Feb 14

Today’s News 14th February 2023

  • Mass Shooting At Michigan State – Suspect Shoots Self As Police Approach
    Mass Shooting At Michigan State – Suspect Shoots Self As Police Approach

    Update 12:40 am: Some three hours after he first opened fire, the suspect in the Michigan State University mass shooting has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police reported at a 12:25 am press conference. Per police scanner traffic, he shot himself as police approached him at an off-campus street location. WDIV reported that location is about five miles from campus, in northeast Lansing. 

    Police say they’re confident there was only one shooter and that the threat is over. They lifted the directive for students and staff to shelter in place, but all campus activities have been cancelled for 48 hours. 

    Three people are dead, and five wounded. Fatalities occurred both at Berkey Hall — an academic building — as well as the MSU student union building. 

    Beyond his previous description as a “black male, shorter in stature,” the shooter has not yet been identified, nor do police know if he has any affiliation with the university. Police have not yet said what type of firearm or firearms were used in the attacks. 

    * * *

    A Monday night mass shooting at Michigan State University has reportedly resulted in multiple casualties — and it may not be over, with the perpetrator still at large and reports of shots fired still being relayed by dispatchers more than two hours after the rampage began.

    With the manhunt underway, police held a press conference, announcing that “initial information is that the suspect is a black male, shorter in stature, wearing red shoes, a jean jacket and a ball cap.” 

    The apparent shooter was captured on campus surveillance video

    Associated Press reports three people are confirmed dead and five wounded in an attack that started at 8:18pm local/Eastern Time. Soon after it began, the university urged students and staff to “Secure-in-Place immediately.” Videos circulating on social media show large groups of students fleeing danger, and police forces rushing past them to locate the shooter. 

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    The shooting appears to have spanned multiple locations on campus. On a live feed of Greater East Lansing Public Safety police radio, dispatchers were heard passing on reports of shots heard at various buildings around the campus, which is about 90 miles northwest of Detroit. 

    A dispatcher was also heard reporting multiple casualties in at least two different classrooms, and that students reported that the shooter was in the hallway of Berkey Hall and that they were attempting to flee the building by jumping out the classroom windows. Shooting was also reporting at the student union.

    One tweeted video appears to show a body on a sidewalk being moved to a gurney: 

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    Early on, MSU police tweeted that the suspect has been described as a “short male with a mask, possibly Black.”

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    On social media, some people echoed claims that multiple shooters were involved in the attack. However, an MSU police tweeted that “it appears there is only one suspect at this time.”

    In the initial police radio reports, shots were reported at Berkey Hall, which is home to MSU’s College of Social Science, Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, and the Department of Sociology. 

    Shots were initially reported at Berkey Hall on the northeast edge of campus

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    Compounding the mayhem, a dispatcher announced that a caller to 911 claimed that explosives had been placed on the campus.  

    This article will be updated as the story develops…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 23:35

  • "World's First" Unvaccinated Dating Service Launches In Hawaii
    “World’s First” Unvaccinated Dating Service Launches In Hawaii

    Authored by Allen Stein via The Epoch Times,

    Nowadays, online dating seems less a game of hit or miss than medical truth or dare, given the deal-breaker question, “Are you vaccinated?”

    Businesswomen Shelby Thomson and Heather Pyle of Maui, Hawaii, found the online dating game a frustrating experience for the un-jabbed at the height of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2021.

    Faced with discrimination and censorship, many unvaccinated people lost jobs and relationships because they chose to remain unvaccinated. The un-jabbed “didn’t have the option to say they were unvaccinated” to potential online dating partners, Thomson said.

    A health worker draws out Moderna vaccine during a drive-through COVID-19 vaccine clinic at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ont., on Jan. 2, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Lars Hagberg)

    “They were only allowed to be vaccinated. And you had to have this badge in your [online] profile.”

    Too often, the unvaccinated would hear on dating sites, “Swipe left”—move on.

    In May 2021, the two business partners, moms, and best friends launched “Unjected,” a dating app for the unvaccinated, on the Google and Apple stores.

    “We started seeing people wanting to find partners,” Thomson said of their unvaccinated friends.

    However, soon after the app’s launch, Thomson and Pyle started receiving hate emails, then negative publicity in the media. Apple decided to remove “Unjected” from the app store, claiming it provided medical disinformation.

    “We tailored everything and played this chess game until it [met] Apple standards,” Thomson recalled. But it still wasn’t enough.

    “It took us until July 31 to get banned.”

    When Google threatened to follow suit, Thomson and Pyle pulled the plug on both media giants, and Unjected.com went live using the web domain host GoDaddy in August 2021.

    “We decided—OK—the big-tech world is not our friend. They don’t want us to exist in this realm. They’ll always go out of their way to ensure we’re censored or taken down.”

    Thomson said “Unjected” is more than a dating service for the unvaccinated. It’s also a blood bank database and a fertility bank for the unvaccinated.

    The dating service alone boasts 110,000 subscriptions in 85 countries and 3,000 to 5,000 new clientele every month, Thomson said.

    Pandemic of Censorship

    “Unjected was founded to help us easier connect in a world of medical discrimination and censorship,” according to Unjected’s online introduction.

    “We all have a lot in common when it comes to being conscious about our choices, and we think that there are great connections to be made when like-minded people gather in the same social space.”

    Thomson said 2021 was the fastest-growing year for the new dating site because so many unvaccinated people had lost their jobs in the pandemic.

    “The [vaccine] mandates were heavily enforced. Now, we’re seeing the trend differently. People are starting to realize things they didn’t before,” Thomson said.

    …

    Ironically, “Unjected” clients include conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, and many others concerned about the safety of mRNA vaccines.

    “It’s such a melting pot—also politically speaking, it’s authentic people coming together,” Thomson said. “We have 70-year-old grandmas looking for friends. Many members said they used to be die-hard liberals.”

    Like everything else, Thomson said it’s about making choices free of coercion.

    …

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 23:15

  • Fear Of Death, PTSD Are Army Recruiters' Biggest Hurdles: Govt Survey
    Fear Of Death, PTSD Are Army Recruiters’ Biggest Hurdles: Govt Survey

    The U.S. Army is coming off its worst recruiting performance in decades, and says young Americans’ fear of death and mental illness are the biggest reasons they won’t sign up.  

    That conclusion comes from surveys of 16- to 28-year-olds conducted last spring and summer, officials say. The Army shared general findings with the Associated Press, but not the full details of the survey results, methodology or questions posed.  

    Via Liberty Stickers 

    The Army had ambitions to recruit 60,000 soldiers in 2022, but fell a whopping 25% short of the objective. Trying to put a dent in its growing deficit — and ignoring its 2022 results — the service implausibly aspires to recruit 65,000 in 2023.

    “I would say it is a stretch goal,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth tells Associated Press, apparently with a straight face. Wormuth never served in the military but has held a variety of Defense Department posts, along with a revolving-door swing at the RAND Corporation. 

    According to the Army’s surveys, the top four reasons young people reject the idea of Army service: 

    1. Fear of death

    2. Worries about falling victim to post-traumatic stress disorder

    3. Leaving friends and family

    4. The feeling that Army service would amount to “putting my life on hold” 

    After those reasons, there was a steep drop-off. Other deterrents included concerns about discrimination against women and minorities, a general distrust of the military, misgivings about living conditions on bases, being stuck in an unwanted job, the now-rescinded Covid vaccine mandate and feelings that Army is going “woke.” 

