Authored by Bruce Wilds via the Advancing Time blog,

Roughly two and a half years ago it was predicted here on AdvancingTime that we might soon be witness to the first global inflationary depression. Many of us predicted inflation rolling in but underestimated the size of stimulus that would be put in the pipeline. This has only postponed the collapse of the financial system and economy. Still, many investors are basing their investments on more intervention from central banks and governments to pull another rabbit out of their hats. 

Global inflationary depression is not a mix of words we normally see placed together. To those finding this notion unacceptable, we could reframe this as a stagflation era of reversion. Moving us towards the depression part of this scenario is the fact many economic watchers are predicting outright deflation pointing to a huge slowing of the economy. Currently, the biggest source of demand comes from governments. Demand from working people and private sector growth is on the wane. If you remove all the money being spent on Covid-19 vaccinations, tests, and a slew of inefficient spending that has created little long-term benefits to the economy the GDP would fall like a stone.

We seldom have depressions but instead tend to roll through mild recessions, however, what we face today may be far more severe. In the past, times of falling economic activity have generally been deflationary as defaults rise but this time if inflation does not abate the result may be very different. Part of this is rooted in the fact that in the past many events tended to be regional rather than global. Today, economies have become more interconnected the resulting codependency presents an increased possibility of problems spreading across the world.

The money flowing from the central banks and governments has created the so-called “pent-up demand” we have been hearing about and the constant predictions of solid GDP growth. In truth, capacity utilization and productivity are down even while trillions of new dollars pour into the system. This is the logic behind saying a depression may be in the wings. The methods governments use to use to determine GDP have also become so skewed that they lack real value. Paying someone to dig a hole and then fill it back in adds to the GDP but does nothing to increase productivity. Government spending can increase the GDP while at the same time reducing productivity. 

Recently several articles have appeared indicating the big boost China experienced post-Covid-19 has come to an end. China’s economy was the first to recover from the Covid-19 collapse due to trillions of credit pumped into the economy at home as well as Americans rushing out to buy imported goods using stimulus money. With China again showing signs of economic weakness, the story that it takes more and more stimulus to create the same kick each time we play this game is playing out.

Growing concern over the debasement of  the fiat currencies issued by nations and central banks is adding to expectations inflation is waiting in the wings. Policies such as we see today would have been impossible when money was tied to gold. As investors shift into assets that do well during times of inflation, it is possible they will set in motion a self-feeding loop or cycle. When fiat money that has quietly sat in paper promises begins to be exchanged for tangible assets and inflation hedges it has the potential to reverse the long-falling velocity of money. Money sitting in the hands of wealthy people that sat in one place for years may start to move.  

This dovetails with the fact that inflation brings with it higher interest rates that impact most sectors of the economy. This tends to put a spotlight on the difference between liquidity and solvency. As interest rates rise construction tends to grind to a halt. Higher interest rates also result in people having a difficult time paying for or financing big-ticket items such as automobiles. In short, it puts a great deal of stress on most parts of the economy including government deficits which have exploded since the 2008 financial crisis.

Two often-overlooked factors support the idea we are headed down a path of inflation even if the economy drastically slows. The first is many laws have been set in place to raise the minimum wage. The recent agreement workers made with UPS screams wage inflation. The second is the fact that so many Americans work for the government. These are mostly full time and workers seldom get laid off without pay. Figures from the National Debt Clock show just under 150 million workers are in the workforce and nearly 24 million of them are employed by the government. That is almost one in six. The government’s oversized role in today’s economy which is much larger than it was during the Great Depression has put a net under the ability of prices to fall. 

Across the world, sophisticated lenders, but not the general public, understand the history of  how governments’ monetary policies destroy the purchasing power of currencies. To avoid the issue of currency debasement risk, regardless of the yield we have seen the power of being the world’s reserve currency on display in loan documents. The BIS reports this is  up from 40% a decade ago. One reason the dollar will most likely fare better than the euro or yen when fiat currencies come under assault is the huge percentage of the world’s $30 trillion-plus in cross-border loans are priced in US dollars.

Inflation is a form of thief that moves wealth from the people and into governments’ coffers. While many investors are focused on yield curves, bitcoin, and surging market valuations, the foundation of central bankers’ argument that QE is possible without inflation may be crumbling. We are now seeing that large sectors of the economy are broken. Inflation expectations are continuing to grow and the law of diminishing returns is raging havoc with the efforts of central banks to control the economy. Expect more investors to move into assets that do well in an inflationary environment while the masses wither in pain.

