The Arizona grand jury that recently indicted 18 people for allegedly trying to help former President Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election with so-called ‘fake electors’ went completely rogue and took ‘aggressive steps to haul in witnesses,’ to the point where they ‘even brought charges against some’ who were told by prosecutors that they weren’t under investigation, Politico reports.

Their efforts ultimately resulted in a 58-page indictment which has ensnared various national and state Republicans – including one of Trump’s current top advisers, and several individuals who were previously in his orbit – with felony charges. Trump himself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO reveal that at least two of the 18 people charged — former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb — were assured by prosecutors that they were not targets of the probe, only to learn that the grand jury indicted them anyway. In fact, a letter that a prosecutor sent to Ellis just days before the indictment appeared to significantly understate her legal jeopardy.

One witness who testified before the grand jury said a faction of the panel drove intense questioning that exceeded the limited scope that prosecutors had publicly acknowledged. The probe was led by the office of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. -Politico

Mayes, a Democrat who replaced a Republican in January 2023, has been accused of politically motivated lawfare – however Politico‘s sources say that the grand jury was ‘surprisingly independent’ of her prosecutors – and ‘sometimes even hard for them to predict.’

“The State Grand Jury was given leeway to conduct an independent investigation, as it is entitled to do by law,” said Mayes’ spox, Richie Taylor. “I cannot confirm or deny the specifics of grand jury proceedings, and I will note that the investigation remains open and ongoing. I will have to decline to comment further.”

Grand juries are empowered to conduct their own lines of questioning in order to reach conclusions which may not necessarily align with the wishes of prosecutors – though they typically defer.

That said, in high-profile cases, they’ve been known to take on more independence.

“Every high-profile case that I’ve ever had, which is cases that have necessarily attendant publicity, or a public corruption case, or anything else, grand jurors become interested,” according to former Arizona prosecutor, Paul Charlton.

Ultimately, the Arizona grand jury investigating the 2020 election indicted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and close Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn. It also indicted the 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely claimed to be the state’s rightful presidential electors.

Arizona is the fourth state — after Georgia, Michigan and Nevada — to bring criminal charges stemming from the efforts of Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 results in states that Biden won. At the federal level, special counsel Jack Smith has also charged Trump himself for the scheme. -Politico

“Not a target” (just kidding!)

Several months after former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty in Georgia to helping Trump overturn the 2020 election, Mayes’ prosecutors had questions – and asked her to appear for a so-called “free talk” interview.

“Ms. Ellis is not a target of the State’s investigation,” a prosecutor in Mayes’ office wrote to Ellis’ attorney on Feb. 20, outlining terms for the interview.

On April 19, the same prosecutor followed up with another letter along the same lines – reiterating that Ellis was not a target.

The interview never happened, and Ellis was indicted anyway by the grand jury.

According to Phoenix criminal attorney Omer Gurion, this is unheard of.

“I have never seen anything like that in any Arizona criminal case that I can think of,” he said. “Not one,” adding that for a person to go from a “free talk” interview offer to indicted in just four days is “pretty unusual.”

Former prosecutor Renato Mariotti agrees, telling Politico: “It’s bad form, and something I would never do as a prosecutor,” adding “That said, I’ve practiced criminal law across this country and gone up against prosecutors of all stripes, and I’ve learned there are many prosecutors who do things I would not do.”

“A Level Of Aggression That Caught Me Off Guard”

One of the witnesses interviewed by the grand jury told Politico that there was a serious difference between the tone set by prosecutors, and the grand jury. The witness, who received immunity, was told to expect around an hour of questioning over the boilerplate details of the probe.

Instead, he got a three-hour grilling that was ‘sometimes pointed and accusatory.’

It was “a level of aggression that caught me off guard,” said the witness -adding that one juror “seemed to be the leader of the ‘indict them all crowd’ and asked ‘pointed but specific questions.’”

Another juror, who made no effort to hide his political bias, asked “more high-level questions” such as “How could you even talk to these people? What were you thinking?”

Other jurors took a softer tone.

Another smaller faction of grand jurors consistently reframed the questions of the more aggressive jurors and seemed to be more skeptical of the angle they were taking, the witness recalled, noting that this group was visibly “rolling their eyes, heavy sighing, shifting uncomfortably.”

One grand juror also wanted to know what the witness could possibly have been thinking in the weeks after Trump’s defeat. The witness wasn’t a target but left the room surprised by the tenor of the grand jury’s questions and feeling like a “punching bag.”

And after the grilling was over, the witness said, a prosecutor offered a sheepish apology for its unexpected intensity. -Politico

According to the report, witnesses who plead the 5th are generally excused from appearing, but in this case, grand jurors insisted they appear in person to do so.

Authored by Mary West via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A study from the UK published in Nature Mental Health (NMH) on April 1, found that a healthy, balanced diet links to superior cognitive function, mental well-being, and brain health. It even increases gray matter, an effect associated with higher intelligence. The findings provide more evidence that the adage, “You are what you eat,” applies to both the mind and the body.

The results were so robust that lead author Jianfeng Feng, a professor at the University of Warwick, emphasized the importance of adopting an optimal diet in childhood.

“Developing a healthy balanced diet from an early age is crucial for healthy growth,” he said in a press release. “To foster the development of a healthy balanced diet, both families and schools should offer a diverse range of nutritious meals and cultivate an environment that supports their physical and mental health.”

