Was Jeffrey Epstein involved in a plot to tie the 2016 Trump campaign to Russia?

A disturbing new report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman introduced Trump’s inner circle to Jeffrey Epstein, who then introduced them to a ‘top Russian diplomat.’

As a reminder, Hoffman;

• Bankrolled an online disinformation hoax against Roy Moore, conducted by a former Obama administration official – who also created the “Hamilton 68” propaganda website purporting to track Russian bots. Hoffman later apologized when caught.
• Bankrolled Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll.
• Gave $600,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm which prepared documents for the infamous ‘Trump Tower’ setup meeting with Don. Jr. and facilitated the Hillary Clinton-funded Steele Dossier.
• Was a major Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 US election.

According to the Journal, Hoffman emailed people in Trump’s orbit to introduce them to Epstein, who then invited one of them – Peter Thiel – to meet with Russia’s ambassador to the UN!

In March 2014, fellow billionaire and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democrats, emailed Thiel to introduce Epstein and arrange a meeting at Thiel’s San Francisco home. 

“Meet one of the guys who invented derivatives, Jeffrey Epstein?” Hoffman wrote, echoing an inaccurate claim Epstein sometimes made. Hoffman wrote that Epstein was “mostly fun, very interesting guy, you may find him perverse, but very smart on biology, computation, macro econ.” 

Hoffman said he regrets all his interactions with Epstein and that he made the introduction to help fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

…

Epstein scheduled lunches with venture capitalist Peter Thiel and real-estate investor Thomas Barrack in 2016, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. At the time, both were high-profile financial backers of Trump’s campaign. 

Epstein invited Thiel and Barrack to separate meetings with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Churkin, who died of an apparent heart attack in early 2017, had at least eight meetings scheduled with Epstein between 2015 and Churkin’s death, the documents show. -WSJ

So, Epstein – pal to the Democrats and a prolific pedophile, had extensive dealings with a Russian diplomat that he tried to connect with Trump’s inner circle?

The report also notes that “The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, don’t make reference to any meetings or conversations between Trump and Epstein,” and “don’t specify Epstein’s purpose in scheduling meetings with Trump’s associates or the Russian ambassador.”

Notably, these Epstein-Russia meetings happened when the Russiagate hoax was in full swing with the FBI’s involvement.

Yet, according to Thiel, the October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured “nothing memorable.”

“I was rather naive,” Thiel told the outlet, “and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been.”

Meanwhile, a Trump campaign spokesman said: “None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.“

As the Journal further notes:

Epstein met with and donated to Democrats more often than Republicans, according to the documents and campaign donation records. The Journal has reported that his schedules included meeting several people who had served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his townhouse, Epstein hung a painting that depicted Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels. 

In 2019, a spokesman for Bill Clinton said the former president had cut off ties more than a decade before and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The spokesman said then that Bill Clinton took four flights on Epstein’s plane and once visited the townhouse, each time with his Secret Service team and for reasons related to the Clinton Foundation’s work. The spokesman declined to comment for this article.

Public records show Epstein donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign for the Senate, and tax records indicate he donated $25,000 in 2006 to what is now the Clinton family’s global philanthropic foundation. A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment.

After his conviction, Epstein maintained connections with some former members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, including Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary, and Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary. He also met with Clinton alumni leaving the Obama administration, including Ruemmler and the current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns.

Which begs the question, was Epstein just another prong in the Democrats’ attempts to tie Trump to Russia in 2016?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MIshTalk.com,

More consumers of all income brackets reported living paycheck to paycheck in July 2023 than last year. Spending shows why…

Real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) and Disposable Personal Income (DPI) from the BEA, chart by Mish. Disposable means after taxes.

Personal Current Transfer payments (PCTR) primarily includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.

New Reality Check: Paycheck-To-Paycheck

Please consider the LendingClub New Reality Check: Paycheck-To-Paycheck report for July 2023.

Key Points

• In July 2023, 61% of U.S. consumers lived paycheck to paycheck, unchanged from June 2023, but 2 percentage points higher than July 2022.

• The number struggling to meet bill payments remains at 21% since June 2023, which represents an increase of 2 percentage points from a year ago but is consistent with the 2021 and 2020 data.

• More consumers of all income brackets reported living paycheck to paycheck in July 2023 than last year. The data indicates the persistent financial challenges and inflationary pressures a significant portion of the U.S. population faces.

• 16 million U.S. consumers claim that nonessential spending is the primary reason they are trapped in the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

• Twenty-one percent of paycheck-to-paycheck consumers cite nonessential spending as one reason — but not the top reason — for their financial lifestyle.

Nonessential Spending

A notable 29% of Gen Z consumers living paycheck to paycheck cite nonessential spending as one of the factors contributing to their financial distress, with 15% citing it as the top factor, marking them the most affected demographic. In contrast, only 12% of baby boomers and seniors in similar financial situations attribute nonessential spending as a factor for their struggles. The likelihood of citing nonessential spending as a reason for living paycheck to paycheck decreases with age, making younger consumers more vulnerable to its adverse effects. The study also finds that male consumers are slightly more likely than female consumers to attribute their financial strain to nonessential spending.

