After six months of fierce debate, Germany’s left-wing government has passed the country’s controversial green heating law, the Building Energy Act (GEG), with high estimates indicating the law will cost Germany’s economy over €1 trillion over the next 20 years.
While politicians belonging to Germany’s three-way politician applauded the heating law coming into force on Friday last week, the political fallout has likely yet to be fully realized.
Many Germans — already struggling with inflation and a slowing economy — balked at the mandate to install new expensive heating systems, with the law being rejected by the majority of the populace, according to polling. The government is also being accused of a hasty legislative process and a lack of parliamentary hearings, calling into question the democratic basis for the law in its entirety.
The law mandates that Germans with older heating systems replace them within a certain time period, although the final bill passed watered down some requirements and carved out some exceptions. Nevertheless, the final cost of the bill is still expected to be enormous, with high estimates placing it at €1 trillion and lower estimates hovering at €600 billion.
Many Germans have all of their savings in their home, and for many seniors, their homes, often featuring older heating systems, have seen their value take a hit due to the law. At the same time, in the coming years, they will be forced to make costly heating upgrades — usually in the form of a heat pump and the associated costs of making it work efficiently inside a building — to meet new green standards. Experts are also warning that landlords will have an incentive to increase rents in response to the Building Energy Act.
The problem is that approximately three-quarters of the old buildings in Germany were built before the first thermal insulation regulations came into force in 1979. Many of these buildings will now need to be made energy efficient, representing an enormous cost burden at a time when Germany has also phased out nuclear power and the price of energy, particularly oil and natural gas, has soared.
The Free Democrats (FDP), usually seen as a pro-business party, first fought their coalition partners on the proposed law, but in the end, the liberal party helped pass the law on Friday. There are already signs the FDP is paying the price for its decision, with the latest YouGov poll putting the party at just 5 percent, which is the threshold for entering the German parliament.
“There is fear among the population,” shouted Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) in parliament.
He said it is “the height of disrespect” for the citizens to pass the law and that the CSU would work to abolish it.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which saw its polling numbers soar around the same time the heating debate raged, has also said it will abolish the law should it come to power, saying it is an arduous tax on German businesses, pensioners, and those who invested in a home or apartment.
“The AfD faction strictly rejects Habeck’s (…) heating hammer. Despite severe criticism, the law was neither postponed nor defused,” said Marc Bernhard, a parliamentary spokesperson for the AfD.
“The tricky thing about the law, however, is that the heating has to be torn out again if it does not meet the municipalities’ heat planning required by 2028. In this way, the government is hiding the devastating consequences for millions of people and is transferring the risk of the heat transition to the citizens.”
He further pointed out that the nuclear power plants would save twice as much CO2 if they were allowed to continue to operate.
As Remix News reported last year, the proportion of poor people in Germany reached a new high, according to the Federal Statistical Office, with the data highlighting a sea change in the German economy. The report also only covered data up until the end of 2021 before the dramatic increase in food and energy prices in 2022.
Below is my column in the Hill on release of the final report of the Special Purpose Grand Jury in Georgia. The recommendation for sweeping indictments involving 39 people, including current and former senators, only magnifies fears over political prosecutions.
For many of us, the inclusion of figures like the senators reflects a rogue grand jury.
However, Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) insisted that Sen. Lindsey Graham was “lucky” not to be indicted. According to Schiff, Graham calling Georgia officials about the counting or discarding of votes was enough to justify a criminal charge. Presumably, since Graham could be indicted with Trump, Schiff would also consider him eligible to be barred from ever running again for office under the 14th Amendment, as discussed below.
It is the “why not” approach to criminal and constitutional law.
Here is my column:
With the release of the special grand jury final report in Georgia, the nation finally was able to see what foreperson Emily Kohrs last February was giggling about in interviews.
Call it the “Why not?” report.
Back then, when Kohrs was asked if there were recommended charges, she chuckled and said, “Can you imagine doing this for eight months and not coming out with a whole list of recommended indictments? It’s not a short list. It’s not.’”
In addition to nodding at an expected Trump indictment, she added, “There may be some names on that list that you wouldn’t expect.” After all, why not?
The final product did not disappoint. The members recommended 39 people for prosecution, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). They also included lawyers who argued for recounts or investigations into alleged election fraud.
While the report expressly claims that the Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not create the list, it was the office of Fani Willis that presented the law, the evidence and potential targets to the special grand jury. During that process, these members concluded that politicians voicing support for the former president and his allegations could be criminally charged for doing so.
The news that Willis did not indict Graham and others infuriated many on the left. Liberal websites were inundated with comments like “I want all the enablers charged, tried, and given long sentences as traitors to our country” and asking why the list did not include Senators Grassley, Cruz, Lee and “147 current and former members of the House, just to name a few.”
The disappointment of the special grand jury members and commentators is understandable. When one reads the indictment of the 19 defendants, it is surprising that all of the other 20 were dropped. While the indictment does contain serious charges against some individuals, Willis used a sweeping racketeering theory to indict in gross.
One possible reason Willis dropped some of these targets is that she knew the indictment of these senators would have been quickly and firmly rejected by the courts as the criminalization of political speech.
