Who in their right mind would want to be a police officer in a city run by Democrats or silly progressives who seemingly lack any understanding of how to protect law-abiding, tax-paying citizens from thieves, lunatics, and thugs?

You know things are bad when the police union leader in Los Angeles vents on Facebook in a post about hostile City Council members, advising departing members of the police force to find jobs in communities where the political leadership “understands your worth.”

“Go somewhere that respects the work you do and you don’t have to beg for a great contract,” Los Angeles Police Protective League’s vice president, Jerretta Sandoz, wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post. 

Sandoz said, “Go somewhere that has a city council or city manager that openly acknowledges the great work you do, go somewhere that doesn’t have Two or more City Council members who hate you (no exaggeration).”

Sandoz represents approximately 9,000 police officers. Since 2019, the metro area has seen a surge in crime and homelessness and has lost over 1,000 officers. 

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore has blamed the officer exodus on “anti-police sentiments that grew after the law enforcement killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in recent years,” according to Los Angeles Times. 

Sandoz’s displeasure with the progressive city leadership comes as the union continues to discuss a new labor contract for officers. 

An emerging trend is progressive cities that demonize police are finding out the hard way that officers are leaving in droves. This sparks a doom loop of fewer patrols and a continued rise in crime. 

Demonizing and defunding police has consequences. Perhaps it’s time to hold progressive politicians accountable for failed ‘defund the police’ movements that have transformed some metro areas nationwide into crime-ridden ‘hellholes.’ 

Authored by Peter Wilson via The Epoch Times,

With 230,000 Ukrainians having already emigrated to Canada to flee the war, a recently disclosed internal memo from the Immigration Department says there is “no limit” on the number of Ukrainian war refugees that can be allowed into Canada.

The government closed applications on July 15 for Ukrainian refugees looking to obtain temporary emergency visas and free flights to Canada, but about 1.1 million Ukrainians applied for visas prior to the deadline—of which about 800,000 had been approved as of the beginning of July.

“There is no limit,” said a Department of Immigration memo sent to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The memo, titled “Information On Ukrainian Nationals Coming To Canada,” also elaborated on Ottawa’s recently announced plan to facilitate permanent residence status for any Ukrainian nationals and their family members already in Canada.

The new policy, which Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced on July 15, is set to come into effect this October.

The new plan will provide permanent residence status to Ukrainian nationals who have fled the war and want to stay in Canada. To qualify, Ukrainian refugees must be in Canada with temporary resident status and have at least one family member in the country.

The memo said that the new policy will benefit Ukrainians coming into Canada “from anywhere in the world,” regardless of whether they were fleeing Russian aggression, so long as they applied for temporary visas through the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel program prior to July 15.

Ukrainian Refugees

The plan fixed a quota of permitting entry to 365,000 Ukrainian immigrants in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.

“As this measure offers a temporary safe haven, those who come to Canada on Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel are not included in the Immigration Levels Plan, which is a projection of the number of permanent residents Canada plans to admit,” said the memo.

“Although a temporary measure, settlement services are available to Emergency Travel holders and their family members after they arrive so they can fully participate in Canadian communities while they are here.”

Canada’s temporary emergency visa program for Ukrainians was originally set to expire in March, but Mr. Fraser extended the program until July 15.

Only about 21 percent of Ukrainians who have been granted temporary visas have actually come to Canada, but they will have until the end of March 2024 to do so.

Refugees who obtained temporary visas and came to Canada will also have until the end of March 2024 to either apply to extend or change their temporary status in Canada.

Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,

Nearly $250 billion worth of transactions have taken place using China’s digital yuan in the one-and-a-half years since the start of its pilot, the country’s central bank governor has claimed.

On July 19, People’s Bank of China governor Yi Gang told a conference in Singapore that its central bank digital currency transacted 1.8 trillion yuan as of the end of June.

Yi added there have been around 950 million transactions from roughly 120 million wallets since the digital yuan’s initial January 2022 rollout, leading to an average transaction amount of about $260.

MAS is honoured to have Dr Yi Gang, President of China Society for Finance and Banking as the speaker for the MAS Lecture 2023. Dr Yi spoke on “CBDC from China’s perspective”.

