UN Unleashes Controversy, Accusations Of Deception, Over 'Revised' Gaza Casualty Data

 Since the start of the brutal Gaza conflict in the wake of Oct.7, a public 'info-war' has raged over the numbers of wartime casualties, especially on the Palestinian side. Something similar happened in the Syrian war, as well as in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war: either side's true casualties became a matter of tightly guarded internal secrets on the one hand, and an issue of public propaganda to demean the enemy and hurt their global standing on the other.

Israel especially has faced immense international criticism of late amid allegations of 'genocide' given the very obviously high death toll among Gaza civilians. It is even the case that some Israeli officials have at times admitted to extraordinarily high civilian deaths during the campaign, but they have also blamed Hamas for using civilians as 'human shields' and launching rockets from densely populated urban areas.

Fresh controversy has been unleashed Monday over how the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) counts the war dead, and the extent to which it relies on Palestinian and Hamas sources:

The United Nations on Monday clarified that the overall number of fatalities in Gaza tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza remains unchanged, at more than 35,000, since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The clarification comes after the UN humanitarian agency OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) published a report on May 8 with revised data regarding the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. The UN agency in its report reduced the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war by nearly half.

The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

AFP via Getty Images

According to more via CNN:

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.

Earlier in the day a FOX headline had alleged that the new UN figures show that almost 50% less women and children were killed than previously reported by the UN office:

According to an infographic published in OCHA’s daily report on May 6, the number of women killed in the fighting was said to be 9,500, while the organization, which admits to relying on figures from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, claimed that 14,500 children had been killed since the war began on Oct. 7. 

Two days later, in its May 8 report, the U.N. agency appeared to have cut the number nearly in half, showing instead that some 4,959 women and 7,797 children had been killed so far in the war, which began after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists infiltrated southern Israel from Gaza, slaughtering more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 people hostage. 

Israel's long-running complaint is that the Hamas-Run Gaza Health Ministry consistently exaggerates the death figures, or else tends round up or impose demographic classifications even when details of a particular death are unknown or unverified. On Monday the ministry said that total deaths since Oct.7 have surpassed 35,000.

Critics of the UN have been quoted as saying, "U.N. agencies have consistently shown they prefer to trust the numbers coming out of Hamas-controlled sources rather than doing basic due diligence."

Pro-Israel critics of both the UN office and Gaza's health ministry have pointed to deep inconsistencies in accounting for casualties and have rejected the "fog of war" defense...

Israel has also long maintained that a huge proportion of the total number of Palestinian deaths were actually armed Hamas combatants - and herein lies the heart of the controversy and questions over discrepancies. 

However, it should be kept in mind that all parties to some extent admit that civilian casualties are tragically and horrifically high.

Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has recently acknowledged a very high number of Palestinians civilians dead...

Ultimately, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the Palestinian deaths, but admitted Israel "killed 14,000 terrorists" & a "slightly bigger number, about 16,000 civilians" according to a recent interview with Dr. Phil in Israel.

The Israeli leader said those civilians "were killed in the places where the terrorists won't let them leave" - thus ultimately seeking to absolve his own forces from any responsibility. He has also echoed this in other recent media interviews:

"Fourteen thousand [Hamas terrorists] have been killed, combatants, and, probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed," Netanyahu told the “Call Me Back” podcast.

The estimate is slightly lower than the numbers provided by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which put the total death count at more than 35,000. The ministry’s estimate does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians.

Still, the grim reality remains that this far outpaces civilian deaths even from more than 2-years of the Ukraine war.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/un-stuns-revising-gaza-death-toll-dramatically-downward

'Dem Lawmakers Urge Biden To Use Executive Action Against High Food Prices'

 Greedflation is a myth, and Democrats are well aware of this. However, they will never acknowledge that corporate greed isn't the root cause of inflation, as greed tends to be constant in the economy. What changed is the overstimulation of the economy through failed Bidenomics, which involves spending $1 trillion every 100 days. 