However, the 160 individual acts detailed in Willis’s report include speeches and social media postings by Trump and others claiming evidence of widespread voting fraud.
I disagree with those claims, but many citizens held the same suspicions of the election. Many still do.
It is understandable why the grand jurors thought that anyone pushing these claims was committing a crime, given the 160 acts cited by Willis. Graham, for example, called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the November 2020 election to ask about absentee ballots and whether groups of ballots could be rejected.
That call was not ultimately deemed worthy of an indictment. However, Willis launched her investigation based on Trump’s continued demands that Raffensperger investigate the vote tally in two other calls. Once again, I agreed then and now with Raffensperger in his refusal. But the question is whether such requests are evidence of a crime.
I still disagree with his claims, but I have maintained that Trump was making a predictable argument in a settlement negotiation that he only needed that number of votes and that a new recount or continued investigation would find them.
My questioning of the use of the calls as evidence of a crime has given many people the vapors. They insist that it was preposterous to think that Trump was actually asking for continued recounts or investigations instead of demanding that Raffensperger commit fraud. Yet Raffensperger himself recently took the stand and confirmed that the call was a “settlement negotiation” over whether to conduct further recounts or investigations.
The question is when advocacy or inquiries or negotiations become criminal acts. Willis’s first grand jury clearly believed that senators who called for recounts or Raffensperger’s resignation should go to prison. The comparison between their recommendations and the eventual indictment does not clearly answer how such acts are distinguishable as crimes.
The same lack of limiting principle is evident in the new theory being pushed by various experts under the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from ballots on the grounds that he “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Beyond the tendentious claim that the Jan. 6 riot was an actual insurrection, they also maintain that the provision is self-executing, requiring no vote of Congress for secretaries of state to bar Trump from next year’s ballots.
Even though Trump has not been charged, let alone convicted, of insurrection (or even incitement), these advocates believe that he can be removed from the ballot because of his election claims, his inflammatory rhetoric and his delay in calling for supporters to leave the Capitol. This is one of the most dangerous legal theories to arise in decades.
This week, Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes aptly described the claimed right to disqualify as a “radical” measure that would “encompass every elected office in our government — state, local, federal, and so forth.” Indeed, Democrats have called for barring not just Trump but 120 Republicans in Congress from running for office.
As with the Georgia special grand jury, the question is “Why not?” If the standard is “giving aid or comfort” to insurrectionists, then why not throw hundreds of other Republicans who supported the challenge to certification on Jan. 6 off the ballot? And while we’re at it, why not bar every lawyer who helped file claims of voting fraud from ever running for office? They all gave aid or comfort with their actions.
By this reasoning, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and other Democrats could have been barred from ballots for opposing Trump’s certification in 2016 without any basis, along with leaders such as Hillary Clinton, who continued to call the election “stolen” for years. In 2016, there were also violent riots in Washington opposing Trump’s inauguration, thanks in no small part to such rhetoric. We can then have different candidates of both parties removed from ballots in every state.
This “Why not?” philosophy is all part of our impulse-buy politics, where there is little thought given to the implications of actions beyond immediate vengeance and satisfaction. It is a criminal and political system based on the giddy philosophy of Emily Kohrs.
With an ominous call for increased global collaboration and centralization, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen at a G20 Summit session, dubbed “One Future,” today appealed for an international regulatory body for Artificial Intelligence and digital ID systems similar to coronavirus vaccine passports.
Von der Leyen audaciously proclaimed our collective future to be digital, hence the implied necessity for global entities to draw boundaries and enforce regulations.
Von der Leyen, in her position as the EU Commission President, touched on AI and the digital landscape in her address.
She acknowledged the potential dangers and gargantuan opportunities linked with advancing AI technology and emphasized the importance of channeling such explosive technology.
“Today I want to focus on AI and digital infrastructure. As it has been described, AI has risks but also offers tremendous opportunities. The crucial question is how to harness a rapidly changing technology.
“In the EU, in 2020, we presented the first-ever law on artificial intelligence. We want to facilitate innovation while building trust. But we need more. What the world does now will shape our future. I believe that Europe — and its partners — should develop a new global framework for AI risks,” von der Leyen said.
The future is digital. I passed two messages to the G20:
→ We should establish a framework for safe, responsible AI, with a similar body as the IPCC for climate
→ Digital public infrastructures are an accelerator of growth. They must be trusted, interoperable & open to all
Von der Leyen praised the European Union’s move in 2020 to introduce the first legal framework on AI, a step taken with the intent of fostering innovation alongside trust. However, she insisted that this wasn’t sufficient. She suggested a multinational adoption of a coping mechanism for managing AI risks.
The EU Chief also stressed that globally accepted standards must be created under the purview of the United Nations, akin to their Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Humanity stood to benefit, she argued, if an international authority could clarify the risks and rewards related to AI, akin to the IPCC for climate concerns.
Concurrently, von der Leyen championed the concept of digital public infrastructure similar to the coronavirus passport system – a system developed by the EU as a response to the Covid saga. The World Health Organization embraced it with open arms as a global standard for combating health threats.