Shoppers who say they engage in indulgent spending are also more likely to say they made payments related to credit cards, personal loans and buy now, pay later plans in the 30 days prior to the survey. Overall, credit product usage is 11 percentage points higher for consumers who cite indulgent spending than those who do not cite such spending. Higher credit usage among indulgent spenders suggests that credit usage on nonessential categories, such as clothing or travel, is more common than on essentials, such as groceries or household supplies.

April CNBC Report Shows 58 Percent Live Paycheck to Paycheck

Also consider the CNBC|Momentive Your Money Financial Confidence Survey.

• Just 13% of Americans say they are confident in America’s banking system according to a new poll from CNBC and Momentive fielded in the weeks after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

• Seven in 10 people say they are stressed about their personal finances, and about half say their overall financial stress has increased since before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

• More than half of Americans (58%) describe themselves as living paycheck to paycheck, including a third of people with household incomes in the six figures.

• On top of all this, most Americans do not have an emergency fund to help buffer them in times of financial stress; among those who do, 40% say that have less than $10,000 saved for a time of need.

Personal Consumption Expenditures

The above chart shows nominal numbers. Inflation-adjusted, spending rose 0.6 percent in July and 0.4 percent in June as the lead chart shows.

Consumers Go on a Spending Spree in July, but Income Doesn’t Match

Consumers has gone on a huge spending spree in the last two months.

For more details, please see Consumers Go on a Spending Spree in July, but Income Doesn’t Match

In response, a reader commented “I think the consumer is much more robust than most of these comments suggest. Especially millennials. Their incomes are way up, they’re spending & they’re savings are up. All is well.“

What a hoot

By the way, if 61 percent live paycheck to paycheck but only 21 percent struggle, the rest are one unexpected expense or loss of income away from somewhere between struggling and outright disaster.

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Heavy rains in the Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man is being held, have forced organizers to ban 73,000 attendees from leaving because “widespread muddy conditions created treacherous driving conditions,” according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. 

Burning Man posted on X that all attendees must “hunker down” and stay at campsites because a slow-moving rainstorm has transformed the desert playground into a muddy hellhole. 

Check on your campmates and neighbors to make sure they’re ok, and help them as needed. Take advantage of a moment of calm to connect with campmates and hunker down. Stay safe!

— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 2, 2023

Organizers told attendees to “conserve food & water, shelter in a warm space” amid the rainstorm. 

The gate&airport in and out of Black Rock City remain closed. Ingress&Egress are halted until further notice. No driving is permitted on playa with the exception of emergency vehicles. If you are in BRC,conserve food&water,shelter in a warm space. More updates to come. Stay safe!

— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 2, 2023

As of Saturday morning, gates to enter or leave Burning Man and the local airport remain closed. Even the tech cent-millionaires and billionaires that flew in on private jets to the party in the desert have no way of escaping.

❣️The Gate and airport in and out of Black Rock City remain closed. Ingress and egress are halted for the time being, including Burner Express Air and Bus. No driving is permitted on playa except for emergency vehicles. If you are in BRC, please shelter in place and stay safe.

— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 2, 2023

At least those with satellite internet (considering cell phone reception is nonexistent at the event), such as Starlink, have documented the mess. 

Still smiling #BurningMan2023 pic.twitter.com/nsaciKQ6Ax

— Sharam (@DJSHARAM) September 2, 2023

#BurningMan2023 pic.twitter.com/c9KBuSooVT

— Nanceeee (@Nanceeee33) September 2, 2023

But-but-but what about the ‘climate crisis’ of the world boiling?  

“Burning Man must be so fucking dry and hot all the time”

There are 3” of fucking slippery mud outside and another inch of rain coming. We haven’t left our tent all day, except to bring a campmate a shovel. pic.twitter.com/wjZrKrdgNb

— 🌈Maly 🔥Burning Man❤️‍🔥 (@malytwotails) September 2, 2023

Radical self reliance is being put to the test at Burning Man as steady rain this afternoon turns the playa to mud.#BurningMan2023 pic.twitter.com/BIEsJHcqGX

— Chris Pietsch (@ChrisPietsch) September 2, 2023

Double rainbow sunset. pic.twitter.com/iX6CfRgshe

— andrew hyde (@unicorn) September 2, 2023

Burning Man 2023 = total disaster. Watching my Facebook feed of my 45 year old pals who went into the desert with a summer-time tent made for a 2 night stay in a mountain campground are now sad as they sit in alkaline mud in Nevada. Like what did you expect?

— Colorado Bear 🐻 (@FoodBevMedia) September 2, 2023

“While the Black Rock Desert rarely gets this much rain at once, the last time it did, Burning Man organizers were forced to shut the gate for several days,” Reno Gazette-Journa said. The National Weather Service said skies might not clear until Sunday night or even Monday. 

