Authored by J.M.Phelps via The Epoch Times,

Military service members have been increasingly exposed to a “hyper-politicized and sexualized work environment,” according to a former lieutenant colonel, who says the resulting divisiveness is weakening the U.S. Armed Forces.

The Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies have drawn increased and intense scrutiny in recent years, especially from conservatives, who dubb these moves as part of the “woke” agenda.

Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations, said that “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” introduced by state legislatures are affecting hiring decisions. At a recent Pentagon pride event, she said, “Transformational cultural change requires leadership from the top, and we do not have time to wait. Since January of this year, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been introduced at the state level.”

“That number is rising and demonstrates a trend that could be dangerous for service members, their families, and the readiness of the force as a whole,” she added.

The Epoch Times spoke to former Space Force officer, Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, who in 2021 was removed from his command for expressing opposition to Marxist-rooted critical race theory (CRT). According to him, there is no place for this kind of advocacy from Burt in the U.S. military.

“Americans should know that when someone signs up to wear the uniform of their country, they’re trained early on to leave political baggage at the door and to be rather apolitical while acting in an official capacity.”

Service members often avoid discussing political topics, because as Lohmeier pointed out, “there is something that supersedes those topics for men and women in uniform—and that’s a particular mission in support of national security.”

“One can make arguments that the military became more political during the Clinton, or during the Obama administration,” he said. “But something radically, fundamentally shifted under the current administration with Lloyd Austin in the seat as secretary of defense.”

Matthew Lohmeier. (Courtesy of Lohmeier)

Cultural Dialogue

Lohmeier said, “At the forefront of the cultural dialogue in the military is what has been driven by policy.” Under then-President Donald Trump, in September 2020, federal agencies were banned from conducting diversity and inclusion training in an effort to combat race and sex stereotyping. Such training was referred to in the executive order as “divisive, anti-American propaganda” funded by taxpayers.

When President Joe Biden came into office in January 2021, he rescinded Trump’s order and issued several executive orders promoting DEI in the federal government.

“While the military has always been, by and large, a reflection of broader American society,” Lohmeier said, “there is something very different going on right now in this current administration.”

“Left-wing activists have essentially been given a bully pulpit,” and according to Lohmeier, “it is politically agitating.” Whether it’s the push for CRT, DEI, the LGBT agenda, or trans activism, he said it is “divisive in nature because not everyone aligns with or agrees with those agendas, and instead view them as a distraction from what our military’s priorities ought to be.”

But equally concerning to him is that “these agendas strike at the values of the military and its role in defending the Constitution.” As most service members attempt to remain apolitical, Lohmeier said, “they are finding themselves in a hyper-politicized and sexualized work environment at the moment.” And if they oppose the environment, “they are labeled as politically partisan and simply ‘part of the problem’ and are ostracized for it.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during the 155th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on May 29, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Drag Controversy

An active-duty Air Force officer reached out to Lohmeier in May, sharing an advertisement for an upcoming “family-friendly” drag show event to kick off Pride Month. The event was scheduled for June 1 at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. “The drag show was to be hosted on base at the officer’s club and was sponsored by and funded by the base—which means your taxpayer dollars,” he said.

Lohmeier’s source said his family was concerned about the event and they were not alone. “There were other families on base concerned about the event. Even though attendance at the event wasn’t compulsory, flyers were being posted around base and parents were distressed about their children being subjected to the content of those flyers,”Lohmeier said.

Thus, an effort to stop the event began. “I sent information about the event with the promotional flyer to members of Congress, [and] I tweeted about it,” he said. “A few members of Congress, in particular, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) took swift action.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) looks on during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the defense budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 29, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Gaetz sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, “demanding answers as to why these things are still taking place on DOD installations, because [on March 29], the Secretary of Defense in a hearing before Congress said that the Defense Department is not using taxpayer dollars to fund drag shows.” But to the contrary, Gaetz provided evidence of DOD-affiliated drag queen events.

