Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, n’ Guns blog,

Blood rack, barbed wire
Politicians’ funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty-first century schizoid man

– King Crimson, “21st Century Schizoid Man”

You’ve all heard me rant about the “Straussian Two-Step,” which is nothing more than a retread of the Hegelian Dialectic.  

Here’s the formal definition:

An interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis ) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis ), the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis ).

In modern politics it’s used to create a false reality by asserting something that is partially true (at best) or a truth that you yourself as a person in power created.

In today’s case it’s a manufactured energy crisis across the West.

In order to see the Straussian Two-Step however you have to work backwards. This process is not an a priori deduction or an exhaustive fit of investigative journalism.

Rather it is an inductive conclusion based on awareness of the motivations of those in power and seeing how they lead a mass of people to a pre-ordained conclusion. In other words, schizo-posting.

Thesis

So, say your goal is to legitimize the state takeover, or advance another step forward the state takeover, of an industry.  Let’s use oil and gas for today’s lesson.

The first thing you do is manufacture a crisis that will disrupt the supply of the product you want to takeover. In this case, it started with COVID-19, which disrupted far more than just the energy sector.

More than 2 million barrels per day of refining capacity was lost world wide thanks to COVID-19. Given the current hostility to new refineres (more on this later), those barrels are not coming back.

Don’t forget, that for a “Straussian Two-Step” this big you will have to brainwash and/or gaslight two entire generations into hating themselves for being rich, wasteful, spoiled, alive or worse, just plain white.

So, they are already primed to hate all the things at play here — capitalism, Big Oil, Banks, Old White Guys (rich or poor) — and enrage your useful idiots by pushing their already tenuous hold on reality to the literal breaking point.

“I can’t even….” isn’t the most common phrase uttered on Tik-Tok for nothing.

That’s the Thesis part.

So, when the crisis hits thanks to natural gas disruption you forbid buying of from a particular country…

— Hello, Vlad? We’re in a helluva pickle, would you mind invading Ukraine…? Nyet…? Well, we’ll see about that….

— MISSING PAGES FROM THE RETURN OF DR. STRANGELOVE WORKING SCRIPT.

… you demonize not only Vlad but the industry itself for price gouging and preying on the widdle guy during a war.

There’s a word for this… chutzpah.

Antithesis

Predictably, you then allow your fake political opponents …

[enter Cocaine Mitch from Stage Right]

… to produce the opposite argument. In this case, the counter is obviously we need free markets to produce oil and gas. The refiners are just responding to the market.

That fake opposition, of course, also blames Vlad for this crisis to ensure the market’s champion looks not only patriotic but also suitably bought and paid for by Big Oil, Old White Guys, etc.

Both sides of this argument have now been framed 90 degrees away from the real source of the problem, government intrusion into the flow of oil and gas to your homes.

This is a crisis that if left solved to human ingenuity and, yes, the studious application of greed, would be over in a matter of weeks as refineries shut down during COVID would come back online, supply chains reorganized etc.

While the crisis phase would be over quickly, the long term investment cycle set off in refining would take longer to structurally immunize the industry against future supply shocks to accomplish.

And if you’re daft enough to believe government has any of that investment path mapped out on their whiteboards in their noble service to humanity, I can’t even…

If I could buy stock in psychoanalysis right now I’d be long AF.

Prices may not return to normal for years but the market, without intervention by rapacious morons both in government and running them from behind the curtain, would eventually grind the arbitrage out of the fuel industry nearly entirely.

Guess who wins there folks? That’s right you. But, again, you hate yourself for being, well, yourself.

Once the crisis is here and the rhetorical groundwork laid after months of repeating these lies about the cause of the crisis — PUTLER DID IT — it’s easy to move the conversation to where you really want it to go.

Remember the goal. Destroy free markets, nationalize oil and gas.

This means also preparing the next move to get rid of another aspect of the free market while zeroing in on the current crisis. In this theoretical case, we’re looking at the massive diesel crack spreads of refineries, fueling the perpetual motion machine of Marxism’s inherent envy.

Moreover, this situation exploded on the eve of a crucial election to put into the mouths of the crisis actors we call colloquially, “Members of Congress.”

Synthesis

Their solution? Put windfall profit taxes on refiners who are taking advantage of the vulnerable and needy common man. They are evil ‘price gougers’ by accepting the bids from the market for the fruits of their labors which occurred precisely because of artificially inducing a shock to the system.

In the case of diesel fuel in the US this is clearly a manufactured crisis.  COVID took a lot of refineries in the Northeast (PADD-1) offline.  And given the hostility of the Biden administration and environmentalists to the oil industry as a whole, as I alluded to earlier, those refineries are not coming back online anytime soon.

Don’t take my word for it, take it from the ones who own the refineries.

“Building a refinery is a multi-billion dollar investment. It may take a decade. We haven’t had a refinery built in the United States since the 1970s. My personal view is that there will never be another refinery built in the United States.”

According to Wirth, oil and gas companies would have to weigh the benefits of committing capital ten years out that will need decades to offer a return to shareholders “in a policy environment where governments around the world are saying ‘we don’t want these products to be used in the future’”.

