While the CIA is strictly prohibited from spying on or running clandestine operations against American citizens on US soil, a bombshell new “Twitter Files” report reveals that a member of the Board of Trustees of InQtel – the CIA’s mission-driving venture capital firm, along with “former” intelligence community (IC) and CIA analysts, were involved in a massive effort in 2021-2022 to take over Twitter’s content management system, as Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag report over at Shellenberger’s Public (subscribers can check out the extensive 6,800 word report here).

According to “thousands of pages of Twitter Files and documents,” these efforts were part of a broader strategy to manage how information is disseminated and consumed on social media under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’ and foreign propaganda efforts – as this complex of government-linked individuals and organizations has gone to great lengths to suggest that narrative control is a national security issue.

According to the report, the effort also involved;

• a long-time IC contractor and senior Department of Defense R&D official who spent years developing technologies to detect whistleblowers (“insider threats”) like Edward Snowden and Wikileaks’ leakers;

• the proposed head of the DHS’ aborted Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, who aided US military and NATO “hybrid war” operations in Europe;

• Jim Baker, who, as FBI General Counsel, helped start the Russiagate hoax, and, as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, urged Twitter executives to censor The New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

Jankowicz (aka ‘Scary Poppins’), previously tipped to lead the DHS’s now-aborted Disinformation Governance Board, has been a vocal advocate for more stringent regulation of online speech to counteract ‘rampant disinformation.’ Jim Baker, in his capacity as FBI General Counsel and later as Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, advocated for and implemented policies that would restrict certain types of speech on the platform, including decisions that affected the visibility of politically sensitive content.

Furthermore, companies like PayPal, Amazon Web Services, and GoDaddy were mentioned as part of a concerted effort to de-platform and financially de-incentivize individuals and organizations deemed threats by the IC. This approach represents a significant escalation in the use of corporate cooperation to achieve what might essentially be considered censorship under the guise of national security.

Nina Jankowicz And The Alethea Group

Remember Nina? A huge fan of Christopher Steele – architect of the infamous Clinton-funded Dossier which underpinned the Trump-Russia hoax, and who joined the chorus of disinformation agents that downplayed the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, Jankowicz previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, and advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship. She also oversaw the Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.

Jankowicz compares the lack of regulation of speech on social media to the lack of government regulation of automobiles in the 1960s. She calls for a “cross-platform” and public-private approach, so whatever actions are taken are taken by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, simultaneously.

Jankowicz points to Europe as the model for regulating speech. “Germany’s NetzDG law requires social media companies and other content hosts to remove ‘obviously illegal’ speech within twenty-four hours,” she says, “or face a fine of up to $50 million.”

By contrast, in the US, she laments, “Congress has yet to pass a bill imposing even the most basic of regulations related to social media and election advertising.” -Public

In a 2020 book, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, Jankowicz praises a NATO cyber security expert for having created a “Center of Excellence,” a concept promoted by Renée Diresta of the Stanford Internet Observatory, in which she made the case for the (now failed) Disinformation Governance Board that Jankowicz would briefly head up.

One year later, Jankowicz began working with ‘anti-disinformation’ consulting firm, Althea Group, staffed by “former” IC analysts.

Althea notably came after ZeroHedge at one point, shopping a ‘dossier’ around which suggested we were allegedly contributing to “increased online panic” amid the monumental collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The outlets they peddled said dossier to included Bloomberg – which elected to exclude ZeroHedge from their report following a brief email exchange. Eventually, one of their operatives dropped the dossier on Twitter, only to be mocked as a propagandist.

You mean a financial newsblog published a number of stories about a significant bank failure? How dare they!!

— Reason and analytics in Dallas (@DallasAnalytics) March 17, 2023

Their SVB thesis was debunked by a Federal Reserve report which admitted that its own regulatory failures contributed to the bank’s collapse. We can only imagine what else they’ve cooked up about us behind closed doors.

Alethea notably secured $20 million in Series B financing led by Google Ventures.

Google directly funding censorship orgs https://t.co/DNfWjUowYR

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 9, 2024

Another Alethea Group operative until July 2021 was former CIA analyst, Cindy Otis, who wrote a book called “True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News” – in which she thanks Pieter “Mudge” Zatko – a notorious hacker who was hired by Twitter to “tackle everything from engineering missteps to misinformation,” Reuters wrote at the time.

According to Jankowicz, “My full time employment with Alethea began September 13, 2021. Ms. Otis left Alethea prior to that period. To my knowledge, she has not been employed with Alethea since that time.”

“My work with Alethea Group as a consultant (summer 2021) was narrowly focused on my subject matter expertise related to Russia,” she continued. “I conducted Russian language translation and provided cultural analysis. When I joined Alethea as an employee (fall 2021) my work was entirely focused on public products: Changes to Alethea’s website, editing public reports, liaising with media, etc.”

Is Nina lying?

