You might say that the immense political and media power of the Greens and eco-warriors is the real reason the West relies on China for REEs.
In other words, could the US ever accept being #2? Doug Casey: Unfortunately, at this point, the US is only number one in dissipation, wokeism, and consumerism.
I am sure the pentagram and US state department have this all figured out.
International Man: What are Rare Earth Elements (REEs), and why are they so important?
Doug Casey: The REEs are a group of 17 elements that you may recall from your high school chemistry class. They take up two rows in the periodic table, sitting by themselves at the bottom of the chart. They’re chemically similar to each other.
REEs are widely dispersed on the Earth’s surface. They aren’t “rare” per se, but since they’re not generally concentrated, you only rarely find deposits that are rich enough to qualify as a mine for elements like germanium, gadolinium, ytterbium, yttrium, or 14 others with exotic and obscure names. They’re basically all minor byproducts of mines for other elements—largely aluminum or zinc. They’ve only recently found significant uses with the development of high-tech, especially electronics and magnets. Fifty years ago, they were basically just chemical curiosities.
The US has one pure REE mine, the Mountain Pass, in the California desert near Nevada. In fact, it’s the only one in the Western hemisphere. Now owned by MP Materials (MP: NYSE $25), I have no opinion on the operation. It went bankrupt under its last owner—perhaps it will do better this time around.
International Man: Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once said, “The Middle East has oil. China has rare Earth.”
Today, China dominates the production and processing of REEs.
Why is that?
How likely is it that the US or someone else will be able to break China’s stranglehold soon?
Doug Casey: Deng wasn’t entirely right when he said that. China’s strength in this area isn’t so much in the mining of these things as it is in their processing. Mining any kind of ore is messy and dirty. But processing can be even worse. Smelting takes huge amounts of heat, makes a lot of nasty smoke, and leaves kilotons of toxic waste. Then refining it further takes more of the same, usually plus nasty acids. The Greenies hate mining and refining and try to make them impossible in most places. That’s why so much of it happens in China.
And Silicon Valley is playing, too. Last month YouTube took down multiple videos featuring two different interviews with Kennedy on the grounds that they violated the platform’s policies against “vaccine misinformation”. Youtube is owned by Google, which has had ties to the CIA and NSA since its inception and is now a full-fledged Pentagon contractor.
The New York Times has been churning out an amazing number of hit pieces on Robert F Kennedy Jr lately.
On Tuesday the Times published an audio essay titled “Why I Regret Debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo. Manjoo debated Kennedy in 2006 about the legitimacy of George W Bush’s 2004 win against John Kerry, believing that Kennedy’s skepticism of the election results was dangerous.
“Disputing elections is just not good for democracy,” Manjoo says, joining the rest of the American liberal political/media class in rewriting history to pretend they didn’t just spend the entire Trump administration doing exactly that.
Manjoo cites his experience debating Kennedy (whom he repeatedly refers to as a “conspiracy theorist”) to argue that nobody should debate the presidential candidate on the topic of Covid vaccines, adding yet another entry to the countlessarticles and news segments which were published in the massmedia last month saying that vaccine scientist Peter Hotez should reject Joe Rogan’s offer of $100,000 to a charity of his choice if he’d debate Kennedy on the subject.
Sometimes they’re presented as opinion pieces, sometimes they’re presented as hard news stories despite brazenly biased language and overt editorializing, and all are slanted against Kennedy in some way. The New York Times plainly dislikes RFK Jr, and makes no secret of working to make sure its audience dislikes him too.
And this is pretty much what we can expect from American mass media until Kennedy has either lost his presidential race or had his reputation so thoroughly destroyed among the electorate that he can be safely ignored. The message will be hammered and hammered and hammered home until the illusory truth effect causes readers to mistake rote repetition for truth, and Kennedy’s campaign will fizzle.
The United States has allocated around $113 billion to Ukraine over the last seventeen months, soon to surpass the money spent on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II and quickly approaching the cost of twenty years of war and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Despite this unprecedented spending, there is no overarching Special Inspector General to oversee the Ukraine funds to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.
Change may be on the horizon. “There will also be a vote this week,” Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., tweeted this morning, on establishing the IG for Ukraine.
