Suddenly US involvement on the Korean peninsula is about to potentially ratchet into uncharted territory, as South Korea confirmed on Tuesday it is in talks with Washington to provide a nuclear deterrent presence at a moment Pyongyang is threatening its own nuclear arsenal expansion.

“South Korea confirmed Tuesday that Seoul and Washington are discussing its involvement in U.S. nuclear weapons management in the face of intensifying North Korean nuclear threats, after President Joe Biden denied that the allies were discussing joint nuclear exercises,” The Associated Press reports.

Despite President Joe Biden answering “no” to a reporter’s question after being asked if joint nuclear exercises are on the horizon with Seoul, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s top adviser for press affairs, Kim Eun-hye, explained that the two countries “are discussing an intel-sharing, a joint planning and subsequent joint execution plans over the management of US nuclear assets in response to North Korea’s nuclear (threats).”

President Yoon himself had affirmed something similar in an interview published Monday in a local newspaper. While South Korea has no nuclear weapons of its own, the idea could possibly be for some kind of nuclear sharing arrangement similar to NATO’s inter-alliance sharing agreement. As it stands, the US provides Korea with a “nuclear umbrella” – though this remains too ambiguous for South Korea’s leaders, apparently.

Here’s how the AP paraphrased President Yoon’s Monday statements:

In the Chosun Ilbo interview, Yoon said that while the U.S. nuclear weapons belong to the U.S., planning, intel-sharing and exercises involving them must be jointly conducted with South Korea. He said he finds it difficult to assure his people of a security guarantee with the current levels of U.S. security commitment.

The report indicates that talks on this sensitive topic, given that mere headlines of nuclear-sharing talks could trigger threat escalation out of Pyongyang, could be taking place via unofficial channels.

All of this comes in response to a New Year directive given by the north’s Kim Jong-Un, ordering his forces to embark on an ‘exponential’ expansion of nuclear forces. 

Kim recently said: “They are now keen on isolating and stifling (North Korea), unprecedented in human history,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “The prevailing situation calls for making redoubled efforts to overwhelmingly beef up the military muscle.”

In an interview Monday, South Korea’s president said the US+South Korea were in talks on a plan that would effectively amount to nuke-sharing.

Asked just now on the WH lawn about the talks mentioned in the report, Biden indicated they weren’t happening.https://t.co/oWNcFaFUGs

— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) January 2, 2023

Kim then at a meeting of top ministers called for “an exponential increase of the country’s nuclear arsenal” – and specifically involving the mass production battlefield tactical nuclear weapons with an eye toward South Korea.

Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets.com,

China allegedly faces dark days ahead. Why, you may ask? Because of freedom from coronavirus mandates.  

Who fears too much freedom in China? American reporters and corona-experts.

Supposedly it will lead to death.

You see, the view stateside among experts like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is that while China employed “extreme measures” before finally letting up, these measures limited hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus.

Can the experts truly be serious?

To answer this question it’s useful to return to March of 2020 when locking Americans into their homes was justified for the latter allegedly protecting us from sickness that would overwhelm hospitals, and worse, death. Even libertarians bought into what was absurd, and plainly inimical to our health. The libertarian nailbiters who fell for the crushing of freedom know who they are, while the experts were plain wrong with their insults of the American people.

Regarding the experts, their thorough insult was in assuming that free people would act irresponsibly and engage in activity that would sicken them and kill them. Shame on them.

As for way too many libertarians, missed by the situationally freedom loving was the simple, but crucial truth that force is superfluous when a virus billed to be serious threatens. Really, who needs to be forced inside and away from people if the act of being out and about might result in sickness or death? Which is why the more threatening the virus, the more crucial is the freedom libertarians normally fight for. Better yet, free people produce information. By doing as they wish, we find out from the freedom what activities threaten and what don’t. In hiding behind “there’s no libertarian answer to pandemics,” libertarians chose a horrid taking that blinded the population to the virus answer.

Bringing it all back to China, Emanuel worries about the country’s “Let-It-Rip Covid Reopening.” He starts with the laughable assertion that “China put the world in peril with its coverup and slow response to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 three years ago.” Yes, somehow Chinese leadership in the age of smartphones, internet, sophisticated intelligence services, and even more sophisticated equity markets was going to hide a rapidly spreading virus from the rest of the world. Goodness, the Soviets couldn’t even hide Chernobyl in 1986, but the Chinese had the ability to hide a virus that was spreading faster than the flu? No, not remotely serious.

Importantly, Emanuel unwittingly happens upon the shallow nature of his argument in total with his acknowledgement of China’s “slow response to the emergence” of the virus. Which is the point, or should be. Perhaps unknowingly, China already employed a “Let-It-Rip Covid” strategy back in 2019 and early 2020. Did people die en masse amid all this freedom? Of course not. To the latter, some will respond that the Chinese covered up mass death, but what politicians might try to hide markets expose. Never forget that the U.S.’s largest, most valuable companies had and have enormous exposure to the Chinese market. As I point out in my 2021 book about the lockdown tragedy, When Politicians Panicked, if the virus had been a major killer (or even hospital-izer) of the Chinese people, this would have quickly revealed itself through a collapse of U.S. equity shares to reflect a shrinking market in China, and a soon-to-be-shrunk market stateside. Instead, and as a very-much-in-the-news virus spread, U.S. equities reached all-time highs.  

