Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

The danger signs were everywhere in 2022.

With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, we were reminded that in the eyes of the government and its corporate accomplices, “we the people” possess no rights except for that which the Deep State grants on an as-needed basis.

Totalitarian paranoia spiked. What we have been saddled with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it has conspired to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority. In a Machiavellian attempt to expand its powers, the government unleashed all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace in order to justify its demands for additional powers to protect “we the people” from emerging threats, whether legitimate, manufactured or overblown.

The state of our nation suffered. The nation remained politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. The combined blowback from a contentious presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in Americans being subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, and the criminalization of lawful activities.

Thought crimes became a target for punishment. For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous. In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly. In 2022, those who criticized the government—whether that criticism manifested itself in word, deed or thought—were flagged as dangerous alongside consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information.”

Speech was muzzled. Those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech continued to push for social media monitoring, censorship of flagged content that could be construed as dangerous or hateful, and limitations on free speech activities, particularly online. Of course, it’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth. Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act. If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

Kill switches aimed to turn off more than just your car. Vehicle “kill switches” were sold to the public as a safety measure aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the roads, but they were a perfect metaphor for the government’s efforts to not only take control of our cars but also our freedoms and our lives. For too long, we have been captive passengers in a driverless car controlled by the government, losing more and more of our privacy and autonomy the further down the road we go.

Currency went digital. No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough, so the government came up with a new plan to make it even easier for its agents to seize Americans’ bank account. In an Executive Order issued in March 2022, President Biden called for the federal government to consider establishing a form of digital money. Digital currency will provide the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

The government spoke in a language of violence. Police violence killed three people a day. Warrior cops—trained in the worst-case scenario and thus ready to shoot first and ask questions later—did not make us or themselves any safer. Despite this, President Biden’s pledged to expand law enforcement and so-called crime prevention through a $30 billion “Fund the Police” program.

Cancel culture became more intolerant. Cancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs. Everything has now become fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.

Homes were invaded. Government agents routinely violated the Fourth Amendment at will under the pretext of public health and safety. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the many ways the government and its corporate partners-in-crime used surveillance technology to invade homes: with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, and other monitoring devices.

Political theater kept the public distracted. Having devolved into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population, the political scene provided ample diversions with its televised Jan. 6 committee hearings, the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings, and more.

Bodily integrity was undermined. Caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, concerns about COVID-19 mandates and bodily integrity remained part of a much larger debate over the ongoing power struggle between the citizenry and the government over our property “interest” in our bodies. This debate over bodily integrity covered broad territory, ranging from abortion and forced vaccinations to biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Although the Supreme Court overturned its earlier rulings recognizing abortion as a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment, it did nothing to resolve the larger problem that plagues us today: namely, that all along the spectrum of life—from the unborn child to the aged—the government continues to play fast and loose with the lives of the citizenry.

The government’s fiscal insanity reached new heights. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) hit $30 trillion. That translates to roughly $242,000 per taxpayer. It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). That debt is also growing exponentially: it is expected to be twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2051.

Surveillance got creepier. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business was monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted. With every new AI surveillance technology that was adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry were marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

Precrime became more fact than fiction. Under the pretext of helping overwhelmed government agencies work more efficiently, AI predictive and surveillance technologies were used to classify, segregate and flag the populace with little concern for privacy rights or due process. All of this sorting, sifting and calculating was done swiftly, secretly and incessantly with the help of AI technology and a surveillance state that monitors your every move. Where this becomes particularly dangerous is when the government takes preemptive steps to combat crime or abuse, or whatever the government has chosen to outlaw at any given time.

The government waged psychological warfare on the nation. The government made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded. Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government weaponized violence; surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns; digital currencies, social media scores and censorship; desensitization campaigns; fear; genetics; and entertainment.

Gun confiscation laws put a target on the back of every American. Red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others) gained traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats. Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

The burden of proof was reversed. Although the Constitution requires the government to provide solid proof of criminal activity before it can deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the government turned that fundamental assurance of due process on its head. Each and every one of us is now seen as a potential suspect, terrorist and lawbreaker in the eyes of the government. The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

The Supreme Court turned America into a Constitution-free zone. Although the Court’s rulings on qualified immunity for police who engage in official misconduct were largely overshadowed by its politically polarizing rulings on abortion, gun ownership and religion, they were no less devastating. The bottom line: there will be no consequences for cops who brutalize the citizenry and no justice for the victims of police brutality.

