Data suggests ‘economic weakness will intensify and spread more broadly’
America’s recessionary drumbeat just got louder as a key economic gauge from the Conference Board dropped for the fifth month in a row, weighed down by a slowing job market, weak manufacturing new orders, and deep consumer pessimism.
The Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the United States, which is a forward-looking gauge designed to predict business cycle shifts including recessions, fell by 0.4 percent in July, following a 0.7 percent drop in June, the Conference Board said on Aug. 18.
“The U.S. LEI declined for the fifth consecutive month in July, suggesting recession risks are rising in the near term,” Ataman Ozyildirim, senior director for economics at the Conference Board, said in a statement.
While the U.S. economy met the common rule-of-thumb definition for a recession when gross domestic product (GDP) printed negative for two quarters in a row earlier this year, recessions are formally called by a panel of economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). They use a broader definition than the two-quarter rule, relying on a wide range of indicators, including the labor market, which has remained on a relatively solid footing.
The Biden administration has seized on the NBER’s criteria for declaring a downturn, insisting that the economy isn’t in a recession, with White House officials often citing labor market strength—though there are signs that it’s cooling.
Even though unemployment is at 3.5 percent and the latest non-farm payrolls report showed U.S. employers adding a forecast-beating 528,000 in July, a growing number of U.S. corporations have announced hiring freezes or layoffs, while the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance has been slowly trending up.
Mild or Severe Recession?
The slowing labor market was one of the factors singled out by Ozyildirim in his comments on the LEI’s fifth consecutive monthly slump.
“Consumer pessimism and equity market volatility as well as slowing labor markets, housing construction, and manufacturing new orders suggest that economic weakness will intensify and spread more broadly throughout the US economy,” he said, adding that the Conference Board projects that the U.S. economy won’t grow in the third quarter and “could tip into a short but mild recession by the end of the year or early 2023.”
While the view that America’s recession will be short and mild has its advocates, economist Nouriel Roubini, who got the nickname “Dr. Doom” after correctly predicting the 2007–08 financial crisis, calls that view “delusional.”
Roubini said in a recent interview on Bloomberg TV that he believes persistently high inflation will force the Fed to keep monetary settings tight, which will tip the U.S. economy into a “severe recession and a severe debt and financial crisis” that will be long-lasting.
Similarly, former President Donald Trump recently warned that, unless the country changes course in key areas—including energy policy—he believes something worse than a recession is on the horizon.
“Not recession. Recession’s a nice word. We’re going to have a much bigger problem than recession,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona at the end of July. “We’ll have a depression.”
WARNING: Disturbing content. Viewer discretion is advised.
The Oxford English dictionary defines meme as “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users.” Depending on how rotten your brain is from prolonged exposure to social media, you may or may not be aware that we are in the midst of a “meme war” that will ultimately determine the fate of American democracy.
One of the most significant new developments in this raging conflict is the emergence of the “Dark Brandon” meme, which portrays Joe Biden as a laser-eyed Machiavellian overlord skilled in the art of four-dimensional political chess. It also seeks to expropriate the “Brandon” moniker from Biden’s critics, who embraced the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon!” in 2021 after a filthy NASCAR journalist falsely claimed that fans at Talladega were chanting in support of winning driver Brandon Brown. (Fact Check: They were chanting, “F— Joe Biden!”)
In any event, the Washington Free Beacon has exclusively obtained a number of avant-garde “Dark Brandon” memes created with the help of cutting edge artificial intelligence technology. Bear in mind: The mainstream media does not want you, the American people, to see these humorous images. Enjoy!
A coalition of 19 Republican attorneys general says BlackRock CEO Larry Fink prioritizes left-wing political initiatives over shareholder returns and is jeopardizing the retirement of middle class workers with pensions.
Fink’s embrace of environmental, social, and governance investment policies, known as ESG, potentially runs afoul of several laws, the AGs charge in a letter sent to Fink. Instead of managing state pension funds and finding the best returns on investment, the AGs write, BlackRock uses “citizens’ assets to pressure companies to comply with international agreements” such as various climate initiatives.
Republicans are increasingly targeting asset managers such as BlackRock over their pro-ESG policies. They allege that these asset managers are transforming into backdoor channels for liberals to implement policies outside of the legislative process and leaving aside their principle, legal duty: maximizing returns for shareholders.
Critics of ESG say the policies are often arbitrary and can hurt a company’s bottom line. Moreover, ESG metrics can be gamed. Many companies, such as Tesla, receive a high ESG score under one metric while they rank poorly on another.
“Rather than being a spectator betting on the game, BlackRock appears to have put on a quarterback jersey and actively taken the field,” the AGs write. “As a firm, Blackrock has committed to implementing an ESG engagement and voting strategy across all assets under management.”
BlackRock manages an estimated $10 trillion in assets, a number larger than many first-world economies. Billions of those dollars come from U.S. pension funds. That extraordinary amount of money also gives billionaire Fink, a large donor to Democratic Party candidates and causes, tremendous influence over companies BlackRock invests in. Should Blackrock pull investments from a company over its climate or racial policies, two categories often included in ESG metrics, the company’s stock price would plummet.
The AGs assert that when BlackRock engages with companies over climate practices, it violates the states’ law about maximizing financial returns. For example, if BlackRock representatives pressure a company CEO to adopt a more expensive way to source energy in order to meet climate goals, that company may post lower profits. That drop in profits may translate to a lower stock price and harm pension funds invested in that company.
BlackRock has emerged as an explicit leader in the push “to retire fossil fuels,” the AGs allege. Part of that may be purely ideological or because of a desire to “attract investment from European or left-wing pension funds,” the AGs add. Regardless of motivation, BlackRock is obligated per law to only seek the best financial return on their investments.
Pressure from asset managers such as BlackRock appears effective. Sixty percent of respondents to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas survey last year said “investor pressure” was the number one reason that oil companies such as Exxon are not expanding operations.
The Biden administration recently picked BlackRock Investment Institute chairman Thomas Donilon to co-chair the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. During his time at the BlackRock Investment Institute, Donilon called on Americans to triple their investments in China, the world’s largest polluter.
West Virginia announced last month that it would no longer do business with Wall Street firms that boycott the fossil fuel industry. One of those firms included BlackRock. The ban will cost the firms $18 billion a year, according to the state’s treasury office.
Former President Donald Trump has warned Americans to brace for something “a lot worse than a recession” while blaming the Biden administration’s poor stewardship of the economy for soaring inflation and denouncing the tax hikes in the latest Democrat spending bill.
Trump made the remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas on Saturday, where the former president raised the alarm on the state of the union.
“Our country is being shot. It’s being destroyed,” Trump told attendees, while touting his administration’s record on the economy and national security.
Trump spoke of “creating the most secure border in American history, record tax and regulation cuts, $1.87 gasoline, no inflation, low interest rates, record growth in real wages, record growth in our economy.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on August 6, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
Soaring Inflation, Recession
During Trump’s tenure, the highest the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation gauge came in at was 2.9 percent in July 2018, while in his final month in office, January 2021, inflation clocked in at 1.4 percent.
Under Biden, inflation has climbed steadily, soaring 9.1 percent year-over-year in June 2022, a figure not seen in more than 40 years.
In his speech, Trump drew a contrast with the economy under Joe Biden, blaming the president for the highest inflation in decades that Trump estimates is costing American families as much as $7,000 a year.
“After the pandemic, we handed the radical Democrats the fastest economic recovery ever recorded, the history of our country, ever recorded,” Trump continued. “They’ve turned that into two straight quarters of negative economic growth, also known, despite their protestation to the contrary, as a recession.”
Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth are a common rule-of-thumb definition for a recession, although recessions in the United States are officially declared by a committee of economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) using a broader definition than the two-quarter rule.
Despite a number of economists arguing that the United States is in a recession based on the two-consecutive-quarters rule, the Biden administration insists that the economy isn’t in a recession, citing NBER’s consideration of a broader range of indicators.
A key argument against recession made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others in the Biden administration is that the U.S. labor market remains tight, with unemployment at 3.5 percent and, at 10.7 million, the number of job openings remaining well above the 6 million or so people classified as unemployed.
Joe Biden gives remarks during a meeting on the economy with CEOs and members of his Cabinet in the South Court Auditorium of the White House on July 28, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Worse Than Recession
In his CPAC speech, Trump then issued an ominous warning that, absent a course correction, the recession could spiral into something even worse.
“Just hope that the recession doesn’t turn into a depression, because the way they’re doing things, it could be a lot worse than a recession,” Trump said, echoing similar remarks he made at a rally in Arizona at the end of July, where he warned that “we’re going to have a serious problem” unless political change takes place.
“We got to get this act in order, we have to get this country going, or we’re going to have a serious problem,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona, warning that “we’re going to have a much bigger problem than recession. We’ll have a depression.”
During his appearance at CPAC, Trump issued a call for urgent action at the polls in the upcoming midterms.
“The future of our country is at stake. We don’t have time to wait years and years. We won’t have a country left. What I used to say about Venezuela is true. We have to save the economy, defeat the Biden, Pelosi, Schumer tax hike, which is happening right now tonight,” Trump continued, referring to the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” that cleared the Senate not long after his speech.
Senators passed the sweeping bill, estimated at $740 billion, in a 51–50 vote on Aug. 7, with the package next going to the House for consideration.
During the deliberations, Senate Democrats rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) that sought to ban any of the $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from being used to target Americans making less than $400,000 per year.
“My colleagues claim this massive funding boost will allow the IRS to go after millionaires, billionaires and so-called rich ‘tax cheats,’ but the reality is a significant portion raised from their IRS funding bloat would come from taxpayers with income below $400,000,” Crapo said in a statement.
Crapo’s amendment was rejected on a party-line vote, with the Democrat bill including softer language that features a non-binding statement of intention not to squeeze more revenue from America’s middle class.
Tax Hikes
According to an analysis by Americans for Tax Reform, a U.S. advocacy group, the spending bill includes a number of tax hikes on American households and businesses.
This includes a $6.5 billion natural gas tax that ATR says will increase household energy bills, a $12 billion crude oil tax that will end up being passed on to drivers in the form of higher gas prices, and a $52 billion income tax hike on mid-sized and family businesses.
In a separate analysis, ATR said that the Democrat bill’s changes to the book tax threaten small businesses.
Elaborating on that theme, economist and author Antonio Graceffo wrote in an op-ed for The Epoch Times that the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” would drive up prices for American households.
“Nearly half of these new taxes will be paid by manufacturers, creating disincentives to produce. Diminished industrial output will drive up the cost of goods and reduce the variety and quantity of goods available on store shelves,” Graceffo wrote.
“Beyond the manufacturing sector, the act increases taxes on businesses in general, which, combined with higher interest rates will decrease new investment and hamper job creation. Ultimately, these increased costs will be passed on to customers,” he added.
‘We Have to Win’
During his CPAC speech, Trump revealed what he sees as the key to bringing the country and its economy back on track.
“We have to win an earth-shattering victory in 2022. We have to do it, coming up in November,” Trump said.
“This election needs to be a national referendum on the horrendous catastrophes the radical Democrats have inflicted on our country,” he continued.
“The Republican party needs to campaign on a clear pledge that, if they are given power, they’re going to fight with everything they have to shut down the border, stop the crime wave, beat inflation, and hold the Biden administration accountable. They have to hold it accountable. Job number one for the next Congress,” Trump said.
The national midterm election takes place on Nov. 8, with 34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats up for grabs.
A Co-Chair of Joe Biden’s forthcoming White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health has appeared in documentaries produced by Chinese Communist Party-run outlets; lauding the regime’s agriculture and food policy as an approach that should be “learned by the whole world.”
Ertharin Cousin, one of five individuals selected by Biden to lead the conference, has also repeatedly praised the Chinese Communist Party’s agricultural policies, with her quotes frequently appearing on regime-run media.
Set to take place in September, the White House’s conference is slated to address nutrition and health in addition to food security and agriculture. It comes as inflation and food shortages plague the economy, dovetailing with efforts by left-wing activists and billionaires to eliminate meat from Western diets to supposedly combat climate change.
Cousin, who was a former executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, appeared on an episode of China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) show Full Frame titled “The Hunger Paradox.”
Cousin is the sole interviewee in the 20-minute program aired by CGTN, which is entirely owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party. It has been described by the Freedom House think tank as “a long-standing weapon in Beijing’s arsenal of repression” whose “mission is to attack designated enemies of the Communist Party.”
DURING HER UN TENURE, COUSIN VISITED CHINA’S U.S. EMBASSY.
The episode peddles Chinese Communist Party talking points surrounding the success of its agriculture methods despite the regime’s notoriety for famine and food rationing during the Cultural Revolution.
“In China, agricultural reforms ensured most rural farmers had land to grow on, allowing them to be food self-sufficient. China’s poverty reduction efforts have contributed to 70 percent of the world-wide poverty reduction since the 1980’s,” asserts the host, who makes no mention of China’s history of famine.