In the early days of Russia's 'special operation' in Ukraine, the Biden administration was able to scapegoat any failed economic policy on the 'Putin Price Hike' narrative - but not so much anymore - as they've pivoted the propaganda cannon from Putin to mega-corporations through their cheerleaders at leftist corporate media outlets. Now it's all about popular buzzwords 'greedflation' and 'shrinkflation.' 

Shown below via Bloomberg data, headlines featuring 'greedflation' in corporate media spiked in the summer of 2023, right around the time the administration launched the Bidenomics propaganda campaign. We all know Bidenomics has stoked a complete inflation shitstorm. However, Biden's team is giving greedflation one last shot ahead of the November presidential elections to deflect blame on corporations for why working poor Americans can no longer afford to pay rent, eat at restaurants, afford the $1,000 monthly auto loan, and any other luxuries they were accustomed to before the worst inflation mess since the 1970s. Basically, Goldman's brightest warned the other day: low-income consumers are in trouble. 

We suspect the greedflation narrative won't stick—just like the failed Bidenomics campaign—because Americans are waking up to the out-of-control spending in Washington, DC. 

But anyway, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who once identified as a Native American, and other leftist lawmakers penned a very public letter (all about optics) to the Biden administration, requesting the immediate use of executive action to lower food prices. 

"We commend the important steps your administration has recently taken on this issue, including steps to combat illegal and unfair corporate behavior, encourage competition in the food and grocery sectors, and more. The federal government should use every possible tool to lower food prices," Warren and other lawmakers wrote. 

They continued, "We believe you can exercise your executive authority to take additional action to address rising food prices without congressional action. Americans are facing sky-high food prices, caused by excessive price gouging by food and grocery giants." 

Democrats begging for price controls sounds like what communist or socialist lawmakers in third-world countries do. Yet, these lawmakers never learn a proper lesson (look at Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela), where imposing price controls triggers shortages or surpluses, longer lines, lower quality products, and, of course, misallocation of products. 

But, honesty, Democrats could care less. They have a mission of spending to bankrupt the nation literally, somehow lower prices in an inflation storm, and enable illegal aliens to vote. 

Instead of blaming corporations, let's remind readers again that overstimulating the economy generates price increases and windfall profits, so it's not smart for lawmakers to do so. And this overstimulation, which Duquesne Family Office Chairman & CEO Stan Druckenmiller pointed out last week, is likely one of the biggest economic policy errors ever:

If I was a professor, I'd give them an F. Basically, they misdiagnosed COVID and thought it was -- we were going into a depression. The Fed did, too. I worried about it, too, in early days. The Fed eventually pivoted, better late than never. Treasury -- Treasury is still acting like we're in a depression.

We outlined last summer that "stealth stimulus" was propelling Bidenomics, with the government spending  $1 trillion every 100 days. Now, with stagflationary threats emerging, the US economic situation is quickly deteriorating. 

And here's what comes next when the government starts calling for price controls, as explained by Alt-Market's Brandon Smith:

This same pattern has been witnessed from 1920s Weimar Germany to 1970s America to 1990s Yugoslavia to 2000s Argentina and Venezuela and beyond. But what happens next? In each case the trend leads first to price controls on producers and distributors, which ultimately fail. Then comes government rationing and the complete takeover of necessities including the food supply.

Smith continued:

The problem is simple, price controls lead to lost profit incentive which leads to less production. Less production leads to less supply and less supply leads to rising prices. This is on top of the root cancer that is fiat money creation. Politicians will rarely if ever address the actual cause of an inflationary crisis:  The government and the central banks. Instead, they try to blame free markets, “greedy” businesses and profit taking in times of distress.

He concluded:

Historically speaking, though, both Democrat and Republican presidents have tried price controls in the past. Public pressure must be applied (at the state level at minimum) to stop this from happening. As convenient as it might seem to blame producers and distributors, the real threat is coming from governments and banks. We cannot let the people who caused the crisis also benefit from it by giving them even more power.

It's a slippery slope from here... 

*    *    * 

Here's the full letter:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/combat-illegal-corporate-behavior-dem-lawmakers-urge-biden-use-executive-action-against

Calif. deploying secret weapon to raise gas prices by as much as 50 cents a gallon

 A longstanding emissions reduction program may lead to a 50-cent increase in gasoline prices within two years in California, according to a little-known state air quality regulator report.