The FBI went rogue. The FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people ran the gamut from surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, and intimidation tactics to harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

The government waged war on political freedom. In more and more cases, the government declared war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

The military industrial complex waged more wars. America’s part in the showdown between Russia and the Ukraine conveniently followed on the heels of a long line of other crises which have occurred like clockwork in order to keep Americans distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the government’s steady encroachments on our freedoms.

The Deep State went global. We’ve been inching closer to a new world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which saw governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, shifted this transformation into high gear. This new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations owes its existence in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations. This powerful international cabal, let’s call it the Global Deep State, is just as real as the corporatized, militarized, industrialized American Deep State, and it poses just as great a threat to our rights as individuals under the U.S. Constitution, if not greater.

Authoritarian madness escalated. You didn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to recognize the slippery slope that starts with well-meaning intentions for the greater good and ends with tyrannical abuses no one should tolerate. When any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and an utter disregard for the rights of the individual, there should be reason for concern.

The takeaway: the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it rests—as it always has—at the local level, with “we the people.”

Unless we work together to push back against the government’s overreach, excesses and abuse, 2023 will be yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for freedom.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Biden administration has dialed up its crackdown on so-called “ghost guns” by issuing guidance that basically expands the definition of what “readily converted” means in a new federal rule and making more do-it-yourself pistol parts subject to restrictions.

In an open letter to firearms dealers (pdf) dated Dec. 27, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) told firearm vendors that nearly-complete handgun frames or receivers—basically the pistol grip and firing mechanism—will be treated the same as fully completed firearms.

Ghost Gun Rule

Firearm vendors who sell near-complete pistol frames and receivers—often as kits that can be relatively easily turned into untraceable homemade guns—were hit with the new rule in August, which required that frames and receivers that could be “readily converted” into fully operational guns are subject to the same regulations as traditional firearms.

The August regulation, dubbed the Ghost Gun Rule, meant that kits containing partially complete frames or receivers plus assembly tools and instructions were subject to licensing, background check, and serialization requirements.

But ambiguity around the definition of the word “readily” in the regulation meant that some vendors continued to sell nearly-complete unserialized frames and receivers as standalone products while additional components needed to finalize their at-home manufacture were offered separately, or by third parties.

Such was the argument made in an October letter (pdf) by a dozen or so Democrat lawmakers to the ATF and Justice Department, which claimed that a number of ghost gun companies were continuing to sell unserialized frames and receivers by interpreting “readily” in a way that amounted to a loophole.

“The final rule, however, is clear and unambiguous: a nearly-complete frame or receiver is a firearm,” the lawmakers wrote.

“The rule does not cover only frames and receivers sold as part of a kit, but also frames and receivers that can be readily completed,” they continued, urging the ATF to issue enforcement guidance that basically expands the definition of what it means for pistol components to be considered as “readily converted” into a functional firearm.

They asked the ATF and the Justice Department to consider a nearly-completed frame or receiver as “readily convertible” not only when it’s sold as part of a kit containing things like jigs, molds, templates, and tools for assembly but also when such auxiliary equipment is available to the general public.

“In particular, we urge the Department and ATF to confirm that how ATF reviews the ‘readily convertible’ nature of a nearly-complete frame or receiver will not be limited to what tools, equipment, and instructions are included in the same sale or distribution of the part sold, but rather premised on the tools, equipment, and instructions that are readily available to the general public, including those easily obtainable online through third parties,” the lawmakers wrote.

ATF agreed and by issuing the new guidance, the agency is making clear that it will now be requiring relevant firearm frames to have serial numbers and to be sold by licensed dealers who carry out background checks just like with fully completed guns.

“Today’s open letter is another important step in implementing the crucial public safety rule regarding privately made firearms, or Ghost Guns,” ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said in a press release. “Ghost Guns can kill like other firearms if they are in the wrong hands, so they are treated as firearms under the law.” 

