Military Budget For 2024 To Close In On $1 Trillion Mark

The White House is asking Congress for a whopping $886.4 billion military budget for the fiscal year 2024, with $842 billion of it going to the Pentagon. The rest would go toward other federal agencies’ military spending, including the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program.

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act will likely be much higher than the White House request as Congress added tens of billions to the previous two military budgets. For 2023, President Biden requested $813 billion, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized NDAA to $858 billion.

Congress could easily bring the 2024 NDAA to over $900 billion, closing in on the $1 trillion mark. The NDAAs don’t include the funds authorized for the Ukraine war, which could add another $100 billion if the US keeps spending on the conflict at the same pace.

In a statement on the request, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the funds were needed to confront China, which the Pentagon has identified as its top priority.

"The President’s budget request provides the resources necessary to address the pacing challenge from the People’s Republic of China, address advanced and persistent threats, accelerate innovation and modernization, and ensure operational resiliency amidst our changing climate," Austin, a former Raytheon board member, said in a statement.

According to Responsible Statecraft, more than half of the budget will likely go to defense contractors, with Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon getting the biggest chunk.

The budget includes $170 billion for weapons procurement and $145 billion for the research and development of new arms. "We may be looking at $1 trillion in defense spending for the first time ever—this is madness," Responsible Statecraft writes.

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/military-budget-2024-could-close-1-trillion-mark

Saudis Want "Civilian Nuclear Program" In Exchange For Normalization With Israel

Saudi Arabia has asked the US for help with developing a "civilian nuclear program" and for fewer restrictions on arms purchases in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel, the New York Times reports.

Normalization between Tel Aviv and Riyadh would fulfill several goals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chief among them "downgrading the relative importance of the Palestinian issue," analysts told the NYT. "I certainly believe that the peace agreement between us and the Saudis will lead to an agreement with the Palestinians," Netanyahu told Italian daily La Repubblica on 9 March.

Such a deal would also be the most significant step yet towards fulfilling Netanyahu’s promise to expand on the Trump-era Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

While Saudi Arabia has yet to sign the normalization agreement officially – citing its ‘concern’ for the mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories – the country has already opened its airspace to Israeli flights and has hosted Israeli business people and officials over the past few years.

Nonetheless, questions remain about the viability of the kingdom’s latest demands due to the frosty relationship between Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and US President Joe Biden. US officials are reportedly also wary of Riyadh’s nuclear aspirations, as this could be the first step towards developing nuclear weapons.

Moreover, even if a backroom deal is reached, the NYT claims Biden is likely to face pushback from congress, as over the past year, several lawmakers have pressed the White House to downgrade relations with Saudi Arabia. "Our relationship with Saudi Arabia has to be a direct bilateral relationship… It should not run through Israel," Senator Christopher S. Murphy told the NYT.

"The Saudis have been consistently behaving badly, over and over," he added before saying that selling more weapons to the kingdom should come "in exchange for better behavior toward the United States, not just better behavior toward Israel."

The decades-long relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia took a dramatic plunge last year following the start of the war in Ukraine, as the kingdom, alongside a large majority of countries worldwide, refused to cut ties with Russia.

https://thecradle.co/article-view/22392/saudi-arabia-sets-conditions-for-normalization-with-israel-report

Secretive 'Wearable Camera' Startup With Ex-Apple Execs Secures $100 Million, Partners With OpenAI

WSJ reports that a new investment round of $100 million has been secured by a secretive startup called Humane Inc., founded by ex-Apple executives, along with a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Although the startup's device is shrouded in mystery, it seems to be developing a wearable camera powered by artificial intelligence.

According to data pulled from Crunchbase, a Series C round of $100 million was raised on March 8. It attracted a long list of top investors, including Kindred Ventures (which led the round), SK Networks, LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, Tiger Global, Qualcomm Ventures, and OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman.

"This Series C round presented an opportunity to raise money through equity, and to bring on board great VCs and strategic partners who would like to participate in equity as the company grows," founder Chaudhri Bongiorno told TechCrunch in an email interview.

"At Humane, we're building a first-of-its-kind device and services platform — we're growing fast, and we've been focused on innovation, research and development," he said.

According to The Verge, the startup is developing a wearable camera device that would allow the user to have access to AI technology at all times. It sounds like this is ChatGPT on steroids…

A leaked investor pitch deck from 2021 revealed by tech blog Daring Fireball describes the device as a camera that "captures moments you didn't think to capture" or "moments you want to recall."

The slide deck continues: The AI software with the wearable camera will be able to create compositions of images and videos captured by the device in different styles like a documentary, candid, landscape, lifestyle, photojournalism, filmmaking, and sports.

The deck also said: "You can mark them [the photos and videos] by tapping record, and those moments will be cued to be processed on the server so you can recall them in different styles, either as images or videos."

