Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kaan Goktas

“In the early morning hours of February 6, 2023, Turkey and northern Syria were shaken by two major earthquakes in quick succession. … Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed at the time of the earthquake and many more in the hours that followed in aftershocks. Countless people lost their lives in the most critical first 48 hours after the earthquake due to the delay in the response of the Turkish state authorities; the failure to deliver aid and rescue teams in time; the lack of coordination between existing teams; the collapse of the mobile phone infrastructure; and the ban on military participation in search and rescue operations – despite the presence of two large military units in the earthquake zone. The last of these was largely due to political Islamist dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s paranoia about a military coup.” (03/23/23)

https://c4ss.org/content/58213

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“In response to questions he received during a press conference on Monday about Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin cementing a ‘new era’ in strategic partnership between China and Russia, the White House National Security Council’s John Kirby made no fewer than seven assertions that the US is the ‘leader’ of the world. … The illusory truth effect is a cognitive bias which causes people to mistake something they have heard many times for an established fact, because the way the human brain receives and interprets information tends to draw little or no distinction between repetition and truth. Propagandists and empire managers often take advantage of this glitch in our wetware, which is what’s happening when you see them repeating key phrases over and over again that they want people to believe.” (03/23/23)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/23/us-officials-really-really-want-you-to-know-the-us-is-the-worlds-leader/

Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy

“The controversy over proposed state and federal bans of Chinese-produced apps has sparked debate about the wisdom of country-of-origin bans in general. On the surface, banning TikTok and other controversial products coming from China appears reasonable. But the deeper you dig, the less these ideas make sense. This is especially true when bans are based on national security concerns and talked about in the context of ‘decoupling’ our economy from China’s. National security is important, of course, but abusing this argument to blindly close off America to Chinese imports may isolate us in ways that could weaken our security. This is true even if one agrees that China engages in forced technology transfer, forced labor and other terrible behaviors.” (03/23/23)

https://www.ocregister.com/2023/03/23/how-banning-chinese-products-could-backfire-for-the-united-states/

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

“In the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, U.S. officials decided to cover all the uninsured deposits in both banks — that is, deposits that exceeded the $250,000 insurance coverage of the FDIC. The belief was that failing to cover those uninsured deposits ran the risk that bank runs could spread to more banks. Covering those uninsured deposits was intended to calm depositors in other banks, which would thereby make more bank runs less likely. … The dark irony here is that by covering uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, officials might actually be encouraging bank runs on an industry-wide basis in the future. That’s because everyone knows that the federal government does not have anywhere near the money to cover all the money on deposit in U.S. banks.” (03/23/23)

https://www.fff.org/2023/03/23/bailing-out-uninsured-deposits-encourages-bank-runs/

Source: Aaron Ross Powell
by Aaron Ross Powell

“If someone says that they feel more of a need to keep their views to themself than used to be the case, what does that tell you? Does it mean that society has grown more censorious? That free speech is on the outs? It’s easy to interpret it that way, especially if we’re on the lookout for such evidence. But these are precisely the situations when we should be most wary so as to avoid overinterpreting data to advance a narrative.” (03/23/23)

https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/a-rorschach-test-for-the-state-of

Source: RealClearPolitics
by Victor Davis Hanson

“Ukrainians, and many Europeans and Americans, are defining an envisioned Ukrainian victory as the complete expulsion of all Russians from its 2013 borders. Or, as a Ukrainian national security chief put it, the war ends with Ukrainian tanks in Red Square. But mysteries remain about such ambitious agendas: What would that goal entail? Giving Ukraine American F-16s to strike bases and depots in Mother Russia? The gifting of 1,000 M1 Abrams tanks? Using American Harpoon missiles to sink the Russian Black Sea fleet? A huge arsenal that would guarantee total victory rather than not losing? Russia’s cruel strategy is to grind down Ukraine and turn its eastern regions into a Verdun-like deathscape. So is a brave Ukraine really winning the war when it loses about 0.6 soldiers for every Russian it kills?” [editor’s note: We don’t know what the ratio of troops lost to enemy troops killed, because both sides lie and keep secrets – TLK] (03/23/23)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/03/23/questions_without_answers_about_ukraine_149020.html