Diet Links to Striking Effects on Brain Health

While prior research indicates certain dietary patterns are associated with mental and cognitive effects, gaps and inconsistencies are present. To narrow the gaps, the NMH study used data on 181,990 individuals from the UK Biobank to identify dietary patterns and how they link to brain structure, blood biomarkers, genetic changes, mental health, and cognitive function.

Analysis of food preferences and consumption revealed that people fall into one of four main dietary patterns:

• Subtype 1—a higher preference for vegetables, fruits, and proteins and a lower preference for starches
• Subtype 2—resembles a vegetarian diet, with a higher preference for vegetables and fruit and a lower preference for proteins
• Subtype 3—an unhealthy diet low in fiber, with a higher preference for proteins and snacks and a lower preference for vegetables and fruits
• Subtype 4—a healthy diet, consisting of balanced preferences among all food groups

A primary discovery was that food preferences affect the adaptability of the brain, which can lead to structural changes that influence mental and cognitive health. Secondly, a directional link exists between mental and cognitive health—meaning mental health plays a role in cognition.

Further Findings

Vegetarian Diet Links to Increased Mental Conditions

Subtype 2, the vegetarian diet, linked to a higher incidence of mental health symptoms, including anxiety, depression, self-harm, and psychosis. People in this group had more gene variants in mental health, which suggests the possibility that genetic susceptibility may underlie increased mental health conditions.

Unhealthy Diet Links to Inflammation and Mental Disorders

Subtype 3, the unhealthy diet, high in protein but low in fiber, had lower well-being scores than other subtypes. Individuals in this group had a higher likelihood of anxiety, depression, and stroke than those in the healthy, balanced subtype 4 diet. These results are consistent with earlier research that associates dietary quality with well-being.

The authors theorized that this link may stem from the effects of high-fat foods, which increase the release of inflammatory factors and cause gut bacteria to permeate through intestinal walls. Blood and biomarker evidence supported this theory, as subtype 3 had higher levels of substances indicating inflammation than subtype 4. These findings are in line with earlier studies, such as a 2020 review, that associate an unbalanced diet with a higher likelihood of mental disorders.

Diet Affects Brain Structure

One difference in structure involved gray matter volume (GMV). Gray matter is the part of the brain that processes information, versus white matter, the part of the brain that permits communication between gray matter regions.

The unhealthy subtype 3 diet had significantly lower GMV in 11 brain regions, compared with the balanced subtype 4 diet. This concurs with earlier studies, such as a 2017 study, that link a diet plentiful in antioxidants, vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids to higher GMV. It is also consistent with research associating diets high in protein, trans-fat, and saturated fat to lower GMV.

Diet also affects white matter, with subtype 3 showing poorer integrity in this structure than subtype 4. This was noted in an array of brain regions involved in memory, cognition, motivation, emotions, and sensory and motor symptoms. It also corroborates prior studies, such as a 2016 study, that indicate healthy dietary components are associated with increased white matter integrity.

Diet Affects Cholesterol and Fat Biomarkers

Biomarkers appeared to be sensitive reflectors of diet quality. The balanced subtype 4 diet had higher levels of HDL, “good” cholesterol, than the unhealthy subtype 3 diet. The vegetarian subtype 2 diet and subtype 3 diet had significantly lower levels of important healthful fatty acids, such as omega-3s, which may stem from a lack of fish in the diet.

Genes May Influence Brain Health

The authors identified an array of genes with elevated expression in multiple brain regions. Many of these regions also showed changes in GMV, a finding that supports the theory that genes have a critical influence on brain structure and may affect how dietary patterns impact brain health.

What Foods Are Brain Friends?

The authors of the NMH study suggested that a healthy diet consists of balanced amounts of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, moderate dairy, eggs, fish, and legumes. This diet resembles the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in these foods and low in red meat. It is worth noting that research indicates the Mediterranean diet has multiple health benefits, including those unrelated to brain health.

Below are discoveries from prior research on the mental and cognitive health benefits of each brain friend food group.

Fruits and Vegetables

A 2020 review found that the most robust research findings on this food group indicated high fruit and vegetable intake and certain subgroups—including citrus, berries, and green leafy vegetables—offer several advantages. These foods may foster higher levels of self-efficacy and optimism, as well as decrease psychological distress and protect against depression. Experts recommend getting five servings per day.

In an email to The Epoch Times, Kimberly Pierpont, a registered dietitian nutritionist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, pointed out some nutritional highlights.

“The brain is susceptible to oxidative stress,” she said. “Fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants that protect the brain by capturing free radicals and preventing oxidative damage. This can reduce age-related memory loss and decrease the risk of neurological disorders.”

Whole Grains

A 2023 review associated whole grains with enhanced mood and a lower incidence of anxiety and depression. It also linked them to higher GMV.

Examples of whole grains are brown rice and breads and pastas labeled “100 percent whole grain” or “100 percent whole wheat.” Refined grains, such as white rice and white bread, do not fit into a healthy category, as they lack fiber and contain only a small fraction of the nutrients in whole grains.

Ms. Pierpont explained that bran, the outer layer of the whole grain, contains folate. Folate continues to benefit the mind throughout the lifespan, as it maintains cognitive function and repairs DNA, which is important because most neurons in the brain are not replaceable.

Nuts

An additional 2020 review found that nut intake produced a more noticeable cognitive benefit in people at higher risk of cognitive impairment than those who are not. Studies on walnuts had more consistently positive results, but further research is necessary to prove they offer more cognitive advantages than other nuts.

“Nuts contain polyphenols which are antioxidants,” continued Ms. Pierpont. “Polyphenols protect the brain by capturing free radicals and preventing oxidative damage. They have also been found to improve blood flow to the brain.”

