Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Liberation in the real world is the result of self-reliance and investing in our own well-being.

Liberation has many contexts. It can mean being freed from imprisonment or servitude, freedom from gnawing want or oppression, or being liberated from prisons of the mind.

Note that the first form of liberation is external / material, the second is internal / psychological / spiritual. Many confuse the two, blaming an oppressive system for their unhappiness rather than their internal acquiescence to the system’s narratives and values.

For many, liberation depends on the actions of others. If only we had different leaders, a different financial financial system, a different energy system, a different constellation of media, and so on–if only the powers that control our world were liberating rather than extractive.

The other approach is to accept responsibility for our own liberation within the system as it is. Demanding those benefiting so handsomely from the system as it is currently configured relinquish their wealth and power is not going to re-order the system when those benefiting from the system 1) have every incentive to devote all available resources to maintaining it as it is and 2) have an unshakeable belief that the system is so powerful (the state, the party, the central bank, etc.) that nothing could possibly destabilize their comforts, conveniences, wealth and power.

In other words, their belief in the permanence and immutability of the system is equally immutable. That their belief is nothing more than hubris pushed to extremes of denial and delusion doesn’t register.

In this mindset of unbreakable faith in the god-like powers of the system as it is, the faithful benefiting from the system will favor destabilizing policy extremes rather than give up any of their perquisites and power.

They might push the system into collapse because they believe collapse is impossible. There is no arguing with true believers in any ideology or arrangement in which the self-interest of those in power is the organizing principle of the system.

Rather than rail at the Powers That Be for being self-serving and thinking liberation is only possible if the entire system is reset, the alternative is to liberate ourselves from the prison of the mind generated by the system’s media, narratives and values.

Simply put, stop consuming “news” and “opinion” designed to polarize, addict and derange. Once we stop paying attention, we stop reacting, and our time and energy revert to our own use rather than making somebody else money in the Attention Economy.

My Credo of Liberation summarizes this process of detaching oneself from the narratives and values that support the power structure of exploitation (from my book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation):

I no longer care if the power centers of our society–the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system–are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests.

This self-liberation from prisons of the mind is only the first step of real-world liberation. The second step is to understand how the vulnerabilities of the system as it is can affect our lives, and work to decouple our well-being from the system as it is.

The core dynamics that deserve our careful study are 1) scale 2) dependency chains and 3) stability. The problem with the global economy as it is is that it is an unstable tangle of long dependency chains of globalization and financialization that must operate at massive scales with just in time perfection.

This system appears robust when everything is working perfectly, but it’s actually on the edge of instability at all times. Any disruption beyond the trivial threatens to unravel all the interconnected dependency chains.

Path dependency also matters. The system as it is is the result of decisions made long ago in different times and circumstances. Yet the decisions made then still define how the system functions. Put another way, modest policy tweaks can’t reduce the instability of the system.

If we reduce our dependence on the system, we decouple our own well-being from the system’s incoherence and fragility. This decoupling is called self-reliance, the topic of my book Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.

Liberation in the real-world is not a false either-or polarity; it’s a matter of degrees. By developing local sources of essentials and trusted personal networks, we reduce our dependence on long global supply chains and the debt-leverage of financialization.

Once we stop consuming and fretting over “news” and “opinions” we have no control over, we free up the time and energy needed to invest in our own self-reliance.

The question of our own well-being boils down to: what are we buying into? What have we bought into in terms of wants and needs, in what props up our identity and self-worth, and in the sources of inspiration, goals and purpose in our lives?

If all that boils down to making more money to buy more stuff or make even more money, that’s not decoupling, that’s total dependence on an incoherent, fragile, exploitive, unstable, unsustainable system that isn’t going to change because we want it to change.

Ideologies are the walls and chains of the prisons of the mind. Ideologies lead to the idea that if only everyone agreed with me, all our problems would be solved. Self-reliance doesn’t need anyone’s consent or “likes” on social media. Self-reliance values trust, integrity and performance, not canned opinions spouted as “solutions” once everyone agrees with me, or is forced to agree with me in public.

Liberation in the real world is the result of self-reliance and investing in our own well-being. Opinions and “news” don’t create well-being, they tear it down.