“Many of you are familiar with the COVID-19 digital certificate. The EU developed it for itself. The model was so functional and so trusted that 51 countries on 4 continents adopted it for free. Today, the WHO uses it as a global standard to facilitate mobility in times of health threats,” von der Leyen continued.
Alarmingly, von der Leyen praised the EU’s strides towards a bloc-wide digital identity app capable of storing a citizen’s personal information, including credit cards, driver’s license, and passport data.
These developments ring alarm bells for individuals and nations valuing free speech and privacy.
NATO Baltic War Games Simulate Article 5 Collective Defense War With Russia
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has launched major war games in the Baltic region with a stated intent to simulate a “realistic scenario” in which NATO is under threat.
The war games, dubbed Northern Coasts, kicked off Saturday and will go for two weeks, and further simulate a scenario in which NATO triggers its Article 5 mutual defense clause. Thus the games simulate a US military intervention in Europe.
The drills, happening off the Latvian and Estonian coasts, are intended to send a clear message to Russia, with Acting NATO Spokesperson Dylan White saying, “Credible deterrence must include the ability to attack.” White then emphasized that “Exercises like these send a clear message that NATO stands ready to defend every inch of Allied territory.”
“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has radically altered the security situation in the Baltic Sea,” White said further.
Germany is leading the exercises, alongside the US, and significantly newest NATO member Finland is participating, as well as non-member Sweden. In total 14 countries are involved.
German Navy chief Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack spelled out to Reuters: “We are sending a clear message of vigilance to Russia: Not on our watch,” he said.
“Above all, ensuring this protection [from Russia’ means exercises, presence, and permanent vigilance – together with our partners in Nato and the EU,” Kaack continued.
An official NATO press release further details that the games will simulate “amphibious operations, air defense, strikes from sea to land, and securing sea lanes.” Northern Coasts drills have been happening annually going back to 2007.
It should be noted that in the summer of 2022, NATO also held the BALTOPS war games in the Baltic Sea, which was in the vicinity of the very location where the Nord Stream pipelines later blew up and leaked. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that the CIA was behind the Sept. 26 sabotage explosions, and that the prior war games had served as cover to plant the devices later detonated.
For two decades, China’s communist regime has poured tens of billions of dollars into low- and middle-income nations, funding massive port projects in the name of global development.
However, experts and lawmakers are warning that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, seeks to expand its global military presence by creating new overseas naval bases out of the commercial ports it has funded and built abroad.
According to a new report by AidData, a think tank that analyzes government aid expenditures on international development projects, the regime has spent nearly $30 billion on overseas port infrastructure since 2001.
For those in Congress who are tasked with countering the threat from a newly expansionist CCP, the regime’s pursuit of new basing opportunities is an alarming development that requires immediate action.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP, believes that the only means of countering such an expansion is through increased military and diplomatic investments by the United States. Such investments in partner nations, he hopes, will counter the creeping influence of the CCP.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s expansion of its overseas naval presence is a blaring alarm, and we keep hitting snooze,” Mr. Gallagher told The Epoch Times.
“To counter the CCP’s malign influence and military aggression, the United States needs to both boost its own military-industrial capacity and be more present in the Indo-Pacific, expanding development and diplomacy with key partners to ensure they don’t succumb to debt-trap diplomacy.”
China Seeks Global Military Expansion
AidData’s report, “Harboring Global Ambitions,” analyzes more than 20 years of official investments by China’s state-owned entities into overseas seaport projects that might form the groundwork for a new naval base.
From 2000 to 2023, Beijing spent a staggering $29.9 billion through loans and grants for 123 different projects at 78 ports in 46 low- and middle-income nations, according to the report.
Each of these projects was funded directly by Beijing or state-owned companies.
This means that the report doesn’t even begin to look at the potential spending of shadow corporations without official ties to the regime, nor does it account for the regime’s policy of military-civil fusion, which demands that all private Chinese entities create a military advantage for the CCP.
Paul Crespo, president of the Center for American Defense Studies think tank, believes that the monumental effort is partly driven by the regime’s desire to hold the United States at threat anywhere in the world.
“China is rapidly creating a large, offensive, blue water navy capable of challenging the [United States] far beyond the western Pacific, especially during a war over Taiwan,” Mr. Crespo said.
“In addition to allowing it to threaten our supply lines, China has long wanted to make the [United States] feel the way it feels with a foreign superpower navy on its doorstep.”
The CCP currently only acknowledges one overseas military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. Chinese officials have long acknowledged a more global ambition for their military, however, and suggested that similar bases could be in the works.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in 2016 that China was amenable to working with partner nations to develop similar facilities to that in Djibouti.
Likewise, the 2020 edition of “Science of Military Strategy” (pdf), published by China’s National Defense University, suggested that a new network of long-range naval facilities was necessary to extend China’s reach.
“To improve the naval force’s ocean-going support capabilities, in addition to the development of large-scale accompanying support ships, we must also attach importance to the construction of long-distance maritime comprehensive replenishment points, and multi-channels to ensure naval forces carry out overseas military operations in the ocean,” the document reads.