    A U.S. Humvee burns in Baghdad’s al-Mansour neighborhood on Sept. 22, 2004 (Khalid Mohammed/AP via NBC News)

    Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, who holds the corporate-sounding title of “Chief of Army Enterprise Marketing,” emphasizes to AP that Army “wokeness” — though frequently invoked by GOP legislators — was cited by only about 5% of young people surveyed.

    Young people “just don’t see the Army as something that’s relevant,” says Fink. “They see us as revered, but not relevant in their lives.”

    To fill its emptying ranks, the Army’s rolling out new programs and incentives. Increasingly under pressure to lower the standards for who’s deemed service-worthy, one program cultivates the bottom of the barrel by helping academic- and fitness-impaired recruits overcome their weaknesses, via up to 90 days of extra academic or fitness training. 

    The Army is also going to throw extra financial incentives at recruiters, with bonuses of up to $4,500 a quarter for beating their individual goals. One thing that’s sure to incentivize: recruiters plumbing new depths of unethical behavior — they already carry a well-earned reputation for dishonesty. 

    One pilot program is particularly cringeworthy: Privates and privates first class can actually score a promotion in rank for convincing someone to enlist. (Limit: One promotion per soldier.) 

    Judging from the article, AP and senior military officials spent little or no time discussing how the Army will try to overcome the top two turn-offs: death and PTSD.

    If researchers dove deeper into these concerns, they’d probably find many young people particularly dread the idea of being maimed, killed or mentally ravaged in a war that has no moral or national-interest justification…which is pretty much the only kind of war the Pentagon wages anymore. 

    One of a wave of photos posted to social media in 2013 by US service members opposed to intervention in Syria 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 22:55

  • China Set To Sign Another Massive LNG Deal With Qatar
    China Set To Sign Another Massive LNG Deal With Qatar

    By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

    China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the largest gas importer in the country, is in the late stages of finalizing a huge long-term LNG import deal with Qatar, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

    This would be a second such massive agreement of a Chinese energy giant with QatarEnergy in just a few months.  

    “CNPC has agreed on the major terms with Qatar in a deal that will be very similar to Sinopec’s,” a Beijing-based state energy official told Reuters.

    In November, Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy signed the longest-term contract in the history of the LNG industry in a deal to supply LNG to Chinese state energy giant Sinopec for 27 years.

    QatarEnergy will supply China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) with 4 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG to China from the North Field East (NFE) expansion project.

    “This is the first long-term SPA from the NFE project to be announced, and marks the longest gas supply agreement in the history of the LNG industry,” Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said at the time.

    The QatarEnergy-Sinopec agreement was also the first long-term LNG offtake agreement from the NFE Expansion project. Qatar’s North Field East and North Field South (NFS) projects are expected to come online in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

    Now CNPC is reportedly finalizing a similar deal with the Qatari state energy firm to buy LNG from the North Field expansion project.

    A major deal for China with Qatar, a large LNG exporter, comes at a time when Chinese-U.S. relations are at a low point again. The U.S. is a major LNG exporter competing with Qatar and Australia to be the world’s number-one LNG seller.

    A huge long-term deal with Qatar would also give China more contracted supply to reduce exposure to the volatile spot LNG prices.  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 22:35

  • CPI May Come In Hot But It's Retail Sales That Will Be A Real Shocker
    CPI May Come In Hot But It’s Retail Sales That Will Be A Real Shocker

    With traders hunkering down and freaking out ahead of tomorrow’s CPI report, which will either be a Valentine’s day massacre or happy ending (which we will preview shortly), another macro event is shaping up as potentially even more consequential.

    As a reminder, the reason why so many are transfixed on tomorrow’s CPI is because it only feels like yesterday that US inflation prints were seen as last year’s news given the recent falls. In addition, forecasts and breakevens suggested we were on a glide path to normality over the next few months and quarters. However, as DB’s Jim Reid warned this morning, that view has been jolted in the last 10 days for 4 reasons:

    • i) First we had payrolls print which raised the prospect that core services ex-shelter could stay stronger for longer;
    • ii) Then we had lots of hawkish central bank speak that the market had previously ignored but was now slowly waking up to;
    • iii) Then Manheim suggested US used cars (+2.5% mom in January) climbed at their fastest rate for 14-months, and finally
    • iv) we had US CPI revisions on Friday that have rewritten the last year of history and in turn reduced core inflation by around a tenth each month leading up to June and have increased it by an average of around a tenth in each month since August. As such the trend in core CPI hasn’t fallen as much as expected and we now haven’t seen any month less than +0.3% MoM. In addition 3m annualised core CPI ran at 4.3% in December rather than the 3.1% reported at the January 12th release. So although year on year hasn’t changed the momentum is notably different.

    But while a hotter than expected inflation print will surely have an adverse impact on risk markets as it will prompt concerns of an even higher for longer Fed (read the full JPM scenario analysis which sees the S&P sliding if the headline CPI prints at 6.4% or higher tomorrow vs median consensus of 6.5% of higher), a more tangible indicator of economic overheating is looming and will be revealed exactly 24 hours after the CPI print, in the form of January’s retail sales which, if the latest Bank of America card spending numbers are accurate, will be nothing short of a “knock your socks off” blowout scorcher.

    According to BofA economist Aditya Bhave, total card spending per household (HH), as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit cards, was up a blistering 5.1% year-over-year (y/y) in January, which would make it the biggest annual jump since the summer of 2022.

    It’s not just the annual jump: card spending per HH also surged by 1.7% month-over-month (m/m) in January on a seasonally-adjusted (SA) basis; this leads BofA to forecast an above-consensus 2.2% m/m increase in the Census Bureau’s ex-autos retail sales figure for January.

    Additionally, BofA’s economists expect core control sales (retail sales ex autos, gas, building materials and restaurants and which feeds directly into the GDP bean count) to rise by 2.6% in January.

    As further shown in the table below, card data show a strong pickup in spending across most categories on both a y/y and m/m SA basis, including general merchandise, clothing and airlines.

    Some of the YoY increase reflects “base effects” as the Omicron wave in January 2022 weighed on services spending, particularly travel. Consequently, BofA expects this part of the YoY rise to unwind fairly quickly. However, the bank economists also see signs of real strength in services spending in January 2023: Bank of America card spending per household was up 3.5% MoM SA on airlines and by 1.8% on restaurants and bars. International spend rose too, particularly in Asia, compared with the prior two years, due to further reopening and Lunar New Year celebrations.

    So what’s behind the blowout surge in spending which would translate into a roughly 3-sigma beat to core retail sales? BofA attributes the expected strength in January retail sales to three factors:

    The first is a statistical distortion: last month the bank flagged that since the start of the pandemic, holiday spending has become more front-loaded, and so the spike in spending in December has become smaller on a not seasonally adjusted (NSA) basis. As a result, the NSA decline in spending in January has also become smaller. However, seasonal adjustments are still largely based on pre-Covid spending patterns. Therefore, on a seasonally adjusted basis, January retail sales have been exceptionally strong since the start of the pandemic. Translation: just like the blowout jobs report was entirely due to seasonal adjustments, so too the red-hot retail sales report will be largely a function of various excel data transformations.

    The second driver of strong spending in January was the increase in disposable personal income (DPI) due to robust labor market gains and various inflation-related adjustments. The most notable of these was an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to social security benefits, which alone likely raised DPI by around 0.5% in January. The COLA was announced last October. Starting in November, spending has been meaningfully stronger among older HHs than younger HHs.

    There is no similar pattern in the pre-Covid data

    The outperformance of older households was concentrated in retail in November…

    … but spread to some services categories in December-January.