All of which brings us to the present. Emanuel and the lockdown crowd he caucuses with lament that the return of freedom to the Chinese people “could have been done responsibly.” Too much freedom too fast according to Emanuel et al. He writes that rather than gradually giving it back with experts like him fully in charge, “China ended zero Covid in the most dangerous way possible – precipitously.”

Basically, Emanuel is reviving the insulting arguments used by experts and politicians back in March of 2020 in the U.S. The Chinese people, like the American people before them, cannot be trusted with freedom. Emanuel contends that freedom in China “could overwhelm hospitals and could cause a million deaths.”

The above could be true, but it’s near certainly not true given the human instinct to avoid sickness and death. Translated for those who need it, free people will protect themselves much more effectively than governments. Someone should inform Dr. Emanuel of this simple truth, along with an even bigger truth about government power and its much more correct correlation with death.

Coming off of the Sunday attack on a barracks in Makiivka in Russian-controlled Donetsk, which marked what could be the biggest Russian troop loss of the war in a single attack to date, Ukraine is now vowing to strike “deeper and deeper” inside Russian territory.

The alarming words were issued from the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, during a new interview with Australia’s ABC…

Ukrainian Head of Military Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov in an interview with @ABC, said that there will be more strikes on Russian territory and they will be “deeper and deeper”.

Video: ABC News pic.twitter.com/l0vaMVHrbW

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 2, 2023

As the clip from the interview published Monday shows, the military intelligence chief was reluctant to directly confirm whether or not Ukraine recently struck a Russian airbase.

The ABC reporter wanted answers specifically in relation to the series of deadly drone attacks Engels military airfield in the Saratov region. In December, there were reports that the base was hit three times, the most recent instance of which came last week, and killed three Russian military technicians. 

The Ukrainian government has yet to officially own up to these attacks, which Russia says were launched by Ukraine’s forces. But according to Gen. Budanov’s words republished in the UK Telegraph: 

Responding to whether Ukraine was responsible for one of these attacks on an airbase, Kyrylo Budanov said he was “very glad” about it, but maintained Kyiv’s stance of official deniability. 

In an interview with Australia’s ABC, Mr Budanov predicted these attacks will go “deeper and deeper”, along with further attacks on Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Last week three Russian troops died in a drone attack on a Russia’s Engels airfield, which houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers. 

Crucially, the Engels base is over 600km inside Russia from the Ukrainian border, suggesting that Ukraine’s UAV capabilities are growing. Russia’s military has meanwhile said it is deploying greater anti-air protections around Russian bases and cities. 

As for Washington, it has maintained an official stance of not wanting its Ukrainian partners to conduct attacks inside Russian territory, fearing uncontrollable escalation, but there are indicators that behind the scenes US intelligence could be positively encouraging it – or at least turning a blind eye.

And yet with Sunday’s devastating attack on the Russian barracks in Donetsk, Ukrainian media and officials have boasted that it was done with US-supplied HIMARS missiles. This of course means from the Kremlin’s perspective, Washington’s involvement in the conflict is growing more direct by the day.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

John Corkins, vice president of the Board of Trustees of the Kern Community College District Board, has a simple solution for those faculty who question diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs: take them to the slaughterhouse. Corkins has since apologized but the Board conspicuously failed to address other glaring problems with his extreme rhetoric.At the meeting, Corkins responded to students and faculty complaining about a racially hostile environment. Faculty opposed to DEI policies were referenced as part of this threat.

Corkins declared that there are “abusive” faculty that “we have to continue to cull.”

He added:

“Got them in my livestock operation and that’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse. That’s a fact of life with human nature and so forth, I don’t know how to say it any clearer.”

Corkins has since apologized and insisted

“My intent was to emphasize that the individuals who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting have my full support…several African-American faculty, students and statewide representatives … bravely shared their feelings of fear based on the actions of a small group of faculty members and their feelings of disappointment in the district for allowing these actions to continue.”

Notably, however, the video of the Dec. 13 meeting does not give details on the specific racial incidents. There is reference to an ongoing investigation. However, there are references to faculty who have opposed DEI measures.

That would likely include a  group called the Renegade Institute for Liberty with history Professors Matthew Garrett and Erin Miller, who teach at Bakersfield College. The group filed a federal lawsuit against the district after they were allegedly threatened with termination for questioning the use of grant money to fund social justice initiatives at their college. They are both tenured.

The opposition to DEI measures has led some to object that the group makes them feel unsafe on campus. That reportedly included calls to terminate faculty who oppose DEI to create a safer environment.

While apologizing for calling for the killing of such faculty, Corkins does not address why faculty should be targeted if they oppose DEI measures. The hearing and the statements made against these faculty members creates a chilling environment for academic freedom. The message is clear that these professors are viewed as a dangerous element on campus.