According to explanatory remarks to the Ghost Gun Rule published in the Federal Register, from the beginning of 2016 to the end of 2021, there were around 45,000 homemade ghost guns recovered by law enforcement from potential crime scenes, including 692 homicides or attempted homicides.

Before Regulating ‘Ghost Guns,’ Enforce Existing Laws

Several current and former law enforcement members told The Epoch Times that the proliferation of ghost guns at crime scenes is a problem, but that being insufficiently tough on repeat offenders under current laws is a much bigger problem.

“If we are going to invest energy to fight crime, we should invest energy to get repeat offenders off the street,” Al Maresca, a deputy U.S. marshal in the District of Maryland, told The Epoch Times in an earlier interview.

“Felon in possession of a gun is already illegal, a straw purchase is already illegal—there are all these other laws on the books that we can be focusing our efforts on,” he added.

Roberto Alaniz, a recently retired sergeant from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), told The Epoch Times that focusing on ghost guns is unlikely to make a dent in violent crime.

Read more here…

A Seattle tech worker was charged this week in a criminal theft scheme which netted around $300,000 from his employer.

28-year-old Ermenildo Castro of Tacoma allegedly told detectives he was inspired by the 90’s movie “Office Space” when he allegedly wrote software code to manipulate shipping fees paid to his employer, Zulily.com, to go into his own bank accounts.

According to KOMO news, citing court documents, Castro netted around $260,000 in shipping fees.

What’s more, he used his position as a software engineer to alter the price of around $41,000 in merchandise for ‘pennies on the dollar.’

According to police, the company’s cybersecurity staff found a document on Castro’s laptop titled ‘OfficeSpace project’, which outlined Castro’s scheme to ‘cleanup evidence’ by manipulating audit logs and disabling alarm logging. The theft began in February and by March the company had identified discrepancies in the shipping fees being charged to customers, an SPD report states.

Castro was part of the team assigned to investigate the discrepancies in shipping fees, according to the report. –KOMO

Investigators for the company eventually caught on to Castro’s scheme and visited his house, where they found several boxes of merchandise piled up in the driveway and around the front door. 

He claimed the orders, which included more than 1,000 items, were sent to his house in error.

“When asked why he never returned the items to Zulily, he said that once they fired him his opinion was, ‘f— ‘em’,” reads the police report.

Seattle police wrote a narrative on how Castro’s alleged scheme was like “Office Space.”

“In the Initech office, the insecure Peter Gibbons hates his job. His best friends are two software engineers Michael Bolton and Samir Nagheenanajar, that also hate Initech. When he discovers that Michael and Samir will be downsized, they decide to plant a virus in the banking system to embezzle fraction of cents on each financial operation into Peter’s account. However[,] Michael commits a mistake in the software on the decimal place and they siphon off over $300,000. The desperate trio tries to fix the problem, return the money and avoid going to prison.”

Apparently Castro thought he could avoid ‘pound me in the ass prison.’

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

If we are not free to think what we want, we do not have a free society.  It really is that simple.  Unfortunately, there is now an overwhelming consensus among elitists in the western world that radical measures must be instituted to control what people think.  If you insist on being a rebel, there is a very good chance that you will be punished for holding unorthodox views.  You won’t necessarily be put in prison, but our system has countless other ways that it can punish you.  For example, those that insist on embracing unacceptable thoughts will find that their career choices are quite limited, and there are certain positions that they will be prohibited from ever holding under any circumstances.  Not only that, but if your thoughts are offensive enough you may have a financial account suddenly shut down or credit denied for seemingly no reason.  This sort of thing was unheard of a decade ago, but now it is happening all the time.  Of course you can forget about having any sort of a substantial social media presence if your thoughts do not conform to current “societal norms”.  Even the “free speech platforms” are banning and shadowbanning countless accounts every single day.

If any of the things that I have just described have happened to you, that is probably because you are a “thought criminal”.

You are not supposed to contradict the conditioning that you have received from our education system, from the news media, from our politicians and from the corporate entertainment that you are being fed for hours each day.

When you deviate from socially acceptable viewpoints, you are guilty of “thoughtcrime”.  This is how “thoughtcrime” is defined by Wikipedia…

Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It describes a person’s politically unorthodox thoughts, such as beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania.

Sadly, we truly have become an “Orwellian society” at this point.