*  *  *

My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century.  Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Authored by Alex Newman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A coalition of 19 state attorneys general from across the country launched a formal investigation into six major U.S. banks last week citing legal concerns about banks’ “ESG” investing and their involvement with a United Nations alliance fighting CO2 emissions.

The banks “appear to be colluding with the U.N. to destroy American companies” and undermine the nation’s best interests, one of the AGs warned in a statement e-mailed to The Epoch Times.

Another AG argued that these U.N.-inspired banking policies were resulting in jobs being sent to communist China as the regime there continues building coal-fired power plants to ensure low-cost, reliable energy.

The new investigation is the latest salvo by Republican-led states amid growing nationwide concerns about the “woke” policies of financial institutions and other powerful business interests.

Multiple attorneys general who spoke to The Epoch Times about the probe said it was their job to enforce consumer protection laws and protect citizens in their states from potentially illegal activity by companies.

In particular, officials are investigating the banks’ involvement in the controversial United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The global network of banks, convened and overseen by the U.N., pledges to eliminate emissions of so-called “greenhouse gases” by 2050 by transforming their lending and investment practices.

Numerous AGs sounded the alarm about the U.N.’s involvement in targeting key American industries as banks cede policymaking influence to the global organization.

The top law-enforcement officers for the group of mostly Republican-controlled states said they have reason to believe the banks being investigated agreed to align their investing and loan portfolio with U.N. emissions goals.

The goals, outlined in the U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change, call for a transformation of the economy away from traditional energy sources. Government and business leaders in developed nations including the United States and Western Europe agreed to pursue significant reductions in CO2.

The effect of these policies, the AGs warned, would be to starve key industries of credit—especially companies in the energy and agriculture sectors that are critical to the prosperity and even the national security of the United States.

The banks being scrutinized by the top lawmen for their states include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.

Each of the companies was served last week with civil investigative demands, essentially acting as a subpoena, demanding that they turn over documents related to their involvement in the U.N. NZBA.

The banks are also expected to provide records of all “Global Climate Initiatives” in which they are participating, and how these U.N.-backed agendas are being incorporated into their businesses, civil investigative demands reviewed by The Epoch Times show.

In addition, the banks are being asked to give details on the involvement of their CEOs in the process and how the decisions were made.

Also under scrutiny are banking actions related to “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investing. The controversial metrics take into consideration environmental and social policies in making business decisions, rather than simply the traditional metrics of risk and return.

Critics say ESG investing is being used to impose unpopular and economically harmful ideas on Americans while forcing businesses across the economy to adopt them. The term is increasingly being linked by opponents to a woke mentality, “social justice” ideas, and radical left-wing politics.

AGs Speak Out

“We got involved in this investigation because this is another attempt by the liberal woke left to shove their ideas down our throats, and since they can’t change the laws using the political process, they want to do it by weaponizing business,” said Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. “They are doing this out of some misplaced desire to advance their liberal agenda.”

But it may not be legal, Knudsen and many other state AGs say.

“This seems to run afoul of our consumer protection laws that I’m in charge of enforcing,” Knudsen continued in a phone interview with The Epoch Times, saying his office and elected officials at all levels were under growing public pressure to address the issue and potential legal violations.

“It gets cold here in Montana,” the attorney general added. “We need a robust energy sector to keep our homes warm—and we certainly can’t do that using wind and solar.”

Knudsen, who is also working with a coalition of state AGs focusing on investment behemoth BlackRock, said this was essentially a continuation of the same issue: Powerful banking and financial interests seeking to improperly impose their views on the public.

“You have corporate banking and the investment industry trying to flex their muscle and pressure businesses into a political direction and political action,” he said. “But that’s not their function. Their job is to provide credit and earn profit for shareholders.”

“This is a continuation of the woke ESG garbage that we’re having to deal with more and more,” the Montana AG added.

Going forward, Knudsen said “everything is on the table,” depending on the outcome of the investigation. Under consumer protection laws, the state has the authority to levy civil fines.

Knudsen said Montana lawmakers, who are also under growing public pressure, intend to take strong legislative action when the state legislature reconvenes next year.

The effects of these banking policies are hurting numerous legal industries, he continued, pointing to firearms businesses as examples of those “being pinched” by financial services and even insurance companies.

“These companies need to be held accountable, so we are all looking at what authorities are available,” Knudsen said. “All options are definitely on the table.”

