Authored by Rob Natelson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Most of my columns for this newspaper relate to the Constitution. A common reaction among some readers—both in the online “comments” section and in direct correspondence—is that I’m wasting my time because the Constitution doesn’t matter any more. It’s irrelevant.

I have spent most of the past 30 years working in constitutional law. I think I know something about the subject. And I can report to you that the Constitution, while wounded in a few places, is mostly alive and well. This column will explain why the Constitution still matters—and matters very much.

An honor guard stands next to the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives in Washington on July 4, 2001. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Confusing Exceptions for the Rule

Let’s begin with a stock market analogy:

Over time, the price of a publicly traded company tends to follow (among other factors) the company’s earnings and projected earnings. Similarly, the valuation of the market as a whole tends to follow corporate earnings and projected earnings.

If earnings and projected earnings drop in a way unlikely to be remedied soon, then the price of stock generally falls. If they rise in a way that does not appear to be a fluke, the price of stock generally rises.

But this is not always so; sometimes there are exceptions. In other words, sometimes stock prices rise or fall without regard to earnings or projected earnings.

When deviations persist for any amount of time, self-promoting pundits claim that “the rules have changed” and “earnings don’t matter any more.” People who believe them irrationally buy stock (causing a bubble) or irrationally dump it (panic selling). And when the market corrects—as it always does—those people get nailed.

Their mistake is in thinking that an exception to the rule (a one-time bump or slump) is the rule itself.

Most of us get our image of constitutional law from mainstream media reports of rare and controversial cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But as in the stock market analogy, reliance on these reports leads people to mistake (purported) exceptions for the rule.

The media reports about the highly publicized cases are often wrong or distorted.

More importantly, the highly publicized cases represent only a small fraction of the controversies the Supreme Court resolves (often unanimously) upon accepted constitutional principles … and all of the Supreme Court’s cases together are only a small fraction of the disputes resolved by lower appeals courts—also upon accepted constitutional principles … and the cases resolved by lower appeals courts represent only a small fraction of those decided by the trial courts … and the cases decided by the trial courts are only a small fraction of those settled by the parties out of court … and the settled disputes are only a small fraction of the questions answered daily by constitutional lawyers in the normal course of business.

So the public’s perception of the Constitution and constitutional law is being formed by (1) often-erroneous media reports on (2) a small fraction of (3) a small fraction of (4) a small fraction of (5) a small fraction of (6) a small fraction of constitutional decisions!

You simply cannot reach conclusions about the Constitution’s viability based on such a tiny and mis-reported sample.

Another Reason Some Think the Constitution Doesn’t Matter

Another common mistake is expecting the Constitution to do too much. People angry that the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, for example, seem to believe that because they favor legal abortion, the Constitution must require it. There is an opposing group who believe that because abortion is evil, the Constitution must prohibit it. In fact, as the late great Justice Antonin Scalia remarked, the Constitution says nothing at all about abortion. It is an issue left to be resolved by other means.

The Constitution was not designed to solve all human problems, nor could any man-made document ever do so. Even if every clause in the instrument were enforced quickly and perfectly, life still would be marred by foolish laws, unfair conditions, political and economic mistakes, and other human failings.

Mistakes in Interpretation

Sometimes an official mistake in applying the Constitution leads people to think the document doesn’t matter. But this also is wrong.

For one thing, misinterpretations can be corrected over time. During the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court misinterpreted the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment by giving insufficient protection to freedom of religion. Since the 1980s, however, the court has been correcting its mistakes, and its freedom-of-religion law is now much closer to that envisioned by the Founders.

Additionally, some mistakes result in the Constitution mattering even more than originally intended. One of my recent columns discussed the Supreme Court’s latest case on the Fifth Amendment “Takings Clause.” I wrote that the justices probably erred in applying the Takings Clause against a local government.

But does that mean the Constitution is irrelevant? Of course not. Without the Constitution, there would be no Takings Clause at all. It is far better that the clause be too broad than non-existent.

Here’s a more controversial illustration: When Sen. Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency, many people claimed he was not constitutionally qualified because he is not a natural born citizen.

My own view, after examining the factual and legal evidence, is that President Obama is natural born. But whether or not that is true, think of why we had that discussion. We had that discussion because the Constitution requires the president to be natural born. If the Constitution didn’t matter, there would be no reason to debate the issue.

