Jun 18

Today’s News 18th June 2024

  • Live Fire Incident: Casualties Reported After North Korean Soldiers Cross Military Demarcation Line
    Live Fire Incident: Casualties Reported After North Korean Soldiers Cross Military Demarcation Line

    Something big is happening on the heavily militarized Korean border, following several days of soaring tensions which has included North Korea flying hundreds of trash and feces-filled balloons into the south.

    There are several reports of dozens of North Korean soldiers having briefly crossed the border, and soon retreating, after warning shots were fired by South Korean border troops, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

    Per Reuters, citing Yonhap at about 11:00am local time: “South Korea’s military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the Military Demarcation Line near the border, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday citing the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

    South Korean Marines patrol days ago amid heightened tensions, AP/Yonhap/

    A Yonhap wire has further said “Korea military suffers ‘multiple casualties’ in landmine explosion near border.”

    While details of exactly what is happening are still emerging, this comes one week after a live fire incident occurred along the border. Last Tuesday, South Korean border forces fired warning shots after troops on the other side ‘accidentally’ crossed the border in the south. 

    Here is what happened exactly one week ago:

    “There were no unusual movements other than the North Korean army immediately moving north after our warning shots,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, Col. Lee Sung-jun, told a briefing.

    He generally downplayed the incident which happened Sunday, and suggested there was no indication the enemy troops were seeking to invade territory.

    “The South Korean military is closely monitoring the movements of the North Korean military and taking necessary measures.”

    If casualties among DPRK troops are confirmed, this could be the start of a major live fire incident between the two historic enemies, also as Kim Jong-Un has been warning he could restart nuclear tests.

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    US state-funded Stripes reported yesterday:

    North Korean troops have been observed creating anti-tank barriers, reinforcing roads and carrying out other military projects within the Demilitarized Zone, according to the South’s military on Monday. South Korean intelligence agencies spotted the improvements near the border in recent days, army Col. Lee Seong-jun, a spokesman for the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference Monday.

    Lee declined to elaborate on the North’s activities at the border and said the South’s military was still analyzing its operations. North Korean troops were also observed building walls and roads between the Military Demarcation Line — the actual border between the two Koreas — and the Demilitarized Zone, an unidentified military source said in a Yonhap News report Saturday. The 2½-mile-wide DMZ spans 150 miles across the Korean Peninsula from coast to coast.

    Nuclear saber-rattling has been coming out of Pyongyang since last summer, when the US Navy parked a nuclear submarine in South Korea for the first time in years.

    South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense: North Korean inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula last year.

    Pyongyang has also reportedly deployed extra troops the border amid the escalating tit-for-tat.

    developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 23:00

  • Hot On The Campaign Fail: Secret Service Agent Robbed, WH Spox Mocked After Biden Propped
    Hot On The Campaign Fail: Secret Service Agent Robbed, WH Spox Mocked After Biden Propped

    This weekend wasn’t great for the Biden campaign – after a viral video showed the president ‘freezing’ on stage during a star-studded ‘weekend at Biden’s’ event in LA, and a Secret Service agent getting robbed at gunpoint that same night. Oh, and then Biden had a nursing home outburst at reporters. And to top it all off, Spox Karine Jean-Pierre wants us to believe recent videos of Biden are deepfakes.

    If we’re to start this out properly, on Thursday, Biden wandered off during a G7 flag ceremony when he was supposed to participate in a group photograph with a bunch of European leaders who just got their clocks cleaned in last week’s election.

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    On Friday, Biden did this to the pope:

    Then on Saturday, Biden froze up on stage during his own fundraiser, requiring an assist from former President Barack Obama.

    That same night a Secret Service agent was robbed at gunpoint in Tustin, California at roughly 9:30 local time, the Tustin PD reported on Monday.

    The agent was able to fire their weapon at the armed robbers, who made off with a bag belonging to the agent, police said.

    “A member of the U.S. Secret Service was the victim of an armed robbery in Tustin, California late Saturday when returning from a work assignment,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Post.

    “The employee discharged their service weapon during the incident but unknown if the assailants were struck,” he added. “We are thankful that the employee did not sustain any injuries.” –NY Post

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    Then on Monday, Biden had a complete nursing home outburst at a reporter.

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    In response to the Biden wandering video above, White House Spox Karine Jean Pierre suggested it was a deepfake.

    For which she was mocked:

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    Meanwhile left-wing influencers swear Biden wasn’t corralled off stage by Obama.

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:40

  • Israel's Arms Exports Hit Record Sales Amid Gaza War
    Israel’s Arms Exports Hit Record Sales Amid Gaza War

    Via Middle East Eye

    Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement on Monday that its arms exports for 2023 hit a record in sales, as Israel’s war in Gaza enters its ninth month and as the country’s military continues to be supplied with hundreds of millions of dollars in American weapons.

    The report by the defense ministry said that the total exports of Israeli arms reached $13.1bn in 2022, an increase of $500m from the previous year and double the amount of exports from five years ago. More than a third of the sales comprised missiles, rockets and air-defense systems, with one of the biggest contracts of 2023 being with Germany, which signed a deal to purchase the Arrow 3 long-range air defense system for around $4bn.

    A picture shows Israel’s Rafael stand at the Dubai Airshow in the Gulf emirate in 2021, AFP

    “While our industries are primarily focused on providing the defense establishment with the capabilities to support our troops and defend our citizens, they are also continuing to pursue areas of cooperation and exports to international partners,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.

    Roughly half, 48 percent, of all sales went to the Asia and Pacific region, while Europe accounted for 35 percent of sales, and North America accounted for nine percent.

    The figures were released by the defense ministry as a growing number of countries have begun to boycott or suspend the purchase of weaponry from Israel, citing the country’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians there.

    Colombia announced it would be pausing its purchases of Israeli arms, after its president, Gustavo Petro, called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

    In May, a French court banned Israeli companies from participating in an annual defense industry exhibition, with the country’s defense ministry saying the move was likely linked to Paris’ objection to an Israeli assault on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where more than a million Palestinians had fled to in order to escape Israeli bombardment.

    Prioritizing international market despite war at home

    Bloomberg reported that some of Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturers were asked in the early weeks of Israel’s war in Gaza to prioritize supplies to Israel’s military. However, with the war still going on and there being no end in sight, these companies are focused on the international market.

    “If Rafael wants to be able to provide for Israel as well as stay ahead of the game in research and development, we need international markets, which are our only assurance for real growth,” Gideon Weiss, the company’s vice president for international business development, said in a statement given to Bloomberg.

    Israel’s began on October 7, when Palestinian militants led by Hamas broke out of Gaza and launched on attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 240 people captive. Israel responded with an immediate siege of Gaza, and launched an aerial bombardment campaign followed by a ground invasion. So far, Israel has reportedly killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

    Israel’s largest arms firm, Elbit Systems, has a base of operations in Kent, UK. Activists broke in and destroyed machinery and equipment…

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    The US has supported Israel’s war efforts, sending tens of thousands of weapons, including precise bombs and ammunition to help fill the military’s supply lines. Israel currently has around $23bn worth of active military contracts with the US.

    For years, the US has been Israel’s largest suppliers of weapons, making up for 69 percent of Israeli arms imports between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The US also provides Israel with $3.8bn in military assistance each year.

    Many of these recent arms transfers, given their size and individual cost, have also gone under the public radar, making it difficult to know the true extent of how many weapons the US has sent to Israel since October.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:20

  • Retail Sales To Beat Estimates According To Latest Card Spending Data
    Retail Sales To Beat Estimates According To Latest Card Spending Data

    Last month was the first time in about a year, when the Bank of America retail sales forecast – one derived from real-time debit and credit card spending and which is usually spot on and unerringly correct – was wrong, predicting a small beat when in fact the final number was a big miss, printing unchanged on consensus estimates of a 0.4% increase, with the control group unexpectedly contracting by a whopping 0.3%.

    So will tomorrow’s retail sales be two in a row when Bank of America’s cheerful forecast has been wrong? We doubt it: after all, as regular readers are aware the hit rate of BofA’s approach is remarkable.

    With that in mind, BofA reports that total card spending per household (HH), as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit cards, was up 0.7% year-over-year (y/y) in May, if down 0.9% month-over-month (m/m) in May on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis. This comes on the back of a 1.3% surge in BAC card spending per HH in April, and a 0.7% drop in March. The bank attributes these large fluctuations to the lingering effects of this year’s unusually early Easter weekend.

    As BofA economist Aditya Bhave writes, “seasonal distortions have impacted retail sales in four of the last five months. We economists don’t enjoy writing about them, but here we go again. BAC card spending tends to be particularly low on Easter Sunday, which is usually in April. However, this year it fell on March 31. It seems that our seasonal factors do not fully account for this shift. This lowered SA spending levels in March and boosted them for April. In turn, we think SA spending growth in May looks soft because of an unfavorable base effect.“

    In short another month where the underlying reality will be distorted by seasonal adjustments, and since it is unclear in what direction the Biden Census Bureau will seek to nudge the numbers, a prediction of tomorrow’s official print tomorrow could be a gamble.

