Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”

– Montesquieu, Enlightenment philosopher

For those wondering what to expect from the government in 2023, it looks like we’re going to be in for more of the same in terms of the government’s brand of madness, mayhem, corruption and brutality.

Digital prisons. Unceasingly, the government and its corporate partners are pushing for a national digital ID system. Local police agencies have already been given access to facial recognition software and databases containing 20 billion images, the precursor to a digital ID. Eventually, a digital ID will be required to gain access to all aspects of life: government, work, travel, healthcare, financial services, shopping, etc. Before long, biometrics (iris scans, face print, voice, DNA, etc.), will become the de facto digital ID.

Precrime. Under the pretext of helping overwhelmed government agencies work more efficiently, AI predictive and surveillance technologies are being used to classify, segregate and flag the populace with little concern for privacy rights or due process. All of this sorting, sifting and calculating is being done swiftly, secretly and incessantly with the help of AI technology and a surveillance state that monitors your every move. AI predictive tools are being deployed in almost every area of life.

Mandatory quarantines. Building on precedents established during the COVID-19 pandemic, government agents may be empowered to indefinitely detain anyone they suspect of posing a medical risk to others without providing an explanation, subject them to medical tests without their consent, and carry out such detentions and quarantines without any kind of due process or judicial review.

Mental health assessments by non-medical personnel. As a result of a nationwide push to train a broad spectrum of so-called gatekeepers in mental health first-aid training, more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported by non-medical personnel and detained for having mental health issues.

Tracking chips for citizens. Momentum is building for corporations and the government alike to be able to track the populace, whether through the use of RFID chips embedded in a national ID card, microscopic chips embedded in one’s skin, or tags in retail products.

Military involvement domestically. The future, according to a Pentagon training video, will be militaristic, dystopian and far from friendly to freedom. Indeed, all signs point to the battlefield of the future being the American home front. Anticipating this, the government plans to have the military work in conjunction with local police to quell civil unrest domestically.

Government censorship of anything it classifies as disinformation. In the government’s ongoing assault on those who criticize the government—whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought—government and corporate censors claiming to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns are, in fact, laying the groundwork now to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

Threat assessments. The government has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state. Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score. It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.

War on cash. The government and its corporate partners are engaged in a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. This push for a digital currency dovetails with the government’s war on cash, which it has been subtly waging for some time now. In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal.

Expansive surveillance. AI surveillance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and widespread surveillance technology to do what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude. Everything that was once private is now up for grabs to the right buyer. With every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

Militarized police. Having transformed local law enforcement into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are moving into the next phase of the transformation, turning the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone extraction software, Stingray devices and so much more.

Police shootings of unarmed citizens. Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Police brutality and the use of excessive force continues unabated.

False flags and terrorist attacks. Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government. This has become the shadow government’s modus operandi regardless of which party is in power: the government creates a menace—knowing full well the ramifications such a danger might pose to the public—then without ever owning up to the part it played in unleashing that particular menace on an unsuspecting populace, it demands additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threat.

Endless wars to keep America’s military’s empire employed. The military and security industrial complexes that have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that will continue to profit the most from America’s expanding military empire abroad and here at home.

Erosions of private property. Private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

Overcriminalization. The government has increasingly adopted the authoritarian notion that it knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives. Overregulation and overcriminalization have been pushed to such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair.

Strip searches and the denigration of bodily integrity. Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Individuals—men and women alike—continue to be subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops.

Censorship. First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

Taxation Without Any Real Representation. As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. With Big Business and Big Government having fused into a corporate state, the president and his state counterparts—the governors—have become little more than CEOs of the Corporate State, which day by day is assuming more government control over our lives. Never before have average Americans had so little say in the workings of their government and even less access to their so-called representatives.

Year after year, the government remains the greatest threat to our freedoms, and yet year after year, “we the people” allow ourselves to be suckered into believing that politics will fix what’s wrong with the country.

Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the very definition of insanity.

Many observers expected that in the wake of America and NATO’s somewhat frantic and ugly (to put it mildly) pullout from Afghanistan and Kabul airport in August 2021, it was only a matter of time before China would move in, securing significant resource and infrastructure deals. All along there have even been persistent rumors China was eyeing takeover of the large former US base at Bagram. 