With attendees told to conserve food and shelter in place, the road closures mean cleaning and servicing of the thousands of portable toilets used by attendees has been suspended. 

The event ends Monday, and some drew comparisons to the 2017 ill-fated party in the Bahamas called “Fyre Festival.” 

Authored by 𝙈𝙞𝙠𝙚 “DR. DOOM” 𝙃𝙤₿𝙖𝙧𝙩 via BombThrower.com,

Assessing The Potential Of Bitcoin Mining In Energy Monetization

If trade is considered the lifeblood of an economy, then surely energy would mark the essence of life itself.

Without energy, then trade has no foundation to stand upon.

And yet, some seem intent on diminishing the capacity for the world to generate this very essence of an economy and of the world.

Thankfully, it seems that some are waking up and facing the music.

Woe Is We, Thx ESG

During the week of August 7th ratings agency S&P Global announced that it would no longer be using ESG scores to determine credit quality of public companies. A spokesperson for S&P Global also (quoted by Bloomberg) stated that their move to ‘not rely on ESG scores in credit ratings’ will not affect the company’s philosophies towards ESG goals, or how the organization assesses a firm’s creditworthiness.

This comes at an interesting time. After years of consistent aggravated PR campaigns against specifically oil and gas. With publicly stated concerted efforts to attempt to hamper O&G production and processing operations reality, it seems, is starting to finally set in. Time will tell what this pivot ultimately leads to with regards to the heightened polarity around ESG and the fixation on emissions and their implied impact on climate change.

There is one thing that I cannot help but get off my chest…

How boorishly cliche; to not be capable of seeing how irrational a tact may be, ignoring data and logic, until failure and mark-ed difficulty are staring us in the face. If there is a silver-lining here, I suppose it would be that this serves as evidence that we are still clutching on to our humanity. This capability of making silly mistakes that yield outlandish consequences proves that (at least so far) we haven’t completely turned into cyborgs yet. So… go us.

Now we not only need to undo all of the damage to public understanding that has been inflicted upon oil & gas, but we also need to explain how important hydrocarbons are to the production of renewables, and why a shortage in black gold is bad for everybody and has significant impacts on all forms of energy generation. Which it seems we are approaching more rapidly than we want to admit.

Choppy Waters for Oil

What really drives this point home is the report produced by Goehring & Rozencwajg (referred to as “G&R” going forward) on May 31st, 20233. Conventional non-OPEC oil production has markedly declined, while nonconventional non-OPEC (that basically means US Shale) production has stalled out, globally. The problem is that, according to G&R, the Permian Basin accounted for 75% of all nonconventional supply growth since 2016, globally – of the 7.4mm b/d the Permian supplied 5.4.

“Well, Mike, that’s just for non-OPEC production. You’re making it sound like it’s all doom and gloom, there’s still the OPEC producers.”

Yes you are correct. However, G&R are of the opinion that OPEC production has turned negative, an opinion that I have now heard from multiple different sources and also share (take that with a big helping of salt). This gives two reasons to be concerned about the previously stated production numbers:

1. If the majority of global supply growth was due to expansion in the Permian, and that has now passed, that suggests that supply and demand will continue to invert, and begin to pick up steam. Because, as G&R elaborate on, oil demand was forecasted to diminish after 2019 and instead has smacked back with a vengeance. And this isn’t just a “return to normal” situation, that demand is continuing to expand4. Meaning: energy prices should explode in such a scenario, making for the costs of quite literally everything more egregious. Ergo: the return of inflation and nauseating discussion volume over how real those measures are. Prepare yourselves.

2. If the supply growth stall is only on the non-OPEC side of the equation, that places America in a not-so-great tough spot. Our oil production has contributed to our prowess, and if we were to no longer be capable of continuing to expand access to our supply of oil, that removes a tool from our shed. And if you know anything about politik (and trade) you want every advantage at your disposal when things come to the negotiating table. NOW, lucky for the US is that (from my elementary understanding) we still have basins that we can lean on between California, Alaska, Louisiana, etc. However, these are much much smaller than Texas, and all together suggest by my back-of-the-napkin math ~20-25 billion barrels of potential production.

This leaves behind implications for everything as I stated with regards to the prices. But not just in the prices of goods like your food or the gasoline at the pump. This also has impacts on the expansion of all energy sources, both renewable and oil & gas. Solar panels and wind turbines require significant hydrocarbon inputs, let alone their batteries. The same goes for the production of transmission infrastructure – what brings the electricity to our homes and businesses. This further complicates the conversation around energy sourcing diversification as wind & solar have a problem with economics: they produce their greatest amounts of power outside of the peak demand window. This demand typically floods in between 2pm-8pm when families and individuals are returning home at the end of the day and powering on central air systems, TVs, computers, charging devices, video gaming systems, and various appliances.

