The newest global happiness index doesn’t have any massive surprises from the ongoing trends of the last decade: Europe generally does the best, Africa is still finding its footing, and Asia and South America have vast rank disparities between constituent nations.

However, as the World Happiness Report notes, happiness levels differ across age groups, and countries’ overall ranks tend to obfuscate how the old and young feel separately. To counter this, the report also creates a happiness index by age.

In the follow graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes the top 20 happiest countries according to those aged above 60. For comparison, we have also included a country’s overall index rank.

Data and Takeaways

ℹ️ Gallup’s survey in Israel occurred after October 7th, but before much of the subsequent warfare. As a result, overall life evaluations in the country fell by 0.9 for 2023. Note that each country’s rank is based on a three-year average score.

The top two countries where the seniors are most satisfied—Denmark and Finland—also happen to be the top two countries on the overall happiness index.

As a general trend, advanced economies make up the bulk of this top 20 list, likely due to their stronger social security systems and financial security. Relatedly, they also tend to do well when it comes to the best countries to retire in.

Norway, at third, has the first real discrepancy, with its elderly population ranking four places higher compared to its overall 7th place rank.

New Zealand (6th) and Canada (8th) also have gaps with their overall ranks: indicating that the older generation is happier than other generations within the country.

But for the U.S., (10th) and the UAE (11th), this rank discrepancy is in the double-digits.

In fact, when ranking only by those aged below 30, the U.S. ranks outside of the top 50, indicating that its younger residents are significantly unhappier than their older counterparts.

This is an interesting phenomenon mirrored in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. According to the report, as recently as a decade ago, the younger generation in these countries were about as happy as those aged over 60.

“In the West, the received wisdom was that the young are the happiest and that happiness thereafter declines until middle age, followed by substantial recovery.”

– WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT.

For other countries like Costa Rica (17) and Israel (18), this pattern reverses. Their overall rank is higher than their rank for older populations, indicating that the young are happier.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via eestieest.com,

The New York Times (NYT) cited unnamed sources on Thursday to report that “The adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented U.S. officials from sharing any information about the (Crocus terrorist attack) plot beyond what was necessary, out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.” This vindicates President Putin, who the West hitherto claimed had downplayed terrorist threats in the run-up to one of the worst attacks in Russian history.

Without actionable intelligence and informed only of the US’ vague warning that large gatherings like concerts could soon be targeted, his security services were unable to stop the plotters, thus meaning that Washington is partially responsible for what happened by withholding specific information about it. Just as scandalously, this bombshell also prompted speculation about the exact sources and methods that America employed to first catch wind of this attack.

While it’s possible that the US learned about this from spying on the radical Telegram channel whose curators reportedly recruited the culprits, such as if the CIA had a mole inside that preacher’s team, the case can compellingly be made that this might have actually been brought to its attention by spying on Kiev. Last spring’s Pentagon leaks confirmed that the US has been spying on Zelensky, which Ukrainian officials told CNN was “unsurprising” but still left them “deeply frustrated”.

Those documents also confirmed that the US was spying on Ukraine’s military-intelligence service GUR as well, from whom they learned about a plot to attack the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the first anniversary of the special operation and then ordered them to stand down to avoid provoking Moscow. Seeing as how the Washington Post (WaPo) reported half a year later that the CIA rebuilt the GUR from the ground-up after 2014, it’s obvious that they embedded moles within that institution from the get-go.

They don’t always learn about terrorist plots ahead of time since their infiltration of the GUR and other Ukrainian government agencies isn’t total, but they’re still usually able to conclude sometime afterwards that Kiev was responsible whenever a serious attack happens in Russia. Such was the case last May when the NYT reported that Kiev was responsible for the Kremlin drone attack, in which piece they also reminded their reader that it was behind other attacks up until that point too.

These include the assassinations of Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, cross-border terrorist raids into Russia’s Belgorod Region, and the Nord Stream II bombing. About that last-mentioned one, the claim of Ukrainian complicity might very well be a preplanned red herring for deflecting from American involvement after Seymour Hersh served as the conduit for dissident members of the Intelligence Community (IC) to inform the public that their country was the one that ordered that attack.

Nevertheless, what’s important to note in this larger narrative context is that the Wall Street Journal claimed last summer that the US learned about Ukraine’s plans to blow up that pipeline from Dutch sources and then told Kiev to not to go through with it. Irrespective of whether Ukraine really was involved and despite however the US allegedly obtained the information, not to mention whether that even happened, the point is that IC wanted Americans to know that it told Ukraine to stand down.

