- The Government's War On Free Speech: Protest Laws Undermine The First Amendment
The Government’s War On Free Speech: Protest Laws Undermine The First Amendment
Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”— George Washington
It’s a given that the government is corrupt, unaccountable, and has exceeded its authority.
So what can we do about it?
The first remedy involves speech (protest, assembly, speech, prayer, and publicity), and lots of it, in order to speak truth to power.
The First Amendment, which is the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights, affirms the right of “we the people” to pray freely about our grievances regarding the government. We can gather together peacefully to protest those grievances. We can publicize those grievances. And we can express our displeasure (peacefully) in word and deed.
Unfortunately, tyrants don’t like people who speak truth to power.
The American Police State has shown itself to be particularly intolerant of free speech activities that challenge its authority, stand up to its power grabs, and force it to operate according to the rules of the Constitution.
Cue the rise of protest laws, the police state’s go-to methods for muzzling discontent.
These protest laws, some of which appear to encourage violence against peaceful protesters by providing immunity to individuals who drive their car into protesters impeding traffic and use preemptive deadly force against protesters who might be involved in a riot, take intolerance for speech with which one might disagree to a whole new level.
Ever since the Capitol protests on Jan. 6, 2021, state legislatures have introduced a broad array of these laws aimed at criminalizing protest activities. Yet while the growing numbers of protest laws cropping up across the country are being marketed as necessary to protect private property, public roads or national security, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a thinly disguised plot to discourage anyone from challenging government authority at the expense of our First Amendment rights.
It doesn’t matter what the source of that discontent might be (police brutality, election outcomes, COVID-19 mandates, the environment, etc.): protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, etc., aim to muzzle every last one of us.
However, as Human Rights Watch points out, these assaults on free speech are nothing new. “Various states have long-tried to curtail the right to protest. They do so by legislating wide definitions of what constitutes an ‘unlawful assembly’ or a ‘riot’ as well as increasing punishments. They also allow police to use catch-all public offenses, such as trespassing, obstructing traffic, or disrupting the peace, as a pretext for ordering dispersals, using force, and making arrests. Finally, they make it easier for corporations and others to bring lawsuits against protest organizers.”
Make no mistake: while many of these laws claim to be in the interest of “public safety and limiting economic damage,” these legislative attempts to redefine and criminalize speech are a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution and render the First Amendment’s robust safeguards null and void.
For instance, there are at least 205 proposed laws being considered in 45 states that would curtail the right to peacefully assemble and protest by expanding the definition of rioting, heightening penalties for existing offenses, or creating new crimes associated with assembly.
No matter how you package these laws, no matter how well-meaning they may sound, no matter how much you may disagree with the protesters or sympathize with the objects of the protest, these proposed laws are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent.
In Alabama, lawmakers are pushing to allow individuals to use deadly force near a riot. Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire are also considering similar stand your ground laws to justify the use of lethal force in relation to riots.
In Arizona, legislators want to classify protests involving seven or more people as felonies punishable by up to two years in jail. Under such a law, traditional, nonviolent forms of civil disobedience—sit-ins, boycotts and marches—would be illegal.
In Arkansas, peaceful protesters who engage in civil disobedience by occupying any government property after being told to leave could face six months in jail and a $1000 fine.
In Minnesota, where activists continue to protest the death of George Floyd, who was killed after police knelt on his neck for eight minutes, individuals who are found guilty of any kind of offense in connection with a peaceful protest could be denied a range of benefits, including food assistance, education loans and grants, and unemployment assistance.
Oregon lawmakers wanted to “require public community colleges and universities to expel any student convicted of participating in a violent riot.” In Illinois, students who twice infringe the rights of others to engage in expressive activities could be suspended for at least a year.
Proposed laws in at least 25 states, including Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Florida, would give drivers the green light to “accidentally” run over protesters who are preventing them from fleeing a riot. Washington wants to levy steeper penalties against protesters who “swarm” a vehicle, punishing them for a repeat offense with up to 40 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Responding to protests over the Keystone Pipeline, South Dakota enabled its governor and sheriffs to prohibit gatherings of 20 or more people on public land if the gathering might damage the land. At least 15 other states have also adopted or are considering legislation that would levy harsher penalties for environmental protests near oil and gas pipelines.
In Iowa, all it takes is for one person in a group of three of more people to use force or cause property damage, and the whole group can be punished with up to 5 years in prison and a $7,500 fine.
Obstruct access to critical infrastructure in Mississippi and you could be facing a $10,000 fine and a seven-year prison sentence.
A North Carolina law would have made it a crime to heckle state officials. Under this law, shouting at a former governor would constitute a crime.
In Connecticut, you could be sentenced to five years behind bars and a $5,000 fine for disrupting the state legislature by making noise or using disturbing language.
Indiana lawmakers wanted to authorize police to use “any means necessary” to breakup mass gatherings that block traffic. Lawmakers have since focused their efforts on expanding the definition of a “riot” and punishing anyone who wears a mask to a peaceful protest, even a medical mask, with 2.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Georgia wants to ban all spontaneous, First Amendment-protected assemblies and deny anyone convicted of violating the ban from receiving state or local employment benefits.
Virginia wants to subject protesters who engage in an “unlawful assembly” after “having been lawfully warned to disperse” with up to a year of jail time and a fine of up to $2,500.
Missouri made it illegal for public employees to take part in strikes and picketing, only to have the law ruled unconstitutional in its entirety.
Oklahoma created a sliding scale for protesters whose actions impact or impede critical infrastructure (including a telephone pole). The penalties range from $1,000 and six months in a county jail to $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. And if you’re part of an organization, that fine goes as high as $1,000,000.
Talk about intimidation tactics.
Ask yourself: if there are already laws on the books in all of the states that address criminal or illegal behavior such as blocking public roadways, trespassing on private property or vandalizing property—because such laws are already on the books—then why does the government need to pass laws criminalizing activities that are already outlawed?
What’s really going on here?
No matter what the politicians might say, the government doesn’t care about our rights, our welfare or our safety.
Every despotic measure used to control us and make us cower and comply with the government’s dictates has been packaged as being for our benefit, while in truth benefiting only those who stand to profit, financially or otherwise, from the government’s transformation of the citizenry into a criminal class.
In this way, the government conspires to corrode our core freedoms purportedly for our own good but really for its own benefit.
Remember, the USA Patriot Act didn’t make us safer. It simply turned American citizens into suspects and, in the process, gave rise to an entire industry—private and governmental—whose profit depends on its ability to undermine our Fourth Amendment rights.
In much the same way that the Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government’s anti-extremism program criminalizes otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities such as peaceful protesting.
Clearly, freedom no longer means what it once did.
This holds true whether you’re talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from soldiers invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders’ belief that this would be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.
Yet the unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.
In other words, if we no longer have the right to voice concerns about COVID-19 mandates, if we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to protest unjust laws or government policies by voicing our opinions in public or on social media or before a legislative body—no matter how politically incorrect or socially unacceptable those views might be—then we do not have free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that’s what those who founded America called tyranny.
On paper, we may be technically free.
In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.
As the great George Carlin rightly observed: “Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government … doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety… It’s interested in its own power. That’s the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.”
In other words, we only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for our benefit.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.
Remember: if the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 23:40 - Mexican President Says Biden Border Policies 'Encouraging Illegal Immigration' And Enriching Cartels
Mexican President Says Biden Border Policies ‘Encouraging Illegal Immigration’ And Enriching Cartels
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says US President Joe Biden’s immigration policy is encouraging illegal immigration, and brings revenue to drug cartels through human trafficking operations at the US border.
According to the Reuters, Mexico has asked the Biden administration to assist by providing developmental help to Central America, where tens of thousands of migrants embark on a journey through Mexico in the hopes of reaching the United States and gaining asylum.
“They see him as the migrant president, and so many feel they’re going to reach the United States,” said AMLO (via Reuters) following a March 1 virtual meeting with Biden. “We need to work together to regulate the flow, because this business can’t be tackled from one day to the next.”
Some of Biden’s policies that worry the Mexican government include a fast track to citizenship for migrants living in the US and support for gang violence victims.
Internal assessments reviewed by Reuters — based on testimony and intelligence gathering — state that Mexican gangs have been growing their clientele and keeping tabs on US measures that would encourage migration. Additionally they have developed a new tracking system to move migrants across the US-Mexico border.