    In Bank of America’s view, it is likely that some older households boosted spending over the holidays in anticipation of receiving the COLA in January. Others might not have been aware of the COLA until it went into effect. Therefore, the uptick in spending for the older HHs could extend into at least February.

    A third and final reason for the pickup in spending in January could be that consumers were holding back on spending in anticipation of large post-holiday clearance sales. This ties in with the fact that some of the weakest categories in December – furniture, clothing, general merchandise and department stores – saw significant payback in January.

    In conclusion, there are good and bad news. First, the good news: as BofA’s Bhave writes, the factors discussed above support the bank’s forecast that consumer resilience will help the  US avoid a recession in the first half of 2023 (if not in the second half). However, the bad news is that – similar to the January payrolls report – the underlying drivers of strong January data (in this case spending) are mostly one-off factors or level-shift effects that will not lead to an extended acceleration in economic activity.  Therefore BofA still expects the economy to slip into a recession in the second half of the year.

    The bigger question is how will markets respond: this may be contingent on what the BLS reports in tomorrow’s CPI report. If we get signs of inflationary overheat just days after a blowout payrolls report, and then couple this with a red-hot retail sales report, even if the Fed will be hard pressed not to make it clear that much more rates pain is coming to cool down the overheating economy. On the other hand, a cooler than expected inflation print Tuesday coupled with strong retail spending data may be just what the “soft landing” (or no landing) narrative needs to push stocks to a new 2023 high thanks to a benign macro environment where households are busy spending money without inflating prices.

    More in the full reports available to pro subs here and here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 22:15

  • Newsom, Inc.
    Newsom, Inc.

    By Adam Andrzejewski of OpenTheBooks substack,

    In the summer of 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom convinced the state legislature to provide $4.7 billion for K-12 mental health services, which, among other things, funded 10,000 new school counselors.

    Gavin Newsom convinced the legislature because Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of the governor, convinced him. The biggest advocate for mental health funding within the K-12 California public schools in the Newsom administration was Mrs. Newsom, according to published accounts.

    In fact, Gavin Newsom created The Office of First Partner so his wife could promote her policy agenda using taxpayer money. Since 2019, Siebel Newsom’s been armed with nearly $5 million and nine staffers within her subdivision of the governor’s office.

    FLOWCHART: Following nonprofit and taxpayer money as Newsom, Inc. trades with itself

    Last November, Siebel Newsom’s advocacy and California’s spending priorities were outlined in a glowing news article. Loretta Whitson, Director of the California Association of School Counsellors, a trade association representing 3,000 California school counselors, was quoted:

    “While the governor’s recent investment will add additional school counselors to the workforce, there will be an even greater need to access films and curriculum support material such as Siebel Newsom’s documentary series. (We) would love to work with her and support her efforts.” (Source: EdSource)

    (When we reached out for comment, Whitson told us she’s never screened the films and couldn’t speak to Siebel Newsom’s influence on the legislation. She noted that the funding will improve the student-to-counselor ratio in California.)

    Siebel Newsom spent years laying the ideological groundwork and political infrastructure to support her policy ambitions.

    In 2012, Siebel Newsom founded a nonprofit, The Representation Project, that licenses “gender justice” films and curricula to 5,000 schools in all 50 states. The year Gavin Newsom became governor, the California Board of Education adopted guidance that recommended her films and curriculum be licensed and used in classrooms.

    Policy making in California isn’t magic. Turns out, it’s a carefully thought through process to maximize political power and personal return from public investments.

    UNDERSTANDING NEWSOM, INC.

    Last week, we investigated the sophisticated scheme through which Siebel Newsom’s film and curricula “gender justice” nonprofit, The Representation Project, leverages taxpayer dollars to promote radical ideologies, personally profit, and push the political ambitions of her husband. She brags that 2.6 million students have seen the films nationwide.

    The Representation Project contracts with her for-profit film-production company, Girls Club Entertainment. Since 2012, Siebel Newsom received $1.5 million in salary from the nonprofit. Furthermore, since 2012, the Siebel’s nonprofit paid her for-profit Girls Club $1.6 million to produce films.

    Last month, our investigation broke the story that The Representation Project was not in compliance with the California Charitable Solicitation Act. The organization was not permitted to operate or solicit donations in California most of 2022 – yet spent all last year in operation and fundraising.

    Now, we dig deeper, investigating the $4.8 million “Office of the First Partner” Gavin Newsom established for his wife’s policy work, and how Jennifer Siebel Newsom used her position to impact social and political processes, cashing checks along the way.

    GRAPHIC: Comparing First Ladies in the White House to the First Partner in California. Source: OpenTheBooks.com.

    Jennifer Siebel Newsom took the title “First Partner” in part to emphasize her contributions to the governor’s policy agenda. As she said during one interview, her title signals “an intentional shift to reimagine the role of a governor’s spouse altogether—as a partner who supports their spouse’s work in service of the public.”

    In 2019, Gov. Newsom created an office for his wife as a division within the governor’s executive team. According to a press release “the First Partner and her team will focus on lifting up women and their families, breaking down barriers for our youth, and furthering the cause of gender equity in California.”

    Since inception, Siebel Newsom’s office has received nearly $4.8 million in directed taxpayer funding. The Office of First Partner has grown from seven employees with a budget of $791,000, to nine employees with a budget of $1,166,000 proposed for 2023-2024.

    CHART: Taxpayer funding into the Office Of First Partner, California

    Children’s Mental Health

    The mental well-being of children is a major concern of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s – one she engages with in her films and in her capacity as First Partner.

    This concern became more urgent during the pandemic, when Covid policies took away nearly every opportunity for kids to interact outside the home.

    Ironically, Gov. Newsom’s notoriously strict lockdowns exacerbated the youth mental health crisis—a point even Jennifer Siebel Newsom conceded. A 2020 report co-produced by the First Partner stated, “teens are experiencing a tremendous loss due to school closure and social distancing,” describing the “denial, anger, and depression” felt by the state’s school children. Only half of state schools were open for in-person instruction as late as May 2021.

    Even more counterintuitively, Siebel Newsom has recognized that her films and curricula can trigger youth mental health interventions. In fact, the curricula provided for her movie The Mask You Live In warns teachers that the related lessons may lead children to seek the help of mental health providers and that therapists should be on-hand during curriculum activities.

    Parents have complained about the pornographic content in Newsom’s films shown to 11-year-olds (such as an animated, upside-down stripper with tape over breasts) and 15-year-olds (nearly naked women being slapped, handcuffed, and brutalized in images taken from porn sites) — to view images, viewer discretion is advised.

    Editorials have criticized the activities in Newsom’s film The Great American Lie as “emotionally abusive.” The activities ask students to publicly reveal personal information and force commentary on their relative “privilege” and “oppression.”

    Newsom’s divisive Covid policies and Jennifer’s films/curricula arguably fueled the youth mental health problem. However, by addressing it with nearly $5 billion and 10,000 school counselors, the Newsom’s generated a policy win for the governor and a business win for Siebel Newsom and her nonprofit, The Representation Project.

    SUMMARY

    Between state funding, state regulation, policy advocacy and radical moralizing explicitly intended to shape social consciousness, Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s various government, private, public, and philanthropic “partners” have proven to be a powerful, self-reinforcing network.

    Through the Office of First Partner, Siebel Newsom has nine dedicated staffers and a $1.2 million-dollar annual budget to help push the radical ideologies that her nonprofit films and curricula serve up in public school classrooms.

