In a globalized world, setting corporate tax rates has often been described as a race to the bottom. By having a lower rate than other nations, a country can hope to attract more businesses (or at the very least, their headquarters). This allows them a windfall of tax revenue that other jurisdictions then miss out on.

For some, the race to the bottom has in fact found the ground: at zero.

In the following graphic, Visual Capialist’s Pallavi Rao maps the very short list of places with zero corporate taxes.

Data for this map and article is primarily sourced from Trading Economics and PwC Tax Summaries, accessed June, 2024.

Life, Death, and No Corporate Taxes

Small island nations in the Caribbean, Pacific, and the British Isles make up the majority of countries and territories with no corporate tax requirement.

Many of them also don’t have income tax or capital gains taxes either.

*Except companies in banking & finance, cannabis, and firms in retail with taxable profits above £500,000. **Changes coming 2025. ***Except firms in oil & gas.

As a result, these places are the listed headquarters of hundreds of companies from around the world, and often dubbed as “tax havens.”

Aside from tax havens, some countries also have little need for corporate taxes due to revenue from key industries—like oil. However they also come with a fine print worth reading.

For example, Bahrain has no corporate taxes, unless a firm is involved in the oil and gas sector, in which case it attracts a rather steep 46% rate.

In the Crown Dependencies, banking and finance companies have to pay a 10% rate. Property income, retail businesses whose taxable profits are above £500,000 and firms in the cannabis industry also get taxed.

Meanwhile, Bermuda will introduce a 15% corporate tax in 2025. This will only apply to firms that are part of multinational groups with an annual revenue of $800 million or more.

This minimum 15% rate is part of a deal proposed by the OECD in an attempt to prevent multi-billion dollar tax havens. The Financial Times explains: if a country has a corporate tax rate below the minimum threshold, other jurisdictions can apply a “top up” tax to make up the difference. This reduces the incentive for tax havens to have a lower rate as other countries can increase tax revenues at their expense.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

A top Russian diplomat stressed that the Kremlin is unwilling to engage with the White House on arms control issues due to the Biden administration’s Russophobic stance. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov argued that President Donald Trump left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) to provoke China. 

In an interview with The International Affairs published on Monday, Ryabkov explained Moscow’s position on arms control talks with Washington. “We do not have the foundation right now and we are not even close to shaping one in order to launch a tentative dialogue, not talks even, in this field. This is a result of Washington’s destructive policy course,” he stated. 

“Until [the US] clearly show some change for the better in their policy, at the very least, demonstrate that this boundless and unabashed Russophobia has been set aside and is replaced with a slightly more sane approach,” he said, adding, “until this happens, there simply can be no dialogue on strategic stability.”

Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has abandoned a series of agreements that limited the US and Russia’s conventional as well as nuclear arsenals. Additionally, the Kremlin left the New Start Treaty in response to the White House’s support for Kiev. 

The deterioration of the global arms control agreement has coincided with a rise in spending on nuclear weapons and arms overall. Both Beijing and Moscow view the launchers as highly provocative. Ryabkov argued Trump left the INF Treaty to build intermediate-range missiles to intimidate China. 

“Americans needed to withdraw from the treaty in order to create such systems to intimidate the People’s Republic of China,” Ryabkov said. “And it is no coincidence that we have recently had a sharply intensified discussion about when and where the Americans might begin to deploy their medium-range weapons in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Recently, Washington and Moscow have taken steps to use arms limited by the INF Treaty. The agreement barred land-based missiles, and launchers, with a range of 300-3,400 miles. The US has deployed a covert launcher for intermediate-range missiles to Denmark and the Philippines for war games. 

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would begin producing weapons that the INF Treaty outlawed. “We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” he stated. 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

It’s no secret that the US is preparing to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, but few have paid attention to the form in which this is expected to take in the coming future. Instead of the US doing so on its own or through the previously assembled Quad of itself, Australia, India, and Japan, it’s increasingly relying on the Squad. This framework swaps India out for the Philippines, and its latest relevant development was the clinching of a Japanese-Philippine military logistics pact.

That agreement follows April’s first-ever trilateral US-Japanese-Philippine summit, which tightened the US’ containment noose around China, and came approximately nine months after those three’s National Security Advisors met for the first time ever in June 2023. In practice, Japan will likely ramp up its military exercises with the Philippines and explore more arms deals, with those two possibly also roping Taiwan into their activities to an uncertain extent in the future given that it’s roughly equidistant between them.