Users could have the ability to ask the device questions about their surroundings, such as "What is the name of that building?" or "What type of car is that?"

Other features include "Memory recall," "Senior monitoring," and even "Personal live broadcasting."

The arrival of AI-powered wearable technologies has raised concerns regarding privacy issues, given the nature of these intelligent devices that constantly monitor our daily lives.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/secretive-wearable-camera-startup-ex-apple-execs-secures-100-million-partners-openai

Nearly 200,000 People in Thailand Hospitalized Because of Air Pollution

Nearly 200,000 people in Thailand have been admitted to hospitals with pollution-related respiratory illness in the past week as heavy smog covered vast areas of the country, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

The ministry revealed that more than 1.3 million people in Thailand have fallen sick since January due to the country’s dangerously high levels of air pollution, Radio Free Asia reported.

“The PM2.5 level has been over 51 micrograms per cubic meter of air for more than three consecutive days in 15 provinces, which has begun to affect the people’s health,” public health secretary Opart Karnkawinpong said.

Karnkawinpong said that Thailand’s air pollution levels are higher this year due to increased traffic.

PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, which can get into the lungs and pose significant health risks, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Greenpeace Thailand campaigner Alliya Moun-Ob said the number of people who fell ill because of air pollution could be “the worst we have seen so far,” with several Thai cities being engulfed in thick smog.

“We could see mountains in Chiang Mai but can’t see them anymore. In Bangkok, tall buildings are lost in the smog,” Moun-Ob told Radio Free Asia.

“It’s the post-COVID back-to-normal situation. That is why it is particularly bad this year for Thailand. Also, there is less rain this year compared to last,” she added.

The government has urged residents to stay indoors and wear face masks when leaving their houses. The country’s pollution control department advised people to use personal protective equipment when necessary.

No-Burning Rule

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha last month imposed a three-month no-burning rule from Feb. 1 to April 30 to curb wildfires and haze. He has now urged farmers to refrain from burning agricultural waste.

“Please, I don’t want to use the laws. If it’s used, you all will be breaking it. I don’t want anyone to be in trouble, but you must think about the quality of life of others and their health too,” Prayut said.

The pollution control department has previously said that “stagnant weather conditions” were exacerbating vehicle emissions and seasonal fires on agricultural lands. It urged people to reduce outdoor activities.

Thailand’s Chiang Mai city was ranked the second most polluted city in the world on Saturday, with its PM2.5 levels reaching 118.4 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the Swiss air quality company IQAir.

https://www.ntd.com/nearly-200000-people-in-thailand-hospitalized-because-of-air-pollution_906742.html

Cover story?

SEC Staff Consulted With Green Financial Firm Accused Of Selling ‘Fictitious’ Carbon Credits

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials met with representatives of a Swiss climate firm now under fire for allegedly selling “fictitious” carbon credits to discuss climate regulations, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

Millions of dollars worth of carbon credits issued by the Swiss firm South Pole could not be reliably tied back to actual greenhouse gas reductions, according to a report by Dutch investigative journalism outlet Follow the Money.

SEC officials met with a representative of South Pole in January 2022 and the company was cited multiple times in proposed rulemaking issued by the agency in March 2022, according to publicly available documents.

Officials at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) met with representatives of a Swiss climate consultancy firm now under fire for allegedly selling “fictitious” carbon credits, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

SEC officials met with a representative of South Pole in January 2022 to discuss how the SEC might estimate the costs companies would face if they were made to include data related to their greenhouse gas emissions in their regular financial disclosures, according to a publicly available SEC memorandum. The company, an international powerhouse whose clients include Gucci and Volkswagen, may have sold millions of dollars worth of carbon credits on the promise of environmental protection efforts that never actually occured, according to a report by Dutch investigative journalism outlet Follow the Money.

South Pole manages the “world’s largest portfolio of carbon projects” and allows companies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects that reduce carbon emissions elsewhere, allowing them to meet carbon emissions targets without radically altering their business model, according to its website. However, the firm appears to have sold credits based on its signature Kariba Forest Protection project in Zimbabwe, despite being aware that the project may have only generated one-third of the greenhouse gas offsets the company publicly claimed, Follow the Money reported.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/03/11/sec-staff-green-firm-allegedl-fake-credits/

Biden’s Energy Secretary Says ‘We Can All Learn From China’ On Climate Policy

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Friday that everyone could “learn from” China when it came to climate policy while speaking at the South by Southwest festival.

China approved 168 new power plants fueled by coal in 2022, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) released Feb. 27. The country was responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other country in 2019, the BBC reported.

“What we have been trying to do, what Secretary Kerry has been trying to do as the president’s climate envoy, is to get all of these countries to agree to very aggressive targets to be able to make sure that we don’t get climate — global warming happening over, you know, 1.5 degrees. And we — we have — you know, we’ve raised our hand, we said, we want to get to net zero by 2050,” Granholm said. “We are really pushing other countries to do the same.”

