Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

On January 10, the French government announced plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

The change would mean that after 2027, workers in France would have to work 43 years to qualify for a government pension, instead of 42 years. French workers promptly took to the street in protest decrying even this very small reduction government welfare.

Like many countries in Western Europe and North America, France faces a major demographic problem in that its population is aging and demanding ever larger amounts of public pension funds.

Meanwhile, the younger working-age population is shrinking as birth rates continue to fall. So, the French state is looking for ways to stay relatively solvent.

For Americans who follow our own old-age social benefits systems, this problem will seem quite familiar. Although the US regime is not in as dire fiscal straits as the French one, the US’s federal government nonetheless faces huge and growing obligations to current and future pensioners. This will only grow more urgent as the population continues to age and as the numbers of prime-age workers stagnates. 

Indeed, the Social Security scheme is an excellent example of how government programs, once established, gradually become far more costly—in real per capita terms, not just aggregate terms—as time goes by.  Many recipients now spend decades collecting benefits on a program that had been sold as a program only for people who were too old, exhausted, and injured to work at all. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer workers are called upon to foot the inflated bill. 

At the center of this mission creep for Social Security is the fact that Social Security benefits originally began at age 65. Yet, at that same time, the life expectancy at birth was below 65. (It’s much higher now.) Many people lived well past 60 back then, of course, but not nearly as many as do today. In other words, a far smaller fraction of the work force collected Social Security, and for a shorter period. Today, however, more workers live long enough to collect Social Security, and they now receive payments for longer. That’s a sure way to inflate the cost to taxpayers of old-age benefits. (It’s also a sure way to encourage able-bodied workers to leave the workforce, thus tilting the economy more toward consumption rather than production.) 

Even if we ignore the moral problems presented by transferring huge amounts of income from current workers to pensioners, the realities of demographics in the twenty-first century mean the minimum “retirement age” should really be at least 75.  Too long has a shrinking pool of workers been forced to fund pensioners who start collecting government benefits in their 60s and can now expect to be on the dole for 20 years or more.  Moreover, this phenomenon is growing. Social Security increasingly forces today’s workers to shoulder an ever-greater burden on their ability to earn a living and support their families. The days of subsidized extended vacations for able-bodied 65-year olds must come to an end, but until that day comes, the damage can at least be limited by raising the age of eligibility. 

The Original Justification for Social Security 

When it was being sold to the public in 1935, those promoting Social Security took advantage of sentiments that people over age 65 were essentially too old to work, and thus would soon fall into poverty. This certainly would have seemed plausible at the time. Most jobs in 1935 involved significant amounts of physical labor whether we’re talking about cleaning laundry, waiting tables, farming, mining coal, or building houses. Work was also more dangerous—as historical work injury data makes clear—and workers were more likely to sustain injuries that would render one unable to work. For example, a 65-year-old simply could not safely perform much of the work required at a steel mill. (As shown in this 1944 video on the steel industry.) 

Especially important to efforts at presenting Social Security as fiscally prudent was the fact that with a minimum age of 65, the number of Social Security beneficiaries would also be limited by the realities of life expectancy. In 1940, for example—the first year that pensioners could receive benefits—life expectancy at birth was only 61 for men and 65 for women. Indeed, even if we eliminate the toll of childhood diseases on life expectancy, the numbers do not change dramatically. In 1940, total life expectancy for persons over 15 years of age was 68. Moreover, in 1940 the percentage of the population surviving from age 21 to 65 was only 54 percent for males and 61 percent for females. But what about those who actually made it to age 65? In 1940, a male at age 65 would, on average live another 13 years. A female would live another 15 years. So, when looking at the work force in 1940, we can eliminate nearly half of the men and about 40 percent of the women as likely future Social Security recipients. About half of those who actually made it to 65 would then collect benefits for no more than 15 years.

Now let’s contrast that with life expectancy realities in our own time. 

Life expectancy at birth today is 78 years, and for those who reach age 15, it is 80. for both men and women, more than 75 percent of the population reaching 21 will survive to age 65. That’s an increase of 50 percent for men, and around 30 percent for women. For those reaching age 65 in 2022, males will live another 18 years on average, while females will live another 20 years. 

These growing commitments from Social Security are further aggravated by the fact that while the retiree population is growing, growth in the work force is stagnating. Since 1960, the total number of Social Security recipients has increased by 364 percent. Meanwhile, the prime age population (age 25-54) has grown by only 90 percent. Put another way, in 1960, there were 4.6 prime age workers per Social Security recipient. In 2020, that number was 1.9. 

Now let’s look at this in dollar terms. Per prime-age worker, inflation-adjusted dollars spent on SS amounted to $9,590 in 2022. That’s up from $4,814 in 1980, or an increase of 99 percent over the period. During the same period, inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for workers increased 16 percent. Part of this discrepancy is due to the fact SS payments are consistently—as mandated by law—bumped up by cost-of-living adjustments to account for price inflation. Wage workers enjoy no such guarantees. 

Social Security benefits are rapidly outpacing both population growth and earnings growth. In the aggregate, the program is more generous (toward pensioners) than ever. 

To stanch some of the bleeding from today’s workers who get an increasingly raw deal on this, the time has come to stop the ever-upward creep in how much Social Security recipients collect. 

As noted above, we see that, on average, men and women collect Social Security for a period that has grown by five years since 1940—an increase of 38 percent for men, and 33 percent for women.  To even put a dent in this, the minimum age for SS needs to rise to 70. Yet, even this is much too low given how turning 65 in 2022 is nothing like what it was in 1940. Ever since it was first put forward, Social Security has assumed that reaching the age of 65 is also closely associated with disability. That may have been a good assumption in 1935 when work was more often dangerous, likely to produce disability, and medical care was much less adept at addressing these disabilities. 

In 2022, however, the word “disabled” hardly describes the majority of Americans in the 65-74 age range. Indeed, only one quarter of this population reports having any disability at all. The share of Americans from 65-74 who report poor health has been declining, as has the proportion of workers in physically demanding jobs. It’s unclear why 100% of these workers would require government income subsidies. In any case, workers who are actually disabled would qualify for disability benefits even if the age is raised. Moreover, a male worker today who reaches age 75 can still expect to live another 11 years. A female can expect to live even longer. Raising the age to 75 still wouldn’t eliminate a taxpayer-subsidized “official” retirement, but the change certainly would reduce the length of time today’s workers toil in a state of indentured servitude to today’s pensioners.

One thing raising the age has going for it is that it’s been done before. A 1983 change very gradually increased the full-benefits age from 65 to 67. That’s much too little, and even an increase to age 75 would be a mild reform. Other reforms, up to and including abolition, should include means-testing pensions and totally defederalizing and decentralizing the program. But it’s also easy to imagine the tidal wave of opposition from activists who vehemently oppose even a very mild reduction in Social Security payouts. Raising the age won’t make Social Security just, prudent, or wise. But cutting federal spending is always the right thing to do.

A café shop in Portland, Oregon is one of just two locations in the United States where rich coffee snobs can imbibe a $150 cup of Australian coffee.

Just 22 cups will be available from Proud Mary Coffee Roasters, which has locations in Portland and Austin, Texas.

The coffee itself is the Black Jaguar Geisha blend, and comes from Hartmann Estate in Panama. It recently won first place in the 2022 Best of Panama competition – one of the premiere coffee competitions worldwide, KOIN reports.

The coffee company paid $2,000 for a pound of the beans, their most expensive coffee purchase to date.

Wonka time?

For those who don’t want to spend $150 on a cup of coffee, which is absurd, Proud Mary Coffee Roasters will give away a single cup of the coffee to a US customer who receives a golden ticket in their purchase of a Hartmann presale tin from the Proud Mary website.

The $34 tin includes 3.5 ounces of Hartmann Natural Geisha Coffee – and possibly a golden ticket.

Proud Mary will host a Hartmann Family takeover at its Portland cage throughout the month of February and will offer five additional coffees from the famed producer. Three options will be espressos and two natural Geisha coffees will be available as deluxe pours. -KOIN

Proud Mary’s Portland location was opened in 2017, before expanding to Austin last year. 

Authored by Wouter Schmit Jongbloed via ‘Money: Inside and Out’ blog,

Overnight, the sky over Iran was lit up by at least two explosions targeting military production facilities: one in Isfahan and one in Tabriz. Whether the two explosions are connected remains unclear as the Isfahan target appears to have been an “ammunitions” factory and the explosion in Tabriz occurred at a motor oil factory. Some sources (here) suggest the list of targets hit might be larger and include the Headquarters of the IRGC and some other military targets.

While no party has claimed direct responsibility for the explosions, Senior Ukrainian spokesperson Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted “War logic is inexorable & murderous. It bills the authors & accomplices strictly. Explosive night in Iran – drone & missile production, oil refineries. Did warn you.”

While drones can be launched from any platform without much infrastructure, it is worth noting that the most common Iranian suicide drones have a range of roughly 2500km and the distance between Kherson, Ukraine, and Isfahan, Iran, is approximately 2600km — so barely in tentative range.

The regime in Teheran is, somewhat predictably, down-playing the impact of the explosions, noting of the Isfahan attack that one drone was shot down “and the other two were caught in defense traps and blew up. [The attack] caused only minor damage to the roof of a workshop building. There were no casualties.”

At the start of the Asian open, oil markets might be primed to price higher risks to oil supplies out of concern that: (i) Ukraine war might be spilling over into Middle East, (ii) Iran might seek retaliation in the region, or (iii) general unrest in oil producing countries is bad news for supply.

As Iran seems to be downplaying the attacks and no clear culprit has been identified (despite Ukraine’s early response), any spike in oil prices could be driven initially by algorithmic trades immediately at the open and thus likely to fade as more information becomes available.

To reiterate:

1/ it doesn’t seem oil production facilities were the target;

2/ even past attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure such as by Yemeni militants (with Iranian backing) in 2019 had a limited impact on oil prices beyond the very short term. 3/ Iran is a marginal producer (though admittedly the market is petty tight)

Will Oil Prices Spike as Markets Price Increased Destabilization?

Previous episodes of violence and explosions involving oil producing countries has led markets to price supply concerns. In somewhat comparable situations, such as Yemen’s missile strikes against Saudi Arabia for instance in March 2022, the oil price reaction function seemed driven in large part out of concern for escalation.

In the current circumstances, three risk avenues could drive market concern:

(i) Ukraine War Spill Over to Middle East

As we do not have a clear sense of responsibility for the explosions in Iran, it’s too early to assume Iran is being targeted as a function of the War in Ukraine; other possible agents include domestic groups behind recent protests and, of course, Israel — though the type of relatively unsophisticated and ineffectual strike makes direct Israeli involvement less likely.

Spill-over risks from the war in Ukraine are real, with the risk-vector Iran stepping up its overt support for Russia, adding its military and industrial capabilities (such as they are) to that of Russia in the production of drones and missiles.

Considering Iran is already suspected of providing material aid to Russia and the seeming determination by Teheran to minimize the explosions this morning, the risks of spill-over seem contained.

(ii) Iranian Retaliation in the Region

While the risk of direct involvement by Iran in the War in Ukraine does not present a central case scenario, elevated risks are present for Iran to seek to lash out regionally to emphasize its continued ability to project force (in the face of being hit domestically).

Of concern to markets could be the increased risk of Iranian attempts to sabotage or derail the energy supply to Europe. Considering Saudi Arabia’s non-confrontational attitude toward Russia lately, an Iranian threat in retaliation against the Kingdom is not likely at this time. Energy transits however could be targeted if the regime feels particularly vulnerable due to this morning’s explosions.

(iii) Elevated General Unrest in Oil Producing Countries

Markets generally respond poorly to upheaval in oil producing countries, especially when global demand is expected to respond to China’s reopening post Zero-Covid. These nebulous concerns are often short-lived though and price reactions fade.

Implications: Pushing Iran Further into Russia’s Camp? JCPOA?

The longer term implications of heightened “homeland” insecurity in Iran might well be a drive in Teheran to consolidate its alliances with Russia and China. The more Iran depends on Russia and China, the fewer diplomatic stepping stones are available to the West to present Iran with credible incentives not to develop a nuclear capability.

As US NSC official Admiral Kirby noted in December: “Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship.” Such support could include expertise in crowed control measures, but might also involve the delivery of fighter planes (Su-35), air-defense capabilities and potentially helicopters.

Russian support for Iran in nuclear matters is likely more fraught, with Moscow remaining wary of providing Iran with obvious pathways to a nuclear break-out moment. Its disastrous invasion of Ukraine could however marginally reshape Russia’s strategic calculus, making an alliance with Iran more palatable.

Last week, the US, UK and EU imposed fresh sanctions on dozens of Iranian officials and are actively considering designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. With relations between the West and Iran at a low point, the future of the JCPOA remains unclear and in “the deep freeze,” with all blocks satisfied that the nuclear status quo is acceptable (for now).

*  *  *

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US short-seller Hindenburg Research and Indian billionaire Gautam Adani are locked in an epic game of ping pong as both throw barbs at each other. 

Last week, Hindenburg published a 100-page report alleging Adani’s company Adani Enterprises Ltd. is built on accounting fraud, while Adani’s legal team called the short report “maliciously mischievous and unresearched.” 

Hindenburg’s report led to a $50 billion selloff in Adani’s corporate empire. 

The next round of fighting between the short seller and India’s richest person occurred on Sunday when Adani Group published a 413-page rebuttal to the short seller’s claims, calling it “nothing short of calculated securities fraud” and declared that the US company was attacking India as a whole.

“This is not merely an unwarranted attack on any specific company but a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India,” Adani said. 

Adani reiterated it will “exercise our rights to pursue remedies to safeguard our stakeholders before all appropriate authorities.”

Combing through some of Adani’s rebuttals is Bloomberg’s Brian Chappatta. He outlined a few of the responses. 

Some responses about the Mauritius-based entities and entities associated with Monterosa Investment Holdings.

tl:dr — they’re public shareholders in listed Adani companies. We don’t control who buys/sells/owns those shares and aren’t required to know the source of the funds. pic.twitter.com/a2PSd59ASa

— Brian Chappatta (@BChappatta) January 29, 2023

On multiple questions about Gautam’s older brother, Vinod, this appears to be the boilerplate answer:

“Vinod Adani does not hold any managerial position in any Adani listed entities or their subsidiaries and has no role in their day to day affairs.” pic.twitter.com/Kmn0IzicRS

— Brian Chappatta (@BChappatta) January 29, 2023

This is an interesting reply.

The question about related party transactions (and what counts and doesn’t) is key to all of this. pic.twitter.com/ZwAj4qBT9g

— Brian Chappatta (@BChappatta) January 29, 2023

Here’s the 413-page rebuttal. 

Meanwhile, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman doubled down Sunday morning on his criticism about Adani. 

I don’t see how the bankers for the ⁦@AdaniOnline⁩ equity offering can allow it to close without doing due diligence on the issues identified in the ⁦@HindenburgRes⁩ report. There is just too much liability exposure for the banks. https://t.co/3I6kruZUaJ

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 29, 2023

And we wonder just how long it will take for Hindenburg to respond to Adani’s rebuttal.

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

Former President Donald Trump visited two early-voting states New Hampshire and South Carolina on Jan. 28, hitting the campaign trail for the first time since announcing his 2024 bid for the White House in November last year.

“The 2024 election is our one shot to save our country, and we need a leader who is ready to do that on day one,” Trump said in a speech in Columbia, South Carolina.

“We need a fighter who can stand up to the left, who can stand up to the swamp, stand up to the media, stand up to the deep state.”

“Am I allowed to say stand up to the RINOs?” Trump continued, referring to an acronym for “Republican in Name Only.”

“To stand up to the globalists and China, and stand up for America. And that’s what we do, we stand up for America,” Trump added.

“You need a president who can take on the whole system and a president that can win.”

The former president added, “Together we will complete the unfinished business of making America great again.”

Trump also unveiled his South Carolina leadership team, which is to be headed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster. Others named to the leadership team include the state’s Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Russel Fry (R-S.C.), Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), former U.S. Attorney Peter McCoy, and Trump’s former ambassador to Switzerland Ed McMullen.

“This campaign will be about the future. This campaign will be about issues,” Trump added, before criticizing President Joe Biden and his administration’s policies, such as border control, the drug crisis, and the economy.

“Joe Biden has put America on the fast track to ruin and destruction, and we will ensure that he does not receive four more years,” Trump added.

‘Marxist Hands Off of Our Children’

One particular issue that Trump said he will address if elected is education.

“We’re going to stop the left-wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth. And we’re going to get their Marxist hands off of our children,” Trump said.

“We’re going to defeat the cult of gender ideology and reaffirm that God created two genders, called men and women.”

“We’re not going to allow men to play in women’s sports,” he added. “We’re going to save the dignity of women and we’re going to save women’s sports itself.”

Trump also said he will work to keep South Carolina’s presidential primary as the “first in the South,” which has taken place on Super Tuesday.

“It’s a very important state, first in the South,” Trump said. “And there were people wanting to move it. I said, ‘we’re not moving South Carolina.’”

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the New Hampshire Republican State Committee’s annual meeting in Salem, N.H., on Jan. 28, 2023. (Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

‘More Committed Now’

Before his speech in Columbia, Trump spoke at the New Hampshire Republican State Committee’s annual meeting in Salem, New Hampshire. He dismissed suggestions that he was off to a slow start in his campaign since announcing his third bid for the presidency.

“They said, ‘He’s not doing rallies, he’s not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost that step,’” Trump said in Salem.

However, Trump said, “I’m more angry now and I’m more committed now than I ever was.”

Trump announced Stephen Stepanek, the outgoing chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, would be joining his team as a senior advisor for his campaign in the Granite State. Chris Ager, a Republican National Committee member, has been elected the new chairman to replace Stepanek.

Primary Calendar

The former President criticized the Democrats’ efforts to change their primary calendar.

“From the very beginning, I’ve strongly defended New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status. I have been your defender,” Trump said. “I refuse to let any Republican, and there are some you know who they are. even think about taking that cherished status away.”

Honoring Biden’s wishes, the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) Rules and Bylaws Committee passed a proposal in December making South Carolina the first vote in the party’s presidential nominating calendar. Under the proposal, South Carolina’s primary would be held on Feb. 3, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13, and Michigan on Feb. 27.

Iowa is historically the first state to have a closed caucus, followed by New Hampshire with the first primary.

“Ｗe will root out the deep state and stop the weaponization of federal agencies because there’s a weaponization like nobody’s ever seen,” Trump added.

“We are going to take back our country, and we’ll take back the White House, and we’re going to straighten out the United States of America.”

A 59-year-old male Finnish farmer, Markku-Pekka Antikainen, took up figure skating at age 50, declared himself trans, and has now performed under the female name “Minna-Maaria” at the opening ceremony of the European Figure Skating Championship.  Finland was proud to announce that they would be including the world’s “first trans figure skater” at the proceedings, only to discover Markku could not skate.

Previous warnings that the trans “athlete” may not be qualified for the event were present, but strangely, ignored.  Markku has competed before with similar results.  However, he received higher marks from judges for his routines anyway, likely due to his trans status.  Take a look at this routine, in which Markku dresses up as a Gisha, stumbles about and yet still gets a 2nd place score:

Similar to the way in which children competitors are sometimes given special treatment because judges are afraid to hurt their feelings, the culture of participation trophies and special allowances for trans participants is slowly erasing competitive environments and turning athletics into a joke.

The debate over male athletes competing in female sports while claiming to be women is often more about the inherent genetic differences between the sexes and the clear advantages men have.  In this case, the debate is about trans participants being given chances they don’t deserve simply because they say they are trans. 

At bottom, the greater conflict is over what constitutes reality.  Though Markku is a non-athlete given license to pretend he belongs in an arena with champions, other men with biological advantages are given license to pretend they are women while destroying women’s sports and dominating in every field. 

One ultimately has to wonder if any of this is about social “dignity” or so-called equity?  Perhaps it is actually meant to be nothing more than a mockery of human excellence and truth; an attempt to tear down all notions of merit while forcing the public to act as if they believe men can be women or that the mediocre can be extraordinary?  Perhaps all of this is an exercise in forcing the populace to see something that is not really there and to participate in the big lie?

Addendum by Matt Taibbi via Racket,

Hamilton 68 responded to a #TwitterFiles thread Friday with a series of claims, including that their site was always intended to be understood as “nuanced,” that they always maintained that “witting or unwitting” accounts could be on their list, and that “some accounts we track are automated bots, some are trolls, and some are real users.”

They could also have inserted the disclaimer added to the new Hamilton 2.0 page, which as a helpful reader noted this morning, includes in red font a blaring warning to all that it would INCORRECT to label anyone or anything that appears on their dashboard “as being connected to state-backed propaganda”:

Thank heaven for the Wayback Machine. Here’s what was written on the original Hamilton page:

These accounts were selected for their relationship to Russian-sponsored influence and disinformation campaigns, and not because of any domestic political content.

We have monitored these datasets for months in order to verify their relevance to Russian disinformation programs targeting the United States.

…this will provide a resource for journalists to appropriately identify Russian-sponsored information campaigns.

High on that original page, the Hamilton founders explained they monitored two types of accounts:

There are two components to the dashboard featured here.

The first section, “Overt Promotion of Content,” highlights trending content from Twitter accounts for media outlets known to be controlled by the Russian government.

The second section, “Content Tweeted by Bots and Trolls,” highlights themes being pushed by Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence campaigns.

The Hamilton list tracked overt Russian media on the one hand, and “bots and trolls” on the other. Note the difference between that language and the language Friday: “Some accounts we track are automated bots, some are trolls, and some are real users.” That Hamilton Friday was also trying to distance itself from headlines about “bots” is particularly grotesque, given that it was so overt in identifying the composition of its list this way at the start.

I encourage everyone to read language from the original site, then look at Friday’s ironically named “Fact sheet,” and compare for yourselves.

Finally I want to note a passage from the Friday “fact sheet” I somehow overlooked:

Individual accounts were algorithmically selected based on analytic techniques developed by J.M. Berger that were used to identify the most influential accounts within those networks. The Hamilton 68 team did not individually review or verify all accounts because the focus of the dashboard was to analyze behavior in aggregate networks, not specific accounts.

Translating: individual accounts were chosen through a method developed by J.M. Berger, a writer and think-tanker whose usual specialty is extremism (he’s written about ISIS and domestic white nationalism in the U.S.). Still, it wasn’t even Berger’s fault that ordinary Americans ended up in the list, since said people were chosen “algorithmically.” The Hamilton 68 team also “did not individually review or verify” all the names, because their “focus” was “aggregate networks,” not “specific accounts.”

So, nobody looked at the list.

The list that was “the fruit of more than three years of observation and monitoring.”’

Sounds solid.

Yes? No?

*  *  *

Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket,

Days before yesterday’s Twitter Files report about Hamilton 68, I wrote the public relations officers of both of the sites’ parent organizations, the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) and the German Marshall Fund (GMF). I told them I was in possession of the Hamilton 68 list, which purported to track “Russian influence activities.” I said I had a slew of internal Twitter documents that among other things identified their project as “bullshit.” Toward the end I added:

Given the sheer quantity of news stories sourced to Hamilton 68, this has to go down as one of the great media frauds of all time. Unless you have an explanation for how and why hundreds of non-Russians like Dennis Michael Lynch, Patrick Hennigsen, Joe Lauria, and [I inserted the name of a San Diego school board member] came to be on this list, there’s no other conclusion. 

I hope you will treat this matter with respect and answer this query. My story is going to identify not just people like Clint Watts but members of the ASD advisory board as party to this. 

The story eventually published, “Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, The New King of Media Fraud,” was based on email assessments of Twitter executives like Yoel Roth and Nick Pickles, the forensic analysis Roth had done in 2017 and which was excerpted yesterday, and interviews with people on the list. These elements — especially the interviews — made for a pretty ironclad case that the much-ballyhooed Hamilton 68 “dashboard” was a sham, that took real opinions of real people and falsely declared them part of a “network” of “Russian influence activities.”

On the remote chance Hamilton 68 had inside information legitimizing the linking of Dennis Michael Lynch, David Horowitz, and @TrumpDyke to “Russian influence activities,” I not only reached out to Hamilton’s creators, but when they were quiet, threw a tantrum on Twitter, tagging every member of the ASD advisory board in an effort to hear from them pre-publication. I genuinely wanted to hear an innocent explanation if they had one. They still said nothing. Only after the story blew up online yesterday did they put out an explanation.

“FACT SHEET: Hamilton 68 Dashboard (2017-2018)” is embarrassing. I’ve been told by several people since yesterday that Clint Watts is a sweet guy and a devoted family man. But the response he put out starts dissembling in the lead paragraph:

By analyzing a dynamic list of more than 600 Twitter accounts linked, wittingly or unwittingly, to Russian influence activities online, the dashboard provided a window into Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online…

Let’s explore “wittingly or unwittingly.”

Forget that Hamilton 68’s original dashboard said it was “tracking Russian propaganda” and “Russian disinformation” (and not tweets by Consortium, The Sirius Report, and Liberals are Dumb). Forget even that co-founder Jamie Fly regularly compared the Russian cyber threat to al-Qaeda, and used language describing the Hamilton 68 accounts as if they were a front for a league of sleeper cells:

The approximately 600 accounts are a sample of a much wider network of pro-Kremlin accounts… These accounts should be viewed as a sample of distinct networks of Russian-linked accounts that were identified over the course of roughly three years of analysis. They are very likely only the tip of the iceberg. 

Hamilton’s claims were even more concrete than that. Its founders told reporters they couldn’t disclose account names because “the Russians will simply shut them down,” implying direct control of Moscow. This is from a Politico interview with co-founder Laura Rosenberger:

Here’s one of Hamilton’s favorite journalists, Ken Dilanian of NBC, offering the same line about how Russia would simply marionette all of its cyber-agents back into darkness if the list were to be released:

By yesterday, the site was claiming its reason for secrecy was that it “took data privacy seriously and worked to maintain the anonymity of monitored accounts to avoid doxing or harassment.” This explanation changed a lot over time. We’ll come back to that, because it’s important.

What if reporters simply misunderstood Hamilton 68? What if the media overreacted? That was the next explanation:

The dashboard’s original methodology acknowledged that “the content within the network is complex and should be understood in a nuanced way.” Members of the media, pundits, and even some lawmakers often failed to include appropriate context when using the dashboard’s data…

We’re meant to believe that through a propaganda campaign that began in the summer of 2017 and saw people like Watts, Fly, and co-founder Laura Rosenberger make regular breathless public appearances about the Russian menace they were tracking, in stories with headlines like “The Russian Bots Are Coming,” was — a misunderstanding. Reporters went overboard, ignoring Hamilton demands for context and “nuance”! Last night they even disavowed the notion that they were responsible for headlines about “bots.” This was first on a list of “false or misleading claims”:

Claim: The Hamilton 68 team selected accounts based on a determination that they were “Russian bots.”

Here’s Watts on NPR on August 20, 2017, responding to a question from host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who introduced Watts by saying, “The #FireMcMaster hashtag was promoted by computer software known as bots, according to our next guest,” before adding:

“What’s the evidence that Russia is using bots to spread stories against McMaster, and how certain can you be of the source?”

The response:

WATTS: So we start with Russian state-sponsored outlets. We look at what they’re talking about. We then move to what we see are overt Russian supporters. These are people that openly declare and state that they’re pushing Russian propaganda and Russian interests. And then over time, we watch as this community grows. And that’s when we start to pick up on the bots that amplify it. Once we can identify the message, we essentially do a key network monitor. We build out some algorithms, and we zero down on what is being amplified the most. That’s where we pick up on the bots.

Did Watts ever say, “Lulu, they weren’t all bots? In fact, one’s the editor of Consortium, and another does Trump-themed porn”? He did not.

In this early period, Hamilton’s spokespeople never insisted on “nuance,” nor did its patrons. On Christmas day, 2017, two members of the ASD advisory committee — former acting CIA chief Michael Morell and former House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers — wrote a piece called, “Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States” in the Washington Post. The co-written piece cited Hamilton 68 in asserting, again without equivocation, that they were tracking social media cyberattacks directed by Moscow:

Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman.

The first link in that passage was to the Hamilton dashboard. As the site Moon of Alabama wittily noted at the time, the top trend on the board that day was actually “Merry Christmas.” In between discrediting the FBI and trying to stir up the locals around the trial of a Mexican immigrant in San Francisco, “Moscow” took time for holiday greetings:

A few weeks later, Rosenberger gave an interview to Vice called “The Former Hillary Clinton Advisor Tracking Russian Bots and Trolls.” She spoke about Hamilton’s relationship with the media:

ROSENBERGER: We do a lot of work with journalists to try to better inform their reporting. Journalists watch the dashboard, see what stories are trending, and think about why they might be promoting this particular story. They can incorporate this knowledge into their reporting. We also do a lot of work with policy makers to make sure they are informed.

This was after Fortune wrote a story called, “Former FBI Agent Says Russian Twitter Bots Were Behind Push for McMaster Firing,” after Mother Jones wrote “Twitter Bots Distorted the 2016 Election—Including Many Likely From Russia,” and after Bloomberg wrote “Pro-Russian Bots Sharpen Online Attacks for 2018 U.S. Vote.” Rosenberger’s Vice interview was also just before “policymakers” like congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein cited them in issuing a joint statement about “Russian Bot Activity in the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign.”

Subscribers to Racket can read the rest here…

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times,

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday released recommendations on how to acquire and manage medical supplies for the treatment of exposure to radioactive materials in emergencies.

The report sets out for countries and governments how to develop and maintain a national stockpile of specific medical supplies that can lower risks and treat injuries caused by radiation.

Maria Neira, the head of the WHO’s Public Health and Environment department, emphasized the importance of having “ready supplies” of crucial drugs developed over the last decade.

“In radiation emergencies, people may be exposed to radiation at doses ranging from negligible to life-threatening. Governments need to make treatments available for those in need—fast,” Neira said in a statement.

It’s the first time the publication has been updated since 2007.

“This updated critical medicines list will be a vital preparedness and readiness tool for our partners to identify, procure, stockpile, and deliver effective countermeasures in a timely fashion to those at risk or exposed in these events,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program.

The medicines listed in the publication for a national stockpile include only those specifically used today to treat human over-exposure to radiation, according to the WHO. Other typical lists of medical supplies for stockpile would include generic supplies like personal protective equipment (PPE), trauma kits, fluids, antibiotics, and painkillers.

The WHO stated its data, prepared in annual reports, showed that many countries are still unprepared for radiation emergencies.

A worker, wearing protective suits and masks, takes notes in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on Feb. 10, 2016. (Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Stockpile

The report focussed on which medicines should be stockpiled and how they should be stored and managed, as well as the role that different organizations play in preparing for and responding to emergencies.

The WHO noted that a collection of medical supplies commonly found in a radiation emergency stockpile include stable iodine to protect the thyroid from radioactive iodine, chelating agents such as Prussian blue to remove radioactive caesium from the body, and decorporating agents like calcium-/zinc-DTPA to treat internal contamination with transuranium radionuclides.

Additionally, there are also cytokines included to help reduce the damage to bone marrow in cases of acute radiation syndrome and other medicines to treat symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, and infections, according to the WHO.

The report discusses emerging treatments and medical countermeasures, such as studies identifying new cellular and molecular pathways and means of administrating drugs that may be exploited for novel treatments and new products for use during a radiation emergency.

An image of a small round and silver capsule containing radioactive Caesium-137 that went missing in transportation between a mine site north of Newman and the north-eastern parts of Perth between Jan. 10–16, obtained on Jan. 27, 2023. (AAP Image/Supplied by Department of Fire and Emergency Services WA)

Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies

According to the WHO, a radiological or nuclear emergency is a situation that negatively impacts human life, health, property, or the environment.

The report considers possible scenarios for radiological and nuclear emergencies, including accidents at nuclear power plants and nuclear warfare.

An accident at a nuclear power plant, medical or research facility, or accidents during the transport of radioactive materials are examples of accidental radiological and nuclear emergencies that could occur, according to the WHO.

They can involve a number of situations, such as nuclear power plant accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Situations can also involve accidental exposure to uncontrolled radiation sources, and accidentals while transporting radioactive materials.

One such incident happened in Australia recently, where a small, solid capsule measuring 8 mm by 6 mm was thought to have dropped off a truck during transportation from a mine to Perth. The capsule is radioactive and can potentially cause severe skin burns and illness. It is reported to emit a level of radiation equivalent to receiving 10 x-rays in one hour, at 2 millisieverts per hour.

Radiation emergencies may also occur in conjunction with conventional emergencies, natural disasters, military conflicts, or malicious acts involving radiation sources, the WHO noted.

Former Obama secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, admitted last week that the immigration crisis is ‘much bigger’ than it was when he was running things.

“Well, the job, first of all, is different than it was when I was in office seven, eight years ago,” Johnson told David Lat on the Original Jurisdiction podcast. “The current secretary was my deputy secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. The job is different. The immigration problem is much bigger than it was.”

When asked if he had any advice for Mayorkas – who is facing calls for impeachment over the Biden administration’s mishandling (stoking of) the border crisis, Johnson said he just needs to stick to the script.

“So, sometimes, the essence of the job is repeating over and over again one simple, straightforward message that you want people to hear,” he said.

Meanwhile, on Thursday 77 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to President Biden urging him to reverse plans to limit asylum access and eligibility on the US-Mexico border – which follows plans announced in January to significantly decrease illegal border crossings by proclaiming that illegal immigrants from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will be returned to Mexico under Title 42 if they enter the United States illegally. The plan, under which up to 30,000 migrants from the four countries can apply for asylum protection from their home countries, also provides asylum seekers and migrants with US sponsors.

“We believe that your administration can and must continue to expand legal pathways for migrants and refugees into the United States—without further dismantling the right to seek asylum at our border. This right is a pillar of the post-war international order to which the United States has committed itself,” wrote the Democratic lawmakers in their push to encourage illegal immigration. “Instead of issuing a new asylum transit ban and expanding Title 42, we encourage your administration to stand by your commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.”

As the Epoch Times notes,

Created as part of the Public Health Service Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Title 42 was designed to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases in the United States.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Trump administration invoked the order to restrict entry into the United States.

In late December 2022, the Supreme Court blocked the termination of Title 42.

In its decision, the court agreed to hear arguments in February about whether a coalition of Republican-led states can challenge a lower court’s ruling that ordered the Biden administration to end Title 42, which remains in place.

The letter’s authors praised the Biden administration’s program that allows American citizens and people with legal status in the United States to sponsor migrants from the four countries. They criticized the strategy because of its reliance on policies implemented by former President Donald Trump.

Migrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua weren’t previously included in Title 42, the lawmakers noted. The Biden administration should also decide to not move forward on a proposal that will prevent migrants from asylum if they’re unable to find refuge in third countries before arriving in the United States, which is a measure the Trump administration attempted to enact.

In a press conference on Jan. 26, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), flanked by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), said, “No matter how many Trump policies the Biden administration resurrects, Republicans will continue to obstruct any effort to actually reform our border processing and modernize our immigration system.

“We recognize that the United States is experiencing a difficult migration challenge at the southern border. But as elected officials, we are duty-bound to propose legal solutions, one that protects asylum seekers while also securing the safe removal of migrants who have no legal claim to stay in the United States.”

The letter to Biden wasn’t signed by Democratic leaders in the House or Senate.

“I haven’t seen the letter but we look forward to, as Democrats and as members of Congress, having a healthy discussion about how we deal with the complexity of issues connected to comprehensive immigration reform and making sure we have a safe, secure, and strong border,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said on Jan. 26.

On Jan. 24, citing that the program violates U.S. immigration law, 20 Republican-led states asked a federal judge to end the sponsorship policy for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated on Jan. 25 that border officials have seen an average of 115 daily encounters with illegal immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela this month. That’s 97 percent less than in early December 2022 when numbers rose to a record high of 3,367 encounters each day.

“These expanded border enforcement measures are working,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Jan. 25. “It is incomprehensible that some states who stand to benefit from these highly effective enforcement measures are seeking to block them and cause more irregular migration at our southern border.”

During an address at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Jan. 20, Biden said Republicans were trying to score “political points” on the border crisis and criticized them for not supporting his immigration policy proposal.

“The first bill I introduced was a comprehensive reform legislation on immigration. But because of some in the Congress, they refused to consider it. They found it a better issue to campaign on than an issue to solve,” Biden said.

“So, we have a choice. They can keep using immigration to try to score political points, or we can help solve the problem. Immigration reform used to be a bipartisan issue. And we can make it that again, in my view.”

While Biden is dealing with pushback from lawmakers in his own party, Republicans continue to fight against his border strategy.

On Jan. 24, 20 Republican-led states filed a lawsuit in a Texas-based federal court challenging the Biden administration’s recently announced program to accept 30,000 illegal immigrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The lawsuit contends that the program has no legal authority and that states will suffer from the flood of illegal immigration from the four countries.

“The Biden open borders agenda has created a humanitarian crisis that is increasing crime and violence in our streets, overwhelming local communities, and worsening the opioid crisis,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement about the lawsuit. “This unlawful amnesty program, which will invite hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. every year, will only make this immigration crisis drastically worse.”

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

Sen. Angus King sat across from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an unannounced trip to that country earlier this month and debated keeping quiet.

The independent senator from Maine thought to himself, “Do I dare say this?” King, a member of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, told RealClearPolitics that he didn’t want to create “an incident.” But in that delicate diplomatic moment, with so much at stake, blunt advice was needed: “I took a deep breath and said, ‘Mr. President, a scandal would really screw this thing up.’”

Under President Biden, the United States has rallied the West in support of Ukraine as that nation tries to fight off Russian invaders. Though unwavering, economic and military aid isn’t unconditional. “Misuse of money or material,” King warned, would jeopardize the lifeline to Kyiv. The message was received. According to the senator, “He got it immediately.”

Zelensky removed several senior Ukrainian officials from their posts earlier this week reportedly over allegations of corruption and as a public demonstration to the West that Kyiv won’t tolerate graft. The move comes as House Republicans promise additional oversight of how the tens of billions in economic and military aid has been used and spent.

The White House isn’t worried. They say they do take the concern seriously. They just haven’t seen any maleficence thus far, according to John Kirby, Biden’s national security spokesman who said Wednesday that neither military nor financial assistance “have fallen prey to any kind of corruption in Ukraine.”

“Correct,” Kirby replied without qualification when asked by RCP to confirm that the administration had not yet identified any previous misuse of equipment or misappropriation of funds from the United States. King was similarly impressed.

While visiting Ukraine, the senator said he saw how Zelensky’s team employs outside auditors to track both dollars-and-cents and everything else “down to the individual spare part.”

Republicans are more skeptical and already making good on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s warning before the midterms that the House wouldn’t be sending Ukraine “a blank check.” The Biden administration has already provided approximately $27.5 billion in military assistance as well as nearly $10 billion in humanitarian aid and more than $15 billion in financial support.

Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican now chairing the House Oversight Committee, will soon comb through those numbers to identify “waste or misuse.”

“With any massive government spending comes the opportunity for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. Ukraine aid is no different,” Comer told RCP before adding that Congress owes it “to the taxpayer” to “conduct oversight over the tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars sent overseas.”

Taxpayer support for Ukraine remains bipartisan – for now. The last aid package passed the Senate 88-11 and the House 368-57 in May, but deep skepticism remains on the right. Comparisons of Zelensky to Winston Churchill and Ukraine to Great Britain during the Second World War grate on fiscal conservatives like Ted Galen Carpenter of the CATO institute.

“The notion that Ukraine was such an appealing democratic model in Eastern Europe that the country’s mere existence terrified Putin may be a comforting myth to U.S. politicians and pundits, but it is a myth. Ukraine is far from being a democratic capitalist model and an irresistible magnet for Russia’s groaning masses,” Carpenter wrote in the American Conservative, before noting how the former Eastern Bloc country regularly ranks toward the bottom of international corruption indexes.

Systemic corruption was an animating principle of Zelensky’s political career long before the Russian invasion when he rose from comedian to president. Mykhailo Podolyak, a close advisor to the Ukrainian leader, wrote on Twitter after the recent firings that the moves “testify to the key priorities of the state” and how “everyone should understand their responsibility.” The Biden administration echoed that message on Capitol Hill during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday.

Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told lawmakers that if anything the staffing change in Kyiv “sends a very strong signal to others who would try to rip off this war effort, and is important for the future of Ukraine.”

The White House is preparing for more of that kind of oversight from Congress in the weeks and months ahead, and while the administration reports that Ukraine earns high marks in rooting out corruption, Kirby noted that corruption remains an ever-present danger in all conflicts.

“You can’t forget that,” he said. “I mean, it’s war.” To guard against misuse, he added, the administration has redoubled its efforts via officials at the U.S. embassy there “to work with the Ukrainians on accountability.” 

Ukraine’s first priority is expelling the Russians. They have already managed to blunt the advance, and the Zelensky administration welcomed news that Biden was readying to ship 31 Abrams Battle Tanks to the country, armor that’s expected to help turn the tide come spring.

King told RCP that the new hardware “will make a real difference for the Ukrainians” and said that the shipment was both “necessary” and “consistent” with previous aid packages. The United States first rushed Javelin and Stinger missile systems to the country during the early days of conflict. “The priority at the time was to stop the Russian incursion toward Kyiv,” he explained before noting how the battle has devolved into a kind of trench warfare. “Now we are in a different kind of war.”