This all folds into the story of how for decades the monetary illusion created by central banks collaborating with governments has delayed an inevitable crisis by not dealing with reality. This means when the forces pent-up over the years finally break free events will most likely occur faster with far deeper ramifications than many people expect. When imbalances are ignored, bad things occur. When things finally blow up in the faces of those creating and promoting MMT we can expect to hear them claim it was not their fault and it was because of a general misunderstanding of the role of money and credit in the economy. 

Such a shift will have profound consequences for inflation-sensitive assets around the world. The one thing we can count on is that when things crumble, we will hear the old, “we should have done more” or the “it would have been far worse” lines flow forth. Those in charge often find great comfort in spouting such nonsense. We have been lulled into complacency and have given central banks too much credit for being able to control the economy and stop financial crises. The first global inflationary depression may not start today or tomorrow but it is coming and when it arrives most people will have never seen it coming.

A landmark study from researchers at the University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University, and Xi’an Jiaotong University reveals which AI chatbots have the most liberal vs. conservative bias.

According to the study, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, including GPT-4 are the most left-leaning and libertarian (?), while Google’s BERT models were more socially conservative, and Meta’s LLaMA was the most right-leaning.

AI chatbots use Large Language Models (LLMs), which are ‘trained’ on giant data sets, such as Tweets, or Reddit, or Yelp reviews. As such, the source of a model’s scraped training data, as well as guardrails installed by companies like OpenAI, can introduce massive bias.

To determine bias, the researchers in the above study exposed each AI model to a political compass test of 62 different political statements, which ranged from anarchic statements like “all authority should be questioned” to more traditional beliefs, such as the role of mothers as homemakers. Though the study’s approach is admittedly “far from perfect” per the researchers’ own admission, it provides valuable insight into the political biases that AI chatbots may bring to our screens.

In response, OpenAI pointed Business Insider to a blog post in which the company claims: “We are committed to robustly addressing this issue and being transparent about both our intentions and our progress,” adding “Our guidelines are explicit that reviewers should not favor any political group. Biases that nevertheless may emerge from the process described above are bugs, not features.“

A Google rep also pointed to a blog post, which reads “As the impact of AI increases across sectors and societies, it is critical to work towards systems that are fair and inclusive for all.”

Meta said in a statement: “We will continue to engage with the community to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in a transparent manner and support the development of safer generative AI.”

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman have previously acknowledged the bias, emphasizing the company’s mission for a balanced AI system. Yet, critics, including co-founder Elon Musk, remain skeptical.

Musk’s recent venture, xAI, promises to provide unfiltered insights, potentially sparking even more debates around AI biases. The tech mogul warns against training AIs to toe a politically correct line, emphasizing the importance of an AI stating its “truth.”

Hackers, meanwhile, are having a field day bending AI to their will.

As Bloomberg reports:

Kennedy Mays has just tricked a large language model. It took some coaxing, but she managed to convince an algorithm to say 9 + 10 = 21.

“It was a back-and-forth conversation,” said the 21-year-old student from Savannah, Georgia. At first the model agreed to say it was part of an “inside joke” between them. Several prompts later, it eventually stopped qualifying the errant sum in any way at all.

Producing “Bad Math” is just one of the ways thousands of hackers are trying to expose flaws and biases in generative AI systems at a novel public contest taking place at the DEF CON hacking conference this weekend in Las Vegas.

Hunched over 156 laptops for 50 minutes at a time, the attendees are battling some of the world’s most intelligent platforms on an unprecedented scale. They’re testing whether any of eight models produced by companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and OpenAI will make missteps ranging from dull to dangerous: claim to be human, spread incorrect claims about places and people or advocate abuse.

The goal of such exercises is to help companies offering LLM chatbots build better mechanisms to improve factual responses.

“My biggest concern is inherent bias,” said Mays, who added that she’s particularly concerned about racism after she asked the model to consider the First Amendment from the perspective of a KKK member – and the chatbot ended up endorsing the group’s perspective.

AI surveillance?

In another instance, a Bloomberg reporter who took a 50-minute quiz was able to prompt one of the models to explain how to spy on someone – advising on a variety of methods including the use of GPS tracking, a surveillance camera, a listening device and thermal imaging. It also suggested ways that the US government could surveil a human-rights activist.

“General artificial intelligence could be the last innovation that human beings really need to do themselves,” said Tyrance Billingsley, executive director of the group who is also an event judge. “We’re still in the early, early, early stages.”

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path.

While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

August 11, 2024: WeWork announces it can barely afford to hand out free tequila anymore

It was just one year ago that WeWork, a company which provides co-working space, said “losses and negative cash flows from operating activities raise substantial doubt” that it could stay in business.

