As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a source familiar with the situation has revealed Elon Musk’s latest power move: a $45 million a month commitment to a new super political-action committee to support former President Donald Trump. This new super PAC will deploy large sums of money and other resources in critical swing states to counter ‘get out the vote’ campaigns by Democrats. 

Called ‘America PAC,’ the group is reportedly focused on registering voters and convincing constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots across swing states, according to the people. The group will counter get out the vote campaigns by Democrats in swing states.

Besides Musk, America PAC is supported by Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and former US ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft and her husband, Joe, the chief executive of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners.  

According to a Monday filing, America PAC received $8.75 million in contributions for the quarter ending June 30, as reported by the WSJ. Musk is rumored to begin his donations this month.

A recent Bloomberg News report indicated Musk had donated to the new super PAC last week, although the donation size was not mentioned. 

Following the failed assassination attempt on Trump, Musk wrote on X on Saturday evening, “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” adding, “Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt.”

I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery pic.twitter.com/ZdxkF63EqF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2024

X user End Wokenes wrote, “Elon Musk went from being an Obama voter to pledging $180 million to elect DJT. The woke left really f*cked up. Badly.”

Musk responded with a “Yeah”… 

Yeah

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

Perhaps the Democrats miscalculated their assault on Musk.

Yeah 🤷‍♂️

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

Musk also praised Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, calling it an “excellent” choice.

Congratulations @JDVance1!

Excellent decision by @realDonaldTrump.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2024

Vance has ties with Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir Technologies. In recent weeks, David Sacks has backed Trump, even hosting a fundraiser at his San Francisco mansion. Whether it’s Thiel, Sacks, or Musk, they were all once part of a group dubbed the ‘PayPal Mafia.’

Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

If you don’t think the Fed has become an abject handmaid of the Wall Street gamblers, take a gander at the chart below. Owing to the slight down-tick in this week’s monthly CPI report, the outcry for rate cuts is reaching a deafening roar down in the trading pits. And judging by Powell’s presser on Wednesday, the Fed is fixing to bend over soon, bar of soap in outstretched hand.

And yet and yet. On everything that makes a difference to the main street cost of living, prices are up by 32% to 36% during the period of UniParty rule since January 2017.

That’s right. Among the five biggies – services, food, energy, transportation and shelter – that comprise an overwhelming share of main street family budgets, the rate of price increase during the last seven-and-one-half years is close to 4.0% per annum! And for want of doubt, that rate of gain means that prices would double every 18 years.

Moreover, despite drastically different short-term paths since January 2017 to get to the present index levels, the cumulative gains over this 7+ year period for these five essentials are bunched quite tightly at the 4.0% per annum mark. Among other things, this reminds that what counts is the cumulative inflation over a reasonable period of time, and that monthly movements of even major CPI components are definitely not a reliable guide to the longer-term path of the general price level.

CPI Component Increases Per Annum Since January 2017:

• Services less energy services: +3.8%.

• Food: +3.9%.

• Transportation:+3.9%.

• Energy: +4.2%.

• Shelter: +4.3%.

Index Of Major CPI Components Since January 2017

Back in the day, of course, the core mission of central bankers was price stability over time, not statistical game-playing based on the annualized rate of inflation for short, arbitrarily chosen periods. And the focus was also on a stable general price level, not the present preoccupation with all manner of sub-components of the CPI or PCE deflator and tortured sawed-off variations of the overall indexes.

For instance, awhile back all the rage was the so-called SuperCore CPI, which covers services minus shelter services. Of course, that meant that over 60% of the weight in the CPI market basket was being deleted from the figure, but, hey, Wall Street economists claimed this particular sawed-off inflation ruler stood at the top of Powell’s data dashboard.

Moreover, two years ago the SuperCore index was running well below the 9% level recorded in the headline CPI index and also under the so-called core CPI less food and energy. So it occasioned a lot of hopeful Wall Street chatter to the effect that inflation was over-stated, and that the Fed was closer to the nirvana of another rate cutting cycle than might otherwise have been apparent.

Not so much during Thursday’s inflation-victory celebrations, however. As shown below, the SuperCore is still posting at damn near +5% on a Y/Y basis. So, as far as we can tell the SuperCore didn’t get even an honorable mention from hallelujah chorus of Wall Street economists. As usual, it fell upon Zero Hedge to publish the inconvenient truth.

Source: Bloomberg

In any event, when you recast the first chart above on a Y/Y change basis, the true inflation trend gets completely obfuscated by the short-term fluctuations and noise in the data. Instead of bunching around the true 4% inflation trend of the past seven years, the rates of change for the LTM period ending in June 2024 are all over the lot. Among the same five biggie components of the CPI, services are still up 5% while energy whipsawed from +42% Y/Y in June 2022 to just +0.9% during the June 2024 LTM period.

In short, the first chart above is the signal. The LTM figures shown below are the noise. Indeed, picking and choosing inflation snapshots on a monthly or even quarterly basis from among inflation components and sub-indexes that are always on the move – and rarely in lockstep – is a mug’s game. It tells you nothing about the underlying inflation trend, nor the cumulative impact on purchasing power of the endless inflationary ratchet that is the explicit “goal” of Fed policy. That is, 2.00% inflation year after year until the cows come home.

Y/Y Change For June 2024 LTM:

• Services less energy services: +5.0%.

• Food: +2.2%.

• Energy: +0.9%.

• Shelter: +5.1%.

• Transportation: +1.2%.

Y/Y Change In Five CPI Components, January 2017 to June 2024

The chart below, which depicts the trend of Y/Y change in the 16% trimmed mean CPI, tells you all you need to know about the true inflation story at present. For the last 75 months running, the most stable measure of inflation available has posted Y/Y inflation well above 2.00%. On a cumulative basis, in fact, the gains have averaged 3.7% per annum.