Why would they? If it were your money would you begin the insane process to build an oil refinery in the US today even with crack spreads at $70+ per barrel? Of course not. By the time you filed the first Environmental Impact Assessment application form the spreads could be back to $20 because it’s politically advantageous for the “Straussian Two-Steppers” to take the pressure off for a few months.

Government is keeping the market in a supply/demand mismatch on purpose. That’s the only conclusion you can draw. Because if “Biden” wanted to solve this problem he wouldn’t be draining the SPR, he’d be rolling back regulations on refining oil or offering some of that ‘infrastructure money’ to help the industry rebuild post-COVID.

No matter how committed you are to saving the planet from Climate Change civilization is directly downstream of energy production.

If he wanted lower gas prices he wouldn’t be trying to expand subsidies to poor people, pandering for their votes, he’d be going to the negotiating table with Putler and working out a mutually unappetizing solution to everyone’s interests in Ukraine.

High Bid Wins the Prize

Diesel fuel demand is mostly inelastic, since it’s simply necessary for our daily life. Any supply disruption will cause massive price spikes because people will fall all over themselves bidding up the price of available supply to get what they can.

This is the one thing morons leftists can’t wrap their head around. Producers aren’t withholding supply and ‘raising prices’ in an open market economy. That’s propaganda. The reality is that consumers bid up the price for everything in demand or withhold those bids when the cost/benefit isn’t in their favor.

There is no need to control this. The things under supply shock will flow to those who have the means to bid for them and producers get the signal there is money to be made increasing supply. It is this give and take that always alleviates shortages, unless they are not allowed to do so because ‘rules.’

As the late, great Gary North told us over and over again, “Everything’s for sale, high bid wins.” If you have anyone to blame for higher diesel crack spreads you need only look in a mirror. Because we could have spare refining capacity by now if it weren’t cost prohibitive, even at these prices, to bring the idle plants back on line.

Remember, everything’s for sale and high bid wins. Everyone does the cost/benefit analysis.

This is the dynamic at play when I use the term cost-push inflation.  A supply shortage pushes the bids for basic goods up out of necessity and pouring money into the system through government handouts only accelerates this effect.  

Low cost or free dollars flow to the things people need the most and that is the main source of our inflation today.

So, when you see the headlines full of scaremongering like the US only has 20 days of diesel fuel left, this undergirds the bids for limited supply.  The futures markets are stripped of their power to coordinate supply over time and producers are stuck being demonized by low quality agitprop from the likes of AOC and Lizzie Slapaho.

Nationalization: The Next Two-Step

Windfall profit taxes are already on the way in Germany, 90% of all profits taxed away to the state. Energy production, when that bill passes, will be nationalized in Germany. The end of rational energy pricing will be gone.

Germany will become another energy subsidizing hellscape like we see all over the world.

The choice in front of German energy companies now is Uniper’s fate, nationalization through bailout, or remain ‘private’ but on a government-mandated cost-plus business model the profits from which will never outcompete the depreciation curve.

Today here in the US the Democrats are pushing for outright nationalization of all oil and gas production. That was the goal all along, the thesis. The fake antithesis is the “Drill baby, Drill,” crowd on Capitol Hill, crying crocodile tears over the loss of the Keystone XL pipeline for more than a decade.

The synthesis this time around will be finally getting through their long-sought after billionaire’s tax in the form of a windfall tax starting with evil Big Oil. Even if they don’t get it, it’s not like they don’t have other things on their to-do lists to get it done.

They are starting here again because they know no one will seriously consider outright nationalization (the next synthesis) unless there’s a war with Russia…

*  *  *

Join my Patreon if you aren’t schizo

The medical aid nonprofit Doctors Without Borders is providing and distributing maps for migrants that show routes through Central America to reach the United States, according to a new report by the Daily Caller.

And the kicker? The organization providing the maps is funded by “a number of prominent tech companies”. 

Called “shelters for people on the move” in Spanish, the map lists clinics and aid areas along routes to the U.S. 

It shows paths that start in Guatemala that lead to the U.S.-Mexico border and lists clinics and shelters along the Mexican border that migrants can stop at during their trip. These clinics and shelters are across the border from major U.S. cities like El Paso, Texas and San Diego, California, the report says. 

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders has gotten sizeable donations from companies like Google and Amazon, the report notes. It has also received millions in donations from the foundations of billionaires like Elon Musk and Michael Bloomberg.

Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman Jessica Brown told The Daily Caller: “As a medical humanitarian organization providing medical and mental health care to people on this migration route, MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] prints and distributes these maps to ensure that people know where to find shelter and humanitarian assistance and how to access mental health services along the migration route.”

Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) Director of Government Relations and Communications RJ Hauman concluded: “The fact that an international medical NGO with billions in the bank is making literal roadmaps to guide migrants from Central America to our southern border is not only an affront to its core mission, but a globalist attack on our sovereignty.”

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

The all-important midterm elections are just one week away. I’ve said a lot about them, and will have more to say about them in the days to come.

But today, I want to talk about something even more important: truth vs. official lies. More specifically, I want to talk about truth and propaganda.