This will increase the chances of a conflict by miscalculation since China has already recently shown that it has the political will to respond to violations of the maritime territory that it claims as its own as proven by its latest low-intensify clashes with the Philippines. Even though the US has mutual defense obligations to the Philippines and has recently reminded China of them, it’s been reluctant to meaningfully act on its commitments for de-escalation reasons, but that could easily change.

After all, the US would be pressured to respond if China clashes with both its Japanese and Philippine allies in the event that they jointly violate the maritime territory that Beijing claims as its own, though they might of course abstain from such a provocation for the time being for whatever reason. In any case, it can’t be ruled out that something of the sort might eventually transpire, which could prompt a dangerous brinksmanship crisis that risks spiraling out of control if cooler heads on all sides don’t prevail.

Southeast Asia isn’t the only battleground in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War since Northeast Asia is rapidly shaping up to be a complementary one as well. North Korea recently accused the US, South Korea, and Japan of conspiring to create an “Asian NATO” after their latest trilateral drills. South Korea is a prime candidate for joining the Squad, which can also be described as AUKUS+, with Japan playing the senior partner role in that scenario exactly as it now plays with the Philippines.

That likely won’t happen anytime soon though since the South Koreans remain resentful of Japan’s World War II-era occupation that Tokyo hasn’t ever taken full responsibility for in their view. Trilateral drills under America’s aegis are one thing, but entering into a military-logistics pact with their former colonizer is an altogether different matter, especially if it leads to the latter gaining the upper hand. Nevertheless, South Korea is expected to scale up its role in AUKUS+, with Japan as its top Asian partner.

The grand strategic trend is that the US is forming two Asian trilaterals with itself and Japan that are centered on the Philippines in Southeast Asia and South Korea in Northeast Asia.

Australia’s role is largely symbolic for the time being, and these two trilaterals haven’t yet merged into a multilateral defense network along the lines of NATO, but the writing is on the wall.

It’s unclear how China will respond to these moves, but there’s no doubt that they make the New Cold War much more dangerous.

Authored by Donald Jeffries via ‘I Protest” Substack,

As I’ve noted before, I was fascinated by history as a very young boy. And no part of history caught my attention like the founding of this nation. The American Revolution, the War for Independence- call it what you will. The Boston Tea Party. The Minutemen. Paul Revere’s midnight ride. The shot heard around the world.

I know that our Founders weren’t perfect. Thomas Paine, the brilliant writer who produced Common Sense, the pamphlet that helped ignite patriotic fervor in the colonies, wound up hating George Washington, who did indeed seem to have forgotten his invaluable contributions to the movement for independence. Shockingly and inexplicably, the location of most of Paine’s remains are unknown, as I detailed in Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963. Washington’s actions regarding the Whiskey Rebellion besmirch his reputation. He also was unfortunately swayed by the dastardly future Black Broadway star Alexander Hamilton, instead of Hamilton’s ideological foe Thomas Jefferson. This would have a huge negative impact on the future of the young republic.

And then there was Benjamin Franklin, who was a member of the blasphemous Hellfire Club. In the 1990s, some human bones were found in his one-time London home. The court historians were quick to declare that there was nothing sinister about this, and blamed it on a young medical student renting a room from Franklin, who went on to die very young, interestingly enough. But Franklin was an undeniably brilliant man, who discovered electricity among other things. And you have to love someone who said “There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.” Not to mention his very clever pickup line, which he used on the fair damsels of eighteenth century Paris, “Would you care to join me in the pursuit of happiness?” That’s way better than “you got any fries to go with that shake?”

