Authored by Brenda Baletti of The Defender via The Epoch Times,

Mainstream publications and regulatory agencies have buckled to public pressure to admit the COVID-19 vaccine can cause injuries such as myocarditis and pericarditis—but until recently, they’ve published little or nothing about the substantial number of people suffering from autoimmune disease after vaccination.

However, on July 3, the journal Science published an article confirming that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to autoimmune disorders, such as small fiber neuropathy and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

“We’ve been screaming from the top of our lungs about these things happening,” Agnieszka Wilson, founder of #CanWeTalkAboutIt told The Defender. “And finally, slowly, it’s being acknowledged.”

The #CanWeTalkAboutIt campaign is a global effort to break the silence around injuries from the COVID-19 vaccine.

Suzanna Newell, former board member of the vaccine-injured patient advocacy group React19, told The Defender:

“I am extremely grateful that doctors and medical institutions are now willing to talk about adverse reactions. [They] should have been listening to the injured. We even have many injured medical professionals among the injured who have had trouble being heard.”

Science reported that in addition to abnormal blood clotting and heart inflammation, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give rise to “another apparent complication”:

“[This] debilitating suite of symptoms that resembles Long Covid, has been more elusive, its link to vaccination unclear and its diagnostic features ill-defined.

“But in recent months, what some call Long Vax has gained wider acceptance among doctors and scientists, and some are now working to better understand and treat its symptoms.”

According to Science, Long Vax cases “seem very rare.” They include a wide range of symptoms such as persistent headaches, severe fatigue, and abnormal heart rate and blood pressure.

The symptoms can begin to appear within hours or weeks after vaccination and are difficult to study, the authors of the article said.

Science reported that increasing numbers of researchers are making diagnoses that include small fiber sensory neuropathy, which causes tingling or electric shock-like sensations, burning pain and blood circulation problems, and POTS [postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome]—a condition that affects blood flow and can result in symptoms such as lightheadedness, fainting, and increased heartbeat—that appear when standing up from a reclined position.

Post-vaccination symptoms could have features of one or both conditions. People with long COVID can suffer similar symptoms, according to the article.

Small sensory fiber neuropathy and POTS also are associated with other vaccines such as Gardasil, Merck’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.

Commenting on the article, Substacker Igor Chudov wrote that the authors acknowledge the suffering, but also minimize it, falsely asserting that it is rare. “It goes on and on about how ‘rare’ vaccine injuries are.”

Brianne Dressen, founder of React19, said that despite the fact the article qualifies some of its key claims, she sees it as an important step toward getting these conditions more widely recognized.

Dressen told The Defender:

“Science Magazine is speaking to an audience that the rest of us who have been pigeonholed into this corner can’t speak to because they don’t even know we exist. We’ve all been censored to no end. So how are we going to reach those people?

“They’ve been hammered over and over again in outlets like Science Magazine—which is kind of ironic—with the idea that the vaccines are wonderful and there’s no possible way that anything bad can happen …

“So if we ever get an opportunity to put a little bit of content out there in their lane for them to question even just a little bit what’s going on around them, then we’ll be able to pull them back over to, you know, to the truth.”

Vaccine-Related Autoimmune Disorders Are Underreported

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were attempting to study and treat patients with Long Vax symptoms in 2021. They published a preprint report on their work, but the study was abruptly halted without explanation and the NIH has stonewalled attempts to discover details about what the agency knew early on.

Science also cited previous and forthcoming research by Sujana Reddy identifying post-vaccine POTS, and a study published in Nature Cardiovascular Research by researchers from Cedars Sinai Medical Center last year that linked COVID-19 and the vaccine to POTS.

Other peer-reviewed research reported similar links and has revealed a wide range of immune system and neurological effects from the COVID-19 vaccine.

Numerous people with autoimmune disorders from the COVID-19 vaccine have also shared their stories with The Defender. Some reported difficulties in submitting their health information to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

A total of 1,569,668 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and June 23, 2023, to VAERS.

The latest available data from VAERS show 770 reports of POTS with 578 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine, 160 reports attributed to Moderna’s and 31 reports to Johnson & Johnson’s.

“Under-reporting is a known and serious disadvantage of the VAERS system,” according to VAERs expert Jessica Rose, Ph.D.

Rose wrote, “Unfortunately, we can never really know how many people are suffering from adverse events. Reports can go missing, reports can remain in temporary VAERS ID limbo or never get filed in the first place.”

Scientists Hesitantly Speak Out

“You see one or two patients and you wonder if it’s a coincidence,” Anne Louise Oaklander, M.D. Ph.D., a neurologist and researcher at Harvard Medical School, told Science. “But by the time you’ve seen 10, 20,” she continued, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

In addition to Oaklander, a top researcher on small fiber neuropathy, Harlan Krumholz, M.D., a Yale cardiologist, Sujana Reddy, D.O., an internal medicine resident physician at East Alabama Health, Tae Chung, M.D., a neuromuscular physiatrist who runs a POTS clinic at Johns Hopkins, Matthew Schelke, M.D., a neurologist at Columbia University Lawrence Purpura, M.D., MPH, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, and William Murphy, Ph.D., an immunologist at the University of California, Davis all commented on their ongoing research on autoimmune illness associated with COVID-19 vaccination.