And there would have been no reason for President Obama to produce a birth certificate (however disputed) showing that he was born in Hawaii.

What If the Constitution Really Didn’t Matter?

Let’s look at it another way. Suppose it were true that the Constitution didn’t matter—that the only important thing was what our masters in the “woke” establishment decided. In that event:

The Supreme Court would not be enforcing the First Amendment, so religious people would be under severe constraints and this newspaper would not exist.

If the government took your land, you would be paid nothing.

You could not own a gun.

The presidential term could be any length set by whoever was in power. Same for congressional terms.

President Obama could have run for a third term in 2016. And a fourth in 2020. And a fifth in 2024. (Assuming he remains influential in the Biden administration, that’s not the same as being president.)

Donald Trump would not have been elected president in 2016. But because the Constitution features an institution known as the Electoral College—and because the Constitution matters—he became president.

In fact, he probably would be in jail. But because the Constitution requires due process and because the Constitution matters, he is free and running for president again.

Greta Thunberg, environmental enfant terrible, could be president even though (1) she is not a native-born American (she is Swedish), and (2) she is only 21 years old.

And if the Constitution didn’t matter, we probably would not have elections at all—even imperfect ones. Yet we continue to do so, year after year, because the Constitution requires it. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, the certified results reflect the election’s actual results.

I could go on. Suffice to say that without the Constitution, America would be an entirely different place.

Why the Inaccuracy Is Dangerous

The inaccurate view that the Constitution doesn’t matter can have dangerous consequences. If we accept that view, then no one is bound to anything in the document. We have no legal basis for protest when an election has been corrupted or even canceled.

If we believe “the Constitution doesn’t matter,” then we have no positive law basis for complaining about loss of rights to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, keeping and bearing arms, property—or any of the other hundreds of rights and rules we take for granted in daily life.

Ideally, we should not take those rights and rules for granted. But on a day-to-day basis we are able to do so precisely because the Constitution matters so much.

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

The world’s two most populous nations, China and India, have the highest numbers of students studying overseas.

Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that, according to data published by UNESCO, more than one million Chinese students were studying abroad in 2021. India’s total was close to half of this, with around 508,000 students living in other countries.

Following some way behind come Vietnam, Germany and Uzbekistan.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The United States was the largest destination country for students studying abroad with over 833,000 there in 2021. It was followed by the United Kingdom (nearly 601,000), Australia (around 378,000), Germany (over 376,000) and Canada (nearly 318,000).

This data was published as part of the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) 2024 World Migration Report, which provides an overview of the global state of migration using the latest available data, published Tuesday. This ranges from data on asylum seekers fleeing war to economic migrants seeking labor opportunities, and as this chart shows, to students living abroad.

According to the report, the total number of internationally mobile students has been on the rise over the last two decades. UNESCO data reveals that where 2.2 million students were studying abroad in 2001, that figure had climbed to 6.39 million students in 2021.

Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Public access to Wisconsin’s state voter roll is too restricted and too expensive, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a national election integrity watchdog organization.

Residents cast their ballots during in-person absentee voting at City Hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Nov. 4, 2022. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

To remedy the situation, PILF is suing the Badger State’s chief election official, Meagan Wolfe, to reduce the $12,500 price for a digital copy of the state voter roll and to force her to provide the year of birth of the registrants on purchased data.

Wisconsinite Peter Bernegger, a computer analyst from the election integrity organization Election Watch, told The Epoch Times that the $12,500 fee is a hardship and a deterrent for every grassroots watchdog group trying to keep regular tabs on Wisconsin’s “bloated and often inaccurate state voter roll.”

A Federal Election Assistance Commission report found that, of the 622,370 address confirmation notices mailed to Wisconsin registrants between Jan. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022, 299,490 were returned as undeliverable.

Like Election Watch, PILF uses state election roll data to analyze the activities and programs of state and local election officials to ensure the rolls are kept current and accurate according to law.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court Western District of Wisconsin on April 30, 2024, PILF attorneys produced evidence in which the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) acknowledged on its website that effective and accurate public evaluation of its voter list maintenance activities is impossible because the public does not have access to date of birth information.

Year of birth information is a key tool in confirming duplicate names on the voter list and eliminating ineligible registrations.