It’s said that truth is the first casualty of war. And Churchill once said that in wartime, truth is so precious that it needs to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.

That’s why propaganda plays such a large role in modern warfare.

The fact is wars are conducted in part through lies and propaganda. For example, in the early days of World War I, the British cut the undersea communications cables that ran from Germany to the U.S.

The British wanted to control the flow of information and issue what we call today “misinformation.” And so they created inflammatory accounts of German atrocities to sway public opinion, like German soldiers skewering Belgian babies on bayonets.

While there will always be individual acts of atrocity in wartime, these reports were largely propaganda.

Here in the U.S. itself, President Wilson had special police forces who arrested anyone reporting negative news on the progress of the war. Sound familiar?

It’s like the social media companies today canceling or censoring anyone who reports that the vaccines don’t work or masks don’t work. The media call it “misinformation” (even though it’s scientifically valid) and move on.

The same is true with the war in Ukraine. The propaganda machine kicked into overdrive early on.

Bodyguard of Lies

The CIA and MI6 leaked a steady stream of anti-Russian lies to prop up morale. These lies were reprinted in warmonger media outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC News.

That means it’s almost impossible for U.S. citizens to get the real story through mainstream media outlets. Still, there is some honest reporting going in if you know where to find it.

You just have to filter the sources and find those with good pipelines of information (including inside the government) who do not have a hidden agenda and are willing to speak the truth.

It’s not necessary to rely on Russian sources (the Russians are certainly not above propaganda, although they’re generally more truthful than the U.S. media, believe it or not). There are excellent analyses to be found among Swiss sources, German experts who are not in favor of the war and some on-the-ground reporting from the front lines on specialist websites.

Get Ready for the Russian Counteroffensive

Some of the best sources are found among retired U.S. military officers who are experts on warfare, still have good contacts inside the military and intelligence communities, and who consider the war in Ukraine to be highly detrimental to U.S. national security and the economy.

One top commentator who fits this description is Colonel (Ret.) Douglas Macgregor, who wrote a recent commentary about the war. Macgregor points out that Russia is preparing for a full-scale counterattack to roll-back recent Ukrainian gains near the Donbas and Kherson.

The Russians have been consolidating their positions: resupplying, mobilizing troops, and preparing for winter warfare at which they excel. It’s just a matter of waiting for the ground to freeze so trucks and armor can maneuver without getting bogged down.

The attack could come as early as November or December at the latest. Yet, that is not Macgregor’s main concern.

Is the 101st Airborne Division Being Used as Bait?

His fear is that the U.S. will double down in the face of this attack and deploy U.S. troops to the battle. The Pentagon recently deployed units of the 101st Airborne Division to Romania, just miles from its border with Ukraine.

Airborne forces are generally light infantry that lack the firepower of, say, armored units or mechanized infantry.

But if these forces did get directly involved in the fighting, heavier reinforcements would be on the way. From there, it could be a short step to nuclear war with Russia.

To some, that might sound unrealistic or even paranoid. They’ll say it’s just scare-mongering. But this is a legitimate possibility, and there’s a real chance of it happening. The fact is, we’ve been on the path of escalation with Russia since 2008 and the tempo of escalation has accelerated since the war began in February.

All experts on nuclear warfighting agree that if a nuclear war begins, it will be the result of escalation to the point that one side feels it is cornered and has no choice but to use nukes. That point is getting closer by the day.

Macgregor calls on Congress to stop the White House, but he’s not optimistic that’ll happen.

Nuclear War? It’s Not the End of the World

The possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia is a shocking development after thirty years, during which nuclear weapons and nuclear war between superpowers were almost forgotten.

What is as disconcerting is the fact that the discussion of nuclear war is casual, almost flippant, and carries none of the seriousness with which the topic was formerly addressed. It also carries no comprehension of the existential consequences and sheer horror that the use of nuclear weapons entails.

It’s almost as if the warmongers in and around the White House were playing a game of chicken without realizing the other driver had no intention of changing course.

Now the U.S. elites have started psychological operations (psyops) aimed at Putin with nuclear weapons as the bait. They claim that Putin has threatened to use tactical weapons in Ukraine and possibly other parts of Eastern and Central Europe.

That’s a lie; Putin never said that.

When asked, both Putin and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev said that if attacked, Russia would defend itself by all means necessary, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. That’s not news. That has been Russian or Soviet policy since the early 1950s. It has also been U.S. policy since then. Neither side has ever renounced the first use of nuclear weapons.

Putin’s expected answer to a question posed has been turned into a threat he never made. This is U.S. and UK propaganda at its worst (and most dangerous). This lie about Putin’s intentions quickly morphed into another psyop about a “false flag” operation.

That’s when you stage an attack disguised to look like an attack by your enemy in order to justify your own “retaliation,” which you were planning all along. Recently, the narrative that Putin would use nukes or conduct a false flag operation morphed into a related narrative that Putin would use a “dirty bomb.”

He Said, He Said

In effect, Putin would detonate a dirty bomb and then blame the Ukrainians and Americans. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, but it does employ radioactive material wrapped around conventional explosives. When detonated, the radioactive material is dispersed and can poison or kill any people or livestock in the area.

