Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

European authorities are investigating an alleged “cash for influence” scheme in which as many as 15 current and former members of the European Parliament (MEPs) took bribes from Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company.

The case, initiated by Belgian intelligence, indicates that greater vigilance is needed in Europe and elsewhere against malign foreign influence operations.

On March 13, more than 100 police reportedly raided 21 offices in Belgium, France, and Portugal, including offices of lobbyists working for Huawei in Brussels, the capital of the European Union. Federal police detained several individuals for questioning. One arrest was made in France. Two European parliamentary assistants are under suspicion and had their offices sealed by court order. An office in Portugal was raided on suspicion of receiving wire transfers meant for MEPs.

On March 14, the European Parliament banned Huawei lobbyists from its premises.

The investigation is of alleged corruption, forgery, and criminal organization, as well as possible money laundering. Illegal gifts were allegedly received as far back as 2021 in Brussels in exchange for taking political positions. The gifts allegedly included food, travel, soccer tickets, and conference expenses worth more than 150 euros per MEP, the limit after which such gifts must be reported. It apparently costs little to buy an MEP.

Huawei is suspected of close collaboration with China’s military and intelligence services, as well as with Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Huawei has the technological means to do massive amounts of damage via espionage and sabotage in the 170 countries around the world in which it is active. While Huawei is banned from U.S. telecom infrastructure, its involvement in Mexico has been called a “trojan horse at the border.” In Europe, Huawei remains deeply embedded in the continent’s telecoms at approximately the same level as in 2022, despite warnings from the United States and European Union.

The company’s reach and resources are huge, with a market capitalization of $178 billion. Huawei uses some of that money to engage in networking at a high level of European politics, including with former European Council President Charles Michel.

Huawei apparently seeks to use its influence to integrate into and build all layers of Europe’s artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, including for government and university clients. The company advocates a “balance” between security and competitiveness.

But do Europeans really want to sacrifice their security for cheaper telecoms?

The vast majority of Huawei’s activities in Europe are legal, but still problematic given their high level and links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In November, Huawei hosted the European Innovation Day 2024 in Paris. Participants reportedly included Nicola Caputo, the regional minister of Campania in Italy and a member of the European Committee of the Regions; Ximo Puig, the Spanish permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; Ana Paula Nishio de Sousa, director of Digital Transformation and AI at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization; and Rebeca de Sancho Mayoral, the European Commission senior adviser on EU Innovation and Access to Finance. One of the events in Paris was cosponsored by Euronews.

At another event in Davos in January, a reporter lobbed softball questions to Huawei’s Europe CEO Kenneth Fredriksen. He said that Huawei would like to be “an alternative to Europe” in multiple ways. Huawei would continue “what we have been doing for the last two decades, contributing to Europe’s digitalization and I think also help Europe to basically prepare for AI, become AI ready.”

Fredriksen noted that AI is more than an application layer. He said, “You need to have the infrastructure from end to end in order to be able to realize the full potential of AI.”

The Davos event, an “exclusive executive roundtable lunch,” reportedly included the participation of Fredriksen, Michel, former Vice President of the European Council Silvana Koch-Mehrin, and Romania’s Minister of Economy Ivan Bogdan.

Michel made points to a reporter that would be welcome in Beijing, including an implicit threat of retaliation against the U.S. “trade war.” He voiced support for the World Trade Organization and “multilateralism.” The CCP has used the ideology of liberal trade and its easy access to multilateral forms of international governance to exponentially increase its global influence since the West’s diplomatic opening to China in the early 1970s.

The regime in Beijing also seeks to influence the “subnational” level. In March, Huawei partnered with the city council of Barcelona, Spain, according to the company’s social media. “The Barcelona City Council has partnered with #Huawei to drive ICT [information and communications technology] innovation and training,” Huawei Europe posted on social media platform X. The collaboration will “boost smart city projects and digital skills development via the Huawei Spain Academy and Barcelona Activa’s IT Academy.”

From the subnational to the federal levels, CCP-linked organizations are energetically influencing European and broader international politics. At least as much energy should be put into resisting legal and illegal forms of CCP infiltration. The European raids against Huawei lobbyists on March 13 were a good start. But much more remains to be done.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The June 2024 advisory by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declaring violent crime involving guns a public health crisis has been removed from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website.