On Friday a major deal for oil extraction inked between a Chinese company and the Taliban government has been revealed, centered in northern Afghanistan’s Amu Darya basin.

CNN details that “The agreement with China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co is the first major international energy extraction deal the Taliban has signed since taking control of Afghanistan in 2021.”

It underscores that the Taliban increasingly sees Beijing as a desperately needed economic lifeline amid its global isolation, collapsed post-wartime economy, and facing continued Western-led sanctions and as tens of billions in foreign reserves remain under seizure. 

The contract signing included a rare press conference and photo-op involving the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar sitting alongside the Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yuon Thursday.

The Taliban’s Baradar suggested there’d be more deals for Afghanistan’s rare materials to come: 

“In terms of natural resources, Afghanistan is a wealthy nation. In addition to other minerals, oil is the wealth of the Afghan people on which the economy of the country can rely,” Baradar said.

A statement by Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co said that “The project directly provides job opportunities for 3,000 Afghans,” and previewed that the company plans to invest up to $150 million a year in the project, with an expected increase to $540 million in three years.

Approximate Location of Major Hydrocarbon Basins in Afghanistan, via Afghan govt data:

Internationally the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan is yet to be formally recognized by any country, though multiple nations still have embassies in Kabul, China and Russia among them. 

The Taliban has meanwhile come under near unanimous global condemnation for its recently banning all forms of women’s education – resulting in the shuttering of schools and the outlawing of females on college campuses. In many ways it has already returned brutal tactics it became notorious for in the 1990’s, including soccer stadium executions for violations of Islamic laws.

Authored by Star Parker via The Epoch Times,

Schools in the Rochester school district in Michigan include in their curriculum a course called “History of Ethnic and Gender Studies.”

If my child were attending school there, I would wonder why this is in the curriculum as part of K–12 education and what is taught.

One mother, Carol Beth Litkouhi, wondered enough that she went to the school and asked for details about what will be conveyed to her child in this program.

The response she got from the school amounted to “sorry, none of your business.”

Excuse me. A mother has no right to know what her child is being taught?

Litkouhi turned to the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which filed a lawsuit against the school district. A request was made under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to release to this mother details about the program. But this request also went nowhere.

Now the Oakland County Circuit Court has ruled supporting the school district’s claim that because teachers belong to a teachers union, they are not public employees subject to the FOIA.

Mackinac will appeal this absurd ruling.

But let’s forget the legalities for a moment and just consider the outrageous reality being perpetrated against America’s parents and children by public school bureaucracies and teachers unions.

Look at the website of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s second-largest teachers union. It is an unapologetic megaphone for America’s left.

According to Investopedia, “A labor union is an organization formed by workers … for the purpose of improving pay, benefits, and working conditions.”

But teachers unions are much more than this. They exist to further an uncompromised left-wing agenda, targeting our children.

AFT issued a press release after the November elections headlined “American Voters Reject Extremism in Win for Democracy and Freedom.”

Can it really be that an organization that claims to value democracy and freedom opposes parents knowing what their children are taught in school?

That same press release talks about women’s “right to reproductive health.”

The teachers union believes women have a right to abort their children but parents have no right to know what their children are taught in school.

Other AFT press releases include praise for newly passed federal legislation codifying protections for same-sex marriage and praise for President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness initiative.

What does this stuff have to do with “improving pay, benefits, and working conditions”?

The PAC political contributions of the AFT were 16th-highest in spending in the nation in the 2021–2022 cycle, making $2,150,500 in campaign contributions to candidates.

Percentage of contributions to Democrats? 100 percent. Percentage of contributions to Republicans? 0 percent.

Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal reported, “AFT shaped the guidelines used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the full reopening of schools.”

The dividends for this show up now in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP)—the “nation’s report card.” Results show the largest declines in math scores for grades four and eight since NAEP started testing in 1990 and also declines in reading scores.

Michigan, where the circuit court just ruled in favor of unions over parents, has among the biggest declines in scores in the country.

WalletHub ranks state school systems nationwide using rankings based on “quality” and “safety.”

Michigan stands 38th in the nation.

I hope that the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation succeeds in its appeal of the circuit court decision regarding application of Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act.

But this still is not the answer.