Nuclear does not get away from this conversation either without taking some licks. Reactors require significant upfront investment, not just in capital but also in land and water. While reactors may not require nearly the amount of space as their solar and wind counterparts, they are still preferred to be built near water sources. As the power production does not come from the radiation from the fuel rods themselves, but by using that radiation to heat water and produce steam, which spins turbine blades, and those turbines generate the electricity. Oh and that water assists with heat dissipation. So yeah, you’re gonna want a lake or river nearby for that reactor… and building a manmade body of water is a feat that most would prefer to avoid.

Enter Bitcoin Mining, Stage Left.

Nuclear Mining

This is where the big orange “B” comes in with force. First, we will touch on the nuclear discussion as we were literally just there. Nuclear reactors can be limited in project viability as their prime locations can be quite the distance from communities and cities. Meaning that said operations would require significant transmission infrastructure investment to “tie in” to the grid and supply power. Which also means that it could be some time, and many hundreds of millions of $’s invested before the project is capable of earning a return, if the goldilocks environment is not available.

Bitcoin miners are uniquely positioned for this precise predicament. While a young reactor project is waiting for transmission infrastructure to be completed and connected, reactors could partner with bitcoin miners to “move in” and bunk-up on their operation by providing virtually immediate demand. Better yet, is that nuclear generation is consistent. Bitcoin mining’s energy demand is consistent. When operations are properly managed, and equipment is maintained, there is very little downtime required from either side of this equation.

What this provides is an avenue for rapid monetization of future nuclear projects. Things get even better when the grid gets tied-in to our generator; bitcoin miners can either be selected as persistent partners providing consistent demand and serving as a load balancer (like Riot and Marathon have been performing in Texas), or they can be asked to move on. Miners are effectively energy demand mercenaries.

CleanSpark (CLSK) serves as a great example of the success that is possible to an already established nuclear project that incorporates bitcoin mining as a service augmentation. Recently the CLSK team held their earnings call boasting great returns on the production of the bitcoin asset and their fully funded expansion project that will result in a 77% expansion in hashrate bringing the total forecasted hashrate to 16 EH/s5.

For those that are not versed in bitcoin mining terminology “hashrate” refers to the number of attempts that a bitcoin mining machine spits out in an attempt to discover the necessary solution to the current block of transactions. The vast majority of bitcoin miners utilize mining pools, a service that allows any number of mining organizations or individuals to dedicate their resources (hashrate) to work in a coordinated effort to discover that next fabled block. Because these services aggregate so much hashrate, and the likelihood of receiving a bitcoin subsidy is so much greater than working purely as individuals, these pools function by divvying up bitcoin returns according to the % of work done by each participant6. Providing a likelihood for a relatively consistent stream of income for the miners plugged in to said pools.

Now, another interesting aspect of CleanSpark’s latest earnings call was their numbers reported on their all-in power costs, coming in at a mere $0.041 kWh, which was an 11% reduction in their power costs from the prior quarter. CLSK attributes this cost reduction to their “active power management strategy.” Now, I do not know what that strategy could be in technical terms, but I am going to guess that it is a strategy that is effectively load balancing for the cities in which they operate; it only makes sense. That strategy would effectively reduce their cost of energy by not consuming during peak demand hours, also allowing for power prices to be reduced for the community during such timeframes.

CleanSpark even went so far as to further improve the quality of life for the community they have partnered with in Georgia. Matt Schultz, Vice Chairman at CleanSpark, shared that Washington, Georgia’s budget increased from $16 million to $30 million based solely on CleanSpark’s business activities7.

Wind & Solar Mining

There is little that actually needs to be said here. These energy sources are capable of benefiting from incorporating bitcoin mining in a very similar manner to nuclear. The difference being that, rather than responding strictly to demand, these renewables need to be capable of earning revenue outside of the peak power demand window. When your window of peak production is not matching up with the peak demand, additional strategies need to be sourced for revenue in order to cover the delta. Bitcoin mining covers that delta, and can go offline in response to any demands by the grid. Allowing the wind & solar operations to continue earning a solid revenue well outside of their locality’s peak demand window.

Conclusion

Look, I get it. Bitcoin has been an awfully cringe topic for almost everyone for the entirety of its existence. The community largely doesn’t help with that marketing and PR either. I get it. But we have to face the facts here, the world is changing and we are heading into a series of difficulties and complications that are going to require an upgrade to the incentivization of energy. I believe that mining bitcoin accomplishes that in ways that will change America, and the world, for the better. As I briefly described, mining the great orange asset provides a monetization strategy for all forms of energy generation, including oil and gas (which I have already touched on here). I very truly do not care if you call yourself a “bitcoiner.” I’ve never cared for tribalism or dogmas. But what I do care about is societal advancement and pushing towards a future of cheap and abundant energy.

It’s a world that I was promised as a child. And the world deserves its actualization. It may not be a “perfect” solution in your eyes, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a better solution than everything else that is on offer currently.