For Lohmeier, the secretary was “either ignorant or being disingenuous,” but he is thankful a policy memorandum was issued in early June to end drag shows at Department of Defense installations around the world.

On June 21, House Armed Services Committee Republicans adopted provisions in the annual defense spending bill to eliminate the chief diversity officer at the Pentagon, end funding for DEI programs, as well as other measures targeting “woke” policies.

Lessons Learned

Lohmeier said there are lessons to be learned through this example of opposition to drag queen events at Pentagon facilities.

“While there are thousands concerned about drag queen shows and story hours, it only took one person to send a request for help and it made all the difference,” he said. “Men and women in uniform need to learn that it’s not off limits to speak up and voice your concern, because you could make changes in policy when you do so.”

There are still thousands of service members who love their country, Lohmeier said. “They take pride in the country and the greatness of the American ideal, and they are willing to fight for and defend that ideal,” he said.

“The best men and women in uniform defend the Constitution for every American, but they need not bow to the political agenda of a select few.” And as various left-wing movements grow, he said, “We need decent people with traditional American values serving in the police force, in the schools, and in the military to shield us from illegal, unethical, or immoral policies that often stem from political and sexual activism run amok.”

“The LBTGQ+ agenda is every bit as divisive for our military as the Marxist-rooted CRT,” Lohmeier said. “It’s every bit as divisive as the diversity and inclusion training that need to be eliminated.”

“If we are going to be strong, if we are going to be ready, if we are going to be lethal,” Lohmeier said, “it will be because of unity.” For him, “the strength of the military is in its unity, not in its diversity.”

The Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense did not return requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

Jesse Watters will replace Tucker Carlson for the 8pm slot, Fox News announced on Monday.

Watters, who started out doing ‘man on the street’ segments on Bill O’Reilly’s 8PM program, will now helm that same time slot, according to a press release.

Taking over Watters’ 7PM slot will be Laura Ingraham, while Greg Gutfeld will move his show to the 10PM time slot. Sean Hannity will remain in his 9pm time slot.

“Fox News Channel has been America’s destination for news and analysis for more than 21 years and we are thrilled to debut a new lineup,” said CEO Suzanne Scott in a statement. “The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come.”

Fox announced in late April it was parting ways with Carlson just days after the outlet announced it was also parting ways with Dan Bongino. Carlson has since started hosting his own show on Twitter, prompting a public legal battle between Fox News and the Daily Caller co-founder. -Daily Caller

Carlson was slapped with a “cease and desist” order in mid-June for allegedly breaching his contract’s non-compete clause with his new Twitter show.

The former Fox host’s combined total for his first two shows was 169 million views, with the first episode cracking over 100 million in two days.

By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

Logistics real estate operator Prologis announced Monday it entered into an all-cash agreement to acquire a $3.1 billion portfolio of warehouses and distribution properties from Blackstone, a sign that industrial space remains – along with rental  housing – the strongest property type in the shaky commercial property sector.

The acquisition includes nearly 14 million square feet of space from various real estate funds held by Blackstone. The deal allows Prologis to expand its presence in key markets like Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, New York/New Jersey and Phoenix. Sites in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and South Florida are also included. Prologis will add 77 new customers and expand its relationships with 50 existing clients through the transaction.

The company plans to retain all of the properties acquired. Prologis, a REIT, is the world’s largest industrial property company with 1.2 billion square feet in 19 countries. Last year it acquired competitor Duke Realty in a $26 billion all-stock transaction, the largest commercial property deal since the pandemic began.

“These high-quality properties are complementary to our portfolio and fit perfectly into our long-term strategic plan for growth,” said Dan Letter, Prologis’ president. “The acquisition demonstrates our unique ability to add significant scale to our portfolio — expanding customer relationships and increasing opportunities for our growing Essentials platform.”

The deal price represents a 4% cap rate (net operating income divided by market value of property) in year one and a 5.75% cap rate when adjusting the leases in the portfolio to current market rents.

Prologis and Blackstone have engaged in more than a dozen transactions with each other over the last 11 years, a news release stated.  