Despite its acknowledgment, WEC is still refusing to provide PILF with the requested year of birth information in alleged violation of the National Voting Rights Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The act requires states to “make available for public inspection and, where available photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”

WEC has repeatedly claimed that Wisconsin has been exempt from NVRA since it became law in 1993 because, before the statutory cut-off date of Aug. 1, 1994, the state had a same-day voter registration program in place that allowed all voters to register on Election Day.

At the time, Wisconsin and six other states received NVRA exemptions for either having no voter registration at all or having same-day registration.

North Dakota still has no voter registration for state and federal elections.

According to the complaint, the year of birth data on the roll is a record subject to the NVRA’s public disclosure provision because, as noted above, the act says “all” election records must be made available for public inspection.

PILF contends that, even though the privacy of the year of birth information is protected by Wisconsin statute, state law must give way to federal law because of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Prohibitive Fee An Obstacle

Ms. Wolfe’s refusal to turn over the year of birth data and a digital copy of the state voter roll at a reasonable price is seen by PILF as an obstacle to Congress’ objectives outlined in the NVRA.

Wisconsin’s top election official, Meagan Wolfe, speaks during a virtual press conference on Nov. 4, 2020. (Wisconsin State Handout via Reuters)

Congress declared that one of the purposes of NVRA is to protect the integrity of the electoral process and to ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.

Because it is purportedly exempted from the NVRA, Wisconsin is not required to make all voter list maintenance records public, nor is it required to limit records production fees to the cost of photocopying.

PILF attorneys assert that Wisconsin’s NVRA exemption “is invalid with respect to the law’s public disclosure provision.”

They cite the principle of equal state sovereignty, as affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), as a precedent to support their argument.

“Because the NVRA’s Public Disclosure Provision exists to further the NVRA’s purposes and aid in its enforcement” it is as equally relevant to Wisconsin as it is to other states.

“Congress designed the NVRA to protect the fundamental right to vote, remove unfair registration laws, protect the integrity of the electoral process, and maintain accurate voter rolls,” the complaint said.

Wisconsin Should Not Be Exempt

PILF argued that the injuries Congress sought to remedy by passing the NVRA are “equally prevalent” in Wisconsin as in other states.

According to PILF, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision reaffirmed that all states enjoy equal sovereignty and that if Congress treats states differently, the differential treatment must be “sufficiently related to the problem [the statute] targets” and must “make sense in light of current conditions.”

PILF is asking the Federal District Court to order, the defendant, Meagan Wolfe, to produce the Official Registration List to the foundation in electronic format without the payment of “unlawful costs.”

In a written statement, PILF President J. Christian Adams said: “No state should be exempt from transparency. All states should be treated equally under the law and no exemption should allow certain election officials to hide documents relating to voter list maintenance activities.

“This lawsuit is the first step to bringing the National Voter Registration Act’s transparency requirements to all 50 states.”

Ms. Wolfe did not respond to a request for comment, but WEC spokesman Riley Vetterkind referred The Epoch Times to Wisconsin statutes that Ms. Wolfe is relying on as justification for her denial.

India received by far the highest international remittances of any country worldwide in 2022, according to World Bank data published in the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) 2024 World Migration Report on Tuesday. International remittances are defined as money sent from workers living abroad to their home countries. 

Additionally, as Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, it is also the first country ever to have passed the $100 billion mark for inbound remittances. India was trailed some way behind by Mexico ($61.1 billion), which had toppled China ($51 billion) from the second position in 2021.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The majority of the inflows for France and Germany, which appear in rank 5 and 10, respectively, are not household transfers but “relate to salaries of cross-border workers who work in Switzerland while residing in France or Germany”, according to the report.

In terms of the top sources of international remittances, the United States ($79.15 billion in 2022), Saudi Arabia ($39.35 billion), Switzerland ($31.91 billion), Germany ($25.60 billion) and China ($18.26 billion) are the biggest senders.

The UAE’s data was not published this year by the World Bank but would usually also appear in the top 10 list.

According to the IOM, 2022 marks the first year that remittances have overtaken foreign direct investment in low- and middle-earning countries. International remittances have risen by 650 percent from $128 billion in 2000 to $831 billion in 2022. As with previous years, much of this ($647 billion) was received by low- and middle-income countries. Since the mid-1990s, remittance has also greatly surpassed Official Development Assistance, i.e. government aid designed to “promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries” .