One anonymous Mexican official told Reuters that cartels have been using sophisticated smuggling techniques “from the day Biden took office,” such as using technology to thwart authorities, making smuggling operations appear as travel agencies, and keeping migrants up to date on the latest immigration rules.
“Migrants have become a commodity,” the official told Reuters. “But if a packet of drugs is lost in the sea, it’s gone. If migrants are lost, it’s human beings we’re talking about.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 23:20 - Biden Iran Envoy Boasted Of Depriving Civilians Of Food In Sadistic Sanctions Manual
Biden Iran Envoy Boasted Of Depriving Civilians Of Food In Sadistic Sanctions Manual
Authored by Max Blumenthal via TheGrayZone.com,
The Joseph Biden administration has named Richard Nephew as its Deputy Iran Envoy. As the former Principal Deputy Coordinator of Sanctions Policy for Barack Obama’s State Department, Nephew took personal credit for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile industry and driving up unemployment rates. He has described the destruction of Iran’s economy as “a tremendous success,” and lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still plentiful in the country’s capital despite mounting US sanctions.
Nephew’s appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than immediately returning to the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal, the Biden administration will finesse sanctions illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran is unlikely to join.
After coordinating Obama’s sanctions regime against Iran, Nephew left the administration for a position at the energy industry-funded Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. There, he published a book outlining in blunt terms how he honed the craft of economic warfare and applied it against Iran.
Entitled “The Art of Sanctions: A View From The Field,” the book’s cover image features two Caucasian hands drawing a rope for a noose, presumably to strangle some insufficiently pliant Global South government. Its contents read like a list of criminal confessions, detailing in chillingly clinical terms how the sanctions Nephew conceived from inside an air conditioned office in Washington immiserated average Iranians.
With his candor, Nephew has shattered the official US rhetoric about “targeted sanctions” that exclusively punish “bad actors” and their business cronies while leaving civilian populations unharmed.
The application of pain to a country’s civilian population is central to Nephew’s sanctions strategy. As he explains in “The Art of Sanctions,” for the unilateral coercive measures to succeed, they must impose significant pain to a state’s most vulnerable sectors, shatter the state’s political and social resolve, and ultimately force the state to cry uncle in the face of Washington’s demands.
Nephew detailed how, as JCPOA negotiations got underway in January 2012, he led a process to reduce Iran’s oil revenue and starve its economy. After the administration successfully pushed for a wholesale reduction in oil exports and other unilateral coercive measures, Iran’s economy went from a period of growth to sudden and staggering contraction while the value of its currency tumbled. Nephew pronounced the economic assault he engineered to be “a tremendous success.”
While discussing his book, “The Art of Sanctions,” @richardmnephew boasted with a wide grin that the economic warfare tactics he devised drove up unemployment rates in Iran.
Nephew was just appointed as Biden’s deputy Iran envoy.
My full story here: https://t.co/FWTYO7Ab4G pic.twitter.com/m5431czF8i
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 8, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Nephew also patted himself on the the back for tripling the price of chicken “during important Iranian holiday periods,” thereby “contribut[ing] to more popular frustration in one bank shot than years of financial restrictions.”
Next, he boasted of more sanctions targeting civilians to prevent Iranians from obtaining the assistance they needed to repair their cars. “Iran’s manufacturing jobs and export revenue were the targets of this sanction,” Nephew wrote.
There were some goods that Nephew wanted Iran to import, however. In hopes of fomenting social unrest, he said Washington “expanded the ability of US and foreign companies to sell Iranians technology used for personal communications” so they could “learn more about the dire straits of their country’s economy…”
During a December 6, 2017 panel discussion about his book at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, Nephew detailed with a chilling smile how he not only sabotaged Iran’s automotive industry, but targeted “things like unemployment, to try to drive that up and make things a little more sticky.”
In response to online criticism, Nephew has claimed that “the main target” of the sanctions regime he designed was “the oligarchs.” But his book on “The Art of Sanctions” tells another story.
Nephew fondly recalls how he structured sanctions to sabotage Iranian economic reforms that would have improved the purchasing power of average people. The Obama administration destroyed the economic prospects of Iran’s working class majority while ensuring that “only the wealthy or those in positions of power could take advantage of Iran’s continued connectedness,” he wrote. As “stories began to emerge from Iran of intensified income inequality and inflation,” Nephew pronounced another success.
Vatan-e Emrooz highlights Richard Nephew’s appointment as deputy special envoy for Iran.
The outlet highlights the fact that he was one of the designers of the Iran sanctions regime pic.twitter.com/vZHJlJIqU4— Omer Carmi (@CarmiOmer) March 2, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
As he made clear, the rising inequality “was a choice” that Washington “made on the basis of helping to drive up the pressure on the Iranian economy from internal sources.” Nephew went on to claim credit for October 2012 protests brought on by the devaluation of Iran’s currency.
In a fairly stunning admission, Nephew admits at one point that despite providing Iran with supposed humanitarian exceptions on US sanctions, the economic war he helped design caused a catastrophic shortage of medicine and medical devices, largely because average Iranians could not afford them.
Despite acknowledging the heavy toll of human suffering brought on by the sanctions he personally conceived, suggesting they could have prompted high numbers of excess deaths, Nephew appears to be devoid of contrition. During a December 2016 trip to Moscow, he complained that despite the sanctions imposed on Russia by the US, food was still widely available at local restaurants – “hardly a level of pain” that was necessary to bring the Kremlin to heel.
He called to “develop a strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase pain on those areas [of the Russian economy] that are vulnerabilities and avoid those that are not.”
So who is Richard Nephew? Does he lurk in the shadow world of intelligence intrigues and spook wars, keeping a low profile while he waits to strike the enemy? Or is he a fire-breathing hardliner bellowing threats against America’s adversaries from Beltway think tank panels? The reality is much more banal.
When he is not snatching chicken from Iranian kids during their winter holiday, Nephew is spending quality time with his own, amusing them with his tattered dad rock t-shirts and flashing arms adorned with tribal tattoos.
In an administration filled with fun-loving, ethnically diverse characters who moonlight as rock guitarists, decorate the walls of their homes with Haitian art, bob their heads to Tupac and even enjoy an occasional toke, all while keeping the gears of a ferociously violent empire grinding along, the tattooed sanctions artist seems like a perfect fit.
In Iran, where a leading daily recently portrayed Nephew as Keanu Reeves in The Devil’s Advocate, his elevation to a senior diplomatic role is seen as a sign of more pain to come.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 23:00 - "Pure International Cybercrime": Putin Warns Against US 'Retaliation' For SolarWinds Hack
“Pure International Cybercrime”: Putin Warns Against US ‘Retaliation’ For SolarWinds Hack
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reacted fiercely to the contents of a report in the The New York Times this week that cited unnamed senior admin officials to say the White House is preparing a series of devastating cyberattacks on Russia as ‘retaliation’ for the SolarWinds hack.
A spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Tuesday that the “alarming information” would constitute a “pure international cybercrime” and is thus condemned under international law.
“The Russian state has never had anything to do with cybercrimes and cyberterrorism it is being accused of,” Peskov emphasized.
Via Sputnik/Kremlin Specifically addressing the NY Times report further, Peskov added, “the fact that the newspaper doesn’t rule out that the American state could be involved in cybercrime, is definitely of great concern to us.”
Amazingly, the anonymous Biden admin officials revealed to the Times that a “series of clandestine actions across Russian networks” are expected to start within the next three weeks.
The cyber-operations will by design seek to get Putin and Russian intelligence’s attention while being concealed from the broader public when it occurs, the NYT report said.
Detailing the Kremlin’s condemnation and warning against any such cyber espionage, US News & World Report writes:
He spoke in response to a series of claims from U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray, that they are considering harsh punishments on Russia for the attack, including overt sanctions and some form of covert salvos in the cyber realm. Wray hinted at the action in testimony before Congress this month, saying the U.S. was preparing cyber “joint sequenced operations.”
Multiple US intelligence agencies had issued a rare joint statement in the wake of the SolarWinds intrusion, saying it was “likely” Russia behind it, though without offering evidence or specific intelligence verification of the allegation.