In Oklahoma, Attorney General John O’Connor said his office joined the investigation for two primary reasons: “America is not run by the U.N.,” and “these banks are attacking Oklahoma fossil-fuel producers and consumers as well as Oklahoma jobs.”

“The Net-Zero Banking Alliance, overseen by the U.N., will destroy companies that are engaged in fossil fuel-related activities or depend on them for energy or these lenders for capital,” he explained in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times. “It is unacceptable that these banks are pushing an investment strategy designed to impose a leftist social and economic agenda.”

The subpoenas sent to the banks by O’Connor’s office include requests to explain how NZBA objectives are being incorporated into the banks’ operations and what actions they have taken to eliminate hydrocarbon energy from the economy.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita sounded the alarm about what his office described as an “apparent conspiracy” involving the U.N. and the banks being probed.

“These banks appear to be colluding with the U.N. to destroy American companies that specialize in fossil fuels or otherwise depend on them for energy,” Rokita said. “They are pushing an investment strategy designed not to maximize financial returns but to impose a leftist social and economic agenda that cannot otherwise be implemented through the ballot box.”

Blasting ESG investing as a “scheme,” the Indiana AG vowed to protect the people of his state.

“This new woke-ism in the financial sector poses a real threat to everyday Hoosiers,” he continued. “Indiana’s farmers, truck drivers, and fuel-industry workers are hurt when the radical Left attacks whole segments of our economy. And it’s troubling that these banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance are taking marching orders from U.N. globalists all-too-eager to undermine America’s best interests.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt warned that the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was a major threat to key industries in his state.

“Missouri farmers, oil leasing companies, and other businesses that are vital to Missouri’s and America’s economy will be unable to get a loan because of this alliance,” Schmitt warned in a statement e-mailed to The Epoch Times.

Missouri last week became the latest state to divest from BlackRock over its woke policies, announcing that it would withdraw some $500 million of pension fund investments held with the increasingly controversial financial giant.

Blasting the banks for “ceding authority to the U.N.,” the Missouri AG said these actions would result in the “killing of American companies that don’t subscribe to the woke climate agenda.”

“These banks are accountable to American laws—we don’t let international bodies set the standards for our businesses,” added Schmitt.

The Missouri lawman has become increasingly vocal about the threat he believes these trends pose to the nation, sounding the alarm about how these woke policies benefit communist China and its economy at America’s expense.

This summer, Schmitt’s office also sent civil investigative demands involving ESG investing to Morningstar and Sustainalytics.

Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas vowed to get to the bottom of the relationship between the U.N. and the banks’ potential legal violations.

“The radical climate change movement has been waging an all-out war against American energy for years, and the last thing Americans need right now are corporate activists helping the left bankrupt our fossil fuel industry,” the Texas AG said.

“If the largest banks in the world think they can get away with lying to consumers or taking any other illegal action designed to target a vital American industry like energy, they’re dead wrong,” he continued. “This investigation is just getting started, and we won’t stop until we get to the truth.”

Other states that are investigating include Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Virginia. At least five other states have joined but cannot be named due to state confidentiality policies.

In August, a similar coalition of state AGs warned BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, a board member of the World Economic Forum and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, that his company’s policies may be illegal.

“Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners’ retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock’s climate agenda,” they warned, pointing to several potential legal violations involving the politically connected firm’s ESG investing.

Effects and Implications

Bloomberg, a media outlet that has vocally supported the U.N. climate agenda and was founded by Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) co-chair Michael Bloomberg, complained this month that Fink and other key financial leaders would not be at the upcoming U.N. COP27 climate conference in Egypt.

“With more than $135 trillion in assets, GFANZ was supposed to be the planet’s ticket to a more climate-friendly form of finance. But a year later, it’s unclear how members will live up to their promises,” Bloomberg writer Alastair Marsh reported, pointing to GOP states’ efforts as part of the reason.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is among the Republican political leaders aiming to stop woke policies at banks. He is asking lawmakers to pass legislation in the 2023 session to rein in ESG policies.

Read more here…

At least 120 people died, and more than 100 were seriously injured after a catastrophic crowd-crushing incident unfolded at a Halloween festival in Seoul’s South Korean capital on Saturday night. 

The mass casualty incident occurred in the Itaewon area of Seoul.