“One of the things I’ve heard you say, which I think is fascinating and true, is that policies do make a difference and you point to China. So many people lifted out of poverty, so many people hungry that now have meals, so policies do make a difference don’t they,” he continues.
“Yes they do,” responds Cousin, adding “You would often hear me use China as an example of a country that the world said would never feed itself. That it would always depend upon assistance from the global community because 50 years ago, China was WFP’s largest recipient, and that all evolved to the point where President Xi now says that he will eradicate poverty by the end of 2020.”
“I’m looking forward to that,” Cousin exclaims.
Cousin proceeds to explicitly praise the actions of the Chinese Communist Party, praising the regime for its “commitment”:
“It did take commitment from government to developing the programs, investing in the activities that were necessary to ensure the agricultural system was one that could provide access to food, but also ensuring that people who could not afford food had access to food. And that made a difference in the evolution of China, and there are many other factors involved there but the reality of it is is it began with a commitment by leadership to ensure that they were self-sustained in food access.”
Cousin, who served in the Obama administration as the Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, has made similar comments throughout her public service tenure.
“China has made enormous progress in dealing with hunger and its experience can be learned by the whole world,” Cousin said during a visit to China in 2013, which was hyped in an article by state-run media outlet China Daily.
In 2016, speaking with another state-run media outlet Xinhua, she claimed that “China has created significant lessons for the world and established a true benchmark for what the world can achieve.”
As recently as July 2021, while delivering a keynote address at a conference, Cousin again praised the Chinese Communist Party for “despite the fact that some 60 years ago, the world said China would never be able to feed itself, not only does it feed itself today, but it is also a donor country, supporting food access across the globe for developing countries.”
In addition to Cousin’s praise for China potentially complicating her leadership role for the upcoming White Conference, she has also served on the Advisory board of pharmaceutical giant Bayer since 2019.
Vera Sharav was only 3 years old when her world collapsed.
She and her family were chased out of Romania and herded into a concentration camp in Ukraine during World War II, where they were left to wait, and starve.
“The cloud of death was always there,” Sharav told The Epoch Times.
Weekly, a list determined who would be sent where; whether it be a death or slave labor camp, she said.
While at the camp, she said her father died of typhus when she was 5, which had been widespread throughout the camps because of the cold and malnutrition.
After three years at the camp, she was rescued in 1944, she said.
“My mother got wind that a few orphans would be transported out of the camp, so she lied and said I was an orphan to save my life, and that’s how I wound up leaving,” Sharav said.
This began what she called her odyssey as a child without parents, left to her own intuition and keen critical assessment of others’ intentions.
“I had to assess who I could trust to take care of me,” she said.
While on a train to the Port of Constanta, Romania, where there were three boats awaiting to take groups of people to Palestine, she befriended a family. However, upon arrival, she found herself assigned a boat with other orphan children that would separate her from the family with whom she felt she could trust. So she rebelled.
“No matter what, I could not be convinced to get on that boat,” she said. “Miraculously, in the end, they gave in to me.”
Seasick, she fell asleep that night, only to wake up to find that the boat with the orphans had been torpedoed by who she said she found out decades later to have been the Russians.
Though she carried guilt for having survived, she was grateful she resisted because that resistance kept her alive, she said.
“I do not obey authority, and it saved my life.”
Weaponized Medicine
These memories returned in 2020 during the web of COVID-19 restrictions that spun out of control with the help of media propaganda, she said.
“So now, when people are obeying authority mindlessly, giving up their rights to make decisions about their own lives and what goes into their own bodies, I think back to that time,” she said.
Today, Sharav is a medical activist and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a network of lay people and professionals who work to uphold humanitarian values and ethical standards established in the Hippocratic Oath, the Nuremberg Code, and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.
Both Sharav and Schara discussed with The Epoch Times what they saw as parallels between the National Socialist regime in Germany and the current medical directives being carried out in the United States through government funding.
Since the death of his 19-year-old daughter Grace in a hospital in 2021, after having been injected with a combination of drugs that he found out later was part of a federal hospital protocol, Schara called what was happening “genocide.” He has been crusading to tell his daughter’s story and network with others who have had a similar experience while bringing attention to the protocols that he believes amounted to the murder of his daughter, who had Down syndrome.
Under the Nazi regime, Sharav said, medicine was weaponized, as it has been today.
Though the Jews were the primary target, she said, the first medically murdered victims were disabled German infants and children under the age of 3.
This later expanded the operation—titled T4 for the street address of the program’s central office in Berlin—to the disabled of all ages, including the mentally ill and senior citizens, Sharav said.
“The Nazis called them worthless eaters,” she said. “T4 was a concerted effort to be rid of what their propaganda called the ‘economic burden.’”
Schara pointed to a 2021 Medicare Trustee’s Report, which evaluates the cost of keeping the elderly and disabled federally funded.
“Thirty-nine percent of that federal budget goes to those two groups right now, which is $2.2 trillion a year,” Schara said.
On page 11 of the report (pdf), there is a call for “substantial changes” to address financial challenges.
“The sooner solutions are enacted, the more flexible and gradual they can be,” the report states.
For Schara, the implication, while not overtly stated, suggests a call for eugenics that was supported by academic elites early in U.S. history, and later adopted by Nazi Germany.
Ten years after he took power, Adolph Hitler launched his genocide program that had been introduced in incremental steps with the help of propaganda portraying the regime as heroes, Sharav said.
“What happened to Grace, and what happened to many disabled and elderly in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States in March and April of 2020 was medical murder,” Sharav said.
‘Built on a Lie’
Genocide isn’t new to the United States, Sharav said, as it was Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes who voted in favor of the 8-1 majority opinion in the 1921 case Buck v. Bell, which upheld the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 and the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, who was alleged to be mentally defective.
Holmes said it would be better to prevent the mentally disabled from being born than to allow them to “sap the strength of the state” or “let them starve for their imbecility.”
“The principle that sustains compulsory vaccinations is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes,” the justice wrote in his opinion. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Carrie Buck, however, was never actually mentally disabled, Sharav said.
“Arguments for eugenics are always built on a lie,” Sharav said. “But it’s an ideology that continues to poison public health policies.” And he blames this type of thinking for the medical decisions that ultimately contributed to Grace’s death.
‘The Banality of Evil’
As he continues to try to wrap his mind around what happened to his daughter, Schara says he gained some insight from the writings of Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt and her concept of the “banality of evil.”
“It opened up a whole different view of the world for me,” Schara said.
Sharav’s experience made her familiar with the concept. The banality of evil is the normalization of mass murder by making it a bureaucratic routine that is handed down as orders through the chain of command to the person who pulls the switch, gives the injection, or turns on the gas, she said.
“No one called it murder,” Sharav said. “The Nazis were very adept at propaganda and language. The Jews were called ‘spreaders of disease,’ not unlike the epithets thrown at those who didn’t take the jab.”
Throughout 2021, the spread of COVID-19 was blamed on “the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” a phrase that was used by Joe Biden and governors such as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
“The whole language of it is dehumanizing,” Sharav said.
‘A Slippery Slope’
Schara applies the concept to the fact that 67 percent of Down syndrome children are aborted in the United States, he said.
“Doctors encourage the mother to get an amnio (amniocentesis) test, and if the test shows Down syndrome or another disability that would complicate the parent’s life, he encourages an abortion,” Schara said.
What Sharav said she’s seen in an unholy union when medicine gets into bed with the government.
“The Hippocratic Oath goes out the window,” she said.
The pledge to “do no harm” got replaced with allegiance to “the greater good,” Sharav said.
The question then remains, who has the authority to decide what’s best for the greater good, Sharav challenged.
What supports the greater good is having respect for the individual, Sharav said, and to pursue policies that advocate for the many over the individual is to open the door to medical practices that will cause harm.
“Look at what Big Pharma is doing now to children, aggressively pursuing them to be jabbed when they aren’t at risk at all from COVID-19,” she said.
It’s a slippery slope that—with the help of advanced technology—society is sliding down rapidly compared to the snail’s pace that it took for Hitler to implement his “Final Solution,” Schara said.
“We’re headed there exceptionally fast,” Schara said. “Today, the ‘Final Solution’ is the reduction of the entire human population under the ‘Sustainable Agenda’ of Agenda 2030.”
Unlike the physical camps that required ink tattoos for identification and guards to manage the prisoners, the new prisons are digital, Sharav said, managed remotely by surveillance through smartphones and cities.
“With smart technology, you can manage billions all at once,” she said. “It’s chilling.”
It’s hard for many to fathom that an elite few would conspire to cause widespread harm, Sharav said.
“People will say, ‘They made a mistake; it was an accident.’ But no, the elite, just like the Nazis, have this arrogance in which they believe they are superior and therefore entitled to rule the rest of us because they think we are inferior,” Sharav said.
Control vs. Faith
Schara said his concern is with an elite ruling class that is godless, believing only in what is measurable and controllable.
He emphasizes his faith in God as a powerful weapon to combat the dark agendas that have escalated beyond the comprehension of the average person, working 60 hours a week just to make ends meet.
“We should not fall trap to the false light that Satan will eventually ride in on to steal more souls. God’s true light protects those who believe,” he said.
“We the People” can reclaim sovereignty by learning to trust in intuition, experience, and the ability to assess lies from truth, Sharav said.
“Stop watching mainstream media,” Sharav said. “They’re all reading from the same script. They have bombarded people with fearmongering, which is exactly the same thing that the Nazis did. That’s how they controlled the population: through fear.”
For Sharav, the mission that has been laid at the feet of people throughout the world is the same as it was for her as a child: “Resist. Wake up. Stop obeying.”
With an expected GOP takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives following November’s midterm elections, Republicans in the chamber are poised to launch a slew of investigations aimed at dialing up the pressure on the Biden administration over a range of issues—from border security to Hunter Biden to the origins of the pandemic.
Domestic concerns faced by everyday Americans—most notably a historic inflation rate—will be key priorities, according to Chair of the House Republican Conference Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
House Republicans will take the administration to task on alleged “policy failures that have created an inflation crisis, energy crisis, border crisis, and crime crisis impacting every American family,” Stefanik told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
Big Tech’s censorship of conservative voices will also be scrutinized, she added.
On the foreign policy front, the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in the United States and abroad, and U.S. strategy toward Iran are set to come under focus.
Republicans are already laying the groundwork to take on “an aggressive oversight role” next year by issuing preservation notices and document requests so a potential GOP majority “will be ready to hold the Biden administration accountable from day one,” a House GOP leadership aide told The Epoch Times in an email.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) (C) speaks at a press conference, was joined by House Republican Whip Steve Scailse (R-LA) (L) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), following a Republican caucus meeting, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on June 8, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Oversight Committee
Many of the inquiries are expected to be spearheaded by the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the chamber’s main investigative panel that has broad authority to scrutinize various facets of the administration.
The committee’s ranking member James Comer (R-Ky.), who is poised to take the chair should the Republicans flip the House, foreshadowed an ambitious agenda by a GOP-led panel.
“[W]e will return the House Oversight and Reform Committee to its core mission of rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government and holding the Executive Branch accountable,” Comer told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
Another committee member Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) had a clear message for the Biden administration via email to The Epoch Times: “Their days of corruption, fraud, and abuse will no longer be met with blind eyes.”
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, attends the ceremony honoring 17 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on July 7, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Hunter Biden
Chief among a GOP-led House Oversight Committee’s priorities is an investigation into Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.
For more than two years, the president’s son has been at the center of growing controversy over his overseas business activities, including in Ukraine, Russia, and China, conducted while Biden was vice president in the Obama administration.
Hunter is currently the subject of a federal investigation being run out of Delaware and, according to a recent CNN report citing unnamed sources, it is “nearing a critical juncture.”
Hunter has previously denied wrongdoing, and the elder Biden has maintained that he has never discussed Hunter’s business activities with his son.
The president’s son’s extensive financial dealings with foreign individuals and businesses, raise concerns about conflicts of interests, illegal lobbying, and whether his ties influenced U.S. foreign policy during the Obama administration, critics say.
Republicans have honed in on Hunter’s work for Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, while his father was the Obama administration’s point-man on Ukraine, and Hunter’s dealings with several Chinese companies and businessmen with links to the Chinese Communist Party.
“We will continue to conduct oversight of Hunter Biden and the Biden Family’s pattern of peddling access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves,” Comer said.
“They have racked up over 150 suspicious activity reports for their foreign business deals, which is a national security threat,” the lawmaker said, referring to a CBS report saying that U.S. banks had flagged more than 150 financial transactions involving Hunter or the president’s brother, James, for further review by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Some of the transactions involved large wire transfers, the report said.
“We need to know if resident Biden benefited financially from these deals and if he is beholden to the interests of foreign adversaries,” Comer said.
An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China’s central Hubei Province on April 17, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
COVID-19 Origins
The ranking member highlighted that the committee would continue to investigate the origins of COVID-19, focusing on the possibility that the pandemic was the result of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.