Mr. Crespo, who previously served as a naval attache at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that such a network of bases would be a prerequisite for the long-term sustainment of China’s increasingly global military presence.
“To challenge the U.S. Navy globally, China needs bases for rearming, refueling, [resupplying], and to repair its rapidly expanding fleet,” Mr. Crespo said.
Similarly, the AidData report places the regime’s many overseas investments within the broader context of a tug-of-war for global influence with the United States.
In contrast to Mr. Gallagher’s ironclad commitment to counter might with might anywhere in the world, the report suggests that such an approach may only worsen global tensions.
“The [United States] and allies must be vigilant and allocate resources wisely, fostering alliances and partnerships with countries considering moving toward China,” the report reads. “But Western coalitions should not overreact to news or rumors of China establishing a base here or there.
“A headlong rush by a Western country or alliance to establish new bases overseas as a means of counterbalancing might provide exactly the justification or cover China needs to site a naval base of its own.”
Whatever approach the United States takes, it remains an open question just where exactly the next CCP base will spring up.
By comparing total investments in individual port projects and weighing the strategic value of a geographic location, the strength of the CCP’s relations with the local elites, regional political stability, and the nation’s voting alignment with China on the world stage, the AidData report suggests a few countries as top contenders for new Chinese military infrastructure.
The choices stretch from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic, with each region offering distinct advantages and disadvantages.
Indo-Pacific Base Most Likely
The Indo-Pacific is, perhaps, the most logical place for a new military base.
The CCP seeks to break out past the first island chain, thereby securing its commercial and military vessels’ free rein of the seas. Likewise, it seeks greater control of fishing territories and precious resources throughout the region, from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
If the CCP is to hold the United States and its allies at immediate threat and gain unfettered control of the world’s most valuable trade routes, it needs greater control of the Indo-Pacific.
Sam Kessler, geopolitical analyst at risk management firm North Star Support Group, believes that a base in this region is the logical step for the regime in its ascent to global domination.
“At this current moment, it is realistic to see Beijing focusing on building future naval bases that are closer to their area of influence rather than be sprawled out on various continents,” Mr. Kessler said.
Likewise, the AidData report finds that “the Pacific and the Indian Oceans are China’s highest priority maritime environments.”
In particular, the report finds Hambantota in Sri Lanka the most likely contender for China’s next overseas base due to its strategic location off of India, the popularity enjoyed by the regime among local elites, and its track record of voting in line with CCP interests internationally.
Indeed, the CCP owns a 99-year lease on Hambantota Port. The agreement is a result of what some analysts dub China’s “debt trap” diplomacy: The lease was negotiated in exchange for relief of more than $1 billion in Chinese debt.
Mr. Kessler agrees. The strategic and economic benefits of a Sri Lankan base are just too valuable to overlook.
“Like the Belt and Road Initiative, the CCP needs a networking web or a shield of protection that surrounds their main realm of control, which is mainland China,” Mr. Kessler said.
“Ports with high-level investments like Gwadar and Hambantota serve strategic value and enable the CCP to extend their power projection capabilities throughout the Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific, Middle East, and also Eurasia.”
Indeed, Beijing has invested more than $2 billion into the Hambantota International Port in the past two decades, making it the CCP’s single-largest port investment. The CCP has also invested more than $430 million into Sri Lanka’s nearby Port of Colombo, which could offer similar or support facilities. Both would allow China to rule the seas as a direct rival to India.
Sri Lanka, though an obvious choice, isn’t the only possibility. The AidData report and Mr. Kessler note the possibility of Gwadar in Pakistan and Port Luganville in Vanuatu, near Australia.
To that end, the regime has invested some $577 million into Gwadar and $97 million into Port Luganville, each offering its own benefits.
A Vanuatu base would allow the regime to break its apparent containment by U.S. and allied forces, according to the report, while one in Pakistan would further cement the regime’s expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative into the Middle East and allow it greater control of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Many analysts and commentators have been speculating about how the US and NATO will find their way to an endgame in the Ukraine conflict. Some focus, for humanitarian or pragmatic reasons, on a negotiated settlement between the US and Russia. Even though as a matter of form Ukraine would be party to such a deal, with Ukraine now fully dependent on Western arms and funding, there’s no pretending who is really driving this train.
We described earlier how the various factions in the US/NATO side would spend huge amounts of time arguing among themselves to come up with ideas for how exit the conflict that they’d developed in a vacuum, with no substantive exchange with Russia and not even any real consideration of repeated statements by Russian officials, including draft treaties presented in December 2021 and in the aborted peace talks in Marcy 2022.
The new peace chatter seems to amount to:
Ceasefire > *Magic* > Russia goes away with its tail enough between its legs that we and Ukraine can declare victory
At first we thought this dynamic was the result of splits among various key parties. After all, multiparty negotiations are messy.
But upon further reflection, it may be that the West has effectively set boundary conditions for itself that make ending the war impossible… absent changes in leaders of key governments that result in a willingness to relax boundary conditions and/or such a visible collapse of Ukraine’s military that the West has to rethink its self-imposed constraints.