Russian officials have demanded the US categorically rule out acts of ‘cyberterrorism’ against the country, after media reports said Washington was mulling digital “retaliation” for a colossal hack attack it blames on Moscow. Kremlin says it’s ‘alarmed’ https://t.co/hRpNadxCnx
— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) March 10, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
However, it’s since been confirmed that SolarWinds has largely faulted its own severe security lapses, including the fact that an update server’s password was literally “solarwinds123” – which had been leaked by an employee online beginning years ago, according to prior Congressional testimony.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 22:40 - Resurrecting The Dead… Digitally: One Step Closer To The "Singularity"
Resurrecting The Dead… Digitally: One Step Closer To The “Singularity”
Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,
In 2017, Microsoft revealed it had patented a “chatbot” that could digitally resurrect the dead if actually built.
The chatbot uses AI and machine learning technology. Essentially, the chatbot would bring our “digital persona” back to life. Friends and relatives could then talk to our “digital persona.” When the media asked Microsoft about the technology, the companies’ representatives did admit that it was “disturbing” and claimed there were no plans to put it into production.
Believe that if you will.
Personal data? Check. Voice data? Check. Lifelike AI? Check.
The technical tools and the personal data are already in place to make these digital resurrections possible. AI chatbots have already passed the “Turing Test,” which means that they have been able to fool other humans into thinking that they (the AI bots) are human.
Globally, most people leave behind enough digital footprints to inform AI programs about their and our conversational idiosyncrasies. Even more convincing chatbots are just around the corner from being released.
Microsoft’s version of the chatbot would use your electronic messages to create a digitally reincarnated version of you, in your likeness. It would use machine learning to respond to text messages like you would have done when you were alive. If you leave behind especially rich voice data, your vocal likeness could be created, giving your friends and relatives someone to speak with through a phone or even a humanoid robot.
Chatbots are ALREADY harvesting your information for future use
Microsoft isn’t alone. The AI company Eternime is also showing interest in AI-enabled chatbots and digital resurrection. Eternime has already built an AI-enabled chatbot that harvests information such as geolocation, activity, motion, Facebook data, and photos, which lets users create an avatar of themselves to live on after they die.
Eternime’s chatbot ensures it’s just a matter of time before families can reanimate dead relatives using technologies such as these.
Legalities? What legalities?
Currently, there aren’t any laws that govern digital reincarnation.
Researchers have taken a look at the legal question regarding chatbots and digital resurrection. In the absence of specific legislation, it’s unclear who might have the power to bring your digital personality back to life after death.
Your right to data privacy is questionable in life, but it is far from certain after death. There also isn’t any way for you to opt-out of being digitally resurrected either. There is a lot of legal ambiguity, leaving room for private companies to make chatbots out of your personal data after you die.
Others researching the emergence of chatbots are also concerned about the legalities. For instance, as The Conversation writes:
If chatbots and holograms from beyond the grave are set to become commonplace, we’ll need to draw up new laws to govern them. After all, it looks like a violation of the right to privacy to digitally resurrect someone whose body lies beneath a tombstone reading “rest in peace.”
National laws are inconsistent on how your data is used after your death. In the EU, the law on data privacy only protects the rights of the living. That leaves room for member states to decide how to protect the data of the dead. Some, such as Estonia, France, Italy and Latvia, have legislated on postmortem data. The UK’s data protection laws have not.
Note: companies like Facebook and Google control much of our data.
Trending: Reanimated photos of deceased people
Digital resurrection is a growing trend in other areas as well. For instance, a recent article in The Sun drew attention to a new website that allows users to upload a deceased person’s picture. The online tool “reanimates” that person’s photo.
AN EERIE new website lets you bring old photos to life with artificial intelligence.
Deep Nostalgia is a tool that animates any human portrait photo you upload with the aim of making your family history come alive.
“Ghost in the Shell” here we come!
We are quickly heading toward a world like the one presented in The Matrix or Ghost in The Shell.
In other words, a world where humans have been physically altered and linked with the internet. A world where a “single global consciousness” is linked to “cyberized” humans who have been fully merged into the digital world. The “Singularity” researchers warned of is now on the verge of being deployed against most of humanity.
What’s the Singularity?
While futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted 15 years ago that the singularity—the time when the abilities of a computer overtake the abilities of the human brain—will occur in about 2045, Gale and his co-authors believe this event may be much more imminent, especially with the advent of quantum computing…
….The authors don’t know when the singularity will come, but come it will. When this occurs, the end of the human race might very well be upon us, they say, citing a 2014 prediction by the late Stephen Hawking. According to Kurzweil, humans may then be fully replaced by AI, or by some hybrid of humans and machines. (source)
It’s like science is torn between resurrecting us and making us live forever and ending humanity altogether with risky experiments.
While it would be nice to have one more conversation with lost loved ones, would you actually use chatbots and reanimated photos to do it? Do you think it’s ethical?
And what about the “Singularity?” Are you for or against the day we find ourselves unable to rely on our own minds? Do you believe the end of humanity will come when we are forced to collaborate with computers to solve life’s every day problems?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 22:20 - Happy Days At The Gas Pump Are Over As Prices Soar
Happy Days At The Gas Pump Are Over As Prices Soar
When the virus pandemic first hit early last year, Americans were locked down in their homes as gasoline demand plunged and prices crashed. Last April, the nationwide average for gasoline was around $2. According to AAA, prices are surging nationwide, up 32 cents in the previous month to $2.796 for regular.
On Monday, regular gasoline in Los Angeles County rose for the 27th consecutive day and 47th time in 48 days, increasing to $3.81, the highest since Dec. 3, 2019. Average prices for crude products in the metro area have been on a tear, resulting in a price shock for many consumers who are still battling food and housing insecurities, along with job loss as they wait for the next round of stimulus checks.
AAA said average gasoline prices in Los Angeles had risen 46.5 cents in the past 48 days.
Happy times at the pump are over as crude product prices continue to rise.
GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan told Fox News that one reason for the jump in prices is due to increased demand. Still, more importantly, he said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) “is not opening the spigot.”
Last week, OPEC leaders maintained production cuts for all countries except Russia and Khazakstan. The news caused West Texas Intermediate and Brent to surge.
OPEC’s decision last week inspired Goldman’s Damien Courvalin to raise his Brent forecast by $5/bbl, to $75/bbl in 2Q and $80/bbl in 3Q21: “This increase in our price forecast reflects stronger time spreads, with our updated inventory path consistent with $5/bbl additional backwardation over the next six months relative to our prior forecast.”
… while this is excellent news for the energy industry, Wall Street, and value investors who’ve plowed into XOM, this is terrible news for consumers where more of their upcoming stimulus checks will go to not only energy costs but also food (as we recently noted, food inflation is off the hook).
Using the three-month rate of change – one starts to notice the latest surge in prices at the pump should be viewed as a “price shock.” How long until gasoline prices reverse?
So, where’s the breaking point for consumers already struggling with their finances because of the economic downturn. Now the working-poor, who don’t own assets, are getting crushed even harder in the “K-shaped” recovery as energy and food prices soar.
Is this Biden’s fault? Hard to say but stirring the pot in the Middle East, closing the Keystone Pipeline, discouraging investment in fossil fuels, and banning fracking on government land probably didn’t help supply (although seasonality and the Texas storm also impacted in the short-term, and of course OPEC+).
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 22:00 - U.S. Aircraft Carrier Deploys In Mediterranean As Damascus Prepares To Push On The Northwest
U.S. Aircraft Carrier Deploys In Mediterranean As Damascus Prepares To Push On The Northwest
Submitted by SouthFront,
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and its Carrier Strike Group have entered the Mediterranean Sea.
This makes it, currently, the closest aircraft carrier to the Middle East. It has been quite a while since the US hasn’t had one of its super warships deployed in or near the Persian Gulf.
Starting in the spring of 2019, the U.S. Navy has been publicly ordered to keep a near-constant presence in the region, as if this were something new.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that a global posture review is taking place, and it would be reconsidered whether a carrier was even needed in the region. Still, the Mediterranean Sea is quite nearby, and the removal of the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) from the Persian Gulf was a political move.
It’s Lloyd Austin’s dream to have a CSG in every hotspot in the world, but resources don’t allow for that.
Still, the US has the amphibious warship USS Makin Island (LHD-8) in the Persian Gulf with a detachment of F-35B fighter jets, so it still has a hefty presence. Further, it is without a doubt possible for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its CSG to operate without issue in the Middle East, be it Syria, Iraq or elsewhere, from its current place of deployment.
In Syria itself, as the primary US competitor, alongside Iran, Russian forces are preparing to set up a permanent military base near the city of Palmyra in the Badia Desert. This is not yet confirmed, but according to satellite photos it has a helipad as a runway.
This base is likely planned to support the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) further in their push against both ISIS and Turkish proxies.
