Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
His comments come despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the election was stolen, and his refusal to concede his loss to President-Elect Joe Biden.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said U.S. Attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but they’ve uncovered no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.

Submissions that may interest you

SUBMISSION	DOMAIN
Bill Barr Just Kneecapped Trump’s Election Conspiracy Theory - Even Barr, one of Trump’s most loyal acolytes, thinks the election conspiracy stuff is insane.	vice.com
Barr says no evidence of widespread fraud in presidential election	cnn.com
No evidence of fraud that would change election outcome, Attorney General William Barr says	oregonlive.com
AG Barr Says No Evidence of Widespread Voter Fraud After Trump Suggests DOJ Involvement in Election Rigging	newsweek.com
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	news.yahoo.com
Barr: DOJ yet to find widespread voter fraud that could have changed 2020 election	foxnews.com
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	politico.com
Barr Says DOJ hasn’t uncovered widespread fraud in 2020 election	thehill.com
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	apnews.com
Barr Says DOJ Hasn’t Uncovered Widespread Voting Fraud	bloomberg.com
Attorney General Barr: No Evidence of Widespread Fraud That’d Change Presidential Election Outcome.	wmur.com
Barr says he hasn’t seen fraud that could affect the election outcome	washingtonpost.com
Attorney General Barr: No evidence of widespread voter fraud	usatoday.com
No evidence of voter fraud that would change election outcome, AG William Barr says	ktla.com
Barr says Justice Dept. hasn’t uncovered widespread voting fraud that could have changed election outcome	bostonglobe.com
Barr Admits DOJ Found No Evidence of Voter Fraud That Would Change Election Results	thedailybeast.com
DOJ hasn't uncovered widespread fraud that would change election results: Barr	abcnews.go.com
Attorney General Bill Barr says no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020 election	fox13news.com
Barr: No Evidence Of Fraud That’d Change Election Outcome	huffpost.com
AG Barr says no evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	wsls.com
DOJ finds no evidence of voter fraud that would change 2020 election outcome	independent.co.uk
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	chicago.suntimes.com
Barr: No Evidence Of Fraud That’d Change Election Outcome	m.huffpost.com
AG Barr: No evidence of fraud that'd change election outcome	abc7chicago.com
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	seattletimes.com
AG William Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	triblive.com
Atty General Barr said the DOJ hasn't found any evidence of widespread, results-changing voter fraud	pbs.org
Barr: No evidence of fraud that would change election outcome	dailyherald.com
Barr says DOJ has not seen evidence of fraud that would change election results	axios.com
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	washingtonpost.com
Barr: No Evidence of Fraud That Would Change Election Outcome	bloomberg.com
DOJ has not found fraud that would reverse Biden win over Trump, Attorney General William Barr says	cnbc.com
Barr future in doubt after Trump campaign blast him for denying widespread election fraud	independent.co.uk
U.S. Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud: AP	reuters.com
Barr finds no evidence of voter fraud	cbsnews.com
William Barr: no evidence of voter fraud that would change election outcome	theguardian.com
Despite Barrage Of Losses In Court, Trump Camp Plans More Long-Shot Election Appeals	wesa.fm
Barr: No evidence of fraud that’d change election outcome	seattletimes.com
US Attorney General: No fraud found that could change election	aljazeera.com
Bill Barr Appointed John Durham as Special Counsel Two Weeks Before Election Day — Here’s What He’s Authorized to Investigate	lawandcrime.com
Barr States The Obvious: No Mass Voter Fraud That Would Swing Election Results	talkingpointsmemo.com
Trump campaign hits Barr for no "semblance" of an investigation after AG says no evidence of widespread fraud	newsweek.com
Barr: DOJ Has No Evidence Of Fraud Affecting 2020 Election Outcome	npr.org
Defying Trump, Attorney General Barr says the DOJ and FBI didn't discover any evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election	businessinsider.com
Trump allies Barr, Giuliani at odds on discredited election fraud claims	reuters.com
William Barr says there is no evidence of widespread fraud in presidential election	amp.cnn.com
Barr and Giuliani clash over allegations of election fraud	politico.com
'I Guess He's the Next One to Be Fired': Even William Barr Says No Evidence of Widespread Voter Fraud	commondreams.org
AG Barr: No evidence of fraud that would change election outcome	washingtontimes.com
Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud	apnews.com
Attorney General Barr Says DOJ Hasn't Uncovered Evidence of Voter Fraud That’d Change Outcome of 2020 Election	time.com
US Attorney-General William Barr says no widespread voter fraud has been found in the election	abc.net.au
After AG Bill Barr says no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020 election, 9 Texas Republicans decry "shocking lack of action" on allegations- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also called for the Supreme Court to hear one of Donald Trump's election lawsuits.	texastribune.org
Despite Trump's continued claims, Barr sees no sign of major U.S. vote fraud	reuters.com
Whistleblowers claiming USPS threw out, backdated ballots before election-New allegations as Barr claims no fraud	foxnews.com
Barr says Justice Department found no evidence of fraud that would change election outcome	msnbc.com
U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Tuesday the Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in last month’s election, even as President Donald Trump kept up his flailing legal efforts to reverse his defeat.	reuters.com
Analysis: William Barr breaks with Trump's election fantasy	cnn.com
Barr splits with Trump on election; pardon controversy	thehill.com
Bill Barr bashed in right-wing media after election fraud comments: 'He is either a liar or a fool or both'	cnn.com
'Compromised': Fox News host slams Barr for rebuking Trump's election fraud claims	haaretz.com
Are Republicans like Ron Johnson fools or liars, or both? As even Bill Barr admits the election was free and fair, the GOP has entered new territory. Now everyone has to say they believe conspiracies and the truth has become irrelevant	independent.co.uk

Shout out to u/Misanthropia for the original post — the hive needed more updated art!
This list is current as of episode 233 (2/1/21)
Desus goes by numerous aliases on the Bodega Boys Podcast. These aliases are based on references to pop culture, sports, and hip-hop. The long and ever-changing list of aliases or "AKAs" are one of the many running gags on the show. During an interview with Method Man on Desus and Mero, Desus explained that the idea for aliases was based on the alter-egos of the rappers in the song "Wu-Gambinos" on the album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... by Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon. (info via Wikipedia)
Desus & Mero no longer record from Milk Studios (moved indefinitely) and have been recording the podcast remotely from home due to the pandemic. Most of the AKA’s now mention social distancing, hot takes on covid and store closures.