In fact, a woman in the UK was just arrested for thoughts that she was thinking within her own mind…

The U.K. March for Life director was recently arrested after police found her praying silently outside of an abortion clinic, according to a press release by Alliance Defending Freedom U.K.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a charity volunteer and Christian, was approached by police officers outside of BPAS Robert Clinic in Birmingham, England, and asked if she was praying, according to ADF’s press release. Vaughan-Spruce told the officers she “might be praying silently” and was later arrested.

“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind,” Vaughan-Spruce stated in the release. “Nobody should be criminalized for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK.”

Once she was taken in to the station, you would think that those in charge would realize that a huge mistake has just been made.

But instead of releasing her, she was ruthlessly interrogated.

Apparently they were absolutely determined to discover whatever evil thoughts that this vicious thought criminal had been thinking.

And apparently they found something, because now she has been charged on four counts…

Remember the British woman who was arrested for praying silently? She’s been charged.

pic.twitter.com/VrHx93kQEd

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 28, 2022

She insists that she is not a criminal.

But she doesn’t understand that the world has changed.

Anyone that thinks unauthorized thoughts in now a criminal in this system.

And at this moment there are countless intelligence agents all over the western world that are scouring social media sites for more thought criminals.

Thanks to the release of the Twitter Files, we now know that the FBI has spent an enormous amount of time, effort and energy looking for unauthorized thoughts on our largest social media platforms.

When the FBI found unauthorized thoughts on Twitter, requests were made to ban specific accounts.  This represented a gross violation of our First Amendment rights, and apparently it kept happening over and over again.

The FBI was confronted about this, and this is how they responded…

“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our tradition, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries.

As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.

The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public.

It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”

And it has also come out that the FBI has been paying Twitter and other social media companies millions of dollars for some reason…

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is declining to specify what other social media companies the federal agency gave money to after Fox News confirmed that it paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million.

FBI officials told Fox News that the nearly $3.5 million payment to Twitter was a “reimbursement” for the “reasonable costs and expenses associated with their response to a legal process… For complying with legal requests, and a standard procedure.”

The FBI officials also said that Twitter isn’t the only social media company that is being paid by the federal agency, telling Fox News “We don’t just reimburse Twitter.”

What exactly was that money for?

We deserve to know.

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk recently stated that “almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.”

Reading that should chill you to the core.

Of course many other big tech companies have also been colluding with the government to suppress free speech, and one recent survey found that the vast majority of Americans want answers…

A recent poll shows that 63 percent of Americans want Congress to investigate “whether the FBI was involved in censoring information on social media sites.”

The Twitter Files disclosures show that not only did Twitter collude with the FBI, it also worked with other government agencies like the CIA and the Pentagon to suppress information.

Musk said in a post on Dec. 27 that “*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government.”

As time rolls along, those that choose not to conform to “societal norms” will be increasingly pushed to the utter fringes of society.

If you continue to choose to be an “independent thinker”, getting a “good job” will be exceedingly difficult.

Just think about it.  Right now, how many of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are “independent thinkers” that have unacceptable belief systems?

If you want to rise in the pyramidal structure of our society, you have got to believe what the system tells you to believe.

Of course if all independent thought is eliminated, our society will become the sort of dystopian nightmare that authors such as George Orwell and myself have been warning about for a very long time.

Even though I do not like much of what my fellow Americans have to say, I vigorously defend the right to say those things.

Freedom of thought and freedom of speech are non-negotiable, and our system of government simply will not work without them.

*  *  *

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

Starting a week ago reports began emerging in Middle East regional media, including in both Iranian and Israeli news sources, that Russia will soon provide Islamic Republic with dozens of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets. Israeli reports are even citing “Western intelligence officials” in making the claim.

Iranian state Tasnim wrote days ago that “Iran will soon receive 24 of the fourth-generation twin-engine, super-maneuverable fighter jets that are primarily used for air superiority missions,” in what seems to be some level of confirmation.

The state-run outlet noted that Iran hasn’t been able to acquire any new aircraft from outside countries in years, and the last time jets were transferred from Russia was in the 1990’s.

The Times of Israel also recently reported the following, citing the country’s Channel 12 network: 

The report by Channel 12 said the deal could include as many as 24 jets that were originally intended for Egypt, in a deal that the United States thwarted.