According to Shellenberger et. al, “that claim contradicts Alethea’s Statement of Work contract with Twitter, which lists her as “Technical Research Director” for work relating to Twitter’s management of misinformation during the 2020 election, and specifically a “retrospective analysis of how then President Trump or other key figures may have violated Twitters [sic] policies, or otherwise leveraged the platform in a way that may have contributed to key events…”

Alethea Group founder, Lisa Kaplan, told us that Jankowicz “was never given the title Technical Research Director, that is a reference to a labor category for a contract.” Added Kaplan, “We respect client confidentiality and do not discuss relationships with our customers. In reviewing Nina’s timesheets she did provide support to one client that I cannot disclose, however I can confirm that while she was employed as the Director for External Affairs, Nina never conducted work at Alethea on behalf of Twitter.”

When shown the Statement of Work listing her as “Supplier Personnel,”  Jankowicz said, “I have never seen this document before. A statement of work is generally a speculative document that informs clients of potential staffing and work plans. They are usually crafted to allow contractors a degree of flexibility in implementation by listing staff even if they are not assigned to a particular project in case they might do future work for that project. I assume this is what happened in this case.”

In fact, the Statement of Work between Alethea and Twitter was a formal contract between the two firms, signed by Alethea’s Founder and CEO and Twitter’s Senior Director and Associate General Counsel, and the contract specifies, “Any changes to the above listed Personnel must be approved by Twitter in writing.” There is no record in the Twitter Files of any change to the project’s personnel. -Public

Jankowicz defended herself, telling Public: “Ms. Otis and I were friends and colleagues prior to my short stint there and remain friends and colleagues. Yes, I knew Ms. Otis had worked — emphasis on the past tense — at the CIA. That does not constitute a ‘relationship’ with the intelligence community.“

Mudge

Following a phishing attack on Twitter employees in July of 2020 which resulted in Joe Biden’s account tweeting “I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000,” along with a crypto wallet address (similar fake tweets were sent from the accouints of Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg and Elon Musk,” 17-year-old Graham Ivan Clark was arrested. 

Three months later, Jack Dorsey wrote in an email: “Mudge signed.“

Less than three months later, Zatko made his first big recommendation to Twitter execs: “hire the Alethea Group.“

“I feel an external investigation may be quite valuable,” he said over the company’s Slack channel. “I’d recommend Alethea group for the disinformation angle.”

Twitter authorized the move. Several weeks later, Zatko suggested that Twitter’s legal team hire Alethea for a report focusing on Jan. 6.

“We can draw a straight line… between the initial ‘Stop the Steal’ narratives and organizing to what ended up happening on the 6th.”

Alethea’s assessment of Twitter reflects the view of its CEO, Kaplan, that online misinformation leads to violence.

On March 11, 2021, the same… pic.twitter.com/h0UunuhUGX

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 23, 2024

“As folks can understand,” he wrote on Feb. 4, 2021, “there’s a lot still going on around Jan 6th and the 2020 election in general. Alethea is a boutique consultancy that specializes on disinformation and counter-messaging operations. They have been working with myself and Yoel [Roth].“

Meanwhile, on March 24, 2021, Zatko emailed a 12-page report pushing for more government-linked censorship – suggesting that “The organizations and people behind this recommendation have the connection [sic] to get this in front of the right people in the administration.“

The report is co-authored by Aspen Institute’s Vivian Schiller, who led the “pre-bunking” of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and Hamilton68 hoax author Clint Watts, and is published by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. -Public

Then it came out that Zatko, who pushed Alethea, “had engaged with members of US intelligence agencies…” As Public notes, “Attitudes toward Zatko would be quite different two years later.”

Zatko turned whistleblower, sued the company, and settled for $7.75 million. He then filed a complaint with the Justice Department, SEC, and FTC, alleging Twitter executives had misled the government, been negligent in protecting user data, and had violated a 2011 consent decree with the FTC.

Somebody leaked Zatko’s complaint to the Washington Post, which reached out to Twitter for comment on August 19, 2022.

In a shared Google Doc, dated August 21, 2022, called “Comms Statements/Tracking,” Twitter executives fine-tuned the language for responding to the news media about Zatko’s allegations.

Buried deep within that discussion was this revelatory sentence:

“Without the knowledge or support of management or the Board, Twitter learned that Zatko had engaged with members of US intelligence agencies and sought to enter a formal agreement that would allow him to work with them and provide information to them.”

CIA, In-Q-Tel, And Alethea

In late 2022, Alethea received $10 million from Ballistic Ventures, whose general partner is Ted Schlein. Ted “provides counsel to the U.S. intelligence community, serves on the Board of Trustees at InQTel [the CIA’s mission-driven venture capital firm] and was recently named as a board member of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee.”

Is this the same Alethea whose board member Ted Schlein “provides counsel to the US intelligence community” and serves on the Board of CIA’s Venture Capital firm InQTel?https://t.co/JbmnsW3F9jhttps://t.co/DVUip7QEWs https://t.co/hW1qUH4IK1

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 17, 2023

In 2022, IQT published a report describing its “Disinformation Workshop,” which recommended several activities similar to those Alethea has offered, including “Track the confluence of bad narratives.”

Schlein can neither confirm nor deny…

According to the Wall Street Journal, a full one-third of IQT investments were secret as of 2016. The Journal also reported that Schlein had at least one connection to a firm in which IQT invested, and that was over seven years ago.

“I do not know Zatko, Jankowicz or Otis. Lisa is the CEO of Alethea and I serve on her board of directors,” Schlein told us. He added that he is not aware of any relationship between Alethea and the IC and that he has no operational role in the firm.