 The Washington Post said the festival was a “chaotic scene of partygoers cramped into narrow streets near the Itaewon station, some trying to leave the area after a night of celebrations … many people couldn’t even move their limbs because of the elbow-to-elbow crowd … and people couldn’t hear one another over the noise or call for help because of lack of a cell connection.” 

Vean esto. Está brutal lo de #Itaewon Yo no hubiera soportado tanto sufrimiento. Parece película de terror. #SouthKorea pic.twitter.com/A8RCW1pJp7

— M͓̽M͓̽A͓̽R͓̽I͓̽P͓̽O͓̽S͓̽A͓̽ 🇵🇷 (@MMariposa31) October 29, 2022

Footage of the mass casualty incident is absolutely shocking. Bodies littered the streets as emergency personnel administered CPR. 

truly the scariest halloween of my life—30 down, 400 rescue workers deployed. please avoid itaewon and stay safe. #이태원사고 pic.twitter.com/PC1GBJt7qk

— Chloe Park 🦋 in Seoul (@chloepark) October 29, 2022

my god 😢 my prayers go out to all the victims & their families.
may their soul rest in peace 🕊️ 🤍#Itaewon pic.twitter.com/f7sls1OmvW

— z  (@kopiconnoisseur) October 29, 2022

According to the National Fire Agency, many victims were in their 20s. Among the fatalities, 46 died on the street after being crushed by the crowd, while 74 died either while being transported to local area hospitals or in the emergency room. 

The agency warned more deaths are likely: 

“Of the 100 injured, there is [a] high possibility of more deaths.”

ABC News said more than 100,000 people were at Halloween parties in the area known for its nightclubs. 

*This is a developing story.

Facebook’s parent company Meta has been ordered by a Washington State court to pay $25 million in fines after it found that the social media platform violated Washington’s political disclosure law 822 separate times between 2019 and 2021.

Meta was also ordered to fully comply with the state’s election transparency laws, which have existed since 1972, requiring ad sellers to  “disclose the names and addresses of political buys, the targets of such ads and, the total number of viewers of each ad.”  Facebook argued in court that the laws are unconstitutional.

While Facebook has dealt with numerous instances of election related complaints and also litigation, it should be noted that the company has received extensive state and local subsidies totaling almost $800 million, including $35 million in tax credits from Washington; that’s free taxpayer dollars going into the pockets of Mark Zuckerberg.  While Meta argues that it should not be subject to the oversight of states when it comes to its political advertising, it’s hard for them to claim private business rights when they are swimming in government money.       

The fine from Washington might not seem like much, but Meta and Facebook have entered financial free fall over the past year as problems continue to accumulate.

Mark Zuckerberg has seen his net worth plunge by more than $100 billion in the last 13 months as the stock price of his company, Meta, faced steep losses this week.  The primacy of Facebook in the social media sphere is coming into question, with Zuckerberg’s virtual reality projects adding little optimism or excitement. 

Before the advent of the covid lockdowns most Big Tech media platforms were in steep financial decline due to falling ad revenues and rising costs.  Facebook in particular was dealing with stock share losses and stagnating growth.  After the lockdowns began, there was a brief period in which the public and investors believed that online platforms and sales would become indispensable as the only options available in the midst of a pandemic environment and government enforced stay at home orders.  

People thought we might be locked down for many years to come and the online marketplace would dominate.  One would think that the populace would turn to these corporations in droves as the only source of relief, but this renaissance for Big Tech never actually materialized.   

Facebook has since suffered continuous losses leading to its first ever net revenue drop in 2022.  Facebook’s user growth has also essentially frozen and the company is slated to lose users this year. This trend tracks with most social media companies and theories vary as to why. Many people suggest that leftist political bias inherent in the “terms of service” of Big Tech platforms has created mass distrust among potential users.   

Another factor which has many in the public pulling back from Facebook is the problem of user data and how it is being handled.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversaw plans to consolidate the social network’s power and control competitors by treating its users’ data as a bargaining chip, while publicly proclaiming to be protecting that data, according to about 4,000 pages of leaked company documents largely spanning 2011 to 2015.  In some cases, Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. In other cases, it would deny user-data access to rival companies or apps.

This kind of blatant disregard for user privacy has created mass suspicion among Americans.  Polls show that the public distrusts Facebook more than any other social media company, with 77% of people citing unfavorable views of the company.  Mark Zuckerberg’s lack of visible remorse or conscience when it comes to matters of privacy adds gasoline to the fire.

