- Is This The Beginning Of The End For Gun Control?
Is This The Beginning Of The End For Gun Control?
Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,
If you haven’t heard yet, Firearms Policy Coalition has filed what may be one of the most critical petitions for writ of certiorari for Marylanders and possibly gun owners in general in the case Bianchi v. Frosh.
The case itself centers around the Maryland “Assault Weapons Ban” (AWB), also known as SB281 or the Firearms Safety Act of 2013.
But before we dive into the law itself, let’s look at the question being proposed to the Supreme Court in this writ of certiorari. The question presented is: “Whether the Constitution allows the government to prohibit law-abiding, responsible citizens from protecting themselves, their families, and their homes with a type of “Arms” that are in common use for lawful purposes?”
The way this question is asked, we can see that if decided in favor of gun owners, the overturning of the Maryland AWB would be an unprecedented victory for gun owners nationwide. A Repudiation of assault weapon bans would free states like California, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey from their tyrannical state governments who’ve imposed their versions of this “Assault Weapon Ban.” FPC’s Adam Kraut affirmed that position saying, “This case presents the Court with an ideal vehicle to both address the scope of protected arms and constitutionally infirm analysis applied by these recalcitrant lower courts.”
The petition correctly describes the term “Assault Weapons” as a “pejorative and inaccurate label for a category of common semi-automatic firearms.” Then quoting directly from Heller goes on to describe those same firearms as “in common use” and “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.”
Maryland’s AWB is an assortment of inconsistent rules and regulations thought up by bureaucrats in Annapolis who have little understanding of firearms they seek to regulate. A few examples of inconsistencies: AK pattern rifle chambered in 7.62×39? Banned. AK pattern rifle chambered in 5.45×39? Good to go. AK Pistol in 7.62×39? Good to go. The only difference between the banned rifle and pistol? The stock.
It also bans the AR15 and other “Scary” looking rifles but allows AR15s that conform to a Heavy Barrel Profile, or HBAR. It also allows for rifles that are functionally identical to the AR15, like the Ruger Mini 14.
Ultimately, we won’t know if the Supreme Court will hear the case until sometime in 2022, as The Supreme Court will hear it in their 2022 session. But the chances are good for the Court to take this case up. Many of the Justices have signaled that they’re ready to hear 2nd Amendment cases. If the recent NYSRPA v. Bruen is any indication, we will likely see them tackle more gun rights issues that have far-reaching implications.
Also, the makeup of the Court has changed in recent years. With the addition of Amy Comey Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court has a solid conservative majority. As lower court judges, Justice Barrett and Justice Kavanaugh signaled they think courts need to rethink the framework used to often measure how gun regulations are evaluated. This framework is known as “Intermediate Scrutiny.”
When intermediate scrutiny is applied, a law has more of a chance to survive legal challenges because the government must prove only that it is “substantially related to an important government interest.”
This intermediate scrutiny clause is what has kept not only the Maryland Assault Weapon ban in place but many other AWBs nationwide. If the Justices are looking for a case that has far-reaching consequences for the 2nd Amendment and the process by which states uphold these unconstitutional laws, they need look no further than Bianchi v. Frost.
This is why I posed the question: “Is this the beginning of the end for gun control?”
In our coverage of gun control issues over the past year, we’ve seen a clear pathway that the anti-gun lobby is taking. Using the NFA, 1968 GCA, FOPA, and other gun control laws on the books, they’ve managed to ban Bump Stocks and inch closer and closer to regulating semi-automatic firearms under the NFA or outright ban them. This Case, Bianchi v. Frost, would put a significant roadblock in front of that.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 23:55 - The World's Biggest Startups: Top Unicorns Of 2021
The World’s Biggest Startups: Top Unicorns Of 2021
Many entrepreneurs start businesses around the world, but only the most successful new companies become “unicorns” – the biggest startups with a valuation above $1 billion.
Some unicorns are little-known companies making quiet but impactful strides in software, healthcare, automotive, and other fields. Others have already become well-known industry leaders, like aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and game developer and publisher Epic Games.
As Visual Capitalist’s Raul Amoros details below, in total, there are more than 800 unicorn startups globally. That said, this visualization specifically hones in on the world’s decacorns (unicorns with valuations above $10 billion) as of December 2021 according to CB Insights.
Private Startups Valued at Over $10 Billion
The world’s most prominent unicorns constantly see their valuations change as they enter different rounds of funding or maturity.
In December 2021, there were 35 startups with a valuation above $10 billion, spread out across different countries and industries.
Many of the most valuable startups are already giants in their fields. For example, social media company Bytedance is the developer behind video network platform Douyin and its international version, TikTok, and has amassed a valuation of $140 billion.
Financial services and payment software company Stripe jumped from a valuation of $36 billion to $95 billion over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even less universally prominent names like Swedish fintech Klarna ($45.6 billion) and Australian graphic design platform Canva ($40.0 billion) are well known within their respective fields.
But private valuations don’t last forever. Many eventually go public, like electric vehicle maker and Tesla competitor Rivian, which had a valuation of $27.6 billion before listing on the NASDAQ.
The Biggest Startups by Industries and Countries
Breaking down the world’s biggest startups by industry highlights that tech is still king in most investing circles.
More than 77% of unicorns valued above $10 billion are categorized directly in tech-related fields, primarily in financial and commerce software.
And many of the unicorns categorized in non-tech fields are still technology companies at their core. In fact, Indonesia’s logistics and package delivery company J&T Express is one of the few unicorns not directly in tech, though it still uses automated sorting in its warehouses.
It was one of the few startups to come from somewhere other than the U.S. or China, which together accounted for over 70% of the 35 biggest startups. The UK (3) was the next most-frequently listed headquarters, while Australia, Brazil, Germany, India and Sweden each had one of these unicorns on the list.
With constantly fluctuating valuations and technological breakthroughs always around the corner, the next $10 billion unicorn could come from almost anywhere.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 23:30 - Buchanan: Biden Holds A Losing Hand
Buchanan: Biden Holds A Losing Hand
As President Joe Biden’s poll numbers sank this fall, and the presidentially ambitious in his party began to stir, the White House put out the word.
Forget all that 2020 campaign chatter about Biden being a “transitional president.” He intends to run and win a second term.
Well, perhaps. Yet, skepticism abounds.
First, if Biden ran in 2024 and won, his second term would extend to January 2029, when he would be 86 years old. He is already, at 79, the oldest president in history. Does Biden look like a signal-calling quarterback with seven years of playing days ahead of him?
When one views his diminished mental capacities and the issues menu before him, it seems a certainty that we are not looking at a two-term president.
First, there is the pandemic.
With the death toll now exceeding 800,000, and the number of COVID-19 cases reaching 50 million, more Americans have died of the coronavirus under Biden than under former President Donald Trump. Over 1,000 Americans are being daily added to the death toll.
In a New York Post poll, approval of Biden’s handling of the pandemic has already fallen from 69% on Inauguration Day to 53% today.
Another menu item is the economic crisis induced by the pandemic.
Inflation under Biden has soared to 6.8%, and at the Federal Reserve, there is talk of three interest rate hikes in 2022.
What does this mean? Not only are the prices of gasoline and groceries rising beyond the capacity of millions of families to pay, but for every $100,000 in cash savings of every Middle American family, nearly $7,000 will have been wiped out in Biden’s first year.
And the Biden inflation is no longer spoken of as “transitory.”
For his handling of inflation, Biden has an approval rating of 28%, with two-thirds of all Americans, 69%, disapproving of the job he is doing.
On the crime front, our major cities are now setting new records for shootings, stabbings, homicides and murders. Cable and TV news carry regular videos of “flash mobs” invading and looting downtown stores and fleeing before the police arrive.
In Biden’s America, civilization itself seems to be breaking down.
How do the American people think Biden is handling crime?
As a Delaware senator in the 1990s, Biden was seen as a law-and-order Democrat who helped enact some of the toughest anti-crime and pro-cop legislation of the decade.
Yet, today, when even San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi is decrying the “smash-and-grab” mob attacks on her city’s retail stores as reflecting an “attitude of lawlessness,” 3 in 5 Americans, 61%, disapprove of how Biden is handling the crime issue.
On taking office, Biden discarded the Trump immigration policies that had held back the flood of illegal migrants into the country.
Now the southern border is bleeding as never before.
In Biden’s first year, migrants have been crossing at a rate of close to 2 million a year. Scores of thousands of “got-aways” — unknown homeland invaders who evade any contact with U.S. authorities — have vanished into our population since Biden took office.
And they are coming now not only from Mexico and the Northern Triangle — Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. They are coming from every continent and every country on earth. We are becoming what President Teddy Roosevelt warned America would become if it failed to manage its immigration well — “a polyglot boarding house for the world.”
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war,” said Ernest Hemingway. “Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin.”
Biden is going to have to negotiate a modus vivendi with Russia on Ukraine and China on Taiwan, after a Beijing-Moscow summit where Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that the two countries have established a relationship that “in its closeness and effectiveness … even exceeds an alliance.”
Eleven months from now, Biden faces congressional elections. Almost surely, they will cost him his majority in the House and leave him at year’s end an 80-year-old lame-duck president whose legislative agenda will have to meet with the approval of the new speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
So where will we and Biden be at New Year’s Eve 2023?
We will have an octogenarian president, in even more visible cognitive decline, faced with intractable issues of crime, a bleeding border, a pandemic and an inflation with which he has been unable to cope.
And, like William Howard Taft in 1912, Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1992, Biden will, if he decides to run again, face a challenge in the Democratic primaries. Biden won’t get a pass.
And should he survive those primaries, as some of those presidents did, Biden would be the favorite to lose in 2024. For none of those presidents won reelection.
It may be time to consider a retirement announcement.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 23:05 - Pornhub Reveals Wyomingites Watched The Most Porn In 2021, Coloradans The Least
Pornhub Reveals Wyomingites Watched The Most Porn In 2021, Coloradans The Least
Pornhub’s Year in Review reveals some fascinating insights into how Americans consume porn differently. The report found, outlined in colorful infographics filled with data compiled by Pornhub’s statisticians, that people in Wyoming watched the most porn in 2021.