The unprecedented advisory was the realization of a goal for gun control proponents.

An HHS spokesperson said the change was made to comply with a Feb. 7 executive order.

“HHS and the Office of the Surgeon General are complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” Emily G. Hilliard, HHS deputy press secretary, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

Second Amendment advocates praised the move.

Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, said Murthy was selected by President Joe Biden mainly for his views on gun control. Pratt said the Biden administration was attempting to sidestep the U.S. Constitution to implement its gun control plans.

Pratt said the real issue is fighting crime, not disease.

“Scrapping that absurd ‘advisory’ from the HHS website was a no-brainer and absolutely the correct call,” Pratt stated in a text message to The Epoch Times.

“The true health emergency in this country is how Democrat-run cities play catch-and-release with hardened criminals while slapping law-abiding concealed carriers with off-limits zones left and right.”

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said the advisory was an empty gesture that did nothing to reduce crime or suicides.

“The surgeon general should have never issued this advisory. He was just catering to the gun control lobby. Its total effect was symbolism over substance. Gun ownership is not a communicable disease,” Gottlieb told The Epoch Times.

Giffords, the gun control organization begun by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, posted a statement on its website decrying the change. The former congresswoman was shot while meeting with constituents on Jan. 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona. The gunman killed six people and injured 12.

“By removing this important public health advisory with lifesaving resources, President Trump has chosen to prioritize gun industry profits over protecting kids and families,” Giffords Executive Director Emma Brown said.

“Guns have been the No. 1 killer of American children and adolescents since 2020, and nonpartisan health care experts have understood gun violence as a public health crisis for years.”

The advisory called for a public health approach to address violent crime involving firearms. Murthy described the issue as a “moral crisis” that required immediate action.

A surgeon general’s advisory is meant to highlight urgent public health issues and is reserved for significant public health challenges. One of the most well-known was the 1964 report on tobacco by then-Surgeon General Luther Terry. That report is credited as the genesis of cigarette warning labels.

Murthy said his experience as a doctor motivated him to issue the advisory on guns.

“I’ve seen the consequences of firearm violence up close and the lives of the patients that I cared for over the years,” Murthy said in a video statement.

The advisory was just one of the Biden administration policies that President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to review. On Feb. 7, Trump issued his executive order titled “Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”

That order states that within 30 days of the order’s date, “the Attorney General shall examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens, and present a proposed plan of action to the President, through the Domestic Policy Advisor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.”

Chase Smith and Patricia Tolson contributed to this report.

By Zachary Stieber of the Epoch Times

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on March 20 that will facilitate the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, taking a step toward fulfilling a campaign pledge.

The order, which has been under preparation for weeks, will be signed at a White House event with several Republican governors and state education commissioners in attendance, as confirmed by the White House. The plan was first reported by USA Today.

Trump will direct his recently confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all required steps to prepare for the closure of the Education Department and transfer its authority to the states, according to a White House fact sheet obtained by NTD TV, sister media of The Epoch Times.

According to the fact sheet, the order also aims to ensure that, throughout the process, there is no disruption in the delivery of services, programs, and benefits that Americans rely on.

The order also instructs that any programs or activities receiving remaining Department of Education funds will not promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or gender ideology.

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McMahon, confirmed by the Senate on March 3, said in her first message to employees—titled “Our Department’s Final Mission”—that her “vision is aligned with the president’s: to send education back to the states.”

She added, “Our job is to respect the will of the American people and the President they elected, who has tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education—a momentous final mission—quickly and responsibly.”

The Department of Education employed about 4,200 workers before its recent termination of around 1,300, and the buyout of another 600.

The agency’s current form stems from a 1979 law that made it independent by splitting it from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The federal government’s role in education, according to the White House, has failed students, parents, and teachers.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores demonstrate that student achievement has not improved, despite more than $3 trillion invested since the Department of Education’s inception in 1979, according to the fact sheet.

Trump promised on the campaign trail to abolish the Department of Education, alleging it is responsible for indoctrinating America’s youth.