WaPo then reported last November that a former senior official from GUR coordinated the Nord Stream II bombing with more senior officials, who supposedly took orders from former Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, and all of this purportedly went on behind Zelensky’s back. It’s unimportant whether any of that is true since the significance lies in the fact that IC-connected WaPo introduced this narrative into the global discourse of ostensibly rogue members of the Ukrainian IC plotting such major attacks.

To recap everything that’s been shared thus far by the Mainstream Media: the US spies on Zelensky, the GUR, and other Ukrainian institutions; they’ve learned via these means that Kiev was responsible for prior terrorist attacks; sometimes they catch wind of them ahead of time and order their proxies to stand down; which succeeded in February 2023 when Ukraine then decided not to attack Novorossiysk; but failed in summer 2022 after putatively rogue members of the Ukrainian IC then bombed Nord Stream II.

With this in mind, suspicions that the US withheld possibly actionable intelligence about the then-impending Crocus terrorist attack in order to not reveal their Ukrainian sources and methods make a lot more sense. The FSB and Security Council chiefs already suspected Ukrainian involvement, President Putin informed the nation that the terrorists’ contacts in that country had prepared a “window” for them to cross the border, and investigators just discovered evidence that Kiev paid them via cryptocurrency.

The Deputy Chairman of Turkiye’s ruling party also recently said that “It is obvious that it is impossible to carry out such a professional action without the support of intelligence of any state. Such events always have sponsors, lobbies that want the (Ukrainian) war to continue.” Seeing as how his country is a NATO member, arms Ukraine, votes against Russia at the UN, and doesn’t recognize Crimea’s reunification, there are no reasons to suspect that he has ulterior motives so his words should be taken seriously.

In the face of these allegations, the US feverishly doubled down on its claim that Ukraine wasn’t responsible, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as “suspiciously” “obsessive”. His spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had earlier described Bloomberg’s report that Kremlin insiders doubt Ukraine’s involvement, which was arguably an IC-planted narrative deflection, as “the mother of all fakes.” The trend is that the US is desperately trying to convince everyone that Kiev wasn’t responsible.

All of this suggests that the US knows that Ukraine was involved but fears what Russia might do once the evidence becomes indisputable. For instance, this could then be shared with the world for justifying the legal transformation of Russia’s special operation into an all-out war, which could precede another offensive. A breakthrough might eventually occur and the government could collapse soon thereafter exactly as the Ukrainian Intelligence Committee warned in late February might happen by this summer.

This insight adds context to the NYT’s bombshell since it might very well have been that the CIA learned about the Crocus plot by spying on its GUR protégés, which this analysis here explains how they could have orchestrated everything, but then told them to call it off. Just like the GUR reportedly delayed the Nord Stream II bombing, so too does it seem in hindsight like it delayed this bloodbath, only to later carry out both irrespective of whether they were formally approved or done by rogue IC members.

The aforesaid version of events accounts for why the US only passed along vague information to Russia since it assumed that the GUR wouldn’t go through with the Crocus plot, but Washington still wanted to discredit its rival’s government and security services, ergo its embassy’s provocative warning at the time. After the terrorist attack happened and evidence began piling up of Ukraine’s involvement, the US swiftly ran interference for its proxies because it fears the consequences of Russia’s possible military reaction.

It’s unclear what those members of the US IC that spoke to the NYT were thinking when they told that outlet to report that their services withheld details of the then-impending Crocus terrorist attack from Russia in order to not betray their sources and methods, but the larger narrative context within which this pivotal detail entered the global discourse casts more aspersions on Ukraine. It seems increasingly obvious that Kiev was involved, and it’s likely only a matter of time before a smoking gun is found.

Authored by Drago Bosnic via infobrics.org,

Even before the horrendous Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, the Russian military’s long-range strike capabilities were sending shivers down the spines of NATO aggressors and their Neo-Nazi junta puppets. Weapons such as the 3M22 “Zircon”, a scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile, have been inducted into service in recent years and are now also being transferred to land-based platforms, specifically the K300P “Bastion-P” coastal defense system. With a 1500 km range (perhaps even more) and Mach 9 speed, the “Zircon” is over 3 times faster and its range is at least double that of the P-800 “Oniks” supersonic missiles originally used by the aforementioned platform, further enhancing Russia’s already unprecedented long-range strike capabilities (to both the Neo-Nazi junta’s and NATO’s horror, as previously mentioned).

