Today’s News 12th January 2023

• Massive Protests Erupt In China's Megacity Chongqing Over Abrupt Layoffs
  Massive Protests Erupt In China’s Megacity Chongqing Over Abrupt Layoffs

  Authored by Sophia Lam via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Large groups of workers staged protests on Jan. 7 at a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in Chongqing, a megacity in the southwest of China. The protests erupted after thousands of workers were abruptly laid off by Zybio, Inc., a manufacturer of COVID-19 test kits.

  

  Videos posted online show angry workers demolishing boxes of COVID-19 test kits, vandalizing the company’s offices, and clashing with police in riot gear. Protesters threw plastic boxes, water bottles, and cones at police, who ran from protesters—a rare occurrence in China.

  The unrest began when Zybio suddenly laid off nearly 8,000 employees, according to workers interviewed by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times. The employees were notified that they could leave for the Chinese New Year, which is still two weeks away, effectively ending their employment.

  Zybio is a leading manufacturer of in vitro diagnostic reagents and equipment based in the Dadukou District of Chongqing, according to the company’s website. Many of those laid off had been recruited by Zybio last year to meet an urgent demand for tests under China’s zero-COVID policies.

  That demand did not materialize, as China abandoned the three-year-long measures abruptly in early December, ending massive mandatory PCR testing.  The halting of mandatory testing hit the pharmaceutical manufacturer hard.

  Layoffs Were the Last Straw

  Xiaodong (pseudonym), a Zybio worker, confirmed to the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that the protests were sparked by the company’s abrupt layoffs.

  The last three years have seen Chongqing—which has a population of over 30 million—battered by lockdowns, November’s massive protests, and December’s COVID-19 surge. Coming shortly before the Chinese New Year, the sudden layoffs were the last straw for many workers.

  Speaking with The Epoch Times on Jan. 7, Xiaodong accused Zybio of not keeping its promises.

  “The company told us to leave, but it didn’t tell us when to come back and if it would pay us our wages,” Xiaodong said.

  According to Xiaodong, in addition to higher wages, Zybio had promised a 3,000 yuan (about $438) bonus to workers who would work for the company before and after the Chinese New Year.

  Xiaodong, who began working for the company in June, believed that it had a large order at the beginning of December and recruited 6,000 to 7,000 workers at that time.

  “[Zybio] recruited more workers at the beginning of December,” Xiaodong said, “They said that they would pay the bonus in three installments: the first installment of 1,000 yuan (about $146) would be paid if we worked until Jan. 21 and other installments would be paid if we worked until Feb. 15.”

  “I was assigned to make nucleic acid extractors in July. We earned pretty good income in November, about 8,000 yuan to 9,000 yuan ($1,170 to $1,316) for the month,” Xiaodong said. That was the month with the highest income, he said. In October, he earned over 6,000 yuan (roughly $877).

  However, the company’s income fell when the Chinese regime announced the lifting of lockdowns and the halting of mandatory PCR testing. The massive layoffs this month involved about 80 percent of the company’s total workforce, according to Xiaodong.

  From PCR to Antigen Testing

  China’s sudden relaxation of pandemic restrictions left the country in chaos. Chinese citizens complained of a shortage of medicines, hospitals were overwhelmed with patients, and crematories operated around the clock as bodies piled up.

  As the recent spike of COVID-19 swept across the country, residents and doctors in rural areas and remote townships in China complained of a shortage of medicines and antigen testing kits, according to interviews with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times.

  Zybio pivoted from PCR tests to antigen tests, which offer less accurate, but more rapid results. However, it was not enough to save the Chongqing factory, which a Radio Free Asia report described as “now-defunct.”

  “Some provinces no longer imposed PCR testing in November, so the company [Zybio] began to manufacture antigen testing kits. The problem now is that it gets no more orders for these products,” said Xiaodong.

  ‘Don’t Create Any Trouble’

  The layoffs were handled in a perfunctory manner, infuriating workers, according to Xiaodong.

  “No management showed up or explained to us what was happening. Only a person from the recruitment company came and shouted at us, using a loudspeaker, and told us just to leave. He said: ‘You just go as you’re told to do so! Don’t create any trouble!’”

  Riot police and the head of the Dadukou District government were present during the protests on Jan. 7, according to Xiaodong.

  The protestors dispersed after Zybio agreed to pay workers.

  “The factory said that it would pay us our wages for December on Jan. 7 and our January income on Jan. 8,” Xiaodong said. He said that Zybio offered 1,000 yuan ($146) as a bonus to workers who still wanted to stay with the company.

  At the end of the video footage, police can be heard saying that the protesters are suspected of “disrupting public order” and that organizers will be arrested if they don’t leave immediately.

  The Epoch Times’ multiple calls to Zybio were not answered.

  Ning Haizhong and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 23:40

• Taliban Unveils Afghanistan's First 'Supercar'
  Taliban Unveils Afghanistan’s First ‘Supercar’

  Afghanistan is the last place anyone would expect a supercar to be built, but a team of 30 engineers at manufacturer ENTOP and Kabul’s Afghanistan Technical Vocational Institute unveiled a black-colored sports car.

  

  The first supercar from Afghanistan is called the “Mada 9” and looks similar to a McLaren or even Bugatti (from a distance). 

  

  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted images of the Mada 9 on social media and said its beauty is an ‘honor’ for the entire country. 

  

  Beyond the pictures, the question remains what’s under the hood? Several tweets reveal the engine is comparable to a Toyota Corolla hatchback. 

  “The designers have used different parts of other vehicles, mostly Toyota parts, to build the first model,” Afghan press Khaama Press said. 

  A video on ENTOP’s Twitter shows the mechanics of the car. Any car enthusiast would compare it to a kit car. 

  Woman Gives Life pic.twitter.com/UOBV31TyxG

  — Entop (@entopco) December 31, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Khaama said ENTOP envisions Mada 9 featured at the 2023 Qatar Exhibition in Doha. Well, they better beef up the motor before that… 

  Does anyone want to guess the 0-60 mph? 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 23:20

• California's Emission Reduction Plan Lacks Clear Strategy: Report
  California’s Emission Reduction Plan Lacks Clear Strategy: Report

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

  California’s aggressive climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “lacks a clear strategy,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported on Jan. 4.

  “Despite the significant reductions needed to meet these goals, CARB’s plan does not identify which specific policies it will implement,” the report stated.

  The California Air Resources Board (CARB) in December 2022 adopted an “equity-focused” 300-page climate action plan, or roadmap, to meet the state’s goal of drastically reducing emissions and reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.

  

  The agency also adopted a more ambitious goal for 2030, seeking to reduce emissions by 48 percent—instead of the statutory mandate’s 40 percent—below the 1990 level.

  The analyst’s office said that without a clear roadmap, state departments will be forced to identify and adopt necessary policy changes in a short time, which could make the process “costlier and/or disruptive for private businesses and households.”

  According to the report, CARB’s plan is unclear about how much the state will rely on financial incentives, regulatory programs, or cap-and-trade—a government program that puts a cap on emissions and requires companies to pay for extra allowances—to achieve these goals.

  The plan also didn’t provide the state Legislature with enough information on potential financial and environmental impacts, among other concerns, according to the report.

  “Failing to develop a credible plan … could adversely affect California’s ability to serve as an effective model for other jurisdictions or demonstrate global leadership,” the report stated.

  The office has recommended the Legislature direct CARB to submit a report by July 31 to clarify its plan.

  

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, speaks to reporters during a visit the Antioch Water Treatment Plant in Antioch, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  In November 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the plan, calling it “the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world” that will “spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution.”

  The plan reflected the governor’s call for more aggressive climate measures and a faster transition to clean energy. It aims to cut air pollution by 71 percent and reduce the consumption and demand of fossil fuel by 86 percent and 94 percent, respectively, by 2045.

  The state has reduced emissions by about 1 percent annually over the past decade. To meet CARB’s goals, the state would need to speed up to about 4 percent, the analyst’s office said.

  Most of the transformation would come from reducing the presence of fossil fuels as much as possible, including phasing out the use of natural gas for heating homes and buildings. It also means clamping down on chemicals and refrigerants and encouraging residents to walk, bike, and use public transit instead of driving.

  The plan also introduced four potential scenarios of how the state might become carbon neutral between 2035 and 2045, each with different levels of restrictions on residents and businesses.

  The first path, also the most restrictive, includes phasing out all fossil fuel refining in the state; reducing vehicle miles traveled by 30 percent; and allowing only electric vehicles on the road—all by 2035. It also calls for reducing heating, air conditioning, and water heaters in buildings and replacing them with electric appliances by the same year. Cutting dairy methane emissions—or cow manure emissions—by 50 to 75 percent by reducing the state’s dairy cow population is also mandated in this case.