    Still, that does not prevent BofA from making such a forecast, and writes that the Census Bureau’s seasonal factors appear to have leaned strongly the other way: retail sales were very strong in March and soft in April. As a result, the bank attempted to resolve the discrepancy between its own seasonal factors and those of the Census. This results in forecasts of 0.3% and 0.6% growth in retail sales ex-autos and the core control group (retail sales ex autos, gas, building materials and restaurants), respectively, in May.

    That would mean in-line core and headline prints, and a far stronger control group number, printing at double the forecast.

    There is another variable: the government’s retail sales data have been subject to significant revisions this year (as have all other data), both to the upside (in the March report) and the downside (in the January, February and April reports). The risk, BofA notes, “is that this trend will continue” (especially to the downside). Revisions to retail sales for prior months could impact the m/m growth rate for May, everything else being equal.

    One other observation from BofA: in 2019, card spending accelerated among Northeasterners around Memorial Day, but slowed among residents of other regions.

    By contrast there was no “Memorial Day bump” in any region last year.

    This year, Northeasterners raised their spending around Memorial Day again, although not to the same degree as in 2019.

    This may suggest that the region continues to regain its economic vibrancy. Meanwhile, residents of other regions saw less of a spending drop than in 2019.

    One final point: after enjoying a big jump from pre-covid levels to the post-covid reality (snapshot taken in May 2023), discretionary spending as a percentage of total is effectively unchanged in the past year.

    More in the full note available to pro subs in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 22:00

  • NYT Documents: Putin Was Willing To Compromise To End War In 2022
    NYT Documents: Putin Was Willing To Compromise To End War In 2022

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

    In April 2022, Ukraine and Russia were on the brink of signing a deal to end the war just weeks after it began. The New York Times published documents showing President Vladimir Putin was willing to make concessions to get an agreement signed.

    According to the documents, Putin initially sought to have Kiev recognize Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. However, a draft agreement from April 15, 2022, suggests both parties were prepared to set aside the issue to end the conflict. “Paragraph 1 of Article 2 and Articles 4, 5, and 11 of this Treaty shall not apply to Crimea and Sevastopol,” the document says.

    Swiss peace summit this past weekend, AFP

    In December, Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Chalyi explained that an agreement was reached in the spring of 2022, stating the two sides “managed to find a very real compromise. We were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April, to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.”

    Kiev was also willing to accept neutrality with regards to NATO, according to the NYT. Ukraine’s negotiation team proposed a peace deal that would say the country “does not join any military alliances” and “does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents.”

    The draft deal would have allowed Kiev to sign bilateral agreements with NATO states, as well as become a member of the European Union, but would have required Ukraine’s security partners to lift sanctions on Russia.

    The Kremlin also sought to protect the rights of millions of Russian speakers living in Ukraine by forcing Kiev to repeal restrictions on the Russian language, and to bar the state from erecting monuments glorifying neo-Nazis and WWII-era Nazi collaborators.

    As the talks were ongoing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was pushed by his Western backers to forgo diplomacy and attempt to forcibly expel Russian troops from his country. Then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an infamous trip to Kiev to pressure Zelensky to abandon any peace negotiations, while Washington repeatedly vowed to supply unlimited military aid.

    The NYT report added details about US pressure on Ukraine to ditch the talks. According to a senior American official familiar with the negotiations, Washington “quietly said, ‘You understand this is unilateral disarmament, right?’”

    Additionally, the NYT noted that Polish leaders believed the French and German governments might have endorsed the peace agreement and pushed Ukraine to accept it. During a meeting in late March 2022, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda pressured other NATO leaders not to allow Ukraine to sign the Russian proposal.

    Independent journalist Michael Tracey provides some further nuance in the following:

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    Some US officials cautioned Ukraine not to trust Russia and warned the talks were merely a military ploy. However, two out of three Ukrainian negotiators who spoke with the NYT believed the Russian proposal was genuine, and one explained Putin had “reduced his demands” over the course of the discussions.

    Ultimately, decision-makers in Kiev listened to their supporters in Warsaw, London, and Washington and elected to break off the negotiations. More than two years later, the conflict drags on, with Russian forces steadily advancing on major Ukrainian cities despite renewed Western military aid.

    On Friday, the Russian president extended a public peace offer to Ukraine that is similar to the one nearly agreed to in 2022. However, along with Kiev agreeing never to join NATO and the West lifting sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin is now demanding that Ukraine recognize Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea and four other Ukrainian oblasts that have been annexed by Russia throughout the two-and-a-half-year-long war.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:40

  • Israel Says It's On "Brink" Of Wider War With Hezbollah
    Israel Says It’s On “Brink” Of Wider War With Hezbollah

    There’s been obvious escalation for several weeks at the Israel-Lebanon border, as we’ve been documenting. But on Sunday Israel’s military issued one of the most dire alarms yet, saying it is on the brink of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

    “Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation,” the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, warned. “We are committed to the diplomatic process, however Hezbollah’s aggression is bringing us closer to a critical point in the decision-making regarding our military activities in Lebanon.”

    Anadolu/Getty Images: A plane tries to extinguish a fire after Hezbollah missile attacks on Safed city. 

    The statement was tailored largely in response to ongoing pressure from the Biden administration to avoid launching a bigger war at all costs.

    The White House has repeatedly warned that escalation in Lebanon would neither be good for Israel nor for the region, and would risk a broader major war with Iran. There is also widespread acknowledgement that Hezbollah, the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran, is much more powerful and better armed force than Hamas:

    “Hezbollah is the crown jewel in the Iranian empire of terror and evil and is by far the most powerful Iranian proxy, equipped with nation state capabilities and even more firepower than several European countries have today,” former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus told Fox News.

    “In a military comparison, Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas,” he added.

    Earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake.” He had added at a time when massive fires were spreading in the north due to constant Hezbollah drone and missile attacks, “We are prepared for very intense action in the north.”

    The past several days have seen hundreds more missiles and drones launched by Hezbollah onto northern Israeli bases and settlements.

    White House adviser Amos Hochstein has been meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem Monday to talk about the escalating crisis. The NY Times described the backdrop as follows: “Hezbollah’s attacks have gradually intensified, with the group using larger and more sophisticated weapons to strike more often and deeper beyond the border. Both sides have refrained from engaging in full-blown war, but the tension has increased in the past week.”

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    Below is an interesting perspective on what’s really happening from Middle East researcher and historian Ori Goldberg…

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    The Israeli military is the main force behind the public push towards a war with Lebanon. There are three reasons for this state of affairs. The first is the growing realization in the IDF that there will be no “victory” in Gaza. The “war” is an abysmal failure. …Israel convinced itself it could “eradicate” Hamas exclusively. Israel failed. Israelis don’t care about the death of Palestinian civilians.

    So the lack of “victory” necessitates an alternative form of ״redemption”. This, the IDF believes, can be found in a “real” war. It will be difficult and costly, they say, but it will provide a clear sense of achievement. That is how you snap out of an existential funk.

    The second reason for wanting war has to do with Israel’s strategic error – the decision to evacuate more than a 100000 civilians from our Northern border. They were evacuated under the false pretenses that Hizballah was about to invade and start a two-front war.

    The IDF is now stuck. The civilians were told there was an impending invasion. How will they return home? How will the IDF fulfill its most basic duty in its own perception- defending Israeli civilians? The IDF can recommend negotiations with Lebanon. Not really.

    The IDF does not believe in negotiations. It assumes Israel will, ultimately, have to go to war against Lebanon (remember, they all want to destroy us). The IDF can deploy more troops at the border to calm the civilians down. That is seen as expensive and impractical.

    War is the only “option” on the table. It is “inevitable” (to be clear, I think Israel will not start a war). It is the only “resolution”. The third reason the IDF wants war is because the Israeli political system is beginning to break down across the board.

    The citizens may agree with government policy (support for the genocide) but they don’t trust the government. The government itself is torn between settlers (pining for empire) and generals (focused on “military dominance), and is soing very little governing.

    PM Netanyahu never accepts responsibility for his actions. He is a world class outsourcer of blame. The IDF knows that Netanyahu will blame the military leadership for the only “mistake” Israelis care about- the very occurrence of the October 7th massacre.

    Nobody in Israel cares about the genocide. This is as astounding as it is true. Israeli want a scapegoat to “take responsibility” for what they perceive as the initial failure (no context or history preceding the massacre). Netanyahu wants to indict the military brass.

    A war in Lebanon will vindicate the military there as well. As Israel implodes, they will be able to present a success. Lessons will have been learned and “order” restored. This is Israel now, so consumed with itself it thinks nothing of consuming everyone else.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:20

  • How Trump Wins The Debate – And The Election
    How Trump Wins The Debate – And The Election

    Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics,

    It’s the demeanor, stupid.

    The public already overwhelmingly supports Donald Trump on the issues. But what many of them worry about is his demeanor. In other words, does he “act presidential”?