Desus

Desus is extremely consistent with his aliases, almost always presenting them in the exact same order and without any exclusions:
Desus Nice — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Desus explains that people started calling him Desus as a play on his government name, "Daniel", and "Jesus", because he worked miracles with people's computers
Young Chipotle — Desus’ original alias, he explains in one podcast that it originates from when he was broke and buying Chipotle was a genuine treat
Pockets stay fat like Terio (Pockets stay fat like 'here we go') — A reference to viral star Terio, a young, obese African American boy whose videos of him dancing launched him to very brief viral fame. Recently, Desus added the more politically correct and kid friendly “here we go”
Eli Litby — A play on Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin
Boutros Boutros Gully — A play on Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the UN, “Gully” being Jamaican Patois for an impoverished area
Slobodan Might-know-ya-bitch — A play on Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia and important player in the Bosnian War
Young Day Party — I believe this was adopted in the summer of 2016 after Desus recounted the story of a day party in D.C., which seemed to invigorate his love for partying during the day
Young Hot Take — He has hot takes, pretty obvious here
Desus H. Fuego — Another moniker to describe his hot (“fuego”) takes on topics
Mr. Nandos with a rando — Nandos is a portuguese chicken restaurant chain which originated in South Africa and is big in the UK and Australia. Rando is slang for random person. Having Nandos with a rando is eating chicken with a random person (credit to u/deweez)
Mr. Mil Novecientos Noventa Y Cuatro en Nueva York — In later episodes Desus rarely adds the “en Nueva York” bit, but it translates to “Mr. 1994 in New York”. "The Knicks team in 1994 made the finals and is a legendary team amongst all Knicks fans who were around at the time. That team got to game 7 of the finals against the Rockets. NYC rallied around that team hard body because that team absolutely embodied NYC to a T with guys like Ewing, Charles Oakley, Mason, Starks, and Derek Harper." (credit to u/Okieant33)
Mikhail Goin-off — derived from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (credit to u/GhettoFob) converged with an allusion to losing ones temper in an act of random violence.
The Jouvert Boss — “Jouvert” is a carnival held in Caribbean/West Indian culture, involving a lot of partying
MC Likkle Gungo Pea — Gungo pea is a type of peas (also known as pigeon peas) often used in Jamaican dishes. Reference to his Jamaican heritage (credit to u/hopelessromcom)
"Pullin' up from 40 with your shorty" — Desus will “pull up”, or make a pass at, your girl even when the odds are slim or unlikely, much like a 40 foot shot in basketball
"Don’t talk to me in the Uber Pool, I don’t know you" — Uber introduced a service where you can share rides with other Uber users for a discounted rate. Desus has expressed his reluctance to engage with strangers when he is using it
The original “my plus one got a plus one so don’t make a fuss son” — When Desus shows up to an event with a girl, he brings two, and he's intimating that the host shouldn’t have a problem with that
Desus Rothstein, the Jamaican Jew — Originated around when Mero began his house search in Bergen County, NJ where a number of wealthy people of Jewish descent live. Desus envisions a version of himself who would fit in there
Jermaine Avocado Toast — Desus has gotten more cultured as a result of their success, and as such he has been able to indulge in things usually enjoyed by privileged white people, a stereotypical example of that being avocado toast. This is Desus’ gentrified, hipster persona
Young PA — Possible reference to the sound of small amount of air being expelled from a loose butthole, which is an impression Mero occasionally does (credit to u/jimsternub). This is also a reference to Brooklyn rapper Young MA.
The Ghost of Mufasa — A reference to Lion King, but beyond that I have no idea why he adopted it. Still hilarious though, and the nickname that most often makes Mero laugh
Young Charcuterie without the coonery — Charcuterie is considered very hip and trendy right now, and Desus is again saying he has a taste for the finer things, but is no longer interested in “coonery”, a derogatory term used to describe stereotypical African American behavior
Chile Limon, the left handed reliever for the Yankee’s (Que lo que?) — A fictional persona that seems to be a Latino version of Dock Ellis, who famously threw a no hitter while high on Acid. Chile Limon is also a popular seasoning/flavor with the Latino community
3 Phone Jones — Desus originally adopted "2 Phone Jones" after he reluctantly bought an iPhone to go with his Samsung Galaxy. He then received a Google Pixel, making it 3 Phone Jones (credit to u/ArtSorr0w)
Desus Ex Machina — A play on the common plot device “deus ex machina”, or “god from the machine” in which an unsolvable problem is suddenly resolved by some unexpected intervention. Desus also used to have a tumblr entitled "Desus Ex Machina" (credit to u/hardcore9)
Jay Chuckles — Revealed in episode 55 to be a reference to a now-defunct shoe store in NYC. Did Desus read this thread?
Stanley Cups — Desus' former rap alias, as revealed in episode 53.
The Human Dr. Bronner’s Label (Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!) — A reference to the concentrated soap Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap, which needs to be diluted. I didn’t quite understand how Desus applied this to himself, but it came from a joke in Episode 51 or 52 about Sean Spicer trying to defray controversy surrounding President Trump's decisions
Dionardo DiTrappio — A play on “Leonardo DiCaprio”, the actor, but referencing “trapping”, a slang for selling drugs.
Mr. 240p because I like my Pino blurry — Desus longs for the days of very low resolution pornography. 240p refers to the resolution, which is extremely low by modern standards
DJ Woolite AKA You're listening to Washed FM up next we got 24 hours of — The host of the fictional station “Washed FM”, a fictional radio station that is sometimes referenced along with “WSMK, Smack City Radio”. Woolite is a brand of fabric softener. Desus said multiple times on the podcast that now that he's single and living alone, he washes his clothes with extra fabric softener. As a kid, his clothes would get washed and be hard as nails. Again, he's got a taste for the finer things in life. (credit to u/Okieant33)
The Curried G.O.A.T. — A double reference to Desus’s Jamaican heritage, where Curried Goat is a popular culinary item, as well as referencing the phrase “G.O.A.T”, short for “greatest of all time”
Desus Spicer — A play on the former White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who is often referenced on Desus & Mero as “spicing up” or “adding spice” to his takes
Jamal Hashburn — A play on Jamal Mashburn, a former NBA player, about Hash
The Bronx Celine Dion — Refers to the fact that Celine Dion is very popular in the Jamaican community, and so Desus is like Celine, but from the Bronx. (credit to u/chefboyardu) This is especially present with foreign and immigrant culture which means he is of mogul or iconic status for the Bronx (credit to u/courtofdacrimsonking)
Wray and Nephew's Nephew — A play on J. Wray and Nephew rum, which has its origins in Jamaica like Desus. Also, Desus drinks a lot, which you probably should have figured out by now. Introduced in episode 58
The Moreno you can't contain-o — A play on "moreno", a Spanish term for someone with dark skin
The Human Meme, Word to Ja — A play on Ja Rule's infamous mistake of believing that the word "meme" is pronounced "may-may"
Young Erewhon — A reference to a bourgeois health food store in LA, which makes this nickname in the vein of "Jermaine Avocado Toast", demonstrating Desus' taste for finer things now. (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1)
The Racist Provocateur — Desus flipped an angry tweet from April 28th 2017, in which someone called him a "racist provocateur" into a new alias
Henrik Bud-qvist — A play on NHL goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who currently plays for the New York Rangers
Nelson Bang-dela — An old alias resurrected in episode 65, a play on South African civil right's icon Nelson Mandela
Sergio Can't-see-me — A play on Sergio Tacchini, an Italian fashion designer and former Tennis player
Vladimir Boofin' — A play on Russian president Vladimir Putin, "boofin" being a reference to smuggling something by sticking it inside one's rectum
The Human Werther's, melting in your mouth — A reference to Werther's Originals, a brand of caramel hard candies favored by old people. Not really sure what this one means otherwise.
Mr. Becks on Deckington — The first time Desus introduced this one, he accidentally said "Mr. Becky's on Deckington" which was an incredible Freudian slip since Desus has been accused of not being into black women, and "Becky" is the stereotypical white woman name in pop culture. This is a reference to Desus always drinking Beck's, a cheap beer he favors along with Heineken. Adding "-ington" to words is New York slang, as Mero explains at some point.
Rikki-Tikki-Squad-bi — A play on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a character from the Jungle Book
Greg "Paaa"-povitch — A very meta play on San Antonio Spur's head coach Greg Popovich and the onomatopoeia of spreading butt cheeks apart (according to Mero)
Morris "Say it with your chest"-nut — A play on actor Morris Chestnut
Mahatma Gone-B — A play on famed pacifist Mahatma Gandi
Not Macka B but I got the cucumber — A reference to a viral video in which Reggae artist Macka B raps about healthy food in his "medical monday" series, Desus is unsurprisingly referencing his penis
The juices are pressed but your boy never is — Being "pressed" means someone is applying pressure to you, and no one would do that to Desus. The juices he is talking about are probably the morning drink he has with lemongrass and cayenne pepper that he makes reference to many times in recent episodes of the podcast.
I am the Art, dammit! — Not sure if this is a reference to anything specific or just a Kanye-esque line a crazed creative might yell out at some point
The Don Dada Ganoush — I believe this is a reference to the Meditteranean dish Baba Ganoush, "Don Dada" is Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player” and a sort-of homophone for "baba"
No more Cup of Noodles — I don't know if this is a reference beyond the fact that Cup of Noodles is a struggle meal and Desus is no longer struggling
The Prince of Peckham — A reference to Peckham, a diverse neighborhood in London
The Fashion Nova Casanova — Fashion Nova is an online clothing retailer that specifically targets curvy women that Desus and Mero reference pejoratively (saying it's for bottle waitresses), Desus is saying here that he excels at seducing these kind of women ("Casanova" is a term of a man who excels at seducing women derived from the name of Italian Giacomo Casanova)
"William H. 5 Cent, 10 Cent, Dolla... Forget the small change, give me the the big money wine" — A reference to Soca Boys song "Dollar Wine (one cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar)" which apparently was super popular in the West Indies. "William H Holla is something Jay-Z used to call himself back in his hey day. It comes from the fact that Bill Gates' full name is William Henry Gates. Jay-Z used to give himself nicknames back in the day. J-Hova caught on but he used the term William H Holla because Jay-Z also coined the phrase "Holla At Me" and "Holla Back" and just shortened it to "Holla". So put the two together and you have William H Holla. He first said it on the song "Stick to the Script" off the Dynasty album. So Desus took it and made it his own." (credit to u/Okieant33)
The only anthem I salute is Dipset — A reference to the ongoing national anthem protests in the NFL, Desus is saying the only anthem he salutes is "Dipset Anthem" by Harlem rap legends The Diplomats
Mister Sauga, Catch me at Square One Top Left. Mans is marved. (Dont cheese me bro) — Finally a Canadian-centric reference, which makes sense given that the Bodega Boys have performed there multiple times. This is a reference to the Square One Shopping Center in Mississauga, Canada (where Desus alleges his mysterious wife and kids live), and "top left" is Greater Toronto Area slang for "truthful" or "seriously". "Mans is marved", means "I'm hungry" in Toronto slang (credit to u/Fortehlulz33)
Trill Rizzuto, holy cow! — A reference to former Yankees player Phil Rizzuto who would later go on to be a commentator, where his trademark expression was "holy cow!"
Mister Soft Palms because all I do is count checks and jerk off — I don't know if this is a reference to anything except Desus bragging about his lifestyle
"We got OJ, uh purple stuff, soda, and it's me! Sunny D!" — A reference to an old Sunny D commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQE3jWYuGiw), and a play on the fact that people likely used to called Desus by the nickname "D", so "it's me! Sunny D" would be like saying "it's me, Desus!". Also kind of ironic since Desus is not a particularly sunny person (cue Dark Desus).
David Yerp-man — A play on David Yurman, an expensive jewelry company, and NYC slang exclamation "yerp"
Desus-expensive, Desus-Red Bottoms, Desus-bloody shoes — A play on a lyric from fellow Bronx native Cardi B taken from her song "Bodak Yellow"
Smo-a-kim Noah — A play on NBA player Joaquim Noah who played for the Knicks
Andrew Coooooool-nanan — A reference to serial killer (most notable for killing Gianni Versace) Andrew Cunanan
The Junior Energy God, come sit down 'pon me charger — Originally just the "Energy God" until Desus realized that that was fellow Jamaican Elephant Man's aliases. I thiiiink this is referring to the phrase "bring the same energy", the idea that if one is saying something behind someone's back, when confronted by the individual they should stick to their original statements. This alias started after the infamous Desus & Mero visit to the Breakfast Club, in which DJ Envy accosted the boys about a joke they made about his wife. Desus & Mero didn't punk out and therefore "brought the same energy". Someone tell me if I'm reaching here.
Call me PetCo cause I got your bitch-on-freeze — A play on words for the dog breed Bichon Frise
The Topic of Gossip in Syosset (Shout out to 11791 ah ah ah) — Syosset (zip code 11791) is a town in Long Island, NY. it's real bougie and suburban so Desus is saying basically he's got reach and is known not just in the hood but in the wealthy burbs too (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Grandpa Joe, When you see Charlie you see me don't touch that golden ticket — A direct reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Grandpa Joe) and Desus's cats name (Charlie)
Dead Eye Desus (Mornin’ Sherrif) — Dead Eye Desus refers to the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The game features a gameplay mechanic called "Dead Eye" that allows the player to slow time to achieve easy head shots and kills. The game is also set in the late 1800's, early 1900's in the old West, which is why Desus typically references a Sheriff after saying Dead Eye Desus. (credit to u/biggak)
Mr. Shopping at StreetEasy with a bad breezy like I'm Yeezy, please believe me — Another one of Desus' tongue twisters, this one is in reference to shopping at StreetEasy, a NYC real estate website with an attractive woman like Kanye West might do
The Black Asiatic who will crack your back like an automatic craftmatic — Added in episode 54 after Desus' continuing gag about "big Black Asiatic men" (often referencing their penises). Here Desus is implying that sex with him (a Black Asiatic man) is very vigorous by saying he will change your posture like a Craftmatic mattress, which is a brand of mattress whose shape and orientation can be controlled electronically
Mr. La Marina in a mesh Merina with a fresh misdemeanor and a cold demeanor — This one is a doozy, but was adopted after Desus mentioned his frequent trips to La Marina (a bar on the water in Manhattan) in episodes released in the summer of 2016. A mesh Merina is a a mesh tank top (I think). The other two parts are self explanatory. Not sure how he always gets this one right without mixing up the words.
The Sheet-Mask Killer (No one could be iller) — ??
The Black Zack Morris of Port Morris — A take on Zack Morris for his problematic schemes on Saved by the Bell. (credit to u/justic3bon3r) Port Morris is a neighborhood in the Bronx (credit to u/m9rockstar) home of The Bronx Brewery and Bodega Boys Beer
Young KPI — Desus recites lyrics by Depeche Mode “Personal Jesus” (1989) More than likely this is a play off his main alias (Personal Desus)
The Pelé of Peleton — Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) was a former Brazilian soccer player and considered one of the greats. Desus is an avid Peleton user so much he deems himself the greatest of all time
Your problematic bae — Desus occasionally says problematic things, but you still love him, hence him being your “bae”. He always ends with this one, followed by an exaggerated kissing sound.
*After Desus's last aka he gives some sort of problematic advice sometimes followed by explosions*

Mero

Mero (u/THE_KID_MERO) is far less consistent with his aliases. Depending upon how smacked he is, he will often exclude or repeat some of his aliases. He also adds them far less frequently than Desus.
The Kid Mero — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Mero explained that this alias comes from the fact that his father and uncle wanted to name him "Ramiro", but his mother vetoed it and named him "Joel". His father and uncle continued to call him "Ramiro", which was shortened to "Miro" as a nickname. When Mero started tagging, he changed Miro to Mero because he found E to be a nicer letter to write (credit to u/atorMMM) as well as he just didn't like how the "i" looked. Also tagging the name "Ramiro" that long would get you arrested
The Human Durag Flap — Mero’s original nickname, and a reference to how hood he is and his uncircumcised status, something that gets referenced very often (credit u/ZeddyG2 and u/chandlersokay)
Curve Gotti — A play on “Irv Gotti”, former boss of Murder, Inc. records
Donovan Mcdabb — A play on former NFL player Donovan Mcnabb, in reference to dabbing, which could have two meanings (smoking THC oil or the dance move created by the Migos)
Trizz Khalifa — A play on “Wiz Khalifa”, but substituting the first part of the name with the slang “Trizz”. Usually said in a fake patois, imitating Popcaan's cry of "Fuck Wiz Khalifa!" at a Mixpak event
SKKRRRT Loder — A play on “Kurt Loder” former host on MTV News and editor at Rolling Stone
James St. Fatdick, I'll Ghost on you shorty — Originated right around the premiere of season 4 of Starz hit show "Power", here referencing the main character James St. Patrick, whose street alias is "Ghost"
Tiger Backwoods — A reference to pro golfer Tiger Woods and Mero’s love for smoking backwoods
“I no fucking baby, I fucking man!” — A reference to the viral video that sent friend of the brand Pioladitingancia to fame
“Check the guest list again because my name is definitely on it, and no I’m not stepping to the side while you check! ” — Not so much a nickname but something Mero might have said back in the day when he was broke and had to lie about being on guest lists to get into clubs
CC Dab-bathia — A play on Yankees Starting Pitchers name, CC Sabathia (and close friend of the brand)
Goldman Shm-achs — A variation of the phrase made popular by Bobby Shmurda and a reference to Goldman Sachs.
Mensch Montana — An alias borrowed from French Montana (who is from South Bronx) and popular artist with the Bodega Boys. They have mentioned his classic Mac and Cheese mixtapes numerous times on the podcast. Also this is a nod to his Jewish family connection; Mensch is Yiddish for "good guy." (credit to u/chefboyardu)
The Da-da-da Dad of the year — A play on a lyric from ScHoolboy Qs song "Man of The Year" (credit u/ZeddyG2). Mero already has three Mero Jr’s and the bodega princess, and as far as we can tell is an awesome dad, thus earning such a title. Confirmed to be a ScHoolboy Q reference in episode 56
Been-Smacked Biyombo — A play on “Bismack Biyombo”, a professional basketball player on the Charlotte Hornets
Di-Yayo Maradona — Reference to Argentinean soccer legend Diego Maradona and slang for coke (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Dick-in-ya-bae Mutombo — A play on Dikembe Mutombo, former NBA player. Mero now respects the woman’s agency and asks for permission first before entering
Barlos Santana — A play on famed guitarist Carlos Santana and Xanax bars
The Dominican Don Dada — Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player”, and as we know Mero is of Dominican descent, hence “Dominican Don Dada”. The phrase "Jamaican Don Dada" is used by the character Lennox in the movie "Belly", which is a classic in hip hop culture (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1) He follows this up with "catch me at Locksmith throwing up on myself". Locksmith is a bar on 192nd & Broadway in Inwood, which is a REALLY Dominican NYC neighborhood (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Some variation of "swipe my card again, put the bag over it, there's definitely money on it!" — A reference to a familiar experience for anyone who has been broke, in which you lie and act like it's the store's fault when your card gets declined
Romeo Xantos — A reference to famed Bachata artist and Xanax, Bachata being a dance and music style originating in the Dominican Republic. Also the added "Sooo xanny, lemme black out" is a play on Romeo's adlib "sooo nasty, lemme find out" (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Light-an-L Dutchie "Hello? Is it weed you're looking for?" — Another weed double entendre referencing Lionel Richie and his famous song "Hello"
Papa Sushi, The Dyckman Don — A reference to often-referenced MamaSushi, a fusion sushi restaurant on Dyckman Street in Manhattan
Tom Brazy, your girl got my balls deflated — A boastful play on the Deflategate controversy surrounding Tom Brady and the New England Patriots after the 2014-2015 AFL Championship game
Feel-da-ass Tyson (CONSENSUALLY WITH YOUR PERMISSION) — A play on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson”, a well known physicist
Lil’ Snoozie Vert— A play on the name Lil Uzi Vert. This is also in reference for when Mero actually ‘tapped out’ on Instagram Live
Fry-an-L Messi — A play on Lionel Messi, a famous Argentinian soccer player of Italian descent, and smoking an "L", slang for blunt
Joe Hookah "I dare you! To smoke with me! At MamaSushi!" — A reference to rapper Black Rob's song "I Dare You" that features Joe Hooker on the hook. MamaSushi is a high-end restaurant chain located in New York
Ben Barson my hands are gifted — During the 2016 election cycle, famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson engaged in a brief campaign for the Republican nomination. Mero took to doing impressions of him, exaggerating Carson’s urban upbringing by saying he was “Ben Barson”, in which the “C” was replaced with a “B”, as a Blood gang member would. Unlike Desus, who almost never fumbles his nicknames, Mero has maybe said this one correctly one time
Xaniel Bedingfield — A play on Daniel Bedingfield followed by Mero playing "I Gotta Get Through This" a popular song by the artist Daniel Bedingfield with lyrics that are about Xanax (credit to u/KTTeal)
Some variation of “I’ll open your medicine cabinet and take all of your Benzos” — This is self-referential in two ways: 1. The earlier reference here is to when Mero admitted to Desus that he will unashamedly go through people’s medicine cabinets in order to snoop on their lives and 2. After the boat party story in which Mero got drunk and took some Xanax’s, he added “I’ll take all of your benzos” bit to express how much he enjoys the feeling Benzodiazepines create
The Xandman — This is a play on the musical artist “Scatman John” who was most known for his song “Scatman’s World”, the chorus of which Mero imitates with this name and the accompanying vocalization
Rico Sabroso — Spanish for “Rich Tasty”, but I’m not sure what the reference here is beyond that
Baby Newport — I assume a reference to Newport brand cigarettes, stereotypically popular in urban areas
Niño Brown — A reference to the main character of the film “New Jack City”, in which Wesley Snipes plays a crack dealer named Nino Brown, but pronounced like the Spanish word for "kid", giving it some Latino flavor (credit to u/Okieant33)
The East Tremont Stevie B — East Tremont is a predominately Hispanic area of the Bronx, while Stevie B was a recording artist from the 80’s with some incredible Jheri Curls. Sometimes sings "I want to be the one your Titi is fucking" after
I met Mike Francesca im never gon’ fail — A direct reference from when the Bodega Boys actually met Mike on the last episode on Desus & Mero on Viceland. In translation, this means after finally meeting with the iconic Sports Pope this makes him unstoppable. This is also a reference to Kanye West's song 'Ultralight Beam' where Chance the Rapper says "I met Kanye West, I'm never gonna fail" (credit to u/RemyDWD)
The Plantain Supernova in the Sky — A reference to the Oasis hit “Champagne Supernova”, but changed to reflect Mero’s Dominican heritage, which often uses plantains in its cuisine. Occasionally he will sing an extended version, which goes “One day you will find me, smoking weed on Tremont/in the Plantain Supernova in the sky”. How does he hit these melodies so perfectly every time?
Tom Petty and the Ball Breakers — A play on the rock band name ‘Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’. Mero sings the chorus from Tom Petty’s solo project “Free Fallin’” as “Free Ballin’” suggesting that he feels free doing his Zoom calls without pants
Barmelo Xanthony — An incredible play on the Bodega Boy’s favorite NBA player, Carmelo Xanthony, and Mero’s beloved Xanax’s. (credit to u/terminal-chillness) Most recently, Mero has changed his references to him making sound financial decisions and balancing his portfolio since the interview with Carmelo himself on Desus & Mero on Showtime
Some variation of “If you see me in Target approach me like a bear” — Originates from Mero’s love of getting really high and hanging out in Target. Being high sometimes makes him paranoid, so he doesn’t like people just running up on him. Desus suggested people “approach him diagonally, like you would a bear”. Mero interchanges “bear”, “Ursine Mammal”, and “Oso” (Spanish for “bear”) at random
Benzo the Clown — A problematic clown for kids that ruins birthday parties and not refunding your $50 deposit. Originated on Episode 96, Desus starts talking about rolling up to Mero Jr’s bar mitzvah smacked. (credit to u/outtaspite) Benzo’s antics are normally cut short by Mr. Fun Fun (voiced by Desus) normally ending with the problematic light
I sold fake Lean to your favorite SoundCloud rapper — Not sure this is a specific reference other than the fact that Lean is pretty much a guaranteed accessory for any SoundCloud rapper and Actavis discontinued their codeine/promethazine cough syrup in 2014 due to abuse, so a lot of people are drinking fake Lean.
"Llego el hijo de Tito y Fifa papi"/"The son of Tito and Fifa has arrived, papi — In later episodes, Mero began to include some Spanish phrases at the end of his list of aliases, usually beginning with this phrase and building off of it. When Mero does this he also says "Hassan tira me lo pita" which is slang for "Hassan drop me a beat". Mero is making pretend that he's a DJ on NY's Spanish Radio Station 97.9 La Mega. Mero from here goes on to talk all kinds of shit about how hard and gangster he is. (credit to u/bobbuddha and u/Okieant33)
Please correct me if you have ideas or see mistakes!
​
Discontinued aliases:
Desus