On March 9th, the SAA carried out heavy shelling on the positions of Turkish proxies in the village of Jabal Al-Zawiya, in southern Idlib.
Separately, Pro-Turkey opposition factions reportedly thwarted an attempt by the SAA to advance on the Qalaat front in the northern countryside of Latakia. Attacks are frequently repelled in Twitter posts, but nowhere else, demonstrating that the propaganda wing of the Turkish proxies is quite active.
In the days leading up to this, the SAA has been preparing for a large push in the province of Aleppo.
This is likely an attempt to form a uniform front, which can exert equal pressure along the frontline and thin the enemy’s forces to provide opportunity for a breach.
Turkey and its proxies are sure to offer heavy resistance to any advance by the SAA, but so far it appears that this may not be enough.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 21:40 - $500 Million LA Mega-Mansion Faces Default
$500 Million LA Mega-Mansion Faces Default
A famous LA mansion called “The One” that originally had a planned list price of approximately $500 million in 2017 now faces the threat of default, according to LA Times.
Movie producer turned real estate developer (of course) Nile Niami is delinquent on an $82.5 million construction loan from Hankey Capital for the 100,000-square-foot mega-mansion in Bel-Air. In the last three years, the property’s debt has surged to as high as $110 million.
Niami has had some bad luck over the last year. He sold an LA mansion called “Opus” that was once listed for $100 million for a 50% haircut during the virus pandemic. Perhaps the developer has fallen on hard times, or the super-luxury real estate market has stalled. Whatever the issues are, and why Niami can’t service his debt on The One comes at a precarious time for the real estate market as interest rates have violently risen over the past few months.
According to a document obtained by The Times, Hankey, the lender, who is well aware of market conditions, wants their money back and recently slapped Niami with a default notice. The developer has just 90 days to repay the loan or restructure the agreement in some way so that Hankey doesn’t force the sale of the home.
“We felt the owner of ‘The One’ was distracted from the job at hand, which is to bring the biggest and best house in the United States to market for sale,” said Don Hankey, chairman of Hankey Investment Co.
“We hope our actions will kick off the official listing.”
Niami began constructing the 100,000-square-foot mega-mansion in 2013 as part of a speculative bet on the LA mansion market. But over the years, economic conditions have morphed from party to pandemic. Bets on housing in metro areas have gone sour in the recent year as people exit cities for rural communities.
“Default notices are nothing new for Niami,” said The Times. In 2020 alone, the developer received a default notice for $10 million on a property on 369 Londonderry Place in the Hollywood Hills, and one for a debt of $23.4 million on a mansion at 10701 Bellagio Road.
Maybe the speculative nature of Niami’s leveraged bets on the super-luxury real estate market is beginning to unravel.
Last summer, he posted a video on his Instagram account saying The One was a couple of months away from completion.
“Seven years ago, I had an idea to create the biggest, most expensive house in the urban world: The One Bel-Air. And I did it.”
At the time, maybe Niami was attempting to appease Hankey in a sale of the property was nearing, but that never happened. Now the developer faces notice of default where the lender could force a sale in market conditions that may not be conducive for top dollar.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 21:20 - Escobar: Raging Twenties – Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism
Escobar: Raging Twenties – Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
As a proposal to escape our excess hyper-reality show, this book does not offer recipes, but trails: multiple entryways and multiple possibilities.
I have a new book out, Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. For those who don’t use Amazon, here is a mini-guide on how to order and buy the book.
The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process. To set the scene, allow me a short presentation, drawn from the book’s introduction.
The Raging Twenties started with a murder: a missile strike on Gen Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3. Almost simultaneously, that geopolitical lethality was amplified when a virus cannibalized virtually the whole planet.
It’s as if Time has been standing still – or imploded – ever since. We cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Throughout the process, language has been metastasizing, yielding a whole new basket of concepts. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New Brutalism. Hybrid Neofascism. New Viral Paradigm.
This new terminology collates to the lineaments of a new regime, actually a hybrid mode of production: turbo-capitalism re-engineered as Rentier Capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also The State. That is the “techno-feudal” option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand.
Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we have been presented with a new map of Dystopia, packaged as a “new normal”, featuring cognitive dissonance, a bio-security paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance, and triumphant Trans-humanism.
A sanitary shock was superimposed over the ongoing economic shock – where financialization always takes precedence over the real economy.
But then the glimpse of a rosy future was offered towards more “inclusive “capitalism, in the form of a Great Reset, designed by a tiny plutocratic oligarchy duly self-appointed as Saviors.
All of these themes evolve along the 25 small chapters of this book, interacting with the larger geopolitical chessboard.
SARS-CoV-2 accelerated what was already a swing of the power center of the world towards Asia.
Since WWII, a great deal of the planet lived as cogs of a tributary system, with the Hegemon constantly transferring wealth and influence to itself – via what analyst Ray McGovern describes as SS (security state) enforcing the will of the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex.
This world-system is irretrievably fading out – especially due to the interpolations of the Russia-China strategic partnership. And that’s the other overarching theme of this book.
As a proposal to escape our excess hyper-reality show, this book does not offer recipes, but trails: configurations where there’s no masterplan, but multiple entryways and multiple possibilities.
These trails are networked to the narrative of a possible, emerging new configuration, in the anchoring essay titled Eurasia, The Hegemon and the Three Sovereigns.
In a running dialogue, you will have Michel Foucault talking to Lao Tzu, Marcus Aurelius talking to Vladimir Putin, philosophy talking to geoeconomics – all the while attempting to defuse the toxic interaction of the New Great Depression and variations of Cold War 2.0.
With the exception of the anchoring essay, this is a series of columns, arranged chronologically, originally published on Asia Times/Hong Kong, Consortium News/Washington D.C., and Strategic Culture/Moscow, widely republished and translated across the Global South.
They come from a global nomad. Since the mid 1990s I live and work between (mostly) East and West. With the exception of the first two months of 2020, I spent the bulk of the Raging Twenties in Asia, in Buddhist land.
So you will feel that the scent of these words is inescapably Buddhist, but in many aspects even more Taoist and Confucianist. In Asia we learn that the Tao transcends everything as it provides serenity. There’s much we can learn from humanism stripped off metaphysics.
2021 may be even fiercer than 2020. Yet nothing condemns us to be lost in a wilderness of mirrors while, as Pound wrote, a tawdry cheapness / shall reign throughout our days. The hidden “secret” of this book may be actually a yearning – that we’re able to muster our inner strength and choose a Taoist trail to ride the whale.
* * *
Pepe Escobar’s new book is Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. Follow him on Telegram.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 21:00 - Emails Reveal FBI Excavation For Civil War-Era Gold In Lawsuit Over "Hundreds Of Millions" In Disputed Booty
Emails Reveal FBI Excavation For Civil War-Era Gold In Lawsuit Over “Hundreds Of Millions” In Disputed Booty
Did the FBI make off with ‘seven to nine tons’ of Civil War-era gold in a Pennsylvania forest after a treasure hunting duo led them to its long-hidden location?
A father-son team wants to know, and has successfully sued for access to government emails about the dig.
Here’s what we know, according to the Associated Press.
On march 13, 2018, treasure hunters Dennis and Kem Parada, who co-own the treasure-hunting outfit Finders Keepers, led FBI agents to a location in “Dent’s Run,” located approximately 135 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Paradas had spent years looking for the long-lost booty, an 1863 shipment of Union gold, which was either lost or stolen on its way to the US Mint in Philadelphia.
The FBI brought in geophysical consulting firm, Enviroscan, to survey the hilltop site, where their gravimeter identified ‘a large metallic mass with the density of gold,” according to Warren Getler, a consultant who worked closely with both the FBI and the Paradas.
An FBI agent told them the location of the mass was “one or two feet off Denny’s sweet spot,” recalled Getler, author of “Rebel Gold,” a book exploring the possibility of buried Civil War-era caches of gold and silver. “Then I went to ask how big is it. And he said, ‘7 to 9 tons.’ And I literally said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’”
That much gold would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars today — and, assuming it was there, would almost certainly touch off a legal fight over how to divvy up the spoils. -AP
The FBI says they found nothing at the site, while Enviroscan co-founder Timothy Bechtel said the FBI told him to keep his mouth shut about his findings.
FBI dig site at Dent’s Run, 2018 The Paradas, meanwhile, say the FBI struck a deal to let them watch the site excavation – only to confine them to their car for most of the two-day dig, only to escort them to a “large, empty hole” at the end of the second day.