The article also reports that “regulators in the US and Europe say they have not found a connection between COVID-19 vaccines and small fiber neuropathy or POTS.”

But even Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which has denied and downplayed the existence of vaccine autoimmune side effects, conceded to Science, “If a provider has somebody in front of them, they may want to take seriously the concept [of] a vaccine side effect.”

German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach has “acknowledged that Long Covid-like symptoms after vaccination are a real phenomenon,” Science also reported.

Marks told Science he worried “the sensational headline” about vaccine side effects could “mislead” the public. And several other researchers quoted in the article also expressed concern that their research could “undermine trust in COVID-19 vaccines.”

Dressen said researchers are hesitant to speak out because it carries great risk.

“There is not a single person, whether they are new to the game or whether they’ve been in this for decades, there’s not a single person that when they do step across that line and they do speak out, that they don’t get punished,” Dressen said.

She added, “There’s not a single person that gets hailed a hero and money flows and their research happens. There’s always repercussions. And these researchers knew that, right? Which is why they came out together and they came out in force.”

The Power of Patient Advocacy

Dressen also told The Defender that doctors and researchers are finally speaking out because of the work being done by vaccine-injured patients.

“The interesting thing about these researchers though,” she said, “is that they too had to be deprogrammed. And that happened because of … the patients [who] ended up in their offices,” she said.

“The majority of the advocacy that happened to get these researchers to where they were willing to speak out, it happened on the ground floor with their own patients. So, you know, that’s the power that the patients have.”

Newall, who suffers from COVID-19 vaccine-related autoimmune disease, said:

“The best advice and support I have had about my reactions have come directly from other injured. They have been a lifeline for me. I knew to ask for a skin punch biopsy only because other injured people had told me to based on my symptoms.

“Even knowing what to ask for, the first neurologist wanted to wait and run other tests because he said small fiber neuropathy doesn’t normally present the way I was presenting. I told him we are in unchartered [sic] waters learning as we go, so please run the test.

“Finally after months of waiting, he tested me and I was positive for small fiber polyneuropathy.”

Immune Overreaction to Spike Protein

The article hypothesizes that the Long Vax symptoms might be caused by an immune overreaction to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Science wrote:

“One theory is that after vaccination some people generate another round of antibodies targeting the first. Those antibodies could function somewhat like spike itself: Spike targets a cell surface protein called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, enabling the virus to enter cells.”

Bernhard Schieffer, M.D, Ph.D., a cardiologist at the University of Marburg, is also quoted:

“The rogue antibodies might also bind to ACE2, which helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate. … If those antibodies disrupt ACE2 signaling, that could cause the racing heart rates and blood pressure swings seen in POTS.

“Small fiber neurons also have the ACE2 receptor on their surface, so in theory rogue antibodies could contribute to neuropathy.”

Rose told The Defender that “molecular mimicry” is a possible action for spike-induced autoimmunity. Molecular mimicry refers to a significant similarity between pathogenic elements contained in a vaccine and some human proteins.

According to Nature, this similarity may lead to immune cross reactivity, where the reaction of the immune system toward the pathogenic antigens may harm the similar human proteins, essentially causing autoimmune disease.

‘Needless Gaslighting’ Has to End

Vaccine-injured advocates say that much more research into these types of adverse events is imperative.

“This is just one of the many injuries and many side effects that they write about in this article. There’s so much more work to be done in the area, so much more attention to be given to a lot of people who are suffering today,” Wilson said.

Newell said that when vaccine-injured can get access to early treatments, they are more likely to recover.

“But, that requires acknowledgment,” she said, adding, “Just like Guillain-Barré [syndrome] is recognized as a vaccine reaction, we need small fiber neuropathy and POTS to be recognized as well.”

She added:

“Had there been a medical and financial safety net along with processes to accurately research the injured and adequately support us, we would be much farther along than we are and so many wouldn’t have had to needlessly be gaslit at the doctor’s office with all of these new symptoms.

“I wish those of us who were not using the medical system prior to our Covid vaccines and were now suddenly showing up with debilitating and scary symptoms would have been at the very least researched.

“We needed acknowledgment even though our truths are uncomfortable. It has been a painful and lonely ride that I would not wish on anyone. We need to be able to talk openly about reactions because what doesn’t get talked about leads to shame and isolation. Isolation can lead to suicide. We have seen far too many injured take their lives.

“We have waited years because our reactions might cause vaccine hesitancy. That has delayed progress. We are part of the science. The medical world needs to study our reactions to make this brand-new vaccine safer for all people.”

Science reported that a few university-sponsored research projects are moving forward. Yale’s LISTEN study will examine both long COVID and Long Vax cases.

React19 also plans to distribute small grants for studying immunology, biomarkers, and other features of post-vaccine illness. “Even modest support matters,” Krumholz told Science, because “it’s incumbent on us to produce preliminary data” to win over funders with deep pockets.

“The deep-pocketed funders of Covid vaccines had no problem pouring billions into them without any preliminary data—but helping their victims is not one of their financial priorities,” Chudov commented.

He added, “Thus, the researchers helping the vaccine-injured operate with tens of thousands of dollars, while Pfizer shareholders enjoy their multi-billion windfall.”

Wilson, who is also a journalist who interviews doctors and scientists on her program, the “Aga Wilson Show,” added, “This is not a fight between the anti and the pro-vax. It’s a fight for people’s health.”