• Young Green Room
• Desus Vice
• Vice-K Matsuzaka
• Kristap Por-sling-dick
• The Human Jerry Curl

Mero

• Blem de la blem
• Young Pap Smear
• Metro Bloomin' Onion (credit to u/raybegleiter)
• Fry-an-L Messi (Mero at one point said this instead of "Light-an-L Messi", he'll probably go back and forth)
• Papi Shampoo
• Lucious Lyon-ass nigga
• David Trizz-Dale

Previous Post Here
The New Normal. The word has been around for a lot longer then we realize. A lot longer. Know what else has been around for a while? New World Order.

Cicada 3301

Cicadas are strange, aren't they? You can't see them unless you look, and yet you can hear them everywhere. An omnipresent sound surrounding your environment. If you live in an area without Cicadas, and then travel to an area with Cicadas, you'll be acutely aware of the sound, and it'll throw you off at first. You'll find the noise annoying, but tolerable. And then slowly without realizing it, you ADAPT. It becomes your NEW NORMAL. And once it does, you don't give the Cicadas a second thought.
And maybe that's a mistake. Maybe there is no maybe, it is a mistake. So we're going to dive deep into Cicada 3301 and how it fits into the Not Normal New Normal.

Break the Code

People can be broken down into two categories, those who like solving puzzles and those who don't. Those who don't are generally ok with the status quo. They don't see anything wrong. They don't realize that the puzzle has missing pieces, and even if they do, they don't mind. Why? I have no idea. That mindset is foreign to me, as it is to anyone reading this series. So let's take a look into the Cicada puzzle peices.

But the challenge to find what was hidden in this picture intrigued him. He stared intently at the image. Someone on the IRC had heard rumors that terrorist groups encrypt secret notes in image files, ones that could be retrieved by opening the file in a different format. Running a text–editing program called Notepad, he opened the image and, sure enough, saw a strange string of words and garbage characters at the end: “TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS CAESAR says ‘lxxt>33m2mqkyv2gsq3q=w]O2ntk.’ ” Caesar, he knew, was one of the most ancient forms of encryption, dating back to Julius Caesar, who used the cipher to safeguard military secrets. It works by taking the alphabet and then counting down each letter based on a designated number (say, replacing letters with ones three letters down the alphabet).

Cicada posted the first puzzle January 4, 2012. 2012 was also the year that the Mayan Calendar predicted the end of the world. Or the transformation of humanity into an enlightened state of consciousness. Obviously the world didn't end. So are we heading into an enlightened state of consciousness? Perhaps. Time will tell, like it always does.

2013, November 25 • Eriksson didn’t realise it then, but he was embarking on one of the internet’s most enduring puzzles; a scavenger hunt that has led thousands of competitors across the web, down telephone lines, out to several physical locations around the globe, and into unchartered areas of the "darknet”. So far, the hunt has required a knowledge of number theory, philosophy and classical music. An interest in both cyberpunk literature and the Victorian occult has also come in handy as has an understanding of Mayan numerology. Source Here

Remember the Mayan Calendar.
Before anyone thinks Cicada was some kind of promotional stunt, or LARP, it wasn't. Nor was it the result of a single individual or a small group of individuals. Because if it was, the following would have been extremely difficult.

There were more than a dozen (Cicada posters with QR codes), spread over four continents. The Street View images seemed random: a narrow street near the University of Warsaw, a parking lot on a busy intersection of Seoul, a country road on the North Shore of Oahu. One location came up in front of a prominent doctor’s house in a wealthy section of Seattle. (When RS called the doctor, he said that he had never heard of Cicada 3301.)
Amid the fervor, an anonymous person posted a mysterious confessional. “I was part of what you call 3301/Cicada for more than a decade,” the anonymous author wrote, “and I’m here to warn you: Stay away.” Any portentously dire and anonymous message on the Internet could be bullshit or trolling. But as the skeptical solvers read the screed, the author seemed knowledgeable enough about 3301 to give them pause. The author said he had been a military officer in an unnamed, non-English speaking country when, after a year of being unknowingly vetted in person, he was recruited by a member of 3301. He described them as “a group of like-minded individuals, all incredibly talented and connected, [working] together for the common good: the good of mankind.” But over several paragraphs, he cautioned about their cultish beliefs, a conviction, for example, in “the Global Brain as another kind of ‘God’ ” – 3301 was nothing more, he wrote, than a “religion disguised as a progressive scientific organization.” He concluded by saying he had since found Jesus. Source Here

The author claimed to be a military officer in an unnamed country. He warned of a Global Brain as another kind of God. Hmmmm.
AI WORLD Government. And don't go thinking this is just some half baked organization trying to make a dollar and meeting in Hotel Banquet halls. Take a look at some of the organizations behind AI World Government. Microsoft. Amazon. IBM. FEMA. Army Research Laboratory. Defense Intelligence Agency. Homeland Security. MITRE Corporation. NASA. IARPA. DOE. NVIDIA.
That's quite the Clubhouse, isn't it? Now take a look at the sponsors on this page If you don't find the sponsor list concerning, i don't know what to say and you should probably stop reading now. And for those of you who realize that Knowing is Half the Battle, Go Joe.

Prime Numbers in the Prime Timeline

Did anyone have Cicadas on their 2020 bingo card? No? That one was conspicuously absent from all those memes, wasn't it?

But researchers think this life cycle is all about tricking cicada predators — making sure that they can't sync up their schedules with the next cicada emergence. The cicadas generally follow an emergence schedule of either 13 or 17 years — both prime numbers. The schedule's indivisibility makes it more difficult for predators to predict the next emergence, research suggests. WHAT DO THEY SOUND LIKE? — One of the most noteworthy parts about a mass cicada emergence is the sound the swarms of cicadas emit. The screech of a cicada has been likened to an "alien-like wail" and "field of out-of-tune car radios." Source Here

This wasn't the only article suggesting that Cicadas have an Alien Like Wail. In fact, it was in a lot of them. And with five corporations owning and controlling the MSM information stream, the Alien Like Wail is something we need to take note of. Do I need to remind you of the sudden influx of UFO disclosure happening from the American Military? It's not a coincidence. It's also not going to be the main focus on this post, but it will be written about shortly in Flatten the Curve. So let's just hope the "Aliens" aren't the predators that we're hiding from. Although I am dying to say, I don't have time to bleed. Or. Get to the choppa.
So the Cicada puzzles involved Prime Numbers, Mayan numerology, and Runes, amongst other clues in their cryptographic and steganographic odyssey. But what other meaning is associated with Cicada, because the group didn't pick a random name out of a hat.

The cicada symbolises rebirth and immortality in Chinese tradition. In the Chinese essay "Thirty-Six Stratagems", the phrase "to shed the golden cicada skin" (simplified Chinese: 金蝉脱壳; traditional Chinese: 金蟬脫殼; pinyin: jīnchán tuōqiào) is the poetic name for using a decoy (leaving the exuvia) to fool enemies. In the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West (16th century), the protagonist Priest of Tang was named the Golden Cicada.

A decoy? I may have forgotten to include something about a decoy and the Cicada puzzles.

"WHOOPS Just decoys this way. Looks like you can’t guess how to get the message out”. Source Here

Clicking on the link takes you to a picture of a duck decoy. And anyone reading this series understands that we may be on the brink of WW3 with China over the environmental collapse that's upcoming, and that this war is also involving the race to AI supremacy, and that whoever controls AI, will now have dominion over the planet.

The earliest known fossil Cicadomorpha appeared in the Upper Permian period; extant species occur all around the world in temperate to tropical climates.Source Here

Whelp. There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a mask over there. A-telling me, I got to beware. I think it's time we stop. Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down.
Ahem. Sorry. But seriously, what's going on? Upper Permian period? Really? Ring a bell? It should if you've read Flatten the Curve from the start. Why? Because the BLUE planet that we call home seems to be entering into a period that reminds me of the End Permian extinction event. And that's not good. Trust me. Also, let me explain one more time, that while we are seeing troubling signs in our current environment, this doesn't mean that the ecosystem will collapse tomorrow, or next year, or even this decade. We don't know the timeline, so don't go and join an end times doomsday cult just yet. But be prepared for the unknown as best as you can. Because while the environmental collapse and our future may be unclear, the powers that be still seem bent on starting a war. With each or other, or with something. (Something? Really? What do I mean? Well, who knows if all of the recent Alien disclosure is real or fake, but it's not slowing down. Regardless, it has to be taken into consideration and examined)

Who is Dan Jefferies?

Dan is an Author. Dan wrote a two book series called The Jasmine Wars. Here's the synopsis.

When a Jasmine Revolution sweeps away the brutal Communist regime, China transforms into the world’s first AI-driven Direct Democracy, ushering in a golden age of peace and prosperity unlike anything ever seen in its five thousand year history. Now when an economic shock brings terrorism and ultra-nationalism roaring back, the nation’s favorite son, Colonel Ju-Long, races to uncover the traitors in his midst before his beloved country explodes into another devastating civil war. Source Here

AI Driven Direct Democracy. Sounds kind of like the AI World Government, doesn't it? Or maybe it's the opposite. Or maybe it's the same thing we have now, a Democracy that only works because it gives us the illusion of choice.
But he's only an Author, you might be thinking. Isn't this taking it a little bit too far? Seriously Greek, you may be losing it. Should you take a vacation and relax, get your head on straight again?
Long story short, no. I'm good. Completely and utterly good. Maybe working a little too much, and maybe I'll need a vacation after the pandemic protocols have been (hopefully) uninstalled, but not yet. And definitely not now.
So Dan's an author, but what else is he? Because it’s a really odd world up above us. Seriously odd. Because while we struggle with having a life and a single occupation, those who worship in this AI technocracy seem to be able to multi-task like the spooky action of quantum entanglement.