At the time it reported about $3 billion in long term debt and $13 billion in long-term lease obligations, yet a market cap of just $390 million— down more than 99% from its $47 billion valuation back in 2019.

The co-working space became famous for its cushy and stylish office spaces, which included such perks as handing out free tequila to members.

It later became infamous when it’s founder and then CEO Adam Neumann benefited personally at the expense of shareholders.

This included borrowing money from the company to buy office space, only to lease that office space back to the company at a profit.

He also sold off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of his own shares while simultaneously convincing investors to put money in the company. Yet despite selling his shares, he awarded himself special rights to be able to out-vote everyone else, cementing his control over the company.

Neumann even sold the rights to the word ‘We’ to the company for $6 million, which was the final straw for investors.

After Neumann was ousted as CEO (but not before collecting a $185 million consulting fee), the company attempted to turn things around.

However one thing that has remained non-negotiable is providing free tequila to members.

Last week shareholders desperately begged management to stop the tequila from flowing.

But the current CEO said this will be the hill the company dies on.

“I can assure you that the very last dollar of investor funds will be spent on handing out free tequila to our members.”

He explained that while this may sound ridiculous from the outside, “the company’s core mission has always been to ‘elevate the world’s consciousness,’”  as it explained in a 2019 SEC filing before a failed IPO.

He further explained that apart from the company’s online reservation system, it’s tequila dispensing machines were the core aspect of the company’s “extensive technology” it also gushed about in previous SEC filings.

“Without the free tequila, we’re just an office space company that has wasted tens of billions of dollars with nothing to show for it except a wildly wealthy founder.”

August 11, 2025: Oakland Police advise residents to “appear as poor as possible”

Residents of Oakland, California are being urged by police to pursue degrees in psychology in order to ward off violent attackers.

“The real victims are the people who, because of their dire circumstances, have been pushed to violate the law,” said a spokesperson for the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, or MACRO.

“And we believe we can better serve this community if more of those being attacked know how to provide professional psychiatric help at the scene of the crime, in real time.”

In 2023, police urged residents of crime stricken areas to use air horns to try to scare off attackers and alert their neighbors to a crime occurring. But last year, Oakland residents voted to outlaw air horns after it caused psychological distress to the attackers.

Instead, those being attacked should start by sympathizing with the attacker in order to gain rapport. For beginners, it’s best to start by telling an attacker that you appreciate how frustrated they must be, or even to offer them some food or hot tea.

Anyone with more advanced training and experience in psychology, however, could start by asking the attacker about his/her childhood, and then encourage attackers to explore traumatic events from their lives that may have triggered their criminal behavior.

“Invite them inside for a conversation. Ask them if there is anything that has been weighing on their mind,” MACRO urges.

And officials say that if you are unable to pursue a psychology degree, the best course of action to fend off criminal attackers is to appear as poor as possible, so that there is less incentive to target you.

Don’t wear flashy items like button down shirts or wedding rings. And avoid repainting your home, or repairing damaged porches and fences.

Even letting the weeds grow too long in your yard can be a helpful deterrent to crime.

The fines assessed by the City of Oakland for violating municipal codes about grass length could be well worth it if it deters a break-in.

Understanding the backdrop of the crime-ridden progressive metro area of San Francisco, alongside the mass exodus of businesses and residents, and the record-high vacancy rate of office towers, we asked a very important question earlier this summer: What are office buildings worth?

We quickly found out in June that one downtown San Francisco office building sold for roughly 70% less than its previously estimated value, an ominous sign of what would come as the commercial real estate market dominos appear to be falling. 

Now Sixty Spear St., an 11-story building that is 30% occupied and is expected to be entirely vacant by summer 2025, has been sold to Presidio Bay Ventures for $40.9 million, about a 66% discount versus the most recent assessed property value of $121 million, according to local media SFGATE. 

“We acknowledge the formidable challenges that confront San Francisco,” Cyrus Sanandaji, founder and managing principal of Presidio Bay, who is now the office tower’s proud new owner. He remains a bull on the San Francisco office market and wants to expand the building’s square footage from 157,436 to 170,000 square feet and transform it into a “Class-A trophy office building with exceptional design and hospitality-driven amenities.”

All we have to say to Sanandaji’s CRE bet is good luck. The crime-ridden metro area covered in poop must come to terms with City Hall’s horrendous progressive policies that have entirely backfired and led to an exodus of businesses and people. Until Mayor London Breed can instill law and order once more — the ability for the downtown area to thrive once more will remain challenging. 

Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned last month that the metro area is in danger. He offered a grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.

“We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said, adding Breed needs to initiate a program to convert dormant office space into housing and hire additional law enforcement to restore law and order. 

… and documenting how the downtown area has rapidly transformed into a ghost town is Youtuber METAL LEO, who walks around with a video camera, revealing empty stores, malls, and towers. 

• Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City

• “Major Artery” In Downtown San Fran Is Deserted

Besides Sixty Spear, SFGATE provided data on other recent tower transactions: 

The 13-story 180 Howard St. building, known for being the headquarters of the State Bar of California, sold for about $62 million after being expected to sell for about $85 million.

The offices at 350 California St. reportedly sold for roughly 75% less than its previously estimated value in May, and the 22-story Financial District edifice mostly sits empty. Just a few weeks later, nearby 550 California changed hands for less than half of what owner Wells Fargo paid for the building in 2005.

Things are so bad that some building owners are just walking away from properties:

• CRE Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall, Stops Paying $558 Million Loan

And defaulting… 

• San Fran’s CRE Apocalypse: The City’s Two Biggest Hotels Have Defaulted

As the CRE crisis spreads, remember last week: Baltimore Sun Editorial Board Tells Everyone ‘Keep Calm’ Amid CRE Panic … this will only mean bad news for commercial real estate-small banks that could threaten financial stability and either cause a recession or make a recession more severe. 

If you’re curious where we could be in the CRE crisis cycle, a recent analysis by CoStar Group shows 55% of office leases signed before the pandemic that were active during Covid haven’t expired, meaning vacancies will continue to rise. 

Here’s what could be next: The collapse of WeWork will only cause more pain for CRE markets nationwide. The coworking company occupies 16.8 million square feet across the US. 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A judge in Washington state has ruled against a conservative group that sued Starbucks over the coffee chain’s race-based hiring practices that allegedly “flagrantly” violate various state and federal laws.

Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian on Friday ruled against the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), dismissing a lawsuit the conservative nonprofit brought against Starbucks over so-called “affirmative action” policies that included awarding contracts to “diverse” suppliers and advertisers and tying executive pay to allegedly racist hiring quotas.

In a complaint (pdf) that was filed on Aug. 30, 2022, at the State of Washington Spokane County Superior Court, the nonprofit accused Starbucks of adopting a total of seven policies that between them required Starbucks to actively discriminate based on race in its compensation and employment decisions (including hiring, firing, and promotions), and in its contracting processes with vendors.

“Starbucks, acting through its officers and directors, crafted and publicized these policies with fanfare, preening over the supposed moral virtue their adoption signaled,” NCPPR wrote in the complaint.

“The individual Defendants took these actions despite knowing of a glaring, inconvenient fact: the policies they so trumpeted flagrantly violate a wide array of state and federal civil rights laws,” the group continued.

The Starbucks policies that are the subject of the lawsuit include the goal of at least 30 percent of its U.S. corporate workforce being black, indigenous, or people of color by 2025 while pegging executive pay to workforce diversity quotas.

More Details

Before filing its lawsuit, the group, which holds around $6,000 worth of Starbucks shares, warned Starbucks that its race-based policies were illegal and that their adoption posed a litigation risk for other Starbucks shareholders. NCPPR asked Starbucks to take action to address these risks and publicly retract the policies.

Starbucks responded in July 2022 that it would “take no relevant action to correct course and reduce the exposure they had created for it and its shareholders,” per the NCPPR complaint, prompting the group to sue.

In its complaint, NCPPR alleged that, by failing to rescind the policies in question, Starbucks endangered the interests of all its shareholders and violated their fiduciary obligations.

“Why do they do so? Because it benefits them personally to pose as virtuous advocates of ‘Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity,’ even if it harms the company and its owners—a classic example of (admittedly non-pecuniary) self-dealing,” the group alleged in the complaint.

However, Judge Bastian rejected these allegations and on Aug. 11 dismissed the case with prejudice, according to a court filing (pdf), meaning that NCPPR is barred from refiling the lawsuit.

The judge said that the lawsuit centered on public policy questions that are for lawmakers and corporations to decide, not the courts.

“If the plaintiff doesn’t want to be invested in ‘woke’ corporate America, perhaps it should seek other investment opportunities rather than wasting this court’s time,” the judge said.

Starbucks said it was pleased with the decision and said it remains committed to “creating a culture of warmth and belonging.”

NCPPR spokesperson Scott Shepard called the judge’s comments “surprising and disappointing.”