Pornhub’s statisticians found the average visit duration for Wyomingites is the longest among any state, clocking in at 11 minutes and 3 seconds. The shortest time spent on the website were Coloradans, clocking in at 8 minutes and 51 seconds.
The spread between Wyomingites and Coloradans was a blistering 2.2 minutes, which begs why?
Worldwide, people typically visited the website between 2200 to 0100 hours, but it was an all-night event on weekends.
So anyway, that’s Pornhub’s 8th Year in Review. And many unanswered questions surround Wyomingite’s long visit duration than any other Americans.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 22:40 - 'Follow The Science': A Potent Source Of Authority For Politicians
‘Follow The Science’: A Potent Source Of Authority For Politicians
Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times,
To hear the way some politicians talk, when it comes to COVID-19, they’re all “following the science,” not to mention “the data.”
“Look at the data. Follow the science. Listen to the experts. Be smart,” now-former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote on Twitter in May 2020, after “Two Weeks to Flatten the Curve” had fully transitioned to “The New Normal.”
“We’ve been operating on facts and data and science from the very beginning,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in a campaign ad titled simply “Follow The Science.”
President Joe Biden has frequently appealed to “the science.” In an executive order announcing a vaccine mandate for federal workers, for instance, he said his administration used “the best available data and science-based public health measures.” In an article criticizing Biden’s move to push vaccine boosters in September, StatNews’s Lev Facher described “Follow the Science” as “a mantra” for the administration.
White House chief medical adviser on COVID-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci stands at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 11, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“The science” emerged long before 2020 as a potent source of authority for politicians. Yet while the scientific method is a powerful tool for advancing human potential, the belief that it alone can guide us is an example of “scientism.”
Scientism is, in the words of public intellectual Scott Masson, “the belief that moral or evaluative judgments are merely subjective and that only the ‘hard’ sciences—think physics, chemistry, or biology—furnish legitimate objective knowledge.” While few American politicians would openly endorse this position, the actions many have taken during the COVID-19 pandemic reflect scientism in deed, if not in word.
Scientism lets politicians off the hook for their decisions. They didn’t really make a decision—they merely “followed the science.”
As a scientistic credo, “Follow the science” doesn’t just abrogate leaders’ accountability as decision-makers. It also does violence to the nature of science, which seldom offers the clear-cut, politically useful conclusions that politicians want.
People wearing face masks stand in line as they wait to be vaccinated at the Sydney Olympic Park Vaccination Centre at Homebush in Sydney, Australia, on Aug. 16, 2021. (David Gray/AFP via Getty Images)
A popular meme contrasts the “scientific method” with the “science worshiper’s method.” While the former moves in a rigorous, self-correcting way toward results that may or may not align with a specific hypothesis, the latter constructs a model and then only accepts the data that will confirm that model.
At its most extreme, “following the science” is inflexibly dogmatic. When less inflexible, “following the science” can lead to sudden, sharp changes in public policy, often in the face of other evidence and goals separate from the COVID-19 response—for example, avoiding other health problems or economic disruption traceable to such policies.
Masking
In the case of masking, “following the science” has led to a series of dramatic reversals.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams speaks to members of Congress in Washington on Sept. 9, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
In February 2020, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams wrote on Twitter that Americans should “STOP BUYING MASKS!” as they were “not effective.”
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) maintained that healthy individuals didn’t need to wear masks.
Yet as mask production ramped up in the United States, U.S. public health authorities changed their tune. In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that Americans consider wearing cloth masks.
By June 2020, WHO recommended that healthy members of the general public wear masks in situations where physical distancing wasn’t possible, citing new scientific evidence on transmission.
A man enters the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 15, 2021. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
In 2021, the CDC repeatedly shifted on masking. In July 2021, it reversed a May recommendation that vaccinated people need not wear masks, drawing rebukes from Republican governors.
Some experts believe that such shifts mark a significant departure from our understanding of masking before the pandemic.
“When it comes to the point of certain interventions that are sort of weakly supported, and if you go back and look at everything that was published before 2020, and come to this completely different conclusion if you read the things that published later on in 2020, about masks or the ability of lockdowns to stop and end spread indefinitely—long-term lockdowns that have devastating collateral damage—and that type of thing. And then you realize how politicized this really has become,” immunologist Steven Templeton, a professor at Indiana University, formerly with the CDC, said in an interview with The Epoch Times’ EpochTV.
One of the most politicized issues is the masking of young children. While advocates have argued that children could be major transmitters of COVID-19, opponents have argued that children are neither major vectors of the disease nor vulnerable to serious illness or death. They have also pointed out the understudied developmental and physiological risks of masking young children.
A pupil wearing a face mask attends a class in a file photo. (JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP via Getty Images)
One 2021 preprint found no correlation between mask mandates and COVID-19 case rates among students and faculty across schools in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts, though the authors included caveats about how well their findings could be generalized.
Still, for many schools, “following the science” has led to universal mask mandates. Portland Public Schools, for example, requires the masking of children at all times and places, indoor or outdoor, and irrespective of vaccination status, “except when eating, drinking or playing a musical wind instrument.”
You realize how politicized this really has become.
— Steven Templeton, professor at Indiana University
In one instance, guerilla footage showed kindergartners “eating” while sitting outside on buckets in 40-degree weather while socially distanced from playmates.
In cases such as these, “following the science” has the look and feel of political theater.
Men wearing protective suits make their way at a bus stop at Narita international airport on the first day of closed borders to prevent the spread of the new Omicron variant amid the pandemic in Narita, east of Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 30, 2021. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
Omicron and Beyond
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 hasn’t yet caused a surge in serious COVID-19 cases. Yet as soon as the new strain made international headlines, governments across the world were ready to “follow the science,” or at least take some sort of action in its name.
The United States, the UK, and other countries have banned travel from many countries in southern Africa, where Omicron was first detected. Japan, meanwhile, barred entry of all foreign nationals.
WHO and other scientists and physicians argued that these bans weren’t warranted, in part because they would do little to slow the variant’s spread.
As the new strain made international headlines, governments across the world were ready to ‘Follow the Science.’
The CEO of Pfizer, too, has speculated that the variant could push up the debut of its latest booster, telling CNBC, “I think we will need a fourth dose.”
For now, however, the new variant appears to be mild. To date, Omicron doesn’t seem to have caused a single verifiable death.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference organized by the Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 3, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via Reuters)
When asked by The Epoch Times if Omicron had led to a single confirmed fatality, a WHO spokesperson sent its weekly epidemiological update for Dec. 7.
According to that guide: “All of the 212 confirmed cases identified in 18 European Union countries for which there was information available on severity were asymptomatic or mild. While South Africa saw an 82 percent increase in hospital admissions due to COVID-19 (from 502 to 912) during the week 28 November–4 December 2021, it is not yet known the proportion of these with the Omicron variant.”
In addition, the WHO spokesperson said, “For Omicron, we have not had any deaths reported, but it is still early in the clinical course of disease and this may change.”
The CDC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times on whether there were any confirmed Omicron deaths.
Other examples abound. For instance, while data show vaccinated individuals are significantly less likely to die of COVID-19 than the unvaccinated, “following the science” to preapproved conclusions may prematurely foreclose or minimize serious concerns about vaccine safety, particularly in relation to heart inflammation or other cardiovascular disease.
In September testimony before the FDA in its evaluation of the Pfizer booster, entrepreneur Steve Kirsch said that Pfizer’s vaccines kill more people than they save, citing Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data, among other information.
Just days ago, physicians and scientists in the UK reportedly warned that post-pandemic stress disorder is driving a rise in heart attacks and other cardiovascular issues, including among younger patients.
Some commentators speculated that the rise could be related to vaccines.
Candace Owens wrote on Twitter in response to the story: “I’ve just learned that the sudden increase in heart-related illnesses is likely due to **checks Big Pharma notes** Post-Pandemic Stress Disorder. Nothing to see here!”
Following Science, Not ‘Following the Science’
While New York and New York City have pursued hardline policies, including the city’s vaccine pass system applicable to children as young as 5, the state of Florida has blocked mandates and prioritized individual choice.
Today, case rates in Florida are lower than in New York, likely in part because of the disease’s seasonality. Moreover, while Floridians are on average older than New York residents, suggesting that they should be more vulnerable to COVID-19, the death rate per 100,000 is still lower in that state than in New York, according to NBC News. New York City itself has had more than 34,000 deaths, due partly to major early clusters in nursing homes in the city.
People visit Clearwater Beach after Governor Ron DeSantis opened the beaches at 7 a.m. on May 4, 2020 in Clearwater, Fla. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The Senate’s Dec. 8 vote to block Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate for large employers, which came soon after the 6th Circuit Court overruled the same mandate, could signal the resilience of checks and balances against compulsion in the name of “the science.”
Elsewhere in the world, “following the science,” often in spite of other scientific evidence, is leading to more draconian policies.
New Brunswick, Canada, has permitted grocery stores to exclude the unvaccinated, violating the basic human right to food articulated in Article 25 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
Canadian and American flags fly near the Ambassador Bridge at the Canada–U.S. border crossing in Windsor, Ont., in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Rob Gurdebeke)
Numerous studies have raised questions about whether vaccination stems transmission, with some suggesting that vaccinated people with suppressed symptoms of the disease may even be major drivers of new infection. Regardless, “the science” demands greater sacrifices by the day.
Good science can and should inform our judgments as well as those of politicians. But unthinking gestures toward “the science” don’t shield any of us from responsibility—though as Jeffrey A. Tucker of The Brownstone Institute points out, the bureaucrats whose banalities enforce our new scientistic consensuses shirk any blame for its self-evident failures.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 22:15 - Mapping Migration Destinations And Origins
Mapping Migration Destinations And Origins
Many factors determine population movements, which can be voluntary or forced, the latter being “as a result of the increased magnitude and frequency of disasters, economic challenges and extreme poverty or conflict”, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, the UN partner organization estimates that by mid-2020, there were about 280.6 million international migrants globally, a figure that is growing year by year and represents 3.6 per cent of the world’s population. In 2010 it was 221 million and in 2000 it was 173.2 million.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The United States has been the main destination country for international migrants since 1970. The number of foreign-born people residing in the country was almost 51 million in 2020. At a considerable distance behind is Germany, which received the second largest number of migrants in the world last year, with 15.8 million people, followed by Saudi Arabia (13.5 million), Russia (11.6 million) and the United Kingdom (9.4 million).