Our Founding Fathers were the wealthiest men of their time. The One Percent if you will. Can we picture any One Percenter today like John Hancock, who is said to have written his name so large on the Declaration of Independence in order for King George to read it without his glasses? Think of Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, and other billionaires meeting surreptitiously in small taverns, passing out radical pamphlets, all for the cause of human liberty. There wasn’t a eugenicist in the bunch. Well, maybe Alexander Hamilton. If he were actually around today, and not just a fake Black Broadway star, he’d be invited to Bilderberg and Bohemian Grove. But the rest of them would be relegated to appearing on humble little podcasts like mine.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence did truly pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Quoting from my Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963: “Seventeen of those who signed the Declaration lost everything they owned. Nine of these men lost their lives in the conflict. Rhode Island’s William Ellery’s estate was burned to the ground during the war. William Floyd of New York suffered the same fate. Fellow New Yorker Frances Lewis saw his estates destroyed by fire as well, and he was imprisoned and died during his incarceration. One of the richest of all those who signed, William Livingston, died impoverished a few years after the war. John Hart of New Jersey risked not only his fortune, but his family ties. His wife was dying as he signed the Declaration, and he was forced to flee from the British when he headed home to say goodbye. He never saw his thirteen children again, and died in 1779. New Jersey Judge Richard Stockton was another British prisoner, and he too died a pauper. Wealthy banker Robert Morris gave away his fortune in an effort to finance the revolution. He also died penniless….Virginia’s Thomas Nelson, in a perhaps implausible anecdote, allegedly turned a cannon on his own home, which had become General Cornwallis’s headquarters, and destroyed it. He, like so many of the others, died in poverty. South Carolina’s Thomas Lynch, along with his wife, simply disappeared at sea.”

The very wealthy George Washington led his troops in battle. Picture one of our countless chicken hawk political warriors, like Lindsey Graham, subjecting themselves to anything more dangerous than a game of Risk. The American Revolution was a revolt of the One Percent. They weren’t rebelling against any homegrown aristocracy, but the yoke of British rule. They didn’t want to be under the thumb of royalty. Their guiding principles of consent of the governed and no taxation without representation were watershed concepts in human history. The whole consent of the governed thing was shattered by Abraham Lincoln, whose despotism contradicted the intentions of the Founders. As for taxation without representation; does your congressional representative represent you? And are you taxed?

Could there be any bolder words than these? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson’s unique intellect shines through here, and his thoughts remain relevant, almost 250 years later.

“Endowed by their creator?” That won’t play well in Hollywood, or any big city in America 2.0. This was the basis of the Bill of Rights, which made the Constitution tolerable. How many Americans understand that we are born free; that our rights come from God, not from any government? Pay particular attention to the very clear statement that the People have a right to alter or abolish “any Form of Government” when it no longer suits their needs. Jefferson would be arrested and prosecuted as an “insurrectionist” for such Thought Crimes in America 2.0. He’d be given a small cell, alongside all those January 6 defendants, who’ve been denied all due process. To understand his present reputation, look at his demeaning character in the Broadway play Hamilton. To millions of Americans, he’s the “racist” who “raped” Sally Hemings.

As inhabitants of the most corrupt society in the history of the world, this passage should resonate with all of us: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Do those “long train of abuses and usurpations” sound familiar?

Just imagine the list we could compile.

The situation in America 2.0 is unlike any other in history. We have an entrenched cadre of monstrously corrupt rulers, who are repulsed by the Founders that fought to establish the government they still swear allegiance to. I’ve written about just how much Lincoln hated Jefferson. Think about that. Was Honest Abe taking all those unconstitutional actions, and assuming all that unconstitutional authority, in defense of the vision outlined by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence? Remember, he hated him. Lincoln would fit right in at today’s Bohemian Grove confab. He seems to have been gay, after all, so he’d probably enjoy peeing against the giant redwoods and traipsing with the all-male attendees. I can see Lincoln supporting the transgender lunacy. No body can stand against itself, or something like that.

After the Declaration of Independence was approved and signed, copies were printed and sent to various civilian and military leaders, to be trumpeted far and wide. Today, the Declaration is a subversive document, a Thought Crime in quill and ink. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito- perhaps the best to serve on the Court in a very long time- was castigated for flying a Pine Tree flag outside his home. George Washington flew a Pine Tree flag during the War for Independence. Washington used to be the Father of our Country. Anyone flying the same flag he flew would have been looked upon with favor. Now, he’s just another dead White male “racist.” Our disastrous “bipartisan” interventionist foreign policy directly contradicts what Washington said in his Farewell Address. Washington would be demonized today as an “isolationist.”