In September, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s primary environmental regulator, reported gas prices will rise next year by about 50 cents a gallon and every year thereafter to aid in clean air efforts.

The price increase does not include the existing gas tax in the state.

Republican state Sen. Janet Nguyen, one of the legislature’s most critical tax hawks, told Fox News Digital the “secret” tax increase “would penalize the majority of Californians.”

“The middle class, the low income, they can’t afford gas to go to school, work or grocery or the doctor’s office,” Nguyen said. “No one knows about this. I think people just think it’s a tax, so they don’t know the difference between the carbon tax versus the state tax. It’s almost like a tax on the tax.”

The report foresees gasoline price increases due to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard reforms that were created in 2007, likely rising by 47 cents next year and 52 cents by 2026. Diesel prices could climb by 59 cents this year and 66 cents in two years. Long-term projections suggest gasoline could surge by $1.15 and diesel by $1.50 per gallon from 2031 to 2046, with jet fuel increasing by $1.21.

The report comes as CARB finalized new rules last month mandating a rapid transition from traditional petroleum-powered modes of transportation to zero-emissions alternatives.REUTERS

The air board staff later called the gas price hike projections “incomplete” in a December report, focusing instead on the cost savings to drivers as more people transition to EVs.

The report comes as CARB finalized new rules last month mandating a rapid transition from traditional petroleum-powered modes of transportation to zero-emissions alternatives as it pursues a sweeping climate agenda.

CARB has identified passenger cars, heavy-duty trucking, freight trains and harbor vessels for the changeover. 

California is also phasing out new gas-powered cars and mandating 100% electric vehicle sales by 2035.

Nearly 20 other states have since adopted those rules, meaning more than 40% of the country will be affected by the mandate to some extent.

The state’s broad effort to electrify its transportation sector is part of the California Climate Commitment unveiled by Newsom two years ago.

Under the plan, the state is phasing out reliance on fossil fuels, deploying green energy, cutting greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2045 and decreasing oil demand by a staggering 94%.

“We can solve this climate crisis if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to cut pollution,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in August 2022.

https://nypost.com/2024/05/13/business/residents-of-this-state-should-prepare-for-gas-price-hike/

Illegal border crosser, probably Jordanian, tried to force way onto US Marine base — why isn’t this big story?

 In the early morning of May 3, two men in a box truck pulled up to the front gate of Quantico Marine Corps Base, 35 miles southwest of Washington, DC, and tried to lie their way in, claiming they were Amazon delivery men.

After skeptical military police channeled them to an area for secondary security inspection, the driver hit the gas in defiance of halt orders and tried to barrel the truck into the base’s town center. Quick-thinking MPs put up road barriers that stopped the truck.

The Marines ended up citing the two for trespassing on federal property.

We only know this because of a report in the Potomac Local News, founded in 2010 “to help people understand what is happening in their local communities in Northern Virginia.”

Yet while reporter Kelly Sienkowski, who broke what happened, focuses on her local readership, she’s shocked this story hasn’t gotten more national attention.

Sienkowski’s story quoted a prepared email statement from base spokesman Capt. Michael Curtis, shared with me and The Post, confirming the incident’s basic contours but no more.

But Sienkowski kept pressing. She cited “multiple anonymous sources” who told her that one of the two individuals in the truck was a Jordanian foreign national who “recently crossed the southern border into the U.S.” and also that one of people in the truck — they didn’t say which one — is on the U.S. terrorist watch list.

After citing the two men for trespassing, the Marine Corps turned them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the sources told Sienkowski.

The big question in the room that has gone unanswered for more than a week after Sienkowski reported the story is, of course, this one:

Did illegal border crossers from the Middle East just try to attack a U.S. military base?

Many more questions deserve answers too. But the federal government has gone mum.

Have U.S. investigators ruled out a terrorism motive? Do U.S. counterterrorism agencies even want to know, and is anyone even investigating that question?

Were there any weapons in the truck or on the illegal immigrants it carried? Was the truck itself the weapon?

