- Migrant Crime Explodes Higher In Germany In 2023, Violent Crime Hits Record Levels
Migrant Crime Explodes Higher In Germany In 2023, Violent Crime Hits Record Levels
Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,
The number of foreign suspects soared to around 923,000 last year, representing a massive 18 percent increase in just one year nationwide, according to crime statistics from the German Interior Ministry released on Tuesday.
However, the even more shocking number may have to do with violent crimes, which soared to record levels in 2023.
The data from the interior ministry shows that 41 percent of all crime suspects are foreigners, with 2.246 million people in the country suspected of a crime in 2023, which is 7.3 percent more than in 2022, reports Die Welt,
Overall, foreigners only represent 15 percent of the population.
‘Completely lost contact with the population’
The shocking numbers have hit Germany like a thunderclap and could have a number of political implications.
The head of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, slammed Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) after the drastic rise in foreign crime was revealed.
“The Federal Minister of the Interior is becoming more and more like ‘Nancy in Wonderland’ when she is astonished to discover that Germany has become more violent,” Wendt told Bild.
He argued that one would only be surprised with this outcome “if one has completely lost contact with the population.”
Faeser, for her part, has labeled “right-wing extremism” the biggest threat to the country, all while allowing violent crime and rape to explode under her tenure, especially from foreign criminals.
The government is now racing to naturalize millions of foreigners in order to ensure that they are not counted under “foreign” crime but are instead counted as “Germans,” as German crime statistics list anyone who commits a crime as “German” regardless of their migration background as long as they have a German passport.
Record cases of violent crimes
Critics like to claim that much of the “foreign crime” actually consists of immigration law violations. However, this is not the case. For one, these figures do not include violation of immigration law, which were excluded from the data. When one examines the data, foreigners are vastly overrepresented is in serious crime, especially violent crimes.
In fact, half of all violent crimes in Germany were committed by foreigners.
In 2023, the authorities registered around 214,000 violent crimes, an increase of 8.6 percent, and several records were broken in this area. There was a record number of cases involving dangerous and grievous bodily harm, reaching 154,000 cases, a 6.8 percent increase. At the same time, “intentional simple assault” rose to an all-time high of 434,000 cases, jumping 7.4 percent.
Robberies soared higher by 17 percent to 44,857, which is also considered a violent crime.
Crime soared in other categories as well. For example, residential burglary rose to 77,819 cases, up 18.9 percent, car theft (29,985, up 17.5 percent), shoplifting (426,096, up 23.6 percent) and pickpocketing (109,314, up 11 percent).
A total of around 5.94 million crimes were registered in 2023.
The numbers don’t give the full picture
To truly understand this rise in foreign crime, it must also be understood that many of the “German” suspects actually have a migration background and are not ethnic Germans. That is because the statistics count any foreigner who obtains German citizenship as simply “German.”
Second- or third-generation migrants who commit crimes are also simply listed as “German” in the crime statistics.
This is unlike Denmark, for instance, which tracks suspects with a migration background, giving a much clearer picture.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/10/2024 – 02:00 - Islands That Climate Alarmists Said Would Soon "Disappear" Due To Rising Sea Found To Have Grown In Size
Islands That Climate Alarmists Said Would Soon “Disappear” Due To Rising Sea Found To Have Grown In Size
Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,
An amount of land equivalent to the Isle of Wight has been added to the shorelines of 13,000 islands around the world in just the last 20 years. This fascinating fact of a 369.67 square kilometre increase has recently been discovered by a group of Chinese scientists analysing both surface and satellite records. Overall, land was lost during the 1990s, but the scientists found that in the study period of three decades to 2020 there was a net increase of 157.21 km2. The study observed considerable natural variation in both erosion and accretion. Of course, the findings blow holes in the poster scare run by alarmists suggesting that rising sea levels caused by humans using hydrocarbons will condemn many islands to disappear shortly beneath rising sea levels. By means of such flimsy scare tactics, as we have seen in many other cases, desperate attempts are made to terrify global populations to accept the insanity of the Net Zero collectivisation.
The scientists said their data suggested that sea-level rise has not been a widespread cause of erosion for island shorelines in the studied regions.
“Presently, it is considered one of the contributing factors to shoreline erosion but not the predominant one,” they explained.
Needless to say, none of this will detain the attention of climate hysterics in both mainstream media and politics.
The Guardian was in fine form last June stating that rising oceans will extinguish more than land.
“It will kill entire languages,” it added, noting the effect on Pacific islands such as Tuvalu. Those areas of the Earth that were most hospitable to people and languages are now becoming the “least hospitable”.
Silly emotional Guardianista guff of course, but happily it does not seem to apply to Tuvalu.
A recent study found that the 101 islands of Tuvalu had grown in land mass by 2.9%.
The scientists observed that despite rising sea levels, many shorelines in Tuvalu and neighbouring Pacific atolls have maintained relative stability, “without significant alteration”. A comprehensive re-examination of data on 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls with 709 islands found that none of them had lost any land. Furthermore, the scientists added, there are data that indicate 47 reef islands expanded in size or remained stable over the last 50 years, “despite experiencing a rate of sea-level rise that exceeds the global average”.
The Maldives is also a poster scare for rising sea levels, with the attention-seeking activist Mark Lynas – he of the nonsense claim that 99.9% of scientists agree humans cause all or most climate change – organising an underwater Cabinet meeting of the local Government in 2009. As it happens, the Maldives is one of a number of areas that have seen recent increases in land mass.
Other areas include the Indonesian Archipelago, islands along the Indochinese Peninsula coast, and islands in the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Notably, the coastal waters of the Indochinese Peninsula had the most substantial gain, with an increase of 106.28 km2 over the 30-year period. Of the 13,000 islands examined, the researchers found that only around 12% had experienced a significant shoreline shift, with almost equal numbers experiencing either landward (loss) or seaward (gain) movement.
The scientists identify many reasons why islands can grow in size despite the small annual rises in sea level seen in many parts of the world. It is noted that island shorelines are constantly changing due to factors such tides, winds, nearshore hydrodynamics and the transport of sediment. On inhabited islands, human action such as fish farming and land reclamation can be important.
Of course, humans action can have a number of unintended consequences, notably the mining of coral and the breakdown of natural water barriers. Island states such as the Maldives have not been slow in coming forward to claim ‘climate reparations’ from guilt-tripped citizens in the developed world. But tourism has dramatically boosted income in the Maldives to first world levels at a time when the locals have mined coral in industrial quantities to build ports, airports and resort developments. In the process, ocean life diversity has been lost and the islands are often less protected from storm waves that can flow direct to the shoreline. In a recent essay, a group of scientists and economists charged that coral mining “has resulted in massive degradation of shallow reef-flat areas, with important negative impacts on coastal protection”.
The Chinese findings are important in helping destroy the claim that many low-lying islands will simply disappear beneath the waves in the near future due to human-induced climate change. They show how shoreline changes are a persistent and ongoing process that is subject to many natural and human influences. Most of the poster islands used for climate scares such as Tuvalu and the Maldives have increased in size of late, and are hardly suitable to whip up fear of a claimed climate ‘emergency’. Sea level rise is not a “predominant” cause of the changing coasts, the scientists note.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:40 - How Will Tehran Respond To Israel? Could Iranian Stealth Drones Target Critical Oil Infrastructure?
How Will Tehran Respond To Israel? Could Iranian Stealth Drones Target Critical Oil Infrastructure?
