By J.M.Phelps of The Epoch Times

A leaked U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) slide is garnering concern about the Chinese regime’s continued capability to produce naval vessels at an alarmingly faster rate than the United States.

The leaked graphic depicts shipyards in China as being able to build new naval vessels at a rate that’s 232 times greater than that of the United States. The ONI confirmed its authenticity to The Drive, which first published the slide.

This outsized capacity to support China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has caused some analysts to raise the alarm that the United States won’t be able to close the gap for many years to come.

Retired Capt. James Fanell, a former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, doesn’t share the same level of pessimism, although he does acknowledge the challenges involved in rebuilding the United States’ shipbuilding capacity.

He says closing the gap with the Chinese regime will require “a dramatic shift in the policy of unaccountable engagement that now characterizes the Biden administration.”

“The challenges are also greater than just political will,” Mr. Fanell told The Epoch Times. “There is an issue of America’s shipbuilding industry that has gone into disrepair since WWII.”

Despite a few political hurdles, “America is a nation of optimism and the can-do attitude that will be essential to any effort to close that gap,” he said.

According to the ONI, the Chinese regime’s navy consisted of 355 vessels in 2020, while the United States had 296 vessels. By 2035, China is expected to reach an estimated 475 ships, while the United States would reach 305 to 317.

“While U.S. Navy leadership is concerned about the growth and capabilities of the PLA Navy, what has not happened is that any single U.S. Navy Admiral resigns their commission over the lack of response to this threat to America’s national security,” Mr. Fanell said.

“The recent ONI slide is a stark reminder of the cataclysmic decline in the U.S. shipbuilding industry, one that the United States dominated just 80 years ago during World War II. America became a great power because it was a seafaring nation, and we will suffer defeat the more we deny this history.

“In 1949, more than a dozen U.S. Navy admirals were willing to put their careers on the line to speak out about what they felt was a dangerous approach to defeating the USSR with just strategic bomber aircraft.

“Their willingness to put national security before their careers paid off as the U.S. Navy laid the foundations for creating a nuclear aircraft carrier fleet that ruled the waves of the globe for the next 60 years and ensured the safety and prosperity of America, our allies, and even our enemies.”

How to Close the Gap

Mr. Fanell says Congress must pass and fund similar legislation to the Two-Ocean Navy Act that was passed in 1940 and allowed the country to increase its naval presence and capabilities in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

“The similarities between the strategic environment today and 1940 are too great to ignore,” he said.

For example, Russia has invaded Ukraine—threatening Europe—while the Chinese regime continues to conduct large-scale operations with warships and aircraft around Taiwan and into the Philippine Sea, Mr. Fanell said.

“America’s ingenuity should be unleashed to build up our fleet of warships,” he said.

“For instance, we should be able to build a fleet of unmanned warships, along with equipping our existing mothball fleet with supersonic/hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that could turn these retired combatants into arsenal ships that could be used to sink the People’s Liberation Army Navy invasion fleet.”

“It’s disturbing how ill-informed and naive the average American is on China,” U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Michael Studeman said (pdf) during a presentation at a naval conference in February.

Americans are “ignorant of the threat from the [People’s Republic of China] and their Navy,” Mr. Fanell said.

But he doesn’t blame the American people.

Continue reading here.

President Biden’s disastrous open southern border policies have sparked the worst border crisis in American history. The chaos continued this past weekend as the situation worsened by the hour. 

On Monday morning, FOX News correspondent Griff Jenkins posted on X that US Customs and Border Protection sources revealed “approximately 11,000 migrant encounters at the SW border in the last 24 hours.” 

Jenkins said the CBP source pointed out this is the “single highest day in recent memory.”

He added in Eagle Pass, Texas, alone, the epicenter of the latest surge in illegal crossings, “there were more than 4000 from Fri-Sun/weekend.” 

BREAKING: CBP sources tell FOX News.. There were approximately 11,000 migrant encounters at the SW border in the last 24 hours marking the “single highest day in recent memory.”

In Eagle Pass alone, there were more than 4000 from Fri-Sun/weekend @FoxNews

— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) September 25, 2023

Biden’s reckless open border policies have led to a surge in human trafficking, an exponential rise in drug overdose deaths nationwide, warnings from cities about financial stress due to the migrant crisis, and the proliferation of criminal organized migrant gangs undermining US laws. 