In terms of the place of birth of international migrants, 18 million people came from India, the country with the highest number of migrants in the world last year. Mexico was the second largest country of origin with 11.2 million people, followed by the 10.8 million Russians living abroad, along with 105 million Chinese and 8.5 million Syrians.
International Migrants Day is celebrated on 18 December, this year under the theme “Harnessing the potential of human mobility”, which invites people to take advantage of the possibilities that human mobility offers.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 21:50 - Chicago Mayor Lightfoot To Pump $412 Million More Into Anti-Crime Plan That Doesn’t Work
Chicago Mayor Lightfoot To Pump $412 Million More Into Anti-Crime Plan That Doesn’t Work
By Mark Glennon, of Wirepoints,
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is planning to pump $412 million into its community safety plan, much of it targeting 15 of the city’s most violent community areas.
But the plan is already a proven failure. Furthermore, it has been subject to little transparency or accountability and its funding is unsustainable.
That’s according to a great column in Thursday’s Chicago Sun-Times, based on crime data being kept by the Sun-Times and experts it interviewed.
The plan, called “Our City, Our Safety,” was unveiled more than a year ago and has produced few results, and many of the communities it targeted have only gotten more dangerous, the Sun-Times reported:
Fatal shootings are higher in 10 of the 15 community areas: East Garfield Park, West Pullman, North Lawndale, Greater Grand Crossing, Auburn Gresham, Englewood, Roseland, Chatham, South Shore and Chicago Lawn. Only the Austin area measured about the same as last year. Four are better: South Lawndale, West Garfield Park, Humboldt Park and West Englewood.
Funding for the plan was approved by the City Council in the budget drafted by Lightfoot. It includes more than $50 million going to more than two dozen organizations for street outreach, victim services, transitional jobs, scholarships and domestic violence.
Who are those neighborhood organizations and do they spend the money effectively?
That’s where the transparency and accountability issues arise. More than half the money is not earmarked for any particular neighborhood, according to the Sun-Times, and “there is little information available on what exactly these groups are doing and how effective they’ve been” and it has it “has been difficult to gauge whether money spent so far has been going where it’s needed most.”
Funding for the plan is temporary. Over 70% of the city’s violence prevention budget through 2024 is funded by federal American Rescue Plan money, according to those interviewed by the Sun-Times, but that was a one-time shot. “They’re not going to continue the funding,” said Professor Lance Williams with Northeastern Illinois University’s Urban Studies Department. “
Adding to the challenges, the mayor has struggled to keep key people involved in crafting the plan and carrying it out.”
The more fundamental problem with the plan, not discussed by the Sun-Times, is that it is not about law enforcement and policing. It instead addresses supposed underlying causes of crime with longer term solutions, namely these, which the Sun-Times listed:
- $85 million on violence intervention, including victim services, street outreach and other violence reduction programs.
- $62 million for affordable housing and homeless programs.
- $80 million for assistance to families and youth jobs.
- $40 million for health and wellness programs.
- $114.6 million for community development and parks.
- $30 million for small business.
Chicago, however, has an immediate and overwhelming plague of violence, the fast response to which must include firm policing and law enforcement, including prison for violent offenders.
Crime certainly does have underlying causes that must be addressed with long term solutions. Policing is a Band-Aid on deeper problems. Some elements of the plan therefore may have merit, but the emergency is now and so is the need for policing and prosecutions.
Ironically, Lightfoot effectively acknowledged that, though in a foolish way, just last week. She blamed some of the primary victims for not paying for the protection the city is failing to provide.
“Some of the retailers downtown and [on] Michigan Avenue, I will tell you, I’m disappointed that they are not doing more to take safety and make it a priority, she said. “For example, we still have retailers that won’t institute plans like having security officers in their stores, making sure that they’ve got cameras that are actually operational, locking up their merchandise at night.”
It should come as no surprise that the Our City, Our Safety Plan has not worked. Look through it yourself. It’s mostly social justice gibberish. “Equity” appears 30 times. “Violence is an equity issue,” it says. “Empower and heal people” is its “Pillar No 1.” “Racism” appears 105 times. “At the root of violence is systemic racism which has been pervasive throughout Chicago and its history,” it says. “Participate in local and national collaboratives to elevate policy positions,” whatever that means, is one of its strategies.
Lightfoot has no real plan to stop the violence. Her’s is Otter’s Plan.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 21:25 - Fireworks – Crypto Set For $8 Billion New Year's Eve OpEx
Fireworks – Crypto Set For $8 Billion New Year’s Eve OpEx
Submitted by bithedge
Unfortunately for any crypto options market maker hoping to ring in the new year with a night out, one of the downsides to a 24/7 market is about to become very apparent as they’re stuck partying with a record $8.2bn options expiry on December 31st – topping the previous high of $5.6bn seen during the raging bull market in March, when cryptos were still roaring 30% higher every month on the back of a supply shock and institutional adoption narrative gone into overdrive.
Nowhere will the celebration be more apparent than in new Wall Street darling Ethereum, where the coming expiry’s notional is more than double that of any previous month:
And since ETH has plans not only to become deflationary but also to slash energy consumption by 100x, some have also felt it’s worth looking forward to the quarterly options in March where for the first time ever open interest on an Eth expiry has outstripped that of Bitcoin thanks almost exclusively to a *massive* buyer(s) of the 15,000 call. One has to wonder if it truly is just a single entity who has spent millions on these options, racking up the open interest to a number higher than many of the surrounding strikes combined. Is that you, Novogratz?
UBS points to the strike as a potential accelerant should ETH break out to all time highs again and indeed the position looks able to generate up to a massive $1bn in delta buying should it expire in the money – although this author happens to think that may be just a bit too optimistic and by going out just one year later, such a buyer could catch the inevitable bull market continuation when the Fed reverses course on the shortest hiking cycle in history.
But anyways, while perhaps less ‘standout’ from previous numbers… Bitcoin still takes the top spot for this month with its first $5bn roll-off, which is actually half of all open interest!
For now, it seems underlying crypto markets are in general far more removed from the options process than equities (which have become largely a derivative of options positioning and real rates). But the unprecedented size of this month’s unwinds combined with holiday-level liquidity means traders may be in for a volatile start to 2022…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 21:00 - Growing Number Of Companies And Organizations Are Walking Back Vaccination Requirements
Growing Number Of Companies And Organizations Are Walking Back Vaccination Requirements
Submitted by Jack Phillips of Epoch Times,
More and more businesses in recent days have walked back previous rules mandating COVID-19 vaccine sas a condition for employment in a bid to keep workers.
UCHealth registered nurse Karen Nerger administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mass COVID-19 vaccination event on Jan. 30, 2021 Earlier this week, Amtrak—a quasi-public corporation—became the latest to rescind its vaccine requirement amid concerns about staff shortages and cut service in January. In a memo sent to staff that was obtained by The Epoch Times, Amtrak CEO William Flynn said the company would do away with the mandate that would have given employees until Jan. 4 to get fully vaccinated or go on unpaid leave.
About 500 out of more than 17,000 Amtrak workers remain unvaccinated, according to the memo. Still, the sudden loss of that many workers would have caused service disruptions, Flynn suggested, while noting that Amtrak was acting in accordance with recent court orders handed down against President Joe Biden’s sweeping vaccine mandates.
Several hospitals and healthcare systems have similarly rescinded vaccine mandates for employees and cited labor issues that were triggered by the new requirements. In early December, Florida’s AdventHealth announced the end of its vaccine requirement for some 83,000 workers, also citing the several recent court injunctions against federal mandates.
“Due to recent decisions by the federal courts to block the [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] vaccine mandate, we are suspending all vaccination requirements of our COVID-19 vaccination policy,” AdventHealth Chief Clinical Officer Neil Finkler said in a letter to staff. The move came after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirmed to The Epoch Times that the agency suspended enforcement following two court orders several weeks ago.
An Amtrak passenger train sits in New York City’s Pennsylvania Station on April 27, 2017. Tenet Healthcare, HCA Healthcare, and Cleveland Clinic recently announced they are pulling back as well, citing labor concerns. Along with AdventHealth, the three healthcare companies operate a combined 300 hospitals and have more than 500,000 workers.
They cited recent court orders that blocked Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from enforcing its mandate on Medicare- and Medicaid-funded medical facilities. The rule was announced by Biden on the same day that he confirmed that he would impose mandates on federal government employees, businesses who have contracts with the federal government, and, most controversially, businesses that have 100 or more workers.
The mandate for private businesses, slated to be enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), was paused by the agency last month following a scathing ruling that was issued by a panel of judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. At the time, OSHA said it remained confident that the federal government would ultimately prevail in court.
“We have seen some anecdotal reports of hospitals that have paused or rolled back their vaccine mandates in light of the legal process that is currently playing out,” the American Hospital Association said in a statement to The Washington Post about the recent hospital decisions on vaccine requirements.
But the organization said that it does “not think most hospitals are changing their mandates, but some may be choosing to mandate weekly testing or other mitigating strategies for unvaccinated workers instead,” while “some have also decided to no longer terminate unvaccinated staff.”
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District board, for different reasons, voted overwhelmingly in favor of postponing its student vaccine requirement from January 2022 until the fall of 2022 after tens of thousands of students reportedly would not comply—meaning that they would not be able to attend in-person classes.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, the largest naval shipbuilder in the United States, announced it won’t enforce the Biden administration’s federal contractor mandate. The company had told its 44,000 workers that it was not contractually obligated to comply, although a federal judge in Georgia later blocked the mandate.
The University of Iowa also recently pulled its vaccine directive for staff working on federal contracts from its website following a federal judge’s order last month. University of Iowa Faculty Senate President Teresa Marshall said on Dec. 7 that the requirement was placed on hold until federal lawsuits get sorted out.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 20:35 - Melania Trump Is Hopping On The NFT Train
Melania Trump Is Hopping On The NFT Train
Melania Trump is hopping on the non-fungible token train.