“I get the feeling that Alethea is a byproduct of Ted Schlein,” a high-tech entrepreneur told us, “and the CEO is merely a titular head….Without meaningful experience, it’s not clear to me how [Lisa Kaplan] received $10m in a series A round.”

In March 2022, the Department of Homeland Security made Schlein a member of its advisory council. -Public

Here’s Kaplan on promoting aggressive censorship:

“We have to trust the rules and the systems that are governing us.”

On February 21, 2022, at Colby College, Alethea’s Kaplan again promotes an aggressive censorship vision, including punishments for people who spread misinformation, and says “we have to trust” election rules.… pic.twitter.com/F3JaQNU5vG

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) May 23, 2024

We are now approximately halfway hrough Public‘s report. As X user Sean Michael Murray accurately observes: “It’s such a well sourced report… and there’s so much context to summarize in this post, it’s best to read it..” 

So, click here and subscribe to Public if you haven’t already to read the rest – including:

• The effort to infiltrate PayPal, GoDaddy and Amazon Web Services
• Zatko’s engagement with the CIA
• Who is Zatko, really?
• Althea in, Zatko out
• Kaplan’s “aggressive censorship vision”
• “The Big Boss”
• First Amendment vs. “Information War”
• CODA 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

GOP Senator Rand Paul earlier this week charged that newly released emails dating from the pandemic exchanged between COVID era health officials working with Anthony Fauci provide evidence of an “extensive cover up.”

The communications were obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic via subpoena from Dr. David Morens, Fauci’s former senior adviser.

In a press release, the subcommittee stated that the emails suggest “Dr. Fauci was aware of Dr. Morens’ nefarious behavior and may have even engaged in federal records violations himself.”

🚨🚨I put together a Supercut of Dr. David Morens, NIAID Senior Scientific Advisor & Tony Fauci’s right hand man, having his incriminating emails read back to him.

They definitively prove he and his colleagues were desperately trying to cover up what they did by avoiding FOIA. pic.twitter.com/SSfV9uARhB

— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) May 23, 2024

In a Fox News interview, Paul noted that the communications are an “indication something was going on that was inappropriate,” and that “the cover-up is the crime.”

Paul pointed to a previously released email from Francis Collins, former Director at the NIH, referring to scientists holding differing thoughts on the origin of  COVID and expressing a desire to “take these people down.” 

It’s a felony to destroy records. It’s a felony to destroy evidence. Without question, Morens has admitted in his emails that he was destroying evidence. David Morens is Anthony Fauci’s Michael Cohen, he’s the fixer. pic.twitter.com/vq9P1XoxPy

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 22, 2024

“Take down these scientists that disagree with us. The scientists from Harvard, from Stanford that have a different opinion on how we should do public health policy, take them down,” Paul further described the email between Collins and Fauci as saying.

Paul then referred to the newly acquired emails where the officials discuss “back channels” of communication, referring to using private email addresses to avoid the Freedom of Information Act.

“I mean, it really sounds like a mob hit. It sounds like the mob talking,” Paul emphasised, adding “They have secret channels. The emails about secret back channels. They have a secret person like a courier.”

Fauci Sr. Advisor Dr. David Morens Describes the ‘Backchannel to Tony’

“Tony does not want me to connect anybody to him directly.” pic.twitter.com/FtGyhEf66N

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) May 23, 2024

Paul also asserted that the emails show Fauci and the others “were all working together to delete evidence.”

In one particular email, Morens noted that he was seeking help from “our IT folks” and “our FOIA lady” on “how to make emails disappear.”

David Morens’ email to @PeterDaszak:

“I learned from our @NIH FOIA lady how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d but before the search starts so I think we are all safe. Plus, I deleted most of those earlier emails…” pic.twitter.com/lncVsHYdEp

— Mentju (@mentju4) May 16, 2024

“You have the FOIA lady, the person who was supposed to help you comply with releasing your emails teaching them how to cover up. That is in all likelihood a crime,” Paul urged.

He continued, “What has to happen is we have to find a prosecutor who believes in justice to begin prosecuting this, because my guess is the FOIA lady may tell the truth if she is asked to talk about David Morens.”

On June 16, 2020, Morens sent an email to Peter Daszak, copying in other members of EcoHealth, noting “We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails and if we found them we’d delete them.”

“Morens might tell the truth if he is being prosecuted about Anthony Fauci,” Paul further posited, adding “they are all connected, they were all covering up, and they were all deleting evidence and deleting records. Illegal and a felony.”

“This cover-up is extensive, NIH has refused to give me the documents, I have been asking over two years for documents from NIH, it’s a complete cover up,” Paul urged, adding “This is unprecedented, someone should go to jail.”

In testimony Wednesday, Morens claimed that he and Daszak and their families faced death threats in early 2020 and that their correspondence “wasn’t government business.”

Despite admitting to deleting emails and needing to “scrupulously rely on” private accounts in the correspondence itself, Morens testified that he could not remember carrying out official government communication via personal addresses.