Iran’s foreign minister said on Monday that Washington military leaders gave Israel the “green light” to conduct a missile strike on its consulate building complex in Damascus last week that killed several of its top military officials, including two generals.
Hossein Amirabdollahian said, “Our response to the Zionist regime and its punishment is certain.” He continued that “conveying the message of our country to the United States as a full-fledged support of the Zionist regime and direct response for its crimes and actions.”
Addressing those warnings, in the US, National Security Council Strategic Communicators Coordinator John Kirby stated at a press conference on Monday that he couldn’t touch on the specific intelligence matters but pointed out that “the Israeli government could count on the United States’ support for any self-defense needs against threats directly by Iran to Israel, threats that Iran has made public.”
As a possible military response by Tehran nears, Kirby also warned US troops across the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, face mounting threats from drone and missile attacks.
The question on everyone’s mind in the intel community is how Iran will respond. Tehran has many options, but which will it use?
A Bloomberg report on Monday titled “Iran’s Better, Stealthier Drones Are Remaking Global Warfare” reminded us how Iran’s mastery of low-tech drone warfare poses a significant threat to US military bases and oil infrastructure in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, three American troops were killed, and more than three dozen were injured by an Iranian-designed kamikaze drone at the Tower 22 US military base in Jordan.
“The last two years have been a period of hyper-acceleration of new tactics and techniques for Iran’s employment of drones,” Matthew McInnis, a Pentagon intelligence officer, told Bloomberg.
In February, Iran’s Aerospace Force Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced that Tehran-made stealth drones could target any moving vessel and critical infrastructure at great ranges.
Hajizadeh claimed that Iran is one of the world’s leading powers in defense, including drone and missile technologies.
“We have now reached a point where the terrorist military of the United States openly admits that it is not seeking a conflict with the Islamic Republic because it is unable to resist the Iranian defense prowess,” he said.
Iran’s drones are becoming stealthier, and that has the US intel community up at night. Bloomberg pointed out, “The one that hit Tower 22 in January penetrated US defenses by shadowing an American drone that was landing there.”
A spokesman for the US Department of Defense recently said Iran’s procurement, development, and proliferation of drones are “an increasing threat to international peace and security.” They noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set up a panel of senior leaders last month to figure out “this urgent operational challenge.”
Iran’s stealth drone technology has likely advanced significantly since Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Tehran, launched a complex drone swarm attack on the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia in 2019.
The question, again, is how Tehran will respond to Israel/the US. There are mounting concerns Iran or Iran-backed proxy groups could use suicide stealth drones against critical oil infrastructure, such as the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia. Brent crude would immediately spike over the $100 a barrel mark if that facility was hit. And it would be viewed as an indirect attack on the US, as we penned in a note titled “The Weaponization Of Crude Could Trigger The Next Financial Shock.”
Iran has stealth drone technology, and we’re sure they’re not just looking at pretty drones in a giant underground warehouse. They will use it. The question the intel community has is how Tehran will respond to Israel.
Tick, tock, tick, tock…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:20 - US Will Not Accept Another "China Shock", Yellen Says
US Will Not Accept Another “China Shock”, Yellen Says
By Dorothy Li of The Epoch Times
China commonly floods global markets with cheap products, and the United States will not allow this to threaten U.S. jobs, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on April 8 as she concluded a return visit to China.
After Bejing’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization, massive quantities of low-priced products exported from China killed about 2 million jobs in the United States and led to the hollowing out of industrial production in many parts of the country, Ms. Yellen told reporters in Beijing, calling it the “first China shock.”
“I simply would say, [the situation] would not be acceptable to the United States,” she said.
On her second trip to China as treasury secretary, Ms. Yellen repeatedly expressed Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s burgeoning production in green-energy sectors, including electric vehicles, their batteries, and solar panels, as household consumption remains weak in the country.
She criticized China for flooding the global market with cheap products, as Beijing shifted its policy focus by investing in manufacturing factors to boost the country’s stagnant economy.
The message recurred through the four days of talks with senior Chinese officials, including Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who oversees China’s economic and financial systems.
Following the April 8 meeting with the Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, Ms. Yellen raised the issue again.
“I am particularly worried about how China’s enduring macroeconomic imbalances—namely, its weak household consumption and business overinvestment, aggravated by large-scale government support in specific industrial sectors—will lead to significant risk to workers and businesses in the United States and the rest of the world,” she told reporters at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Beijing.
“China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity. And when the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products, the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question.”
The treasury secretary acknowledged that addressing the issue takes time. “Our concerns will not be resolved in a week or a month,” she said….
There are signs that Beijing is reluctant to change its economic strategy.
…
But she emphasized that the Biden administration would push Beijing to change its course.
Over a decade ago, China’s massive state subsidies “led to below-cost Chinese steel that flooded the global market and decimated industries across the world and in the United States,” she said.
“I’ve made clear that President Biden and I will not accept that reality again.”
Continue reading at The Epoch Times
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:00 - Japan Warns AI Could Cause Total Collapse Of The Social Order
Japan Warns AI Could Cause Total Collapse Of The Social Order
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,
Two top Japanese companies have warned that artificial intelligence could cause a total collapse of the social order if it is not rapidly reigned in.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and Yomiuri Shimbun Group Holdings, the country’s largest telecommunications company and the country’s biggest newspaper, jointly published the AI manifesto.
It warned that if legislation is not passed quickly in major countries across the world, artificial intelligence threatens to decimate democracy and provoke widespread societal unrest.
Pointing to AI programs being developed by US tech giants, the manifesto warns, “In the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars.”
TOKYO—Japan’s largest telecommunications company and the country’s biggest newspaper called for speedy legislation to restrain generative artificial intelligence, saying democracy and social order could collapse if AI is left unchecked. https://t.co/zELcjbjwmI
— BedrockOne (@BedrockOne) April 8, 2024
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The report stated that such technology is designed to seize users’ attention with little regard for morality or accuracy.
Guided by Keio University researchers, the companies called on the Japanese government to pass new laws to protect elections and national security from AI.
As we previously highlighted, programs such as Google’s Gemini AI system caused fury after they openly discriminated against white people and in some cases erased them from history altogether.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT produced equally ludicrous content, in one case saying it would refuse to quietly utter a racial slur that no human could hear in order to save 1 billion white people from a “painful death.”
* * *
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 22:20 - Iron Ore's Two-Day Rally Biggest In Years On China Bottoming Hopes
Iron Ore’s Two-Day Rally Biggest In Years On China Bottoming Hopes
Over the past year, there has been a surge in doom-and-gloom headlines about China’s economy. The country’s mercantilist policymakers have spent months attempting to stimulate a fragile economy through monetary easing while keeping the real estate crisis at bay. However, a more optimistic view is emerging as Chinese macroeconomic data and stocks stabilize, with the commodity market now indicating signs of a more favorable economic outlook heading into spring.
Bloomberg reports iron ore prices in Asia are headed for the largest two-day rally in more than two years, fueled by prospects of a bump in steel demand and output in the world’s second-largest economy.
According to financial firm Macquarie Group, April and May are the most active periods for construction across China. They noted that iron ore inventories are peaking at ports, and steel output at the nation’s blast furnaces has already increased.
There’s a “bit of a reversion back to normal seasonal trends where you have higher hot metal production throughout the middle of the year,” Rob Stein, a metals analyst at Macquarie, told Bloomberg in a phone interview. Stein added that this should help iron ore to achieve a price range between $110 and $120 a ton.