Not to be outdone, the Russians countered by saying the U.S. or Ukraine would conduct the false flag by detonating a dirty bomb and then blaming the Russians as an excuse to escalate Western involvement in Ukraine.

At this point, we have both sides warning the other side will conduct a false flag with a dirty bomb in order to justify their own pre-planned escalation. If a dirty bomb does go off, each side will blame the other and the truth will be a casualty of war.

Meanwhile, a senior Russian foreign ministry official has warned that U.S. satellites, which have been providing critical targeting information to Ukraine’s armed forces, may be “legitimate” targets of Russian forces.

How would the U.S. respond if Russia starts taking out its satellites? We may soon find out.

Is Your Portfolio Ready for Nukes?

By the way, I’m not apologizing for Putin or defending his invasion of Ukraine. I’m just looking at the current situation and objectively analyzing where things could go next, based upon the facts.

And I’m not making a specific prediction; I’m just giving you a warning because the media doesn’t seem to want to.

It might seem like an inappropriate question given the potential for widespread death and destruction, but is your portfolio ready for nukes?

In a nuclear confrontation, stocks and bonds could become worthless as exchanges are closed around the world. At best, they will retain some value as illiquid private equity tokens.

The best assets in this catastrophic scenario are land, gold, silver, food, water, and heat for your home.

Nothing else will matter much.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid has been a veritable gold mine of bad takes, ignorant comments and authoritarian arguments over the past few years. 

This includes her consistent demand that people without covid vaccines be denied medical care, that they be punished with fines, as well as her baseless assertions that hurricanes are a product of “global warming.” 

Her latest comments might be her most bizarre yet, with a mind boggling claim that American voters were essentially oblivious to the issue of inflation until conservative political candidates started talking about it.

This narrative appears to be an extension of a common gas-lighting strategy among Democrats; a way to dismiss the problems Americans most care about in 2022 as overblown. Reid’s suggestion insinuates that the public was comfortably oblivious to the inflationary/stagflationary crisis and could have stayed that way had it not been for those meddling Republicans and their refusal to use the “common tongue” on the campaign trail.  In other words, she thinks the average voter is stupid.

Reid argues that the only people that use the word “inflation” are “journalists and economists” and that it is not a part of the normal lexicon of discussion.  One might point out to Reid, since she seems incapable of grasping simple logic, that Americans have not faced a true inflationary threat since the 1970’s, over 40 years ago.  So, it’s not surprising that inflation was not a term used around every dinner table in the country until today as the threat returns with a vengeance. 

It should be noted that Joy Reid has covered the inflation crisis on her own show on a number of occasions, which means she also may have contributed to the wider usage of the terminology, not just conservatives.  Here’s Reid hitting the inflation issue over 8 months ago:

The leftist pundit’s take on the situation is definitely uneducated, as she tries to blame companies as the culprits behind inflation as if they are raising prices artificially.  She ignores the fact that prices also spiked in commodities and raw materials, energy, labor and shipping, which means goods cost much more for producers to manufacture.  It is bottom line inflation that causes the prime bulk of price increases on store shelves, not businesses trying to squeeze extra profits out of consumers. 

Beyond that, Reid seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable for leftists to put their own spin on the inflation problem as a way to push their political agenda forward, but it’s not okay for conservatives to ring the warning bell because now Democrats are tied inexorably to our country’s economic decline.   It’s the legendary MSNBC double standard all over again.  

The fact that a majority of Americans are aware of inflation dangers and are talking about them is a good thing.  It shows that the public is paying attention and they are seeking solutions.  Reid’s position is an elitist one, asserting that the general public should remain in the dark, and that such issues should only be entertained among small circles of “professionals” who will let the rest of us know what we should think and when we should think it.         

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One problem for CEOs who direct their companies to follow the goals of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria is that in doing so, they may be breaking the law. According to legal experts, ESG initiatives can cause companies to break antitrust, civil rights, and Employee Retirement Income Security Agency (ERISA) laws.

“The way ESG is being implemented is completely antidemocratic, which is to say that they are just flouting laws,” George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki told The Epoch Times. “They’re flouting democratically elected laws and bringing things about that are often illegal.”

Violation of Antitrust Laws

According to a report titled “Liability Risks for the ESG Agenda” (pdf), by Washington D.C. law firm Boyden Gray, companies that take part in coordinated actions against other companies or industries could be violating U.S. antitrust laws. The report states, “Federal law prohibits companies from colluding on group boycotts or conspiring to restrain trade, even to advance political or social goals.”

It cites the Sherman Act of 1890, which prohibits “every contract, combination … or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce.” Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote on this subject, commenting that “antitrust laws in general, and the Sherman Act in particular, are the Magna Carta of free enterprise. They are as important to the preservation of economic freedom and our free-enterprise system as the Bill of Rights is to the protection of our fundamental personal freedoms.”

Hundreds of the world’s largest corporations have signed joint pledges through international clubs such as Climate Action 100+, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers Alliance, and others to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

GFANZ, which includes 550 global corporations as members, states that “all members have independently committed to the goal of net zero by 2050, in addition to setting interim targets for 2030 or earlier and reporting transparently on progress along the way.” GFANZ banking members include Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.