“Growing evidence shows COVID-19 likely originated from the Wuhan Lab and the Communist Party of China covered it up,” Comer said.
An array of circumstantial evidence has prompted some officials and scientists to point to the WIV as the most likely source of the pandemic. These include the WIV’s gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses, reports that staff members became sick with symptoms consistent with both seasonal flu and COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, before the Chinese regime acknowledged the outbreak, and that a WIV public database of 22,000 samples and viral sequences was taken offline in September 2019 before the onset of the pandemic.
The Chinese regime’s persistent refusal to allow outside access to the lab and its data has made it nearly impossible to fully investigate the lab leak theory.
Domestically, the potential role of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in aiding WIV’s activities has been viewed with particular alarm by Republicans, who are looking to intensify the inquiry. The NIH has previously funded WIV via New York-based health nonprofit EcoHealth, including one grant that amounted to what experts have described as gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
“We will seek to hold U.S. government officials accountable for any wrongdoing, and ensure Americans’ tax dollars aren’t being used on risky research at unsecure labs,” Comer said.
Border Patrol agents apprehend a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Other Key Priorities
The ongoing struggle by the administration to control the flow of illegal immigration at the U.S.–Mexico border is set to become another focal point for Republicans serving on the House Oversight Committee, and other panels.
“We will also continue our oversight of Biden’s border crisis that has led to historic illegal immigration, a surge of deadly drugs pouring across the border, and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars,” Comer said.
With a GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee, Biden’s energy policies amid a deepening global squeeze on oil and gas are expected to come under close scrutiny.
“We will build on our robust oversight over how the administration is censoring conservative speech, shutting down American energy and increasing gas prices, abusing its public health emergency powers, [and] colluding with political allies like teacher’s unions,” a spokesperson for Energy and Commerce Republicans told The Epoch Times in an email.
Meanwhile, a Republican-led House Financial Services Committee would focus on probing regulatory agencies’ alleged efforts to impose a “far-left agenda” on the U.S. financial system, as well as the Biden administration’s implementation of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package known as the American Rescue Plan, said Laura Peavey, communications director for the House Financial Services GOP, in an email to The Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of Faith Action Ministry Alliance and Grant Park Christian Academy, a school that serves low-income and minority families in Tampa, Florida, Biden officials are threatening to take away the meals unless the school adheres to new Title IX interpretations on gender ideology.
“That choice that they are giving us [is] either to comply with this ideology and alter the course of our operations and to violate our own core principles and beliefs, or lose out on the nutrition for the children, lose out on the meals,” Pastor Alfred Johnson, the founder of Faith Action Ministry Alliance, said in a Wednesday phone interview with The Daily Wire.
“This is not just pertaining to Grant Park Christian Academy,” Johnson added. “You’re dealing with tens of thousands of students who are going to be impacted by this. Some of these schools are not even aware of how Title IX has been reinterpreted. And so many of them are going to be in violation, probably without even knowing about it.”
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida against both the Biden administration and Fried, who is running for governor. Ironically, Fried claims to be dedicated to fighting hunger and food insecurity in the Sunshine State but remains poised to block Grant Park’s funding for school meals.
Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried speaks at the Climate Leadership Summit. Photo by Kristen Livengood/Monroe County.
“Under my administration, we will implement universal free school breakfast and lunch,” says Fried’s gubernatorial campaign. “Kids can’t concentrate on school work with empty bellies. This is an investment in the health and education of Florida’s students.” (RELATED: DeSantis’ Former Gubernatorial Opponent Charged With 21 Felonies)
The lawsuit also addresses the larger ramifications of the administration’s coordinated effort with the agriculture commissioner’s office to force schools into adhering to dangerous and confusing new Title IX rules.
“If Grant Park Christian Academy complies with the new school lunch mandate, it will suffer harm to its educational mission, free speech, and religious exercise,” the lawsuit says.
“It will no longer be able to maintain sex-separated restrooms for boys and girls based on their biological differences; to maintain sex-specific dress code and uniform policies, where, for example, only female students are permitted to wear skorts; to draw its workforce from among those who share and live out its religious convictions; and to refrain from using pronouns that do not correspond to biological sex,” the suit adds.
“In short,” the suit said, “the Biden Administration and Commissioner Fried’s push to redefine sex in federal law has now reached the point where they will deny school lunches to underprivileged students, just because their school will not violate their religious beliefs.”
Grant Park Christian Academy has asked Fried’s office for an exemption to the rule arguing the school should not be forced to violate its religious beliefs for an arbitrary rule. Fried’s office has maintained the school must comply with the new Title IX rules or choose to forgo the lunch program.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. economy contracted again in the second quarter amid aggressive monetary policy tightening from the Federal Reserve to combat high inflation, which could fan financial market fears that the economy was already in recession.
Gross domestic product fell at a 0.9% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department said in its advance estimate of GDP on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rebounding at a 0.5% rate.
Estimates ranged from as low as a 2.1% rate of contraction to as high as a 2.0% growth pace. The economy contracted at a 1.6% pace in the first quarter.
The second straight quarterly decline in GDP meets the standard definition of a recession.
But the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recessions in the United States, defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators.”
Job growth averaged 456,700 per month in the first half of the year, which is generating strong wage gains. Still, the risks of a downturn have increased. Homebuilding and house sales have weakened while business and consumer sentiment have softened in recent months.
The White House is vigorously pushing back against the recession chatter as it seeks to calm voters ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will decide whether resident Joe Biden’s Democratic Party retains control of the U.S. Congress.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is scheduled to hold a news conference on Thursday to “discuss the state of the U.S. economy.” While labor market remains tight, there are signs it is losing steam.
A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 256,000 for the week ended July 23. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 253,000 applications for the latest week.
Jobless claims remain below the 270,000-350,000 range that economists say would signal an increase in the unemployment rate. Slowing economic growth could, however, encourage the Fed to step back from hefty interest rate increases, though much would depend on the path of inflation, which is way above the U.S. central bank’s 2% target.
The Fed on Wednesday raised its policy rate by another three-quarters of a percentage point, bringing the total interest rate hikes since March to 225 basis points. Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged the softening economic activity as a result of tighter monetary policy.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani. Editing by Chizu Nomiyama.)
Midwest landowners fighting the construction of a 2,000-mile web of carbon-capture pipelines are upset to learn that the company seeking easements on their lands is funded by foreign investors, including at least one with a troubling history.
Summit Carbon Solutions aims to build a pipeline through hundreds of farms and other private properties in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.
The pipelines will take carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by more than 30 ethanol plants, liquify it, and send it to North Dakota to be buried in rock about a mile underground.
The Midwest Carbon Express is a 2,000-mile web of carbon-capture pipelines proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. (Courtesy Summit Carbon Solutions)
It is new technology and not everyone is convinced the plan will be beneficial, especially in the longer term.
“God is in charge of the wind and the rain and the sun and—whatever amount of carbon they pump in the ground—it’s not going to change the climate. Nature can adapt,” Colin Hoffman, a third-generation cattle rancher in Leola, South Dakota, told The Epoch Times.
“Land landowners respect each other’s land in South Dakota. We know a fence line is a property line. We don’t go into our neighbor’s property without their permission. We don’t go digging in our neighbor’s property. Property lines mean something to us.”
But Summit is asking to cross a section of Hoffman’s 3,000 acre ranch with a permanent easement for a “carbon capture, utilization, and storage” project meant to save the earth from global warming.
Troubled Past
In May, South Korea-based energy company SK E&S announced it will invest $110 million to acquire a 10 percent stake in Summit Carbon Solutions as part of its strategy of transitioning to more supposedly environmentally friendly forms of energy.
SK E&S joined a consortium of investors, including Summit Agricultural Group and Texas Pacific Group, in this recent round of funding for Summit, a statement from SK E&S said.
SK E&S is a subsidiary of SK Inc., along with SK Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd., which pleaded guilty in June 2020 to wire fraud, in a scheme to obtain U.S. Army contracts through payments to a U.S. Department of Defense contracting official, and the submission of false claims to the U.S. government.
According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, SK was sentenced to pay $60.6 million in criminal fines; $2.6 million in restitution to the U.S. Army; and serve three years of probation, during which time SK agreed not to pursue U.S. federal government contracts.
The Army suspended SK in 2017 from future contracting throughout the executive branch of the U.S. Government.
In 2008, SK got a U.S. Army construction contract at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the DOJ, SK paid millions of dollars to a fake Korean construction company named S & Teoul, which then paid that money to a contracting official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Then, to hide approximately $2.6 million in payments to S & Teoul, and ultimately to the contracting official, SK submitted false documents to the U.S. Army.
SK admitted that in April 2015, its employees burned many documents related to the contracts to hamper investigators. And the company admitted that in the fall of 2017, its employees obstructed a federal criminal proceeding by attempting to persuade an individual not to cooperate with U.S. authorities, a DOJ statement said.
SK did not respond to The Epoch Times’s request for comment.
In a different case, another SK subsidiary, SK Energy Co. Ltd., along with two other South Korean companies, GS Caltex Corporation and Hanjin Transportation Co. Ltd., plead guilty to criminal charges and paid a total of approximately $82 million in criminal fines for their involvement in a decade-long bid-rigging conspiracy that targeted contracts to supply fuel to the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force bases in South Korea, a 2018 DOJ statement said, adding that, in separate civil resolutions, SK Energy and the other two companies agreed to pay a combined total of approximately $154 million. Of that, SK paid more than $90 million.
A Hereford bull on the Hoffman Hereford Ranch near Leola, South Dakota. (Courtesy Colin Hoffman)
Ed Fischbach is a farmer near Mellette, South Dakota, with a cow-calf and crop operation. Summit wants an easement on Fischbach’s land, who is skeptical of the company.
“I haven’t trusted this company before we found out they had foreign investors—just the way they’ve acted towards landowners from the very beginning. There’s no trust whatsoever,” Fischbach told The Epoch Times. Knowing SK’s background had made him feel even more skeptical.
The Epoch Times asked Summit what it had to say about landowners’ concerns about SK E&S.
“A wide range of individuals and organizations have invested in Summit Carbon Solutions because they share our view that there are significant opportunities to economically decarbonize the agricultural and ethanol industries, which will enhance their long-term sustainability,” Jesse Harris, a Summit spokesman, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The company will continue to meet or exceed all federal, state, and local regulatory requirements, including financial requirements, as we work to open new economic opportunities for ethanol producers, strengthen the agricultural marketplace for farmers, and generating new revenues for local communities to support schools, hospitals, roads and more.”
For the project to go forward, hundreds of landowners in the five-state project would either have to agree to an easement or potentially face eminent domain.
“I don’t like it,” Kathy Stockdale, a crop farmer in Hardin County, Iowa, told The Epoch Times.
Her family is facing pressure from two companies, Summit and Navigator CO2 Ventures, seeking easements on their farm.
“As a Christian, I believe I’m a steward of my land and can take care of it. We’ve worked very hard at that. And to have some out-of-country investors in Iowa farmland … As a Republican, our platform says that we do not support foreign investment or eminent domain used by private companies. So it goes against everything that is Iowa and [myself as a] farmer.”
Financial Incentive
Summit’s pipeline project, and similar projects in works across the country, are being encouraged through the federal Carbon Capture and Sequestration tax credit, also called the 45Q, which pays up to $50 per ton for CO2 that’s captured and sequestered.
Construction on new carbon capture projects must begin before Jan. 1, 2026, to be eligible, so there’s an urgency for carbon capture companies to get their projects started.
The more CO2 captured, the more federal tax credits earned.
Raymond and Kathy Stockdale of Hardin County, Iowa, have requests from two companies for two easements through their farm. They have posted signs announcing their position, “No Carbon Pipeline.” (Courtesy Kathy Stockdale)
Once complete, Summit’s project will be the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world, the company’s website says. It will have the capacity to capture and permanently store up to 12 million tons of CO2 every year.
At that rate, Summit would get $600 million per year in tax credits that can use by the company and its investors to offset their tax bills, or sold to others for profit. There has been chatter in Congress about making these tax credits direct payments to further encourage such projects.
“Carbon capture and storage solutions are an important technology that can directly reduce carbon dioxide generated in the process of employing various energy sources, including biofuels and natural gas,” SK Group Vice Chairman and SK E&S CEO Jeong Joon Yu said in a statement.
“SK E&S is committed to actively supporting low-carbon energy projects in the U.S. to meaningfully contribute to the U.S. government’s goal of significantly reducing CO2 emissions by 2030.”
But the landowners who are being asked for easements through their properties don’t believe the tax credits should go to foreign investors.
“That’s the other issue that’s angering people,” Hoffman said. “Why do foreign people get to come in and take advantage of our federal 45Q tax credit at the expense of us taxpayers? We don’t believe they should be allowed use eminent domain on this because it doesn’t serve a public purpose … We don’t think that eminent domain should be used for a private company, and we don’t think that it’s a safe material to have in a pipeline.”