The full testimony is here:

Paul discussed his testimony in another interview Thursday:

Dr. David Morens is Anthony Fauci’s Michael Cohen, he’s there to keep a distance between Fauci and anything unseemly: Sen. Rand Paul pic.twitter.com/Qkpu8N5XwT

— Mornings with Maria (@MorningsMaria) May 23, 2024

In another email to Daszak, Morens referenced an article headlined “NIH awards $7.5 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, months after uproar over political interference” and directly asked for his own “kickback” for his role in assisting on the grant.

He wrote “Ahem … do I get a kickback???? Too much f*****g money! DO you deserve it all?”

Daszak replied “Of course there’s a kick-back. It starts with 5 more years of FOIA requests.”

The subcommittee noted “this action is not only highly concerning, but it is also likely illegal.”

Fauci’s Advisor Dr. David Morens Admits He is a Longtime Friend of Dr. Peter Daszak, Jokes About Kickbacks from Federal Grants pic.twitter.com/hIo2uUIvtw

— Not A Number (@myhiddenvalue) May 23, 2024

In a further email from Morens to Daszak, Fauci’s advisor expressed a desire that “nutters” stop looking into their shady activity and to “move on to another conspiracy.”

In another email about grants, Daszak literally said “this should go away if Rand Paul doesn’t amplify it too much.”

Oops, is this amplifying it too much? pic.twitter.com/OFPULpFiR1

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 22, 2024

Fauci is scheduled to testify before Congress on June 3.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The top United Nations court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has on Friday issued an emergency order for Israel to halt its military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive,” judges at the ICJ, or world court (which deals with disputes between countries, while the ICC prosecutes individuals) said, saying conditions had been met to issue a new emergency order.

Israel must further halt “any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” according to the ruling issued by the body’s president Nawaf Salam. He also called the situation ‘disastrous’ for the Palestinians.

Now weeks into the offensive, at least 800,000 people have fled Rafah, which prior to the assault had some 1.2 million to 1.5 million mostly displaced Gazans packed into its environs.

The request for such an emergency ICJ declaration originated last week when South Africa’s lawyers asked the Hague to intervene to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.

South Africa has also led the charge in bringing the International Criminal Court (ICC) case against Israel’s leaders, which has resulted in an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant.

As for the ICJ’s “order” – it is of course largely symbolic and the UN top court has no enforcement capability. But it serves to pile the pressure on Tel Aviv at a moment its international standing and reputation has taken a serious hit. The court invoked the ‘Genocide Convention’ in issuing its ruling.

An Israeli government spokesperson has responded to the ICJ’s action by stating that “no power on Earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza.”

And finance minister Bezalel Smotrich quickly said on X that “the State of Israel is at war for its existence.” He stated, “Those who demand that the State of Israel stop the war, demand that it decree itself to cease to exist. We will not agree to that.”

BREAKING: INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ) ORDER ISRAEL IMMEDIATELY STOP MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN RAFAH pic.twitter.com/KH4o5dVW7U

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) May 24, 2024

“We continue to fight for ourselves and for the entire free world. History will judge who today stood by the Nazis of Hamas and ISIS,” he added.

Israel has been seeking to claw back the growing international criticism. This week it released new shocking footage of several female IDF soldiers being abducted from a base near the Gaza border on Oct.7.

By Stefan Koopman, Senior Macro strategist at Rabobank

Things Can Only Get Better

Let’s go back to Wednesday afternoon. In a moment of political irony, UK Prime Minister Sunak stepped out of his office to announce an election, hoping for a reset after a series of failed attempts, only to be met with a downpour that seemed to mock his unshielded stance. As he spoke of trust and strategy, the rain drenched him, visually contradicting the message he tried to convey. The situation even turned tragicomical when music from a campaigner’s sound system interrupted him, playing “Things Can Only Get Better” and adding a soundtrack to the faltering speech.

The polls indicate a landslide victory for the Labour Party, with a possible 200-seat majority over the Conservatives. Some polls show a +25% lead, others a 15-20% lead. Either way, it would be enough for a decisive Labour victory. It could be that the early election announcement will provide the Conservatives a slight boost, potentially at the expense of the Reform Party, but in our view it remains unlikely to significantly alter the overall outcome.

Markets hardly moved – this week’s inflation data and PMIs had a much larger impact. Indeed, one could easily make the argument that everything has been ‘priced in’ at this stage. And when examining the long-term historical performance of GDP, inflation, unemployment, sterling, or UK equity indices under various Conservative and Labour governments, it is indeed hard to identify any statistically significant differences that point to a clear advantage or disadvantage for either party.

However, in the UK, things can only get better. A fresh start under Labour could boost consumer, business, and investor sentiment. The UK has clear prospects to effect change through policy. The potential is there: many of the UK’s strengths are inherent, such as its island location next to Europe, its cultural soft powers, its moderate climate, its reasonably large population, or its language as the lingua franca. And many of its challenges are a matter of choice, such as planning, infrastructure, housing, and of course Brexit. This indeed still represents a self-inflicted issue that continues to harm the economy. The fact that Wednesday’s inflation news (2.3%, still higher than expected) is being used as a campaign talking point is concerning in and of itself.

A decisive victory for Starmer’s Labour would indicate there is limited public appetite for sustained, entrenched polarization on all sorts of issues, including economic ones. In our view, a government that acknowledges this general fatigue with conflict will create better policies. Such a shift to boring-but-better would then be beneficial for UK assets, lowering its risk premium relative to jurisdictions where this isn’t taking place.