    So, on June 27, when Trump joins President Joe Biden on CNN for the earliest general election presidential debate in U.S. history, it’s not going to matter what the former president says so much as how he says it.

    Think of it as the equivalent of a medieval knight running the gauntlet. Every question from pro-Democrat moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash and every taunting response from President Biden about threats to democracy will be an opportunity for Trump to lose his temper or to alienate moderate voters with intemperate replies.

    But if Trump keeps his cool in hostile territory – and CNN is definitely hostile –  he will pick up invaluable points in the “seems more presidential” surveys that will certainly follow. The demeanor issue could cement Trump as the winner not just of the debate, but of the 2024 election itself.

    Of course, Biden and his team are betting that Trump can’t keep his cool. They are no doubt thinking about the first debate of the 2020 campaign when Trump came across as a ferocious junkyard dog by constantly interrupting Biden and insulting him. That’s exactly what the Biden campaign is hoping for this time around, and if their calculation is right, then the president may be able to ride his “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” persona to victory in the fall.

    Remember, this debate and another one in early September were proposed by Biden at a time when he was trending badly behind Trump in the polls, especially in battleground states. Presumably, the Biden campaign believed the early debates would shore up his support and hurdle him over the much indicted, and now convicted, former president.

    But that doesn’t have to be true. All of the potential pitfalls for Trump are clearly marked with giant cartoonish neon signs of pointing fingers flashing the message “Pitfall here, dummy!” Even if Trump is distracted by his legal battles, hopefully his campaign team will make sure that he is prepped and ready to avoid each obstacle, such as making ambiguous jokes like “dictator on day one,” demeaning the elderly president as “Crooked Joe,” and talking more about himself than about the problems of everyday Americans.

    If Trump remembers to act presidential, and not like an attack dog, there is every reason to believe he will attract voters eager for a change. Ironically, that’s partly because the Biden campaign’s ground rules for the debate have the potential to work in Trump’s favor. There will be no live audience for the debate, which Biden probably thought would rob Trump of the fuel that feeds his reality-TV personality. In addition, microphones will be turned off for each candidate when they are not responding to the moderators. Both of those changes could help Trump avoid a repeat of the bullying performance that may have cost him the election in 2020. In addition, turning off Trump’s mic will force Biden to complete his responses without making gaffes or getting lost in his addle-pated syntax, an opportunity Trump missed in the 2020 debate.

    Nonetheless, the moderators will have their sights set on Trump, whom they have criticized repeatedly on CNN. Three topics are certain to be raised by Tapper and Bash – election interference in 2020, election acceptance in 2024, and Hunter Biden. It is essential that Trump be ready for them, and then having successfully addressed them, demand that the moderators ask questions about substantive issues.

    Biden, on the other hand, just needs to speak coherently and lie about his record, with certainty that the moderators will not ask any follow-up questions.

    Here are three examples of how Trump’s responses to the most obvious questions can get him through the media minefield and closer to his objective – victory in November. The key in each case is to remain calm, relate his responses to the voters, and ignore the provocations tossed his way.

    1) Mr. Trump, since the end of your term as president, you have become a convicted felon in a New York election interference case, and face an additional 55 felony charges in three jurisdictions. In addition, a majority of senators voted after you left office to convict you of inciting an insurrection. Why do you consider yourself fit for office when the president is the chief law enforcement officer in the country?

    Jake, I’m glad you asked me that question. I don’t want this debate to be all about me. Or even about my opponent. The American people want to hear me and Joe Biden discuss the hard issues facing the country – namely, crippling inflation, out-of-control illegal immigration, and a world on the brink of war. But the people have a right to know that I maintain my innocence regarding all the charges brought by my political opponents. It’s a sad day when Democrat prosecutors will go to any lengths to destroy me and to prevent me from promoting the policies that will save this country. But it’s not about me. It’s about a corrupt system of justice that the people have lost confidence in. Donald Trump isn’t the first person to get caught up in a two-tier system of justice. You can ask any black or Hispanic family whether they know someone who was railroaded into prison. They’ve lost faith, but I will restore that faith. Not only am I fit for office, but I am the first person to run for president who has experienced what black and minority families have known for decades. And I will fight for them.

    2) Mr. Trump, after the 2020 election, you refused to accept the results even though more than 50 courts ruled against you. To this day, you call President Biden an illegitimate president, and you are currently under indictment for election interference. Now, Americans want to know if you will accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of who wins.

    Dana, thank you for asking me that question. First of all, I need to correct you on one point. I believe it was more than 60 courts, but none of them heard our evidence of election fraud by the Biden campaign and his surrogates. In other words, we were never given the opportunity to prove our case of election tampering, and the national media failed miserably in looking at the facts objectively. Just saying the election was “safe and secure” does not make it so. Everyone knows the media was out to “get Trump” and to “protect Biden,” and in that regard, nothing has changed since 2020. But more importantly, as we look at accepting the Nov. 5 election results, it is not relevant who wins the election. All that matters is that the election be conducted fairly and transparently. And Dana, you can’t guarantee that will happen. Earlier this month, Democrat officials in Connecticut were charged with election fraud, and there’s no reason to believe the coming election will be any more fair unless it is completely transparent. No one should give up their right to look at the evidence and make up their own minds about the underpinnings of our democracy. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

    3) Mr. Trump, you continually claim there is a two-tier system of justice, but in recent weeks, the Biden Department of Justice has charged or put on trial New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar (another Democrat), and President Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies, and could be sentenced to jail time despite your attacks on the attorney general and the president, who has said he will not pardon his son nor commute any sentence. Isn’t it about time that you admit that the American system of justice is fair and even-handed?

    Jake, this may be the most important question facing millions of Americans, even more important than whether they can afford to put food on the table, pay rent, or buy a home of their own – which many of them can’t. Of course, it’s not up to me to pass judgment on the three gentlemen you bring up in your question. Everyone can make up their own mind about whether justice is served in those cases. But I guarantee you that millions of black and minority families don’t trust the government to administer justice fairly, and the individual verdicts won’t make them forget their own experiences – their own children or parents sent to prison for long sentences, their own struggles against a system that too often rewards those with money or a celebrity name. Nothing can make them forget how they and their families were overlooked by a system gone awry. As for Hunter Biden, I won’t comment on his conviction on gun charges, but I will say that his story is an all-too-common American tragedy. My brother Fred was an alcoholic. His struggles with addiction mirror the experience of millions of Americans. I sympathize with the family of Hunter Biden and hope that he gets the help he needs.

    If former President Trump follows the example laid out in these mock questions and answers, and worries more about reassuring the public about himself than attacking his opponent, it is almost certain he will also be future President Trump.

    Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His newest book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 21:00

  • "Shouldn't Be Happening": Illegal Alien Gang Member Arrested In Death Of Maryland Mom Of Five
    “Shouldn’t Be Happening”: Illegal Alien Gang Member Arrested In Death Of Maryland Mom Of Five

    Marylanders were outraged to learn this weekend that an illegal alien suspected gang member, who entered the US under President Biden’s open southern borders and with the support of woke leftist politicians in Annapolis who have transformed parts of the state into ‘Lil Mexico,’ was responsible for last year’s high profile murder of a Maryland mother. 

    In a press conference Saturday, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler revealed an arrest was made in the murder of Rachel Morin, the mother of five who was killed while on a jog on a popular hiking trail in Harford County last August. 

    Gahler said Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, a 23-year-old from El Salvador, was arrested on Friday at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and taken into custody in connection with the killing of Morin. 

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    “Over the past two weeks, investigators continued their diligent investigation and tracked our suspect all the way from Prince George’s County (woke leftist hellhole that borders DC) into Tulsa, Oklahoma,” the sheriff said, noting, “Our investigators also obtained an arrest warrant (Friday) afternoon.”

    “We are 1,800 miles from the southern border here in Harford County,” Sheriff Gahler said, adding, “This is the second woman in our county to be killed by illegal suspects.”

    “In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs,” the sheriff said. 

    He continued, “Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family, he came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and God-willing, no one else.” 

    Local police say Hernandez crossed over Joe Biden’s open southern border in February 2023, just one month after he killed a young woman in El Salvador. 

    Another high-profile case was Laken Hope Riley, 22, who was killed while jogging in a park on the University of Georgia campus by an illegal alien earlier this year. 

    The illegal alien killers would’ve never crossed into the US if it wasn’t for Biden’s disastrous open southern border policies that have flooded the nation with ten-plus million unvetted migrants. At the same time, Democratic mayors and politicians have prioritized illegals over their own constituents.  

    Biden’s unlawful mass parole of illegal aliens and its “catch and release” policy have allowed illegal aliens to roam freely. 

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    Polling data shows a majority of Americans are fed up with the crime and chaos Democrats are sparking with the illegal alien invasion and not enforcing common sense law and order in imploding progressive cities. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:40

  • Why Modi's India Is Suddenly Getting Washington's Cold-Shoulder
    Why Modi’s India Is Suddenly Getting Washington’s Cold-Shoulder

    Authored by Finian Cunningham,

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be forgiven for thinking the United States has a schizoid view of his government and the world’s most populous country.