This is unacceptable. 

*GRAPHIC WARNING* These images show a BP Agent in the RGV assaulted by a smuggler moving migrants. Took 3 agents to get him down. The cartel marked him a “rat” hence the “RATA” tattooed on his forehead. BPAs are increasingly facing assaults and violent smugglers @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/GTPyMUaMZI

— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) September 25, 2023

The facts are clear: President Biden has gone against the will of the majority by enforcing unpopular, disastrous border policies embraced by a fringe minority of elites that have caused nothing but chaos for the country and quickly spread across major metro areas.

To get fully up to speed on the migrant crisis that re-started in recent weeks, refer to our latest reporting:

• Watch: Freight Train Full Of Migrants Heading To Southern US Border
• Elon Musk Says “Strange Almost No Legacy Media Coverage” On Worsening Southern Border Crisis
• Texas Declares ‘Invasion’ As 10s Of 1000s Illegally Cross Southern Border
• Watch: National Guard Rolls Into Eagle Pass, Texas As Biden’s Border Crisis Spirals Out-Of-Control

Around noon, Fox News White House correspondent Edward Lawrence posted on X, “Defense Department plans to send 800 US Troops to the southern border. 400 will be replacing troops ending their mission there. The exact location of the troops has not been announced.” 

FOX News has learned that the Defense Department plans to send 800 U.S. Troops to the southern border. 400 will be replacing troops ending their mission there. The exact location of the troops has not been announced. #Border #IllegalMigration

— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) September 25, 2023

The Biden administration could care less that the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 62% of Americans disapproval of their efforts on the border. It appears the administration is more concerned about flooding metro areas with migrants ahead of the presidential election cycle. Why?

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

Several Bay Area health agencies in California announced last week that mandatory masking would return to hospitals and health care settings for the fall and winter months.

Contra Costa, Sonoma, Alameda, and San Mateo counties issued mask orders for health care staff in hospitals and other care facilities. The orders start on Nov. 1 and last until April 30, 2024, officials said, citing recent increases in COVID-19, influenza, and other respiratory viruses that are typically commonplace during the colder months.

“Each year we see that higher rates of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses that can cause severe respiratory infections occur annually between late fall and spring,” Dr. Karen Smith, the Sonoma County interim health officer, said in a statement last week.

Contra Costa Health Services CEO Anna Roth told the county’s board of supervisors last week that the mandate will be enacted, according to local media reports.

“We are issuing the health order today around masking for high-risk facilities, health care facilities specifically,” Ms. Roth said. “So again, masking in hospitals, masking in skilled nursing facilities, masking in high-risk facilities.”

In Alameda County, which includes the city of Oakland, the mandate will go into effect for “operators of specified Health Care Facilities” because of COVID-19, RSV, and influenza, according to KRON 4 television. Staff are now mandated to wear “high quality” and “well-fitting” masks while inside patient care settings, officials said several days ago.

At about the same time, the San Mateo County Health Department issued an order that also mandates masks in patient care settings for health care workers for the same aforementioned period, starting on Nov. 1. Health care staff who don’t comply may face fines and misdemeanor charges.

“Please read this order carefully. Violation of, or failure to comply with, this Order is a public nuisance subject to citation, abatement, or both, as well as a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both,” it reads.

Health officials in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and Silicon Valley, already set a mandate in March that will require masks in patient care areas between the late fall and the spring.

“Historical data show higher rates of infection by COVID-19, influenza, RSV and other viruses in Contra Costa County annually between late fall and spring,” Dr. Ori Tzvieli, the county’s health officer, wrote in the order at the time.

“This seasonal increase in circulation of multiple respiratory viruses poses a particular risk to people more likely to experience severe disease and death if infected, including infants, older adults, and people with impaired immunity.”

A similar rule was initiated in San Francisco. The city, which is also a county, already enforces year-round masking for health care staffers, visitors, and patients, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

While the Bay Area county health agencies all cited an increase in COVID-19, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that the current rise in reported cases is far lower than the historical average—especially previous surges of the virus.