“Where you invest matters, and this transaction demonstrates the exceptional demand for high-quality warehouses,” said Nadeem Meghji, head of Blackstone Real Estate Americas. “With near record low vacancy, logistics remains a high conviction theme for us; we are proud owners of $100 billion of warehouses in North America and $175 billion in total around the world.”

Investment giant Blackstone is also a major investor in industrial real estate, with a global portfolio valued at $175 billion, and is continuing to buy warehouses and distribution centers. The assets it is selling to Prologis are held by Blackstone’s opportunistic funds, which typically sell properties after holding them long enough to see an increase in values.

Prior to this transaction, Prologis owned 1.2 billion square feet of logistics space across 19 countries.

While most commercial property types have been hurt by higher interest rates, which have greatly increased borrowing costs for developers and investors, industrial space has weathered the storm better than other property types such as office, which has gotten pounded by the increase of remote work in the pandemic era.

As the WSJ notes, demand for industrial space has remained strong thanks to the economic growth and the boom in online retail, which has required an overhaul of the supply chain. Nearly 60% of the portfolio being acquired from Blackstone by Prologis are properties in cities or close to consumers, which are prized by e-commerce tenants wanting to deliver packages to consumers within a few days.

While Amazon continues to dominate the e-commerce business, demand for industrial space also is increasing from numerous other online retailers. “We had 40 unique e-commerce users last quarter alone with Amazon actually being a small slice of that,” said Dan Letter, Prologis president, on an earnings call earlier this year.

Prologis has grown both by developing new properties and through acquisitions. Lately, the company has been focusing more on acquisitions because of rising construction costs and challenges in getting development approvals from local governments.

Prologis’ increasing size has enabled it to invest in a range of environmentally friendly businesses. The company is adding electronic-vehicle charging stations at some of its properties and putting solar energy panels on the sprawling rooftops of its warehouses and distribution centers.

Industrial property held by industrial property companies saw “solid market rent growth” in the first quarter, according to a May report on the sector by real-estate analytics firm Green Street. But the report noted that demand for industrial property might decline because retailer inventory levels rose during the first quarter and “retailers are expected to adopt a cautious approach toward inventory management for the remainder of the year.”

The formula for box office success these days seems rather simple – Produce a solid story with relatable and likable characters, and tell that story in a setting that makes sense with as few distractions and tangents as possible.  In other words, make a normal movie without the intent to manipulate your audience with propaganda.  

Most movies that follow this basic formula will rake in the cash.  Any movie that insists on browbeating the audience will bomb; get woke, go broke.  The problem is that Hollywood elitists just can’t help themselves.  They think they’re smarter than the audience and smarter than the box office, and they would rather lose their entire business and fade into obscurity than admit the truth:  The market dictates the success or failure of popular media, the media does not dictate the market.  

To be fair, the media culture we live in today is far different from what it was even 10 years ago.  The entertainment industry is no longer interested in keeping he public happy or distracted, they’re only interested in “platforms.”  They see every movie and every popular franchise as a vehicle to deliver their gospel, the gospel of woke.  It is likely that they believe if they saturate the market long enough and thoroughly enough with their messaging that one day the public will just give up and accept woke as the new normal.

This isn’t happening.  There’s been a flurry of film flops in the past year which have made it obvious that Hollywood is imploding instead of gaining influence.

Disney is probably the best place to start as a window into woke failure, because the company strategically targets children with far-left concepts from feminism to gay and trans ideology.  The company was on a downward spiral well before they tried to go to war with the state of Florida, declaring that they would do everything in their power to overturn anti-child grooming laws.  But that little incident didn’t help, either.

Disney’s slate of failed films over the past year has included:

• Turning Red, a metaphorical animated film exploring female puberty and menstruation.  The movie lost  $168 million.  

• Lightyear, which featured a lesbian relationship and was released right after their fight with Florida.  Disney was also accused of removing Tim Allen as the voice actor for the popular Buzz Lightyear character because of his conservative leanings.  The movie lost at least $106 million.