The writers of the report highlight that the World Bank’s global data on international remittances does not take into account unrecorded flows through formal or informal channels. This means the data provided is likely below the actual figures.

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A policeman covers a camera to stop journalists from recording footage outside the Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court, where Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan is set for trial in Shanghai on Dec. 28, 2020. (Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images)

As May 3 marked World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

China ranked near the bottom—172nd among 180 countries and regions—while maintaining its title from the previous year as the world’s biggest jailer of journalists.

RSF, the Paris-based international non-governmental organization dedicated to safeguarding freedom of information, said in the report that “in addition to detaining more journalists than any other country in the world,” the Chinese communist regime “continues to exercise strict control over information channels, implementing censorship and surveillance policies to regulate online content and restrict the spread of information deemed to be sensitive or contrary to the party line.”

RSF also pointed out in the report that “China is the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with more than 100 currently detained.”

Compared with last year’s ranking of 179th—second last place—China’s ranking this year has increased. However, the report indicated that the only reason for this slight upward movement in the rankings is the deterioration of situations in other countries and regions, such as in the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, rather than any improvement in China.

The press freedom ranking of Hong Kong—which is controlled by the Chinese regime—this year has also increased slightly, to 135th place, which is higher than its 140th position in 2023. However, its freedom score dropped 1.8 points from last year’s 44.86 “due to an increase in the persecution of journalists under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020,” says the report. RSF explained, “Some countries’ rises in the Index are misleading inasmuch as their scores fell and the Index rises were the result of falls by countries previously above them.”

Over 100 Chinese Writers Jailed

Meanwhile, New York’s PEN America released its Freedom to Write Index 2023.

The report, released on May 1, pointed out that China also remains the world’s leading jailer of writers and public intellectuals. “In 2023, China jumped above 100 cases, jailing 6 writers during the year for a total of 107. Of the total number of writers, 9 are female.”

Among the 107 writers imprisoned, 50 were online commentators who post their opinions on a range of social, political, and economic topics on social media platforms. The report said that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the vague charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to arrest and imprison them.

Riot police pepper spray journalists on the 23rd anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain to China as protesters gathered for a rally against the new National Security Law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020. (Dale De La Rey/AFP via Getty Images)

Canada-based journalist and writer Sheng Xue told The Epoch Times on May 4 that the numbers published by these international organizations are just the few leaked out to the outside world under the CCP’s tight control of information.

“No one knows how many journalists in China have been persecuted to death, how many have been secretly arrested, sentenced, persecuted, and tortured,“ Ms. Sheng said. ”The entire system of the CCP is a state-terrorist regime, which means not only the central committee of the CCP is an autocratic and authoritarian system, [but] all levels of its power operate the same as a dictatorial and tyrannical regime. Therefore, it is impossible for the outside world to know many incidents. It is difficult to collect statistics. To be honest, even [CCP leader] Xi Jinping does not know.”

“I believe China is definitely the country where press freedom and freedom of speech are most severely persecuted in the world,” Ms. Sheng added. “Its political system enables it to reach such an extent.”

Lai Jianping, a Chinese human rights lawyer who currently resides in the United States, told The Epoch Times on May 4 that press freedom and freedom of speech in China, including Hong Kong, are actually declining and deteriorating.

“The reason why the CCP continues to tighten its control over speech is mainly because it is facing increasingly profound and unprecedented political, social, and economic crises. Its ruling status is threatened, and it wants to maintain one-party dictatorship and one-man dictatorship. Therefore, it continues to strengthen its control over all aspects of social life. So [suppressing] freedom of speech and freedom of the press are top priorities for the CCP and are the most important aspects of social life that it needs to control.”

Chinese Citizen Journalists

Chinese citizen journalists have also been targets of the Chinese regime’s suppression and persecution.

Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for reporting the truth about the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. Her sentence will be completed on May 13. RSF urges the international community to pay attention and put pressure on Beijing so that she can fully regain her freedom in a press release last month. Ms. Zhang was the winner of the RSF’s 2021 Prize for Courage.