Stockdale says the project isn’t needed.
“They are wanting to use our taxpayer money to fund this pipeline, and those profits, if it is built, will not go back to the taxpayers,” Stockdale said. “It will be going to foreign investors. I mean, all the money that they’re making, it doesn’t help us as farmers at all.
“It’s all built on a false premise. It’s only for money.”
Brian Jorde, managing lawyer at Domina Law Group based in Omaha, Nebraska, is working in the involved states, with more than 500 landowners who don’t wish to allow an easement on their land. The cases aim to prevent easements through eminent domain abuse.
“It’s one thing if the government is doing it and, the theory is, that it’s for the greater good. But here, this is purely for financial enrichment of a private corporation,” Jorde told The Epoch Times.
“Our laws have moved away from public use. The trigger for eminent domain has to be a public use. Some guys just woke up one day and said, ‘Wow, there’s tax credits. Yeehaw! Let’s reverse engineer a business to grab those tax credits. And we take people’s land in the meantime if they don’t want to give it to us. What a great plan.’ I mean, it’s just absolutely outrageous.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced on July 27 that he has reached a deal with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on energy, taxes, and health care to advance what appears to be a revised, alternate version to the Build Back Better (BBB) bill.
The new spending package (pdf), now dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” will “address record inflation by paying down our national debt, lowering energy costs, and lowering healthcare costs,” Manchin said in a lengthy statement.
“For too long, the reconciliation debate in Washington has been defined by how it can help advance Democrats political agenda called Build Back Better. Build Back Better is dead, and instead, we have the opportunity to make our country stronger by bringing Americans together,” he added.
Manchin, a crucial swing vote in the 50–50 split Senate, had for months refused to support the BBB pushed by fellow Democrats that at one point had asked for over $3 trillion in funding. In mid-July, he reportedly killed any hope for a scaled down version of the BBB, telling party leadership he would not support new climate spending or raise taxes from their post-2017 levels.
“The revised legislative text will be submitted to the Parliamentarian for review this evening and the full Senate will consider it next week,” Manchin and Schumer said in a joint statement on July 27.
Schumer seeks to pass the measure through a procedural tool that allows a bill related to taxes, spending, and debt to be passed in the chamber by a simple 51-vote majority rather than having to pass the 60 vote filibuster threshold. The process also limits debate on the bill to 20 hours. That could allow the bill to be passed with only Democratic votes, if necessary—if every Democrat is on board.
Hours after Manchin announced the deal, a spokesperson for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), a moderate Democrat, told news outlets that her office does not have a comment on the proposed legislation and that she will need to review the text.
Bill Claims to Reduce Federal Deficits by $300 Billion
The two senators said the bill “will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.” It will also allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs and lower health care costs for Americans, they added.
A one-page summary (pdf) from Manchin’s office show that the deal will see a total of $433 billion in investments: about $369.75 billion in energy security and climate change programs over 10 years, and $64 billion to extend the expanded Affordable Care Act program for federal subsidies of health insurance, for three years through 2025.
The deal seeks to generate an estimated $739 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years. A large portion of the money—an estimated $313 billion—is expected to be generated by increasing the corporate minimum tax to 15 percent. The remaining amounts include $288 billion in prescription drug pricing reform; $124 billion in Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement; and $14 billion in closing the carried interest loophole.
That would leave over $300 billion to reduce federal deficits over the next 10 years to fight inflation, according to the Democratic senators. The government is projected to rack up trillions in cumulative deficits over the next 10 years.
“It is past time for America to begin paying down our $30 trillion national debt and get serious about the record inflation that is crushing the wages of American workers,” Manchin said in his statement. He said the proposed legislation “would dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars to deficit reduction by adopting a tax policy that protects small businesses and working-class Americans while ensuring that large corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.”
Resident Joe Biden said in a statement that the proposed legislation “will reduce the deficit beyond the record setting $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction we have already achieved this year, which will help fight inflation as well.”
“And we will pay for all of this by requiring big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, with no tax increases at all for families making under $400,000 a year,” he said. “This is the action the American people have been waiting for.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized the measure on Twitter.
“Democrats have already crushed American families with historic inflation. Now they want to pile on giant tax hikes that will hammer workers and kill many thousands of American jobs,” he wrote. “First they killed your family’s budget. Now they want to kill your job too.”
Farmers warn new restrictions will affect food production
Canada and Ireland are rolling out policies to force their farmers to cut carbon emissions to a point that the farmers say would affect food production. Despite the potential negative consequences, the policies would seem to only achieve minute results for the “decarbonization” agenda.
Some Canadian provincial officials recently criticized their federal government for setting a goal of cutting emissions from synthetic fertilizer use by 30 percent by 2030 without first consulting the provinces “on what is achievable or attainable.”
“Provinces pushed the federal government to discuss this important topic, but were disappointed to learn that the target is already set,” Saskatchewan and Alberta ministers of agriculture said in a July 22 statement.
“This has been the most expensive crop anyone has put in, following a very difficult year on the prairies,” Alberta Minister of Agriculture Nate Horner said in the release.
“The world is looking for Canada to increase production and be a solution to global food shortages. The Federal government needs to display that they understand this.”
Slashing fertilizer use by 20 percent could cost Canadian farmers more than $48 billion in lost sales due to lower yields by 2030, according to a 2021 study commissioned by Fertilizer Canada, an industry group (pdf).
Synthetic fertilizer use is responsible for less than 2 percent of Canada’s carbon emissions, according to Canadian government data. Canada, in turn, is responsible for about 1.4 percent of global emissions.
An oyster farmer at Culmore Point on Lough Foyle, at the border between Londonderry in Northern Ireland and Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, on April 26, 2017. (PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the Canadian fertilizer industry already has a program called 4R Nutrient Stewardship that would, if rolled out across the major farming areas, cut emissions by 15 to 22 percent while also boosting profits by using fertilizers more efficiently. The government’s insistence on the 30 percent figure thus translates to a reduction of about 0.1–0.2 percent of Canada’s 2019 emissions and about 0.002–0.005 percent of world emissions beyond what the industry works to achieve on its own.
Ireland is in a similar situation. Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue is reportedly about to agree to a 27 or 28 percent carbon emission reduction goal for his sector.
Agriculture accounts for more than a third of the country’s carbon-equivalent emissions, notably due to its robust cattle farming that feeds not just its domestic market, but also significant beef and dairy exports.
The Irish government’s climate plan calls for a cut of 22 to 30 percent. At the top end of the range, the plan would cause “significantly reduced production” and potentially “devastate the farming sector in Ireland,” Irish Farmers Association President Tim Cullinan previously said.
A beef cattle farmer in Lifford, Ireland, on Jan. 9, 2015. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Ireland’s agriculture emissions add up to about 21 megatons of CO2 a year. Cutting it by 28 percent would lead to global emissions dropping by 0.05 percent.
Cullinan has questioned what good it would do if other countries don’t follow suit.
“We have to question what it is for,” he said at a November demonstration, The Irish Times reported.
He pointed out that Ireland already runs “one of the most efficient” farming operations in the world.
Regulations that in effect downsize farming have recently prompted large protests in the Netherlands and led to the economic collapse of Sri Lanka.
The last round of carbon emission targets was pledged by governments at the COP26 climate summit last year. Many climate scientists predict that growing emissions will cause more severe weather events, such as storms and droughts, though historically the more catastrophic predictions haven’t materialized.
Critics have pointed out the “decarbonization” agenda would undercut living standards without achieving meaningful change in the climate. For one thing, China, the world’s largest carbon emitter by far, and India don’t intend to constrict their economies toward carbon reductions.
The U.S. economy is declining at a pace not seen since the 2008–09 financial crisis, said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, citing the latest round of Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) readings.
The headline Flash U.S. PMI Composite Output Index fell into contraction territory at 47.5 in July, from 52.3 a month ago, indicating a significant decline in private sector output. The pace of decline was the fastest since the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, as both manufacturers and service providers reported weak demand conditions.
The services PMI fell short of the market estimate, with a reading of 47, down from 52.7. That was the biggest decline since May 2020, driven by a decrease in new exports, a drop in job creation, a jump in prices, and business confidence being at its lowest level since September 2020.
The manufacturing PMI eased to a two-year low of 52.3 in July, from 52.7 in June—anything above 50 indicates expansion. The market had penciled in a reading of 52.
This month, production levels were flat, new orders fell, employment growth moderated, and business sentiment plummeted to its lowest level since October 2020. More firms noted that they plan to cut personnel and slash costs.
Autonomous robots assemble an X model SUV at the BMW manufacturing facility in Greer, S.C., on Nov. 4, 2019. (Charles Mostoller/Reuters)
PMIs are crucial economic indicators since they can suggest a general direction of trends in the manufacturing and service sectors.
“The U.S. #economy is contracting at a rate not seen since the global financial crisis in 2009 (excluding the initial pandemic lockdown), as the flash #PMI covering output of manufacturing and services fell sharply in July,” Williamson posted on Twitter.
Worse to Come?
Williamson noted that multiple forward-looking indicators, including the orders-inventory ratio signal, suggest that “worse is to come for U.S. manufacturing in August.”
“This means the #FOMC is hiking interest rates at a time when the U.S. economy is already showing severe signs of stress & recession risks have risen,” he wrote.
This week, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will be holding its two-day July policy meeting. The market widely expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by 75 basis points for the second consecutive month, although there’s a 20 percent chance of a 100-basis-point increase amid skyrocketing inflation, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
While some market analysts think that this will help trim headline inflation levels, they also fear that these efforts might facilitate a recession.
“As for next year, we strongly suspect rate cuts will be the key theme,” ING economists wrote in a research note. “By delaying their response to high inflation and now having to move policy faster and deeper into restrictive territory, there is clearly the fear of a recession. At the same time, we think inflation could fall sharply from March next year onwards.”
Speaking in an interview with CNBC, economist Mohamed El-Erian said inflation has likely peaked, but it might be at the expense of the economy.
“I think inflation has peaked in the U.S., at least for the next three to four months. We’ve got to see how sticky some elements are,” he said on July 22. “But the problem is not that inflation is going to come down—that’s a really good thing. The problem is that inflation is going to come down with growth probably going into a recession, and that’s not good news.”
Concerns over an economic downturn have dramatically increased over the past month.
In addition to a higher-than-expected 9.1 percent consumer price index (CPI) in June, a broad array of metrics released this month have indicated a slowing economy
Personal spending eased to a 0.2 percent increase month-over-month, while personal income was unchanged at a 0.5 percent increase. The Institute of Supply Management’s (ISM) Manufacturing PMI fell to 53, construction spending tumbled by 0.1 percent, industrial production fell by 0.2 percent, and manufacturing output dropped by 0.5 percent.
Sentiments and expectations have also deteriorated among companies and consumers.
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Optimism Index slipped to 89.5 (100 was sentiment in 1986), the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index in the United States remained at an 11-year low, and the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index tumbled to 98.7 (100 was sentiment in 1985).
Despite the strong June jobs report, there have been signs that the labor market could be growing sluggish.
The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose to a nine-month high of 251,000 in the week ending on July 16, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (pdf). The four-week average, which removes week-to-week volatility, has steadily climbed every week since the beginning of April.
Job openings and quits took a breather in May, while job cuts swelled in June.
Is the US in Recession?
In the meantime, all eyes will be on the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) report to determine if the United States has slipped into a technical recession. The market consensus is a growth rate of 0.4 percent, while the Bloomberg GDP estimate range from 55 economists is between minus 0.6 percent and 1.2 percent. But the Atlanta Fed Bank’s GDPNow model estimate shows minus 1.6 percent in the April-to-June period.
Many organizations have lowered their GDP forecasts for the next few years. S&P Global’s latest projections show zero percent in 2022, minus 0.4 percent in 2023, minus 0.2 percent in 2024, and minus 0.2 percent in 2025. The Conference Board downgraded its second-quarter expectation from 1.9 percent to 0.8 percent. For 2022, the Conference Board anticipates 1.7 percent expansion before slowing to 0.5 percent growth next year.
But until there’s considerable weakness in the labor market, the Fed’s tightening cycle will function on auto-pilot, according to Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West Economics.
“It feels a bit like one of those bad horror movies where the creepy music is already playing, but the character continues to walk into the seemingly abandoned house,” Anderson wrote in a note. “You know this isn’t going to end well though you’re not yet sure what is about to happen.”
According to the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections that was updated from March, the median unemployment rate forecasts were raised to 3.7 percent in 2022, 3.9 percent in 2023, and 4.1 percent in 2024 (pdf).
A group of liberal Capitol Hill staffers were arrested in the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) after demanding Democratic leadership resume talks on climate legislation.
More than a dozen employees of Democratic members of Congress sat down in Schumer’s office holding signs calling on the majority leader to renew efforts to combat climate change. The protest ended after about half an hour when Capitol Police bound the disgruntled staffers’ hands with zip ties and escorted them out.