  Other assumed scenarios allow longer transition time, with fewer restrictions but accelerated removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 23:00

• Former US Capitol Police Commander Reveals Failures In January 6 Evacuation Response
  Former US Capitol Police Commander Reveals Failures In January 6 Evacuation Response

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A top U.S. Capitol Police commander – recently retired Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman – failed to respond to repeated urgent radio calls to evacuate the U.S. Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, causing the loss of precious time that might have prevented the shooting death of protester Ashli Babbitt, a former USCP commander said.

  

  The delay caused by the radio silence from the Capitol Police Command Center was so urgent that the 22-year veteran lieutenant located near the U.S. Senate chamber forged ahead with the evacuation anyway. He said he feared lawmakers would be injured or killed if he didn’t lead them to safety before the chamber doors were breached by protesters.

  In a series of exclusive interviews with The Epoch Times, former Lt. Tarik K. Johnson, 47, detailed allegations that Pittman failed to respond to multiple urgent calls for help.

  “I begged for help all day on Jan. 6, 2021, and I feel I was largely ignored,” Johnson told The Epoch Times. “I beg again on Jan. 6, 2023—exactly two years later—for the proper investigative entities to uncover what really occurred on J6 and I pray that the country hears my cry.”

  Johnson said the crucial delay in the evacuations should never have happened.

  “There was no response from anybody at the Command Center,” Johnson said. “I say even before I initiated evacuation, I say specifically, ‘We’ve got to start thinking about getting the people out before we don’t have a chance to.’ I heard no response. Then I asked for permission to evacuate. I heard no response.”

  Pittman, 49, who will begin a new job as chief of police at the University of California-Berkeley on Feb. 1, did not reply to messages seeking comment. She announced her retirement from USCP in November 2022.

  The USCP Command Center, located on the seventh floor of the headquarters building on D Street in Washington, is a 40-by-30-foot room staffed by Capitol Police and officials from partner agencies, including the DC Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, U.S. Park Police, and others.

  In his new book, “Courage Under Fire,” published on Jan. 3, former USCP Chief Steven Sund, 57, said an area of the Command Center nicknamed “the pit” is used for monitoring “all the camera systems, radios, alarms, and a computer-aided dispatch terminal to monitor USCP and MPD calls for service.”

  Founded by an act of Congress in 1828, the U.S. Capitol Police has more than 1,800 sworn officers, more than 500 civilian employees, and an annual budget of $602.5 million.

  According to the book, Sund was in the Command Center the afternoon of Jan. 6, but was occupied making dozens of calls to the House and Senate sergeants at arms and the Pentagon, trying to get National Guard troops sent to the Capitol. He also made and took numerous calls to arrange for mutual aid from surrounding police agencies, the book said.

  There is no indication in the book that Sund was aware of the unanswered calls for help. Johnson does not fault him for the troubles. Sund did describe watching some of the Capitol violence unfold from the Command Center.

  “As I sit in my Command Center watching the video screens,” Sund wrote, “my frustration at the repeated delays from the sergeants at arms, along with my concern for my officers’ safety, is redlining. To be more precise, I am [expletive] livid.”

  Johnson became known to much of America as the Capitol Police lieutenant who wore a bright red Make America Great Again ball cap when he worked with a pair of Oath Keepers to rescue 16 USCP officers trapped in the foyer inside the massive Columbus Doors.

  Johnson was suspended by USCP and later accused of rules violations, including conduct unbecoming, for wearing the Trump hat and working with the Oath Keepers on the officer rescue. He said he believes those charges were actually brought because the evacuations and other split-second leadership decisions he made embarrassed Pittman.

  

  After about 17 months of suspension, Johnson got his job back, but chose to resign. Johnson said wearing the MAGA cap made the crowds more receptive to him, provided a level of safety that he likened to a tactical helmet, and served as a de-escalation tool.

  Johnson had been with USCP for 22 years at the time of the Jan. 6 events, serving as a police officer, dignitary special agent, sergeant, and lieutenant. For two years prior to his USCP service, he worked for the Senate Sergeant at Arms.

  One of the Oath Keepers, retired New York police Sgt. Michael Nichols, said Johnson’s actions during the officer rescue were heroic.

  “He adapted to the environment, put the officers’ and people’s safety before his own, and succeeded in defusing a tense situation that could have resulted in a mass-casualty incident,” Nichols said.

  Johnson’s actions throughout the day on Jan. 6 reminded Nichols of a character in the television miniseries “Band of Brothers.”

  “It’s not like he just helped these officers out, this man was like the lieutenant in Band of Brothers who just keeps running back and forth across the battlefield to get everyone in position and on task, with no regard for self—only for what needs to be done,” Nichols told The Epoch Times. “He really saw the big picture that day.”

  Rico La Starza, who documented the rescue operation on video, agreed. “He’s the leader people pray for,” La Starza said. “Quick on the feet and willing to go through flames for his team.”

  Radio Dispatch Recordings Confirm Events

  Johnson’s assertions about the Senate and House evacuations were corroborated by USCP radio dispatch recordings and transcripts obtained by The Epoch Times.

  The unanswered plea for authorization to evacuate was among at least four instances when Johnson or the USCP dispatcher asked in vain for help or direction from the Command Center, where Pittman sat at the center console near Chief Sund.

  Babbitt was shot and killed by USCP Lt. Michael Byrd at 2:44 p.m. as she attempted to climb through a broken window pane leading into the Speaker’s Lobby. Shortly before that, Babbitt shouted at rioters who were vandalizing the doors and windows and chastised three Capitol Police officers for doing nothing to stop the violence.

  

  Johnson said if the evacuation of Congress started when he first asked for help, Byrd would not have been near the Speaker’s Lobby entrance, and the House chamber would have been empty if the violent crowd had somehow breached the barricaded double doors.

  “I made the evacuation order at approximately 2:28 for the Senate, and then I did it maybe six to eight minutes later for the House,” Johnson said.

  “[Byrd] should not have been put in that situation. Had the evacuation occurred earlier, Lt. Michael Byrd would not have been there and Ashli Babbitt would have met a vacated lobby.”

  Senate Evacuation

  Audio from the main USCP radio channel provides dramatic testimony on the efforts to evacuate hundreds of lawmakers and staff.

  At about 2:23 p.m., Johnson asked for authorization to have one of the Senate doors unlocked so he could get Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger into the chamber. Thomas Lloyd, USCP inspector, crackled across the radio, “Approved.”

  Johnson shortly made his biggest and most urgent plea of the day.

  “405J-John with a message. I want to advise that we evacuate the Senate floor before [we] won’t have a chance to,” Johnson said over the radio just after 2:25 p.m. “We have a clear directional sight to get out of the Senate door from the second floor. I need permission to go ahead and initiate that, copy.”

  The dispatcher repeated Johnson’s plea. “…He has a clear sight to get everyone out,” the dispatcher said.

  For a second time, the dispatcher relayed the request. “405J-John requesting to clear the Senate floor,” he said. “He has a clear path. Clear ahead a path to get everyone out.”

  

  There was no reply from the command staff on the ground or in the Command Center. Johnson said Pittman, then the No. 2 official at U.S. Capitol Police, was the person who should have made that call.

  Johnson said his fear grew as the seconds and minutes ticked away.

  “405J-John disregard,” Johnson broadcast. “I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. I’ll take the 550 or 534. We’re evacuating now on the north side, send everybody out the Senate door, copy.”

  The numbers 550 and 534 refer to officer disciplinary codes, Johnson said.

  The dispatcher responded: “I copy that. Evacuations being executed at this time, 1429 hours [2:29 p.m.].”

  The official USCP Jan. 6 timeline of events states that at 2:28 p.m., “remaining members evacuated from Senate floor.”

  Dispatch acknowledged the evacuation order at 2:29 p.m. At 2:32 p.m., Deputy Chief Eric Waldow broadcast, “Senate floor is continued to be evacuated. I’m moving with the members now.”

  The Senate was declared clear at 2:33 p.m.

  House Evacuation

  The House went into recess at 2:29 p.m. At about that time, a group of 75–100 protesters—including Babbitt—began filling up the hallway outside of the Speaker’s Lobby adjacent to the House chamber. Some members of the crowd turned violent and began rioting. Agitators smashed the glass in the doors with a helmet and flag poles.