Continue reading at The Epoch Times

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russian and Chinese interests don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it…

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that “Russia Is Wooing Arctic Gas Buyers With Life After US Sanctions”. They cited unnamed sources to report that Novatek, the company behind the Arctic LNG 2 megaproject, is courting American, European, and even Indian buyers ahead of Trump possibly curtailing or lifting sanctions on their initiative as part of the nascent Russian–US “New Détente”. According to them, a senior executive pitched this as “a way to counter a rising China”, which has a certain logic to it.

From those three potential clients’ perspectives, all three of which have troubled ties with China, whatever they might buy from Arctic LNG 2 would reduce the amount available to Beijing. There’s also the chance that they elbow China out of this megaproject entirely if they collectively replace its lost investments after private Chinese companies pulled out of Arctic LNG 2 due to American sanctions. This could prospectively be achieved if Japan and South Korea, which have similar interests, get involved too.

That could in turn force China to rely more on comparatively costlier LNG from other sources like Australia and Qatar, both of which are American allies and whose exports could be more easily cut off by the US Navy in the event of an Asian crisis, thus applying immense pressure on China in that scenario. Russia is neutral in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War, just like China is neutral to the Russian-American one, with both prioritizing their national interests as their leaders understand them to be.

China didn’t want to risk America’s wrath by defying one of the latter’s most significant sanctions, ergo why it pulled out of Arctic LNG 2, while Russia’s interests rest in offering the West privileged access to this same megaproject as an incentive for the US to coerce Ukraine into concessions. Russian and Chinese interests therefore don’t align on this particular issue and the dynamics associated with it, yet they’re expected to responsibly manage their differences as usual in the spirit of their partnership.

These approaches align with the US’ evolving interests, however, since it wanted China to informally comply with some sanctions such as this one and others as a means of pressuring Russia while curtailing or lifting sanctions on Russia (including in a possibly phased manner) is a means of pressuring China. The US might not have planned this in advance, rather it’s probably just flexibly adapting to changing circumstances brought about by Russia’s impressive resilience in the Ukrainian Conflict.

The sanctions didn’t bankrupt Russia, its military-industrial complex didn’t collapse, and no withdrawal from Ukraine followed, with Russia instead gradually gaining ground and now approaching the brink of a breakthrough that could either decisively end or escalate the conflict. The US doesn’t want Russia to achieve its maximum goals (let alone by military means) while Russia might not want to risk whatever the US could do stop it in the event of a breakthrough, hence why they began negotiations at this time.

The series of pragmatic compromises that they’re now discussing could see Russia agree to a ceasefire in exchange for partial sanctions relief that could restore a degree of its pre-conflict complex interdependence with the US-led West in order to lay the basis for a comprehensive deal later. There’d prospectively be other mutually beneficial terms to whatever ceasefire they might clinch but the energy aspect could play a leading role in getting both sides to agree as explained here in early January.

Arctic LNG 2 and Nord Stream, as Russia’s most globally significant energy megaprojects, could therefore figure prominently in any series of pragmatic compromises with the US. Taken together, they could bring together those two, the EU, and the Indo-Pacific Rim countries of India, Japan, and South Korea, thus resulting in a Eurasian-wide network of direct stakeholders for sustaining and building upon a ceasefire in Ukraine. This might even be what ultimately gets Putin and Trump to reach an interim agreement.

The first of what is expected to be many deportation flights has landed in the crisis worn country of Haiti this week, carrying 46 aliens including 25 convicted felons expelled from the US.  

The Trump Administration has revoked protections established during the Biden Administration that shielded roughly half a million Haitians from deportation.  They will lose their work permits and could be subject to removal from the country in the near term. Many of the Haitians deported Tuesday had crossed into the United States illegally or were waiting for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) approval, which grants individuals legal authority to remain in the country but does not offer a long-term pathway to citizenship

The administration has long way to go to rectify the damage done by Joe Biden and Democrats on cities like Springfield, OH, which was flooded with Haitians under federal relocation programs.  Around 30% of Springfield’s population turned Haitian almost overnight; the situation became global news after Trump repeated claims made by locals that the third-world visitors were “eating people’s dogs and cats” and other park wildlife.  The comment created a storm of online memes and even songs.

It should be noted that Haitian migrants are not even welcome in the Dominican Republic, the neighboring country to Haiti.  The D.R. is engaged in a constant battle to have Haitians removed en masse and the government considers the migrants to be harbingers of economic decay. 

Dominican Republic has begun a massive deportation operation for Haitian illegals.