While former President Trump has been working on his forthcoming Trump Media SPAC, the former first lady hasn’t been slacking on her own business ventures.
She has launched an NFT titled “Melania’s Vision”, CNN reported yesterday. It’s the first piece of digital art to be sold on her platform, which is being powered by Parler, the report says.
The former first lady commented: “I am proud to announce my new NFT endeavor, which embodies my passion for the arts, and will support my ongoing commitment to children through my Be Best initiative.”
She continued: “Through this new technology-based platform, we will provide children computer science skills, including programming and software development, to thrive after they age out of the foster community.”
Some of the proceeds of the sale will “assist children aging out of the foster care system by way of economic empowerment and with expanded access to resources needed to excel in the fields of computer science and technology,” the report says.
The NFT is a “watercolor” by Marc-Antoine Coulon that includes a recording of Trump. The art will cost about $150 and will be available for purchase until December 31, 2022.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 20:10 - Harvard Won't Require SAT Or ACT For 5 More Years
Harvard Won’t Require SAT Or ACT For 5 More Years
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
Harvard University will extend a move not to require SAT or ACT scores for prospective students until at least 2026, the university announced Thursday.
The Ivy League school initially stopped requiring the tests because of the COVID-19 pandemic, asserting some applicants had limited access to testing sites.
The extension was also attributed to the pandemic “and its continued impact on access to testing for high school age students.”
“Students who do not submit standardized test scores will not be disadvantaged in their application process,” William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid, said in a statement.
“Their applications will be considered on the basis of what they have presented, and they are encouraged to send whatever materials they believe would convey their accomplishments in secondary school and their promise for the future,” he added.
The standardized testing is often a key component of what colleges analyze when considering whether to accept a student.
If an applicant fails to meet a certain threshold on the tests, they have historically been rejected without regard to other parts of their resume.
But schools have increasingly ditched those requirements, including all public universities in California, with some adjusting before the pandemic started.
Columbia and Cornell universities are among those that have made the testing optional for applicants through 2024.
More than 1,815 other colleges don’t require ACT or SAT scores, according to FairTest, a group that says it aims to “end the misuses and flaws of testing practices” that impede advancing quality education and equal opportunity.
“A major reason for the explosive expansion of ACT/SAT-optional and test-blind policies is their effectiveness,” FairTest Executive Director Bob Schaeffer said in a recent statement.
“Schools that did not require standardized exam score submission for fall 2021 admission—current first-year undergraduates—generally received more applicants, better academically qualified applicants, and more diverse pools of applicants,” he added. “With such positive results, there’s no rational reason to restore test-score requirements.”
Supporters of retaining testing requirements say they’re a good way to predict how prospective students would perform if they’re granted admission.
The scores “aid in predicting important aspects of student success,” a task force said in reviewing California’s proposal to axe the requirements.
Harvard on Thursday also announced it had accepted 740 students from a pool of 9,406 applicants. That came a year after the school selected 743 students from the 10,087 who applied.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 19:45 - A Culture War in Four Acts: Loudoun County, Virginia. Part Two, "The Incident”
A Culture War in Four Acts: Loudoun County, Virginia. Part Two, “The Incident”
By Matt Taibbi, via Substack
An Underground Railroad simulation at an elementary school brings a long-simmering political dispute out into the open, triggering a bizarre series of unfortunate events
February 5th, 2019. An educational consultant named Dr. Linda Deans walked to the lectern at a meeting of the Loudoun County School Board. Addressing issues like black student underrepresentation in the gifted programs and overrepresentation in disciplinary cases, she asked the board to remedy matters through more funding of diversity and inclusion positions. Loudoun had a diversity officer, but Deans stumped for a department.
“To be real about equity and inclusion, contracting out the work might be a good idea because insiders may be — hmm — influenced by politics,” she said, pausing to apply a dollop of contemptuous stank on the hmm. She went on: “I highly recommend that LCPS offer this serious work to a reputable organization, such as the Loudoun Freedom Center.”
The Center, where Deans worked, is a nonprofit founded by charismatic local pastor and new NAACP chapter president Michelle Thomas. The meaning was clear: Loudoun had race problems, and if the board wanted to be credited with taking those seriously, it had to make a financial commitment, and to the right destination.
Deans was followed by the Education Chair for the local NAACP chapter, Robin Burke. Burke and husband Steven had recently met with Loudoun’s Director of Teaching and Learning, and weren’t happy.
“On Wednesday, January 16th, 2019,” she says, “my husband and I attended a meeting facilitated by Mr. James Dallas to discuss our concerns regarding our son… being denied admission to the Academies of Loudoun.” She paused. “We are convinced that the admission process is disjointed, unfair and represents a clear example of historical institutional racism. Therefore, we expect now more than ever that our straight A-student [son] be unconditionally admitted to the Academies of Loudoun.”
The Board was silent for a moment, some members confused. They only set policy and had no power to intervene in an individual gifted admissions question. Also, the admissions process was blind: reviewers had no access to names or racial identities, seeing only test scores, grades, courses taken, etc. To some members, this was an obvious reply to any charge of “historical institutional racism.” To Burke, the blind nature of the testing was the racism.
The fact that Loudoun had race-neutral admissions was “true, therefore problematic,” she told me by email. “By removing personal identifiable information,” she added, “it is impossible to assess an applicant’s unique experiences alongside traditional measures of academic achievement such as grades and test scores.”
Burke had reached out to several officials about her son. After correspondence didn’t result in changes, she went public with complaints. Asked about this, she replied, “As the Chair of Education for the NAACP, I represent all students of color,” adding that, “These claims were brought to the attention of the School Board and the Superintendent,” whose “inaction led to the NAACP contacting the AGs office.”
Loudoun has a gruesome history on race and schools. In 1956, the county infamously voted to defund schools rather than follow the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education desegregation order. Not until 1962 did the first black student attend a “white” school. Segregation was essentially pried from the cold dead fingers of this county’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and suspicions in the black community naturally linger. However, the current controversies aren’t a clear continuation of civil rights-era battles. Some aspects may be similar, but the legal context at least is reversed: in place of a decades-long effort on the part of groups like the NAACP to expunge racial considerations from the law, the new thinking is that progress is impossible without them. Whether or not that’s a warranted belief is a separate issue, but it’s how the new debate is framed.
Heading into the winter of 2018-2019, a dispute between county officials and the NAACP had been escalating. This disagreement would eventually be memorialized in the aforementioned formal complaint to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, called NAACP Loudoun Branch vs. Loudoun County Public Schools.
Loudoun’s NAACP leadership increasingly felt statistical inequities in areas like gifted admissions or discipline were explained by racism, and policy proposals often mere cover for perpetuation of an inherently discriminatory system. For a long time, they clashed in this with an old guard of county officials trying to cling to do-gooder liberalism’s once-standard position that a variety of addressable factors, including racism but also economics and other issues, were the cause of discrepancies.
The latter group’s idea for addressing gifted admissions once involved things like Loudoun’s adoption of EDGE (“Experiences Designed for Growth and Excellence”). The plan was to provide “intensive, engaging support” early in elementary school to talented-but-disadvantaged students to help them compete in the difficult admissions processes ahead. The school system had long been pushing back against more drastic action, like eliminating standardized testing, that might heighten complaints about a lack of rigor in Loudoun’s once-celebrated school system. The county had already eliminated final and midterm requirements in 2015, leading some parents to complain of their kids being left unprepared for college.
NAACP officials were more and more uninterested in those concerns, demanding direct intervention to square ugly numbers. In 2017, after data was released showing 88% of Loudoun teachers were white compared with only 48% of students, then-NAACP chapter head Philip Thompson threatened to file a federal civil rights complaint. “We believe we will only see an increase in the number of minority teachers when LCPS puts requirements on the people hiring the teachers,” Thompson said.
Rhetorically, this was walking a fine line, since Supreme Court cases like the 1977 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke had deemed explicit racial quotas in public education illegal. According to the Loudoun Times-Mirror, Thompson hastened to add he wasn’t “suggesting the school division adopt racial hiring quotas,” merely applying pressure to meet “targets.” However, putting “requirements on the people hiring” seemed to have a clear meaning.
By 2019, the NAACP seemed out of patience, moving toward the Ibram Kendi conception of equity, which holds that “there is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy.” As Kendi puts it, “racial discrimination is not inherently racist. The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity.” Loudoun in this view fell under the latter category, even if the admissions inequity, for instance, overwhelmingly redounded to the county’s Asian minority. (Ironically, Asians were also massively underrepresented in school hiring in 2017, making up 3% of teachers despite being 20% of the student body, though this fact didn’t make it into the NAACP complaint).
When asked about the legality of quotas, which she would later publicly support, Burke’s response was that the legal system itself was part of the problem and therefore not relevant. “As you are aware, the legal system has protected and in some cases perpetuated systemic racism. It was LEGAL to own people,” she said. She added:
“LCPS needs to make of amends for the wrong they have done, by helping those who have been wronged, African American students and families. Reperations [sic].”
Late in the fall of 2018, a group of fourth-grade teachers at Madison’s Trust elementary school in Brambleton, Virginia got together to plan the curriculum for Black History Month in February 2019. At the time, principal David Stewart was following in the footsteps of Superintendent Eric Williams, described on school websites as a devotee of an educational theorist named Philip Schlechty, by pushing a program called Project-Based Learning. Schlechty scoffed at the idea that a teacher was a mere “facilitator” of “personal development,” seeing the educator as a more muscular figure who helped ensure the “functioning of a democratic society” by “transmitting the collective wisdom of the group” through “authentically engaging activities.”
Loudoun’s schools touted “Project Based Learning” as such an “engaging” approach that fused the “3 Rs” (a Relevant, Rigorous, and Responsive curriculum) and the “4 Cs” (utilizing Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity). What did those seven letters mean, at a school like Madison’s Trust? In practice, that classroom instruction might be bolstered by cross-pollinating lessons with a gym class.