Climate Action 100+ includes 700 investment companies representing $68 trillion in assets; it also includes 166 companies with a combined market capitalization more than $10 trillion. Among the hundreds of members of Climate Action 100+ are some of the world’s largest and most powerful companies, including Boeing, BP, Caterpillar, Chevron, Dow, Exxon, Ford, Honda, Lockheed Martin, Mercedes, Nestle, Nissan, PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble, Raytheon, Siemens, Coca Cola, Toyota, United Airlines, American Airlines, Walmart, BlackRock, State Street, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, PIMCO, and Allianz. It also includes America’s largest state pension funds, such as CalPERS, CalSTRS, New York City Pension Funds, and New York State Common Retirement Fund.

The Boyden Gray report notes that the argument that ESG advocates make—that companies which follow ESG guidelines are better investments —“relies heavily on bandwagon effects.” In other words, if enough asset managers collaborate to shift their investments toward ESG-compliant companies, the shares of those companies become more valuable; and even more so if governments subsidize industries like wind and solar, while punishing fossil fuel companies.

Violation of Civil Rights Laws

Beyond antitrust, another area where ESG may run afoul of America’s laws is where the push for racial and gender equity violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. In step with ESG social justice goals, United Airlines announced in April 2021 that it would set racial and gender quotas when hiring pilots.

The company stated that “our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day. That’s why we plan for 50 percent of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color.”

A number of recent court rulings have underscored the validity of U.S. laws regarding racial discrimination. In June 2021, a federal judge ruled that the Biden administration’s farming grants, which gave preference to racial minorities, were illegal. In a separate case, the courts ruled that COVID-relief grants by the Biden administration that excluded white restaurant owners were also illegal.

But America’s civil rights laws go beyond government policy to include private industry as well, opening companies up to lawsuits from employees. In August, for example, American Express became the latest company to face an employee lawsuit for racial discrimination. Brian Netzel, a decade-long employee who was fired in 2020 on what he claims are racial grounds, stated in his class-action lawsuit that American Express “gave preferential treatment to individuals for being black and unambiguously signaled to white employees that their race was an impediment to getting ahead in the company.”

In October 2021, a white male employee was awarded $10 million by a jury that agreed with his claim that he was fired as part of a race-based policy by his employer, Novant Health. After five years of positive work reviews, David Duvall was fired “without warning or cause as part of an intentional campaign to promote diversity in its management ranks; a campaign [Novant] has boasted about publicly,” his suit stated.

“It’s been well known for decades that quotas are illegal,” Zywicki said. “But when you start looking at things like racial sensitivity training, they’re engaging pretty much in rampant stereotyping, negative stereotyping of certain groups, and they are engaging in rampant preferences for others. All of this runs pretty clearly up against existing civil rights laws.”

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, a component of ESG, are coming under fire, both as mandatory employee training and as hiring criteria.

It was reported on Nov. 2 that University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine “forces applicants, students, and professors to constantly prove their commitment to the tenets of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a prerequisite to advancement, rather than basing such decisions on merit alone.” This was based on a report by a nonprofit called Do No Harm, which charged that one of UNC’s main criteria for hiring and promotion of teachers was “a positive contribution to DEI efforts.”

Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm, stated in a letter to the school that “it is inappropriate to require that candidates for promotion and tenure demonstrate their commitment to a political ideology. Forcing candidates to declare their support for DEI when many undoubtedly oppose it would compel dishonesty.” This report comes amid a case before the U.S. Supreme Court wherein UNC was charged with having unconstitutional race-based admission standards.

Violation of Fiduciary Laws

A third area where ESG clashes with U.S. law regards the legal obligation of fund managers and corporate executives to act in good faith and in the best interests of investors and shareholders.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act, passed in 1974 to address corruption and misuse of pension money, requires that private pension fund managers invest “solely in the interests of participants and beneficiaries.” It set what is called a “prudent expert” standard of care for fund managers and allows fund beneficiaries to sue managers for failing to uphold this standard.

While ERISA applies to corporate pension funds, many U.S. states have applied similar language to public pension funds. Currently, 24 states forbid ideological investing for their public pension funds, including ESG.

An August letter to BlackRock, signed by 19 state attorneys general, for example, charged that BlackRock had a “duty of loyalty” to state pensioners who invested in its funds and that “your actions around promoting net zero, the Paris Agreement, or taking action on climate change indicate rampant violations of this duty, otherwise known as acting with ‘mixed motives.’”

In response, BlackRock wrote that “one of [its] most critical tasks as a fiduciary investor for our clients is to identify short- and long-term trends in the global economy that may affect our clients’ investments.” The letter states that “governments representing over 90 percent of global GDP have committed to move to net-zero in the coming decades. We believe investors and companies that take a forward-looking position with respect to climate risk … will generate better long-term financial outcomes.”

State attorneys general disagreed, stating that despite climate-change rhetoric, “governments are not implementing policies to require net zero … In particular, the United States has not implemented net-zero mandates. Despite doing everything in his power at the beginning of his presidency to shut down fossil fuels, even President Biden is appearing to reverse course given the harm his inflationary policies have inflicted on the American people.”