A pro-democracy activist holds a placard urging Chinese authorities to release Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan and 12 detained Hongkongers outside the Chinese central government’s liaison office, in Hong Kong, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

Wuhan citizen journalist Fang Bin has been released from prison for a year but continues to face harassment by CCP authorities. Currently, he faces eviction while his electricity and water have been cut off at his residence, as Wuhan police pressure his landlord. He may soon be forced to live on the streets.

During the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan in February 2020, Mr. Fang posted his video reports on social media revealing the massive number of deaths at that time, which attracted widespread international attention. Later, he was arrested by the local police and sentenced to three years’ prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

Chinese citizen journalist Fang Bin in a YouTube video posted on Feb. 4, 2020 reporting the deaths in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Mr. Lai said, “Citizen journalists are a basic link in the entire freedom of press [ecosystem]. Not only the [Chinese] official media and official journalists’ freedom of speech and press freedom are suppressed, but private citizen journalists are also suppressed, and even more seriously.”

He added, “There are fewer and fewer areas in which they can report and intervene, and there is almost no space for them. Because the CCP wants to monopolize the entire discourse system and right to discourse, there is basically no room for citizen journalists to survive.”

Ms. Sheng said that at this point, “there are no citizen journalists in China any more. When we talk about freedom of press, freedom of speech, media freedom, etc. in China, the Communist Party has given us the best answer—it has already declared that the media is the CCP’s mouthpiece.”

Luo Ya and Fang Xiao contributed to this report.

Because it’s never enough… Ukraine is now eyeing the US-made MQ-9 Reaper even while Kiev awaits F-16 deliveries from the West.

It is the latest long-range weapon system being sought by the Zelensky government. Politico has reported that the $30 million drone has moved to the top of Kiev’s arms shopping ‘wish list’.

Picture alliance/dpa

“Ukraine is increasingly interested in obtaining the MQ-9 Reaper spy drone from the U.S., bumping it up to the top of its wish list in recent months as it plans operations for the summer and seeks new ways to help identify Russian targets deep behind the front lines,” the report indicates.

“Since the early days of the war, the Reaper has been a priority for Kyiv as it sought to use them for strike and surveillance missions,” Politico continues. “But recently, Ukraine has dialed back that request and is mainly interested in using Reapers only for reconnaissance, according to four people familiar with the issue who were granted anonymity to discuss the new strategy.”

Ukrainian officials who now claim the Reaper would be used “only for reconnaissance” appear to in reality to be creating political cover for the Biden administration. US officials might otherwise be fearful of the risks.

At $30 million a piece, the MQ-9 would be a prime target for the Russians to shoot down. In 2023 the Pentagon lost a Reaper over the Black Sea after an encounter with Russian fighter jets. A jet dumbed its fuel on the drone, after which the drone crashed, and later the Russian navy recovered the wreckage.

The Pentagon has also lost three MQ-9 drones over Yemen and the Red Sea of late. A deep reluctance to see them shot down over Ukraine is likely a main reason the US is still holding back. The drone is typically equipped with expensive Hellfire missiles and other advanced defense tech.

But, the Biden administration has more recently seemed to back off its prior insistence that Ukraine not strike inside Russian territory…

Kirby says “if Russia is worried to be hit by western weapons they should just leave.”
pic.twitter.com/ioLbfrw3Ae

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) May 7, 2024

Already Ukraine forces are newly receiving the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has the longest range of anything supplied from Washington thus far.

Meanwhile, UK leadership is positively encouraging strikes deep inside Russian territory. This has elicited a strong response from Moscow who has also stepped up its aerial attack especially on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and military command and control centers, including in Odessa of late.

Via The Post Millennial,

Parks Canada has decided to offer a real break in 2024 for people looking to enjoy some of Canada’s glorious outdoors and backwoods.

But only people who are newcomers and new Canadian citizens. In a Parks Canada post, the federal government agency announced that there will be “Free admission for newcomers to Canada and new Canadian citizens” in 2024. That applies to any park in Canada, from B.C. to Newfound and Labrador and there is no indication that free access is limited.

Other Canadians will continue to pay $151.25 for a season’s pass for up to seven family members or $75.25 for an individual season’s pass that is good for any federally owned park. A day pass for what is perhaps the best-known national park in Canada – in Banff, AB – is $11 a day.