She said public health agencies should be responsible for creating better systems to track injuries and should be funding research to understand and treat them and stop them from happening again.

“We are in a very bad situation because the governments are not taking responsibility for this. This research needs to be funded,” she said.

When the oldest national football competition—the FA Cup—was first played in 1872, the players didn’t get paid, clubs were local associations, and there were no such things as football brands.

Skip ahead a century and a half and many football clubs have comparable levels of global recognition to well-known consumer brands like Apple or Coca-Cola, while simultaneously commanding immense loyalty from fans from all walks of life.

These characteristics have immense financial worth. Today, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details which clubs, aside from competing on the pitch, also compete as football brands. Brand Finance, a brand valuation and strategy consultancy, has compiled a list of the world’s 50 most valuable football club brands.

ℹ️ Brand value refers to the present value of earnings specifically related to a football team’s brand reputation. This is separate and distinct from market value, or the value of an organization as a whole (i.e. what it would cost to buy a team)

Which Football Club Has the Most Valuable Brand?

Prized at $1.56 billion in 2023, Manchester City FC of England’s Premier League takes the top spot as the most valuable football brand.

The club’s brand value grew 13.5% in the last year, a testament to the club’s recent and sustained success on the domestic and international fronts. It has won the Premier league seven times since 2011, and in 2023 the club completed a historic “treble”—winning the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup, all in one season.

Here’s a look at the world’s top 50 most valued football club brands, listed in USD millions.

Close on City’s heels, Spain’s Real Madrid CF brand is also valued slightly above $1.5 billion, but is down 14% in the last year. The club lost their hold on both their domestic league and European championship titles this season, contributing to their decrease in brand worth in 2023.

On the Catalonian side of Spain, FC Barcelona’s brand remains ranked in third place, valued at $1.4 billion. The two Spanish giants have a near duopoly over La Liga, Spain’s domestic league, with one of them having won the title 62 times in the 94 years since the league was founded.

The rivalry gained another edge in the 2000s, hosting one each of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—two of the most-followed celebrities in the world and often regarded as some of the greatest players to play the game.

And while both Messi and Ronaldo left in the last five years, Barcelona and Real Madrid’s brands have stayed resilient. Both clubs have consistently ranked in the top five most valuable football club brands since 2013.

Four more club brands have been valued above $1 billion:

• Manchester United FC, England, ($1.41 billion)

• Liverpool FC, England ($1.41 billion)

• Paris Saint-Germain, France ($1.17 billion)

• FC Bayern Munich, Germany ($1.14 billion)

Countries with the Most Valuable Football Brands

From a regional perspective, the UK is home to the most high-worth football club brands (18), all of them in England with the sole exception of Scotland’s Celtic FC.

The UK is followed by Germany (10) and Spain (9) with the most high-valued brands. Together, the top three countries account for almost three quarters of the most valued football club brands in the world.

With an even broader-picture gaze, Europe is home to 49 of the 50 listed clubs, a testament to the strength of the European football market. The only non-European team to make the list was CR Flamengo from Brazil.

What’s in a Brand?

While the value of a football club brand is not the same as the club value itself, a strong brand can do wonders for a club’s financial performance, and eventual value.

Just look at Manchester United, which hasn’t quite regained its stellar performances on field since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, but nevertheless continues to be a commercial juggernaut—it had the fourth highest jersey sales in 2021.

A similar story can be seen with Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr when it signed Cristiano Ronaldo, which drove visits to its merchandise store up 300%.

With the new football season around the corner, it will be fascinating to see how the rankings of most valuable football brands change next year.

Authored by Michael T Klare via TomDispatch.com,

A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes.

But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of super-intelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process.

The notion that super-intelligent computers might run amok and slaughter humans has, of course, long been a staple of popular culture. In the prophetic 1983 film “WarGames,” a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response and, not surprisingly, pronounced “whopper”) nearly provokes a catastrophic nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union before being disabled by a teenage hacker (played by Matthew Broderick). The “Terminator” movie franchise, beginning with the original 1984 film, similarly envisioned a self-aware supercomputer called “Skynet” that, like WOPR, was designed to control U.S. nuclear weapons but chooses instead to wipe out humanity, viewing us as a threat to its existence.

Though once confined to the realm of science fiction, the concept of supercomputers killing humans has now become a distinct possibility in the very real world of the near future. In addition to developing a wide variety of “autonomous,” or robotic combat devices, the major military powers are also rushing to create automated battlefield decision-making systems, or what might be called “robot generals.” In wars in the not-too-distant future, such AI-powered systems could be deployed to deliver combat orders to American soldiers, dictating where, when, and how they kill enemy troops or take fire from their opponents. In some scenarios, robot decision-makers could even end up exercising control over America’s atomic weapons, potentially allowing them to ignite a nuclear war resulting in humanity’s demise.

Now, take a breath for a moment. The installation of an AI-powered command-and-control (C2) system like this may seem a distant possibility. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Defense is working hard to develop the required hardware and software in a systematic, increasingly rapid fashion. In its budget submission for 2023, for example, the Air Force requested $231 million to develop the Advanced Battlefield Management System (ABMS), a complex network of sensors and AI-enabled computers designed to collect and interpret data on enemy operations and provide pilots and ground forces with a menu of optimal attack options. As the technology advances, the system will be capable of sending “fire” instructions directly to “shooters,” largely bypassing human control.