Find out more here: https://t.co/UbikjgQhRn pic.twitter.com/UuQwOQe8n0

— MAS (@MAS_sg) July 19, 2023

He claimed around $2.3 billion, or 16.5 billion digital yuan, was in circulation at the end of June, which only represents 0.16% of China’s monetary supply, according to a July 19 Reuters report.

The digital yuan’s adoption is still minimal relative to China’s 1.4 billion strong population, so far mostly being used for domestic retail payments aside from a few trials in Hong Kong.

On July 18, the South China Morning Post reported that the Bank of China Hong Kong began trialing another cross-border payment scheme for Bank of China customers at select retail stores in Hong Kong.

The trial was rolled out in a bid to further promote the cross-border applications of digital yuan and is the third cross-border trial of the CBDC in Hong Kong, according to the SCMP.

In a trial last year the BOCHK launched a program that encouraged customers to set up a BOC e-CNY wallet to receive $14 (100 yuan) to be used at the Hong Kong supermarket chain U Select.

In January, the central bank integrated smart contract functionality into the digital yuan to expand upon its use cases.

The $250 billion in digital yuan transactions is an over 70% increase from the number the bank cited in August 2022.

The amount is still, however, far off the amount of value processed by some of the largest public blockchains in the world.

Bitcoin, for example, processed $8.2 trillion in 2022, according to various reports.

There go all the latest attempts by the Biden admin at a detente with China.

The WSJ reports that hackers “linked to Beijing” have accessed the email account of the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in an attack that reportedly has “compromised at least hundreds of thousands of individual U.S. government emails.” Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, was also hacked in the cyber-espionage attack. While it remains unconfirmed, the two diplomats are believed to be the two most senior officials at the State Department targeted in the alleged spying campaign disclosed last week.

Unlike previous so-called “Russian hacking” campaigns which dominated the news between 2016 and 2022 and which were fabricated by the FBI to cover up the FBI’s own criminal activity, and where everything about the perps was known instantaneously, the “contours” of the Chinese hacking campaign aren’t fully known. According to the Journal, while the infiltration was limited to unclassified emails, “the inboxes of Burns and Kritenbrink could have allowed the hackers to glean insights into U.S. planning for a recent string of visits to China by senior Biden administration officials, as well as internal conversations about U.S. policies toward its rival amid a period of delicate diplomacy that has been challenged repeatedly in recent months.”

Burns and Kritenbrink are the second and third senior Biden administration officials to be identified in news reports as having their emails hacked. U.S. Secretary Gina Raimondo’s email was also compromised in the breach, U.S. officials have said, who also stated that the email of top US State official Antony Blinken, wasn’t directly infiltrated in the hack, nor were those in his circle of top advisers. Instead, the hackers appeared to focus on a small number of senior officials responsible for managing the U.S.-China relationship. That said, since this appears to be another planted deep state narrative which will change over time as the deep state’s needs also change, the WSJ was quick to caveat that “the estimate of individual emails accessed is rough and could also grow, the people said.”

“For security reasons, we will not be sharing additional information on the nature and scope of this cybersecurity incident at this time,” a State Department spokesman said. “The Department continuously monitors and responds to activity of concern on our networks. Our investigation is ongoing, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”

Kritenbrink accompanied Blinken on his trip to China a month ago, and Kritenbrink, Burns and Blinken all attended meetings with senior Chinese officials and with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Before the high-level talks in Beijing, Kritenbrink led a trip of less senior officials to lay the groundwork.

Last week the State Department led the Biden administration’s effort to restart diplomatic communications with China and notch progress in select areas including climate change and synthetic opioid trade. However, deep-seated disagreements over Taiwan, spying and other issues have led to a deterioration in relations, with broad U.S. political concerns about China have “prevented any reversal of the trend.”

According to the report, the hack was pulled off with the help of a flaw in Microsoft’s cloud-computing environment and has since been fixed; more than two dozen organizations globally were also affected. Fewer than 10 organizations were compromised in the U.S. and each of those appeared to have a small number of individual email accounts directly accessed by the hackers, a senior American cybersecurity official said last week. It isn’t known whether any federal agencies beyond the State and Commerce departments were targeted although we are confident that if they were then Hillary Clinton would gladly donate her version of BleachBit and a few hammers.