The problems with the platform are extensive but rather common within social media giants.  The Washington case appears to be yet another instance in which Big Tech companies like Meta are happy to take state and federal money while refusing to respect legal guidelines.   

Authored by Michael Shellenberger via substack,

Leading politicians yesterday blamed the political Right for the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul. “This is despicable,” said President Biden. He noted that the alleged attacker, David DePape, 42, shouted the same line, “Where’s Nancy?” as the supporters of Donald Trump, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. “And what makes us think that one party can talk about stolen elections?” said Biden. “COVID being a hoax? It’s all a bunch of lies.”

California political leaders agreed. “This heinous assault is yet another example of the dangerous consequences of the divisive and hateful rhetoric that is putting lives at risk and undermining our very democracy and Democratic institutions,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “This attack,” said San Francisco’s state Senator, Scott Weiner, “is terrifying and the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric.”

Journalists, en masse, agreed with their assessment. DePape “appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online,” noted AP, in a report this morning that encapsulated the media narrative, “including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended former President Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.”

But DePape’s politics have little rhyme or reason. In past years DePape shared a post about Stephen Colbert’s 2006 roast of President George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents dinner; linked to videos of Disney films altered to make it look like the characters were swearing; and claimed, “Jesus is the anti-Christ” — not exactly a litany of right-wing tropes.

And, as I discovered yesterday, DePape lived with a notorious local nudist in a Berkeley home, complete with a Black Lives Matter sign in the window and an LGBT rainbow flag, emblazoned with a marijuana symbol, hanging from a tree. A closer look reveals the characteristics of a homeless encampment, or what Europeans call “an open drug scene.” In the driveway, there is a broken-down camper van. On the street is a yellow school bus, which neighbors said DePape occasionally stayed in. Both are filled with garbage typical of such structures in homeless encampments. People come and go from the house and the vehicles, neighbors say, in part to partake in the use of a potent psychedelic drug, ibogaine.

Neighbors described DePape as a homeless addict with a politics that was, until recently, left-wing, but of secondary importance to his psychotic and paranoid behavior. “What I know about the family is that they’re very radical activists,” said one of DePape’s neighbors, a woman who only gave her first name, Trish. “They seem very left. They are all about the Black Lives Matter movement. Gay pride. But they’re very detached from reality. They have called the cops on several of the neighbors, including us, claiming that we are plotting against them. It’s really weird to see that they are willing to be so aggressive toward somebody else who is also a lefty.”

Not all of the news media missed DePape’s history of drug use, psychosis, and homelessness. CNN reported that a woman named Laura Hayes, who said she worked with DePape 10 years ago making hemp bracelets, said he had been living in a storage shed. “He talks to angels,” she said, and told her that “there will be a hard time coming.”

Another woman, Linda Schneider, told CNN and Bay Area NBC TV affiliate, KRON4, that she got to know DePape around 2014 and that he was still homeless, living in a storage unit, and using hard drugs. “He (was) likely a mindless follower of something he saw on social media because I don’t think he had the courage to be part of any political or terrorist group,” said Schneider. “His drug use began again and he went off his rocker.”

But much of the rest of the news media, particularly local journalists who could have interviewed DePape’s neighbors, were swept up in the narrative that DePape was more like John Wilkes Booth, the fanatical but sane assassin of Abraham Lincoln, than John Hinkley, Jr., the mentally ill man who shot Ronald Reagan. DePape is much more like one of the hundreds of psychotic homeless people I’ve interviewed in recent years than the fanatical climate ideologues who I’ve been writing about in recent weeks.

Wrapped up in their own obsession with Trump Republicans, most journalists have missed the real story. David DePape is not a microcosm of the political psychosis gripping America in general. Rather, he’s a microcosm of the drug-induced psychosis gripping the West Coast in particular.

Drugs, Paranoia, and Pedophilia

Yesterday afternoon I visited the Berkeley house where DePape had lived with his former lover, Oxane “Gypsy” Taub, 53, a charismatic Russian immigrant 11 years David’s senior. DePape appears to have fallen under the spell of Taub around 2003, when DePape was a quiet, video game-obsessed 21-year-old in Powell River, a town of 14,000 people that is a four-hour drive up the coast of British Columbia from Vancouver.

