Consumers are the lifeblood of the global economy, the driving force behind market dynamics, and the ultimate arbiters of demand.

But where are the biggest congregations of consumers, and are they growing?

Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes the 20 largest consumer markets in the world, based on 2030 projections from World Data Lab, an enterprise focused on creating estimates on global consumer spending.

In this dataset, a consumer is classified as someone who spends at least $12 per day. Sources for the data include the World Bank, UN, Eurostat, and OECD databases.

Ranked: Largest Consumer Markets in 2030

Ranked first, China is expected to have slightly more than 1 billion consumers by 2030, a 15% increase from 2024. Just across the Himalayas, at second place, India will have 773 million consumers, up from 529 million today, a staggering 46% increase.

The rise of the global middle class, thanks to expanding economies and wealth, is expected to boom in this region, in turn increasing local spending ability.

This nearly 2 billion-strong consumer market in India and China could have wide-ranging effects on the global economy. Businesses may shift their focus to cater to these markets, offering more customized products and employing different marketing strategies. This could also require businesses to realign their supply chains and build new distribution networks closer to these markets.

Following current population rankings, the U.S. (348 million consumers), and Indonesia (158 million consumers) rank third and fourth respectively. Brazil, the sixth-most populated country, will have the fifth-largest consumers class by 2030, close to 136 million people.

At the same time, not all countries will see a growing consumer base. Russia and Germany are expected to stagnate, while Japan and Italy could even see a decline, a direct representation of plateauing population growth within these countries.

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times,

What does America’s overclass think of the rest of us? The short answer is “not much.”

They think ordinary people’s splurging on natural resources is destroying the planet and needs to be cut back forcefully.

And that the government needs to stamp down on ordinary people enjoying luxuries that, in their view, should be reserved for the top elites.

These are the implications of the results of two surveys of elite people conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, an organization that supports low tax rates and low government spending. The surveys covered not large swaths of the population but were confined to the top 1 percent of society.

One survey, the Elite, included only respondents with postgraduate degrees, household incomes above $150,000 and residents in a ZIP code with more than 10,000 people per square mile. Another, Ivy League graduates, included adults who attended Ivy League or other selective private colleges such as Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, or Stanford.

You probably won’t be surprised that the large majority of this Elite feels economically well off. Nor, if you’ve kept up with recent changes in party identification, will you be much surprised that 73 percent of these elites identify as Democrats and only 14 percent as Republicans.

What is surprising is the extent to which this American overclass would deprive its fellow citizens of things they have taken for granted. Half of these groups, 47 percent of Elites and 55 percent of Ivies, say the United States provides people with “too much individual freedom.”

More than three-quarters favor, “to fight climate change, the strict rationing of energy, gas, and meat,” a proposition rejected by 63 percent of the public. Again, “to fight climate change,” between half and two-thirds favor bans on gas stoves (a recent target despite demurrals of Biden bureaucrats and New York state Democrats), gasoline-powered cars (heavily disfavored by Biden Democrats and California rules) and SUVs, “private” air conditioning, and “nonessential air travel.”

The ascetic economist Thorstein Veblen, in his 1899 book “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” argued that the rich engaged in “conspicuous consumption” activities such as golf, polo, and art collecting, for which ordinary people had neither the time nor the money.

A century and a quarter later, America has rich people hoping to deprive ordinary people of “conspicuous consumption” activities they can afford and where they clutter up the airports, interstate highways, and high-end malls.

For generations, Democrats have liked to portray themselves as the tribune of the little man, the defender of policies that enable ordinary people without special advantages, or with many disadvantages, to live comfortably, securely, and in dignity. There may be some condescension in this posture, but also a considerable element of respect.

This survey shows that today, this 1 percent of the public, which includes virtually all elective and appointive Democrats in Washington and states like California, New York, and New Jersey, tends to see the bulk of its fellow citizens as selfish and destructive, in need not just of discipline but deserving of harsh restrictions on their freedoms.

This attitude is echoed by the wider group of Democratic voters. A 2023 Pew Research survey shows that while 31 percent of Republicans, even with their party out of power, think America “stands above all other countries in the world,” only 9 percent of Democrats do so.

It’s an unstable and dangerous situation when a largely one-party elite looks, with fear and loathing, across what Rasmussen describes as a “Grand Canyon gap” between it and its multiparty fellow citizens. It’s reminiscent somehow of the “let them eat cake” French royalists in 1789 or Russian nobles in 1917. An overclass this disconnected and contemptuous risks disruption.

A better approach comes from an undoubted member of America’s elite, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Speaking to CNBC at Davos last month, Dimon recounted a bus trip to Spokane and Boise and Bozeman: “People are growing. They’re hungry to grow. They’re innovating. It’s everywhere. It’s not just Silicon Valley.”

