Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Should a Real Expert Debate or Not?

This morning I read the 10th of probably 100s of articles pleading with vaccine cheerleader Professor Peter Hotez not to debate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

He would never do this because he would be crushed.

There really isn’t any doubt about that.

The only question is whether anything would be gained for quality science at all by the outcome.

Our side says yes and their side says no.

Our times have taught us this with certainty: the Hotez camp (which includes all the three-letter agencies plus the whole of the pharma industry plus the media) want an information lockdown.

They have one message: take your meds. It doesn’t amount to much more than that.

RFK Jr., on the other hand, has some serious questions about adverse effects, the combinations of meds we are taking, and the conflicts of interest that are everywhere in this sector. He has spent decades studying and litigating them. He also has grave questions about the relationship between gain-of-function research and the bioweapons industry in the United States and around the world.

Hotez says that he would not debate these issues for fear that giving RFK Jr. a platform would elevate his views and grant them the legitimacy that they do not deserve. He says he prefers to write for the journals and engage only with peers.

But as Tucker Carlson’s new episode points out, Hotez is not some ivory-tower researcher/doctor. He has spent three years appearing on every mainstream venue that he trusts, which are the same ones that Fauci appeared on. They have created an information bubble for themselves. They want to live in it forever.

It’s true that it is not a good tactic for any public figure to engage with people with a fraction of their own reach. Patrick Buchanan once told me that a key rule in these fights is “never shoot down.” That is usually true. You risk amplifying your critics when in fact hardly anyone has heard of them.

But at this point, it is very likely the case that RFK Jr. has a larger reach and influence than Hotez. Hotez is already losing and losing badly. He would not be shooting down. One could argue that RFK Jr. indeed has more to lose from a debate then Hotez, so why would he do it? He would do it for one simple reason: he has a passion for facts, truth, and justice.

Even more importantly, RFK Jr. has worked hard to become an authentic expert on the topic of pharmaceuticals and the industry backing them.

A great feature of becoming a real expert in a field of study is that you can encounter any setting in which the topic is being discussed and engage with calm confidence.

Real experts invite more information and challenges, even direct debate, because doing so satisfies that deep curiosity that led them to be experts in the first place.

They welcome it!

A real expert is voracious for engagement with others on the topic.

A real expert wants to test his views against his opponent, just as great athletes and artists welcome performance and competition.

It inspires them to achieve excellence in the field that inspires them the most.

I would never claim to be an expert in the interaction of infectious disease and policy but I’ve studied the topic incessantly over the last few years. This week, I’m at Porcfest where the topic has come up constantly and there are a variety of opinions out there. It’s super exciting to hear a number of different perspectives because it gives me a chance to test my own conclusions. I desperately want this because I need to know if my conclusions are correct or can otherwise be improved.

At the Brownstone tent, we’ve been running an open mic. Two nights ago, one speaker got up to celebrate his vaccination and personal COVID avoidance strategies. I could feel the room start to get a bit angry so I took the mic and congratulated the man for speaking.

Then I started asking him questions. Why did he feel the need to “socially distance” following the taking of the vaccine if he is so sure that it worked? What does it mean to him that the vaccine did work? Is it possible that he kept getting sick with COVID precisely because of the repeated use of the vaccine?

The whole time I spoke with calm and sympathy. My interlocutor did the same. Within a few minutes, this nice man admitted that he had no real idea what he was saying and could not make sense of his actions and views. He further said that if he could do it over, he would never have taken a shot because now he worries about what it might have done to him.

This was not a debate but rather a discussion. I was genuinely curious about this man’s views and he was interested in mine. I gained some insight and empathy into another’s person’s plight and he into mine. We were better off as a result. This is the best form of “debate:” a mature and calm exchange of contrary views.

I’ve become suspicious of people who believe that their best strategy for winning an argument is to interrupt, shout, spit, fling clever rhetoric at ever higher decimal levels, and hurl insults. These people are also good at yelling out technical details in great rapidity so that they cannot be checked in real time. These habits don’t prove that the person is a fraud but they certainly raise suspicions.

A person with a real command of facts, theories, and real experience can patiently listen to contrary views and answer them with calm reason. There is no grounds to interrupt. On the contrary, all such a person needs is a bit of quiet and some willingness to listen. That person will win the debate against the most belligerent opponent.

There’s something else fascinating about the Hotez refusal. It suggests that he doesn’t really trust the intelligence of the listeners. He figures that people are too stupid to figure out fact from fiction and so therefore the only correct path is to endlessly repeat his exhortations to comply with his latest declarations.

In this way, fake experts are often condescending, arrogant, pushy, and hortatory. Maybe you have had a boss or a friend like this. You have probably learned to stay away from such people. Indeed, with power, they can become dangerous.

In contrast, watch any interview or speech of RFK Jr. He is reasoned, fact-filled, curious, a natural educator, calm, and unfailingly kind to his critics. I saw it the other day when he pointed to a New York Times journalist in the audience. The audience started to boo but he quieted people down and said she is a very nice person with real abilities. This is how he is: he is even kind to those who have smeared him the hardest. He is not infallible and admits it. He wants to improve his understanding. This is the difference between real and fake experts.

The best book I’ve seen on the problem of fake expertise is that of Thomas Harrington: “The Treason of the Experts.” Here he discusses a deeper problem that afflicts many people in academia and government. They have been granted credentials. They deploy these credentials—which may or may not signify expertise—as weapons. They dismiss every view but their own.

Hotez is hardly alone in this. He is an archetype of an entire army of the credentialled who cheered as masses of people were robbed of their rights and liberties over these three years. Now they are on the hot seat. They cannot stand it. They don’t believe that anyone has the right to judge them. But he cannot stop the trajectory of public opinion, which is turning ferociously against them. They are losing. And they cannot stand it.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The future is here, and if you enjoy being dominated by control freaks you are going to love it. 

“Digital identification” is one of the primary areas the globalists are focusing on right now, and as you will see below, the radical changes that are now being proposed are extremely scary.  But most Americans have no idea that any of this is happening.  Instead, many of them are obsessing over the relatively meaningless dramas that our corporate news outlets are constantly pushing.  Meanwhile, the globalists are achieving their goals at lightning speed, and there is hardly any resistance at all. 

The following are 8 signs that the futuristic control freak agenda of the globalists is rapidly moving forward…

#1 Starting in September, the EU will “mandate” that all member states offer a “digital identity wallet” to all of their citizens and businesses…

The European Union will mandate digital identity under eIDAS 2.0, which will go into effect in September 2023 and ensure all Member States offer a digital identity wallet (DIW) to citizens and businesses. According to the European Commission, “At least 80% of citizens should be able to use a digital ID solution to access key public services by 2030.”

#2 A system of “digital fingerprints” for Americans has suddenly become Barack Obama’s biggest issue…

Former President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview the development of “digital fingerprints” to combat misinformation and distinguish between true and misleading news for consumers.