A November 27, 2008 article in the Oakland Tribune said Taub and DePape were married with three children. But DePape’s stepfather, Gene, told AP yesterday that Taub was his stepson’s girlfriend, not wife; that David and Taub had two, not three, children together; and that David’s third child was with another woman.

The article, which carried the headline, “Need is great on Thanksgiving Day in the East Bay,” described Taub, Pape, and their three children eating Thanksgiving dinner with the homeless. Taub told the reporter that they were there for the community, not because they couldn’t afford to eat at home.

Taub was in the news again five years later when she, then 44, married a 20-year-old man, Jamyz Smith, naked, at City Hall in San Francisco. A photo in the December 16, 2013 edition of The San Francisco Chronicle shows DePape, Taub, Smith, and the three children huddled under a blanket watching television together. The caption describes DePape as “a family friend.” As in The Oakland Tribune article, the focus was on Taub, with no quotes from DePape.

Ryan La Coste, who lives in an apartment directly behind the Taub-DePape house, said that the day after Taub’s wedding to Smith, “There was a huge fight. The guy [Smith] that she married got locked up. And so Taub married somebody else. My understanding was that David [DePape] was the best man to her husband at the wedding.”

The episode was typical of the chaos that swirled around DePape during the years leading up to his alleged attack on Paul Pelosi.

Subscribers to Michael Shellenberger can read more here…

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is considering investigating an alleged long-running and widespread ballot harvesting operation among black communities in the central part of state.

Law enforcement officials are considering probing the matter on the recommendation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new election crimes unit, the Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS), officials confirmed.

DeSantis’ new election crimes body was established this year in an effort to hold individuals in the state accountable for voter fraud.

Law enforcement officials confirmed they are looking into the matter in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

“The Florida Department of State has received a complaint regarding alleged ballot harvesting in Orange County, which is currently under review to determine if an investigation is warranted,” the statement read.

In a separate statement to Just the News on Wednesday, the department stated that it was made aware of the issue around Sept. 1, 2022.

“After further inquiry, OECS received additional information related to the allegation on October 17, 2022, and performed a preliminary investigation,” the statement read. “Since OECS is an investigative entity and does not [have] authority to make arrests, the office forwarded the complaint to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for possible violation of section 104.0616, Florida Statutes,” it added.

Since the 2020 presidential election, Republican lawmakers and experts have repeatedly raised concerns over alleged voter fraud that may have swung votes in favor of President Joe Biden.

The conservative election integrity group True the Vote in late 2020 said it had found “overwhelming evidence of ballot trafficking” across key states in the United States, including Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

GOP lawmakers have accused Democrats of ignoring the issue, which they say presents an obvious threat to elections across the country.

Democrat Blows the Whistle

In late August, former Orange County Commissioner candidate Cynthia Harris, a Democrat, filed a sworn affidavit with the office of Florida’s secretary of state alleging the ballot harvesting operation, according to a Just the News report.

In the affidavit, Harris reportedly said voting activists in Orlando were being paid $10 for each third-party ballot they collected.

Harris told Just the News she was concerned about the broken chain of custody with ballots collected by third parties.

“You know, it’s just utterly ridiculous that people don’t understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it’s not placed in the mailbox, or it’s not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don’t know where it goes,” she said.

Read more here…

Russia suspended its participation in the grain and other agricultural products export deal from Ukraine after a swarm of drones targeted at least one Russian warship.

Following the attack, Moscow immediately suspended its compliance with the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was formed in July and ended a five-month Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports. The United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal, allowing safe passage for cargo ships in and out of Ukraine’s ports to haul farm goods worldwide. The deal was set to expire on Nov. 19. 

According to Reuters, here’s what the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement about the “massive” drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol: 

“Taking into account… the terrorist act by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels involved in ensuring the security of the “grain corridor,” the Russian side suspends participation in the implementation of agreements on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said earlier that the drone attacks on Saturday were largely repelled, with minor damage to a Russian minesweeper.

The ministry then described the “terrorist attack”: 

“In the course of repelling a terrorist attack on the outer roadstead of Sevastopol, the use of naval weapons and naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed four marine unmanned vehicles, three more devices were destroyed on the internal roadstead,” the statement continued. 