    Modi’s narrow re-election this month was greeted in the U.S. media with petulant satisfaction that Indian voters had “woken up”, as an oped piece in the New York Times put it.

    The Washington Post’s editorial board rebuked Modi with the headline: “In India, the voters have spoken. They do not want autocracy.”

    The Post editors went on to say that Modi “will lack a free hand for further repression of civil society, imprisonment of the opposition, infiltration and takeover of democratic institutions, and persecution of Muslims.”

    That is quite a withering rap sheet for a political leader who not so long ago was given the VIP treatment in Washington.

    Other U.S. media outlets also sounded smug that India’s legislative elections had returned a diminished majority for Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The “shock setback” for India’s strongman would mean that his Hindu nationalist politics would be restrained and he would have to govern during his third term with more moderation and compromise.

    The American media’s contempt for the 73-year-old Indian leader is a dramatic turnaround from how he was lionized by the same media only a year ago.

    Back in June 2023, Modi was feted by U.S. President Joe Biden with a privileged state dinner in the White House. The Indian premier was invited to address the Congress and the media were rhapsodic in their praise for his leadership.

    Back then, the Washington Post’s editors recommended “toasting” Modi’s India, which Biden duly did at the White House reception. Raising a glass, Biden said: “We believe in the dignity of every citizen, and it is in America’s DNA, and I believe in India’s DNA that the whole world – the whole world has a stake in our success, both of us, and maintaining our democracies.” With trademark stumbling words, Biden added: “[This] makes us appealing partners and enables us to expand democratic institutions across, around the world.”

    Modi may well wonder what happened over the past year. The Indian leader has gone from receiving the red carpet treatment to having the rug pulled from under his feet.

    The difference is explained by the changing geopolitical calculation for Washington, which is not to its liking.

    It is not that the Indian government under Modi has suddenly become a bad strongman who has taken to trashing democratic institutions and repressing minorities. Arguably, those tendencies have been associated with Modi since he first came to power in 2014.

    The United States had long been critical of Modi’s Hindu nationalism. For more than a decade, Modi was persona non-grata in Washington. At one stage, he was even banned from entering the country owing to allegations that he was fanning sectarian violence against Muslims and Christians in India.

    Washington’s view of Modi, however, began to warm up under the Trump administration because India was seen as a useful partner for the U.S. to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific, a region which Washington renamed as the Indo-Pacific in part to inveigle India into its fold. To that end, the U.S. revived the Quad security alliance in 2017 with India, Japan and Australia.

    The Biden administration continued the courting of India and Modi who was re-elected in 2019 for his second term.

    Biden’s fawning over India culminated in the White House extravaganza for Modi last June when the U.S. media championed the “new heights” of U.S.-India relations. There were at the time residual complaints about India’s deteriorating democratic conditions under Modi, but such concerns were brushed aside by the sweep of media eulogizing, epitomized by Biden’s grandiloquent toasting of the U.S. and India as supposedly world-conquering democratic partners.

    It was discernible though that all the American charm and indulgence was setting India up for an ulterior purpose.

    In between the lines of effusive praise and celebration, the expected pay-off from India was that it would be a “bulwark” for U.S. interests against China and Russia.

    As a piece in CNN at the time of Modi’s visit last year in Washington asked: “Will India deliver after lavish U.S. attention?”

    The article noted with some prescience: “India and the U.S. may have different ambitions and visions for their ever-tightening relationship, and the possibility that Biden could end up being disappointed in the returns for his attention on Modi.”

    The Indian leader certainly did receive some major sweeteners while in the U.S. Several significant military manufacturing deals were signed such as General Electric sharing top-secret technology for fighter jet engines.

    Still, despite the zealous courting of New Delhi, over the following months, the Modi government appeared not to change its foreign policy dramatically to suit Washington’s bidding.

    India has had long-held strained relations with China over border disputes and regional rivalry. Nevertheless, Modi has been careful not to antagonize Beijing. Notably, India did not participate in recent security drills in the Asia-Pacific along with the U.S. and other partners.

    New Delhi has also maintained its strong support for the BRICS group that includes Russia, China, Brazil and other Global South nations advocating for a multipolar world not in hock to Western dominance.

    This traditional policy of non-alignment by India is not what Washington wants. It seems that Modi did not heed the memo given during his splendid Washington visit. He rebuffed the American expectation of steering India towards U.S. geopolitical objectives of toeing a tougher line against China and Russia.

    What seems to have intensified Washington’s exasperation with Modi is the worsening proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. After two and half years of conflict, President Vladimir Putin’s forces have gained a decisive upper hand over the NATO-backed Kiev regime. Hence, Biden and other NATO leaders have begun to desperately ramp up provocations against Moscow with recent permission for Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons to hit Russian territory.

    When Modi visited Washington last June, the West was (unrealistically) confident that the Ukrainian counteroffensive underway at the time would prove to be a damaging blow to Russian forces. Western predictions of overcoming Russian lines have waned from the cruel reality that Russian weapons and superior troops numbers have decimated the Ukrainian side.

    During Modi’s state trip last year, Washington’s focus was on getting India to act as a bulwark against China, not so much Russia. Modi has not delivered on either count, but the situation in Ukraine has cratered, from the NATO point of view.

    Commenting on U.S. priorities last June, Richard Rossow of the Washington-based think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “If the invasion went worse for Ukraine, or was destabilizing the region, the Biden administration might have chosen to reduce the intensity of engagement with India. But the United States has found that nominal support to Ukraine, with allies and partners, has been sufficient to blunt the Russian offensive…” (How wrong was that assessment!)

    Rossow continued his wrongheaded assessment: “Russia’s ineffective military campaign [in Ukraine] has also underscored the fact that China presents the only real state-led threat to global security, and the United States and India are steadily deepening their partnership bilaterally and through forums like the Quad to improve the likelihood of peace and tranquility in the region. So long as this strategic relationship continues to grow, it is unlikely that a U.S. administration will press India to take a hard line on Russia.”

    Washington and its NATO allies have got their expectations about Russia losing the conflict in Ukraine all badly wrong. Russia is winning decisively as the Ukrainian regime stumbles towards collapse.

    This is a double whammy for the Biden administration. China and Russia are stronger than ever, and India has given little in return for all the concessions it received from Washington.

    From the American viewpoint, India’s Modi has not delivered in the way he was expected to by Washington despite the latter’s fawning and concessions. New Delhi has remained committed to the BRICS multipolar group, it has not antagonized China and it has not succumbed to U.S. pressure to condemn Russia. Far from condemning Moscow, India has increased its imports of Russian oil and gas.

    Now with the U.S. and NATO’s reckless bet on Ukraine defeating Russia looking like a beaten docket, Washington’s disappointment with India is taking on an acrimonious tone.

    In one year, Modi’s India has gone from a geopolitical darling to a target of U.S. recrimination over alleged human rights violations and democratic backsliding. It is not so much that political conditions in India have degraded any further. It is Washington’s geopolitical calculations that have been upended. Hence the chagrined and increasingly abrasive attitude towards New Delhi from its erstwhile American partner.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:20

  • "Clearly Not Satisfied": McDonald's Winds Down IBM's Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test
    “Clearly Not Satisfied”: McDonald’s Winds Down IBM’s Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test

    “McDonald’s essentially told operators that drive-thru AI is in its future. But it is clearly not satisfied with the one it has been testing,” Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business, wrote on X at the end of last week. 

    Maze penned a note in Restaurant Business that revealed McDonald’s is winding down its two-year artificial intelligence pilot test with an IBM chatbot at more than 100 restaurants. 

    The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending this test without any sort of expansion, according to an email sent to franchisees on Thursday. Restaurant Business has obtained a copy of that email.

    But the company did not dismiss the prospect of drive-thru AI, suggesting that McDonald’s plans to find a new partner for its automated order taking efforts. -Maze

    Perhaps this is why McDonald’s is ending the IBM AI drive-thru ordering partnership by the end of July… 

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    @themadivlog How did I end up a butter #fyp ♬ The Office – The Hyphenate

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    @typical_redhead_ I thought TikTok would appreciate this 💀 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #comedy #fail ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

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    “While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,” Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, wrote in a message to operators, obtained by Restaurant Business. 

    Smoot said, “After a thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current partnership with IBM on AOT and the technology will be shut off in all restaurants currently testing it no later than July 26, 2024.”

    He noted that the fast food chain will have “an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

    McDonald’s explained to Restaurant Business that its pilot test was to determine if chatbots could speed up drive-thru times: 

    “As we move forward, our work with IBM has given us the confidence that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future. 

    “We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

    In December, McDonald’s announced a partnership with Google to deploy generative AI.

    So, will a much wider rollout of the chatbots include Google AI technology? 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 20:00

  • The Corruption Of Merrick Garland
    The Corruption Of Merrick Garland

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland took to the pages of the Washington Post to lash out at critics who are spreading what he considers “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself.” His column, titled “Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end,” missed the point.