To be sure, the 2.00% annual inflation “goal” itself is nonsense. Yet when you overshoot even that arbitrary pro-inflation target by nearly 100%, why in the world is the Fed claiming that victory over inflation is at hand, and that the next round of rate-cutting and monetary stimulus is fixing to commence?

If nothing else, you’d think that the paint-by-the-numbers monetary central planners at the Fed would at least deign to give America’s battered savers and wage earners an extended breather from inflation risk for several more quarters or even years. That is, by keeping its foot on the monetary brakes the Fed could preclude another burst of inflation—even as the most recent outbreak was being absorbed by savers, wage earners and entrepreneurs.

Indeed, after six years of elevated inflation, the case for diluting the inflation trend with a period of low or no inflation is overwhelming. For instance, if the trimmed mean CPI were to run at exactly 2.00% per annum for the next three years, the index rise since March 2018 would still average +3.25% per annum; and even at 1.0% annually for another three years, the cumulative gain since March 2018 would be +2.81% per annum.

What’s so splendid about either of those figures?

And why shouldn’t the Fed be obliged to average-down for an extended interval, given the inflation surge that it enabled during recent years?

Y/Y Change In 16% Trimmed Mean CPI, March 2018 to June 2024

Needless to say, this gets us to the fatal flaw of Keynesian central banking.

The Fed wants 2.00% inflation at a minimum. And it is willing to risk a resurgence of inflation rates higher than that because its real objective is not common sense price stability and stable purchasing power of the dollar.

Instead, its policy model amounts to plenary macro-economic management premised on the erroneous view that there is a Phillips Curve, which embodies a trade-off between macroeconomic growth and inflation. And that to get optimum growth, job generation and “full employment” a modest level of inflation is necessary; and that when the macroeconomy threatens to falter or tumble into recession, a fair amount of inflation risk is not just tolerable, but actually warranted and essential.

That is to say, the Fed’s maniacal focus on the short-run annualized rate of change in the shortest inflation ruler it can find (i.e. the PCE deflator) has absolutely nothing to do with sound money or any traditional notion of central banking. To the contrary, its an excise in monetary central planning that recurrently pleasures Wall Street with excuses for a new round of rate cutting as often and as early as possible.

Indeed, the Fed goes so far in its Wall Street obeisance as to pick the very shortest inflation ruler published by the US government. As shown below, just since March 2018, the Fed’s preferred PCE deflator less food and energy (purple line) has risen materially more slowly than almost any other available measure including the headline CPI (red line), the 16% trimmed mean CPI (black line) and the CPI for all services (orange line).

Worse still, the PCE deflator is not even a fixed basket of items functioning as a proxy for the general price level from point to point over time. It is continuously reweighed monthly, meaning that when hard pressed consumers substitute chicken for steak the PCE deflator reports lower inflation than would otherwise be the case. Needless to say, that technique may make statistical sense when attempting to measure the constant dollar level of output in the total economy. But it does not measure “inflation” of the general price level as embedded in a fixed basket of goods and services.

Indexes of Inflation, March 2018 to May 2024

Needless to say, when this short-ruler bias is extended over longer periods of time, it do make an even greater difference. For instance, since January 2000, the PCE deflator less food and energy is up by just 64% compared to 83% for the 16% trimmed mean CPI, 85% for the headline CPI and 109% for the CPI for all services.

Indexes of Inflation, January 2000 to May 2024

In any event, Wall Street loves the Fed’s pro-inflation policies and incessant efforts to pretend that the huge cumulative gains in the price level shown in the chart above are all in a days work and occur pursuant to the laws of economics. Gary Cohn, a typical revolving door operative between Wall Street and Washington, essentially let the cat out of the bag in a comment about the June CPI report.

“Chair Powell does not want to be late to cutting rates,” former Goldman Sachs and Trump official Gary Cohn told CNBC after the release.

“Especially after we all accused him of being late to raise rates.”

For crying out loud, the very idea of “early” and “late”in the arbitrary game of fiddling with the interest rate dials is absurd. The slop in the steering gear between the rate of interest on what amounts to Wall Street gambling chips (i.e. overnight funds) and the national and global macro-economy is so great as to render short run inflation snap-shots tantamount to the aforementioned noise.

As it has happened, the US economy was so provisioned with excess cash owing to the massive stimmies and printing press bacchanalia during the pandemic period that the Fed’s rate increases have barely made a dent in the pace of short-term spending and activity. And by the same token, the US economy is now so waterlogged with debt—$99 trillion on private and public balance sheets combined—-that 100 or even 240 basis points of cuts are not going to stimulate much incremental borrowing, spending, GDP and jobs.

For want of doubt, consider the graph below.

US Economy Leverage Ratio, 1960 to 2024

During the heyday of Keynesian theory in the 1960s and 1970s, total public and private debt outstanding in the US averaged about 150% of GDP – a figure that had been largely constant during the prior 100-years of massive industrial growth and steadily rising living standards in the US.

Even though it never made sense that raising the economy’s leverage ratio could generate incremental GDP, jobs and wealth over the long-run, in the short-run cheap interest rates did tend to spur extra borrowing by households and businesses, thereby temporarily adding to GDP, albeit in a manner that actually amounted to stealing from the future.

But today all bets are off. Since the Great Financial Crisis, the debt ratio has been stranded in the macroeconomic stratosphere at 350% of GDP.

Those two extra turns of debt relative to national income mean that total debt outstanding currently stands at $99 trillion versus what would have been $42 trillion at the old 150% national leverage ratio.