Education should be freed from the diabolical control of bureaucrats and unions. We need a free market in education, with power given to parents to choose where to send their children to school.

All businesses put their customers first. In a free, competitive school system, the customers—parents and their children—would come first.

Scientific discoveries and technological innovation play a vital role in addressing many of the challenges and crises that we face every year.

The last year may have come and gone quickly, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Mark Belan and Nick Routley details below, scientists and researchers have worked painstakingly hard to advance our knowledge within a number of disciplines, industries, and projects around the world.

Over the course of 2022, it’s easy to lose track of all the amazing stories in science and technology.

At a Glance: Major Scientific Headlines of 2022

Below we dive a little deeper into some of the most interesting headlines, while providing links in case you want to explore these developments further.

January 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope Arrives at its Destination

What happened: A new space telescope brings promise of exciting findings and beautiful images from the final frontier. This telescope builds on the legacy of its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched over 30 years ago.

Why it matters: The James Webb Space Telescope is our latest state-of-the-art “window” into deep space. With more access to the infrared spectrum, new images, measurements, and observations of outer space will become available.

» To learn more, read this article from The Planetary Society, or watch this video from the Wall Street Journal.

April 2022

Complete: The Human Genome

What happened: Scientists finish sequencing the human genome.

Why it matters: A complete human genome allows researchers to better understand the genetic basis of human traits and diseases. New therapies and treatments are likely to arise from this development.

» To learn more, watch this video by Two Minute Papers, or read this article from NIH

May 2022

Monkeypox Breaks Out

What happened: A higher volume of cases of the monkeypox virus was reported in non-endemic countries.

Why it matters: Trailing in the shadow of a global pandemic, researchers are keeping a closer eye on how diseases spread. The sudden spike of multinational incidences of monkeypox raises questions about disease evolution and prevention.

» To learn more, read this article by the New York Times.

June 2022

A Perfectly Preserved Woolly Mammoth

What happened: Gold miners unearth a 35,000 year old, well-preserved baby woolly mammoth in the Yukon tundra.

Why it matters: The mammoth, named Nun cho ga by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, is the most complete specimen discovered in North America to date. Each new discovery allows paleontologists to broaden our knowledge of biodiversity and how life changes over time.

» To learn more, read this article from Smithsonian Magazine

July 2022

The Rise of AI Art

What happened: Access to new computer programs, such as DALL-E and Midjourney, give members of the general public the ability to create images from text-prompts.

Why it matters: Widespread access to generative AI tools fuels inspiration—and controversy. Concern for artist rights and copyright violations grow as these programs potentially threaten to diminish creative labor.

» To learn more, read this article by MyModernMet, or watch this video by Cleo Abram.

August 2022

Dead Organs Get a Second Chance

What happened: Researchers create a perfusion system that can revitalize organs after cellular death. Using a special mixture of blood and nutrients, organs of a dead pig can be sustained after death—and in some cases, even promote cellular repair.

Why it matters: This discovery could potentially lead to a greater shelf-life and supply of organs for transplant.

» To learn more, read this article by Scientific American, or this article from the New York Times

September 2022

DART Delivers A Cosmic Nudge

What happened: NASA crashes a spacecraft into an asteroid just to see how much it would move. Dimorphos, a moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth, is struck by the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft. NASA estimates that as much as 22 million pounds (10 million kg) was ejected after the impact.

Why it matters: Earth is constantly at risk of being struck by stray asteroids. Developing reliable methods of deflecting near-Earth objects could save us from meeting the same fate as the dinosaurs.

» To learn more, watch this video by Real Engineering, or read this article from Space.com

November 2022

Falling Sperm Counts

What happened: A scientific review suggests human sperm counts are decreasing—up to 62% over the past 50 years.

Why it matters: A lower sperm count makes it more difficult to conceive naturally. Concerns about global declining male health also arise because sperm count is a marker for overall health. Researchers look to extraneous stressors that may be affecting this trend, such as diet, environment, or other means.

» To learn more, check out this article from the Guardian.

December 2022

Finding Ancient DNA

What happened: Two million-year-old DNA is found in Greenland.

Why it matters: DNA is a record of biodiversity. Apart from showing that a desolate Arctic landscape was once teeming with life, ancient DNA gives hints about our advancement to modern life and how biodiversity evolves over time.