Obama sat down with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod for a conversation on the latter’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” on CNN Audio. During the interview, Axelrod noted he’s seen “misinformation, disinformation, [and] deepfakes” targeting Obama.

#3 A UN policy brief that you can find right here is proposing a global system of digital identification that is linked to our bank accounts…

Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.

#4 The World Health Organization has adopted “the European Union (EU) system of digital COVID-19 certification” and plans to transform it into a “global system”…

In June 2023, WHO will take up the European Union (EU) system of digital COVID-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics. This is the first building block of the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN) that will develop a wide range of digital products to deliver better health for all.

“Building on the EU’s highly successful digital certification network, WHO aims to offer all WHO Member States access to an open-source digital health tool, which is based on the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “New digital health products in development aim to help people everywhere receive quality health services quickly and more effectively”.

#5 Federal agencies in the United States have been purchasing massive amounts of information about U.S. citizens from data brokers, and we are being warned that such information could potentially be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming”…

Federal agencies are secretly accumulating mountains of data that could be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming” of American citizens.

That allegation doesn’t come from a pink-haired civil-liberties fanatic — it’s in a new report for the nation’s chief spymaster, Avril Haines.

#6 It has been revealed that the Pentagon has been using very creepy online tools in order to “covertly track, locate and identify anyone expressing dissent or even dissatisfaction with the actions of the U.S. military and its leadership”…

In a shocking report published by The Intercept on June 17, details have emerged of a U.S. national security surveillance strategy to covertly track, locate and identify anyone expressing dissent or even dissatisfaction with the actions of the U.S. military and its leadership.

The measures, undertaken by the Army Protective Services Battalion, fall under their remit of safeguarding top generals from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.”

#7 As I discussed yesterday, the UN has developed a global fact-checking system known as “iVerify” in conjunction with big tech companies and Soros-funded organizations.  The goal is to be able to police “disinformation” and “hate speech” all over the planet…

The United Nations has unveiled an “automated” fact-checking service to counter so-called disinformation and hate speech on the internet in a project partnered with Big-Tech and Soros-funded organisations.

In response to what they brand as “online information pollution”, which they claim is a “global challenge”, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched its iVerify platform to counter alleged disinformation and hate speech online.

#8 The IMF is publicly admitting that it is constructing “a global CBDC platform” for all of the national central bank digital currencies that will soon be rolled out…

During a presentation at a conference in Morocco, Kristalina Georgievahe the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the global body is “working hard on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”

Georgieva declared that Central Bank Digital Currencies need to be interoperable between countries, noting “If we are to be successful, CBDCs could not be fragmented national propositions.”

“To have transactions more efficient and fairer, we need systems that connect countries,” Georgieva continued, adding “In other words, we need interoperability.”

If you can read through that entire list without becoming extremely alarmed, I don’t know if there is any hope for you.

The globalists are building a worldwide digital control grid which would potentially give them unprecedented power over the lives of every man, woman and child on the entire planet.

Under such a system, if you insist on being a rebel, your access to the digital system could be revoked completely.

What would you do then?

How would you survive if you could not buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account?

The extremely advanced technology that we possess today has allowed us to do a lot of really good things, but it also has the potential to be used to impose tyranny on a global scale.

We must resist these changes that the globalists are trying to impose on us.

Unfortunately, most Americans are not even talking about these changes, and that is because the mainstream media is telling them to focus on other things.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

The international response to fast-moving events centered on the Wagner rebellion in Russia is coming in…

“Secretary of State Tony Blinken held a secure conference call this morning with several Western foreign ministers to consult about the escalating situation in Russia,” Axios is reporting based on its sources. The call is being described as an urgent consultation of G-7 ministers.

The Axios source identified that on the call with Blinken were the foreign ministers of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Canada and the European Union

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in a subsequent tweet: “Had a call with G7 Foreign Ministers to exchange views on the situation in Russia. Ahead of Monday’s EU Foreign Affairs Council, I am coordinating inside the European Union and have activated the crisis response center.” He added: “Our support to Ukraine continues unabated.”

“Blinken reiterated that support by the United States for Ukraine will not change,” the State Department said. “The United States will stay in close coordination with Allies and partners as the situation continues to develop.”

The White House has also said it is “monitoring the situation in Russia and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments.”

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is urging both sides – the Kremlin and Wagner mercenaries – to “be responsible and to protect civilians.” He confirmed to BBC that his government is “keeping a close eye on the situation as it’s evolving on the ground as we speak.”

Preventing a civil war in Russia was America’s #1 priority after the Cold War.

Now rival military factions are squaring off in a country with 6,000 nuclear warheads.

U.S. foreign policy has summoned the nightmare scenario for humanity.

— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) June 23, 2023

“We’re in touch with our allies and, in fact, I’ll be speaking to some of them later today,” Sunak said. “But the most important thing I’d say is for all parties to be responsible and to protect civilians, and that’s about as much as I can say at this moment.”

The British prime minister did not comment when pressed by reporters over whether he sees Wagner’s munity as a good thing or a bad thing; however, the UK Ministry of Defence called the developments “the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times.”

⚡️Turkey’s Erdogan speaks with Putin by phone, emphasises need to act with common sense — Turkish presidency

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 24, 2023

As for Kiev, President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t waste any time capitalizing, blasting the “stupidity” of Russia’s government and declaring that “weakness” has been exposed for the world to see.

“Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Who sends columns of troops to destroy the lives of another country and cannot stop them from fleeing and betraying when life resists. Who terrorizes with missiles, and when they are shot down, humiliates himself to receive Shahed drones. Who despises people and throws hundreds of thousands into the war, in order to eventually barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed,” he tweeted.  

⚡️Video supposedly showing a convoy of Russian equipment on their way to Rostov pic.twitter.com/J6p7JeFcCN

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 24, 2023

Zelensky then followed with: “It is also obvious. Ukraine is able to protect Europe from the spread of Russian evil and chaos.”

If things continue to unravel inside Russia, with active clashes between regular forces and Wagner fighters in the south, particularly in Rostov region, Western intelligence agencies are likely to grow more and more concerned over the safety and security of Russia’s vast nuclear weapons arsenal. 

Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Over 500 additional deaths a week involving heart diseases have been recorded in England since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) has said.

Based on data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the BHF revealed in a report (pdf) that, since February 2020, there has been a total of 96,540 excess deaths involving cardiovascular conditions—an umbrella term for a range of heart and blood vessel conditions including heart attacks and strokes.

BHF Chief Executive Dr. Charmaine Griffiths said, “It is deeply troubling that so many more people with cardiovascular disease have lost their lives over the past three years.”

In the first year of the pandemic, COVID-19 infection drove high numbers of excess deaths involving cardiovascular disease.

While deaths from COVID-19 have since fallen year-on-year, the number of deaths involving cardiovascular disease have remained high above expected levels, said the BHF analysis.

Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the BHF and consultant cardiologist, said: “COVID-19 no longer fully explains the significant numbers of excess deaths involving cardiovascular disease.”

She said there may have been other contributing factors, including the disruptions to the NHS over the past few years.

NHS Disruption

The charity said a major contributing factor has been the “severe, ongoing disruption” to heart care in the NHS.

The number of people waiting for time-sensitive cardiac care was at a record high of nearly 390,000 at the end of April in England, according to NHS England.

Average ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes have consistently been more than 30 minutes since the beginning of 2022.

There has also been significant disruption to the detection and management of high blood pressure and other conditions that put people at much greater risk of a heart attack or stroke, the charity said.

Dr. Babu-Narayan said: “Long waits for heart care are dangerous—they put someone at increased risk of avoidable hospital admission, disability due to heart failure, and premature death. Yet people are struggling to get potentially life-saving heart treatment when they need it due to a lack of NHS staff and space, despite cardiovascular disease affecting record numbers of people.”

Vaccine Link

The BHF also said that COVID-19 may potentially have caused a rise in heart problems. It cited a separate study as showing that those who caught the infection before the vaccine rollout were five times more likely to die in the 18 months after infection.

Some studies have linked myocardial inflammation to the mRNA vaccines, but the BHF played down the risks posed by vaccines.

It said: “COVID-19 vaccine associated myocarditis has been rare, more common in young men after a second vaccine dose, and fortunately shows a favourable clinical course in the vast majority of those affected.

“Myocarditis can cause heart scarring that can be detected with cardiac MRI—to mitigate the small chance of scarring causing a life-threatening arrhythmia in the future, it is likely that affected individuals will be offered long-term follow-up and monitoring.”

Between December 2020 and February 2023, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency recorded 72 UK deaths suspected to be related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

But the BHF said, “The benefits of receiving COVID-19 vaccines in reducing severe outcomes from COVID-19 infection in people living with cardiovascular disease greatly outweigh the risk of extremely rare side effects.”

‘Not Surprising’

Professor John Greenwood, President of the British Cardiovascular Society, said: “The high numbers of excess cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths published today are worrying, but unfortunately not surprising. We know that COVID-19 has caused direct (COVID-19 leading to new CVD), indirect (reduced treatment and prevention of CVD) and long-term effects (CVD and Long COVID-19).”

Dr. Griffiths urged the government to “take control of this crisis” by “prioritising NHS heart care, better preventing heart disease and stroke, and powering science to unlock future treatments and cures.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are cutting waiting lists, ambulance response times are falling, staff increasing and we are improving access to blood pressure and health checks.

“We know there is more to do which is why we are consulting on a Major Conditions Strategy to tackle cardiovascular disease—including strokes and diabetes—and we have opened 108 community diagnostic centres that have delivered over 4 million tests, scans, and checks including for those with cardiovascular disease.

“The government is also working with NHS England to combat some of the causes of cardiovascular disease, with schemes to support increased physical activity, reduce obesity rates, and encourage people to stop smoking.”

In his first speech addressing the crisis of Wagner’s armed rebellion on Saturday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush what he called Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “betrayal”. Southern governors, for example Alexander Gusev who oversees the city of Voronezh, have since confirmed armed clashes between regular military forces and Wagner fighters within Russian territory. He described necessary “combat measures” as part of counter-terror operations in the southern region.

What was unclear by Friday night is now becoming very clear as of Saturday: all hell is breaking loose in this first significant moment in over two decades of Putin’s iron grip on power being threatened by armed mutiny. “Any internal turmoil is a deadly threat to our statehood and to us as a nation. This is a blow to Russia and to our people,” Putin said in the televised speech. “This battle, when the fate of our people is being decided, requires the unification of all forces.”

“What we have been faced with is exactly betrayal. Extravagant ambitions and personal interests led to treason,” Putin said, referring to Prigozhin, head of the most powerful private military firm in Russia. “All those who consciously stood on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed rebellion, stood on the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, before the law and before our people,” Putin vowed.

He further in fiery language denounced the “stab in the back of our country and our people,” after Prigozhin the day prior declared war against the defense ministry, urging all Russians to join his 25,000 fighters as they seek to “stop” and overthrow Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other top commanders.

In response to Putin’s blistering speech, Prigozhin released a Telegram statement calling the president “deeply mistaken” regarding his assessment of betrayal of the motherland, refusing to surrender. The audio message released by his press service said as follows: 

“Regarding the ‘betrayal of the motherland,’ the president is deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our Motherland, we fought and are fighting, all the fighters of the PMC Wagner.”

“And no one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else,” he added.

BREAKING: Putin addresses nation, responds to Wagner threats: “This is a criminal campaign. It is equivalent to armed mutiny. Russia will defend itself and repel this move. We are fighting for the life and security of our citizens.”pic.twitter.com/GNzPsNWMWB

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) June 24, 2023

This marks the first time he’s directed criticism precisely in response to Putin, as before he appeared to carefully avoid direct references to the Russian leader in his denunciations of military planning and Kremlin decision-making.

Below summarizes fast-moving events of the last few hours:

• Putin 5 min speech: accuses Prigozhin of betrayal, vows decisive action 
• Wagner controls facilities in Rostov & Voronezh, M4 highway disrupted. Rebellion continues 
• Chechen Kadyrov mobilizes to help Putin. Russia FM warns of ‘civil strife’

The Wagner PMC Group has announced that they have Captured the Southern Military District Headquarters within the the City of Rostov-on-Don in the Rostov Region of Southwestern Russia. pic.twitter.com/730rL9uetq

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 24, 2023

Civilians have reportedly been ordered away from all military command centers in the now Wagner-held city center of Rostov-on-Don.

In Rostov (not sure what time) they ran from an explosion near the military district that Wagner took over. The interview following is in English. pic.twitter.com/PJfCq5qlYp

— 🌻 Fertilizer Finder 🌻 (@ManiacMagic1) June 24, 2023

The Wagner chief in his response harped on the familiar theme of the defense ministry’s “corruption, deceit, and bureaucracy” and emphasized that his own fighters are patriotic and doing their duty.

“When we were told that we were at war with Ukraine, we went and fought. But it turned out that ammunition, weapons, all the money that was allocated is also being stolen, and the bureaucrats are sitting [idly], saving it for themselves, just for the occasion that happened today, when someone [is] marching to Moscow,” he said.

It is the second time since Russian authorities (the FSB) declared Prigozhin was engaging in ‘armed munity’ that the Wagner chief declared a “march of justice” on Moscow. As for the capital (and other major cities), the military and security services have been ordered by the Kremlin to secure the streets and beef up their presence.

⚡️Wagner troops sitting at a restaurant in the centre of Rostov after they occupied the city.

June 24, 2023. pic.twitter.com/tJUS9Ui2sU

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 24, 2023

Crucially, Wagner has declared control of the military command center and bases in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, a claim which some emerging videos appear to give some degree of authentication to…

“Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a close Putin ally, said his troops had taken control of the military command centre and bases in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, the nerve centre of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, and vowed to topple Moscow’s top military leaders,” AFP is noting.