    It is Garland himself who has become the problem. The solution is in Wilmington, Delaware, where 12 average citizens just showed a commitment to the rule of law that seems to be harder and harder for the attorney general to meet.

    Since his appointment, Garland has repeated a mantra that he is apolitical and would never yield to the pressures of politics or the White House. When he was nominated, I believed that claim and enthusiastically supported Garland’s confirmation. He was, I thought, the perfect man for the job after his distinguished judicial service as a moderate judge.

    I was wrong. Garland’s tenure as attorney general has shown a pronounced reluctance to take steps that would threaten President Biden.

    He slow-walked the appointment of a special counsel investigating any Biden, and then excluded from the counsel’s scope any investigation of the massive influence peddling operation by Hunter Biden, his uncle and others.

    However, it is what has occurred in the last six months that has left some of us shaken, given our early faith in Garland.

    I have long been a critic of Garland’s failure to order a special counsel to look into the extensive evidence of corruption surrounding the Bidens. As I stated in my testimony in the Biden impeachment hearing, there is ample evidence that Biden lied repeatedly about his knowledge of this corruption and his interaction with these foreign clients.

    However, a more worrisome concern is the lack of consistency in these investigations.

    First, Special Counsel Robert Hur found that Biden knowingly retained and mishandled classified material. However, he concluded that Biden’s age and diminished faculties would make him too sympathetic to a jury. It was less sympathetic than pathetic, given that this is the same man who is running for re-election to lead the most powerful nation on Earth. More importantly, Garland has not made obvious efforts to reach a consistent approach in the two cases by dropping charges based on the same crimes by Trump in Florida. (Such action would not affect the obstruction counts).

    Second, Garland has allowed Special Counsel Jack Smith to maintain positions that seem diametrically at odds with past Justice Department policies. This includes Smith’s statement that he will try Trump up to (and even through) the next election. It also includes a sweeping gag order which would have eviscerated free speech protections by gagging Trump from criticizing the Justice Department. While Garland has said that he wants to give the special counsels their independence, it falls to him to protect the consistency and values of his department.

    Garland’s most brazenly political act has been the laughable executive privilege claim used to withhold the audiotape of the Hur-Biden interviews. The Justice Department has not claimed that the transcript is privileged, but only that the audiotape of Biden’s comments is privileged. This is so logically disconnected that even CNN hosts have mocked it.

    The Justice Department went further in court by adding conspiracy to absurdity as part of its unhinged theory. It asserted a type of “deepfake privilege” on the basis that the release of the audiotape could allow AI systems to create fake versions of the president’s words. It ignores that there are already ample public sources now to create such fake tapes and that, by withholding the real audiotape, the Justice Department only makes such fake copies more likely to arise and ensnare the unwary.

    Most importantly, the arguments of a “he-who-must-not-be-heard” privilege or a deep-fake privilege are ridiculous. Garland knows that, as would any first-year law student. Yet, he is going along with a claim that is clearly designed to protect Biden from embarrassment before the next election. It is entirely political and absurd.

    After stumbling through a half-hearted defense of the audiotape decision before he was held in contempt of Congress, Garland was faced with another clear test of principle. Three House committees (Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means) this month referred for prosecution cases of perjury against Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden. Despite what appear to be open-and-shut allegations that they lied to Congress, most everyone in Washington believes that Garland and the Justice Department will slow-walk and then scuttle the referrals to protect the Bidens.

    This is the same Justice Department that seemed on a hair-trigger to prosecute Trump officials for perjury and contempt after referrals from Democrat-controlled committees.

    The questions at issue were not “gotcha” traps, like showing up at Michael Flynn’s office to nail him on his description of a meeting with Russian diplomats. These were some of the most-discussed questions heading into Hunter Biden’s long-delayed appearance before the committees.

    Hunter is accused of lying about his position at Rosemont Seneca Bohai, a corporate entity that moved millions of dollars from foreign individuals and entities to Hunter Biden. He also allegedly lied about the identity of the recipient of his controversial message to a Chinese businessman, in which he threatened that his father was sitting “right next to me” and would join him in retaliating against the Chinese if they did not send millions. They promptly wired the money as demanded.

    Hunter’s answers appear to be demonstrably untrue. Yet, there is little faith that the Justice Department will allow the matter to be presented to a grand jury. If Garland’s pledge to remain apolitical were widely accepted, there would be little question about the prosecution of such compelling claims.

    Garland now appears entirely adrift in his own department. While mouthing platitudes about being beyond politics, he continues to run interference for the Biden White House. He appears to be looking to close aides for such direction.

    He should instead look to those 12 people in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Despite facing overwhelming evidence of Hunter Biden’s guilt, his legal team pursued a jury-nullification strategy. Wilmington is Bidentown, the hometown for the president and his family. An array of Bidens, including the first lady, lined up behind Hunter during the trial, in case anyone forgot that fact.

    Yet the jury convicted Hunter on all counts without any hesitation.

    Despite sympathy for a recovering drug addict in a town that has overwhelmingly supported the Bidens for decades, “nobody mentioned anything about political motivations” in the jury room, as one juror noted. “I was never thinking of President Joe Biden,” said another.

    Garland needs to show a modicum of that courage and principle as attorney general. He could start by dropping the farcical privilege claims over the audiotape and sending the referrals to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the same priority treatment afforded to Trump officials like Flynn.

    As it stands, few believe that will happen, despite Garland’s repeated line about transcending politics. It is not the mantra that is in doubt, but the man.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:40

  • Putin To Arrive In North Korea Tuesday, First Visit In 24 Years
    Putin To Arrive In North Korea Tuesday, First Visit In 24 Years

    On Monday the Kremlin has revealed details of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to North Korea. Last week South Korea’s Yonhap news agency predicted that Putin could show up in the North Korean capital “as early as next week” as part of an expected Asian tour that will include Vietnam.

    The Kremlin has now revealed that the Russian leader will fly to Pyonyang on Tuesday and will stay for one night. It will mark the first time Putin has visited the country since the year 2000 when he met with Kim Jong-il.

    Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, and some other top officials will accompany Putin on the trip.

    A state media announcement detailed that “The two sides are expected to sign a number of documents during the visit, according to Ushakov, including a potential comprehensive strategic partnership agreement.”

    “The Russian delegation will also engage in extensive talks with its North Korean counterpart on a number of issues, including bilateral relations, the economy, security, and international cooperation,” RT continued. “Putin is also expected to attend a state concert being held in honor of his visit and hold informal talks with Kim.”

    Last week, Kim said that “meaningful” ties with Russia will “further consolidate the eternal milestone” in a new era of relations, according to state KCNA. Putin will in essence be returning the favor of a visit, after Kim toured Russia’s far east last year, and reportedly inspected several weapons and space-related sites.

    During that prior trip, Kim had said closer relations with Moscow are his “number one priority” – as both countries find themselves under heavy US-led sanctions.

    The Ukraine war, and accompanying Western punitive sanctions, have resulted in Russia forging closer defense and trade ties with US rival, enemies, and ‘pariahs’ like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and China. The US has even accused North Korea is supplying immense amounts of artillery shells and military supplies for Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine.

    Reuters previously reported this week that Putin is expected in Vietnam from June 19 to 20. This fresh Kremlin news release confirms that the North Korea trip will take place before that.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:20

  • No Charges In Deadly ATF Arkansas Home Raid
    No Charges In Deadly ATF Arkansas Home Raid

    Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The use of deadly force was legal and justified in the March 19 early morning fatal shooting of Bryan Malinowski by federal agents in his West Little Rock, Arkansas, home, according to Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones, who said in a June 14 letter that there would be no charges in the case.

    An armed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent reaches toward the doorbell camera at the home of Bryan Malinowski moments before disabling the video recording and breaching the door with a tactical team in a predawn raid in West Little Rock, Ark., on March 19, 2024. (Malinowski Family via Bud Cummins)

    Mr. Malinowski was executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock until that morning, when a convoy of 10 law enforcement vehicles entered his upscale neighborhood and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), holding automatic rifles in the ready position, placed tape on his video doorbell, announced their presence, and in less than one minute, broke into the home while he was sleeping. Mr. Malinowski, a gun collector, woke up, grabbed his gun, exchanged gunfire with ATF agents, and Mr. Malinowski was shot dead in front of his wife.

    The ATF had obtained a warrant to search his home for guns and evidence. The agency believed that Mr. Malinowski was selling guns without a $200 Federal Firearms License and without asking buyers for the proper information. According to an affidavit of probable cause, some of the guns that he had sold were recovered during the commission of a crime, although the crimes didn’t involve the direct use of guns.

    It’s unclear why the ATF didn’t contact Mr. Malinowski at his workplace or during normal waking hours.

    Timeline

    Bryan Malinowski. (Courtesy of Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport)

    Mr. Jones said the incident was recorded by a Little Rock Police Department mobile video recorder and from that he shared the timeline in his letter.

    6:02:58 a.m.—The Little Rock patrol officer employed his vehicle’s emergency lights and siren to announce the presence of law enforcement.