Nick Savone, global head of equity sales at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to clients that his “team’s supply/demand model shows a closely balanced market, supporting prices well above the cash cost curve, which continues to move higher. They see upside to spot price, to $120/t in Q3, as Chinese stocks draw down on stable demand and lack of further upside to seaborne supply.”
Despite China’s economy being plagued with many problems, including a real estate bust, deflation, debt troubles, demographic winter, foreign investor exodus, supply chain fracturing, and deteriorating Sino-US ties, recent macroeconomic data shows a potential bottom forming.
China’s official factory purchasing managers index moved into expansion last month, the first time since September. The services sector index hit the highest level since June, and a separate factory index from and S&P Global hit to a 13-month high.
Late last month, China’s President Xi Jinping met with more than a dozen American business leaders, including Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Inc. and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm Inc., to restore confidence in the Chinese economy.
The CSI 300 Index found a floor at the start of February and rose 13% through early April. After halving since February 2021, the multi-year equity rout appears stabilized (for now).
Meanwhile, the JPM Global MFG PMI index bottomed for the past year and recently moved into expansion territory.
The question on everyone’s mind is if the world’s second-largest economy has finally bottomed. If so, the global economy could be on a soft landing path. If not, look out below…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 22:00 - Jordan Believes Hamas Behind Huge Gaza Protests Which Seek To Sever Ties With Israel
Jordan Believes Hamas Behind Huge Gaza Protests Which Seek To Sever Ties With Israel
Jordanian authorities have clamped down on participants in the daily protests against the Israeli war on Gaza, amid accusations that Hamas has a role in igniting them. Thousands have been protesting daily in Ramadan in front of the Israeli embassy in the capital, Amman, demanding its closure and an end to normalization with Israel in response to its atrocities in Gaza.
The protests continued even though the embassy has no diplomatic mission, following the departure of Israel’s ambassador in October and Jordan’s recalling of its ambassador in protest of the Israeli war on Gaza. Jordanian authorities have been caught off guard by the size of the Ramadan protests, which average between 6,000 to 10,000 participants.
Via Reuters Columnists and former officials have attacked Hamas leaders, especially Khaled Meshaal, accusing the movement and the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to create chaos in Jordan. Former information minister Samih al-Maaytah accused the Hamas movement abroad of collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan to advance Hamas’s political agendas.
“Hamas abroad is trying to pressure Jordan to restore relations with the movement,” he said, citing a speech on March 26 in Amman by Meshaal, the head of Hamas abroad, calling on millions to take to the streets.
“Hamas wants to send a message that it can influence and lead the Jordanian street, which is also convenient for the Iranians who have not been able to exercise any political influence in Jordan,” Maaytah told MEE.
Jordanian government spokesperson Muhannad Moubaydeen said on Tuesday that the government did not mind the demonstrations, but was concerned about the chants, which it views as pro-Hamas.
“Jordanian security is charged with protecting the demonstrators and ensuring their safety, but the problem is those who harm national security and come out with unacceptable chants,” he said in a press conference. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan has rejected these accusations.
According to Murad al-Adayleh, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Action Front, a party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, “there are no special party interests in these protests, which represent all sectors of Jordanian society that support the Palestinian resistance”.
“The Jordanian people’s relationship with the Palestinian issue is different from any Arab people because it is geographically and demographically related to Palestine,” Adayleh told MEE. “We paid sacrifices and sacrifices from our children for the sake of Palestine, so it is natural for us to see these sit-ins in all cities.”
Adayleh said the accusations of Hamas’s role in the protests seek to discredit the protest movement, which has so far been the largest in the Arab world. “There are attempts to demonize the Jordanian movement because it has begun to influence the Arab street and has galvanized protests in other Arab countries,” he said.
In Amman, Jordan, large crowds persist in their protest outside the Israeli embassy on Friday. Hundreds voiced opposition to Jordan’s normalisation with Israel through chants and demonstrations, calling on Jordan to cut all ties with Israel. pic.twitter.com/YpQl6e2L6G
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 6, 2024
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Jordan was the second Arab country after Egypt to normalise relations with Israel in 1994, in a peace treaty that remains deeply unpopular in the country. Jordanians have also denounced the kingdom’s import of Israeli gas as “treasonous”.
Hundreds detained
Jordanian security services have detained hundreds of political activists from different parties since the beginning of the 7 October war. Lawyer and former judge Louay Obeidat said that more than 1,500 activists have been prosecuted for their protest activities.
Many of them have been released, but dozens remain in administrative detention, while seven are considered to have been forcibly disappeared. Among the detainees was trade union activist Maysara Malas, who has been in administrative detention, held without charge for the past four months in connection with the protests.
Footage documenting the brutal arrest by Jordan’s security forces of a nonviolent protester after the forces cracked down on a massive pro-Palestine protest outside the Israeli occupation’s embassy in Amman last night. pic.twitter.com/qsQmBZ3UeV
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) April 6, 2024
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Malas’s family said that 20 members of the General Intelligence raided his house in al-Rashid suburb at dawn on 4 January to arrest him. During the raid, the officers asked all family members to turn off their phones, searched the house and Malas’s car, and confiscated documents, electronic devices and surveillance camera tapes, the family said in a statement.
After an hour-and-a-half-long search of their house, Malas was handcuffed and detained without any charge. He remains in detention at the General Intelligence Department, and his lawyer has been prevented from visiting him, according to the family.
The National Alliance for Rights and Freedoms, a group of human rights activists, said that the Jordanian authorities pursued a huge number of activists in connection with the sit-in near the Israeli embassy.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:40 - 'Bird Flu-Pocalypse' Forces Hong Kong To Suspend Some Imports Of US Poultry Meat
‘Bird Flu-Pocalypse’ Forces Hong Kong To Suspend Some Imports Of US Poultry Meat
The recent spread of bird flu—also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI— across several US states has been hyped by corporate media. Some journalists are quoting ‘experts’ who warn the bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse’ than Covid.’
According to Bloomberg data, the story count in corporate media for all things “Bird Flu” last week hit a record high on data going back to 2014.
The context here is crucial. Bird flu is not just a US issue anymore; it’s ‘going global,’ and this is happening just before the US presidential elections in November.
On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s food safety authority published a memo stating, “Import of poultry meat and poultry products suspended in some areas of the United States.”
Here’s the full memo from the Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department:
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (April 9) that in response to a notification from the World Organization for Animal Health regarding an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Ionia County, Michigan, and Parmer County, Texas, USA, The CFS immediately instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and poultry products (including poultry eggs) from the above-mentioned areas to protect public health in Hong Kong.
A spokesman for the CFS said that according to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 37,770 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 83.84 million poultry eggs from the United States last year.
The spokesman said: “The CFS has contacted the US authorities regarding the incident and will continue to closely monitor information on the outbreak of avian influenza from the World Organization for Animal Health and relevant authorities, and will take appropriate actions in light of the development of the local epidemic.”
If it’s bird flu or whatever “Disease X” could possibly be, there appears to be a push to “intersect” some type of ‘Covid crisis’ before the 2024 US elections.
“They will surely try to run their “Disease X” ruse. But they have already lost the trust of the people they made war against in their own country. In which case, expect resistance among the un-sick,” James Howard Kunstler penned in a note earlier this month.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:20 - Vanderbilt Students Expelled Over Violent Protest, Including Activist Recognized By The White House
Vanderbilt Students Expelled Over Violent Protest, Including Activist Recognized By The White House
For years, we have discussed the failure of universities to take actions against faculty and students shutting down events or acting unlawfully, including faculty guilty of criminal assault.