• Strange World, another animated children’s film featuring thinly veiled climate change propaganda as well as a prominent LGBT relationship involving teen boys.  One of the biggest flops in Disney history with a loss of $197 million.

• Peter Pan And Wendy, a live action adaptation of the classic, was offloaded quickly to Disney’s streaming service and received dismal audience reviews.  The movie boasted a race swapped Peter Pan, race swapped Tinkerbell,  gender swapped “lost boys,” and a Mary Sue-like Wendy that battles 200 pound pirates with her sword fighting skills.

• The Little Mermaid, a live action adaptation, race swapped the classic Dutch fairy tale character and changed the message of the story from a mermaid seeking the love of a prince to “she don’t need no man to save her.”  The movie lost at least $20 million.

• Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, a film which attempts to undermine and deconstruct its title character and replace him with an anti-capitalist feminist activist, has been met with thumbs down from audiences along with general disdain.  It is expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for Disney due to its massive budget.  

• Elemental, a ham-fisted commentary about racism with Disney’s first animated “non-binary” character, is crashing at theaters and is expected to lose tens of millions of dollars.  The movie also had the 2nd worst box office debut in Pixar history, a company that was once seen as a sure thing.  

Disney isn’t the only leftist media company in the gutter these days, it’s merely the most notorious.  Multiple woke movie calamities have struck in the past year from the horrendous ‘Bros,’ to the vapid ‘Fauci’ documentary, to AOC’s climate change documentary which went down in flames, to Amazon’s attempt to hijack Lord of the Rings with their woke ‘Rings Of Power’ series.  The list goes on and on, with production losses in the billions for 2022-2023.           

What Hollywood doesn’t seem to realize is that audiences have options and nothing is going to force people to consume leftist ideology as a recreational product; they greatly overestimated their influence.  They might as well get rid of the box office altogether and come out of the closet as the defacto propaganda wing for governments and globalists.  Then they can abandon the facade and start making their own woke versions of ‘Triumph Of The Will.’

In the meantime, it appears that the game is over.  Western consumers are beginning to realize the scale of their boycotting power and they are using it aggressively this year.  And though woke companies are doubling down and insisting that social justice, feminism and trans cultism are the wave of the future, the reality is that (for now) propaganda cannot be made without profits.  The money is running out.

Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

“Delegates at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates adopted [a] policy aimed at clarifying how body mass index (BMI) can be used as a measure in medicine,” the group announced.

Apparently, a council within the AMA researched the “problematic history with BMI” and subsequently issued a report detailing a new policy on how BMI should and shouldn’t be applied.

The report “Outlined the harms and benefits of using BMI” and characterized BMI as “an imperfect way to measure body fat in multiple groups given that it does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders, and age-span.”

The report’s findings, of course, support the new policy—and the AMA’s desire to educate physicians “on the issues with BMI and alternative measures for diagnosing obesity.”

The organization released a statement reading:

Under the newly adopted policy, the AMA recognizes issues with using BMI as a measurement due to its historical harm, its use for racist exclusion, and because BMI is based primarily on data collected from previous generations of non-Hispanic white populations.

Due to significant limitations associated with the widespread use of BMI in clinical settings, the AMA suggests that it be used in conjunction with other valid measures of risk such as, but not limited to, measurements of visceral fat, body adiposity index, body composition, relative fat mass, waist circumference and genetic/metabolic factors.

(Will the AMA soon consider, say, blood pressure guidelines “problematic” or “racist,” too?)

AMA immediate past President Jack Resneck noted:

“There are numerous concerns with the way BMI has been used to measure body fat and diagnose obesity, yet some physicians find it to be a helpful measure in certain scenarios.”

(“Immediate Past President?” What the hell is that? Can we make Joe Biden one?)

A few medical professionals have previously called BMI “racist” and linked it to “body terrorism.”

In 2021, for example, University of Louisville medical students were subjected to a seminar on “the impact of body terrorism on fat LGBTQ+ people.”