In Crimes and Cover-Ups, I included a litany of crystal clear quotes from all the leading Founders, who each reiterated that the Second Amendment was to protect the individual right to bear arms. And yet today, constitutional “scholars” continue to argue that the Founders didn’t write the Second Amendment for individual gun owners. Well, who am I, a lowly community college dropout, to argue with any constitutional “scholar?” The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids unreasonable searches and seizures, is violated by police officers in traffic stops and other public encounters many times every day. And as for the First Amendment they oppose more than all the others, these same “scholars” will insist that it doesn’t protect “hate speech.” You can’t yell fire in a crowded transgender story hour.

The rights enumerated in our Founding documents, all self-evidently coming from God, are a blueprint for free societies. Freedom of speech, and religion, and assembly. Any rights not specifically enumerated in the other Amendments are reserved for the states, and the People. Since the central government was given very limited powers originally, this would involve a great many rights. Instead, it is our rights now which are strictly limited, not the federal government. You need a license to drive a car. Or to hunt. Or to fish. Or to sell things on the street. Little girls confronted by our brave law enforcement officers over their lemonade stands. Compare these to the shallow, transient issues of today. “Pride” month? Fat acceptance? You might as well talk about the Equal Rights Amendment, bra burning, or school busing.

I cover more hidden history from the revolutionary era in my book American Memory Hole: How the Court Historians Promote Disinformation, now available for pre-sale, officially released on August 27. We’ll dive into Judicial Review, an odious usurpation of the separation of powers by the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall. Jefferson strongly opposed it, and to my knowledge no one else has really crusaded against Judicial Review since him. Until me, in my own small way, in my humble little book. A single federal judge, or a Supreme Court, shouldn’t be able to thwart the will of the People, under our constitutional republic. Or even in a supposed “democracy.” And yet both the Left and Right swear by Judicial Review. That’s just one of many topics we’ll discuss in the book.

I don’t expect our beloved President Biden to quote from Patrick Henry on Independence Day. He’s probably more familiar with Cardi B, or the gender fluid nonbinaries from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, recent visitors to the White House. Our cackling Vice President Kamala Harris even answered the door and let them in. What a country!, as the forgotten comedian Yakoff Smirnoff used to say. Where we once had John Adams, and James Madison, and George Mason, now we have the guy with the shaved head and the red dress, who steals women’s luggage from airports. Lori Lightfoot and Liz Cheney. If Lincoln hated Jefferson, imagine how Michelle Obama and Gavin Newsom feel about him.

America 2.0 is the United States in name only. Recall that before Lincoln’s war of aggression on the South, the United States was a plural; as in the United States are loosely confederated into a common union. After nearly a million senseless deaths of young American boys, the United States became the singular monstrosity we’ve come to know and love. As in the United States is the greatest country in the world! Most Americans don’t understand the important distinction. We still may salute the flag, but nothing for which it used to stand. Now it stands for occupation of smaller, sovereign nations. The outsourcing of industry and the death of the middle class. Respect for “pronouns” but not free speech. Open borders. The Great Replacement. Those who fight under this flag aren’t fighting for anything the Founders did.

As Alex Jones so memorably put it, the answer to 1984 is 1776. 1776 is also the answer to America 2.0. In my little corner of the world, I’ll be drinking a toast to Patrick Henry, whose impassioned plea to stand up for the rights of those you disagree with stirred me as a youth, and helped influence me to become a civil libertarian. Or George Mason, who pushed for the Bill of Rights, and lost his friendship with neighbor George Washington over his initial opposition to the Constitution. Curiously, his wife also vanished under unknown circumstances. But all that will be in American Memory Hole. While I bemoan the state of this collapsing country in almost everything I write, I understand the beauty of the Founders’ framework. You can’t have half ass human liberty, as we do now. And that’s what I’ll be thinking of, while grilling the hamburgers and hot dogs, and watching the fireworks.

Although their salaries are far from those of CEOs of big companies, presidents, prime ministers, and other world leaders can be paid high salaries in some countries.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks the top 10 highest-paid world leaders in 2024, according to various sources. Hong Kong data is as of 2022. All figures are in USD and are approximate. They can vary year to year with changes in policies, additional perks, and other compensations.

Singapore Leads the Ranking of Highest-Paid World Leaders

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is the highest-paid government leader, earning over $1.6 million per year. His annual salary package includes a 13th-month bonus and other benefits.