Perhaps aware the Mountain West votes Republican, Dimon, who calls himself a centrist Democrat, conceded that former President Donald Trump “wasn’t wrong about some of the critical issues” and was “kind of right” about NATO and immigration and “grew the economy quite well.”

Of elite Democrats’ contempt for Trump supporters, he had less to say.

“The Democrats have done a good job with the deplorables, hugging their Bibles and their beer and their guns. I mean, really? Can we stop that stuff and actually grow up and treat other people respectfully and listen to them a little bit?”

It’s a question other members of our dysfunctional overclass might ask themselves.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

Several elite universities are considering reversing recent decisions to reduce or even eliminate requirements for application that include standardized test scores such as the SAT exams.

According to Axios, multiple colleges used the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to weaken the importance of SAT and ACT test scores in most student applications. But in recent weeks, several schools have reversed course; Yale is considering repealing its prior policy of making SAT/ACT requirements optional, with Dartmouth already reinstating the requirements earlier this month. MIT reversed a similar policy back in 2022.

Other schools that have eliminated SAT/ACT requirements include Harvard and Columbia. Harvard, along with Cornell and Princeton, have extended their policy of making the scores optional, while Columbia’s policy remains permanent.

One of the motivating factors behind the reversal is ongoing research showing a clear correlation between students’ standardized test scores, and their subsequent academic performance and graduation rates in college. Some schools had previously opposed the test requirements for reasons of “diversity,” baselessly accusing the tests of being “racist” and against minority students.

Dartmouth pointed to a study that had been commissioned by the university’s president, which “confirms that standardized testing — when assessed using the local norms at a student’s high school” is crucial in evaluating an applicant’s potential.

In a statement, Yale’s undergraduate office said that they “expect to announce a decision on its long-term testing policy in the next few weeks.” In the meantime, students applying for the Fall of 2024 will still fall under the “not optional” category when it comes to standardized tests.

Brown University is currently awaiting a committee’s recommendations on how to move forward with standardized testing, as well as other practices such as legacy admissions and early decisions. The committee is expected to finish its report in the next few months.

There are still over 2,000 schools in the country which remain either optional or completely free of standardized test requirements ahead of the 2024-2025 academic year. Meanwhile, the National Education Association (NEA) has demanded that all colleges eliminate testing requirements, with NEA president Becky Pringle declaring in a statement that “All students deserve and have the ability to demonstrate knowledge in many ways that are measurable by those who know them best: Their educators.”

The Kremlin has blasted what it is calling the “malicious fabrication” by the US government of its alleged new ‘space weapon’ which set off a frenzy of media speculation this week.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he believes it was a trick by lawmakers to get Biden’s massive Ukraine and foreign defense aid package passed. “It’s obvious that Washington is trying to force Congress to vote on the aid bill by hook or by crook,” he said.

US officials and media continue to walk back the initial hyped and headline-grabbing claims of a Russian nuclear space weapon.

According to the latest from Reuters, “The space-based weapon U.S. intelligence believes Russia may be developing is more likely a nuclear-powered device to blind, jam or fry the electronics inside satellites than an explosive nuclear warhead to shoot them down, analysts said.”

And more, “Analysts tracking Russia’s space programs say the space threat is probably not a nuclear warhead but rather a high-powered device requiring nuclear energy to carry out an array of attacks against satellites.” The report goes on to list:

These might include signal-jammers, weapons that can blind image sensors, or – a more dire possibility – electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that could fry all satellites’ electronics within a certain orbital region.”

During a Thursday press briefing White House national security council spokesman John Kirby belatedly confirmed that reports of a new Russian capability was related to “an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing,” but that “This is not an active capability that’s been deployed.”

It all started when Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio set Capitol Hill media correspondents into a frenzy of speculation after on Wednesday he issued an ominous-sounding statement about “information concerning a serious national security threat.”

Cue trolling and mockery by Russian government accounts…

⚡️⚡️ YET ANOTHER THREAT ⚡️⚡️:

Russia’s nuclear space “weapon”

With everyone talking about the US government panicking over a new Russian “space weapon”, we suggest to look into what it really could be.

(Remember the warmongers in the West saying Russia was stealing washing… pic.twitter.com/ILEGjCaH5Y

— Russian Embassy in South Africa 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) February 16, 2024

This sparked a very short-lived media panic, and by Friday it’s already largely been forgotten about. There are even new reports saying Moscow has held out the possibility of cooperation with the West on new satellite technology, but of course this could also be another example of the Kremlin trolling Western media.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that prohibits the US from opening diplomatic relations with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and expands harsh sanctions on Syria to prevent other countries from normalizing with Syria.

The Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act passed in a vote of 389-32, demonstrating broad bipartisan support for the economic war against Syria. Only 28 Democrats and four Republicans voted against the bill. The legislation now heads to the Senate.

The bill was introduced as a reaction to Arab countries repairing relations with the Assad government and Syria being brought back into the Arab league. Hawks in the US are opposed to Syria’s regional integration and are hoping they can prevent it using sanctions under the Caesar Act.