“Terrorism” isn’t what it used to be. It is dramatically more inclusive. (Yay!) Today, anyone who entertains any notion– or incontrovertible fact—that in any way deviates from leftist dogma…is branded a “terrorist.”

As we all know, the use of BMI disproportionately affects the BIPOC and LGBTQIIA+ communities, because, well, everything does.

Somehow.

Acid rain, monkeypox, COVID-19, inflation, Lyme Disease, droughts, floods, tornadoes, supply chain issues, painful rectal itch, cedar apple rust, E.D., poor air quality, stock market fluctuations—and every other conceivable (and inconceivable) measurement, standard, affliction, and malady– boldly and doggedly target these communities for no reason other than sheer hatred and bigotry.

A reasonable and logical conclusion, no?

John Kerry, who is Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, came up against rare pushback when he tried to issue the usual invective and talking points on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s aggression while speaking on French television in Paris. 

But a French TV anchor wasn’t having it, and confronted Kerry over US hypocrisy, given Washington has mounted multiple invasions of sovereign countries in recent decades, especially since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Well-known French journalist Darius Rochebin during the Sunday night interview on news channel LCI posed the following: “We have to judge Putin for crimes of aggression, of course. But you, the Americans, you committed the crime of aggression in Iraq.” Rochebin then asked Kerry: “These countries of the Global South say, should we judge George Bush? Why isn’t Bush judged in the same way?”

So this French tv host asks John Kerry if there isn’t a double standards between the US’s position on Putin for his “war of aggression” and the fact they don’t think those standards apply to Bush for Iraq.

John Kerry, embarrassed,replies Iraq wasn’t a war of aggression.
🥴🥴🥴 pic.twitter.com/0f9o0g3SIc

— Richard (@ricwe123) June 26, 2023

Kerry simply tried to reject the comparison, without explanation, shooting back “no”. Rochebin quickly interjected, “Why?”

“Because there’s never even been a direct process or accusation or anything with respect to President Bush himself,” Kerry deflected. “Have there been abuses in the course of that war, yes.”

Rochebin didn’t let go after this nonsensical attempt to appeal to a legal “process” and mere “abuses” (in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians). The journalist pressed: “Was it not a crime of aggression to enter into Iraq on the basis of a lie?”

“No, no, no,” Kerry said. “Well, we didn’t know it was a lie at the time. You know the evidence that was produced, people didn’t know that it was a lie. So no, again, I think, you’re stretching something. That’s not a constructive way —”

“But he lied,” Rochebin said of Bush. “He lied. He lied.”

A flustered Kerry, who had also served as Secretary of State under the Obama administration, then said, “Sir, I’m not going to re-debate the Iraq war with you here right now. We spent a lot of time doing that previously. I was opposed to going in, I thought it was the wrong thing to do. But we gave the president the power, regrettably, in the Congress, based on the lie. And when we knew it was a lie, people stood up and did the right thing.”

This is hilarious:

John Kerry is on a tour flamboyantly depicting Russia as a rouge state for invading a sovereign country, only for French journalist @DariusRochebin to remind him the US has invaded multiple countries, and Kerry himself voted to authorize the Iraq War. Watch: https://t.co/i90JH3KAyO

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 26, 2023

Rochebin came back with: “I get that. But you understand that for the countries of the South, of course, justice, equality, principles, it’s their impression that there is a double standard. And that weighs today, including on the debate of the climate,” Rochebin said.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald later observed of the interview, in which a humiliated Kerry was clearly unprepared to be challenged and called out so directly, “The complete lack of self-awareness on the part of the US establishment sometimes shocks me, despite the contempt I harbor for them.”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Until we reach that point of social transformation, we’re passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of moral standards and the rule of law.