The emails are quite revealing. In one, an assistant US attorney in Philadelphia, K.T. Newton, wrote in an email marked “Confidential,”: “We believe the cache itself is in the neighborhood of 3x5x8 (feet) to 5x5x8.”
Since the Elk County site was on state-owned land, the FBI had to secure a federal court order to gain access. The legal maneuvering generated emails between Newton and Audrey Miner, chief lawyer for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
On March 13, as FBI agents clambered up a hill to the target, Miner bluntly asked Newton: “Can you please provide the basis upon which the Office of the United States Attorney asserts that the gold, if found, belongs to the federal government?”
Newton replied that a federal affidavit in the case was sealed. She instead offered to “discuss this generally with you on the phone,” according to email records released by the state under court order. -AP
Yet, on March 16, 2018 – two days after the dig ended, US Attorney Newton told Audrey Miner, chief lawyer for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources: “we are all disappointed and scratching our heads over the several scientific test results.“
In a subsequent March 28 email, Miner asked Newton for an update on the federal investigation, writing that “the gold story still has legs, and the DCNR is now getting a lot of ‘gold-diggers’ interested in Dent’s Run,” to which Newton replied: “For your knowledge only … we have no other scientific evidence, other than what the excavation had been based on, that any gold is hidden in that area.”
Miner replied: “I guess you can’t come right out and state there is no gold to be found at Dent’s Run?” to which the prosecutor replied: “Unfortunately, we cannot.“
On Wednesday, the Paradas plan to hold a news conference, where they will present claims that include residents reportedly hearing a backhoe and jackhammer overnight “when the excavation was supposed to have been paused,” and seeing a “convoy of FBI vehicles, including large armored trucks.”
“I gotta find out what happened to all that gold,” Dennis Parada said last week, adding that the FBI’s claim to have found nothing was “a slap in the face.”
Cluck, meanwhile, is still pursuing government material on the case — nearly 2,400 pages, as well as video files, that the FBI has promised to turn over in response to his Freedom of Information Act request.
All documents in the federal court case about the dig remain sealed. For that reason, a state appeals judge recently declined to order the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to give Cluck the federal writ of entry and seizure warrant that the FBI agents relied on to gain access to the site. -AP
In a curious development which may shed some light on what’s to come, a Commonwealth Court Judge, Kevin Brobson, wrote in a footnote of a Jan. 28 opinion rejecting Cluck’s petition for more information, that the name of the sealed case is:
“In the Matter of: Seizure of One or More Tons of United States Gold.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 20:40 - UC-Berkeley Unveils Plan For Racial Quota
UC-Berkeley Unveils Plan For Racial Quota
Authored by Ashley Carnahan via Campus Reform,
The University of California-Berkeley is on its way to becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution, which means that at least 25 percent of undergraduate students identify as “Chicanx/Latinx.”
UC-Berkeley’s Chancellor Carol Christ announced in August 2018 her “intention to set the UC Berkeley campus on a journey to become an HSI by 2027,” according to the Chancellor’s Task Force on Becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution’s report, published in December 2020.
A Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) is defined as one that “has an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic students at the end of the award year immediately preceding the date of application.”
The report states that Christ would like to see 25 percent of undergraduate students “self-identify as Chicanx/Latinx” by 2027.
“[Christ] identified this priority as one of the boldest goals in the campus’ strategic plan—for at least 25 percent of enrolled undergraduate students to self-identify as Chicanx/Latinx, for the University to be a preferred destination for Pell Grant eligible students, and for every student to thrive at Berkeley and to find belonging in all dimensions of the campus towards a true exemplification of comprehensive excellence,” the report said.
The HSI task force is divided into three implementation phases from 2020-2027. Phase three’s goal (2025-2027) is to apply for HSI Designation.
Six other UC schools are already HSI designated: UC-Davis, UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Riverside, UC-Merced, UC-Santa Cruz, and UC-Irvine.
In 2020, UC-Berkeley had a 17.9 percent Latino student population, roughly 7.1 percent away from meeting the enrollment requirement, according to the report overview.
“Excellence is rooted in diversity — Berkeley’s excellence demands diversity — diversity of thought, perspective, experience, cultural identity. In order to keep Berkeley relevant, we must enhance and strengthen our efforts to attract and retain diverse community members, The Hispanic Serving Institution Initiative is one of several important inclusion programs that will help us achieve this excellence,” reads the report.
Mia Settles-Tidwell, assistant vice chancellor and chief of staff for the division of equity & inclusion told Campus Reform, “The HSI Task Force was charged in 2018 to bring forth a presentation on the roadmap to becoming an HSI. This effort is more than a reform effort, it is an effort to align ourselves with our UC public service mission for the state of California. The HSI will continue its work and build an HSI Implementation team structure that facilitates the recommendations in the HSI report.”
UC Berkeley Diversity and Community Fellow Allyson Kohen told Campus Reform she would like to see quotas apply to other racial minorities as well.
“I think that there should be more research done re the implication on students from other ethnic backgrounds [that] this HSI quota goal is going to have,” she said.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 20:20 - Texas Faces Wildfire Threat Amid "Extreme Drought" After Historic Deep Freeze
Texas Faces Wildfire Threat Amid “Extreme Drought” After Historic Deep Freeze
No, this is not The Onion…
Weather-battered Texas can’t catch a break. Last month, the Lone Star State experienced a “historic” plunge in temperatures that nearly collapsed the power grid. Governor Greg Abbott has issued warnings about elevated wildfire risks in several state regions this week, reported CBS Austin.
Abbott said Tuesday that the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), Texas A&M Forest Service, and the Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS) are preparing to respond to wildfires if they break out in the Panhandle, Western Plains, Trans Pecos, and the South Texas Plains due to warm, dry, and windy conditions.
“As Texans in the Panhandle, Western Plains, South Texas Plains, and Trans Pecos area face a significant threat of wildfires, I urge Texans in these communities to heed the guidance of their local leaders and avoid any outdoor burning that could spark wildfires,” said Abbott. “The State of Texas is working alongside local officials and emergency management leaders on the ground to keep our communities safe and mitigate the threat that wildfires pose.”
According to the US Drought Monitor, the areas of concern are located in “extreme” to “exceptional” drought areas. Fears are mounting of a Great Depression’s Dust Bowl style drought developing in the Southwest.
This is the latest weather-related disaster to threaten the state after up to 15 million people were left without power during an Arctic blast when the state’s electric grid nearly collapsed last month.
Bloomberg says, “at least 2.1 million people face critical wildfire conditions, including in Amarillo and El Paso, Texas.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 20:00 - Buchanan: The Emerging Existential Crisis At The Border
Buchanan: The Emerging Existential Crisis At The Border
Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
During a Democratic debate in 2020, the candidates were asked if their health care plans would cover “undocumented immigrants.”
Each raised his or her hand, including front-runner Joe Biden.
From that stage, the message went forth: If the Democrats win this election, then it is amnesty for all and open borders in America.
The message was reinforced by repeated Democratic praise for sanctuary cities, by calls to “abolish ICE” and end deportations, by pledges to stop work on Donald Trump’s wall, if not to tear it down.
Message sent to Mexico, Central America and the Third World:
If the Democrats win and you make it across the border into the United States, under President Joe Biden, you will not be sent back. After only a brief hassle, the economic opportunities and social welfare benefits of the richest country on earth will be open to you and yours.
Hence, when Biden won, a new and potentially historic surge to the Southern border began, and the number of illegal arrivals and crossings are in the growing thousands every day.
According to a White House domestic policy council document, the number of children who, without a parent or guardian, will arrive at the border in 2021 will be about 117,000 — 50% higher than the record number of children who arrived in the 2019 humanitarian crisis.
In February, some 100,000 immigrants were apprehended by the Border Patrol for illegal border crossing. “I actually think that’s an undercount,” says Victor Manjarrez Jr., ex-Border Patrol agent who teaches at Texas University.
The pre-Trump policy of “catch-and-release” has been reinstated.
Children and families who cross illegally from Mexico cannot now be held for more than 72 hours. They are being released into the U.S. to await a court date — potentially years off — to hear their claim to a right to be here. Most never show up.
“We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border,” says Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose Texas district abuts Mexico. “Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.”
Congressional Democrats, following Biden’s lead, have proposed a new citizenship act. “Dreamers,” brought here by their parents as children, would be put on a three-year fast-track to U.S. citizenship.