The Caesar Act was implemented in 2020 and allows the US to sanction any individual or entity that does business with the Syrian government. The sanctions are specifically designed to prevent Syria from rebuilding, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously said it’s US policy to “oppose the reconstruction of Syria” as long as Assad remains in power.

The text of the bill declares that it’s US policy “to actively oppose recognition or normalization of relations by other governments with any Government of Syria that is led by Bashar Al-Assad, including by fully implementing the mandatory primary and secondary sanctions in the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.”

On top of the economic sanctions on Syria, the US has about 900 troops occupying the eastern portion of the country, where it backs the Kurdish-led SDF and controls oil fields.

Syria and regional analyst Joshua Landis: “What an odd form of justice for Syrians: block reconstruction and ensure poverty.”

US Passes Bill to extend Sanctions on Syria until 2032

“Congress is sending a message that it remains committed to justice for the Syrian people.”

Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Mike McCaul said.

Mr Ghanem adds “If Caesar is allowed to expire, then it will… pic.twitter.com/ih8toxgWsR

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) February 16, 2024

Recent reports have suggested the US was considering a withdrawal from Syria as its forces have been under attack since October due to US support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. But an SDF commander said last week that he received assurances from the US that a withdrawal was not on the table.

Over the last decade, America has become increasingly more diverse as demographic patterns shift across the population.

With over 39 million people, California is not only the most populous state, but one of the most diverse in the country.

Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu created this graphic to show the racial diversity of the 10 biggest states by population, based on data from the U.S. Census.

How Diverse Are America’s Most Populous States?

Here is the racial breakdown of the 10 largest U.S. states:

As the table above shows, California has the highest proportion of Asian Americans across the top 10 states, comprising 15% of the population.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s ethnic makeup includes 32% of Black Americans, the highest across the most populous states. As diversity has risen over the last decade, it has significantly influenced politics at both the state and national level. The state voted Republican for every presidential election from 1996-2016, but flipped blue in 2020.

With 80% of the population being White Americans, Ohio has the highest share across the biggest states. While diversity has increased since 2010, it has been seen mostly in urban and suburban districts while diversity has stagnated in rural areas.

Overall, 24% of rural areas in the U.S. are made up of non-White Americans, rising by a median rate of 3.5% across counties since 2010. While this debunks the myth that “rural” is synonymous with “white”, racial diversity across rural areas falls below the national average of 42% of the population being people of color.

Beyond the top 10 states, ethnic diversity is the highest in Hawaii, Nevada, and Maryland.

By Jeffrey Jones and Megan Brennan of Gallup

Several key indicators of the 2024 election environment indicate that President Joe Biden faces an uphill climb to win a second term. His job approval rating, Americans’ satisfaction with how things are going in the country and their confidence in the economy are below the levels associated with successful reelection bids in recent elections.

While Democrats hold a slight edge in national party identification and partisan leanings, that advantage is smaller than what it has been in past presidential elections won by Democratic incumbents.

In less direct measures of the electoral environment, Americans are more inclined to say that they are worse off financially, that it is harder to buy things and that the U.S. is as respected throughout the world as it was before Biden took office.

Biden’s fate will ultimately be determined by whether Americans’ views on these metrics improve over the course of the year (as they did for Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2012), stay the same or get worse (as they did for George H.W. Bush in 1992 and Donald Trump in 2020).

Presidential Job Approval

Incumbent job approval is arguably the best predictor of reelection success. Presidents with approval ratings of 50% or higher close to Election Day have all been reelected. All but one president with a sub-50% approval rating lost, the exception being George W. Bush. He won reelection with a 48% approval rating in Gallup’s final 2004 preelection poll taken in late October. However, he registered multiple 50% readings earlier in the month and had a 51% approval rating among likely voters in that final survey.

Among the approval ratings that did not carry incumbents to victory, Trump’s 46% approval rating is the highest and Gerald Ford’s 45% is close behind. The inauspicious ratings descend from there, all the way down to 34% for George H.W. Bush.

Biden’s 41% job approval rating, the lowest among incumbents in January of an election year, puts him in a precarious spot. It has not been unusual for incumbents to be below the 50% threshold this early on. But Biden’s reelection may depend on his ability to boost his numbers close to that threshold, something Clinton, Obama and Richard Nixon were able to do but Trump and Ford were not. Other presidents, including George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, saw significant declines in approval during their fourth year in office.

Satisfaction With the State of the Nation

Over the past four decades, incumbent presidents have still been reelected when majorities of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, but the cutoff seems to be 30% satisfaction. Less than 30% of U.S. adults were satisfied at the time of the 1992 and 2020 elections when the elder Bush and Trump lost, whereas more than 30% were satisfied in the years incumbents won.