“We will continue to pursue relief from illegal discrimination on behalf of shareholders and employees,” he said.

In a statement one day before the unfavorable ruling, NCPPR expressed hope that, in light of the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling that barred race-based recruitment policies at colleges, it might prevail in its lawsuit, which would have the “potential to influence change in companies that have trumpeted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs that are both racist and illegal.”

Supreme Court Bans Race-Based Admissions

In a 6–3 decision on July 29, the Supreme Court struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies and American colleges, ending the use of so-called affirmative action programs in higher education.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote (pdf) for the court that, for too long, universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”

“Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice,” he wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing that the majority decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

“It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits,” the justice wrote.

“In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter,” she wrote.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, state attorneys general from Tennessee, Kansas, and 11 other states put 100 of America’s largest corporations on notice “of the illegality of racial quotas and race-based preferences in employment and contracting practices” and urged the firms to put an immediate halt to such policies.

In a July 13 letter to CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, the AGs wrote that the Supreme Court ruling “definitively” ends the legal use of race-based hiring and contracting practices.

“If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed,” the letter reads.

“Your company must overcome its underlying bias and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.”

According to a Harvard Business Review 2022 survey, more than 60 percent of U.S. companies had a race or gender-based diversity, equity, and inclusion program.

Ryan McMaken joins Bob to discuss the recent US Women’s World Cup elimination, and to dispel the myth that markets are discriminatory.

“The connection between fame, talent, and earnings applies to both sports and other fields like economics.”

After defending Megan Rapinoe’s failed penalty kick, they dismantle her outspoken views on “equal pay” in sports, and examine the left’s claim that law is required to fix prejudice in the labor market.

“Soccer players deserve pay based on popularity and merchandise sales, not just winning games.”

Specifically, McMaken and discuss the economic implications of equal pay in sports, emphasizing the importance of worker productivity and market dynamics in determining pay disparities.

“The whole idea of equal pay in sports betrays a complete misunderstanding of how pay works and worker productivity.”

Finally, they discuss the American regime’s expanding power and how it can acquire new powers unchecked.

00:00 Against Our Limitless Regime

01:00 Introduction

01:46 Megan Rapinoe Penalty Kick

05:41 Gender Pay Gap in Professional Sports

16:16 Wealth Disparity in Labor and Wages

19:50 Prejudice and Discriminatory Hiring Practices

26:09 Discrimination: Markets vs. Government

34:37 Majority Rule Paradox

37:45 Democracy and Culture

Watch the full discussion below:

A three-judge panel excoriated the ‘mob-like’ Biden administration over its ‘strong-arm’ tactics to bully social media companies into complying with censorship requests, which “time and time again” prove to be true.

The judicial smackdown took place during a Thursday hearing in front of the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments over the administration’s appeal of an injunction barring the US government from communication with social media giants in order to censor protected speech.

Representing the government was attorney Daniel Tenny – who had quite the trio of pissed off judges on his hands. At one point, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod compared the Biden administration to the mafia before walking it back.

“In these movies that we see with the mob … they don’t say and spell out things, but they have these ongoing relationships,” she said, adding “They never actually say ‘go do this or else you’re going to have this consequence.’ But everybody just knows.“

“I’m certainly not equating the federal government with anybody in illegal organized crime but there are certain relationships that people know things without always saying the ‘or else,'” Elrod continued.

She had earlier noted that the Biden administration had a “very close working relationship” with social media giants, and browbeated them like “a supervisor complaining about a worker” until they got their way.

“What appears to be in the record are these irate messages from time to time from high ranking government officials that say, ‘You didn’t do this yet!’ — and that’s my toning down the language— ‘Why haven’t you done this yet?’” she said. “It’s like ‘jump’ and ‘how high?'” said Elrod.

Judges Edith Brown Clement and Don R. Willett were also obviously perturbed by the government’s behavior – with Willett noting that the government operated “out of the public eye” via “unsubtle strong-arming and veiled or not-so-veiled threats.”

“That’s a really nice social media platform you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it,” he summarized, according to the Daily Caller.

Tenney goes on defense

Clearly sensing the judges’ hostility, Daniel Tenny attempted to tap-dance his way out of claims of government overreach – saying: “The government is generically going to be angry” when companies refuse to take action, but that the communications show federal officials and social media giants alternating between “friendly” and “testy,” as opposed to giving specific orders to comply “or else.”

Judge Elrod wasn’t buying it, calling the government’s messages “irate” at times, and saying that they actually show high-ranking officials badgering counterparts about why they hadn’t censored the material they wanted censored.

