Thiel: Bullish On Bitcoin, Trump, & Musk; Bearish On AI, EU & Political Correctness

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Fresh off his move to Los Angeles, and a profile in the New York Times where he defended President Donald Trump and lashed out at the pervasive groupthink that drove him out of Silicon Valley, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel sat for an interview with Maria Bartiromo at the Economic Club of New York.

Early in the discussion, Bartiromo asked Thiel – who famously opened for Trump at the Republican National Convention – what he thought about Trump’s performance.

In response, he explained that he’s extremely happy with the president’s performance during his first year in office. While the media has been hyperfixated on the latest leak from the Russia probe, Trump has quietly been slashing regulations and questioning orthodoxies like the economic benefits of free trade.

“That’s why, if he runs again, he will be reelected,” Thiel said.

Though “it’s probably the case that Democrats will do quite well in the midterms.”

He also pointed out the irony that people in the Bay Area describe him as a “contrarian” for supporting Trump…

“Supporting Trump was the least contrarian thing I ever did…nearly half the country voted for him. But within the context of Silicon Valley it was viewed as extremely contrarian.”

“The one thing that I liked about Trump and still very much like about him is a willingness to ask questions and to reframe the debate and not be bound by these strictures.

“There are any of a number of issues where it’s good to rethink things.”

Later in the conversation, Bartiromo asked Thiel about the “Gawker situation.” Thiel, who sounded uncharacteristically willing to discuss an episode about which he has been famously reticent, explained that Gawker’s argument in its own defense was, in reality, an insult to journalism. Thiel said that just because Gawker billed itself as a news site doesn’t automatically extend first amendment protections to everything it publishes.

“I’m very proud to have supported Hulk Hogan in a successful lawsuit… The claim that a pornographer pays someone for sex tapes, and a journalist gets to publish sex tapes without paying people… that’s what in effect what Gawker was arguing.”

“We have a first amendment, we believe in free speech, but that doesn’t mean you get to steal a sex tape made in the privacy of a bedroom and post it on the Internet for everybody to see. We have a first amendment…but we also have a fourth amendment that protects us from unreasonable search and seizure…so that’s the legal framing.”

The Gawker lawsuit demonstrated to America why defining the scope of privacy protections in the digital age is so important. Today, the conventional wisdom is that Americans have tacitly surrendered their right to privacy by participating in the digital world. But Thiel says this notion is anathema to the preservation of a free society.

There was a brief discussion of trade, in which Thiel briefly pointed out that US is in a much stronger position to bargain with China and EU than vice versa…

“Quite unclear where China can reciprocate with tariffs on US. We’re exporting so little. US no longer is a monopoly exporter in any single area.”

“With Germany, it’s a very similar thing, hard to know how you retaliate in a way that hurts them more than it hurts US.”

The Silicon Valley billionaire then added that Peter Navarro has sold 1 million copies of his book “Zero To One” in China vs. 40,000 in India, which Thiel says is one way to show how one country is thinking about entrepreneurship versus the other.

When Bartiromo raising the European Union’s decision to introduce the “first ever” regulations of Google, Facebook and other giant tech platforms. Thiel sees good reasons and bad reasons for this threat of regulation:

“The good reasons are these privacy concerns and the bad reasons are there are no successful tech companies in Europe and they are jealous of the US so they are punishing us.”

Additionally, Thiel acknowledged that “privacy in a digital era deserves to be rethought” but said that “as a libertarian I always dislike regulation.”

Intriguingly, amid all the hype and anxiety surrounding investment, Thiel explained why, as an investor, he wasn’t particularly interested in artificial intelligence: because of its bad reputation.

“The thing that struck me is how uncharismatic AI is at the point. Basically, it’s going to take our jobs and, once it takes our jobs, at the singularity [the theoretical point at which superhuman artificial intelligence is created, triggering an unprecedented cascade of technological change] it’s just going to kill everybody.”

“I’m not sure that dystopian view is necessarily correct but that’s actually what most people believe,” he said, adding that when considering investments he tends to ask whether technologies are good and how they are going to make the world better…

“The answers for things like AI are quite weak,” he said.

Bartiromo then steered the conversation toward bitcoin, and mentioned that, the last time she had spoken to Thiel, that he had expressed reservations about a lot of cryptocurrencies, but was optimistic about the long-term prospects of bitcoin. Thiel explained that he’s owned bitcoin for a long time, and has been consistently bullish.