Biden started 2024 with 20% of Americans satisfied with the country’s direction. Obama and Clinton had similar marks in January of their reelection years but saw satisfaction increase as the year wore on. For Trump, the opposite was the case, as the relatively high 41% satisfaction in January 2020 was soon dashed by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, as well as racial strife associated with the George Floyd killing.

Economic Evaluations

Although the economy is always a key issue in presidential election campaigns, Americans’ confidence in the economy is not always determinative of election outcomes. Gallup has computed its Economic Confidence Index in five presidential election years since 1992 when an incumbent sought reelection. The index summarizes Americans’ assessments of current national economic conditions and their perceptions of whether the economy is getting better or worse. Positive scores indicate economic optimism, and negative scores indicate pessimism, with a minimum theoretical score of -100 and a maximum of +100.

Among the past five incumbent elections, Americans were decidedly positive about the economy in one — 1996, when Clinton was reelected — and decidedly negative in one — 1992, when George H.W. Bush was defeated. In 2004, 2012 and 2020, index scores were close to the scale’s zero midpoint, indicating neither positive nor negative views of the economy. In two of those elections (2004 and 2012), the incumbent prevailed, but in 2020, Trump lost, likely because the coronavirus pandemic overshadowed the economy as an issue.

Currently, Americans’ economic confidence is closer to that of 1992 than other incumbent election years. However, the index has been improving in recent months. Biden can hope that economic perceptions follow a similar trajectory to 2012. That year, confidence started more negative than positive but approached a more neutral rating by the election, which Obama won.

Party Identification and Leaning

Americans’ partisanship strongly aligns with how they will vote and is thus an important indicator of election outcomes. Democrats typically lead Republicans in Americans’ party preferences; therefore, the size of that lead indicates whether Democrats are in a strong or weak position.

Gallup’s January 2024 poll shows the Democratic Party with a three-point advantage over Republicans: 46% identify as or lean Democratic, and 43% identify as or lean Republican. If this were October, these figures would be concerning for Biden, as it would represent the smallest Democratic advantage in an incumbent election year, including 2004 when Republican George W. Bush won with Democrats holding a five-point edge. In years Democratic incumbents won (1996 and 2012), the Democrats’ party advantage was +10 and +7, respectively.

A possible silver lining for the Biden campaign is that Democrats’ party advantage has often increased between January and October or November of an election year. This has occurred in all election years featuring an incumbent since 1992.

While Democratic Party identification and leaning have increased in each of the past five election years involving an incumbent, that pattern has not occurred in other recent elections. In non-incumbent years, Democrats increased their advantage in one (2000), saw no change in another (2016) and saw it shrink in one (2008).

Better Off Than Three Years Ago

Americans are evenly divided in their assessments of whether they are better off now than they were three years ago, with 48% saying they are and 47% saying they are not.

Gallup has asked this question in the early stages of previous election campaigns when incumbents were running for reelection. The current share of U.S. adults who say they are better off now is down from 2020’s pre-pandemic reading, but it is similar to the readings in prior election cycles. In 1992, 1996 and 2003, more Americans said they were better off, and two of the three presidents won reelection. In 2012, slightly more said they were not better off, but Obama still won another term.

Americans’ perceptions of whether they are personally better off now than three years ago are largely influenced by their party leanings and, to a lesser extent, their income level. There is currently a wide gulf between Democrats’ (74%) and Republicans’ (22%) assessments of whether they are better off than three years ago, and independents are squarely in the middle of the two groups, at 48%.

This is the fifth election cycle of the past six that partisans in the same party as the sitting president seeking reelection are significantly more likely than their counterparts to say they are better off. The gaps in partisans’ reports since 1992 have ranged from four points in 1996 when Clinton ran for a second term to 60 points in 2020 when Trump ran. The current 52-point gap is the second highest.

Meanwhile, 53% of those in upper-income households and 50% in middle-income households say they are better off, compared with 41% in lower-income households.

The “better off than three years ago” question is typically only asked early in election campaigns. Near the end of prior campaigns, Gallup has asked Americans whether they were better off than four years ago. That question has not shown an obvious relationship to election outcomes, exemplified by the high scores in the 2020 election that Trump eventually lost and weaker scores in Reagan’s 1984 landslide.

Personal Finances

While the current U.S. inflation rate is far below its 9.1% recent peak in June 2022, it is about twice what it was in November 2020, and many Americans continue to struggle because of high prices. Only 35% of U.S. adults say it is easier to buy things at stores than it was three years ago, while 59% say it is not.

The share of Americans who currently say shopping is not easier is higher than in 1992, 1996, 2003 and 2020. The question was not asked in other presidential election cycles and is not asked at the end of campaigns.

The previous reading from January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread shutdowns, showed a slim 52% majority saying it was easier for them to make purchases than three years ago, and 36% said it was not.