DANIEL JEFFRIES • Author, Futurist, Thinker, Engineer, Systems Architect, Podcaster, Pro Blogger. Science Fiction: Daniel is the author of four cutting edge sci-fi novels, including the popular nanopunk epic The Scorpion Game, which readers have compared to the early cyberpunk masterpiece Neuromancer. Pro BloggePodcaster: His massively popular Medium blog with over 50K followers, and his Daily PostHuman podcast covers a wide range of future tech from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency. His articles have appeared in Bitcoin Magazine and he’s the number one writer for the popular magazine Hacker Noon. Engineer: For more than twenty years, Daniel created and implemented advanced tech solutions for early web companies and Fortune 500 companies, first with his own consulting company and later for open source pioneer Red Hat, using Linux, virtual machines, Docker containers and DevOps and now for the innovative MLOps AI startup, Pachyderm. Systems Architect: Daniel now designs cutting edge crypto and decentralized web platforms, starting with the Cicada concept project, and then rolling its ideas into stealth startups with gamified money solutions, decentralized IDs, reputation systems and advanced crytoeconomics architectures. Public Speaker: He’s also a well respected public speaker, having given talks all over the world on the future of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.

That's the kind of bio that leaves you feeling like an underachieving peon, doesn't it? Kind of like the bio of Lance B Eliot, isn’t it? Well, not quite, but it's still impressive. But he's not an AI algorithm like Lance (at least I don't think he is) seems to be. So why did I include him in this post about Cicada 3301? Did you notice that in his bio there is something called the Cicada Concept Project? Yeah. Strap in and hold on, cause this roller coaster is about to start.

The Cicada Concept Project.

So Dan Jefferies came up with the Cicada Project, does that mean that he also came up with or is a member of, Cicada 3301?

Oh yeah. I mentioned Cicada 3301. A lot of people have asked me over the years if I’m involved with that project or if I’m behind the mystery in some way? The answer is no. But it’s also not that simple. Of course, some asshole on Reddit will inevitably post this in the comments: Is Dan Jeffries behind Cicada 3301? TLDR. No. LOL. I just saved his lazy ass some time. He can cut and paste it. Source Here • (I strongly recommend reading his post. Make the time.)

LOL! OMG, that's too funny, don't you think so too? Dan Jefferies the writer and Cicada 3301, give me a break! Don't be that a$$hole on Reddit and make unsubstantiated claims, ok Greek?
Uh. Nope. Not ok. And my name is Biggreekgeek, not a$$hole. And if you insist on that nomenclature, then that's Mr. A$$hole to you. Because if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a 3301 Duck Decoy.
Call me crazy, but I'm finding his assertion that it's all a mere coincidence too convenient. Now I know that you can't prove a negative, but trying to explain the name connection away by claiming synchronicity and it's just a result of the universe laying out your path, well, that doesn't work for me (read his post, this is what he actually claims).

Jasmine Wars • In the story Cicada is a massive distributed artificial intelligence and nation-state operating system. She’s a voting and communications platform and a fantastic alien mind. In many ways she embodies the best of the human race, while mitigating the worst of our dark dual natures. She seemed like the perfect choice for a chunk of killer future tech so I set out to create an early version of her.

Now let's do a little coincidence checklist for our New Normal reality.

1. Nation State Operating System • Ai World Government. ✔
2. Ultra Nationalism. ✔
3. Voting Problems. ✔

Strange how so many current events could be solved by the Cicada platform. And what about that curious word choice of a Fantastic Alien Mind? It might not rhyme with Orange, but didn't a lot of the 2020 articles about Cicadas mention an Alien-like wail? Yes. They. Did. Are you enjoying this roller-coaster yet? I hope so, cause this ride isn't going to be over for a while, despite the promised land just being two weeks away. (Edit: I've had this written for a while, but held back. Why? To see how the times went as we moved forward. And now we have our answer)
Before we carry on like the wayward sons we are, let me give you the link to the Cicada Concept Project. Source Here READ IT!

Let's Pull It All Together.

Dan Jeffries is the chief technical evangelist at Pachyderm. Evangelist. His title at Pachyderm is a little strange, don't you think? Cause I do. Really strange. Let's look up what the definition of an Evangelist is, shall we?
e·van·ge·list /əˈvanjələst/ • noun • 1. a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching.
Cute, isn't it? Nice little wordplay there. Not freaky at all. Nope. Sign me up to the cult.
So Danny Boy came up with a concept called Cicada that can be a Direct Democracy system that uses secure BIO-ID, protects your privacy, and who's participants generate Cryptocurrency biologically. Didn’t some company get involved with these concepts at some point? I think so. What company was it? Hmmmm, let's see...was it...MICROSOFT?
ID2020 SOURCE HERE WO2020060606 - CRYPTOCURRENCY SYSTEM USING BODY ACTIVITY DATA Source Here
Yep. It was Microsoft. And guess who else Microsoft is involved with?

2020, August 19 • Pachyderm Secures $16 Million Investment Led by M12 - Microsoft’s Venture Fund • Company raises Series B round on back of Fortune 500 enterprise adoption. SourceHere

AI WORLD GOVERNMENT is sponsored by Microsoft as well.

Ah Billy Boy, you sure are one clever little bugger, ain't ya? I've said it before and I'll say it again, AI will be the savior that will solve the Pandemic problem. Eventually. Some day. Not soon. Definitely. Not. Soon. Why? Well the pandemic disruption hasn't reached the proper level of disruption yet, that's why. (And should I point out that M-12 reminds me of MJ-12, or, Majestic 12)

Final Words.

Look. The Big Picture of Big Brother isn't an easy one to see, and it's an even harder one to explain. Like it or not, we're living in an epoch of civilization, a pivotal moment in time. The deeper I dig, the deeper my limited understanding becomes. This is disruption by design. And yet, I'm left wondering is this is a human designed disruption, or are we dealing with an unknown AI construct capable of not only deceiving and manipulating us common folk to advance an endgame, but also manipulating those who have engineered it. Implausible? Don't be too confident in that assumption. Why? Do you remember Billy Boy Gates smug look in certain interviews where he was advocating the vaccine? It reminded me of that look that parents get when their child just doesn't understand something they're trying to explain. "One day you'll understand". We've all heard that at one point by our parents, haven't we? And yet something changed in Billy Boy as the pandemic went forward and nobody was embracing him as our very own Marvel Superhero. His look went from smug to exasperated, almost confused. It was almost like he felt society wasn't acting in a preordained manner, as though a carefully thought out BLUEprint was suddenly developing problems out of the BLUE.
I know everyone likes to talk about a plandemic. And I know that the majority of readers in this subreddit like to call it a low mortality virus, and maybe it is. But I find it hard to accept that human agents came up with something this intricate in depth and overarching in scope. Seriously. Just think about Cicada 3301 > Dan Jefferies > Microsoft Patent 060606. Because the similarities are too close for my liking to be coincidental. Especially when you consider the continued chaos of the economy, wealth inequality, tax evasion, the elections, the racial tensions, issues of policing and abuse of power, and I hope that I'm wrong, but it even appears that we may have even more upcoming chaos in our trust of the scientific research institutions and corporations. Out of chaos, order. Right? What order? AI world government. New World Order. New Normal. Great Reset. Build Back Better. Everyone has to be on board the Great Reset, right Klaus fourth industrial revolution Schwab?

October 18, 2019 • She noted that the number of people using the Internet exceeded half of the world’s population in 2018, with 80 per cent of Europeans having access compared to less than 25 per cent in Sub‑Saharan Africa. Almost half the world’s population remains offline and excluded from the benefits of digitalization. Source Here

Less than 25% in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to internet. And now we have Operation New Normal happening in Africa. Flatten the Curve. Part 60. Source Here
And don't forget the military backed starlink to provide worldwide internet for those who aren't connected yet. Yeah. We're All In This Together. Right?
Nicholas Negroponte is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC).
Ah right. The failed attempt to get every child a laptop. From Nicholas Negroponte who accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein’s tangled web of foundations. And I quote; "If you wind back the clock, I would still say, 'Take it.'"
Charming. The ends justify the means. Remember that. Wake up every day and repeat it to yourself. The ends justify the means. Why? Because that's how a lot of them think, and we are the means to the ends.
Heads up and eyes open. Talk soon

Welcome to part two of my two-part series comparing American democracy with the rest of the world, based on the modern classic of comparative politics Patterns of Democracy (2nd edition) by Arend Lijphart (rhymes with pipe-heart), published in 2012. Yes, part one is very long (and very fascinating, I’m told), but you don’t need to read it unless you want to, because I’ll briefly summarize the parts you need to understand.
In his book, Lijphart classifies democracies into two broad categories, based on the question: who should the government be responsive to when the people are in disagreement? The answer provided by the majoritarian model of democracy is that government should be responsive to a majority of the people, or often in practice, a plurality of the people. In contrast, the consensus model of democracy accepts support from the majority as only a minimum requirement, and instead seeks to foster broad participation in government and broad agreement on policies.
There are two complementary approaches to building a consensus democracy (or building a majoritarian democracy, if the antithesis of each approach is used). The first, the joint-power approach, seeks to broadly share power within institutions, for example multiparty systems, proportional representation, and coalition cabinets. In contrast, the divided-power approach diffuses power across separate institutions, for example across central and regional governments (federalism), upper and lower houses of the legislature (bicameralism), independent central banks, and constitutional courts with the power of judicial review.
Note that these two approaches are complementary, not mutually exclusive. A democracy can embrace both joint-power and divided-power approaches, reject both, or embrace one while rejecting the other. As such, every democracy can be roughly divided into one of 4 quadrants. Here is a table displaying a prototypical democracy from each quadrant.

	joint-power	non-joint-power
non-divided-power	Israel	UK
divided-power	Switzerland	USA

The United States’ approach to democracy almost uniformly rejects joint-power, while embracing divided-power, so we sit somewhere between a majoritarian democracy like the UK and a consensus democracy like Switzerland. In the last post I discussed non-joint-power in the United States, and in this post I’ll be covering divided-power.
At the end, I’ll finish up with Lijphart’s conclusions on the effectiveness of consensus democracy vs. majoritarian democracy in general (spoiler: consensus democracy is better), and I’ll give my thoughts on the future of democratic institutional reform in the United States.

Divided-power in the United States

Let’s take another look at Lijphart’s conceptual map of democracy (democracies further to the left embrace the joint-power approach, while those toward the bottom embrace divided-power). As you can see from the conceptual map, out of the 36 sufficiently large and long-lived democracies in Lijphart’s sample, the United States ranks as a very close second to Germany in its strong approach to divided-power. Other notable divided-power democracies include Australia, Argentina, Canada, and Switzerland, with Switzerland being the joint-power black sheep of the group (Germany is also joint-power, but not to the same extent).
Lijphart describes five institutions that can be used to build a divided-power democracy, and the United States has fine examples of all of them.

1. A federal government instead of a unitary government
2. A bicameral legislature instead of a unicameral legislature.
3. A rigid constitution that can only be changed by an extraordinary majority, as opposed to a flexible constitution that can be changed by a simple majority.
4. A Supreme Court with the power to review legislation, rather than the legislature having the final say on the constitutionality of its own legislation.
5. A central bank that is independent from the executive, as opposed to a central bank that is controlled by the executive.

Let’s talk about each of these aspects of divided-power, and how they are implemented in the United States in comparison to the rest of the world.

An exceptionally strong federalism

At its most basic, federalism means that there is a guaranteed division of power between central and regional governments. But how do we guarantee that such a division of power remains stable? There are typically three institutions that serve that purpose. Notice that these are the same as 2, 3, and 4 in the list of divided-power institutions above.

1. A bicameral legislature with a strong second chamber dedicated to representing the regions of the federation.
2. A written constitution outlining the federal division of power. To keep the division of power stable this constitution needs to be rigid, meaning that it should be difficult to amend.
3. A supreme or constitutional court that can protect the constitution with the power of judicial review, meaning that the court has the final say on the constitutionality of executive and legislative actions.

What is federalism good for though? Federalism is particularly well suited to very large countries (in terms of both population and geographic size), and to very diverse countries (in terms of religions, ethnic groups, languages spoken, etc.).
The United States is the second most populous democracy in the world, with the first being India, which is also federal. The least populous federation is Switzerland, though it is still relatively large, being approximately in the middle of Lijphart’s 36 countries ranked by population.
In terms of diversity, the US is only semi-diverse according to Lijphart’s classification, and in any case, state lines are not and probably could not be drawn with regard to separate racial, ethnic, and religious groups, as they can be in some other countries.
In the case of India, a highly diverse society, British colonial authorities drew administrative lines without regard for linguistic differences, an unfortunate situation which was not corrected until the 1950’s, providing additional representation for linguistic minorities. Canada and Switzerland are other examples of federations with regional lines drawn (at least roughly) to contain cultural and linguistic minorities.
It’s not common, but for diverse societies it’s also possible to have federal territories that are not defined geographically, for example Belgium’s three cultural communities.
There is another possible purpose of federalism, and that is to allow the regions to experiment with different forms of government. In practice, however, regional governments tend to be extremely similar to the central government. If you’ve ever wondered why almost every US state has a bicameral legislature, even though state governments are not federal and some states are extremely small, then there’s your answer: there is no good reason, except that it mirrors the form of the central government. Presidentialism, too, has leaked into the states, with governors essentially acting as presidents for each state, despite the flaws of presidentialism I went over in the first post.
There has been some experimentation with electoral systems among the states, for example ranked choice voting for congressional and presidential elections in Alaska and Maine and for local elections in many other states. There has only been one notable exception when it comes to majority/plurality electoral systems, in the state of Illinois, which used cumulative voting (a semi-proportional method) for its lower house from 1870 to 1980.
Another notable case outside of the USA is Australia, with the state of Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory using the single-transferable-vote form of proportional representation for electing their regional assemblies, unlike the Australian House of Representatives and the regional lower houses of every other Australian state which all use ranked choice voting, a majority/plurality voting method. However, single-transferable-vote is far from unheard of in Australia, as it is also used to elect the national Senate.
Of course, in the United States there has been a great degree of experimentation with state laws, including of taxation, drug prohibition, environmental regulations, etc. This has allowed some states to learn from the experiments of others, and at times has allowed certain states to lag far behind the others, depending on your perspective.