Political corruption isn’t hard to define: confidentially leveraging the power of one’s position in the State for private gain. This covers the spectrum of using State power for personal gain from freebies, bribes, sweetheart deals, obtaining insider information, revolving doors between private sector and state positions, influence-peddling, selling tax breaks, subsidies, permits, etc., bloated speaking fees and so on, in a nearly limitless profusion of private financial gains generated solely by one’s position of power within the State–the legislative and regulatory government, central bank, military and judiciary–gains that are cloaked from public disclosure and scrutiny.

One example is employees in building-planning departments taking bribes from applicants to bypass lengthy permit reviews. Money changes hands privately to gain some state-issued benefit.

Public trust in institutions, the rule of law and basic fairness are all undermined by corruption. This is why even the hint of impropriety must be promptly investigated and the results made public.

But there is more to corruption than just investigating improprieties. The larger questions are:

1. Is corruption a rare occurrence or has it become business as usual, i.e. endemic, embedded, taken for granted as “the way things work”?

2. Is there any sense of sincere shame or wrong-doing when those reaping private gains from their positions in the State are publicly exposed? Or do the guilty disclaim any notions of sin or shame for betraying the Public Trust?

3. Are there two completely different Standards of Justice, Criminality and Punishment, one applied ferociously to the general public and another applied with the lightest of feathers to insiders, financial elites and the politically influential?

I submit that all three conditions are true: corruption is now BAU, business as usual; there is no sense of shame or wrongdoing when the corrupt are exposed, and there are two judicial standards, one for the bottom 99.9% and another for insiders, the well-connected, the influential, the politically protected and the super-wealthy, what I call America’s Aristocracy or Royalty.

Consider the cover-ups and obstruction of justice swirling around the family of POTUS the President of the United States: “Blatant Political Corruption”: The Rot In America’s Democracy Explained In Under 1000 Words.

In a nation that regarded the Public Trust as sacred, even the hint of impropriety at this level of government would have sparked an immediate and thorough-going investigation, and calls for resignation and indictment.

Instead, nothing happens except the BAU of Corruption: the usual cover-ups, wrist-slaps for lesser violations, zero admission of guilt, zero display of shame, zero punishment.

Despite a flood of partisan weeping and gnashing of teeth, SCOTUS is equally without shame. That the highest levels of the judiciary are blind to the impropriety of accepting gifts from super-wealthy “friends” whose interests extend deep into the dockets of the Supreme Court is evidence of just how low the sanctity of the Public Trust has sunk.

Then there’s SCROTUS: the Supremely Corrupt Royalty of the United States, the corporate bigshots, the lobbyists, the billionaires, the politically influential, the financially connected, and all the elites that are protected from consequence and therefore untouchable.

Consider the thousands of corporate fines imposed for fraud and other crimes: Corporate Settlements/Fines from the early 1990s to the present, compiled by Jon Morse. All wrist-slaps, as no corporate leaders served any prison time. The fines are just a cost of doing business for Corporate America’s Royalty.

I’ve addressed the systemic rot of corruption in America for years: 

No Wrongdoing Here, Just 6,300 Corporate Fines and Settlements (May 2015)

Corruption Is Now Our Way of Life (October 5, 2020)

The corruption of the rule of law and the resulting decay of the Public Trust are not partisan issues. America’s wealthy and powerful enrich themselves in a sandbox of corruption, regardless of their affiliations.

I’ve often referenced historian Peter Turchin’s work. His latest book, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, outlines the dynamics that are dismantling America’s future. Chief among these is the primary consequence of systemic corruption, soaring wealth-income inequality. Hope in “End Times”: Peter Turchin’s analysis of our coming collapse could help us avoid it:

For all its breadth and depth, there’s a simple message at the core of “End Times”: At the heart of our problems, Turchin writes, is “a perverse ‘wealth pump’ … taking from the poor and giving to the rich,” and we have to find a way to turn it off.

The core of corruption is the maximization of private gain over serving the Common Good and Public Interest. When power is sought primarily for private gain, the social fabric decays and unravels.

Critic and author Christopher Lasch described the decay of the social order when shame has vanished. In today’s America, there is no sense of sin, guilt, shame or atonement. Any level of corruption is tolerated and excused, most perversely, “for the good of the country.”

