Authored by Daniel Nuccio via The Brownstone Institute,

Everything is dirty. Nothing works. But everything’s also more expensive. And oh, by the way, you don’t have privacy anymore…

That is how I described life in the US to a friend who had been living abroad for a bit more than a decade when we met up earlier this year during his brief return to the states.

We’re not a first world country anymore, I told him. Hopefully our decline stops somewhere around second world, I half-joked. That’s probably the best we can hope for.

Earlier that evening over dinner at what was once our regular spot, he told me of his life as a physician in Poland. I told him about my PhD work on the health effects of social isolation. He told me about the influx of young American soldiers into his current country of residence.

I described to him the dismal state of education back here at home. The lack of standards. The fetishization of boutique ideologies. The compulsory commitments to further favored political causes. 

Now, after a mediocre movie intended for teenagers (or perhaps adults longing to be teenagers again) we meandered in the vacant parking lot of the Barnes & Noble we frequented when he’d return home from college, as well as in the years immediately following our undergraduate work when we were living at home, navigating our first few grownup jobs.

Standing under the sterile glow of aesthetically jarring LED lights, subtle symbols of our country’s progress, I told him about the drive through my hometown earlier that afternoon. The place where I’d grown up. The town where we both had attended high school.

For much of my life, it had seemed like a stereotypical suburb of the 90s, sort of akin to what you’d see in early episodes of The Simpsons. We were by no means Mayberry, but we were a largely clean, peaceful place populated by middle-class people going about their lives the best they could. 

With time, yes, a plethora of mostly little changes occurred and accrued as they do everywhere. The video rental stores and comic book shops had closed long ago. The movie theater at which I watched Independence Day, Men In Black, and so many of the other major blockbusters of my childhood with my dad became a 24-hour gym. 

The Toys R Us my parents or uncles would take me to for new video games and Nerf guns on random or special occasions was now an Indian grocery store. But for the most part, we retained many of the accoutrements of 90s suburbia well into the 2000s.

Yet, on the drive through that day, more stores just seemed abandoned. Everything appeared to have acquired a thin layer of grime I couldn’t recall being there in the Before Times or even on more recent trips home to visit family. There were also far more beggars than I had ever recalled seeing there at any time in the past. 

At the risk of sounding pretentious, beggars and homeless people had always been a rare sight where I grew up. As a child, I thought of them as a largely exclusive feature of the city, seeing them only when my father would take our family Downtown for some excursion to a baseball game or the like, reprimanding my siblings and me if he ever caught us making some discourteous remark at their expense, echoing the admonitions of the teachers and priests at my parochial elementary school that homelessness could strike anyone at any time like some unfortunate disease. I also remember never quite believing them.

Something about the homeless populations I encountered on those rare occasions as a child always seemed indescribably but notably different. Sure, some of them could have been auto workers who lost good union jobs when their plant closed. Yeah, some may have been investment bankers who had fallen on hard times. But even then I could tell many of them seemed to be struggling with mental illness or addiction even if I failed to fully comprehend those concepts at the time.

Now though, in my hometown, that seemed to hold less true.

The lost souls stationed at practically every major intersection along the main road appeared in many cases exceptionally ordinary – and perhaps were until only a few years or even a couple of months earlier when…what? The bar they worked at was deemed unessential by government bureaucrats? 

The restaurant they owned was forced to close because everyone was either too frightened by propaganda to eat out or didn’t wish to deal with all the multifarious government-mandated performative acts of obedience required by those simply seeking to sit down for a meal in public? They lost their low-level job as a municipal employee because they refused to take a medicine they didn’t want and in many cases likely didn’t need? Then again, maybe some still had a job but were struggling to keep up with the sudden spike in food prices?

Although I wouldn’t say I was struggling, I told my friend, it’s hard not to notice that my bag of broccoli and cauliflower seems to have a little more air than a year ago and my hummus container appears to take up a little less space in my fridge, while both items inexplicably now cost a dollar more. If someone was living paycheck-to-paycheck, especially if they had a family, it was difficult to imagine how they could keep up.

My friend reminded me this wasn’t just the US.

The price of basic food items like eggs had gone up considerably in Poland, he informed me. Having traveled more than I have in our current period of Reset and Reconstruction, he also told me how he’s noticed that sex-segregated restrooms were being phased out in a lot of places, circling back to our earlier discussion of the fetishization of boutique ideologies, albeit no longer relegated to university soil.