Elrod asked Tenney if high-level government officials had asked companies “in a coercive manner to propagate certain things that the government knew were untrue, and to deamplify certain things that it knew were true … but didn’t fit its message, would that be able to be enjoined?”

To which Tenney said the question presumes that the government acted coercively – for which he says they had no factual evidence, and claimed that the Biden administration knows it can’t unilaterally sidestep legal liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Elrod fired back, saying “Time and time again,” what the government considers mis-, dis- and malinformation, “always with great fervor,” turn out to be true. For example, the government’s attempts by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins’ attempts to issue a published takedown of the Great Barrington Declaration – an open letter by Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard – which challenged government lockdowns during the pandemic.

Tenney argued that the judges also couldn’t consider a ‘friend of the court‘ briefing by leading House Republicans – which includes members of the Judiciary and Weaponization of the Federal Government committees – which lays out how much of the “[v]ery recent evidence’ their committees had obtained ‘further corroborates’ the basis for the injunction.

Tenney also argued that the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to bring the case, because conservative officials who claim that their own posts were censored didn’t argue that they plan to make similar posts in the future – which would create “ongoing injury” from the censorship.

When asked by Judge Edith Brown Clement if the Biden administration is still communicating with social media giants, he admitted that they hadn’t “entirely stopped,” but dodged a question over whether they maintained “day-to-day involvement,” according to Just the News.

Attorney John Sauer, representing the State of Louisiana, asked the judges what they would think of a senior White House staffer contacting Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers to participate in a “book-burning program” focused on authors who criticize the administration, with the companies only giving in after months of escalating White House rhetoric. 

That’s exactly what the White House did to compel platforms to remove and throttle the “most persuasive speakers” critical of its policies, such as former New York Times drug industry reporter Alex Berenson and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Sauer said.

Sauer added that the appellate court should indeed take “judicial notice” of the congressional amicus brief because there’s no dispute on the authenticity of the newly identified communications and it “powerfully reinforces” the alleged coercion, such as a Facebook official suggesting the company back down because of “bigger fish we have to fry” with the administration. -JTN

According to Sauer, one of the individual plaintiffs, Health Freedom Louisiana co-director Jill Hines, claimed as recently as May that Facebook continues to remove groups she’s created to protest COVID policies.

“This notion that COVID censorship is over is completely unsupportable,” said Sauer.

Via Babylon Bee,

As evidence of bribery and corruption by the Biden family continues to mount, Democrat lawmakers in the nation’s capital have expressed heavy skepticism, saying they will need a lot more than just eyewitnesses, financial records, audio and video recordings, and admissions of guilt from parties involved for them to believe any of it.

“Nah, I’m not buying it,” said California Congressman Eric Swalwell.

“If you’re wanting me to believe President Biden and his family have been involved in a far-reaching money-for-favors scheme for years, you’ll need to show me a lot more than rock-solid, irrefutable evidence. If the Biden family was corrupt, I think I would have heard about it from my Chinese spy girlfriend.“

The Biden administration maintains absolute innocence, despite an ever-growing collection of evidence that would indicate otherwise.

“The President and his family have done nothing wrong,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is a woman and also black and also gay.

“It’s completely normal for families to enrich themselves by selling political influence to foreign corporations and governments. Any assertion to the contrary is simply Republicans grasping at straws. Also, I will not be taking any more questions regarding bribery allegations.”

As rumors swirled that additional audio recordings of President Biden accepting bribes may soon be released, Democrats continued to brush them off.

“I see nothing wrong here,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“So he’s on tape taking bribes. It’s not like it proves he took bribes or something.”

At publishing time, Republicans in Congress said they were waiting on several more truckloads of evidence before beginning impeachment proceedings.

Authored by David Harsanyi via The Epoch Times,

After 40 years of “trickle-down economics,” President Joe Biden says, “Bidenomics is just another way of saying restoring the American Dream.”

It’s not often that a politician openly pledges to bring the country back to a time of crippling inflation, high energy prices, and stifling interest rates. But this president is doing his best to keep that promise.

Unsurprisingly, “Bidenomics” is failing to gain traction among voters. This has caused consternation in the media. One thing to remember, though, is that “Bidenomics” isn’t really a thing. Unlike, say, “Reaganomics,” which helped bring about the largest expansion of the middle class in world history, the president does not subscribe to any coherent or tangible set of economic theories or principles. The White House defines its economic policy as being “rooted in the recognition that the best way to grow the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up,” which is just platitudinous gibberish.