Now we’re at it, let’s dig a little deeper still. The post-Brexit economic and political landscape shows the UK experiencing “deconvergence,” where it is trailing and falling behind some of its peers in various ways. It has led to higher UK-specific risk premiums. The idea of solving deconvergence was a central theme in Shadow Chancellor Reeves’ Mais Lecture. In that lecture, she contended the UK is currently in a moment of flux, with general agreement that laissez-faire economic strategies have failed but a new consensus yet to be formed. It is exactly within this state of transition that the potential for substantial shifts in an economic framework exists.

Reeves advocated for comprehensive supply-side reforms, a package she calls Securonomics. We’ll have to wait for the election manifesto to see real policy proposals, but she envisions an economy bolstered by the government’s proactive involvement, steered by a three-pronged strategy encompassing stability, investment, and reform. She argues:

• Stability should entail establishing a consistent economic and regulatory climate conducive to investment and expansion, which includes managing inflation, complying with fiscal rules, and providing clear policy direction.
• Investment needs to be galvanized through increased public-private partnerships within the framework of a green industrial strategy, augmented by government-led infrastructure expenditures.
• Reforms should unleash the workforce’s potential by tackling inequality, enhancing education, and promoting skills development, while the overhaul of institutions, planning systems, and governance structures should facilitate progress.

Labour’s economic ideas are strongly influenced by economist Dani Rodrik’s concept of “productivism”. This stresses the spread of economic opportunities to all regions and segments of society, with an active role of the government in steering towards this goal. It diverges markedly from neoliberalism by de-emphasizing markets and prioritizing the creation of quality, productive employment. Such an economic model is also skeptical of large multinational corporations and of globalization.

The implication is that Labour will try to reshape the economy to support national priorities, even if it means imposing barriers to production, trade or finance that would otherwise be considered inefficient by global market standards. Protectionism could therefore be a feature of Labour’s economic policy, even as they don’t want to label it that way. It also requires a higher inflation tolerance, as it tries to effect change in an economy that is already supply-constrained.

This would lead to an acceleration in nominal GDP, through a combination of growth and inflation – of course you’d hope to see more of the former than the latter. That is a positive factor for sterling, but also one that keeps policy rates at a higher level for longer. That’s not to say we won’t see a couple of rate cuts in the upcoming quarters, but it may leave the UK at a higher terminal rate than it otherwise would have had. We now forecast 3% ourselves. However, as we’ve seen in the US with Bidenomics, if done for the ‘right’ reasons, this is not necessarily a negative for risk assets.

Finally, if things can only get better, does this also mean a reversal of Brexit? No. Sure, we will see an overture towards Europe, with the UK-hosted European Political Community Summit on 18 July already being flagged as a first step of a charm offensive. And it’s also reasonable to expect more EU-UK cooperation across a spectrum of areas, predominantly in matters that tend to fly under the radar. However, the prospect of the UK’s reintegration into European markets, or even more formal arrangements like rejoining the Single Market, would be entirely inconsistent with Securonomics. That neoliberal flagship has sailed.

Yahya Saree, the military spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, associated with the Iran-backed Houthis, announced a broad military operation targeting three vessels linked to either the US and/or Israel: one in the Red Sea, one in the Arabian Sea, and one in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Here’s the translated post on X from Yahya Sare:

“Statement by the Yemeni Armed Forces regarding the implementation of 3 qualitative operations on 3 ships in the Red and Arab Seas and the Mediterranean Sea, within the framework of the fourth phase of escalation in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. 11-16-1445 AH 05-24-2024 AD.” 

Details are scant at the moment, and Western MSM has yet to confirm these attacks. If it is confirmed, it might be seen as unprecedented and underscore broadening spillover risks. 

Some media outlets are beginning to report… 

Earlier this month, we penned a note titled “Houthis Warn Drone & Missile Attack Coverage Expanding To Mediterranean Sea.” We specified, at the time, how Yahya Saree warned about new targeting strategies for “any ship heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean.” 

Here’s what X users are saying:

Today the #IRGCterrorists-backed #Houthis spokesman today claimed that they targeted the ESSEX with several missiles in the Mediterranean Sea, but no incident from the area was reported this week. Perhaps some psychological warfare amid reports of U.S. concerns about Houthis…

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) May 24, 2024

Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted Essex ship in Mediterranean Sea.

— CGTN Africa (@cgtnafrica) May 24, 2024

#BREAKING | The third operation was carried out by the missile force, targeting the Israeli ship ESSEX with several missiles in the Mediterranean Sea: Saree

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) May 24, 2024

‼️In support of Gaza, the Yemeni Armed Forces announce they have targeted 3 Israeli-linked ships in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Mediterranean Sea.