Bicameralism taken too far?

Bicameralism, meaning the division of the legislature into two differently constituted chambers, is closely associated with federalism, as the purpose of the second chamber is typically to give additional representation to the regions of the federation. In Lijphart’s sample, all 9 of the federal countries are bicameral, while only about half of the 27 remaining non-federal countries are bicameral. The unicameral countries tend to have smaller populations. Worldwide, about ⅔ of countries are unicameral.
Typically, the first chamber tends to be the more important of the two, with the second chamber in a subordinate role, though there are notable exceptions: the United States, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, and Uruguay all have chambers with approximately equal powers, or arguably in the case of the United States, greater powers. Second chambers that are directly elected tend to be more powerful, as direct election gives the second chamber additional democratic legitimacy and thus greater political influence, which is true for the five countries with powerful second chambers except for Switzerland, where most but not all members of the second chamber are directly elected.
Some less important differences are that the first chamber also tends to be the larger one (with the only exception being the British House of Lords). Terms of office tend to be longer in second chambers, and second chambers tend to have staggered elections.
One of the most important differences is that second chambers are often designed to overrepresent certain minorities, the most common example being the overrepresentation of regions with smaller populations, as seen in federalism. In this table you can see the degree to which different countries overrepresent the smaller regions.
The three countries with the greatest degree of overrepresentation of smaller regions are Argentina, the United States, and Switzerland. These are also countries where all regions have equal representation in the second chamber regardless of population size. The same is true of Australia, which ranks 5th on the chart. In the United States, a staggering 10% of the best represented voters control 39.7% of the seats in the Senate. Other countries like Germany and Canada give greater, but not equal, representation to smaller regions, while Belgium gives only slight overrepresentation to its French and German-speaking minorities.
In the United States the second chamber has some unique powers, such as ratifying treaties and confirming members of the federal judiciary, that the first chamber does not have. This, combined with the Supreme Court being one of the most powerful activist courts in the world, has produced an unusual situation where a minority controls an arguably more powerful second chamber. And the situation is only getting worse: by 2040, two-thirds of Americans will be represented by only 30% of the Senate.
Having a bicameral legislature with special representation for smaller regions is an important guarantor of federalism, but as we can see from other countries like Canada, Australia, and Germany, the amount of overrepresentation seen in the United States is not necessary to maintain a strong form of federalism. Only time will tell whether the United States can maintain a stable and legitimate government in a state of continually strengthening minority rule.

The most rigid constitution in the world

A rigid federal constitution is another important guarantor of federalism, and the United States has the least flexible constitution in the world, with two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate as well as the approval of 3/4ths of the states being required to pass a constitutional amendment. There are several other countries where supermajorities are required, as you can see in this table, but not to the same degree as in the United States. It is one of the reasons the United States has the shortest written constitution in the world at 4,400 words, despite being one of the oldest constitutions.
Having a constitution is not itself enough to guarantee federalism, an institution is also needed to defend the constitution. Independent courts with the power of judicial review fulfill that purpose, and the United States has one of the most vigorous federal courts, as you can see in this table. The German Constitutional Court arguably ranks in second place. Judicial review is particularly strong in several other countries besides the USA and Germany: India, and recently, Canada, Costa Rica, and Argentina. When it comes to the United States, Lijphart notes that, “The activist American courts and the Supreme Court in particular have been accused of forming an ‘imperial judiciary.’”
A rigid constitution and the courts with independent review to back it up are an important anti-majoritarian device, while having a flexible constitution and no judicial review allow unrestricted majority rule. The UK is a prime example of majority rule, and is also one of only 3 democracies of Lijphart’s 36 with no written constitution, the other 2 being New Zealand and Israel. Switzerland is an odd outlier, being an otherwise completely consensual democracy with no judicial review, despite having a strong form of federalism. Perhaps this demonstrates that judicial review is helpful, but not essential, to maintaining federalism.

The paradox of the US Supreme Court

As explained in the last section, activist courts with the power of judicial review are an anti-majoritarian device, but the US Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup in almost every respect, in contrast to the German Constitutional Court and the Indian Supreme Court which follow a more consensual pattern.
One example of the Supreme Court’s majoritarianism is its small number of justices, only 9, compared with 16 in Germany and 29 in India. This places a hard limit on the amount of broad representation of different population groups on the Supreme Court. A second majoritarian aspect is that justices are chosen by majority in the Senate, unlike the two-thirds majorities required in both German chambers. The court itself makes decisions by majority, which increases the power of the court to make decisions, but decreases the consensual nature of the decision-making.
There are a couple more reasons the Supreme Court is majoritarian in its makeup: one is that vacancies are filled as they occur, allowing majorities to sequentially pick their favorites, whereas if justices were chosen as a group it would be more likely for minorities to be chosen. A second reason is that US justices have very long terms, which tends to be an obstacle to broad representation in an evolving society. In Germany and India, justices have mandatory retirement ages of 68 and 65, respectively, and in Germany they are chosen to 12 year non-renewable terms.
This paradox of a consensual institution with majoritarian rules is seen not only in the Supreme Court, but in many other institutions of American democracy. The presidency, for example, represents a division of power between the executive and legislative, an expression of divided-power, while the presidency itself, a single person elected by majority, is the antithesis of consensus decision making.

One of the most independent central banks… at least until the 90’s.

Central banks are crucial policy-making institutions, particularly when they are strong and independent. Having a strong and independent central bank is an important aspect of the divided-power approach to building a consensus democracy (recall that an independent central bank is one of the five divided-power institutions enumerated above).
The most important duty of central banks is making monetary policy – the regulation of interest rates and the supply of money, which in turn has effects on price stability, inflation, unemployment, economic growth, and the business cycle.
According to the Cukierman Index of Independence, central banks are at their most independent when they have exclusive jurisdiction over monetary policy and their only or primary task is to maintain price stability. Central banks may be less strong when they have multiple, possibly conflicting goals, such as both price stability and full employment. Other important aspects of bank independence are the independence of the bank’s governor from the executive, and when the bank is in full control of the terms of lending to the central government.
Until around 1994, central bank independence was strongly correlated with federalism, another important divided-power institution, and the five central banks with the greatest independence were all federal systems: Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Austria, and Canada. As you can see in this table (continued here), these five banks reigned supreme as the most independent central banks in the world for 50 years, from 1945 to 1994.
After 1994, many European central banks became remarkably more independent as a condition for participating in the euro, per the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, for example the Spanish, French, and Italian central banks which all increased by approximately .5 on the Cukierman Index in 1994, easily surpassing the United States. The establishment of the European Central Bank in 1998 and the adoption of the euro transformed the central bank for those countries into an element of the international system. After that, the correlation between federalism and central bank independence shrank considerably, as the central bank was no longer a domestic institution, following the same divided-power approach as the rest of the domestic government.
The United States, in contrast, has remained completely static from 1945 until the present day, with a Cukierman Index of .56, putting it in 17th place among Lijphart’s 36 major democracies as of 2010. It’s beyond the scope of Lijphart’s book, and my own expertise, to say whether this has had any effect on economic growth or the ability of the Federal Reserve to maintain price stability, compared to EU countries.

Categorizing democracies using joint-power and divided-power

I want to talk about how majoritarian and consensus democracies perform in practice in the next section, but first, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention what Liphart describes as “one of the most important general findings of this book”, which is that the five variables representing divided-power tend to be clustered with one another, and also the five variables representing joint-power tend to be clustered with one another.
For example, democracies which are federalist also tend to have bicameralism, constitutional rigidity, judicial review, and central bank independence (that last one only prior to 1994), all examples of divided-power institutions. Likewise, democracies with a lower percentage of minimal winning one-party cabinets also tend to have more political parties, less executive dominance, more proportional election systems, and greater interest group pluralism, all important divided-power institutions. Take a look at this factor analysis for a more precise picture. The numbers may be thought of as the correlation coefficient between the variable and factor 1 and 2, which represent joint-power and divided-power, respectively.
Meanwhile, between the two approaches, joint-power and divided-power, there is very little correlation, for example federalism is not well correlated with the number of political parties. The United States is a perfect example of mixing the two approaches, as it closely adheres to the divided-power approach, while rejecting joint-power. These correlations are of immense interest to comparative political scientists, because it represents a useful way to categorize democracies along two dimensions.
How is it that democracies end up embracing either of the two approaches? Taking another look at the conceptual map, one of the most striking patterns is that countries on the right side, the non-joint-power side, tend to be former British colonies, with some exceptions such as Argentina, Costa Rica, Greece, Spain, South Korea, and France. As Lijphart notes: “France is an especially interesting exceptional case: in view of French president de Gaulle’s deeply felt and frequently expressed antagonism towards les anglo-saxons, it is ironic that the republic he created is the most Anglo-Saxon of any of the continental European democracies.” The left side of the map, in contrast, includes most of the continental European democracies, and all five of the Nordic countries, which have a common Scandinavian cultural heritage of consensus decision making and arbitration.
There are some exceptions on the left side as well (the joint-power side): Ireland, India, Israel, and Mauritius all were formerly under British colonial rule, the difference is that these are highly plural societies, where majoritarianism and its associated non-joint-power approach just do not work well in practice, often leading to sectarian violence, as I explained in the first post.
What about the divided-power approach, signified by the bottom of the conceptual map? As explained earlier in this post, the size of the country (both in terms of population and geographic size), as well as diversity, are significantly correlated with the divided-power approach. In other words, the countries embracing divided-power tend to be larger and more diverse.

Wrapping up: majoritarian vs. consensus democracy

So how do majoritarian and consensus democracies stack up in practice? The conventional wisdom is that majoritarian democracies are less representative of the population, but are more decisive, and therefore better at governing effectively. Lijphart argues that faster decisions are not always wiser decisions, in fact the opposite is often true, and policies that are supported by broad consensus are more likely to be successfully implemented. He also observes that non-joint-power democracies like the United States have the disadvantage of frequently flip-flopping between contrasting policies whenever government control changes hands from one party to the other.
Lijphart runs a regression on 17 indicators of government performance, such as government effectiveness, rule of law, and control of corruption, and finds that the joint-power approach is favorably correlated to a statistically significant degree with 9 out of 17 of them, while non-joint-power is only correlated with economic growth, but not to a statistically significant degree. In general, all of the correlations with economic variables are weak, such as with unemployment, budget balance, and economic freedom. Divided-power, meanwhile, has such weak correlations with all of the government performance variables that no firm conclusions can be drawn.
Lijphart concludes that while joint-power democracies are not necessarily proven better than majoritarian democracies at all aspects of governing, they are almost certainly not worse, as the conventional wisdom goes, and along many aspects they are significantly better.
One major exception is that when it comes to the control of violence, joint-power is very strongly correlated with a lower degree of violence, an intuitive result considering the discussion in my first post of the incompatibility between majoritarianism and diverse societies, as exemplified by Northern Ireland.

Consensus democracy: the “kinder, gentler” democracy

Consensus democracies may not always be superior decision makers, but Lijphart is able to draw other conclusions on the tendencies of joint-power democracies, but not so much on divided-power. He finds that joint-power democracies are more likely to be welfare states, have a better record of protecting the environment, put fewer people in prison and are less likely to have the death penalty, and are more generous with economic assistance to developing nations.
When it comes to putting people in prison, the United States is such an extreme outlier among other democracies that Lijphart found it necessary to remove it from the analysis, but still, the effect of joint-power on incarceration rates was strongly negative and statistically significant. The USA has 743 prisoners per hundred thousand people, twice as many as the next democracy in Lijphart’s analysis, the Bahamas. Even extending the analysis to non-democracies, the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with either Russia or China in second place, depending on the survey.
When it comes to government effectiveness and “kinder, gentler” policies in general, the problem with all of these correlations, as Lijphart points out, is that culture may be a confounding variable, and “consensus democracy may not be able to take root and thrive unless it is supported by a consensual political culture.” But he offers hope that the cause-and-effect may go both ways: consensual democratic institutions may have the effect of making an adversarial political culture more consensual. Switzerland and Austria have not always had a consensual culture, their histories being marked by violent strife, while today Belgium, India, and Israel have adversarial cultures and consensual institutions. One hopes that over time those country’s institutions will have a positive effect on their contentious political cultures.

Where does the United States go from here?

The bad news is that the United States is probably not going to change one bit along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions. Some few countries have made a move towards federalism over time, and even more rarely a handful of countries such as New Zealand have moved towards proportional representation and a joint-power approach, but in general all democracies have been extremely stable along the joint-power and divided-power dimensions from 1945 to 2010, especially the United States, with its exceptionally rigid constitution. The bottom line: if you’re an American looking for a relatively “kinder, gentler” democracy with more proportional political representation, your best bet is to pack your bags.
However, if you are ever in the extraordinary position of framing a new constitution or amending one, my advice is to learn from our experience and the experience of other democracies around the world: avoid presidentialism like the plague, embrace the parliamentary system, and adopt a proportional electoral system. This advice is doubly important for highly diverse societies, where majoritarianism (particularly of the non-joint-power variety) frequently leads to violence.