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Extra virgin olive oil may help prevent the development of dementia and delay cognitive decline, stated another 2023 review. It contains high levels of healthy fat—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids—as well as phenolic compounds. These nutrients may have a neuroprotective effect that underlies the benefits.

Fatty Fish

A 2021 review found that higher intake of fatty fish was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and moderate intake of fish in childhood and adolescence may have some cognitive advantages.

Fatty fish contain an omega-3 fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). DHA and other fatty acids are the essential building blocks of the brain, according to Ms. Pierpont. They are required to keep the brain functioning normally. Salmon, herring, and sardines contain the highest levels of DHA.

Spices

A 2020 study associated spicy food intake with higher cognition and reversed biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease in cerebrospinal fluid. This suggested that a diet rich in cayenne pepper, which contains the compound capsaicin, has the potential to change the pathology in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Eggs

An intake of about one egg per week was associated with a slower memory decline in later life compared to eating little or no eggs, found a 2021 study. While it was not clear if increasing the weekly servings of eggs resulted in an additional benefit, the results offer support for the protective effect of eggs on memory, particularly after age 70. Eggs contain choline, tryptophan, and lutein, nutrients that may enhance cognition.

Moderate Dairy

A 2018 review found regular intake of fermented dairy products, such as yogurt, have the potential to contribute to protection against dementia and cognitive decline. The fermentation of lactic acid bacteria generates nutrients that may be responsible. Compounds in Camembert cheese, which is fermented, may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease.

Legumes

A 2015 research article includes legumes in a list of brain foods. Legumes like beans, peas, and lentils are good sources of vitamins needed to synthesize neurotransmitters that influence mental health, such as serotonin.

What Foods Are Brain Foes?

Processed Meat

A statistically significant link may exist between processed meat and a risk of depression. An association between processed meat consumption and all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease may also be present.

Sugar

Chronic excess sugar consumption has long-lasting negative effects on mood, memory, object recognition, and concentration. Refined sugar may be a major contributor to cognitive decline and dementia.

Saturated Fat

The NMH study noted that prior research linked saturated fat to decreased learning and memory, as well as smaller GMV. Although for some time, cardiologists have advised people to limit saturated fat for heart health and cholesterol, this has been a topic of controversy in more recent years.

Is It Ever Too Late to Improve Diet?

Authors of the NMH study urged the adoption of a healthy diet in childhood. The assumption is that the earlier in life people start, the more mental and cognitive benefits they may receive. However, if someone waits until late in life to improve their eating habits, is it worthwhile?

It is never too late to improve your diet, Eric Ciappio, a registered dietician at Balchem Human Nutrition & Health, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“In nutrition, we strongly recommend that people adopt healthy dietary patterns early in life to help achieve their health goals. That said, just because you haven’t had a perfect diet doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes today,” he said. An older adult can still receive benefits from healthy dietary changes.

Aircraft carriers are warships equipped with a full-length flight deck for carrying, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Since they allow naval forces to utilize air power without relying on local bases, they usually serve as the capital ships of a fleet.

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti visualizes the number of aircraft carriers in service by country as of May 2024.

This graphic only includes ships capable of carrying planes (excluding those designed solely for helicopters). The list is based on data from various sources.

U.S. Dominance

The U.S., with 11 aircraft carriers in total, owns 40% of the global fleet. Some of the American carriers can carry around 80 fighters. The country’s total combined deck space is over twice that of all other nations combined.

Along with France, the U.S. is the only nation with nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. These ships can remain at sea for as long as crew provisions last, without the need for refueling.

In 2024, China’s newest, largest, and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, started sea trials. With the addition of this ship, the country becomes second in our ranking.

Of 11 countries that have aircraft carriers in their fleets, six are NATO members.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out ‘Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets.’ This visualization showcases the most powerful tank fleets as of 2024.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

The U.K.’s cumulative net migration in the 25 years up to 1997 was just 68,000. In the 25 years to follow, cumulative net migration was at least 5.8 million,” a damning new report co-authored by Britain’s former immigration minister Robert Jenrick finds, exposing the myths perpetuated by the Western liberal mainstream

Mass immigration has not delivered the economic growth successive U.K. governments claimed it would and has contributed to rising pressure on public services, Britain’s former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has claimed in a report written in collaboration with a leading think tank.

The report by the Center for Policy Studies published this week offers several findings that challenge the Western liberal narrative that mass immigration fuels economic growth, provides a fiscal benefit, and is a force for good for European nations.

“The scale and composition of recent migration have failed to deliver the significant economic and fiscal benefits its advocates promised, while putting enormous pressure on housing, public services, and infrastructure,” it states.

The study found that net migration accounted for 89 percent of the 1.34 million increase in England’s housing deficit over the last decade, resulting in a housing shortage and pushing house prices to a record property-price-to-salary ratio.

It warned that Britain would have to build a home every five minutes night and day just to cope with the current levels of immigration. The 515,000 homes needed every year would be the equivalent of adding a city the size of Cardiff to the U.K. every year.

In an accompanying video, the co-authors explained that cumulative net migration in the 25 years leading up to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory had been just 68,000. In the 25 years to follow, cumulative net migration was at least 5.8 million.

I resigned from government because I refused to be another politician who broke their promise to reduce immigration.

Three decades of mass migration have utterly failed the British public.

The costs have been covered up.