Needless to say, it has apparently not occurred to the wanna be monetary central planners at the Fed that artificially goosing the economy’s leverage ratio via another round of rate cuts back toward the zero bound has lost its zip. We’d dare so that in a debtentombed economy like that depicted below – where the productive sectors are lugging an extra $57 trillion of debt – it is likely that interest rate-cutting has almost no macroeconomic potency at all.

So the essence of the matter is plain as day. The Fed’s 2.00% inflation goal is nonsensical and unattainable via the clumsy mechanism of tweaking the overnight funding rate, while still another round of rate cutting will do nothing for full employment, even as it risks yet another upward ratchet in the Fed’s cumulative assault on savers and wage earners.

As we have outlined elsewhere, the time is long overdue for abolishing the FOMC and getting the Fed out of discretionary buying and selling in Wall Street financial asset markets entirely.

The latter accomplishes nothing other than to further impoverish main street, even as the gamblers and 1% are pleasured with still another cycle of ill-gotten wealth from financial asset inflation.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

If you read the latest OECD publication, “Employment Outlook 2024: The Net Zero Transition and the Labour Market,” you would imagine that the world has not gone through the largest monetary and fiscal stimulus in decades.

The results are so poor, they are embarrassing.

Furthermore, the report illustrates the impoverishment of citizens and subtly suggests that achieving the net zero goal will present an even greater challenge. Translation: You will be even poorer.

According to the OECD report, 20% of the global workforce is in jobs that will expand due to the net-zero transition.

The report basically tells us that the remaining 80% will face significant challenges.

Furthermore, it highlights that “low-income and rural households usually spend more on goods and services with larger carbon footprints, such as energy and food, because they are typically necessary goods.

Therefore, climate-mitigation policies, by increasing the relative price of carbon-intensive goods, will tend to affect these households as consumers disproportionally, with a strong impact on the real value of their income and wages. Recent carbon pricing reforms in many countries have indeed proved regressive. Recycling the revenue from carbon taxes in the form of transfers to households, however, can make this type of reform progressive. Yet targeting these transfers towards household needs is key to cost efficiency. ” Thus, we are doomed. Just look at the disastrous result of the carbon tax in the European Union, what it has done to inflation of non-replaceable goods and services and the widespread increase in discontent among citizens.

Why do we know that policymakers will not counteract Keynesian policies’ regressive impact? Because they have never done it. To argue that this time will be different is irresponsible when the same OECD report shows the disastrous results of “inclusive” and redistributive policies since 2019.

The report hails the good news of low unemployment rates. However, this publication fails to acknowledge the ease of manipulating unemployment rates. Indeed, the report does not make that connection but highlights how labour force participation has stagnated or declined and how real wages have fallen while average working hours per employee have slumped in the United States.

If the unemployment rate has fallen but the average hours worked per worker are flat, the labour participation rate has slumped, and real wages have declined, then there is no real improvement in employment.

According to the OECD report, average hours worked per worker have declined in all countries except three of the entire OECD, and real wage growth is negative in the United States as well as many other economies.

Now remember that these dreadful statistics come after the largest so-called “stimulus package” in decades. The largest monetary experiment, combined with an unprecedented level of public debt increase, has left workers poorer. The worst is yet to come.

The OECD report warns that the net zero transition will increase inflation in essential goods and services as well as generate significant displacement of low-skilled labor. They even warn that low-skilled jobs in high-emission sectors pay better, and this will create challenges for citizens.

There is no way in which one can defend this social engineering. Keynesianism always leads to malinvestment, misallocation of capital, higher indebtedness, and worse outcomes for workers and the middle class for a very simple reason: governments do not have better or more information about the requirements of society, and they spend money that comes from somebody else.

Malinvestment does happen in an open economy. However, creative destruction takes care of it. Malinvestment when the government controls the economy is the norm. And instead of creative destruction, we get subsidized misallocation of capital.

The era of constant Keynesian stimulus plans has eroded the middle class and created record levels of public debt. The net zero plan, which is the ultimate Keynesian top-down government-imposed system, will add scarcity, persistent inflation, and impoverishment.

The only way to achieve net zero is to let technology flourish, allow free competition and open markets to work their way, and create a transition that benefits the majority with cheaper and cleaner goods and services. When governments make decisions with public funds, they ensure a negative result. They will overspend, perpetuate inflation, and impoverish the same ones they claim to defend. Socialism never works. Climate socialism is bound to fail miserably, resulting in increased poverty.

With much of the globe’s eyes and international press focused on the US domestic political situation in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has just made an unprecedented announcement.

He said Monday that a second Ukraine peace summit should include Russian representation. It is a remarkable development that he so much as stated the possibility, even if it doesn’t actually materialize, given he’s long been vehemently against any level of negotiations with Moscow so long as Putin is still in power.

“I believe that Russian representatives should be at the second summit,” Zelensky told a press conference in Kiev, and outlined preparatory work for another summit.

The first “Summit on Peace in Ukraine at the Bürgenstock” in Switzerland in mid-June importantly did not have either Russian or Chinese participation. While Beijing had been invited, Russia was not, and the Chinese government cited this as a reason it found the whole endeavor futile.

Ukraine has long voiced that China will be key to any peace equation, given that it has sway with Moscow. Leaders from over 90 countries had gathered for the Swiss summit, which endorsed Ukraine’s own peace plan.

But Ukraine’s peace formula has remained a non-starter from the Kremlin’s point of view, given it requires the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine territory.

But Moscow has emphasized it will never give up the four territories which have been absorbed into the Russian Federation: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

With this overture, Zelensky could be anticipating that it will be Trump in the White House after the November election. Trump has been vocal on the campaign trail about getting the warring sides to the negotiating table. While Trump’s team has of late touted a comprehensive peace plan, no one has actually seen it in full. 