His saying this reminded me of how a colleague of mine reported something similar when traveling to New York earlier this year, describing the city as Gotham with gender-neutral bathrooms, zombified homeless people wandering the streets, and the constant smell of weed in the air.  

Before parting ways for what would likely be another who knows how long, we went for a drive under the watchful eyes of the automatic license plate readers that sprouted up on practically every street light sometime between the Pandemic Period and our current Reset and Reconstruction phase – more undeniable signs of our country’s progress. We talked about the future. My friend was working through whether he wanted to stay in Poland, move to Canada where his then-girlfriend resided, or return to the US.

I told him I didn’t really know how things were in Poland, but at least the US wasn’t quite as explicitly totalitarian as Canada…yet. I also told him that I had come to acknowledge that pursuing a career as a professor and a scientific researcher long-term may no longer be an option for me given that I had spent the past two years publicly criticizing many of the political positions you’re required not only to profess but actively promote if you wish to teach at a university or do scientific research in the US.

Something else I thought about while we were driving around, or maybe sometime later as I left behind the area in which I had spent so many formative years was how so few people seem to notice so many of these changes – or casually accept them as normal if they do.

One particular example that sticks out to me now is something that occurred not long after my brief reunion with my expat friend. Once more I was driving down the main road in the town in which I grew up. Many stores still just seemed abandoned. Everything still appeared to possess a thin layer of grime. Beggars were still stationed at nearly every major intersection.

This time I was returning to visit my mother for a small dinner. On the way home, I stopped at a Starbucks not far from the Indian grocery store that used to be the Toys R Us where I got my first Mario Kart game as a kid and my first Resident Evil game as a middle-schooler.

Outside the Starbucks was an elderly woman, probably living on the streets, a little more reminiscent of my childhood notion of a homeless person than most of the seemingly newly-minted beggars at the intersections. 

While I waited for my order, I overheard the baristas talking with a couple of customers about her. Apparently, she was always there, always troubled by demons no one else could see. Sometimes she came in and made a mess in one of the bathrooms. Sometimes she harassed customers in a way that went beyond just asking for a couple bucks or some change.

One of the customers with whom the baristas were speaking nodded along with the conversation, mentioning that she worked at a retirement home, authoritatively stating there was a full moon coming. From what she said, the old folks always get like this as the full moon approaches. The baristas nodded along in agreement.

Listening to this, I remember thinking we’re not a first world country anymore, but are we really a 1930s depiction of Nineteenth Century Romania? I knew we had accepted outrageous food prices and a steady population of beggars and homeless people in our suburbs as part of the New Normal, but I didn’t know we had accepted moon madness too.

Then again, maybe I was being overly pessimistic, overlooking obvious positives.

I mean, for all I know, the bathroom in which this old homeless woman suffering from moon madness regularly made a mess was gender-neutral, in which case, if that’s not a sign of progress, I don’t know what is.

No more green for Zelenskyy.

With war funding for both Ukraine and Israel now seemingly snarled up beyond repair in Congress, on Thursday the Pentagon said that funding delays have forced the US to begin restricting the flow of military assistance to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has only $1 billion left to replenish stocks of weapons that were sent to the country, according to a spokeswoman.

“We have had to meter out our support for Ukraine,” Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. “We’re going to continue to roll out packages but they are getting smaller.”

Singh urged Congress to break a deadlock and approve the Biden administration’s $61.4 billion request for emergency funds for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, part of a masive $106 billion package that would include aid for Israel and the US-Mexico border, but which now has virtually no chance of passing. House Republicans have sought to separate the aid for Ukraine and Israel, an idea both the Senate and the White House oppose.

Singh said the US had burned through about 95% of previous funding for Ukraine, which she said also totaled more than $60 billion; of course, much of that $60 billion was then rerouted back to the Military Industrial Complex and Deep state back in the US, where it served to boost various military companies, and their political supporters and assorted hanger-on lobbies.

She said the remaining $1 billion is part of a program that allows President Joe Biden to send existing US military hardware to Ukraine and replace it with new orders.

Singh’s warning was only the latest from the administration, which has said repeatedly it’s scrambling to keep military aid flowing for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces. Last month, the Pentagon’s comptroller said a government shutdown, which is also looming later this month, would slow the pace of replacing weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine.