Lasch’s last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1996) lays bare the moral and political corruption of America’s elites. The decades since have confirmed his analysis.

My own modest contribution to the topic, Global Crisis, National Renewal focuses on the need for a social revolution that radically transforms what is financially and politically acceptable to the populace. A tipping point must be reached where systemic corruption and its result, destabilizing inequality, are no longer acceptable.

Until we reach that point of social transformation, we’re passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of the Public Trust, moral standards and the rule of law.

What’s blatantly wrong is dismissed as normal. This encapsulates America’s collapse.

*  *  *

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A quiet start to the last week of the month/quarter with bonds and the dollar down a bit, gold up a smidge, and all the volume in a rotation from growth to value (for a change) in equity-land.

Source: Bloomberg

A weaker than expected Dallas Fed survey confirmed manufacturing is still f**ked in ‘Murica as Independence Day looms, but on the day long-duration stocks (tech) significantly underperformed Small Caps (value-dominated). Late on, the entire market sold off (no obvious catalyst) with The Dow turning red along with the S&P and Nasdaq…

BTFD? As a reminder, the Nasdaq has not had a ‘down July’ since 2007…

Source: Bloomberg

Notably the Nasdaq/Russell ratio found resistance once again and reversed…

NVDA had an ugly day…

Treasuries were mixed on the day with the belly outperforming and the long-end lagging (30Y +1bps). NOTE that bonds were bid as Europe opened/Asia closed and then sold off on the US cash equity open – other than that, sideways…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar opened weaker on Sunday night and has barely moved since…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin slipped back from almost $31,500 to $30,000 (and found support) for a small close lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil managed gains on the day, but WTI was unable to break above $70…

Gold clung on to very modest gains after a pump and dump intraday…

Finally, Nomura’s Charlie McElligott warns that despite many long-term investors anticipating an eventual return to a larger thematic “Secular Disinflation” world as driven by the long-term realities presented from the “3 D’s” (Demographics, Debt and Disruption—potentially supercharged now by AI) – many discretionary / tactical Macro investors are continuing to voice a conviction that it’s unlikely to be a smooth glide path back to “the old world”, and that we will continue to see overshoots in positioning and narratives as the “Frankenstein cycle” continues:

• Service inflation remaining “stuck”

• Worker wage renegotiations (higher) continuing around the globe

• Food / Ag Commodity inflation again reaccelerating in the US

• Broad “base effect” disinflationary tailwind again set to begin reversing course 3Q23 into 4Q23

But the market remains convinced The Fed will fold and start easing much more aggressively (i.e. weights a hard-landing/market-collapse with a higher probability than The Fed’s Dots)…

Source: Bloomberg

Perhaps it will be the collapse of the AI-Boom (or put another way, the demand pull-forward extrapolation error)…

Source: Bloomberg

It’s different this time though.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

An NBC News poll has found that 68 percent of voters, including 43 percent of Democrats, are “concerned that Joe Biden does not have the necessary mental and physical health to be president.”

Overall, the figures constitute a 17-point increase in just two and a half years, with double the amount of Democratic voters expressing either moderate or major concern on the matter.

NBC poll: A majority of Americans says Joe Biden ‘not having the necessary mental and physical health to be president’ is a ‘major concern.’ https://t.co/67kQIPKn6C pic.twitter.com/r5LZM53hhL

— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 25, 2023

The poll also found that Biden’s approval is just 43%.

NBC POLL: Biden’s approval rating “sits at just 43%.”

“A full 68% of voters — including 43% of Democrats, which is twice what it was in 2020 — say they are concerned that Biden does not have the necessary mental and physical health to be president.” pic.twitter.com/4WPnuhDQo3

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2023

In addition, the poll found that only 20 percent of voters think the country is on the right track, with a whopping three quarters saying the U.S. is on the wrong track.

The finding marks the lowest confidence since 2008 and 1992.