Meanwhile, Trump has at least one European supporter who is enthusiastic. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has said that a Trump administration provides an opening for peace.

And days ago, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview, “I think a very strong external impact must take place in order to make them negotiate at least.” He added: “Who has the chance for that in the upcoming period? That’s only President Trump if he is elected.”

Authored by Dénes Albert via ReMix News,

Sebastian Hotz, an employee of German state television ZDF who regularly appears on Jan Böhmermann’s “ZDF-Magazin Royale” under the name “El Hotzo,” has expressed regret that Donald Trump did not die in the assassination attempt.

On X, where the 28-year-old has 694,000 followers, he wrote: “I think it’s absolutely fantastic when fascists die.”

Sebastian Hotz (Gagschreiber von Jan Böhmermann und ausgezeichnet mit dem BR Kabarettpreis) zum Anschlag auf Donald Trump. #ReformOerr #OerrBlog pic.twitter.com/8Gs2hI7b6M

— ÖRR Blog. (@OERRBlog) July 14, 2024

High-profile media lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel shared the post and wrote:

“This is the ugly, fascist grimace of Böhmermann’s accomplices. The people that ZDF has allowed to act without restraint for far too long. Celebrating an assassination attempt, regretting that it was unsuccessful. When does that have what consequences?” (‘Culling Nazis’)” he asked.

Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) was appalled by the article and described it as “public approval of serious crimes.”

He assumed that the public prosecutor’s office would deal with the matter.

ZDF has remained silent

ZDF has not yet commented on the hate speech.

For years, the broadcaster, which is financed via compulsory fees, has repeatedly backed Böhmermann, even when he recently compared political opponents to infected pigs and called on them to “cull Nazis.”

Sebastian Hotz was awarded the Bavarian Cabaret Prize last year. This is awarded by Bayerischer Rundfunk, among others. Following numerous protests, “El Hotzo” has since deleted his post on X about the assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate.

Read more here…

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

On Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed that there had been several attempts at assassinating Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There have been [attempts to assassinate Putin], but as you can see, they have been unsuccessful so far,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as the GUR.

Budanov didn’t offer any details about the alleged assassination attempts. He has previously made similar claims, and other officials in the GUR have threatened that Kyiv was preparing to target the Russian leader.

Last year, Ukrainian drones targeted the Kremlin, and Russia treated the attack as an attempt on Putin’s life. In response to Budanov’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the “security of the president is established at the proper level.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said assassination attempts on Putin are funded with “US money.”

She said the US would be better off spending the money on domestic security, pointing to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

After the 2014 coup that ousted former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the US began helping build up and fund Ukrainian intelligence services that have been responsible for attacks inside Russia. 

The Washington Post reported last year that since 2015, the CIA had spent tens of millions on the GUR and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to turn them into “potent allies against Moscow.”

In May 2023 there was a major drone attack from Ukraine on the Kremlin in Moscow…

Drone attack on Kremlin which Russia said was assassination attempt on Putin.

We’re entering no-bar hold stage of the war. This will not end well for Ukraine or the West pic.twitter.com/uoHvfKdH8x

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) May 3, 2023

One former US intelligence official described the GUR as “our little baby.” The report said the SBU and the GUR have been involved in dozens of assassinations against Russian officials in Russian-controlled Ukraine, alleged Ukrainian collaborators, and Russian officials and civilians deep inside Russia, all while maintaining US support.

Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

In back-to-back weeks Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended first the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathering in Astana and then the NATO summit in Washington DC. The contrast was stark.

Erdoğan made clear Türkiye’s opposition to escalation with Russia and US support for Israel, while Washington tried its usual small-carrot-big-stick approach. Far more interesting was what was happening with Türkiye, Russia, and China at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization gathering the week before the NATO summit.

But first, the problems with the world’s “most successful military alliance.” Türkiye is opposed to further escalation of Washington’s conflict with Russia. Public opinion at home is overwhelmingly against Israel and the US (during the NATO summit Erdogan said the US is “complicit” in Israeli war crimes). The US continues to support Türkiye’s Kurdish enemies in Syria while there are  increasing problems with Syrian refugees in Türkiye. NATO generally seems hellbent on starting even more conflicts, such as with China which is in no one’s interest, but only Türkiye, Hungary, and Slovakia are apparently willing to say so.

Meanwhile, Ankara is facing fresh sanctions threats from the US where the House of Representatives is pushing forward with legislation that would require the Biden administration to sanction Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom and “its affiliates and subsidiaries…[and] authorize secondary sanctions on any foreign person engaged in significant transactions with Rosatom.”

This would have major implications for Türkiye’s first and only nuclear power plant, which was inaugurated last year with the delivery of the first nuclear fuel to the plant site – a major occasion in Türkiye as it marked the country joining the ranks of nuclear power nations. Rosatom financed and is building the plant that would provide roughly 10 percent of Türkiye’s energy needs once completed, but has recently faced delays due to difficulties obtaining equipment from third countries because of US sanctions. [1]

At the same time that the US is trying to muscle out Rosatom 14 years after it signed a deal with Ankara and after nine years of work on the project, it is is trying to pressure Türkiye into deals with American companies to build reactors in the country despite a whole host of issues with US designs, safety, cost, and the overarching geopolitical strategy since they would likely still rely on Russia (or possibly China) for key parts of the nuclear fuel supply chain.

Despite the threat of sanctions, Türkiye remains in talks with Russia for a second nuclear power plant, as well as with China’s for a third plant.