One of the protesters, Saul Levin, a staffer for “Squad” member Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), tweeted photos of the demonstration from within Schumer’s office.
“We, staffers of the US Congress, are peacefully sitting in on Senator Schumer’s office to demand Dems pass climate justice policy this year,” Levin tweeted. “We are putting our bodies on the line because we have no other choice.”
Congressional staffers have increasingly attempted to pressure lawmakers to pursue certain policies and deliver greater benefits for staff. Staffers across several progressive offices have begun efforts to unionize in pursuit of “pay equity” and other aims.
In a similar protest last week, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) pretended to be handcuffed and arrested as they were taken away from a protest at the Supreme Court.
Levin is the son of progressive congressman Andy Levin (D., Mich.), who is currently caught up in a primary contest with another incumbent. A focal point of the race concerns Levin’s failure to support the state of Israel, a key American ally.
Negotiations on a massive climate spending package broke down last week when Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) rejected efforts to spend hundreds of billions on combating carbon emissions. Manchin cited record inflation and the importance of traditional energy sources in outlining his opposition to the “green” policies.
Wheat prices rose on July 25, days after Russian forces struck the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa.
Chicago wheat futures surged by as much as 4.6 percent before paring the gain to trade 3.1 percent higher at $7.82 1/4 per bushel by 3:21 p.m. in Singapore.
Corn futures rose by as much as 2.8 percent on July 25 before the gain eased to 1.4 percent, while soybeans were up by just 0.3 percent.
Wheat prices dropped by almost 6 percent on July 22 after Russia and Ukraine, both of whom are major exporters of grains, reached a deal to allow crucial grain shipments to safely leave three Ukrainian Black Sea ports: Odesa, Pivdennyi, and Chornomorsk.
That level of prices haven’t been seen since before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine in February.
The agreement was brokered by Turkey and hailed as a vital step toward helping to avert a global food crisis.
Representatives of Turkey, as well as Ukraine and Russia, met in Istanbul on July 22 to sign the deal, along with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said of the deal on July 22: “We are proud of being instrumental in an initiative that will play a major role in the solution of the global food crisis that has occupied the whole world for a long time.”
The president also said the deal would “contribute to preventing the danger of hunger that awaits billions of people in the world.”
Missile Strike
However, Russia said on July 25 that its cruise missiles had struck military infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa port over the weekend, shortly after the agreement was signed.
The strike used “Kalibr missiles” and destroyed Ukrainian military infrastructure, “sending a Ukrainian military boat to the Kiev regime’s favorite address in a precision strike,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram on July 24.
The “favorite address” was a reference to Ukrainian forces on Snake Island in the Black Sea who reportedly told a Russian ship to “go [explicit]” itself before a Russian strike in February.
Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa military administration, said on Telegram that Kalibr-type cruise missiles hit the infrastructure of the port and that two were shot down by Ukraine’s air defense forces.
“Two hit the port’s infrastructure facilities,” he wrote.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command, said on TV that the missiles didn’t hit grain storage at Odesa’s port.
An estimated 20 million metric tons of grain have been held up in the port of Odesa in southwestern Ukraine, according to the BBC.
Wheat futures rose by 70 percent to a record high of $12.94 per bushel in the two weeks after the invasion began, prompting concerns that the conflict could impact global supplies, worsen food insecurity, and drive prices up further.
Wheat prices have gradually declined by roughly 42 percent since reaching those initial highs, but U.S. wheat features are still 15 percent higher than where they were last year, while the Benchmark French milling wheat futures are 65 percent higher than they were at this time last year, according to Business Insider.
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, said on July 23 that the bloc “strongly condemns” the attack.
He wrote on Twitter, “Striking a target crucial for grain export a day after the signature of Istanbul agreements is particularly reprehensible & again demonstrates Russia’s total disregard for international law & commitments.”
It’s all part of the script of The Great Reset – just look at who invested a half-billion dollars into this major online grocery retailer as government prepares to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production.
https://rumble.com/embed/v190yxp/?pub=4
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
In early June 2022, the government of The Netherlands announced it would cut the size of livestock herds in the country by 30% to meet European Union nitrogen and ammonia pollution rules
According to Dutch Parliament member Thierry Baudet, the government is following the script of The Great Reset, which requires weakening the country, making it more dependent on food imports, and diluting nationalism by taking in more immigrants. To make room for immigrant housing, they need to take land from the farmers
The newly assigned Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy, Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, is married to Piet van der Wal, who together with his brother are heavily invested in the major online grocery retailer Picnic. In September 2021, Bill Gates invested an estimated half-billion dollars into Picnic, thereby becoming one of its lead investors. Gates’ involvement has raised questions about government corruption
At the same time the Dutch government is preparing to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production, Gates is gobbling up farmland back home. Despite land prices being at a record high, Gates purchased a 2,100-acre potato farm in North Dakota in June 2022, bringing the total land share held by the Gates’ Red River Trust above 270,000 acres
Gates claims he intends to lease the farmland to farmers. Viewed from the perspective of The Great Reset, it would then appear Gates may be engaged in the same kind of wealth-shift scheme as BlackRock and other investment groups that are buying up single-family homes and turning them into rentals. The end goal is to eliminate all private ownership and turn the population into serfs
In early June 2022, the government of The Netherlands announced it would cut the size of livestock herds in the country by 30% to meet European Union nitrogen and ammonia pollution rules.1,2 As a result of this “green” policy, many farmers will be driven out of business3 and they have gathered in protest across the country.
This is important because many may not realize that even though The Netherlands is a small country, it’s the second-largest exporter of agriculture in the world, after the United States.4 As with current energy shortages, the forced reductions in farming and food production are said to be an “unavoidable” part of the Green Agenda to improve air, soil and water quality.5
In a public statement about the new emissions targets, the Dutch government even admitted that “The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business.”6 Those who do continue will have to come up with creative solutions to meet the new emissions restrictions.
A Clear Case of Corruption?
The restrictions on nitrogen for livestock farmers have befuddled many. Why would government restrict farming at a time when food shortages and famine loom on the horizon worldwide? Some claim to have discovered conflicts of interest within the Dutch government that can help explain this irrational move.7
The newly assigned Minister for Nature and Nitrogen Policy (who created the nitrogen regulations and is responsible for overseeing the cuts to farming), Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, is married to Piet van der Wal, who together with his brother, Bouke van der Wal, own a massive supermarket chain called Boni.
As noted by The Conservative Treehouse,8 “when Dutch farmers sell product to Boni they are directly funding the wealth of the government minister who seeks to destroy their livelihoods.”
The van der Wal family is also heavily invested in a major online grocery retailer called Picnic. Picnic buys food at wholesale prices directly from Boni, which minimizes its operational costs. Picnic basically functions as a home delivery service for Boni.
In September 2021, Bill Gates entered the Dutch enterprise. He invested an estimated half-billion dollars into Picnic, thereby becoming one of its lead investors.9 Not surprisingly, Picnic focuses on selling the fake “food” that Gates is invested in and promotes, imitation beef in particular.
The CEO of Picnic, Michiel Muller, a Dutch climate change activist, has also publicly vowed to “change the entire food system” to be in line with sustainable goals,10 which falls right in line with Gates’ agenda.
The strong recommendation to replace beef with fake meat was made in Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need,” released in February 2021.11 In an interview with MIT Technology Review, he also suggested that people could learn to like fake meat and, if resistance continues, regulations may be needed to force the switch.12
According to The Countersignal,13 “many participating in the ongoing farmers’ protests in Holland have openly stated they believe Gates may be partly responsible for pushing additional climate laws.” Curiously, July 10, 2022, a large Picnic delivery facility in Almelo, Holland, burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.14,15,16
Why Get Rid of Farmers Amid Rising Food Insecurity?
The attempt to rid The Netherlands of livestock farmers really only makes sense if seen from the globalists’ point of view, with an eye on The Great Reset, the Green New Deal, Agenda 2030 and related Sustainable Development Goals.
According to Dutch Parliament member Thierry Baudet, the Dutch government is following the script of The Great Reset, which requires weakening the country, making it more dependent on food imports, and diluting nationalism by taking in more immigrants. To make room for immigrant housing, they need to take land from the farmers.
Indeed, according to Dutch Parliament member Thierry Baudet (video above), that’s really what the nitrogen restrictions are all about. The Dutch government is following the script of The Great Reset, he says, which requires weakening the country, making it less independent and more dependent on food imports.
The Great Reset script also calls for diluting nationalism and weakening borders by taking in more immigrants, and to make room for immigrant housing, they need to take land from the farmers. So, the new nitrogen rules are basically a precursor to a land grab. They intend to put farmers out of business so they can take their land and stack it full of low-income, government-assistance apartment buildings.
Aside from that, farmers also pose a threat to the technocratic elitists because they don’t need to rely on government for basics such as food and shelter, and they can allow those who buy their food to maintain their independence as well.
The globalists’ plan is to eliminate access to as much real food as possible, and replace natural foods with patented foodstuffs so that the population becomes entirely dependent on them for survival. At that point, they are easily controlled. Eliminating independent food producers — farmers — is therefore a key to the globalist cabal’s eventual success.
Gates Gobbles Up Farmland While Pushing Fake Foods
At the same time the Dutch government is preparing to radically restrict livestock farming and meat production — likely with Gates’ blessing, if not due to his influence — Gates is gobbling up farmland back home.
Despite land prices being at a record-high, Gates purchased a 2,100-acre potato farm in North Dakota in June 2022, bringing the total land share held by the Gates’ Red River Trust above 270,000 acres — up from about 242,000 acres in mid-September 2021.
The following map, from AgWeb,17 shows the distribution of his land holdings prior to his North Dakota acquisition. As you can see, the vast majority is farmland.
Gates Plan: Turn Farmers Into Modern Serfs
However, as reported by AgWeb at the end of June 2022, Gates didn’t get a warm welcome:18
“North Dakota hosts ‘corporate farming laws’ that barres [sic] corporations and limited liability companies from owning and leasing farms and ranches. With the Gates’s new $13.5 million farmland purchase, North Dakotans — including the attorney general — are concerned the sale violates the state’s law. The North Dakota attorney general’s office sent a letter to the Red River Trust on Tuesday, alerting the trustee of the North Dakota land law.
‘Our office needs to confirm how your company uses this land and whether this use meets any of the statutory exceptions, such as the business purpose exception,’ wrote Drew Wrigley, North Dakota attorney general.”
MoneyWise19 followed up on the story, reporting that by July 5, 2022, Gates had secured legal approval for his farm purchase — a decision that has raised the ire of many North Dakotans who don’t believe Gates has good intentions.
According to MoneyWise, “The anti-corporate farming law does allow individual trusts to own farmland if it is leased to farmers — and that’s what Gates’ firm plans to do.” Viewed from the perspective of The Great Reset, it appears Gates may be engaged in the same kind of subversive wealth-shift scheme as BlackRock and other investment groups that are buying up single-family homes.
They buy them, often sight-unseen and at above-market prices, with the intent of turning them into rentals. This too is part and parcel of The Great Reset and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The intent is to eliminate all private ownership and turn the population into modern serfs. “Serf” is a term that describes people who are required to work for the “lord” who owns the land they live on, or who are otherwise underpaid, overworked or exploited in some way.
That’ll be all of us, one day, if the world doesn’t wake up and refuse to go along with the globalist cabal’s Great Reset plans. The plight of the Dutch farmers is just the beginning.
With The Washington Post blaring that “Big Tech is bracing for a possible recession,” the Biden White House is redefining the word.
A recession is traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters in which the nation’s Gross Domestic Product shrinks. A new report Thursday will assess the results of the second quarter. Shrinkage took place in the first quarter, and with inflation running at 9.1 percent, there’s not a lot of hope for economic good news.
As noted by Business Insider, economists Bloomberg surveyed believe growth will be a paltry 0.9 percent, but the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model pegs shrinkage at 1.6 percent.
“The big headwinds for consumers are price inflation and higher interest rates. And inflation could erode the excess savings consumers accumulated through the pandemic, especially if price increases continue to run ahead of wage growth,” Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank said Thursday, according to CNN.
“We’re seeing an increase in bad debt to slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels as well as extended cash collection cycles,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said the same day.
Yellen: There’s an org called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data…I will be would be amazed if the NBER would declare this period to be a recession
FLASHBACK: in ’08, NBER didn’t announce until Dec the recession had begun A YEAR EARLIER
“What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data,” the handout said, listing labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production and income data will all be mined.
The White then offered a prediction: “Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year — even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter — indicates a recession.”
Despite the growing mountain of gloomy economic forecasts, the handout said, “Recession probabilities are never zero, but trends in the data through the first half of this year used to determine a recession are not indicating a downturn.”
In fact, it said, “There is a good chance that the strength of the labor market and of consumer balance sheets help the economy transition from the rapid growth of the last year to steadier and more stable growth.”
Biden owns this recession. He is the WORST resident in American history.