Since August, several hospitals across the United States have reimplemented mask mandates, although some have only made face coverings mandatory for employees—not patients or visitors. A smaller number of schools and some private businesses have also made masking mandatory in recent weeks, sparking fears of a repeat of COVID-19 mandates that were imposed over the past several years.

Republican officials have expressed alarm about the return of mandates, with several 2024 GOP presidential candidates speaking out against them. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month said his state wouldn’t reimplement the mandates, and former President Donald Trump released a video on social media calling on Americans to resist the rules, which he described as tyrannical.

“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai, told NBC News in a Sept. 16 interview.

He noted that “just about everyone who I’ve seen has had really mild symptoms,” referring to urgent care COVID-19 patients at his hospital.

“The only way that we knew that it was COVID was because we happened to be testing them,” he said.

Dr. Dan Barouch, head of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said the mild symptoms may be, in part, due to prior immunity.

“Overall, the severity of COVID is much lower than it was a year ago and two years ago,” he said. “That’s not because the variants are less robust. It’s because the immune responses are higher.”

Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

Let me get this straight:

A year and a half ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced a Jewish member of parliament named Melissa Lantsman for standing with “people who wave swastikas.” Lantsman had criticized Trudeau for fanning “the flames of an unjustified national emergency” in response to the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests. The “swastikas” Trudeau referenced were, as even Snopes conceded, virtually all “pictured on signs as a way of mocking and protesting government restrictions,” comme ça:

By saying Lantsman stood with “people who wave swastikas,” in other words, Trudeau really meant she was standing with “people who called me a Nazi.” He declined to apologize, which of course is his prerogative.

This week, both Trudeau and House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota are under fire after Rota invited, and Trudeau applauded, a 98-year-old former soldier from the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division named Yaroslav Hunka to attend an address by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Rota praised Hunka as a “Canadian hero” from his time fighting the Soviets in World War II when, not that it matters, they were allies to the United States and Canada. Leaving the elderly Hunka out of this for the moment, these politicians could easily have turned up the man’s blogs about joining Hitler’s army, making the applause scene at least approach the max on the cringe scale:

Amid the subsequent outcry, Trudeau squeaked out a handful of sentences that collectively gave off least a faint aroma of apology, though he personally didn’t apologize for anything, and invoked “mistakes were made” phrasing:

It’s extremely upsetting that this happened. The Speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized… This is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians… I think particularly of Jewish MPs and all members of the Jewish community, celebrating, um, commemorating Yom Kippur today.

If he’d stopped there, it would have been a merely gross performance. He didn’t, jumping straight from “Yom Kippur today” to:

I think it’s going to be really important that all of us push back against Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation, and continue our steadfast and unequivocal support for Ukraine, as we did last week with announcing further measures to stand with Ukraine in Russia’s illegal war against it.

To recap: Trudeau in a clear act of official disinformation smeared thousands of Canadian protesters as Nazis last year with context-twisting descriptions of a few decidedly un-representative photos. Now, after the Speaker of the House of Commons invited an ex-Nazi to parliament in a planned political act that had to be somewhat representative of the thinking of Trudeau’s Liberal government, the Prime Minister is complaining about “Russian disinformation,” as if that were to blame for this optics Hindenburg. As the CBC put it:

Trudeau warned that this event may fuel Russian propaganda. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the Ukraine conflict is about rooting out Nazis.

Dude, Vladimir Putin didn’t invite a Nazi to parliament, your government did. Do Davosketeers like Trudeau have anything inside, like shame or their own thoughts, or are they just manicured readers of talking points? Sheesh. It’s almost funny, how repugnant these people are.

A newly aired “60 Minutes” segment entitled The unexpected way American tax dollars are being used in Ukraine has uncovered that the US government is paying the salaries of some 57,000 Ukrainian civic services personnel. 

The report details the various ways non-military aid is being spent at a moment GOP Congressional leaders are intensely debating whether to move forward with a proposed defense budget that includes Biden’s push for $24 billion more in military assistance for Kiev. Watch: 

60 Minutes discovered the U.S. is financing more than weapons in Ukraine. The government is buying seeds/fertilizer for farmers, paying the salaries of 57,000 first responders and subsidizing small businesses. https://t.co/vKWwWDqUwM pic.twitter.com/BxXItNgQce

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 24, 2023

“The U.S. has spent just over $43 billion on military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded. That’s equivalent to about 5% of the American defense budget. European countries combined have contributed around $30 billion,” the 60 Minutes report narrates. 