The Board has an obligation to address this uncertain line. Corkins apologizes for calling for the killing of critics but not why criticism of DEI itself is a matter for action. There may be conduct that is threatening or violent. There is no indication of any criminal complaint, but there is a need to preserve an open and tolerant environment. However, that also includes tolerance for opposing views on issues like DEI.

There is no major campaign to remove Corkins. I am less inclined for such removal as I am interested in greater clarity on the rights of free speech and academic freedom.  Everyone makes dumb comments in unguarded moments. I accept that Corkins was carried away by the emotion of the moment. Moreover, Corkins was referencing “abusive” faculty and not necessarily putting all DEI critics in that category. That is precisely what should be clarified.

However, it would likely be a different story if a board member called for the “culling” of DEI supporters or groups on the left. There remains a double standard in how such controversies are handled in academia.

The support enjoyed by faculty on the far left is in sharp contrast to the treatment given faculty with moderate, conservative or libertarian views. Anyone who raises such dissenting views is immediately set upon by a mob demanding their investigation or termination. This includes blocking academics from speaking on campuses like a recent Classics professor due to their political views. Conservatives and libertarians understand that they have no cushion or protection in any controversy, even if it involves a single, later deleted tweet. At the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) one such campaign led to a professor killing himself a few days before his final day as a professor.

I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments on the left, including “detonating white people,” abolish white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (Loomis was later made Director of Graduate Studies of History at Rhode Island).

Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.

When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support was far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The recent suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights. One professor was suspended for being seen at a controversial protest.

The message from this hearing could be viewed by some as affirming  that criticism of DEI is now viewed a threatening language. For conservative, libertarian, or contrarian faculty, it is not clear if such views will now be tolerated or viewed as grounds for termination (or a barrier to hiring).

This comes at a time when many faculties have indeed “culled” their ranks of conservatives. A new survey of 65 departments in various states found that 33 do not have a single registered Republican.

 In a recent column, the editors of the legal site Above the Law mocked those of us who objected to the virtual absence of conservative or libertarian faculty members at law schools. Senior editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” based on the fact that liberal views reflect real law as opposed to junk law.  (Patrice regularly calls those with opposing views “racists,” including Chief Justice John Roberts because of his objection to race-based criteria in admissions as racial discrimination). He explained that hiring a conservative academic was akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism (or that the sun orbits the earth) to teach at a university.

It is that easy. You simply declare that conservative views shared by a majority of the Supreme Court and roughly half of the population are invalid to be taught.

It is not limited to faculty. Polls now show that 60 percent of students fear sharing their views in class. Various polls have shown the same fear with some showing an even higher percentage of fearful students. There is a growing orthodoxy taking hold on our campuses with growing intolerance for dissenting faculty and students alike.

There are faculty who have raised concerns over DEI initiatives, land acknowledgment, and other policies. Even with the apology, the Board has allowed the underlying threat to linger. It should state why the opposition of faculty members, including filing in court, could be deemed as threatening or unacceptable viewpoints.

Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When a 13-year-old girl said she actually was a boy, teachers at her Maine school allegedly started using male pronouns for her and a counselor gave her a breast binder to wear to create the appearance of a flatter chest.

No one told her mother.

Amber Lavigne said she discovered the device in her daughter’s bedroom. It was then that the child admitted a staff member at the Great Salt Bay Community School had given it to her, as well as changing the name and pronouns she used at school, Lavigne told her community’s school board members during a public meeting on Dec. 14.

The youngster was told to keep it a secret from her parents, which caused her increasing “stress, anxiety, and depression,” Lavigne told the school board of the Central Lincoln County School System (CLCSS) AOS 93. The district serves seven rural communities in mid-coast Maine.

“Utilizing these devices can cause serious side effects,” Lavigne told board members.

Studies suggest breast binders can cause back pain, shortness of breath, chest pain, skin problems, and rib fractures.

When Lavigne expressed concern to school officials for “this heinous act, they expressed grave concern,” she told board members.

Her daughter had turned 13 just a month before.

“She’s a minor child—my minor child!” the mother said, fighting tears throughout her three-minute opportunity to speak at the meeting. “And under no circumstances should she have been provided a chest binder without the knowledge of the parents.”

The school won’t release notes from meetings between the social worker and the child, Lavigne told board members.

A worker “at the school encouraged a student to keep a secret from their parents!” Lavigne said. “This is the very definition of child predatory sexual grooming. Predators work to gain a victim’s trust by driving a wedge between them and their parents.”

Voice quavering, Lavigne demanded that all employees with “knowledge of the secret be immediately terminated from their positions,” and “that our child’s records be released to us. Laws, policies, and parental trust were broken.”

A wedge was driven between the child and her parents, Lavigne continued.

“Consider for a moment if this was your child,” she said. “What would you do? No other parent should have to go through the trauma and distress that this has caused my family.”

Maine parental rights advocate Shawn McBreairty posted the video of Lavigne’s speech to Rumble.

Since the meeting, Lavigne has told The Epoch Times by text message that she plans to file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission.

Lavigne and her lawyer declined to speak further with The Epoch Times, citing plans to file a lawsuit.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Great Salt Bay Community School, CLCSS AOS 93, and the school board members for comment. Calls and emails were not returned.