    6:02:59 a.m.—ATF agents began a series of knocking and announcing the ATF’s presence.

    6:03:27 a.m.—Agents use a ram to breach the door.

    6:03:43 a.m.—Mr. Malinowski fires the first of four shots from his Colt Defender .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun.

    6:03:44 a.m.—ATF agent returns fire, discharging three shots.

    Mr. Jones also included a summary of the witness statements and evidence, although he didn’t identify the witnesses.

    “The first agent (Agent 1) to enter the residence looked to his left and saw Mr. Malinowski at the end of the hallway pointing the handgun at him. The agent immediately dropped to the ground and rolled to avoid potential gunfire. The second agent to enter (Agent 2) saw Mr. Malinowski firing downward at Agent 1. At this time, Agent 2 was struck in the foot. As Mr. Malinowski raised his gun toward Agent 2, Agent 2 fired, striking Mr. Malinowski. Immediately after the shooting, officers requested emergency personnel and begin [sic] administering medical aid to Mr. Malinowski.”

    A law enforcement officer is justified in using deadly physical force if the officer reasonably believes that force is necessary to defend himself or another person from the use of deadly force, according to the Arkansas code that Mr. Jones cited.

    “Prior to entering the residence, the officers identified themselves as police by initiating the lights and siren of a patrol vehicle that was parked in front of the residence” and knocking on the front door, he said. Agents also wore clothing marked ATF or Police in large letters.

    According to previous statements from Mr. Malinowski’s wife, the couple was sleeping when the ATF agents knocked.

    “The state’s investigation didn’t attempt to make independent judgments about whether ATF violated the law when they broke down Mr. and Mrs. Malinowski’s front door. But that question should be a matter of grave concern for the rest of us,” Bud Cummins, the Malinowski family’s attorney, told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    He noted that Mr. Jones’s letter shows that armed agents waited “a mere 28 seconds” after knocking and before breaking down the front door of Mr. Malinowski’s home. Mr. Jones said legally, law enforcement must give the person inside a reasonable amount of time to get to the door and to admit them voluntarily before forcibly entering.

    A search warrant, Mr. Cummins said, isn’t automatically a license for a home invasion.

    “How long is it reasonable to wait for someone to answer their front door at 6 a.m. in response to unexplained loud pounding in a 3,000-square-foot fully insulated home? Let’s pray the answer isn’t 28 seconds. The Fourth Amendment means more than that to every single one of us,” he said. “This is not over.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 19:00

  • China's New Home Prices Plunge The Most Since October 2014
    China’s New Home Prices Plunge The Most Since October 2014

    So much for that Chinese housing “bailout”, which we correctly warned would be woefully insufficient.

    A slew of data published early Monday local time, showed that among various other economic measures, China’s housing slump deepened in May and triggered new calls for the government to pump cash and credit into the economy, while industrial output, which has kept growth on track, fell short of forecasts.

    New home prices – the most important indicator of middle-class wealth in the world’s second biggest economy – dropped at the fastest pace since October 2014, falling 0.7% m/m in May (v/s -0.58% in April) and marking the 11th straight decline despite the government’s stimulus to support the property market. On an annual basis, home prices slumped 4.3%, the biggest drop since the summer of 2015. In fact, the last time home prices plunged so much Beijing pursued a massive yuan devaluation that led to a $1 trillion in fx outflows to stabilize and sparked the very first mega meltup in bitcoin which sent it from $200 to far over $1000.

    Staying on China retail sales rose +3.7% y/y in May, exceeding market expectations for a +3.0% gain and increasing pace from a +2.3% increase in the previous month but Chinese shoppers remain far from recovering their pre-pandemic mojo. However, other economic metrics failed to surpass market forecasts with industrial output growing +5.6% y/y in May (v/s +6.2% expected), down from an increase of +6.7% in April and missing the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.

    Meanwhile, the nation’s real estate crisis continued to weigh on investment in fixed assets with the overall YTD investment figures expanding +4.0%, also below estimates of +4.2% gain.

    “The most disappointing in May’s data is probably that property sales barely saw any improvements even after so many supportive measures,” said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas SA. She said China’s authorities need to find ways to lower the rates on existing mortgages, closing the gap with the cost of new ones.

    The numbers – excluding the dire real estate prints – add up to a still-weak recovery most economists said, and will likely require more action from Beijing to bolster consumer demand and tackle imbalances, if this year’s 5% growth target is to be met. That could take the form of stepped-up government spending and heightened efforts by the central bank to put a floor under housing markets and get credit flowing.

    On the other hand, if one includes China’s collapsing property market – which once upon a time was the world’s largest asset class – it becomes clear that while Beijing may pretend it does not need a huge fiscal and monetary stimulus, it’s

    Late last month, China unveiled a broad rescue package to prop up housing sales as a credit crisis was engulfing some of the country’s biggest real estate developers. It relaxed mortgage rules and encouraged local governments to buy unsold homes. However, as we warned and many others agreed, the financial incentives aren’t big enough and trial programs in several cities have shown progress can be slow.

    Subdued demand at home and the deteriorating foreign-trade environment are weighing on business confidence, discouraging companies from investing and driving some to move production overseas. Credit growth has been lackluster and the M1 money supply gauge contracted in May at the fastest rate in data going back to 1996.

    Elsewhere, the PBOC on Monday kept a key interest rate unchanged for the tenth straight month. Economists say the bank’s room to cut rates is constrained by the need to prop up the yuan, which faces downward pressure as the US Federal Reserve reinforces its high-for-longer message.

    China’s growth remains “highly uneven, with exports and new energy-related capex as the drivers while consumption and property as the drags,” according to economists including Larry Hu at Macquarie Capital Ltd. Still, the slowdown isn’t severe enough to threaten the growth target and while policymakers may take some limited action “the urgency for a major stimulus is low,” they wrote

    In a survey of more than 400 top executives conducted by UBS Group AG over roughly a month through mid-May, firms reported weaker prospects for orders, revenue and margins compared with the same period of 2023. There was a drop in the share of respondents who plan to increase capital expenditure in the second half of this year.

    “We still need to see new stimulus coming in,” said Helen Qiao, chief Greater China economist at Bank of America Global Research, in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Otherwise the growth momentum could very much weaken.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:40

  • Former CDC Director Predicts Bird Flu Virus Will Cause Next Pandemic
    Former CDC Director Predicts Bird Flu Virus Will Cause Next Pandemic

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has issued a grim prediction that the next major pandemic will be caused by the bird flu.

    Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 2, 2020. (Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty Images)

    “I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time—it’s not a question of if, it’s more a question of when—we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Dr. Redfield told NewsNation in an interview published on June 14.

    U.S. officials recently confirmed that the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus had been detected in a cow herd in Wyoming, the 12th state to report an infection.

    The former CDC director said the bird flu, when it enters humans, has a “significant” mortality.

    “Probably somewhere between 25 and 50 percent mortality, so it’s going to be quite complicated,” Dr. Redfield said.

    Since around 2019, there’s been a progressive increase in the number of mammal species to which the bird flu virus has spread, with alpacas becoming the latest species to fall sick after coming into contact with the pathogen, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Dr. Redfield said that as the bird flu has spread to more than two dozen mammals in the United States, the virus has been adapting and learning how to change its use of receptors, with the risk of making a jump to humans growing by the day.

    “So it’s going through a lot of changes. And as it picks up some of these new receptors, it can get closer and closer to humans,” he said.

    “Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor, and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic. And as I said, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

    While Dr. Redfield said it’s impossible to predict with accuracy when the bird flu might start going human to human, he said the recent development of dairy cattle contracting the virus is alarming because cows are often in close proximity to pigs, and pigs have tended to be the last stepping stone for viruses before the jump to humans.

    Dr. Redfield added that the natural evolution of the virus to where it becomes highly infectious to humans is less of a concern to him than the possibility that it will increase its virulence under lab conditions—through gain-of-function research.

    The “recipe” for making bird flu highly infectious to humans is already well established, Dr. Redfield said, recalling that gain-of-function research on the avian influenza virus was carried out in 2012, against his recommendations.

    Since late March, the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has been reported in more than 80 dairy herds across the country. So far, three human infections have been reported in the United States—two in Michigan and one in Texas, all dairy farm workers.

    The CDC said in a June 12 bird flu update that it’s monitoring the situation closely and the current risk to public health remains low.

    “H5N1 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with one recent human case in a U.S. dairy worker,” the agency said.

    “While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures. CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5N1 activity in people.”

    Bird Flu Gain-of-Function Research?

    Dr. Redfield has in the past warned about the dangers of gain-of-function research, which involves altering the properties of a pathogen, such as its virulence, in order to study its potential effects on human health.

    Proponents of such research argue it can help scientists better learn how the virus behaves and spreads, and come up with counter-measures more effectively. Opponents say the potential benefits are outweighed by the risks that such research poses as it can makes viruses more lethal to humans.

    During a March 8, 2023, session of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Dr. Redfield called for a moratorium on this type of research, while expressing the view that the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by an accidental leak from a China-based lab where the virus was being subjected to experiments.