The fight is on, and could spread further north, engaging political centers of the country:

Further north, on Wagner’s possible route towards Moscow, the governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said the armed forces had launched a “counter-terrorist operation” to suppress the revolt. A fuel depot on Voronezh city was on fire, he said.

The FSB security service accused Prigozhin of attempting to launch a “civil conflict” and urged Wagner fighters to detain him.

Russian police have moved against Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, where things have been largely without incident thus far:

BREAKING: Russian police have surrounded the Wagner centre in St Petersburg.

It comes as Wagner fighters have taken control of Rostov, home to Russian military headquarters that oversees the fighting in Ukraine.

Latest: https://t.co/X3flQUBL0r

📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/AOi4c2KXo5

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 24, 2023

Active fighting, even including with air power, has erupted as Wagner convoys seek to make their way north, deeper into Russia…

⚡️Russian airforce targeting a convoy of Wagner equipment on the M-4 highway in Voronezh region this morning pic.twitter.com/4tpgVqjYmx

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 24, 2023

Meanwhile, this will without doubt be a huge blow to the morale of both Russian troops and Wagner fighters alike along the frontlines inside Ukraine. It’s as yet unclear the degree to which Wagner has withdrawn from the Eastern Ukraine theatre, though it’s now been confirmed that Wagner forces had marched into Rostov overnight.

Kiev will smell a grand ‘opportunity’. It along with its Western backers are closely monitoring, with Ukraine officials saying this “rebellion” is a “sign of the collapse of the Putin regime.”

“The internal Russian confrontation between the leader of the so-called Wagner PMC Prigozhin and the military and political leadership of the aggressor state is a sign of the collapse of the Putin regime,” a statement by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said.

“First of all, we must understand that this is an internal Russian conflict and confrontation which are a direct consequence of the Putin regime’s criminal military aggression against Ukraine,” the statement cited in CNN added.

⚡️#UPDATE Incredible video showing flares from a Ka-52 helicopter deflect a Wagner anti aircraft missile https://t.co/0UsXXuDQSl pic.twitter.com/9uPpEHbnZf

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 24, 2023

It must be remembered that these shocking events which threaten to unleash chaos within Russia come at a moment that by many accounts Ukraine’s counteroffensive appeared to be failing. President Zelensky himself at the start of the week had conceded a “slower than desired” start to the offensive. But now this could breath new life into it amid reports Ukraine is taking the opportunity to assault front lines. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, told a Saturday press conference: “The launch of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has finally destabilized the Russian elites, exacerbating the internal split that emerged after the defeat in Ukraine.” Time will tell if Russian commanders can keep their frontlines unified even as things crumble with the Wagner situation.

* * *

Below are key excerpts from Putin’s Saturday speech vowing to crush the Wagner rebellion, as translated and compiled by state-run RT:

Importance of unity

President Putin argued that “Russia is today waging a grueling fight for its future,” facing off with the “neo-Nazis and their masters.” He went on to stress that “essentially the entire might of the West’s military, economic and information machine” is being directed against the country.

“This battle, when the fate of our people is being decided,” calls for national unity and consolidation, Putin said in his address. According to the president, all internal conflicts and bickering must be put aside at present as “our external enemies can and use them to undermine us internally.”

The Russian head of state emphasized that any actions driving a wedge between Russians are nothing short of “backstabbing of our country and our people.”

Bitter history lessons

Putin reminded Russians that a similar scenario played out in the country in 1917, when it was in the middle of World War I. He recounted how “intrigues, bickering, politicking behind the army’s and the people’s back” led to the “collapse of the state,” and the “tragedy of the Civil War.”

“Russians were killing Russians, brothers were killing brothers, while various political adventurers and foreign powers were capitalizing on it,” the president said.

Putin vowed to prevent this from happening as well as to defend Russia and its people, “including from internal mutiny.”

Nature of the threat

In his address, Putin clearly labelled the PMC coup attempt as a “betrayal.” He cited “enormous ambitions and personal interests” of certain individuals as the reasons behind this “betrayal of their country and its people.” He went on to accuse those responsible, without naming Prigozhin in particular, of turning their back on the joint military cause in Ukraine and the memory of the fallen fighters.

If successful, the coup would lead to “anarchy and fratricide,” resulting, in the long run, in Russia’s “defeat” and “capitulation,” according to Putin.

The president characterized “any internal mutiny” as a death threat to the Russian state and nation. The president pledged to take “tough measures” against the mutineers, who have “willingly entered the path of betrayal” and prepared “armed insurrection.”

Those responsible will be brought to account before the Russian people, the president assured the public.

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

Spain is one of the European economies that was hardest hit by the COVID-19 virus crisis, in part because of its huge dependence on tourism. In fact, according to figures published in February by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Spain is the OECD country (out of 38) where the real income of families has fallen the most since the pandemic. It is also the EU country that has suffered the biggest fall in per-capital income since 2020, and has been overtaken on this indicator by Slovenia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Now, after years of falling real incomes, millions of families are facing skyrocketing mortgage payments as a result of the European Central Bank’s rapid-fire interest rate hikes.

Blame Game Begins

The blame game has already begun in central government circles. After taking a thrashing in the recent local and regional elections, Pedro Sánchez’s government now faces an uphill slog in next month’s generals. As mortgage costs surge, the government is desperate to pin responsibility on the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Spanish subsidiary, the Bank of Spain. Asked in an interview about the state of the Spanish economy and the potential impact of the ECB’s latest round of interest rate hikes on Spanish homeowners, Spain’s Economy Minister Nadia Calviño said:

“You need to ask [Luis de] Guindos, [Vice President of the European Central Bank], and [Fernando] De Cos [governor of the Bank of Spain]; they are the Spaniards behind the rise in mortgages.”

Calviño is right, of course. So, too, was Sánchez himself when he said on Tuesday that “the [Spanish] Government has no powers over monetary policy.” But his government — like all EU governments — is partially to blame for high inflation due to its ongoing support for sanctions on Russia, Europe’s biggest provider of energy and other vital commodities. This is, without doubt, one of the main drivers behind the massive surge in Europe’s energy prices and overall inflation.

But the mere fact that Spain’s prime minister and economy minister are both trying to shift the burden of responsibility for rising mortgage rates to the central bankers is notable, since senior politicians rarely blame central banks for anything unless they are in a truly tight squeeze. Of course, Sánchez could have added that Spain’s central bank also doesn’t have any meaningful influence over monetary policy in Spain, since Spain’s government handed all decision making powers in that arena to the ECB when it joined the euro at the start of this century.

For Spain, where the consumer price index (CPI) clocked in at a relatively low 3.2% in May, further interest rate hikes are no longer necessary, said Calviño, adding a caveat: the ECB needs to consider Europe “as a whole.” And in the Euro Area as a whole average inflation was 6.1% in May — almost double the rate in Spain. In six countries, all of them in Eastern Europe (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland), inflation is still above 10%.