» To learn more, read this article from National Geographic

December 2022

Fusing Energy

What happened: The U.S. Department of Energy reports achieving net energy gain for the first time in the development of nuclear fusion.

Why it matters: Fusion is often seen as the Holy Grail of safe clean energy, and this latest milestone brings researchers one step closer to harnessing nuclear fusion to power the world.

» To learn more, view our infographic on fusion, or read this article from BBC

Science in the New Year

The future of scientific research looks bright. Researchers and scientists are continuing to push the boundaries of what we know and understand about the world around us.

For 2023, some disciplines are likely to continue to dominate headlines:

• Advancement in space continues with projects like the James Webb Space Telescope and SETI COSMIC’s hunt for life beyond Earth
• Climate action may become more demanding as recovery and prevention from extreme weather events continue into the new year
• Generative AI tools such as DALL-e and ChatGPT were opened to public use in 2022, and ignited widespread interest in the potential of artificial intelligence
• Even amidst the lingering shadow of COVID-19, new therapeutics should advance medicine into new territories

Where science is going remains to be seen, but this past year instills faith that 2023 will be filled with even more progress.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Colleges and universities have been implementing controversial new diversity reforms, including dropping standardized test scores, that eliminate objective criteria in academic admissions or advancement.

Now, HR&A Advisors, the TriBeCa-based real estate consultancy, has drawn attention to its LinkedIn posting asking applicants to remove “all undergraduate and graduate school name references” from their résumés. In order to achieve diversity goals, the company wants applicants to only list the degree and not where it came from. It is equity through obscurity. It is as irrational to eliminate any consideration of an academic institution as it is to rely exclusively on the academic institution.

The company insists that it is adopting this new policy as part of “ongoing work to build a hiring system that is free from bias and based on candidate merit and performance.” However, the identification of these institutions does reflect “merit and performance.”

There can be vast differences in the academic rigor of academic institutions. To only go by the degrees is manifestly illogical. It is akin to saying that you competed on a baseball team but not reference the specific team or league to gauge the level of performance. You could have played for the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp or the New York Yankees.

I certainly agree that schools can perpetuate an elitist culture through such rankings. Moreover, many students cannot afford to go top universities or were faced with economic or social barriers in their elementary, middle, or high school educations.

Additionally, there can be too much importance placed on school affiliation. Despite my personal and intellectual regard for him, I was highly critical of the late Justice Antonin Scalia when he told American University law students that they should not envision Supreme Court clerkships. I have also been a long-standing critic of the hold of Harvard and Yale on the makeup of the Court.

However, the problem of blind elitism is getting better overall. There is not a huge divide between the top ten and the many of the college and universities in this country. Moreover, many top schools have been criticized for standards that devalue or undermine academic excellence.

Nevertheless, there remain significant differences in the quality of education between many schools. That is particularly the case on the graduate level. It is also true that some schools excel in particular areas. For example, with a son about to go to medical school, I have learned that the top medical schools do not track the conventional rankings when it comes to many specialties. In weighing the selection of a doctor in primary care, you would necessarily consider the applicant’s medical school to appraise their training.

Likewise, the ranking of top social working schools have universities like the University of Chicago but also schools that are not ordinarily competitors like Case Western, Brandeis, and Pittsburgh. Students in these areas work extremely hard to gain admission and to train at these top schools. These schools invest heavily in these areas to stay competitive with top faculty and ample resources.

HR&A Advisors obviously is free to adopt any evaluation system that it sees fit for new applicants. Yet, removing the name of the academic institution for applicants denies many applicants a measure of their prior work and achievement. It also denies the employer relevant data or information on the background of an applicant.

All of these applicants achieved the distinction of securing undergraduate or graduate degrees. However, it is willful blindness to suggest that all degrees are the same or that there is no difference in particular degrees between institutions. Many students make considerable financial and familial sacrifice to go to a more rigorous university or a university with a top program. That effort should not be simply discarded by employers.

Finally, the approach of HR&A Advisors appears virtue signaling without real substance on a practical level. If students submit their transcripts or faculty references, the identity of their schools will be obvious. Moreover, in interviews, it will be hard for applicants to discuss their academic training while redacting any reference or hint at the academic institution. For example, if a student studied under a well-known figure in real estate or business studies, is she supposed to avoid mentioning the professor’s name to conceal her educational institution?