The 4th grade team that fall was working on a “PBL” on “Notable African Americans.” One of the school’s three PE teachers volunteered that he’d been to a conference years before, where he’d heard about a plan that sounded to him like a potential complement to any lesson about Harriet Tubman.
Ian Prior of the Loudoun parent group Fight for Schools later brought details forward in a story for The Federalist, and noted in a longer private report that this teacher had attended the 2011 meeting of the Virginia Association For Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (VAPHERD) at the Hyatt Regency in Reston. There, a program was presented called “Underground Railroad”
In “Underground Railroad,” kids in a PE class are led through an obstacle course simulating the path of slaves to safety along Tubman’s famous road to freedom. Along the way, they stop at various stations, where they might be introduced to a “drinking gourd” to learn that slaves used the Big Dipper constellation to help find the north star, or help each other move through hula hoops, or watch a video about Tubman, etc.
Such simulations have been going on for at least thirty years, if not longer. One educator I spoke with who’d used a version of the program, Geoffrey Bishop of “Nature’s Classroom” in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, said he thought he first came across the idea at a conference in New Hampshire 35 years ago.
The most famous “UGRR” simulation is the Kambui Education Initiative, a re-enactment founded by Kamau Kambui, a former devotee to a Malcolm X-inspired secessionist group called the Republic of New Afrika. The Initiative takes place in a thousand-acre slice of Minnesota’s Wilder Forest, dates back to the late eighties at least, and is part living museum, part outdoors adventure. Anthony Galloway, a pastor and equity coach who does use the term “critical race theory” in describing what his “Dare 2 Be Real” program teaches, cites experience with the Kambau Initiative as part of his credentials. However, both he and the current head of the Initiative, Chris Crutchfield, vehemently deny that he or Galloway had anything to do with any public school programs. “It’s abhorrent to me that people might think that,” Crutchfield says. “If it’s not done in the right way, it can be problematic.”
In the end, the origin story doesn’t really matter. As the New Yorker wrote last year, “UGRR” simulations became a craze beginning in the nineties, long ago reaching into public school classes from coast to coast. Writer Julian Lucas described it as part of a movement to replace the old Schoolhouse Rock heroes with progressive updates:
The runaway has emerged as the emblematic figure of a renovated national mythology, hero of a land that increasingly sees its Founding Fathers as settler-colonist génocidaires. In their stead rises a patriotism centered on slavery and abolition, and a campaign to set the country’s age-old freedom cult on a newly progressive footing.
No matter who came up with the Madison’s Trust lesson plan, the idea clearly grew out of this same nest of ideas, with the aim of valorizing Harriet Tubman, Henry “Box” Brown, and other Railroad figures. Until there were complaints, there were plenty of progressive educators in Virginia who seemed to think these simulations were a good idea. A story in the Virginia Pilot from 2006 showed teachers boasting of how lifelike they’d made theirs.
In that case, a pair of PE teachers in Chesapeake “transformed their gym into an eerie obstacle course” and “allowed the school’s 800 students to experience a little of what the slaves encountered during their nighttime runs.” Parents volunteered to play roles as slave-catchers and “patrolled the gym to the recorded sounds of barking dogs and galloping horses,” and teachers added heavy doses of verisimilitude:
Students who made unnecessary noise or skipped obstacles found themselves caught and wearing gray construction paper manacles. There were no second chances. The slaves never got any, the teachers explained.
“Some first- and second-graders cried,” the Pilot noted, in a deeply buried lede.
A version of this was even officially approved for use in Loudoun County at one point, only to be discontinued years before the 2019 incident. Though the Loudoun County Schools declined to speak on the record for this story, it’s safe to say there’s disagreement about who signed off on what at Madison’s Trust, whose much watered-down version incidentally didn’t involve dogs or manacles. The Physical Education teachers are adamant that principal Stewart, as well as the Dean, Robert Rauch, visited the simulation in its first days — all of this took place between a Monday and a Wednesday on February 4th, 5th, and 6th, of 2019 — and gave it a thumbs-up. Other teachers and even Stewart tweeted about it in approval, claiming the students were “100% engaged.” Those messages have since been deleted.
An amazing part of this story is how close it came to never happening. “We would have been fine not going cross-curricular,” one of the three Physical Education teachers told me. “We’d have been just fine doing our normal stuff.”
Much later, what happened in the district would be portrayed as a white backlash against teaching the “truth” about America’s past. Buzzfeed for instance would eventually describe the Loudoun controversy as an effort by “right-wing activists” to “ban lessons and conversations around race, racism, and slavery.” A Washington Post article described local citizens as being against “efforts to promote racial justice,” and blamed Donald Trump and his followers for seeing “hateful lies” in “teaching about slavery and racism.”
Yet the triggering incident in Loudoun clearly involved an overenthusiastic attempt to teach students about the Underground Railroad. Any progressive’s knee-jerk response to this story would involve aching to go back in time, Terminator-style, to quash thoughts of sticking “conversations about slavery” in a period normally reserved for volleyball and sack races. The issue wasn’t teachers trying to sabotage an antiracist lesson plan, but rather trying too hard to teach one. Even if you saw it as problematic, it was surely the opposite of not wanting to “teach about slavery and racism.”
What happened next followed the pattern after simulations in Carrolton, Ohio, in 1997 (“Living-History Lessons Resurrect Old Wounds”), or Atlanta in 2013 (“Parent Says Slavery Experiment at Camp Went Too Far”) or Chicago in 2018 (“Illinois School Made Black Students Pretend to Be Slaves”) or countless other places: things went wrong. The typical complaint involved a black student coming home with a tale about having been asked to role-play a slave in school, followed by said child’s parent going somewhat understandably ballistic (“That’s when the blood vessel kind of broke,” is how one Atlanta parent described hearing his daughter’s story).
The parents of one black child complained about the Brambleton simulation, and what followed was a perfect metaphor for so much of what’s wrong with modern American politics.
Continue reading over at Matt’s substack
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 19:20 - Peter Navarro Is Anthony Fauci's Worst Nightmare
Peter Navarro Is Anthony Fauci’s Worst Nightmare
Authored by John Dale Dunn via AmericasnThinker,com,
In Trump Time: A Journal of America’s Plague Year
by Peter Navarro, Ph.D.
326 pages, hardcover $22.99, Kindle $2.99
ISBN-13: 978-1737478508
All Seasons Press, 2021
Peter Navarro is uniquely qualified to provide an insider’s account of the 2020 events that circumscribe the COVID crisis. He was a senior adviser to President Trump during the campaign and through Trump’s term in office on economic matters as assistant to the president and the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Dr. Navarro graduated from Tufts, then got an MBA in Public Administration and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard.
Dr. Navarro has published more than a dozen books on economic and foreign policy. His China trilogy — The Coming China Wars (2006), Death by China (2011), and Crouching Tiger (2015) — established him as one of the leading scholars and experts on Communist China and its war of economic aggression against America. Trump engaged him as an expert on the China threat, so he was a close aid and adviser on matters of import.
“Trump Time” alludes to Trump’s energy and effort and intolerance of delays. Navarro gives plenty of examples of projects done in Trump Time in this book — projects that made a difference and were expedited.
After the COVID attack from Wuhan, Dr. Navarro became Defense Production Act policy coordinator in the Trump administration, sitting in on all the key committees. His insights and commentary are lucid, compelling, and insightful. He is also candid about who was and wasn’t a problem during the COVID crisis year of 2020. His book is a rock-and-roll narrative and exposes Anthony Fauci as an audacious, mendacious, sociopathic dissembler — a malefactor who did “more damage to this nation, President Trump and the world than anyone else this side of the Bat Lady of Wuhan.” That’s just a little bit of the benefit of reading the book: since Navarro was with the president from the beginning, he gives a reader a sense of the problems confronted by the Trump administration, which attempted to recruit reliable supporters of the policy positions but got traitors instead and worse: weaklings, leakers, and saboteurs.
From the beginning, the closet NeverTrumps, the RINOs, the globalists, and the Deep State people from the Republican side were often worse enemies than hair-on-fire leftist Democrats. The result was musical chairs of national security key players but also policymakers and agency key people that repeatedly scuttled Trump’s plans and bragged to their friends about it. Navarro was a loyal player, and he recounts the events and players who made things worse.
Navarro asserts that Fauci was responsible for the Wuhan lab production of COVID-19, but the lying Fauci doesn’t get off with just that impressive act of malfeasance. Navarro accuses Fauci of withholding information early, when he knew the nature of the Wuhan lab bioweapons project, financed by his agency by means of a middleman.
Navarro first saw Fauci in the Situation Room on Jan. 27, 2020. Soon they were in a heated argument over whether to ban travel to and from China. Days earlier, Fauci had said the Wuhan virus was “a very, very low risk.” In the Situation Room, he “echoed that sentiment.”
“I’ve studied travel restrictions many, many times and [they] don’t work,” said Fauci.
In the end, Navarro prevailed to our benefit as Americans. Trump imposed the travel ban on Jan. 31, and Australia and New Zealand followed suit. The tale of 2020 is a repeating story of Fauci malfeasance, and Navarro reports the details.
Navarro’s book is an insider’s tale, with all sorts of goodies for political junkies. Navarro is not shy about exposing jerks, incompetents, weaklings, and betrayers on both sides of the aisle and in and out of the White House. I found his story entertaining and enlightening — he revealed people I previously thought well of as deceitful dissemblers.
Read the book to learn more about Fauci and the treachery of the Deep State.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 18:55 - Global Coal Power Demand On Track For Record As Green Energy Transition Crumbles
Global Coal Power Demand On Track For Record As Green Energy Transition Crumbles
There’s no question that the ‘greenification’ of the global economy has returned many industrial countries to coal in 2021. New data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that the amount of electricity generated worldwide from coal is on track to hit a record high.
IEA’s Coal 2021 report says global power generation from coal soared 9% in 2021 to an all-time high of 10,350 terawatt-hours. The rebound comes amid a rash of green policies and stupid political choices, such as decommissioning oil and gas-fired power plants and fossil fuel exploitation projects, ironically resulting in an energy crisis worldwide.
“The rebound is being driven by this year’s rapid economic recovery, which has pushed up electricity demand much faster than low-carbon supplies can keep up,” IEA said. Also, the dramatic rise in natural gas prices forced power plants to source coal as a cheaper alternative.