Secret Counsel

The staffer who was coaching her daughter’s transition to living publicly as a boy wasn’t alone in the secret, Lavigne said. Other school officials also took part, she alleged, by hiding from her the child’s use of male pronouns at school.

After Lavigne’s story went public, the Great Salt Bay Community School removed its staff directory from its website, according to internet archive the Wayback Machine.

The school also posted a statement on its website, saying some individuals had spread “rumors and allegations” online to “try and divide our community.” The statement never said what issue it addressed.

The Great Salt Bay Community School Board’s statement also claimed it made decisions based on Maine law, but never specified what these decisions were.

“When administrators receive concerns from parents and/or students about potential issues in school, the Board has specific policies and procedures in place that must be followed when addressing those concerns. Those policies comply with Maine law, which protects the right of all students and staff, regardless of gender/gender identity, to have equal access to education, the supports and services available in our public schools, and the student’s right to privacy regardless of age,” the statement reads.

Maine lawmakers now are considering a state educational rule that would allow social workers and school counselors to keep secrets about children from parents.

Chapter 117 of Maine’s Department of Education guidelines would make conversations between school counseling staff and children confidential to parents. Chapter 117 is not yet law.

In November, parental rights activist Alvin Lui predicted to The Epoch Times that Maine could soon allow social workers to provide breast binders to students without parental consent.

What Lavigne says happened to her daughter shows how gender activists can influence children, Lui said. They may lie to parents to get children to commit to permanent body alteration. They may urge pronouns, then binders, then hormones, then surgery, he added.

“All they’re trying to do is to put you off as long as they can, so that it can move your child through the train,” Lui said.

Maine parental rights advocate Shawn McBreairty promoted a fundraiser for Lavigne’s case on Twitter. The GiveSendGo account has raised $1,241 of the $2,000 goal “to help Amber and her family with her initial legal retainer,” he told his audience on Twitter.

Read more here…

In recent weeks, we have seen a burst of unexpected truthiness out of various regional Fed banks, a sharp contrast to the constant barrage of prevarication out of the Federal Reserve.

First, it was the Philadelphia Fed which effectively revised what was according to the BLS a gain of 1.1 million jobs to just 10,500 jobs, meaning that the Fed was looking at erroneously overstated, arguably politicized data, as it unleashed its burst of 75bps rate hikes in June… which happened just as June jobs number turned negative.

Then, a few days later, the Cleveland Fed suggested that the Fed’s entire inflation view is wrong, relying on core CPI (and PCE) data that is woefully, even dangerously, delayed – in some cases lagging market data by up to 12 months, and suggesting that rent inflation – a core component of shelter and OER inflation which is arguably the most important component of “sticky” US service inflation – is actually far lower if measured correctly. Specifically, instead of looking at the “all-tenant repeat rent index” (which looks at a broader, but much more smoothed population sample), the Cleveland Fed argues that what is key is the “New-Tenant Repeat Rent” index, which tracks market indexes such as Zillow and Apartment List far more closely, and thus represents reality much more accurately at key inflection points.

Needless to say, if either  – or both – of these analyses are correct, and the real US jobs market is far weaker than represented, and/or inflation is far lower than what the BLS has represented at a time when the Fed has hiked four times by 75bps, an unprecedented pace of tightening last seen only during the Volcker era in hopes of crushing what is an already stalling economy, the implications will be huge and potentially catastrophic for both the Fed and whichever political party is in charge.

But just in case there wasn’t enough doubt in the Fed’s actions prompted by the Fed’s own regional banks, in yet another controversial report, this time published by the St. Louis Fed, has one-upped both its Philadelphia and Cleveland Fed peers, finding that if one looks at the number of states with negative growth, the US is now officially in a recession (way to throw the political operatives at the NBER under the bus, guys).

Here is what St. Louis Fed researchers Kevin Kliesen and Cassandra Marks found in a report published just days before New Year’s Eve (a time when absolutely nobody would have noticed a shocking admission that the US is in a recession) in a report titled “Are State Economic Conditions a Harbinger of a National Recession.”

Economists view recessions as national events. However, past recessions have shown that some states’ economies continued to expand during a recession—particularly when the national recession was relatively mild. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s state coincident indexes (SCIs) can be used to assess whether recession-like conditions have developed in each of the states. And if so, whether there is a threshold in the number of states that might signal a national recession.

*  *  *

The figure below plots, for each month, the number of states that had negative month-over-month growth based on this index. The figure shows that the series has favorable recession-indicator properties; that is, during national recessions, as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the number of states that register negative growth in the SCI increases.

Here are the number of states that had negative SCI growth at the start of these six recessions:

• February 1980: 30 states
• August 1981: 30 states
• August 1990: 26 states
• April 2001: 24 states
• January 2008: 9 states
• March 2020: 35 states
• Average: 26 states

The 2008 recession is clearly an outlier. The likely reason is that it was unclear at the time that the economy had entered a recession. In April 2008, the advance estimate showed that real GDP increased at a 3.2% annual rate in the first quarter of 2008. By the time of the third estimate, released in June 2008, first-quarter growth was revised up to 3.7%. Likewise, the advance estimate for second-quarter real GDP growth was 1.9%, which was subsequently revised to 2.8%. The current estimates that reflect all subsequent revisions of 2008 numbers show that real GDP declined at a 1.6% rate in the first quarter but increased at a 2.3% rate in the fourth quarter.