Here is the truth that needs to be told👇 pic.twitter.com/iMMWO2Yi14

— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) May 8, 2024

“A total of 1.2 million people arrived in the U.K. last year. That means 1 in 60 people living in the U.K. today only arrived in the last 12 months,” the video states.

Non-EU migration to Britain has sky-rocketed following Brexit, but the overwhelming majority of new arrivals are not heading to the U.K. to work, and therefore pay taxes and boost the economy. Just 15 percent of those arriving from outside the European Union in the last 5 years came on a work visa.

The hard-hitting video also revealed that Britain’s population increased by 8 million people between 2001 and 2021, of which 7 million were due to mass immigration.

“That’s the equivalent of the combined populations of Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Peterborough, Ipswich, Norwich, Luton, and Bradford,” it states.

The report found that mass immigration had “not delivered significant growth in GDP per capita,” and had increased pressures on critical infrastructure “from roads to GP surgeries.”

It also provided details on the difference in the quality of immigration around the world, highlighting that migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey are “almost twice as likely to be economically inactive as someone born in the U.K.”

Similarly, migrants from Somalia and Pakistan typically pay between four and nine times less in income tax than those from Canada, Singapore, and Australia.

The report offered 30 recommended measures the government should implement to “take back control” of mass immigration, including stricter rules on the rights of overseas students to remain in Britain once they’ve finished their initial studies.

It also called for splitting up the Home Office, the U.K.’s interior ministry, and establishing a separate Department of Border Security and Immigration Control dedicated to the issue.

Other recommendations included the setting of an annual cap on visas in specific industries, namely health and social care, which typically offer lower wages and entice migrants to take these jobs in order to come to Britain; reaffirming a national commitment to return net migration to the historical norm of the tens of thousands; and scrapping the Shortage Occupation List, which exempts certain overseas applicants from meeting stricter criteria for visas.

Commenting on the report, Jenrick explained how he had resigned as an immigration minister in December last year because he “refused to be another politician who broke their promise to reduce immigration.”

At the time of his resignation, Jenrick cited the government’s Rwanda policy as the primary reason for his departure, insisting the legislation did not go far enough and would not be able to effectively reduce illegal immigration into Britain.

“Three decades of mass migration have utterly failed the British public. The costs have been covered up. Here is the truth that needs to be told,” Jenrick added.

Read more here…

It has long been understood that most financial data provided by the Chinese government is propaganda designed to misrepresent the country’s true economic circumstances.  At best, their statistics provide half the truth and the rest has to be discerned through deeper investigation.  When systemic crisis events take place in China it usually comes as a shock to much of the world exactly because they expend considerable resources in order to hide instability behind a thin veneer of fabricated progress.

The biggest story in China in the new millennia has been nation’s debt explosion.  China’s debt-to-GDP ratio is currently estimated at nearly 300% (official numbers), with most of the liabilities accrued in the past 15 years.  Chinese debt spending accelerated in part because of the global credit crash of 2008, but a lesser known factor is their entry into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket.  The process started around 2011 and the IMF requires any prospective applicant to take on a wide array of debt instruments before they can be added to the global currency mechanism. 

By the time of China’s official inclusion in the SDR in 2016 they had nearly doubled their national debt.  After 2016 debt levels skyrocketed.

The debt problem is harder to quantify in China because of their communist structure posing as a free market structure.  Corporate debt in China has to be included into the national debt picture because of state funded enterprises and the level of government investment in property and industry.  

It is here where we find the most blatant warning signs of deflationary crisis, particularly in property markets and infrastructure development.  The CCP has put a “great information wall” in place to prevent accurate data from leaving the country, but some reports on China’s failing infrastructure still escape.  China’s export market is crumbling in the past year, in large part because western consumers are tapped out due to inflation.  However, what they prefer not to mention is the damage they did to themselves after three years of near constant covid lockdowns.  This destroyed their retail sector and things have only grown worse since.

Then there is the real estate market which has suffered extreme deflation over the past decade, with a larger drop expected in the next year.  China deliberately popped the housing market bubble as a means to disrupt what officials considered out of control speculation.  This led to the now famous “ghost towns” dotting the Chinese landscape; thousands of neighborhoods and high rises left unfinished and empty after development companies went bankrupt.  

One of the more disturbing trends in China, though, is the effort to use large infrastructure projects to hide the nation’s deflationary decline.  China’s propaganda machine is pervasive across the world and most people in the west assume  that China is on the cutting edge of progress because of videos on social media.  In reality, the Chinese have been building cheaply constructed and poorly designed false-front landmarks that look technologically impressive on the surface but fall apart in a matter of months.

China is planning another 1 trillion Yuan ($137 billion) in infrastructure projects in 2024 alone, but the debt cycle and the deflationary spiral seem to be catching up with them.  The IMF claims that China’s economy has stumbled but is “unlikely to fall”, yet, with their global exports falling, property markets plunging and consumer activity in decline it’s hard to see how they can continue without a depression-like event in the near future. 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Young Germans will have to choose between the Bundeswehr (military service) and unpaid social service work. Libertarians to a person, will call this slavery, because that is what it is.

Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

Please consider the Eurointelligence headline story Germany to Re-Introduce Slavery

The headline might be bordering on the hysterical, but the big idea in German politics right now is to re-introduce the general draft. This is not happening because Germany expects to be at war. It is not about the military at all. Under the plans, young people, male and female, can choose between the Bundeswehr or a year of forced labour in the social services, essentially uncompensated.