“A machine-to-machine data exchange tool that provides options for deterrence, or for on-ramp [a military show-of-force] or early engagement,” was how Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics, described the ABMS system in a 2020 interview. Suggesting that “we do need to change the name” as the system evolves, Roper added, “I think Skynet is out, as much as I would love doing that as a sci-fi thing. I just don’t think we can go there.”

And while he can’t go there, that’s just where the rest of us may, indeed, be going.

Mind you, that’s only the start. In fact, the Air Force’s ABMS is intended to constitute the nucleus of a larger constellation of sensors and computers that will connect all U.S. combat forces, the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control System (JADC2, pronounced “Jad-C-two”). “JADC2 intends to enable commanders to make better decisions by collecting data from numerous sensors, processing the data using artificial intelligence algorithms to identify targets, then recommending the optimal weapon… to engage the target,” the Congressional Research Service reported in 2022.

AI and the Nuclear Trigger

Initially, JADC2 will be designed to coordinate combat operations among “conventional” or non-nuclear American forces. Eventually, however, it is expected to link up with the Pentagon’s nuclear command-control-and-communications systems (NC3), potentially giving computers significant control over the use of the American nuclear arsenal. “JADC2 and NC3 are intertwined,” General John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated in a 2020 interview. As a result, he added in typical Pentagonese, “NC3 has to inform JADC2 and JADC2 has to inform NC3.”

It doesn’t require great imagination to picture a time in the not-too-distant future when a crisis of some sort — say a U.S.-China military clash in the South China Sea or near Taiwan — prompts ever more intense fighting between opposing air and naval forces. Imagine then the JADC2 ordering the intense bombardment of enemy bases and command systems in China itself, triggering reciprocal attacks on U.S. facilities and a lightning decision by JADC2 to retaliate with tactical nuclear weapons, igniting a long-feared nuclear holocaust.

The possibility that nightmare scenarios of this sort could result in the accidental or unintended onset of nuclear war has long troubled analysts in the arms control community. But the growing automation of military C2 systems has generated anxiety not just among them but among senior national security officials as well.

As early as 2019, when I questioned Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, then director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, about such a risky possibility, he responded, “You will find no stronger proponent of integration of AI capabilities writ large into the Department of Defense, but there is one area where I pause, and it has to do with nuclear command and control.” This “is the ultimate human decision that needs to be made” and so “we have to be very careful.” Given the technology’s “immaturity,” he added, we need “a lot of time to test and evaluate [before applying AI to NC3].”

In the years since, despite such warnings, the Pentagon has been racing ahead with the development of automated C2 systems. In its budget submission for 2024, the Department of Defense requested $1.4 billion for the JADC2 in order “to transform warfighting capability by delivering information advantage at the speed of relevance across all domains and partners.” Uh-oh! And then, it requested another $1.8 billion for other kinds of military-related AI research.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that it will be some time before robot generals will be commanding vast numbers of U.S. troops (and autonomous weapons) in battle, but they have already launched several projects intended to test and perfect just such linkages. One example is the Army’s Project Convergence, involving a series of field exercises designed to validate ABMS and JADC2 component systems. In a test held in August 2020 at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, for example, the Army used a variety of air- and ground-based sensors to track simulated enemy forces and then process that data using AI-enabled computers at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. Those computers, in turn, issued fire instructions to ground-based artillery at Yuma. “This entire sequence was supposedly accomplished within 20 seconds,” the Congressional Research Service later reported.

Less is known about the Navy’s AI equivalent, “Project Overmatch,” as many aspects of its programming have been kept secret. According to Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, Overmatch is intended “to enable a Navy that swarms the sea, delivering synchronized lethal and nonlethal effects from near-and-far, every axis, and every domain.” Little else has been revealed about the project.

“Flash Wars” and Human Extinction

Despite all the secrecy surrounding these projects, you can think of ABMS, JADC2, Convergence, and Overmatch as building blocks for a future Skynet-like mega-network of super-computers designed to command all U.S. forces, including its nuclear ones, in armed combat. The more the Pentagon moves in that direction, the closer we’ll come to a time when AI possesses life-or-death power over all American soldiers along with opposing forces and any civilians caught in the crossfire.

Such a prospect should be ample cause for concern. To start with, consider the risk of errors and miscalculations by the algorithms at the heart of such systems. As top computer scientists have warned us, those algorithms are capable of remarkably inexplicable mistakes and, to use the AI term of the moment, “hallucinations” — that is, seemingly reasonable results that are entirely illusionary. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine such computers “hallucinating” an imminent enemy attack and launching a war that might otherwise have been avoided.

And that’s not the worst of the dangers to consider. After all, there’s the obvious likelihood that America’s adversaries will similarly equip their forces with robot generals. In other words, future wars are likely to be fought by one set of AI systems against another, both linked to nuclear weaponry, with entirely unpredictable — but potentially catastrophic — results.

Not much is known (from public sources at least) about Russian and Chinese efforts to automate their military command-and-control systems, but both countries are thought to be developing networks comparable to the Pentagon’s JADC2. As early as 2014, in fact, Russia inaugurated a National Defense Control Center (NDCC) in Moscow, a centralized command post for assessing global threats and initiating whatever military action is deemed necessary, whether of a non-nuclear or nuclear nature. Like JADC2, the NDCC is designed to collect information on enemy moves from multiple sources and provide senior officers with guidance on possible responses.