This left Moscow looking for a new potential buyer, which it has reportedly found in Tehran. The report comes after Iranian media said in September that Tehran was weighing such a purchase.

Intelligence indicated that Iranian pilots were already using the jets for training, the report said, without elaborating.

In all of these reports, the sourcing is anonymous and thus somewhat dubious, given also even Iranian state media is citing “reports say…”. However, the fact that state media is running headlines about acquiring the Sukhoi Su-35s is hugely significant nonetheless. 

It could mean that Tehran and Moscow are at least in the early phases of negotiating such a transfer. This would indicate that their deepened military ties which has been on display throughout the Ukraine war, based largely on Iran controversially supplying its ‘Kamikaze’ drones which have been in use by the Russian army in Ukraine, is going the other way too as far as the defense supply chain.

🇮🇷✈️🇷🇺Iran to receive dozens of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia pic.twitter.com/bGKRQUKnzt

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) December 30, 2022

On Thursday, Forbes asked the qestion: who will operate these sophisticated and advanced jets if they are acquired? Likely there would be a significant Russian-overseen training program…

The IRGC-AF has never operated more advanced aircraft than those vintage Soviet-era Su-22 Fitter or Su-25 Frogfoot attack planes — ex-Iraqi warplanes that fled from Operation Desert Storm to Iran in 1991, which Tehran promptly confiscated. The IRGC-AF returned the Su-25s to Iraq in mid-2014 to help Baghdad fend off the threat posed by the rampaging Islamic State (ISIS) group.

Forbes further reviews of Iran’s ageing air force planes: “Aside from procuring Chengdu F-7 fighters from China during the 1980s, post-1979 Iran only made one significant fighter procurement, in 1990 when it bought MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets and Su-24 Fencer bombers for the IRIAF from the Soviet Union.”

Thus any advanced fighter transfer could see the rare instance of Russian advisers training IRGC pilots. Meanwhile, the US and UK have continued to ratchet up sanctions on Iran’s defense manufacturing sector, especially in light of the drone supplies which appear to be ongoing in relation to the war in Ukraine.

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

With state legislatures entering their third sessions since the 2020 pandemic pumped trillions in federal recovery and stimulus assistance into state and local government coffers, tax reform across a range of levies is among front-burner priorities for lawmakers in 2023.

During 2022 sessions, Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation reports at least 38 states adopted “noteworthy tax changes” with most going into effect on Jan. 1, including trims in personal income tax rates in 11 states and flat income tax structures being implemented in three states, Arizona, Idaho, and Mississippi on New Year’s Day.

Here is a round-up of “noteworthy tax changes” that go into effect Jan. 1 provided by analysts at the Tax Foundation, Council On State Taxation, and Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:

* ARIZONA: A flat personal income tax rate of 2.5 percent will replace Arizona’s tiered, or progressive, income tax structure that had a top rate of 4.5 percent.

* IDAHO: Under 2022’s House Bill 1, Idaho will move to a flat personal income tax rate of 5.8 percent, replacing a progressive tax structure with a top assessment rate of 6 percent, on Jan. 3.

* INDIANA: Under 2022’s HB 1002, Indiana’s flat personal  income tax rate will drop from 3.23 to 3.15 percent through 2024. Afterwards, the personal income tax rate will incrementally decline to 2.9 percent by 2029, depending on state revenues.

* IOWA: On Jan. 1, Iowa’s nine personal income tax rates will be consolidated into four, with the top declining from 8.53 to 6 percent. The state is set to implement a flat income tax rate of 3.9 percent in 2026.

Also beginning in 2023, Iowa will exempt retirement income, certain farm rental income, diapers, and menstrual products from taxation. The state will phase out its inheritance tax by 2025, with this levy also being incrementally slashed beginning in 2023.

On the other side of the ledger, Iowans will no longer be able to claim a state deduction on federal income and property taxes.

* KENTUCKY: Under 2022’s HB 8, Kentucky’s income taxes will go down, and some sales taxes will go up on Jan. 1.

The state’s flat personal income tax rate will dip from 5 to 4.5 percent in 2023 and to 4 percent in 2024. Depending on state revenues, state lawmakers plan to implement further incremental cuts until the personal income tax is eliminated.