Former Secretary of State John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate change envoy, said that talks with China on climate issues have stalled since the downing of a spy balloon in February. Kerry has long pushed to keep talks with China going, despite its heavy use of coal and its nuclear weapons buildup.

The Biden administration has pushed for more electric vehicles and to phase out fossil fuels, which Biden promised to do during his 2020 presidential bid.

Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August, which included a tax credit for electric battery production. Despite Biden’s push for more electric vehicles, the Environmental Protection Agency made a determination Jan. 31 that would block the mining of 1.4 billion tons of copper, gold, molybdenum, silver and rhenium in Alaska in order to protect salmon.

“And no matter what country you’re a member of, the countries all are susceptible to pressure, to peer pressure, they don’t want to be the outlier — I mean, there’s a couple of countries that we know are outliers and don’t care — but — but, I think China has done — has been very sensitive, and has actually invested a lot in their solutions, to achieve their goals,” Granholm continued. “So we’re — we’re hopeful that, you know, we can all learn from what China is doing, but the amount of money that they’re investing in clean energy is actually you know, encouraging.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/03/10/jennifer-granholm-china-climate-policy/

Absurd: NYC spends over $10M each day for illegals

New York City’s Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol told a City Council panel meeting that the Department of Homeless Services and Health & Hospital are spending an average of $363 per day for a single illegal migrant’s shelter and food.

That translates to over $10 million per day as more than 30,000 illegal migrants currently are housed in the city’s taxpayer-funded facilities, according to reports.

City Hall puts the minimum daily cost of taking care of illegal immigrants at $4,622,800, telling the media that there are 12,700 households currently in its care.

Iscol warned the City Council’s Committee on Contracts that “the city is at the end of its resources, and the situation is not sustainable.”

According to Iscol, the temporary Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers set up by the city to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants are not viable solutions.

He added that the city has reached out for help from both state and federal governments. However, the city is not getting enough support from President Joe Biden and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) only provided the city with $8 million in December. City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis expressed frustration, with Borelli stating that the Biden administration should take responsibility for the situation and provide financial aid to the city.

Hochul has promised $1 billion in aid to the city for the crisis in her state budget, though the city will have to pay a third of the amount. The Biden administration, on the other hand, has yet to commit to funding any amount of aid.

NYC taxpayers’ money going to waste – literally

Meanwhile, the New York Post reported earlier this year that nearly a ton of taxpayer-provided food gets tossed in the trash every day at a Manhattan hotel being used to house migrants.

Disturbing photos show garbage bags full of sandwiches and bagels awaiting disposal at the four-star Row NYC hotel near Times Square, where the city pays a daily rate as high as $500 per room, hotel employee Felipe Rodriguez told the Post.

“It’s a crime to be throwing out so much food,” he said.

According to Rodriguez, at least 40 percent of the food supplied to migrants at the Row gets thrown out. He estimated the amount wasted at “almost a ton” a day.

“How do I know that? Because the sanitation guys go floor by floor every day, picking up the trash,” he said.

“Before, it used to be something like six, seven bags in the back landing of each floor. Now they’re picking up 15, 20 bags. Anything [the migrants] don’t consume is in those bags, and they’re heavy. I weighed one of the bags full of sandwiches one time and it weighed 60 pounds.”

The expanding roster of hotels in New York City is being used to house about 26,100 of the 38,700 migrants who’ve flooded into the Big Apple since the spring, according to City Hall.

Officials initially planned to have migrants undergo processing in those hotels for just 72 hours, but they abandoned the plan after getting overwhelmed by the influx that led New York City Mayor Eric Adams to declare a state of emergency in October.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2023/03/absurd-nyc-spends-over-10m-each-day-for.html

>>18486804

THEY ARE ALL IN BED TOGETHER

Iran and Saudi Arabia Agree To Normalize Ties

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/10/iran-saudi-arabia-will-normalize-ties-under-agreement-brokered-by-china/

DOJ Gets Hit With Huge Legal Motion After Merrick Garland Falsely Claims 5 Officers Were Killed On J6

In the aftermath of explosive new January 6 footage revealed by Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson, there have been false claims made by Biden officials that police officers were killed by protesters during the Capitol riots.

Attorney General Merrick Garland in particular misrepresented the incident and implied that five police officers died due to the January 6 incident.

“I think all Americans saw what happened on January 6th, and most of it saw, most of us saw it,,, as it was happening,” Garland said. “It was a violent attack on a fundamental tenant of American democracy. That power is peacefully transferred from one administration to another. Over a hundred officers were assaulted on that day. Five officers died. We have charged more than a thousand people with their crimes on that day. And more than 500 have already been convicted. I think it’s very clear what happened on January 6th.”