Overall coal demand, including energy-intensive industries such as cement and steel, is expected to increase 6% this year. Though it shouldn’t surpass the record consumption levels of 2013/2014, IEA said. It added coal demand could hit a new record high in 2022.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the increase was “a worrying sign of how far off track the world is in its efforts to put emissions into decline towards net zero.”
The IEA said that China is responsible for half of the coal-fired power generation worldwide and will increase by 9% year-on-year increase.
“The pledges to reach net zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, should have very strong implications for coal – but these are not yet visible in our near-term forecast, reflecting the major gap between ambitions and action,” said Keisuke Sadamori, Director of Energy Markets and Security at the IEA.
We’ve discussed in-depth the transformation taking place in the energy sector where the recent ESG mania has deprived legacy fossil-fuel companies of much-needed capital (not just growth CAPEX but also maintenance), which has instead flown to “virtue-signaling” green projects that have been unreliable power sources (such as UK wind).
The biggest irony is that we’re in a world deprived of fossil fuels where a green energy transition is not feasible in this decade. It’ll take about $100 and $150 trillion to complete the green energy transition over the next three decades.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 18:30 - Some News
Some News
Several years ago, a process which started shortly after the 2016 presidential election which was lost by the left-leaning mainstream media’s preferred candidate, and culminated with our January 2020 story about the controversial origin of covid virus which was frowned upon by the same China-leaning mainstream media (a story which we later learned made its way all the way to Anthony Fauci‘s email inbox the day of our unexpected suspension on twitter for six months due to an “error“), Zero Hedge started facing mounting demonetization pressure from the biggest ad companies – those who keep sites such as this one alive – which culminated with our temporary suspension by advertising supergiant Google. It then became clear to us that our traditional model of funding – selling ad space – was in jeopardy.
To be sure, we were not alone: countless independent, free-thinking and non-conformist websites have faced a similar demonetization squeeze by the mainstream media, by Silicon Valley ad giants and by their various proxies, intermediaries, and cronies, who contrary to their virtue-signaling and hollow platitudes, detest a world where free speech still exists and where they don’t have full control over the narrative.
So it was about a year ago that we decided to respond to this creeping suffocation, and begin a process of disintermediating ourselves from the legacy media loop where small, enterprising media companies are never truly independent as long as they have to cater to the increasingly activist whims of their advertising agents and if they dare to cover certain taboo topics, they risk losing most if not all revenue.
We did this by offering a premium product offering, one which removed all ads for paying subscribers, which offered exclusive access to content from our fantastic partners and Wall Street veterans, The Market Ear (their content is a boon to all time-pressed finance professionals who need some visual inspiration across any and all markets), which gave subs an audio feed to all market-breaking news thanks to Newsquawk’s trading desk squawk, and which offered a moderation-free comment section, a rarity in this day where every online utterance is scrubbed and filtered.
Of course, we know too well – as do our readers – that the rollout of this premium offering which coincided with a major overhaul of the website was anything but glitch-free to put it mildly, and we apologize for that. As regular readers know we are a small, self-funded group with no outside capital or funding, and without an army of tech support wizards even simple tasks can be challenging.
And so, as a small token of appreciation to all our readers over the years, we are giving everyone access to our premium section for the next few days so you can evaluate at your leisure if becoming a subscriber is right for you.
Meanwhile, as a quick update on where our existing efforts to become fully independent stand, we have been overjoyed with the response as thousands of users have signed up in the past year to our premium service (as well as professional service, which in addition to all the premium offerings also gives access to all the latest hedge fund letters and select market-moving Wall Street research, as well as a vast archive of historical reports). That said, in the past year we have also seen continued pressure from more ad companies, as several large names decided to blacklist us for the simple reason that they do not believe we should enjoy the benefits of Constitutionally protected free speech.
As such, with legacy revenues being frozen, we appeal to those readers who are on the fence about contributing financially to this website to give us a chance and to sign up: we are confident that it will provide enough value to make it worth the price, and if it isn’t, let us know what you’d like fixed, changed or added – like everything else, this is a learning process. We do, however, know one thing – without your help, this website will not survive over the long run, especially with huge financial and political events looming in 2022 and certainly 2024, where all independent voices will be censored and snuffed.
So with all that said, please go to the premium website, read The Market Ear blog, listen to the real-time market news and analysis, observe the Spot Gamma widget showing how market gamma changes in real time, have free access to all premium articles and much more. If you like it, we hope you subscribe – if this website is to survive and thrive, it will only be thanks to your help.
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It has been a crazy year, and we wish all of our readers happy and relaxing holidays – recharge ahead of the coming year because 2022 will be insane.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 18:08 - Around The World
Around The World
In this month’s edition of Around the World with Academy Securities, our Geopolitical Intelligence Group (GIG) focuses on providing their perspective on the following geopolitical risks and potential surprises for 2022:
1. Will Russia Invade Ukraine in 2022?
2. Will there be a China | Taiwan Conflict in 2022?
3. Potential for Military Action against Iran in 2022.
4. Risk of a Major Cyber Attack in 2022.
In this report, we examine the potential geopolitical surprises/risks that we could see in 2022. We open with the high likelihood of a Russian incursion into Ukraine next year. Next, we review the tension between China and Taiwan and conclude that while an invasion in 2022 is unlikely, the risks grow over the next 3-5 years. We also revisit the Iranian nuclear discussions and while a return to the old JCPOA is unlikely, the chance of a U.S. attack on Iran is low next year. However, Israeli covert activities will continue against Iran’s nuclear facilities and there is a risk of a military strike if Iran gets close to a nuclear breakout. Finally, considering the high-profile ransomware attacks that occurred in 2021, we review the chances of a more significant cyber-attack on critical infrastructure in 2022. In addition to these areas, other risks our GIG sees in 2022 include the growth of Chinese influence in Central/South America (including in Nicaragua where the government there just flipped from supporting Taiwan to China) and a possible shift of support from Taiwan to China in Honduras as well. While the U.S. stands ready to “surge” economic aide to Honduras to encourage the new government there to maintain its ties with Taiwan, the fact that China is moving into the Western hemisphere and courting countries for support is concerning. Our GIG is also worried that the withdrawal from Afghanistan and a “fractured” NATO alliance could embolden our adversaries to act against U.S interests globally in 2022.
Front and Center: Will Russia Invade Ukraine in 2022?
In our last ATW and recent SITREP, we addressed the recent buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. Currently, there are ~100k troops near the Ukrainian border and the concern is that Putin could be in a position to invade by January 2022. While U.S. intelligence does not believe that Putin has made a final decision on whether to invade Ukraine, preparations are being made, including moving more Russian troops to the border and establishing the supply lines that could support a larger incursion into the country. In the December 7th virtual summit with President Putin, President Biden made it clear that there would be severe economic consequences if Russia were to move forward with an invasion. While it would require getting Germany to agree, there is a high likelihood that the Nord Stream 2 would not be granted final approvals if an invasion were to occur. With the high price of energy and a frigid winter heading to Europe, this would have both political and economic implications. In addition, the G7 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S.) came out on December 13th with a statement that read, “Any use of force to change borders is strictly prohibited under international law…Russia should be in no doubt that further military aggression against Ukraine would have massive consequences and severe costs in response.”
\While a move into Ukraine would come at a high cost, the fact that Ukraine appears to be moving away from Russia and closer to the West could be worth the risk for Putin. While not a NATO member, the U.S. has shown its support for Ukrainian independence and has supplied Ukraine with $2.5b in military support, including Javelin anti-tank systems. Putin views the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago as the largest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century. Putin is worried that the positioning of NATO missiles (pointed at Russia) in Ukraine could be an option one day and he will do everything in his power to convince the West that he is capable of mounting an invasion to bring Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence. To ease tensions, President Biden has been trying to organize a meeting including a few key European NATO members with Putin directly. This offer has angered some of the Eastern European NATO allies (i.e., the Baltic states). This concerns them because not only do these countries’ leaders feel that Russia should not have a say on who is included in NATO, but they also believe that Putin will use this meeting to further drive a wedge in between the West/East members of NATO. Putin has already demanded that NATO rescind the offer made in 2008 to include Ukraine and Georgia in the alliance at some point and that NATO should agree not to hold military exercises/deploy military forces to countries that border Russia. Our GIG will continue to closely monitor the situation, but chances are high that Putin takes advantage of a fractured NATO and executes a military incursion into Ukraine.
In 2022, our GIG believes that there is a high chance of a Russian incursion into Ukraine after certain conditions are met and preparations are complete.
“Russia has already taken parts of the Donbass region and Crimea from Ukraine. Putin wants all the previous Soviet Bloc countries back under his control. Ukraine is his biggest prize. He remains focused on intimidation, coercion, and influence operations to weaken and overthrow the Zelensky government. His approach is aimed at targeting Ukraine itself, NATO, and the EU. Expect him to continue to push on these doors and see how far he can get. I don’t see a cross-border invasion until a series of influence operations by Russia show weakness by the West. He is on that path.” – General Robert Walsh
“If we define “advance” as some number of Russian troops crossing the internationally recognized border between Ukraine and Russia, I’d say that the chances are high (with a moderate chance of a full-scale invasion in 2022). However, Russians in general absolutely hate to lose face in public. So, until someone comes up with a way for Putin to withdraw his troops from the border without losing face, the troops will remain there, and the threat of invasion will remain high.” – Captain Wendy Lawrence
“Russia will continue to increase gray zone activity in Ukraine to set the conditions for Russia/Russian citizens to look like the victim and then take action to secure a portion of Ukraine, much like they did with Crimea.” – General KK Chinn
“In 2022, there is more than a 50% chance (of invasion) as there is little downside from Putin’s perspective. The way this is developing is that Russia is testing the West (probing for weaknesses) and may attack if an opportunity presents itself. At the same time, Russian authorities understand that any attempt to occupy Ukrainian territory would face widespread public opposition and trigger sweeping western sanctions that could batter the Russian economy. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan may embolden Putin. The situation is complicated by the fact that Ukraine is a former part of the Soviet Union and it is not a member of NATO, and therefore the U.S. has no formal defense treaty obligations with Ukraine. However, it’s important to note that the U.S. and Ukraine did sign a strategic defense framework this past August that reiterates the DoD’s continued support for Ukraine’s right to decide its own foreign policy, free from outside interference, including Ukraine’s NATO aspirations.