The income tax cuts will be countered by new or increased sales taxes on a range of services, such as a 6 percent levy on limousine, car rental, ride-sharing, car-sharing, and taxicab services. A 1 percent transient room tax will now apply to campgrounds and RV parks.

Kentucky will also impose a new excise tax of 3 cents per kilowatt hour for electric vehicle power distributed in the state by an electric vehicle power dealer or by electric charging stations located on state property. 

* MISSISSIPPI: Under 2022’s HB 531, Mississippi will adopt a flat personal income tax beginning Jan. 1. The state’s 4 percent levy on income between $5,000 and $10,000 will be eliminated and a 5 percent tax on income above $10,000 imposed. 

Under the bill, the 5 percent flat rate will decrease to 4.7 percent in 2024, 4.4 percent in 2025, and 4  percent in 2026.

But hold everything: Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) will spearhead divergent efforts to eliminate the state’s personal income tax altogether in 2023.

* MISSOURI: Under 2022’s Senate Bill 3, Missouri’s top personal income tax rate will be reduced from 5.3 to 4.95 percent, and the amount of income exempt from income taxation will increase from $100 to $1,000. The measure calls for incremental reductions in the top income rate levy to 4.5 percent.

Also on Jan. 1, Missouri will become the last state to assess state and local sales taxes on remote or online transactions under a 2021 bill.

* NEBRASKA: Under 2021 and 2022 bills, Nebraska will reduce its top personal income tax rate from 6.84 to 6.64 percent, and in its top corporate tax rate from 7.5 to 7.25 percent. The state will lower its top corporate income tax rate to 5.84 percent by 2027. 

Also beginning in 2023, beneficiaries can deduct 60 percent of Social Security benefits, up from 40 percent in 2022, and exemptions from taxation for retirement and military pension incomes will be increased. 

Property owners will also get some breaks in 2023 under 2022’s Nebraska Property Tax Incentive Act, which sets aside $660.7 million for income tax credits that will offset portions of school district and community college property taxes.

* NEW HAMPSHIRE: Under 2022’s HB 2, New Hampshire will start phasing out its income tax on interest and dividends income, lowering the levy from 5 to 4 percent on Jan. 1. The rate will decline by 1 percent until the tax is no more by 2027.

Under 2022’s HB. 1221, the state’s corporate income tax, or ‘Business Profits Tax,’ will drip from 7.6 to 7.5 percent beginning Jan. 1.

* NEW YORK: Under 2022’s SB 8009, New York will accelerate reductions in the state’s personal income tax rated for “middle-income earners” first adopted in 2016. 

Beginning Jan. 1, the tax rate applied to income between $13,900 and $80,650 for single filers, and between $27,900 and $161,550 for joint filers, will be 5.5 percent, down from 5.85 percent. The tax rate on income between $80,650 and $215,400 for single filers, and between $161,500 and $323,200 for joint filers will decline from 6.25 percent to 6 percent. 

Also beginning Jan. 1, New York will resume assessing its gas tax. The state’s 16 cents per gallon motor fuel tax had been suspended since June 1, 2022.

* NORTH CAROLINA: Under 2021’s SB 105, North Carolina’s flat personal income tax rate will decline from 4.99 to 4.75 percent on Jan. 1. 

The rate is set to continue declining 3.99 percent by 2027, with North Carolina’s current 6.9 percent corporate income tax to disappear entirely by 2030.

Also beginning in 2023, the state’s franchise tax will be a simplified net worth levy instead of the three different franchise tax liability rates previously assessed.

* ALABAMA: Under 2022’s HB 162, Alabama will exempt the first $6,000 of retirement and military pension income for those 65 or older from income taxes beginning Jan. 1.

State lawmakers in 2022 also revised Alabama’s “business privilege tax,” reducing the minimum payment of $100 to $50 a year. 

* DELAWARE: Under 2022’s SB 188, Delaware will increase its exemption from taxation on retirement and military pension income from $2,000 to $12,500 for those 60 and older beginning Jan. 1.

* RHODE ISLAND: Under 2022’s HB 7123, Rhode Island will boost its exemption on taxation on retirement and military pension income from $15,000 to $20,000 beginning Jan. 1. 