It was not until the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a sharp decline in equity prices and an economywide plunge in economic activity, that most economists viewed a recession as highly likely. By October 2008, 47 states registered negative SCI growth.

The punchline: as the report authors rhetorically ask in the final section, “Is the U.S. Tipping into a Recession?”…

In sum, a threshold estimate based on this analysis shows that 26 states need to have negative growth in the SCI to have reasonable confidence that the national economy entered into a recession. Excluding the 2008 outlier raises the threshold to 29 states.

So, where are we now? In October 2022, 27 states had negative growth in the SCI. That would exceed the six-recession average of 26 states but would fall short of the outlier-adjusted estimate (excluding 2008) of 29.

Their unstated answer: yes.

Putting it all together, in just the past month we have seen (or rather read) the following:

• Philadelphia Fed admitting over 1 million jobs “created” in Q2 never actually happened
• Cleveland Fed admitting core CPI is far lower than what the BLS reports, and what the Fed feeds into its models.
• And now, the St. Louis Fed effectively saying that based on the number of states with negative growth, the US is effectively in a recession.

While we don’t know if these attacks on the Fed’s credibility by its own economists will be sufficient to force Powell to pivot, they will certainly be used by the Fed’s political enemies (because for the past year, whether he wanted to or not, the Fed has become Biden’s most powerful tool, and one which will now be attacked by Republicans) to seek a full reversal in Fed policies and it is safe to say, that they will get it.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A New York Times op-ed suggests that everyone should “mate with shorter people” in order to save the planet.

Yes, really.

Author Mara Altman, claims that “When you mate with shorter people, you’re potentially saving the planet by shrinking the needs of subsequent generations.”

“Lowering the height minimum for prospective partners on your dating profile is a step toward a greener planet,” she adds in the piece.

“He’s even restricted dairy from his sons’ diets and only allows them minimal sugar in an attempt to limit their growth, saving them from the ills of height.”

Anyone else think things are getting pretty weird around here?https://t.co/mb45hs58E0

— Caitlin Flanagan (@CaitlinPacific) January 2, 2023

Altman argues that shorter people are “inherent conservationists, which is more crucial than ever in this world of eight billion,” adding that “if we kept our proportions the same but were just 10 percent shorter in America alone, we would save 87 million tons of food per year (not to mention trillions of gallons of water, quadrillions of B.T.U.s of energy and millions of tons of trash).”

Altman continues, “Short people don’t just save resources, but as resources become scarcer because of the earth’s growing population and global warming, they may also be best suited for long-term survival (and not just because more of us will be able to jam into spaceships when we are forced off this planet we wrecked).”

“Our success as individuals does not depend on beating up other people or animals. Even if it did, in an era of guns and drones, being tall now just makes you a bigger target,” Altman adds, concluding “I want my children’s children to know the value of short.”

Twitter wasted no time in ceaselessly mocking the piece:

Reporting the @nytimes for this disgusting tallphobia

— Dan Andros (@DanAndros) January 2, 2023

Short grooming is where we have to draw the line.

— BRANDON HARTSELL✌ (@brandonhartsell) January 2, 2023

Liberals think making their kids shorter is a win? Um, ok.

— Diana D (@Diana53999) January 3, 2023

Sing to me, o muse: “short is better, and it is the future.” https://t.co/EC8A2dUUbE

— John Schwartz (@jswatz) January 2, 2023

If one were to look on the bright side, at least Altman’s future allows for continued ‘mating’.

It’s a step down from “voluntary human extinction”, an idea previously amplified by the Times, so perhaps this is progress.

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News (emphasis ours),

From the Twitter Files, a story about media, that also sketches the origins of Twitter’s surrender to the intelligence community:

1.THREAD: The Twitter Files
How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Twitter through the end of August, 2017 was on nobody’s radar as a key actor in the Trump-Russia “foreign influence” scandal.

By the second week in October — six weeks later — the company was being raked over the coals in the press as “one of Russia’s most potent weapons in its efforts to promote Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton,” with Clinton herself adding:

It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.

What happened in those six weeks? Answering that question is a key to understanding the content moderation phenomenon. In this period, crucial in the company’s history, a pattern was established. Threats from Congress came first, then a rush of bad headlines (inspired by leaks from congressional committees, and finally a series of moderation demands coming from the outside. Once the company acceded, the cycle repeated.

The documents lay out the scheme. You can see how the Russian cyber-threat was essentially conjured into being, with political and media pressure serving as the engine inflating something Twitter believed was negligible and uncoordinated to massive dimensions.