It would seem to be more logical to have training or guidelines to address threshold bias. The school affiliation alone should not be a determinative factor in decisions. It can be weighed with a variety of other factors in a holistic consideration of the candidate’s record. Identification of the potential bias can go a long way to reducing its impact on hiring decisions.

The alternative is to treat educational institutions as the equivalent of bleach, products that are largely identical on a chemical level. Is the difference between academic institutions merely the bottle and the label? Even as a critic of the current orthodoxy controlling higher education, I do not believe that all universities are fungible. The solution to bias is not blindness but balance.

Japan’s trade and industry minister said on Thursday that a ‘new world order’ is needed to counter the rise of authoritarian regimes which have thrived in post-Cold War free trade and economic interdependence.

“Authoritarian countries have amassed tremendous power, both economically and militarily,” said Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, adding “We must rebuild a world order based on the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Will citizens be allowed to speak freely over the internet in this “new world order?” Or oppose radical ideologies in schools? Or question the results of an election? Or will it just be another form of authoritarianism with a PR campaign? We digress.

Nishimura spoke ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for talks expected to cover issues including Ukraine, North Korea and China’s tensions with Taiwan. That summit will be preceded by talks between defense and foreign ministers of the two countries.

Kishida said this week he would discuss Tokyo’s new security policy after Washington’s key ally in countering China’s growing might in Asia last month unveiled its biggest military build-up since World War Two. –Reuters

“We might need to make preparations to identify the choke points of countries wanting to engage in coercion and then take countermeasures if necessary,” said Nishimura, who warned that democracies need to protect their industrial power and guard against technology theft – particularly those which could be used for military applications.

He also encouraged US-Japan cooperation beyond semiconductors, biotech, AI and quantum science, and promised to work more closely with Washington on export controls.

“It is … absolutely imperative for us to reinforce our cooperation in the area of export controls,” he added. “We will implement strict export controls grounded in international cooperation while engaging closely in the exchange of views with the United States and other relevant countries.”

Prior to his speech, Nishimura met with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The pair was joined by executives from IBM and Japan’s Rapidus Corp, to discuss their collaboration on semiconductor R&D.

Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

• Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar: the de-dollarization of the global oil industry is in full swing–even if we can’t see the final end game from here.

• Some 40% of proven oil reserves belonging to OPEC+ members is owned by Russia, Iran and Venezuela–all of whom are selling to China at major discounts.

• Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to ramp up efforts to promote the use of the yuan in energy deals.

The de-dollarization of the global oil industry is in a treacherous mission creep phase. Things like this don’t happen quickly, but determinedly and gradually, not exactly fitting into today’s media headline game that only considers instant developments. But it is happening and the tide will not be turned based on current and near and medium-term geopolitical developments.  Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar recently warned clients, in essence, that the de-dollarization of the global oil industry is in full swing–even if we can’t see the final end game from here. 

And it’s all about China, of course. Pozsar does the OPEC math for us. 

Some 40% of proven oil reserves belonging to OPEC+ members is owned by Russia, Iran and Venezuela–all of whom are selling to China at major discounts, and all of whom are on board with Beijing’s petro-yuan plan. 

The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)–most notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE–account for another 40% of proven oil reserves, and they are increasingly cozying up to China. 

The remaining 20% is also accessible to China, and China is already the largest importer of crude in the world. 

What it all means is that de-dollarization is marching to the beat of a fairly steady drum. In terms of global trade, the yuan accounts for around 2.7% of settlements, while the dollar accounts for 41%. These are the numbers that prompt the new trend of instant gratification to suggest this is not an imminent threat to the dollar. They are wrong. The biggest threats take a significant amount of time to develop. From here on out, the pace will pick up momentum. 

China and the GCC

As Oilprice.com reported earlier in December, Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to ramp up efforts to promote the use of the yuan in energy deals, suggesting at a summit in the Saudi capital that the GCC countries should make full use of the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange to carry out its trade settlements in yuan. 

The year we just exited should be considered the year in which the petro-yuan really took hold, as China forges a path of increasingly oil and gas purchases from places that are petro-yuan friendly. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Western sanctions response has only acted as a further catalyst. 