Microsoft hasn’t publicly disclosed how the breach began and has said it is continuing to investigate the incident.

Hilariously, the Administration of Joe “10 for the big guy” Biden, whose son is deep in China’s pockets, has keep radiosilent about the hack, which U.S. officials have described as surgical in nature “something that targeted a small number of specifically chosen high-value victims… and have sought to play down its overall impact, likening it to routine digital espionage that is constantly going on between adversarial nations.”

Right, because other nations routinely hack the email accounts of the most important US politicians.

Not surprisingly, Joe Bidem hasn’t formally blamed China for the hack, but senior Biden administration officials said they have no reason to doubt Microsoft’s assessment linking it to a Chinese hacking group. Meanwhile, China has denied the allegations and accused the U.S. of engaging in rampant cyber-enabled espionage around the world.

Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

Lab grown “meat” may be potentially worse for the environment than actual beef and may have an even larger carbon footprint, according to a recent study.

This follows the USDA’s approval of the FDA’s decision on June 21 to greenlight the sale of lab-grown meat to American consumers.

GOOD Meat, a company that grows cell-based meat in its labs, announced in June the USDA’s approval to sell its products.

Advocates of lab grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, has been lauded by activists of being more environmentally friendly than beef, as it uses less land, water, and produces no greenhouse gases, compared to raising cattle.

The United States joins Singapore as the only country approving “cell-cultured” meat for human consumption

Only chicken has passed the official government approval process for now, with a “no questions” letter that grants permission for distribution, but pork and beef will have to wait.

However, a pre-print study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that the environmental impacts of lab-grown or “cultivated” meat, are likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than its natural counterpart, based on current and near-term production methods.

Fake Meat May Actually Require More Energy Than Organic Meat

Amy Quinton from UC Davis Department of Food Science announced preliminary results from the study on the environmental impact of lab grown meat in a May 22 report.

The researchers assessed the amount of energy needed and the greenhouse gases emitted to create artificial beef and compared it with traditional organic meat production.

It was found that scaling up production using current lab methods was highly energy intensive.

Lab-grown meat is produced through the use of highly refined or purified growth media, which are the ingredients used to make animal cells multiply and is similar to how biotechnology firms make their drugs.

The UC Davis team found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using this process, is four to twenty-five times greater than the average for retail beef.

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” stated UC Davis doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, the study’s lead author.

“If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production,” he added.

Researchers Hope to Make Artificial Meat Production More Energy Efficient

The UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium, which led the study, are a group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and educators researching lab grown meat.

The artificial meat industry plans on creating lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures, that use less energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes in the future.

They hope that improvements in developing the technology, through “pharma to food,” will perfect the production of artificial meat products.

Other goals include the establishment and evaluation of cell lines that could be used to grow meat and to improve the structure in cultured meat.

Me. Risner stated, that if lab-based meat failed to create a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the attempt.

“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” he added.

“My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”

US Production Has Begun

Only a few places will be producing cell-cultured meat for public use for now.

Upside Foods and Good Meat, of California, will first be distributing their product at Bar Crenn in San Francisco and celebrity chef José Andrés’ restaurant, China Chilcano, in Washington, D.C.

China Chilcano will first serve Good Meat’s “Anticuchos de Pollo” on the week of July 31 as part of an exclusive tasting menu at $70 per person, by reservation only and then only available in very limited quantities.

Upside Foods COO Amy Chen told Scientific American that their product will display the regular round-shaped USDA inspection label.

Artificial meat will have the words “cell-cultured” written on the tag.

The two firms say that their artificial chicken meat will emit 92 percent fewer carbon emissions and use 95 percent less land during production.

Meanwhile, a Good Meat spokesperson told Townhall that the production process is still currently expensive.

“Bioreactors and the supporting infrastructure required to produce cultivated meat are not inexpensive to design, build and operate,” said the spokesperson, comparing the technology to the electronics industry where “costs will drop over time.”