The main reason we see is that their fiscal rules have depleted them with the resources to fund the Bundeswehr and critical social services like old-age care. For example, there is a big row going on right now within the coalition currently between Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, and Christian Lindner, over Pistorius’ demands for another €6bn for the Bundeswehr. The discussions on the reintroduction of the draft are at an early stage. They won’t affect the current budget dispute. But it could go some way to fix the Bundeswehr’s budget issues.

The SPD leader Lars Klingbeil sugar-coated the idea as giving young people an opportunity to serve the state at one point in their lives. Another underlying assumption is that young people are infinitely stupid. German high school goes until the age of 19. This is higher than elsewhere because German children do not start school until they are 6. With a year of enforced military or social services, they won’t start their studies or apprenticeship until they are 20. A Bachelor’s degree takes three, but this is usually not sufficient. So they will be 24 or 25 when they hit the labour market. This puts them at a distinct disadvantage to young people elsewhere.

We expect mass emigration as a result. Young Ukrainian men who try to escape the draft often do so at the risk of their lives. Romanian police have discovered bodies of young Ukrainians trying to swim through the Tisa river into Romania. Young Germans won’t have to swim through the Rhine. They can just go anywhere within the Schengen area, and study where they like. For a country that is facing structural labour shortages, the re-introduction of the draft is about the worst policy decision imaginable. The smart people will leave.

The political support is strengthening. The FDP has called for it. The SPD is also now in favour. The CDU says it is open to a discussion. The AfD will naturally support it. The Greens and the Left Party are opposed, but that won’t be enough to stop it.

Not an “Opportunity”

What’s being proposed is not an opportunity. It’s a mandate for servitude.

I don’t know if it would pass, but Eurointelligence knows more about the internals of German politics than anyone else, so I expect forced servitude is on a train for passage at the moment.

Mass emigration would undoubtedly be the result. Who wants to give up four years of their life taking care of immigrants, elderly, or preparing for war?

And the more you prepare for war, the more like it is. Vietnam would not have happened without a draft. Mass protests finally ended it.

Liberty at Stake

I replied to a reader moments ago, about unalienable Rights, before I saw the Eurointelligence story.

In response to Hospitals Turn to Pay In Advance, In Full a reader said there was a “right” to healthcare.

I responded there was no such right.

From the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I love the wording “unalienable” and “self-evident”. No one can take those rights away.

I oppose the draft and support anyone anywhere, especially Ukrainians, who decides is is their unalienable right to “liberty” and “pursuit of happiness”, no matter what the government of Ukraine says and does.

Vivek Ramaswamy

I seriously cannot understand why many alleged Libertarians support Vivek Ramaswamy.

For example, Vivek Ramaswamy, the youngest GOP presidential candidate, wants civics tests for young voters 18 to 24

Though he’s campaigning as the “young” candidate, Ramaswamy would like to make it a little harder for the nation’s youngest voters to cast a ballot. 

He’s proposing a constitutional amendment that would require citizens 18 to 24 to pass a civics test in order to vote — the same one immigrants take to become naturalized U.S. citizens. Under his proposal, young Americans could, as an alternative, perform six months of military or first-responder service. But if none of these requirements are met, they would have to wait until they turn 25 before they could vote in their first election.

The Ramaswamy campaign emphasized that this isn’t a plan to raise the voting age because younger voters would still be able to participate if they met the requirements. But Ramaswamy has previously used language that explicitly stated he would try to raise the voting age. 

“People like Vivek Ramaswamy who are using their age as an element to try and stand out to Gen-Z, they’re very obviously wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said Lucas Robinson, a young voter from Texas. “People our age can really see through people like that.”

Savanah Now comments “It’s worth noting that Politico reported this year that even Ramaswamy’s own campaign staff didn’t like the idea. The Washington Post reports that younger conservatives don’t like it.”

Of course, younger voters don’t like it. And if Trump was dumb enough to pick Vivek as his running mate, it could easily cost Trump the election.

From Vivek2024.Com “The United States faces a 25% recruitment deficit in the military and just 16% of Gen Z say they’re proud to be American. The absence of national pride is a serious threat to our Republic’s survival. At a time when young Americans are taught to celebrate their differences, Civic Duty Voting – and in particular the service path – creates a sense of shared purpose and experience. Serving your nation, knowing something about your nation, or at least living in your nation for a short time as an adult isn’t too much to ask. Our lost civic pride won’t reappear automatically. Reviving it will require boldness.”

If that does not sound like support for a draft, what does?

Flashback to the 60s

Also consider Vivek Ramaswamy wants young voters to pass a civics test. These Americans call it a flashback to the 1960s.

Today, some Black Americans say Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal to implement a civics test for voters ages 18 to 24 gives them flashbacks to the hurdles.

Though the 15th amendment guaranteed the right for Black men to vote, some Southern states passed literacy test requirements and offered exemptions for white people after the Civil War, Olga Koulisis, assistant professor of history at Murray State University, explained.

Vivek Could Not Pass His Own Civics Test

AP News comments: Nikki Haley promises to send American special forces into Mexico. Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Mexico’s leader of treating drug cartels as his “sugar daddy” and says that if he is elected president, “there will be a new daddy in town.”

Politico quotes Vivek: Using military force on cartels without Mexico’s permission “would not be the preferred option, but we would absolutely be willing to do it,” entrepreneur and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy said in an interview.

Bombing Mexico to stop the drug trade, a clear act of war. It’s not the preferred method, but’s that’s OK, he would do it anyway.

Vivek could not pass his own civics test on who gets to declare war. Notably, his position is close to that of Nikki Haley.

Vivek, Not a Libertarian

Vivek is no Libertarian. He’s a charlatan who all along had a single mission, running for Vice President.