Americans’ reports of their own financial situation are also more negative now than in early 2020. Currently, 37% of U.S. adults say they are financially better off than a year ago, 45% say they are worse off, and 16% volunteer that they are the same. These readings are similar to last year’s but sharply different from the last election year, 2020, when 59% reported being better off and 20% worse off.

Looking ahead, a steady 61% majority of Americans think they will be financially better off in a year, but this is lower than the 74% who said the same in 2020.

Readings on these personal finance measures differ significantly by party identification, with Democrats much more positive than Republicans. Democrats (58%) are more than four times as likely as Republicans (14%) to say buying things is easier than it was three years ago. Similarly, Democrats (57%) are nearly three times as likely as their Republican counterparts (20%) to say their personal financial situation is better now than three years ago. Independents’ views on both are closer to Republicans’, as 33% say shopping is easier and 35% report an improvement in their financial situation.

There is no significant difference by household income level in views of buying power, as majorities across income groups say it is not easier to shop. However, lower-income (32%) and middle-income households (36%) are less likely than upper-income households (47%) to say their personal financial situation is better than one year ago.

U.S. International Respect

When it comes to foreign policy, only about one-quarter of Americans, 27%, think the U.S. is as respected throughout the world as it was three years ago, while 67% say it is not. Just 3% volunteer that it is more respected now. Americans were similarly pessimistic about the United States’ international standing in past election years, with no more than 40% (in 1992 and 2000) believing respect for the U.S. remained intact. The current reading is identical to 2003 and similar to 2012 (30%).

The U.S. has had varying degrees of involvement in world affairs over the past three years, ranging from its military departure from Afghanistan in 2021, its support for Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war, and its military support for Israel following the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, which resulted in an Israeli military operation in Gaza. Both the Russia-Ukraine and Hamas-Israeli wars are ongoing, and Americans are sharply divided over the proper U.S. role in each.

Democrats are split in their view of whether the U.S. is as respected around the world as it was three years ago, with 47% saying it is and 44% saying it is not. At the same time, 7% of Republicans think the U.S. is as respected, and 91% think it is not. Independents fall in between the partisan groups, with 27% saying it is respected and 67% saying it is not.

Bottom Line

Biden’s reelection chances do not look very favorable in early 2024. His job approval rating is lower than all recent incumbents at the same point, including those who ultimately lost the election, and key national mood indicators are more in line with those for past losers than winners. Party identification offers Biden some hope but depends on Democrats making gains rather than holding steady in national support, something that has happened at least slightly in each of the past five incumbent elections.

Biden’s chances may rest on him experiencing a comeback similar to what Obama achieved in 2012 when Biden was serving as vice president. That year, national mood indicators and Obama’s job approval rating significantly improved during the campaign, and the president was elected to a second term. Unlike Obama, though, Biden also faces questions about his age and ability to carry out his duties in a second term. Biden is also starting at a lower point in job approval than Obama did, meaning he has to show a bigger improvement.

Biden won his first term after national mood indicators worsened throughout the 2020 election year, which led to his defeating Trump, the incumbent.

Many Americans continue to struggle financially, and Biden has so far been unable to convince voters of the economy’s health or his accomplishments. If he cannot do so by the summer, particularly before the Democratic National Convention, his chances of winning reelection will grow increasingly bleak.

According to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, farmland values across the Midwest crop belt hit a record high in the fourth quarter despite elevated interest rates. 

Farmland values in the region encompassing all of Iowa and most of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin increased by 6% compared to the previous year. Although this represents an increase from a 5% rise in the third quarter, the growth rate is notably slower than the 12% and 22% gains seen in the fourth quarters of 2022 and 2021, respectively. 

An annual increase of 6 percent in the Seventh Federal Reserve District’s agricultural land values in 2023 helped them reach a new peak, though the yearly gain shrank to a single digit. Values for “good” farmland in the District moved up 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 from the third quarter, according to 129 agricultural bankers who responded to the January survey. 

Only 6 percent of the survey respondents expected farmland values to rise during the January through March period of 2024, with 17 percent expecting them to fall and 77 percent expecting them to be stable

Farmland values

Annual real change in Seventh District farmland values

Record high farmland values 

“For the third time in a row, there were fewer funds available for lending than in the same quarter of the prior year at survey respondents’ banks in the final quarter of 2023,” Fed economists David Oppedahl and Elizabeth Kepner wrote in the report. 

The economists cited an Iowa banker who warned of “tough times ahead” for farmers. 

A recent US Department of Agriculture forecast showed farmers are poised for another year of financial misery, facing the most significant decline in incomes in almost two decades as crop prices slide and US dominance in ag exports wanes.

A number of billionaires have been buying hard assets like farmland over the years (read: here & here & here & here). 

Update(1748ET): Journalist and geopolitical commentator Aaron Maté explains that despite news of Alexei Navalny’s death in prison driving world headlines and eliciting remembrances and comments from Western government leaders on Friday, he was still largely an unknown within Russian politics and society [emphasis ZH]…

What [former United States Ambassador to Russia] Michael McFaul says here is a joke. Navalny was a marginal opposition figure who polled at around 2%. Putin didn’t fear him; it served Putin to have him seen in the West as his main opposition.