When and how exactly did the men enter the United States? Was the Jordanian a Palestinian Arab from Gaza and angry about U.S. support for Israel’s retaliatory war? Many Palestinians hold Jordanian passports.

Did an overwhelmed Border Patrol accidentally release the one who was on the FBI’s terrorist watch list?

It wouldn’t be the first time: Border Patrol has encountered at least 340 immigrants on the terrorism watch list since the mass migration began three years ago. In at least eight instances because of it, the overrun Border Patrol has accidentally released watch-listed illegal border crossers and had to frantically hunt them down.

What has ICE done with this pair since the MPs turned them over?

I emailed Sienkowski to query her about what she’s learned in the week since her incursion story published. Not much. No one will tell her anything more, and no bigger media outlet has joined her lonely quest.

A local mom living in northern Virginia, who has no previous formal journalism background, Sienkowski took a few minutes out to chat with me on Mother’s Day. She said she pursued the story after seeing a comment on social media, published what she could find out and has fought a very lonely battle for more answers.

No one will tell Sienkowski anything, certainly not the U.S. Marine Corps nor ICE.

“We have reached out to almost every elected official, and many running for office,” Sienkowski said. She named names: Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-Va. 7th District), Virginia Republican candidate for congress Derrick Anderson, Republican candidate for congress Cameron Hamilton, Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega, “and many more local candidates and supervisors.”

“What really blows my mind is that no other media has followed up on the story after a whole week has passed,” Sienkowski told me. “We need more transparency in how our border problems are impacting national security through localized incidents like this one.”

Todd Bensman is a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and two-time National Press Club award winner.

https://nypost.com/2024/05/13/opinion/a-jordanian-who-crossed-border-illegally-tried-to-force-his-way-onto-a-us-marine-base/

Will The Fed Lose Control?

 by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

According to new reports from the Social Security and Medicare trustees, Social Security and a Medicare fund that pays for hospital expenses will both begin running deficits in 2035 and 2036. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, Congress was too preoccupied spending billions more on military aid for foreign countries and banning TikTok to pay attention to the looming bankruptcy of the two largest federal entitlement programs.

Many in Congress no doubt believe they can ignore the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare because they can count on the Federal Reserve to do the “dirty work” of cutting real benefits and raising taxes.

This result can be produced via the hidden, and regressive, “inflation tax.”

The Federal Reserve makes the debt-financed welfare-warfare state possible by monetizing the federal debt.

This is one reason why, even though interest on the debt is now the third largest item in the federal budget behind Social Security and Medicare and ahead of military spending, there are so few in Congress serious about cutting welfare or warfare. Those few who seek real spending cuts in welfare are smeared as “heartless” while those seeking real cuts in warfare are smeared as “anti-American” by the uniparty.

The government’s excessive spending and debt is leading to what some economists call “fiscal dominance.” Fiscal dominance occurs when a central bank must prioritize monetizing ever higher levels of government debt, giving Congress de facto control over monetary policy.

The Federal Reserve’s purchase of federal debt will result in price inflation. It will also encourage more government spending by reinforcing the uniparty delusion that, as former Vice President Dick Cheney said, “deficits don’t matter.” The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies artificially lower the interest rates, which are the price of money. The artificially low interest rates distort the signals sent to investors and entrepreneurs, leading to malinvestment. This creates bubbles resulting in illusionary prosperity. Eventually, economic reality will catch up with the Fed-created illusions and the bubbles will burst, causing an economic downturn.

The next economic crisis will likely either be caused by or result in a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Congress will be forced to make drastic cuts in spending while the Fed will be enabled to monetize the debt. This will result in massive public unrest potentially resulting in violence, the rise of authoritarian movements on the left and right, and increasing authoritarianism.

The only way to avoid this fate is for a critical mass of Americans to demand Congress immediately begin rolling back the welfare-warfare state, starting with our bloated military budget. The savings from this can be used to help protect those currently reliant on government welfare and entitlement programs as those programs are phased out and the job of providing aid is returned to private charities, churches, and local communities. Congress should also rein in the Federal Reserve by passing the Audit the Fed bill, legalizing alternative currencies, and forbidding the Fed from purchasing government debt.