In October, Swiss bank UBS downgraded the shares of BlackRock, stating that “as [BlackRock’s] performance deteriorates and political risk from ESG has increased, we believe the potential for lost fund mandates and regulatory scrutiny has recently increased.”

In addition to the risk that ESG asset managers violate their fiduciary duty to investors, there is also the risk that corporate managers violate their duty to act in the best interest of the shareholders of the company.

Read more here…

Last week, the New York Times wrote a puff piece which framed President Biden’s numerous gaffes during a Florida rally as ‘verbal fumbling.’

Biden conflated the war in Ukraine with the Iraq war, then lied when he said he got the two confused because his son Beau died in Iraq.

NEW – Biden: “Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq… excuse me, the war in Ukraine. I’m thinking about Iraq because that’s where my son died.” pic.twitter.com/G2QeYUqdHN

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 1, 2022

The same day, the White House was called out by CNN‘s Daniel Dale over a now-deleted tweet claiming “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” when in fact – as Dale noted, “The size of Social Security checks is linked, by law, to inflation. This year’s increase is unusually big because the inflation rate is unusually big.”

when you’ve lost the “fact checkers”… https://t.co/XKFyvecGx2

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 2, 2022

And while the White House deleted the Tweet, Biden repeated the claim twice last week. As The Blaze notes;

• Speaking in Florida on Tuesday, Biden said, “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.”
• Then at a campaign rally, Biden said on Tuesday, “On our watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting the biggest increase in Social Security checks, period.”

There’s a lot that’s wrong with that declaration. First of all, this will be the seventh increase in a row. Second, increases are routine because they happen automatically — based on changes to a particular calculation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W), and not the actions of the president. 

What makes Biden’s boast especially preposterous is that it ultimately points to the fact that what’s happened “on his watch” is 40-year-high price inflation.

Fast forward four days, and both CNN and the New York Times have gone scorched earth on Biden, in what appears to be a’ coordinated effort’ to distance mainstream Democrats against a President who’s become an increasing liability with batshit crazy comments, obvious confusion, and several recent sniffings.

Adding this CNN fact check to the thread. Looks like a coordinated effort.

Hat tip: @IUTruthtellers and @mindnotforrent https://t.co/rjhg6iMHK0

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 5, 2022

There’s a reason Daniel just decided to start doing his job two years in and 4 days before a before an election that effectively ends Biden’s presidency. Try and guess what that is. pic.twitter.com/EIA7YiFmDc

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 5, 2022

On Friday, the Times took Biden and his White House to task for a series of false statements about the state of the economy and what Biden has done for it.  

For example, Biden routinely positions himself as an unprecedented cutter of budget deficits, as he did recently in Syracuse:

“This year the deficit, under our leadership, is falling by $1.4 trillion. Ladies and gentlemen, the largest ever one-year cut in American history on the deficit.” 

Not so fast, says the Times: 

Left unsaid was the fact that the deficit was so high in the first place because of pandemic relief spending, including a $1.9 trillion economic aid package the president pushed through Congress in 2021 and which was not renewed. Mr. Biden was in effect claiming credit for not passing another round of emergency assistance.

What the Times didn’t point out was that Biden and the Democratic Congress have teamed up to significantly increase deficits over the budget horizon, as illustrated by the Manhattan Institute‘s Brian Riedl:   

Fact check leads White House to delete tweet, then the spin begins…

Hilarity ensued over the Social Security self-own, as Twitter users “added context” that demolished the boast… causing Elon Musk to tweet; “The system is working.” 

The system is working

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022

After the White House deleted the tweet, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “Look, the tweet was not complete. Usually when we put out a tweet we post it with context, and it did not have that context.”

“The tweet was not complete. Usually when we put out a tweet we posted with context and it did not have that context.”@PressSec responds to deleted White House tweet that gave President Biden credit for Social Security increases. https://t.co/kLf3TkYg3L pic.twitter.com/4jnchY9XaO

— The Hill (@thehill) November 3, 2022

What’s particularly damning about the Social Security brag is that, rather than bubbling up in spontaneous Biden remarks — always a nail-biting experience for his team — this was part of a prepared speech. That speaks volumes about the collective economic wisdom of his controllers.  

The Times also hit Biden for saying — off the cuff — that he pushed student debt forgiveness through Congress, where “I got it passed by a vote or two.” 

Though many were quick to brand this a “lie,” when you consider he personally instituted debt forgiveness via an executive order that was many months in the making, it’s more likely it was the latest example of his accelerating mental decline.

Not surprisingly, the Times couldn’t bring itself to explicitly raise that possibility, but did note that Biden’s assertion was “perhaps the most head-scratching” of his false economic statements, as it was “starkly at odds with the reality,” especially when his executive order is now facing multiple court challenges.

The Times then called out misleading or false communications about economic growth, gas prices and inflation in general. 

CNN, meanwhile, put out the following piece Saturday morning:

They ding Biden on the Social Security propaganda and lying about corporate taxes.