The 11 million to 22 million illegal migrants already in the country — the exact number is unknown — would be put on an eight-year track to citizenship.
The Democratic Party is signing on to the largest mass amnesty for illegal immigrants in history — which would produce millions of new voters for the party.
Among the recent border-crossers, who are transported by bus to detention centers, where they remain for 72 hours and then are released to travel where they wish, many are carrying the coronavirus.
Thus, what’s shaping up on the border is not only a national security crisis but a national survival crisis. For it is impossible to see, given the Biden administration policies adopted, how the invasion of America can be halted. And if 2 million or 3 million migrants reach the U.S. border and cross over each year, and we do not send them back, what stops the invasion and remaking America?
What would blanket amnesty and a renewed invasion portend?
In a decade, Texas, the Southwest and much of the South would take on the political aspect of California where the GOP has become a permanent minority party.
As many illegal migrants do not read, write or speak English, and do not bring a unique set of skills, their immense and growing presence can only deepen our national disunity.
Almost all of these folks are poor or working-class people who would have to rely on government subsidies for their health care, food support, housing and the schooling of their children.
With the unemployment rate rising again in the Black community, which has sustained the heaviest collective hit from the pandemic and economic collapse, the migrants would be competing with them for jobs.
And as the illegal migrants are disproportionately young and male, they would add to the surging crime rates in America’s major cities.
America is headed, seemingly inexorably, to a future where a majority in this country traces its ancestry to Asia, Africa and Latin America, a future where this already fractionated nation is even more multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural than today.
With racial conflict as sharp as it has been in decades, with our political parties at swords point, with the culture war raging unabated, as mobs tears down statues and monuments to America’s founders, exactly what national problem will be solved by an unstopping and unrelenting wave of migrants illegally crossing the border into our country year after year?
One wonders: Is this how the Republic ends?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 19:40 - "Mega Squeeze" Revealed As Culprit Of Tuesday's Historic Meltup, As Expected
“Mega Squeeze” Revealed As Culprit Of Tuesday’s Historic Meltup, As Expected
On Sunday, when looking at the latest prime brokerage data from Goldman we noted that around mid-week the PB desk saw the “largest global short sales since May” with the GS Prime book net sold driven by short sales outpacing long buys 1.7 to 1.”
… and predicted that a “Mega Squeeze” was Coming as “Last Week Saw Biggest Hedge Fund Shorting Since May“
“What does all of this mean for markets”. we asked rhetorically and answered that in a week where stocks first spiked then tumbled only to reverse, and where substantial damage was done on HF P&L, immediately after a furious burst of shorting, which has pushed gross short exposure to the highest level since the start of 2020…
… “it is likely that the short squeeze we observed on Friday which started with the post-EU close ramp that pushed the EMini higher by over 100 points in 4 hours is about to spread and force even more forced squeezes especially now that the $1.9 trillion Biden bill has been passed by the Senate.”
This prediction proved to be painfully spot on (for the shorts) because what happened on Tuesday was an unprecedented 4% meltup in the Nasdaq facilitated by a massive 20% surge in Tesla and various other popular growth and tech stocks.
But was it a short squeeze, or merely an oversold bounce as some have defined it?
For the answer we went to the latest Goldman Prime Brokerage Service note which confirmed our previous prediction, observing that Tuesday’s was the result of “risk unwind in Macro Products vs. large net buying in Single Names” led by TMT and Consumer Disc stocks, with the Goldman Prime book net bought for a fifth straight day in which “trading flows were risk-off with short covers outpacing long sales 4 to 1.”
Just to make sure there is no confusion, Goldman prime notes that “yesterday’s de-grossing activity – short covers and long sales combined – was the largest since late January (-2.0 SDs).“
And the most remarkable observation, while US equities were (clearly) net bought, “trading flows were risk-off driven by short covers outpacing long sales 2.7 to 1.”
As Bloomberg adds, short covering in unprofitable tech firms helped the group halt seven straight days of selling and score the third-biggest net buying of the year. In fact, over the past two days, Goldman basket of the most-shorted tech stocks has jumped almost 7%, more than double the return of the Russell 3000.
In other words, as paradoxical as it may sound, the surge was in fact a “risk off move”, and didn’t reflect appetite for risk but merely overall book degrossing as shorts have learned their lesson and no longer stay in the way of epic meltup juggernauts such as the one yesterday.
That said, with the latest iteration of shorts now out of the picture, it’s time for a new cohort of bears to take their place, and we wouldn’t be surprised if we see renewed weakness in the Nasdaq as a flood of new shorts hammers the tech index only to then suffer another massive squeeze and so on, rinse, repeat.
Commenting on the move, Andrew Brenner, the head of international fixed-income at NatAlliance Securities in New York told Bloomberg that “we see yesterday’s move as short covering without legs.” Ok fine, but tell that to any Nasdaq shorts whose legs – and everything else – was steamrolled in the historic move higher.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 19:20 - Here Come Trillions More: Biden Will Unveil "Next Phase" Of COVID Response On Thursday
Here Come Trillions More: Biden Will Unveil “Next Phase” Of COVID Response On Thursday
Just hours after the House passed the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion stimulus package (which will unleash another wave of “stimmies” that will inevitably find their way into millions of Robinhood and other discount brokerage accounts), President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would unveil “the next phase” of the US COVID-19 response on Thursday, which is also the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-inspired lockdowns in the US.
Biden, who made the remarks during a press briefing with the CEO of Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday, will share the details of the plan during a prime-time address Thursday evening.
“Tomorrow night, I’m going on primetime to address the American people and talk about what we went through as a nation this past year. But more importantly, I’m going to talk about what comes next,” Biden said Wednesday.
“I’m going to launch the next phase of the Covid response and explain what we will do as a government and what we will ask of the American people,” he said. “There is light at the end of this dark tunnel over the past year. We cannot let our guard down now or assume that victory is inevitable. Together, we’re going to get through this pandemic and usher in a healthier, more hopeful future.”
Biden also proclaimed Wednesday that, after the COVID pandemic is finally quashed, his administration is planning to pivot to focusing on its next health-care policy goal: eradicating cancer. Note: Biden’s son Beau Biden succumbed to brain cancer a few years ago – cancer that doctors suspected was linked to the younger Biden’s service in Iraq. The administration is also hoping to push through a sweeping infrastructure plan.
If these plans seem a little too grandiose, especially after the massive blowout in the national debt over the last few years, fear not: Biden and his fellow Dems apparently realized that the federal government can fund all of its policy priorities, no matter how costly, by simply allowing the Fed to monetize all of the debt.
Up next (after the gigantic “infrastructure” bill): curing cancer. Probably will only cost $100 trillion. But why not, when one has unlimited funds? Just have Jay Powell keep his finger on the money printing button a little longer. https://t.co/uduESJ06HH
— fred hickey (@htsfhickey) March 10, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Earlier Wednesday, the White House announced plans to buy 100MM additional doses of J&J’s COVID-19 jab in a deal that would double the nation’s supply of the J&J vaccine as the company already has a deal with the government to provide 100MM doses by the end of June. Merck is helping to make J&J’s Covid vaccine, which is helping to accelerate production.
“I’m doing this because in this wartime effort, we need maximum flexibility,” Biden said Wednesday on plans to purchase more J&J vaccine doses.
“There’s always a chance that we’ll encounter unexpected challenges or there will be a new need for a vaccine effort…a lot can happen, a lot can change and we need to be prepared.”
Thanks to this, Biden said, any American who wants a vaccine can now expect to receive one by May 31. The president also noted that 50MM shots have been distributed since he took office, while also claiming that the US has administered the most shots of any country in the world.
“In five weeks, America has administered the most shots of any country in the world – any country in the world – with among the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated. That’s progress we promised,” Biden said.
Of course, that’s not entirely true. According to Bloomberg’s numbers, the US is in the lead, with nearly 96MM jabs administered, compared with 52MM for China. But China has also vaccinated millions with its domestically produced vaccines under “emergency use” authorizations that allowed the CCP to start doling out the experimental jabs much earlier than many medical ethicists would have been comfortable with. Back in November, the head of Sinopharm, one of the biggest Chinese vaccine producers, said his company’s jabs had already been administered to 1MM people before the first US vaccines were even approved for emergency use.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 19:00 - Banks Tweak Bond Covenant Language To Protect Against Repeat Of Citi's $500M "Fat Finger" Loss
Banks Tweak Bond Covenant Language To Protect Against Repeat Of Citi’s $500M “Fat Finger” Loss
After a court battle that dragged on for more than a year, a New York judge shocked the investment banking community last month when they ruled that a group of Revlon creditors could keep some $500MM that they refused to return to Citi after some $900MM was accidentally transferred in what appeared to be a “fat finger”.