    “While many believe that gain-of function research is critical to get ahead of viruses by developing vaccines, in this case, I believe it had the exact opposite result, unleashing a new virus on the world without any means of stopping it and resulting in the deaths of millions of people,” Dr. Redfield said at the time, referring to COVID-19.

    “Because of this, it is my opinion that we should call for a moratorium on all gain-of function research until we can have a broader debate and come to a consensus as a community about the value of gain-of-function research.”

    Dr. Redfield has also said that taxpayers ended up unknowingly funding risky gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the China-based lab at the center of the lab-leak origin theory of the virus that causes COVID-19.

    Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is preparing for a

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:20

  • LA Studying Removing Police From Traffic Enforcement
    LA Studying Removing Police From Traffic Enforcement

    In another step toward complete and total lawlessness on the West Coast, Los Angeles is reportedly studying the idea of removing police from traffic enforcement altogether as a way to reform policing. 

    A new report from the LA Times says that this week, the City Council approved a study aimed at determining how to implement additional speed bumps, roundabouts, and other modifications to streets to curb speeding and improve driving safety.

    This would come in the place of traffic enforcement by officers after reform advocates argued for “the city to limit how often police pull people over for low-level offenses and to start imagining a future in which unarmed city workers would take over most traffic duties”. 

    Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson commented: “I think the city of Los Angeles can lead the nation.” 

    In what, is the real question. 

    In a unanimous 13-0 decision, the council ordered city transport staff to deliver feasibility studies within 90 days on proposals such as setting up unarmed civilian teams for specific traffic issues and accident investigations, reducing fines in less affluent areas, and halting stops for minor violations like expired tags, according to the LA Times report. 

    Advocates from the Push L.A. coalition expressed cautious optimism about the vote, acknowledging it as a significant step but remaining concerned about potential bureaucratic obstacles.

    Before the council meeting, dozens of organizers rallied outside City Hall, displaying signs and chanting slogans like “The People united, will never be defeated.”

    Activist Leslie Johnson from Community Coalition pledged to maintain pressure on officials to prevent the study’s findings from being ignored. The rally in downtown L.A. served both as a celebration of anticipated success and a reminder to the council of their vigilance.

    Speakers referenced individuals like Keenan Anderson who died during traffic incidents involving police, and shared personal stories about the traumatic impact of traffic stops.

    Interim chief Dominic Choi said: “Our job is public safety, and we’re going to use the tools that are given to us in the best way we can to improve public safety. So if restrictions are put on us, I’m going to visit roll calls, and I’ll talk about this policy change or this law and encourage our officers.”

    Chauncee Smith of advocacy group Catalyst California commented: “From our perspective, having another feasibility study is not necessary; there’s numerous cities around the country that have already adopted a variety of these reforms. We’re focusing on changing the conditions, as opposed to punishing a person for something that they did or did not do.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 18:00

  • VDH: How Left-Wing Conspiracies Work
    VDH: How Left-Wing Conspiracies Work

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Since 2016, there has been a clear pattern to left-wing conspiracies – beyond the obvious fact that they traffic in lies, stereotypes, and paranoia to serve precise political agendas.

    We now know that the conspiracy to cook up the Russian-collusion hoax – Donald Trump allegedly conniving with Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 vote – was perpetrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Its funding was hidden by the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS.

    The Russian “disinformation” laptop hoax – the notion that the same Russians four years later created a fake Hunter Biden laptop to smear the Biden family on the eve of the first 2020 debate – was jumpstarted by the Biden campaign’s then-chief foreign policy advisor, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    There was never much evidence that a wayward bat or pangolin in a meat market birthed the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the efforts of China, Western and international health officials, and Dr. Fauci’s health bureaucrats to spread that lie.

    The January 6th riot was certainly wrong and buffoonish. But the idea that it was an insurrection aiming to violently overthrow the U.S. government was also a left-wing myth fueled by the Democratic House leadership and the media.

    All these schemes have their commonalities:

    1) They are aimed at achieving political objectives.

    False claims of Russian collusion likely drained millions of votes from the 2016 Trump candidacy.

    A later conservative poll found that Russian disinformation may have swung enough voters to ensure a 2020 Trump loss. It certainly saved Joe Biden in the first debate when he faced the American people and flat-out lied about the laptop, quoting “experts” that his own team had rounded up to legitimize his obvious untruths.

    The last thing the global health community wanted was to confront China about its culpability for killing millions worldwide. And what the Fauci health conglomerate most feared was the airing of the truth that U.S. “scientists” had helped fund and enhance quite-dangerous, understandably-outlawed, viral gain-of-function research at a Chinese lab soon to be run by the People’s Liberation Army. These functionaries’ clear hatred of President Trump was a subtext to their distortions and lies that only a complete shut-down of the U.S. economy could save America from millions of unnecessary deaths. In other words, for well over two years, anyone who dared suggest a laboratory origin for COVID was pilloried, while the accusers privately knew that it was likely true and that they were complicit.

    The January 6th myth—that conservatives were violent insurrectionaries—led to the greatest militarization of Washington, DC, since the Civil War. Barbed wire and fencing around all the major tourist spots helped advance the myth of a besieged nation that Joe Biden, that old moderate, would heal from the existential threats birthed by the soon-to-be-impeached-twice Donald Trump.

    2) These conspiracies involved the most powerful U.S. government agencies.

    James Comey’s FBI altered a FISA warrant. Comey himself misled the president of the United States, lying that the latter was not the target of an FBI investigation while leaking confidential, if not classified, documents. The FBI hired foreign national Christopher Steele to compile dirt on a presidential candidate. The FBI’s Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and James Baker were knee-deep in efforts to leak the dossier and other disinformation to ensure Trump was not elected. The CIA’s John Brennan and the Department of Justice’s Loretta Lynch were well aware of their own agencies’ involvement in fueling the slander.

    Fifty-one former “intelligence authorities” brazenly lied in 2020 when they signed a letter claiming that the Biden laptop—then in the possession of the FBI, which knew of its authenticity—had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Grandee signatories like James Clapper, John Brennan, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta had no evidence that the laptop had anything to do with the Russians. Lots of contacts in the FBI confirmed that it did not. Yet they signed their names and, in doing so, ruined their former agencies’ credibility, all for the short-term agenda of getting Joe Biden elected.

    From 2020 to 2023, at the height of the pandemic, the main players in the U.S. health apparat—the NIH, the CDC, and the NIAID—all created narratives that were obvious lies, or at least had no evidence to sustain them. There was never clear-cut evidence for the bat/pangolin theory of COVID genesis, for state-imposed mass masking and social distancing as scientifically-proven effective tools to control the pandemic, for the assurance that a national quarantine would do far less damage than the virus, and for the idea that experimental mRNA coronavirus vaccinations and their serial boosters in the long term would prevent the vaccinated from being either infected or infectious.

    The reaction to the January 6th riot was likely politicized by the Speaker of the House, the Pentagon and the Capitol Police on the theory that the small number of violent rioters, if left to run amok and then severely punished after show trials in federal courts, would do lasting damage to the conservative cause and Donald Trump in particular.

    3) The media conspired with government agencies to spread the hoaxes.

    On the eve of the 2016 election and in its aftermath, Buzzfeed, CNN, the Washington Post and other news outlets all rushed to leak the most salacious made-up smears from the Steele dossier, fed to them by the FBI and other government officials. Their unsourced yellow journalism soon ensured the ill-fated Mueller investigation that was designed, quite successfully, to derail or slow the early Trump administration agenda.

    In 2020, top members of the FBI partnered with social media companies, especially Twitter and Facebook, to censor news that contradicted the yarn that the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

    While Anthony Fauci and his team, along with officials at the CDC and NIH, were furiously corresponding to tamp down any suggestion of a lab-leak origin for COVID or that their own policies were scientifically unproven, the media was fed their heroic stories and spread them as gospel.

    As a result, the nation was assured that Fauci et al. stood for “science,” and their skeptics were little more than ultra-MAGA, Trumpist yahoos. The old time-tested, safe, and life-saving Ivermectin, well aside from the debate over its actual efficacy in treating COVID, was rendered a dangerous “horse dewormer,” while the mRNA vaccines were deemed perfectly safe for young, healthy men, despite being in little danger from COVID but susceptible to vaccination-caused myocarditis.

    So effective were our bureaucrats in using the media in their propaganda that ancient canons of medical science—viruses can indeed provide valuable natural immunity; vaccines are of only temporary efficacy against the quickly-mutating coronaviruses; complete nationwide quarantines would lead to untenable social, economic, and political damage; viral pandemics are unlikely to be of direct animal origin if the virus has never been observed in an animal prior to human infections, etc.—were often mocked as self-interested pseudoscience.

    The media ensured that reports of numerous FBI informants present on January 6 were suppressed. They also smothered evidence that the loaded January 6th congressional committee was manipulating evidence, suppressing testimonies, and deliberately not interviewing inconvenient witnesses.