The Russian gov’t meanwhile has just barred anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin. A Russian court has also issued a draconian prison sentence to anti-war sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky. We don’t hear about people like Nadezhdin and Kagarlitsky in the West nearly as much for one reason: unlike Navalny, they don’t collaborate with Western governments.

Navalny worked with NATO intel cutout Bellingcat and went through the “Yale World Fellow” program, a regime change training ground. For this reason, we also don’t hear that Navalny was an unrepentant xenophobe who compared Muslim immigrants to cockroaches and rotten teeth. 

His death is a tragedy. He was undoubtedly mistreated. But because he served US interests, US state media will make him into someone he was not. And just compare their fawning coverage to their silence on, or even support for, the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. Or their complete silence on the mistreatment and death of US citizen Gonzalo Lira in Ukrainian custody — universally ignored in US media.

Below is McFaul interview that Maté is referencing…

“Putin killed Navalny. Let’s be crystal clear about that… Putin killed Navalny because he was the one opposition leader in Russia that Putin feared the most.”

— @McFaul on the death of his friend, Alexei Navalnyhttps://t.co/f2Q0xFolwU pic.twitter.com/NN0czScNo6

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 16, 2024

* * *

Update(1324ET): The White House says it is still waiting on confirmation of Navalny’s death, but also has stated it has little doubt the reports are true and that President Putin is behind it. Previously the Biden administration said there would be ‘devastating’ consequences if Navalny dies in prison. “Reports of his death, if they’re true, and I have no reasons to believe they’re not — Russian authorities are going to tell their own story,” Biden said.

Biden in his live remarks said that Alexei Navalny bravely “stood up” to the “bad things” of the Putin government. Biden described that he had been “poisoned, arrested, sent him to prison, sent him to isolation.. a powerful voice for the truth.” 

And then Navalny returned from Germany to Russia “Knowing he’d likely be imprisoned or even killed… but he did it anyway.” Biden then asserted confidently that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death” and all of this is “proof of Putin’s Brutality” – but that in contrast the ‘democratic future’ Navalny believed in was worth “dying for”.

“But make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled,” Biden said.

At point during the brief Q&A Biden was asked whether the US believes this was an assassination. Biden didn’t affirm the question directly but said that “no doubt” it was the consequences of what “Putin and his thugs did.”

As for a US response, Biden only said: “We’re contemplating what else can be done.”

Navalny had been serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism and corruption. His supporters say these are all trumped-up charges while Russian media has at various times suggested he’s a CIA-supported opposition stooge.

But something very noticeably absent from Biden’s address and the Q&A that followed was this fact: An American citizen journalist died in Ukrainian custody… and his name has not been mentioned from the White House press podium, nor his case investigated. 

Every single American politician that wants to send your tax $$$ to Ukraine has taken upon themselves to prematurely comment on the death of Alexey Navalny in a Russian prison.

Where were they when AMERICAN journalist, Gonzalo Lira, died in the custody of Ukrainians?!?

Silence pic.twitter.com/orHWStxmMc

— Northodox (@unifiedprolife) February 16, 2024

But it remains that Gonzalo Lira’s death on Jan.24 – following an eight-month imprisonment on charges of ”justifying Russia’s military actions in Ukraine” – is not ‘useful’ to the Biden administration. Yet Biden during his speech was very quick to pivot from Navalny’s plight to the need for Congress to push through his funding package for Ukraine.

* * *

Watch live:

Update(1058ET): The international reaction to Navalny’s death in a Russian prison in the far north has been coming in throughout the morning, and as expected it includes the accusation that Putin and the Kremlin “brutally murdered” the Russian dissident, as Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said. 

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas slammed Moscow as a “rogue regime” and urged ‘accountability’. Kallas said “Alexei Navalny’s death is yet another dark reminder of the rogue regime we’re dealing with – and why Russia and all those responsible must be held accountable for each of their crimes.” Other European leaders reacted similarly.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “All the facts have to be established and Russia has serious questions to answer.” He added: “Alexei Navalny has been a strong voice for freedom, for democracy, for many years, and NATO and NATO allies have called for his immediate release for a long time.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris had little to say, only telling the Munich Security Conference on Friday that the Biden administration working to confirm the “terrible” news: “Whatever story they tell, let us be clear, Russia is responsible, and we will have more to say on this later,” she said.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders were quick to call Putin a “murderous dictator”. For example Republican Senator Tom Thillis (NC) issued the following blistering condemnation after first saying “Navalny laid down his life fighting for the freedom of the country he loved.”…

Putin is a murderous, paranoid dictator. History will not be kind to those in America who make apologies for Putin and praise Russian autocracy. Nor will history be kind to America’s leaders who stay silent because they fear backlash from online pundits.