The West wants to have a Schrodinger’s war: to pretend that its involvement in the conflict is in an indeterminate state when the US and NATO are clearly co-belligerents.
Keep in mind that so far, NATO members have slipped the leash of Ukraine attempts to depict various shellings as attacks on NATO members
Remember, we and others have pointed out that there is no reason to assume the belligerents will hammer out an agreement, since many conflicts end without a deal.
And as we said from very early on, there isn’t good reason to think one will happen here.
A top priority for Russia is to get Ukraine to commit to neutrality or otherwise keep it out of NATO’s hands, while the US position is that nobody outside NATO has a say in who might be a NATO member. And for Ukraine, or at least the Banderites, the war must be kept going as long as possible. Once US/NATO money and materiel largely evaporates, the current Ukraine leaders will be at the mercy of the Russian government, with their personal power and prospects for further enrichment very much diminished. A few might survive and even prosper, but as a group, they will suffer a very big fall.
And as noted the US and NATO are still trying to escalate….or at best, escalating because past measures like the great Ukraine counteroffensive have failed. And worse, Western experts are admitting that Russia has been improving its tactics and weapons over the course of the war, as Simplicius the Thinker recounts in his latest post. So the US, which earlier nixed F-16s for Ukraine now will be sending them. ABC has reported that the US is now likely to send ATACMS missiles, which have a longer range than HIMARS. Many commentators Ukraine will use to strike Crimea and the Kerch Bridge.1
Why do we think the West has caught itself in a bind?
For Russia, the war is existential. Too many Western officials have depicted victory as Russia being so battered that Putin is ousted and even the breakup of Russia. Russian opinion has hardened due those pronouncements, along with Western efforts not just to support the Ukraine war, but also to cancel Russian athletes, performers, and even its culture, and to continued Ukraine missile strikes on the civilian Donetsk city.
At least for now, the US/NATO combine is acting as if the war is existential, even though, as Ray McGovern has pointed out, there is not a shred of evidence that Russia has any interest in acquiring territory in NATO countries. Consider how Germany has allowed itself to be deindustrialized and has not acted in response to the Nord Stream attack, which the German press depicts as the handiwork of its ally Ukraine, and the US cannot plausibly have not known what was up. Those actions show the depth of commitment.
As for Russia’s posture towards Ukraine, Putin rejected the efforts of the Donbass separatists to join Russia prior to the special military operation, and moved to annex the four oblasts that Russia had partially occupied only after the embarrassing pullbacks from Kherson and Kharkiv last year. That left the civilians who had helped the Russians exposed to reprisals, and others in areas where Russia had taken ground worried about Russia’s commitment. But now that sentiment in Russia has hardened and the West is not backing down, Russia seems destined to gobble up more of Ukraine. And what happens to Western Ukraine then is very much an open question.
However the US/NATO position that the NATO will always have an open door policy may wind up being existential for NATO. If the US were to get over itself, it could agree to stop NATO expansion eastward where it is now (not that Russia would necessarily believe that) which might allow NATO to continue to exist only a bit bruised via how badly the NATO-trained and equipped forces in Ukraine fared versus Russia. Instead, NATO is actually doubling down, for instance via the pleasing-nobody compromise floated by a deputy of NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, of Ukraine ceding land to Russia in return for an immediate NATO membership. What about “Russia will not accept NATO on its border” don’t you understand? This sort of thing only further confirms the notion that the West has no interest in considering Russia’s security needs.
And Russia can’t have missed Anthony Blinken’s position when head of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley had the temerity last fall to suggest that Ukraine negotiate after it had recaptured some ground so as to improve its bargaining position. Milley was made to walk his mention of negotiations back at that time. Blinken committed the US and NATO to continuing to arm Ukraine to revisit the war at a later date. Key extracts from his Washington Post interview with David Ignatius:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence during an interview on Monday at the State Department….
He also underlined President Biden’s determination to avoid direct military conflict with Russia, even as U.S. weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force. “Biden has always been emphatic that one of his requirements in Ukraine is that there be no World War III,” Blinken said.
Russia’s colossal failure to achieve its military goals, Blinken believes, should now spur the United States and its allies to begin thinking about the shape of postwar Ukraine — and how to create a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity and allows it to deter and, if necessary, defend against any future aggression. In other words, Russia should not be able to rest, regroup and reattack.
Blinken’s deterrence framework is somewhat different from last year’s discussions with Kyiv about security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5. Rather than such a formal treaty pledge, some U.S. officials increasingly believe the key is to give Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself. Security will be ensured by potent weapons systems — especially armor and air defense — along with a strong, noncorrupt economy and membership in the European Union.
The Pentagon’s current stress on providing Kyiv with weapons and training for maneuver warfare reflects this long-term goal of deterrence. “The importance of maneuver weapons isn’t just to give Ukraine strength now to regain territory but as a deterrent against future Russian attacks,” explained a State Department official familiar with Blinken’s thinking. “Maneuver is the future.”
Given that the current Ukraine government continues to insist that it must recapture all of the pre-2014 Ukraine, it’s clear that any rearming of Ukraine by the West would lead to new hostilities…and not instigated by Russia.