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
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Transition

After weeks of delay, General Services Administration (GSA) chief Emily Murphy authorized the start of the presidential transition. However, in a letter to Biden, Murphy does not address him as “president-elect” and does not explicitly express “ascertainment” that Biden and Harris won the election. Instead, Murphy skips over that standard part of all transition approvals, under the Presidential Transition Act (compare to the GSA letter to President-elect Obama). It is unclear if this will have any practical effects on the transition.
In a pair of tweets, Trump acknowledged the transition has begun - probably the closest he’ll come to “conceding.” Trump also referenced the “thousands of threats” Murphy says she received in her letter to Biden (which was an odd thing to include in an ascertainment letter):

I want to thank Emily Murphy at GSA for her steadfast dedication and loyalty to our Country. She has been harassed, threatened, and abused – and I do not want to see this happen to her, her family, or employees of GSA. Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up the good… ...fight, and I believe we will prevail! Nevertheless, in the best interest of our Country, I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done with regard to initial protocols, and have told my team to do the same.

Shortly before Muphy’s decision, the statewide canvassing board in Michigan voted 3 to 0 to approve the election results, with one Republican abstaining, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected five Trump campaign lawsuits seeking to invalidate ballots.
The New York Times reports that top aides to Trump spoke to him following these losses, telling him it was time to move on:

But in conversations in recent days that intensified Monday morning, top aides — including Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel; and Jay Sekulow, the president’s personal lawyer — told the president the transition needed to begin. He did not need to say the word “concede,” they told him...

Nominees and Appointees

The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by a 47–50 vote. With Sens. Grassley and Rick Scott contracting Covid-19, Romney and Collins voting against her nomination, and Harris returning to vote, Shelton’s confirmation was doomed. McConnell switched his vote to opposing in order to keep the option open to bring her nomination to the floor in the future.

• Even some Republicans admit that Shelton is not fit to work at the world’s most powerful central bank. Her nomination has been condemned by hundreds of economists and Fed alumni, including prominent Republicans and at least seven Nobel laureates.

Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer accused of serious ethical misconduct in the Ukraine scandal, has been picked by Trump to be senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council (NSC). “Acting on orders from top NSC lawyer John Eisenberg — Ellis told officials in the NSC’s executive secretariat to move the transcript of Trump’s now infamous July 25 call with the Ukrainian president to a more highly classified server, according to testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.”

• Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the armed services committee, have written to the inspector general of the Defense Department demanding an investigation into Ellis’ installation.

Since losing his reelection bid earlier this month, President Donald Trump has appointed three men with well-documented white nationalist ties to government roles:

• Darren Beattie was a White House speechwriter fired in 2018 after it was revealed that he spoke at a white nationalist conference; 10 days ago, Trump appointed him to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, whose duties include commemorating the Holocaust.
  
• Trump appointed Jason Richwine — a policy analyst pushed out of a conservative think tank for writing that Mexican and other Latino immigrants have lower IQs than white people — to a senior position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
  
• Corey Stewart, who moved to Virginia from Minnesota to run a series of losing political campaigns premised around his fetish for Confederate history, has also been hired by the Department of Commerce as the “principal deputy assistant secretary for export administration.”
  

Trump’s nominee to become the next assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Capt. Scott O’Grady, killed two elephants during a 2014 hunting trip in Zimbabwe. He paid $75,000 to hunt the animals, which he said was the “fulfillment of a life-long dream.”
Trey Trainor, head of the Federal Election Commission, has been spreading the same election conspiracy theories as Trump and his legal team. “I do believe that there is voter fraud taking place” in key states in the 2020 presidential election, Trainor told Newsmax last week. “If she says there is rampant voter fraud... I believe her,” Trainor wrote of Trump-associated lawyer Sidney Powell.

Congress

Last week, the Senate Homeland Security Committee held a hearing focusing on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) invited three doctors who have pushed hydroxychloroquine to testify about the (unproven) benefits of the drug and attack the integrity of the medical community, suggesting scientists were part of some “deep state” conspiracy (clip). Over the summer, the FDA determined hydroxychloroquine was not effective and could cause serious side effects.

Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said hydroxychloroquine isn't being recommended for good reason; it is ineffective and potentially dangerous. "The idea that scientists are discouraging the use of (hydroxychloroquine) because it’s cheap is about as crazy as the President’s contention that the number of COVID-19 cases is being inflated because doctors make more money by doing so," Avorn said.
"We need to base policy on reality rather than on crazy conspiracy theories, whether it’s about the pandemic or elections...What [Sen. Johnson] is doing is outrageous," Carome said.

A watchdog group has filed an SEC complaint against Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) for alleged insider trading. Shortly before Senator Perdue was appointed as chair of a powerful Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the U.S. Navy, he began buying up stock in a company that made submarine parts. And once he began work on a bill that ultimately directed additional Navy funding for one of the firm’s specialized products, Perdue sold off the stock, earning him tens of thousands of dollars in profits.
Last year, Sen. Perdue privately pushed Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to give wealthy sports owners a lucrative tax break last year. Why Perdue got interested in an obscure tax regulation, which would impact at most only a small set of the richest Americans, is unclear.
The Georgia Democratic Party and a watchdog group filed ethics complaints against Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) “for blatantly violating Senate Ethics rules to support her campaign.” While on federal property, inside the United States Capitol building, Loeffler solicited campaign donations live on Fox News. It is against the law to campaign in federal buildings.
Sen. Loeffler appears to have omitted a holding company from her federally mandated financial disclosures, which would violate Senate ethics rules and federal law. Furthermore, Loeffler and her husband may also have used a Trump tax-law loophole to write off the $10 million jet purchase entirely. Individuals are not permitted to write off the purchase of a jet; only businesses can do that.

Court cases

D.C. Chief District Judge Beryl Howell ruled against Michael Pack, the head of the agency that runs the Voice of America, preventing him from making personnel decisions and interfering in editorial operations. Since his confirmation in June, Pack fired and suspended top executives, initiated investigations into journalists, and scrapped protections for the newsroom from political interference.
The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to force former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon to testify under oath as part of the agency’s investigation into Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data breach. Before joining Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team, Bannon served as vice president and a board member of Cambridge Analytica, which also did work for the president's campaign.
The Supreme Court agreed to postpone oral arguments in a case concerning grand jury material redacted from former special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russia. The House Judiciary Committee asked for the delay because of Biden’s election and the start of a new Congress
Two Trump judges on the 11th Circuit struck down bans on juvenile gay conversion therapy in South Florida. Britt Grant and Barbara Lagoa ruled that therapists’ free speech rights trump medical consensus about the harms associated with trying to change teenagers’ sexual orientation. Judge Beverly Martin, a Barack Obama appointee, dissented.

DOJ and investigations

FBI agents in New York are reportedly investigating Rudy Giuliani. According to CNN, agents have recently contacted witnesses and asked new questions about Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine and possible connections to Russian intelligence. Some questions focused on the possible origins of emails and documents related to Hunter Biden.
The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into claims that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton abused his office to benefit a wealthy donor. The probe comes after Paxton’s top deputies reported him to the FBI. All eight have since resigned, been put on leave, or been fired, prompting a whistleblower lawsuit.
One week after Barr was nominated to lead the DOJ, a federal criminal probe into one of his former corporate clients was essentially dropped. Barr previously represented Caterpillar Inc, a Fortune 100 company, in a federal criminal investigation for trying to dodge paying taxes. However, after Barr’s nomination, DOJ officials in Washington told the investigative team to take “no further action” in the case.
The White House directed the Justice Department to open an investigation into former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman in apparent retaliation for publishing an unflattering book about the president. The investigation into a seemingly unrelated paperwork dispute led to a lawsuit against Newman.

“This was weaponization of a lawsuit by the White House for retaliation for writing a book — for saying offensive words about Mr. Trump,” said John Phillips, a lawyer for Ms. Manigault Newman.

The Justice Department has scheduled executions for three inmates on federal death row, rushing to carry out the death penalty before Biden takes office. Since July, when it resumed carrying out the death penalty after a 17-year hiatus, the Trump administration has executed seven federal inmates.

The Trumps

Two separate New York State fraud investigations into Trump and his businesses have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump. Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney's office, which is conducting a broad criminal investigation, and the New York attorney general's office, which has a civil inquiry under way, have subpoenaed the Trump Organization seeking records relating to the consulting fees.

The subpoenas were in response to a New York Times investigation into President Donald Trump's tax returns that first disclosed that he took $26 million in write-offs that came from fees he paid to consultants, including an apparent $747,000 fee that the Times said matched a payment disclosed by Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump.

• Following the report, Ivanka Trump took to Twitter to complain about unfair harassment and politically-motivated investigations.

Despite admitting that the transition to Biden’s administration has begun, Trump has continued to send fundraising emails at a blistering pace. In an email sent Monday, Trump’s team solicited contributions to his “Election Defense Fund” - money that will ultimately be used to pay off campaign debts and fund his future activities. A large portion of this money may go towards his own legal defense in the many lawsuits and investigations that await him as a citizen.

Trump is only too aware that he can no longer use the Justice Department as his personal attorneys. He is also likely aware that he can use his campaign money to hire a very expensive legal team...According the Federal Election Commission, "In several advisory opinions the Commission has said that campaign funds may be used to pay for up to 100 percent of legal expenses related to campaign or officeholder activity, where such expenses would not have occurred had the individual not been a candidate or officeholder."

Trump, with top aides and allies, has discussed ways he could cash-in on his role as former president when he leaves the White House. The options he is reportedly considering include a book deal, media appearances, paid corporate speeches, and selling tickets to rallies. Sources told the Washington Post that after leaving office, Trump "wants to remain an omnipresent force in politics and the media," and cement his role as a GOP power broker.
An apartment management company co-owned by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has taken action in court to evict hundreds of tenants. Westminster Management has moved against largely low- and middle-income tenants in the Baltimore area, many of them Black, whose apartments are managed by the company.

Immigration

District Judge Emmet Sullivan (an Obama-appointee) ordered the Trump administration to halt its practice of “expelling” underage migrants who enter the United States without a parent. The order requires the administration to once more process the humanitarian claims of minors who cross the border alone, rather than returning them to Mexico or flying them back to their home countries without due process.
28 children who have been detained in an ICE facility for more than a year could be deported after being denied the opportunity to seek asylum by Trump administration policies. Though federal courts have since struck down the policy, the judges could not intervene in the deportations of thousands of asylum-seekers that had already been scheduled.
New reporting revealed that the White House blocked the Justice Department from making a deal in October 2019 to pay for mental health services for migrant families who had been separated by the Trump administration. The decision was made after consulting with senior adviser Stephen Miller.