Right now, we really don’t know if the Russian troop buildup is a warning to NATO to back down or an actual buildup to launch an invasion. Putin is an expert at brinkmanship. His economy is not big enough to gain influence on the world stage so he’s using his military strength to wield power. That’s why you see pressure growing in the West to deter Putin from taking any aggressive action. He will push the EU and U.S. right up to the brink and then may blink or press into Ukraine. I think he just may push into Ukraine using tactics that are confusing and less than a conventional invasion, but none the less, Putin will use Russian forces on Ukrainian soil.” – General David Deptula
Will there be a China | Taiwan Conflict in 2022?
As we discussed in our previous ATW, President Biden met virtually with President Xi and discussed a wide range of topics including Taiwan, cyber, human rights, trade, Iran, and nuclear weapons. The goal of the meeting was to keep the lines of communication open and prevent a military accident that could quickly escalate. Dozens of incursions into the Taiwanese Air Defense Identification Zone this year have caused tensions to rise between China and Taiwan and even resulted in U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin calling these incursions “rehearsals” of China’s future intentions. With the U.S. shoring up its partnerships in the region, including the “Quad” and the nuclear submarine deal with Australia and the UK, China is feeling the pressure. While the risk of a nearterm crisis over Taiwan is slim with the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, China continues to speak out against what it perceives as the U.S. overstepping its boundaries. The U.S. inviting Taiwan to the December 9th Summit for Democracy and diplomatically boycotting the Winter Games over human rights concerns have further enflamed the tension.
China’s Xi believes that a unification with Taiwan must be “fulfilled,” and China’s military capabilities have grown over the past few years. The August 2021 Chinese test of a hypersonic missile, their development of the DF-21D medium range ballistic anti-ship missile, and their desire to drastically expand their nuclear capabilities have demonstrated that China’s military is not anywhere near the same force that quickly backed down during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. China has also expanded their reach into the South China Sea in “plain sight”. Making the situation even more complicated, Chinese and Russian joint naval exercises were conducted in October of this year.
These actions reinforced the concern that U.S. adversaries will continue to engage with one another as they see a growing threat from U.S. partnerships in the region. In addition, during a virtual meeting between Xi and Putin on December 14th, regarding the situation on the Ukrainian border, Xi supported Putin’s request for security guarantees from the West.
In 2022, our GIG sees a low chance of a Chinese move on Taiwan, but the risk rises significantly by 2025. However, there is a moderate/high risk of an incident involving China and one of our allies/partners in the region next year.
“In the South China Sea, China’s military is itching to demonstrate their newly developed military capabilities. However, they will not go to war in the near-term until they feel that they have a “full domination” capability which will take years to develop. Expect small and more serious confrontational events to occur where China begins to intimidate and confront the Quad countries and their partners like we are already seeing with the Philippian Navy and Marine Corps. With respect to Taiwan, I don’t see this occurring in 2022 with the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese Communist Party holding its 20th National Party Congress. The intimidation campaign will continue to keep pushing on Taiwan to weaken their resolve along with their regional partners’ willingness to come to their aid.” – General Robert Walsh
“It is not in the self-interest of China to invade Taiwan and be seen as the aggressor. China will continue to work gray zone activities to set conditions for them to be viewed as the victim of aggression and over time through the democratic process, slowly gain control of Taiwan by 2049. In the interim, it is important for the U.S./its allies and partners to remain united in confronting China. However, after the Olympics, there is a strong likelihood that there will be an incident that occurs between China and a member of the Quad/smaller nations in the region. China will continue to project their image as the dominant power player in the region and that they are the primary security provider in Asia. Look for rivals to acquiesce on territorial claims and China to project power to protect oil and natural resources within their nine-dash line.” – General KK Chinn
“It depends on the definition of “confrontation,” but the likelihood of ships and aircraft “playing chicken” with each other is high and I think that China will be the aggressor. With respect to Taiwan, I suspect what China is doing right now is more of a pressure campaign than an actual preparation for an invasion.” – Captain Wendy Lawrence
“Taiwan is an emotional issue for the PRC. If they were smart, they would back off today and take the long view. Within the next 100-200 years, Taiwan will assimilate into the PRC. However, the PRC sees the U.S. as unlikely to respond, and even if the U.S. does, the PRC feels that they will be able to defeat them, especially if they wait 2-3 years. They know that the U.S. has plans to recapitalize and grow their forces to meet the challenges that the PRC presents, but not until the early 2030s, so they may be willing to apply maximum pressure (to include military action) against Taiwan before 2030. How the U.S. works with the Quad could be key and a form of “containment” of the PRC and may be effective if orchestrated correctly.” – General David Deptula
“Every century there has been a different leading state: U.S. (20th century), Britain (19th), France (18th), Netherlands (17th), Spain (16th). Who will it be in the 21st century? China’s 100-year plan/vision (1949-2049) ends with China being the dominant power in the world. Can the U.S. with its allies and partners unite the smaller and surrounding countries around China to choose sovereignty, freedom, democracy, and make the U.S. their primary security partner or will these countries choose their biggest trading partner (China)? Our strategic center of gravity is our allies and partners, and we need to leverage them to challenge both China and Russia with overwhelming threats in all domains to lend credence to conventional deterrence. Smaller countries matter because they have a vote in multilateral organizations like the UN. However, when under China’s control, they self-censure or support China’s action or get penalized economically. We must counter China’s political and economic influence by conducting strong messaging campaigns against China, reassuring allies that December 17, 2021 Around the World with Academy Securities 5 they can count on the U.S. as part of their larger national security strategy, which includes the deterrence umbrella, and that we will fulfill our long-term security commitments. The Arctic and Antarctica will become regions of great power competition between Russia, China, and the U.S. Both regions have the strong potential for oil and rare earth minerals that China will need in the future to fuel their growing economy. In Latin America in 2021, the leftist populist regimes (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, Argentina, Peru) leveraged or deepened relationships with China, Russia, Iran, and other U.S. rivals. There is a strong potential for this to continue in 2022 with the potential that Honduras, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil turn to China. The region is being enabled by money from our adversaries and we need to develop a strategy or risk losing the region. China flipped Nicaragua to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and we can expect Honduras to be next, leaving only Guatemala and Belize in Central America maintaining diplomatic ties with Taiwan. No surprise this was announced at the same time as the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy. The harsh reality is that countries have options today and U.S. influence has diminished significantly in the Central America region and there is the risk that El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and potentially Honduras could support China in the near future.” – General KK Chinn
Potential for Military Action against Iran in 2022
n our October ATW and our most recent webinar, we discussed the likelihood of re-entering a nuclear deal with Iran. On December 4th, the talks adjourned allowing representatives from the parties involved, including Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany to brief their respective governments. However, there was little optimism in a deal being reached. This development was not surprising as the new hard line chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani, believes the previous deal went too far in restricting Iran’s nuclear program and wants all sanctions to be removed and for the U.S. to agree not to leave the deal again.
The state of the negotiations has deteriorated to the point that it is frustrating all parties involved, including China and Russia. Earlier this year, China signed a 25-year economic agreement with Iran and continues to buy Iranian oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions. China took a larger role in the negotiations in Vienna, which means that a breakthrough is possible, or the discussions are close to falling apart. China can use their leverage to their advantage, especially when it comes to other issues of tension with the U.S. However, if these talks do fail, besides sanctions targeting the oil sales to China, covert operations (led by Israel) will likely continue in Iran utilizing the vast network its intelligence service has built. Israel used its network to execute attacks on the nuclear facility at Natanz that not only damaged the buildings in the complex, but also the centrifuge systems. In addition, the Israelis have been conducting joint training exercises with the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet as well as with the UAE and Bahrain.
Our GIG believes there is a low/moderate chance of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2022, but only after all available diplomatic means have been exhausted and Iran is close to a nuclear breakout, which would force Israel to take military action.
“The JCPOA is DOA (i.e., not going to happen). However, the U.S. will take no action against Iran during a Biden administration because they have no stomach for it. Biden’s entire national security team is not interested in poking the Iranian beehive. To Israel however, Iran’s nuclear threat is real and they will take whatever action is necessary to nip it in the bud. Israel’s F-35s will be key in any military action along with cyber and Special Operations Forces.” – General David Deptula
“There will be a miscalculation by Iran/Iranian proxies at some point in 2022 that will lead to the U.S. conducting military action against Iran. Israel will never allow Iran to develop into a nuclear capable country and will do whatever is necessary to stop Iran from attaining the capability through either covert or overt action.” – General KK Chinn
“With respect to Israel, (an attack on Iran) is less likely now that Netanyahu is no longer in charge. But like Russia under Putin, it seems to me that Israel doesn’t really care what the rest of the world thinks, especially when it comes to what the country perceives as self-preservation. If Iran attacks U.S. troops or assets, the U.S. will respond. If Iran doesn’t instigate, then there is a low probability of U.S. action. Regarding the JCPOA, Iran will drag out negotiations, but I think something will get done by the end of the year.” – Captain Wendy Lawrence
“I don’t see an attack by the U.S. on Iran happening in 2022. Also, the U.S. initiated JCPOA negotiations will force Israel to back off their own desire to attack Iran. Israel still respects the Biden administration enough to not act unilaterally. Biden is putting his reputation on the line to solve the nuclear weapons problem diplomatically through the JCPOA negotiations and the strategy he set during his election campaign. The Biden administration wants the JCPOA too much to let details get in the way. They will move throughout 2022 towards a renewed agreement even if they must concede leverage and concessions to Iran. This same negotiating group in the Biden administration negotiated the original agreement during the Obama administration and they are determined to get back to their original plan and reverse the Trump administration’s actions.” – General Robert Walsh
Risk of a Major Cyber Attack in 2022
As we reported in our July and May ATWs, a cyber-attack on U.S. critical infrastructure orchestrated by a criminal group/state sponsor came to fruition in 2021. In May, a ransomware attack by a Russian criminal gang called Darkside took down the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline which supplies 45% of the East Coast’s fuel. While Putin denied supporting the attack, the event highlighted the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure. In July, the Biden administration (and European allies) took the significant step of accusing China of the massive hack of the Microsoft Exchange email system. This email system is used by some of the world’s largest companies, including many defense firms.