However, as an aside, the Post also unwittingly tells us why Project Ukraine is doomed. The US has not adapted to the new ISR paradigm which Russia is perfecting with every passing day. As various military experts have pointed out, maneuver warfare (which among other things depends on massing forces to punch through enemy lines) is no longer possible with a peer power. Your build-up of men and materiel will be seen and attacked before you launch your big punch.
Keep in mind what Blinken’s position also implies: the US believes it can run what amounts to a two front war. Blinken posits Russia somehow loses in Ukraine so as to allow the US and NATO to rearm it at their leisure so as to harass, um, pressure Russia further down the war. At the same time US is also determined to Do Something to its official Enemy #1, China. Since economic sanctions are working about as well against China as they have against Russia, what does the US and its Pacific allies have left besides military escalation? Or will mere relentless propaganda be enough to snooker the credulous American public?
So unless the US relents, Russia has no option but to continue to prosecute the war until Ukraine is prostrated or Russia has otherwise precipitated regime change in Kiev. Russia needs to capture Ukraine, either politically or practically. This outcome becomes even more important if the US sends ATACMS. Russia will need an even wider buffer zone (300 km versus 77 km for the HIMARS previously sent) to prevent their use against Russian territory.
However, an undeniable Ukraine loss, no matter how much porcine maquillage US and EU spokescritters apply, will, as Alastair Crooke in particular described long-form in a recent Duran program, will rattle smaller NATO members, who will doubt they can rely on NATO to come to their rescue. NATO may still be fit for purpose as a defensive alliance. However, the fact that the US and NATO members sent in a whole mess of heavily-hyped wunderwaffen that did pretty much nothing to blunt Russian operations, and some of which were impressively destroyed, like Leopard 2 and Challenger tanks and the West is not responding with a Sputnik-level effort to get Western firepower up to Russian levels, means there is good reason to doubt how well the NATO shield would hold up if tested.
Mind you, Crooke explained in a related article that US is (or the hawks think it is) moving in the direction of a long, low intensity conflict, which is consistent with the Blinken remarks above. But that US/Ukraine hope ignores again that the war is generally very much going in Russia’s direction, with Ukraine continuing to throw men and materiel against Russian positions, and Russia only engaging in fairly minor advances in and near Kupiansk to produce even more of the same. Russia wanted to attrit Ukraine and is getting that outcome. And Russia can and will increase the intensity when it suits Russia.
One would think, given both the weakening Ukraine position, and the all-too-obvious need for the Biden Administration not to suffer a visible defeat in Ukraine, the optimal time would be between March and October 2024. However, that still may not take the form of the too-eagerly-hoped for big arrow attacks unless the Ukraine army is severely degraded.2 But the flip side is when Russia finally cracks the last Ukraine line of defense in the Donbass, there’s not much in the way of defensible positions west of Lugansk up to the Dnieper.3
In other words, the way to an end game is regime change. And the weak regimes are all in the West.
* * *
1 Admittedly, the US has pushed back the delivery date of Abrams tanks to next year….but they are so heavy they would probably be useless in the soon-to-arrive mud season. Dima at Military Summary today noted that Russia has not engaged in the sort of massive missile strikes of Ukraine that had been its habit, although it is still regularly striking selective targets, such as yesterday an ammo depot in Kiev, rumored to hold depleted uranium shells. He speculates they are accumulating stocks for big strikes in the winter to again damage the electrical grid. If Russia indeed has been caching missiles, they could also be keeping them in reserve for major retaliatory strikes.
2 Another issue is that Russia knows it is dealing with people who do not have a good grip on reality, and you don’t make sudden moves around crazy people, particularly when they possess nukes.
3 This makes the continuing fight over Bakhmut rational. That is on the third of four Ukraine defensive lines, but the last is seen as weak. If Russia were to move forces up to the Dnieper, it is hard to see how the West could not see that as undeniable evidence of Russian success, which would threaten the position of the Ukraine regime with its patrons.
Another One Fails: Subprime Auto Dealership Hit With “Unprecedented Changes To Auto-Retail Landscape”
Earlier this year, we discussed the ‘big profitability squeeze‘ on auto dealerships and the subsequent failure of a subprime dealership with dozens of locations. Now, another dealership has failed as cracks across the industry worsen.
A popular used car dealership in South Florida, called “Off Lease Only,” filed for Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in the District of Delaware last Thursday, citing “unprecedented changes to the automotive-retail landscape.”
“The industry has been impacted by inventory scarcity, and vehicle price inflation stemming from supply chain disruptions and multi-year declines in new vehicle production,” the company wrote in a press release.
The company also blamed elevated used car prices and soaring interest rates that “further deteriorated conditions in the automotive retail market, weakening consumer demand and affordability.”
Off Lease Only’s demise was due to collapsing demand after used car interest rates skyrocketed while used car prices remained elevated, sparking an affordability crisis.
The Florida-based company listed assets and liabilities each of between $100 million and $500 million on its bankruptcy filing. It noted a range of strategic options were being explored for “an orderly wind-down of the business.”