Good Meat said a few more steps need to be made before that prices will drop.

The spokesperson said their lab was focused on improving the process to increase cell density, design larger-scale containers to grow meat, and creating more affordable and efficient nutrients to feed the cells.

Risner told Townhall that the lab meat industry would benefit from the creation of a supply chain for amino acids that could expand current manufacturing volumes.

“It will take a significant amount of time to reach mass commercial production,” the spokesperson continued.

Once cell-cultured meat hits mass production, Good Meat believes that sales will pick up as the public becomes more aware of the product.

The spokesperson said that the dishes sold in Singapore have already received universally high marks from diners, after gaining regulatory approval in the island nation in late 2020.

Via The Politics Brief,

During a transcribed interview with the House Judiciary Committee, an FBI official revealed that at least one senior agent, along with potentially others, who had alerted social media companies about a potential “hack and dump” operation before the 2020 election, were aware of the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

As the House Judiciary Committee’s official Twitter account noted, “Testimony reveals the FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, but when asked by a social media company about the laptop’s authenticity the FBI said ‘no further comment’.”

The FBI official, Laura Dehmlow, participated in discussions between the FBI and Facebook prior to the social media platform’s decision to censor the story related to Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election. Furthermore, The Intercept has indicated that Dehmlow was also involved in the Biden administration’s endeavors to suppress and censor content on social media platforms in relation to misinformation.

Massive. The perpetrators of this gigantic fraud must be investigated, prosecuted, and brought to justice.https://t.co/6ca4EO8TpP

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 20, 2023

 Dehmlow, the head of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), acknowledged that her former colleague Brad Benavides was certainly aware of the laptop’s legitimacy, as per excerpts of her testimony.

When asked by the committee about other individuals within FITF who knew about the laptop, Dehmlow replied that she did not have exact information, but she presumed that Brad Benavides, then-FITF Section Chief, was aware.

“Do you know who else at FITF knew that the laptop was real?” the committee asked, according to the transcript.

“I don’t actually. I would assume both my – yes, I would certainly say that [then-FITF Section Chief] Brad Benavides was aware,” Dehmlow replied.

“What about the individuals on the Russia unit?” the committee asked.

“I would assume the [Russia] unit chief was also aware. I’m pretty certain of that fact,” Dehmlow replied.

Dehmlow was accompanied by an attorney with the Department of Justice during the interview. The transcript excerpts note that the attorney jumped in to clarify if Dehmlow knew with “certainty” or if she was merely “making deductions.”

“I’m pretty certain they were aware,” Dehmlow said.

These transcript excerpts were included in a letter from Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to FBI Director Christopher Wray. In his letter, Jordan requested names and records related to those within the bureau who were aware of the laptop’s existence and had been communicating with social media companies before the 2020 presidential election.

The laptop gained significant attention when the New York Post published a story on October 14, 2020, revealing details about then-candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings based on the laptop’s contents. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook limited the story’s reach to their vast user bases.

Simultaneously, behind the scenes, FITF and other federal government entities were engaging in routine meetings with social media companies, repeatedly cautioning them about a potential “hack and dump” operation. This information was highlighted in a recent court ruling from Louisiana, which addressed government censorship.

According to Jordan’s letter, after the FBI had convinced social media companies that the laptop was connected to a hack-and-dump operation, the bureau ceased sharing information, leading the companies to conclude that the New York Post’s story was part of Russian disinformation.

Dehmlow further stated during her testimony that she recollected a meeting or hearing about a meeting in which someone from Twitter asked about the laptop’s authenticity. One of the FBI participants on the call confirmed that it was indeed genuine before another participant interjected with “no further comment.”

Dehmlow’s testimony supports the claims made by IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapely, who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in May. Shapely revealed that the FBI had become aware of the laptop’s existence in October 2019, stating, “The FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.”

New York City will ‘immediately’ begin discouraging asylum seekers from seeking refuge in the self-proclaimed sanctuary city, warning migrants coming from the southern border that there’s “no guarantee” they’ll receive shelter or services, Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.

“We have no more room in the city,” Adams said during a news conference at City Hall, in what the NY Times describes as a “somewhat unexpected departure from its long-held status as a sanctuary city, and as a place that guarantees a right to shelter.”

