🔓 Today's Must-Reads - 8 August 2024

Exposing the narrative with the latest news, studies, reports and articles!

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• National Guard Disputes Tim Walz's Military Biography. The Minnesota National Guard is disputing Governor Tim Walz's military biography, saying that the Democratic vice presidential candidate did not hold the rank of command sergeant major at the time of his retirement. Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé, the state public affairs officer for Minnesota National Guard, told Just the News on Wednesday that the governor did not retire as "Command Sergeant Major Walz" in 2005, as stated on Minnesota's official website, but as master sergeant "because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy." A soldier who does not complete the requisite coursework is automatically demoted, according to Army regulations.

• Cambridge doubles down on freedom of speech rules. Cambridge University has implemented its new freedom of speech code, in spite of the legislation it was based on being suspended by the new Labour government. The new code was designed to bring the University’s freedom of speech protections in line with the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which was put on hold last month. But the University’s free speech code was implemented on August 1st, without the legislation underpinning it being in force.

• The unfashionable truth about the riots. Our government has the same choice the Conservative and coalition governments had. It could focus on getting people into work and bringing work back to these areas. Or, like the governments before them, it could try to cover up the problem with immigration. As the Tory party could tell them, it is an easy and addictive fix. Does Keir Starmer have the guts to go cold turkey? Everything will depend on whether he does.

• China’s super-secret space plane spotted above Europe. So little is known about Shenlong, China’s ultra-secret, reusable space plane that there aren’t even publicly verifiable photos of the experimental aircraft. But that doesn’t mean knowledgeable astronomy enthusiasts can’t catch glimpses of the vehicle as it orbits Earth, as was recently the case for Felix Schöfbänker in Upper Austria. China’s mysterious robotic vehicle has completed at least two confirmed missions since 2020, the second of which lasted 276 consecutive days in orbit above Earth. During that excursion, Shenlong deployed at least one free-flying object that experts believe may have been either a small satellite or external craft designed to monitor the plane itself. Its current mission began after launching from a Chinese space agency facility in the Gobi Desert on December 14, 2023. Since then it has released at least seven confirmed objects of unknown purpose into orbit.

• Review as police liaison filmed telling group to ‘discard’ weapons in mosque. Staffordshire Police has launched a review after a protest liaison officer told a crowd gathered outside a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffs, to “discard” any weapons within the place of worship. The officer was filmed in a video, which was live streamed on TikTok, addressing a crowd of men outside the Darul Falah mosque in Hanley, on Saturday as riots swept the country. In footage believed to be filmed after the counter protest, the liaison officer, wearing a blue police vest, addressed those attending and said the “EDL lot have gone home” and that they must dispose of any weapons. Speaking through a loudspeaker, the liaison officer appears to say he would be “reassured that anything that goes on now we won’t need to make any arrests”.

• The British elites’ crazy rage against Elon Musk. The phoney liberals have ripped their masks to shreds and stomped them into the dirt for good measure. Their rage is linked to the riots currently rocking the UK. Musk’s own tweets, they say, not least his chatter about Britain being on the road to ‘civil war’, have helped to whip up the mayhem. Worse, his ‘free-speech absolutism’, as one ‘liberal’ magazine snottily refers to it, has meant that every tosser with a smartphone has been able to tweet their inflammatory views on the riots and even to spread misinformation. In essence, says a writer for the Guardian, Musk has been ‘leading from behind on UK thuggery and race riots’.

• The Government’s sinister disinformation unit is threatening free speech again. Isn’t it curious how almost every problem this country faces seems to have a ready-made solution rooted in digital authoritarianism? Less than one month into his premiership, Sir Keir Starmer was faced with an unthinkably monstrous fatal stabbing of three little girls, followed by some of the most shameful scenes of street violence in our country’s living memory. His government’s response has notably included online censorship powers and AI facial recognition surveillance. If the history of chaos that threatens democracy teaches us anything, it is to protect our democratic rights with more vigour, not less, when they are under threat. At a time when parts of the population are in complete disharmony, to crack down on free speech would be a grave mistake.

• Jeremy Clarkson warns ‘Britain is falling apart’ as he makes Brexit U-turn. Jeremy Clarkson has been a vocal Remainer since the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016, repeatedly voicing his affection for Britain’s part in the EU. However, the Clarkson’s Farm star now appears to have had a change of heart, and urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to do the same. Writing in his new column, the 64-year-old explained: “When I lived in London’s Notting Hill, I was a Remainer and so were all my friends. It literally didn’t occur to us, as we sat down there in our agreeable houses eating agreeable food that someone might vote to leave... “Today, I’m surrounded by farmers and plasterers and brickies and butchers and all I hear, all day long, is that there’s too much immigration. “But if they say this out loud, or if they go on a march, they are told by the London elite that they are far-right extremists or racist thugs. For the most part, they’re not...there was a time you’d have called them the salt of the earth. But Sir Starmer doesn’t seem to have grasped this”.

• A Fed rate cut will not solve our economic problems. If our economy is ever going to heal, interest rates must be brought back in line with people’s actual time preferences. Like any true price, a pure market interest rate won’t always be stable because reality isn’t always stable. But if we want to see an end to perpetual recessions and debt-fueled mass consumption, we need to stop listening to those who benefit from the current system of centrally-planned interest rates. We need a return to accurate interest rates, which have helped encourage and coordinate the production of a better future for thousands of years.

• How the health of your lungs is linked to the bacteria in your gut. The trillions of bacteria living in our gut have an extraordinary effect on our health. They’re in charge of digestion, breaking down the foods we eat and extracting their vitamins and minerals. A healthy, balanced microbiome also helps ward off infections and even lowers risk of certain diseases. Studies have revealed that people with respiratory conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer often have an imbalanced gut microbiome – a condition known as dysbiosis.

• The Chain of Issuance: The People and Patents That Built The Financial Surveillance Network. The patent hoarding developers and investors associated with PayPal and Google who built the first iteration of e-commerce and digital advertising have turned to the blockchain to fulfill their vision of total financial surveillance and the circumnavigation of government-issued money.

• German EV sales down 37% “The market has lost all momentum”. It’s not that people don’t want a new car, they just prefer a fossil fueled one. Sales of normal cars rose 7% in the same period. EV’s made up 20% of new car sales in Germany this time last year, but that market share has now shrunk to 13%. This is not the way a raging new lifesaving technology takes over the planet. In Sweden EV sales are down 15%, and in Switzerland they’re down by 19%. In Australia sales have fallen by about 17% in the last six months. Australians bought about 100,000 cars in July but only 6,700 of them were pure EVs, down from 8,000 earlier this year.