Since the 2008 meltdown, Federal Reserve apologists have spent a lot of time saying that Audit the Fed puts Congress in charge of monetary policy while ignoring the fact that a real threat to the central bank’s autotomy is the growth in federal spending and debt. The goal, though, should be to abolish the Federal Reserve, not protect it. Those who truly want a monetary system free from political interference should join the movement to restore government’s constitutional limits and separate money and state.  

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/will-fed-lose-control

Fast Casual Dining Foot Traffic "Plummets" Across NY-NJ As Consumer Cracks

 The cost-of-living squeeze is crushing low-income consumers, so much that Goldman's top consumer trader, Scott Feiler, recently pointed out that his desk is "getting bearish on consumer and our soft landing basket." Days ago, Goldman analysts led by Bonnie Herzog provided clients with a fascinating list of corporate America's warnings about mounting cracks materializing in the consumer space. 

A Bloomberg report, citing new data from research firm Black Box Intelligence, continues the theme of the low-income consumer under severe financial stress. This data shows that fast-casual dining foot traffic across New York and New Jersey has abruptly plunged into early spring. 

The slide in foot traffic comes as Red Lobster is considering a bankruptcy filing, and TGI Friday's is in distress, closing stores and working with Guggenheim Partners to address its debt problem as sales decline. 

Moody's Ratings wrote in a report last week that rising menu prices have slowed fast-casual sales as the working poor ditch restaurants for food at home. 

Dennis Cantalupo, chief executive officer of credit-rating and consulting shop Pulse Ratings, said restaurant chains relying on that demographic "are feeling it the most.' 

Cantalupo warned operators are concerned about a more prolonged slump since price-conscious consumers are eating at home. 

The big takeaway here is that working-poor consumers are pulling back on restaurant spending as pandemic excess savings have been depleted and credit card debt has hit insurmountable levels, just to survive the era of failed Bidenomics. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fast-casual-dining-foot-traffic-plummets-across-new-york-new-jersey-consumer-cracks

Voyager Q1 results, updates

 Company announces clearance of IND application with FDA for anti-tau antibody VY-TAU01 for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease; expect to begin single ascending dose trial in the coming weeks -

- Development candidates selected for Neurocrine-partnered GBA1 and Friedreich’s Ataxia gene therapy programs; potential for three gene therapies, including SOD1-ALS, to enter the clinic in 2025 -

- Appointed neurology clinical development expert Toby Ferguson, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer -

- Strong cash position of approximately $400 million as of March 31, 2024; expected to provide runway through multiple clinical data readouts into 2027 -

Anticipated Upcoming Milestones

• VY-TAU01 anti-tau antibody for Alzheimer’s disease: Voyager expects to dose the first subject in a Phase 1a single ascending dose trial in healthy volunteers in the coming weeks and initiate a Phase 1b multiple ascending dose trial in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease in 2025. The multiple ascending dose trial has the potential to generate initial data for slowing the spread of pathological tau via tau PET imaging in 2026.

• VY9323 SOD1 silencing gene therapy program for ALS: Voyager expects to file an IND in mid-2025 and initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial in ALS patients. The Phase 1 trial has the potential to generate proof-of-concept data based on biomarkers.

• Partnered programs: Voyager and Neurocrine Biosciences expect to file INDs for the GBA1 and Friedreich’s Ataxia gene therapy programs in 2025.

Conference Call

Voyager will host a conference call and webcast today at 4:30 p.m. ET to discuss first quarter 2024 financial and operating results. To participate via telephone and join the call live, please register in advance here: https://register.vevent.com/register/BI1f6af80e7a614ca7925cbad2f35a55c6. Upon registration, telephone participants will receive a confirmation email detailing how to join the conference call, including the dial-in number and a unique passcode. A live webcast of the call will also be available on the Investors section of the Voyager website at ir.voyagertherapeutics.com, and a replay of the call will be available at the same link approximately two hours after its completion. The replay will be available for at least 30 days following the conclusion of the call.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/voyager-therapeutics-reports-first-quarter-200100384.html