https://policyexchange.org.uk/pxevents/on-chinas-relationship-with-the-rest-of-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR2W2jM0CQXW-b5AmRCY9uTq6kPiwLrn7Ygy43Nl7_HnBaRkgUqOsUZEB6k
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCM8szICMpc&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=PolicyExchangeUK
The Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture (I)
The Importance of Being Candid: On China’s Relationship with the Rest of the World
by
Matthew Pottinger
Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States
Matthew Pottinger is Assistant to the President and US Deputy National Security Advisor. Mr. Pottinger served as the Senior Director for Asia since the start of the Trump Administration in January 2017. In that role, Mr. Pottinger advised the President on Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and coordinated U.S. policy for the region.
Before joining the National Security Council staff, Mr. Pottinger ran Asia research at a New York-based investment firm and, prior to that, was the founder of a consultancy serving American investors in East Asia. Mr. Pottinger served as a U.S. Marine, with active duty in Japan and three combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by reserve duty at the Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Prior to military service, Mr. Pottinger lived and worked in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China from 1997-2005, reporting for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. He is fluent in Mandarin.
INTRODUCTION
DEAN GODSON: Good afternoon, my name is Dean Godson, I’m Director of Policy Exchange, I have the privilege, pleasure of being your host for this 9th Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture. As many of you will know and remember, Colin was the much-loved Chief Constable of West Yorkshire at the time of the 7/7 bombings, the last Deputy Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and first Acting Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He was taken from us tragically early by cancer, still remembered with much fondness. We’re delighted that his widow, Lynn, is here with us today online and with other members of the family. I know you will all wish to, on behalf of everyone here, to wish them all the very best and to thank them for continuing to be patrons of this lecture which would have, I know, meant so much to Colin.
As I say, this is the 9th such lecture and our guest of honour today, our keynoter, Matt Pottinger is Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. He was previously a distinguished journalist with the Wall Street Journal and then joined the US Marine Corps and won combat decorations for his service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s one of the leading authorities in the US government on China and that is why uniquely today we are innovating today here at Policy Exchange because as a more than fluent Mandarin speaker, Matt’s address today will be delivered in Mandarin for the sake of audiences across the world and indicating his belief that China is not defined solely by the People’s Republic of China and its representatives, that there is a wider engagement to be had with audiences across the world, Mandarin speaking and others, so good evening to anyone coming in from the Indo Pacific region and China in particular, good morning to all of you in Washington.
Matt, as I say, will make his remarks first in Mandarin and we’ll then open the floor to questions for 35 minutes or so of questions. As I say, we are delighted to be doing this here at Policy Exchange with the importance of this subject of the wider Indo Pacific region and China in particular. We have our own Indo Pacific Commission, chaired by former Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, which will be publishing in the near future its findings and it work. Also, because of the particular importance of this subject and because of the proximity to the US Presidential election, we are having actually two Cramphorn Memorial Lectures in close succession, one obviously the one today by Matt Pottinger and the other next week by Dr Kurt Campbell of the Asia Group, one of the leading authorities on Asia from the last Democratic administration of Barack Obama, of particular significance because people are increasingly aware in this country that in an era of polarisation in America, the area of the Indo Pacific and China is one subject where discussion and even a measure of consensus is still possible in the United States. So, thank you to Matt Pottinger for honouring us in this way, we look forward to hearing your unique address and insights and then open to wider discussion, thank you Matt.
SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION
I’d like to thank Dean Godson and Policy Exchange for inviting me to deliver the ninth annual Colin Cramphorn lecture. We all look forward to a time when we can gather again in person for events like this. With new vaccines and therapeutics on the near horizon, I’m optimistic that day will soon arrive. In the meantime, let’s pretend we’re at the Red Lion pub and enjoy this convivial, trans-Atlantic video conference between Westminster and the White House. I’m betting on a lively discussion following my set remarks.
As most of you know, England and America are two countries separated by a common language. In order to bridge that divide, I’ve decided to give my remarks in Mandarin.
Truth be told, Dean Godson asked me to bust out my Chinese for the sake of higher ratings. Dean knew that a video of an earlier speech I delivered in Mandarin, about China’s May Fourth movement, was viewed more than one million times. Dean may have also known that a subsequent video I recorded in English for the Ronald Reagan Institute was, by contrast, barely noticed by even my own staff.
Naturally, Dean calculated that a white guy speaking in stilted Mandarin would be a bigger box-office draw than whatever message the white guy might be trying to convey.
So be it. As a character on The Simpsons once put it: “Come for the freak, stay for the food.”
Delivering these remarks in Mandarin has another benefit: It allows friends in China to join a conversation that is taking place with increasing regularity around the globe: A conversation about China’s relationship with the rest of the world.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HISTORY
But first, a smidgen of history to underscore what’s at stake.
Near the end of the 18th century, across the water and many miles from England, a group of visionary men drew up a constitution. The document they framed was designed to limit the powers of government, assert the rights of the people, and chart a path toward what they hoped would be a lasting democracy.
I’m talking, of course, about… Poland.
“Poland?” you ask. Don’t be embarrassed if 1790s Poland didn’t turn up in your high-school textbooks. Unlike the more famous U.S. Constitution, which was adopted just a few years earlier and still serves as the supreme law of the American republic, the Polish experiment with constitutional government was strangled in its infancy.
The problem was foreign interference. A faction of the Polish nobility felt threatened by the influence they would lose under the new constitution. So they sought Russian help in reestablishing the old order. Catherine the Great seized the opportunity to invade and then partition Poland—she took the east and Prussia took the west.
Then, after defeating a revolt led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish military hero of the American Revolution, Russia—along with Prussia and Austria—carried out a final partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795. The young Commonwealth was erased from the map altogether.
I mention Poland’s failed experiment for two reasons: First, it’s a reminder that democracy, while unrivaled in terms of legitimacy and results, is neither invincible nor inevitable. Second, interference in the affairs of free societies by autocratic regimes is a phenomenon that is waxing, not waning.
To stave off meddling, it never hurts to have favorable geography—a luxury Poland didn’t enjoy. Poland’s 18th Century neighbors were powerful European monarchies. America’s neighbors, by contrast, were the two best friends a fledgling democracy could ever ask for—the Atlantic and the Pacific.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN THE CYBER AGE
But in the cyber age, autocratic governments can concoct disinformation, inject it into the public discourse of nations, and amplify it through self-improving algorithms from the other side of the earth. Are the blessings of oceans and channels sufficient barriers against this sort of meddling?
Not if the citizens of free and sovereign nations yield to complacency. Nations, including democracies, are undergoing the first stage of a real-life “stress test” of their ability to withstand covert, coercive, and corrupt influence by high-tech autocracies.
This may seem odd, because the autocracies are so vastly outnumbered. But they compensate by marshalling the full resources of their states, by learning from one another’s successes and failures, and sometimes by coordinating with one another.
Economic strength isn’t a prerequisite for waging cyber warfare. Thus, we see hackers tasked by Moscow and Tehran attempting to undermine confidence in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. But no regime has more riding on its ability to influence the perceptions, policies and priorities of foreign populations than the Chinese Communist Party.
THE PARTY’S “MAGIC WEAPON”
In truth, we should’ve expected this. The Communist Party’s victory in the Chinese civil war owed less to its combat prowess against superior Nationalist forces than to its ability to infiltrate and manipulate the language, thinking, and actions of its adversaries. This is why the current Party leadership is redoubling its emphasis on “United Front” work.
The defining feature of United Front work is that it’s not transparent. The clue is in the name.
China’s United Front Work system is a gigantic government function with no analogue in democracies. China’s leaders call it a “magic weapon,” and the Party’s 90 million members are required to support its activities. While the system has many branches, the United Front Work Department alone has four times as many cadres as the U.S. State Department has foreign-service officers. But instead of practicing diplomacy with foreign governments—the Chinese foreign ministry handles that—the United Front gathers intelligence about, and works to influence, private citizens overseas. The focus is on foreign elites and the organizations they run. Think of a United Front worker as a cross between an intelligence collector, a propagandist, and a psychologist.
I know that sounds like the opening line to a joke. But United Front work is serious business, and it affects you and me. After all, the raw material for psychologists is data about their patients. The Party is compiling digital dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world. The exposure last month of a Chinese database on at least 2.4 million people around the world—including many of us on this call—speaks to the Party’s sheer ambition to wed traditional Leninist techniques with powerful new tools of digital surveillance.
The company building these dossiers, Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Information Technology Co, supports what its CEO reportedly calls “psychological warfare.” Zhenhua harvests and organizes public and private data about us for exploitation by its clients, which are organs of the Chinese security apparatus, according to its website.
The dossiers Zhenhua is compiling include people in virtually every country on earth, no matter how small. They include members of royal families and members of parliament, judges and clerks, tech mavens and budding entrepreneurs, four-star admirals and the crewmembers of warships, professors and think-tankers, and national and local officials. They also include children, who are fair game under Beijing’s rules of political warfare. No one is too prominent or too obscure.
Zhenhua isn’t a particularly large or sophisticated actor in the United Front world. It may even be acting opportunistically, because it thinks the Party will reward it. Far more powerful tech firms, including famous Chinese app developers, play a much bigger role in this kind of work.
Assembling dossiers has always been a feature of Leninist regimes. The material is used now, as before, to influence and intimidate, reward and blackmail, flatter and humiliate, divide and conquer. What’s new is how easy we’ve made it for autocrats to accumulate so much intimate data about ourselves—even people who’ve never set foot in China. We leave our intellectual property, our official documents, and our private lives on the table like open books. The smart phones we use all day to chat, search, buy, view, bank, navigate, network, worship and confide make our thoughts and actions as plain to cyber spooks as the plumes of exhaust from a vintage double-decker bus.
The Chinese Communist Party has reorganized its national strategy around harnessing that digital exhaust to expand the Party’s power and reach.
THE PARTY’S GOALS
But what’s the ultimate point of all the data collection and exploitation? What is Beijing trying to influence us to do? The Party’s goal, in short, is to co-opt or bully people—and even nations—into a particular frame of mind that’s conducive to Beijing’s grand ambitions. It’s a paradoxical mindset—a state of cognitive dissonance that is at once credulous and fearful, complacent and defeatist. It’s a mindset that on Monday says “It’s too early to say whether Beijing poses a threat,” and by Friday says “They’re a threat, all right, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.” To be coaxed into such a mindset is to be seduced into submission—like taking the “blue pill” in The Matrix.
How does Beijing do it? This is where United Front propaganda and psychology come into play. The Party’s overseas propaganda has two consistent themes: “We own the future, so make your adjustments now.” And: “We’re just like you, so try not to worry.” Together, these assertions form the elaborate con at the heart of all Leninist movements.
The Kiwi scholar Anne-Marie Brady, a pioneer in sussing out United Front ploys, points to the Party’s global campaigns—“One Belt, One Road” and the “Community of Common Destiny for Mankind”—as classic specimens of the genre.
Brady calls United Front work a “tool to corrode and corrupt our political system, to weaken and divide us against each other, to erode the critical voice of our media, and turn our elites into clients of the Chinese Communist Party, their mouths stuffed with cash.”
The con doesn’t always work, of course. Facts sometimes get in the way. The profound waste and corruption of many One Belt, One Road projects is an example. When the con doesn’t induce acquiescence, the Party often resorts to intimidation and repression.
Take Hong Kong, where demonstrators took to the streets by the millions last year to protest Beijing’s efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s rule of law. If “socialism with Chinese characteristics” was the future, the demonstrators seemed to prefer staying firmly in the present.
So Beijing resorted to Plan B. It demolished Deng Xiaoping’s “One Country, Two Systems” framework and deprived Hong Kong of the autonomy that made it the most spectacular city in Asia.
HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES
None of this is reason for panic, mind you. It’s true the West is going through one of its periodic spells of self-doubt, when extreme political creeds surface on the left and the right, and some ideas are so foolish that, to paraphrase George Orwell, only an intellectual could believe them. So let’s pull up our socks and get back to common sense.
On the foreign policy front, President Trump has ingrained two principles worth sharing here, because they’re designed to preserve our sovereignty, promote stability, and reduce miscalculation. They are reciprocity and candor.
Reciprocity is the straightforward idea that when a country injures your interests, you return the favor. It is eminently reasonable and readily understood, including by would-be aggressors. It’s an inherently defensive approach, rooted in notions of fair play and deterrence.
Candor is the idea that democracies are safest when we speak honestly and publicly about and to our friends, our adversaries, and ourselves. This can take some getting used to. When President Reagan was preparing to give a speech in Berlin, several of his staff tried desperately to get him to remove a phrase they found embarrassing and needlessly provocative. Luckily, President Reagan went with his gut, and delivered the most famous line of his presidency: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Some will argue that confrontational rhetoric turns countries into enemies. This old chestnut of the U.S. diplomatic corps masquerades as humble policy, but is in fact quite arrogant because it presumes nations act primarily in reaction to whatever the United States says or does.
Clever adversaries use such thinking against us. By portraying truth-telling as an act of belligerence, autocrats try to badger democracies into silence—and often succeed. “This is the first and most important defeat free nations can ever suffer,” President Reagan said at Guildhall. “When free peoples cease telling the truth about and to their adversaries, they cease telling the truth to themselves.” Public candor actually promotes peace by reducing the space for strategic blunders.
Public candor applies to our internal affairs, too. There can be no double standard.
When Louis Armstrong performed in the Soviet Union as a cultural ambassador of the State Department, he spoke frankly about racial bigotry in the United States. When Reagan famously referred to the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire,” he explored America’s own “legacy of evil”—including anti-Semitism and slavery—in the very same speech.
XINJIANG
So it is in a spirit of friendship, reflection, and, yes, candor, that I ask friends in China to research the truth about your government’s policies toward the Uyghur people and other religious minorities. Ask yourselves why the editors of The Economist, in a cover article this week, called those policies “a crime against humanity” and “the most extensive violation in the world today of the principle that individuals have a right to liberty and dignity simply because they are people.”
As a Marine who spent three combat deployments fighting terrorists, I can tell you that what is taking place in Xinjiang bears no resemblance whatsoever to an ethical counter-terrorism strategy. Such abuses are what the Chinese diplomat P.C. Chang was trying to prevent when he helped draft the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is no credible justification I can find in Chinese philosophy, religion, or moral law for the concentration camps inside your borders.
WHAT EVIL FEARS MOST
Colin Cramphorn, for whom this lecture is named, was Chief Constable of West Yorkshire before his death from cancer in 2006. Colin worked the most notorious terrorism cases in British history, from the Omagh car-bombing to the London suicide attacks of 2005. When your day job is to confront evil, it’s hard to avoid dwelling at night on big questions about the human heart. Colin, a voracious and varied reader, sometimes consulted the writings of C.S. Lewis.
I’m told he found particular solace in The Screwtape Letters—Lewis’s brilliantly imagined monologue of a demon toiling in Satan’s bureaucracy. (John Cleese recorded a pitch-perfect rendition of the book a few decades ago, by the way. It’s on YouTube. I’m told Andy Serkis has recorded a version that gives Cleese a run for his money.)
“The safest road to Hell,” old Screwtape advises his nephew, “is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
I suspect Colin drew hope and courage from the knowledge that evil, properly identified and exposed, is frail—even farcical. And that calling it out in public—giving it “signposts”—inoculates us against temptation and liberates us from fear. As my friend Tony Dolan told me: “The great paradox of institutionalized evil is that it can be enormously powerful but also enormously fragile. Thus, it is compulsively aggressive and ultimately self-destructive. It senses its own moral absurdity. It knows it is a raft on a sea of ontological good.”
“What evil fears most is the publicly spoken truth.”
So speak up, everyone. And raise a glass tonight to the good constable Colin Cramphorn and to like-minded public servants the world over. They have our love and our thanks.
QUESTION AND ANSWER
DEAN GODSON: Matt, thank you for a truly brilliant and memorable address. You have now very kindly agreed to answer questions. Just two items of protocol here, please put your virtual hands up and please also look into the camera when you’re speaking because of the exigencies of the virtual event. The final house rule that all of you will be aware of, no question too outrageous, you just have to state your name and organisation before pronouncing. David Brunston, if you can just restate for the record your name and organisation, you wanted to ask a question. David, we can’t hear you. A number of people have been texting in to me, some of them wanted to be asked anonymously, Matt, so if I can use Chairman’s privilege to ask on their behalf. A little more detail, is the strategy, the CCP strategy of wolf diplomacy, is it too far gone now? Could you say more in a bit more detail, they ask, what in your view, the US administration’s perspective, the counter measures should be?
MATT POTTINGER: Dean, thanks so much. You know, I think in a way the wolf warrior diplomacy is an expression of a moment of a kind of desperate opportunism. In a sense, I think as many countries have caught on to the scope of Beijing’s ambitions and have started to push back where they think or the community of nations think they go too far or are damaging to countries sovereignty or interests. I think the process of pushing back has led to a bit of a dropping of the fig leaf, if you will, and this more combative approach to diplomacy, it’s a more coercive approach to diplomacy so I think that what all countries need to do – and this is for the sake of stability by the way, this is in the interest of re-establishing a kind of equilibrium and more constructive, results-oriented relationship between China and the community of nations. I think the two ideas that I talked about in the speech and that are central to President Trump’s approach, the reciprocity but also the candour, will help go quite some way in restoring that balance.
DEAN GODSON: Brilliant, thank you and I’ve been asked to ask the question on behalf of David Brunston of Reuters and the question he wants to ask is how would you expect US policy under a second Trump administration to evolve and how it would differ from a policy that the Biden administration might pursue?
MATT POTTINGER: Yes, so people advising Vice President Biden talk about what he thinks a good policy would be but in terms of President Trump’s approach, I think first you have to take stock of the fact that there is a new consensus and the forging of that new consensus about China is something that has happened under President Trump’s watch, it is in no small part because of the policies that he’s taken and the result has been that it has actually, as you alluded to in the introductory remarks, Dean, it’s a bipartisan, it’s a whole of society consensus and as you read polls popping up all over the world, you see that it’s not just an American consensus anymore either. We’ve led that consensus, that’s been President Trump’s hallmark, probably the most key legacy and shift in American foreign policy in quite some time but there are a lot of other countries that are now starting to, at a minimum, share a very similar consensus on the diagnosis of what the problem is and increasingly, a lot of countries, our European allies, allies across the Indo Pacific region and beyond, who are exploring and in some cases taking similar steps to those that President Trump has advocated for.
DEAN GODSON: Thank you. The next question is from the Right Honourable Lord Mandelson, former Deputy Prime Minister and European Commissioner. Peter, your question if you can come in.
PETER MANDELSON: Dean, thank you very much indeed and I hope you can hear me.
DEAN GODSON: Loud and clear.
RT HON LORD MANDELSON: I have been rather impressed by Matt Pottinger’s lecture and I find myself actually a supporter of both reciprocity and candour and as somebody who, when I was Trade Commissioner, was equally accused of using confrontational rhetoric towards China when I described them as a trade juggernaut out of control, I can see its usefulness. Can I ask though this question to Mr Pottinger? For China in a sense to lose, the West has to win and the West has not been winning during the last four years. With humility and self-criticism, could Mr Pottinger explain to us why he thinks the West has not been strengthened in its coherence and its unity during the last four years and why we have been less able to act in a joined-up way towards China and other international questions than we have during other periods since the Second World War?
DEAN GODSON: Thank you. Matt.
MATT POTTINGER: Thank you, that’s a great question and a great thoughtful prelude to the question as well, thank you. Look, President Trump came in following what I believe and certainly the people who elected him believed was a lengthy period of failure in American foreign policy and really more of a failure of broader foreign policy in the West. We got in lengthy wars under sort of a I think a misimpression that we would be able to inject democracy into far corners of the earth by the barrel of a gun, those have been enormously costly. Those are things that really have done damage, I think, to the West.
China’s entry into the WTO and all of the policies, really the assumptions that led to that and I shared those assumptions 20 years ago so I don’t blame or cast aspersions for what was actually very optimistic bold policy taken by the United States and the West to try to help China become more liberal, first economically and then we hoped politically as well but I think we’ve now taken stock of the fact that some of those assumptions were generous but misplaced. In fact, really the high watermark of China’s opening and liberalisation was December 11th 2001, which I think was the date China entered the WTO. After that, all of those reforms that we so eagerly anticipated by bringing China into the WTO, actually flatlined, things started to plateau for about a decade and over the course of the decade that we’ve just concluded, we saw those reforms go into reverse.
We’ve seen a far greater concentration of power in the hands of the state over the economy, over people’s lives and what we’ve learned is that optimistic period, the reform and opening period if you like, was unfortunately an interregnum, it was an interregnum between the totalitarianism of Mao’s rule and a new technologically enhanced totalitarianism under the current leadership and I’ve heard some refer to it as an attempt at so-called exquisite totalitarianism. I think that that’s a good encapsulation of what has now being attempted, this experiment that Beijing is running to see whether or not it can improve on the failed approach of all the other Leninist states of the 20th century by compensating for the failures of those systems through advanced technology and totalitarian surveillance. So, in short, I think this period that you’re referring to that you characterise as a sort of insufficient pulling together of the West, you’ve got to have a little bit of historical perspective that we’re going through a massive change from the post-Cold War era of the last few decades to a new one that takes stock of some of the failures of the last 30 years. Thanks.
DEAN GODSON: Brilliant, thank you. Next, Deborah Haynes, Foreign Editor, Sky News. Deborah, are you coming in?
DEBORAH HAYNES: Hopefully. Hi, thank you very much, thank you for letting me ask a question and thank you for that fascinating presentation. In terms of how you were describing how the United Front is implementing China’s policies, is what we’re seeing now, given that China is this rising power, a kind of a global battle over ideologies? I mean there’s no rule book that says that China has to adopt the rules based system and carry on using it if it’s the predominant power and if that’s the case, could you just spell out what the danger is if liberal democracies, who are far more fractured now than they have been, if they don’t stand together and stand up for the ideologies of free speech and human rights and all the things that we believe in, that we will see this big global division between those who side with China technologically and ideologically, and those who side with the West, much more than we’ve ever seen before?
MATT POTTINGER: That’s also a great question. So, American foreign policy has had this element, this tradition of realpolitik which, you know, there are nations that calculate on the basis of their own cold self-interest and also running in our veins is this tradition of our own revolutionary liberal democratic world view. They run in our veins like iced water and hot water and hopefully they remain in good enough balance that your blood stays at a good temperature. But you’ve hit on something, the truth is that you cannot ignore the ideological dimensions and ideology is just a fancy word for world view, right. We do have a markedly different world view from the Chinese Communist Party, a different approach to the world, different ideas about quite a lot and that’s not true of China as a whole. The Chinese Communist Party is firmly in command of China, obviously, but China is a lot of things. It is a pretty remarkable civilisation that I have devoted a huge part of my adult life to living in and studying and enjoying and I still do; the history, the culture and the unbelievable drive and energy and entrepreneurialism of the Chinese people. But that ideological dimension is unavoidable and if we try to ignore it, if we try to pretend that it’s only a matter of cold self-interest on both sides, that it’s a Thucydides trap as some like to frame it, I think we’d actually put ourselves on a path towards a more destabilised future than if we were to talk quite frankly to ourselves, our allies and yes, to our adversaries about those differences so that we can avoid miscalculation.
DEAN GODSON: Thank you, Matt. Next question from Alexander Downer, our Chairman of Trustees here at Policy Exchange and, of course, the longest serving Australian Foreign Minister in the country’s history and High Commissioner in London. Alexander.
HON ALEXANDER DOWNER AC: Thanks Dean, I hope you can hear me. I think, speaking as an Australian, it has to be said that we Australians had a fairly solid although not tension-free relationship with China for many years under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao and Australians have been really taken aback by the aggression in recent years of the Xi Jinping administration so my question is a little bit like Peter Mandelson’s, if there’s a second Trump administration what specific steps will the United States be taking to help countries like Australia which have been targeted by China, particularly Australian trade has been targeted by China, to help build a sense of collective security amongst liberal democracies in the Indo-Pacific region.
MATT POTTINGER: Yes, that’s a great remark that you made and Australia has been in some sense the canary in the coal mine. Australia – by the way, when people claim that provocative and frank, candid language is what causes China to act out in this sort of wolf warrior way, I always point to Australia as well as India as the counter examples there because India and Australia are two countries that had, really went out of their way to extend warmth to China in their people to people and commercial ties. These were countries that did seek to integrate their economies certainly, especially in the case of Australia and yet, when the Australian government just earlier this year had the temerity to ask the World Health Organisation whether there could be a general investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, China retaliated for that wholly reasonable request that Australia made. By the way, the World Health Organisation members voted in the largest majority in the organisation’s history in favour of the motion that Australia raised to investigate the origins, how is it that millions of us now have been infected with this disease? China retaliated by putting tariffs on Australian barley, cancelling beef exports and describing … their arch-propagandist said that Australia is chewing gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe and it is time to scrape it off. So, there you have a pretty good counter-argument to the notion that by being extra-friendly to China and hiding some of our candour, that that would lead to a happier bilateral relationship doesn’t stand up.