    Helping secure nearly $5 billion in state funding for an additional 10,000 school counselors demonstrates the power of Siebel Newsom’s strategy.

    Siebel Newsom used her government and personal platforms to advocate for more funding for children’s mental health, and those on the ground—in this case, school counselors— publicly consider using their new funding on her materials.

    Political clout. Financial windfalls. Newsom, Inc.

    NOTE: California’s Political Reform Act prohibits public officials from reaping any direct or indirect benefit from any official action. The two Newsom’s haven’t been accused of wrongdoing; however, the pattern that we’ve identified is troubling.

    We requested comment from Gavin Newsom, The Office of Governor, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, The Office of First Partner, Loretta Whitson at the California Association of School Counselors, and The Representation Project. Only Loretta Whitson responded.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 21:35

  • A Shocking 30% Of High School Girls 'Seriously Considered' Suicide Last Year
    A Shocking 30% Of High School Girls ‘Seriously Considered’ Suicide Last Year

    A staggering 30% of high school girls in the United States who were surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had “seriously considered attempting suicide” in 2021, up from (a still shocking) 19% in 2011.

    Panning back, almost 60% of high school girls surveyed said they felt ‘persistent sadness or hopelessness’ in 2021, an increase of roughly 60% over the same time period.

    Though both high-school girls and boys reported experiencing mental-health challenges, girls reported record high levels of violence, sadness and suicide risk, the CDC said. In 2021, 57% of high-school girls reported experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year, compared with 36% in 2011. Thirty percent reported they seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021, up from 19% in 2011. -WSJ

    When it comes to boys in high school, 29% reported persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness in 2021 vs. 21% in 2011, while 14% reported seriously considering a suicide attempt, up from 13% in 2011. 

    Following the survey, federal officials noted a spike in mental health among young people – particularly girls, in new data released on Monday which was gathered from a biennial survey spanning 2011 to 2021, of 9th through 12th-graders across the country.

    According to mental health experts, girls are particularly vulnerable to anxiety and depression, given higher rates of harassment and discrimination they face compared with boys. And of course, now they’re all competing with TikTok Barbies who set even more unrealistic and unhealthy standards.

    And as the Wall Street Journal notes, the evidence suggests that the stress, isolation and loss during the pandemic amplified mental health issues among young people who were already struggling.

    “These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope and thrive,” said CDC chief medical officer, Debra Houry.

    According to the CDC, there LGBTQ teens are showing ‘ongoing and extreme distress,’ with more than half of these students reporting a recent episode of poor mental health, and 22% reporting an actual suicide attempt in the past year.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 21:35

  • Saudi Aramco: Biased ESG Policies Will Undermine Energy Security
    Saudi Aramco: Biased ESG Policies Will Undermine Energy Security

    By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

    Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment, if outright biased against the oil and gas industry, is a threat to energy affordability and energy security, the chief executive of the world’s largest oil firm, Saudi Aramco, said this weekend.

    “As far as the future of capital markets is concerned, ESG is clearly a rising trend. And in my view, an increased emphasis on ESG is a move in the right direction,” the Saudi oil giant’s president and CEO Amin Nasser said at the Saudi Capital Markets Forum 2023 on Sunday.

    “However, if ESG-driven policies are implemented with an automatic bias against any and all conventional energy projects, the resulting underinvestment will have serious implications. For the global economy. For energy affordability. And for energy security,” Aramco’s top executive added.

    The cost of capital for the oil and gas sector has increased due to higher perceived risks, which in turn are driven by ESG policies, Nasser said. 

    The executive stressed once again the underinvestment in oil and gas in recent years, citing figures that upstream investment was some $400 billion last year, less than half of the peak in 2014. 

    “The primary reason: pressure from multiple directions to discontinue all new investments in oil and gas. Pressure based on what I strongly believe are flawed assumptions and arguments.”

    Nasser criticized the advocates of the energy transition narrative, saying that they are offering unrealistic views on how the global energy systems can be easily upgraded and replace oil and gas.

    “Proponents of the popular energy transition narrative paint a picture of a utopian world where alternatives are ready to replace oil and gas almost overnight,” he said.

    The energy crisis in Europe has shown that alternative energy supply is “not ready to shoulder the heavy burden of global demand,” Nasser added.

    That’s not the first time that Aramco’s top executive has warned that underinvestment in oil and gas was the primary reason for the energy crisis last year.    

    The energy crisis, while intensified by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, didn’t start with the war, according to Aramco’s top executive. Years of underinvestment, a lack of a backup plan, and alternatives not ready to step up and replace conventional energy are the real causes of this state of energy insecurity today, Nasser said in September 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 21:15

  • Catalytic Converter Stolen From The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile In Las Vegas
    Catalytic Converter Stolen From The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile In Las Vegas

    Is nothing sacred anymore?

    This has to be the question many Americans are asking themselves after the catalytic converter was stolen out of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in Las Vegas this past week. 

    The iconic vehicle was parked at a Sonesta Suites when “thieves apparently made off with the catalytic converter”, according to CBS 8 Las Vegas. Mechanics were forced to install a “temporary” catalytic converter, the report says, in order to get the vehicle started. 

    The “Wienermobile crew” nearly missed a crucial 10AM appearance they were scheduled to make the day they discovered the theft. 

    Mechanics that worked on the vehicle expressed their surprise. “A hot dog truck, no way. Imagine like a huge hot dog in the middle of your bay. There’s all these other trucks and you got to work on this,” one told CBS. 

    Joseph Rodriguez, parts administrator for the Penske shop the vehicle was towed to, spoke about the catalytic converter theft problem: “It’s been going on for a couple of years now. Last summer especially, it was like two to three months to get one.” 

    He also said the repairs are tedious: “There’s gaskets there that you need to reseal the converter, and then there’s sensors all along that area to regulate the heat and temperature of the system. Those are all gone as well. They tear that apart to get to what they want.”

    2,600 catalytic converter thefts were reported in the Las Vegas area in 2022, up 72% from the year prior. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 20:55

  • When They Say The US Government Has Never Defaulted, They're Lying
    When They Say The US Government Has Never Defaulted, They’re Lying

    Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

    The fake debt ceiling fight is on and the Biden administration has ratcheted up the scare tactics. One of its strategies is to make you think the world will collapse if the US defaults on its debt obligations. After all, the US always pays its bills on time — so we’re told.

    A default would certainly be problematic. But despite what you’re being told, it’s not unprecedented. The US government has defaulted before.

    I call this a fake debt ceiling fight because we all know how it will end. Congress will raise the debt ceiling. It may or may not come with some modest spending cuts. But we all know that any cuts will be superficial. Actual spending will keep going up. It always does.

    But right now, we have to endure the dog and pony show as Republicans and Democrats haggle.

    Republicans say they want spending cuts. (One has to wonder where this urgency was when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, but that’s a discussion for another time.) Democrats say they won’t negotiate.

    And here we are.

    To fortify their position, the administration tells us that raising the debt ceiling is a matter of economic life and death. As I mentioned, the mantra is the US always pays its bills on time. As Mises Institute senior editor Ryan McMaken pointed out, as part of the strategy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is parroting the oft-repeated claim that the US has never defaulted.

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    This sounds compelling. We all want our government to keep its word, right?

    Of course, it doesn’t keep its word and this claim that the US has always paid its bills on time since 1789 is a lie. The US has defaulted more than once. And as McMaken points out, if you expand the idea of default to include inflating away the debt in real terms, default is even more common.