  After leading the senators through the subway tunnel to safety, Johnson turned his attention to the evacuation of the House, coordinating over the radio with Sgt. Nelson Vargas, 49.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 22:20

• Visualizing $65 Trillion In Hidden Dollar Debt
  Visualizing $65 Trillion In Hidden Dollar Debt

  The scale of hidden dollar debt around the world is huge.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld details below, no less than $65 trillion in unrecorded dollar debt circulates across the global financial system in non-U.S. banks and shadow banks. To put in perspective, global GDP sits at $104 trillion.

  This dollar debt is in the form of foreign-exchange swaps, which have exploded over the last decade due to years of monetary easing and ultra-low interest rates, as investors searched for higher yields. Today, unrecorded debt from these foreign-exchange swaps is worth more than double the dollar debt officially recorded on balance sheets across these institutions.

  

  Based on analysis from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the above infographic charts the rise in hidden dollar debt across non-U.S. financial institutions and examines the wider implications of its growth.

  Dollar Debt: A Beginners Guide

  To start, we will briefly look at the role of foreign-exchange (forex) swaps in the global economy. The forex market is the largest in the world by a long stretch, with trillions traded daily.

  Some of the key players that use foreign-exchange swaps are:

  • Corporations

  • Financial institutions

  • Central banks

  To understand forex swaps is to look at the role of currency risk. As we have seen in 2022, the U.S. dollar has been on a tear. When this happens, it hurts company earnings that generate revenue across borders. That’s because they earn revenue in foreign currencies (which have likely declined in value against the dollar) but end up converting earnings to U.S. dollars.

  In order to reduce currency risk, market participants will buy forex swaps. Here, two parties agree to exchange one currency for another. In short, this helps protect the company from unfavorable foreign exchange rates.

  What’s more, due to accounting rules, forex swaps are often unrecorded on balance sheets, and as a result are quite opaque.

  A Mountain of Debt

  Since 2008, the value of this opaque, unrecorded dollar debt has nearly doubled.

  

  *As of June 30, 2022

  Driving its rise in part was an era of rock-bottom interest rates globally. As investors sought out higher returns, they took on greater leverage—and forex swaps are one example of this.

  Now, as interest rates have been rising, forex swaps have increased amid higher market volatility as investors look to hedge currency risk. This appears in both non-U.S. banks and non-U.S. shadow banks, which are unregulated financial intermediaries.

  Overall, the value of unrecorded debt is staggering. An estimated $39 trillion is held by non-U.S. banks along with $26 trillion in overseas shadow banks around the world.

  Past Case Studies

  Why does the massive growth in dollar debt present risks?

  During the market crashes of 2008 and 2020, forex swaps faced a funding squeeze. To borrow U.S. dollars, market participants had to pay high rates. A lot of this hinged on the impact of extreme volatility on these swaps, putting pressure on funding rates.

  Here are two examples of how volatility can heighten risk in the forex market:

  • Exchange-rate volatility: Sharp swings in USD can spur a liquidity crunch

  • U.S. interest-rate volatility: Sudden rate fluctuations can mean much higher costs for these trades

  In both cases, the U.S. central bank had to step in to provide liquidity in the market and prevent dollar shortages. This was done through pumping cash into the system and creating swap lines with other non-U.S. banks such as the Bank of Canada or the Bank of Japan. These were designed to protect from declining currency values and a liquidity crunch.

  Dollar Debt: The Wider Implications

  The risk from growing dollar debt and these swap lines arises when a non-U.S. bank or shadow bank may not be able to hold up their end of the agreement. In fact, on a daily basis, there is an estimated $2.2 trillion in forex swaps exposed to settlement risk.

  Given its vast scale, this dollar debt could have greater systemic spillover effects. If participants fail to pay it could undermine financial market stability. Because demand for U.S. dollars increases during market uncertainty, a worsening economic climate could potentially expose the forex market to more vulnerabilities.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 22:00

• Experts Question Why Biden And Trump Treated Differently In Classified Document Cases
  Experts Question Why Biden And Trump Treated Differently In Classified Document Cases

  Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) express concern that President Joe Biden’s retention of classified materials from his vice presidency may be “[swept] under the rug,” legal experts told The Epoch Times why Biden and former President Donald Trump appear to have been treated very differently in two strikingly parallel cases.

  

  FBI agents executed a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, in August 2022. The warrant said there was probable cause to believe there were “additional documents that contain classified NDI [national defense information]” or “presidential records subject to record retention requirements” at Mar-a-Lago.

  By contrast, neither the Penn Biden Center nor any other address associated with Biden has been raided after classified materials were reportedly found at the center’s Washington office, which is located in a nondescript building about a mile from the White House.

  “What’s the difference in what President Trump did versus what we now know President Biden did?” asked House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), as reported by CBS.

  Biden’s attorneys have said that the materials were identified on Nov. 2, just days before an underwhelming midterm election performance by Republicans. Yet, the public wasn’t told of the existence of those materials until Jan. 9, two months after those elections took place.

  That delay is indicative of “a political cover-up,” says Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the founder of the Article III Project.

  He sees it as part of a pattern under the Biden administration.

  “There’s a clear political double standard at the Biden Justice Department, which has been politicized and weaponized against Republicans,” Davis told The Epoch Times on Jan. 10.

  An expert on administrative law had a similar perspective.

  “The fact that this has happened really creates a rule of law: if you’re a Republican, you have to meet certain exacting standards when it comes to records, and if you’re a Democrat, you don’t,” according to the expert, who requested anonymity because company policy doesn’t allow employees to speak to the media.

  “A Republican president must operate in a fishbowl. If you’re a Republican president, the presumption is you have to preserve everything. And you just have to be extra careful. If you’re a Democrat, rest assured, you’re going to have different procedures applied.”

  Under a more consistent system, he added, the standard set by Trump’s case would also have applied to Biden’s case.

  “The Justice Department shouldn’t have said, ‘Let’s negotiate. You guys review and tell us what you find.’ The Justice Department should have immediately had the FBI raid the offices. Why? How do we know, without documenting and creating an inventory, whether the documents were classified or top secret?”

  Davis contrasted the case of Trump’s records with the developing story of Biden’s handling of classified materials.

  “President Trump had the absolute constitutional and statutory power under the Presidential Records Act to declassify and take presidential records when he left office. Former Vice President Joe Biden absolutely did not,” he said.

  Citing an appeals court decision, an analysis of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant from the Congressional Research Service suggested that Trump’s broad authority to declassify information could be hemmed in if he failed to “‘follow established procedures.’”

  “It’s the process that’s the punishment. In other words, the bureaucrats make the rules, whether or not they’re in law or not. And if you violate those rules, there are consequences,” the anonymous legal expert said.

  For Davis, the more recent revelations about Biden’s vice presidential materials raise key questions pertinent to established procedures and also United States national security–questions he believes Republicans in the House must pursue through their oversight authority on a range of committees.

  

  “Did Hunter Biden have access to this office? Did James Biden have access to this office? What were these classified documents? Have they done an intel assessment? Are they planning to do an FBI raid? Are they planning to question Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Joe Biden [and] anyone else who [may have] had access to that office?” he asked.

  Archives Had ‘No Power’ in Trump Case: Expert

  The legal expert said the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) didn’t have the authority to refer the Trump records case to the Department of Justice, as occurred prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid.

  While Title 44 does specify that NARA can refer cases involving federal agency records to the Department of Justice, there’s no parallel language in that title pertaining to presidential records.

  “There is no power for the archivist in those cases to make referrals to the Justice Department,” the expert said.

  In the expert’s opinion, the former president’s legal team should have made a challenge on that basis.

  “Trump’s lawyers were asleep at the wheel,” the expert said, contrasting those lawyers with Biden’s “top-quality” legal representation.

  CBS has reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John R. Lausch Jr., to investigate why the Penn Biden Center came to hold classified material.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 21:40

• Iran's Navy To Sail Fleet To Panama Canal In Challenge To US
  Iran’s Navy To Sail Fleet To Panama Canal In Challenge To US

  Via The Cradle,

  According to a report by Tasnim News Agency, during a conference on maritime civilization in Tehran, Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani announced on Wednesday that plans are in progress to dispatch the Iranian naval forces to the Panama Canal.

  “The Iranian Navy units are getting closer to the coasts of the Americas,” he stated. The navy commander elaborated that Iranian naval forces had already been deployed to all of the strategic straits across the world – with the exception of just two.

  

  “The Iranian Navy forces will sail into one of those two remaining straits this year while plans are being made for the presence of the Iranian naval forces in the Panama Canal.”