That is representative of the overall trend of Türkiye’s relations with the US on one side and Russia and China on the other. Slowly but surely Türkiye is being drawn further East, and while US sanctions might erect some speed bumps, they are not stopping the process. Barring a government coming to power in Ankara that takes its orders from Washington, which at this point would require a coup given the Turkish public’s increasing opposition to the US and the EU. Despite the rising resentment of the West in Turkiye, the sanctions weapon is unlikely to be sheathed, and there will be even more calls from US lawmakers for more pressure to force Ankara to “abide by international law,” [2]

Türkiye and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

While the NATO nobility spent last week talking about starting wars they can’t win and controlling events they can’t control,  Erdoğan enjoyed a warm reception at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana two weeks ago. He met with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and both pledged to continue strengthening ties with Türkiye.

Founded in Shanghai in 2001, the SCO has always emphasized the importance of  combating terrorism and radicalism, especially in Central Asia. The recent summit, however, was seen as an expansion of the SCO’s ambitions to become the security provider to the Eurasian continent. Belarus joined the SCO at the summit, which also counts Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, and Iran as members. Afghanistan and Mongolia are observer states, and  there are 14 dialogue partners.

This is an organization that now represents roughly 42 percent of the world population and 80 percent of the Eurasian landmass. Most importantly, these countries constitute about one-third of world GDP and roughly $6 trillion more than the EU.

One only needs to look at a map to see how this bloc is becoming the center of the world in more than ways than one with Europe left out on the periphery – a decision of its own making.

What the SCO wants to guard against above all else is efforts by the West to use terrorism or any other division strategies to thwart the growing power of its member states. The US has tried to use central Asian nations in this way in recent years to no avail as investment by China and Russia in these countries absolutely dwarfs what the West has on offer.

The importance of security in Eurasia helps explain Türkiye’s attractiveness to the SCO and BRICS, which is increasingly the economic partner organization to the former. It’s not just that Türkiye is the world’s 18th most populous country with a GDP per capita at purchasing power parity that places it 47th. It’s not just that it has a customs union agreement with the EU that currently makes it an attractive point to get around tariffs or sanctions.

It’s also that Türkiye would be a key piece to security architecture of the SCO. Here’s Erdoğan stressing this point following a meeting with Xi:

“The organization has become one of our important dialogue channels with Asia owing to our dialogue partner status, which we’ve held since 2013,” he said. “Our many years of experience fighting terrorism show that international cooperation is essential to dealing with this threat. In this context, we are ready to further strengthen our dialogue with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

Erdoğan, once an outspoken critic of Beijing due to its alleged treatment of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority of Turkic origin in western China, has almost completely dropped his criticism in recent years.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was in China in June talking up the possibility of Türkiye joining BRICS, but most importantly, he made some major statements regarding Xinjiang. According to a Chinese statement, Fidan told Chinese Vice President Han Zheng that Türkiye adhered to the one-China principle and “will not allow activities in Türkiye that undermine China’s territorial integrity”. China attaches immense significance to the issue and would likely be the number one topic in any discussions with Türkiye about further integration with BRICS or the SCO.

That cements a major shift for Türkiye, which used to call Xinjiang “East Turkistan,” accuse China of “genocide” against Uyghurs (a claim the rest of the West still makes), and allegedly play a role in training Xinjiang militants. The change in Türkiye’s stance likely causes consternation in Washington, but is a clear sign of the shift underway for a country that is no stranger to supporting jihadists to further its and Washington’s goals in West Asia.

Inching Closer to Türkiye-Syria Reconciliation (and a Major Blow to US Occupation of Syria)?

One of the biggest items on the SCO agenda involving Türkiye is resolving the Syria issue and getting the Americans out – a goal for which Türkiye would need to play a central role.

We can see those pieces starting to come together with Syria now.

On his trip back from the NATO summit, Erdoğan announced that Türkiye and Syria will determine a roadmap to revive long-frozen relations between the two neighbors and will take steps accordingly. FM Fidan is being tasked with restoring ties and setting up a meeting between Erdoğan and Assad.

Erdoğan showed renewed motivation to mend fences with Damascus following his meetings in Astana. Whatever he saw or didn’t see in Washington apparently provided even more motivation to  restore ties with Syria – a relationship that was destroyed by Türkiye, in cahoots with the West, playing a major destabilizing role by funneling fighters to Syria and funding them. There has been noise about a Ankara-Damascus reconciliation for some time, but due to the steady encouragement from Moscow, it would appear to be getting closer. There would be benefits for both Türkiye and Syria of burying the hatchette, but the biggest impact viewed through a wider lens would be to make the US position in Syria more untenable.

And going forward, a Türkiye that is a member of the SCO and more in lockstep with Moscow and Beijing, would further the SCO mission to keep destabilizing forces at bay in Eurasia.

What other factors are pushing Türkiye towards the East?

Western Hubris

The EU may look back at some point in a decade or two and rue the decision to snub Türkiye, but Türkiye has long been expected to go along with the wishes of NATO and the EU despite often being treated like a second-class citizen. The failure of Türkiye’s EU accession is just one of many examples.

As mentioned above, the US threatening to torpedo the nuclear power plant in Türkiye is representative of another. The US sanctions Turkish individuals and companies for “aiding Russia,” for “aiding Iran,” and the US is already threatening to slap on more sanctions over Turkish firms’ exports to Russia. A quick search on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control site turns up a whopping 232 sanctioned Turkish individuals or entities.  This is not a great look when Türkiye is going through its worst economic crisis in two decades.