This has become even more noticeable in the aftermath of the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, as the Russian military is now hunting for the organizers, both the Kiev regime’s intelligence services and their NATO overlords. With such a range (at least 1500 km or possibly even beyond 2000 km), the usage of “Zircon” allows Moscow to target any location on the territory of Ukraine. However, it should be noted that the Eurasian giant always had this ability. The difference now is that it can do so much faster and with far less warning time. The usage of air-launched and ground-based hypersonic missile systems such as the 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” and “Iskander-M” is still very much relevant, as evidenced by the latest elimination of high-ranking NATO officers (although their deaths will surely be attributed to “sudden” skiing accidents).

However, the “Iskander-M” can use a massive 700 kg HE warhead that is best used against frontline targets and higher concentrations of troops in the rear. Virtually the same goes for much faster “Kinzhal” missiles. In addition, these can sometimes be detected by NATO ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, particularly airborne and space-based, giving the Neo-Nazi junta officers and their foreign “advisers” just enough time to run away (albeit not much and certainly not always). The launch of an “Iskander” can be detected by early warning systems, while ISR can pick up the MiG-31K/I deployment. This information can be relayed to the Kiev regime or any NATO personnel on the ground. On the other hand, detecting a scramjet-powered “Zircon” can be a lot more problematic.

Then the numbers come into play:

 – Kiev: 3 minutes 30 seconds;

 – Lvov: 5 minutes 20 seconds;

 – Dnepropetrovsk: 2 minutes 30 seconds;

 – Vinnitsa: 3 minutes 40 seconds;

 – Kharkov: less than 4 minutes;

 – Odessa: less than 1 minute.

Imagine being an officer of the SBU, GUR (Neo-Nazi junta’s military intelligence) or some of the NATO occupation forces. You’re stationed in a building, living in the illusion that you’re safe when the Russian SVR or GRU learns about your location and relays this information to units in Crimea who then fire a “Zircon” at that building. This is how much time you’d have before impact. However, let’s consider the best-case scenario and imagine that NATO ISR assets detect the missile immediately after launch (which is extremely improbable). This is how much time you’d have to evacuate. Is it possible to run away in time? Certainly, but that doesn’t mean it’s very likely. On the contrary, the sheer panic resulting from a warning would surely make the evacuation a lot more difficult. The same goes for the “Kinzhal” and “Iskander” missile launches.

However, the primary reason why the “Zircon” is a lot more dangerous for high-value targets (HVTs) in the rear is because it has a much smaller warhead (around 300 kg), meaning that the Russian military is more likely to use it in long-range strikes. Firing an “Iskander” or “Kinzhal” could cause unacceptable damage to purely civilian infrastructure in the surrounding areas, both due to their larger and more destructive warheads, particularly in the case of “Kinzhal”, with the speed also giving it massive kinetic energy. That’s why these more destructive missile systems are far likelier to be used against purely military targets such as large troop concentrations and important hostile equipment, particularly SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems and MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) known to use PGMs (precision-guided munitions), etc.

On the other hand, precisely because of the large-scale deployment of “Zircon” missiles, Russia has more options to strike decision-making centers in Ukraine. This explains the panic in NATO and the Pentagon, which are now in a dilemma about how to ensure the safety of their occupation forces in Ukraine. I suggest everyone watch closely for news about the “sudden deaths” of NATO officers in various “freak accidents” in the coming days and weeks. We might soon learn about American, Polish or some other NATO majors, colonels and even generals “mysteriously” and “inexplicably” dying while skiing in the Alps, falling out of helicopters, choking on croissants while having breakfast or suffocating when their throats swell from hot coffee, etc. Still, the Kiev regime insists there’s nothing to worry about, as it can “shoot down anything”.

Namely, according to their latest claims, they’ve “shot down at least two ‘Zircon’ missiles“. Expectedly, the Neo-Nazi junta insists they’ve achieved this with “US-made missile defense systems over Kyiv, on March 25”. I presume we can proceed now that you’re done laughing and catching your breath. The report never named any system specifically, but it can be assumed that future claims will attribute the supposed “kill” to the atrociously overhyped “Patriot” SAM that has been failing everywhere for the last 30+ years, even against rather primitive ballistic missiles, but is “suddenly so successful” against the latest hypersonic ones. In addition, it’s rather interesting how they can “achieve” that, but have been absolutely helpless against over 300 P-800 “Oniks” missiles. Not a single one has been shot down, despite being 3-4 times slower and less maneuverable than the “Zircon”.

Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

As you all know, I have not been one to believe that the tides are turning. But lots of people think they are. They cite many victories, in court, in the streets, with family and friends.

The fact that the agenda has not sent out a second wave of horror and fear propaganda is also rather telling to these folks. Where is the next pandemic? What happened to Covid’s diabolic never-ending run of mutations, what happened to Monkey Pox? What happened to Disease X?

Yes, all this could still happen, but it seems there have been more false starts—starts that didn’t go anywhere. But if so, you would think they wouldn’t have put them out there just to not have them continue. It’s been rather weird, like an electrical storm you see on the horizon with its threatening lightning strikes, but it never gets close enough to warrant closing the cellar door.

How about CBDCs? And the Digital IDs? You hear a lot about these, but nothing that is concretely happening to implement them. Is it happening in other places? Australia? Germany? The UK? Of course, a lot is said about it, on YouTube, and in alt media. Lots of talking heads, but how imminent is it? Actually, I won’t dwell on this, I have no doubt all of this is coming, but has the dragon been wounded? Even a little bit? Has this march into oblivion been slowed down?

Maybe there is no wounding of the general juggernaut of world rule by the schmucks who are claiming power. Although even that sacrosanct organization may have suffered from shell damage. Wasn’t DAVOS not all that they expected this past year? Hasn’t there been some pretty obvious whiplash from some leaders in their little club? How about the UN and the “sustainable development” circus? How is that going?

Anyway, I digress. Although the health of the world agenda, including all of these projects I mention, are all part of it, Covid, and pandemics in general, are the specific topics of this article.

I don’t buy any of this talk of victory for a New York minute. This is like cancer, you can’t claim victory until it is ALL gone, every last scrap of it. Remissions are nice, but if you’ve still got cancer in your body somewhere, it is only a time-out. I feel that this is similar. Even if one cell survived, it would start multiplying again and wouldn’t stop until it was big and gnarly and spitting out all the garbage this monster has been known to spit out. So, I don’t buy it…but…

Is it possible that at least one battle was won? Maybe, but just because they have pulled the troops back doesn’t mean they didn’t still take the city and got essentially what they stormed in for. I may still say that is a possibility. I mean, what did they want as a consequence of their Covid campaign? Did they want 100% compliance, with billions of sheep bowing down to them? Did they want everyone locked up in their own little cage, ala 1984, each of us in a squalid apartment with just a giant TV in the middle of it so Big Brother could blab at us all day long? If that is true, then indeed the psyop failed, because they didn’t get that—at least not yet.

But what if they got this: a toxic injection placed in billions of people worldwide that will kill untold millions over the course of about 20 years? Not only that, but the injection will render another untold millions sterile. Do the math here: how many people would need to be sterilized over 20 years to reduce the population worldwide by 1 billion? 2 billion? What other havoc could such a death jab wreak? What untold horrors are yet to overcome us? Your guess is as good as mine. Think zombies here, think soulless ghouls, think humans with no empathy, think lost humanity.

And that’s just the physical consequences. What about the psychological success they have had with the Covid campaign? Sure, many participants have shot them the bird regarding more boosters, and have ignored more threats of losing jobs over vaccine resistance. Sure, the courts have ruled in Canada that the illustrious leader here performed a no-no with his reckless enactment of the Emergency Act, and as a result, lawsuits are flowing into the courts. Does all this mean that no one fell for the psychological operation? That no one was mentally affected by the lockdowns, the masks, the closure of schools, churches, and other institutions? Does it mean that we have all recovered from the trauma of those three years, and mentally and emotionally we are just back to square one—all normal again?

If anyone reading this knows anything about hypnosis, they probably understand what hypnotic suggestion is all about. It is real, folks. What has been altered subliminally in our unconscious minds could be quite formidable. We are being programmed for better performance in future projects the agenda has in store for us. Most of the shrews reading this are safe from this brainwashing (hopefully) because we closed our eyes during the deadly meteor storm perpetrated by the fear-mongering agenda (watch The Day of the Triffids to understand that reference!) But those out there who got caught up in it and drank the delayed-reaction Kool-Aid—are all like sleeper spies from the Cold War, soon to be re-activated at some future date to continue complying with TPTB’s bidding.