  Irani went on to add that the Iranian Navy has established three ocean commands supervising missions to the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. “The equipment that will join the Navy in the future is in line with the missions of these three commands,” he explained.

  He highlighted the naval forces’ previous achievement of sailing across the Pacific Ocean and revealed that at the time, Australia and France both posed threats to Iran by breaking the regulations involving sailing past their coasts – regulations that they themselves had issued. In the face of these threats, however, Iran stood its ground and responded to them in accordance with the law.

  The Australian Department of Defense announced on January 2nd that two Iranian warships had been detected passing through the South Pacific.

  

  In August of 2022, the Iranian navy commander made clear that the “Iranian Navy Forces are present in any ocean if needed” and that they are “ready to counter any foreign danger powerfully.”

  That said, Iran is not seeking to engage in conflict and would only retaliate in the event that its security is endangered.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 21:00

• Computer Monitor Prices Slide As PC Bust Worsens
  Computer Monitor Prices Slide As PC Bust Worsens

  Readers have been well-informed about the pandemic-fueled personal computer boom that ended last year. 

  We have pointed out that graphics cards to memory chips have been deeply discounted in the last several months due to lackluster demand and rising supply. Another critical piece of the PC that is being discounted due to waning demand is the monitor. 

  Bloomberg Intelligence’s Steven Tseng and Sean Chen said a PC bust had added downward pressure on computer monitor shipments. 

  LCD monitor-panel shipments could continue to fall by double-digit percentages vs. a year ago in the coming months due to lackluster demand for PCs. Waning remote-working tailwinds and the transition to laptops from desktop PCs could weigh on monitor sales. Corporate IT spending might also become cautious this year due to escalating geopolitical tensions and risk of a recession. As panel makers convert some TV production lines for IT applications, the oversupply situation could linger and continue to pressure panel prices. 

  LCD monitor-panel shipments by area fell 29% in November vs. a year ago, according to IDC. Prices of 1080p monitor panels decreased 1.2% sequentially in December.

  

  Take a look at computer monitors on Amazon — many are heavily discounted, a sign demand has weakened. 

  

  The analyst said while the computer panel price downturn might continue, the bust in TV panel prices could recover from a trough. 

  Perhaps it’s time to upgrade the trading and/or research desk monitors with new monitors. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 20:40

• The US Consumer Product Safety Commission Denies Gas Stove Ban
  The US Consumer Product Safety Commission Denies Gas Stove Ban

  By Julianne Geiger of Oilprice.com,

  The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has no plans to ban gas stoves, the agency said, according to Bloomberg.

  

  A commissioner from the same agency, Richard Trumka Jr., earlier this week said that the CPSC had been considering a ban on gas stoves for months, with Trumka recommending in October that the agency seek public comment on the hazards of gas stoves.

  But the head of the CPSC, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, said on Wednesday that the agency had no such plans.

  “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” Hoehn-Saric said in a statement to Bloomberg on Wednesday, just a day after discussions of a ban set off a flurry of reactions on both sides.

  Hoehn-Saric added that the Commission—made up of just four members—was researching emissions from gas stoves.

  Back in August of last year, the Committee on Oversight and Reform—the principal oversight committee of the House of Representatives, asked the Commission to turn over documents and information “about the CPSC’s failure to establish safety standards and provide adequate warnings to consumers addressing the significant health risks posed by indoor air pollution from gas stoves.” The Committee document was retrieved in Cached form, as the document can no longer be found at its original web location.

  The push against gas stoves has resulted in GOP backlash, with Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also speaking out against the idea of a ban on the cooking appliance preferred by most chefs.

  “This is a recipe for disaster. The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin said, adding that if this was the CPSC’s greatest concern, “I think we need to reevaluate the commission.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 20:20

• Largest US Grid Saw Nearly 25% Of Power Generation Fail During Christmas Cold Blast
  Largest US Grid Saw Nearly 25% Of Power Generation Fail During Christmas Cold Blast

  PJM Interconnection, a regional power grid that stretches from Illinois to New Jersey, declared an emergency during Christmas and was on the brink of implementing rolling blackouts for millions of customers due to a partial power-generation fleet shutdown. 

  The regional power grid operator has over 65 million customers in 13 states and the District of Columbia. It published its first analysis explaining the grid strain when temperatures dove well below freezing due to 23% of its power-generation fleet shuttering on Dec. 24. 

  About 70% of the 46 gigawatts of outages were due to NatGas-fired power generation going offline, which left the grid operator in dire straits as temperatures continued to plunge and electricity demand soared as customers turned up their thermostats. 

  Here’s PJM’s report explaining how the cold blast last month nearly sparked an energy crisis. 

  PJM shows the cold shot lasted between Dec. 23-25. 

  

  Temperatures recorded one of the most dramatic drops in a decade.

  

  The grid saw a record-high load versus the previous ten years over the holiday weekend. 

  

  Power demand was elevated for days as the grid struggled to keep up. 

  

  Then came power generation outages. Here’s a timeline of what happened:

  

  Most of the power generation that was lost was natural gas and coal. 

  

  Even though the winter has been mild, there has been increasing chatter on Twitter about a possible cold snap at the end of January or next month. But remember, no forecast is locked yet. 

  Keeping an eye on differences in the extended range…

  🧐EPS would be a moderation with some cooler air behind storms.

  🥶GEFS taps into the Arctic a bit more and dumps colder air in at the end of the run.

  Our favored idea in this AM’s #energy report at https://t.co/UQhaRd1MOF pic.twitter.com/N2Bzu4gSvb

  — BAM Weather (BAMWX) (@bamwxcom) January 11, 2023

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  #Natgas demand will be volatile over the next 2 weeks. Withdrawals will dip to -7 BCF/d tomorrow before jumping close to the 5-yr avg this weekend, only to drop back into single digits next week. By Jan 23 or 24, a more sustained shot of cooler temperatures may *finally* arrive. pic.twitter.com/b8TEH1A1V4

  — Celsius Energy (@CelsiusEnergyFM) January 11, 2023

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  #natgas
  By Jan 27 the center of polar air is right over North America with -40C, an historic cold air mass. I am accumulating natgas derivatives for March. It is an outstanding opportunity, yet everybody has to decide on its own what to do with it. pic.twitter.com/VANIYpvXkd

  — Heinrich Leopold (@LeopoldHeinrich) January 11, 2023

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  And what about the next cold blast? Is PJM ready? 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 20:00

• Chances Of Reenlistment Unclear For Discharged Troops After Pentagon Rescinds COVID Vaccine Mandate
  Chances Of Reenlistment Unclear For Discharged Troops After Pentagon Rescinds COVID Vaccine Mandate

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

  The Department of Defense is formally ending the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the U.S. military and the National Guard, but did not provide any signal as to whether those discharged over having refused the vaccine would have any chance of being reenlisted.

  

  Meanwhile, for those who are currently serving in the armed forces, none “shall be separated solely on the basis of their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccination if they sought an accommodation on religious, administrative, or medical grounds,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote in a memorandum (pdf) on Jan. 10.

  “The Military Departments will update the records of such individuals to remove any adverse actions solely associated with denials of such requests, including letters of reprimand,” Austin said in the memo.

  “The Secretaries of the Military Departments will further cease any ongoing reviews of current Service member religious, administrative, or medical accommodation requests solely for exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine or appeals of denials of such requests.”

  The directive comes after a Pentagon official announced on Jan. 5 the department had rescinded the mandate and was in the process of developing “further guidance” on vaccines for the force.

  All actions related to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which Austin had imposed in August 2021, had been halted by the Pentagon in late December 2022.

  Austin said in the Jan. 10 memo that COVID-19 vaccines have been given to over 2 million service members and that 96 percent of the active and reserve forces are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. He said he is “deeply proud” of the Pentagon’s efforts to combat COVID-19.

  More than 8,000 service members have been discharged for refusing the vaccine.

  The Pentagon “will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all Service members,” Austin said.

  For the service members who were administratively discharged “on the sole basis that the Service member failed to obey a lawful order” to take the vaccine, Austin said the Pentagon is prevented by law from giving anything less than a general (under honorable conditions) discharge. A general discharge is a step down from an honorable discharge and is generally given to troops who had satisfactory service but had minor misconduct.

  Those who received a general discharge may petition their military department’s discharge review boards for “correction of military or naval records” to request a correction to the characterization of their discharge, he said.

  Reenlistment Unclear After Thousands Discharged

  President Joe Biden, on Dec. 23, 2022, signed into law the $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, which had passed via bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. The legislation stipulated that Austin must rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the armed forces within 30 days of Biden’s signature.