Perhaps realizing that Ukraine’s military forces are about to expire, Telegraph reported that Russia has amassed an estimated 40,000 troops around the key battlefront in Avdiivka as it prepares for a third wave assault on the shattered eastern town, the Ukrainian military has said.

“They are building up reserves. They’ve brought in about 40,000 men here along with ammunition of all calibres,” said Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade. “We see no sign of the Russians abandoning plans to encircle Avdiivka.”

Russian forces, he said, had surrounded the town on three sides and were “playing cat and mouse”, sending up “huge numbers” of drones to scout out Ukraine’s defences.

Ukrainian forces regard the town as a gateway for future advances to recapture territory in the east; alternatively the Russian army expects capture of the town to allow to penetrate deep into Ukraine territory.

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

The market’s point of focus in the UMich data is the higher-than-expected inflation expectations figure, which potentially brings more risks to bonds.

One-year inflation expectations rose to 4.4% from 4.2%.

But more saliently for the bond market, the long-term median of inflation expectations rose to 3.2%, its highest since 2011.

As we saw yesterday with the weak 30-year auction, the Treasury market is facing mounting challenges with oversupply and poor liquidity.

Rising consumer inflation expectations compound the issue as the household sector has become the marginal buyer of USTs as other sectors retreat.

Household’s rising inflation expectations therefore point to higher term premium (chart above), i.e. the US government will likely have to accept a bigger discount on its issuance to compensate for the household sector’s inflation outlook.

Reuters reports the German government, Siemens AG, and other parties will provide billions of euros in project-related guarantees to support Siemens AG’s struggling wind turbine division. This financial assistance comes just weeks after the company warned about mounting losses amid a meltdown across wind and solar industries.

Three people familiar with the talks said that Siemens Energy’s top shareholder, Siemens AG, with a 25.1% stake, is prepared to provide some guarantees. Details are still scant, and nothing has been decided, as an agreement needs to be formally drawn up and supported by all stakeholders.

Last month, Reuters said Siemens Energy was discussing state guarantees with the German government.

Here’s more on the report:

As a result, Siemens Energy fears it will struggle to secure guarantees from banks, and has approached the government and Siemens to obtain a guarantee framework, business news weekly WirtschaftsWoche said.

The weekly, which first reported the talks along with Spiegel magazine, said Siemens Energy is seeking up to 15 billion euros in guarantees.

The German state would assume liability for 80% of an initial 10 billion euro funding tranche, while banks would be liable for the remaining 20%, WirtschaftsWoche said.

A Siemens AG spokesperson said the company remained in “very constructive talks to define the best possible solution in the interests of all parties involved.”

Siemens Energy shares in Germany have crashed more than 70% since mid-June as it has abandoned its 2023 profit outlook after a review of its wind turbine unit revealed a billion euro problem. Shares were up 5% on Reuters’ report today.

Meanwhile, a financial crisis continues to accelerate across the wind industry, with the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, Ørsted, pulling out of major US projects due to soaring inflation costs and a high-rate environment. And the renewable energy meltdown in wind has spread to solar as several solar power company stocks crashed on sliding demand.

And so, hot on the heels of Germany’s bailout of Siemens, Bloomberg reports that the UK government is preparing to offer significantly higher subsidies for new offshore wind farms to get the country’s clean-power strategy back on track after developers shunned a previous auction, because the price was too low for offshore wind to be viable.

Denmark’s Orsted A/S, the world’s largest offshore wind builder, will decide by December whether to proceed with a UK development, while Sweden’s Vattenfall AB shelved a giant project off the English coast earlier this year in response to soaring costs.

While higher subsidies in the next auction round, known as AR6, may well reinvigorate offshore wind development, it will likely feed through to increased electricity costs for consumers still burdened with sky-high bills in the wake of last year’s energy crisis.

The energy transition to renewables across the Western world is cracking. Remember, the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act was all about ‘sustainable’ wind power… Time for another bailout? 

Authored by Micaiah Bilger via TheCollegeFix.com,

Two students said Yale University barred them from an “anti-Israel” event this week, prompting them to listen through the door to “two hours of denial, lies and incitement” against Jews like themselves.

Sahar Tartak, a sophomore, said in a post on X that she believes her school “has become a campus without care for its Jews.”

In an opinion piece Tuesday at the Wall Street Journal, Tartak and Netanel Crispe, a junior, said organizers refused to admit them to the campus event, “Gaza Under Siege,” but they heard “lies” and “sanitized language” justifying terrorism through the doors.