Biden repeatedly suggested in speeches in October and early November that a new law he signed in August, the Inflation Reduction Act, will stop the practice of successful corporations paying no federal corporate income tax. Biden made the claim explicitly in a tweet last week: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.”

But “puts an end to this” is an exaggeration. The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the number of companies on the list of non-payers, but the law will not eliminate the list entirely.

That’s because the law’s new 15% alternative corporate minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. (There are lots of nuances; you can read more specifics here.) According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the think tank that in 2021 published the list of 55 large and profitable companies that avoided paying any federal income tax in their previous fiscal year, only 14 of these 55 companies reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion in that year.

In other words, there will clearly still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax even after the minimum tax takes effect in 2023. The exact number is not yet known. -CNN

CNN then called out Biden for lying about the national debt and the deficit, the unemployment rate, his student debt cancellation scheme, gas prices, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the Trump tax cuts.

What’s going on here?

More than 1,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals for Ukraine’s military to boost communication channels on the modern battlefield went dark, reported CNN, citing two sources familiar with the outage. This report comes even though Elon Musk has pledged to continue funding Starlink operations in the war-torn country. 

The outage has affected 1,300 Starlink terminals that Ukraine purchased from a British company earlier this year and used in combat-related operations. Each terminal costs $2,500 per month, with the batch costing $3.25 million per month.

Before the terminals went offline, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense requested their British counterparts pick up the monthly bill several weeks ago, which amassed to a whopping $20 million since the 1,300 terminals were deployed in March. 

But since no one picked up the outstanding bill, the terminals all went dark on Oct. 24, according to one person briefed on the situation. They said this had sparked a “huge problem” for Ukraine’s military since the terminals are the primary communication link on the battlefield. 

Starlink’s parent company SpaceX penned a letter to the Pentagon in September, informing it could no longer maintain the service in the war-torn country unless it received funding. 

Musk recently tweeted the Ukrainian “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

Musk estimated that the 25,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine would cost his company $400 million over the next 12 months. 

By mid-Oct., Musk appeared to change his mind in a tweet, in which he said: 

“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” 

However, one senior defense official told CNN that the Pentagon is actively negotiating with SpaceX to get the much-needed resources to keep Starlink operational in Ukraine. 

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended its COVID-19 vaccine proof requirement for non-U.S., nonimmigrant citizens flying to enter the United States, making the United States the only western country and among the few remaining countries in the world still to require such proof for entry.

The latest TSA security directive (pdf) states that effective to at least Jan. 8, 2023, aircraft operators must require each non-U.S., nonimmigrant citizen to present paper or digital documentation for “proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” or documentation proving the person is excepted from taking the vaccine, before boarding a flight to the United States.

A “nonimmigrant” means not a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident, or traveling to the United States on an immigrant visa.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), being fully vaccinated means having had an accepted single-dose vaccine or a second dose of an accepted 2-dose series at least 14 days ago. A booster dose is not needed to meet the requirement.

It comes after the Biden administration in June dropped its requirement for air travelers entering the United States to test negative for COVID-19, meaning a person with the disease could still be allowed into the country, provided they have proof of vaccination.

The latest security directive largely matches that of the previous TSA security directive (pdf) that was made effective from Nov. 8, 2021, and is to expire on Nov. 8, after which the new directive will take effect.

Few Countries Still Require Vaccine Proof

While the vast majority of countries have dropped COVID-19 vaccine proof requirements for entry, the United States and a few other countries around the world continue to require them for non-citizens, with no alternate avenues for the unvaccinated such as requiring proof of immunity against COVID-19, a negative test, or a quarantine period instead.

These other countries include Pakistan, Indonesia, Ghana, and Liberia.

In the latest security directive, the TSA maintained language saying that the policies, alongside the CDC’s technical instructions and President Joe Biden’s Proclamation issued in October 2021, “are intended to limit the risk that COVID-19, including variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, is introduced, transmitted, and spread into and throughout the United States.”

The policies will “advance the safety and security” of travelers, government workers, and air travel industry workers while allowing the world’s economies to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the TSA security directive reads.

Vaccines Do Not Prevent Transmission

COVID-19 policies and restrictions have shifted in recent months in the United States, to no longer differentiate vaccinated and unvaccinated in mitigation measures, amid acknowledgement by officials and the general population that COVID-19 vaccines do not or no longer prevent transmission.

In July, the CDC adjusted its mask guidance to require people to wear masks in some areas even if they are fully vaccinated against the virus that causes the disease. At the time, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters that new research from several U.S. states and other countries “indicate that on rare occasions some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others.”

The CDC in early August had made revisions to its COVID-19 prevention guidance such that it no longer differentiates based on a person’s vaccination status, because “breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in August had noted that COVID-19 vaccines can no longer prevent transmission. She told CNN in an interview: “Our vaccines are working exceptionally well. They continue to work well for Delta with regard to severe illness and death, they prevent it. But what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.”