At the time, legal experts posited that the judge’s decision, which was based on quirks in New York State law, would force investment banks to reevaluate the wording of their bond covenants in all future deals, as the ruling created new risks that needed to be addressed.
It appears America’s biggest lenders have already come up with new legal terminology to be inserted into covenant agreements that would require lenders to return any accidentally transferred funds to the banks.
The legally binding clauses have been inserted into debt deals for Eagle Materials and pet supply chain Petco, among other deals, the FT reports.
Building materials manufacturer Eagle Materials, pet supply chain Petco and industrial equipment maker Mesa Laboratories have all included a type of “erroneous payment” term in their US loan deals, according to credit documents assessed by credit analysis company 9fin.
Analysts who study the leveraged loan market said this is the first time in recent memory that covenant language was evolving in this way, as “erroneous payment” clauses are expected to become standard.
“This is such a rare thing that has not happened in the US leveraged loan market for a very long time at such a scale,” said Justin Forlenza, senior covenant analyst at credit research company Covenant Review, referring to Citi’s blunder.
“All the arrangers want to avoid that scenario going forward.” The covenant typically gives banks the discretion to judge whether a payment was mistakenly made and to demand its repayment as well as any interest from the date that the funds were received.
Banks typically offer administrative services through which they co-ordinate the payment of coupons and other “back office” tasks related to debt deals. JPMorgan was lead arranger for Eagle Materials and Mesa Laboratories while Citi led Petco’s deal. Both banks declined to comment.
But these new clauses have only been spotted in US deals so far, which is hardly surprising since the ruling was based on precedent and New York State law.
The accidental payment protection has so far been spotted only in US documents, according to Steven Hunter, chief executive of 9fin, who said it may be because of a quirk of New York’s law which allowed Revlon’s hedge fund investors to keep the accidental transfer.
US District Judge Jesse Furman said 10 asset managers for the lenders, which include Brigade Capital Management, HPS Investment Partners and Symphony Asset Management, don’t have to return more than $500 million that Citibank said it mistakenly transferred in August while trying to make an interest payment.
Citi is now seeking to punish these firms and any others who withheld mistakenly transferred money by excluding them from future debt deals, according to Bloomberg.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 18:40 - Livid Trump Blasts "Our Country Is Being Destroyed At The Southern Border"
Livid Trump Blasts “Our Country Is Being Destroyed At The Southern Border”
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
A livid President Trump issued a statement Tuesday lamenting that the country is “being destroyed” by the Biden administration’s actions at the border, as the crisis further spirals out of control.
Border crossings have surged after Biden promised mass amnesty, began allowing unaccompanied migrant children into the US again, and reversed Trump’s ‘remain in Mexico’ policy.
Video is emerging every day of hundreds of migrants walking into the US, while cities in Arizona and Texas warn that they are becoming overwhelmed, and warning of the complete lack of effort to test for or prevent the spread of COVID:
The tip of the iceberg near Yuma, AZ as immigrants begin to flood into the US responding to @JoeBiden’s open border, catch and release policy. How many have COVID? pic.twitter.com/8Cu3k88etZ
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) March 7, 2021
Border patrol is reported to have arrested around 100,000 migrants attempting to illegally cross the border in February alone.
Trump’s statement read “When I was President, our Southern border was in great shape – stronger, safer, and more secure than ever before.”
“We ended Catch-and-Release, shut down asylum fraud, and crippled the vicious smugglers, drug dealers, and human traffickers,” Trump continued, adding “The Wall, despite horrendous Democratic delays, would have easily been finished by now.”
Commenting on the current situation, Trump proclaimed “Our country is being destroyed at the Southern border, a terrible thing to see!”
There are now a record number of migrant children being kept in Border Patrol ‘cages’, which the migrants themselves are calling “dog kennels” and “ice boxes” according to reports.
CBS News reports that there are more than 3,200 unaccompanied minors in the facilities, with almost half being held beyond the legal three-day limit.
Less than a month ago there were just NINE children being held, according to CBP documents cited in the CBS report.
There are a further 8,100 migrant children being held at the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
This is an unprecedented crisis caused directly by the undoing of Trump’s border policies and the Biden administration refuses to address it. Biden himself has not faced questions from the media for almost 50 days at this time.
In fact, they are putting out “leaks” that reveal their intentions to continue an open border policy, with the intention to integrate 117,000 migrant youths and children this year alone.
Meanwhile, Arizona and Montana are taking legal action to block the new immigration regulations, which also limit the ability of ICE to detain illegals.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement “If asked about the poorest policy choice I’ve ever seen in government, this would be a strong contender.”
“Blindly releasing thousands of people, including convicted criminals and those who may be spreading COVID-19 into our state, is both unconscionable and a violation of federal law,” Brnovich added, urging “This must be stopped now to avoid a dangerous humanitarian crisis for the immigrants and the people of Arizona.”
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen has also warned that “Meth trafficked into Montana by Mexican drug cartels has wracked our state. The problem will only be made worse if the Biden administration continues to allow criminals to stay in the country.”
“Enforcing our immigration laws and helping to keep Americans safe is one of the federal government’s most important functions. The Biden administration is failing its basic responsibility to Americans,” Knudsen emphasised.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 18:22 - Wind Power Is A Disaster In Texas, No Matter What Paul Krugman Says
Wind Power Is A Disaster In Texas, No Matter What Paul Krugman Says
Authored by Robert Murphy via The Mises Institute,
In the wake of February’s tragic power outages in Texas, during which 4.5 million households suffered service interruptions, partisans on both sides have been quick to interpret the events as confirmation of their preferred energy policies. With news images of helicopters deicing frozen turbines, conservatives lambasted Texas’s increasing reliance on wind power as the villain in the story.
Trying to temper this knee-jerk reaction, Reason.com columnist Ron Bailey argued that “[m]ost of the shortfall in electric power generation during the current cold snap is the result of natural gas and coal powered plants going offline.” And Paul Krugman for his part declared that it was a “malicious falsehood” to blame wind and solar power for what happened in Texas, as it was primarily a failure of natural gas.
In this article I’ll lay out the basic facts of which power sources stepped up to the plate during the crisis. Contrary to what you would have known from reading Ron Bailey (let alone Paul Krugman), when the Texas freeze hit, electricity from natural gas skyrocketed while wind output fell off a cliff. The people arguing that wind wasn’t to blame mean it in the same way Jimmy Olson wasn’t to blame when General Zod took over: wind is so useless nobody serious ever thought it might help in a crisis.
Krugman on Texas Electricity
In his February 18 column titled “Texas, Land of Wind and Lies,” Krugman declared that
Republican politicians and right-wing media … have coalesced around a malicious falsehood instead: the claim that wind and solar power caused the collapse of the Texas power grid, and that radical environmentalists are somehow responsible for the fact that millions of people are freezing in the dark …
In contrast to this dirty rotten lie from the right-wingers, Krugman instead explains:
A power grid poorly prepared to deal with extreme cold suffered multiple points of failure. The biggest problems appear to have come in the delivery of natural gas, which normally supplies most of the state’s winter electricity, as wellheads and pipelines froze.
A bit later in the article Krugman admits that wind was involved as well, but minimizes its role in this way:
It’s true that the state generates a lot of electricity from wind, although it’s a small fraction of the total. But that’s not because Texas—Texas!—is run by environmental crazies. It’s because these days wind turbines are a cost-effective energy source wherever there’s a lot of wind, and one thing Texas has is a lot of wind.
It’s also true that extreme cold forced some of the state’s insufficiently winterized wind turbines to shut down, but this was happening to Texas energy sources across the board, with the worst problems involving natural gas.
Incidentally, there are literally no numbers in Krugman’s article (except for numerals referring to dates), which is a signal that he’s pulling a fast one on his readers. From his qualitative (not quantitative) description, most people would have assumed that when the unusually cold weather hit Texas last month, electricity generation from various sources was down across the board, but that it mostly fell from natural gas, while the drop in wind was insignificant. As I’ll show in the next section, this is utterly false.
What Really Happened During Texas’s Power Crisis
Had I not seen the analysis from my former colleagues at the Institute for Energy Research (see their articles here and here), I might have believed the spin that the Texas crisis was really a failure of fossil fuels rather than renewables. Yet as we’ll see, the actual numbers tell a much different story from what most Americans probably “learned” from the media discussion.