    McMaken highlights the most notorious instance of US government defaults.

    The following was originally published by the Mises Wire. Any opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff or Schiff Gold.

    In 1934, the United States defaulted on the fourth Liberty Bond. The contracts between debtor and creditor on these bonds was clear. The bonds were to be payable in gold. This presented a big problem for the US, which was facing big debts into the 1930s after the First World War. As described by John Chamberlain:

    By the time Franklin Roosevelt entered office in 1933, the interest payments alone were draining the treasury of gold; and because the treasury had only $4.2 billion in gold it was obvious there would be no way to pay the principal when it became due in 1938, not to mention meet expenses and other debt obligations. These other debt obligations were substantial. Ever since the 1890s the Treasury had been gold short and had financed this deficit by making new bond issues to attract gold for paying the interest of previous issues. The result was that by 1933 the total debt was $22 billion and the amount of gold needed to pay even the interest on it was soon going to be insufficient.

    So how did the US government deal with this? Chamberlain notes “Roosevelt decided to default on the whole of the domestically-held debt by refusing to redeem in gold to Americans.”

    Moreover, with the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, Congress devalued the dollar from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce—a reduction of 40 percent. Or, put another way, the amount of gold represented by a dollar was reduced to 59 percent of its former amount.

    The US offered to pay its creditors in paper dollars, but only in new, devalued dollars.1 This constituted default on these Liberty Bonds, since, as the Supreme Court noted in Perry v. United States, Congress had “regulated the value of money so as to invalidate the obligations which the Government had theretofore issued in the exercise of the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States.”

    This was clearly not a case of the US making good on its debt obligations, and to claim this is not default requires the sort of hairsplitting that only the most credulous Beltway insider could embrace.

    Indeed, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in their book This Time Is Different list this episode as a “default (by abrogation of the gold clause in 1933)” and as “de facto default.”

    The Short Default of 1979

    A second, less egregious case of default occurred in 1979. As Jason Zweig noted in 2011:

    In April and May 1979, amid computer malfunctions, heavy demand from small investors and in the wake of Congressional debate over raising the debt ceiling, the U.S. failed to make timely payments on some $122 million in Treasury bills. The Treasury characterized the problem as a delay rather than as a default. While the error affected only a fraction of 1% of the U.S. debt, short-term interest rates—then around 9%—jumped 0.6 percentage point and the U.S. was promptly sued by bondholders for breach of contract.

    Apparently, the United States sometimes does not pay its debts. While the 1979 default was relatively small, the 1934 default affected millions of Americans who had bought Liberty Bonds mistakenly thinking the government would make good on its promises. They were very wrong.

    So, it is simply untrue that the US has never defaulted as Yellen claims. But this claim remains a useful tactic in sowing fear about “unprecedented” acts that would bring the entire US economy crashing down.

    Default through Devaluation

    But outright repudiation of contracts is only one way of defaulting on one’s obligations. Another is to deliberately devalue a nation’s currency—i.e., inflate it—so as to devalue the amount of debt a government owns in real terms.

    And Zweig writes investors view this as a real form of avoiding one’s debt obligations:

    Perhaps the biggest worry [among investors] isn’t default but … “financial repression.” In dozens of cases, governments have dug out from under burdensome debts not by refusing to pay interest but rather through other harsh means. For example, by keeping short-term interest rates below the level of inflation, a government can pay off its bondholders with cheapening money. Through regulations, it can compel banks and other financial firms to buy its own debt, much like geese being force-fed for foie gras. As a result, current yields and future inflation-adjusted returns on government bonds fall.

    This strategy, Zweig concludes, “stiffs bond investors with negative returns after inflation.”

    Zweig categorizes this as something separate from default, but Reinhart and Rogoff clearly consider it a form of de facto default. They write: “The combination of heightened financial repression with rises in inflation was an especially popular form of default from the 1960s to the early 1980s” (emphasis added).

    (In the United States, a key event in this respect occurred in 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. This was an explicit repudiation of the US’s obligation to repay dollars in gold to foreign states, and it also greatly enabled the US government in terms of financial repression and monetary inflation.)

    Since the Great Recession, financial repression is popular again. This method of de facto default has enabled the federal government to take on massive amounts of new debt at rock-bottom interest rates. In real terms, the US government—or any government using this tactic—pays back its debts in devalued currency, essentially enabling the government to make good on the full extent of its debts. The cost to the public manifests in asset price inflation, goods price inflation, and a “hunt for yield” driven by a famine of income on safe assets. Americans of more modest means are those who suffer the most, and the result has been a widening gap of inequality in wealth.

    It may very well be that a default could lead to significant economic and financial disruptions. But let’s stop pretending that a default is unprecedented or that the United States always pays its bills. It’s true that the US’s current debt machine, enabled through financial repression, is a form of slow-motion default. But that doesn’t make the US government any less of a deadbeat.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 20:35

  • JPMorgan Inks Agreement With Zelensky on Rebuilding Ukraine's Infrastructure, Seeds $20BN+
    JPMorgan Inks Agreement With Zelensky on Rebuilding Ukraine’s Infrastructure, Seeds $20BN+

    Despite some US officials such as CENTCOM chief Gen. Mark Milley last year saying they expect the war in Ukraine likely to be protracted in “years”, not months, which as the conflict is about to enter its 2nd year is proving accurate enough thus far, major banks are already lining up to fund Ukraine’s rebuilding efforts, which is going to be vast and extraordinarily costly – and in reality could take decades.

    Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with bankers from JPMorgan Chase & Co as part of broader talks focused on both reconstructing the war-ravaged country and enduring the extreme financial tumult of the war.

    Zelensky signed a memorandum of understanding with America’s largest bank at the close of the talks, with CEO Jamie Dimon announcing “We are proud of our long-standing support of Ukraine and committed to doing our part to lift up the country and its people.”

    Dimon then pledged “The full resources of JPMorgan Chase are available to Ukraine as it charts its post-conflict path to growth.”

    This as global ratings agency Moody’s also is clearly foreseeing longer-lasting challenges as part of a drawn out conflict with Russia, on Friday downgrading Ukraine’s sovereign rating to ‘Ca’ from ‘Caa3’.

    Fox Business cited sources privy to the meetings to reveal they “discussed the creation of a fund seeded with $20 billion to $30 billion in private capital,” also as part of broader efforts to coach the Ukrainian government on how to attract private capital. 

    A statement by Zelensky’s office hailed in an English statement the meeting “with senior members of the largest investment bank in the world, JP Morgan,” and that others “took part via video link in one of the largest annual investment summits organized by JP Morgan, attended by 200 largest corporations, investors, and financial companies.”

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    JPMorgan has going back to 2010 been deeply involved in helping Ukraine weather financial crises which predate the war, and last year led a national debt restructuring of more than $20 billion.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 20:15

  • Are They Telling Us What Is Coming Next?
    Are They Telling Us What Is Coming Next?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    Why are global authorities suddenly so concerned that the bird flu might start spreading widely among humans?  And why is the mainstream media suddenly filled with extremely alarming stories about the disease?  Just a few days ago, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, made headlines all over the globe when he ominously warned that “we must prepare” for the possibility of a bird flu pandemic among humans.  Why is he issuing such a warning now?  Does he know something that the rest of us do not?  If such a pandemic were to erupt, the consequences could potentially be catastrophic.  The COVID pandemic paralyzed the planet for a couple of years even though the death rate was very low.  Well, the death rate for bird flu in humans can be around 50 percent depending on the strain, and so just imagine the panic that would ensue if it were to start spreading widely.