As part of the city’s shift in strategy, it will now require single adult migrants to reapply for shelter after 60 days, a move that the mayor said was designed to make room for families with children. Mr. Adams said the city would intensify efforts to help the migrants connect with family, friends or outside networks in order to find alternative housing arrangements.

If alternative housing arrangements are not available, single adult asylum seekers will have to return to the intake center and reapply for housing. It is unclear what would happen if there is not housing available at the intake centers. -NY Times

Pro-migrant activists aren’t happy.

“I have worked with thousands of people over the years whose lives were saved because of the right to shelter,” said Craig Hughes, a social worker with Mobilization for Justice, a nonprofit legal services group, in a statement to the Times. “The idea that there’s some imaginary place that people are going to go off to besides city streets is just false.”

NYC has seen an influx of more than 90,000 migrants since the spring of 2022, of which close to 55,000 are still under the care of the city. When combined with the city’s homeless population, New York is caring for a record 105,800 people across more than 188 sites, including 18 humanitarian relief centers.

Between July 10-16, there were 2,800 migrants who entered the city, according to the deputy mayor for health and human services, Anne Williams-Isom.

“Our compassion is infinite,” said a senior VP at NYC Health, Dr. Ted Long, adding “our space is not.”

The city has distributed flyers warning migrants there’s ‘no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services.’

“Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the U.S.,” the flier concludes.

Unfortunately for New York, the city remains under a decades-old court order requiring it to provide shelter to anyone who needs a bed.

City comptroller Brad Lander said the announcement undermines the city’s right to shelter, and “the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”

Housing advocates have called on NYC officials to make room in the shelter system by moving homeless people to permanent housing.

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

One of the most basic lessons that we teach law students is that you should “never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.”

The peril of the poorly crafted question was on display in Wednesday’s hearing with two whistleblowers on political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation.

Most Democrats avoided any questions on the substance of the allegations, focusing instead on everything from systemic racism to the use of the term “two-tiered system of justice” and, of course, Donald Trump.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) often goes where wiser members fear to tread. On this occasion, Goldman may have delivered one of the most damaging moments for the Democrats.

In the course of just a few minutes, the freshman New York congressman seemed to demolish the defense of President Biden.

Goldman was trying to get the witnesses to say that there is no evidence that President Biden was personally involved in the alleged felonies of his son.

He raised the shocking WhatsApp message that Hunter had allegedly sent to a Chinese official with foreign intelligence contacts. In the message, Hunter wrote:

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Most Democrats have avoided the message, which is incredibly damaging and seems to contradict the President’s long denial of any knowledge or involvement in his son’s dealings.

Goldman pressed veteran IRS investigator Gary Shapley about his suggestion that Joe Biden discussed the foreign dealing with his son. Shapley eagerly said that he would be happy to explain but Goldman cut him off and said that he did not have time for such explanations.

At this point, most lawyers would have reversed engines out of troubled waters, but Goldman plowed full speed ahead.  He said that the references to Joe sitting next to his son does not mean that they actually discussed his business.

Goldman then went even further and raised a “lunch where Joe Biden came to say hello at the Four Season’s hotel to a lunch that he was having with CEFC executives.” He then reads from the record in how Biden associate Rob Walker described the origins of the meeting with the Chinese officials to get his dad to stop by: “Hunter told his Dad that ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys.’ “

Goldman then pounced and said slyly “Now let me ask you something, that doesn’t sound much like Joe Biden was involved in whatever Hunter was doing with the CEFC if Hunter Biden is telling him that he is trying to do business with them, does it?”

That is when Shapley stated the obvious: “No, but it does show that he told his father that he was trying to do business and . . . ”

Goldman finally hears the train whistle and tries to get off the track: “OK, well that is true that Hunter Biden does try to do business, that is correct.”

Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman accidentally confirms Joe Biden did, in fact, discuss Hunter’s foreign business deals with him pic.twitter.com/rTtKHl7EBN

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 19, 2023

Too late. Goldman was citing the testimony of Walker that Joe Biden not only came to a lunch on Hunter’s foreign dealings, but did so after being told that Hunter wanted to lay the foundation for such a deal.