Perhaps more interesting is the quickness with which Nikki Haley is trying to use to moment to improve her waning visibility with Republican voters:

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley blasted GOP primary rival former President Trump for his past praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the death of the country’s top opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday. 

“Putin did this,” Haley wrote Friday morning on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in response to news of Navalny’s death in prison. “The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends. The same Trump who said: ‘In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that’.” 

And of course, as we highlighted earlier, Tucker Carlson is being attacked for his recent trip to Moscow and Putin interview. The full court press begins…

The same people who drone on about ‘freedom’ and ‘free speech’ and ‘cancel culture’ also just casually say stuff like ‘Leadership requires killing people’.

Modern American conservatism is in a very dark place. https://t.co/ZgGwNuTf8S

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 16, 2024

What’s next? more sanctions on the already highly sanctioned Russian economy? Or perhaps Biden will move forward with a massive asset seizure? 

What an amazing coincidence that Navalny’s wife happened to be attending the Munich Security Conference this weekend, giving her a world stage just at the right moment… Wow! https://t.co/jpuBSSjQrW

— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) February 16, 2024

* * *

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a maximum-security prison in the country’s far north, the Interfax news service reported Friday, citing the Federal Penitentiary Service. 

47 year old Navalny, a major critic of President Vladimir Putin, vanished in December from a prison in the Vladimir region where he was serving a three-decade term for extremism and fraud charges that he had called political payback for his anti-Kremlin stance a decade ago. He had no expectations of getting out of jail as long as Putin was in power.

He later emerged in a remote Arctic prison camp, ending nearly three weeks in which his whereabouts were unknown, after he was moved from a prison outside Moscow.

“On February 16, 2024, in penal colony No. 3, convict A.A. Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” Interfax said, citing the country’s prison service. 

The Russian news agency continued: “The facility’s medical workers immediately arrived at the scene and an emergency medical team was called in. All necessary resuscitation measures have been carried out, but they did not yield positive results. Emergency medics confirmed the death of the convict.” 

Navalny’s death leaves any opposition to Putin in question. All of Putin’s top adversaries are now either deceased, imprisoned, or living in exile. 

Navalny was, undoubtedly, the biggest thorn in the Kremlin’s side. For over a decade, he led nationwide protests against the authorities, ran for office to challenge members of the Russian establishment and set up a network of campaign offices across the country that have since been dismantled.

Of course, the timing of Navalny’s death shortly after Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Putin has set the socials on fire.

pic.twitter.com/xBqE7n1c1W

— BeppiButler (@BeppiButler1) February 16, 2024

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

President Joe Biden discarded advice to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan unless the Taliban complied with the Doha Agreement, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad told a House panel on Feb. 15.

“He decided not to make withdrawal of the final 2,500 [combat troops] conditional on a political agreement or leaving a counter-terrorism force behind,” Mr. Khalilzad, among the February 2020 pact’s chief negotiators, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“He thought if he stayed, he might have to go back, or likely go back, to war with the Taliban,” he said, recalling President Biden’s rejection of his and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recommendation to make withdrawal conditional on Taliban adherence to Doha.

Mr. Khalilzad was the sole witness during the committee’s four-hour hearing, ‘Behind the Scenes: How the Biden Administration Failed to Enforce the Doha Agreement.’

The hearing was the latest installment—the first in election year 2024—in the GOP-led House’s examination of the eight months preceding the Aug. 26, 2021, evacuation from Hamid Karzai International Airport near Kabul, scarred by suicide bombings that killed more than 180 people, including 13 American service-members.

Republicans have clamored for analyses of the blundered withdrawal for two years, laying sole responsibility for the calamity on the Biden administration during a raft of 2023 committee hearings and on 2024 campaign stumps.

Democrats and Biden administration officials say the genesis of the disaster was President Donald Trump signing the Doha Agreement.

In the pact, the United States consents to deplete and then totally withdraw U.S. forces by May 2021, a draw-down they say fostered the rapid deterioration of the Afghan government and turned an orderly departure into a debacle.

According to an 85-page “After Action Report” (AAR) that analyzes the eight-month span between January and August 2021 released by the State Department on June 30, decision-makers across the last four administrations share responsibility for the 20-year war.

Mr. Khalilzad, who began his career advising President Ronald Reagan on the Soviet-Afghan war, served in President George W. Bush’s administration as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan 2004-05, to Iran 2005-07, and to the United Nations 2007-09.

President Donald Trump appointed him to serve as U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation in September 2018.

Ever the diplomat, he conceded long-term policy as well as decisions made in the eight months preceding the evacuation contributed to the chaos, including faulty trans-administration assumptions.

Among them: The Afghan government and army would resist the Taliban for at least a year.