Waning Efficacy

The COVID-19 vaccines have proven increasingly ineffective to protect against infection and showed waning efficacy in protecting against hospitalization and severe illness amid newly-emerging variants. This prompted the governments of many countries to recommend boosters and subsequent boosters throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the new bivalent boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which were intended to enhance protection against Omicron and its different subvariants, haven’t been tested in humans at all. While the updated boosters triggered higher levels of antibodies than the old boosters when tested on mice, the trials didn’t provide any efficacy estimates for protection against infection or severe illness.

The CDC and its partner, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have aggressively promoted vaccination during the pandemic, even when little evidence supports the vaccines. The agencies have also repeatedly refused to release COVID-19 vaccine safety data, The Epoch Times previously reported.

The Epoch Times has found that officials in the United States are continuing to spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, including unsupported or misleading statements about vaccine effectiveness and safety.

Senator Joe Manchin is pissed after President Biden said his administration would ‘shut down’ all of America’s coal plants and replace them with ‘wind and solar’ – comments that couldn’t come at a worse time for Democratic candidates in battleground states that are home to blue-collar Americans and the coal plants they work in, given next week’s midterm elections.

“Folks, it’s also now cheaper to generate electricity from wind and solar than it is from coal and oil. Literally cheaper. Not a joke. I was just — and so we can accommodate that transition,” Biden said last week during a speech at communications company ViaSat in San Diego County.

“I was in Massachusetts about a month ago on the site of the largest old coal plant in America. Guess what? It cost them too much money.  They can’t count. No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely on it, even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of their existence of the plant. So it’s going to become a wind generation. And all they’re doing is — it’s going to save them a hell of a lot of money, and they’re using the same transmission line that transmitted the coal-fired electric on.  We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar,” Biden continued.

Joe Biden celebrates coal plant workers losing their jobs.

“We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America.” pic.twitter.com/0DZk0MZHa8

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 4, 2022

As the National Review notes, “Biden’s message could disadvantage Democrats just three days before midterms, considering that many of the battleground states that will determine the balance of power in Congress are home to coal plants and the blue-collar Americans who work in them. Pennsylvania has 24 plants, Ohio has 15 plants, and Michigan has 13 plants.”

In particular, Biden’s comments stand to hurt Pennsylvania Senate Candidate John Fetterman, who has flip-flopped on Fracking between 2018 and 2022 – finally admitting during a debate last month that he’s for it.

Oh my god pic.twitter.com/TVAAPNXYiU

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) October 26, 2022

Manchin is livid

“President Biden’s comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs,“ West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin fired back.

“Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden,” he continued, adding “Let me be clear, this is something that the President has never said to me. Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting.”

Of course, a pissed off Manchin won’t have anywhere near the same impact as it once did, assuming Republicans take back the House, Senate, or both chambers in next week’s midterm elections.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Russia’s foreign ministry said it fears that the world’s five declared nuclear powers are “on the brink of a direct armed conflict,” with Moscow warning of a catastrophic fallout and insisting that avoiding a clash is its top priority.

The Kremlin statement, issued on Nov. 2, accused Western powers of “encouraging provocations with weapons of mass destruction” and called on the West to stop or face the prospect of “catastrophic consequences.”

Western powers, by contrast, have accused Moscow of issuing repeated threats to use nuclear weapons as its invasion of Ukraine has faced setbacks and to pressure Kyiv into accepting concessions.

The Kremlin recently accused Kyiv of planning to use a radioactive “dirty bomb,” claims that Ukrainian authorities have denied.

‘Unpredictable and Dangerous Consequences’

Following a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea last week, Russia’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Thursday warning the United Kingdom of “unpredictable and dangerous consequences” after earlier accusing London of helping Kyiv orchestrate a drone attack on its ships in the port of Sevastopol.

“Such confrontational actions by the British pose the threat of an escalation and can lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences,” the ministry said in a statement.

The UK, which Russia has also accused of being involved in the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in September, is one of the world’s five major nuclear powers.

Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry said in the Nov. 2 statement that it sees avoiding armed conflict between nuclear powers as a key objective amid simmering tensions over the Ukraine conflict.

“We are strongly convinced that in the current complicated and turbulent situation, caused by irresponsible and impudent actions aimed at undermining our national security, the most immediate task is to avoid any military clash of nuclear powers,” the ministry stated.

‘Nuclear War Cannot Be Won’

The Kremlin added that it continues to stand by a joint declaration issued in January, in which China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States pledged to do everything in their power to avoid a nuclear clash.

“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the January joint statement reads. “As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war.”

On the same day that the Kremlin issued the warning that the five nuclear powers are teetering on the verge of armed conflict, the Pentagon said the United States has not seen any signs that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons.

At the same time, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby denounced Russia’s rhetoric around the potential use of nuclear weapons.

“We’ve been clear from the outset that Russia’s comments about the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning, and we take them seriously,” Kirby said. “We continue to monitor this as best we can, and we see no indications that Russia is making preparations for such use.”

Amid what he calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has on several occasions hinted at the possibility of a nuclear strike, while Kremlin officials have repeatedly said Russia’s military doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons if the country’s territorial integrity is under threat.

Moscow has sought to portray its actions in Ukraine as preemptive by accusing the West of seeking to establish Ukraine as a military bulwark against Russia, allegations NATO and Kyiv have denied.