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸 (@ProudElephantUS) July 21, 2022
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers was not as chipper. In a Sunday interview, he called chances of coming out of the battle against inflation without a scarred economy “very unlikely,” according to Bloomberg.
“There’s a very high likelihood of recession when we’ve been in this kind of situation before,” he said.
“Recession has essentially always followed when inflation has been high and our employment has been low,” he said.
Summers said new policies are needed.
“There’s a lot we can do to contain or control inflation,” he said. “But if we continue with the kind of ostrich policies we had in 2021, there’s going to be much, much more pain later.”
Minnesota’s Jeff Ettinger now says he ‘know[s] how to fight inflation’ as his former company made food ‘affordable’
Minnesota Democrat Jeff Ettinger says he “know[s] how to fight inflation” because his former company made food “affordable.” That company is facing an array of lawsuits that say it conspired to inflate the price of pork.
Ettinger served as CEO of Hormel Foods from 2005 to 2016. During that time, Hormel conspired with other pork processors to run a “classic … price fixing scheme” to drive up the price of ham and bacon, active lawsuits facing the company argue. While Hormel has said the allegations are “completely without merit,” one of the companies involved in the purported scheme agreed to a $42 million settlement in early July.
Now, Ettinger is running in an August special election to replace the late Jim Hagedorn after the Republican congressman died in February. Ettinger has attempted to fight concerns of record-high inflation under resident Joe Biden by touting his time at Hormel—in a July 10 ad, the Democrat said he “know[s] how to fight inflation” as his “business was making food affordable.” He went on to repeat the claim twice in the following week.
The price-fixing lawsuits that loom over Hormel, however, could undermine Ettinger’s ability to navigate a perilous political climate that is driven by voters’ concerns over the economy. According to a June MinnPost poll, 94 percent of Minnesotans say rising gas and grocery prices have made their lives more “difficult” or “inconvenient.” On a national level, meanwhile, Americans view inflation as the top problem facing the country and believe that problem is Biden’s fault—64 percent of likely U.S. voters say the Biden administration’s policies have increased inflation, according to a March Rasmussen poll.
Ettinger declined to comment.
According to the series of lawsuits against Hormel, the food processing company in 2009 began sharing sensitive information with its competitors about its “profits, prices, costs, and production” in an attempt to drive up pork prices. A who’s who of grocery and restaurant chains have joined the lawsuits, the first of which was filed in 2018—prominent plaintiffs include Kroger, Hy-Vee, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John’s, and Sonic Drive-In.
Ettinger, who grew up in Los Angeles, made big money from his time at Hormel—his total compensation in 2016 alone was $36 million, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Democrat’s financial disclosure also shows tens of millions of dollars in investments, and half of the roughly $800,000 Ettinger has raised came from his own pocket.
Ettinger’s wealth sparked one of his primary opponents, small business owner Rick DeVoe, to accuse Ettinger of being out of touch with everyday voters in Minnesota’s First Congressional District, who DeVoe said are sick of “corporate malfeasance.” Still, Ettinger said in his July ad that he understands why Minnesotans “feel squeezed.”
Ettinger used his financial advantage to emerge from the special election’s May 24 primary and will face Republican Brad Finstad in November. Finstad, a former state legislator, served in former president Donald Trump’s Department of Agriculture and has raised $614,000 to Ettinger’s $805,000.
‘Freedom is under attack everywhere’: CloutHub CEO
Jeff Brain, CEO of the CloutHub social networking application, told The Epoch Times that freedom and liberty are being crushed in the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, and other countries across the planet.
“There are those that want to push for socialism and tyranny against those that believe in individual freedom and liberty. And that’s the struggle we live in right now,” he said in a July 21 telephone interview.
Spurred by a shadow ban
Brain was inspired by his own frustrations with social media to start a new platform.
Like many other users, he suspected he was being shadow-banned. In other words, his posts were partly or completely concealed from other users.
“I was being censored, and I just found that outrageous,” he said.
Jeff Brain, CEO of CloutHub. (Courtesy of Jeff Brain.)
Even apart from censorship, Brain saw many problems with existing social media platforms.
“Many people acknowledge that they’re toxic. They invade people’s privacy, and they’re addiction mills,” he said.
Brain thinks that many alternatives to Big Tech share those same flaws. He wanted CloutHub to be different.
For one, when you click on a CloutHub user’s profile, you can’t see how many friends and followers it has. In addition, the site does not show how many views a user’s post has received.
Articles in its “News” section do, however, display views. (Full disclosure: The Epoch Times’ articles appear in the app’s news section, alongside sources ranging from The New York Times and Vox to The Washington Times and Breitbart News.)
Brain believes the constant exposure to metrics like post views can make people anxious while undermining civil conversation.
He aspires to create a “virtual kitchen table”—a network of Facebook Group-like Hubs where users can forge deep bonds around common interests.
Groups are organized into categories such as Faith, Politics, Music, Technology, and Health.
What Brain sees as a less-addictive design may translate to less user engagement. But, in his view, that is not necessarily a weakness.
“On our platform, people experience a little less interaction, but they’re doing real things,” he said.
CloutHub’s Google Play app ranks 4,316 in usage among all apps and 87 among social apps, according to SimilarWeb. (There is an iOS version as well.)
Brain said CloutHub has 4.5 million total users.
The platform, though open, is not wholly unregulated.
CloutHub prohibits doxing, harassment, and hundreds of words and phrases—mostly racial slurs and crude sexual language.
Facebook founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 11, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“We all know that the intention of Facebook and Twitter is not really about those [community standards]. It’s just a façade to silence people. But on my platform, hate is hate,” Brain said.
Users can also join anonymously, though they must prove their identity to become “Verified” users.
“We don’t believe in cancel culture, and we have to recognize that people are concerned, so if people want to use pseudonyms, they can use pseudonyms as their name,” Brain said.
Standing behind ‘global freedom coalition’
Brain says he connected Canadians protesting against COVID-19 mandates to GiveSendGo, an alternative to GoFundMe, because of the possibility that GoFundMe would not disburse donations to those protesters.
On Feb. 4, 2022, GoFundMe seized C$10 million ($8 million) in donations, stating that the fundraiser violated its Terms of Service. It pledged to “work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities chosen by the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers and verified by GoFundMe.”
Ontario’s government moved to freeze millions in donations to the truckers through GiveSendGo on Feb. 10.
GiveSendGo’s website was hacked on Feb. 13, and the group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) leaked a list of donors.
A protester carrying a large Canadian flag was seen at Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto as part of a nation-wide “freedom chain” movement stretching across Canada on March 5, 2022. (Annika Wang/The Epoch Times)
On Feb. 14, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act against the protests, the first use of that law in that country’s history.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the same day that the government would freeze bank accounts and halt crowdfunding linked to the protests through “anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules.”
After the GiveSendGo hack, Brain has started to build an alternative to the alternative: FundFreely.com, which he sees as “the counter to George Soros.”
Brain estimates he has spoken with 18 farm leaders on the phone, warning them that “the opposition is plotting against you while you’re sleeping, and you need to move fast, faster than you think.”
Canada and the Netherlands are just the start of what Brain sees as an emerging “global freedom coalition,” modeled on the non-violent resistance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
He ticks off other examples: in Brazil, leftist factions in the government, the opponents of President Jair Bolsonaro, making it impossible for their enemies to get jobs or even to travel; in Portugal, Italy, and Germany, farmers rising in solidarity with the Dutch; in Australia, truckers slow-rolling in protest of vaccination mandates.
The Canadians have regrouped to continue their fight. On July 23, they will join a global protest in solidarity with the Dutch, including through a demonstration at the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Toronto.
“I believe that people everywhere should unite. I think freedom is under attack everywhere, including the United States,” Brain said.
Yet for all his concern about incursions on liberty, Brain radiates optimism about the future.
“I think they [the other side] overreached. I think you’re going to see the biggest push for individual freedom around the word that we’ve ever seen.”
In the latest Democrat acknowledgment of America’s cost-of-living squeeze, House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Fox News that red-hot inflation is a “huge problem” for households.
Hoyer made the remarks in an interview on Fox News’ “Your World” program that aired on July 20.
“Inflation is a huge problem. It’s a huge problem for Americans. Supply shortages—particularly in grocery stores—a huge problem for Americans. We need to deal with that,” the Democrat leader said.
The remarks follow a recent admission by White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein that inflation in the United States is “unacceptably high,” although there’s some improvement in areas like gas prices, which Bernstein said were “moving in the right direction.”
After hitting a record-high of more than $5 a gallon last month, gasoline prices have trended downward, with the automotive association AAA reporting that, on July 21, the national average was $4.44 per gallon.
Hoyer insisted that the Biden administration was working to tame soaring inflation, touting such measures as the recently passed Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act, which Washington-based think tank R Street Institute panned as exacerbating “the very problems it claims to solve,” while also adding $700 million of public debt.
Rural Households Hit Harder by Inflation
The latest inflation print came in at a multi-decade high of 9.1 percent in annual terms, with food up 10.4 percent and energy a whopping 41.6 percent.
While price inflation affects all American consumers, recent studies from Iowa State University and the New York Federal Reserve Bank showed that different spending patterns among different demographics means that the inflationary wave has had a disproportionate impact.
Rural households, for example, have been hit harder by soaring inflation, with the Iowa State University study showing that rural discretionary incomes have plunged by 50 percent since 2020, with most of those losses taking place in the past 12 months.
The discretionary incomes of urban households, by contrast, saw a far more modest drop of 13 percent over the same period.
Black and Hispanic households tend to spend more of their income on transportation, with the New York Fed estimating that blacks faced an inflation rate 0.6 percentage points higher than the headline rate, while for Hispanics this was 0.6 percentage points higher.
bell&email=walkerboh2112%40msn.com
Inflation for Asian American households was 0.5 percentage points lower, while the rate faced by whites was about the same as the headline 9.1 percent figure.
Inflation Keeping Gen Z Living With Parents
The inflationary squeeze also has hampered the ability of the Gen Z cohort to move out and live independently.
A recent survey conducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Credit Karma showed that 29 percent of Gen Z respondents in the 18–25 age range were living with their parents or other relatives and viewed the arrangement as more or less permanent.
Soaring housing costs are likely a major factor behind the high proportion of young Americans continuing to live with their parents.
The rent index in June’s inflation figure rose 0.8 percent over the month, the largest monthly increase since April 1986.
The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development informs government policies to restrict farming and transform the food systems in different parts of the world, said Alex Newman, an award-winning international journalist who has covered this issue for over a decade.
The 2030 Agenda is a plan of action devised by the United Nations (U.N.) to achieve 17 sustainable development goals (SDG). The goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by all UN member states in 2015.
Then-Secretary General of the U.N. Ban Ki-moon called the 2030 Agenda “the global declaration of interdependence,” (pdf) Newman said in a recent interview on EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.
“In my opinion, [it] was a direct swipe at our Declaration of Independence … So instead of being independent nations, we will all be now interdependent.”
The 2030 Agenda “covers every element of human life, every element of the economy,” including global wealth redistribution not only within the nations but also among the nations, Newman commented. The Agenda “specifically says that we need to change the way that we consume and produce goods,” he added.
Goal number two on the 2030 Agenda deals specifically with food, Newman said.
In September 2021, the U.N. held the Food Systems Summit, which emphasized the need “to leverage the power of food systems” for the purpose of achieving all 17 sustainable development goals by 2030, according to a U.N. statement.
“Everyone, everywhere, must take action and work together to transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks about food,” the statement said.
Taking Over Farmland
The sustainable development agenda emerged in the 1970s when the United Nations tried to define it at a conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976. Newman said.
The conference, which was the first U.N. Conference on Human Settlements known as Habitat I, adopted the Vancouver Declaration (pdf), a report that provided recommendations for U.N. member states.
Newman quoted an excerpt from this report: “Land cannot be treated as an ordinary asset controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social injustice.”
Newman said that, in his view, the U.N. ultimately wants to get rid of private land ownership. “We see this all over the world. This is not just happening in the Netherlands.”
He thinks that a war is taking place against farmers and ranchers, especially those who are independent or those who are not part of the system. “They want to remove small farmers, even medium farmers, from their land, and they want to bring it all under the control of these—I think there’s no other term to describe it—fascistic public-private partnerships.”
Newman noted some examples to illustrate his opinion: The Chinese regime forces peasants to move to megacities, farmers are killed in South Africa, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States proposed a new rule that could bankrupt small and medium farmers.
U.S. farmer Roger Murphy puts fertilizer in the ground near Dwight, Ill., on April 23, 2020. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In March 2022, the SEC proposed a regulation that “would mandate publicly traded companies to report on their carbon emissions and other climate-related information,” as well as report similar information from any companies with which they do business, according to an SEC statement.
As a consequence, all companies in the business supply chain of a publicly traded entity would have to report their carbon emission and climate-related data.
U.S. Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) led 30 lawmakers to urge SEC to repeal its proposal, calling it a “regulatory overreach.”