    Instead, the media ran with wild lies of violent and often-armed “insurrectionists” who had long planned a systematic takeover and who had succeeded in killing “five law enforcement officers” (only one, Brian Sicknick, died—a day later on January 7, from natural causes). The media smeared the name and reputation of the unarmed Ashli Babbitt, killed while going through a broken window into the Capitol, and then hid the name of the Capitol Police officer who had lethally shot her.

    4) Few, if any, in the media or the government were ever punished for their conspiracies to create and spread such complete fabrications.

    Few at CNN who spread the Russian collusion lie were ever permanently punished. No Pulitzer Prizes for such false coverage were revoked. James Comey (claiming amnesia 245 times while under congressional oath), James Clapper (previously lying under congressional oath), John Brennan (previously lying twice while under congressional oath), and Andrew McCabe (lying repeatedly to federal investigators) were never formally charged—unlike those who went to jail after falsely being indicted for collusion. All instead used their liberal notoriety to land lucrative network consultantships or book deals—and to persist in the Russian collusion hoax.

    None of the 51 intelligence authorities who lied to the nation and thereby helped warp an election have ever retracted their statements, much less apologized. All knew then, and are currently without a doubt after the conviction of Hunter Biden, that his laptop and contents were not just authentic but proven to be so by the FBI. Barring apologies, the assumption remains that they believe their misinformation and disinformation led to the election of Joe Biden and, thus, that their noble ends were properly justified by any means necessary.

    Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Fauci and his lieutenants, Peter Daszak and a string of others have never been formally disciplined for their efforts to spread misinformation that likely contributed to tens of thousands of deaths from the unwarranted national lockdowns. Even to this day, Dr. Fauci insists U.S. funding for Wuhan had nothing to do with gain-of-function research and still does not concede that it is almost certain that the virus originated in the lab.

    *  *  *

    From the above, we can assume that conspiracies successfully achieve left-wing goals.

    The hoaxes are used by bureaucracies against conservatives and Republican candidates. They are spread like wildfire by a corrupt media and, when exposed and refuted, rarely lead to legal culpability or disgrace rather than publicity-driven lucrative post-scandal employment.

    One chief common trait is projection. By accusing others of high crimes and misdemeanors, the conspirators become exempt from criminal charges.

    Hillary Clinton and her campaign were never charged with illegally hiring a foreign national to draw on Russian sources to smear their 2016 campaign opponent.

    The Biden campaign was never held accountable for conspiring to organize so-called retired intelligence experts to formally lie to the American people to influence an election.

    High officials of the U.S. government lied under oath with impunity about their role in funding gain-of-function research after conspiring to circumvent U.S. law prohibiting such research.

    U.S. elected and bureaucratic officials deliberately suppressed the use of law enforcement on January 6 despite the ensuing lax security, warped a U.S. House committee investigation, and used the Washington D.C. court system to convict hundreds for dubious crimes in order to use their convictions and prison terms for political agendas.

    No wonder, then, that we should expect some sort of similar hoax to arise before the 2024 election. Do not be surprised when told of a “secret” Trump plan uncovered to round up critics in 2025 and send them to “camps,” or lurid revelations about “evidence” that Trump is in worse physical and mental shape than is a debilitated Biden, or some fantastic MAGA plot to implement “voter suppression,” or allegations that the Trump campaign’s “dark money” involves “collusion,” “disinformation,” and “sinister foreign actors.”

    When we hear such things in the months to come, remember that these mythologies are usually a warning: what the left is alleging is, quite often, precisely what the left is already doing.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:40

  • US Has Reportedly 'Ramped Up' Intel-Sharing With Israel, Alarming Democrat Lawmakers 
    US Has Reportedly ‘Ramped Up’ Intel-Sharing With Israel, Alarming Democrat Lawmakers 

    Washington has significantly ramped up its intelligence-sharing with Israel, despite recent attempts by the Biden administration to distance itself from large-scale civilian casualties mounting from the Rafah ground offensive as well as airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

    The Washington Post has documented the Pentagon is now handing an “extraordinary amount” of intelligence to Tel Aviv, including “drone footage, satellite imagery, communications intercepts and data analysis using advanced software, some of it powered by artificial intelligence.”

    DIA monitoring center, via Wiki Commons

    Much of this is said to be focused on hostage-location efforts, given also that among the Oct.7 captives there were eight Americans, but three are since believed deceased.

    “If we managed to unilaterally get information that we could act on, and we thought we could actually get US people out alive, we could act,” a US official told the Post, adding “there was genuinely very little information specifically about US hostages.”

    The report confirmed the presence of the US military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at a CIA station in Israel, as well as personnel from the Defense Intelligence Agency. These US intel officials have been meeting with their counterparts in the country “on a daily basis”. The State Department has also has a special envoy on the ground, while the FBI has also assisted ongoing investigations related to Oct.7.

    WaPo also revealed that earlier in the war the US had intricate plans for a potential hostage operation to retrieve the remaining American captives (dual nationals) held by Hamas. That operation, which would have been extraordinarily high-risk both militarily as well as politically for the Biden administration, was shelved.

    All of this increased intel-sharing has worried some lawmakers, who don’t want the United States to be seen as too hand in glove with Israeli operations in Gaza. The Post wrote:

    Other officials, including lawmakers on Capitol Hill, worry that intelligence the United States provides could be making its way into the repositories of data that Israeli military forces use to conduct airstrikes or other military operations, and that Washington has no effective means of monitoring how Israel uses the U.S. information.

    Meanwhile there is this surprisingly blunt assessment from Politico concerning how the crisis impacts Biden’s political future in the White House…

    “Diplomats and world leaders – many of whom are gathering for the G7 summit here this week – have begun to worry that Biden’s reluctance to more fully break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could cost him the election in November,” Politico writes.

    Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama State Department official who commented on recent conversations with European diplomats, explained to the outlet that “The level of concern is something between panic and terror.” He added: “The alliance is too important for these countries right now.”

    As for growing nervousness among US lawmakers over the intel-sharing relationship at a time Israel is being increasingly seen as a ‘pariah’ among many countries abroad, AntiWar.com notes that—

    Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been critical of the lack of supervision on intelligence-sharing with Israel. Calling for more “robust oversight,” he recently co-sponsored a bill that would require top officials to notify lawmakers if US intel was used for an operation that resulted in civilian deaths. The legislation is still making its way through the House.

    A trickle of Biden admin ‘protest resignations’ have meanwhile continued…

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

    While the Biden administration has publicly pushed back and fought against things like the recent anti-Israeli actions of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including arrest warrants issued for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, it has faced some degree of revolt from within – including a spate of protest resignations in the State Department and other agencies like USAID.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:20

  • Sense And Nonsense On Petrodollars
    Sense And Nonsense On Petrodollars

    Authored by Peter Earle via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Last week several reports suggested the termination of a US-Saudi petrodollar agreement, and speculated a Saudi Arabian move to sell oil on world markets in various currencies, including the Chinese yuan.

    The accounts were rife with inaccuracies: the Saudis’ have transacted in non-dollar currencies for decades, and there has never been a formal treaty, much less with a specified expiration date, governing the loose arrangement that has come to be called the ‘petrodollar system.’

    But even the fragments of broken mirrors reflect reality, and despite their fundamental errors a significant trend is in evidence: Saudi Arabia is progressively reducing its dependence on the United States. Quite possibly reflective of its recent admittance to the expanded BRICS block it is exhibiting a greater inclination to settle oil transactions in currencies other than the US dollar. Owing to the US and Western Europe’s increasingly entangled alliances, and its own efforts to diversify away from dependence upon energy exports, Saudi Arabia has been increasing its diplomatic and economic engagements with China, Iran, Russia, nations considered primary US foreign policy adversaries. Recent moves toward accepting non-dollar currencies reflects broader geopolitical shifts away from US currency hegemony.

    The concept of the petrodollar, established in the 1970s, was an informal arrangement where Saudi Arabia agreed to sell oil exclusively in US dollars in exchange for US military protection and investment in US Treasury securities. In the immediate wake of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the arrangement bolstered the value of the US dollar and secured US military support for Saudi Arabia. It also ensured relatively consistent demand for US government debt, a windfall which five decades later has become a millstone of damning heft. 

    A handful of policy changes indicate departures from the heretofore entrenched framework.

    In January 2023, the Saudi finance minister announced the possibility of conducting trade in a broadening variety of currencies. This was followed by increasing oil imports from Russia and establishing a formal, fixed currency swap agreement with China. Best characterized as strategic realignments, Saudi Arabia has sought to forge flexible relationships with regional and rising global powers outside the sphere of American influence.

    Myths and hyperbole aside, the weakening US-Saudi relationship is one instance amid a growing trend of diminishing US influence in global currency markets and international finance. It is a shift reflective of the weaponization of the dollar in early 2022 and a growing array of domestic policy choices which are rapidly destroying the dollar’s attractiveness. Certainly, and as has been said many times: these effects of these changes will not be seen or felt overnight.

    But developments emerging with increasing rapidity evince an ongoing decline in control, and reduced role, in over global financial and geopolitical matters.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/17/2024 – 17:00

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