The push for a Special Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance (SIGUA) has unfortunately become a partisan issue, another casualty of the negative polarization cycle in Washington, D.C. Last March, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., attempted to establish the audit office as an amendment. The bill splintered the Republican caucus in half, while every Democratic Senator, except Sens. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, voted against it.
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
Traffic in our major cities is grinding to a halt. This is especially true during morning and evening “rush” hours (scare quotes around this word since no one is rushing around anywhere, apart from bicyclists and roller skaters, who are just about the fastest movers in this system). All too often, however, this period stretches from 7 am to 7 pm, with barely a diminution during this period of time.
Nor are large cities the only ones suffering from this transportation malady. Here is a case in point: just try moving from the 520 to the 405 in the state of Washington, near Seattle. There are literally miles of cars just creeping along, patiently waiting their turn.
What has government, the owner and manager of our vehicular transportation system, done to rectify this frustrating situation? It has whined to the business community to stagger hours of work. It has urged motorists to car-pool or take buses. But to no avail. There is no evidence whatsoever that this jaw-boning has had any success.
It has also set up express lanes the use of which is limited to vehicles with two or more occupants. This too has failed, since, often, there is back to back traffic on them, too. Further, who is it more important to get to where they are going? Five busboys or cleaning ladies who earn $20 per hour each, for a grand total of $100 hourly, or one doctor, or businessman whose time is worth $500 per hour? Our present rules and regulations vitiate in favor of the former, not the latter. This is due to the fact that express lanes on highways give the nod to automobiles with two or more occupants. The former low wage earners would qualify, but neither of the latter two would do so. They would be confined to one of the bumper to bumper lanes, cooling their heels, while the marginal workers would whiz on by. This brings to mind Thomas Sowell’s famous statement: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Who is in charge of this present irrational system? Bureaucrats in the Department of Transportation.
How would private enterprise handle this challenge? Please do not stop reading at this point, horror struck by the idea that entrepreneurs could actually own and manage our system of streets, roads and highways. Our very first thoroughfares were run on this system. Charges were based on the number of axels, and horses. Even the width of the wagon wheel was considered in the pricing system. The owners of thin wheeled vehicles, think ice skates, were charged more, since they dug ruts into the dirt road. And even nowadays, capitalists run long thin things such as railroads.
Barely two weeks into the Biden presidency, White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty demanded that Twitter “immediately” remove a parody account linked to Biden’s relatives. Twitter leaped to obey, suspending the account within 45 minutes. Twitter officials complained that they were already being “bombarded” by White House censorship requests at that point.
To placate the White House, Facebook suppressed posts “discussing the choice to vaccinate in terms of personal or civil liberties.” That was on par with Facebook’s 2018 debacle where it blocked reposting the Declaration of Independence for violating its hate speech guidelines.
Kazan, Russia – May 4, 2021: The photo illustrates the use of censorship in the social network facebook. Censored in Facebook. Word “CENSORED” on the background of the Facebook logo.
Sometime since January 2021, Biden administration policymakers decided that they were infallible—or a “close enough for government work” level of infallible. They claimed a divine right to suppress the online posts and comments of conservatives and anyone else who had a bad attitude towards federal power. That party ended on July 4 when federal judge Terry Doughty condemned the Biden censorship regime as potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
Doughty issued a preliminary injunction to ban federal agencies and the White House from browbeating social media companies. The case against Joe Biden was brought by the state attorney generals of Louisiana and Missouri, and joined by several private groups representing censorship victims including Aaron Kheriaty, Martin Kulldorff, Jim Hoft, Jayanta Bhattacharya, and Jill Hines. Doughty declared that his final ruling would likely find First Amendment violations by the White House, Surgeon General, FBI, State Department, and the CDC—all part of the U.S. veering towards “an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
Doughty delivered 155 pages of stunning, bizarre, and sometimes comical censorship abuses.
Barely two weeks into the Biden presidency, White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty demanded that Twitter “immediately” remove a parody account linked to Biden’s relatives. Twitter leaped to obey, suspending the account within 45 minutes. Twitter officials complained that they were already being “bombarded” by White House censorship requests at that point.