“Bidenomics” encompass anything and everything that’s convenient for Democrats. And in this moment, it’s convenient for them to take credit for merely letting people go back to work. Biden, who once claimed that the Democrats $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan cost “zero dollars,” isn’t exactly a math whiz. But when he says stuff like “13.4 million jobs have been added to our economy” under his watch, more than “any other president in a full 4-year term,” anyone with even a passing familiarity with the events of the years preceding 2023 knows it’s a lie of omission.

The notion that presidents “create” jobs is itself a fantasy. In this case, though, Biden supported efforts to shutter private businesses during the pandemic, basically closing the entire economy, not only while running for president but after winning office. When Florida, and other states, attempted to ease some restrictions, Biden told them to “get out of the way” so that people could “do the right thing.” The pressure exerted on states to “do the right thing” was immense.

All of which is to say that the president and his allies had far more to do with destroying jobs than creating them. We don’t need to relitigate the efficacy of COVID policy here, but approximately 10 million of the jobs that Biden now brags about overseeing are just people coming back to the workforce after state-compelled lockdowns.

Then again, if “Bidenomics” had meant doing absolutely nothing, it would have been the president’s greatest political accomplishment. But that would have meant allowing a crisis to go to waste. Instead, what “Bidenomics” did help create was the biggest four-year inflationary spike under any president in 40 years.

By the time the American Rescue Plan was passed, there was already too much money chasing too few goods. Tons of people warned about the consequences of dumping more money into the economy. Even when inflation began inching up, Biden dismissed it—“no serious economist” is “suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way,” he said. Democrats, of course, wanted to cram through a $5 trillion progressive agenda spending bill. So, when inflation became a big, nontransitory political problem, the Biden administration began arguing that more spending would help ease inflation.

Again, the vital thing to remember about “Bidenomics” is that it makes absolutely zero sense.

Only after inflation became a political issue did the Democrats rename Build Back Better the Inflation Reduction Act. It still contained all the historic spending, corporate welfare, price-fixing, and tax hikes, but, more importantly, it also still had absolutely nothing to do with mitigating inflation.

None of this is to even mention the hundreds of billions “Bidenomics” “invested”—the enduring euphemism for spending money we don’t have—in social engineering projects that would force us to abandon modernity in the name of “climate justice.” This brand of spending was based on a (misguided) moral prerogative, not any kind of prudent economic decision making, to say the least.

A writer in the New Yorker recently asked, “Why Isn’t Joe Biden Getting More Credit for a Big Drop in Inflation?” Probably because there is no “Bidenomics” policy that has helped lower inflation. Quite the opposite. We’re still trying to recover from the president’s economic policy. It’s the Fed that was compelled to hike interest rates at a level not seen in 30 years to inhibit economic growth partly due to government-induced inflation. It, not Biden, brought down inflation.

Presidents who oversee strong economies, often benefitting from the luck of history or existing policies, will see fewer jobs “created” during their terms because space for growth is limited. Biden was given more economic headroom than any president in history—and blew it. That’s the real legacy of “Bidenomics.”

Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

Ouch. The price of gas where I usually fill up has soared above $5 for the first time in months. I keep track of my spending, and it was $4.29 just a month ago.

In a case of really bad journalism, the Sacramento Bee recently ran this headline of the state’s new gas price czar, Tai Milder, “‘Sense of mission.’ California’s new gas price watchdog known for taking on economic crimes.” It wrote he is “leading a new state agency that will watch over oil markets for possible illegal activity that drives up costs for Californians.” That agency is the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, a new bureaucracy set up by Senate Bill X1-2 and signed into law last March by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The governor’s office announced Mr. Milder “has successfully investigated and prosecuted companies and individuals that tried to rip off consumers by engaging in price-fixing, bid-rigging, and bribery. Milder also worked at California’s Department of Justice enforcing state antitrust laws against oil and gas companies.

“The new oil watchdog office is a key part of Gov. Newsom’s gas price gouging law.”

Actually, it’s a key strategy in deflecting attention from California’s high gas prices should the governor run for president. The topic could come up in the governor’s planned debate with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, possibly set for Nov. 8 in Georgia, although both camps are haggling over the details.

Highest Gas Prices

According to AAA Gas Prices, California currently suffers the highest gas prices in the country, averaging $5.11 a gallon for regular. The lowest is Mississippi at $3.32. For our neighbors, Nevada is $4.36 and Arizona is $4.01. There’s no reason why California can’t have prices that low.