Parks Canada lauds the deal on its site under the heading of “Explore spectacular Parks Canada places.”

“Using the Institute for Canadian Citizenship’s Canoo mobile app, enjoy free admission to all places administered by Parks Canada across the country for one full year.

“Visit one of Canada’s national historic sites, each telling a unique story to piece together the defining moments in the story of Canada.

“Get back to nature and unwind amidst the spectacular scenery in Canada’s national parks and marine conservation areas.

“Celebrate your arrival in Canada or your citizenship with great Canadian experiences. Check out some of the most awesome places in Canada. We look forward to welcoming you!”

However, Parks Canada does not define its terminology for those getting free access.

How “new” does a “new Canadian” need to be to be entitled to the deal? By definition, a new Canadian is a “recent immigrant” to Canada. But that is hardly specific.

And a newcomer to Canada can mean a “permanent resident” who is expecting someday to be a citizen; a refugee, who has been granted that status by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or a “temporary resident,” who can include foreign students or temporary foreign workers.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

In a conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) acknowledged that banning TikTok has such strong support in Congress because the social media platform has hurt Israel’s public relations battle.

“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down, potentially, TikTok or other entities of that nature,” Romney said at the McCain Institute this past Friday. “If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.”

Blinken admits that the TikTok ban was motivated by the Israeli PR failure pic.twitter.com/EbPkPtSPP1

— What the media hides. (@narrative_hole) May 5, 2024

The official justification for targeting TikTok is the thus far unfounded allegation that it’s a Chinese spy tool because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China.

But Romney’s comments suggest the real purpose of the renewed push to ban the app after a similar effort failed years ago was to censor news coming out of Gaza and pro-Palestinian content.

Blinken blamed social media in general when asked by Romney why Israel was losing the global PR war. Palestinian journalists have been able to broadcast to the whole world the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza using social media, including graphic videos of dead or wounded children being dug out of rubble following an Israeli airstrike.

“Now, of course, we’re on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken said.

“And, of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. You have a social media ecosystem, environment in which context, history, facts get lost and the emotion, the impact of images dominate. We can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very very challenging effect on the narrative.”

A bill to ban TikTok was included in the $95 billion foreign military spending package President Biden signed into law last month. The legislation gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, or else it will get banned. But ByteDance has vowed to fight the ban in court and said it would rather shutdown TikTok than sell.

A bear market in the used car market was confirmed in November and has since worsened through April. At the same time, negative equity values are hitting new record highs while auto insurance rates have soared the most since the mid-1970s. While gas prices at the pump are elevated, the environment to operate a vehicle is probably one of the worst ever. Just listen to Gen-Z and millennial users on X bitch and moan about $1,000 monthly car payments and other absurd costs associated with driving.

The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index fell to 198.4 in April, a 14% drop from one year ago. This is the index’s lowest print since the first quarter of 2021. As for the bear market, the index is down 23% from the high and quickly falling – there could be air pockets given the rapid upward moves three years ago – and that demand has been suppressed given a high-interest rate environment. 

All vehicle segments of the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index experienced seasonally adjusted prices that were down double digits year over year in April. Luxury was the only segment that was not hit the hardest, down just 12.9%. The worst-performing segment was compact cars, down 17.6% compared with last year, followed by midsize cars, down 16.8%, and pickups, down 15.2%. EVs were down 17.5%.

This is a significant worry for millions of Americans who bought cars during the pandemic mania, which basically involved spending free money provided by the Federal Reserve, only now discovering that their loans are plunging into underwater territory. 

According to a recent Edmunds note, 20% of new vehicle sales involving a trade-in had negative equity during the October-through-December period—the highest level since 2021. 

Negative equity values soared to a new record high of $6,064 during the period, a massive 46% increase from late 2021. 

We warned readers in 2023 about the worsening negative equity situation for heavily indebted drivers: 

Negative Equity Surges: More Consumers Find Themselves In Underwater Auto Loans
Number Of Americans In Upside-Down Auto Loans Continues To Worsen

Adding to the financial stress for drivers, there’s also the concern that Joe Biden’s sticky inflation continues to send auto insurance rates to the highest levels since the inflation shitstorm in the mid-1970s. 

We’ve pointed out that ridiculous repair bills for newer vehicles (cough, cough, EVs) are likely the main reason rates are higher. 