China is said to be pursuing an even more elaborate, if similar, enterprise under the rubric of “Multi-Domain Precision Warfare” (MDPW). According to the Pentagon’s 2022 report on Chinese military developments, its military, the People’s Liberation Army, is being trained and equipped to use AI-enabled sensors and computer networks to “rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities.”

Picture, then, a future war between the U.S. and Russia or China (or both) in which the JADC2 commands all U.S. forces, while Russia’s NDCC and China’s MDPW command those countries’ forces. Consider, as well, that all three systems are likely to experience errors and hallucinations. How safe will humans be when robot generals decide that it’s time to “win” the war by nuking their enemies?

If this strikes you as an outlandish scenario, think again, at least according to the leadership of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a congressionally mandated enterprise that was chaired by Eric Schmidt, former head of Google, and Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense. “While the Commission believes that properly designed, tested, and utilized AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems will bring substantial military and even humanitarian benefit, the unchecked global use of such systems potentially risks unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability,” it affirmed in its Final Report. Such dangers could arise, it stated, “because of challenging and untested complexities of interaction between AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems on the battlefield” — when, that is, AI fights AI.

Though this may seem an extreme scenario, it’s entirely possible that opposing AI systems could trigger a catastrophic “flash war” — the military equivalent of a “flash crash” on Wall Street, when huge transactions by super-sophisticated trading algorithms spark panic selling before human operators can restore order. In the infamous “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, computer-driven trading precipitated a 10% fall in the stock market’s value. According to Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security, who first studied the phenomenon, “the military equivalent of such crises” on Wall Street would arise when the automated command systems of opposing forces “become trapped in a cascade of escalating engagements.” In such a situation, he noted, “autonomous weapons could lead to accidental death and destruction at catastrophic scales in an instant.”

At present, there are virtually no measures in place to prevent a future catastrophe of this sort or even talks among the major powers to devise such measures. Yet, as the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence noted, such crisis-control measures are urgently needed to integrate “automated escalation tripwires” into such systems “that would prevent the automated escalation of conflict.” Otherwise, some catastrophic version of World War III seems all too possible. Given the dangerous immaturity of such technology and the reluctance of Beijing, Moscow, and Washington to impose any restraints on the weaponization of AI, the day when machines could choose to annihilate us might arrive far sooner than we imagine and the extinction of humanity could be the collateral damage of such a future war.

*  *  *

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

The Biden first family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior – to the point of dysfunctionality…

During the 2020 campaign at least eight women alleged that then presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them.

One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”

He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.

He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.

Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.

She recoiled.

No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.

Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form, and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.

Not in Biden’s case.

The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.

All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.

He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop that contained evidence of his own felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too public bad habits.

Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.

And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

New York City’s high-income earners face a soaring cost of living crisis and some of the highest tax rates in the country.

Compounding their financial struggles is an out-of-control crime wave, as Democratic leadership in City Hall struggles to maintain law and order. The strategy some have had to protect wealth and stretch salaries further is to move South. 

We have explained to readers that “Moving To ‘Wall Street South’ From NYC Can Save You Up To $200k.” 

If New Yorkers considered moving to Austin, Texas, they could save even more.

The Finance website SmartAsset compared NYC’s cost of living and tax rates to Austin’s to determine how much New Yorkers could save.

The results were stunning.

Someone earning $650,000 in the Big Apple saves $258,212 in Austin. Even someone making $150,000 in NYC could benefit from the move.  

In a post-Covid era, young professionals and families have fled high-taxed and crime-ridden Democrat metro areas for southern states, such as Texas. One of the most significant advantages of Texas is no corporate or personal income tax … and the state has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation. 

But it’s not just all about taxes. The cost of living is cheaper overall. Plus, people are friendlier. 

By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

Investors are counting on China to shake European equities out of a lull, but strategists warn that officials’ measures to bolster the world’s second-biggest economy may fall short of expectations.

Most of the Stoxx 600’s gains this year came in the first quarter, with the benchmark mostly moving sideways since then as investors priced in shifting monetary-policy expectations. Given European stocks’ strong reliance on China, all eyes are on the Politburo meeting later this month after officials vowed on Wednesday to boost the private economy.

“Slowing growth in China has taken some wind out of the sails for European equities in recent months,” says HSBC strategist Max Kettner, who maintains a cautious stance on Europe. While some easing has helped markets, policymakers are more cautious than before, “so a return to the post-2008 stimulus mix is unlikely,” he adds.

The latest reports out of China, showing weaker-than-expected economic growth and a contraction in real estate, have weighed on for European sectors particularly exposed to the economy — cyclicals like miners, industrials and autos, as well as luxury stocks.

Kettner says any Chinese stimulus news will likely boost the broader consumer discretionary sector in Europe, but warns that cyclicals on aggregate have already rallied strongly. “In terms of what is priced in currently, there’s already quite some hope for a growth recovery in the price.”

Miners have borne the brunt of China’s disappointing reopening. They are the worst performers in Europe this year, down 12%. The sector suffered another blow this week after Rio Tinto, the biggest constituent on the Stoxx 600 basic resources gauge, warned that the country’s faltering recovery continues to weigh on demand for metals.