”Imposing regulatory overreach on farmers and ranchers falls outside of the SEC’s congressionally provided authority,” the senators said in a statement. “This substantial reporting requirement would significantly burden small, family-owned farms.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement that the proposed rule could create “substantial costs” for farmers because they do not have teams of compliance officers or attorneys like large corporations. Moreover, it may push out of business small and medium-sized farmers and force food-processing companies to look for agricultural raw products outside of the United States, the statement asserted.
Centralizing Food Supply
People shop in a supermarket as inflation affects consumer prices in New York on June 10, 2022. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
“If you control the food supply, you control everything,” Newman said.
“One of the things that the communists loved to do is create scarcity and create dependents. As long as you have independent people who are able to take care of themselves, there really is no need for the government to run your life and to control everything that you do,” Newman said.
“Americans are good examples,” Newman continued. “As long as the food production is widely diffused, and it’s in the hands of independent producers, it becomes very difficult to get people to bend to your will.”
The whole idea of using food as a weapon has been a hallmark of communist regimes for 100 years, Newman explained. “It’s also been a hallmark of the very same people who are openly promoting the U.N. Agenda 2030, the sustainable development goals, and even the World Economic Forum.”
Those who contrived “the controlled demolition of our food supply … want to completely restructure it,” in order to gain total centralized control of that because it gives them absolute power over everybody under their jurisdiction, Newman said.
For example, the Chinese regime and the mega-corporations formed a public-private partnership to centralize control of the food supply, Newman said.
It’s similar to what occurred in Nazi Germany, where on paper private companies own the business and ostensibly manage their businesses, but, ultimately, the private companies will be taking their orders from the government, Newman explained.
In the United States, the ESG metrics are used to “hijack control of the business sector, of the individual companies, and put them at the service of the goals of what I call the predator class—the people behind the World Economic Forum, behind the United Nations,” Newman said. (ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance criteria that are used to evaluate companies on how compliant they are with sustainability.)
The food supply centralization is just one component of their agenda, but it is a very critical one, which along with energy and other things, allows them to control humanity, he added.
World Economic Forum Involvement
Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab delivers remarks at the Congress center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on May 23, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
In January 2021, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the government of the Netherlands launched a new initiative called Food Innovation Hub, according to a WEF statement. The Hub, joined by several public and private sector partners, is a key platform that will use technology and innovations for food systems transformation, the statement said.
The Food Innovation Hub secured “multiyear funding “ from the Netherlands’ government and established its Global Coordinating Secretariat that would coordinate the efforts of the regional food hubs as well as align with global food processes and initiatives such as the UN Food Systems Summit, the statement read.
The global food Secretariat would be located in Wageningen, Netherlands, at the heart of the Dutch agrifood ecosystem, and would direct the development of global, regional Food Innovation Hubs, according to the “Invest in Holland” website.
“The work of these regional hubs is already underway, with more than 20 organizations leading the initiative across Africa, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], Colombia, and India, and the European hub,” the website said.
Ramon Laguarta, CEO of PepsiCo, said in the WEF statement: “Food is one of the main levers we can pull to improve environmental and societal health. With the right investment, innovation, and robust collaboration, agriculture could become the world’s first sector to become carbon negative. … Unlocking this potential will take ambitious multi-stakeholder, pre-competitive collaborations to transform the food system—exactly what these Hubs are designed to cultivate.”
Among the solutions advocated by the WEF to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions is replacing livestock-derived foods with alternative forms of protein, such as insects, and lab-cultured proteins, according to a 2019 white paper (pdf) commissioned by the WEF.
In response to this recommendation, several indoor agriculture start-ups have emerged, including Ÿnsect, “the first fully automated vertical insect farm in the world, able to produce 100,000 tons of insect products a year,” a WEF report said.
In March, France-based Ÿnsect acquired Jord Producers, a U.S. mealworm manufacturer, to expand its operations in the United States by entering the American chicken feed market, said a company statement.
How People Can Stop Food Takeover
Customers browse among the farm stands at Sun City Farmers’ Market in Sun City, Ariz., on April 7, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
If people want to prevent food supply from being used as a tool to control them, they need to find alternative sources of food locally, Newman said. “You need to have a relationship with the local farmers in your community, get to the local farmers market, deal with the local farmers, come up with some agreement,” such as getting delivery of fresh, seasonal produce from the local farms for 100 bucks a week, he said.
“We need to really start providing an alternative economic structure, because if we let them get control of the entire food supply, I guarantee you, it will be used as a weapon to take your freedom, to get you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t want to do, to undermine the sovereignty of your nation, whether you’re in the United States or another country, and ultimately to dispossess people of their private land and of their freedom.”
“If you have agricultural land, do not sell out to these people. They’re trying to bribe the farmers to leave their land.”
Record-high inflation and high fuel and fertilizer prices have put the U.S. en route to a food shortage, National Black Farmers Association president John Boyd Jr. warned.
While the Biden administration sends aid to African countries, Ukraine and other nations, “we also have to take care of those at home,” Boyd told “Fox & Friends First” during the Wednesday episode of the show.
“We continue to help other parts of the world, but we haven’t taken care of American farmers,” Boyd said. “We have to do better at taking care of America’s farmers and taking care of those American people first.
“The Biden administration isn’t moving and acting swiftly enough to address the farm crisis,” he added.
“You have the high cost of fuel, the high cost of fertilizer and lime and all of these upfront costs for America’s farmers, and we haven’t done anything … to fix that.”
Boyd said he paid less than $400 per ton for fertilizer just a year ago. In 2022, Boyd is paying $1,100 per ton.
Black US farmers awaiting billions in promised debt relief Farmer John Boyd Jr., poses for a portrait during a break from bailing hay at his farm in Boydton, Va., Thursday, May 27, 2021. Documents from a USDA internal review that Boyd provided to The Associated Press show inve… pic.twitter.com/phHtudGFgY
According to an April report from Barron’s, the Russo-Ukrainian war nearly doubled prices for fertilizers. The price hike made its way to food prices as well, especially the price of corn.
“The combination of sanctions, shipping firms avoiding the Black Sea region … and traders shunning Russian supplies has created significant uncertainty for farmers regarding their ability to secure adequate fertilizer supply,” said Jeremy Thurm and John Kuhn of Aegon Asset Management, according to Barron’s.
Another challenge Boyd faces is the high price of diesel fuel, which he said costs him around $6 per gallon.
Although diesel prices have fallen in recent weeks, the national average remains high at $5.497 per gallon, compared to $3.273 a year ago, according to AAA.
Boyd warned that if the Biden administration does not do enough to address the challenges facing American farmers, the nation is “heading for a food shortage.”
“We’re going to see empty food shelves in the coming months,” he said.
Boyd said that the Biden administration “hasn’t put things in place to help us.”
“The administration isn’t talking enough about the plight of what’s going on with America’s farmers,” he said. “We’re losing farmers every year that we don’t take action.”
“High cost of food — that’s going to affect every American that walks into the supermarket. … We have to find a way to invest in infrastructure for farmers and put farmers first and put more small-scale farmers back into business,” Boyd said.
A trio of U.S. senators is requesting a security review of a farmland purchase by a Chinese agribusiness with a founder who has links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), raising concerns about the property’s proximity to a U.S. military installation.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) are asking the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)—an interagency group that screens foreign investments for security risks—to review the Fufeng Group’s purchase of 370 acres of farmland near the Grand Forks Air Force Base for potential “national security implications.”
“This property is approximately 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which has led to concern that Fufeng operations could provide cover for PRC [the People’s Republic of China] surveillance or interference with the missions located at that installation, given Fufeng Group’s reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” the senators wrote in a July 14 letter addressed to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.
“PRC investments in the United States demand scrutiny. We therefore urge you, through CFIUS, to determine whether this project has national security implications and inform us when such a review is completed.”
Fufeng is a manufacturer of bio-fermented, corn-derived products, which are used in end products ranging from animal feed to pharmaceuticals. A Hong Kong-listed company, the group has multiple subsidiaries around the world, but most of its production facilities can be found in northeast China.
Fufeng’s chairman, Li Xuechun, was a provincial-level representative in China’s rubber-stamp legislature system—the People’s Congress—in 2008 and 2013 in northeastern Shandong Province and has been a CCP member since 1985, according to Chinese media reports.
Li was awarded the “model worker” award and an “outstanding” award for entrepreneurs by Shandong provincial authorities in 2003. According to geopolitical analyst Ross Kennedy, the awards revealed Li to have embodied “the synthesis of economic and political goals of the Shandong region and the CCP.”
Considering Fufeng’s connections to an adversarial regime and the sensitive nature of the U.S. military installation, Cramer says the corn mill’s location is too close for comfort.
“There’s one very specific concern that has a lot of people focused on it, and that is that it’s in fairly close proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Grand Forks Air Force Base is a very important ISR mission,” he told NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, referring to the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities at the base.
Cramer also noted that the Chinese regime is “very strategic” about the acquisitions of overseas assets, demonstrating a “willingness to use economic enticement to gain access to very important assets, whether it’s a port in Sri Lanka or an airport in Uganda.”
“China has been a predatory investor for a long time,” he said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) agrees with his Republican colleagues.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee has been loudly sounding the alarm about the counterintelligence threat posed by the PRC,” Warner told CNBC. “We should be seriously concerned about Chinese investment in locations close to sensitive sites, such as military bases around the U.S.”
According to a May report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an influential congressional advisory body, the Air Force facility “houses some of the United States’ top intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.”
The commission found the mill’s location “particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security-related concerns.”
A representative of Fufeng USA, the subsidiary of Fufeng Group that has been leading the development and discussions with the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, dismissed such security concerns.
“I know we’re not going to be asked to be collecting any intelligence on Grand Forks Air Force Base,” Eric Chutorash, chief operating officer of Fufeng USA, told local media outlets in March. “I can’t stress it any more than that. Me personally, I wouldn’t provide it. I don’t believe the team being built there would provide it.”
Brandon Bochenski, mayor of Grand Forks, has touted the economic benefits of the project while maintaining that the city has been working with authorities for direction.
“We have been in contact with our Governor, ND [North Dakota] state agencies, U.S. Senators, and U.S. House Representative regarding the project,” Bochenski previously told The Epoch Times in an email.
“We see economic benefits of a new wet-corn milling facility in the region. We are doing as much due diligence as possible and look to the appropriate federal agencies for national security insights and direction.”
The Pentagon declined to comment, and the Treasury didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 authorizes taxpayer funds for the U.S. Department of Defense to research and develop plant-based proteins for members of the military.
The congressional legislation, H.R. 7900, establishes a “Pilot Program on Research and Development of Plant-based Protein for the Navy.”
The bill stipulates that by March 1st, 2023, the Secretary of the Navy “shall establish and carry out a pilot program to offer plant-based protein options at forward operating bases for consumption by members of the Navy.” Plant-based protein options are defined as “edible vegan or vegetarian meat alternative products made using plant and other non-livestock-based proteins,” according to the bill.
At least two naval facilities will be made to participate in the pilot program and “prioritize facilities where livestock-based protein options may be costly to obtain or store.”
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023, which dictates appropriations for military activities and programs run by the Department of Defense, explains that the pilot program will run for three years. Following its completion, the Secretary of the Navy will submit a report to Congress including the following findings:
(1) The consumption rate of plant-based protein options by members of the Navy under the pilot program.
(2) Effective criteria to increase plant-based protein options at naval facilities not identified under subsection (b).
(3) An analysis of the costs of obtaining and storing plant-based protein options compared to the costs of obtaining and storing livestock-based protein options at selected naval facilities.
BILL TEXT.
On June 22nd, the Committee on Armed Services held a markup session to consider the bill, with the House of Representatives later voting 57 to 1 in favor of recommending it.
The pilot program comes amidst intense scrutiny over billionaires such as Bill Gates purchasing massive amounts of U.S. farmland to develop plant-based alternatives to animal meats. The Microsoft founder recently called on rich nations to switch entirely to synthetic beef.
The Chinese Communist Party has also collaborated on similar ventures, launching expansive influence operations targeting American agriculture officials with free trips to China.
‘We now treat farmers as polluters … which is a very strange perspective’
Jaap Hanekamp is skeptical of the received wisdom in science. He won’t stop asking a simple question: “But, is this true?”
When it comes to the Dutch government’s calculations of ammonia and nitrogen oxide deposition—the basis of climate mandates that would slash livestock numbers and put many farmers out of work—Hanekamp is especially critical of “the science.”
He thinks it relies on vague definitions, excessive deference to expert judgment, and a narrow focus on costs rather than both costs and benefits.
“We now treat farmers as polluters, end of story, which is a very strange perspective,” he said.
Hanekamp, an associate professor of chemistry at University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands, made the comments in an interview with Roman Balmakov, host of EpochTV’s “Facts Matter.”
A 2019 Dutch court decision that hindered the construction of livestock facilities triggered an earlier round of protests by farmers.