Truckloads are being sent back by force. pic.twitter.com/3NTmkcjL5D

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 13, 2024

Haitians in the US have reportedly sought to escape to sanctuary cities to avoid ICE arrest and deportation, but many are also considering leaving the country voluntarily. The majority of the 500,000 Haitians residing in the US under Biden TPS policies will likely be deported in the coming months regardless of sanctuary city laws.

US government intervention in third world affairs just isn’t the answer.  Agencies like USAID have been exposed as completely incompetent (or corrupt) in their Haiti operations.  Only 2% of the $2.13 billion spent on Haitian aid actually ended up in Haitain hands.  The rest has disappeared into the pockets of various NGOs.  Americans taxpayers have not only been expected to shell out billions for such countries, they are also expected to tolerate mass cultural invasion when the money doesn’t get to where it was supposed to go.

The planes taking migrants back to their point of origin are a welcome sight for the majority of American voters who picked Trump at the ballot box specifically to enact unyielding immigration reform.   

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Plummeting reading and math scores are often blamed on COVID-19, but negative trends in U.S. public school performance compared with that of other developed countries predate the pandemic.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported at least six years of steady decline in reading and math scores on domestic standardized tests leading up to the 2024 results.

Sixty-nine percent of fourth graders scored below grade level in reading last year, and the rate was 70 percent for eighth-grade students.

NAEP’s 2024 math results were equally disappointing: 60 percent of fourth-grade students and 72 percent of eighth graders scored below their respective grade levels.

Martin West, vice chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, said student skills have eroded for more than a decade.

He attributed the downward spiral to two significant events: a softening of public school accountability and a new era of “screen-based childhood,” in which students spend far more time on smartphones and social media than on schoolwork.

“‘Sobering’ would be a good word for it,” West said during a February panel discussion with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Education policy experts identify three significant barriers to catching up to higher-performing nations in classroom performance: lack of accountability, relaxed standards, and lack of engagement.

On the global stage, the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study assessment ranked the United States 22nd out of 44 nations.

On average, American eighth graders scored more than 120 points below their peers in Singapore and Taiwan.

The 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-olds in math, science, and reading proficiency, ranked the United States 18th out of 80 nations.

It finished ninth in reading, 16th in science, and 34th in math. The next PISA exams take place this spring.

David Steiner, director of the Institute for Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University, said U.S. results in the PISA global assessments were respectable but not ideal.

U.S. standardized tests are more difficult for kids raised on social media because they are less visual than the PISA questions and require longer reading passages.

President Donald Trump has already initiated reforms that he says will improve classroom performance and global rankings for the United States’ 50 million K–12 public school students.

They include shrinking the Department of Education and streamlining its funding with state block grants, outlawing curricula based on progressive ideologies, and promoting universal school choice.

The United States leads the world in education spending despite its poor test results.

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that U.S. per-pupil spending exceeds $15,500 (local, state, and federal total), which is 38 percent higher than the average of 79 other developed countries.

Lack of Accountability

Public schools are required to participate in standardized tests as a condition of federal funding, but any results, good or bad, satisfy that requirement.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama tried to incentivize improved test scores via the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top programs, but school communities resisted and complained about increased pressure.

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, $190 billion in post-COVID-19 emergency funding was quickly and unconditionally allocated to help schools reopen safely after the pandemic and accelerate learning recovery.

Many districts used their grants for athletic facilities, capital projects, and staffing unrelated to academics as scores continued to drop, according to the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

Today, most states have decoupled or are in the process of decoupling teacher evaluation and tenure decisions from students’ scores on standardized tests, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Instead, teacher unions and district leaders negotiate alternative metrics, such as student grades and teacher observations.

In Texas, several districts filed lawsuits against the state education agency in 2023 and 2024 to prevent it from releasing the results of its school accountability system that grades districts based on standardized test scores and other metrics. The Travis County Court has yet to issue a final ruling to release and continue the accountability reporting.

Catrin Wigfall, a former charter school teacher in Arizona and now an education policy fellow at the Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment think tank, told The Epoch Times that this opposition to standardized tests as school and teacher assessment tools indicates that teacher unions, not school boards or state education leaders, are in control of a “top-down system.”