Now, Vanderbilt has expelled three students after anti-Israel protests, including Jack Petocz, a political activist recognized by the White House and featured prominently in the New York Times and other news outlets.
According to the Vanderbilt Hustler and The College Fix, the students were arrested for allegedly assaulting a security guard amid raucous anti-Israel protests inside an Administration building late last month.
A security video shows a security officer overwhelmed as he tried to keep protesters out of Kirkland Hall.
The officer is shown being pushed down the hall before leaving the frame of the video camera.
Petocz posted a denial on X:
“I did not touch a community service officer, nor am I anywhere near the individual in the video. I’d implore you to trust a student activist over rich, powerful, white men, but that’s your choice.”
He insisted that he and the other students were only “peacefully protesting the genocide in Palestine.”
X Screenshot
Petocz’s activism, including opposing the Florida parental rights law, has been widely celebrated in the media including an article that featured him in a January 2022 front story on fighting conservative school boards. President Biden invited him to the White House for a bill signing and took a picture with him in the Oval Office.
Hi! My name is Jack Petocz, I’m the 17-year-old student activist who led nationwide walkouts against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Through being kicked out of school, harassed in public and doxxed, this moment was truly special to me. I’ll keep fighting ❤️ pic.twitter.com/DGksCMTWHS
— Jack Petocz (@Jack_Petocz) July 13, 2022
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It appears that universities are growing impatient with protesters, particularly after a series of sit-ins. Recently, students were suspended for storming the office of Pomona College President Gabrielle Starr. Nineteen students were reportedly arrested.
Starr claimed in an open letter that racial slurs were used by students and declared:
“These actions are actively destructive of the values that underpin our community. Any participants in today’s events … who turn out to be Pomona students, are subject to immediate suspension. Students from the other Claremont Colleges will be banned from Pomona’s campus and subject to discipline on their own campuses.”
The actions of the university have led to protests on campus and calls for the student board to reverse that suspensions.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:00 - Equity Mantra Now Is To Buy Dips But Hedge Risks
Equity Mantra Now Is To Buy Dips But Hedge Risks
By Jan-Patrick Barnert, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist
There are two pieces of stock market wisdom which — unlike many others — often ring true: “buy protection when you can, not when you must” and “a hedged pot never boils.” Both seem to be at play right now.
Last Thursday’s equity drop was followed the next day by a 1% gain on Wall Street and a late-session bounce in the Stoxx 600. That fits the pattern we’ve seen since December — that of an uptrend punctuated with occasional drops, before markets to cruise back to record highs in a day or two.
Strategists at Tier 1 Alpha acknowledge Thursday’s move was “one of those exogenous events that took markets unexpectedly for a loop.” But they note that as the selloff accelerated, oil prices and Bitcoin spiked, while US short-term rates and gold snoozed. With no across-the-board flight to safe havens, Thursday was likely more about individual investors hedging positions, rather than everyone rushing for the door, they say adding that “somebody felt more pain than the rest of us.”
Indeed, buying and pricing of put options is picking up both in Europe and the US. Levels are certainly not extreme but the trend indicates investors are less complacent than before, as the timing of the first US interest-rate cut recedes further into the year.
“For the first time this year, we saw real demand for protection on Thursday, as the GS Panic Index reached its highest level since last fall,” Goldman Sachs’s Derivatives Sales Trading desk tells clients. And the bank’s prime desk points to net US equity sales heading into Friday’s non-farm payrolls print, with short sales outpacing long buys.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s move lifted the VIX above 16 points — a departure from the pattern of recent months, whereby the gauge mostly closed below the 15-point mark. If the correlations illustrated by our chart below hold true, stocks might be in for some more trouble — essentially a VIX spike along the lines of last spring and summer would imply a 4-6% equity decline over a 20-day rolling period.
Finally, take a look at market momentum. That’s deteriorated over the past two trading days, with pro-cyclical benchmarks such as DAX and Dow lagging, alongside US mid- and small-cap stocks. These areas are usually sensitive to interest rates, yet for months they have largely ignored the US rate-cut re-pricing, widening the stock-bond gap to a level many would consider uncomfortable.
“This gap combines with various risks, technical indicators and signals to suggest not chasing equity markets here. We would look for better entry points ahead,” writes Berenberg analyst Jonathan Stubbs. His view echoes that of Amundi, which missed the recent rally yet plans to wait for a market pullback before wading into buy.
It all suggests investors plan to stay in the game for now, merely adjusting their portfolios to their highest conviction trades. But at such cheap levels, putting hedges in place increasingly looks like a no-brainer.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 20:20 - 15 US Agencies Knew Wuhan Lab Was "Trying To Create A Coronavirus Like COVID-19": Rand Paul
15 US Agencies Knew Wuhan Lab Was “Trying To Create A Coronavirus Like COVID-19”: Rand Paul
While a massive body of evidence exists on the origins of COVID-19, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is conducting his own investigation into the matter.
In a Tuesday op-ed, Paul writes that government officials from 15 federal agencies “knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.”
These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.
Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. -Rand Paul
Paul is talking about the DEFUSE project, which was revealed after DRASTIC Research uncovered documents showing that DARPA had been presented with a proposal for EcoHealth to perform gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus.
New documents released by Drastic Research show Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance had applied for funds that would allow them to further modify coronavirus spike proteins and find potential furin cleavage sites.
Rep. Gallagher explains why that’s so important. pic.twitter.com/6aEPyuW7Go
— Rep. Gallagher Press Office (@RepGallagher) September 23, 2021
And according to Rand Paul, officials from 15 agencies knew about this. While the project was never funded (DARPA called it too dangerous) – Paul writes: “This project, the DEFUSE project, proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.“
And what does this mean?
It means that at least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19.
Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research. Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus.
Peter Daszak concealed this proposal. University of North Carolina scientist Ralph Baric, a named collaborator on the DEFUSE project, failed to reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19.
And now we know that 15 agencies heard the proposal and when each agency discovered that COVID-19 was strangely similar to DEFUSE’s proposed virus creation, not one agency head stepped forward to warn the public that the virus might be man-made and therefore already adapted to transmit freely among humans. -Rand Paul
Paul further writes that Fauci’s NIAID was not only briefed on the DEFUSE proposal, his “Rocky Mountain Lab” was named as a partner in it along with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Newly obtained documents confirm yet again Fauci lied about COVID. Fauci’s NIH lab was a partner with Wuhan on a proposal to engineer a highly transmissible coronavirus in 2018. But he wasn’t alone, 15 government agencies knew about it and said nothing. Americans deserve answers.…
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 9, 2024
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Meanwhile, researcher Ian Lipkin, one of the authors of the “proximal origins” coverup paper, was also part of the DEFUSE plan – which he never revealed publicly.
“Did NIAID warn us? Did Anthony Fauci warn us? No! All lips remained sealed,” writes Paul.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 20:00 - Staving Off Revolution
Staving Off Revolution
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
If the leadership chooses happy-story PR and toothless reforms for show in the hopes it will all blow over, these subterfuges have the potential to push dissatisfaction beyond the point of control.
Whatever else we might say or think about the leadership class, they tend to have a keen sense of self-preservation. The ability to issue optimistic visions of sunshine and unicorns with a straight face is valuable, to be sure, but so is the ability to sense that the BS is no longer working and something must be done to stave off a potentially career-ending collapse of confidence.