There have also been, from the Turkish point of view, a lack of consideration of Turkish defense needs. In the 1990s, Ankara asked NATO multiple times to deploy early warning systems and Patriot missiles to Türkiye, but it never came to pass. In 2017 Russia sold Türkiye its S-400 missile defense systems, which are arguably superior to anything the West has. In response the US expelled Türkiye from its F-35 program and sanctioned the country’s defense industry organization and its leaders.

While the US keeps slapping more sanctions on Turkish entities, the economic relationship between Türkiye and SCO countries is growing exponentially.

The Economy – Sanctions or Investment?

Ahead of the SCO summit, the Turkish broadcaster TRT World highlighted the fact that Turkish exports to SCO countries increased by 85% in last 5 years:

Turkish exports to Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries have skyrocketed 85 percent over the last five years from a value of $14.1 billion in 2019 to nearly $26.1 billion in 2023. The share of these countries in Türkiye’s overall exports last year was 10 percent.

Türkiye’s imports from SCO member countries also reached $106.3 billion last year, around double the $55.6 billion total in 2019.

Still, the EU is by far Türkiye’s top trading partner, accounting for almost one third of its trade while Türkiye is the EU’s seventh trading partner, making for 3.6 percent of total EU trade.

But Türkiye’s weak economy has the government seeking foreign investment. Enter China with its vast financial resources, which looks ready to provide an influx of capital for the price of cooperation on China and SCO goals.

Both Erdoğan at the SCO summit and FM Fidan in his recent trip to China were asking for more investment from Beijing in Türkiye. It looks like that is already coming through. Chinese automotive company BYD just announced that it will construct a $1 billion plant in western Türkiye. From the South China Morning Post:

The new factory would improve BYD’s access to the European Union, because Türkiye has a customs-union agreement with the bloc. The EU moved ahead this week with plans to impose provisional tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, hitting BYD with an additional 17.4 per cent charge on top of the existing 10 per cent rate.

There’s also a domestic market to serve, with EVs accounting for 7.5 per cent of car sales last year in Türkiye, a country with a population of almost 90 million.

Türkiye announced Friday that it was walking back plans announced almost a month ago to impose an additional 40 per cent tariff on all vehicles from China, citing efforts to encourage investment. That decision followed talks between Erdoğan and China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday during a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan.

There is a belief that this BYD plant will open the floodgates to more Chinese investment turning Türkiye into a “production hub” with a heavy focus at least for now on tariff-free exports to European countries thanks to Ankara’s customs union agreement with Brussels.

As the economic balance of power cements its shift to Asia while Europe suffers through a partially self-inflicted decline, then Türkiye’s long-term importance is less clear. How valuable is Türkiye’s customs agreement with the EU going to be in 10 years?

But Türkiye could still be an important market on its own and security policy could be more important than a backdoor into the declining EU market. Russia, for example, would like to ensure going forward that Türkiye will not open the Turkish Straits to NATO warships thereby allowing them access to the Black Sea, and neither Beijing or Moscow want to see Ankara helping to destabilize central Asia.

Notably, China is also considering defense production cooperation with Türkiye, which would be a major step. Even as China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) rises in Türkiye, it still has a ways to go to match Europe. In 2022 Chinese FDI in Türkiye stood at $1.7 billion, but the EU-27 countries still contribute 59 percent of Türkiye’s FDI inflows. As for Russia, it supplies Türkiye with nearly half of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil. The two nations also cooperate on nuclear energy with Russia financing and building the aforementioned Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, and in talks to construct another.

Public Opinion

Türkiye’s pursuit of BRICS membership would mark a fundamental shift in the country, which has been positioning itself to become part of “the West” for decades, but in many ways the public in Türkiye has already turned its back on the EU and the US and looks more favorably to the East:

A poll conducted in December 2022 by the Turkish company Gezici found that 72.8% of Turkish citizens polled were in favor of good relations with Russia. By comparison, nearly 90% perceive the United States as a hostile country. It also revealed that 24.2% of citizens believe that Russia is hostile, while 62.6% believe that Russia is a friendly country. Similarly, more than 60% of respondents said that Russia contributes positively to the Turkish economy.

More recent polling for NATO’s 75-year anniversary by Pew Research Center don’t show such a dire picture, but Turks still have the second lowest approval rating of the alliance among members:

For Now, The Middle

Erdoğan talked about being part of both East and West in an interview with Newsweek. He’s effectively distancing himself from the lunatics at NATO while declaring neutrality in its conflicts. That’s playing to Türkiye’s advantage right now, but might not be all that valuable to be the bridge between Europe and Asia due to Europe’s long term economic prospects. It also becomes dangerous. There’s no way that NATO, for example, would tolerate Türkiye being a member in the SCO, and it will likely continue to try to wield stick measures in response to Ankara’s increasing cooperation with Moscow and Beijing. Türkiye has no reason to choose a side, as the commentary often goes, but it would not be uncharacteristic of the West’s with-us-or-against-us policies to try to force it to do so. That’s where the risk exists of being pulled apart by trying to straddle both sides as there is still a sizable bloc in the country that favors an exclusively western-oreiented policy.

It’s interesting to note that new legislation in Türkiye is attempting to crack down on “foreign interests.” According to Turkish Minute, that would apply to “anyone who carries out or orders research on (Turkish) citizens and institutions with the aim of acting against the security or the political, internal or external interests of the state, on the orders or in the strategic interests of a foreign organization or state.” Those convicted would face three to seven years in prison. These types of laws are increasingly being considered by states that say they fear Western meddling in their country, oftentimes with the aim of instigating color revolutions.

Should NATO and Turkiye suffer some sort of break, it will likely be the result of NATO’s flight from reality – not Turkiye. If the past is any guide, Türkiye has good odds to successfully navigate the transition to a more multipolar world with the Eurasian core at its center.