The ECB embarked on its current hiking path in July 2022, when it increased its main deposit rate from -0.5% to 0%. Since then it has hiked a further seven times, to the current rate of 3.5%, the highest level since 2001. All of this is apparently necessary to squeeze as much life out of the economy as possible by smothering consumer demand, triggering a recession, destroying millions, with the ostensible goal of bringing down inflation to a more manageable level. This ignores the fact that surging prices are, to a large extent, the result of supply-side factors, including, of course, the boomerang effects of the EU’s 11 sanctions packages against Russia, its biggest energy supplier.

While inflation has indeed fallen, the Euro Area, like the US, still has negative real rates. Meanwhile, the ECB’s rapid rate hikes are triggering all sorts of unpleasant after effects — many of them intended. They include rapidly rising costs for homeowners as mortgage rates surge. Spain is particularly vulnerable to this trend since around three-quarters of its mortgage holders have variable rate loan contracts linked to the ECB’s deposit rate, although they are generally adjusted only once a year.

Housing Bust 2.0?

Spain has already witnessed one of the most spectacular housing booms and busts of this still rather young century. During the peak of the boom phase, from 2003-05, around 700,000 homes were being built per year, more than were being built in Germany, France, Italy and the UK combined, with an aggregate population four times greater than Spain’s. By the time the dust from the subsequent bust had largely settled, in around 2015, over 600,000 families had lost their homes (and bear in mind that in Spain mortgages are recourse, meaning that banks can — and in most cases did — go after the borrower for all outstanding debt once the house is resold).

In recent years banks, builders, large real estate developers and the previous Rajoy government have done everything they can to create a new housing bubble, with a certain degree of success. By 2019 prices in some of the country’s biggest property markets, such as Madrid, Barcelona and some of the coastal and island markets, had regained much but not all of the ground lost in the previous bust. However, in other less desirable markets, home prices had barely risen, and in some they were below where they had been in Q1 2015, when the national low point occurred.

In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Spain’s housing market stalled — as it did in most countries — before picking up pace once again in 2021. In 2022, the total number of residential property sales reached 650,000, their highest level in 15 years.

But that partial recovery is now in serious danger. As I reported in late November, in Something Just Cracked in Spain’s Mortgage Market, Spain was one of the first European countries to introduce emergency measures to blunt the impact of rapidly rising interest rates on families already struggling with soaring inflation:

As data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics shows, 72% of newly signed mortgages in August were fixed rate while 28% were variable rate. But this is a relatively new trend. In 2020, the ratio was roughly 50/50. In 2016, 90% of all new mortgages were variable rate and in 2009 it was a staggering 96%.

The result is that roughly four million of Spain’s 5.5 million mortgage holders have variable rate mortgages. Of those just over one million qualified for the government’s relief package. The measures, which will be in force for two years, are meant to help families adapt more gradually to the new interest rate environment. To qualify for the relief, a household must have annual income of less than €29,400. Their mortgage burden must also represent more than 30% of their income and their monthly instalments must have increased by at least 20% due to the ECB’s recent rate hikes.

Since the publication of that post, property demand in Spain has begun to sag. In fact, sales began to stagnate in December 2022. In April, just 27,000 mortgages were signed, 18% fewer than the same month of last year. None of this should come as a surprise given the ECB has increased Euro Area benchmark interest rates from 1.5% to 3.5% since November. For holders of variable-rate mortgages, this has meant having to pay significantly more in monthly instalments, just as prices for many basic goods, including food, have also soared. From Capital Madrid:

According to data from the Bank of Spain, families have allocated 41.5% of their income so far in 2023 to pay their mortgage payments, generated added expenses of €18 billion in the first two months of the year. A report from a specialised agent has analysed data from more than 2,000 transactions closed between May 2022 and May 2023 and the outlook is bleak as a result of the rise in interest rates.

According to data from the firm Housfy, the forecast for the increase in the cost of the average mortgage payment in Spain by the end of the year is that it exceeds €5,000 per year on average. “Everything will depend on how we progress in the last quarter, but we can predict that the increases will significantly affect families,” says David Espiago, director of the banking business at Housfy. According to data from INE (the National Statistics Institute), over the past year year the average mortgage payment in Spain has increased by €256, monthly, and €3,073, annually.

As I noted in my previous article, the government’s mortgage relief package almost certainly will not cover enough families:

An average income of €29,400 might be enough to qualify someone for a 25- or 30-year mortgage in one of the more impoverished parts of Spain, such as Extremadura, parts of Andalusia, Castilla la Mancha, Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla, but it will not get you a mortgage in the main centers of economic activity such as Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and San Sebastian. Many mortgage holders in these cities are also struggling with rising costs but they will not qualify for the mortgage relief — unless, of course, the relief package is expanded.

That is where we may soon be headed. In the past few days, Work Minister Yolanda Díaz — whose success at restoring workplace protections has made her one of Spain’s more popular politicians — has proposed issuing a one-off €1,000 “bonus” to all households with variable-rate mortgages — as long as the loan is in its first 10 years of life and was issued for a primary residence worth up to €300,000. Díaz argues that such a measure is necessary to cushion the impact of the “double inflation” (rising prices of basic goods and services together with fast-rising mortgage instalments) battering these households.

Around a million families would qualify for the emergency bonus, Díaz says, meaning it would cost a total of around $1 billion. It would apparently be financed through a windfall tax on bumper bank profits introduced at the beginning of the year.

But Diaz’ proposal has met with scathing criticism, including among her own coalition partners. Spain’s Economy Ministry argues that the emergency bonus would amount to a transfer of income from all taxpayers to the banks, since they would be the ultimate recipients:

We are not surprised that the banks want the cost of the measures to fall on the public sector. What astonishes us is that this proposal can have the support of someone other than the People’s Party, which defends the interest of financial institutions.

The Ministry kind of has a point. After all, the last financial crisis ended up crushing the standard of living and work opportunities of millions of (particularly young) Spaniards, large numbers of whom ended up migrating to northern Europe and Latin America. All of this was captured in the 2019 edition of the Bank of Spain’s Triannual Family Financial Survey, which I covered for WOLF STREET at the time. Between 2010 and 2017, the median gross income of heads of households under the age of 35 plunged 18%, from €27,700 to €22,800. Millenials’ median wealth collapsed 92% to €5,300, for the main reason that after the crisis almost all under-35s have been financially excluded from the property market, largely due to their shrinking incomes levels.

Many of these people can barely afford to make rent, which has been rising in many regions for the best part of the past decade, let alone subsidise struggling mortgage holders. But as far as I can see, there are only two other alternatives.

One is to force banks to share the economic pain by sharply limiting the amount by which mortgage instalments can rise.