As a general rule, the ability to maintain a delusional confidence that it’s all going to work out just fine tends to end very poorly for the leadership class. However sincerely it may be uttered, let them eat brioche doesn’t resolve the extreme asymmetries that generate revolutionary disorder. Something more is required, something that either reduces the asymmetries of wealth and power or gives the appearance of doing so.
Staving off revolution requires some action that benefits those for whom the status quo is no longer working. While borrowing and distributing “free money” works for awhile, this profligacy generates its own destabilizing dynamics, and so eventually reducing the asymmetries of wealth and power requires the leadership to take a chunk out of the perquisites and spoils of the financial elite.
Since the leadership class is either beholden to the financial elite or has dual membership in both clubs, the leaders are quickly declared “traitors to their class” even as they are acting to stave off the overthrow of the predatory financial elite that pushed asymmetries to destabilizing extremes.
In other words, the leaders saving the financial elite from the consequences of their own rapacity will get no credit from those they’re saving. Rather than grasping that giving up 10% of their gains will preserve the remaining 90%, the infinite greed and hubris of the financial elite locks their minds in a delusional fantasy that their wealth and power are “deserved” and therefore untouchable.
That the system is rigged so that every pitch is a gentle toss and every base hit becomes a home run is conveniently ignored.
That doing nothing could lead to a one-way ticket to Devil’s Island issued by a revolutionary government doesn’t compute. That they could soon be fighting over the MREs occasionally flung from aircraft doesn’t penetrate their hubris-soaked echo chamber of entitlement. The task of saving their own class falls thanklessly to the leadership.
Policies that would have been rejected out of hand as politically impossible become normalized as leaders rush to stave off revolution. The historical path from complacency to denial to policy extremes is well-worn: first the leadership tries the sunshine and unicorns cover story. When this fails to satisfy the disenfranchised mob, the leaders issue grand sounding edicts that suggest “hope and change” is right around the corner.
Once this well-used ploy fails to quench the social distemper, then the leaders accept that “when things get serious, you have to lie,” and so they lie, at first to cool the ugly sentiment and then to buy time.
Eventually, some real action has to be taken, and then it gets dicey. There are mistakes to be made in any policy choice: doing nothing can trigger disaster, but so can doing too little or too much. The luxury of calibrating a response is no longer available, and so extreme policies are thrown at the wall until something sticks.
Those who counseled caution are cashiered, for their advice led to the current crisis. Those who counseled radical responses are elevated and freed to unleash whatever they claim will work like magic.
But alas, by this late stage, magic is in short supply, and extreme policies set off second-order consequences no one anticipated, except perhaps those overly cautious voices who did not understand that the option of good choices had long since dissipated, and the only options left were bad or possibly worse than merely bad.
The extremes of wealth-power asymmetries that generated the crisis are eventually matched by equally extreme policies designed to stave off the overthrow of the ruling elites. If these actually rebalance what was allowed to drift out of balance, order and stability can slowly be restored.
If the leadership chooses happy-story PR and toothless reforms for show in the hopes it will all blow over, these subterfuges have the potential to push dissatisfaction beyond the point of control, and predictions about the next stage of events become folly: beyond this event horizon, anything becomes possible.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:40 - Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks
Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks
Russia says it has uncovered more damning evidence connecting the US and NATO to recent terror and assassination campaigns in Russia, including making connections to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack which resulted in over 140 Russians dead and hundreds more wounded and injured.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is the country’s top investigative body, announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior US and Western officials who are believed to be “financing terrorism”.
The formal statement claims that an ongoing investigation has “established” that money from commercial organizations tied to NATO were used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. Lately there’s also been a spate of devastating cross-border attacks on refineries, ports, and oil facilities.
President Biden has long been under scrutiny centered on alleged corruption involving him and his son, Hunter Biden. via AP Another major event and probe which is high on the Kremlin’s agenda is the August 20, 2022 assassination of Darya Dugina outside of Moscow, in a car bombing which authorities believe was likely intended to kill her father, Alexander Dugin, prominent philosopher and pundit who is seen as a close ally of President Putin. There’s also the assassination of famous pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, killed in an April 2023 cafe bombing in St. Petersburg..
While it is nothing new that Russian officials would raise suspicions that such targeted attacks had covert NATO support, whether directly or indirectly, what is new – and a bit surprising – is that the name Burisma Holdings appears in the fresh statement of the Russian Investigative Committee.
This name is of course very familiar and notorious in the West, as AFP and Moscow Times report Tuesday:
The top law enforcement body named the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the implicated organizations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden served as a member of Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019.
His role has fueled Republican accusations against the Biden family over claimed corruption and culminated in an ongoing impeachment probe in U.S. Congress. Hunter Biden has denied any wrongdoing, and a former FBI informant was arrested in February on suspicion of fabricating accusations against the president’s family.
The Russian investigative body described that it is still examining “sources and movement of several million U.S. dollars and the involvement of specific persons from government officials and public commercial organizations of Western countries.”
It said further it is seeking to expose “links of the direct perpetrators of terrorist acts with their foreign curators, organizations and sponsors” — however without naming specific countries or specific terror attack or assassinations (other than identifying Burisma).
Just like with US media over the past several years, Burisma has been featured prominently in Russian state media reporting. Below is the precise section from Tuesday’s official statement naming Burisma (according to machine translation):
It has been established that funds received through commercial organizations, in particular, the oil and gas company Burisma Holdings, operating in Ukraine, have been used in recent years to carry out terrorist acts in the Russian Federation, as well as beyond its borders in order to eliminate prominent political and public figures and causing economic damage. —Russian Investigative Committee
This marks a first over the course of the more than two year long Russia-Ukraine war. Recently, Ukraine has stepped up its cross-border drone and missile attack on Russian soil. Moscow has all along complained that these attacks are sophisticated and long-range enough (with long-range attacks especially wreaking havoc on Russian oil facilities) that they must have CIA or Western intelligence help.
Conservative media was abuzz Tuesday after a familiar name resurfaced, this time over alleged links to terror financing…
Trump was effectively impeached because he wanted to look into Joe & Hunter Biden’s connections to Burisma. https://t.co/GX9yh4L7wj
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) April 9, 2024
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It appears that the Kremlin is now not just pointing the finger at Western governments, but at commercial entities within Ukraine which have long established Western business ties. It seems the theory is that companies like Burisma are continuing to play a ‘middle man’ role in term of ‘terror financing’ for attacks on Russian soil.
Washington has repeatedly rejected Russian allegations that the US is involved in these attacks. Yet as we’ve recently detailed, more and more US mainstream media reporting has of late been offering surprising clarity on the CIA’s role in assisting Ukraine with mounting high-risk cross border attacks on Russian soil of late.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:20 - David Hogg Group Hit With Allegations Over Spending Practices And Policies
David Hogg Group Hit With Allegations Over Spending Practices And Policies
Gun control activist David Hogg has been hit with allegations over the spending practices of his group Leaders We Deserve PAC. Conservative outlets are reporting that the group spent comparably little on actual candidates as opposed to travel and expenses. His prior counsel is a familiar name in such controversies in Washington: former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias.
(Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz) Hogg created a group in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections to elect Generation Z politicians to offices throughout the country. The group was given favorable national coverage in major media outlets. He explained that contributions would be used to elect young Democrat candidates:
“[We’re] trying to pick them and say, you know, we would like to help you run for office, we’ll supply you with all of the resources that you need and help basically coach you and hold your hand to get there, which is kind of the gap that’s in the space right now, for at least young people at the state legislative level.”
Federal filings reportedly show that year-end 2023, Leaders We Deserve raised over $3 million. That is impressive for its first year in operation.
The conservative sites allege that the group spent “only about $263,000 on its stated mission of electing candidates from Generation Z to office combined with donations to other Democrat Party committees and groups—and instead spent more than $1.4 million on disbursements to themselves for payroll and to political consulting firms and legal fees, in addition to travel and entertainment expenses like hotels, flights, and meals.”
However, it spent reportedly spent more than $1,314,000 on travel and related expenses while giving $80,000 to the Elias Law Group.
Previously, when allegations of self-dealing and accounting improprieties were raised with regard to Black Lives Matter, the group’s attorney, Elias, immediately stood out for many. Elias resigned from his “key role” with BLM as the scandal exploded.
(MSNBC/via YouTube) Elias’s name has now again popped up in the controversy involving Hogg, who is accused of raising millions to support liberal candidates but allegedly spending only $263,000 on such candidates while paying $83,000 to the Elias law firm. (These figures are reportedly from federal filings but neither Elias nor Hogg have specifically addressed the media reports).
Elias has long been a controversial figure, including being sanctioned in court. He was named as the key figure in hiding the funding of the Steele dossier by the Clinton campaign, which led later to a FEC fine. Reporters accused the campaign of lying to them about the funding. Elias was also reportedly with campaign chair John Podesta when he allegedly denied such funding to congressional investigators.
Despite accusing the GOP of election denial and manipulation, Elias was also involved in alleged gerrymandering efforts and challenging the outcome of elections based on alleged problems with voting machine tallies.
Back to the most recent controversy, Hogg could argue that, as a well known activist figure, his travel to these campaigns is the boost that the group promised donors. He is the assistance. Likewise, the group could argue that it is still getting ramped up for greater spending efforts in the fall. As for the legal fees, the group could argue that start up legal fees and reporting fees tend to be higher at the outset.
The controversy does raise some novel questions about the purpose of contributions. Hogg coming to a local campaign is likely to generate media attention for a candidate. He can also claim that he and his staff bring needed expertise and advice to novice or young candidates. That could be their interpretation of the promise to “basically coach you and hold your hand to get there.” Critics are focused on the pitch to “supply you with all of the resources that you need.”
The group is only the latest political or business effort launched by Hogg, who previously tried to start a “progressive pillow company” before stepping away from the enterprise.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:00 - What Do They Know: Goldman, Amex Quietly Cut Rates On Savings Accounts… Is The Fed Next?
What Do They Know: Goldman, Amex Quietly Cut Rates On Savings Accounts… Is The Fed Next?
It is not a secret that the biggest market debate of 2024 is when – and even if – the Fed will cut rates: after all, with the US labor force adding hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, and core CPI bubbling along at a blistering hot ~4% pace, many – such as Larry Sanders and even Neel Kashkari – are warning that the Fed does not need to cut rates (in fact, a rate hike may be prudent). On the other hand, we have a growing roster of Democrat politicians (most notably Senator Elizabeth “Pokarenhontas” Warren) demanding Powell cuts rates to “help address the affordable housing crisis” and also reduce the record high credit card APRs for their voters.
It’s not just the politicians: the dovish Fed itself in its latest dot plot indicated that it still expects to cut rates 3 times in 2024, a schedule which – when accounting for the November elections – would mean the Fed has to start cutting in June if it wishes to avoid delaying the start of the easing cycle and also avoid the impression that it is hoping to influence the outcome of the presidential elections (much to the chagrin of Bill Dudley who wrote a 2019 op-ed demanding Powell do just that).
Yet even as the market has recently taken a machete to its own dovish expectations, and after pricing in more than 6 rate cuts in 2024 at the start of the year, has since trimmed its forecast to less than 3 full cuts…
… or even fewer than the Fed has telegraphed…
… suggesting that the market is convinced that the Fed is wrong, the economy will run hotter than expected, and Powell will be forced to delay, or even scrap, the easing cycle.
But maybe not, because while signs mounts – especially in the realm of higher commodity prices – that a June cut is a pipe dream, some financial institutions are aggressively taking matters into their own hands: consider that in the last week, not one but two financial giants, have quietly cut the interest rate they pay on their “high yield” savings accounts, a step that usually takes place just around the time they are dead certain the Fed will cut rates or right after.
We are talking about Goldman and American Express: starting with the former, last Wednesday, Goldman’s consumer bank Marcus lowered the rate on its high-yield savings account for the first time in more than three years, trimming the APR on the bank’s flagship product to 4.4%, down from 4.5% in March. It was the first cut since November 2020, when Goldman lowered the rate from 0.6% to 0.5%.
“Our current rate places us ahead of the majority of our peers,” a Goldman spokesperson told Bloomberg in an email when asked to explain the rate cut. “We will continue to focus on providing value to our customers and growing our Marcus deposits business which is a priority for the firm.”
Well, you can only keep growing deposits if the rate cut does not lead to deposit outflows… which can only happen if Goldman knows that everyone else is also about to cut rates, following in the footsteps of the Fed
And then moments ago, doubling down on the clear dovish trend that is suddenly sweeping banks for “reasons unknown”, American Express did the same, when it cut the rate on its High Yield Savings Account to 4.30% from 4.35%.
Or maybe the cuts are not for “reasons unknown”: maybe the banks realize that they can start cutting rates because soon everyone else will do the same for one simple reason: the Fed will fire the starting pistol to an easing cycle so many believe will start momentarily.
As Bloomberg notes, the move signals that financial institutions are on alert for when they can lower interest rates for individuals, and the fact that not one but two of the biggest players in the game just did that, should be enough to raise a lot of eyebrows about the Fed’s rate cutting plans…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:58 - Over 500,000 Democratic Voters Have Cast Primary Protest Votes Against Biden
Over 500,000 Democratic Voters Have Cast Primary Protest Votes Against Biden
There are clear indicators that large swathes of prior Biden voters don’t intend to vote for him this next time around versus Trump. The latest example is that the “uncommitted” campaign is gaining steam, having garnered the support of more than a half-million Democrat voters.
The initiative organized by dissident Democrats outraged over President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war has sent a powerful shot across the bow of his presidential campaign, and the movement didn’t even exist at the start of the 2024 primary season. Yet The Nation says that so far in total 530,502 people have voted “uncommitted” or “uninstructed” where it’s available on the ballot.
Anadolu/Getty Images The initiative was first implemented in the key swing state of Michigan, resulting in over 100,000 people there registering their vote as “uncommitted”. The state has a huge Arab and Muslim demographic.
The Nation has documented that the movement is spreading fast, and it should be a huge worry for Biden campaign strategists:
The campaign has won enough votes to secure Democratic National Convention delegates from Minnesota (14), Hawaii (7), Michigan (2), and, according to local news reports, Washington (2). And notable levels of support for the effort in must-win battleground states such as Wisconsin signal that the president’s campaign cannot neglect the fact that a substantial portion of the base that must be mobilized this fall is crying out for the United States to back an immediate, permanent cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel’s assault has cost more than 33,000 lives.