Here I go again. I am supposed to be entertaining the possibility that the Covid psyop failed, not suggesting evidence to prove its great success. Sorry. Well, maybe it didn’t go as well as they wanted it to go. It does seem there was a lot more gas in the tank and that they could have pushed it a bit further than they did. They were doing pretty well, but they just fizzled out. Maybe they did expect more people to get vaxxed, maybe that was a disappointment. They sure looked like they were going for the whole enchilada with all their “you’ve GOT to get vaccinated!!” hoopla. Maybe they got too much pushback from us shrews. So many angry shrews showed up pretty quickly. And the shrews that were already on the scene, who were not surprised with all these shenanigans to begin with, just got louder and louder. Sure, not many sheep flipped, but some did. Their booster campaign is floundering (in my opinion, only because they turned the heat down, or off entirely).

So maybe they did get nicked a bit. Maybe a few arrows penetrated the armour, and they backed off a step or two. Maybe we did surprise the bastards with our resolve, tenacity, wit, and refusal to play the game.

But then again, maybe not.

A group of migrants involved in a riot at the southern US border have been ordered to be released by an El Paso magistrate judge.

The swarm of migrants overwhelmed Texas National Guard soldiers who were trying to organize them into groups to be taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). At one point, a migrant attempted to grab a soldier’s firearm, one National Guard source told the NY Post.

Following the riot, authorities confiscated knives and shanks from some of the migrants.

“These people were willing to assault military,” said the Post‘s source. “They were willing to assault law enforcement. They have complete disregard for our laws.“

In an Easter Sunday decision, presiding Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta ordered the rioters released after accusing the El Paso DA’s Office of being unprepared to proceed with detention hearings for each defendant, so they should be released, the El Paso Times reports.

This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today

We were there and saw it all happen. Absolute chaos here. pic.twitter.com/VN6Kf663ie

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

“It is the ruling of the court is that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” Acosta ordered, noting that they will only remain jailed if there’s a federal immigration hold blocking their release.

The arrests were made by the Texas Department of Public Safety in connection with a March 21 stampede of asylum-seeking migrants — mostly men from Venezuela — who torn down razor wire along the Rio Grande and rushed the border fence at Border Safety Initiative Marker No. 36 in the Riverside area of El Paso’s Lower Valley.

Some migrants face charges of assault of a public servant for knocking down National Guard troops before order was regained. The migrants had sought to surrender themselves to U.S. Border Patrol in bids for asylum.

It was unclear if Acosta’s decision applied only to the “riot participation” charge, or the assault and criminal mischief charges related to the border incident.

BREAKING: A riot just broke out here in El Paso

Hundreds of migrants decided they had enough of TX National Guard returning them to Mexico and rushed the border wall here.

Thankful to be here w/ @JamesBreeden pic.twitter.com/sY84y8QiYi

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

It is unknown how many migrants were booked on the charge of “riot participation,” a Class B misdemeanor – though Acosta referred to “hundreds of arrestees,” who he says are entitled to individual detention hearings within 48 hours.

The DA’s office requested a continuance to have the hearings at a later date, however Acosta rejected the request.

“So if the DA’s office is telling me that they are not ready to go, what we’re going to do is we’re going to release all these individuals on their own recognizance,” Acosta said at the hearing.

Meanwhile on Sunday, two other migrants – including a Colombian man, had separate hearings on criminal mischief charges for allegedly cutting border fencing. After being jailed with a $2,000 bond each, Magistrate Judge Antonio Aun also released them on personal recognizance bonds, however both men have immigration holds.

Last week, Texas sent 700 National Guard soldiers to El Paso, including 200 with the Texas Tactical Border Force, to reinforce the border.

As the El Paso Times notes further, ‘Operation Lone Star video shows troops boarding a transport plane and on the border with riot shields moving migrants back so crews could replace rolls of damaged razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande.’

By John Liu and Zheng Wu, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and analysts

1. The use of a familiar tool to stabilize the yuan sowed confusion and touched off a debate among investors. The People’s Bank of China stepped in to halt a drop in the currency last week by strengthening the fixing, and traders said state-owned banks then proceeded to dumped dollars onshore.

The move helped to stabilize the foreign-exchange market but it also left traders wondering about the People’s Bank of China’s intentions. Investors were baffled because the yuan’s earlier selloff had been triggered by a weaker-than-expected reference rate.

Authorities have allayed fears of a steep decline in the currency for now. The yuan is trading near the weak end of the band allowed by the reference rate, and state banks are selling an undisclosed amount of dollars to prop up the Chinese currency.

But the PBOC’s mixed signals have unsettled the market and the yuan may become even more volatile if policymakers relax their grip on it again.