Though he doubts it’ll ever be successful as a medium for payments, Thiel believes bitcoin could endure as a store of value that, much like gold, could serve as a hedge against inflation.

“The technology that people like to talk about is the blockchain technology, and I’m somewhat skeptical about how that translates into good investments, but the one use-case of cryptocurrency as a store of value may actually have quite a bit of a ways to go. I would be long bitcoin and neutral to skeptical of just about everything else at this point, with a few possible exceptions.

“The question with something like bitcoin is whether it can become a store of value. And the thing it would replace is something like gold. The analogy is it’s like bars of gold in a vault that never move and you get it and it’s a hedge of sorts against the whole world falling apart.”

“The objections that people have to bitcoin are also objections to gold. It’s this weird currency that’s not backed by any government. Same thing is true of gold. It’s not clear what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is. Same thing is true of gold. It may well be a bubble, but – and most bubbles are unstable and end – one of my friends has this line that ‘money is the bubble that never pops’, so if it is a bubble, then it is money.”

“If everybody decided that a $100 bill was worthless then you wouldn’t want to have a $100 bill.”

There are a lot of crazy dynamics in the crypto world, but one thing that’s different from the dot-com bubble of the late 90s is there aren’t any Wall Street bankers involved… yet – one reason why bitcoin strikes Thiel as “deeply contrarian.”

At the very least, both Wall Street and Silicon Valley were both late to the bitcoin party. While this isn’t a reason to be bullish in and of itself, it’s definitely a factor worth considering. And while there are risks surrounding the influence that miners exert, as well as the unraveling of privacy protections. But, Thiel says, there will likely be only one online equivalent to gold…and right now, bitcoin is the only crypto product that fits that bill.

Thiel offers some parting advice: “Never bet against Elon.” and “don’t compete with Amazon.”

When Thiel first invested in Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, he was sceptical that it would be able to build a reusable rocket.

“I have known Elon for 18 years and you should never bet against Elon,” he said.

“I thought it was inconceivable that it could be done … and they have actually pulled it off,” he said.

The company to watch, he said, was Amazon, which has expanded into a broad range of industries, from infrastructure and logistics to retail and healthcare.

“Amazon is the most ferocious company in the US at this point. It’s probably the company you don’t want to be competing against,” he said.

“I can’t think of any other company even close to Amazon.”

Finally, Thiel circled back to Silicon Valley and the politically-correct folly of it all…

“It’s striking how what had always been a very liberal place has become almost a one-party state,” he said.

“When you have complete unanimity that tells you that political correctness may have gone a little bit too far.”

[WATCH] Disarming The Climate Change Agenda

After YouTube’s glaring censorship agenda set out to silence those who question the establishment, many have transitioned to a platform where their speech is not politically censored.  One such man is now disarming the climate change agenda and his DTube video is throwing all kinds of wrenches in the cogs of the propaganda machine.

Jay Sather’s DTube channel is dedicated to “destroying the illusion,” something which is not allowed on YouTube.  In the video below, Sather demolishes the climate change agenda. You can’t even go on social media or a mainstream media (government) outlet’s website without seeing a propaganda piece about “man-made climate change.”

“Let’s make some sense about what the heck’s going on here in regards to climate change,” Sather says.

“There’s this huge propaganda wave I’m seeing, trying to tell us that humans are the cause of global warming when, in my opinion, we are not.” Sather goes on to say that while there are record heat waves, there are also record cold waves occurring right now too. There are a lot of changes happening all around the globe right now, but they aren’t’ caused by carbon emissions. “They are caused by my natural earthy and cosmic cycles,” Sather says.

Sather appears to come to the same conclusion as most of us who look at the statistics and data and happen to also understand that the sun’s cycle plays a role in the weather on Earth. “The Earth is [also] moving into a more energetic region of space,” says Sather. “There’s a lot of things going on in our whole solar system because of that…we’re seeing weird things happen with the poles of Saturn, weird hexagonal shapes…storms are getting worse on all the planets.”

“Just because you deny man-made global warming, does NOT mean you are denying the Earth being polluted…this is a big one. One of those subconscious programmings we’ve undergone…these are two very different things,” Sather reminds everyone. He then says the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) “sucks” and they are “one of the biggest polluters there is.”