Declines in math and reading have been pervasive since 2013, after the National Assessment Governing Board reported big gains in both subjects across all grade levels from 1994 through 2010.

“It was driven by gains for the low-achieving students, but still not up to the expectations of No Child Left Behind,” West said.

“There was bipartisan [support] for standard-based reform and accountability measures. I do think we’ve seen a softening of accountability.”

Relaxed Standards

The Golden State’s report card notes that less than half of California public school students in grades three through eight met or exceeded grade-level standards for English Language Arts, and only about one in three students met or exceeded math standards.

Still, its high school graduation rate was 87 percent, the highest in six years, and its chronic absenteeism rate has declined since 2021.

Most states, in fact, don’t require diploma candidates to pass a final high school assessment, which is more common in other countries, Steiner said during a Feb. 7 panel discussion.

“If we stop measuring, the idea seems to be that the kids will stop doing poorly,” he said. “I don’t know where this mania for retreat from using a thermometer comes from. It strikes me as rather dangerous.”

Without that thermometer, Steiner said, students can slip through the cracks.

Last year, a student who could not read or write graduated from high school in Hartford, Connecticut, and was admitted to the University of Connecticut–Hartford.

The student, Aleysha Ortiz, is now suing the school district.

Her lawsuit notes that she was served by a team of case managers and special education teachers during her entire academic career as a special education student.

She completed assignments using a talk-to-text function on her smartphone because she didn’t understand the words in front of her.

Carol Gale, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers union, previously told The Epoch Times that the district doesn’t police its chronic absenteeism policy and has lowered student expectations to improve the high school graduation rate, which was below 70 percent the year before Ortiz was awarded her diploma.

In a March 7 email response to The Epoch Times, Hartford Public Schools declined to comment on the Ortiz case.

Read the rest here…

For Harvard, at least, looks like there won’t be any more need for the U.S. taxpayer to subsidize student loans…

That’s because Harvard University will eliminate tuition for students from families earning $200,000 or less, aiming to expand access amid political scrutiny. Families making $100,000 or less will also receive free housing and meals, according to Bloomberg.

Similar initiatives were recently launched at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT as elite college costs surpass $90,000 annually. Harvard President Alan Garber said the move will “widen the array of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives” students encounter.

Starting in 2025-26, the program will extend aid to about 86% of U.S. families, up from the current tuition-free threshold of $85,000.

Bloomberg writes that lawmakers are pushing to tax endowments, with Vice President JD Vance calling them “cancers on American society.” Harvard, which relies on its $53 billion endowment for financial aid, has responded with a hiring freeze as it assesses federal policy changes.

Tuition is about $57,000 annually, but over half of students receive aid. As college costs rise and student debt burdens grow, families are questioning the value of elite degrees. Schools like Penn and MIT are expanding aid—Penn no longer factors home equity into aid decisions and raised its full-tuition threshold to $200,000, while MIT will cover full costs for families earning under $100,000.

Harvard previously required families making up to $150,000 to contribute 10% of income but will now boost aid for those above $200,000 “depending on individual circumstances.”

William Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, concluded: “We know the most talented students come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and experiences, from every state and around the globe.”

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience,

Everybody knows that household appliances don’t last as long as they used to. But is this conventional wisdom really true? Or is it just one of those alluring fables we like to tell ourselves about the good ol’ days?

Internet searches provide copious anecdotes. News outlets generally interview repair technicians, who tell a convincing and consistent story. Appliances built in the 1970s generally lasted thirty to fifty years, they say. Today, domestic mainstays like washing machines, ovens, fridges, and dryers get replaced about every decade. Technicians blame an industry push towards computerization, an increase in the number of individual components, and the use of flimsier materials like plastic and aluminum rather than steel. The results of these trends are appliances that break more often and are harder and more costly to repair.

But where is the hard data to back these tales? It’s surprisingly hard to come by.

Researchers Kamila Krych and Johan Berg Pettersen in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology sought to fill the gap.