2. Xi Jinping’s remarks on monetary tools generated a buzz but they’re unlikely to signal a move toward quantitative easing. The Chinese leader was quoted in a newly published book as saying the central bank should increase the buying and selling of government bonds, fueling speculation that Beijing was planning to embark on aggressive monetary easing.

A closer examination of the context in which the comments were made suggests otherwise. Xi was probably expressing a view on how the PBOC can fine-tune its market operations, not ramp up purchases of government bonds to flood the economy with liquidity, according to Bloomberg Economics.

There is still room for the PBOC to ease policy by lowering interest rates or the required reserve ratio. On the whole, the central bank is likely to exhaust all conventional tools before resorting to QE, and any move to trade government bonds will probably be part of efforts to better manage the sovereign yield curve.

3. Xiaomi’s stock surged 12% in the US on Thursday after the Chinese smartphone and appliance maker launched its first electric vehicle. With aggressive pricing, pre-orders for the SU7 models topped 50,000 within 27 minutes of their debut.

Xiaomi’s ambitious EV bet arrives at a challenging time. Carmakers from Tesla Inc. to BYD Co. are engaging in a price war as sales growth slows, with the former recently cutting production at its plant in China.  To make matters worse, trade tensions are compounding the pressure on the highly competitive sector. China’s EV exports to the European Union slumped in the first two month of the year amid a probe by Brussels into unfair subsidies.

A top Denver official was caught on tape in a local migrant shelter begging illegals to go to other cities, as Denver – a so-called ‘sanctuary city,’ can’t support them.

“The opportunities are over,” said Mayor Mike Johnson’s political director Andres Carrera, who also serves as the city’s Newcomer Communications Liaison, in an exchange with newly arrived migrants.

“New York gives you more. Chicago gives you more. So I suggest you go there where there is longer-term shelter. There are also more job opportunities there,” Carrera continues in the video obtained by 9News.

A top official in Denver was just caught on tape begging illegals to leave the city:

Denver Newcomer Liaison: “Any city. We can take you to the Canadian border, wherever.”

He promises them that there are better stuff awaiting them in Chicago and NY.

Denver is a self-designated… pic.twitter.com/NjsnmlTEHe

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 31, 2024

“We have received too many migrants and that is why we ran out of resources,” Carrara tells a crowed inside Denver’s primary migrant shelter.

“We are not going to block you if you want to say here,” he continues. “If you stay here you are going to suffer even more and I don’t want to see this.”

To facilitate their departure, Denver is offering to pay for migrants’ onward bus fare to a destination of their choice, which other ‘sanctuary cities’ have decried, 9News reports.

The migrants Carrera is seen speaking to on video arrived in Denver on March 26 on a bus organized by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to a city spokesperson.

Abbott has bragged about flooding Denver and other so-called “sanctuary cities” with migrants who have crossed the U.S. border with Mexico.

Denver has implemented strict limits on how long newly arrived migrants are allowed in city shelters; two weeks for individuals and six weeks for families with children.

“You don’t have to walk anywhere, we can buy you a free ticket,” Carrera tells the group, which shows children milling around him as he speaks with their parents. “You can go to any city. We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever!”

A city spokesperson later said that Denver won’t buy bus tickets to Canadian cities, but will help Migrants get to US cities near the Canadian border if they ask.

Chilly Reception

Wrapping up his remarks, Carrera asks the crowd “Okay, who wants to travel to different cities where there is more work?”

Crickets ensue.

“Who wants to stay in Denver?” he then asked.

“Todos,” a migrant replies – everyone.

In a historic upset, Turks dealt President Tayyip Erdogan and his party their biggest electoral blow yet in Saturday’s nationwide local vote that reasserted the opposition as a political force and reinforced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the president’s chief rival amid raging inflation and the highest borrowing costs since the president swept to power more than two decades ago.

With most of the votes counted, Imamoglu declared victory in the Istanbul mayoral race after leading by 10 percentage points while his Republican People’s Party (CHP) retained Ankara and gained 15 other mayoral seats in cities nationwide.

According to Reuters, it marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP) in their more than two decades in power, and could signal a change in the country’s divided political landscape. Erdogan called the March 31 election outcome a “turning point” in a post-midnight address, and in a rare moment of public humility said the election results were not in line with his expectations, and vowed pledged self-criticism over the election results as he added that he still has 4 more years to fix his mistakes, while predicting that the positive results of the economic plan would become apparent in the second half of the year.

Erdogan and the AKP fared worse than opinion polls predicted due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts said.

“Those who do not understand the nation’s message will eventually lose,” Imamoglu, 53, told thousands of jubilant supporters late on Sunday, some of them chanting for Erdogan to resign.

