will realize that Clinton is too much of a risk for the credibility of the entire American political system.

• Wikileaks Publishes More Than 1,000 Hillary Clinton War Emails (Ind.)

WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website, has released more than 1,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server pertaining to the Iraq War. The website tweeted a link to 1,258 emails on Monday that Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state. According to the release, the emails were obtained from the US State Department after they issued a Freedom of Information Act request. However, it’s unclear if any of the information is classified. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange previously claimed that his website obtained enough proof for the FBI to indict the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

“We could proceed to an indictment, but if Loretta Lynch is the head of the DOJ in the United States, she’s not going to indict Hillary Clinton,” Assange told ITV. “That’s not possible that could happen.” The newly released information will likely only serve as political fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, as Clinton met with FBI investigators over the weekend wrapping up the lengthy investigation. Sources close to the probe recently told CNN that the bureau will announce no charges against Clinton in the weeks to come.

Ha! Funny! But I think Lynch’s involvement is far more insidious than this.

• Who The F**k Is Charlotte? (Jim Kunstler)

The mighty Shakespeare in his direst night sweats could not have conjured up the Clinton family in all their sharp angles and dark corners, but we can try to reconstruct the scene last week on Loretta Lynch’s plane out on the Phoenix airport tarmac.

Former president Bill steps aboard:
• Loretta: What the fuck are you doing here?
• Bill: I just had to tell you what Charlotte did last week.
• Loretta: Who the fuck is Charlotte?
• Bill: Our grand-kid. She’s turning into a good little earner.
• Loretta: We can’t meet like this. We’re about to depose your wife.
• Bill: Charlotte gave a speech to the whole Citibank C-suite.
• Loretta: I don’t give a fuck. Get off my plane right now!
• Bill: Well, I don’t know if ‘speech’ is the right word. She gurgles nice.
• Loretta: I guess you didn’t hear me.
• Bill: She pulled in fifty grand for that. Of course it was 100% remitted to the foundation. Well, bye now. (Exits plane).

I have a theory about the Clinton family dynamic. Bill does not want Hillary to win because he doesn’t want to live in the White House again. For sure he does not want to live with The Flying Reptile, but he especially doesn’t want to be on display in that fishbowl where folks pretty much can see what you’re up to 24/7. For one thing, “The Energizer” can’t discreetly come and go. But he certainly doesn’t want to concern himself as “First Husband” or “First Gentleman” (title TBD) with deciding which fabric to choose in replacing the East Room draperies. So Bill decided to fix things for sure with that innocent visit to the US Attorney General’s airplane to talk about grand-kids.

It seems to be working. If there was any question that Loretta Lynch could just sit on her hands about Hillary’s email investigation through the November election, it went up in a vapor last week. It also left the FBI director on the hot seat because now he will have to either cough up a referral to Justice Department prosecutors, or he’ll have some ‘splainin to do in the heat of a presidential election campaign. If you thought Watergate was a ripe peach, this one is beginning to look like a stinking durian (Durio zibethinus).