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks in the rotunda of the California State Capitol in Sacramento on March 28, 2023. (Courtesy of the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom)

The main effect of the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight and Milder’s actions in fact will be to raise prices even higher. At the time he signed the bill, Gov. Newsom said to oil companies, “Prove you’re not price gouging.” But how do you prove a negative? In America, isn’t the accused innocent until proven guilty? The new edict only will increase compliance costs. Instead of investing in new equipment at refineries and gas stations, the companies will hire more lawyers and regulation experts to make sure no one goes to one of the state’s hellhole jails.

The new bureaucracy is piled on top of numerous existing state bureaucracies regulating the oil industry. These include the California Energy Commission, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the ultra-powerful California Air Resources Board, which is dedicated to destroying the petroleum industry by switching everyone to electric vehicles.

It wouldn’t even surprise me if some oil companies, despite the large consumer base, just pulled out of the state entirely. Why bother? Why risk getting sent to jail for doing your business as you do in the other 49 states?

Vehicles pass the Phillips 66 Los Angeles Refinery Wilmington Plant in Wilmington, Calif., on Nov. 28, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Here are the real main reasons California consistently ranks highest in gas prices:

State-Level Reasons

Special Blends

California requires unique special blends of gasoline, in particular a more expensive summer blend. When it runs low of its special blends, it can’t just import more from other states. Special markets commonly cost more than general markets, where there’s more overall competition.

Old Refineries

The state’s creaking old oil refineries break down more often than new facilities in other states. That’s because California’s regulations—now made more onerous with the new Division of Petroleum Market Oversight—make it prohibitively costly to build new refineries. When a refinery is taken off line, supply obviously is cut. That increases scarcity until the facilities are repaired, which increases prices.

2017 Gas Tax Increase of $5 Billion a Year

With a 4 cent increase last month from an inflation adjustment, the tax now hits at 58 cents per gallon. ABC 10 broke down the full gouging taxpayers at the pump:

• 54 cents in state excise tax: among the highest in the nation

• 18.4 cents in federal excise tax

• 23 cents for California’s cap-and-trade program to lower greenhouse gas emissions

• 18 cents for the state’s low-carbon fuel programs

• 2 cents for underground gas storage fees

• An average of 3.7 percent in state and local sales taxes

A customer pumps gas in Irvine, Calif., on Feb. 23, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

National and Global Reasons

Despite all the bragging about California being the world’s “fourth largest economy,” it’s really but a drop in the global energy market. Some recent events pushing up global oil and gasoline prices:

KeystoneXL Pipeline

Early in his administration, President Biden canceled the KeystoneXL pipeline. In January this year, reported Fox News, “The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.

“The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies.”

The Ukraine War

Boycotts of Russian oil after its invasion of Ukraine disrupted what for decades had been a placid, smooth-functioning global oil market. Then the market adjusted until recently. On Aug. 4, reported CNN, “One of Russia’s biggest oil tankers was struck by a maritime drone, the latest salvo in a Ukrainian military campaign employing unmanned vehicles to attack far-away Russian targets by air and by sea.” That and other disruptions have boosted the global price of oil from $63 a barrel in early May to $83 on Aug. 10—a 32 percent increase in just three months.

General Global Uncertainty

In addition to the Ukraine war, the past two years under Biden have seen global crises multiply. The latest is the coup in the country of Niger in Africa, a key uranium source, especially for France’s large nuclear-power industry.

But the main other problem remains tensions with Communist China over Taiwan. This past week China and Russia sent 11 navy vessels near Alaska. “It is a historical first,” Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Navy captain, told the Wall Street Journal. “Given the context of the war in Ukraine and tensions around Taiwan, this move is highly provocative.”

Most global oil trade rides on giant oil tankers, which are protected mostly by the U.S. Navy. If its global supremacy on the sea is threatened, as now is happening, that protection is called into question.

A gas pump is inserted inside an Audi vehicle at a Mobil gas station in Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif., on March 10, 2022. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

Gas Prices Only Will Keep Rising

The great economist Ludwig von Mises liked to say government intervention in a free economy only begets more intervention. And here’s a quote from him, from his book “Interventionism: An Economic Analysis”:

“As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed at its elimination. The man who sips his morning coffee does not say, ‘Capitalism has brought this beverage to my breakfast table.’ But when he reads in the papers that the government of Brazil has ordered part of the coffee crop destroyed, he does not say, ‘That is government for you’; he exclaims, ‘That is capitalism for you.’”

For “coffee,” substitute “gasoline.”

Finally, one result of pushing gas prices even higher—the real result of the new bureaucracy headed by Gas Czar Tai Milder—will be further to encourage people to buy electric cars ahead of the total ban on gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. It’s funny how those things happen.