• MSC Alexandria in the Arabian Sea
• YANNIS in the Red Sea
• ESSEX in the Mediterranean Sea

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) May 24, 2024

In a timely note to clients, Rapidan Energy Group said this on Thursday: 

“US comments that the Houthis can reach targets in the Mediterranean underscore the long-term challenges to commercial shipping in the region, but the Houthis can’t reliably target Mediterranean shipping in the near term. While the Houthis have drones and missiles that can target stationary, land-based sites on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, hitting moving targets would be challenging. One-off attacks are possible, as the Houthis may be able to set up mobile signal relays to allow an operator to successfully guide a long-range drone, but sanctions… “

*Developing… 

Nvidia in China mirrors Apple and Tesla, which have been locked in price wars with Chinese companies. The latest battle in the semiconductor space is between Chinese tech giant Huawei, which is challenging Nvidia’s technological monopoly on AI chips. This should be enough to understand why Washington elites passionately oppose Huawei. 

A few short days after Nvidia’s strong earnings report, a new report by Reuters revealed that the company’s China unit had been pressured by “abundant supply forcing it to be priced below a rival chip” produced by Huawei. 

Sliding AI chip prices in Nvidia’s China unit compound the challenges faced by US sanctions on AI chip exports. Rising competition from Huawei casts doubts on the company’s future in a market that contributes about 17% of its revenue.

This intensifying competition in China serves as a cautionary sign to investors following a strong earnings report on Wednesday. 

So much for those 77% margins

Nvidia cuts China prices in Huawei chip fighthttps://t.co/vptpEb8dYE

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 24, 2024

In response to US sanctions barring the export of most of its advanced semiconductors, Nvidia, which leads the AI chip market, introduced three chips specifically for China last year.

Sources told Reuters that Nvidia’s H20 for the Chinese market has experienced “weak demand,” adding that there is an “abundant supply of the chip in the market.” They said the H20 chips are being offered at 10% discount to Huawei’s powerful Ascend 910B. 

During Nvidia’s first-quarter earnings, senior executives warned that its China unit had “substantially” weakened due to US sanctions. 

“Our data center revenue in China is down significantly from the level prior to the imposition of the new export control restrictions in October,” CFO Colette Kress told investors, adding, “We expect the market in China to remain very competitive going forward.”

Another major margin squeeze for Nvidia is that sources recently noted Beijing has urged companies to purchase only Chinese chips.

“Nvidia is walking a fine line and working on a balancing act between maintaining the Chinese market and navigating US tensions,” said Hebe Chen, a market analyst at IG, adding, “Nvidia is definitely preparing for the worst in the long term.”

With more than a million H20 chips expected to be shipped to China in the second half of 2024, Dylan Patel, founder of the research group SemiAnalysis, explained that Nvidia must compete with Huawei on pricing or risk inventory builds. 

The AI price chip war, similar to the EV price war or smartphone price war between US and Chinese companies, will only intensify. All of this suggests a more challenging environment for Nvidia to hold high margins. 

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Such strange times.

We are living through the most destructive bout of inflation in 45 years, one that threatens to become worse and perhaps just as ruinous in the long run as the last one.

And yet daily and for years, we’ve been told it’s not so bad and that it’s nearly over anyway.

How can we reconcile these two realities? They cannot both be true.

An image of verified accuracy has been circulating all over social media lately: A list showing the price increases from the end of 2019 to now at major fast-food outlets. It fits with your own experience. It indicates that in four years, your fast-food prices have doubled, so that your dollar is now worth 50 cents or even 25 cents. That’s an astounding level of inflation by any standard.

The validity of this is easily verified, and it certainly fits with our experience. And not only with fast food. It’s true of all food out—and food at home, too. In my own estimation, trying my best to recall prices from late 2019, I, too, have a sense of inflation of 50 percent to 100 percent or more.

But there is a major problem.

The government says otherwise. Looking at official inflation data, what we see is something very different. It shows food-away-from-home prices going up by about 26 percent and prices in general up by 21 percent. Setting the index at 100 for January 2020, we end up with indexes of 126 and 121, respectively, today.

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

What does one do when official data depart so dramatically from lived experience? As Chico Marx said, who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? It seems to me that your own eyes are a better guide.

So what in the world is wrong with government statistics on inflation? It’s a huge combination of factors. In the most rudimentary form, the inflation calculation used by the government no longer consists of a basket of goods and services carried over from one period to the next. Starting in 1996 and following, economists started pushing “hedonic” adjustments to the index. What does this word mean? It is from the Greeks meaning pleasure.

The idea is that consumers are getting more pleasure from purchases, so the price needs adjustment based on that. In the most obvious case, your television today is vastly more functional than it was 30 years ago, so it makes no sense to only compare the prices between them. The new prices need to be weighted and adjusted for such quality changes.

In the end, however, this concession unleashed the statisticians to manipulate figures in ways that are beyond all plausibility. The term hedonic ended up meaning that inflation data should be adjusted at the pleasure of government statisticians. As a result, hardly anyone can keep up with all the razzmatazz that the Bureau of Labor Statistics pumps out. All we can really know is that it is all a big fakeroo.

But it really does matter for a range of issues. For example, economists like to look at real versus nominal statistics because real numbers make little sense in inflationary times. For example, if you are looking at retail sales, you need to know the inflation number. One hundred dollars spent on hamburgers four years ago means $200 today, but you cannot then say the retail sales numbers have doubled. In fact, the dollar is merely worth half, so retail sales are flat.