  Austin cited the legislation in repealing the mandates issued in August 2021 for U.S. military members and in November 2021 for the National Guard.

  Republican lawmakers, who comprised the minority in both chambers last year, had pushed for the removal of the vaccine mandate and celebrated the provision in the NDAA upon its passing in the House and Senate.

  The Pentagon discharged a total of “3,300 Marines, 1,800 soldiers, 1,800 sailors, and 900 airmen simply based on their personal decision to not take the COVID vaccine,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a statement on Dec. 6, 2022.

  “These heroes deserve justice now that the mandate is no more,” he said.

  “The Biden administration must correct service records and not stand in the way of reenlisting any service member discharged simply for not taking the COVID vaccine.”

  The Pentagon has not immediately responded to a request for comment from The Epoch Times on whether it has any plans to reenlist those who had been discharged for the sole reason of refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

  

  A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

  Opposition to Mandates

  Until the passing of the NDAA, the military COVID-19 mandates had been kept in place—even amid plummeting efficacy of the vaccine against infection and severe illness since the spread of the Omicron variant in late 2021, and research suggesting that natural immunity could be more effective than vaccination.

  The mandates saw resistance among troops and Americans at large, including lawmakers in Congress, who argued in favor of bodily autonomy free from coercion.

  Even before the mandates, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in July 2021 shared that military members said they would quit instead of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

  By October 2022, just two months before Congress passed the NDAA, The Epoch Times reported that military officers who became injured after their COVID-19 vaccinations called for the mandate to be scrapped.

  The military has notoriously issued mass rejections for religious requests for exemptions to the mandate, triggering multiple court challenges. Judges had blocked three of the four branches from discharging most members seeking religious exemptions over the treatment, which the judges said violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

  Just 0.5 percent of the religious accommodation requests have been approved by the Marines, followed by 1 percent for the Navy, 2.3 percent for the Air Force, and 6 percent for the Army. Thousands of requests were still not adjudicated before the mandate was withdrawn.

  

  Soldiers file paperwork before being administered COVID-19 vaccines in Fort Knox, Ky., on Sept. 9, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

  Troop Retention Concerns

  McCarthy said at the time the Army and Navy “missed their 2022 recruitment goals by thousands of service members.” Meanwhile, noting the thousands discharged, McCarthy said the COVID-19 vaccine mandate “was detrimental to the ranks, and there is no doubt it put our national security at risk.”

  McCarthy’s concerns over military retention were reflected in a projection by the Army National Guard in October 2022 of a loss of as many as 14,000 soldiers across the country over the next two years. This was attributed to refusals to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. A loss of 9,000 soldiers was projected for the fiscal year 2023, and another 5,000 soldiers was projected for fiscal 2024, if the mandate persisted.

  Austin, also on Dec. 6, 2022, drew public attention to recruitment and said there’s no “hard data that directly links the COVID mandate to an affect on our recruiting.” A day later, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement that the mandate “appears to have very minimal impact on recruiting.” The two did not comment on retention.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 19:40

• Putin Again Replaces Commander Overseeing Russian Forces In Ukraine
  Putin Again Replaces Commander Overseeing Russian Forces In Ukraine

  It was only three months ago that the Kremlin named General Sergei Surovikin to head up Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, which President Putin has since admitted is in fact a “war”. 

  He’s already been sacked, as on Wednesday the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that Valery Gerasimov, who is head of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, is taking over the reigns of the operation.

  

  Surovikin will now serve as one of Gerasimov’s deputies, effectively a demotion. A MoD statement cited the “need to organize closer interaction between the branches and arms of the Armed Forces” in his appointment, and to improve the support and effectiveness of “command and control of groupings of troops,” as cited in Axios.

  According to a brief summary of Gerasimov’s bio (already a familiar face among top Kremlin leadership, and as Putin’s longtime military right-hand) in Sky News:

  Valery Gerasimov currently holds the job of Russia’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, as Chief of the General Staff.

  Sitting at the right hand of Vladimir Putin, he was one of only three people – including the president himself and the defence minister – who were in charge of plotting the invasion of Ukraine. 

  Back in May, he reportedly visited the frontline in the eastern Donbas region – as troops were apparently suffering from low morale and heavy losses. 

  Interestingly, Surovikin’s October appointment was intended to reverse a tide of setbacks for Russian forces in the east and south of Ukraine, as it struggled to control territory that Moscow is seeking to annex politically, especially after it held ‘popular referendums’ in late September.

  Many of the latest major setbacks, particularly the Russian forces’ withdrawal from Kherson, took place under Surovikin’s leadership.

  However, one prominent military analyst and commentator noted it could be more of a reshuffling for political reasons and not because Surovikin is fundamentally being viewed as a failure…

  I don’t think this is because Surovikin is viewed as a failure. Certainly possible that this was driven by political reasons. As the unified commander in Ukraine, Surovikin was becoming very powerful and was likely bypassing Shoigu/Gerasimov when talking to Putin.

  — Rob Lee (@RALee85) January 11, 2023

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  At the same time, the private military firm Wagner Group, which has ties to Putin, has touted some of its own successes, sparking distrust and friction with the official military command structure.

  Gerasimov’s tenure was marked by an uptick in Russian air power targeting Ukraine’s national energy grid, in what’s now become an openly stated strategy to degrade and destroy the war-ravaged country’s power grid and resources. Ukraine has meanwhile been claiming that Moscow is readying a massive new mobilization of some 500,000 additional troops.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 19:20

• Emory Law Professor Denounces The Late Antonin Scalia As "Basically A Klansman"
  Emory Law Professor Denounces The Late Antonin Scalia As “Basically A Klansman”

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  In the age of rage, it often seems that the most rageful reign supreme. That appears to be the case of Emory law professor, Darren Hutchinson, who has claimed that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was “basically a Klansman.”  The disgraceful attack was met by silence from most law professors despite the fact that Hutchinson’s support for the claim is breathtakingly off-base and would mean that a majority of the Court in 1986 were basically KKK members.

  There are many who disagree with the judicial philosophy of Scalia or particularly rulings that he wrote in his storied career. That is all fair game and Scalia loved such debates.

  

  However, Professor Hutchinson preferred character assassination rather than reasoned criticism of Scalia.

  Scalia is, of course, not alive to defend himself so it should fall to the rest of us to step forward. (Indeed, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have likely been one of those who would have defended her close friend, if she were alive).

  Yet, the sad fact is that this type of ad hominem attack thrills many in academia while others are reluctant to speak out.

  Hutchinson recounted on Twitter how he taught a difficult lesson at Emory Law School on how “Justice Scalia was basically a Klansman.”

  The reason cited is his opinion he wrote in the 1987 case of McCleskey v. Kemp.

  That opinion was joined by four other justices (Powell, Rehnquist, White, O’Connor), who are also presumably klansmen under the logic of Professor Hutchinson.

  Indeed, Scalia did not write the majority opinion, which was penned by Justice Lewis Powell. Additionally, the appellate judges would also be de facto KKK members since they also rejected the argument.

  The case involved an African-American defendant, Warren McCleskey, who was convicted of two counts of armed robbery and one count of murder in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. His victim was  white Atlanta Police Officer Frank Schlatt and the jury found that both the felony murder and the killing of a police officer were “aggravating circumstances” that justified the death penalty. In his habeas appeal, Hutchinson alleged that the capital sentencing process was administered in a racially discriminatory manner in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. He based those arguments on a study of David C. Baldus, Charles Pulaski, and statistician George Woodworth known as the “Baldus study.”

  The issue on appeal was whether a general finding of racism in the system was sufficient or whether a defendant must show evidence of racism in his actual case. Both felony murder and the killing of an officer are commonly used as aggravating circumstances in capital cases.

  The United States for the Eleventh Circuit rejected this use of a statistical study without evidence that racism played a role in the specific case under review.  The court actually assumed the accuracy of the report for the purposes of the appeal but found that statistics are

  “insufficient to demonstrate discriminatory intent or unconstitutional discrimination in the Fourteenth Amendment context, [and] insufficient to show irrationality, arbitrariness and capriciousness under any kind of Eighth Amendment analysis.”

  Id. at 891. The Eleventh Circuit added:

  “The Baldus approach . . . would take the cases with different results on what are contended to be duplicate facts, where the differences could not be otherwise explained, and conclude that the different result was based on race alone. . . . This approach ignores the realities. . . . There are, in fact, no exact duplicates in capital crimes and capital defendants. The type of research submitted here tends to show which of the directed factors were effective, but is of restricted use in showing what undirected factors control the exercise of constitutionally required discretion.”