A draft, or forced servitude by any means, is in direct conflict with the unalienable right to liberty. Thus, anyone who says they believe in unalienable rights but supports a draft under any circumstances either does not understand the word unalienable or is a liar,

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

This weekend I had the pleasure of sitting down with independent 2024 Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for an hourlong interview.

Our interview started with me asking Mr. Kennedy why, if you don’t follow the mainstream media narrative, you are automatically painted in a vile and unfavorable light. He told me: “I think a lot of it is driven by, or fortified at least, by financial interests. Upton Sinclair made this very, very useful statement that it’s almost impossible to persuade a man of a fact if the existence of that fact will diminish his salary.”

“And we know that the media is dependent on the people that I’ve been suing and critical of for many, many years: the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, big oil and coal, the carbon incumbents and big polluters, processed food companies like Kellogg’s, and the people who are poisoning a generation of American kids,” he continued.

“People who challenge that narrative are outsiders. They become heretics. You cannot debate a heretic; you have to burn them down at the stake. You have to punish them.”

He continued, talking about pushback from the Covid era: “And I think the way that I look at this, a lot of what I experienced, what a lot of dissenters experienced during COVID or during the McCarthy era or other parts of our history, or, you know, you can see this in countries all around the world, is that dissenters have to be silenced.”

Listen to the full hourlong exclusive interview here.

“And, you know, one of the ways you do that is through character assassination by applying pejoratives to them that marginalize them. Pejoratives like ‘anti-vaxxer,’ ‘conspiracy theorist,’ ‘anti-science,’ ‘quack’—all of these pejoratives that have been applied to me—it’s a way of silencing me so that nobody has to listen to me because I’m a lunatic, I’m a crazy person,” he told me.

Explaining further, he said: “And really, what I do, what they call ‘conspiracy theories,’ is me saying, ‘Well, wait a minute. Are you sure these COVID vaccines are going to prevent transmission?’ Which I said in, you know, March of 2020 or May of 2020. And I was saying that because I was looking at the monkey studies, and in the monkeys, they did not prevent transmission.”

“And yet, Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates and, you know, all of the panjandrums of the medical cartel were up there saying, ‘Do what you’re told. You’re protecting grandma. Protect society. If you take it, it will not spread. You cannot spread it to others.’ And I was looking at the monkey study and saying, ‘There is nothing in these studies that indicate that’s true.’ But when I raised it, that became a conspiracy theory,” he told me.

He added: “When I suggested that glyphosate, which is the active ingredient of Roundup, was carcinogenic, that was a conspiracy theory — until we won a $2.2 billion jury verdict.”

Mr. Kennedy continued, explaining that the mainstream media drove the narrative during Covid: “We heard from the outset of COVID, repeated again and again on CNN and all the other networks, MSNBC, that you have to trust the experts. Don’t do research yourself. Shut off your capacity for critical thinking. People who go and actually do their own research on the Internet are contemptible, you know, for this.”

Then he explained why this logic simply doesn’t make sense: “And it was such a weird thing because that ‘trusting the experts’ is not a thing. It’s certainly not a feature of democracy. It’s not a feature of science. It’s the opposite of science. In science, you’re supposed to question everything. In democracy, you’re supposed to question authority. It is a feature of totalitarian governments, and it is a feature of religion.”

When I asked Mr. Kennedy how we can more fairly assess and debate issues in the future, instead of having to wait for the official narratives to fail — as just happened with Chris Cuomo and ivermectin, as well as the pulling of the AstraZeneca vaccine off of the market — he told me: “We need to raise our children, we need to educate our public to sniff out that bias. And, you know, bias can be financial conflicts of interest, but there are all kinds of biases. There are biases that come from being raised in certain areas, raised in certain neighborhoods, members of certain clubs, and just, you know, the bias that we all have.”

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Kennedy summed it up: “If we’re really going to live fulfilling lives and lives of enlightenment, we have to undergo a process of self-questioning, of self-examination to eliminate biases.

“And as a country, as a democracy, if we’re going to fulfill our destiny as the world’s exemplary nation, we need to be educating our citizens to have that practice about government institutions.”

I then asked for Mr. Kennedy’s response to Joe Biden’s recent decision to withhold aid from Israel. He told me: “I think Israel’s war is a moral war. They’ve been attacked for 16 years by Hamas. And then, on October 7th, in this, you know, extraordinarily brutal invasion, every nation has a right to self-defense. And, you know, self-defense means destroying Hamas.”

“It’s not Israel’s fault that Hamas uses civilian shields. Any other country, any nation faced with this kind of onslaught from a militarily superior nation, would give up and surrender to save their civilian population. Why is Hamas not doing that?” he added.

“Hamas has no negotiating position. It says that the only concession that Israel could make is the annihilation of the Jewish state. And it actually has, in its charter and in all of its public statements, said that any negotiation with Israel is a violation of Islamic law, except as a ruse.”

Mr. Kennedy continued, explaining that Israel has “no choice” but to destroy Hamas: “So people are out there demanding a ceasefire, but there have been five ceasefires, and every ceasefire Hamas has used to regroup, to rearm, to hoist the banner, and then to do another surprise attack. Well, I don’t see that Israel has any choice but to destroy Hamas.”