Sather continues to make the point that all of this propaganda designed to indoctrinate you into the “religion” of man-made climate change is done to enslave you with carbon emission taxes and control your very life. People have stopped asking “why.” Most just blindly accept what they are told without actually applying their own sense of logic to the information presented by the corporate mainstream media, aka, the government’s propaganda machine.

 

Mnuchin: “We Want To Make Sure Bad People Can’t Use Bitcoin To Do Bad Things”

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Back in September 2015, when we first predicted that Bitcoin would enjoy an exponential price increase as first the Chinese and then everyone else realized that the cryptocurrency is nothing less than the digital equivalent of borderless Swiss account, bypassing capital controls with ease and enabling money laundering anywhere and everywhere, its market cap was $3 billion. It is now $230 billion.

Today, a little over two years later, the US Treasury has finally this figured out, and on Friday Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will work with the Group of 20 nations to prevent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin from becoming the digital equivalent of an anonymous Swiss bank account.

“We are very focused on cryptocurrencies,” Mnuchin explained, pointing to discussions with other regulators within the U.S. government and later stating: “We want to make sure that bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things.”

Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Mnuchin said that the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a government body that assesses financial system risks, has formed a working group focused on cryptocurrencies, and explained that “In the United States — and people may not realize this — under our laws, if you have a wallet to own bitcoins, that company has the same obligation as a bank to Know Your Customer. So, in the United States, we have rules for anti-money-laundering, for all different types of entities, we can track those types of [transactions]. The rest of the world doesn’t have that. So one of the things we are working very closely with the G-20 on is making sure that this doesn’t become the Swiss numbered bank account.”

During the remarks, Mnuchin also suggested that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to develop its own digital version of fiat currency – a topic under discussion at a number of central banks worldwide – in the near future.

“The Fed and we don’t think there’s a need for that at this point,” Mnuchin said.

Mnuchin added that he was worried about heightened levels of speculation in the bitcoin market. “The other concern I have is, there’s a lot of speculation in this, and I want to make sure that consumers who are trading this understand the risks,” Mnuchin said. “I am concerned that consumers may get hurt.”

Apparently he was far less concerned about consumers buying the S&P at all time high valuations.

More to the point, yes the US will gladly tax crypto trading now that the total market cap of all “coins” is $700 billion, and no, it has no intention of cracking down on Bitcoin or other cryptos.

Mnuchin also said that he is “not at all” worried that Russia may use cryptocurrencies to help its banks avoid international sanctions. An adviser to President Vladimir Putin is reported to have said that sanctions against Russia have created a need for digital currencies as officials there fear expansions in 2018.

As we reported in December, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree allowing the government to classify purchases by the Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service as state secrets.

“This idea that Russia or Venezuela can thwart the pressure from sanctions just by developing their own cryptocurrency is silly,” lawyer Erich Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates told Bloomberg. “It’s like trying to do it by using cash. Yes you can do it more easily with cash, but it doesn’t mean you’re evading. It’s harder to get caught.”

Full remarks below

Silicon Valley’s ‘Working Homeless’ Shows How Hard Life Is In “Democrat’s Paradise”

Silicon Valley is the home to tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google. It’s also home to a surging working homeless population who live in dilapidated RV’s, tents, and their own cars, all thanks to the policies Democrats love to implement.

The surging number of those working in Silicon Valley and still unable to afford adequate housing should be a warning about big government, but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone is taking notice as their taxes continue to rise. As governments creep toward socialism though, poverty becomes the norm, not the exception. Silicon Valley has the highest median income in the nation. But a soaring tax burden and expensive regulations have caused housing prices to increase which has also caused homelessness to surge.

More than 10,000 people were living without shelter across San Jose and Santa Clara Counties on any given night in 2016, though that figure is probably low. Thanks to big government, the cost of living is not low. An influx of tech workers along with decades of under-building (thanks again to the regulations of big government) has created a historic homelessness in the Bay Area.

The governments in California continue to attempt to control deadly Hepatitis A outbreaks caused by a booming homeless population and usually do so by taking even more from those who actually work. The cycle will continue: socialists governments will put a cheap band-aid on the gaping wound they created themselves.

Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process. – FEE

The one thing government has are programs to help those in poverty. But those have proven ineffective. And the one thing that will work is the very thing government refuses to do: Climb off the backs of those they pretend they want to help.

Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets.  – FEE

Imagine just how much more money the working poor would have if the big government in California wasn’t stealing over half their income to implement the very rules and laws that continue to make “scraping by” even more expensive.

Silicone Valley’s ‘Working Homeless’ Shows How Hard Life Is In “Democrat’s Paradise”

Silicone Valley is the home to tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google. It’s also home to a surging working homeless population who live in dilapidated RV’s, tents, and their own cars, all thanks to the policies Democrats love to implement.

The surging number of those working in Silicone Valley and still unable to afford adequate housing should be a warning about big government, but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone is taking notice as their taxes continue to rise. As governments creep toward socialism though, poverty becomes the norm, not the exception. Silicon Valley has the highest median income in the nation. But a soaring tax burden and expensive regulations have caused housing prices to increase which has also caused homelessness to surge.

More than 10,000 people were living without shelter across San Jose and Santa Clara Counties on any given night in 2016, though that figure is probably low. Thanks to big government, the cost of living is not low. An influx of tech workers along with decades of under-building (thanks again to the regulations of big government) has created a historic homelessness in the Bay Area.

The governments in California continue to attempt to control deadly Hepatitis A outbreaks caused by a booming homeless population and usually do so by taking even more from those who actually work. The cycle will continue: socialists governments will put a cheap band-aid on the gaping wound they created themselves.

Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process. – FEE

The one thing government has are programs to help those in poverty. But those have proven ineffective. And the one thing that will work is the very thing government refuses to do: Climb off the backs of those they pretend they want to help.

Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets.  – FEE

Imagine just how much more money the working poor would have if the big government in California wasn’t stealing over half their income to implement the very rules and laws that continue to make “scraping by” even more expensive.

Asking Government to Regulate Farmers Markets is a Horrible Mistake

By Curtis Stone

Is farmers market fraud a real problem? Some stalls at farmers markets got their produce from a central supplier instead of a local farm. What should be done about it? Some, including the mainstream media, are asking the government to get involved. Curtis Stone, author of The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased or Borrowed Land, explains why he thinks that’s a horrible idea.

Curtis Stone is a successful urban farmer in Canada. Subscribe to his channel on YouTube, follow him on Instagram, and buy his book here.

NRA Caves On “Bump Fire Stocks,” Says They Should Be “Subject To Additional Regulations”

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Following the tragic events in Las Vegas, which were seemingly made even worse by a product that most people didn’t even know existed a couple of days ago, and ramped-up calls for new gun restrictions from Democrats, the National Rifle Association has just caved and called for “additional regulations” on “bump fire stocks” which effectively serve to allow semi-automatic weapons to function as fully-automatic. 

Here is the full statement from the NRA:

“In the aftermath of the evil and senseless attack in Las Vegas, the American people are looking for answers as to how future tragedies can be prevented.”

“Unfortunately, the first response from some politicians has been to call for more gun control. Banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks. This is a fact that has been proven time and again in countries across the world.

In Las Vegas, reports indicate that certain devices were used to modify the firearms involved. Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law.

“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”

“In an increasingly dangerous world, the NRA remains focused on our mission: strengthening Americans’ Second Amendment freedom to defend themselves, their families and their communities.”

“To that end, on behalf of our five million members across the country, we urge Congress to pass National Right-to-Carry reciprocity, which will allow law-abiding Americans to defend themselves and their families from acts of violence.”

#BREAKING @NRA issues statement calling for devices like bump stocks to be "subject to additional regulations" in wake of #LasVegas – @ABC pic.twitter.com/ouMAm50OyO

— ABC6 (@wsyx6) October 5, 2017

Meanwhile, the White House has also joined in with Sarah Sanders just telling reporters that the Executive Branch wants “to be part of the discussion” on regulating bump fire stocks.

.@PressSec on reviewing "bump stocks" like the one used in Las Vegas shooting: "We are open to having that conversation" pic.twitter.com/2VacyZVjJV

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 5, 2017

For those who aren’t familiar with how bump fire stocks work, here is a demonstration from one of the largest manufacturers, Slide Fire, which we shared with readers yesterday.