In a note to clients carried by the Irish Times, Pozsar warns: “China wants to rewrite the rules of the global energy market”, and it will do it by first removing the dollar from the orbit of the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) that have been affected by the “weaponization” of dollar foreign exchange reserves meant to punish Russia and keep Putin from filling his wartime coffers. 

What’s happened here is a window of enormous opportunity for Beijing, which has now told the Gulf countries that they are absolutely guaranteed buyers for oil and gas, for payment in yuan, with Xi promising to “import crude oil [and natural gas] in a consistent manner and in large quantities from the GCC”.

Xi’s trip to Saudi Arabia in early December was precisely about the yuan. This was the defining moment for the petro-yuan. It was an invitation, and it was well-received. China and Saudi Arabia signed over $30 billion in trade deals during the visit. That’s $30 billion in leverage that will only help further promote the petro-yuan plan. 

More than 25% of China’s crude imports come from Saudi Arabia, and it seems inevitable that the GCC will gradually adopt the petro-yuan, even if there will be a lot of roadblocks along the way due to their exposure to Western financing. 

What Western minds are banking on–quite literally–is the fact that China alone has $1T in U.S. Treasury bonds. And as for the Saudis, they are truly tied to the Western financial system and the petrodollar. De-pegging the riyal from the dollar, though it has been discussed very quietly (only from a purely research perspective), would be a rather dramatic shock for the Kingdom–one the Crown Prince won’t likely be willing to risk for a very long time. But he will actively discuss oil deals with China in yuan. 

The Chinese goal is much more patient than any Western mind can fathom. It’s about slowly chipping away at the dollar’s throne in oil and commodities markets, and as the reserve currency of choice. That is what Brics and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is all about. 

And with every geopolitical upset on the level of Russia-Ukraine, and with every tightening of the sanctions screws by the West, Beijing gets a little further with its petro-yuan goals. 

There won’t be any announcement. There won’t be any loud noise. It will happen gradually. It will happen very slowly. And the West will struggle to find its footing when a new global energy order emerges in the longer-term future. 

Ex-Trump advisor and well-known foreign policy ultra-hawk John Bolton is teasing the possibility that he’ll run for the White House in 2024.

He said in a “Good Morning Britain” interview which aired Friday that “I wouldn’t run as a vanity candidate. If I didn’t think I could run seriously then I wouldn’t get in the race.” And then he said, “I would get in to win the nomination and I would do it primarily on the basis that we need a much stronger foreign policy.”

🚨BREAKING: John Bolton is running for President in 2024

Surely this changes everything 😂
pic.twitter.com/PYMOK0ipPC

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 6, 2023

Given this is Bolton – the man who has has never encountered a US war he didn’t wholeheartedly support (or himself was a key architect of, as in the case of Iraq)… a “much stronger foreign policy” appears simply code for more war.

Bolton touted in the interview that he thinks he can beat his old boss former President Trump in securing the Republican nomination due to Trump suffering a “terminal decline” in the numbers of people supporting him.

“I think Trump’s support within the party itself is in terminal decline,” Bolton said. “I wouldn’t run as a vanity candidate. If I didn’t think I could run seriously, then I wouldn’t get in the race.”

Last month, the former national security adviser also told NBC that if Republican candidates don’t strongly denounce Trump and distance themselves from his influence, then…

“If I don’t see that, I’m going to seriously consider getting in,” Bolton said at the time, later adding: “I think to be a presidential candidate you can’t just say, ‘I support the Constitution.’ You have to say, ‘I would oppose people who would undercut it.’“

In the wake of the British TV interview, The Washington Times reported, “The British network took his comments as confirmation Mr. Bolton would launch a bid, though his team said that is inaccurate.”

A handful of media outlets are still running headlines which sound as if Bolton confirmed that he’ll run in 2024, but there’s yet to be a definitive statement from him, other than he’s still mulling the idea.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new California gun law allowing private citizens to sue manufacturers and retailers for selling banned firearms went into effect this year.

California’s new regulations give private citizens the ability to sue anyone who imports, distributes, manufactures, or sells assault firearms, homemade weapons, ghost guns, or .50 BMP rifles.

The law, Senate Bill (SB) 1327, also restricts the sale of firearms to anyone under 21 years old.