“Structural downtrends” in the Chinese property sector, a major consumer of metals, are likely to continue weighing on European mining stocks, say JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka. Moreover, potential steel production cuts in China would be bearish for iron ore demand, meaning “lower metal prices could keep the sector’s earnings under pressure,” they add.

The strategists are negative on European stocks generally, seeing cyclical shares losing momentum in the second half, a trend that could worsen if expectations on China disappoint. They recommend investors “keep fading stimulus news,” adding that the region is sliding back into deflation and the property market will likely need “a much more aggressive policy support to rebound sustainably.”

For luxury stocks, which have been a strong driver of gains in Europe this year,  a continued recovery in China will be necessary to support their strong performance. The sector has diverged from Chinese stocks, which have been dragged by disappointing data.

“It’s definitely more mixed than it was at the start of the year,” says Karim Chedid, head of EMEA iShares investment strategy, pointing out that the first leg of the China reopening has already played out, while domestic demand has been more sluggish than expected. As Chinese tourists start to travel again, there is a possibility for another tailwind for the sector, he says.

“As it stands, we believe that a brighter outlook for global growth is required for the euro to move sustainably higher and European equities to outperform again,” says Barclays strategist Emmanuel Cau. “And a lot has to do with China, which doesn’t look good at the moment.”

Via The Brownstone Institute,

Despite the uproar surrounding the case, Judge Terry Doughty’s order in Missouri v. Biden was straightforward. It prohibited government actors from colluding with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech.” 

In other words, the defendants – including the White House, the CDC, and the Department of Justice – must obey the Constitution they swore to uphold by adhering to the First Amendment. The censorship regime responded with familiar doublethink: denying the censorship exists while arguing that it must continue. 

On Tuesday, the court held a hearing to consider whether Judge Doughty’s order should be reinstated. The oral arguments revealed the government’s three-part strategy: deny, deflect, and defend. Its lawyers denied the established facts, deflected from the controversy, and defended its actions through outlandish justifications. 

In doing so, they demonstrated the censorship apparatus’s lack of remorse for stripping Americans of their constitutional liberties. Even worse, they insist that the totalitarian operations must continue. 

1. Deny: Blame the Facts

At the hearing, government defendants maintained that plaintiffs have manufactured the case. Like their allies in the media, they argued that allegations of censorship were nothing more than “an assortment of out-of-context quotes and select portions of documents that distort the record to build a narrative that the bare facts simply do not support.” 

The censorship is nonexistent, they insist. It is a “thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory,” in the words of Larry Tribe.

Unlike issues of legal interpretation, this is a factual matter. Either government actors colluded with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ free speech rights or they did not. Discovery revealed extensive documentation proving that they did, and the defendants make no effort to explain how Judge Doughty’s 155-page order detailing dozens of violations of the First Amendment is merely “an assortment of out-of-context quotes.” 

Journalists including Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Berenson have detailed the “censorship industrial complex,” the entangled web of government agencies, NGOs, and private-public partnerships that seek to control the free flow of information. But reviewing that series of connections and collusions is unnecessary – the defendants’ recorded statements contradict their denial. 

“Thank you for the ongoing collaboration,” one bureaucrat wrote after a US Government “industry meeting” with Big Tech companies in October 2020.

White House Advisor Rob Flaherty took a different tack in his demands to Twitter: “Please remove this account immediately.” The company complied within an hour. “Are you guys fucking serious?” he wrote to company officials after they failed to censor critics of the Covid vaccine. “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.” His boss was similarly direct regarding posts from RFK, Jr. “Hey Folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”

There is no need to recreate Judge Doughty’s 155-page opinion, but the denial of the censorship regime is facially absurd. Alex Berenson’s case, the revelations of the Twitter files, and the undisputed facts of Missouri v. Biden refute the defendant’s premise.

2. Deflect: Blame the Russians

Rather than address the case’s inconvenient facts, government lawyers quickly pivoted to their second tactic: deflection. They avoided the case and Judge Doughty’s ruling in favor of a hypothetical narrative.

At one point, they defended government agencies’ right to issue health advisories that say “the vaccines work or smoking is dangerous.” They argued, “There’s nothing unlawful about the government’s use of the bully pulpit.” That reasoning was uncontroversial, but it was not responsive to Judge Doughty’s order.

Under Doughty’s ruling, the White House can denounce journalists, deliver press briefings, publish on social media, enjoy the bully pulpit, and take advantage of the friendly media environment; it just can’t encourage private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. 

The defense conflates free speech with control over information to deflect attention from the censorship at issue. The tactic is not limited to the government’s powers under the order.

During the hearing, the judge asked the defense attorneys whether saying “the COVID vaccine does not work” is constitutionally protected free speech. “That speech itself could be protected,” the attorney responded at one point. After repeatedly refusing to concede that the First Amendment protects political opinions that deviate from President Biden’s agenda, he resorted to Russian fear-mongering. 

“Let’s say it was spoken by a covert Russian operative, that would not be protected by free speech,” he told the judge. Like the issue of the government’s “use of the bully pulpit,” restricting Russian operatives’ speech is unrelated to Judge Doughty’s order. 

The attorney’s refusal to defend basic First Amendment liberties was telling. The defense instinctively changed the issue from free speech to national security, relying on an oft-used fear tactic to subvert the First Amendment.  