***UPDATE***

Now beyond any reasonable doubt that the type of surface drones used by #Ukraine to attack Russian Navy in Sevastopol today were same as one previous found near the base. #OSINT

Reference https://t.co/vpJFzEniD6
And https://t.co/YWqnJzWTqc pic.twitter.com/bX0vZvC1Hk

— H I Sutton (@CovertShores) October 29, 2022

Here are alleged videos of the attack. 

#Ukraine: Remarkable video of today’s attack on the Russian Sevastopol Naval Base.
Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (Drone boats filled with explosives) apparently managed to hit a Project 11356R frigate (presumably Admiral Makarov) & the Ivan Golubets Project 266M minesweeper. pic.twitter.com/6nJVkwvgKW

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 29, 2022

Unbelievable footage from one of the marine drones used in the attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

(Via Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko)

Full story: https://t.co/YdtcFELiSy pic.twitter.com/Nw5YbHeQMU

— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) October 29, 2022

Massive drone attack in temporarily occupied Sevastopol. Local channels confirm damage to the frigate Admiral Makarov. Looks like Makarov might eventually follow cruiser Moskva. pic.twitter.com/AhrYF7xoVL

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) October 29, 2022

NYT reported the UN has been in contact with Russian officials regarding the comments from the Russian Defense Ministry about suspending participation in the deal.

“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” Stéphane Dujarric de la Rivière, the spokesman for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said.

In recent weeks, we pointed out Russia was already on the fence about extending the grain deal unless Moscow’s demands over its own ag exports were met. 

The reversal of the agreement could result in limit-up grain futures Sunday evening. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, warned that Russia would try to get out of the deal. He tweeted: 

“Now Moscow uses a false pretext to block the grain corridor which ensures food security for millions of people. I call on all states to demand Russia to stop its hunger games and recommit to its obligations.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday asked Russia and Ukraine to extend the grain deal, but now that appears not to be the case, and global food shortage fears are going to make a comeback in the headlines.  

Via The Epoch Times,

Data released by the city of Seattle reveals that homeless encampments are seeing a significant percentage of shots fired in 2022.

According to the latest update from the One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan, nearly 20 percent of all citywide shootings/shots fired through September were connected to an unauthorized encampment or a homeless person.

Out of 573 reports of shootings and shots fired, the city states that 101 reports were in connection to homelessness. That represents about 18 percent of total cases being near encampments throughout Seattle.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said in a statement that the 101 reports represent an average of three shots fired per week in connection to homeless camps.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s “Partnership for Zero Campaign” is a collaboration of city officials to find solutions to homelessness. Its initial focus is in Downtown Seattle and the Chinatown International-District.

Felicia Salcedo, the executive director of We Are In, previously stated that the two districts represent the largest concentration of the homeless in King County.

Out of the 573 reports of shootings and shots fired through the first nine months of the year, 61 occurred in the Downtown and Chinatown districts combined, according to the Seattle Police Department’s crime dashboard. That represents 10 percent of the total number of cases of shootings and shots fired throughout the city.

Earlier in October, Seattle announced an emergency operations center was up and running. It is located in the heart of the Chinatown District where tents are visibly prominent.

Marc Dones, the CEO of the authority, said the command center has already identified over 300 units of available housing and to date has engaged with over 650 people in need.

By John Kingston of FreightWaves

East Coast retail diesel prices are soaring relative to the rest of the country, propelled by inventories in the region that are almost half of what they normally should be at this time of year.

Retail prices recorded in the DTS data series in SONAR tell the story of how much diesel has surged. On Sept. 16, retail diesel in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a major logistics center, was $5.116 a gallon, while the Houston price was $4.513 a gallon, a spread of just over 60 cents. On Oct. 15, Allentown was $5.663 a gallon while Houston was $4.70, a 96.3 cent gap. By Thursday, Allentown was at $6.028 a gallon and Houston was $4.70 a gallon, a spread of $1.328 a gallon. 

The East Coast price blowout has been propelled largely by the tight inventory situation in what is known as PADD 1, the Department of Energy’s designation for that region.

Weekly statistical data reported by the EIA this week had PADD 1 inventories of ultra low sulfur diesel at 21.3 million barrels for the week ended Oct. 21, a more than 7% decline in just one week. But more striking was the fact that those inventories are 56.5% of the five-year average for the corresponding October weeks, excluding the pandemic-influenced data from 2020. 