These restrictions are already enforced by California; however, this new law allows citizens to sue violators for at least $10,000.

This is modeled after the Texas Heartbeat Act which allows private citizens to sue anyone involved in providing abortions after a doctor has detected a fetal heartbeat. In that law, citizens can file lawsuits against doctors, clinics, or anyone involved in the abortion.

“California explicitly passed this bill, SB 1327, as sort of a response to Texas’s policy decision,” Attorney Jim Manley, with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, told The Epoch Times. “This is sort of a weird way of restricting certain rights by not involving the state in the process.”

The law creates another layer of restrictions for firearms dealers by doubling down on existing California gun bans.

However, firearms deals are not able to challenge SB 1327 because the state has been removed from imposing the restrictions, and instead, individual citizens would be enforcing them, Manley said.

“Assault weapons, .50 BMGs, and firearms being sold to people under 21 were already illegal in California,” Manley said. “And the [law] is explicit in saying this does not change that. This just creates another avenue to enforce those restrictions.”

When California lawmakers first wrote SB 1327, the state did not have restrictions on homemade firearms or ghost guns. But within a month of passing the bill, the state included them.

It’s rare for a state to institute “double enforcement”—with private cause of action laws and criminal penalties—for the same restrictions, Manley said.

The additional layer of restrictions means that even if a judge overturned the state’s criminal restrictions on gun laws, private citizens would still be able to enforce them.

“It’s kind of a weird, convoluted situation,” Manley said.

The new law was first passed by legislators who included a “fee-shifting” provision allowing the state to collect attorney’s fees from anyone who sued over the law. But a federal judge in San Diego blocked this provision in December.

The Gun Owners of California organization was against the legislation, saying the law would create “a legal mess and is designed to bankrupt gun businesses.”

“The judge found [the law] was unconstitutional and he called it tyrannical,” Gun Owners of California Executive Director Sam Paredes told The Epoch Times.

The group doesn’t anticipate the law to be enforced until the legal resolution is completed.

“We’re waiting to see what the state’s going to do,” Paredes said.

The Texas abortion rights law was passed before the Supreme Court issued the historic June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that legalized abortion in the United States.

The ruling essentially made Texas’s law moot, said Manley, of the Pacific Legal Foundation.

The California law would be automatically repealed if the Texas abortion rights law is totally invalidated by the United States or Texas supreme courts.

All-electrical vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft will transform urban transportation. We have shared with readers all sorts of flying taxi concepts, with some of them in the testing phase. There are more than 100 companies worldwide working on eVTOLs for urban air mobility, but before any of them begin commercialization, primarily in the US, NASA researchers want to analyze crash test performance data of eVTOLs to determine the safety of passengers. 

NASA researchers at the Landing and Impact Research facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, dropped a full-size eVTOL from about 30 feet, simulating an emergency landing. 

“The test was a great success for the crash-worthiness team at Langley.

“We successfully tested the eVTOL vehicle concept representing a six-passenger, high wing, overhead mass, multiple rotor vehicle, obtaining more than 200 channels of data, and collecting over 20 onboard and off-board camera views,” Justin Littell, research assistant for Langley’s Structural Dynamics Branch, said in a statement. 

A video released by NASA shows the eVTOL being hoisted into the air and then released by a swing to simulate a very hard landing. 

“While we are still going through the data and video, and these results are preliminary, we see that there are two main events that occurred during this test,” said Littell. They include:

The first event was the floor crushing and seat stroking. The subfloor and energy-absorbing seats functioned as intended and limited the effect of the impact on the crash test dummies.

The second was the collapse of the overhead structure. The effect of the overhead structure collapse on the crash test dummies is still being determined. 

Researchers are still determining the crash effects on the cabin structure and the test dummies. 

“When looking at crash conditions for these types of vehicles, it’s important to note the structural weight and distribution that must be made when examining a specific design,” said Littell.

Joby Aviation, a US-based eVTOL manufacturer, has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration on a certification process for its S4 air taxi. The certification ensures aircraft can meet the FAA’s safety standards. 

NASA said a second full-scale crash test is planned for the second half of this year. Low-altitude transport that is ‘zero-emission’ will be coming to major cities before the end of this decade — perhaps even before the midpoint of this decade — as Joby wants to launch aviation services in 2024.