“KEEP PRODUCING MATERIAL”

The timeline started when a fellow tech titan, Facebook, decided in late August 2017 to suspend 300 accounts with “suspected Russian origin.” The move appeared to irritate some Twitter insiders, as Facebook not only shared data with Twitter, but with the Senate Intelligence Committee, where ranking Democrat and Virginia Senator Mark Warner was on an all-out hunt for Russian meddlers.

Twitter’s leaders, anxious to avoid being “dragged into another pitch for an industry wide solution,” as one senior lawyer put it, appeared peeved that Facebook pulled them into the congressional muck. Yet they mistakenly believed the company could still side-step the political/PR minefield, and “keep the focus on FB,” mainly because they were all sure there hadn’t been a big Russia problem on their network:

“No larger patterns.”

“We did not see a big correlation.”

“FB may take action on hundreds of accounts, and we may take action on ~25.”

18.The failure of the “Russia task force” to produce “material” worsened the company’s PR crisis.

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

As the autumn progressed, however, Twitter’s leaders began to realize the Russia thing might hit them no matter what.

An early hint came in a September 8, 2017 piece in the New York Times called “The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election.”

This was of many stories that helped the Times win a Pulitzer Prize for exploring “Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.” Author Scott Shane explained that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter had been “turned into engines of deception and propaganda.” On Twitter specifically, the Times in conjunction with the cybersecurity group FireEye claimed, “Russian fingerprints are on hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages,” adding:

The fakery may have added only modestly to the din of genuine American voices in the pre-election melee, but it helped fuel a fire of anger and suspicion in a polarized country.

Twitter employees seemed puzzled by the FireEye piece, but didn’t really worry until the appearance of stories hinting they were being uncooperative with Washington.

“Hi guys,” wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell on September 23, 2017. “Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising.”

5.“Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,” wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell: pic.twitter.com/2nzk8pLoCZ

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

The article, “Facebook’s openness on Russia questioned by congressional investigators,” mostly focused on Facebook, but like the Times piece included a few shots across Twitter’s bow. It noted congressional “investigators also are pushing for fuller answers from Google and Twitter, both of which may have been targets of Russian propaganda efforts.”

Later that month, Twitter staff, led by Crowell, met with Warner and his staff, shared what the company believed to be true, that they had no coordinated Russian interference issue on their platform.

Not only did Warner not like this answer, he gave Twitter a fierce media paper-training, holding an instant press conference to voice his displeasure.

“Their response was, frankly, inadequate on almost every level,” Warner told reporters. Reuters added that Warner said the Twitter briefing was “mostly derivative of a presentation earlier this month given by Facebook,” and “lacked thoroughness.”

The Warner presser hit Twitter like a bomb. Gallows humor filled inboxes.

“Well these are good headlines…” joked a communications officer, passing along an email with the subject line, INADEQUATE ON EVERY LEVEL.

“#Irony,” mused Crowell, upon receipt (the day after the presser) of an e-circular from Warner’s re-election campaign, asking for “$5 or whatever you can spare,” to “help Mark hit his quarterly fundraising goal.”

In a circular to other senior executives about his meeting with Warner, Crowell explained that Warner “has political incentive to keep this issue at top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.” He added that although Warner’s public posture was contentious, the private atmosphere was more of a “collaborative spirit.”

He also said congressional Democrats were “taking cues from Hillary Clinton,” who that same week told a Stanford audience she was the victim of a “virtual Watergate.”

Crowell explained further that the company was being “hurt” by outside academics and researchers, who “tap our API to pull together flawed reports painting the bot/Russian troll problem as a significant presence on Twitter.” He added:

It was evident in the room with staff investigators that these researchers had already briefed the committees and asserted Twitter is a major problem. These studies are also cited in recent media stories.

There are mentions throughout Twitter’s email record that fall of studies by a range of researchers “tapping” the data Twitter and Facebook shared with Congress. The company took special note of former FBI Counterintelligence agent Clint Watts, whose work on the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s “Hamilton 68” project gave reporters a public “dashboard” for tracking a “Russian Disinformation on Twitter.” Its web page featured a crude illustration of Vladimir Putin tossing bunches of red Twitter symbols into the ether:

Part of the reason Twitter hired Burson-Marsteller was because the company boasted a stable of former government officials — including many from the Obama and Clinton administrations — who had relationships with the Democratic Party’s loudest Russia hawks. Burson even sent over a “third parties” outreach document, detailing which members of their team had contacts with Strobe Talbott, Madeleine Albright, Richard Clarke, and former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, among others.

TK News subscribers can read the rest here…

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

There is a growing consensus that 2023 is going to be a miserable year for the U.S. economy and for the global economy as a whole.  In fact, in all the years that I have been writing I have never seen so many big names on Wall Street be so incredibly pessimistic about the coming year.  Of course much of that pessimism is due to the fact that 2022 went so poorly.  The cryptocurrency industry imploded, trillions of dollars in stock market wealth evaporated, inflation became a major problem all over the industrialized world, and a new housing crash suddenly erupted.  Considering all of the pain that we have experienced over the past 12 months, it is only natural for the experts to have a negative view of 2023. 