The event, which took place Monday, featured guest scholars Nadia Abu El Haj, of Barnard College, and Amahl Bishara, of Tufts University, who discussed the “historical and contemporary trajectories” of the Middle Eastern conflict, according to the university website.

Tartak and Crispe said they passed out fliers about Hamas’s recent atrocities ahead of the event, including how the group uses “Palestinian civilians as human shields,” and later were refused admittance.

“Organizers refused us entry because we weren’t registered but waved others through who also weren’t on the list,” they wrote.

“The lecture hall was filled, and we resorted to sitting outside and pressing our ears against the door to listen.”

In a post on X, Tartak said they heard speakers describe Hamas as a “resistance group” and accuse Israel of “trying to inflict as much harm, damage, and death as possible.”

“What we heard was two hours of denial, lies and incitement. Speakers referred to the atrocities of Oct. 7 in the sanitized language of ‘civilians killed,’ not beheaded, raped or kidnapped,” Tartak and Crispe wrote at the Wall Street Journal.

The student said some things they heard were outright lies. For example, they said one panelist told the crowd, “The one most important part of our conversation here today is that Israel is still occupying Gaza,” but Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

After the event, the students said they asked “the moderator and two of the speakers if they were willing to denounce Hamas unequivocally,” but none would.

The students said they feel like Yale has turned its back on Jewish students, noting how the event received “broad institutional support.”

Co-sponsors included the Yale Ethnography Hub, Department of American Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of Religious Studies, Center for Middle East Studies, Program on Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and Program on Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, according to the event announcement on Yale’s website.

Tartak and Crispe said their university feels “hostile” toward Jewish students because of the recent event, as well as “anti-Israel” protests, a petition signed by staff and students accusing Israel of genocide, and the student group Yalies4Palestine urging the campus community to “celebrate the resistance’s success.”

Since Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 civilians, there has been a wave of attacks targeting Jewish students and Israel supporters at U.S. higher education institutions.

At Tulane University last week, a pro-Palestine protest turned violent and three students were assaulted, The College Fix reported. And at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, a Jewish student’s door was set on fire.

Meanwhile, this week, the University of Pennsylvania announced an investigation after several Jewish staff members received “vile, disturbing antisemitic emails threatening violence.”

The wife of Judge Arthur Engoron has denied making anti-Trump posts on X, after conservative activist Laura Loomer said Dawn Engoron was behind an account that frequently posts anti-Trump content against the former president.

According to Loomer, Dawn Marie Engoron ran a Twitter account @dm_sminxs, where she has allegedly been posting “FUCK TRUMP” tweets, photos of Trump in an orange jump suit, and retweeting attacks on Trump while the trial was ongoing.

Dawn Engoron denied the claims, telling Newsweek: “I do not have a Twitter account. This is not me. I have not posted any anti Trump messages.”

But does she have an X account?

Engoron is overseeing Trump’s New York civil case, in which AG Letitia James has accused the former President and his organization of inflating their net worth by billions of dollars to obtain premium financing between 2011 and 2021. In September, Engoron ruled – sans jury, that Trump’s financial statements committed fraud.

Loomer doubled down, noting that the suspected X account has been locked, that Newsweek “admit(s) they can’t definitively say this account doesn’t belong to Arthur Engoron’s wife,” and that Engoron’s son has deleted his LinkedIn account yesterday “after I exposed him getting preferential seating from his father in the trial of President Trump.”

Loomer also says that “According to the rules of the Chief Administrative Judge of the New York State Unified Court System, judges must “not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the[ir] … judicial conduct or judgment.”

She has called for Engoron to recuse himself.

That said, Newsweek spoke with former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, who said that a judge’s spouse’s social media is “not by itself grounds to disqualify a judge,” pointing to Ginni Thomas, the wife of USSC Justice Clarence Thomas, whose pro-Trump posts have drawn scrutiny (though, not on an active trial her husband is reviewing – so nice try.)

“Judges themselves have to post something that raises concerns about their impartiality for recusal or disqualification to be appropriate. Family member social media activity, even one’s spouse, isn’t enough,” said Rahmani.

Following Loomer’s reporting, conservative commentators called for a mistrial, with former Trump admin official Richard Grenell calling it a “sham trial.”

“The case should be dismissed IMMEDIATELY!,” former Trump White House comms director Mercedes Schlapp said on X.

So – a case of mistaken identity, or is Dawn Engoron lying?