Attorney General Garland fundamentally misrepresented the January 6 incident in his statement. No police officers died due to attacks by January 6 protesters.

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died a day after the attack, but his death was determined afterward to be of natural causes: two strokes at the base of his brain stem caused by an artery clot.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, four Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police officers died by suicide. The Capitol Police officer’s union said about 140 officers were injured during the protests.

In March 2022, President Joe Biden knowingly and intentionally spread myths about the January 6 riot.

“Again, we’re not perfect — we’re not even close — but we never have walked away,” he said. “And Vladimir Putin was counting on being able to split up the United States.”

“Look, how would you feel if you saw crowds storm and break down the doors of the British Parliament, kill five cops, injure 145 — or the German Bundestag, or the Italian Parliament?” he added. “I think you’d wonder. Well, that’s what the rest of the world saw. It’s not who we are. And now, we’re proving, under pressure, that we are not that country. We’re united.”

Such misleading statements made by top Biden officials and U.S. attorneys have the potential to taint jury pools in January 6 cases, particularly on the D.C. Circuit.

https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/the-doj-is-hit-knab/

Organizers say some 500,000 attended anti-overhaul protests nationwide

‘I was wrong,’ police chief says about since-blocked decision to remove Tel Aviv district commander, whose handling of anti-overhaul protests has been criticized by Ben Gvir

Organizers of the anti-overhaul protests claim some 500,000 people took part in nationwide rallies this evening, including nearly 250,000 at the main demonstration in Tel Aviv.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-march-11-2023/

DC think tank lists Israel as only free Mideast nation, but warns of legal shakeup

Freedom House survey of 210 countries and territories gives Israel 77 out of 100 points; says ‘democratic trajectory’ changing amid government plans to weaken judiciary

Israel is the only nation in the Middle East considered “free” in the annual freedom index published by Washington-based think tank Freedom House, but they warned that the government’s plans to radically overhaul the judicial system may harm its ranking.

Freedom in the World, now in its 50th year, evaluates the state of freedom during the previous year. Each country and territory is assigned between zero and four points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100. The researchers take into account state as well as non-state actors, including insurgents and other armed groups, for a total of 210 countries and territories.

The scores are used to determine ratings for political rights and civil liberties. These ratings determined a country’s overall status as free, partly free, or not free.

Israel scored 77 points — 34 out of 40 in political rights and 43 out of 60 in civil liberties. The detailed scores in each category have not yet been released.

In a summary report, Freedom Index noted that Israel is the only country or territory in the Middle East ranked as “free” in 2022.

But the report added that “election results painted a grimmer picture: former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a coalition with far-right elements, and the new government’s agenda posed a direct threat to judicial independence and other democratic principles, as well as to the basic rights of Palestinians.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/dc-think-tank-lists-israel-as-only-free-mideast-nation-but-warns-of-legal-shakeup/

Millions of Chinese-made toys recalled across the US after they resulted in deaths of children

These toys were formerly sold by Amazon and Walmart and were recalled earlier this week.

Chinese-manufactured Calico Critters toys resulted in the deaths of an infant and a toddler, resulting in 3.2 million of the objects being recalled in the United States.

These toys were formerly sold on Amazon and Walmart and were recalled earlier this week.

According to a recent notice published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, these Calico Critters are a choking hazard to children.

"The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Epoch Everlasting Play LLC, of Pine Brook, New Jersey, are announcing the recall of all Calico Critters flocked animal figures and sets that were sold with bottle and pacifier accessories, which totals more than 3.2 million units," the notice reads. "The bottle and pacifier accessories pose a choking hazard to children."

Epoch Everlasting Play is a company based in New Jersey that imports the products, according to the CPSC.

The CPSC stated that these toys were sold in a set with a pacifier and baby bottle and advised parents to keep them away from their small children as they are a choking hazard.

"Epoch Everlasting Play LLC is aware of three incidents involving the pacifier accessory, including two deaths," the notice states. "One fatal incident involved a 2-year-old child in 2018 in New Mexico, and the other fatal incident involved a 9-month-old child in 2015 in Japan (with a pacifier accessory distributed by Epoch Japan).

"Take the recalled bottle and pacifier accessories away from children immediately and contact Epoch Everlasting Play LLC for instructions on how to submit a photo of the recalled bottle and/or pacifier accessory along with contact information and confirmation of destruction to receive a free replacement accessory."

https://justthenews.com/events/millions-chinese-made-toys-rescinded-across-us-after-they-resulted-deaths-children

Peter Schiff– "The U.S. banking system is on the verge of a much bigger collapse than 2008. Banks own long-term paper at extremely low interest rates. They can't compete with short-term Treasuries. Mass withdrawals from depositors seeking higher yields will result in a wave of bank failures.

https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1634244633545850898