And this includes the following stunning detail: 

American taxpayers are financing more than just weapons. We discovered the U.S. government’s buying seeds and fertilizer for Ukrainian farmers… and covering the salaries of Ukraine’s first responders – all 57,000 of them. 

That includes the team that trains this rescue dog – named Joy – to comb through the wreckage of Russian strikes looking for survivors.

Political commentator Collin Rugg has noted in relation to the potential government shutdown looming for Oct. 1st: “Yes, your tax dollars will be used to fund Ukrainian salaries while American citizens are forced to wait for their pay while the government remains closed,” he said on X.

JUST IN: The United States will pay Ukrainian salaries but furlough American citizens in the impending government shutdown.

Your government hates you and loves war.

If Congress fails to pass a spending plan, the U.S. government will shut down at the end of the month but will… pic.twitter.com/qBlN2RuSwe

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 25, 2023

Rugg is referencing the fact that the Biden administration and Pentagon have declared that Ukraine aid will remain exempt from any potential government shutdown. This means Ukrainian salaries will still be paid, even while federal employees aren’t, in the event of a shutdown.

Here’s more from the 60 Minutes video, featuring a Ukrainian woman “thanking” US taxpayers for footing the bill for Ukrainian employees, thanks to USAID funding: 

Tatiana Abramova: Especially in the condition of war, we have to work. We have to pay taxes, we have to pay wage– salary to our employees. We have to work, don’t stop.

Holly Williams: Why does that help Ukraine win the war?

Tatiana Abramova: Because economy is the foundation of everything.

American officials from USAID – the agency in charge of international development – helped Abramova find new customers overseas. In the midst of war, her company is supporting over 70 families. 

Meanwhile, a fresh Newsweek headline: US Will Pay Salaries to Thousands of Ukrainians During Government Shutdown…

“US taxpayers will pay the salaries of thousands of Ukrainians, even as the country faces a government shutdown at the end of September.”

But as noted above, this is more like tens of thousands of Ukrainian salaries.

If the government shuts down, the U.S. is set to continue paying the salaries of thousands of Ukrainians – something that is very likely to rile up a number of Republicans https://t.co/GAD2Hfuzeq

— Alfred Joyner (@alfredjoyner) September 25, 2023

“A federal government shut down will effectively begin on October 1 if Congress isn’t able to pass a funding plan that Biden signs into law,” Newsweek underscores. “If that happens, federal agencies have to stop all nonessential work and will not send paychecks for as long as the shutdown lasts.”

Appropriately, the 60 Minutes episode invoked memory of the late John McCain…

In total, America’s pumped nearly $25 billion of non-military aid into Ukraine’s economy since the invasion began – and you can see it working at the bustling farmers market on John McCain Street in central Kyiv.

The late senator is revered in Ukraine because he pushed the U.S. government to start sending arms to the country… back in 2014. 

Here’s how 60 Minutes presents bipartisan support for Biden’s blank check for Ukraine:

While in Kyiv, we learned that three of McCain’s former colleagues were also in town: Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. They don’t normally agree on much – together, though, they’re some of the staunchest supporters of U.S. funding for Ukraine’s resistance.

Sen. Lindsey Graham: They’re on track to break the Russian army, and the only way they could possibly lose is if we pull the plug on them.

Your small business: closed by your government’s order

Their small business 6,000 miles away: kept open by your taxes by your government’s order https://t.co/87dEm4aTwv

— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) September 25, 2023

Indeed Zelensky himself while meeting with US Senators in Washington last week said something similar – that without continuing American funds, the war effort is doomed. He urged Congress to keep the billions in aid flowing, and sought to present that Moscow will one day expand aggression beyond just Ukraine.

* * *

Meanwhile, the “aid from the heart of every ordinary American person” will continue (whether those ordinary Americans like or not)…

“It’s the aid from the heart of every ordinary American person,” says Tatiana Abramova, a small business owner in Ukraine. America has pumped nearly 25 billion dollars of non-military aid into Ukraine’s economy since the Russian invasion. https://t.co/LX7D9Kd6mL pic.twitter.com/32U9c7mS4I

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 24, 2023

By Tsvetana Paraskova of Oilprice.com,

On Monday, Russia tweaked its export limitations on fuels, lifting the temporary ban on exports of low-quality diesel and marine fuel.