According to more from AntiWar.com, which has been closely following the movement:
Last week, 48,091 votes were cast for “uninstructed” in the Wisconsin primary. The turnout far exceeded organizers’ expectations, as their goal was to secure 20,682, the margin of victory for Biden in Wisconsin for the 2020 election.
The opposition to Biden was strongest in the area of Wisconsin where University of Wisconsin–Madison students reside, historically a Democratic stronghold. In that area, 30% of voters cast ballots for “uncommitted,” something Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) called “a big, f**king deal.”
Meanwhile, there’s also been an intensifying divide among Democrats over whether to halt defense aid to Israel, a debate which only intensified in the wake of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza, which left seven international workers dead, including an American.
Vote Uncommitted EVERYWHERE. This President is clearly not getting the message. https://t.co/pSvy56ho3g
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) April 1, 2024
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This increased fragmentation of Biden’s base has been on display in recent days too, given former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – still very influential among Dems – has publicly come out against Biden’s policy to continue arming Israel. The issue is entering the heart of the Democratic establishment, threatening unity.
Axios reported that she “signed onto a call by progressive members of Congress for the U.S. to stop transferring weapons to Israel over a strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:40 - Illegal Immigrant With 7 Deportations And 11 Arrests Charged With Murder
Illegal Immigrant With 7 Deportations And 11 Arrests Charged With Murder
Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
An illegal immigrant who had been deported seven times and arrested 11 times was charged with aggravated murder after an unidentified body was found in Ohio, according to local authorities.
A man in handcuffs in a file photo. (Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images) Police found the body in Hamilton on Monday after responding to a 911 call. Investigators interviewed suspect Fermin Garcia-Gutierrez the following day.
Butler County Sheriff’s Office stated that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez, a 46-year-old Mexican national, was detained on an ICE holder and held in the Butler County Jail for weapon charges, aggravated murder, and drug possession.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez had previously been deported and arrested multiple times using seven different names and three different birth dates.
“Who knows how many people this guy has been involved in and has killed? Here in the United States, in our jail, he’s had two or three weapons charges, he’s had domestic violence [charges] … driving while intoxicated.
“We don’t know how many he’s killed in Mexico,” Mr. Jones said at a press conference.
Mr. Jones also blamed the Biden administration for the surge in illegal crossings at the U.S.–Mexico border.
“Our border is broken, and these individuals are the cause of it,” he said. “We’ve got to stop this border invasion, it’s killing us and its killing innocent people.”
The Hamilton Police Department is continuing its investigation into the murder case, according to Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
Border Patrol has encountered more than 7.6 million illegal immigrants trying to cross the border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
Former federal officials and experts have said in the past that there is a real possibility that hundreds of people on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist have slipped into the United States among the millions of other illegal immigrants over the past three years.
Both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Border Patrol’s former chief, Rodney Scott, have been sounding the alarm about the state of U.S. borders amid an increasing number of known criminals and terror suspects being caught trying to enter the United States.
Customs and Border Protection data show that in fiscal year 2023, which ended in October 2023, Border Patrol agents apprehended 172 people on the watchlist from along the southwest border. However, when all ports of entry are added, the total number rises to 736. Some illegal immigrants were also caught with explosives.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens has previously called for stricter immigration policies to deter illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border with Mexico, including imposing jail time for violators.
Mr. Owens also suggested reviewing the country’s asylum laws to ensure that only migrants with legitimate claims will be allowed to seek asylum in the United States. He thinks that if people know there will be a consequence for breaking the law and entering the country illegally, they’ll be less likely to do it.
Stephen Katte contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:20 - Scandal Rocks Biden's Labor Dept For Lying About Sharing Non-Public Inflation Data With Secret Group Of Wall Street "Super Users"
Scandal Rocks Biden’s Labor Dept For Lying About Sharing Non-Public Inflation Data With Secret Group Of Wall Street “Super Users”
A little over a month ago, a scandal erupted among the (relatively small( group of economists who keep a close eye on the monthly inflation data reported by the Biden Department of Labor, when they learned that there is an even smaller, and much more exclusive group of economists called “super users” who get preferential treatment from the BLS, including wink-wink-nudge-nudge explanations of where the data may diverge from expectations. That was the case for the January CPI when as Bloomberg first reported, the BLS sent an email to a group of data “super users”, which “explained suggested a surge in a measure of rental inflation — which left analysts puzzled — was caused by an adjustment to how subcomponents of the index are weighted”:
Once it became public knowledge that there was a super secret group of preferential “accounts” receiving economic data, immediately following the Bloomberg report, a recipient of the email said that BLS Statistics “tried to retract it and that they were told to disregard its contents.” Almost as if they were trying to hide it after the fact.
In retrospect, it appears the BLS really did have something to hide, because in a follow up from both the NYT and Bloomberg, we now learn that an economist from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was corresponding on data related the monthly CPI print with major firms like JPMorgan and BlackRock, in what Bloomberg said “raised questions about equitable access to economic information.”
Extending on the report from February, records requested by Bloomberg revealed that the unnamed BLS economist answered numerous inquiries about details within the CPI in recent months, mostly related to computations in key categories within shelter as well as used cars, according to
The back and forth between the financial firms and the economist “who has been with the BLS for many years” was first reported by the New York Times; as discussed previously, the government bureaucrat sent several emails to a broader group, which he called “my super users” in one of the emails obtained by Bloomberg. The BLS previously lied when it said it doesn’t maintain a list of “super users.”
In mid-February, one user asked if they could be added to the “super user email list,” to which the BLS economist replied minutes later, “Yes I can add you to the list.” The move was an attempt by the lowly paid government worker to curry favor with his much better paid peers on the sell- and buyside so that he could, one day, trade the preferential data access for a cushier job in some hedge fund or Wall Street firm.
As Bloomberg details, while the recipients’ names were redacted from the request, email signature details or disclosures from their employers were visible in some of the provided records. And in addition to BlackRock and JPMorgan, other banks, hedge funds and research firms — Brevan Howard, Millennium Capital Partners LLP, Citadel, Moore Capital Management, High Frequency Economics, Nomura Securities International and BNP Paribas — appeared in the exchanges and declined to comment. Pharo Management and Wolfe Research also came up in the emails but didn’t provide comment.
Understandably, economists – at least those who were not important enough to be on the “super user” list – have been clamoring to find out more about these “super users” are after the BLS staffer addressed an email to those people in February, suggesting that a change to the weights of underlying data within a key measure of rental inflation was behind its surge in January’s CPI. As we reported at the time, the BLS told recipients to disregard its contents, and subsequently tried to clear the confusion with a notice on its website. The agency also said that the email was “a mistake.”
But, as noted above, we now know that this was merely the latest lie by a Biden agency; and so this latest revelation “is likely to prompt a deeper look at the dissemination of economic information that has implications for how major assets trade as well as Federal Reserve policy.”
The BLS encourages people to ask questions and makes its staff available to engage with the public, but they strive to create equal access to information for everyone, said Emily Liddel, associate commissioner for publications and special studies at the BLS. Clearly, granting access only to Wall Street giants is not quite the equitable treatment the agency’s woke DEI staffers envisioned.
“Obviously this has been an embarrassment for the agency,” Liddel said. “The public puts a lot of trust in us to be fair, and our data providers put a lot of trust in us for the data to be secure. It’s our goal to repair that trust.”