“Tonight, 16 million Istanbul citizens sent a message to both our rivals and the president,” said the former businessman, who entered politics in 2008 and is now widely touted as a likely presidential challenger.

Erdogan, who in the 1990s was also mayor of his hometown Istanbul, had campaigned hard ahead of the municipal elections, which analysts described as a gauge of both his support and the opposition’s durability.

Addressing crowds gathered at AKP headquarters in Ankara, the capital, Erdogan said his alliance had “lost altitude” across the nation and will take steps to address the message from voters.

“If we made a mistake, we will fix it” in the years ahead, he said. “If we have anything missing, we will complete it.”

Elsewhere in Ankara, thousands more supporters had earlier waved Turkish and party flags for a speech by reelected CHP Mayor Mansur Yavas, who trounced his AKP challenger in another disappointment for Erdogan.

According to 92.92% of ballot boxes opened in Istanbul, Europe’s largest city and the country’s economic engine, Imamoglu had 50.92% support compared with 40.05% for AKP challenger Murat Kurum, a former minister in Erdogan’s national government. Polls had predicted a tight contest in Istanbul and possible CHP losses across the country.

Yet partial official results reported by state-run Anadolu Agency showed AKP and its main ally giving up mayoralties in 19 key municipalities including big cities Bursa and Balikesir in the industrialised northwest, possibly reflecting strains on wage earners.

In an even more shocking result, and a first in 35 years, the CHP led nationwide by almost 1% of the votes the results showed.

AKP was set to win mayor’s seat in 23 cities, down from 39 in 2019. CHP is leading the race in 36 provinces, compared with 21 in the last election, TRT reported.

At stake in Istanbul is control of a city of almost 16 million people with a $6.6 billion annual budget. Social aid payments from municipal budgets are critical to voters hit by Turkey’s cost-of-living crisis. How those funds are allocated are decided at municipal councils, making dominance there is just as important as winning the mayor’s seat.

* * *

Mert Arslanalp, assistant professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bogazici University, said it was Erdogan’s “severest election defeat” since coming to national power in 2002.

“Imamoglu demonstrated he could reach across the deep socio-political divisions that define Turkey’s opposition electorate even without their institutional support,” he said. “This makes him the most politically competitive rival to Erdogan’s regime.”

In 2019, Imamoglu had dealt Erdogan a sharp electoral blow when he first won Istanbul, ending 25 years of rule in the city by AKP and its Islamist predecessors, including Erdogan’s own run as its mayor in the 1990s. CHP also won Ankara that year.
The president struck back in 2023 by securing reelection and a parliamentary majority with his nationalist allies, despite a years-long cost-of-living crisis.

Analysts said the economic strains, including nearly 70% inflation and a slowdown in growth brought on by an aggressive monetary-tightening regime, moved voters to punish AKP this time.

“The economy was the decisive factor,” said Hakan Akbas, a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group. “Turkish people  demanded change and Imamoglu is now the default nemesis to President Erdogan.”

Erdogan said ending the second election cycle in less than a year will itself bring a reprive for the economy.

In front of the Istanbul Municipality building, flag-waving supporters said they wanted to see Imamoglu challenge Erdogan for the presidency in the future.

“We are very happy. I love him so much. We would like to see him as president,” said Esra, a housewife.

Then again, Erdogan is not known for willingly parting with power and there is a case to be made that Imamoglu’s days as Erdogan’s challenger may be numbered: even after his second Istanbul victory in a row, Imamoglu has another battle to fight. He is accused of insulting members of the Supreme Election Council, which could result in his being banned from political office.

Rising popular support for the Islamist New Welfare Party, which took an even more hardline stance than Erdogan against Israel over the Gaza conflict, also sapped AKP support. The party took Sanliurfa from an AKP incumbant in the southeast.
Imamoglu was reelected despite the collapse of the opposition alliance that failed to topple Erdogan last year.

The main pro-Kurdish party, which backed Imamoglu in 2019, fielded its own candidate under the DEM banner in Istanbul this time. But many Kurds put aside party loyalty and voted for him again, the results suggest.

In the mainly Kurdish southeast, DEM reaffirmed its strength, winning 10 provinces. Following previous elections, the state has replaced pro-Kurdish mayors with state-appointed “trustees” following previous elections over alleged militant ties.

Violence erupted earlier in the day, including one incident in the southeast in clashes by groups armed with guns, sticks and stones, killing one and wounding 11. In another, one neighbourhood official, or “muhtar”, candidate was killed and four people were wounded in a fight, Anadolu reported.