And here is a look at the product in action:

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New Survey Shows Just How Hard It Is To Make Ends Meet: ‘Half Of People Need Credit Cards Just To Make It To Their Next Payday’

A new survey was done in the United Kingdom and it shows just how hard it is for young people to survive paycheck to paycheck. Almost half of those surveyed admitted to needing credit to make ends meet until they get paid again.

More than half of young women have to borrow to make their funds last to the end of the month, highlighting the impact of stagnating wages, insecure work, and rising prices like taxation on millennials. A survey of 4,000 people aged 18-30 shows that 51% of young women and 45% of young men regularly use credit to stretch their finances until payday. The report also found that a quarter of these young people in the UK are constantly in debt.

When asked how they borrow to make ends meet, one in five claimed they used overdraft credit or borrowed from family members. The next most common form of borrowing was the use of credit cards. The Young Women’s Trust, which commissioned the representative sample of young people, said many of those questioned in the survey also worked extra hours or skipped meals to make their cash stretch to the end of the month.

The survey was conducted after a growing number of people began asking for help from debt charities with personal debts and monthly bills. The debt charity StepChange said it was concerned about a steep increase in the number of “under-40s” and renters who were struggling to make ends meet. This adds to the trend for low-income families to rely on credit to buy essential items. This debt epidemic is not likely to go away either, with the added burden of regulations and taxation on personal income, it isn’t a surprise that people have begun to struggle financially.

Even if a credit company forgives a debt, in the United States, the IRS will demand that the company give a 1099-C form, which is then reported as income, and taxed as such. Being in poverty becomes the norm when a society drifts toward more government control, and we are beginning to see this credit epidemic rise in first world countries.

The Young Women’s Trust charity’s chief executive, Carole Easton, a former chief executive of ChildLine, said 25% of young people believed their level of debt had gotten worse in the past year and 61% expect to be still in debt when they are aged 40. She warned that this is a scary outlook for many. This could leave young people with “little hope for the future”, especially as the Bank of England has hinted in recent days that it is likely to raise interest rates in the near future. “The worry is many young people will be pushed further into debt,” she said.

“Much more needs to be done to improve young people’s prospects. This means giving them the right skills and support to find jobs, ensuring decent and flexible jobs are available, and paying a proper living wage that doesn’t discriminate against age. This would benefit businesses and the economy too,” said Easton, letting the government off the hook.

But that money has to come from somewhere. Increased wages mean increased prices. It’s an economic cycle that is being strangled by regulations and taxation. Perhaps a reduction in their tax burden? Maybe if the government would climb off the backs of workers, they could begin to get ahead.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 445 people
Date: September 20th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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Congress Begins to Reclaim Power from the Administrative State

by Alexandra DeSanctis April 3, 2017

Using the previously obscure Congressional Review Act, legislators are restoring Constitutional federalism and correcting overreaching executive-branch regulations.

The Senate voted last week to overturn a Department of Health and Human Services rule regarding state disbursement of Title X funding. In addition to providing a much-needed restoration of federalism, the vote served as the latest example of the 115th Congress’s willingness to use a little-known provision, — the Congressional Review Act (CRA), — to undo overreaching regulations enacted by the Obama administration. Early in this session, congressional Republicans announced their intention to use the CRA to reverse a number of Obama-era regulations that had been in place since the middle of last year.

Congress’s newfound desire to utilize the CRA is a victory both for state power and the rights of citizens. Though Congress could surely pass resolutions under this bill undoing federal regulations that conservatives favor, the bill itself is inherently conservative in principle. It allocates authority to the legislative branch in accordance with the Constitution, permitting the representatives of the people to check the power of unelected bureaucrats who all too often impose their will through undemocratic regulation, subverting the electorate’s will and tearing at the fabric of our republic.

Read more at National Review

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Marijuana Strain Recalled in Oregon over High Pesticide Levels

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) issued its first-ever marijuana recall after samples of Blue Magoo marijuana were found to contain a level of pesticide residue that exceeds the state’s limit. The cannabis brand is sold at a Mapleton, Oregon, store. [1]

Source: Oregon Cannabis Connection

The OLCC, which oversees retail sales of recreational marijuana, said samples of Blue Magoo failed a test for pyrethrin levels. Pyrethrin is a mixture of six chemicals that are extracted from the Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium plant. It’s considered a “natural” insecticide (and is sometimes used on organic products), but it’s far from safe. It’s toxic to mammals, especially cats, as well as fish and insects. It is also toxic to bees. [1], [2]

Read: Is Your Marijuana Laced with Pesticides?