* ILLINOIS: Under SB 157, Illinois’ Child Tax Credit will increase from 18 to 20 percent of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) beginning Jan. 1.

On the other side of the ledger, the state’s gas tax inflation adjustment will be implemented on Jan. 1 following a six-month freeze. The state’s 42.3 cent tax on a gallon of gas will increase by 3.1 cents. Another inflation adjustment will be implemented in July.

* ARKANSAS: Under 2022’s HB 1002, reductions in personal and corporate income tax rates will be accelerated. Beginning Jan. 1, the top tax rate on personal income will dip from 5.5 to 4.9 percent, and the state’s corporate income tax rate will go down from 5.9 to 5.3 percent.

* PENNSYLVANIA: Under 2022’s HB 1342, Pennsylvania’s corporate income tax rate will be reduced from 9.99 percent to 8.99 percent on Jan. 1. The corporate tax rate will decline by a half-percent until it reaches 4.99 percent by 2031. 

* OKLAHOMA: Under 2022’s HB 3418 in May 2022, Oklahoma will become the first state to make permanent a 100 percent bonus depreciation allowance for investments in machinery and equipment beginning Jan. 1. 

The state will also require that local sales taxes be levied on retail sales of tangible personal property in 2023.

* VIRGINIA: Under several 2022 bills, Virginia will exempt groceries and essential hygiene products, including menstrual products, from the state’s 1.5 percent sales tax beginning Jan. 1.

Also, retired military pensioners 55 and older will be eligible to subtract up to $20,000 in military benefits from taxable income in 2023, up from $10,000. That exemption will increase to $30,000 in 2024 and $40,000 in 2025.

* KANSAS: Under 2022’s HB 2106, Kansas will begin phasing out its 6.5 percent sales tax on groceries to 4 percent on Jan. 1. The sales tax on groceries will decline to 2 percent in 2024 before disappearing in 2025. 

* COLORADO: Under 2022’s HB 22-1055, Colorado will exempt diapers and menstrual products from sales taxes.

Read the rest here…

Brazil, the world’s second-largest corn exporter, sent its first vessel carrying corn to China this month. Global trade flows are shifting away from the US, the largest exporter of corn, as China reduces its reliance on the Midwestern US farm belt. 

Commodity traders have tracked the Star Iris, the bulk carrier hauling 68,000 metric tons of grain for Chinese trader Cofco Corp., which left Brazil late last month and just arrived in Singapore. 

Bloomberg said Beijing decided to purchase Brazilian grains in May to “reduce dependence on the US and replace supplies from Ukraine cut off by the Russian invasion.” 

Reuters recently quoted Brazil’s National Association of Grain Exporters as saying Brazilian corn exports could surge next year because of China. 

There’s still a while until Brazil threatens the US dominance of the China ag market. More than 20 bulk carriers with US corn are currently en route to China. Still, Brazil’s first corn shipment to China might indicate global trade flows are shifting. 

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience.com,

There are now an estimated 1.7 million electric vehicles (EVs) on U.S. roads, compared to roughly 400,000 in spring 2018. That means that a lot more Americans are experiencing the joys and pitfalls of EV ownership, from silent, swift acceleration and emission-free driving on the positive side to slower fueling times and shorter driving ranges on the negative side.

More Americans are also learning that frigid temperatures affect EVs differently than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, chiefly by cutting into their driving range to a greater extent. While a typical ICE vehicle might have its range reduced by 15% to 25% in below-freezing temperatures, an EV’s range will be slashed 20% to 50% depending upon driving speed, temperature, and interior climate preferences. Combustion reactions occur more inefficiently at colder temperatures, accounting for the range decline in ICE vehicles. But cold slows the physical and chemical reactions in EV batteries to a larger degree, limiting the energy and power the battery can deliver to the motors. Moreover, while ICE vehicles utilize otherwise wasted heat from the engine to warm car interiors in winter, EVs use electric heaters to perform much of the climate control, further draining the already hamstrung battery.

The Arctic blast that chilled much of the “Lower 48” last week showcased the EV range hit to more Americans than ever, and also yielded a few more lessons.