An accurate number is also important for adjusting tax tables and cost-of-living adjustments. Failing to capture inflation accurately amounts to a modernized version of coin clipping that benefits the government at the expense of the people.

The website ShadowStats.com offers alternatives. It calculates inflation in the way it was done in the 1980s. It comes up with astounding results that produce inflation numbers that are generally twice the official data. This strikes me as far more accurate. You can see an explanation of this on its website.

And yet even that doesn’t exhaust all the problems.

The consumer price index (CPI) does not include interest rate costs, thus excluding all servicing of debt, including mortgages and credit cards.

The CPI does not accurately render housing or rent thanks to a crazy complicated formula called owners’ equivalent rent. It is utterly bonkers on issues of health insurance premiums. It uses the trick of adjusting downward all that you spend based on how much you consume, which means that the CPI will register a deflation even if, with your own eyes, you can see your premiums rising and rising.

The CPI also cannot accurately track shrinkflation. The bureaucrats might pretend to do so, but there is no evidence that they do so or even have the capability of doing so on every product even if they wanted to. It also does not track the millions of hidden fees that people pay today on nearly every service or product you can imagine. It’s not possible to buy tickets anymore without paying some delivery or service fee. And airlines have become infamous for crazy charges imposed at the last instant before you are ready to go through security, and the prices seem arbitrary. Suddenly you are paying $75 merely for having a small overhead bag.

This is just the beginning of the problems with official inflation data. This is also why it is a far more reliable method just to look at the same product today and five years ago and compare. And yet not even that fully works either. The hamburgers at your favorite fast-food place are actually smaller and with less meat. You have surely noticed that your restaurant is short-changing you on the pricier ingredients and piling up on the cheaper stuff.

The result of all this creates an internal sense of bitterness. Here we are living through a disastrous period in which the American standard of living is plummeting dramatically. Everyone senses it. And yet at this exact time, we are surrounded by experts who confidently assure us that all is well and that the worst is over. They have been saying this for four years.

And Wall Street is nothing if not overjoyed by this. My goodness, traders are even expecting the Federal Reserve to cut rates in the coming months and are buying more stocks at high prices in anticipation. This is addictive behavior, bumping from one fix of easy money to another. If this happens, it risks kicking off another big wave of inflation in the coming few years.

It’s one thing to observe that the experts are lying. We know that. What is frustrating is knowing that and yet being denied the truth at the same time.

In the face of more than a week of rioting sparked by a controversial proposal to expand the voting rolls in the French territory of New Caledonia, French President Emmanuel Macron is waving a surrender flag. 

The deadly upheaval was sparked when France advanced legislation that would expand the privilege of voting in local elections to all citizens who’ve lived in New Caledonia for more than 10 years. The territory’s pro-independence factions see that move as a deliberate effort to weaken the power of the indigenous Kanaks. 

Unrest in New Caledonia continues as French President Emmanuel Macron visits the Pacific island amid rising tensions. Protesters continue to block several roads, while riot police and military vehicles patrol the streets of the capital, Nouméa.

At least six people have been… pic.twitter.com/n3UJpAOoA4

— red. (@redstreamnet) May 23, 2024

In its initial response to widespread rioting, looting, roadblocks and arson that targeted police and private businesses alike — and killed at least six people — France deployed troops, more than a thousand additional police officers and banned the social media platform TikTok. Australia and New Zealand sent aircraft to the territory to evacuate their citizens, while the international airport in the capital of Noumea remained closed to commercial traffic. 

This week, Macron traveled to the territory that’s about 900 miles east of Australia. After discussions with local political leaders, Macron committed to delaying — but not terminating — implementation of the voting reform. “I am committed to ensuring that this reform will not be implemented by force,” he said, telling reporters that he wanted the reform to be accompanied by broader agreement among constituencies about the future of the territory. 

New Caledonia has a population of some 271,000 people, with roughly one in four identifying as European. There’s a substantial independence movement among the native Kanaks, who reasonably see the expansion of the non-native electorate as something that would thwart their dreams of secession.

A 1998 accord provided some degree of autonomy to the multi-island territory, which has three representatives in the French legislature.The population has voted against independence in three referendums, the most recent of which was held in 2021. According to the Globe and Mail, both China and Russia have cultivated relations with New Caledonia’s independence movement. However, claims that the latest unrest is the fruit of “foreign interference” should be viewed with skepticism. 

Meanwhile, uncertainty continues to swirl around New Caledonia’s production of nickel — an important commodity for electric vehicle batteries, as well as stainless steel. The territory is home to the fifth-largest nickel reserve in the world. Most of the nickel mines have suspended operations, and world nickel prices surged to nine-month highs as the unrest unfolded, before retreating. 

Even before the political strife, New Caledonia’s nickel industry was already on the ropes. Its three processing facilities have been in dire financial straits, prompting negotiations for French bailouts.

Macron appears to have been highly motivated to steer the world’s attention away from a smoldering vestige of the once-mighty French empire — and shut down an uprising could attract global sympathy and support for New Caledonia’s indigenous population. 

Via AntoniusAquinas.com,

A recent AARP poll provides further evidence of the deterioration of American living standards, especially for those approaching retirement age.  The study contradicts what most policy makers have believed to be a “soft landing” for the economy after two years of rampant inflation.