A factor in the recall is that marijuana growers must comply with an unfamiliar regulatory system that they haven’t faced before. Since marijuana is still illegal under federal law, the government has not established allowable tolerances of pesticides in pot, leaving states to figure it out for themselves. Oregon tests pot for 59 active ingredients. [1]

The recalled weed was grown by Emerald Wave Estate in Creswell, Oregon, and sold at Buds 4 U in Mapleton. People who purchased the marijuana should dispose of it or return it to the store, according to the OLCC.

OLCC spokesperson Mark Pettinger says Buds 4 U, which has fully complied with the recall, sold 82.5 grams of Blue Magoo to 31 customers from March 8 to March 10, 2017. When the store noticed the failed pesticide test in the state’s Cannabis Tracking System on March 10, it immediately contacted the OLCC.

Source: Twitter

Pettinger says:

“The retailer was great. They get the gold star.” [2]

Pettinger blames wholesaler Cascade Cannabis Distributing for the problem, saying it shipped the pot before pesticide test results were entered into the state’s tracking system. The rest of the company’s 9-lb. batch of Blue Magoo marijuana has been placed on administrative hold, meaning it can’t be lawfully sold unless additional pesticide testing gives it the all-clear. [1]

Sources:

[1] Portland Tribune

[2] Associated Press

Oregon Cannabis Connection

Twitter

Bloom Well (featured image source)

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

USDA Threatens To Shut Down Farm For Conservative Article In Break Room

Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals used to be so much simpler.

For hundreds of years, the meat-packing industry bore the responsibility for transforming Bessie the Cow into carnivores’ favorite source of protein, and more recently the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ensured that the finished product was “safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged.”

Not so anymore. Due to agency rules issued during the Obama era, FSIS inspectors enjoy expanded duties, including monitoring facilities for any “disrespectful” or “insult[ing]” communication (no, not among the animals). Should they uncover any such communication, inspectors are empowered to take “corrective action,” even if that involves slicing and dicing fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The Fateful Day Don Put an Article in the Break Room

Predictably, unleashing meat inspectors to police the exercise of free speech—with guidelines that provide only vague directional prodding—is the equivalent of releasing a bull in a china shop. At least, it was for Don and Ellen Vander Boon, the owners of West Michigan Beef Company. (To be fair, Mythbusters found that bulls can be surprisingly respectful of grandma’s china. The same cannot be said for the USDA and the First Amendment.)

The USDA threatened to shut down this family-owned company, not because of health concerns, or because short ribs were incorrectly labeled as plate ribs (incidentally, you would not believe the labeling requirements), or because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals infiltrated their ranks in some sort of hostile takeover bid. Rather, the so-called offense consisted of an article Don placed in the breakroom.

The breakroom at West Michigan Beef includes tables that essentially serve as a repository for newspapers, magazines, articles, and other forms of literature that employees or the owners wish to share with those who care to read them. Think of it as a pre-technological Facebook. Importantly, no one is required to read the materials, any more than I am required to flip through a two-year old copy of People while sitting in my dentist’s lobby, or to read my friend’s Facebook post about replacing smoke detector batteries (true story).

In 2015, following the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that purported to redefine marriage for the entire country, various employees shared articles and information related to the decision. Don participated by sharing an article that expressed the traditional Christian view that God designed marriage as a union between a man and a woman and set forth reasons for that position.

When a USDA public health veterinarian, the on-site inspector, saw the article in the breakroom, well, he had a cow. He removed the article and reported it to his USDA supervisor. The pair stampeded into Don’s office and threatened to remove USDA inspectors—effectively shutting down the facility—if Don returned the article to the breakroom, stating the article was offensive and harassing under expanded agency rules.

If It Pleases the Crown: Behind the Internet’s Hottest New Anti-Establishment Meme

(ANTIMEDIA) A new meme has been making the rounds on the internet, alluding to the American government as “the crown.” While at first glance this may appear confusing considering America is a “democracy” (or “republic,” depending on who you ask), the ‘If it pleases the crown’ meme is actually making a radical point.