EV owners sounded off about their experiences on social media and subreddits. Here are a few of the takeaways:

1. EVs are not ready for frigid road trips. 

I warned about this in August: Driving an EV on the highway in extreme cold will produce a range loss of 40% or more. EV owners of various brands traveling for the holidays shared numerous stories verifying this annoying (and potentially dangerous) reality. Drivers traveling in temperatures at or around zero with a headwind could go only 100 to 150 miles before needing to stop and recharge, depending upon the car, significantly increasing travel time. When they did charge, they had to deal with another disconcerting problem with EVs and winter…

2. EV fast-chargers operate much more slowly in extreme cold, if they work at all.

 The colder the EV battery, the slower the rate of charge that it will accept, making “fast-charging” in subzero temperatures a potentially miserable and plodding experience. Think a 45 to 60 minute charge instead of a 25 to 35 minute one. To top it off, users reported that fast-charging equipment, particularly from Electrify America, often just didn’t work in temperatures below -10 °F. Tesla’s proprietary Superchargers didn’t seem to have the same reliability issues. The generally sorry state of charging infrastructure shed light on another takeaway…

3. EVs driven in regions with a cold winter need to be charged at home. 

Preferably with a garage. Owners simply can’t rely on public infrastructure in its present state with current battery technology. However, this situation could easily change in five to ten years with novel batteries that suffer less range loss and more widely available chargers, preferably housed indoor.

4. Aside from range issues, EVs handled the Arctic air well. 

Owners reported that their cars started without issue, drove well (albeit with slightly reduced power), and heated quickly thanks to their fast-acting electric heaters. For drivers who didn’t need to worry about traveling long distances, their EVs were functional, comfortable, and relatively untroubled by the cold.

The Biden family has remained “estranged” from Hunter Biden’s 4-year-old daughter, and ‘seemingly wants nothing to do with the child,’ according to the Daily Beast, citing the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The woman who mothered Hunter’s secret lovechild, Lunden Alexis Roberts, filed paperwork on Tuesday requesting that an Arkansas court allow the child, Navy Joan Roberts, be given the Biden name, claiming that the toddler would “benefit from carrying the Biden family name” because it’s “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful.”

The Bidens, meanwhile, have completely ignored the President’s grandchild – striking her attendance from the 46th presidential inauguration and allegedly refusing to offer security aid to the mother-daughter pair, despite domestic violence threats from Roberts’ ex.

The filing cites President Biden, Jill Biden and Hunter’s late brother Beau as examples of successful individuals bearing the last name, and says that the Biden family remains “estranged from the child. To the extent this is misconduct or neglect, it can be rectified by changing her last name to Biden so that she may undeniably be known to the world as the child of the defendant and member of the prestigious Biden family.”

Roberts, originally from Batesville and an Arkansas State University graduate, met Hunter Biden while she was living in Washington, D.C., and worked for him, Lancaster previously said.

The child, initially referred to in the case as “Baby Doe,” was born in August 2018; the paternity suit followed in May 2019, days after Hunter Biden’s marriage to a South African filmmaker, the former Melissa Cohen.

A DNA test showed, “with near scientific certainty,” that Biden is Baby Doe’s father, Judge Holly Meyer declared in a January 2020 order. That month the parties agreed on temporary child support until the issue was resolved. -Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Hunter Biden wrote in his 2021 book “Beautiful Things” that he fought Roberts’ paternity suit because, being a crackhead, he had no recollection of the incident that led to the pregnancy.

“The other women I’d been with during rampages since my divorce were hardly the dating type. We would satisfy our immediate needs and little else,” wrote Hunter, adding “I’m not proud of it.”

According to Roberts, Hunter has a “long, and lengthy, history of attempting to avoid discovery by filing endless and recurrent motions for protective orders. Additionally, this case was finally resolved the first time when this court denied the defendant’s motion for a protective order relating to discovery.”

Roberts has requested a list of Hunter’s residences for the past 10 years, along with vehicles he’s owned or driven for the past five years in order to obtain evidence of his “well-established history of a lavish lifestyle.”

“[Biden] objects and refuses to provide all the requested information. Instead, [Biden] seeks a protective order,” reads a filing. She’s also requested information related to a federal investigation into Hunter’s “tax affairs.”

“This information is relevant to determine if, as Federal authorities insinuated, the defendant failed to disclose all his income as this goes to earning capability and Mr. Biden’s credibility.”