NBC POLL: “Just 20% of voters believe this country is headed in the right direction. 74% say the nation is on the wrong track.” pic.twitter.com/QwzMIqpkkY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2023

Meanwhile, speaking of physical fitness of presidential candidates, these images caused a stir over the weekend…

Careful: If you don’t get your 5th @pfizer booster this is what happens to you pic.twitter.com/aOhtaedGOl

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 25, 2023

🔸67 year-old Bill Gates is a “health expert”
🔸69 year-old @RobertKennedyJr is a “science denier”

Trust the experts 🤡 pic.twitter.com/CFYtkJxfn8

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) June 24, 2023

During a town hall over the weekend, RFK Jr. reiterated his commitment to protecting the Second Amendment while vowing to push for government research into how psychiatric drugs are affecting the mental health of children and young people.

If the CIA doesn’t pull a JFK on RFK & the DNC doesn’t pull a Bernie, Biden obviously has no chance https://t.co/fCLkx2Q7WQ

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 24, 2023

Related:

RFK Jr. Vows To Defend Second Amendment, Free Speech, Border, And End Wars

Video: RFK Jr. Says He Must “Be Careful” The CIA Doesn’t Assassinate Him

‘Double-Talking’ Vaccine Scientist Refuses To Debate RFK Jr. Despite $1.5 Million Charity Pot

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So much for Blinken’s recent trip and June 19 meeting with Xi Jinping toward ‘mending’ ties: After Biden admin officials at first scrambled to walk back or at least soften Biden’s “dictator” remarks on Xi, there now appears another reversal, suggesting tensions are as bad as they were (or worse) before Blinken’s Beijing trip…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday backed President Biden’s remarks calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, saying the president “speaks for all of us.”

“It’s very clear that when it comes to China, we are going to do and say things that they don’t like. They are going to do and say things that we don’t like,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked whether the president was wrong to refer to Xi as a dictator in comments about the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the U.S. before being shot down in February.

Last Thursday not only had Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tried to downplay the dictator remarks from the president, but Biden himself attempted to smooth things over.

Biden had addressed his prior Tuesday night dictator comments, given before a campaign event in California, which has since infuriated Beijing. He did this during press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi:

President Biden said Thursday he didn’t believe his description this week of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a dictator had set back U.S. relations with China, after Beijing summoned the U.S. ambassador for an official reprimand following the president’s comments.

“I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, the near term, and I don’t think it’s had any consequence,” Biden said…

Biden also had this to say when pressed by reporters…

“The idea of my choosing and avoiding saying what I think is the facts, with regard to the relationship… with China, is just not something I’m going to change very much,” he said in response to a reporters question..

The president said he expects to meet with Xi “sometime in the future, in the near term,” and that the diplomatic fallout has not “had any real consequence,” referring to it as “hysteria.” 

And yet now, according to Blinken on Sunday, that Xi is a “dictator” appears to be the official White House line, and they are sticking with it.

Here’s the exchange between Blinken and CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday:

“There’s no secret about concerns we have about democracy, about human rights, about some of the actions that China is taking around the world, and being able to have better stronger sustained lines of communication means we can talk about these differences directly,” Blinken said.

“Do you believe that Xi Jinping is a dictator?” host Dana Bash pressed.

“The president speaks clearly. He speaks candidly. I’ve worked for him for more than 20 years, and he speaks for all of us,” Blinken answered.

Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC explains why Biden blurted out to donors that President Xi is a “dictator,” immediately blowing up the alleged rapprochement from Blinken’s visit to China: “It’s the West Coast, it’s late at night, he’s done four of these… he’s had a very busy schedule” pic.twitter.com/zGrF9pKNs7

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 21, 2023

Days ago, the Chinese government summoned the US ambassador in Beijing to issue a formal rebuke. Beijing has denounced Biden’s words as “extremely absurd” given they “seriously violated China’s political dignity” and amounted to “political provocation”. Again, all of this underscores that US-China relations are right back to square one, when things took a further downturn in the wake of the February Chinese spy balloon shootdown incident.