The United States was born out of resistance to monarchy; to excessive taxation, restrictions on trade, and the imposing policies that came with having a “crown.” According to popular American nationalist mythology, the American Revolution changed all this, spawning a nation of free, brave, and independent individuals.

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Never mind that at the same time this “republican” (or democratic, depending on who you ask) government was slaughtering and exploiting indigenous people and codifying slavery into law. Never mind that corruption and abuses of power reared their ugly heads before the ink had even dried on the constitution; the constitutional convention was held in secret, George Washington crushed a tax rebellion, and 2nd president of the United States John Adams limited speech critical of the government and attempted to pack the Supreme Court for political reasons at the turn of the 19th century.

Regardless of the huge extent of misconduct, inefficiency, and violence the American government has routinely committed and continues to commit in 2017, it still enjoys a safe space in most Americans’ hearts as the best form of government “we” could hope to achieve.

‘If it pleases the crown,’ however, turns this notion on its head. The formula of the meme is simple: it begins with ‘If it pleases the crown’ and is followed by an articulation of an absurd government policy that violates freedom on a fundamental level:

The meme “[s]hows how we are in fact not “free people”. We must ask permission and pay for all that we do, seemingly never really seceding from Britain,” said Cathy Higgs, a Facebook user, when explaining the meme in a thread discussing its meaning. Another user, Mike Paster, agreed, noting the meme presents “the idea that there isn’t much difference between a Monarchy and the American Empire.”

Though the meme is an explicit reference to monarchy, it arguably tackles the fundamental nature of government as a whole: that whether it is a monarchy, democracy, republic, or dictatorship, individuals must ask permission from a central authority to engage in otherwise non-violent behavior.

“It’s comparing the current style of governing in the U.S.  to the draconian style of governing practiced by 16th-century Britain, where the common people [were] not citizens, but subjects, which are essentially slaves,” said Rob Gore.

“We’re subjects, and like good subjects, we ask permission first,” added Humberto Misteroni.

This permission is often contradictory because, as the meme demonstrates, those asking permission are the ones financing the authority of the institutions they must ask permission from in the first place.

Two examples of this dynamic are parking enforcement and the DMV. In the case of the former, parking enforcement agents, whose salaries are funded by taxpayers, patrol the streets (paid for by taxpayers) in cars funded by taxpayers, only to charge taxpayers additional fines for parking. In the case of the latter, car owners must pay fines and fees to obtain permission to operate their own property, all in exchange for a slip of paper or sticker — the absence of which yields further fines and fees from government employees whose salaries come from those paying the fines and fees.

As meme maker Ryan Butcher observed, “Those memes beautifully mock the ridiculousness of unnecessary ‘revenue generation’ laws. I love how they highlight the ‘no victim no crime’ mentality that many people abide by.”

“To me, it’s a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that we must ask an arbitrary governing official for permission to do mundane things and then, often pay for the ‘right,’” said Amanda Carrol, another Facebook user describing the meme.

Activist Michael Heise agreed with that assessment, adding that “It’s not just things that require licensing, but also matters of privacy…It’s highlighting how unfree we are.”

On that note, the meme also references what happens if any given action does not please the crown — and how privacy is sacrificed to implement “the crown’s” wishes:

In doing so, this meme illustrates the fundamental violence inherent to the State; that if the “crown” does not approve, it reserves and exercises its authority to point guns at individuals as a means to control their behavior.

As Dylan Hock observed in the thread, the memes are increasingly timely. “[The memes] make me laugh. Most I’ve seen so far seem on point, considering the fascist nature the country is slipping into more and more,” he said.

It appears the meme will continue to gain popularity whether it pleases the crown or not.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Meltdown at the EPA

The EPA has over the course of the last 20 years marshaled its vast and virtually unchallenged power into an echo chamber of deceptive science, runaway regulations and fatally flawed research derived from unethical human experiments. The EPA’s conduct runs the gamut from subtle statistical shenanigans to withholding key scientific data, from seeking to rubberstamp baseless research data to illegally spraying diesel exhaust up the noses of unsuspecting children and other vulnerable populations.

Milloy, who runs the website JunkScience.com, has chronicled the scientific and bureaucratic abuse at the EPA for two decades, and he is thrilled by President Trump’s plans to finally reform the EPA. “I can think of no agency that has done more pointless harm to the U.S. economy than the EPA — all based on junk science, if not out-and-out science fraud,” Milloy told me. “I am looking forward to President Trump’s dramatically shrinking the EPA by entirely overhauling how the remaining federal EPA uses science.”