Rivian Owner Shocked By $41,000 Repair Bill For Minor Damage
“Shocking Number”: Rivian Owner Sees $42,000 Repair Bill For Minor Accident

Right now, drivers are paralyzed as the average used car auto loans tracked by Bankrate surged again – now exceeding 8.5%.

The average new car loan has reached a record high of $40,000. 

In recent months, Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst for Edmunds, told Bloomberg: 

“We’re in this situation where combined with the cost of the vehicles being so high and the interest rates being so historically high, you have a lot of people who are in bad car loans.” 

To Yoon’s point, the percentage of subprime auto borrowers at least 60 days past due in September topped 6.11%, the highest ever. 

Source: Bloomberg 

Out of all this gloom and doom for drivers. There’s good news on the inflation front: falling Manheim used car prices will only result in a lower future print for the US CPI Used Car index. 

So the big question is when will the bear market in used car prices bottom? 

Car owners should certaily not be looking for any bailouts from The Fed anytime soon (or Biden, who is too busy paying off student loans). Higher rates and longer is the theme, no matter the jawboning, with less than two cuts now priced in for the whole of 2024 (down from over seven at the start of the year).

By Frank Fang of Epoch Times

China’s communist regime spent $710.6 billion on its military in 2022, more than three times Beijing’s publicly stated totals, according to a report from the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

“Considering that the Pentagon has labeled China the ‘pacing challenge,’ this revelation should cause concern,” the April 29 report reads.

“When compared globally, China’s estimated $711 billion military budget illustrates that China is more of a ‘pacing threat’ than a ‘pacing challenge.’”

Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the AEI and the author of the report, explained that she came up with the figure based on her calculation after accounting for economic adjustments, including cheaper labor costs in China, and estimating “reasonable but uncounted expenditures.”

China’s DF-41 nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen during a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019.

In 2022, the Chinese regime announced that its defense spending for the year would be $229 billion.

Beijing’s self-reported military spending should also include the money that it spent on its paramilitary organizations, Ms. Eaglen wrote, since these groups “are increasingly used in tandem with” the regime’s military, which is officially called the People’s Liberation Army.

She estimated that Beijing spent $45.2 billion on its People’s Armed Police Force and $2.1 billion on its China Coast Guard in 2022.

China doesn’t include other relevant expenditures related to its space forces, military satellites, or counter-space capabilities in its defense budget, according to the report.

“Given many satellites’ inherent dual-use capability and Beijing’s general adherence to a strategy of military-civil fusion in space policy, AEI’s model counted this entire budget as a military expenditure,” the report reads.

Ms. Eaglen estimated that China’s space budget in 2022 could have been $21 billion.

Other hidden expenditures included spending on military demobilization, retirement, and pensions, which the author estimated to total $46.1 billion. China likely spent more than $1.8 billion on continued construction of military facilities in the South China Sea and arms imports, according to the report.

A portion of the $711 billion spending also included military research and development expenditures, which Ms. Eaglen estimated to be $45.8 billion. However, she noted that the estimated military research and development spending could be much higher, considering the regime’s military-civil fusion (MCF) strategy, cyberespionage operations, and reliance on state-owned companies.

“If fully evaluated, Beijing’s expenditures via military-civil fusion and dual-use technology investments prove even the much larger $711 billion figure underestimates China’s military investments,” the report reads.

“Pacing Challenge”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using the MCF strategy to acquire cutting-edge technologies, such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

According to the State Department, the regime is implementing the strategy through “licit and illicit means,” such as theft, to achieve military dominance. Private companies, joint research institutes, and academia are “being exploited” to help the CCP’s military advance, often “without their knowledge or consent,” the department warned.

“In just the past decade, however, China has managed to rapidly build sophisticated missile forces, surpass the United States by building the largest navy in the world, and catch up to and even exceed the United States in many other key national security areas,” the report reads.

“By calculating the true buying power behind the Chinese military budget, it’s easy to understand how Beijing can continue this unprecedented military buildup while, on paper, appearing to spend much less.”

In comparison, the United States spent $742.2 billion on its military in 2022, excluding supplemental spending, according to the report.

However, Ms. Eaglen noted that the approximately equal spending level between the two countries “plays to Beijing’s benefit.”

Continue reading at the Epoch Times