    Since early last year, the bird flu has resulted in the deaths of more than 58 million birds here in the United States, but as long as the disease stayed in birds scientists weren’t going to be too alarmed.

    Unfortunately, H5N1 has now started to spread among mammals.

    Lots of them.

    In fact, dozens of mammals have already caught the disease in the United States alone…

    The H5N1 virus has been detected in more than 120 wild mammals in the US in 2022 and 2023 including red foxes, skunks, and even grizzly bears — a troubling step in the road toward human infection.

    And more cases in mammals in the U.S. continue to pop up.  In fact, on Friday it was being reported that a black bear and a mountain lion in Colorado both tested positive…

    Colorado’s worst-ever avian flu outbreak has crossed over into more mammals, including a black bear put down in Huerfano County and a mountain lion found dead in Gunnison County, state wildlife officials said Thursday.

    Of course H5N1 is not just spreading among mammals here in the United States.

    Over in the UK, “nine otters and foxes” have tested positive…

    In the UK, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has tested 66 mammals, including seals, and found nine otters and foxes were positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1.

    Over in Scotland, four dead seals were found to have H5N1, and across the Atlantic in Peru a whopping 500 sea lions “were found dead with H5N1”…

    If you have been alarmed by what I have shared with you so far, this next item should really get to you.

    In Spain, over 50,000 minks had to be wiped out because H5N1 was rapidly spreading among them…

    More than 50,000 minks were euthanized at a Spanish farm because of an avian influenza outbreak. Some researchers are concerned about the possible spread to humans.

    So why are those minks so important?

    Well, it turns out that minks have “a respiratory system very similar to humans”…

    But when the virus was analyzed, it was revealed that the mink were infected with a new variant of avian flu, including genetic mutations that are known to make it easier to spread in mammals. This is “uncharted territory,” Wendy Puryear, a virologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, told Nature News. It presents a severe problem because mink have a respiratory system very similar to humans.

    It appears that we are dangerously close to a strain of H5N1 that will be able to spread quite easily among humans.

    And if such a strain does get loose, the death toll could potentially be catastrophic…

    It can be very deadly, with a mortality rate as high as 50% in the cases where bird flu has jumped directly from birds to farmers and other handlers, Schaffner said.

    Every time the virus replicates, it can mutate into a version the human immune system has never seen before. “That makes it harder for our immune systems to fight the infection,” Arias said. “When they get to humans, the adaptations tend to be accompanied by high virulence, which means infections are severe with high mortality.”

    If you thought that the restrictions and the mandates under COVID were bad, just imagine what a global H5N1 pandemic would look like.

    People would be dropping like flies and we would see tyranny on a scale that most of us don’t even want to imagine right now.

    According to WebMD, a new H5N1 vaccine will soon be tested on poultry here in the United States…

    The Biden administration will test a vaccine that could be given to poultry to counter the current bird flu outbreak that has killed about 58 million birds, mostly in commercial poultry flocks.

    These would be the first vaccine given to poultry to protect against avian influenza in years. Poultry are already vaccinated for diseases like infectious bronchitis, and shots have been licensed for past outbreaks.

    And it is also being reported that an H5N1 vaccine for humans “has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration”…

    A vaccine for H5N1 has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for people 18 through 64 years who are at increased risk of exposure, according to an agency spokesperson.

    The country has a small supply of vaccine, a spokesperson from the Health and Human Services told USA TODAY. The vaccine can be used to match against strains with pandemic potential and scale-up as needed, which health experts estimate could take up to six months.

    Hopefully there will not be a bird flu pandemic any time soon.

    But if one does erupt, you need to be prepared for an extended nightmare scenario.

    We have entered a period of time when great pandemics will become a regular occurrence, and mad scientists are cooking up more deadly bugs in secret labs all over the planet every single day.

    This is just one of the reasons why I am strongly encouraging my readers to make preparations ahead of time while they still have an opportunity to do so.

    Because as we have seen, once a deadly bug gets loose it can travel all over the world at a speed that is absolutely breathtaking.

    *  *  *

    It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 19:55

  • A Bill Comes Due: Will California Pony Up For Reparations?
    A Bill Comes Due: Will California Pony Up For Reparations?

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in The Hill on the recommendations for reparations by two appointed bodies in California. After years of declaring this a moral imperative, the bill has come due for leaders like Gov.  Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. The collective demand is for trillions in California alone with additional trillions demanded from Congress in a national reparations program. California Democrats will now have to render a decision on committing real money on reparations to show that this was not mere virtue signaling. That decision could be coming soon.

    Here is the column:

    A long-awaited meeting of San Francisco’s board of supervisors was set this week to discuss the recommendation of its African American Reparations Advisory Committee to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations. The meeting was postponed, but the city and the state soon must make a decision on a bill that has come due for Democratic politicians.

    The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020. Even though California was a free state without slavery before the Civil War, the committee’s “particular focus has been the era of urban renewal, perhaps the most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city’s Black population.” That could be viewed as only a partial payment for race-related injuries.

    In the meantime, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created his own Reparations Task Force, which just reached its own recommendations for $223,000 per person. Others have insisted the figure should be $350,000 for individuals and another $250,000 for Black-owned businesses. One California politician insisted the figure needs to be $800,000 per person, reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.

    As these numbers rise, so do the calls for payments in both politics and the media. Even Disney has gotten into the act with a controversial children’s episode in which cartoon children demand reparations.

    Notably, California’s law expressly states that this money should not be treated as compensation for federal reparations. That raises the question of whether a resident could receive $5 million from San Francisco, $223,000 from the state, and additional payments from the federal government.

    Some congressional Democrats have pushed for similar federal reparations and passed a bill out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021 that failed to receive a floor vote.

    BET founder Robert Johnson has called for $14 trillion in federal reparations.

    These reparations measures have a remarkable range of focus, from slavery to housing discrimination to wealth inequities. In California, there was a sharp disagreement on the purpose, with many advocates arguing that it was wrong to limit the money to descendants of slaves. Task force member Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D–Los Angeles) insisted that, “at the end of the day, people who are prejudiced against us are prejudiced against all of us.”

    Ultimately, advocates like Jones-Sawyer lost a close vote on extending state reparations to all Black Americans. The state task force voted to limit it to descendants of slaves; there are almost 3 million potentially eligible Californians.

    The two reparation bodies were tasked with calculating reparation awards — and both the city and the state will now be pressed to make good on their commitments.

    The costs of such policies — condemned by critics as virtue-signaling — are being faced by some other jurisdictions as well.

    For example, New York and numerous other cities have declared themselves to be “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants yet, in recent months, have protested increasing transfers of such immigrants to their jurisdiction.

    The cost of California’s statewide reparations is estimated to be $569 billion. The state’s annual budget is roughly half that amount, at $268 billion.

    Making things even more difficult, the state faces a $22.5 billion deficit and is seeking spending cuts to cover the shortfall.

    This may not be a bill that can be politically postponed, given past statements by the governor and other Democratic politicians.

    That leads to the question of such programs’ constitutionality. Even after the political approval of payments, it is not clear that this money will ever be paid.

    Under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, race-based classifications trigger strict scrutiny requiring a showing of both a “compelling state interest” and “narrowly tailored” means. In City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), the Supreme Court struck down a set-aside for minority businesses due to a lack of evidence of specific injuries. The court ruled that general past discrimination was not enough and added that “the dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs.”