These deflections deliberately obfuscated the purpose of the hearings. Defendants implied the plaintiffs sought to ban anti-smoking PSAs and fund Kremlin media campaigns. Like their strategy of denial, the goal was to avoid discussion of their extensive censorship operations. 

3. Defend: Blame the Virus

When the government was forced to address the case, it resorted to claiming that Covid justified the abolition of constitutional liberties. The pandemic-made-us-censor argument continued the pervasive Doublethink. Eradicating democratic norms was necessary to protect democracy, they reasoned. Previously, the Biden Administration told the court that reversing the order was necessary “to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.” 

Defendants argued that the evidence of the case vindicates the government actors. The attorneys said “It shows, in the face of urgent crises, a once-in-a-generation pandemic and bipartisan findings of foreign interference with U.S. elections, the government responsibly exercised its prerogative to speak on matters of public concern.” 

They continued, “It promoted accurate information to protect the public and our democracy from these threats. And it used the bully pulpit to call on various sectors of society, including social media companies, to make efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation.”

Demonstrating no remorse, they remain proud of their efforts to usurp the First Amendment because of their self-professed noble aims. They expect this defense to evade judicial scrutiny.

When confronted with past censorship – including CISA’s “switchboarding” leading up to the 2020 election – defendants reasoned that prior conduct was not pertinent to the case because plaintiffs could not prove it will happen again.

They described the Department of Homeland Security’s unconstitutional censorship campaigns as “occurring long in the past.” They argued that health officials’ emails working to silence opponents should be disregarded because they were sent “more than two and a half years ago.” 

The censorship apparatus is asking the courts to trust them to act responsibly despite repeatedly demonstrating its indifference, or perhaps disdain, toward the First Amendment.

While the government’s denials and deflections are insulting to the citizens they purport to represent, we must remain focused on their aim: they appealed Doughty’s order because they oppose constitutional restraints on their control of information. 

We would hope that requiring the government to obey the Constitution would be uncontroversial; now, it may signify whether the rule of law still stands in the United States. 

Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

America’s increasing reliance on intermittent power sources and batteries is creating novel risks, according to grid specialists who testified before Congress on July 18.

Many of the greatest among them emanate from a key geopolitical rival, China.

That’s partly because the new technologies frequently use inverters. When solar panels, wind turbines, and battery systems generate or store direct current electricity, inverters turn it into the alternating current electricity that flows through the grid.

Paul N. Stockton, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, opened what he called a “rabbit hole” in response to a question on inverters during the House Energy & Commerce hearing.

“Do we have a satisfactory supply of inverters for all of the renewable energy that’s being brought into the grid?” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) asked Mr. Stockton, who also holds positions on subcommittees in the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

“Manufacturers in China are important producers of inverters being deployed nationwide, across the United States,” Mr. Stockton responded.

He explained that the country’s reliance on Chinese inverters could jeopardize grid security.

“Sure, we’ve got inverters. Some of them are made in China. Others may be manufactured for final assembly in friendly nations, but they might have components—hardware, software, and firmware—that could provide attack vectors. And the constant updating of firmware from the cloud and by service providers—who’s on top of that for maintaining adequate security? Congressman, that’s an opportunity for progress,” Mr. Stockton said.

Solar Panels With Parts From China

The United States’ use of solar panels with parts from China that are assembled in Southeast Asia has been a source of controversy in this Congress. President Joe Biden vetoed a bill that would have ended his temporary pause on tariffs affecting those panels.

In his written testimony, Mr. Stockton elaborated on the ways inverter-based resources “provide China with new opportunities to disrupt the grid.”

He referred to a 2022 report from the Department of Energy outlining the cybersecurity risks associated with the changes to America’s grid.

“I propose that we prioritize our efforts to prevent Chinese leaders from accomplishing their goals in attacking the grid,” Mr. Stockton wrote.

He noted that inverter-based resources have some advantages, testifying in writing that they “have provided reliable, much-needed power during the 2023 heat domes and other extreme events.”

“Yet, they are also prone to catastrophic failures that can put the grid at risk.”

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) also asked Mr. Stockton about inverter-related vulnerabilities facing the United States.

Mr. Stockton offered a central recommendation to the lawmakers in attendance:

“Above all, ensuring that at the level of the devices, we hold manufacturers’ feet to the fire and ensure the adoption of safe and secure inverters, instead of relying on individual utilities or energy aggregators or other entities within the larger electric system to do their own homework.”

Bruce J. Walker of the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure Security voiced similar concerns about the threat from China, citing the U.S. intelligence community’s 2023 threat assessment.

Read more here…

China and Russia have kicked off their anticipated joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan on Thursday. Chinese state television has described the purpose as ensuring security of “strategic passage at sea”.

Bloomberg noted of regional reporting that China and Russia are “testing their joint combat capability via the exercise” – but there’s been no specification of how long the exercise is expected to last, which involves land, air, and sea military assets. In reality, China and Russia are ‘answering’ recent US-Japan drills with provocative military exercises of their own in regional waters, at a moment Beijing has warned Japan over its deepening cooperation with NATO.

China’s defense ministry over the weekend confirmed that PLA naval vessels had set sail in preparation for new exercises with Russia. 

This included Beijing sending five Chinese warships, among them a guided-missile destroyer, to participate – but without specifying an exact location within the Sea of Japan. 