This is already happening in Greece, where the four largest banks will have to absorb any further interest rate hikes on mortgage loans from May 2023 to May 2024, in order to help households cope with rising housing costs. But for the life of me, I cannot see any Spanish government doing this, particularly one consisting of the conservative People’s Party and far-right VOX, the most likely victors in the next elections.

The other alternative is to do nothing, but that risks triggering another housing crisis.

Authored by Michael Wing via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Christian doctor in the UK was fired for refusing to use hypothetical transgender pronouns for patients during a training session.

A court ruling followed by two separate appeals supported his being terminated; it is believed to be the first time in the history of English law where a judge ruled that free citizens must engage in “compelled speech” pertaining to transgender ideology.

Disappointed, the doctor in question, Dr. David Mackereth, 60, has since been partially vindicated by a UK professional regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC). Mackereth is now pursuing an appeal for justice from the European Court of Human Rights.

A practicing doctor for 26 years, Mackereth refused to call a man a woman or vice versa during a training session, citing that his biblical Christian beliefs prohibited it. That resulted in Mackereth being fired from his position as a health and disability assessor by his employer, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The DWP said his failure to accommodate patients’ gender preferences amounts to “harassments” under the Equality Act 2010.

In response, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Mackereth then launched a legal claim accusing the DWP of discriminating against his Christian and philosophical beliefs, though that claim fell short before the Employment Tribunal. His dismissal was deemed lawful.

Despite the verdict being partially overturned by the Employment Appeals Tribunal in May 2022, both the tribunal and, subsequently, the Court of Appeals also ruled that the firing was justified.

Yet, Mackereth recently received vindication in a response from the GMC regulative body. Without other avenues, Mackereth had self-referred to the GMC asking them to determine whether his fitness to practice was impaired by his Christian and “gender-critical” beliefs.

Responding, a letter from the GMC to Mackereth in June 2023 amounted to what some called the “first time a professional regulator have considered the issue of ‘misgendering’ and ruled in favour of one of their members,” the Christian Legal Centre stated in a press release.

In a hypothetical situation, Mackereth had been confronted with whether he would call a 6-foot bearded man “madam,” which he refused to do. Yet he insisted, as a Christian doctor, he “would never refuse to treat a patient who was in need;” and at no point in his career had he encountered a patient who asked to be identified as a different gender.

Correspondingly, the GMC wrote in their letter:

In our view it would not be proportionate to consider what might happen in a hypothetical situation such as if you were to be approached by a transgender patient for instance and we could not open an investigation on this basis.

Assessing all the rulings and legal documents, they concluded:

We also note the tribunals’ comments around whether your views might contravene GMC guidance, however, again there is no evidence to indicate that you have provided inappropriate advice or care to patients based on your views.

Mackereth said he was “delighted, grateful, and encouraged” by the letter.

This significant response also coincides with a new appeal now moving forward. All domestic remedies exhausted, Mackereth launched an application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to rule on the present case.

He is asking the court to address the “implications surrounding compelled speech and forced adherence to gender identity belief as a condition of employment.”

Lawyers argue that both his Article 9 rights of freedom of thought, belief, and religion, as well as his Article 10 rights of freedom of expression, were violated by his employer, the Christian Legal Centre stated. The ECHR’s decision is expected within the next six months.

The DWP told The Epoch Times in a statement, “Dr. Mackereth resigned from his post. Dr. Mackereth brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal which was dismissed, and this decision was subsequently upheld on appeal.”

The CEO of the Christian Legal Centre, Andrea Williams, called the assertion that Dr. Mackereth has resigned “disingenuous and untrue,” adding that “as a matter of record … [t]he DWP pressed Dr. Mackereth to pledge to use ‘transgender pronouns’ whenever they are wanted;

“Dr. Mackereth responded: ‘I am a Christian and in good conscience I cannot do what the DWP is requiring of me;’ DWP replied, ‘[T]hank you for your resignation which we accept;’ Dr. Mackereth rejoined, ‘I have not resigned, though I do understand that I have been sacked.’”

Now, Dr. Mackereth is calling for some “much-needed sanity,” and maintains that his claims are firmly rooted in Genesis 127—that God created man in his own image, man and woman. He stated:

Everyone in the NHS should be able to say publicly without fear that a person cannot change sex, but instead we are being forced to accept a massive change to our concept of the medical reality of sex, with no scientific basis for that change.

No doctor, or researcher, or philosopher, can demonstrate or prove that a person can change sex. Without intellectual and moral integrity, medicine cannot function. I believe this conclusion from the GMC brings some much-needed sanity to these issues in the medical profession.

He added that being a Christian makes him a better doctor, and that he requires freedom of conscience to practice medicine.

Williams stated that Mackereth has sacrificed his distinguished professional career for his beliefs, adding that the compelled use of transgender pronouns defies both “common sense and Christian faith.”

“If we tolerate this as a society, if we give in on the essential freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, no other freedom is safe,” Williams said. “We are determined to fight all the way to secure justice in this case.”

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

If you’re counting on Asia’s many new power centers to compete and clash – don’t. The Greater Eurasia Partnership is set to integrate them all – from the SCO, EAEU, and BRICS, to emerging new currencies – in order to replace the ‘rules-based order.’

On July 4, at a New Delhi summit, Iran will finally become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

That will be one of the key decisions of the summit, held via video-conference, along with the signing of a memorandum on the path by Belarus to also become a member state.

In parallel, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk has confirmed that Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) should sign a free trade agreement (FTA) by the end of 2023.

The FTA will expand an interim deal that already lowers customs duties on hundreds of categories of goods.

Russia and Iran – two key poles of Eurasia integration – have been getting closer and closer geoeconomically since the west’s sanctions tsunami that followed Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

The EAEU – as much as the SCO and BRICS – is on a roll: FTAs are expected to be clinched, from middle to long term, with Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the UAE.

Overchuck admits negotiations may be “very difficult” and “take years,” considering “the interests of all five EAEU member states, their businesses, and their consumers.” Yet despite the obvious complexities, this high-speed rail geoeconomic train has already left the station.

This way for a SWIFT exit

In a parallel track, the members of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), during a recent summit in Iran, decided to launch a new cross-border financial messaging system this month as a rival to the western-centric SWIFT.

The ACU comprises the Central Banks of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Iran: a healthy mix of West Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

It was the Central Bank of Iran – still under harsh sanctions – that developed the new bank messaging system, so new it’s not yet known by its own acronym.

Crucially, the Governor of Russia’s Central Bank took part in the ACU summit as an observer, along with officials from Belarus, which applied for ACU membership two weeks ago.

Iranian Central Bank Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin confirmed not only the interest of potential members to join the ACU, but also the drive to set up a basket of currencies for payment of bilateral trade deals. Call it a de-dollarization fast track.

As Iran’s first Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber summed it up: “De-dollarization is not a voluntary choice by countries anymore; it is an inevitable response to the weaponization of the dollar.”