    Then-Justice John Paul Stevens added his liberal voice against such programs, noting that Richmond’s law “encompasses persons who have never been in business in Richmond as well as minority contractors who may have been guilty of discriminating against members of other minority groups.”

    The reparations given in 1988 to Japanese Americans who survived World War II internment camps posed an easier issue, since the recipients were directly injured by the government and the money was meant to compensate them for their injuries.

    The decision to narrow programs like focusing on the descendants of slaves or on housing deprivations will certainly be better for constitutional review than a general reparations measure. However, even liberal scholars like Erwin Chemerinsky seem to concede that these reparation measures would face series legal headwinds in the courts. The likely legal challenges are not often considered in discussions of reparations — but they could create a highly combustible situation, if large reparations guarantees were suddenly negated.

    That legal fight, however, must await a moment of truth for California legislators.

    Democratic politicians have insisted for years that reparations are essential to address systemic racism. But politicians like Gov. Newsom now face demands to put their money where their mouths have been. The years of calls for reparations have created a greater expectation, even an urgency.

    One well-known California activist declared: 

    “It’s a debt that’s owed, we worked for free. We’re not asking; we’re telling you.”

    That expectation is reflected in recent polling, showing a massive shift in the Black community on the question: 77 percent of Black Americans now support reparations — but, overall, nearly seven-in-ten (68 percent) of all respondents oppose such payments.

    Thus, after defining reparations as a moral obligation, politicians may find it difficult to say this is an inopportune moment.

    For Newsom and for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, the bill is now due.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 19:15

  • Turns Out, Video Didn't Kill The Radio Star…
    Turns Out, Video Didn’t Kill The Radio Star…

    More than 40 years after The Buggles released “Video Killed the Radio Star”, radio is still alive and well.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, with all the chatter about about streaming and other digital media, it’s easy to forget how powerful traditional media such as radio and television still are. Radio in particular rarely gets credited for what it still is: a true mass medium.

    According to MRI-Simmons, radio even trumps TV in terms of its weekly reach among U.S. adults.

    Infographic: Video Didn't Kill the Radio Star | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to MRI-Simmons, 91 percent of U.S. adults listen to the radio at least once a week, far exceeding the reach of live and time-shifted TV at 76 percent, social media at 70 percent an online video at 67 percent.

    While radio does win in terms of sheer reach, TV remains unparalleled with respect to average daily usage.

    According to Nielsen, U.S. adults spent an average of 3 hours and 41 minutes watching live and time-shifted TV in Q3 2020, which is roughly 2.5 times the amount of time they spent listening to the radio (1 hour and 31 minutes).

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 18:55

  • US Gasoline Demand On The Rise Again
    US Gasoline Demand On The Rise Again

    By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

    Gasoline demand in the United States rose by 1.7% last week, and was also 3.7% higher than the four-week moving average, GasBuddy reported as quoted by Reuters.

    “For the first time since June, U.S. gasoline demand was not only up every day over the week ago period but also over the four week average,” GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, said in a tweet.

    Interestingly, demand seems to be on the rise while prices are on the rise, too.

    Still, they were a lot lower than last year’s peaks in early summer, with wholesale gasoline futures going up from $2.32 per gallon on February 3 to $2.50 per gallon on February 10.

    While demand may increase in the short term, over the longer term there are expectations for a decline. This would be caused by greater fuel efficiency and less car use as more people opt to work from home. Growing EV adoption will also undermine gasoline demand, according to a Financial Times report.

    The United States consumed an average of 8.78 million barrels of gasoline last year, which was 6% below the record achieved before the pandemic. Gasoline sold on the U.S. market accounts for 9% of global oil consumption, the report noted.

    Meanwhile, the price for gasoline saw its first weekly decline two weeks ago, averaging $3.44 per gallon on February 5th. This was down by 4.4 cents from the previous week but up by 17.5 cents on a month earlier, the report showed.

    The increase in demand for gasoline, if sustained, could help alleviate concern about the immediate future of oil demand in the world’s biggest consumer as the market processes the growing prospect of a recession.

    Although indicator data seems to be contradictory, most commentators from the financial industry appear unanimous in their expectation of an economic slowdown. The question seems to be not if but when a recession will manifest.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 18:35

  • National Archives Apologizes After Telling Visitors To Cover Pro-Life Clothes To See Bill Of Rights
    National Archives Apologizes After Telling Visitors To Cover Pro-Life Clothes To See Bill Of Rights

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The National Archives on Friday apologized for telling visitors that they must cover up or remove their pro-life attire while being in the chamber where the original copy of the Bill Of Rights is on display.

    “As the home to the original Constitution and Bill of Rights, which enshrine the rights of free speech and religion, we sincerely apologize for this occurrence,” said the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which maintains the National Archives Museum in Washington.

    Visitors wait in line to view the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    The apology comes after conservative law group American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), on behalf of four March for Life participants from three states, sued NARA for First Amendment violations. According to the complaint (pdf), each of them “separately and uniquely decided to visit the National Archives to view our nation’s founding documents” on the morning of Jan. 20 while wearing various clothing with pro-life messages.

    After entering the museum, however, the pro-life visitors were approached by security guards who took issue with their pro-life apparel.

    Wendilee Lassiter, a law student at evangelical Christian Liberty University in Virginia, was wearing a black sweatshirt that read: “I am the post-Roe Generation: Law Students for Life” when she visited the National Archives Museum with a group of fellow students. Two security guards approached her, saying that she was “disturbing the peace” because her sweatshirt “will incite others” and “cause a disturbance.”

    When Lassiter asked, “I can’t come in here unless I take my sweatshirt off?” One security guard replied by stating: “No, you can’t.” She ended up removing her sweatshirt for fear that she would be thrown out of the museum if she did not comply. Her fellow students also complied with the order.

    The law student also alleged that she saw that morning at least two other visitors “freely walking around” while wearing what appeared to be pro-abortion apparel, with statements to the effect of “My Body, My Choice,” and “Pro-Choice.”

    Another visitor, identified in the lawsuit as L.R., is a Catholic high school student from Michigan. A security guard “specifically instructed” L.R. that she “could not be wearing anything pro-life” and that she must cover her shirt reading “Life is a HUMAN RIGHT” until she left the chamber. She was also told to take a “Pro-Love is the New Pro-Life” button off her bag.

    “L.R. immediately believed her constitutional rights were being violated by the very government officials tasked with protecting them,” the complaint stated.

    In response to the lawsuit, NARA emphasized that its policy “expressly allows all visitors to wear t-shirts, hats, buttons, etc. that display protest language, including religious and political speech.”

    “We are actively investigating to determine what happened,” the federal agency said. “Early indications are that our security officers quickly corrected their actions and, from that point forward, all visitors were permitted to enter our facility without needing to remove or cover their attire. We have reminded all of our security officers at our facilities across the country of the rights of visitors in this regard.”

    The National Archives wasn’t the only Washington museum trying to censor March for Life participants on Jan. 20, according to the ACLJ, which brought a First Amendment lawsuit against the Smithsonian for the same reason.

    In that case, a group of Catholic students and parents from South Carolina tried to enter the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, only to be mocked by museum staff, who allegedly declared the facility to be a “neutral zone” where they could not wear pro-life hats.

    According to the complaint (pdf), the students put their hats back on after passing through the entry point. This prompted museum staff to confront them and demand that they either “take them off or leave,” with one of the staff members yelling at a student, “You need to take off your hats. We are a museum that promotes equality, and your hats do not promote equality.”

    The Smithsonian, likewise, apologized for the incident, admitting in a statement that “a security officer mistakenly told young visitors that their pro-life hats were not permitted in the museum.”