Several others were hurt in other incidents while one person was shot dead and two were wounded overnight ahead of the vote in Bursa, the Demiroren news agency reported.

* * *

It was too early to observe a market reaction, but according to former Goldman and IIF strategist Robin Brooks, the market won’t like the election result in Turkey, as it was “hoping for an end to election-related stimulus and a return to orthodoxy. This result sends the opposite signal. Markets will see this as keeping Turkey in perpetual election mode. More pump-priming. More devaluation…“

Markets won’t like the election result in Turkey. They were hoping for an end to election-related stimulus and a return to orthodoxy. This result sends the opposite signal. Markets will see this as keeping Turkey in perpetual election mode. More pump-priming. More devaluation… pic.twitter.com/bQtiTJXbpX

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) March 31, 2024

Considering a Turkish Lira short has been our favorite FX trade for the past year (as we have indicated on our premium subscriber data feed for the past year) we certainly agree.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In a ludicrous paranoid segment on PBS NewsHour this week, the network’s White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez claimed that Donald Trump is not only planning to roll back “civil rights,” but also to “purge” LGBT people from the country.

Barron-Lopez and anchor William Brangham made the assertions while discussing Trump’s real criticism of transgender surgery and hormone therapy being carried out on children, and biological men competing in women’s sports.

“On the campaign trail, Trump has been talking about what he plans to do if elected in November, and that includes rolling back the rights of millions of LGBTQ people. It’s part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups,” Brangham asserted.

He then introduced Barron-Lopez, who claimed Trump “plans quick action if elected,” against LGBT people.

She then suggested that Trump and “roughly 100 right-wing organisations led by the Heritage Foundation,” have a secret plan to wipe out LGBTQ people… or something.

What does the dastardly plan consist of? Eliminating DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) from government mandates and banning federal funding for teaching Critical Race Theory.

OK, those things are not civil rights. If anything they are in direct opposition to civil rights because they discriminate based on skin colour.

Barron-Lopez, who is also a CNN political analyst, then complained that Trump will “rescind health-care protections for transgender people and urge Congress to define gender as male and female, fixed at birth.”

Without any actual explanation or evidence she further asserted that “this plan also is trying to stop any and all acknowledgement of an acceptance of gender identity and LGBTQ people, period.”

The correspondent then quoted Professor Thomas Zimmer at Georgetown, “who studies authoritarian regimes,” noting “Trump wasn’t necessarily able to institute this in 2017, when he first took office, because he didn’t have the amount of loyalists that he plans on having across the board. And with these new loyalists, Zimmer said, he can advance a white Christian evangelical ideal of American society.”

VT of Zimmer was then played where he stated “It is opposed to egalitarian democracy because it fundamentally does not agree that all people are equal or deserve to be treated as equal citizens. Only those who belong to the “true people,” to real America, deserve that. And so everyone else needs to either be purged from the nation or, at the very least, accept their sort of lesser place in society.”

Barron-Lopez then stated “Professor Zimmer added that that type of purging he’s talking about takes roots in the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, where they essentially tried to sweep away anyone across American society that would deviate from perceived norms.”

Watch:

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has been talking about what he plans to do if elected in November. That includes rolling back LGBTQ rights.

The proposal is part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups.@lbarronlopez reports. pic.twitter.com/VvzgddCZn2

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) March 27, 2024

So they’re saying essentially because he believes there are two sexes, that means Trump wants to root out and “eliminate”sweep away” all LGBTQ people.

What a juicy slice of leftist kookery that was.

What are “LGBTQ rights” and how are they different from the rights we all have?

— Nu Nyo 🇺🇸🇸🇪🇮🇱 (@Nu_Ny0) March 27, 2024

Modern “teachings” of race and racism teach bias toward certain races, which is a particular ideology, which again, doesn’t belong as part of a primary or secondary public school curriculum. This is not hard.

— A (@BlueObserverA) March 28, 2024

More fear mongering.

That’s all the left does.

— MAGA American Craig🍊 (@yzrider53) March 28, 2024

Not defining gender as male and female has muddied medical research and messaging. If people want to take on a different identity in their own time, no one is stopping them.

— A (@BlueObserverA) March 28, 2024

What rights would be rolled back?

— G-Dada, Free-Speech Test Pilot (@gregzink) March 28, 2024

Fact Check: False. 🤥

— 🏔Matt🏔 (@MountainMatt76) March 28, 2024

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