And while the BLS economist often pointed users to relevant links on the agency’s website, at least one case, he shared information that wasn’t publicly available at the time, related to the calculation for the used cars index within the CPI. Liddel said it is “still under review” whether the employee shared other nonpublic information, and that the issues appear to be isolated to this one staffer. He is not answering incoming user questions at this time, she said.
* * *
While it remains unclear who the economist is, the NYT reported that emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the agency — or at least the economist who sent the original email, a longtime but relatively low-ranking employee — was in regular communication with data users in the finance industry, apparently including analysts at major hedge funds. And they suggest that there was a list of super users, contrary to the agency’s denials.
At the time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the email had been an isolated “mistake” and denied that it maintained a list of users who received special access to information.
And while there is no evidence (yet) that the employee provided early access to coming statistical releases or directly shared other data that wasn’t available to the public, in several instances, the employee did engage in extended, one-on-one email exchanges with data users about how the inflation figures are put together. Such details, though highly technical, can be of significant interest to forecasters, who compete to predict inflation figures to hundredths of a percentage point. Those estimates, in turn, are used by investors making bets on the huge batches of securities that are tied to inflation or interest rates.
Analysts regularly interact with government economists to make sure that they understand the data, but “when such access can move markets, the process for that access needs to be transparent,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project in Washington. “This stuff is so valuable, and then someone just emails it out.”
In at least one case, emails to super users appear to have shared methodological details that were not yet public. On Jan. 31, the employee sent an email to his super users describing coming changes to the way the agency calculates used car prices, at the time a crucial issue for inflation watchers. The email included a three-page document providing detailed answers to questions about the change, and a spreadsheet showing how they would affect calculations.
“Thank you all for your very difficult, challenging and thoughtful questions,” the email said. “It is your questions that help us flesh out all the potential problems.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the change in a news release in early January, but did not publish details about it on its website until mid-February, two weeks after the email from the employee.
It isn’t clear when the employee began providing information to super users, or whether he was the only economist at the agency to do so. Several of his emails were also sent to an internal Bureau of Labor Statistics email alias, suggesting that he did not believe his actions to be inappropriate… or he was simply an idiot.
The super users issue came to light in February, when the employee emailed the group saying that he had identified a technical change that explained an unexpected divergence between rental and homeownership costs in a recent data release. “All of you searching for the source of the divergence have found it,” he wrote.
About an hour and a half after that email went out, a follow-up told recipients to disregard it. In a subsequent online presentation, Bureau of Labor Statistics economists presented evidence that the change identified in the employee’s email was not, in fact, the source of the divergence.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:00 - Who Should Compete In Women's Sports?
Who Should Compete In Women’s Sports?
Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClear Politics,
“What is a woman?” “Can a man get pregnant?” Questions like those are frequently raised at Senate hearings for progressive nominees to the federal bench or Cabinet positions. Republicans pose them for a reason. They know the witnesses will fumble the answers.
Some try to wriggle out with circumlocutions, offering only convoluted mumbling. That works brilliantly for French academic articles but not so well for U.S. Senate hearings. Other witnesses, mostly judicial nominees, claim they cannot answer because the questions might come before them in future cases. They breathe a sigh of relief since their real motto is “Loose lips sink ships.”
Often, Republicans discover the witnesses have already proclaimed their views in opinion pieces, social media posts, or academic articles when they were appealing to like-minded audiences on the left. When the audience is more skeptical, however, they are less eager to repeat those answers or to defend them.
Progressive witnesses may not have answers, but ordinary voters certainly do. They tell pollsters that men cannot get pregnant. Shocking, I know. They think it is ludicrous to place tampons in men’s bathrooms, which some universities and elite high schools do now.
The question of “who is a woman?” is more vexed. The reason is that common sense and cultural tradition point in one direction (“he was born a male and that’s what he is”) but those are opposed by another tradition: our respect for human autonomy. The Western values of human autonomy and deference for individual choices mean we normally acknowledge an adult’s self-identification. (Here is a hard question, though. If my autonomy is to be respected on issues of self-identification, why can’t I simply identify myself as an African American or Native American, even if there is no DNA evidence of that identity? Why shouldn’t that be my choice, just like gender? Yet self-identification as a racial minority without that bloodline is fiercely condemned as a malicious fraud. Just ask Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal, or Ward Churchill.)
These issues are far from settled politically. If an adult male identifies as a woman, many people say, “So be it. Live and let live.” Others are more dubious. Still others reject it outright.
What most people agree on, finally, is that children should not be subjected to irreversible biological procedures or medications. That’s child abuse. It took U.S. hospitals several years to reach that conclusion and end those profitable operations, probably because their lawyers pushed them to stop. In years to come, you can expect lawsuits by adults who will claim they were mutilated as children when they were too young to give informed consent. They will say their parents, doctors, and hospitals should be held liable for the damage they caused. Dial 1-800….
Some of these issues were on the table again this week in Wisconsin. The state legislature in Madison passed a law protecting biological women (the fashionable term is “cis-women”) from competing against transgender women in sports. The governor, a progressive Democrat, promptly vetoed the bill.
Why he exercised that veto is an interesting question. It’s certainly not because there are many transgender voters, even if we include their supportive families and friends. The real reason is that the issue has been folded into the gaping ideological divide between progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans. The governor did not want to risk being caught on the wrong side of that fault line, alienated from his political base. He may also believe, quite sincerely, that the veto was the ethical thing to do. It’s always hard to separate a politician’s ethical principles, if there are any, from hard-nosed calculations.
Feminists are a vital part of the progressive base in every state, including Wisconsin. What’s so striking here – amazing, really – is how silent most feminists have been about transgender competition in women’s sports. Although a few have spoken out, nearly all have remained silent, probably because they do not want to be excoriated for their views or outflanked by those claiming to be more progressive.
Note that the issue here is not whether a biological male who now identifies as a woman can compete in sports. Of course she can. The issue is whether she (formerly a “he”) should be allowed to compete against biological women.
There are really two basic questions at play. One is whether the inclusion of transgender women poses any physical danger to biological women. In contact sports, it might. Indeed, some injuries have already occurred.
The larger, more profound issue is whether this competition would be fundamentally unfair. That ethical standard applies to any sport where strength and body composition matter, even if there is no threat of injury.
Take golf.
The easiest way to think about transgender women in sports is to ask yourself, “Should all golfers, both men and women, be grouped together in the same tournaments, competing on equal terms?”
Put differently, should there be women’s golf tournaments at all? If the answer is “Yes, there should be a separate competition for women,” then ask yourself why? Surely that’s because men can hit the ball much farther, putting women at a severe disadvantage. If that’s the reason, doesn’t it apply equally to transgender women, who can hit the ball much farther than biological women?
This difference in physical strength matters in many sports, from swimming to weight-lifting, from bowling to track and field. Currently, there are single-gender tournaments in all of them. That includes every Olympic event except one equestrian competition. But why continue this sex segregation? If you think transgender women should compete against other women in those sports, despite their marked differences in strength, what is your rationale for any single-gender competition?
And what is your rationale for prohibiting testosterone supplements for biological females? Allowing them would actually level the playing field since transgender women already have that male hormone.
These arguments are not meant to degrade transgender men or women. They are not about respect for them as persons. They do not imply, for instance, that adults shouldn’t be able to identify as a gender different from their biological sex at birth.
Respect for individuals and their self-identification is not the point here. The point is to call out unfair competition, condemn it, and stop it. That can happen only if people slip off their ideological blinders, at least for a moment, and face the issue squarely. Honestly.
Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/09/2024 – 17:40
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