Iran is now at the heart of all things multipolar. The recent discovery of a massive lithium field holding roughly 10 percent of the world’s reserves, coupled with the quite possible admission of Iran into the expanded BRICS – or BRICS+ – as early as this year, has bolstered scenarios of an upcoming BRICS currency backed by commodities: gold, oil, gas and – inevitably – lithium.

All this frantic Global South-led activity stands in sharp contrast to the sputtering deceleration of the Empire of Sanctions.

The Global South has had enough of the US sanctioning and banning whoever, whatever, and whenever they like, in defense of a hazy, arbitrary “rules-based international order.”

Yet exceptions are always made when the US itself badly needs to buy, for instance, Chinese rare earth and EV batteries. And while China continues to be harassed and threatened non-stop, Washington quietly urges it to continue to buy American corn and low-end chips from Micron.

This is what’s called “free and fair” trade in the US today.

The BRICS have other ideas to escape this vicious circle. Much will rely on an enhanced role for its New Development Bank (NDB), which comprises the five BRICS members as well as Bangladesh, the UAE, and Egypt. Uruguay will be joining soon, and the membership requests of Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe have also been approved.

According to Brazil’s former head of state and current NDB President Dilma Rousseff, decisions on new members will officially be announced at the upcoming August BRICS summit in South Africa.

Meanwhile, in Astana, Kazakhstan, the 20th round of the interminable Syrian peace process took place, congregating the foreign vice-ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.

That should be the defining step in a “normalization road map” proposed by Moscow last month to finally regulate the role of the Turkish Army operating inside Syrian territory. Russian Foreign Vice-Minister Mikhail Bogdanov once again confirmed that the US is going all out to prevent a normalization between Damascus and Ankara – by supporting oil-stealing Kurdish militias in northern Syria.

A “broad integrative configuration”

All interlinked developments concerning SCO, BRICS, EAEU, and other multilateral mechanisms – now happening at breakneck speed – are converging in practice into a concept formulated in Russia back in 2018: the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

And who better to define it than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “Our flagship foreign political project is to [build] support for the concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. What we’re talking about is facilitating the objective process of forming a broad integrative configuration that is open for all countries and associations across our vast continent.”

As Lavrov routinely explains now in all of his important meetings, this includes “interlinking the complementary development plans” of the EAEU and China’s BRI; expanding interaction “within the framework of the SCO with the involvement of SCO observer states and dialogue partners;” “strengthening the strategic partnership” between Russia and ASEAN; and “establishing working contacts” among the executive bodies of the EAEU, SCO, and ASEAN.

Add to it the crucial interaction between the upcoming BRICS+ and all of the above; literally, everybody and their neighbor all across the Global South is queuing up to enter Club BRICS.

Lavrov envisions a “mutually beneficial, interlinking infrastructure” and a “continent-wide architecture of peace, development, and cooperation throughout Greater Eurasia.” And that ought to be expanded to the whole Global South.

It will help to have other brand new institutions jumping in. That’s the case of a new Russian think tank, the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues (GORKI), to be led by Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, and set as a division of St. Petersburg State University focusing on West Asia studies and energy issues.

All of these interpolations were discussed in detail during the St. Petersburg forum last week.

One of the key themes in that spectacularly successful Global South-oriented forum was, of course, the reindustrialization and reorientation of Russia’s export-import channels away from Europe and toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The UAE had a strong presence in St. Petersburg, pointing to a West Asia emphasis, where Russia’s geoeconomic future is increasingly developing. The scope and breadth of Global South-led discussions only underlined how the self-marginalized collective west has alienated the Global Majority, perhaps irretrievably.

On Vladimir Solovyov’s immensely popular political talk show, Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov may have found the best way to succinctly formulate such a complex process as the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

He said that Russia is now reassuming the role of global champion of a new world order that the Soviet Union held at the start of the 1920s. In such context, the rage and uncontrolled Russophobia by the collective west is just plain impotence: howling the frustration of having “lost” Russia, when it would have been a no-brainer to keep it on its side.

As if CalPERS didn’t have enough of a problem simply with incompetent portfolio management and an incessant need to play “catch up” to try and meet its fund’s obligations, the nation’s largest public pension fund is now dealing with a massive data breach.

CalPERS saw the personal information of 769,000 of its retired members exposed in a third-party breach earlier this month, KCRA reported this week. The fund serves more than 2 million members in its retirement system and 1.5 million in its health system, the report says. 

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the second largest pension fund in the U.S., also suffered from the breach. It has more than 947,000 members. 

This week CalPERS said that its third party vendor, PBI Research Services, had notified it of a “vulnerability” with software used to identify member deaths and make sure payments are distributed correctly. It told CalPERS the issued had since been fixed. 

The app contains identifying information, including full names, birth dates and social security numbers. This information was accessed by an “unauthorized third party” the report says, also noting that names of family members may have also been exposed. 

The third party told CalPERS that it found the issue “at the end of May” and that it was “actively being exploited by cyber criminals.”

In a statement, PBI said: “PBI promptly patched its instance of MOVEit, assembled a team of cybersecurity and privacy specialists, notified federal law enforcement and contacted potentially impacted clients. The cyber criminals did not gain access to PBI’s other systems – access was only gained to the MOVEit administrative portal subject to the vulnerability. PBI is working directly with impacted clients to identify impacted consumers and develop notice plans.”

And it isn’t just CalPERS that was affected: “thousands” of other organizations have also been impacted, the report says, including the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies. Over 9 million drivers in Oregon and Louisiana, Johns Hopkins University, the Ernst & Young accounting firm were also exposed. 

Randy Cheek, legislative director for the Retired Public Employees’ Association of California, concluded: “I felt just… flabbergasted that they didn’t say anything to anybody before this. We should have known. We should have been able to check our accounts.”

CalSTRS said in a statement: “This incident did not involve unauthorized access to CalSTRS’ network. CalSTRS is working with PBI to identify the CalSTRS members whose information was involved in PBI’s incident. CalSTRS will provide notice to any members and beneficiaries whose personal information was involved in accordance with applicable law.”

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

This past week California governor Gavin Newsom appeared on Fox News to debate Sean Hannity about the policies and governance of the “Golden State” as well as its obvious cultural and economic decline. To be clear, I don’t care for Hannity and obviously I find Newsom to be a reprehensible little weasel of a man, so I don’t really have a stake in which side comes out on top.

That said, the interview/dispute is being heralded by the political left as a “win” for Newsom as they claim he “destroyed” Hannity on his own show.

I have to examine this kind of rhetoric with some amusement because generally leftists don’t view debates the same way normal people do. They don’t care about being factually correct, they only care about winning by any means necessary. And winning can and often does include lying or misrepresenting statistics to confuse or deflect their opposition. Hannity just didn’t come prepared for the flurry of disinformation and cherry-picked data Newsom was armed with.

Democrats and the corporate media in general have invested an intense amount of energy into a propaganda campaign that paints California as the central pillar of the US economy and American governance. According to them, California is a socialist Utopia essentially holding the rest of the nation up on its shoulders, and without such blue states we would spiral into oblivion.

For the sake of focus, I will only break down California’s mismanagement here. Specifically, I think it’s important to debunk many of the false fiscal claims made by Gavin Newsom; the same claims which are spreading like a cancer into leftist talking points all over the internet.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Lie #1: High Tax Blue States Like California Subsidize Red States

This argument is false for a number of reason, but let’s start with how Democrats present the claim – They argue that red states are among the top states receiving federal welfare dollars and subsidies, and that blue states like California are paying high taxes into those subsidies. This is why you will often hear leftists say that “red states would not be able to survive without blue states.”

Here’s why this is nonsense – Out of the top ten most indebted states in the US, seven of them are Democrat controlled. California has the most debt by FAR with $519 billion in the red, around 60% more debt than New York and Texas which are #2 and #3 on the list. California also anticipates a $32 billion deficit in 2023. The state does not have the funds to support itself, let alone red states.

The bottom line? California takes far more money from the federal government that they pay out.

As of the most recent tax year for which figures are available, Californians paid $234 billion in federal income taxes. However, the state has already been allotted over $390 billion in funds from the federal government so far in 2023 and the year is only half done. Not only that, but CA took even MORE federal money from 2020 – 2022 ($400 billion to $500 billion) each year.  Meaning, on average, CA is taking around $150-$200 billion more in federal money than it pays back in federal taxes every year.

Gavin Newsom often brags about California’s amazing budget surplus during covid, but the reality is that all of that cash was fed to the state by the federal government and the federal reserve printing press. For example, California defaulted on almost $19 billion in unemployment debt during their lockdowns, which they then had to borrow from the federal government to cover. They then passed that debt on to struggling business owners, forcing them to shoulder the burden through extra taxation while Newsom expanded deficit spending.

To be sure other states had to take federal funds as well to avoid unemployment default, many of them Democrat controlled because of their pointless extended mandates and business closures.  Most states are in the hole when it comes to federal cash. But, the fact remains that California is a money pit; a prostitute for federal funds that creates exponential debt while leaching far more than their fair share. Blue states like California don’t foot the bill for red states. They can’t, because they are broke.

Lie #2: California’s GDP Is So Large That It Debunks All Economic Criticism

This was one of Newsom’s primary responses to Hannity during their debate over California’s decline – California has the 4th largest GDP in the world (over $3 trillion), therefore no criticism of its economy is valid. With that in mind, I’m going to tell you one of the biggest open secrets about how states like California, the federal government and the federal reserve calculate GDP:

They count a majority of government spending towards total GDP.

Yes, that’s right, California takes large amounts of tax dollars from citizens, takes hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal government, spends it all on numerous programs from welfare, to student loans to medicare/medicaid, then adds it all to their total GDP as if the government actually produces something other than debt.

Again, a lot of states do this in their calculations, but in blue nightmare states like California that have refined the art of GDP fraud down to a science. The CA government has found that all they have to do to drive up their GDP stats to record levels is keep borrowing and taxing and then spend as much as possible.

Another factor to consider is that CA’s real GDP adjusted for inflation is not generally cited by the media or by Democrats. With covid helicopter money triggering a 40-year spike in inflation in the past few years, California has some of the highest prices on goods and services in the country (3rd most expensive). In fact, prices are so high that many middle class workers have trouble surviving there.  And, the higher the prices go, the higher GDP goes by extension.

If real GDP adjusted for inflation is not considered, then California’s economy might look much stronger than it actually is. If you want to know why CA supposedly about to become the 4th largest economy in the world, yet every major city in California is littered with homeless people and tent cities, it’s because their GDP is a shell game.

Lie #3: There Is No Citizen Exodus From California

Yes, there is. This is probably one of the more egregious lies that Newsom spreads in his Fox News interview as he cited “studies” out of institutions like UCLA to support his position that “more people are leaving red states per capita” than California.

First of all, the per capita argument is dishonest in this situation.  What Newsom is trying to avoid is the fact that California has been losing its population to net domestic migration for around a decade.

In 2020 the state saw a loss of 725,000 people with 359,000 net losses in residents after gains are accounted. They lost 700,000 more people than they gained from April 2020 to July 2022. To put this in perspective, losing that many people is the same as a city the size of Seattle disappearing from the California map in the span of two years.  California starting out with a larger population is irrelevant to the overall trend of population losses.

One of the best points Hannity made to counter Newsom’s disinformation was the fact that U-Haul had no trucks for Californian’s trying to leave the state because so many residents were relocating and no one was moving in. Newsom sneered at the data, likely because he knows it undermines his entire narrative.

U-Haul did indeed run out of trucks in CA because so many people were leaving. The top destination for U-Haul trucks was Texas followed by Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona. One could argue over the potential reasons for the exodus from CA, but the exodus is a FACT (I believe Newsom’s draconian covid mandates were the biggest reason for the migration, but taxation and a hostile business environment are solid causes also).

Furthermore, California is a sanctuary state which protects illegal immigrants from deportation, and illegal immigrants are counted as part of the resident population in any census.  Every surge in migrants can offset California’s total population decline  caused by real citizens relocating.  California has handed out at least 1 million state drivers licenses to illegal immigrants since 2015, and the state is estimated to have at least 2.7 million migrants within its borders.

Lie #4: California Provides Opportunities For The Middle And Lower Class

No. Let’s go through the list of reason why California is a hellscape for the middle and lower classes – The state has the 2nd highest housing prices in the nation, only under Hawaii. It is the most expensive state for rent in the US, surpassing Hawaii with an average monthly rental cost of $1900. CA also has the third highest food prices in the country.

The median household income in California is $78,000, or $6500 per month (before taxes). The average total cost of supporting a family of four in California including basic necessities is $6700 per month. This is why the Pacific state had the highest homeless rates in the US in 2022 (except for Washington DC). Living in CA is a net negative prospect for the average person, and forget about starting a small business and building something better – California is consistently rated one of the worst states for starting and maintaining a business, which is why companies have been leaving in droves over the past few years.

Why Do They Lie?

I can only theorize on this issue, but I suspect that leftists lie about California as a success story because they see the state as the culmination of their ideology. It’s the beta-test state for numerous socialist policies to fester and then spread to other parts of the US. It’s a symbol of their vision for the future, and it’s falling apart. So, instead of fixing what’s really wrong with it they fabricate a narrative of a state on the rise rather than on the decline and attack anyone who points out the obvious problems.

I also believe that looking at California is a lot like looking into a crystal ball that shows us America a couple years from now. The way California is run, with endless debt and a cycle of statistical fallacies to hide the growing fiscal cancer, is a lot like the way our federal government is run. When we see the crumbling of CA, we are seeing a glimpse of what will soon happen to the rest of the country.

They have to make it look as good as they can. They have to lie. Because if they don’t divert blame they could end up paying the price for their mismanagement later.

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