A Science article on the protests described some of the harms attributed to nitrogen emissions: “In 118 of 162 Dutch nature reserves, nitrogen deposits now exceed ecological risk thresholds by an average of 50 percent.
“In dunes, bogs, and heathlands, home to species adapted to a lack of nitrogen, plant diversity has decreased as nitrogen-loving grasses, shrubs, and trees move in.”
“Nitrogen chemicals are nutrients—you need them for growing plants,” Hanekamp said.
Hanekamp believes the government has focused on nitrogen almost to the exclusion of other factors that affect nature, such as the location of groundwater relative to the surface.
He also questions whether the ecosystem shifts prompted by greater nitrogen deposition can be properly defined as “damage.”
“Is a change in biodiversity bad in itself, or is it just change?” he asked.
He pointed out that the Netherlands is far from pristine wilderness. Much of the land is artificial, reclaimed from the sea over recent centuries thanks to the ingenuity of man.
Hanekamp has scrutinized a term used in government ecological research: “nitrogen critical load.”
Below its “critical load,” a substance is not thought to pose a significant environmental threat.
In a recent paper, Hanekamp and coauthor William Briggs described some problems with the evidence used to define nitrogen critical loads in the Netherlands.
For one thing, they do not believe the definitions of nitrogen critical loads are sufficiently precise. In addition, they think there have not been enough large-scale, long-term studies on nitrogen deposition.
Hanekamp stressed that models can be useful—taking 100,000 measurements across the country wouldn’t exactly be easy or cheap.
Yet modeling uncertainty makes it challenging to translate activity on a particular farm to exact patterns of nitrogen flow.
That hasn’t stopped the Dutch nitrogen minister from unveiling detailed, area-specific nitrogen reduction targets in June of this year.
The release was the impetus for the latest round of protests by farmers.
One dairy farmer interviewed by The Epoch Times would have to cut his livestock numbers by 95 percent—so much that he expects he will need to shut down.
“We have created the illusion of certainty with respect to emission and deposition. That’s definitely a mirage of policymaking,” said Hanekamp.
“The problem is that the Dutch government decided that these critical loads are definitive with respect to the quality of the habitats we have. And that’s a very strange approach to this issue.”
Hanekamp worries that a comprehensive, societal risk-benefit analysis has not occurred. He thinks the ultimate outcome of the government’s climate proposals remains deeply uncertain.
“If we would implement these and we would kick out, say, one third of the farmers, we still don’t know what the result would be related to these critical loads, which doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“Yeah, we [would] know that one third of the farmers [are] gone, and that basically, we’re reducing production and income as a country, but the return of investment in the focused nature? We have no idea.”
In the Netherlands, dairy farmer Martin Neppelenbroek is near the end of the line.
New environmental regulations will require him to slash his livestock numbers by 95 percent. He thinks he will have to sell his family farm.
“I can’t run a farm on 5 percent. For me, it’s over and done with,” he said in a July 7 interview with The Epoch Times.
“In view of the regulations, I can’t sell it to anybody. Nobody wants to buy it. [But] the government wants to buy it. And that’s why they [have] those regulations, I think.”
A cow at Martin Neppelenbroek’s farm in Lemelerveld, The Netherlands, on July 7, 2022. (The Epoch Times)
Neppelenbroek made the remarks while speaking with Roman Balmakov, host of “Facts Matter” on EpochTV, during Balmakov’s recent trip to the Netherlands.
Neppelenbroek pointed out that not all farmers are required to get rid of so many of their cattle.
People living further from areas protected under Natura 2000, a European Union (EU) agreement for species and habitat preservation, can own more cattle.
That’s because the Dutch government’s regulations on nitrogen oxides and ammonia emissions are tied to sites’ proximity to those protected areas.
Dutch dairy farmer Martin Neppelenbroek at his farm in Lemelerveld, The Netherlands, on July 7, 2022. (The Epoch Times)
Farmers, truckers, and others across the Netherlands have led nationwide protests against that vision, partly spurred by a June 10 national and area-specific plan for curtailing nitrogen greenhouse gas emissions.
There’s a sword of Damocles hanging over them: the possibility of compulsory seizure of property by the government.
NOS Nieuws reported that Christianne van der Wal, the country’s minister of nature and nitrogen policy, has not ruled out expropriating land from uncooperative farmers.
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service, the Dutch government has said its approach means “there is not a future for all [Dutch] farmers.”
For now, Neppelenbroek’s 170-acre-plus property is home to roughly 130 milking cows. It’s been in his family for half a century.
“I’m the second generation,” he said, adding that many farms in the Netherlands have been in families for much longer.
The Netherlands punches well above its weight in agriculture. The small, coastal country is one of the world’s top 10 food exporters.
“When you have not a lot of space, you have to use it as effectively as possible,” Neppelenbroek said.
“It’s a delta, and the climate is not too hot, not too cold. It’s an ideal place to grow.”
Cows, Neppelenbroek acknowledged, produce lots of ammonia through their bodily waste.
Resident Joe Biden is losing support from some of his biggest backers.
Bill Kristol, who founded and edited the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, became a fierce critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and led the NeverTrump movement.
In 2018, Kristol co-founded The Bulwark, whose coverage is largely centered around criticism of Trump.
Two years later, he endorsed Biden in the Democratic primary, calling it a “simple choice,” and in the general election.
On Wednesday, however, Kristol argued that Biden should announce he won’t run for re-election.
He said on Twitter that a retirement announcement by Biden would bolster the Democrats’ chances in the 2022 midterm elections and lead to a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential race.
Straightforward from here:
1. Biden announces not running again.
2. 2022 focus turns to R extremism, Ds do well in Nov.
3. Inflation subsides, Ukraine defeats Russia, Biden is successful 1-term president.
4. Younger moderate D defeats Trump or Trumpist in ’24.
As the president’s popularity drops further and further amid historic inflation and other crises, even liberals are increasingly giving him the cold shoulder.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicated that 64 percent of Democratic voters want someone else than the incumbent as their nominee for president in 2024.
Biden snapped at a reporter who asked him about the poll at a White House event Tuesday.
“Read the polls, jack! You guys are all the same,” he said.
“What’s your message to Democrats who don’t want you to run again?”
At the now-defunct Weekly Standard, the neoconservative ideologue became a crucial proponent of President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The invasion has since become regarded as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history.
Kristol reinvented himself by aligning with progressive Democrats as a Trump critic after the 2016 GOP primary, establishing himself as a mainstay on liberal cable channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
‘If you control the food supply, you control that population’
The livelihoods of Dutch farmers are under attack due to the Dutch government’s proposed nitrogen policy, which could necessitate the mass slaughter of livestock and potentially shut down almost a third of the country’s farms.
If this policy is implemented, it will have “major security consequences, not just for the Netherlands, but for all of Europe and the world,” said Michael Yon, a war correspondent who has recently arrived in the Netherlands to report on the ground from the Dutch farmers’ protests.
The Netherlands is a small country in Europe with a population of 17 million people, but it is the second-largest food exporter in the world, Yon said in a recent interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. “They have the most efficient farmers in the world.”
King Willem-Alexander (L) and Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands sign the Royal Decrees as part of the inauguration of the new prime minister’s cabinet at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague on Jan. 10, 2022. (Sem Vander Wal/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2021, the Netherlands’s coalition government proposed slashing livestock numbers in the country by 30 percent to meet nitrogen greenhouse gas emission targets.
The country has already implemented stringent restrictions on new construction, intending to curb nitrogen emissions.
Dutch bank Rabobank has argued that those new hurdles have slowed home building in the Netherlands, intensifying a housing shortage in the densely populated coastal nation.
On June 10, Christianne van der Wal, the Dutch Minister for Nitrogen and Nature Policy, unveiled a plan to reduce nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The Dutch Provinces are responsible for developing corresponding measures to reach the nitrogen emission reductions between 12 and 70 percent, depending on the area,” the statement said.
“Farmers in some provinces will be particularly hard hit … and the Dutch government acknowledged ‘there is not a future for all {Dutch} farmers within [this] approach.’”
The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce says that nitrogen environmental pollution comes from burning fossil fuels but also from manure produced by livestock and fertilizers used in farming. It is estimated that to implement the proposed plan, farmers would need to reduce their cattle herds by 30 percent, according to Barron’s.
But Yon said Dutch farmers are not polluting the environment and that they’ve been farming the land for thousands of years.
Nitrogen is being labeled as a pollutant and used as a decoy by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to put the farmers out of business and control the food supply, Yon said.
Dutch Farmers Protest Against Climate Policy
Dutch farmers protesting against the government’s plans to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia gather for a demonstration at Stroe, Netherlands, on June 22, 2022. (Aleksandar Furtula/AP Photo)
The proposed measures sparked protests among Dutch farmers in June, with a large protest joined by truckers which started on July 4.
Dutch farmers, truckers, and others have used social media in a decentralized way to organize blockades of food distribution hubs across the northwest European country, which resulted in empty shelves in supermarkets.
The protesters also planned to demonstrate at many of the nation’s airports, specifically mentioning Schiphol Airport and Eindhoven Airport.
Dutch farmers and truckers realize that their government is following the recommendations of the WEF, which has been trying to take their land and control their food supply, Yon said.
“If you control the food supply, you control that population completely,” he said.
Dutch farmers are very educated, and they are both businesspeople and farmers, Yon said. They know that if they lose, they will lose their livelihood, and the consequences of their loss will be felt for many generations, he said.
“The farmers are rising up. They know they’re going to be put out of business … which would put all of Europe on its knees, foodwise,” Yon said.
Similar policies are being introduced in Germany and some other countries, Yon said. Some German farmers who want to show their solidarity are also involved in the Dutch protest, he added.
World Economic Forum Recommendations
Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab delivers remarks at the Congress centre during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switerland, on May 23, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
According to a 2019 white paper (pdf) commissioned by the WEF, livestock’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions varies between 7 and 18 percent. “With technical and financial support to adopt improved practices, producers could reduce their livestock emissions by up to 30 percent.”
The paper proposes some ways to meet future demands for livestock-derived foods.
Livestock production in large industrial-scale enterprises may have a lower footprint of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product than small or medium farms with a mixture of crops and livestock, or livestock production farms that are less efficient, the paper said. Therefore, in developing countries, industrial-scale livestock production facilities should be a preferable solution, the WEF paper states.
Another way of meeting the demand for protein while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, proposed by the WEF paper, is exploring and promoting alternative forms of protein, such as plant-based foods and proteins made from plants, insects, and lab-cultured proteins.
Many Dutch people understand the implications of their government’s policies and support the farmers, but there are a lot of people who are not yet tracking with what’s going on and need to wake up, Yon said.
“[They] are going to get hit sooner or later,” he said. “Would you rather have your shelves empty now for just a really short time or be under the thumb of the beast forever?”
If these farmers are knocked out after one or two generations pass, the chain of knowledge will be broken, and this expertise will be gone, Yon said. People’s food security will always be controlled by somebody else, he added.
Farm Buyout Program
Jaap Zegwaard watches some of his herd of 180 cattle, mostly black and white Holstein-Friesians, eat in his milking barns in Maasland near Rotterdam, Netherlands, on July 8, 2022. (Mike Corder/AP Photo)
The Dutch government policy will also focus on reducing nitrogen deposited in soils, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dutch agriculture accounts for 45 percent of soil nitrogen deposits, the report said.
Although Dutch provinces are required to devise measures to address the issue, the Dutch government will step in if provinces do not come up with their solutions within a year.
The government has already allocated funds to buy out farms from their owners, the report said. Those who do not want to be bought out will be asked to innovate, scale up, or move their farms, and the government also has an option to confiscate their farms, according to the report. Several scientists have already pointed out that there are 20,000 farms in the Netherlands, and the allocated funding may be insufficient to buy out even a couple thousand of them, the report stated.
Yon said that this policy divides people by accusing the farmers of “poisoning the land” with their farming activities and advocating opening farms to development.
“That’s how Stalin did it” when he eliminated the kulaks, Yon added.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine when it was a Soviet republic. Most Ukrainian farmers resisted the collectivization, but the Soviet regime forced small or subsistence farmers to surrender their farms to the government and work on government-owned collective farms as workers.
The wealthy and successful farmers were labeled “kulaks” and declared enemies of the state by the Soviet regime, according to a study by the University of Minnesota. The regime imposed unfeasibly high quotas on villages for the amount of grain they were required to contribute to the Soviet state.
bell&email=walkerboh2112%40msn.com
When villages could not meet the quotas, the regime confiscated all crops and food the farmers had stored at their farms, causing a man-made famine known as the Holodomor, which claimed several million lives from 1932 to 1933.
As a result of collectivization, farmers who resisted were either deported, sent to gulags, or executed.
In the face of global famine, taking a top food exporter like the Netherlands out of the equation will set up the world’s people for massive starvation, Yon explained.
“Only the biggest psychopaths in history could possibly even consider doing that,” he said. “And that’s what they’re doing.”