This is the same Joe Biden who has repeatedly told the American people that he never discussed any of Hunter’s deals and had no knowledge of such deals. He has maintained that denial as evidence has mounted contradicting him. Even when he flew his son to China where Hunter cut lucrative deals, he insists that they never mentioned that deal.

There are also repeated references to President Biden as the “Big Guy” in emails who was to receive a 10 percent cut on a deal with the Chinese as well as other benefits. There are other references to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes.

People apparently were told to avoid directly referring to President Biden. In one email, Hunter’s business associate Tony Bobulinski was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.” Bobulinski gave testimony that he met with Joe Biden and discussed these deals with him.

There are also the disclosures that Biden met with at least 14 of Hunter’s business associates from the US, Mexico, Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan over the course of his vice presidency.

Then there is the audiotape message from President Biden for Hunter that specifically discussed coverage of those dealings.

Finally, there is another audiotape of his uncle, Jim Biden, telling Hunter that he and his father had discussed his collapsing financial position and could arrange a “safe harbor.”

The culmination of this evidence was Goldman matter-of-factly eliciting testimony on how Joe Biden came to a lunch with Chinese businessmen after being expressly told it was meant to cut new business deals with them. His son was even thinking of creating a corporation with the Chinese despite a glaring lack of expertise for such a venture.

The meeting was previously described by witnesses and discussed by these whistleblowers, but Goldman brought it all together at the end of the hearing.

Unfortunately, that is when Goldman’s time ran out.

A few more minutes and we might have had an open-and-shut case for the appointment of a special counsel.

As Bruce WIlds noted earlier in the week, The Fed has stated that FedNow is not intended to kill or replace other money transfer options like Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, or Zelle. Instead, it is designed to work alongside the current systems built by the private sector. Still. FedNow could rapidly become a game changer. Money.com notes this FedNow is launching soon. FedNow was scheduled to begin formal certification of participants of the program in April 2023, with a formal launch planned for July 2023. It will operate on a 24-hour, 365-days-a-year basis,

This new system differs from consumer-facing apps which allow instant peer-to-peer payments, FedNow won’t be an app per se. It’s more designed to allow banks to move money instantly. More than 50 financial institutions are “early adopters” of FedNow, some of the notable banks that will use FedNow include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Peoples Bank. 

FedNow will only be available to customers of the banks that choose to implement FedNow. The Fed says all 10,000 or so banks that are regulated by the Fed can join but will not be required to do so. The claim is that, for everyday people, FedNow could make managing money much easier and faster. It would allow you to pay your mortgage bill on Christmas Day without worrying about it being delayed or late because of the holiday.

This also means that transferring money between, say, your checking and savings accounts at different banks could be done instantly. Even gig workers like Uber drivers could get paid immediately after each completed ride. It also means a record of every transaction that occurs will be put on “record.” In short “big-brother” will know everything you do, your preferences, and how you live your life. To many of us, this amounts to an invasion of privacy. 

And now, as The Fed prepares to unleash their new service, they seen to reassure the public.

As Arjit Sarkar reports at CoinTelegraph.com, The US Federal Reserve clarified that its new service for instant payments between organizations — the FedNow Service — has no relation with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The Fed certified the FedNow Service as “ready” after it onboarded 41 financial institutions, 15 service providers and the U.S. Department of the Treasury to test the system before its launch by the end of July 2023. However, the central bank had to clarify that the promise of instant fiat payments and real-time gross settlement (RTGS) is not powered by a CBDC.

#FedFAQ: Is the FedNow Service replacing cash? Is it a central bank digital currency?

Learn more about the #FedNow Service:https://t.co/ACBjfEhR4A https://t.co/IXF8dyy46S pic.twitter.com/7CUaYZYyM9

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) July 19, 2023

In a tweet, the Fed stated that FedNow Service is similar to other payment services, such as Fedwire and FedACH, which work within the boundaries of the fiat ecosystem. It said:

“The FedNow Service is not related to a digital currency. The FedNow Service is a payment service the Federal Reserve is making available for banks and credit unions to transfer funds for their customers.”