“More than one quarter of U.S. adults over the age of 59,” the survey found, “say they expect to never retire.”  One in four have no retirement savings while one third of “older adults” have credit card debt of more than $10,000 and 12% hold a balance of $20,000 or more.” The Headline of an April 25 Washington Times article by Fatima Hussein says it all: “More Than 25% of U.S. Adults Over 50 Expect Never to Retire.”

Not surprisingly, the report conducted with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, points out that the lack of savings is due to the rising cost of living: “Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.”

While AARP zeroed in on rising prices as the culprit for the financial pinch that potential retirees are feeling, it did not delve into who or what was the catalyst for the increase in living costs.  Neither has the financial press, which has always been a cheerleader for the Uniparty, been diligent in its duty about the ultimate source for soaring prices. 

While the trend of Americans working well into their retirement years has been going on for years, the situation has accelerated under both the Trump and Biden presidencies.  In concert with the Federal Reserve, the fiscal policies of the two administrations have been the primary factor for why many Americans cannot retire. 

Even before the start of the hyped Covid pandemic, the Trump administration, in just one term, was on pace to become the biggest spender in U.S. history.  The astronomical increase in government spending and money printing which took place in response to Covid are now being felt.

The Fed’s balance sheet before the Covid lockdowns in January of 2020 stood at $4.15 trillion. By the end of Trump’s presidency, it had nearly doubled to $7.3 trillion as the government doled out “stimulus checks” to non-working Americans and transferred billions to business favorites and cronies in an unimaginable grab of power and wealth. 

Under Biden, the balance sheet had risen to a little short of $9 trillion in mid-2022 and has come down, now standing at $7.4 trillion, according to American Action Forum.

Expanding the balance sheet means that the Fed issues more dollars it takes and buys assets (mostly government bonds). This is actually debt monetization.  The increase in the money supply is the classic – and true – definition of inflation.  Rising prices are not inflation, but its consequence.   

At first, the new money went into financial assets increasing their nominal values. However, because of the “lag effect,” the inflation the Fed created is now pushing up consumer prices.  The Fed has had to do this because of profligate government spending which must be sustained through borrowing, since tax revenues are not enough to meet expenditures. 

When asked in his current re-election campaign on what he would do to solve the rising cost of living, Trump said that he would “drill baby drill.”  Such a statement demonstrates again that the former president, like the current occupant of the office, does not understand the problem.

Increasing domestic oil production is certainly good in itself, which will create jobs and bring more oil to the market. But it will not address general price inflation which is a monetary phenomenon. 

Rising prices can be reversed if the Fed increases interest rates, or better yet, lets rates be set by the market.  Higher rates will entice people to save, which will take money out of circulation, thus putting downward pressure on prices.

Just as important, the government needs to cut spending and eliminate departments and programs which will mean less money printing by the Fed.  The likelihood of this taking place in a presidential election year is next to zero.      

Even if the government and the Fed took the proper steps and began to put the nation on a sound financial footing, it will take years for the damage that has been done to be rectified.

Sadly, the Uniparty has no intention of doing the right thing and as economic conditions worsen, the number of people who must work until they drop will continue to rise.

Israeli media has reported that two American soldiers were injured Thursday in an accident which occurred while working on the Gaza humanitarian pier. 

“Two U.S. soldiers sustained light injuries on Thursday during a work accident near the temporary floating pier in Gaza,” i24 News said.

“The soldiers were promptly evacuated through Ashdod Port to an Israeli hospital for treatment,” the report indicated. Israeli Army Radio described that the US soldiers were “injured in the floating dock area off Gaza.”

The pier has seen the first aid trucks roll off in the last several days, but the whole operation has been off to a chaotic start. As of Tuesday there had not been any deliveries confirmed even though several trucks had departed with aid.

“Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Tuesday that the issues have arisen once the aid was loaded onto nongovernmental organization trucks, departed the marshaling area and headed toward distribution warehouses in Gaza,” Navy Times reported.

Some of the trucks had reportedly been taken over by desperate Palestinians before making it to their destination.

“Only five of the 16 aid trucks that left the secured area on Saturday arrived at the intended warehouse with their cargo intact, U.N. World Food Program spokesperson Steve Taravella told The Associated Press,” Navy Times continued. “He said the other 11 trucks were waylaid by what became a crowd of people and arrived without their cargo.”

Site security has remained a serious concern, despite Israel’s military (IDF) being in charge of protecting the land portion of the pier, with US warships off the coast.

Widely circulating social media images appear to confirm that the US military has deployed a C-RAM system (Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar) to safeguard the pier from aerial attacks such as drones or rockets.

Videos suggest it has already seen some action, possibly having taken out a drone flying nearby. Or else, it may have been a planned live-fire test to ensure its positioning and capabilities once installed. The C-RAM is relied upon to protect US forward operating bases elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as places like the US Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Below: Watch the newly installed C-RAM in action on Gaza’s coast…

U.S. Army C-RAM in action on the Gaza floating pier. pic.twitter.com/G9smwQnRxR

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 22, 2024

The Pentagon previously made it clear that if US troops come under fire, they are authorized to defend themselves and fire back. However, the IDF has also said it is providing security on land, and there are at least two Israeli bases established nearby.