“We investigate how the sales and ownership of large household appliances have evolved since these appliances were introduced in Norwegian households, and we use this co-evolution to estimate the lifetimes,” they explained in their paper, published in January to the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

The duo estimated the lifetimes of fridges, freezers, washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, and ovens owned in Norway between 1940 and 2022. Their analysis revealed the following trends and factoids:

• Starting the 1990s, the lifetimes of fridges and freezers began slightly increasing, although the difference was not statistically significant.
• In the 1990s, the lifetimes of dishwashers and tumble dryers started to decrease. But again, the difference was not significant.
• In the 1990s and early 2000s, the lifetimes of washing machines and ovens fell off a cliff, respectively dropping from 19.2 to 10.6 years (–45%) and from 23.6 years to 14.3 years (–39%).
• Older appliances lasted between 10 and 30 years.
• Modern fridges, washing machines, dryers, ovens, and dishwashers operate between 10 and 15 years, while freezers last around 20.

“Our study suggests that the lifetimes of washing machines and ovens have decreased but provides no direct explanation for these changes,” they wrote. “The reasons for the identified lifetime decrease could be linked to technical, economic, or social factors or a combination of these.”

On the technical side, increasing reliance on electric parts, as well as added functionality and features, may have hindered longevity, they speculated. Economically, they noted that appliance-makers have striven to lower up-front prices for decades now. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics, home appliance prices declined 12% from the beginning of 2013 through the end of 2023. This race-to-the bottom may have eroded quality in the process, however.

There also might be something to the argument that new appliances are over-designed and harder to repair. On this front, the European Union has put in place “right-to-repair” rules that require manufacturers to produce replacement parts for at least ten years and design their machines to be fixable with everyday tools. While there’s no federal “right-to-repair” laws in the U.S., a handful of states have passed them.

Krych and Pettersen also raised a surprisingly simple explanation for the decline in washing machine lifespans: we use them more than we used to. 

“An average Norwegian family of four ran two washing cycles per week in 1960 but eight in 2000. This change in laundry habits is consistent with a general societal change in how cleanliness is perceived in Western countries. Given that the durability of washing machines is generally given as the number of cycles and that a change in laundry habits results in more cycles per year, we could expect more frequent replacements of washing machines.”

While Krych and Pettersen’s study may not be a perfect proxy for every developed market, it does at last bring empirical data to a well-trodden debate. Are household appliances less durable than they used to be? In some cases yes, in others no. But like a new washing machine with a gazillion wash options, sensors, and internet connectivity, the overall picture is complicated.

Unhinged Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Democrats at an Eau Claire, Wisconsin, town hall on Tuesday he openly roots for the death of the most American-made car company: Tesla Motors. 

“I was saying, on my phone, I know some of you know this, on the iPhone. They’ve got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day,” Walz told the crowd. 

The failed 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee then excitedly yelled: “$225 and dropping …”

Here’s the full video of Walz… 

If you need a little boost during the day, check out Tesla stock 📉 pic.twitter.com/KBEh6pOZLW

— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) March 19, 2025

X users responded, of course, and blasted the anti-American Democrat: 

What is wrong with you. You’re actively rooting for an innovative American company to fail?

The cars are American made and literally drive themselves.

— Calley Means (@calleymeans) March 19, 2025

“Hell yea, fuck the US company producing millions of climate friendly electric vehicles and its employees / investors!”

— litquidity (@litcapital) March 19, 2025

1500 Tesla owners were doxxed today.

Their lives are at risk and you’re cheering on the effects of domestic terrorism.

This is unbelievably evil.

— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) March 19, 2025

This is one of the most pathetic, most lame things ever said by a prominent politician. This is going to haunt you for the rest of your career.

— MAZE (@mazemoore) March 19, 2025

You, and everyone like you, is why I left the Democratic Party.

This is not how you win anyone back.

Do better.

— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) March 19, 2025

Walz said the quiet part out loud: Democrats are openly rooting for the failure of an American company, while other leftists have resorted to anarcho-terrorism.

AG Bondi Declares “Swarm Of Violent Attacks” On Tesla As Domestic Terrorism https://t.co/Ilt63dUnlO

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 19, 2025

Ha! 

TSLA +5% cc: @Tim_Walz

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 19, 2025

Inverse Cramer? 

This is not “America First” but rather a continuation of the Democrats’ modus operandi: “America Last.” One can’t help but wonder if this anti-American rhetoric is being partly influenced by a foreign adversary, such as China. Remember, China has Tesla competitor BYD. And also remember: “Elite Capture?” Pentagon Stonewalls On Walz’s Frequent Trips To China, Raising National Security Concerns …