The following are 11 ominous warnings that they have issued for the year ahead…

#1 The IMF: “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even countries that are not in recession, it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people”

#2 Bloomberg: “Economists say there is a 7-in-10 likelihood that the US economy will sink into a recession next year, slashing demand forecasts and trimming inflation projections in the wake of massive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”

#3 The World Bank: “As central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates in response to inflation, the world may be edging toward a global recession in 2023 and a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm, according to a comprehensive new study by the World Bank.”

#4 Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: “We’re going to have a shallow recession”

#5 Mohamed El-Erian: “Many ‘high-conviction’ U.S. recession calls are immediately coupled with the assertion that it’ll be ‘short and shallow.’ Reminds me of the behavioral trap ‘transitory inflation’ proponents fell into last year”

#6 Nouriel Roubini: “No, this is not going to be a short and shallow recession, it’s going to be deep and protracted”

#7 Larry Summers: “My sense is that it’s much harder than many people think to achieve a soft landing”

#8 Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: “Economic growth is slowing,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at the same conference. “When I talk to our clients, they sound extremely cautious.”

#9 Charles Schwab & Co.’s Liz Ann Sonders: “We have to take our medicine still, meaning a weaker economy and a weaker labor market. The question is, is it better to take our medicine sooner or later?”

#10 BlackRock: “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. They are deliberately causing recessions by overtightening policy to try to rein in inflation”

#11 Michael Burry: “Inflation peaked. But it is not the last peak of this cycle. We are likely to see CPI lower, possibly negative in 2H 2023, and the US in recession by any definition. Fed will cut and government will stimulate. And we will have another inflation spike. It’s not hard.”

As you can see, there is a general consensus that things will be bad in 2023, but there is disagreement about just how deep the coming economic downturn will turn out to be.

If the worst of these forecasts turn out to be accurate, that will actually be incredibly good news.

Because the reality of what we will be facing in 2023 is likely to be significantly worse than any of these experts are currently projecting.

With each passing day, we continue to get even more numbers that indicate that big trouble is ahead.

For example, we just learned that luxury home sales absolutely cratered during the months of September, October and November…

Sales of luxury homes fell 38.1% year over year during the three months ending November 30, 2022, the biggest decline on record, according to a new report from Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage. That outpaced the record 31.4% decline in sales of non-luxury homes. Redfin’s data goes back to 2012.

The luxury market and the overall housing market lost momentum in 2022 due to many of the same factors: inflation, relatively high interest rates, a sagging stock market and recession fears.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And we all remember what the housing crash of 2008 ultimately did to the financial markets.

Normally, the beginning of a calendar year is a time for optimism.  As we look forward to a completely clean slate, it can be easy to forget the difficulties of the previous 12 months.

But this year things seem completely different.

On some level, just about everyone can feel that very challenging times are ahead of us.

Decades of very foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way.

Our leaders tried very hard to keep the party going for as long as possible, and to a certain extent they were quite successful in doing so.

Our politicians in Washington kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that definitely delayed our day of reckoning.

And the Federal Reserve kept the financial markets artificially propped up for years by endlessly pumping giant mountains of fresh cash into the system.

But such foolish measures only made our long-term problems even worse, and now our leaders are losing control.

All of the “mega-bubbles” are starting to burst, and the system is beginning to fall apart all around us.

It is time to turn out the lights, because the party is over.

We all had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now the bill is due and an extraordinary amount of pain is ahead.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Authored by Stephan Livera via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As the 2022 chapter closes, it’s time to turn our eyes to what’s coming in 2023. Here are some themes I’m seeing for Bitcoin in 2023.

REGULATORY OVERREACH

The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Travel Rule is forcing exchanges and bitcoin service providers to document and share ever-more information about customer transactions. We are seeing politicians such as Elizabeth Warren publicly go against Bitcoin, and even if her proposed digital asset AML act has no real chance of passing, it does foreshadow that there are future battles coming on this.

But, on the other hand, we should also remember that governments were initially against voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technologies (e.g., Skype, etc.), and nowadays they use VoIP. It’ll be similar with bitcoin, where some countries adopt it as legal tender, hold bitcoin in reserves, provide Bitcoin services for citizens and encourage bitcoin investors and entrepreneurs.

CBDCS AND THE WAR ON CASH

The war on cash proceeds, with many countries taking high-denomination cash notes out of circulation, or banning physical cash transactions above a threshold. There are many countries talking about central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials, but my speculation is that most will not have the technical and overall economic capability to stand up a fully-functioning CBDC in 2023.

2023 will mostly be about trials and rhetoric, in preparation for future CBDC rollouts. Governments can especially force people into CBDCs in countries with large welfare states, with the understanding being, “If you want your welfare check, you’ll take it as a CBDC.” Just like Darth Vader in “Star Wars,” it’ll be a case of, “Pray I do not alter the deal any further.”