Last month both countries conducted joint air patrol over the Seas of Japan and East China, demonstrating their deepened ties, also amid the war in Ukraine which Beijing has yet to outright condemn, to the frustration of the West.

China has considered itself ‘neutral’ concerning the Ukraine conflict while at the same time highlighting the dangers of NATO expansion east. For this reason Washington has accused it of quietly supporting Moscow.

Bloomberg has meanwhile cited US sanctions and punitive measures aimed at both Beijing and Moscow as a chief motivator to grow militarily closer. 

PLA Navy Ships Underway off Japan

“China and the armed forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted six joint military exercises together last year, the most in data going back two decades,” the publication notes.

“That accounted for two-thirds of all of China’s drills with foreign militaries in 2022, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University (NDU).”

But Russia and China have conducted naval drills in other global hotspots as well, in the last months holding naval exercises with Iran in the Persian Gulf region.

Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Wire,

Wow, big news broke Tuesday – President Biden’s campaign is officially going to be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. For months nervous Democrats have wondered why Biden only had four full-time staffers devoted to his reelection effort and why the campaign wasn’t yet located anywhere.

This development will do absolutely nothing, however, to stop the panic within the party that Biden is too old to run for reelection and could easily lose to former President Donald Trump. Sorry, Team Biden, these fears will not be put to rest; they are going to persist and grow.

Though the White House and the Democratic National Committee may be trying to ignore it, there is suddenly a constant stream of stories in the media about doubts that Biden can make it across the finish line 16 months from now. Though Frank Bruni noted it’s probably too late, he encouraged Democrats in a New York Times column to talk about Hunter Biden, and suggested Biden should step aside: “It might be best, for him and for continued Democratic control of the White House, if he let Democrats choose a different 2024 nominee.”

And CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere’s reporting last week went there – top Democrats and donors continue to “reach out to those seen as possible replacement presidential candidates. Get ready, they urge…” Democrats, Dovere wrote, worry about Biden’s weak small-dollar fundraising – which shows diminished energy from the grassroots – as well as his light schedule, which they believe will only exacerbate the perception that he is too old to campaign or be president. A Democrat who had a senior role in Biden’s 2020 campaign is quoted saying “If Trump wins next November and everyone says, ‘How did that happen,’ one of the questions will be: what was the Biden campaign doing in the summer of 2023?”

In a recent New York Times report about how impressive Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s polling and campaign war chest is, and what that says about Biden’s weakness as an incumbent, Julian Castro, the former housing secretary, said “It’s clear there is a softness that perhaps is born out of a worry about electability in 2024.”

Biden’s polling is not soft, it’s terrible and has worsened over time. The age liability and concerns about Biden’s mental sharpness loom large across all surveys and voter groups. In some general election surveys, he loses to Trump. It’s hard to imagine next year, when he is older, that his standing will improve.

It’s not just that critical parts of the Democratic coalition are disappointed and apathetic and may not turn out to vote – but data shows some Asian, Hispanic, and black voters are beginning to support Republicans instead. John Della Volpe, polling director at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics and an expert on youth voting, recently wrote that young voters are increasingly identifying as independents, not Democrats, and are becoming disillusioned with politics as a means to create change. “Nearly every sign that made me confident in historic levels of youth participation in 2018, 2020 and 2022 – is now flashing red,” he wrote.

Biden also appears to have forgotten that, in an election he only won by fewer than 44,000 votes in three states, the support of Never Trump Republicans was critical. Recent reporting by NBC News shows the Biden White House has ignored many of those Republicans who stepped up to endorse him (except for Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake who both became ambassadors in his administration) and that they aren’t interested in supporting him again next year.

The Biden inner circle seems to be confident his age is a smaller political problem than the many ones Trump has. They also seem to be in denial that some of the Hunter Biden business dealings revelations are really bad, and that his father refusing to acknowledge his love child is terrible.

The campaign will remain focused mostly on the economy – there are plans for the president to embark on an “investing in America” tour this summer to tout the historic investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, and jobs that his administration has secured.

But it may be too late for Biden to toot his horn.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Austin Davis was recently quoted by the New York Times, talking about how poorly the administration has communicated its accomplishments to the public. “They’ve done a pretty bad job of telling the American people and Pennsylvanians what they have done,” he said.

No good economic news – there is much of it and more could materialize – seems able to eclipse the sting of inflation and sink in with voters when 74% of Americans believe we are on the wrong track. Voters give Biden poor ratings on the economy despite record job growth and – as David Brooks recently noted in the New York Times – a lower misery index (inflation rate added to unemployment rate) than Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama had when they were reelected.

And it’s clear that Republicans will pummel Biden over his unpopular vice president throughout next year’s campaign. “I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you are really counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something I think is likely,” Nikki Haley said, which is only the beginning of this refrain.

Dismissing Harris’ abysmally low approval rating, which makes clear she is a liability to an 80-year-old Biden running to be president until he is 86 years old, as racist and misogynistic won’t help make her more popular or help Biden win the electoral college.

The Biden campaign can raise a lot of money and hold lots of ribbon cuttings at factories and try to rehabilitate Harris – but nothing will calm the jitters building in the party about the increasing likelihood of a second Trump term.

A.B. Stoddard is associate editor and columnist at RealClearPolitics and a guest host on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel.