Austria Kickstarts Deportation Process As Syrians Receive Letters Questioning Their Right To Stay

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The Austrian government is understood to have initiated a process to review the asylum status of Syrians following the fall of the Assad regime, a move that could impact up to 40,000 people.

As reported by the Exxpress news outlet, the Federal Office for Asylum and Immigration (BFA) has sent letters to Syrians who have been in Austria for less than five years, questioning their continued need for protection.

The letters, citing the “changed circumstances” in Syria, state that recipients no longer need to fear political persecution. Those affected have been asked to attend appointments where they must provide further justification for their asylum claims, including evidence of integration such as employment, children enrolled in school, or other contributions to Austrian society.

BFA Director Gernot Maier clarified that asylum protection can generally be revoked within five years if the original reasons for granting it have fundamentally changed. “As soon as a well-founded basis for the decision is available, the decision in these cases is made immediately,” the letter from the BFA stated.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer instructed Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to suspend all ongoing Syrian asylum applications and review existing cases, but Maier acknowledged the “very volatile situation” in Syria, which currently prevents any definitive decisions on deportations.

However, it appears that Vienna is preparing the groundwork to expedite repatriations once the political landscape in Syria becomes clearer.

The Syrian community in Austria, numbering over 95,000 as of early 2024, is predominantly concentrated in Vienna and represents the eighth-largest foreign group in the country.

Austrian newspaper Heute reported up to 30,000 Syrians took to the streets in Vienna after the fall of the deposed former Syrian president to celebrate his demise at the hands of Islamist rebels, though police figures placed the number at 12,000.

FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl welcomed the government’s actions, claiming the departure of Assad eliminated the need for Syrians to remain in Austria. In a social media post, Kickl declared, “Your homeland needs you now,” and argued that the return of Syrians would provide “significant relief” to Austria’s social system. He also referenced Syrian migrants’ overrepresentation in criminal statistics, adding, “Even one or two knife specialists will disappear from Austria.”

The debate has reignited tensions over migration policy in Austria and across Europe, where leaders in several countries are calling for Syrians to return home. Austrian officials have floated the idea of offering €1,000 payments and assistance with travel and documentation for voluntary returns. However, those without leave to remain or with criminal convictions face forced deportation.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 02:00

Would A Trump-Putin Agreement Bring Peace To Ukraine Or Just Set The Stage For More War?

Authored by Jim Jatras via The Ron Paul Institute

"I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." – Winston Churchill, 1942

Many Americans, even a lot who never much cared for Donald Trump, voted for him in part because they believed – or at least hoped – that he would be, relatively speaking, a peace candidate compared to the hideous Biden-Harris record. To his credit, Trump’s first term was the only US presidency since Jimmy Carter’s not to get us embroiled in a new conflict, though he failed to extricate us from Afghanistan or Syria.

Such hopes need to be balanced against other aspects of Trump’s earlier tenure in office. Notably, on Ukraine, he oversaw provision of lethal aid to Kiev that had been denied by Barack Obama. Put another way, it was under Trump that Ukraine built up a NATO army in all but name, setting the stage for the February 2022 escalation of the conflict that had been brewing since the 2014 coup midwifed by Victoria Nuland.

Trump has said he would end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, indeed, even before he takes office. While never unveiling anything resembling an actual plan, he has indicated that his "art of the deal" trademark bluster and threats would be applied to both Ukraine (terminate all aid if Kiev refuses to negotiate!) and Russia (vastly increase aid to Ukraine if Moscow refuses to negotiate!). The supposedly "transactional" President-elect is seemingly unflustered by little details like how, if both Russia and Ukraine balk at talks, he could simultaneously increase and cut off US assistance. Five-dimensional chess indeed!

While the thought of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is balm for every peace-loving soul, the rest of Trump’s announced second-term team is anything but reassuring: Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Michael Waltz as National Security Adviser, with supporting roles at the NSC by Sebastian Gorka and special envoy for Ukraine-Russia Keith Kellogg, all of whom have a record of the standard bellicose chest-thumping with respect to evil, evil Russia and our cuddly “democratic” “ally” Ukraine.

As Trump prepares to take office next month, one thing should always be kept in mind: like Winston Churchill with respect to the British Empire, Donald Trump has not returned to the Oval Office in order to preside over the liquidation of the Global American Empire (the GAE). Rather, all indications are that he seeks to disengage the US from the Ukraine conflict in a way that avoids total, humiliating defeat for NATO (and, probably, that organization’s long-overdue dissolution) in order to “pivot” to the Middle East and a looming war with Iran following a return to his “maximum pressure” policy. The encore will be the Really, Really Big Showdown with China. Hence Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.

What of the other side? Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and other top Kremlin and Duma figures have made it clear that Moscow has had enough with “non-agreement capable” Washington after repeated Western deceptions: on NATO expansion (“not one inch eastward”), the status of Kosovo (UN Security Council Resolution 1244 providing for its autonomy within Serbia, trashed by the US-sponsored unilateral declaration of independence in 2008), the February 2014 power-sharing agreement in Ukraine between then-President Viktor Yanukovich and his opposition (a dead letter before even one night had passed), the February 2015 Minsk 2 agreement on the status of the Donbass that was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council (but later admitted by Angela Merkel and other western leaders to have been a ruse to allow time to build up Kiev’s forces for a Blitzkrieg), and the failed April 2022 Ukraine-Russia agreement initialed at Istanbul (torpedoed by Boris Johnson with US backing).

Accordingly, the Russians have made it clear that they will accept no temporary truces, no ceasefires, no more promises made to be broken like piecrusts, no pauses as cynical tricks to get the Russians to forgo their current and growing military advantage. (Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, even suggested recently that new regions could soon be added to Russia. Putin recently re-floated the concept of Novorossiya, “New Russia,” a region of Imperial Russia that included Odessa.) No, they insist, there must be either a genuine, definitive, binding settlement that ensures a lasting peace based on mutual security, or Russian forces will press on until their objectives – notably “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine – are achieved militarily. Such an outcome would mean at least replacement of the current regime in Kiev and, more likely, the end of Ukraine’s statehood.

For the West, this would constitute a total debacle of Afghanistan-like proportions effectively signaling the end of US hegemony in Europe, the GAE’s crown jewel. What can Trump offer the Russians to avoid that?

Moscow’s latest peace proposal was voiced by Putin in June 2024, in which he specified that he’s willing to negotiate at any time but will not halt military operations until Kiev withdraws its forces from the four oblasts that, in addition to Crimea, Moscow claims to be part of Russia: Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, Notably, this would include the cities of Zaporozhye and Kherson, under Kiev’s control as of this writing. (In fact, contrary to propaganda from the usual suspects, Putin has never rejected talks, unlike Ukrainian former-president-but-still-playing-the-role Vladimir Zelensky, who in October 2022 issued a decree forbidding talks with Russia as long as Putin is in office.)

Putin’s June proposal was dismissed out of hand by Kiev and its western backers. Given Moscow’s rejection of a ceasefire at the conflict’s line of control, things are at a seeming impasse.

But are they?

With the rapid and accelerating advance of Russian forces, the physical distinction between the military line of confrontation (a freeze line rejected by Moscow) and the constitutional limits of the four oblasts (evacuation of which Moscow demands) becomes less every day. That is, the territorial question – which Russia has never stated to be paramount in its goals for launching its “Special Military Operation” (SMO) in the first place – becomes less of an issue.

Rather, the real question for the Trump Administration becomes a political one of how much wiggle room there is in the Russians’ stated determination not to rely on more promises of the sort that have been repeatedly broken in the past. Put another way: if Trump-Lucy wants to avoid utter defeat in the European theater of the worldwide confrontation between the GAE and BRICS-Eurasia, so he can get on to mixing it up with Iran and China, can he dupe Putin-Charlie Brown into taking another run at the football?

I think he at least has a good shot at it. Keep in mind that, despite the ubiquitous narrative, Putin is neither a dictator nor a hardliner toward the West. Regarding the former, he’s a balancer in a system that still retains many (too damn many, in my opinion) western liberals dying to see the day they can again send their snotty kids back to elite western universities and their fat wives and svelte mistresses shopping at Harrods, while saluting a rainbow flag raised over Lenin’s Mausoleum. As to the latter, as lately demonstrated by his restrained response to ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles launched into pre-1991 Russia by NATO personnel from Ukrainian territory, Putin has shown a dogged determination to come to an understanding with his Western “partners” long after it became clear to everyone (except him, evidently) that they have no intention of ever getting along with him or Russia but are hell-bent on destroying both. (“Hello, Volodya? It’s me, Bashar. I’m out front of Resurrection Gate, near Zhukov’s statue …)

Far from the “shock and awe” demonstrated by the United States in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, etc., or Netanyahu’s in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, Putin’s light military footprint in Ukraine – the limited size of the incursion force, declining to destroy the Dnepr bridges, limited (but now increasing) attacks on infrastructure, the pullback of Russian forces from Kiev as a good will gesture before the 2022 Istanbul talks, not eliminating Kiev regime leaders who’d kill him if they could – all point to a strategy based on accepting a reasonable deal if one might be presented, not on settling things by force of arms, 1945-style. (It’s largely forgotten now that at the outset of the conflict foreign embassies decamped from Kiev and moved to Lvov in the far west, and consideration was even given for the Zelensky regime to abandon Ukraine entirely and establish a government in exile, in the expectation that Russia would quickly overrun the whole country – then face an Afghan-type insurgency that would bleed Russia white, leading to regime-change in Moscow.) Unexpectedly, the Russians didn’t behave as the West had anticipated. Instead, it’s clear their approach was “pedagogical” from the start: show the West they mean business so they’ll come to the table. It is also suggested that a deal, not a military resolution, would be preferable to Putin’s BRICS partners, whose opinion he can’t afford to ignore.

The frustration this approach has caused in the Russian military and in large sectors of the public is well known. That said, as observed by Moscow-based John Helmer, Putin may deem that his high levels of public support allow him to accept a settlement that falls short of, or at least redefines, his SMO goals as originally stated. It’s an open question whether that support could be sustained when (inevitably, in my opinion) the West contemptuously disregards its obligations under whatever is agreed-to.   

Some say Putin has finally learned his lesson about the West. Others say not, that he would jump at any remotely reasonable transaction proffered by Trump & Co., Inc. We will soon see.

Looking at the longstanding pattern of Putin’s Kremlin and the smoke signals from Washington, mediated by the good offices of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the contours of a kind of Minsk 3 or Istanbul-double-plus-good “deal” are already discernable:

1. A ceasefire in early 2025: Ukrainian forces would evacuate whatever shrinking part, if any, of the four oblasts they might still hold, plus of Russia’s Kursk region if any Ukrainians are still there. A Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) would be established. (Some ad hoc arrangement might have to be reached on the cities of Zaporozhye and Kherson, if the Russians hadn’t taken them yet. Perhaps they would remain under Ukrainian administration inside the DMZ, “claimed by Russia.”)

2. Moscow would continue to regard the areas it holds as sovereign Russian territory. The rest of the world would still deem them Ukrainian under temporary Russian occupation, similar to how the US regarded the Baltic Republics of the USSR. Both sides would tolerate a rough balance between Zaporozhye and Kherson cities (claimed by Russia but under Ukrainian administration) and the rest of the oblasts and Crimea (claimed by Ukraine but under Russian administration).

3. As Trump has suggested, supposedly non-NATO European Union peacekeepers would be deployed on the Ukrainian side of the DMZ (with Moscow’s agreement, contrary to astute observers’ insistence that the Russians would never allow it), subject to strict limits on numbers, weaponry, etc. These limits, of course, would not be honored (see Lucy and Charlie Brown, above).

4. NATO membership for Ukraine world be deferred indefinitely. This is an obvious Lucy lie that Moscow would pretend means permanent neutrality. In fact, rump Ukraine would be treated as a NATO state in all but name but not receive formal membership.

5. Security guarantees: the US, NATO, Russia would sign an updated version of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (possibly in the form of a treaty, which the original Budapest Memorandum wasn’t) enshrined in a Security Council Resolution, guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (taking into account “provisional arrangements”), its neutral status, and a bar of foreign troops on Ukraine’s territory (except those permitted in this agreement); parallel provisions would be put into the Ukrainian constitution. It goes without saying that these Lucy assurances would not be honored by the West any more than were past formal commitments on Kosovo, the Donbass, and other topics.

6. Demilitarization “guarantees”: Strict limits would be placed on the size and composition of Ukraine’s military and placement of foreign forces and weapons on its territory. More Lucy lies.

7. Denazification “guarantees”: Parties and movements with specified “extremist” ideologies would be legally banned. More Lucy lies. Elections would be held in rump Ukraine. All sides would pretend the resulting regime is democratic, legitimate, and “moderate.” Banderist neo-Nazi groups, formally illegal, would retain their guns and wield a permanent veto over any Kiev regime.

8. Kiev would commit to protections for the Russian language and Russian culture, the canonical Orthodox Church, etc. More Lucy lies.

9. The West would promise a phased lifting of sanctions and the return of frozen/confiscated Russian assets. “You can trust me this time, Charlie Brown!” Consider how long it took Russia to be removed from 1974 Jackson-Vanik sanctions only to then be immediately slapped with new Magnitsky Act sanctions.

The bottom line is that Moscow would pretend to have substantially if not entirely achieved its SMO goals, giving up its immediate military lead in exchange for false promises: déjà vu all over again. Pretenses aside, it would accept a “quarter of a loaf” truce that preserves NATO to fight another day and sustains an anti-Russia Ukrainian rump state as a de facto NATO platform, as opposed to a clear military victory – which at the very least would have to include annexation of Odessa and Kharkov, and probably Kiev, plus either liquidation of the Ukrainian state entirely or, at worst, creation of a minimal rump Ukraine that’s effectively a Russian satellite and a member of the Union State with Russia and Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he hasn't spoken to US President-elect Donald Trump in over four years but is ready to meet with the incoming US leader "if he wants it."

Read more: https://t.co/M1XtNOT6Ku pic.twitter.com/ObjwAPv7df

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 19, 2024

The latter outcome would shatter NATO and probably NATO’s concubine, the European Union. That’s precisely what the Washington Swamp can’t afford, Trump or no Trump. Thus, even if Trump were entirely sincere in promises to Moscow made on behalf of the United States (a very big “if” in my opinion), his ability to deliver on them would be at best highly questionable in light of an Executive Branch packed with neocons (what’s new?) and the implacable bipartisan hostility toward Russia in Congress. Then, even if, by some unbelievable miracle, Trump were able to ensure US and NATO performance on their commitments for the balance of his tenure, there would be no binding effect once he left office.

Granted, the above is just one possible scenario but one I submit is all too conceivable based on past performance of those concerned. If things go this way, not only does the GAE get a new lease on life and NATO live to fight another day, it would usher in heightened danger of war in the Middle East and the Western Pacific and, in due course, set the stage for renewed and possibly uncontrollable conflict in Europe in the not-too-distant future. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov recently warned that his country needs to be ready to fight a war with NATO within the next decade, and he’s almost certainly right – especially if he and his boss allow that organization to slip out of its well-deserved fade into oblivion, almost ensuring that war will come a lot sooner than in ten years.

In laying out this possible near-term scenario, I would dearly love to be proven wrong by events. However, I have vanishingly small hope that the foregoing could resonate with any reader with agency on the American side. Perhaps chances are slightly better on the Russian side. As for the Ukrainians and the Europeans – what they think doesn’t matter to anyone, not even to themselves. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 23:25

It Never Ends: MTA Hiking Fares Yet Again, Despite Being Days From New Congestion Tolls

Everybody's favorite financial black hole in New York City - the MTA - is said to plan another fare hike just days before it institutes its congestion toll, according to a new report from the New York Post.

Spurring the hikes, the MTA approved a $1.27 billion order for 435 new subway cars, including 80 open-gangway models, and outlined plans to raise subway and bus fares to $3 per ride. Chairman Janno Lieber noted the fare increase, expected by late 2025, requires formal board approval next year.

Lieber said this week: “This is a good deal. We are way cheaper than other major world cities.” 

Well, there you have it...

But the Post writes that critics slammed the fare hikes and new $9 Manhattan congestion toll starting Jan. 5, pointing to high spending. The MTA’s plan includes 4% fare increases in 2025 and 2027, potentially raising fares to $3.14, with congestion tolls rising to $15 over time.

City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli fired back: “Chicago Transit bought 400 cars for $632 million pre-pandemic."

He added: “So given the MTA’s incompetence factor, multiplied by their waste, abuse and mismanagement, paying only double a few years later seems par for the course. Congestion pricing was supposed to solve all these capital shortfalls, but apparently now it won’t.”

City Council Member Robert Holden added: “The Miserable Transit Authority strikes again, raiding the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers with their congestion tax scam and endless fare and toll hikes.” 

He continued: “Instead of rooting out waste and abuse within their bloated system, they keep the grift alive at our expense. This is pathetic, unacceptable, and New Yorkers deserve better.”

Insiders doubt fare hikes and new tolls will affect upcoming elections for Gov. Hochul or others. Democratic strategist Jake Dilemani said commuters will feel the pinch, but political fallout is unlikely, according to the Post. 

The $1.27 billion plan includes 355 R211 subway cars and 80 open-gangway models debuting in 2027 to replace older trains on several lines. Some G-line riders will see open-gangway cars by early 2025.

MTA officials praised the R211 trains for reliability, wider doors, better signage, video cameras, and smoother service, calling it a key step in modernizing the subway.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 23:00

A Very Different Transition

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The transition from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in 2016 went like every other presidential transition in modern history. The old administration had extended meetings with the new, and old agency heads and their staff trained the new ones. It was managed by Chris Christie and then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

It was funded by the General Services Administration and the incoming team received emergency drills, confidential documents, security briefings, and training sessions on emergency protocols. The FBI was brought on board to vet all new hires.

That’s because the incoming administration believed that the system worked. It had won and therefore would be in charge. That’s how it is supposed to work in the United States.

The idea of this process is to ensure continuity in government from one administration to the other.

In normal times, all of this would be a good idea. The Founders set up a structural system of government with minimal functions, stable law, checks and balances, and established elections for president every four years to ensure that the chief executive served with the people’s consent. Most functions of government were handled by the states, in any case.

There was never supposed to be a need for a fundamental regime change. We merely changed administrators and members of Congress. The rest was supposed to take care of itself, which is why it would seem to make sense that the old administration trains the new one, and a permanent staff of experts and civil service employees helps the new kids learn the ropes from those with experience.

And yet here we are. The Trump administration’s mandate from voters is not just for a change in personnel. The mandate is in fact for fundamental regime change within the framework of democracy. The administrative state, which is nowhere found in the Constitution, has over time developed far more power than elected leaders.

That absolutely must change, as voters made clear in November 2024. It was yet another case, just like in 2016, of the candidate winning whom nearly the whole of mainstream media believed would not win, and of the whole of what anyone would call the establishment disfavoring the result. The victory was so overwhelming as to amount to a primal scream against government as usual.

In this case, it makes no sense for the machinery that the incoming administration wants to overthrow to be in charge of the transition.

Remember that this is not Team Trump’s first rodeo. Last time, it went along with all the protocols, funding, systems, and sessions. The White House staff members went through day after day of lectures from government experts on how Washington works. They sat through intelligence briefings. They were schooled in protocols for the management of nuclear war, biological warfare, natural disasters, and pandemics.

They put up with all the PowerPoint presentations, exhortations, manuals, lists, and introductions to people who really run the government. They assumed that once the president was sworn in, he would in fact be the president and those whom he appointed would be in charge.

Almost immediately, however, it became clear that the permanent government was waging some kind of an information war against the elected one. The media worked closely with deeply embedded staff in intelligence and agencies to put out the word that Trump was illegitimately elected due to supposed Russian interference. This began immediately with a bang and put those in the new administration in a tight spot, forever defending themselves against absurd charges that they all knew to be untrue.

When that finally ended, new forms of trolling began, each more severe than the last. The Trump administration always had a loose hold on power due to all of this, but it was finally and fatally upended with the onset of respiratory pandemic. The proposed solution to this, according to all the experts deeply embedded in government, was to wreck the whole of the Trump economy while waiting for a shot to inoculate the public.

Along with that came record unemployment, new permissions and mandates for mail-in ballots, school and business closures, and wild uses of power that the new Trump administration never authorized. The bureaucracies were ruling the country on their own and following the edicts of interests and powers behind the World Health Organization (WHO). Most of the Trump administration’s last year in office was spent trying to claw back power from the WHO.

Finally, in July of 2020, the Trump administration announced that it was pulling itself out of the WHO completely. But that made no difference at all. YouTube had already announced in April that it would delete any content that contradicted the WHO, and it continued to enforce that policy for years. So far as I know, it still does.

After leaving office in January 2021, the Trump team went to work trying to figure out what the heck had happened in the first term to cause everything to go so wrong, or, more specifically, what enabled the administration’s authority to be so thoroughly subverted from within.

It concluded that the real problem began with the transition itself. That was when the permanent bureaucracy first asserted its power over the incoming administration. That’s when the deep state got its hooks in.

This time, the team has a very different plan. It is being managed by trusted members of Trump’s inner circle. They have not allowed the General Services Administration to manage any aspect of the transition. They have done this by refusing to accept any money from any government source. Instead, the transition has been entirely privately funded, with methods deployed to make sure that the funding sources are not tainted by deep state contacts. The explicit purpose has been to avoid subversion.

It’s been the same with FBI vetting. The incoming Trump administration simply does not trust the process and for good reason. It was the FBI that had spied on the campaign and even raided Trump’s own home. Furthermore, it worked with other agencies to deploy myriad forms of lawfare for years.

This transition is without precedent. The permanent staff of government itself only became the U.S. norm starting in 1883, and it has grown every decade since. At some point in the past, the elected leaders became more like decorations than real rulers of government. The Trump administration cannot achieve its objectives with this status quo.

This is the reason for this very different transition. It is a good sign and symbol of what might be coming. We might in fact experience a much-needed change of regime in Washington through exactly the system and process that the Founding Fathers set up. The second term of Trump seems determined to avoid repeating the obvious errors of the last time around.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 22:35

Three Dozen Luxury Condos In South Florida Are Sinking, New Study Finds

They don't call it the swamp for nothing...

Now a study recently published in Earth and Space Science confirms that about "three dozen" luxury high rise buildings in South Florida are "sinking", according to a new report from Fox News.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic University, University of Houston, University of Hanover, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, and Caltech.

It found that 35 luxury condos and hotels in Florida's Sunny Isles Beach, Surfside, Miami Beach, and Bal Harbour have experienced subsidence in recent years.

The study analyzed Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data and found affected high-rises sank 2-8 centimeters from 2016 to 2023. The University of Miami noted such settlement is common during and after construction. Most impacted buildings were constructed after 2014.

"We found that subsidence in most high-rises slows down over time, but in some cases, it continues at a steady rate. This suggests that subsidence could persist for an extended period," the study says. 

The Fox News report says that study authors attributed the sinking to sand grains settling more densely in limestone layers, possibly influenced by construction vibrations, groundwater flow, tidal movements, or stormwater injection.

"The discovery of the extent of subsidence hotspots along the South Florida coastline was unexpected. The study underscores the need for ongoing monitoring and a deeper understanding of the long-term implications for these structures," one study author commented.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 22:10

After Hunter, How About Pardoning The Gun Owners Biden Criminalized?

Authored by Bronson Winslow via American Greatness,

President Joe Biden oversaw the most anti-Second Amendment administration in the history of the United States - effectively creating a police state that left every American open to prosecution. But when his son Hunter Biden ran into legal trouble and was convicted of three firearm felonies, Biden seemingly forgot about his own beliefs and granted clemency for all of Hunter’s crimes spanning the last ten years. To make matters worse, Biden continually assured the American people that he would not intervene.

Now, millions of gun owners remain in legal jeopardy under Biden’s policies, while Hunter walks free with his criminal record wiped clean. This blatant double standard is a slap in the face to the American people and a betrayal of whatever trust they may have still had in his leadership.

Unsurprisingly, Biden attempted to rationalize his decision by pointing fingers at the prosecution, saying it was “unfair and selective.” Regardless of his reasons, every American now facing legal prosecution due to unconstitutional firearm policies deserves the same treatment as Hunter.

Biden’s willingness to lie to the American people about his intentions highlights the ever-hypocritical left but also begs the question: If Biden is so eager to break his promises, why not break away from his leftist handlers and help American gun owners?

After all, Biden did not focus heavily on gun control as a U.S. senator and only became a radical gun-grabber after running for president in 2020. Biden’s only course of action is to apply a blanket pardon to all gun owners who have suffered under his administration’s abuse of power.

A History of Anti-Second Amendment Policies

The Biden-Harris administration has pursued the most aggressively anti-Second Amendment agenda in U.S. history. While they stopped short of outright gun confiscation, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Biden’s weaponization of federal agencies, particularly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), led to a series of sweeping regulatory actions that turned millions of lawful gun owners into felons overnight.

Biden also advanced and implemented numerous policies that violated the Second Amendment by restricting every American’s right to bear arms. His administration sought “assault weapon” bans, red flag laws, magazine capacity limits, and universal background checks—all while limiting the places where law-abiding citizens may exercise their unlimited right to carry firearms.

These measures have not only undermined the Second Amendment but also emboldened federal agencies to act with impunity. In March, the consequences of this overreach turned deadly when Brian Malinowski was fatally shot during a botched ATF raid.

The ATF justified the raid by accusing Malinowski of illegally selling firearms at gun shows—a claim rooted in a controversial 2023 rule approved by the agency without congressional oversight. This rule redefined what qualifies as a “gun dealer,” allowing the ATF to target law-abiding citizens under a broader, unchecked mandate.

Malinowski, who was never proven guilty of the alleged crimes, was denied his day in court and lost his life over accusations far less severe than those against Hunter Biden.

Last-Minute Redemption

Biden will never outlive the detrimental policies his administration has implemented and will always be remembered as a hypocrite for pardoning his own son, but he could salvage some of his reputation if he applied his reasoning to all gun owners in America.

A blanket pardon for law-abiding gun owners—those now labeled as felons under ATF’s arbitrary and unconstitutional mandates—would be a step toward restoring trust and fairness.

If Biden is willing to protect his son, he should have no qualms about protecting ordinary Americans from his own unjust laws and regulations.

By breaking from the radical left’s playbook, Biden has an opportunity to show that clemency applies to all—not just to his family. The millions of gun owners affected by these policies deserve more than an apology.

They deserve action.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 21:45

Republicans Should Use Article 5 To Protect Our Institutions

Authored by Ryan Silverstein via RealClearPolitics,

In November, President Trump and Republicans won a broad mandate to govern. Consequently, Democrats are now seeking refuge in traditions and institutions they once sought to destroy – the Senate filibuster and courts of law. President Trump and Republicans should seize this opportunity to use Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution to protect these institutions for generations to come.

Article 5 provides a two-step process for amending our Constitution. First, an amendment must be proposed. Under Article 5, there are two ways for proposing an amendment to the Constitution: (1) an amendment passes by two-thirds of each chamber of Congress, or (2) two-thirds of state legislatures call for a constitutional convention and two-thirds of the delegates support an amendment. Once an amendment is proposed, three-fourths of states must ratify it for it to become law. Since there are fifty states, that means to change our constitution, 38 states must ratify an amendment.

In the 2024 election, President Trump carried 31 states. Moreover, Republicans control the state legislatures in 26 states, including some states Trump lost, like New Hampshire. Moreover, they flipped one chamber of state legislatures in Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. They also made inroads in deep blue states like Maine and ended the Democratic supermajority in Vermont. From the top of the ticket to the bottom of the ballot, the country shifted right. President-elect Trump and Republicans should seize this opportunity to push for constitutional amendments that protect key norms and institutions from future attacks.

First, Republicans should support an amendment constitutionalizing the Senate filibuster for all legislation, excluding spending bills from the House. The filibuster – a Senate procedural mechanism that requires 60 votes for legislation to be passed – plays a key role in requiring bipartisan cooperation in the Senate. It has been used by both parties to prevent radical legislation from becoming law.

While Democrats recently found support for the filibuster, there is a movement on the left calling to abolish it. For example, in 2022, Democrats tried to kill the filibuster. This effort only failed because independent Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted against the filibuster-killing plan. In August, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed a desire to change the filibuster again so Democrats could have an easier time passing legislation. Democrats clearly only value the filibuster when they’re in the minority – but have no issue destroying it when they control the Senate. Adding the filibuster to the Constitution would preserve bipartisan cooperation and debate in the Senate, ensuring it remains the “greatest deliberative body in the world.”

Second, Republicans should back an amendment that sets the size of the Supreme Court at nine justices. Currently, the Constitution does not set the size of the Supreme Court. Democrats have spent years undermining the Court’s integrity to justify expanding it. Other Democrats like President Joe Biden claim the historically low public approval of the Supreme Court shows there is a need to reform our highest court. Yet, the Supreme Court still has higher approval ratings than Congress and President Biden. Moreover, the Supreme Court still has higher public confidence than Congress or the presidency.

The court’s size has not been changed since 1869 when Congress set the size at nine. The court’s size remaining at nine has played a key part in allowing the court to maintain the public’s support and its independence. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to expand the court in 1937, he failed because the public viewed his attempt at expanding the Court as an attack on a sacrosanct institution. There is a long institutional and democratic tradition of nine justices, which has allowed our highest court to remain isolated from the political fray. Alexander Hamilton famously defended an independent judiciary insulated from politics in Federalist Paper No. 78, where he argued liberty would be extinguished if the judicial power were co-opted by the executive or legislative branches. Hamilton’s fear may become reality as Democrats may push for more justices when they retain power – especially if President Trump gets to appoint more justices.

Adding more seats would destroy the public’s trust in any decision rendered by changing the public’s perception of justices to politicians in robes instead of neutral arbiters of law. Enshrining the number of Supreme Court justices in the Constitution would preserve the high court’s independence from political pressures and ensure the public’s trust in our independent judiciary isn’t destroyed.

President Trump and Republicans should utilize their momentum and get Congress to propose an amendment or pressure state legislatures to call a convention of states. Doing so will preserve core American institutions for years to come.

Ryan Silverstein is a J.D. candidate at Villanova University and a fellow with Villanova’s McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy. His work has previously appeared in the New York Daily News, Post & Courier, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 20:55

Virginia Will Be Home To The World's First Nuclear Fusion Power Plant

Nuclear adoption continues accelerating, and now Virginia sure thinks it has found the way to "clean energy, billions in investment, and a solution to surging power demand". The state is going to host the world's first fusion power plant, according to the Virginia Mercury.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin said this week: “Commonwealth Fusion Systems plans on building the world’s first grid scale commercial fusion power plant in the world, full stop, and it’s going to be right here in the commonwealth of Virginia.”

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Mass., plans to build a fusion power plant in Chesterfield County's James River Industrial Park. The facility, set to produce 400 megawatts of electricity to power 150,000 homes, could be operational by the early 2030s.

Fusion power, replicating the sun’s energy production, offers a cleaner alternative to traditional fission. The 25-acre project highlights Virginia’s role in advancing energy solutions amid surging demand from energy-intensive data centers supporting big tech.

A JLARC report projects Virginia's data center energy demand could triple to 30,000 megawatts by 2040 if infrastructure supports it. To meet rising needs, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power are exploring modular nuclear reactors, wind, solar, and natural gas, the Virginia Mercury reported.

Fusion power offers a clean alternative, avoiding emissions tied to climate change. It combines hydrogen isotopes under extreme heat and pressure, using magnets to generate electricity via steam turbines, with helium as the only byproduct.

Dominion Energy Virginia President Edward H. Baine said: “Our customers’ growing needs for reliable, carbon-free power benefits from as diverse a menu of power generation options as possible, and in that spirit, we are delighted to assist CFS in their efforts." 

The report says that CFS chose Chesterfield after a global search and will lease the site from Dominion Energy. Virginia secured the project with $2 million in state and county funding, a tax exemption for equipment, and federal DOE support. Gov. Youngkin estimates it will bring "billions" in development and "hundreds" of jobs.

CFS is building its SPARC demo plant in Massachusetts to pave the way for ARC technology in Chesterfield. Unlike laser-based fusion by California's Lawrence Livermore Lab, CFS uses a tokamak, a donut-shaped device, to confine and fuse molecules.

Alex Creely, CFS director of tokamak operations, concluded: “One of the big advantages of fusion is that it doesn’t produce any long lived waste material, and there’s no risk of some kind of meltdown even. It’s a very safe energy source — something that you can live right next to and feel very comfortable with.”

Recall earlier this week we wrote that nuclear startup Oklo joined the long list of names signing deals with data centers for power heading into the next decade. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 20:30

Pandemic Coverup Intensifies: Scripps Institute's Kristian Andersen Cannot Tell The Truth

Authored by former lead Senate investigator Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released their final report earlier this month, concluding that the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Tony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where a lab accident likely started the initial outbreak.

Multiple U.S. agencies aided by virologist sought to cover-up this evidence, the Select Subcommittee charged, and several people broke the law by misleading congressional staff including Peter Daszak of EcoHealth, who funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab; NIH employee David Morens who served as Tony Fauci’s advisor; and former New York Governor Cuomo who lied about nursing home fatalities in his state.

The Select Subcommittee’s report will likely serve as roadmap for incoming Trump officials seeking to clean up federal research. However, Scripps researcher Kristian Andersen sought to invert the report’s findings, posting a series of false allegations about the report’s conclusions on Bluesky a social media app popular with Democrats fleeing X. Andersen was previously caught misleading Congress by myself and Ryan Grim at The Intercept, and his latest actions pile on the evidence that the Scripps scientist cannot tell the truth and lacks even a mob lawyer’s fleeting interest in candor.

Follow the Documents

Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, emerged as a controversial researcher early in the pandemic, and has been one of the most outspoken cheerleaders for the theory that pandemic started with a natural spillover from an animal to humans outside of a lab. But emails released a year after the pandemic’s beginning showed that Andersen initially thought the virus had been genetically engineered. However, after a phone call with Fauci and another major virology funder, Jeremy Farrar, then with the Wellcome Trust, Andersen reversed course.

Along with other virologists funded by Fauci and Farrar, Andersen then published a March 2020 Nature Medicine paper called “Proximal Origins” which concluded a Wuhan lab accident was not “plausible.” The Nature Medicine paper thus diverted any blame from Fauci for possibly starting the pandemic, as he was funding that same lab in Wuhan. Emails later showed that Fauci and Farrar helped guide the Nature Medicine piece to publication, a fact which Andersen continues to deny.

Emails and other private messages released in the summer of 2023 by Congress also indicated that Andersen’s co-authors on the Nature Medicine paper may have put politics before science.

“[G]iven the shit show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape so we are content with ascribing it to [a] natural process,” Andersen’s colleague, Dr. Andrew Rambaut, wrote to a group of virologists over Slack in February 2020.

“Yup, I totally agree that that’s a very reasonable conclusion. Although I hate when politics is injected into science – but it’s impossible not to, especially given the circumstances,” Andersen replied.

Andersen did not return a request to explain his false statements, nor provide an explanation for who paid his lawyer when he appeared before the Committee.

Follow My Lies on BlueSky

Continuing his political campaign to deny a possible lab accident, Andersen posted excerpts of the House final report on Bluesky. In particular, Andersen posted a screenshot of a memo found on page 20 of the Select Subcommittee report. “This memo proves that Dr. Fauci can’t possibly have orchestrated a cover-up,” Andersen wrote. Andersen then repeated the dishonest claim that the memo is proof that Fauci had no involvement in directing the Nature Medicine paper, despite emails to the contrary.

In a later Bluesky post, Andersen charges that these emails are “a conspiracy theory, to be clear.” But Andersen’s Bluesky posts omit one small detail about this memo found on page 20—the report’s next page, page 21.

On the following page of the report, investigators note that Andersen testified that Fauci had suggested that he write a peer-reviewed paper (this is the Nature Medicine, Proximal Origins paper) on the possibility of a lab accident at Wuhan. Page 21 also reveals that Andersen emailed to Nature that Fauci and others “prompted” the paper:

When Dr. Andersen presented a draft of Proximal Origin to Nature, he stated it was “prompted” by Dr. Fauci and later stated the goal of Proximal Origin was to “disprove the lab leak theory.”

Here’s the report’s page 21 that Andersen failed to post on Bluesky.

And here’s the email Andersen wrote to Nature Medicine, where he explained that the Nature Medicine Proximal Origins paper was “prompted by Jeremy Farrar, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins.”

To be clear, nothing is stopping Andersen from lying to his followers on Bluesky. He can continue posting truncated portions of the report to falsely assert Fauci had no involvement in his Nature Medicine paper. Lying liars lie.

But Andersen also got caught lying to Congress, and that’s where he can run into legal peril. Unlike lying on Bluesky, lying liars can be prosecuted when they lie to Congress.

Will DOJ Prosecute Lying Liars?

To mediate the Select Subcommittee’s demand for answers and to protect him during a deposition and public hearing, Andersen hired criminal defense lawyer, John P. Rowley, a former federal prosecutor who defended Trump before the Department of Justice.

In testimony Andersen submitted for a July 2023 House hearing, he sought to dismiss the emails showing that NIH officials Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins helped to orchestrate his Nature Medicine Proximal Origins paper.

But after Nature Medicine accepted the paper in March 2020, Andersen sent Fauci and Collins the paper’s draft and a draft of the press release. Andersen then thanked them for “advice and leadership” on the matter. “Please let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions about the paper or the press release,” Andersen wrote the two NIH officials who funded his research.

“Nice job on the paper,” Fauci replied.

But in his July 2023 testimony, Andersen alleged that Fauci had not provided “advice and leadership” on the paper. Instead, Andersend proclaimed some monumental difference between asking someone to comment or offer suggestions about a paper instead of on a paper.

“Note, that I say ‘about the paper’, not e.g., ‘on the paper,’” Andersen testified.

Andersen sought to clarify later in his testimony, “Sending a copy of a paper that has been accepted and is in ‘proof’ (i.e., at a stage where only changes directly requested by the journal can be introduced) is simply a professional courtesy.”

Emails impeach this portion of Andersen’s testimony, as Fauci was provided multiple drafts of the paper. A month before Andersen emailed Fauci and Collins the “proof” of the paper in March 2020, Jeremy Farrar forwarded Fauci a “rough first draft” from Andersen’s co-author Edward “Eddie” Holmes.

“Please treat in confidence—a very rough first draft from Eddie and team—they will send on the edited, cleaner version later,” Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins. The following day, Farrar emailed Fauci and Collins, “Tony and Francis, The revised draft from Eddie, copied here.”

Much of the structure and footnotes are the same of this “rough first draft” and some phrases appear verbatim in the article Nature Medicine later published. Here are a few passages for comparison.

If this is not enough, one more bit to chew on. Andersen stated in his July 2023 testimony that Fauci had received the final “proof” of the article as “simply a professional courtesy.” But we know this is not true. Some months after Andersen’s congressional testimony Fauci testified that he had been sent multiple drafts.

Here's Fauci discussing Andersen’s Nature Medicine paper starting on day 2, page 71 of his sworn deposition:

Q As the minority said, we've talked to all the U.S.-based authors or those who are acknowledged on that paper, so I won't go through all of the science in it, except for I want -- you were sent drafts periodically?

A Right.

Q A couple. I think it was less than 10, more than 5, drafts --

A Right.

Fauci’s January 2024 deposition impeaches Andersen’s July 2023 statement before Congress.

But it doesn’t end there. After Andersen was caught lying in his July 2023 congressional testimony, The Intercept published an expose a few days after, noting Andersen had also lied to Congress about his NIH funding from Fauci.

During the 2023 hearing, The Intercept discovered, Andersen sought to distract Members of Congress about a serious conflict of interest. While writing the Nature Medicine paper, whose conclusions diverted any blame from Fauci for funding research in the Wuhan lab, Andersen was awaiting Fauci’s approval for a major grant.

Here’s The Intercept:

Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research, who testified at the hearing along with Bob Garry of Tulane University, preempted the charge in his opening statement, telling the committee he had no live fundraising requests before Fauci’s agency at the time of the call. “There is no connection between the grant and the conclusions we reached about the origins of the pandemic. We applied for this grant in June 2019, and it was scored and reviewed by independent experts in November 2019,” Andersen testified. “Based on the actual timeline of this grant, it is not possible that the merit-based federal grant awarding process was influenced by a call in February, 2020.”

But Andersen’s testimony was false, The Intercept reported. While Andersen’s grant had been reviewed, it was still waiting for Fauci’s final approval and signature.

The grant wasn’t finalized until May 21, 2020. In other words, it was on Fauci’s desk at the time of the conference call. Andersen’s lab announced the funding in a press release in August 2020, nine months after he claimed it was already finalized. The press release describes it as a “new $8.9 million grant.”

In case you’re still not certain if Andersen is a liar, The Intercept posted a screenshot of Andersen’s grant, showing that Fauci had given final approval on May 21, 2020.

Congress is far from finished with addressing all the problems that happened during the pandemic. Just last week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) sent letters to a dozen federal agencies, demanding they preserve documents pertaining to Covid’s origins.

More to come…

Subscribe to The Disinformation Chronicle here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 20:05

The Establishment's "Principles" Are Fake

Authored by Connor O'Keefe via The Mises Institute,

In the years leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the Democrats and establishment Republicans who wanted to see Joe Biden, and later Kamala Harris, remain in office went all in on one overarching narrative above all: that Donald Trump represented an existential threat to American democracy.

Biden’s team and their allies in politics and media repeated this claim day after day, essentially trying to convince millions of Americans that elections would literally stop happening in this country if Trump won.

Taking a step back, Trump was framed as the domestic enemy in a broader international fight that saw “autocratic” leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and others facing down a coalition of “democratic” governments.

Democracy versus autocracy was meant to be the defining dynamic of the day. Meaning everything from the war in Ukraine to the fight over climate change was framed as one big battle where the “good guys” were defined purely by their commitment to the democratic process.

And, in that global fight, no effort was more important—we were told—than keeping Trump out of the White House.

But then he won.

Despite the establishment’s efforts, a majority of American voters were not swayed by the “democracy-versus-autocracy” narrative. Or, at least, they demonstrated that they preferred the candidate who promised to close the border, wind down the war in Ukraine, cut down the extremely bloated federal bureaucracy, investigate the weaponization of the DOJ in recent years, and roll back federal climate policies while celebrating and vowing to continue the appointment of conservative judges and justices—among other campaign promises.

Now, President Biden - and, really, all the people around him who are actually running things - are in their so-called lame-duck period. And what are they doing as they wait to hand power over to the next administration? They’re doing whatever they can to make it harder for Trump’s team to implement the very policies voters just sent them to the White House to carry out.

Last week, we learned that the Biden administration is moving unassembled border wall material away from the southern border and selling it at an auction. Groups allied with the president are also calling on him to close immigration and customs enforcement detention facilities before leaving office to hamper Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants.

After losing the election last month, the Biden administration escalated the war in Ukraine by helping Ukrainian forces shoot long-range American missiles further into Russia. Now, the president’s team is rushing to send another $725 million to Ukraine before Trump is sworn in on January 20.

Earlier this year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a ruling that makes it much harder for Trump’s team to overhaul the federal workforce. While Trump could still carry out this campaign promise, he now cannot do so through executive order. He is required to propose a new rule, which will likely bring years of legal battles.

Biden pardoned his son Hunter after he was facing prison sentences for federal felony gun and tax convictions. Now, the president is reportedly considering “preemptive pardons” for numerous allies that his team expects to be investigated by Trump’s DOJ.

Members of the president’s cabinet are rushing to spend as much money as possible in the various departments they oversee, EPA officials are hurrying to implement as many new environmental and climate policies as they can, and the president and Senate Democrats are racing to fill as many federal judicial positions as they’re able to before losing the White House and Senate.

Depending on where you stand on Trump’s agenda, you could see these efforts as heroic or disgraceful. But because the president and political establishment are ramming through policies that a majority of Americans just voted against, it’s impossible to seriously label these actions as anything other than explicitly undemocratic.

As someone who does not believe democracy is an ethical system or the best way to organize society, this alone does not bother me. But the hypocrisy is still important to call out.

Because, with their actions, the political class has again revealed that they do not actually care about democracy. They only use the fact that much of the public does care about democracy to try and serve their own ends.

The same goes for human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent carried out by foreign governments that Washington wants to overthrow. When true, these are totally legitimate criticisms to level at these state leaders. But our government officials have demonstrated a complete willingness to ignore, support, and even partake in the same abuses when it’s useful to them. So, again, they are only using the fact that decent people care about these issues to serve their own agenda.

It is important to have principles. But it’s also important to recognize when people who do not share your principles are using your commitment to those principles to manipulate you. The political establishment in recent weeks has shown, yet again, that they do this. It’s time we stop falling for it.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 17:40

TruGO: Liberal Canadian Lawmakers Revolt, Demand Regime Change In Ottawa

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing a mounting political crisis within his own Liberal Party, with an increasing number of party members voicing their desire for his resignation ahead of the scheduled 2025 election. This internal discontent has gained momentum after the shock resignation of Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s finance minister and a key ally.

Jenica Atwin, a Liberal parliamentary secretary from New Brunswick, openly stated that Trudeau should step down, and says she won't run for reelection if Trudeau remains in leadership. Atwin's call was echoed by Chad Collins, a Liberal MP from Ontario, who revealed that around 50 Liberal MPs are part of a faction pushing for Trudeau’s resignation. This represents about one-third of the Liberal representatives in the House of Commons.

"I don’t know who’s giving him advice. I can guess. It’s not good advice," Collins said. "But the buck stops with him with the decisions he makes, and we’re now seeing the fallout that’s come with what many would consider a very poor decision."

Monday’s resignation of Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s powerful finance minister and his longtime deputy, was a massive shock that has irreparably damaged the prime minister, Collins said in an interview.

Freeland said she quit after being told she would be moved to a different role in the cabinet. Trudeau delivered that news on Friday, she said — just three days before she was due for a major speech that would update the country on its fiscal and economic situation. -Bloomberg

"In terms of who the successor is, I don’t know at this point whether or not we could do much worse," Collins continued.

Meanwhile, Trudeau has canceled his customary year-end media appearances, only making limited public comments at Liberal Party events. And at a recent press conference, Justice Minister Arif Virani avoided direct questions about Trudeau's leadership, instead focusing on his role and expressing confidence in the prime minister.

"Decisions will be taken by the parties that are involved," said Virani, trying to bring the discussion back to an announcement about wrongful convictions. "I have absolute confidence in the prime minister in terms of what he has asked me to do. That is serve as a minister of justice who defends people’s rights."

According to polling data, Canada's Conservative Party, under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, is likely to secure a majority in the next general election. Wayne Long, another Liberal MP from New Brunswick, stressed the urgency of the situation in an open letter, suggesting that the party must act to prevent a historic electoral defeat.

Collins warned that continued support for Trudeau might lead to a significant exodus of experienced politicians from the party, potentially leaving it with a "skeleton crew" of seasoned representatives.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 17:20

The Twelve Days Of Schadenfreude

Authored by Daniel Oliver via American Greatness,

Democrats are stumbling all over each other to blame Biden for staying in the presidential race too long. Ha!

Axios reported that “Vice President Harris’ loss raised a feeling among Democrats that Biden’s refusal to leave the race until July cost the party dearly—even as they got caught up in a global anti-incumbency wave.”

Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) blamed Biden: “I think there’s a widespread sense that he took too long to get out and that it made it very difficult for Vice President Harris to run the most impactful campaign.”

Sen. “Hindsight” Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, “Well . . . in hindsight, knowing that he ultimately made the decision to stand down, yes, of course, it would have been better for President Biden to have made that decision earlier. I think there’s no question about it.”

Yup. No question at all. 

Now.

But what about then?

On the first day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) who said: “I want him to run . . . I see no reason for him not to run . . . . We all age differently. They said the same thing about . . . Ronald Reagan. How many people said Ronald Reagan was too old? Do you remember in his debate with Walter Mondale, the classic line?”

On the second day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) who said: “Everything I read is they’re trying to get him to cut back his hours because he’s got too much energy.”

On the third day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Kamala Harris who said that in the days following the October 7 attack by Hamas she had spent countless hours with Biden and other officials and that he was “on top of it all.”

On the fourth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) who said that “[Biden is] sharper than anyone I’ve spoken to.”

On the fifth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Gov. J. B. Pritzker (D-IL) who said: “I’ve been with the president of the United States many times. He is on the ball. The man knows more than most of us have forgotten.”

On the sixth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas who said: “The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented, and focused.”

On the seventh day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who said: “So Joe Biden has vision, he has knowledge, he has strategic thinking. This is a very sharp president in terms of his public presentation. If he makes a slip of the tongue here or there, what’s the deal?” And then, “Anyone who would think that they’re at some advantage because of his age thinks that at their peril, because he’s very sharp.”

On the eighth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Mitch Landrieu (Biden campaign co-chair) who said: “When you go in to brief the president, you better have your big boy pants on. And this kind of sense that he’s not ready for this job, it’s just a bucket of BS that’s so deep, your boots will get stuck.”

On the ninth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Chuck Todd (NBC Host) who said: “There’s an easy way to basically make this report [of Biden’s memory issues] pointless. The easiest way to get rid of this storyline is to get him out there.”

On the tenth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) who said: “I’ve spent time with both of those guys privately. Spent time with Biden and Trump privately. I’ve spent time with every House Speaker over the past thirty years. And Joe Biden, I’m not just—it’s just not close. If you want to talk about international affairs, if you want to talk about how to get bipartisan legislation, Joe Biden is light-years ahead of all of them.”

On the eleventh day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) who said: “[Biden is] incredibly strong, forceful and decisive.”

On the twelfth day of Schadenfreude, all Democrats agreed . . . with Kamala Harris who, when asked by Axios whether she could “fully assure” voters that there is nothing to be concerned about Biden’s “hour-by-hour performance,” quickly responded, “Of course.”

Things are so bad for the Democrats now they may not even celebrate Kwanza this year.

For the rest of us, however, we can give thanks to an Almighty and Provident God, and say, remembering Ronald Reagan, that America’s best days are yet to come.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 17:00

The Big Story Of 2024 That Nobody Is Talking About

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

As the embers of 2024 spit out their dying sparks and tendrils of smoke corkscrew into 2025, I want to ask: what were the important news stories of this year?

Most people will say something international.

The war in Ukraine, the atrocities in Gaza, the fall of Assad.

Maybe some will cite elections, it was a big year for voting after all.

A global shift-change in the corridors of power saw a dozen governments swapped out for new faces, with 2 weeks of the year left it’s still possible Trudeau, Macron or Scholz may join the procession.

The tech minded might talk about advancements in Artificial Intelligence.

Those are the big stories of 2024.

The banner headlines.

Sound and fury and all that signifies. But were they the most important?

No, the important story of 2024 was The Great Reset.

Remember that? It was this pan-global supranational plan to tear down and then rebuild society in a “sustainable”, “inclusive”, “fair” and “secure” way that would – totally accidentally – eradicate civil liberties and individual freedom for every single person on the planet.

It was all the rage a few years ago, you might remember. But when it didn’t go over too well with a lot of people, the powers that be dropped the subject and there’s been very little talk about it since 2022.

Does that mean it’s gone away?

We need to have “object permanence” in politics as in all things. Something doesn’t cease to exist just because you can’t see it anymore. The world doesn’t vanish when you close your eyes.

The Great Reset is still the plan.

It’s still happening. It’s just distributed now.

A compartmentalized strategy uploaded to the cloud, everywhere and nowhere. A million nanobots working a million angles to change a million tiny rules and build a million tiny cells.

Like the end of The Usual Suspects, stand the right distance back and you can see the pattern.

Just last week, the UK’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty published his annual health report. What does he recommend? Sin taxes on “unhealthy” foods and 15 minute cities. Labour have already increased “sin taxes” on sugar, salt, alcohol and tobacco. Next comes red meat, dairy and just “carbon” in general.

Earlier this year the UK introduced licensing for keeping chickens. They banned smoking too.

By 2035 it will be impossible to buy a new petrol car in the UK. Or the EU. Or Canada. Or New Zealand. Or Australia. Or Mexico. Or South Africa. Or California, and 11 other US states.

From that point you and your car  will be anchored to charging points.  Even better  your new car will probably have automatic drive features, speed limiters  – oh and remote kill switches.

This week, all of sudden, the news tells us that wood burning stoves cause cancer. A ban is already being discussed. Since coal is already a no-no for domestic users (since 2023), there effectively  goes your last chance of energy and heat independence. If they ban stoves there will be no heating available to you that can’t be hooked up to a smart meter, surveilled, controlled.

Unless you count burning a candle inside a plant pot. And they’re coming for those too.

The much-publicised murder of Sara Sharif has already been parlayed into a new bill taking away parents “automatic right to homeschool their children” – if the state deems them “vulnerable”.

Digital IDs are coming for everyone from everywhere. Here’s just a selection of reasons –

To secure the border and ensure electoral integrity in the US.

To protect children on social media in Australia.

To promote efficiency in the EU.

To combat illegal immigration in the UK.

To track migrant workers in Russia.

Because they said so in China.

The EU wants to establish an “asset register” and biometric tracking across borders. Online anonymity is being eroded with each “hate crime” attributed to “disinformation” and “hate speech”.

There is persistent and consistent talk of rationing – food and water and travel.

Ban it. Ration it. Monitor it. Control everyone’s everything.

Can’t you see the walls closing in?

These are not disparate issues, they are heads on a hydra.  They form the universal silent agenda that is everywhere. They are bipartisan and cross-bench. They are the things unquestioned, sanctioned and approved by both “sides” of every fake “divide”.

The people at the apex of the pyramid literally spent two years talking about this. Telling you it was the plan and how great it was going to be.

Then, when it didn’t take, they spent two more years pretending they never said it and distracting you with other things like UFOs. Taylor Swift. ChatGPT. Race-baiting.

They are building a prison around every single person on this planet while we argue about Hunter Biden and QAnon and Transgender bathrooms.

The drones over New Jersey – supposing there’s anything really there at all – may as well be a giant jangling key chain in the sky.

That’s what all of it is. The elections. The terrorism. The scandals. The leaked reports.

It’s a laser pointer. It stops the cat from playing with the things he shouldn’t play with.

Today is my birthday. I’m hurtling – faster than I expected or desired – towards 40. My birthday wish is a world worth living in when I get there.

The silver lining of 2025 being as bad I suspect it’s going to be is that it might force people to re-realise everything they’ve forgotten since 2022. And the first step to fixing something is admitting there’s a problem.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 16:20

Intel Shortlists Suitors For Chip Division Altera Amid Turnaround Efforts

About a month after Bloomberg reported that Lattice Semiconductor had offered to purchase Intel's Altera, the financial media outlet revealed that several private equity firms had also entered the bidding game for the company, which specializes in designing low-power programmable chips.

Sources told Bloomberg that Francisco Partners and Silver Lake Management have joined Lattice in a second bidding round for Altera. Additionally, Apollo Global Management and Bain Capital are considered potential suitors.

The people said Lattice and the PE firms have until the end of January to formalize their offers, adding other PE firms could enter the mix, or the process could end with no sale. 

More from Bloomberg: 

After calling for initial bids prior to the US Thanksgiving holiday in November, Intel has been presented with deal- structure options that range from acquiring a 20% to 30% stake to taking full control of Altera, the people said. Some parties have outlined multiple paths in their proposals, which value the unit at as little as $9 billion to more than $12 billion, according to the people. Intel paid roughly $17 billion to acquire Altera in 2015.

Intel reiterated in October that a stake in Altera was for sale before pursuing an initial public offering of the unit. This is part of a much broader turnaround plan for the struggling chip giant. 

Intel CEO David Zinsner, named interim co-CEO alongside Michelle Johnston Holthaus earlier this month, told investors at an industry conference that the chipmaker "kicked off" the process to engage with outside investors. 

"Our thinking is we'll get another partner in similar to what we did with the IMS business," Zinsner said at the Barclays Global Technology Conference last week. 

Separately, Goldman analysts Toshiya Hari and Anmol Makkar recently told clients Intel was a "Sell" and "we have yet to pick up evidence that would indicate Intel has turned the corner." 

Hari's 12-month price target was unchanged at $20 a share:

"This is based on 14x our normalized EPS estimate of $1.45. Upside risks to our estimates and our cautious investment thesis include: 1) stronger-than-expected PC/server demand; 2) better execution on process node transitions and, as a result, higher market share than we assume in our base case; 3) business portfolio optimization, 4) early/significant success in foundry, 5) timing/magnitude of government incentives related to the on-shoring of semiconductor manufacturing and 6) better than expected traction in AI acceleration."

Shares are down 62% on the year, trading around 2013 levels. 

Intel is positioned to continue the turnaround plan's "next phase of transformation" in 2025. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 15:45

Ron Paul: Trump Is Right, What Are We Doing In Syria?

Authored by Ron Paul via The Mises Institute,

My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost.

As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no libertarian hero. But unleashing an army dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in once-secular Syria hardly seems like a good idea to me.

As with President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment after Saddam’s overthrow, getting rid of Assad will prove to be the easy part. Rebuilding Syrian society after the destruction of the country will cost billions and will likely be about as successful as our “liberation” of Libya, which is still a failed, terrorist-dominated state more than a decade later.

In 2017 the Los Angeles Times published an article that, sadly, speaks volumes about the insanity of our interventionist foreign policy. “In Syria, militants armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA,” read the headline. How does it make any sense that the Pentagon is fighting a proxy war with the CIA on Syrian soil? What’s worse is that the American people are forced to pay for this Pentagon versus CIA war and then forced to pay again to rebuild the country after all the destruction.

The Syrian people will feel the cost in more than just dollars.

How involved is the US government in the overthrow of the Syrian government?

For the past ten years the US has controlled the areas of Syria oil and wheat production, stealing resources that we have no legal claim on. The combination of resource theft and extreme sanctions hollowed out Syrian society over the past ten years, so when the terrorists sprang forth from Idlib a few weeks ago there was little resistance.

Now instead of the relatively benign yet authoritarian rule of Assad, we have rule by the direct inheritors of the people who attacked us on 9/11. I am shocked that the mainstream media and many if not most politicians are cheering this. Ironically, some of the biggest cheerleaders for the al-Qaeda takeover of Syria are the same Members of Congress who finished their daily speeches on the House Floor with “we will never forget 9/11.” I guess they finally forgot?

The implosion of Syria, like the US-engineered implosion of Libya and Iraq, has not led to democracy, peace, and the protection of civil liberties. In each case it has produced the exact opposite. Millions dead, millions more living in misery with many seeking revenge against those who destroyed their families, their lifestyle, and their countries.

Are we safer having created millions of new enemies?

President-elect Donald Trump made a statement last week about Syria, saying that this is not our fight and we should have nothing to do with it. His sentiment is the correct one, though we have unfortunately to this point had far too much to do with it. Let us hope that as president, Donald Trump will follow through with this sentiment and extract the US – the overt and covert presence – from not only Syria but the entire Middle East. This is not our fight and every single thing we have done there for the past 75 or so years has only made things worse. Time for an America first foreign policy!

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 15:25

Billionaire DOGE Insider Teases Musk's 'Really Bold' Plans To Drain Swamp: 'A Lot of Stuff Ready For Day One'

Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Joe Lonsdale expressed strong optimism for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative during his appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show. The Palantir co-founder highlighted the "very bold" reforms being planned by co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, revealing that the DOGE team is already hard at work on strategic priorities. With over 100 people on board, the team is preparing to enact immediate changes, including staff removals and regulatory rollbacks.

SHAWN RYAN: We're both pretty fired up about the [Trump administration]. Who are you most excited about? Do you have anybody in particular?

JOE LONSDALE: I’m most excited about Elon, Vivek and the DOGE effort because this is something I've wanted to see for forever. I'm probably like one of the only guys in tech that's done a lot in policy on the right, on the small government side for the last 10-20 years, and it's like the world just shifted this way—like the vibe shift is exactly in line with stuff I've been thinking and talking about for a decade. I'm so excited about this.

SHAWN RYAN: How fast do you think they're going to start cleaning this stuff up?

JOE LONSDALE: They're already doing it, man. They can't really officially do it yet, but they're already making all the plans. There's people working hard there. There's guys picking me, 'Joe, we need another engineer for this,' 'We're trying to map this out,' 'We need more lawyers for this. They're going right now as hard as they can and getting ready. It's going to be really bold.

I think the way Elon works in general is just like, "What can we do right now, and then what can we do next? Let's just focus on what we can do right now." So they have what's called their 'Day One priorities,' and they're just focusing and sprinting on everything they could do day one. I think they're going to have a lot of stuff ready for day one.

They're bringing in at least well over 100 people for the DOGE effort, and they're going to put a few of them directly into each agency. A lot of the transition team itself is hiring people to put into these jobs. There's these policy placements that are all working with DOGE and being liaisons with DOGE. They're going to come out of the gate with a bunch of general things—removing certain people, removing certain regulations. I can't go into the details exactly of what they're going to be doing, but it's going to be really aggressive right from the start."

Meanwhile, Lonsdale stressed the need to rebuild America's manufacturing base.

"I'm concerned in general that we don't have an advanced manufacturing base that's nearly as big as it needs to be. I think from a geopolitical perspective it's extremely dangerous and if we want to be ready—so in World War II it wasn't that we had like a bunch of big defense contractors that we had a bunch of big industrial manufacturers and powers that were able to be shifted to do things for the war."

.@JTLonsdale to @ShawnRyan762: U.S. Must Rebuild Manufacturing Base to Counter China Threat

"I'm concerned in general that we don't have an advanced manufacturing base that's nearly as big as it needs to be. I think from a geopolitical perspective it's extremely dangerous and if… pic.twitter.com/hd4q3wRrIP

— CAPITAL (@capitalnewshq) December 19, 2024

"If we've basically gotten rid of a lot of that base and we need it back if we want to defend ourselves. So I think Trump is very good on this; he shifted it back. I think even his first term actually kind of turned the whole conversation in our country where a lot of people on both sides now agree we need to fix this. But this is where the tariffs against China, if they're done correctly, are not totally insane at all. It makes a lot of sense to me," he continued.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 15:05

San Francisco Hires Obese 'Body Positivity' Activist To Work For Health Department

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

The San Francisco Department of Public Health has hired a self-described “unapologetically fat” body positivity activist to consult on “weight stigma and weight neutrality.”

No, this isn’t a Babylon Bee story.

“I’m unbelievably proud to serve the city I’ve called home for almost 20 years in this way!” Virgie Tovar posted on Instagram.

“This consultancy is an absolute dream come true, and it’s my biggest hope and belief that weight neutrality will be the future of public health.”

‘Weight neutrality’ is the absurd notion that a person’s overall health is more important than their weight, despite the fact that being overweight is directly connected to a myriad of health problems.

Tovar, who is very clearly obese, describes herself on social media as an “unapologetically fat fat-positive feminist who fights against the weight-loss industry” and recently wrote an article for Forbes about “how to host a size-inclusive Thanksgiving.”

Tovar also runs DEI corporate training days based around combating ‘weight-based discrimination in the workplace’ and has previously advocated “radical body positivity for girls of colour.”

Another ‘weight bias training course’ she held for government workers was designed to decrease “stigma around food and bodies” in the workplace and instructed employees not to talk about exercise while at work.

She also previously criticized health professionals for pressuring her to lose weight.

The Telegraph approached the San Francisco Department of Public Health for comment on whether Tovar’s position is salaried or funded by taxpayer money, but so far has received no response.

“San Francisco is thought to be among the first city health departments in America to hire a weight stigma tsar,” reports the newspaper.

As we highlight in the video below, numerous prominent ‘body positivity’ activists who were severely overweight or obese died from, you guessed it, illnesses related to being overweight.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 14:45

A Tsunami Of Executive Orders

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

An important feature of Trump’s second term will be his actions on the first day. Trump will sign a flurry of executive orders (EOs) on the day he is sworn in (January 20, 2025) and the following day. The exact number is not known but it will easily be 50 orders or more.

The official number of each Executive Order is also not known in advance because they will have to be processed under the Administrative Procedures Act and published in the Federal Register. The Office of the Federal Register is the agency that assigns numbers to each Executive Order. This is done sequentially. But they will be effective immediately.

Trump’s executive orders have already been drafted for the most part. Some are still undergoing legal review, some are being tweaked from a policy perspective, and some are being debated internally as to whether they should even go forward. Some EOs may be pulled from the pile if counsel decides that legislation is required to achieve the intended purpose.

Each EO is presented to the president in a separate blue leather binder with the Seal of the President of the United States stamped in gold on the cover. Joe Biden signed about 50 EOs on the day he was sworn in (January 20, 2021), mostly reversing Trump’s policies. Here’s how that looked at his desk in the Oval Office:

You may notice that Biden has a rack of pens in front of him. Each EO is signed with a different pen and then the pens are handed out to supporters of the President as gifts. Now you can visualize Trump (without the mask) sitting at the same desk in the Oval Office with perhaps an even taller pile of binders signing away on EOs to reinstate Trump policies, establish new policies and abolish as many of Biden’s policies as possible. The best quick guide to Trump’s first 100 days is to consider the EOs he will sign on day one of his second term.

Here’s a summary broken out by policy area:

Immigration

• Restore the “remain in Mexico” program so immigrants will have to wait in Mexico while any U.S. asylum applications are pending.

• Build the wall.

• End the policy of making children of illegal immigrants automatic U.S. citizens if born in America. End so-called “birthright citizenship.”

• Mass deportation of illegal immigrants starting with terrorists, and criminals.

Energy & Climate Change

• Open Federal lands to oil and natural gas exploration. Same for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Atlantic and Pacific coasts and Alaska.

• Roll back emissions standards on internal combustion engines (ICE) on U.S. automobiles.

• Roll back tougher rules on emissions from U.S. power plants.

• End incentives on electric vehicle (EV) production.

• Halt windmill projects.

• Withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

• End the transition of military vehicles to “clean or alternative” energy.

Military and Defense

• Demand the resignation of all Generals who were involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

• Demand the resignation of all Generals who supported Mark Milley’s DEI and woke policies.

• End transgender surgery and treatments and paid abortions for military service members.

• Reinstate rank and seniority for military members forced out because they refused COVID shots.

Social Policy and Wokeness

• Ban biological men from women’s sports to preserve Title IX.

• Abolish “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives and offices.

• Fire special counsels investigating Trump and end all federal prosecutions of Trump and close associates.

• Pardon J6 defendants awaiting trial and those already convicted if they did not engage in violence on January 6, 2021.

• Launch investigations of progressive DAs around the country for violating the civil rights of Americans.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Trump can be expected to sign many more EOs and launch numerous legislative initiatives over the subsequent days and weeks.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 14:05

China & US Shape 2025 Oil Predictions

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

• Oil demand growth in 2025 is forecasted at 1–1.4 million bpd.

• China's petchem sector drives oil demand growth, but growth from its transportation sector is flatlining.

• U.S. shale production growth may slow due to higher breakeven costs, depletion of Tier 1 acreage, and subdued oil prices limiting drilling incentives.

Doubts about oil demand growth will persist beyond 2024, and fears of a price slump will be there to keep them company. That’s according to some recent predictions about the state of the oil market in 2025, which see demand growing, China directing the market, and OPEC still likely to unwind its production cuts.

As early as November, some analysts warned that OPEC may decide it has had enough of losing market share and start bringing oil back whatever the price. This could bring the benchmarks down to $40 per barrel, Tom Kloza from OPIS told CNBC.

“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza said. These remarks echoed a forecast by the International Energy Agency, which in October said that OPEC might be facing a decline in its market share from 34% to a little over 31% by 2028, squeezed by producers including the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Guyana.

Perhaps the choice between flooding the market with crude to drown rivals, which OPEC has already done before, and keeping the output limits in place will be what marks 2025 for the production cartel. And perhaps the fear that analysts say OPEC producers should feel about the large non-OPEC oil countries is a little bit overrated.

The U.S. is the biggest threat to OPEC's market share, according to those analysts. The largest oil and gas producer in the world, the country has boosted its production of both hydrocarbons significantly over the course of just two decades. Some in the industry are warning that this cannot continue forever at the same rate because the resources are finite, and the cheapest oil and gas has been depleted or close to being depleted. This means higher production costs down the line, even with the notorious efficiency gains that surprised the analyst tribe last year.

There is, however, a more immediate source of pressure on U.S. producers that is going to limit their own production growth next year, despite forecasts—and despite a very pro-oil president about to enter the White House in January. That source of pressure is simply the oil price. One Exxon executive spelled it out recently amid a flurry of predictions that the U.S. will become even bigger of an oil and gas producer thanks to Trump because everyone would start drilling at will.

“I think a radical change is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is primarily focused on the economics of what they’re doing,” Liam Mallon, president of upstream at the supermajor, said in November. “If those rules [on federal land drilling] were substantially changed, you would be able to drill more, assuming you have the quality and met your economic threshold,” Mallon also said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see anybody in the drill, baby, drill mode. I really don’t.”

Others have warned about drillers running out of Tier 1 acreage, prompting the Society of Petroleum Engineers to note that according to empirical data collected by Deloitte, there is not much of a difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 acreage in terms of quality, at least in the Permian and the Eagle Ford plays. Whatever the tier, however, breakeven matters, and breakeven in the shale patch is higher than it is in many conventional plays. There is also the matter of oil demand and when forecasters talk about oil demand, all eyes are on China.

“We expect that China’s oil demand will continue to rise in 2025, but almost all of the growth will be accounted for by petrochemical feedstocks. Demand for transport fuels is likely to decline,” Wood Mackenzie wrote in a recent set of predictions for next year. The consultancy also said it expected global diesel demand to rise next year but only marginally, thanks to China’s new obsession with LNG trucks, which would undermine growth in this huge consumer. Wood Mac also predicted a decline in China’s gasoline demand because of EVs and growth in jet fuel demand that would not be able to offset the declines in the other fuels.

Speaking of demand, forecasts vary but moderately. The IEA sees demand growth next year at 1.1 million barrels daily. Wood Mackenzie sees it at 1.4 million barrels daily. ING cited demand estimates of “a little under 1 million bpd,” probably referring to an earlier IEA estimate of demand in a recent report on possible 2035 developments in oil. Morgan Stanley agrees with the IEA, forecasting demand growth of 1.1 million bpd for next year. Most forecasters appear to agree, however, that supply growth will exceed demand, invariably citing China as a driver of the slowdown in demand growth and non-OPEC producers as the driver of the surplus they expect.

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 12:45

Swedish Police Board Chinese Bulk Carrier Suspected Of Undersea Cable Sabotage

Swedish police have finally boarded the Yi Peng 3, a 225-meter bulk carrier suspected of sabotaging undersea fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea last month. This was done at the invitation of Chinese authorities, according to Reuters. 

The Chinese bulk carrier is at the center of the sabotage investigation and threatens to push the limits of maritime law after EU investigators believe the ship deliberately drug its anchor along the Baltic seabed for more than 100 miles, damaging the Cinia C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany. 

More from Reuters:

Swedish police said on Thursday they participated on board the Yi Peng 3 as observers only, while Chinese authorities conducted investigations. "In parallel, the preliminary investigation into sabotage in connection with two cable breaks in the Baltic Sea is continuing," the police said in a statement. The actions taken on board the ship on Thursday were not part of the Swedish-led preliminary investigation, the police added.

Reuters noted: 

Western intelligence officials from multiple countries have said they are confident the Chinese ship caused the cuts to both cables. But they have expressed different views on whether these were accidents or could have been deliberate.

Shipping data from Marine Traffic shows Yi Peng 3 anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden, along with several military vessels, including ones from Sweden and Germany. 

Media outlet ScandAsia cited underwater footage data showing drag marks from the bulk carrier's anchor:

Experts have raised suspicions of sabotage attempts related to underwater cables near Læsø, following new underwater footage obtained by TV 2. The underwater footage reveals drag marks on the seabed coinciding with the mysterious maneuvers of the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3, which occurred just ten days prior to the cable breaks in the Baltic Sea.

Recent underwater drone operations conducted by TV 2, TV 2 Nord, and Swedish TV 4 off the coast of Læsø captured footage of a broad, dark line on the seabed. Drone operator Trond Larsen from Blueye Robotics confirmed that the marks align with the coordinates where the Yi Peng 3 passed over Danish data cables on November 7.

"There is a distinct mark that shares the same course as Yi Peng 3," said Larsen while observing the sonar footage. This latest discovery has strengthened experts' suspicions that the Yi Peng 3 may have participated in sabotage against three Danish-Swedish cables located on the seabed off Læsø. The 224-meter-long cargo ship carried out an unusual maneuver just ten days before the cables sustained damage.

Here's our reporting on the ongoing situation:

• Baltic Undersea Data Cable 'Disruption' May Take Two Weeks To Repair

• Danish Navy Hunts Down Chinese Ship Suspected Of 'Sabotaging' Baltic Sea Cables

• NATO Flotilla Surrounds Chinese Ship Suspected Of Sabotaging EU Undersea Baltic Cables

FP's Jay Solomon asked earlier this month: "Is World War III Already Here?"

Tyler Durden Thu, 12/19/2024 - 12:25