Speaking about the collateral damage of the war, he commented: “Of course, it’s horrible. The civilian deaths are horrifying to all of us. But look, if you have a bank robbery and one of the robbers takes a hostage, is holding a hostage in his arms as a shield and firing at the police, and the police fire back and the hostage by mistake is killed, you don’t blame the police. The law and public opinion blame the bank robber. And the same thing is true in Gaza. Hamas is victimizing the Palestinian people. It’s pursuing an agenda by Iran, and the Palestinian people are suffering. Gaza should be one of the, you know, it should be a Mecca of economic development.”

Responding directly to President Biden withholding aid, he commented: “President Biden pulled a kind of bait-and-switch, and I think the longer they prolong the war—and U.S. policy, President Biden’s policy, has, I think, prolonged the war and amplified the human suffering. I think the best thing for Palestine, for Gaza, is if the war ends quickly, which means the elimination of Hamas as quickly as possible and with as little civilian casualties as possible.”

“And, you know, President Biden went to Congress with a $23 billion aid package, and now he’s not, on that pretense that he was going to get weapons, allowing the purchase of weapons by Israel.”

Putting the conflict in context, Mr. Kennedy told me: “It’s weird that people say that the only country that shouldn’t be doing this is the one Jewish state. And by the way, there are much bloodier battles with much higher civilian casualties going on right now. In Yemen, I think 300,000 kids have been killed. In Syria, the Uighurs in China, there are conflicts happening all over the world right now, and nobody talks about them, and nobody cares. In the Congo, a million people have already died, and nobody talks about it.”

“The only thing people want to talk about is when Jews start defending themselves, and there’s something very disturbing about that.”

When I asked Mr. Kennedy how he plans on managing the country’s budget, given all of our foreign aid, and how he plans on protecting the sanctity of our country’s economy and the U.S. dollar, he explained: “You know, we need to cut our military budget probably in half. We need to cut chronic disease in our country, which is our biggest expense. That’s $4.3 trillion a year. We need to cut waste in government, and there are ways we can do that now that AI can actually help us do in ways we’ve never been able to before.”

“I’m going to use all of those tools, but we also need to understand that we need to make investments in America’s future and grow our economy. You can’t just cut your way out of inflation. We need to create new industries, we need to reindustrialize our economy, and we need to make our economy larger so that the budget deficits become proportionately smaller.”

“But, you know, we need to start by making the cuts, and that needs to happen very, very quickly.”

When I asked him about sound money and possibly returning to a gold standard, he told me: “One of the issues that we’re toying with now is a Treasury bill that is based at least partially—maybe starting at one percent and increasing it—on a hard currency. On base currencies, like maybe a basket of currencies that include platinum, gold, silver, and Bitcoin. You know, my uncle tried to do something like this just before he died with the silver certificate and the gold certificate, to give Americans a hedge against inflation.

“And there are lots of ways we can do that. We’re talking about making, for example, Bitcoin available and stopping the war against Bitcoin so that middle-class people, working-class people who want to hedge against inflation can do that. They don’t have to rely on fiat currency.”

“And that will insert a discipline into the printing of money. If Americans have a choice, it will inject a discipline into the printing of money that we do not have right now.”

You can listen to the full hour long interview audio at this link.

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Previously enjoyed betting on the outcome of an event, like a Presidential election? The CFTC wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the regulator is now targeting “derivatives contracts based on political elections, athletic competitions and awards contests” to try and draw more prominent lines between investing and gambling. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed a regulation to oversee event contracts, a rapidly growing market where investors bet on event outcomes, the report said. 

The proposed regulation won’t affect sports betting through traditional sportsbooks regulated by state commissions or popular online platforms like DraftKings. Nor will it impact offshore platforms like Betfair, which currently allows U.S. election bets.

The proposal, approved 3-2 along party lines, will undergo public review before a final vote in the coming months. Democratic commissioners emphasized the potential threat to election integrity posed by political event contracts, particularly with a Biden-Trump rematch looming.

Christy Goldsmith Romero, a Democratic commissioner, said: “Never before has the sanctity of elections been so critical or so under threat. The CFTC should not allow products in our markets with an unacceptable risk of unchecked abuse and manipulation that could threaten the sanctity of elections, thereby threatening democracy and national security.”

Yet the proposal was called “grossly overbroad” by Summer Mersinger, a Republican commissioner, the report noted. 

One company that offers “yes” or “no” betting questions has been Kalshi. Event contracts, though small compared to stocks or futures, have grown rapidly since Kalshi launched in 2021. Recent Kalshi contracts included wagers on whether “Oppenheimer” would win Best Picture and if Columbia University’s president would be ousted. 

CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam, a Democrat supporting the proposal, noted that more event contracts were listed in 2021 than in the previous 15 years combined. 

The CFTC has previously blocked U.S. trading platforms from launching political betting markets. Last year, it prevented Kalshi from offering contracts based on which party controls Congress, prompting Kalshi to sue the agency in November over the rejection.

“We look forward to continuing to engage with our regulators and Congress, as we have always done, to ensure that our customers can participate in legitimate trading with legitimate use cases on a legitimate, regulated exchange and not on offshore and illegal markets where there is no customer protection or market integrity,”  Mansour told WSJ. 

CFTC regulations established after the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act prohibit event contracts involving terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or illegal activities, but the lack of a clear definition of “gaming” led to disputes over whether it applies to sports and political contracts, prompting Friday’s proposal to explicitly ban wagers on elections, sports, or awards contests.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

For those of us who have criticized the cancel culture in higher education for years, the attacks and shunning have been unrelenting. The media has played a role in that culture and none more prominently than the New York Times. Recently, however, the mob came for liberal professors and media who have remained silent for years as conservatives and others were targeted on campus.