Second on our list is Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, with a salary of $695,000. His position was created in 1997 during the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China, replacing the office of the governor of Hong Kong, who was the representative of the British monarch during British rule.

The third place is occupied by Switzerland President Viola Amherd.

U.S. President Joe Biden is the fourth on our list, with $400,000 per year.

Interestingly, in seventh place with a salary of $364,000 is German politician Ursula von der Leyen, who is not the leader of an individual country. Instead, she is the 13th president of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, appointed in December 2019.

Authored by Jay Bhattacharya & Wesley J. Smith via RealClearPolitics,

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published an advocacy article that attacks academic freedom and urges stifling contentious campus debates. Specifically, Evan Mullen, Eric J. Topol, and Abraham Verghese urge universities to “speak out publicly” and issue official institutional opinions about public controversies involving its professors “when it concludes that a faculty member’s opinion could cause public harm.” 

The NEJM authors write in the context of Stanford University refusing to institutionally condemn the arguments made by one of its scholars, Dr. Scott Atlas, when he advised the Trump administration on COVID policies in the early days of the pandemic. The authors, one of whom is a physician trainee (Mullen) and another the former vice chair of education (Verghese) at Stanford, are university colleagues of Atlas, as is one of the authors of this essay (Bhattacharya). They claim that Atlas’ publicly expressed skepticism of masking as an effective prophylactic against infection and his belief that lockdowns and school closures would cause more harm than good were so potentially harmful that Stanford itself – as an institution – should have condemned Atlas’ opinions.

Why? It wasn’t as if some of his colleagues didn’t criticize Atlas. Indeed, more than a hundred Stanford professors and physicians wrote publicly opposing his advice. The letter’s signatories also pushed a vote through the Stanford Faculty Senate in November 2020 condemning Dr. Atlas, using quasi-religious language to declare his positions “anathema.” But that wasn’t enough, apparently, because “institutional silence may be interpreted as tacit approval.”

Controversy between professors is the norm at the frontiers of science. It is utterly unsurprising that there would be discord over the proper policy to follow in the wake of a pandemic featuring a new virus, with great uncertainty about its epidemiological and biological aspects. In the intervening years, Dr. Atlas’ positions in 2020 on school closures and mask mandates have been proven legitimate, demonstrating the wisdom of Stanford not taking a position as an institution.           

Meanwhile, in another attack on academic freedom, Harvard’s Dean of Social Science issued a call in the Daily Crimson to punish professors who criticize the university, “A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors,” wrote Lawrence D. Bobo, “be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.” In other words, what happens at Harvard should stay at Harvard.

We believe these efforts to stifle heterodox thinking are not only wrong from an academic freedom perspective but harmful to the open and even raucous discourse required for the healthy functioning of a democratic society.

First, there is the problem of how the institutional “official” opinions would be determined. The NEJM authors suggest establishing a large committee made up of members with a wide array of expertise and the ability to obtain outside opinions as circumstances warrant.

But such committees would quickly turn into ideologically stacked decks, particularly given the overwhelming progressive political dominance among professors and administrators in most major universities. After all, who would decide those selected to be committee members – and perhaps even more importantly, decide who should excluded? Why, the same administrators and faculty department chairs who have crafted the kind of sclerotic homogeneity that typifies contemporary university faculties.

The proposal calls to mind an earlier incident in scientific history. In response to Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, in 1931, a hundred German professors wrote a book attacking his idea. Einstein’s famous response? If his theory was wrong, it would not take the word of 100 scientists but rather just one fact. Scientific disputes and academic disagreements are properly handled in this way, not by institutional authority but by reason, data, and experimentation. The freedom to speak and disagree is essential to science.

Second, if universities took “official positions” on matters of public controversy and on-campus debate, it would stifle the expression of unpopular or heterodox opinions by faculty that disagreed with officially sanctioned opinions and materially chill the free and open exchange of ideas required for academic freedom to thrive. Even tenured faculty with job security would be reluctant to disagree with the university’s institutional position openly. After all, a university can punish a professor in many ways besides losing a position. These include restricting lab time, making professors teach undesired classes, social shunning, and other means to create a hostile work environment. And what chance would there be for untenured faculty or adjunct professors with little job security to contest the university’s institutional opinion? Slim and none.