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IRISH INDEPENDENT

August 31st, 2024
POLITICS | ART & ENTERTAINMENT | SP̴̯̄O̷̲̊Ȓ̷̻TS̴̫͝ | F̵̨́͋̾̏Ơ̶̛̠͓̘̓͆̀ͅŎ̷͔̞̲̹̂͝ͅD̷̗̾̔̽͂ | BUSINESS | TECHNOLOGY

Sociologists Predicting Large Shift in Irish Demographics and Politics

By Feliks Murray
Ireland has nearly always been a nation of distinct identities. As philosophical and sociological ideas of the nation-state began to take shape in Europe, Ireland lagged behind its neighbour nations (itself being part of the British Empire until the 20th century), and, as such, many of the issues that remain in Ireland today are issues that many European, and indeed world, nations have dealt with for centuries, the largest and most looming being the question of Northern Ireland. Irish nationalism was late to the party, only really getting going during the Republic's initial independence in the early 20th century, and flaring up once again around 50 years later during the Troubles.
Ireland, as a nation, formed primarily around ethnic Irishmen, relating more to the Gaels and Celts of places such as Scotland or Wales, as well as its distinct Catholic population, ever at odds with the Protestant Anglicans. A significant portion of the Republic remains Catholic, nominally, today, with more than 3/4ths of the population stating themselves as Catholic in the latest census. This, however, has been dropping, not dissimilar to many other European nations.
This analysis has brought some sociologists to predict that, in the next few decades, Ireland (the Republic for certain, but the Isle as a whole is not an unlikely possibility) will follow the trend of historical nations and shed the identity-politic-driven, nationalistic ideas prevalent in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. "While efforts to revive Irish culture might not be affected, traditional Irish identities will be dropped", says Dr. Leary McDermott (doctorates in sociology, political science, anthropology, and history), "leading to less of the issues surrounding such items." Dr. McDermott states in his viral treatise, The Once and Future Isle, that the loss of the fervent clinging to items such as Catholic zeal will likely soothe the differences across the border with Northern Ireland.
While many on social media have claimed this as a sign that Reunification may be on the horizon, Dr. McDermott stated on his Twitter page just yesterday that while an easing of religious zeal on the part of the Republic might soothe the tension still present on the Ireland-UK border, "standing political agendas and external affairs will likely hinder such attempts". Nevertheless, McDermott's statements have opened a broader internet discussion revolving around the "Irish identity".

Lost McAlbain Crew Returns After Year-Long Disappearance

By Nioclás Tash
After over a year missing, an "exploratory crew", headed by Oisín McAlbain, son of alleged organized crime boss Darragh McAlbain, has appeared once again in Galway. While initially the entire affair made a minor blip in the general media scene, it made waves in the following days after Oisín began to speak of the expedition. According to Mr. McAlbain, the crew sailed west out of Galway, searching for a piece of land Oisín had beached on a year prior after being blown out to sea by a storm. After half a day's trip out west, they encountered the same storm, which caused one of the two vessels the "expedition" had, the St. Brendan to capsize after their second ship, the Green Whale, rammed into it due to low visibility.
McAlbain goes on to claim that once the St. Brendan had been evacuated and all crew moved to the Green Whale, the entire crew was knocked unconscious. McAlbain then claims that the Green Whale was set upon by lights, "almost like ten million fireflies, each of different colours, like reds and greens and pinks and purples", which put the rest of the crew to sleep. Upon waking, the crew found themselves on a sandy shore, completely uninhabited. After a few days' exploration, they claim to have found no evidence of it ever being inhabited. Oisín stated that he had encountered a strange man there during his first trip, but saw no sign of him on the second go-around.
While the full release is much longer, much of it including frankly ridiculous fantasies, including every cliché in the book, from mysterious dreams to bone-chilling howls in the night. Many experts have weighed in, forming a general consensus that the crew likely was blown back east, and landed in Scotland, a claim that the crew vehemently denies. Regardless of truth, the tale is certainly entertaining.

[CONTENT WARNING] A Second Horrific Murder Leaves Garda Síochána Baffled

By Samuel Smokes
Following the grisly murder a few years back, many people searched for answers, but neither civilian nor professional efforts were able to find who had committed such as a heinous crime. They were left wanting, and many residents of Cork were scared for their lives as they feared they would be the killer's next target.
Horror would strike again, as it turns out, but this time in the east, as a body was found in Dublin, matching the grotesque nature of the first death. While no photos have been released or leaked, Independent sources within the Garda Síochána have provided a brief description of the scene. Readers are advised that the description is horrific, and should not be read by those with low constitutions weak stomachs.
While these descriptions remain officially unconfirmed, trusted sources state that the dead is an Irish young male, found on the floor of his apartment in a pool of blood. According the source, the body appeared dysmorphic, stretching and blobbing in strange places. An autopsy of the body was performed, and the coroner discovered that the man's skeleton was somehow, without ever breaking the skin, flipped all the way around. This resulted in the feet of the skeleton being inside the man's skull, while the skull was split (almost perfectly) in half, with each half inside the "legs" of the skin. Doctors are completely baffled.
Officers are baffled, as well. According to the source, no current leads exist, as with the Cork murder. It is being added to a growing case at the situation unfolds, the Independent will continue to report as everything is brought to light.
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