  The Supreme Court agreed. Powell wrote:

  To evaluate McCleskey’s challenge, we must examine exactly what the Baldus study may show. Even Professor Baldus does not contend that his statistics prove that race enters into any capital sentencing decisions, or that race was a factor in McCleskey’s particular case. [Footnote 29] Statistics, at most, may show only a likelihood that a particular factor entered into some decisions. There is, of course, some risk of racial prejudice influencing a jury’s decision in a criminal case. There are similar risks that other kinds of prejudice will influence other criminal trials. See infra at 481 U. S. 315-318. The question “is at what point that risk becomes constitutionally unacceptable,” Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S. 28, 476 U. S. 36, n. 8 (1986). McCleskey asks us to accept the likelihood allegedly shown by the Baldus study as the constitutional measure of an unacceptable risk of racial prejudice influencing capital sentencing decisions. This we decline to do.

  In dissent, Justice William Brennan maintained as did Justice Marshall in his dissent that “the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.” Justice Stevens offered a more limited dissent in calling for a remand to consider the study further. Blackmun also supported the use of the study as the basis for a reversal.

  The case has long generated debate with many law professors disagreeing with the Court’s holding. However, one can disagree with the Eleventh Circuit and the Supreme Court without labeling such jurists as white robbed racists.

  It is also concerning that this is a reference to Hutchinson’s class. If the professor maintains that anyone supporting the decision is effectively a klansman, it is hard to see how students in his class would feel comfortable in voicing such a view. Indeed, such pedagogical positions may explain why 60 percent of students reportedly fear sharing their views in classes.

  Hutchinson’s bio states that he “is the Emory University School of Law inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice. He joined the faculty on July 1, 2021. At Emory Law, Hutchinson serves as the faculty director of the Emory University Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice. He was also appointed to the role of director of community and inclusion and chief diversity officer for the law school in fall 2022.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 19:00

• 21 Year Old Air Force Football Player 'Dies Suddenly' After Collapsing Walking To Class
  21 Year Old Air Force Football Player ‘Dies Suddenly’ After Collapsing Walking To Class

  Whether or not it is a ‘coincidence’ remains to be seen – but it is getting hard to ignore all of the recent stories about athletes, collegiate and professional, unexpectedly either collapsing or passing away.

  The nation’s attention was captured back on January 3, 2022 when NFL player Demar Hamlin collapsed on the field due to cardiac arrest after making what appeared to be a routine tackle and then standing up and clapping his hands. 

  Days after the incident, we highlighted Old Dominion basketball player Imo Essien collapsing on the court during the middle of a game against Georgia Southern. Video from the incident appeared to show Essien clutching his chest while on the ground. 

  And hours ago, the MMA world was shocked at the unexpected death of 18 year old Victoria Lee, a rising star on the the ONE Championship MMA promotion. “She has gone too soon and our family has been completely devastated since then,” her sister wrote on Instagram last weekend. 

  Now, yet another athlete has unexpectedly passed away at the tender age of 21. Air Force football player Hunter Brown suffered a “medical emergency” while walking to class on Monday of this week and passed away, according to Fox News. 

  With heavy hearts we share the loss of a cadet.
  C3C Hunter Brown died Monday after suffering a medical emergency while on his way to class.
  Our thoughts are with his family, friends, teammates and fellow cadets.#NeverForgotten pic.twitter.com/amPlznZqTC

  — U.S. Air Force Academy (@AF_Academy) January 10, 2023

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  The report says that he “was on his way to class from his dorm room when he collapsed”, and that EMTs were unable to revive him with life-saving measures. 

  The two sport athlete at Barbe High School in Louisiana, who played football for Air Force and formerly played baseball and football in high school, was described by his coach as “a pure joy to coach and have as a teammate”. 

  Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark, U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent commented: “Hunter was a standout offensive lineman on the Falcon football team and was well-respected in his squadron, The entire U.S. Air Force Academy mourns his loss, and our hearts and condolences are with his family, his squadron, and all who were touched by this incredible young man.”

  Air Force Office of Special Investigations officials and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office are both investigating the incident. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 18:40

• The Senator Who Didn't Know (But Thought She Did)
  The Senator Who Didn’t Know (But Thought She Did)

  Authored by Joakim Book via The Mises Institute,

  Legislators have a strange relationship with magic. To achieve that which physically cannot be done, they like to wave magic wands and pretend that it can. Reality puts a limit on political power, a realization that always sits poorly with those in charge of our trillion-dollar bureaucratic machinery.

  

  Senator Elizabeth Warren is a stunning case in point, and she’s had her aim at the magic-seeming world of digital assets like bitcoin for a while. Last month she cosponsored The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 with Roger Marshall which attempts to put those assets under rules that echo the regulatory system that cryptocurrencies were created to escape.

  The bill’s purpose is “closing loopholes and bringing the digital asset ecosystem into greater compliance with the anti–money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) frameworks governing the greater financial system.”

  This turns tens of thousands of node runners, wallet users, or bitcoin holders into licensed money service businesses for running software on their computers. The bill’s text especially rallies against “unhosted” wallets, which are just assets that are not under the custody of a regulated exchange or bank-like entity—that are owned outright instead of being counterparty to a censorable banking contract. There can be no financial privacy in the senator’s world.

  Money transmitter entities would be required to perform the sort of identification and counterparty checks that banks submit to, but the bill takes things one step further:

  Prohibit financial institutions from using or transacting with digital asset mixers and other anonymity-enhancing technologies and from handling, using, or transacting with digital assets that have been anonymized using these technologies.

  An old-world analogy of the absurdity of this is physical cash, where using an ATM and then making a bank deposit is the most rudimentary form of “anonymity enhancing technologies.” If the senators get their way, the kind of privacy that cash permits would be ruled out in the new world of bitcoin: we must see what you’re up to and make sure you’re not spending any funds we disapprove of.    

  Reality Reasserts Itself

  Never before was a piece of proposed legislation so resolutely defeated by reality.

  Reality doesn’t go away simply because you label it “money laundering” or tangentially connect it to criminal behavior by the rogue states that ostensibly motived the bill.  

  Warren cannot do this for three reasons:

  1. Bitcoin doesn’t work the way she thinks.

  2. Congress is constitutionally barred from doing it.

  3. And because the bitcoin protocol doesn’t care about her magic-wand waving. 

  While bitcoin attempts to be money, it doesn’t conform to the physical properties of pieces of paper (or regulated banking institutions) that Warren pretends to understand. Paper dollars are handed over in trade, and bank transfers clear between banks or on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet; something that has monetary value moves, and we therefore get money transmitter laws to keep tabs on who is moving funds to whom.

  On the surface it seems that bitcoin operates in the same way: I have satoshis in a mobile app or a hardware wallet, I press send, and then you have sats in your wallet. Something money-like moved, right?

  Wrong. What shifts are the open sesame–like secret words that allow a transaction to be accepted by the tens of thousands of nodes running bitcoin, recognizing that now someone else is in command of the protocol address existing all over the world at the same time. It’s like passing secret notes to the entire world, enciphered by a secret code.

  There’s no bank for Warren to lean on for regulatory purposes. What shifts is the protocol-level recognition that someone else now has access to the funds, whereas the funds themselves never move. L0la L33tz writes in Bitcoin Magazine that “non-custodial wallets transmit Bitcoin the currency as much as the key to one’s door moves the house around.”

  And words are speech which Congress has long been forbidden from interfering with. The counterintuitive notion of a monetary system that operates without money moving has yet to reach the offices of America’s legislators. Money transmission laws are as unfit to regulate bitcoin as they are regulating the janitors in the Capitol.

  Bitcoin doesn’t move, so how can the software that manages one’s balance be subject to money transmitter laws? Warren faces problems on three levels:

  1. You can’t achieve it. Bitcoin was made for attacks like these, attempts to regulate or control it. It is resilient; its ledger and block confirmations are completely unresponsive to any magician’s waving. Last spring, China tried to ban bitcoin mining—a physical process more difficult and obvious than just holding, transacting, or validating bitcoin—in a state much more authoritarian than the US, and they couldn’t do it. A year and a half later, plenty of covert mining operations exist in China, not to mention the exodus of machinery that set up in the US, Canada, Kazakhstan, and Russia. A huge authoritarian crackdown with zero impact on bitcoin.

  Good luck subduing the mere transactions and privacy-enhancing methods that people run on their phones and computers.

  2. You’re not allowed to. The First Amendment says that government cannot abridge the freedom of speech, and since Bernstein v. United States in the 1990s, the Supreme Court has said that code is speech. Every aspect of bitcoin is code: The validators running bitcoin is code. The “unhosted” wallets and the mixers the bill laments are code.