Once upon a time, CBDCs might have been seen as a “conspiracy theory” but by now they are clearly coming as a threat to financial freedom and privacy. Sadly, most people will not see the threat until it is too late and CBDCs are upon them — but it is also the pain of CBDCs that will push more people into using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

MAXIS BEING MINTED AND RESURGENCE IN SELF-CUSTODY INTEREST

Bitcoin Maximalists are being minted as casual “crypto” fans get rekt on platforms such as Celsius, BlockFi, FTX, Voyager, Vauld, etc. So, in some ways, it’s very cyclical, the 2014 to 2015 bear cycle followed after the collapse of Mt. Gox, and during the 2018 to 2019 bear cycle, we saw the breakdown of QuadrigaCX — so we’re just going through another round of people having to learn the hard way.

For 2023, we will see a stronger self-custody culture given the pain of 2022 is more recent. This is not to preclude future cycles and waves of new adoption with people coming in who are not as careful. Yield and shitcoin scams will be back in another form sooner or later, but it will be a new round of people who succumb to them.

We are seeing more rounds of content and webinars that relate to self custody. For example, with Swan Bitcoin I hosted some self custody 101 webinars (which will be ongoing), and these webinars had some of the highest interest and registrations of any Swan webinars ever offered. Offering an easy auto-withdrawal feature or being 100% non-custodial will be an important feature for Bitcoin on-ramps in 2023.

MINISCRIPT WALLETS AND FEATURES

Per Pieter Wuille’s site:

“Miniscript is a language for writing (a subset of) Bitcoin Scripts in a structured way, enabling analysis, composition, generic signing and more.”

For those who are unfamiliar, Miniscript is a way to more easily express different scripts or spending conditions for bitcoin. This could be built into different wallets in ways that enable easier cross-hardware and -software compatibility.

You might first think, “Why should I care?” and, at the start, you’d be right to ask that. But over time, this will enable more sophisticated self custody, enterprise or even inheritance planning scenarios. Want to have a three-of-three multisig setup that degrades down to a two-of-three multisig setup after 90 days? Or have different “back out” conditions that exist for a business context? Miniscript makes it easier to do these things, and to let people use their existing software or hardware for this purpose. To be clear, some of this is already possible with Bitcoin script today, but Miniscript makes it more technically feasible or easier to achieve in practice.

It will take time for these solutions to be built out, but the functionality does seem promising. Businesses and enterprise customers may be particularly interested in this because it could make their self-custody practices more practical for employees and key holders to execute.

Currently, there is Liana (by the same team behind Revault), and Ledger, which has announced Miniscript support in its hardware, and Specter DIY had already enabled support in 2021! Rob Hamilton has also spoken about Miniscript uses in the world of insurance here. I anticipate more support coming in 2023.

This could help push the use of bitcoin into self-custodial directions, and away from the “old model” of financial services where you have to place more trust in government, banks and fiat financial institutions to honor their word or not debase your wealth.

LIGHTNING FIRST

It’s time to bring about a Lightning-first model for two types of bitcoin transactions: low-value transactions and in-person commerce. We saw the mempoolfullRBF debate blow up toward the end of 2022, but the real answer for most of us is to promote and use Lightning first, where possible.

As a quick anecdote, I recall talking with Giacomo Zucco who was explaining his experience in El Salvador of paying with bitcoin at a supermarket. Unfortunately, the Chivo terminal at that time defaulted to Bitcoin on-chain, and as he paid on-chain, the people in the line behind him had to wait for confirmation, which was very awkward. Contrast this with a Lightning-first experience which could look more like this:

All I want for Christmas is to be able to spend my SATS instantly, anonymously, and *KYC free* at my local grocery store🎄🎁

Feliz Navidad from the #Bitcoin capital of the world, El Salvador 🇸🇻 🌏 pic.twitter.com/I67kgKhw17

— CoinBeast (@coinbeastmedia) December 25, 2022

We should show people the best of Bitcoin and for in-person, lower-value commerce, we should go for Lightning first. I believe we’ll start to see this being driven and encouraged by more Bitcoiners and local communities in 2023.

EXPANSION OF BITCOIN-ONLY COMMUNITIES AND EVENTS

We will see more events and small-sized conferences in different countries around the world. Contrary to some who believe there are too many Bitcoin conferences, the issue is more one of assuming that you must attend them all!

You should instead attend the events and conferences that align with your interests and/or geography. Having more conferences is a good thing, so long as they are done in a low-cost, effective way. For example, the Bitcoin bush bash is a model that we may see replicated around the world — free to attend, held in a hall or other free/cheap area, no recordings, smaller-size gathering that is hosted somewhere that is cost effective.

By lowering the expectations about things that typically cost a lot more money (e.g., fancy, professionalized operations, live streaming, lots of international speakers), Bitcoiners can grow their local scenes and meetups. This is not to detract from the larger Bitcoin events and conferences, as they also play a key role — but I see a “middle ground” that can be taken up by low cost, local events.

OVERALL SENTIMENT

Without having a crystal ball for 2023, I believe bitcoin’s fiat price will remain in a mostly sideways trend. Forget what the bull-hopium people are posting and talking about, they are usually chasing engagement or getting too caught up in their own echo chambers. It takes time for the cycle to bottom out.

But let’s look on the bright side, it’s a great time for stacking sats and building something. Remember, in prior cycles, it wasn’t so clear that “Bitcoin would come back,” whereas now, the world is slowly realizing that Bitcoin is here to stay.