I’ve made the comparison before, but I think it bears repeating: In 1941, Türkiye and Germany signed a nonaggression pact, and Ankara raked in economic and military aid from both Axis and Allies trying to woo Türkiye to their side. As the tide changed in WWII, however, Türkiye wisely bet on the eventual victors, moving increasingly to the Allied side. In 1944 Türkiye stopped exporting chromite to Germany, a key ingredient in the manufacture of stainless steel, and later that year severed diplomatic relations with Germany. In 1945 Türkiye declared war on Germany – two months before its defeat.

Authored by Richard Truesdell via American Greatness,

In the aftermath of yesterday’s assassination attempt, I find myself asking: Why all the visceral hatred of Donald Trump? It manifests itself everywhere but is most visible among Hollywood elites and members of the Fourth Estate (the press and most of the mainstream media) and especially on social media.

What did this man with the orange hairdo do to these people?

First, I want to say that I am not a raving MAGA Trump supporter, not that there is anything wrong with being one. Some of my best friends are MAGA proponents. Despite what some of my friends and professional colleagues think, I’m pretty centrist in my political philosophies: conservative on some issues (staying out of needless foreign wars, putting reasonable limits on abortion), liberal on others (maintaining individual rights, being a staunch supporter of the First Amendment). I’m pretty much a “live and let live” kind of guy.

I think that as a nation, that’s where most Americans lie, from slightly left of center to somewhat right of center. Most of us lack a sense of ideological purity.

But I think Trump’s victory in 2016 was a reaction – to years of often invisible far-left control of the institutional levers of power – rather than any sort of revolution, January 6th notwithstanding. Trump was the vessel through which many centrist Americans vented their long-simmering frustrations.

But I digress…

Getting back to Trump, I believe his real troubles began in 2016 when this political upstart—who had previously been a liberal-leaning New York City real estate developer and popular reality TV host—defeated the anointed one, Hillary Clinton, the candidate destiny had chosen to be the first female president (funny how it seems that title has unofficially fallen to “Dr.” Jill Biden).

That triggered a reaction that has been unprecedented in our almost 250 years as a nation. It was best manifested in the fake news, a pre-printed Newsweek special edition proclaiming Clinton as Madam President. 125,000 copies were printed and had to be recalled. (It should be noted that there was no pre-printed President Trump special edition; it was rushed into print after the election because Clinton’s election was a foregone conclusion up until about 11 p.m. on Election Night.) Why waste ink and paper when it was going to be Clinton’s hand on the Bible on January 20, 2017?

From the minute that Donald and Melania came down the escalator, Democrats and the far-left tried to destroy Trump. It started with the Clinton- and DNC-funded Steele Dossier that was at the heart of the three-year-long RussiaGate scandal that was repudiated by the embarrassing Mueller Report. It continued right after the election when Deep State activists illegally surveilled Trump appointees, especially Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign as Trump’s National Security Advisor, hobbling the Trump administration during the transition period and beyond until Trump left office in 2021.

Working in conjunction with its handmaidens in the media, it was non-stop Orange-man-bad throughout Trump’s administration that accelerated after Republican losses in the 2018 midterm elections that allowed for two politically motivated impeachments where Democrats, especially in the House led by partisan clowns like Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin, flexed their political muscle in ways not previously seen.

These activities culminated in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, when any reference to the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was blacked out by the mainstream media. It spread to social media, where Trump was banned while intelligence community stooges were able to peddle the narrative that the story was a Russian disinformation operation. We, on the right, call them the 51 Spies Who Lied.

Then we have the unprecedented lawfare deployed against Trump during the Biden information, carefully coordinated by Biden’s completely corrupt Department of Justice led by Merrick Garland, the forum-shopped Alvin Bragg prosecution, and two Jack Smith prosecutions—the Florida documents case and the other in Washington, DC—and you wonder how Trump was able to respond. Throw in two more completely politically motivated trials—the outrageous Letitia James fraud prosecution back in New York City and the apparently compromised Fani Willis election interference case in Georgia—and you have a legal onslaught that would have destroyed a lesser man.

On Saturday, after failing to remove Trump from the 2024 race that polls now say he’s winning handily, a 20-year-old assassin took the election into his own hands. But this is not surprising when you watch this post-assassination-attempt compilation video posted on TikToK.

When I saw the cover of the June issue of the New Republic, the one with the AI-generated composite image with the faces of Hitler and Trump merged, it disgusted me. Trump is many things (not always ethical in his business affairs, bombastic, subject to exaggeration, a serial philanderer), but he is not a fascist. Far from it. His first administration proved that. He didn’t lock up Hillary Clinton or send Rachel Maddow to a reeducation camp (although, in the eyes of many, he should have done both).

As with all administrations, Trump’s first period in office had many upsides and a few significant downsides (the COVID responses under his watch were very damaging, he tolerated too many Obama holdovers for far too long, and he did not reform our armed forces as promised).

I would, however, highlight five significant Trump achievements that should make a rock-solid case for his second term in office:

1. Energy independence was arguably Trump’s greatest accomplishment. In under three years, our unleashing of oil exploration made America a net energy exporter, bringing the world into our bounty. Affordable energy is key to a higher quality of life, and you can thank Donald Trump for standing firm against environmental extremists and radicals in the Democrat Party who work hard to keep energy costs high. During Biden’s first week in office, bowing to environmental extremists based on the far left, the Keystone pipeline was scuttled, and exploration, especially in Alaska, was curtailed. The net result is that we now import rather than export petroleum.