In April, another subprime auto dealership called US Auto Sales abruptly closed dozens of locations and filed for bankruptcy in August amid headwinds gathering in the used car market.
America thought it left the War on Terror behind, but the emergency never stopped expanding…
Twenty-two years ago jet planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York. Within two hours they fell, starting fires that still burned eight days later, on September 19th, when Attorney General John Ashcroft asked for a sweeping expansion of executive power, telling congress on a Wednesday to have a bill by the end of the week.
“We need every tool available to us,” Ashcroft said, and congress quickly delivered with “roving” wiretaps, warrantless searches, “trap and trace” searches, law enforcement and intelligence access to grand jury information, use of FISA monitoring for non-foreign situations, reduction or elimination of predicate requirements for FBI investigations, and elimination of judicial review for most of these activities, among many other things in the USA PATRIOT Act.
It all passed on October 26th, marking just the beginning of what turned into a long period of radical change.
From 2001 to 2008 the U.S. internationally became the world’s Death Star, constructing the most fearsome military-intelligence state ever seen.
Between 1.9 and 3 million Americans served in wars after 9/11, as the open-ended 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force led not only to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but deployments in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Niger, and parts unknown, the list of foes covered by the AUMF remaining classified.
Passage of new military commissions law made Guantanamo Bay the face of an anything-goes secret justice system, kept filled with “combatants” by troops from a swelling archipelago of 750 foreign bases.
It’s forgotten, but Barack Obama was sent to the White House in what a lot of the voting public at the time considered a referendum on the security state.
The genteel Obama played up “constitutional lawyer” credentials, announcing in a national security address at the Wilson Center in 2007 his opposition to the “color-coded politics of fear” and “a war in Iraq that should never have been authorized.”
Candidate Obama added it was time to “turn the page” with more peaceful means of “drying up” support for terrorism, a strategy that hurtled him past favored Hillary Clinton in primary season.
Privately however he’d already met with people like Richard Clarke, who told him, “As a president, you kill people.”
This is who Obama would actually be in office, an “idealist without illusions” who expanded the buildup, institutionalized the “kill list,” and in one of his last major acts, created a new counter-disinformation authority that helped birth the censorship state.
The 5th Circuit Court’s decision in the Missouri v. Biden case last week, which allowed the Department of Homeland Security (and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA) to squirm free of an anti-censorship injunction, underscored the central delusion of post-9/11 America.
Voters thought they shut down the War on Terror in 2008, but American citizens were instead swallowed up by it, made subjects of the global dragnet.
From the Towers to Trump to Covid to today, the emergency state not only never receded but tried continually to expand, looking to make the panic of twenty-two years ago a forever thing.
City Slickers Caused Rural Populations To Explode During Pandemic — Leaving A Trail Of Resent And Strained Infrastructures
The influx of transplants from urban living to rural areas during the pandemic has been well documented, as the lure of a cheaper cost of living and wide open spaces vs. the prospect of riding out lockdowns in a $5,000 / month postage stamp was no brainer for many.
And so for the first time in three decades, rural America’s population has outgrown that of urban areas, driven by remote work, affordability and lifestyle changes. Tech-savvy Californians have led this great migration. Driven by exorbitant living costs and an ever-intrusive (and tax-thirsty) state government, they are fleeing the Golden State for places like Montana. However, this movement is sparking backlash from longtime residents, with bumper stickers saying, “Don’t California my Montana,” highlighting the growing resentment.
The result? Rural America is booming – yet, underneath the surface problems are beginning to emerge – most notably resent among longtime locals over now-prohibitively expensive real estate prices, and a growing strain on infrastructures around the country.
The trend is sparking resentment as house prices in the top 10 rural counties that have seen the biggest population increases surging more than 40% over the past three years. Schools are overloaded and the shift is even impacting farmland prices. -Bloomberg
Farmland prices are also at record highs, driven by higher commodity prices and inflation hedging.
“There’s a lot of resentment,” said Maggie Doherty, a writer and columnist living in Flathead County, Montana. “There’s bumper stickers that say ‘Montana’s full’ or ‘Don’t California my Montana.’” she told Bloomberg.
Tech-savvy Californians are leading this great migration. Driven by exorbitant living costs and an ever-intrusive (and tax-thirsty) state government, they are fleeing the Golden State for places like Montana. However, this movement is sparking backlash from longtime residents, with bumper stickers saying, “Don’t California my Montana,” highlighting the growing resentment.
In Jackson County, Georgia, finding affordable homes is now near impossible – as prices rose 50% in the first half of this year vs. three years earlier, according to Zillow. Thanks to Jackson’s proximity to Atlanta, the county has attracted a flood of hybrid workers.
“There’s been a lot of battles politically over building and where to build,” said Jackson County Democratic head Pete Fuller. “There are organized groups that do not want affordable housing being built.”
Rents are also surging. In the past two years, according to Zillow, Harnett County and Moore County in North Carolina, Gallatin County in Montana, and Iron County in Utah have all seen rent increases between 13% to 24%, Bloomberg reports.