  The mobile apps that allow spending is code. At no point does anything related to bitcoin cease being code. End of discussion.

  3. You’re not supposed to. Money is a neutral entity, a system that exists entirely to facilitate trade between humans. If it performs its role well, some unsavory types are going to use it (cue criminals and cash). When you meddle with it, it performs that function less well, and you harm the rest of society. Senators in a galaxy far, far away have no business interfering with it.

  You cannot make words illegal—primarily because they’re nonrivalrous and exist in the human mind, available for anyone to use. When Harry Potter’s enemies in J.K. Rowling’s fantastic world enforce the “Taboo”—an enchantment that lets the Death Eaters punish anyone who utters Voldemort’s name—they do so via the use of magic, a realm that Congress thankfully has not yet uncovered.

  Not for lack of trying, as we learned a few weeks ago when Senator Warren tried to regulate the code that people run when they use bitcoin. Central planners always try to plan that which is beyond their understanding—and frequently beyond their capacity.

  Good news is that it won’t pass; it’s the sort of Hail Mary marketing tool for which Warren has become quite known. Bad news is that it reflects the mistaken view held by many a legislator and plenty more everyday people.

  You can be in favor of bitcoin, oppose it, or be lukewarm or uninterested. What you can’t do is straw man its operation and then try to use government power to magically make it behave the way you want. Ignorance is not a good reason to mistakenly overstep one’s authority.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 18:20

• Humpday Humor: Coincidence Theorists
  Humpday Humor: Coincidence Theorists

  Presented with no comment…

  Coincidence Theorists pic.twitter.com/ZSK9nics5X

  — David Wolfe (@DavidWolfe) January 11, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 18:00

• Kash Patel Says Jan. 6 Committee Buried Key Evidence From His Testimony
  Kash Patel Says Jan. 6 Committee Buried Key Evidence From His Testimony

  Authored by Samantha Flom and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  As the former chief of staff to the Defense Department under the Trump administration, Kash Patel was one of the first people the now-shuttered House Jan. 6 Committee sought testimony from in its investigation of the Capitol breach.

  

  Despite this, the transcript of his deposition was one of the last to be released as the committee concluded its work, and the reason, according to Patel, was simple.

  “I gave them the hard truths that they didn’t want the answers to because it didn’t fit their political narrative,” he told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek on the Jan. 6 episode of his Kash’s Corner podcast.

  Burying the Evidence

  Revisiting the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the aftermath, Patel held that the committee failed to abide by its own rules when it excluded the exhibits he and his legal team entered into the record during his deposition.

  Among those exhibits, of which Patel said there were roughly nine, was a key report (pdf) released in November 2021 by the Biden Defense Department (DoD), which concluded that the actions the department took under the Trump administration to prepare for the Jan. 6 protests were “appropriate” and “complied with laws, regulations, and other applicable guidance.”

  

  That report, Patel said, along with his testimony that former President Donald Trump’s authorization of the deployment of 20,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol, contradicted the committee’s conclusions that Trump was responsible for the violence that occurred that day.

  Patel also noted that, when they were offered additional assistance from federal law enforcement, both Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Capitol Police (USCP) declined.

  In fact, on Jan. 5, 2021, Bowser announced publicly that she would not be requesting additional federal law enforcement, sharing a letter she had written that stated as much to her Twitter account.

  “To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel, and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD [Metropolitan Police Department] if such plans are underway,” Bowser wrote in the letter to Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.

  Likewise, according to the Capitol Police’s official Jan. 6 timeline, the Pentagon contacted USCP to confirm if a request for National Guardsmen was being considered. The next day, USCP Deputy Chief Gallagher replied that “a request for National Guard support is not forthcoming at this time after consultation with COP [chief of police] Sund.”

  According to Patel, both Bowser’s letter and USCP’s timeline were also submitted as exhibits but were not released along with the transcript of his deposition.

  Under the House’s rules (pdf) for deposition procedure, “the transcript and any exhibits shall be filed, as shall any video recording, with the clerk of the Committee.”

  While the committee released exhibits from other interviews with the supporting materials for its final report, none of the exhibits listed as being on file with the committee include those produced by Patel.

  “No surprise, the Jan. 6 Unselect Committee broke its rules, broke the House rules, broke its commitment—and not just orally, but in writing to my legal team—by saying the exhibits would be included,” he said. “They excluded every single exhibit.”

  Unanswered Questions

  Patel also slammed the committee for failing to investigate significant questions and concerns that remain largely unexplained.

  The majority of his deposition, he noted, was not even about Jan. 6 but other, unrelated matters the committee simply wanted information on.

  “That just showed me that all they cared about, this committee, was setting up perjury traps and looking for political ammunition, not the facts,” he said.

  

  One question Patel said he is still seeking an answer to is why a “no-climb” fence was not constructed around the Capitol prior to Jan. 6.

  Patel recounted how he showed up at the scene on Jan. 6, after the protests had broken out, to find no fence had been erected to help secure a perimeter.

  Noting that he had to buy the fence himself and have the National Guardsmen put it up later that day, he wondered: “If we could do it that fast, why wasn’t it done before? What are they going to say, optics? They didn’t have the intelligence? This committee never bothered to examine that question.”

  Further, according to Patel, he and other DoD officials offered to remove the fence after the protests had subsided, but their offers were rejected by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the incoming Biden administration.

  The fence would remain up for half a year, serving as a reminder of the events of Jan. 6 to all who passed by.

  “That’s what I believe that this partisan political charade was about,” Patel said. “They wanted the optics before Jan. 6 with no security, and they wanted the optics after Jan. 6 with heavy security to show that their political narrative was the one that was right. But when you look at the underlying facts, their narrative is defeated.”

  Another unexplained mystery Patel pointed to was the role played by Ray Epps, a former Arizona Oath Keepers leader who was filmed encouraging protesters to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6.

  While Epps maintains that he was at the Capitol that day to support Trump, many have come to believe that he was there as a provocateur, potentially on the orders of the FBI.

  Noting that the FBI has repeatedly failed to give a straight answer on whether Epps is an operative of theirs or not, Patel said: “Look, as a former federal prosecutor who ran sources and informants, if the answer is, ‘This guy is not on our payroll, and we don’t know him, and he did absolutely nothing for the United States government,’ you come out hard and fast out of your press office and say those things. And those things have never been said by this DOJ or FBI about Ray Epps.”

  Patel also pointed to the recent revelation that Pelosi’s office played a key role in planning security for the event and the fact that the FBI withheld a crucial report indicating thousands of protesters could show up at the Capitol as additional mysteries that should be investigated by the Republican-controlled House.

  “Look, if the FBI and DOJ are willing to subpoena my records from five years ago, maybe we can get this Congress to actually subpoena some records of consequence to answer some of these questions.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 17:40

• US To Hit Debt Ceiling One Week From Today, Starting Countdown To Epic Chaos
  US To Hit Debt Ceiling One Week From Today, Starting Countdown To Epic Chaos

  In the final days of 2022, Goldman’s economists predicted that “the biggest political risk” of 2023 will be the Congressional showdown over America’s favorite periodic drama: the debt limit.

  This is what the bank’s chief economist Jan Hatzius said then: “The debt limit likely poses the greatest political risk next year, and we expect it to rival the 2011 episode in its disruption to financial markets and the economy. That said, we do not expect Congress to enact major fiscal changes. Republicans might press for spending cuts in a debt limit deal, but we do not expect substantial cuts next year. The White House might press for increased fiscal support, but this also looks unlikely as we believe a soft landing is more likely and a divided Congress would have difficulty responding to a recession even if one occurs.”

  

  And while the US has about 9 months to go until the mid-September D-Day, or the moment when various emergency measures meant to provide breathing room under the debt ceiling, the existing US cash balance and new tax payments are all exhausted, a new analysis by Wrightson ICAP has calculated that the recent surge in Treasury bill supplies will likely push the outstanding amount of public debt about $10 billion above the debt ceiling after the close of business on Jan. 19, absent the implementation of measures to extend the government’s borrowing authority. Currently, the government is roughly $64 billion away from reaching its $31.4 trillion statutory borrowing limit, a level it will breach in about a week.

  

  More than half of that $64 billion buffer will be chewed up by a swath of benchmark bill, note and bond auctions taking place this week. The net increase to the debt pile from those, after the last of them is settled next Tuesday, will be around $36.6 billion, leaving a little under $27.7 billion of clearance, according to ICAP and Bloomberg.