Generate more energy, improve the condition of the world. Make some money while you’re at it.

*  *  *

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The Kremlin has announced another attempted Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge, which happened in the overnight and early hours of Saturday. The overnight incident is being described as “multiple attempted attacks” – but which were reportedly thwarted.

A defense ministry statement described, “On September 1, at about 11:15pm Moscow time, the Kiev regime attempted to launch a terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge using a semi-submersible unmanned boat.” It added that the attacking vessels were “promptly detected and destroyed” in the Black Sea.

Russian media indicated that the attack was significant enough to stop traffic for for a period of time, but within hours vehicles were allowed to pass again.

According to more from TASS:

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that the Black Sea Fleet had established permanent control of the situation in the Black Sea using all types of reconnaissance. The ministry said that this had allowed the naval air force on August 29-30 to foil an attempt by a Ukrainian special operations unit to land on the Crimean coast and carry out terrorist attacks.

Last month witnessed some of the most frequent attacks against the Crimean peninsula out of Ukraine since the war’s start. This has included mostly drone attacks, but also the above-mentioned special operations amphibious landing, which as we described previously seemed more of a PR stunt for propaganda purposes.

The vital Crimean bridge (or Kerch Strait Bridge) has been forcibly shut down on multiple occasions, and has suffered significant damage during two prior major attacks and direct hits.

At this point amid the last several months of Kiev’s stepped-up campaign to attack Russian territory, there have been multiple dozens (if not possibly hundreds) of strikes on Russia and the Crimean peninsula – including as deep into Russia as Moscow and parts of the northwest – as one newly published map presents…

A map of Ukrainian drone attacks against the Russians. pic.twitter.com/KRy6UVkqTp

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) September 2, 2023

Statements out of Ukraine officials have indicated this is an attempt to create instability and fear among common Russians themselves.

These cross-border attacks have become almost daily, particularly drone assaults, but really nothing has changed on the battlefield in terms of the failing counteroffensive. 

Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The potential lifelong consequences that weight-loss drugs could have on adolescents and children have a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, exercise and behavioral scientists, pharmacists, and ethics researchers at the University of California–Irvine (UCI) sounding alarms.

The team’s pre-proof paper (pdf), published by the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, suggests that swapping traditional methods like diet and exercise to tackle childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes for GLP-1RA medications like Wegovy and Ozempic will likely lead to a host of unintended physical and emotional problems.

“Unlike in adults, children and adolescents need energy and sufficient calories not only for physical activity, but for growth and development,” Dr. Dan M. Cooper, associate director of the UCI Institute of Clinical and Translational Science and interim executive director of the UCI Institute for Precision Health, said in a news release.

While health experts applaud drug benefits like hunger suppression, low appetite, and slow gastric emptying in overweight, obese, or Type 2 diabetic adults, the paper’s authors argue these same benefits could backfire in younger groups.

Not getting enough calories can lead to nutritional deficiencies and put kids at risk of poor brain development, reduced learning ability, low immunity, increased infections, and—in some cases—death. Regular physical activity is necessary to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, build strong bones and muscles, control weight, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and slash the risk of developing health conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, and cancer.

Additionally, researchers say other possible harms should not be overlooked. Easy accessibility and availability could create a perfect storm for the potential of abuse among kids involved in sports with weight or body-type expectations, such as wrestling, martial arts, gymnastics, and ballet, as well as those with eating disorders.

“With the increase in social media, young people are already exposed to a diet culture and body images which may not be attainable and, ultimately, unhealthy,” said Jan D. Hirsch, one of the coauthors and the dean of the UCI School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, in the news release.

Another concern is the potential infiltration of illicit, unregulated copycat drugs in this age group.

What Are GLU-1RAs?

GLP-1RA stands for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist. They are typically administered by shot injections on a daily or weekly basis, depending on the type. Pill forms are currently being developed and tested by pharmaceutical companies but are unavailable.

These drugs mimic the action of a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 by regulating the rise in blood sugar levels after a person eats and stimulating the body to produce more insulin. The extra insulin helps lower blood sugar levels, which helps control Type 2 diabetes. GLP-1RAs appear to curb hunger and slow the process of food digestion, making a person feel fuller longer with less food.

Lack of Children-Focused Studies

The prospective’s authors insist the cost versus benefit as it relates to long-term use in youth requires more careful study. Between an estimated 75 and 175 articles have been published per year on weight-loss drugs concerning all ages for the past decade, but only a fraction focus on adolescents and children. The overall number of published studies in 2022 was 175. Fewer than five centered on children.

“The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of certain GLP-1RAs … have been studied in both adult and pediatric populations; however, children are not miniature adults,” the paper reads. Navigating these new waters will require scientists to study dosing, formulations, and the interaction between drugs and lifestyle to “optimize safety, efficacy, and value during growth and development.”