As for the Daily Crimson piece, if professors can be subject to professional discipline for publicly criticizing their institutions – say, by alerting alumni to the problem of campus antisemitism – then universities will become more insular than they already are. Talk about a formula to allow serious institutional problems to fester and become existential crises! Besides, why should university leadership be able to punish their on-campus critics? The only thing accomplished would be to isolate them from institutional and public accountability.

That officials at both Stanford and Harvard have publicly advocated unwarranted restrictions in academic discourse points to the distressing possibility that the leadership of our elite universities desires to operate under an opaque shield of unaccountability. That’s the absolute wrong approach to achieving scholastic and scientific excellence, which requires transparency and the freedom to express ideas that may be unpopular today but could well prove true tomorrow.

Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of health policy at Stanford Medical School, a co-founder of Hillsdale College’s Academy of Science and Freeedom, and Collateral Global, a UK charity devoted to documenting the impacts of lockdowns.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

In a rambling, half-incoherent interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday morning, President Biden – or some AI-generated, half pre-recorded version of him – phoning from what sounded like a toilet, proclaimed that he was staying in the race and has had enough of Democrat elites.

In as fiery of a declaration to stay in the race as a semi-conscious octogenarian could muster up, Biden appeared to blame the lack of confidence in his ability to serve another term not on the the aging process, but on the “elites” within his party.

A bemused looking Joe Scarborough and his chief executive emasculator Mika Brzezinski nodded along and did their best to make it sound like they hadn’t been given cues from their handlers to push the narrative that Biden doesn’t belong in the race anymore (not even 2 months after Scarborough sang Biden’s praises on air).

Behold: the cruel, poignant irony of a man who spent his formative political years arguing that a deep state didn’t exist, now learning firsthand that it does, that it is in charge, and that it will try to destroy you just like anyone else if you get in its way.

But in the cadence of how Biden’s voice sounded during the interview, there was something about yesterday’s interview with “Morning Joe” that made me feel like it was engineered. I mean, even moreso than most Biden interviews where he is given questions in advance and doesn’t engage with press.

The cued up answers — some of which drifted from the questions asked, it seemed, to get across the image of a man fighting for his candidacy when it wasn’t appropriate to do so during the interview — came off to me as part of a bigger plan to fake a situation where they wanted to make it look like Biden wanted to hold onto office.

I just can’t help but think that if the entire Democratic machine – the same one that unilaterally kicked Bernie Sanders out of the race in 2016 – wants Biden out, he’s going to be out. And it doesn’t matter what anyone else wants.

Don’t get it wrong, it isn’t just Democratic elites that want Biden out of the race. Pretty much everybody in the country agrees that he is too senile to be president. In fact, many people of my ilk in the alternative media have been proclaiming this for years. We were perpetually disregarded as conspiracy theorists pushing AI ‘deepfakes’ and told to not believe our lying eyes and that Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack”, but we were just too dumb to see it.

But let’s just assume that Biden going on the defensive yesterday isn’t part of a larger plan to eventually relinquish his candidacy. Let’s assume that either Jill or Hunter, or maybe even President Biden himself, are convinced that they deserve a shot at a second term and are damn well going to take it.

If that’s the case, and Biden really is in the midst of standing up against the Democratic machine, well… In that case, I guess I have to give him a little bit of credit and I’d only wish that he was lucid enough to realize the pervasive hypocrisy within his party, which he would now be fighting against. At the very least, I hope that other “on the fence” Democrats recognize it, but I’m sure they won’t.

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This morning, it was already announced that House Democrats would be taking a meeting at 9 o’clock, ostensibly on how to deal with their party imploding from the inside out.

As I noted just days ago, Democrats haven’t really been experts at finesse with the way they have handled Donald Trump. If they continue to lack strategy in handling this President Biden situation, things could get real ugly, real fast. And the more the DNC is in chaos, the less time they have to focus on Donald Trump. With that, I’m hoping this political self-immolation continues. It’s the best reality TV there is, and it’s going to make for an extraordinarily unprecedented mess in political game theory between now and November.

If Democrats hadn’t spent the last 2 years lying to the public and themselves about Biden, they wouldn’t be stuck in this mess 5 months before the election. But now they’re reaping what they’ve sown and, for me, there’s a special feeling in watching them finally have to choke on the political sh*tburger they’ve been feeding the rest of the country for the last 2 years. Bon appetite!

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.