It looks like the EPA will be the agency hardest hit by the Trump sledgehammer. For eight years, President Obama used the agency as his de facto enforcer of environmental policies he couldn’t pass in Congress even when it was controlled by his own party. If Obama was the climate-change bully, then the EPA was his toady, issuing one regulation after another aimed at imaginary polluters who were allegedly causing global warming. Jobs were lost, companies were bankrupted, and an untold amount of economic growth was stymied out of fear of reprisals from this rogue agency. The courts halted many of the EPAs most overreaching and unlawful policies initiated by Obama — such as the Clean Water Rule and Clean Power Rule, two regulations aimed at farmers and coal producers. Unsurprisingly, people in these sectors voted heavily for Trump.

Trump officials and Congress are ready to make major changes in the EPA. A leaked memo written by Trump’s EPA transition team details how the new administration wants to tackle shoddy science at the agency. The memo asserts that the EPA should not be funding scientific research, and it must make any data publicly available for independent scientists to review. It also said that the agency must eliminate conflicts of interest and bias from the science advisory process.

The administration also put a freeze on most contracts and grants, pending further review by incoming staff. A good chunk of the EPA’s $8.3 billion budget is spent on grants to universities and units of government; its 2017 budget for state- and tribal-assistant grants was nearly $3.3 billion. The agency also has nearly $6.4 billion in outstanding contractual obligations to dozens of companies across the country, dating back to 2001. These will get much-needed scrutiny over the next several months, and Milloy insists it’s a necessary step:

The EPA uses tax dollars to fund its friends and allies, who tend to be political activists and “political” scientists. There has been no effective oversight of the EPA because Republicans have lacked the numbers and often the will to challenge the all-powerful EPA.

Read more at NATIONAL REVIEW

Photo credit: Scott Pruitt testifies at his confirmation hearing for EPA administrator, January 18, 2017. (Reuters photo: Joshua Roberts)

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Trump Executive Order: For Every New Regulation, Two Must Be Revoked

January 30, 2017   |   admintam

(ZHE) President Trump has signed an executive action to revoke two regulations for every one enacted, or as officials told AP, that they are naming the new directive a “one in, two out” plan. Federal agencies will need to revoke two regulations for every new regulation they request, and the White House will review the proposal, according to administration officials.

The order sets a budget of $0 for new regulations in 2017 and the administration will set a regulation budget each year, the official said on customary condition of anonymity. Military and national security regulations are exempt.

“This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen. There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be normalized control,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office, surrounded by a group of small business owners.

Trump’s latest executive action will prepare a process for the White House to set an annual cap on the cost of new regulations, a senior official told reporters ahead of the signing. For the rest of fiscal 2017, that cap on new regulations would be $0, the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

Trump signs new executive order: “We have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation” https://t.co/d1RGYmgCzB

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 30, 2017

Here are the key highlights in the order compiled by Axios, as per the text released by the White House:

• Whenever an agency proposes a new regulation, it has to identify “at least two” previous regulations to be repealed.


• For all new regulations, “the total incremental cost … shall be no greater than zero.”


• If there are new costs, they have to be offset by eliminating costs in “at least two prior regulations.”


• The process will be directed by Mick Mulvaney, who’s set to become the next director of the Office of Management and Budget.


• If a new regulation wasn’t already listed on the “Unified Regulatory Agenda” — a list of rules in the works — it can’t be issued, “unless otherwise required by law” or unless Mulvaney says it’s OK.


• The limit applies to fiscal year 2017, which is already underway.

As Reuters adds, major regulations are typically reviewed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before they are issued. That review will continue under this new measure, but agencies will also have to identify what two regulations will be repealed to offset the costs of any new rule. The new order does not require that the repeal of the two regulations be done simultaneously with the release of additional rules, the official said.

“This vests tremendous power and responsibility in the OMB director to ensure the president’s direction in how we manage this across the government,” the official said.

This means that Trump’s pick to lead the OMB, budget hawk Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, will have critical say on any US regulatory spending and “pork” going forward.

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This article (Trump Executive Order: For Every New Regulation, Two Must Be Revoked) by Tyler Durden originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was used with permission. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org.