Possible Unintended Consequences

Some of the adverse effects of trading conventional weight-loss strategies for GLP-1RA interventions the authors mention include the following:

• Long-term growth and development impacts: The balance of calorie intake and expenditure regulates growth hormones, and the drug may interfere with this balance during critical growth stages.
• Abuse of medication: Adolescents with eating disorders or participating in sports where certain weights offer advantages may abuse the drugs to gain a competitive edge.
• Unwarranted and unsupervised use: Inaccurate body-weight perceptions may drive adolescents to unnecessarily and secretly use medications.
• Improper prescriptions: Pediatricians may prescribe weight-loss drugs for convenient and short-term gains, but the long-term effects on growth and development are largely unknown.
• Warped cost–benefit analysis for long-term use: Patients may be compelled to be lifelong users; long-term use may be cost-prohibitive; and off-label use may not be covered by insurers.

Read more here…

Sweden’s woke government clearly wants to keep their jobs.

After encouraging a hoard of migrants to flood the country, some of whom are rapey and violent, they’re now cracking down, and have introduced a mandatory requirement for public institutions to report illegals.

Of course, Sweden’s migrant problem could have been nipped in the bud six years ago if they’ only listened to Donald Trump – who called out Sweden for failing to address the problem. 

“You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” Trump said at a rally in response to a Fox News report covering a documentary exposing problems with violent immigrants.

“They’re having problems like they never thought possible,” Trump said (which the MSM claimed was in response to a non-existent terrorism incident).

Sweden, cocky as ever, replied on Twitter: “Hey Don, this is @Sweden speaking! It’s nice of you to care, really, but don’t fall for the hype. Facts: We’re OK!”

Fast forward six years and reports that more than 100,000 people are living in the country illegally…

…During a Thursday press conference, Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard announced that employees of public institutions will soon be required to notify the authorities when they encounter illegal immigrants, and may face punitive action for failure to comply.

“The proposal for mandatory reporting of illegals in the public sector can counteract the shadow society,” Stenergard told the press, adding that the move is “an important step in the paradigm shift that the current government is implementing in migration policy.”

More via ReMix,

Public offices that may be compelled to report illegal immigrants could include job centers, social welfare offices, and libraries, although some institutions may be exempt.

“Healthcare services may be exempted from the obligation to report illegal immigrants; it is not clear yet whether schools will also be exempted,” Stenergard said.

Those who are found not to comply with the reporting requirements could find themselves in trouble.

“We have rules today about misconduct, and it could be a civil procedure where fines are involved. But the investigator must look at what is reasonable and appropriate in terms of consequences,” said the minister.

She added the plans were necessary to crack down on the estimated 100,000 individuals currently living in Sweden without permission.

Those critical of the plan claim that such a move could dissuade individuals from seeking help from authorities and exacerbate the “shadow society” the minister seeks to eradicate.

In addition to the proposed reporting requirements, the center-right government, propped up by the right-wing Sweden Democrats, plans to extend the use of biometric screening, including the use of fingerprinting and facial recognition, to strengthen checks on people already living in the country.

“It may involve fingerprints and photographs being taken and stored in more cases and for a longer period of time,” explained Christian Carlsson, migration spokesperson for the co-governing Christian Democrats.

Random immigration checks, which are currently not permitted in the country, may also be introduced.

Additionally, expiry dates on expulsion orders, which currently last for four years, could be extended or abolished, and the government is also exploring the possibility of introducing re-entry bans into the country.

The plans are expected to go through a consultation process ahead of being formally presented in January, with a final report expected in September next year.

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Is the woke experiment finally ending?

Authored by Max Blumenthal via The Gray Zone,

Before his removal in a military coup, Gabon’s hopelessly corrupt President Ali Bongo was courted by Obama and feted from Washington to Davos. The US war on Libya which destabilized the region may not have succeeded without him.

When a military junta arrested President Ali Bongo Ondimba on August 30, Gabon became the ninth African nation to depose its government through a military coup. As citizens of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali did before them, crowds of Gabonese poured into the streets to celebrate the removal of a Western-backed leader whose family flaunted its lavish lifestyle while more than a third of the country’s population languished in destitution.

“Irresponsible and unpredictable governance has led to a steady deterioration in social cohesion, threatening to drive the country into chaos,” a leader of Gabon’s junta, Col. Ulrich Manfoumbi, declared upon seizing power.

President Bongo’s arrest was met with indignant condemnations from Washington and Paris, which had propped him up as he pillaged his country’s vast oil wealth. His ouster represented a particularly sharp rebuke of former President Barack Obama, who groomed the Gabonese autocrat as one of his closest allies on the continent, and leaned on him for diplomatic support as he waged a war on Libya that unleashed terror and instability across the region.

So close was the bond between Obama and Bongo that Foreign Policy branded the Gabonese leader, “Obama’s Man in Africa.”