At the end of last week, Russia surprised the markets by announcing a temporary ban on exports of gasoline and diesel to stabilize fuel prices on the domestic market, ending weeks of speculation that authorities would limit exports in the face of soaring prices and shortages due to higher crude prices and weak Russian ruble.

Fuel already accepted for export by Transneft and the Russian Railways before last week’s ban came into effect is also exempt from the restrictions, according to the Russian government.

But the export ban on all types of gasoline and on higher-quality diesel remains in place, per a government document cited by Reuters.

Before the temporary restrictions were enacted, Russia had raised the mandatory supply volumes of motor gasoline and diesel fuel to the commodity exchange to help ease the supply crunch.

“The temporary restrictions will help raise supply on the fuel market, which in turn will reduce prices for consumers,” the Russian government said last Thursday when it announced the export ban.

Russia has been considering a fuel export ban since May in an effort to avert domestic fuel shortages and rein in prices after announcing a halving of subsidies to oil refiners that will start this month in order to keep more money in government coffers to fund its military operation in Ukraine.

Lower diesel supply out of Russia would not only reduce Putin’s revenues but could also tighten an already tight global diesel market.

Many analysts, however, believe that the temporary ban on fuel exports will not last long, and it could be a matter of only a few weeks before it is lifted.

Russia doesn’t have much storage capacity, so when the harvest season ends and supply to the domestic market increases, Russia may not be willing to have refineries close fuel processing capacities because of the export restrictions, analysts say.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Walmart closed 4 stores. Whole Foods closed another, all due to theft, looting, and worker safety.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, Grocery Mogul, to the Rescue

“Will the progressive mayor be willing to stop shoplifting at his government-run stores?” asks the Wall Street Journal in its take Brandon Johnson, Grocery Mogul.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said recently the city that used to work should consider opening government-run food stores because “all Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options.” He’s upset that at least six grocery stores have closed in the past two years on the city’s South and West sides.

Walmart closed four stores in Chicago because they were losing tens of millions of dollars a year, and CEO Doug McMillon said annual losses had doubled in the past five years.

The problem isn’t corporate racism. It’s crime. In 2022 Chicago reported 54,000 thefts and a mere 4% resulted in an arrest. Of the 8,730 retail thefts, there were 1,450 arrests, or less than 17%, according to Wirepoints and the Chicago city data portal.

Questions Abound

• What will the mayor do to prevent theft at his government grocery chain?

• Will Johnson consider it the cost of doing business (supported by higher tax hikes)?

• Or will Johnson provide more police protection for the stores the city opens? And if so, what won’t get protection that now does?

• Then again, what is getting any police protection now?

That’s a lot of questions.

Meanwhile if you are a store owner in Chicago suffering huge losses to theft or if you are an individual tired of the crime and piss poor public schools, I have a suggestion: leave.

But think about where your going. Leaving Chicago isn’t enough. I advise leaving the state.

Just remember It Takes 3 Weeks to Escape Illinois, at least it did for us because all of the U-Haul rentals were leaving.

The US Army is giving medical care to wounded American fighters who volunteered for Ukraine’s foreign legion and other militias at a hospital in Germany. 

This is happening with increasing frequency at the US Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a New York Times investigation found, which marks “a notable new step in the United States’ deepening involvement in the conflict,” as the report underscored.

Landstuhl is the Pentagon’s flagship medical center in Germany, and it for many years was the central treatment center in Europe for wounded American troops evacuated from war theatres like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Times observed that the hospital “has quietly started admitting Ukrainian Army soldiers who were wounded in combat, most of them American volunteers.” This is unusual given the hospital would typically only treat active duty personnel. 

The report described:

“A group of Ukrainian Army soldiers pierced by Russian grenades and mortar shells arrived at a hospital recently in need of surgery. It would have been a familiar scene from the bloody war grinding on in Ukraine, except for two crucial differences: Most of the wounded soldiers were American…”

“Though the number so far is small — currently 14 — it marks a notable new step in the United States’ deepening involvement in the conflict,” NYT continued.