The simplest way for me to communicate the relevant information is through three infographics, generated from the Energy Information Administration’s handy tool that shows the source mix for daily energy generation by state.
Before showing the numbers, I need to make an important clarification: the demand for electricity soared to unprecedented levels during the freeze. In particular, on February 14, peak demand on the electric grid surpassed sixty-nine gigawatts, breaking the previous winter record of (almost) sixty-six gigawatts set in 2018. It was in the early hours of the following morning (February 15) that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) implemented rolling blackouts to prevent the entire grid from collapsing. So to be clear, the issue wasn’t that supply in an absolute sense fell, but rather that demand soared. (Texas typically uses more electricity in the summer to keep things cool, rather than in the winter to keep things warm.)
With that context in place, here are the stats for electricity output from various sources on February 15, 2021:
Already we see something interesting. Of the total amount of electricity delivered on this first day of blackouts, 65 percent came from natural gas, while only 6 percent came from wind and 2 percent from solar.
But in fairness, maybe what guys like Krugman meant is that this is much lower than what we normally could expect from natural gas. (Remember Krugman had said that natural gas “normally supplies most of the state’s winter electricity.”)
To test this possibility, we can look at the situation one year prior, on February 15, 2020:
Now, this is interesting. A year earlier, during a normal mid-February day, natural gas “only” supplied 43 percent of the total electricity, whereas wind accounted for 28 percent and solar was the same at 2 percent. Remember how Krugman said wind was only a “small fraction” of Texas generation? Overall for the year 2020, wind produced 22 percent of Texas’s electricity, a higher share than coal.
Yet besides the proportions, also look at the absolute quantity of electricity generated: on Feb. 15, 2020, natural gas produced 398,130 megawatt hours (compared to 759,708 MWh during the recent freeze), while wind produced 264,024 MWh (compared to 73,395 MWh during the freeze).
To sum up, compared with the same date a year earlier, during the first day of the blackouts in Texas, electricity from natural gas was 91 percent higher, while electricity from wind was 72 percent lower.
To reiterate the clarification I gave earlier, part of the confusion here is that electricity demand in February isn’t normally as high as it was because of the freeze. So to test whether natural gas is the culprit, we can compare the generation from various sources during the freeze to the situation back during the summer. For example, let’s look at how things stood on August 15, 2020:
As our date occurred in the dog days of summer, total electric demand was higher in mid-August 2020 than on February 15, 2021. Furthermore, output from every source was lower during the freeze when compared with their performance the prior August 15. However, it seems odd to single out natural gas as the culprit, when it experienced the lowest percentage drop, and (on all dates) was the single biggest source.
The following table summarizes electrical output from various sources on the three dates we have analyzed, and shows the change going from the earlier dates to the first day of the recent blackouts:
As the table indicates, on all three dates natural gas was always the leader in electrical generation. During the freeze, it produced 91 percent more than it had the prior year during a more typical winter day. And although natural gas produced less electricity during the freeze than it had during the peak summer demand, it was only a 7 percent drop.
In contrast, wind power during the freeze was down a whopping 72 percent compared to the previous year, and compared to the summer it was down 47 percent.
Among all sources, the percentage difference between either the previous year or the previous summer was highest for natural gas. That is, the surge in natural gas output year over year was the biggest by far (with coal coming in second with a 54 percent surge), and compared with the summer load its drop was the smallest at 7 percent.
Wind, in contrast, was the worst performer in both cases, if we measure in terms of the difference. That is, wind’s 72 percent drop in the year-over-year column was the biggest one, and its 47 percent drop in the column for summer to winter was also the biggest.
In light of these statistics, it’s a bit odd for commentators to blame the Texas blackouts on natural gas while excusing wind.
What They Mean: Wind Is the Ted Cruz of Electricity
Now, in fairness, what the commentators blaming natural gas have in mind is that ERCOT’s emergency planning assumed that natural gas (and the other “thermal” electricity sources, namely coal and nuclear) could be called upon to fill the gap should there be record demand during a winter storm. If we measure in terms of the total capacity that was temporarily knocked out because of the freeze, then the culprits were thermal sources, rather than wind and solar.
As Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor at Princeton tweeted out, “Main story continues to be the failure of … natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants … which ERCOT counts on to be there when needed.” He further specified, “Of about 70,000 MW of thermal plants in ERCOT, ~25–30,000 MW have been out since Sunday night. Huge problem.”
And so we see what people mean when they say the Texas blackouts are the fault of natural gas, rather than wind: since no serious official ever expected wind to be any help during a crisis, it can hardly be blamed for not showing up when disaster struck. In effect, Krugman is arguing that wind power is the Ted Cruz of electricity.
Conclusion
When assessing blame for a disaster, it’s hard to know what the relevant counterfactual should be. Yes, had the (relatively) unregulated Texas power providers done a better job in winterizing their natural gas lines, things would have been better last February.
But by the same token, had the federal government never implemented the wind production tax credit (PTC)—which subsidizes wind so heavily that it sometimes sells for a negative price in the Texas wholesale market—then there would have been more fossil fuel-generated capacity in Texas, which the numbers clearly show did better at providing electricity during the deep freeze. Normally the boosters of renewable energy point with pride to Texas, which has the most wind capacity of any state by far in absolute terms, and even has almost 25 percent of its official generating capacity consisting of wind. Yet when wind collapsed during the deep freeze, suddenly even its biggest fans admit that nobody ever thought it could do the same job as natural gas.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 18:20 - Russia Throttles Twitter Speed In Banned Content Standoff, Threatens Blockage
Russia Throttles Twitter Speed In Banned Content Standoff, Threatens Blockage
Russia is seeking to retaliate against Twitter for continued violation of Russian obscenity laws which are regulated by its media watchdog — the Federal Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Communications Oversight Service, also known as Roskomnadzor.
Specifically Russia has said Twitter failed to comply in removing over 3,100 posts displaying banned content including pornography, suicide and production of drugs. In response, Russia announced Wednesday it’s slowing down Twitter upload speeds, impacting 50% of desktops in Russia.
Roskomnadzor is now threatening the next step will be to block Twitter completely from the country.
The regulator said in its statement, “With the aim of protecting Russian citizens and forcing the internet service to follow the law on the territory of the Russian Federation, centralized reactive measures have been taken against Twitter starting March 10, 2021 — specifically, the initial throttling of the service’s speeds, in accordance with the regulations.”
“If the internet service Twitter continues to ignore the demands of the law, measures against it will continue in accordance with the regulations, up to and including blocking it.”
Twitter has been named as the only social platform that has “openly ignored the Russian authorities’ demand to remove the banned content,” the statement added.
Separately the Russian media regulator filed lawsuits targeting Twitter and other US-based social media platforms for spreading ‘disinformation’ related to the officially banned mass protests in support of anti-Kremlin activist Alexei Navalny. A number of media pundits believe it’s the Navalny situation that’s really driving Russia’s retaliation against Twitter.
Confirmed: Real-time network data show elevated latency to Twitter servers from #Russia with high impact to mobile internet providers and some fixed-line networks, consistent with targeted traffic shaping or throttling; incident ongoing
📰 https://t.co/Iv1g06ensV pic.twitter.com/ZKktrzfxUX
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 10, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
It’s part of a years-long dispute with major social media companies, as the Associated Press reviews of internet laws going back a half-decade:
In 2014, the authorities adopted a law requiring online services to store the personal data of Russian users on servers in Russia and have since tried to make Facebook and Twitter to comply with it. Both companies have been repeatedly fined, first small amounts of around $50 and last year the equivalent of $63,000 each, for not complying.
The government has stopped short of outright bans even though the law allows it, probably fearing the move would elicit too much public outrage. Only the social network LinkedIn, which wasn’t very popular in Russia, has been banned by the authorities for the failure to store user data in Russia.
Moscow has further accused US big tech of colluding with Western governments to sow destabilization and ‘color revolution’ efforts and information, and further has long been angered over ‘double standards’ and hypocrisy in specially labeling Russian state-backed media while failing to do so in the cases of BBC, NPR, VOA and others.
Meanwhile The Guardian and others are reporting that amid the Wednesday move to implement the Twitter slowdown, the government “also appeared to have accidentally shut down the Kremlin’s own website, as well as other government agency sites.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/10/2021 – 18:00
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