With Obama’s help, Bongo attempted to fashion himself as a reformist modernizer. He traveled repeatedly to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum, where was appointed an “Agenda Contributor.” There, he pledged to accelerate the Fouth Industrial Revolution in Africa by implementing lucrative digital identification and payment systems among his country’s heavily impoverished population.

Bongo’s bio on the WEF website lists him as a “spokesperson for Africa on biodiversity” and “composer of musical pieces” whose interests include “history, football, classical music, jazz and bossa nova.” The self-styled renaissance man managed to hit it off with Obama, kibitz with Klaus Schwab, and press the flesh with Bill Gates. But at home, he found few friends among the struggling Gabonese masses.

A “global citizen” meets his fate at home

Ali Bongo rose to power as the son of the late Gabonese autocrat Omar Bongo Odinmba, who ruled the country from 1967 to his death. In 2004, a year after discussing a $9 million image-washing deal with disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Bongo secured a meeting with President George W. Bush. When he died five years later, he left behind a $500 million presidential palace, over a dozen luxurious homes from Paris to Beverly Hills, and a country overrun with inequality.

⚡️🇬🇦Hundreds sing and celebrate in apparent support of coup as they take to streets after Gabonese military ousts incumbent pro-French Prez Ali Bongo.

As of now, Rothschild-funded mining company has suspended operations in Gabon and internet services are reported to have been… pic.twitter.com/8EWzapbpuj

— Angelo Giuliano (@Angelo4justice3) August 30, 2023

Following a brief stint as a disco artist, Bongo studied at France’s Sorbonne and prepared to lead his nation. When he was installed as president in 2009, he picked up where his father left off, pillaging public funds to pay for a Boeing 777 airliner and a fleet of luxury cars while signing hefty contracts with international PR firms. Bongo’s sister, Pascaline, blew over $50 million on jetset vacations and expensive homes, according to a lawsuit, while her family cultivated influence in Paris by siphoning funds stolen from the Bank of Central African States into the campaign coffers of former French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.

Yet nothing on the Bongo family’s lengthy and well-documented record of corruption seemed to bother President Barack Obama when he embarked on a regime change operation in Libya ironically justified as an exercise in “democracy promotion.” With Washington’s help, Gabon was rotated into the UN Security Council, where it functioned as a rubber stamp for US resolutions demanding sanctions and a No Fly Zone on Libya in February 2011.

Bongo’s cooperative spirit earned him a visit with Obama in Washington four months later. There, while staying at the president’s personal residence, he became the first African leader to call for Qaddafi to give up power.

“They could call any African leader with private cell numbers,” then US Ambassador to Gabon Eric  Benjaminson remarked to Foreign Policy, referring to Bongo’s staff. “They knew Qaddafi and they knew his chief of staff very well, and we were trying to work through the Gabonese to get Qaddafi to step down without military action.”

Benjaminson added, “Obama sort of liked him.”

The US-led regime change war on Libya swiftly transformed the previously stable, prosperous nation into a despotic hellscape ruled by Al Qaeda-affiliated and ISIS warlords. With virtually unlimited access to the former arms depots of the Libyan military, jihadist gangs began to rampage across the Sahel region. Covert assistance for their onslaught arrived from Qatar, the Gulf monarchy which partnered with France and the US to remove Qaddafi, enabling a jihadist coalition to establish a de facto Caliphate in northeastern Mali in 2012.

“The violence that has plagued once-stable Mali since late 2011 should have come as no surprise to Western governments, for it is a direct function of NATO’s Libyan intervention,” the Council on Foreign Relations noted.

Despite the growing French and US military presence – or perhaps because of it – jihadist attacks were multiplying across the region in 2014. That August, Obama rewarded Bongo with an invitation to attend his US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington. During the summit’s gala dinner, Obama emphasized Bongo’s pivotal role in his Africa strategy by sitting beside him as they were regaled by pop legend Lionel Richie.

Just a month after winning re-election in a dubious 2016 vote, Bongo was summoned back to the US, this time by the notoriously shady, NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council to receive a “Global Citizen Award” at the think tank’s black tie gala in New York City. But as questions persisted back home about the rigging of Gabon’s election, including a 95% vote reported in his favor on a near-100% turnout in one area, he was forced to cancel the trip.

“The Atlantic Council respects Gabonese President Bongo’s decision to forego receiving his Global Citizen Award this year due to the overriding priorities he has in his country,” the think tank announced in an absurdly canned statement published on its website.

Meanwhile, in the Malian capital of Bamako, a group of citizens calling themselves “Patriots of Mali” had begun gathering millions of signatures demanding the removal of all French diplomatic and military personnel from their country. They called on Russian troops to replace the French, urging them to drive out the Islamist bandits that had plagued their society since the Obama-led war on Libya.

The simmering anger of average Malians ignited a popular military coup in 2021, and set the stage for another one in the neighboring Burkina Faso the following year, where citizens were seen celebrating the junta with homemade Russian flags in hand.