There are still believed to be hundreds of American volunteers fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. In the opening year of the war, there may have been multiple thousands. This after Zelensky in the initial weeks of the Russian invasion begged for foreign volunteers and mercenaries, and Western mainstream press and social media amplified these calls…

But unlike the early part of the conflict, when there was the constant media drumbeat of claims that Ukraine was “winning” – there has since been a dramatic narrative shift, centered on the failed counteroffensive. This dour turn is reflected in the NYT report in the following: 

An unknown number of them have been shot, hit by artillery, blown up by mines or otherwise injured in combat. About 20 have been killed. Most of the wounded have had to rely on a patchwork of Ukrainian hospitals and Western charities for help. Now, though, the Pentagon has stepped in to offer some of them the same care it gives to American active-duty troops.

Some of these Americans are serving under contract directly with Ukraine’s military, while others volunteered with local militias. 

After some 19 months of war, there have been sporadic reports of Americans dying or being captured, but this is the first time a newspaper of the stature of the New York Times has listed twenty American deaths in Ukraine – a higher figure than what’s previously been disclosed.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Slouching Towards Beelzebub

“Using the #FauciLiedPeopleDied trend is a great way to show your friends you’re a conspiracy theorist.”

– Dr Anthony Fauci

So, here’s what you might have learned over the weekend if you ventured into the thickets of alt news: in April and May of 2021, the president (“Joe Biden”), the whole White House Covid Response Team (Andy Slavitt & Co), and everyone in the WH communications office, the US Surgeon General (Vivek Murthy), senior officials of the CDC including director Rochelle Walensky, Francis Collins, head of NIH, and Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIAID were all freaking out, holding crisis meetings, and sending blizzards of emails among each other after being informed by a Pfizer safety report that the miraculous new mRNA Covid vaccines produced significant cases of myocarditis and blood-clotting abnormalities.

All these officials proceeded to craft a campaign to tell the public that this myocarditis was mild, extremely rare, and self-resolving (it wasn’t), and urged all Americans over twelve to keep taking the vaxx shots. Later, they expanded the vaccine program to include children down to six months old. By 2022, all of US public health officialdom had to know that the vaxxes were also ineffective at preventing infection and transmission of Covid. Rochelle Walensky kept pushing the vaccines as “safe and effective” until she resigned in June, 2023. Her replacement, Mandy K. Cohen, is still pushing the latest mRNA booster shots in the face of reports (mainly from the UK and other foreign countries) of a shocking rise in all-causes deaths and disabilities from heart and blood disease, neurological injury, and cancers. The CDC refused this month to release updated information on case numbers of myocarditis and pericarditis in the USA.

The record of those frantic 2021 doings in the White House and the CDC came from a document dump prompted by a FOIA request by Edward Berkovich, a lawyer associated with Naomi Wolf’s Daily Clout news organization. He requested emails between February and June, 2021, that included the term “myocarditis.” CDC sent 472 pages, followed by an additional 46 pages, (believed to be sent by a whistleblower) that included emails between White House officials up to the president. Of the 47, 37 were entirely redacted (whited-out, not blacked-out, that is, blank pages). Only two pages of the 46 contained no redactions. The redactions were made, the CDC said, pursuant to Exemptions 5 and 6 under code 5 U.S.C. §552, which protects documents received by the president.

That was a lot to wade through. Apologies. What’s the upshot?

From early on, our government lied about the safety of the vaccines, at the same time that they lied and confabulated about the origins of the Covid-19 virus.

They continue lying about all of this to this day even as they appear to prepare for a replay of a pandemic.

Now that the weekend is over, you will not read about any of this in The New York Times. Why is that? I will offer my theory: that newspaper’s business model, based on pages and pages of print advertising, is completely broken and it is on financial life-support from the CIA and / or DARPA, probably facilitated by private sector cut-outs laundering the money.

That’s how dishonorable the flagship of the US news media is.

And, of course, there is the added layer of government-directed censorship, also through private sector cut-outs, that is aimed at suppressing the truth about Covid from every angle, especially the vaccines.

Doesn’t all of this look rather sinister?

Choose one of two possible explanations:

1) the Covid-19 episode from the beginning was a fantastic fiasco of blundering incompetence by hundreds of officials from many agencies plus elected leaders, and at every stage was made worse by additional incompetent actions aimed at concealing massive chains of prior misdeeds producing more misdeeds resulting in the wholesale collapse of authority in our country. In other words, an epic clusterfuck.