The White House continually denounced Facebook for failing to suppress more posts and videos that could inspire “vaccine hesitancy”—even if the posts were true. Facebook kowtowed to the White House by suppressing posts and comments that do “not contain actionable misinformation.” But the de facto definition of “misinformation” is anything that might deter someone from obeying Biden’s commands. Facebook also sought praise from the White House because it “’labeled and demoted vaccine humor posts whose content could discourage vaccination,” the court decision noted.
Facebook decided the word “liberty” was too hazardous in the Biden era. To placate the White House, Facebook suppressed posts “discussing the choice to vaccinate in terms of personal or civil liberties.” That was on par with Facebook’s 2018 debacle where it blocked reposting the Declaration of Independence for violating its hate speech guidelines.
Flaherty was still unsatisfied and raged at Facebook officials in a July 15, 2021 email: “Are you guys fucking serious?” The following day, President Bidenaccusedsocial media companies of “killing people” by failing to suppress all criticism of covid vaccines. Team Biden threatened social media companies with antitrust cases or other legal penalties if they did not submit.
In October 2020, three experts wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, “a one-page treatise opposing reliance on lockdowns and advocating for an approach to COVID-19 called ‘focused protection,’” the court decision noted. Top federal officials rushed to attack the authors and vilify their recommendations. NIAID Director Anthony Fauci announced, “anybody who knows anything about epidemiology will tell you that is nonsense and very dangerous.” Fauci’s condemnation spurred social media companies to suppress the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration and many other professors, doctors, and other experts who endorsed the declaration.
The Biden censorship deluge was spurred by one of the greatest bureaucratic bait-and-switches in Washington history. After allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Act (CISA) was created to protect against foreign meddling. Prior to Biden taking office, CISA had a “Countering Foreign Influence Task Force.” But in 2021, that was renamed the “Mis, Dis and Malinformation Team (‘MDM Team’).” But all the targets of federal censorship during the Biden era have been Americans.
Federal censorship tainted the 2020 and 2022 elections, spurring the suppression of millions of social media posts (almost all from conservatives). The FBI swayed social media companies to change their policies to ban posts on “hacked materials” and then went along with the Washington fairy tale that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation or hacked—even though the FBI had already confirmed its authenticity.
The Biden administration pressured social media companies “to censor misinformation regarding climate change, gender discussions, abortion, and economic policy,” and the Department of Homeland Security secretly planned to target “inaccurate information” on “racial justice, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of the U.S. support of Ukraine.” During the 2020 election, CISA targeted for suppression assertions such as “mail-in voting is insecure”—despite the long history of absentee ballot fraud. Most of the censorship spurred by federal contractors during the 2020 election cycle targeted posts “related to delegitimizing the election results,” the court decision noted.
Ours is already in deep trouble, and it’s not improved when the likes of Lindsey Graham want Ukraine to become part of NATO.
Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it.
Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions.
Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack.
In his long congressional career, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has occasionally been right, but not often. And when he isn’t right, he is explosively, extravagantly wrong.
We have to remember that he was the late Sen. John McCain’s most worshipful follower, playing Tonto to McCain’s Lone Ranger. When McCain and Ted Kennedy pushed their immigration bill — which would have opened the southern border long before what President Joe Biden is doing now — Graham was a primary advocate for it.
Now, Graham is pushing an idea that is at least as bad and maybe worse: the admission of Ukraine to NATO before Putin’s war against it is over. He said: “Ukrainian NATO membership is vital to the future security of Europe and the world. I believe there is an overwhelming majority of senators supporting this proposition.”
Wiser men, such as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, have said that Ukraine should become a NATO member but only after the Russia war is over.
It’s obvious what would happen if Graham got his wish and Ukraine were admitted to NATO now. Ukraine would — and would have to — invoke the Article 5 provision in the NATO treaty for mutual defense, and we — and the other NATO nations — would be at war with Russia.
Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it. Aid to Ukraine still flows — the only good decision that Biden has made as president — while support for it is diminishing. But there is a problem with our continuing aid: Like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, our defense arsenal is just about bare.
Biden’s announcement that he would send “cluster bombs” — ones that are released by a larger casing holding dozens of “bomblets” that are effective against troop concentrations but not vehicles — was a shock to some Democrats. They practically want us to outlaw cluster bombs. About 100 nations (including most NATO members) have agreed to never use them, but the United States and Ukraine haven’t.
Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions. He said: “[T]he Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. The ammunition — they call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it.”
So, let’s give them whatever we have lying around, not what they need.
The reason we are low on ammunition is not new to faithful readers of this column. We’re running so low on critical munitions — artillery rounds, short-range missiles, and more — because Biden, despite his half-hearted orders to replenish our arsenal, has found it nearly impossible to do so. (RELATED: Charlie Brown’s Pentagon)
Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack. This brings us to the question of our defense industrial base.
His administration has reenergized the same loan program that caused the Obama administration debacle.
A little over a year after Obama’s visit, the firm shut down its hi-tech cylindrical photovoltaic fabrication plant and laid off most of its 1,100 workforce. Then it filed for bankruptcy and was raided by the FBI.
Could it be that Americans want to preserve an energy system that has made their country the greatest in the world and makes everyday living convenient and economical? Could it be they are fully aware that an all-EV America is an impossibility? Could it be that, even should America achieve the Biden administration’s fanciful goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, the world’s temperature will hardly budge — if it budges at all? (Watch Sen. John Kennedy’s amusing interchange with Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk.)
Remember Solyndra? Way back in 2009, the administration of Barack Obama, newly inaugurated and stoked with the ideological fire of environmental zeal, greenlit a $535 million loan guarantee to a company by that name to mass produce easy-to-install cylindrical solar units.
It was the poster child of Obama’s initiative to grow clean-tech jobs, the model for his administration’s effort to pump $80 billion into the green energy sector. To plump the program, the president made a flashy appearance at Solyndra’s factory in Fremont, California, just months prior to the 2010 midterms, saying that investing in clean energy is “the right thing to do for our environment, it’s the right thing to do for our national security, but it’s also the right thing to do for our economy.”
For American taxpayers, though, investing in Solyndra was the wrong thingto do. A little over a year after Obama’s visit, the firm shut down its hi-tech cylindrical photovoltaic fabrication plant and laid off most of its 1,100 workforce. Then it filed for bankruptcy and was raided by the FBI. Left holding a bag with $535 million in it were those same American taxpayers.
An investigation completed years later found that Solyndra had provided the government with “false and misleading information during the application process” and “that the actions of certain Solyndra officials were, at best, reckless and irresponsible or, at worst, an orchestrated effort to knowingly and intentionally deceive and mislead the Department.” It also discovered that the Energy Department’s “due diligence efforts were less than fully effective…. the Department missed opportunities to detect and resolve indicators that portions of the data provided by Solyndra were unreliable.” According to another report, one of the private investors backing the project was a big Obama fund-raising bundler.
It has also come out that White House insiders had warned the president beforehand of the perils of the Solyndra deal, telling him the company’s cost structure was unsound. But so great was his environmental ardor — or political ambition — that he ignored the advice and made the trip anyway.
The deal was a disaster all around — economically and politically.
Billions in Green Corporate Welfare
The government office that financed the Solyndra debacle is still around, now bigger, more aggressive, and much wealthier than it was then.
Founded in 2005 to pump up green energy with low-interest loans to environmental entrepreneurs, the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has languished for a decade and a half — practically mothballed during the Trump years — until 2021, when Biden assumed office. Compliments of his “Trillions in Government Spending Reduces Inflation Act” (aka the Inflation Reduction Act), Biden pumped $350 billion into the office’s previous loan authority of $44 billion, and the office now has $394 billion to throw at green-energy firms to work toward the carbon-neutral-nation utopia.
Overseeing the cascade of money is Jigar Shah, who earned his environmental bona fides co-helming a start-up solar-energy firm called SunEdison in 2003. Under Shah, the loan office will be financing the usual green projects — car-battery research, wind, and solar research — but it will also be pumping money into less mainstream endeavors, like producing hydrogen from natural gas, mining lithium, and producing graphite, an often-overlooked mineral used in rechargeable car batteries.
Already out Shah’s door is $9.2 billion, sent to Ford Motor Company to build EV battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky. This marks the largest allotment of department largesse so far, and it has met with unlikely opposition — from the unions.
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