When the putsches engulfed Gabon’s government this August 30, ending the reign of one of Washington’s favorite kleptocrats, Bongo recorded a video message from an unknown location, desperately appealing to “all the friends we have all over the world to tell them to make noise.”

By that point, however, it was unclear whether Obama was listening, or if there was much he could do to bail out his “man in Africa.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has laid out a plan for the bloc to reach whopping $5 billion in weapons transfers to Ukraine annually for the next four years.

At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Spain this week, Borrell has been urging member states to contribute toward reaching this target, which also includes an EU-sponsored training program with its own ultra-ambitious goal of training some 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers by year’s end.

He said in statements issued Wednesday that the EU mission “has already trained 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers — some of them here, in Toledo, thanks to the Spanish army.”

It “will reach the objective, which was programmed for the end of the year, at the end of October, [when] we will have reached the 30,000 soldiers trained by this mission,” he detailed, before unveiling a new target: “I proposed to the ministers to raise the objective of the mission to 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained by the end of the year.”

All of this comes at a moment of near universal acknowledgement in the West that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is currently failing or at least stalled and disappointing. And because of this, there are growing calls even from within establishment sources – such as RAND Corporation – that serious diplomacy and ceasefire negotiations should be given a chance.

But Borrell’s immense funding and training goals for Ukraine are already being hampered by the longtime thorn in the side of EU technocrats – namely, Viktor Orban’s Hungary:

The EU has been unable to release €500 million in ‘European Peace Facility’ funding for Ukraine, due to opposition from one of the members, the bloc’s foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell told reporters on Thursday. The country was later identified as Hungary.

“I have to regret that the 8th tranche of the European Peace Facility (EPF) is still blocked,” Borrell said after an EU ministerial meeting in Toledo, Spain. “I hope we will be able to unblock [it] in the next [few] weeks. But this is a problem that is still pending to be solved.”

Hungary has at this point blocked the EPF funds for months. Budapest has explained that this is in large part due to Kiev’s own efforts to punish a major Hungarian bank.

Ukrainian media has itself highlighted the following in the continued standoff between the EU and the Orban government: 

• Hungary opposes the allocation of the next tranche of €500 million from the European Peace Fund to EU member states due to Ukraine’s inclusion of the Hungarian OTP Bank in the list of “war sponsors”.

• Hungary has already blocked the allocation of this tranche by EU member states several times, referring to the same problem.

• The European Peace Fund, established in 2021, is an extra-budgetary instrument of the EU aimed at improving the EU’s ability to prevent conflicts and build peace. EU countries receive compensation for military assistance delivered to Ukraine from this fund.

• In July, Hungary opposed the EU’s attempt to create a long-term fund of up to €20 billion to support the Ukrainian army.

Borrell has by end of this week signaled that most EU members are on board in terms of the massive commitment for new Ukraine aid and training, but clearly things are set up for a long-haul fight with Hungary amid threats and counter-threats.

Tucker Carlson asks Viktor Orbán what his next move would be in the war in Ukraine if he were in charge of NATO:

“Peace, immediately. Call back Trump. That’s the only way out.” pic.twitter.com/o8cR5OTtNX

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 29, 2023

Meanwhile, in a wide-ranging new interview this week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, PM Orban explained why the more money-more weapons approach is a losing proposition, and that the West needs to pursue peace at all cost. “The Russians are far stronger, far more numerous than the Ukrainians,” the Hungarian leader told Carlson. “Call back Trump. … Trump is the man who can save the Western world.”

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Gazprom has accounted for more than half of the rise in China’s natural gas imports so far this year, Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of the Russian gas giant, said on Thursday.

Russia’s state gas giant has relied on more natural gas exports to China as sales to Europe have plummeted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Natural gas demand in Europe has dropped this year for a second consecutive year, the executive says in a Telegram post by Gazprom cited by Reuters.

“At the same time, we see that the Chinese gas market is growing. China’s gas imports have increased over the eight months of this year. And more than half of the increase in these supplies imported to the Chinese market was provided by Gazprom,” Miller was quoted as saying.

Gazprom supplies natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. Deliveries in 2022 stood at 15 billion cubic meters, while total flows for the whole of this year are expected to rise to 22 billion cubic meters.

Early this year, reports had it that Russia had increased the export capacity of its pipeline to China to over 60 million cubic meters daily.

China has become a more or less first-priority destination for the Russian state gas major after the breakup with Europe.

The Power of Siberia was one of the biggest projects recently completed by Gazprom and the first conduit for Russian gas to China. Now, there’s talk about Power of Siberia 2, which Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said last year would serve as a sort of replacement for the defunct Nord Stream 2 in Gazprom’s export growth strategy.

This year, Gazprom’s exports to Europe have slumped and dragged the gas giant’s profits down this year compared to 2022. Gazprom has reported a massive drop in its first-half net profit as deliveries to Europe plunged compared to 2022, when Russia was still supplying pipeline gas to its European customers for most of the first half of last year.