The Federal Reserve further confirmed that it has not yet decided on issuing the highly anticipated CBDC and “would only proceed with the issuance of a CBDC with an authorizing law.”

The table above highlights the initial list of participants. However, the Federal Reserve plans to onboard all 10,000 U.S. financial institutions in time to come.

On May 11, the Fed announced the integration of Metal Blockchain into the FedNow Service.

Metal Blockchain’s listing in the FedNow Service provider showcase. Source: FedNow

Metal Blockchain is a crypto network developed by Metallicus based on a fork of Avalanche’s code. According to its documents, the network features a subnet called X-Chain that allows developers to enact rules for transferring assets. For example, a token can be issued with the rule that it “can only be sent to US citizens” or “can’t be traded until tomorrow.”

We give the last word back to Bruce Wilds, who argues that FedNow is another step towards more control over the individual. Twenty minutes into this video by Coin Bureau the narrator takes the stand that FedNow truly seems to be a Trojan Horse to usher in a CBDC system.

It points out that while not everyone will choose to “opt-in” and adopt such a system, it will appear benign to most people and rapidly be accepted. Even those that resist will find the government will most likely force them to use it when dealing with official agencies.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A top Biden administration official behind the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed regulatory crackdown on gas stoves while encouraging the adoption of their electric counterparts admitted in Congressional testimony Tuesday that she doesn’t know basic facts about installing electric stoves in homes.

Geraldine Richmond, the Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science and Innovation, on Tuesday testified before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs during a hearing called “Cancelling Consumer Choice: Examining the Biden Administration’s Regulatory Assault on Americans’ Home Appliances.”

During the hearing, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) addressed Ms. Richmond in the context of a DOE notice of proposed federal rulemaking unveiled in February that would allow the agency to set new efficiency and conservation standards for home appliances, including gas stoves.

The proposed rule (pdf), which is meant to reduce emissions from household appliances, would impact at least half of new gas stove models sold in the United States and make most of the existing ones on the market non-compliant, according to Republicans on the Subcommittee.

‘Not a Ban’?

During the hearing, Mr. Perry disputed Democrat claims that the DOE rule shouldn’t be referred to as a gas stove ban.

“I don’t know what kind of gas stove you have in your house…and to the gentlelady on the other side of the aisle, she says it’s not a ban [but] according to my figures, 4 percent of current gas stovetops available on the market today meet the rule, which means that 96 percent of them don’t,” Mr. Perry said.

The Republican lawmaker then said that many people on lower incomes wouldn’t be able to afford a new gas stove compliant with the new rules, and so would opt for an electric stove but pointed out that installing one could be costly.

“If you’re not making a lot of money, you can’t afford the expensive one that probably will meet it, so you’ve got to try and buy the other one,” he said, joking that he’s glad the DOE is getting people to save money by “forcing them to spend a bunch of money.”

Mr. Perry continued by saying, “if you have gas stove in your home right now, there’s a gas line coming to it and probably a 110 [electrical] connection.”

“Do you know what it takes to put an electric stove in your home? Do you have any idea?” he then asked.

“No, I don’t, but…” Ms. Richmond replied, and before she could elaborate, Mr. Perry cut her off.

“Here, I do! You got to run a 220 line. Which means you’re going to probably have to get an electrician because unless you know how to do that yourself, you’re playing with potentially losing your life and electrocuting yourself.

“You’re going to have to hire someone to come in and drill holes in your floor and pull wire to the panel and hook that whole thing up,” he added before asking whether Ms. Richmond had included installation costs for a new electrical line for an electric stove in the DOE’s estimated efficiency savings.

Mr. Perry added that such installation costs would be especially burdensome “for poor people, who are just happy to have a gas stove.”

Ms. Richmond replied by saying that the administration isn’t looking to force anyone to replace their existing stove with an electric one, prompting Mr. Perry to argue that when a person’s existing stove breaks down, they would be forced to buy a more expensive one that complies with the new rules.

“We’re strongly in favor of consumer choice,” Ms. Richmond began to say, with Mr. Perry interjecting: “Apparently not!”

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