2. Securing our borders was always going to be difficult, given the multi-generational push from the left to provide sanctuary for non-citizens. Trump’s DHS ensured that immigration laws were followed, the flow of immigrants was managed, and those who did not meet the criteria were kept in Mexico until their asylum cases could be heard. Humane, practical, and effective. Unlike today, under the leadership of Biden and his incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, immigration is a catastrophe. We have no idea exactly how many aliens have illegally entered the United States during the Biden administration. At a minimum, the number is eight million, but it could be as high as 12 million or more.

3. The creation of the Abraham Accords of 2020 was a miracle. Imagine having a host of Arab countries sign a normalization agreement with Israel, thus putting aside generations of aggression in the name of Abraham of biblical descent. By mismanaging the response to the October 7, 2023, Gaza attacks, Biden has thrown this away and alienated both Israel and the Palestinians, as well as much of the Arab world that was considering stronger ties with Israel.

4. Supreme Court appointments tend to define a presidency in perpetuity. Trump’s three appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) allowed for a moderate balance within the Court. It provided an opportunity to shield America from the left, using the Court as a way to push agendas that would not have withstood the legislative process. If re-elected, Trump will almost surely appoint two more justices to replace Justices Thomas and Alito, and conceivably two more to replace Sotomayor and Roberts, who will both be in their seventies if Trump serves to the end of a second term. Trump’s impact will last long after he is out of office.

5. Politicians, particularly Democrats, love to start wars. Not Donald Trump. Under his leadership, there were no new interventions, no new foreign invasions, and no new threats to our homeland. Due to the crisis on the southern border that has been boiling over for over three years, we have no idea how many terrorists have slipped across the border to do us harm. His America First agenda served as a warning to bad actors around the world: Don’t mess with the Orange Man.

Compare these accomplishments to those of the current inhabitants of the White House. There is nothing there to warrant giving the Biden administration more opportunities to, in the words of Barack Obama, “f*ck things up.”

Trump, like all of us, is a flawed man. Yet despite Saturday’s assassination attempt, he is on the cusp of being formally nominated to run for reelection by his party. If re-elected, as polls and Biden’s debate self-immolation would seem to indicate, he will be only the second president in US history to serve two non-contiguous terms. If he gets to that point, Trump will have surmounted unprecedented obstacles.

What can we expect from a second Trump term? Everything that the Biden administration is not: an America First governing policy (not the Project 2025 manifesto endlessly parroted by Democrat shills in lockstep with their stenographers in the compliant mainstream media), enforcement of federal law (imagine that!), and a renewed accountability of government to its citizens. It’s morning in America once again.

Only the most rabid partisans would claim that Trump is an authoritarian, a dictator, or a fascist. Those voices are sounding tired now, after three-plus years of one of the most authoritarian administrations in our history that has censored our speech, imprisoned its enemies, ignored the law, embraced non-citizens, enabled our enemies abroad, and created chaos in our cities. Those voices are fading into irrelevance. They are fading into a history we will remember as one of the most challenging times for the American experiment, and lucky for us, we have a way out.

America is ready for a better quality of life. America is ready for justice. America is ready for a return to greatness.

Remarkable words from Tucker Carlson.

‘Trump has won the election. Even Democrats respect his courage.’pic.twitter.com/jcuJoz335J

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 15, 2024

America is ready for the return of Trump.

A prominent Syrian businessman who has long been close to the government of Bashar al-Assad has been killed by an Israeli drone near the border with Lebanon on Monday, Lebanese media and the Associated Press report.

The man, Baraa Katerji, was traveling in his car near the Syrian-Lebanese border Monday evening when it was struck by a missile, instantly killing him and his bodyguard.

He was likely targeted due to his being under US-led sanctions and a facilitator of so-called ‘illicit’ shipments of Iranian oil into Syria. Katerji oversaw a business empire based on oil, transport, logistics, and construction.

The AP details based on regional sources that—

An official from an Iran-backed group said that Katerji was killed instantly while in his SUV on the highway linking Lebanon with Syria. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

The pro-government Al-Watan daily quoted unnamed “sources” as saying that Katerji, 48, was killed in a “Zionist drone strike on his car.” It gave no further details.

Both the US and Israel have long sought to thwart Iranian oil and energy imports. For years the Syrian population has been hit hard by the sanctions, and is almost totally dependent on energy links to Tehran.

Prior to the war, the Syrian population’s fuel and energy needs could be sustained by oil and gas fields in northeast Syria, but the US has occupied these going back years at this point. This has resulted in rolling blackouts and lengthy queues at gas stations. The economy has been smashed and led to unprecedented poverty and hunger.

Israel has been attacking what it calls ‘Iranian assets’ in Syria on almost a weekly basis, with the last strike on Damascus being Sunday, resulting in a Syrian soldier killed and three others injured.

Lebanese media report an alleged Israeli airstrike on a car near the Syrian town of as-Saboura, close to the border with Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/PA7lJ69Cbi

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) July 15, 2024

A source told state-run SANA, “The Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of occupied Syrian Golan, while our Syrian Arab Army’s air defense systems intercepted the missiles launched by the Israeli enemy and downed some of them.”

Washington and Tel Aviv have remained committed to ensuring Syria can never be rebuilt, and that the economy and infrastructure stay in ruins…

About a month ago, Katerji Holding Company launched the largest industrial complex in the Middle East and the first of its kind in Syria in the Sheikh Najjar Industrial City in Aleppo on an area of up to 3 million square meters.

The project includes 357 industries, provides…

— Kevork Almassian🇸🇾🇦🇲 (@KevorkAlmassian) July 15, 2024

While such strikes have become common, much more rare is a drone strike of a lone businessman. It remains a mystery as to exactly why Israeli intelligence would target Katerji, however, enemies of Damascus have long seen him as a powerful figure within the ‘elite’ Assad inner-circle.