Cyber-attacks have become a global threat to critical infrastructure and in December, Israel led a 10-country exercise (including U.S., UK, United Arab Emirates, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Thailand, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank) that tried to increase cooperation between different entities in protecting the global financial system. In addition, the U.S. Cyber Command/NSA led by Gen. Paul M. Nakasone is getting more involved in gathering intelligence and “imposing costs” on entities tied to ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure.
Our GIG believes there is a moderate/high risk of a cyber-attack on U.S. critical infrastructure in 2022 and that probability increases in the event of a military conflict.
“There is a chance of a significant attack, but a critical cyber-attack against U.S. infrastructure will most likely be held as part of the initiation of, or along with, a major conflict somewhere else to distract and degrade a U.S. response. For example, a PRC move against Taiwan in the mid-2020s.” – General David Deptula
“There is a small chance of an attack across the U.S. in an integrated fashion to deny or disrupt critical infrastructure that has regional or national strategic effects. However, there is a 50% chance we could see another Colonial Pipeline ransomware type attack that is more focused on individual companies for monetary gain.” – General Robert Walsh
“If you think about it, how far away are we from digital risk leading to physical casualties in the future – hospitals, etc. There will be attacks and in a perfect world we will be able to defend against them so it will not cause a massive financial upheaval in the markets.” – General KK Chinn
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 18:05 - China To Tighten Regulations On FinTech Brokers
China To Tighten Regulations On FinTech Brokers
Futu Holdings Ltd and UP Fintech Holding Ltd plunged premarket Friday after a Reuters report said Chinese regulators are preparing to crack down on the digital brokerage companies.
Reuters said the brokerages would likely be notified of a platform ban, blocking mainland China customers from investing in foreign markets in “the coming months.” Regulators are worried about data security risks to mainland customers who have to enter their ID cards, bank cards, and tax records to use the platforms. They’re also concerned about capital outflows.
The Nasdaq-listed Chinese brokerages were down considerably in the premarket hours. Futu is down more than 9% and Up Fintech -12%.
In October, state-run media People’s Daily said these brokerages collect large amounts of personal data were at risk of being acquired by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Futu responded to the Reuters report by calling it “media speculations” about future policies damaging its business.
“The company has been operating steadily and will continue to serve existing and new clients,” Futu said. The company added that it’s complying with regulators and said it’s aware individuals and institutions have been spreading “fake news” to profit from “short-selling” the stock.
Beijing’s years-long crackdown on technology companies has halved the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index. Deteriorating Sino-US relations has also pressured the index lower.
While Reuters reports an imminent crackdown, the online brokerages have said they haven’t received any notice from Chinese regulators that may harm their business.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 17:40 - A Screaming Dislocation – "We Must Raise Cash" On Any Rally From Here
A Screaming Dislocation – “We Must Raise Cash” On Any Rally From Here
Excerpted from Larry McDonald’s Bear Traps Report,
A Colossal Rotation Has Begun… Into Value
As we can see below, Value has been out-performing Growth for more than 16 months on an equal-weight basis. It is the highest compliment when the Street picks up on an investment thesis months after we started to walk down this trail.
This week – Goldman Sachs and Bank of America focused on the carnage inside long duration (Nasdaq) equities. Goldman´s Tony Pasquariello noted:
“a screaming dislocation has emerged between long-duration equities (which have been falling apart – ARK Names, Software, long duration cash flows) and long duration itself (the yield on the 30 year long bond is near YTD lows). Elements of capitulation are starting to accumulate and there are clear footprints of major risk reduction.”
We have seen two 80% + surges in the VIX since September 1, immense volume on intraday selloffs punctuated with a string of MOC sell imbalances.
Pasquariello notes Goldman´s PB (prime broker) data reveals the largest net selling over any 10-day period since April of 2020. Likewise – insider selling looks to be 2 standard deviations greater than any quarter looking back over the last 6 years. In November, insiders unloaded a collective $15.59 billion – an all-time record).
Furthermore – Private Equity insiders – the best sellers on earth – are unloading stock in size. Over the last two quarters, PE deals and exits have been completed deals at their highest levels relative to trends in at least the last 20 years.
Although the current torrid pace is unsustainable, the bulls claim near-record-high dry powder and corporate cash balances and a red-hot IPO market—as well as an ample and cheap supply of debt financing—highlight a supportive backdrop for completing PE deals and exits (even with a Fed singing the 3-rate hike tune for 2022). Interesting with all the upside still left of the table – insiders are selling PE equity with both hands with the famous names leading the way.
This is so reminiscent of the summer of 2007; at Lehman – the talk of the trading desk was private equity players exiting not only their longs but their personal equity holdings. This is a screaming sell signal. In the vol space, implied-realized spreads approached all-time wides with put-call skew was very stressed and UX2 (front month VIX futures) recently traded at a premium to UX8. Bulls say, there have been nine times in market history when S&P was down in November, but still up > 10% YTD on the follow, and December was positive all nine times, for an average gain of 4.3%. They also note – US nominal GDP growth in Q4 will likely be north of 13% – backward looking indeed. After three years where the S&P has averaged a 25% net return, one should lower their expectations of the REAL returns that asset markets can generate on a going forward basis. Just four stocks in S&P 500 account for around 1/3 of total returns this year (MSFT, AAPL, NVDA and GOOGL).
In fact, over the past six months, their attribution is approaching around 70%. This further reveals the fact that a lot of the market – as a whole – peaked in Q1 and never looked back (CLOU Software,TAN Solar, XBI Biotech, ARK, etc).
We have seen VERY consistent deterioration, month after month further contagion – one more victim after the next with the FAANGMT starting to take some pain (TSLA and FB 20% drawdowns). Use year-end market rips as priceless opportunities to SELL top heavy indexes (QQQs, SPY) and accumulate value plays. With the HIGHEST Conviction, this is the trade for the first half of 2022. Long INTC, T, KWEB, MSOS, XLE, RIO XME, EWU, XBI, IMPUY, GDX vs. Short or Underweight Large Cap – obnoxiously crowded – growth. If the market moves higher, this will just give Fed Chair Powell further confidence to threaten MORE aggressive accommodation withdrawal.
We MUST raise CASH on any market rally moving forward – the risk – reward for the Major Indexes is as poor as we have ever seen it.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 17:15 - NFL Touts Chinese Propaganda, Publishes Map Claiming Taiwan Belongs To China
NFL Touts Chinese Propaganda, Publishes Map Claiming Taiwan Belongs To China
The National Football League (NFL) appears to have caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party, publishing on Wednesday a map that showed Taiwan belonging to China.
The map was published as part of the NFL’s announcement that “18 teams have been granted access to 26 International Home Marketing Areas (IHMA) across eight different countries.”
Among the countries listed is China, which includes Taiwan, according to the league’s map.
.@NFL Announces International Home Marketing Area Teams and Markets
For more information, click here: https://t.co/ooPlFa3XKX pic.twitter.com/NvSU0wBVix
— NFL345 (@NFL345) December 15, 2021
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“NFL fandom begins with our clubs,” Christopher Halpin, NFL Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, said in a statement. “This important initiative enables NFL teams to develop meaningful, direct relationships with NFL fans abroad, driving fan growth and avidity globally. We were very pleased with the number, creativity and level of commitment of club proposals across the board in this initial application period and look forward to teams launching their efforts early next year.”
Joel Glazer, Tampa Bay Buccaneers Owner/Co-Chairman and NFL International Committee Chairman called the announcement “a significant milestone in our efforts to broaden the NFL’s global reach by building long-term relationships with these international markets that will play a large role in the continued growth and expansion of our sport for years to come.”
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, but the island governs itself as a nation independent from Chinese rule. The NFL’s disregard for Taiwan’s independence sparked backlash on social media.
“The NFL, which is chasing dollars from the Chinese Communist Party, shows Taiwan as part of China,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted. “Disgraceful cowardice.”
The NFL, which is chasing dollars from the Chinese Communist Party, shows Taiwan as part of China. Disgraceful cowardice. https://t.co/EsDkUwJ3Dj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 16, 2021
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Author Dinesh D’Souza tweeted, “NFL simps for communist China by erasing Taiwan from world map.”
NFL simps for communist China by erasing Taiwan from world maphttps://t.co/zzCRzuz6AE
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) December 16, 2021
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Conservative political commentator Stephen L. Miller wrote, “Maybe the NFL should cease weighing in on social issues until it figures out why giving the LA Rams both China and Australia was a hilariously naive move.”
Maybe the NFL should cease weighing in on social issues until it figures out why giving the LA Rams both China and Australia was a hilariously naive move. https://t.co/MICYiWbRjM
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 15, 2021
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“I would love to hear how the NFL is planning (if at all) to deal with the free speech challenges that will inevitably develop here,” free speech advocate Sarah McLaughlin tweeted. “Their initial response to these issues in the U.S. was bad enough; what can we expect if they get their own NBA/China-type controversy?”
I would love to hear how the NFL is planning (if at all) to deal with the free speech challenges that will inevitably develop here. Their initial response to these issues in the U.S. was bad enough; what can we expect if they get their own NBA/China-type controversy? https://t.co/vjGIDVQJI5
— Sarah McLaughlin (@sarahemclaugh) December 15, 2021
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Last week, Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang’s video feed was cut during a presentation at President Joe Biden’s virtual Summit For Democracy after she showed a map displaying Taiwan as a different color than the Chinese mainland.
China has ramped up aggression towards the independent island nation of Taiwan in recent months, including by flying near daily military flights around the island. In just one day in November, China flew 27 warplanes around Taiwan, prompting the island to deploy fighter jets, activate its missile defenses and issue radio warnings for the communist nation to leave.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/17/2021 – 16:50
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