Or 2) The entire Covid episode is a chain of crimes committed deliberately with malicious intent to kill and injure large numbers of people while contriving to deprive the survivors of their basic liberties and their property. Because identical events are seen in all the other nations of Western Civ, it would be reasonable to infer some kind of coordination managed by a supervisory force or entity. What we see is a globalist coalition formed of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), The European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), the pharmaceutical industry, the “Five Eyes” intel alliance, the global banking establishment, The Democratic Party, and scores of well-endowed non-governmental agencies such as the George Soros constellation of councils and foundations.

What else is unseen?

One conspicuously strange element of the whole picture is the phantom leadership of the supposed world hegemon USA in the figurehead, “Joe Biden.”

Never in history has such a move into tyranny been fronted by such an embarrassingly un-charismatic empty vessel.

Never in our country’s history have our affairs whirled in such a mystifying flux of bewildering forces. Even our Civil War was a more straightforward clash of interests.

Events are moving quickly now. They’re setting up the steam-table for that banquet of consequences.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

As the final week of September (and Q3) begins, two large tail risks loom over the market (and economy): government shutdown and student-loan-payment resumption.

Both could trigger notable declines in GDP: Goldman estimates that a government-wide shutdown would reduce quarterly annualized growth by around 0.2pp for each week it lasts after accounting for modest private sector effects; and expect the resumption of student loan payments to subtract 0.5pp from quarterly annualized GDP growth.

And just to pile on, as growth could slow, inflation threats are re-asserting themselves (via commodities) and hurting sentiment optically and actually via soaring gasoline prices.

That stagflationary impulse is clearly evident in forecasts for next year…

Source: Bloomberg

Safe-haven cash demand ahead of the potential shutdown helped send the dollar higher – breaking out to its highest since Dec 2022. Today was the biggest jump in the dollar in 3 weeks, and is up 4 days in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

Bonds were sold with both hands and feet today with the long-end dramatically underperforming (30Y +13bps, 2Y +2bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

The 10Y Yield reached its highest since Oct 2007…

Source: Bloomberg

Smashing the yield curve (2s30s) dramatically steeper (less inverted) -now at its least-inverted since May…

Source: Bloomberg

And remember, the re-steepening is the bad part, as BofA CIO Michael Hartnett – the most vocal bear at Bank of America – made an important observation, pointing out that at a time when everyone is predicting a soft landing, the hard landing “tells” are lining up: yield curve steepening -110bps to -67bps, unemployment rate up 3.4% to 3.8%, personal savings rate up 3% to 4-5% YTD, and maybe most importantly, HY defaults are up 1.6% to 3.2%, credit card delinquencies are up by half, from 0.8% to 1.2%, while auto delinquencies are soaring, up 5.0% to 7.3%.

The dollar’s gains were gold’s losses as the precious metal tumbled back to last week’s lows…

Oil prices also lagged on the day with WTI back below $90…

Bitcoin tumbled back down to $26,000 and found support…

Source: Bloomberg

For a change, we end with stocks where ‘most shorted’ names fell for the 7th straight day (despite a good try for a squeeze early on…

Source: Bloomberg

And as we noted earlier, the last six weeks have seen the most intense ‘shorting’ by hedge funds since Sept-Oct 2022…

The market is very much in a negative gamma environment…

Source: SpotGamma

And while the negative gamma typically exaggerates the intraday moves, 0-DTE is battling that trend, with its mean-reverting tendency…

Source: SpotGamma

All of which saw equity markets’ early weakness (during the early European session) whipped back into positive territory as US opened, then oscillate in a narrow range for the rest of the day. The Dow was the laggard (around unch) while the rest of the majors managed modest gains…

The Dow bounced at its 200DMA…

Biotech stocks made headlines, down for the 8th day of the last 9 to its lowest since June 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX slipped back below 17…

Finally, as real rates reach a new cycle high, so the valuations on stocks are starting to wake up to that reality (no pun intended)…

Source: Bloomberg

How much of that 5-turn collapse in the S&P 500 will The Fed stand for before it steps in? That’s the bet.