Suddenly, there is a new interest in free speech and academic freedom, including by the Times editors who blamed cancel culture for the recent demonstrations and disruptions on campus.

Until good liberals were targeted on campus, cancel culture was treated as free speech. It did not matter that preventing others from speaking or being heard is the very antithesis of free speech.

The New York Times reached true infamy in the controversy over publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R., Ark.) op-ed where he argued for the possible use of national guard to quell violent riots around the White House.

It was one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. Cotton was calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House.  While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful.

Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence. One year later, the New York Times published a column by an academic who had previously declared that there is nothing wrong with murdering conservatives and Republicans.

Later, former editors came forward to denounce the cancel culture at the Times and the censorship of opposing views.

At the same time, the Times has embraced “advocacy journalism.” Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism. Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”

Now, however, liberal professors and writers are being targeted. After years of turning a blind eye to conservative and libertarian figures being purged from faculties or canceled in events, the Times is alarmed that

…students and other demonstrators disrupting college campuses this spring are being taught the wrong lesson — for as admirable as it can be to stand up for your beliefs, there are no guarantees that doing so will be without consequence.

What is most striking is how the editors chastise administrators for lacking the courage that they have not shown for years in standing up to their cultural warriors:

For several years, many university leaders have failed to act as their students and faculty have shown ever greater readiness to block an expanding range of views that they deem wrong or beyond the pale. Some scholars report that this has had a chilling effect on their work, making them less willing to participate in the academy or in the wider world of public discourse. The price of pushing boundaries, particularly with more conservative ideas, has become higher and higher…

It has not gone unnoticed — on campuses but also by members of Congress and by the public writ large — that many of those who are now demanding the right to protest have previously sought to curtail the speech of those whom they declared hateful.

It is certainly good to see the “Old Gray Lady” have second thoughts about cancel culture. However, she might want to look inwardly before casting more cultural stones.

Authored by Ellen Wan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Enjoying a cup of joe can offer more than just a pick-me-up: It has been shown to have numerous health benefits, especially for older people. Research has found that the natural molecule in coffee, trigonelline, can help improve sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) and maintain muscle function during aging.

Muscle mass and function gradually decline as we age, potentially leading to sarcopenia. This can hinder mobility and even result in dependence and disability. The hallmarks of sarcopenia include a decline in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) levels and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Recent Research

A study published in Nature Metabolism in March found that trigonelline is a precursor to NAD+. Increasing the therapeutic dose of trigonelline can raise the levels of NAD+ in the cells of sarcopenia patients. Supplementing trigonelline also enhanced mitochondrial activity, NAD+ levels, and muscle function in aged mice. Furthermore, long-term supplementation of trigonelline significantly increased grip strength in the forelimbs of aged mice.

However, the study also pointed out that sarcopenia is a multifactorial disease, and trigonelline cannot reverse all its causes. It must be combined with other nutrients that help maintain muscle, such as protein, vitamin D, or omega-3 fatty acids.

Nutrition and physical activity are important for older people to maintain healthy muscles. Assistant professor Vincenzo Sorrentino from the Health Longevity Translational Research Program at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, who participated in the study, stated in a press release that this research on trigonelline has increased the potential for achieving healthy longevity and addressing age-related diseases.

Trigonelline is found in plant-based foods such as coffee beans and fenugreek seeds.

A study involving 1,781 older Korean men indicated that coffee consumption was associated with a reduced risk of sarcopenia. Compared to those who drank less than one cup of coffee per day, individuals who drank at least three cups of coffee per day had a significantly lower probability of developing sarcopenia. However, the risk reduction was less pronounced among those who consumed one or two cups of coffee daily.

Understanding the Benefits and Drawbacks of Coffee Consumption

Many people drink coffee without considering its health benefits or risks. However, debates about coffee have been ongoing for a long time.

Coffee is a complex mixture containing approximately 1,000 chemicals. Human reactions to coffee or caffeine vary, and the effects can vary significantly depending on the amount consumed.

One study found that drinking three to five cups of coffee per day in midlife was associated with a 65 percent lower risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease in old age. Another study found that compared to light coffee drinkers (one to two cups per day), heavy coffee drinkers (more than six cups per day), non-coffee drinkers, and those who drank decaffeinated coffee had higher odds of developing dementia.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2020 showed that consuming three to five cups of coffee daily was associated with a reduced risk of several chronic diseases. However, considering that excessive caffeine intake may have some adverse effects, it is recommended that adults who are not pregnant or breastfeeding limit their daily caffeine intake to 400 milligrams, while pregnant and breastfeeding women should limit their daily caffeine intake to 200 milligrams. Additionally, research has found that very high caffeine intake (more than 1,000 milligrams per week) is a risk factor for anxiety and depression.

Due to the differences in coffee bean varieties and extraction methods, the caffeine content can vary significantly. Therefore, when consuming coffee daily, checking the actual caffeine content listed on the product packaging is recommended.

It is also important to note that many commercially available coffees are often mixed with heavy cream and flavored syrups, which can add extra calories, sugar, and saturated fat, diminishing the health benefits of black coffee.

Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte

Johns Hopkins Medicine shared an easy-to-make and healthy coffee recipe on its website:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brewed coffee
• ½ cup canned plain pumpkin
• ½ cup milk
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ice cubes

Preparation: Blend all ingredients for a seasonally-inspired beverage. Adding pumpkin helps increase fiber intake, which is beneficial for gut health.

Note: It is advisable to use as little sugar as possible. If you must add a sweetener, consider using a small amount of pure maple syrup.