“Rent is completely through the roof,” said Tennessee resident Wendy Cerne. “There are a lot of new people that have moved into the region and I’ve experienced that first hand.”
As noted above, the price of farmland has never been this high either.
“Anything that helps broaden and deepen what I would call the opportunity set for off-farm income is good for producers, which is a good underpinning for land prices,” said Tom Halverson, CEO of rural lender CoBank ACB.
“The states in the South and East have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of this population movement,” he said. “They also are the parts of the agricultural production complex in this country that that are most reliant on off-farm income. So there’s an interesting correlation dynamic there.”
No Affordable Retirement in California
Bob Ficken, a retiree from California, encapsulates the dilemma: “Retiring in California is near impossible. The state ends up taking between 25% and 30% of everything you make.” This situation, coupled with deteriorating cityscapes in urban areas, is fueling the rush towards rural America.
Political Fault Lines
The demographic shifts are also exacerbating existing political divides. As newcomers bring along their political preferences, battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina become even more unpredictable, adding a layer of complexity to the 2024 presidential election calculus.
The migration has the potential to change voting patterns in both the places people are leaving and the ones they’re going to, adding an additional layer of unpredictability in battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina in the 2024 presidential election. -Bloomberg
And lastly, aging infrastructures are being tested like never before.
“You see huge issues with infrastructure as well with roads, roads that were not meant to handle truck traffic a lot of times are breaking down,” said Fuller, adding “There’s been two new high schools built here in the last couple years just to accommodate growth.”
Tech entrepreneur and California resident Elon Musk criticized an assembly bill in the state, calling the proposed law to require that parents affirm their child’s transgender identify for custody rights “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Mr. Musk’s comment came as the Democratic-majority State Assembly approved the legislation on Sept. 8, sending it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The bill, AB 957, incorporates parents’ “affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression” into the concept of a child’s “health, safety, and welfare.” If passed, the bill will require a judge to consider whether a parent affirms a child’s ideas about gender transition when determining custody or visitation rights.
“This bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Mr. Musk wrote on Friday on X, formerly called Twitter. “What it would actually mean is that if you disagree with the other parent about sterilizing your child, you lose custody. Utter madness!“
The bill was initially introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, a Democrat, in February. She previously argued the legislation doesn’t prioritize a parent’s gender-affirming over other judicial criteria that determine custody disputes.
“If you have a child going through that system, a judge has discretion, like they do looking at the totality of circumstances related to the health, safety, and welfare of a child, to consider different factors,” the Assemblywoman told ABC7 in June after the bill made its way through California Legislature.
“One of the factors, not the factor, but one of the factors, would be the parent’s affirmation of a child’s gender identity.”
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Ms. Wilson said the bill was intended to address “parents antagonistic to their child’s gender identity.”
State Sen. Scott Wilk, a Republican, said there have been many policies introduced to protect children during his 11 years in the state legislature. But now, he said, it’s time to start protecting parents.
“In recent years, we have put government bureaucrats between parents, children, and doctors when it comes to medical care. And now, we have this, where if a parent does not support the ideology of the government, [children] are going to be taken away from the home,” Mr. Wilk said. “If you love your children, you need to flee California.”
How to Raise Children
On Sept. 6, the bill cleared the state Senate in a near-party-line vote, 30-9. Democrats argue that the legislation would help to protect the well-being of LGBTQ+ children whose parents are going through a divorce.
Every Republican in the state Senate voted against the bill, with state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, who represents Murrieta in Southern California, arguing that lawmakers were interfering too much with how parents choose to raise their children.
The Democrat governor now has until Oct. 15 to either sign the bill into law or veto it.
Some parental rights groups warned the bill would leave parents involved in a child custody battle with no choice but to consent to recommendations of gender change for their child at any age, for any gender identity.
“Newsom needs to veto it because if he doesn’t, he is aligning with breaking up families. He’s aligning against parents and also judicial discretion. It’s the state control of our judges,” Jennifer Kennedy, spokesperson for Our Duty, a parental rights group, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 8. “Why would Newsom attack families already in crisis? He needs to read the room and veto AB 957.”
Ms. Kennedy, a civil rights attorney, argued the bill would infringe parental rights and remove the discretion of judges to consider the facts involved in child custody disputes on a case-by-case basis.
“The affirming parent will always be given the benefit of the doubt. They will always be favored in custody and visitation, so it’s completely unconstitutional.”
‘Legislated Evil’
Chloe Cole, who agreed to have a “gender-affirming” surgeon remove her breasts at the age of 15—a life-changing decision she regrets after reaching the age of majority—also took to social media to voice her opposition.
“This issue is wildly unpopular yet the Cali Gov pushes forward with more and more radical policies,” she said in response to Mr. Musk’s post. “@ProtectKidsCA is trying to introduce ballot measures that will stop the sterilization of kids in California.”
Michael Seifert, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PublicSq, called the bill a “legislated evil.”
“California is determined to discover rock bottom,” he said in a post on Friday. “I’m so glad we left that state.”
“I don’t even recognize my former home anymore.”
The Associated Press and Brad Jones contributed to this report.