  And that doesn’t even account for the new cash-management bill which settles two days later on Jan. 19. To accommodate that $60 billion security, it’s likely the Treasury will need to implement its extraordinary measures before then. The Treasury plans to sell $36 billion of four-month bills Wednesday, which is $3 billion larger than the previous week’s auction.

  Of course, all that hitting the debt threshold level – which is always just a formality for a country that is debt-funded like the US means, is that the Treasury will notify Congress it’s invoking extraordinary accounting measures in the next few days.

  “Even if our projections of nonmarketable debt are too high, the Treasury would probably be too close to the ceiling for day- to-day operational comfort,” Wrightson ICAP economist Lou Crandall writes in a note.

  Once the Treasury invokes its extraordinary measures, that will give it “ample borrowing capacity” for at least the next few weeks so it could continue increasing the size of the three- and six-month bill sales for the next couple of weeks. Still, Wrightson expects Treasury to keep the sizes steady when it announces the next round Thursday.

  Also, the fact that Treasury’s cash management bill offering is only 35 days suggests the department wants to “retain some flexibility” under the debt cap, which argues for relying on boosts to shorter maturities.

  And while the debt ceiling will likely be breached in about a week, as the Goldman chart below shows, analysts doubt the government is actually at risk of defaulting until the second half of 2023 because of the extraordinary measures the Treasury usually uses to avoid exceeding the cap, including using up the existing Treasury cash balance and funding from tax payments.

  
  And so, the question is not if and when the US will breach the debt ceiling and cross the infamous D-Day, but how will broken Congress reach a solution. As we explained one week ago in “Investors Are Already Dreading The Debt Ceiling Chaos In 2023”, not even the always cheerful Wall Street expects a smooth and drama-free resolution to a process that will be nothing short of absolutely chaotic and expose the full Congressional dysfunction for the entire world to see.

  For those who missed it, here are our thoughts from last week:

  With the House paralyzed indefinitely after Kevin McCarthy just lost his 10th House Speaker vote (the longest such stretch since before the civil war) as a group of Republican holdouts refuses to side the GOP establishment, Bloomberg rates strategist Alexandra Harris writes that the debt ceiling is already top of mind for investors even though the US isn’t likely to face the threat of a technical default until the second half of 2023 and Treasury bills aren’t yet pricing such concerns. That’s because the Republican standstill surrounding the House speak vote foreshadows the chaos that could unfold when must-pass bills, like government funding legislation and an increase or suspension of the debt ceiling, have to be addressed.

  clip and save for fights over government funding and the debt ceiling https://t.co/HQaF98JcRs

  — Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) January 5, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Although the markets did not react on Tuesday to the political chaos in the House, the dysfunction is a clear signal that House Republicans will struggle to raise the debt ceiling when the time comes in 3Q23,” Stifel Financial’s chief Washington policy strategist Brian Gardner says in a note.

  “Investors should be on guard as the summer approaches as to the possibility that the brinksmanship over the debt ceiling could lead to market volatility and a risk-off trade.” Well at least the Fed will be happy.

  The good news is that the debt ceiling crisis isn’t due for a while: the government is roughly $102 billion away from reaching the $31.4 trillion statutory limit, although analysts doubt the government is actually at risk of defaulting until the second half of 2023 because of the extraordinary measures it usually uses to avoid exceeding the cap.

  

  Treasury has been reducing its cache of bills in order to give itself more breathing room under the cap before invoking their accounting tricks. And speaking of tricks, California Democrat Brad Sherman floated a potential deal that would trade Democratic votes to make McCarthy the speaker of the House in return for rules aimed at preventing a US government shutdown or a debt limit crisis.

  According to Harris, from a money-market standpoint, a dragged-out fight over the debt ceiling will likely result in less T-bill supply at a time when there’s still a glut of cash in the overnight funding, pushing rates even lower and motivating eligible counterparties to keep parking cash at the Fed. Yes: that means the Overnight Reverse Repo balance will balloon even more.

  This comes at a time when Federal Reserve policy makers are expecting balances at the overnight reverse repo facility to drop from its current levels above $2 trillion. It rose by another $41 billion on Wednesday to $2.23 trillion. In the minutes of the December gathering, Patricia Zobel, manager pro tem of the New York Fed’s system open market account, noted that greater competition among banks for funding could contribute to drawdowns in the RRP, but clearly that has not been the case since most banks still refuse to raise rates on their deposits.

  All of which brings us to what Goldman predicted in its “10 questions for 2023“, would be the biggest political risk of this year. Not surprisingly, it was another debt ceiling crisis. For those who missed it, here is what Goldman said:

  Will the debt limit have as negative an impact on financial markets in 2023 as it in 2011?

  Yes. The political and fiscal conditions next year will be similar to the last two extremely disruptive debt limit increases, in 1995 and 2011. Like next year, in those periods a Democratic President in his third year faced a Republican House after losing the majority in the midterm election. Those episodes also followed a run-up in public debt as a share of GDP and/or a rise in federal interest expense, similar to the experience over the last few years. However, midterm gains of 54 seats in 1994 and 63 in 2010 gave Republicans a clearer political mandate and the votes to carry it out, at least in the House. By contrast, Republicans netted only 9 seats in the 2022 midterms and enter 2023 with a very thin House majority. Public focus on the public debt is also much lower compared to those prior periods, and Republicans have not emphasized fiscal restraint nearly as much recently as they had in the mid-1990s or early part of the Obama Administration.

  Prior disruptive debt limit standoffs led to increased market volatility and a sell-off in Treasury securities maturing around the debt limit deadline, and we would expect this to occur next year. In 2023, we would expect yields on bills maturing around the deadline to rise by at least as much as they did in 2011 and 2013, and for volatility in financial markets to rise similar to those periods (Exhibit 14).

  

  There is also a real chance that Congress fails to raise the debt limit in time next year, forcing Treasury to reduce daily payments to the level of receipts (i.e., immediately eliminating the budget deficit), resulting in a spending cut of around 10% of GDP at an annualized rate. While we think it is more likely that Congress manages to avoid this and raise the debt limit before it constrains Treasury’s ability to pay its obligations, the risk appears higher than at any point since 2011.

  The deadline for Congress to raise the debt limit before Treasury must cut back net borrowing will likely be sometime in August but could be as late as October depending on Treasury cash flows. An early signal of the risk the debt limit poses will come at the start of 2023, when the new House of Representatives is seated. If Republicans reinstate the “motion to vacate” that allows any member of the House to call for a vote for a new speaker of the House—several Republican House members have recently called for this in return for their vote for speaker—it could be difficult for the next speaker to put a clean debt limit increase to a vote until forced by financial markets.

  For more detailed on these, and other questions and predictions, read the full note available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 17:20

• It's "Silly" To Pretend Kiev Won't Become A NATO Member: Ukrainian Ambassador
  It’s “Silly” To Pretend Kiev Won’t Become A NATO Member: Ukrainian Ambassador

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

  A Ukrainian official said it was logical for Kiev to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. The country’s Ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, claimed it was “silly” to exclude Kiev from the Brussels-based alliance because Ukraine will be “full” of weapons manufactured in NATO member states. 

  In an interview with Newsweek, Prystaiko called for Kiev to gain immediate ascension into the North Atlantic alliance. The Ambassador said, “NATO is just logical. Ukraine will be full of NATO weaponry, and the people will be prepared. So what is the difference? Just place a seat at the table.” He continued, “So we’re becoming interoperable because we’re doing it on the ground. And that’s why I’m sure that whether the political decision is here or not now, we will be a part of NATO.”

  

  Ukraine was put on the path to NATO membership, along with Georgia, in 2008. Giving Ukraine the status as a potential member crossed key redlines set out by the Kremlin.

  While Ukraine has been on the path to membership in the North Atlantic alliance for nearly 15 years, Kiev falls short of meeting several requirements to formally join the defense pact. 

  During that period, Washington has repeatedly told Kiev it does not qualify to join the alliance. At the same time, it refused to take membership off the table, violating a core Russian security concern. 

  Under President Joe Biden, Washington took several steps to make Kiev a member of the alliance, including; signing agreements, providing billions in military aid, and conducting NATO war games in Ukrainian territory.

  Ukraine’s growing military ties with NATO was a key factor in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade his neighbor. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed his country was already a “de facto” member of the alliance. 

  Prystaiko claimed that eventual membership in NATO and the EU was a guarantee for Kiev, and it was “silly” to pretend otherwise. “Our conversation with the rest of the world—at least the Western world—should be very easy. Ukraine wins, becomes a member of the European Union and NATO. And that’s it,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/11/2023 – 17:00

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