“The bigger factor that shaped the outcome was the poor performance of the Afghan government, the disintegration of the armed forces,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

“Those were the bigger factors, in my judgment, in terms of what ultimately happened.”

U.S. Soldiers and Marines assist with security at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 19, 2021. (Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps via Getty Images)

Trump: ‘I Started The Process’

Mr. Khalilzad recounted that in November 2018, he was drafted by the Trump administration to negotiate the safe withdrawal of U.S. forces by obtaining commitments from the Taliban and Afghan government regarding counter-terrorism concerns.

“This represented a major shift in U.S. policy compared to when I had been the U.S. ambassador there. By the end of 2018, as is well known, the president’s decision was to bring home American forces from Afghanistan,” he said in his testimony.

There was opposition inside the U.S. and Afghan governments, but on Feb. 29, 2020, the U.S. and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement.

Mr. Khalilzad said the deal was a framework for U.S. withdrawal, dealt with terrorism, called for continued negotiation between the Taliban and the Afghan government, and a permanent cease-fire. It outlined a 14-month withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces.

“Importantly,” he said, “the Taliban committed not to attack U.S. forces once the agreement was signed. … The Taliban adhered to it, killing no coalition fighter or U.S soldier during the entire withdrawal period.”

Mr. Khalilzad said during the 135-day first phase, U.S. forces were reduced to 8,600.

At least three Democrats recalled President Trump publicly discussing the troop drawdowns, citing them in campaign speeches and Tweets on the social media site now called X while negotiations were underway.

President Trump announced troops were being drawn down to 4,500 during a September 2020 campaign event, they said, authorizing withdrawal to 2,500 in his waning days in office.

Several recalled his June 26, 2021, rally cry: “I started the process. All the troops are coming back home. They couldn’t stop the process. Twenty-one years is enough, don’t you think? Twenty-one years. They couldn’t stop the process.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) asked if those public statements hampered the Doha talks. Mr. Khalilzad said the Taliban thought Mr. Trump was impatient and U.S. negotiators were not complying with his stated goals.

“Sometimes the Taliban would say that I was not following the spirit of what was being said publicly [by the president] by saying we would only withdraw if certain conditions are met,” he recalled.

“That created the impression we would withdraw regardless.”

A commercial airplane is seen at the Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S. troops’ withdrawal in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021. (Stringer/Reuters)

Biden: Get Out The Day You Want

After the November 2020 elections, he was asked by the Biden administration to stay on. Mr. Khalilzad said President Biden had three options.

The United States could withdraw from the Doha accord, implement the agreement “but with changes such as extension of the agreed timeline,” or withdraw forces in accordance with the agreement, he said.

Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the three options boiled down to conditionally withdraw, tear it up or enforce it.

“You and Secretary Blinken both recommended to President Biden that he enforce Doha,” he said.

“But instead, the president ignored your advice and chose to ignore the Doha conditions and unconditionally withdraw, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Mr. Khalilzad said

The former ambassador was asked repeatedly about his rejected recommendations but would not confirm or deny if President Biden turned down a suggestion to seek another extension of the withdrawal deadline.

“Avoiding the restart of the war was the most important factor shaping decisions,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

“Did the Biden administration execute or operate on a plan that there are no conditions, there’s no line, no threshold, no red line, anything, that was going to prevent them from being out of Afghanistan on the day they wanted?” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) asked.

Getting out of Afghanistan on the day he wanted was exactly his advice to President Biden, recalled Mr. Khalilzad.

Once President Biden made it clear he was withdrawing regardless of Taliban compliance with Doha, the only question was, “‘You’re leaving when you want to leave, right?’ He chose to forget the conditions of the agreement. ‘We’re leaving when we want to leave. We’re leaving on the date that we demand to leave.’”

Zalmay Khalilzad, the then-special representative on Afghanistan reconciliation, speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship following the military withdrawal on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 18, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

President Biden’s unconditional withdrawal “was broadly supported” within the administration, State Department, Pentagon, and among NATO allies because the priority was to get out as quickly as possible, Mr. Khalilzad said.

“There was a judgment that if we” placed conditions on the departure “it could result in a protracted delay in the withdrawal” destabilized by uncertainty in securing a Taliban-government deal, he said.

“If there was a risk of going back to war, and perhaps sending more troops, the decision was not to pursue that. And there was broad support for that decision,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

In April 2021, President Biden announced four months had been added to the withdrawal but that it would not be “conditioned on a political agreement between the two Afghan sides,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

With “our over-the-horizon capabilities,” he said the Biden administration was assured by military and intelligence officials that the conditions—and boots on the ground—weren’t necessary to safeguard American interests in Afghanistan.

“The withdrawal proceeded based on the new, extended timeline,” Mr. Khalilzad said.

“The assessment was the Afghan government would remain in power and its forces would defend it and fight the Taliban during the withdrawal and for some time afterwards.”

That proved to be spectacularly wrong.