By contrast, national inventories for all distillates, which are not broken down by specific grades, are running about 80-81% of the five-year average, and that is considered extremely tight by analysts.

Tight supplies on the East Coast were also driven home this week by a Supply Alert published by Mansfield Oil Co., a leading supplier of wholesale fuels to the East Coast and other parts of the country.

Mansfield, in a Supply Alert published Tuesday, said it was moving to a Level 4 alert on diesel supplies. It was not immediately clear what happens at Level 4, though it is less severe than the Level 5 alert it had implemented for Hurricane Ian. An email sent to Mansfield had not been responded to at publication time. 

The Supply Alert also said it was moving the Southeast region to Code Red. Under Code Red, the company is requesting a “72 hour notice for deliveries when possible to ensure fuel and freight can be secured at economical levels.” The step below that, which was implemented for parts of the country during Ian, is Code Orange, requesting a 48-hour window.

The data on the East Coast supply squeeze is visible in other indicators. For example, data provided to FreightWaves by a third party shows that the spread between Brent crude and ultra low sulfur diesel delivered via pipeline in Linden, New Jersey, published by S&P Global Commodity Insights, which houses its Platts operations, recently has been near $85 to $87 per barrel. But that is down from just a week ago when it broke past $100 for three consecutive days. A month ago, it was around $50 a barrel. 

Other price data, befitting a market in such turmoil, is all over the place. For example, Pilot Flying J publishes a downloadable spreadsheet of the retail prices throughout the entire 830-plus outlet system. And while prices there do show the East Coast significantly higher than the Gulf Coast, the spreads are hardly consistent.

For example, as of Friday morning, the Pilot Flying J outlet in Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb, was showing a price of $5.199 a gallon. But in Staunton, Virginia, along Interstate 81, a key north-south route on the East Coast, prices were only 20 cents more than that. Head on up 81 a little farther to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and a gallon of diesel would put you back almost $6.40.

The weekly Energy Information Administration data is showing little difference between the East Coast and the full country, just $5.341 a gallon nationally versus $5.379 a gallon on the East Coast, as of Monday. The East Coast numbers are embedded in the national number.

But the spread with the Gulf Coast most recently was 39.2 cents a gallon, with the Gulf still below $5 at $4.987 a gallon. That almost 40-cent spread isn’t even the highest this year; it was well over 60 cents during a similar East Coast squeeze in May. 

With those kinds of margins, East Coast refiners — a dwindling breed — are rushing to take advantage of it — those that are left.

PADD 1 refiners ran at 102.5% of capacity in the week ended Oct. 21, the EIA said, a statistical quirk as refiners find ways to exceed their nameplate capacity. However, it is generally viewed as not sustainable for lengthy periods of time.

But that 100%-plus rate is just recent; normal levels of fall maintenance pushed that utilization rate between 85% and 90% for five weeks beginning in mid-September. 

It is also against a base capacity estimated by the EIA of 818,000 barrels per day, down from 1.22 million barrels a day through mid-2020. But the region has been hit with several refinery closures in recent years, the most notable being the giant Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, which closed several months after a 2019 fire. That took 335,000 barrels a day of refining capacity off the East Coast market.

Not counted in the EIA figures for the East Coast is the closure of the Come-by-Chance refinery in Canada’s Newfoundland province in 2020. It is being replaced by a renewable diesel facility that will produce 18,000 barrels a day of that product, which can be consumed in diesel engines without any further processing. But if the 133,000 barrels a day refinery produced one-third diesel, which is a rough estimate for most refineries, that’s still a loss of almost 30,000 barrels a day of diesel supply on the East Coast.

The facility to replace Come-by-Chance is called Braya Renewable Fuels, and it isn’t in commercial operation yet. 

The irony in the tight market is that there are some signs of declining demand. The EIA’s most recent figure for Product Supplied, its proxy for demand, showed all distillate consumption in the week ending Oct. 21 at 3.87 million barrels a day. That is the first week less than 4 million barrels a day in four weeks, though demand had been less than that 4 million figure for 24 out of 25 weeks prior to that. 

But EIA data generally has the third week of October in excess of 4 million barrels a day, as it comes in the middle of harvest season and consumers who use heating oil filling their tanks in anticipation of winter. Heating oil, like diesel, is a distillate and weekly data does not break down different types of fuel in the Product Supplied number.