    “Asking visitors to remove hats and clothing is not in keeping with our policy or protocols. We provided immediate retraining to prevent a re-occurrence of this kind of error,” the taxpayer-funded research institution said. “The Smithsonian welcomes all visitors without regard to their beliefs. We do not deny access to our museums based on the messages on visitors’ clothing.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 18:15

  • US Conducts Aircraft Carrier Drills In South China Sea Amid Balloon Tensions
    US Conducts Aircraft Carrier Drills In South China Sea Amid Balloon Tensions

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The US Navy and Marines Corps are conducting drills in the South China Sea amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over the Chinese balloon incident.

    The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said in a statement that the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group conducted the drills on February 11 with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Seventh Fleet did not say when the drills started or when they would end.

    Nimitz Carrier, source: US Navy

    The US has stepped up its military activity in the South China Sea in recent years and has formally rejected most of Beijing’s claims to the waters. China, the Philippines, and several other Southeast Asian nations all have overlapping claims to the South China Sea.

    The US has involved itself in the dispute, and starting under the Obama administration, the US began sailing warships near Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea.

    The Biden administration is looking to expand the US presence in the region and recently signed a deal with the Philippines that will give the US access to four more military sites in the country.

    The current exercises come after China declined a call from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin following the US downing of the Chinese balloon. Washington claimed the balloon was a spy device, while Beijing insisted it was a weather balloon only used for civilian purposes.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned trip to China when the balloon was first announced by the Pentagon. Since the incident, the US military has shot down at least two unidentified objects, but the White House says they didn’t look like Chinese balloons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 17:55

  • DeSantis Announces Legislation To Ban Social Credit Scores, 'Woke ESG Financial Scam'
    DeSantis Announces Legislation To Ban Social Credit Scores, ‘Woke ESG Financial Scam’

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday announced a proposal to eliminate ESG banking and prohibit the financial sector from implementing social credit scores that would otherwise prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit and opening bank accounts.

    “Today’s announcement builds on my commitment to protect consumers’ investments and their ability to access financial services in the Free State of Florida,” said DeSantis in a statement. “By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda. Through this legislation, we will protect the investments of Floridians and the ability of Floridians to participate in the economy.”

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    The proposal “seeks to protect Floridians from the woke ESG financial scam” by:

    • Prohibiting big banks, trusts, and other financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs — including their support for securing the border, owning a firearm, and increasing our energy independence.
    • Prohibiting the financial sector from considering so called “Social Credit Scores” in banking and lending practices that aim to prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.
    • Prohibiting banks that engage in corporate activism from holding government funds as a Qualified Public Depository (QPD).
    • Prohibiting the use of ESG in all investment decisions at the state and local level, ensuring that fund managers only consider financial factors that maximize the highest rate of return.
    • Prohibiting all state and local entities, including direct support organizations, from considering, giving preference to, or requesting information about ESG as part of the procurement and contracting process.
    • Prohibiting the use of ESG factors by state and local governments when issuing bonds, including a contract prohibition on rating agencies whose ESG ratings negatively impact the issuer’s bond ratings.
    • Directing the Attorney General and Commissioner of Financial Regulation to enforce these provisions to the fullest extent of the law.

    “That is a way to try to change people’s behavior. It’s a way to try to impose politics on what should just be economic decisions,” said DeSantis, of ESG. “We are also not going to house in either the state or local government level deposits. And we have a lot of deposit, we got a massive budget surplus in Florida, you have deposits all over the place that go in where state and local government use financial institutions, none of those deposits will be permitted to be done in institutions that are pursuing this woke ESG agenda.”

    As Florida’s Voice notes,

    The proposal would also aim to make sure ESG will not “infect decisions” at both the state and local governments, such as investment decisions, procurement and contracting, or bonds.

    House Speaker Paul Renner said Bob Rommel, R-Naples, will introduce the bill in the House.

    “The biggest thing that I think ESG represents is a total hijacking of democracy,” said Renner.

    “We’re lucky here in the state of Florida, that we’ve got a governor who will stand up to things like ESG, when others will not.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 17:36

  • NFL Super Bowl Accused Of 'Hijacking The Pat Tillman Story'
    NFL Super Bowl Accused Of ‘Hijacking The Pat Tillman Story’

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Advocates of peace, truth, and basic human decency on Sunday excoriated the National Football League’s “whitewashing” of former Arizona Cardinal and Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan by so-called “friendly fire” and the military’s subsequent cover-up—critical details omitted from a glowingly patriotic Super Bowl salute.

    As a group of four Pat Tillman Foundation scholars chosen as honorary coin-toss captains at Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona were introduced via a video segment narrated by actor Kevin Costner, viewers were told how Tillman “gave up his NFL career to join the Army Rangers and ultimately lost his life in the line of duty.”

    The video did not say how Tillman died, what he thought about the Iraq war, or how the military lied to his family and the nation about his death. This outraged many viewers.

    “Obviously the army killing Pat Tillman and covering it up afterwards is the worst thing the U.S. military did to him, but the years they’ve spent rolling out his portrait backed by some inspirational music as a recruiting tool is a surprisingly close second,” tweeted progressive writer Jay Willis.

    “Pat Tillman called the Iraq invasion and occupation ‘fucking illegal’ and was killed by friendly fire in an incident the military covered up and tried to hide from his family,” tweetedWashington Post investigative reporter Evan Hill.

    “I’m writing a book for FIRST GRADERS on Pat Tillman that contains more truth about his life and death than the NFL just provided at the Super Bowl,” wrote author Andrew Maraniss.

    “Another year of hijacking the Pat Tillman story and not telling that he hated the Iraq War and was killed by the military,” said one Twitter user.

    “Tell the real story of Pat Tillman or get off the screen,” fumed yet another.

    Tillman, 25 years old at the time, turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army in May 2002 after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He expected to be deployed to Afghanistan. Instead, he was sent to invade Iraq—a country that had no ties to 9/11. Tillman quickly came to deplore the “fucking illegal” war, and even made “loose plans” to meet with anti-war intellectual Noam Chomsky, according toThe Intercept‘s Ryan Devereaux.

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    As Tillman’s brother Kevin sardonically wrote:

    Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

    Pat and Kevin were sent to Afghanistan on April 8, 2004. Stationed at a forward operating base in Khost province, Pat was killed on April 22, 2004 by what the army said was “enemy fire” during a firefight.

    However, the army knew in the days immediately following Tillman’s death that he had been shot three times in the head from less than 30 feet away by so-called “friendly fire,” and that U.S. troops had burned his uniform and body armor in a bid to conceal their fatal error.

    “The deception surrounding this case was an insult to the family, but more importantly, its primary purpose was to deceive a whole nation,” Kevin Tillman testified before Congress in 2007. “We say these things with disappointment and sadness for our country. Once again, we have been used as props in a Pentagon public relations exercise.”

    Tillman’s father, Patrick Tillman Sr., told the Washington Post in 2005 that after his son was killed, “all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this. They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up.”

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    “I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out,” he contended. “They blew up their poster boy.”

    The following year, Tillman’s mother Mary was interviewed by Sports Illustrated and blamed U.S. military and George W. Bush administration officials all the way up to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for covering up her son’s killing.

    “They attached themselves to his virtue and then threw him under the bus,” she said. “They had no regard for him as a person. He’d hate to be used for a lie. I don’t care if they put a bullet through my head in the middle of the night. I’m not stopping.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/13/2023 – 17:16

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