Today’s News 1st June 2022

• Europol Warns Weapons Shipped To Ukraine Could Be Used By "Criminal Groups" For Years
  Europol Warns Weapons Shipped To Ukraine Could Be Used By “Criminal Groups” For Years

  In a weekend German media interview the head of the European police agency Europol has issued a dire warning about the huge amount of weapons being pumped from the West into Ukraine.

  Europol Director Catherine De Bolle told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that the flood of weapons on the Ukraine-Russia battlefield could end up in the hands of criminal groups for years to come. “At some point the war will be over. We want to avoid a situation like the one that followed the war in the Balkans 30 years ago,” she said to the publication in reference to conflicts in the wake of Yugoslavia’s collapse.

  “The weapons from this war are still being used by criminal groups today,” De Bolle emphasized in speaking of Balkan conflicts, and what’s looking to be a similar situation emerging in Ukraine.

  

  “The situation is highly dynamic and fragmented and we’re receiving different figures from our European partners,” De Bolle said. She stressed that in response her agency is seeking to “find a way in which we will deal with the situation after a possible end to the war.” She described that this will involve Europol “assembling an international task force that will address this issue.” 

  The Ukraine conflict has attracted a reported tens of thousands of foreign volunteers after the government in Kiev established a foreign legion. This has also included American and British military veterans and mercenaries. On this, she explained as cited in Deutsche Welle:

  People traveling to Ukraine have different experiences and ideologies. But she said that even those who become disillusioned by the violence they witness there will be under observation.

  Russia, for its part, has long highlighted far-right and neo-Nazi groups and the danger of arming them. Azov Battalion in particular had been on the front lines in what is now Russian-controlled Mariupol, and is believed to be a main Ukrainian fighting force in Donbass.

  The Kremlin has especially complained about Stinger missiles from the US flooding the Ukrainian battlefield. Stingers don’t only pose a severe threat to military aircraft, but to civilian aviation as well.

  

  The type of scenario that Europol’s De Bolle is now alarmed about has already played out in Syria, as has long been documented, given that twin CIA and Pentagon programs to arm so-called “moderate rebels” resulted in an array of weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles, going straight to Syrian al-Qaeda, ISIS, and all terror groups in between.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/01/2022 – 02:45

• A Global ESG System Is Almost Here: We Should Be Worried
  A Global ESG System Is Almost Here: We Should Be Worried

  Commentary by Jack McPherrin via The Epoch Times,

  Day two of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, started off on a concerning note.

  

  Some of the chief architects of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores met during a session called “Global ESG for Global Resilience,” and have clearly decided to double down on their objective for a new global economic order that transcends national borders and replaces free-market capitalism.

  Destroying free-market capitalism in favor of a new “stakeholder” model, in which global elites hold all the power, has been their objective for years. A single ESG system gets them much closer to this goal, and will be significantly more effective at eroding national sovereignty, circumventing democratic processes, coercing companies into compliance, and ultimately restricting individual choice.

  Early in the session, Hong Kong Stock Exchange Chairman Laura Cha got right to the point. She revealed, “In order for the [ESG] disclosures to be meaningful, we need to have a harmonized standard. … It would be very good in terms of the work that the ISSB [International Sustainability Standards Board] is doing to bring about some standardized global measures.”

  The ISSB is a new standard-setting board developed for the sole purpose of institutionalizing this global framework.

  ISSB Chairman Emmanuel Faber confirmed that these efforts have begun: “We just a week ago … we convened the first-ever working group of jurisdictions on sustainability standard alignment …. And there was China, Japan, [the] UK, [the] U.S., and [the] EU. … And that is just the start.”

  He had earlier stated, “We can’t stay at the taxonomy levels of any jurisdiction. Because they are linked to a certain political consensus and they might be changing tomorrow. So, if you look at the long-term, you need to go deeper than the taxonomies.”

  Reading between the lines, Faber seems to be saying that he intends to institutionalize a top-down system that will infiltrate all national borders and be impervious to political decision-making, which would render the idea of democracy impotent.

  Much of the remainder of the conversation was an illuminating look at the ways in which elites will threaten and coerce the world into compliance.

  Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan didn’t waste any time, immediately threatening companies to get in line. When asked if he believed that the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 have set efforts to expand ESG back, he responded, “No. … The reality is that operating companies have made commitments, along multiple dimensions …  you can’t just say, ‘Oh, it’s inconvenient right now.’”

  He added: “I don’t see there’s a way you can walk away from it, because your customers won’t let you, your employees won’t let you, and your shareholders shouldn’t, won’t let you. And, by the way, society won’t let you.”

  Gee, Brian, it really doesn’t sound like these companies are doing this based upon free will.

  Moynihan also committed to using the economic clout of his entire organization, including the funds of his individual account holders, saying, “200,000 people, a three trillion-dollar balance sheet, 60 billion in expenses; you start aiming that gun, and you take that across all these companies, it is huge …. [The companies] delivering on the metrics will get more capital, the ones that won’t will get less.”

  He even discussed his implementation of a training regimen for each of his lending officers, educating them on how to talk to their clients about the benefits of ESG-resilient companies.

  Moynihan went on to discuss how Bank of America and other organizations will make purchasing decisions related to their supply chains that will be based on their net-zero commitments, all of which will trickle down to businesses and consumers.

  He warned customers to get on board: “What we’re trying to do is educate those customers. The idea is: We’re going to stick with you, but you have to start to think about this. … We’ve got to get the rest of the world ready to go. … Don’t think this is other people’s problems. This could become your problem.”

  Brian, you’re manufacturing the “problem,” just like you’re manufacturing “consent.”

  Unilever CEO Alan Jope echoed similar commitments to shutting off supply valves for the rest of the world in favor of his objectives, which, by the way, won’t help solve our current supply chain issues and the related inflationary crisis.

  He preached, “We’ve pledged to only do business with suppliers who are, for example, paying their people properly a fair living wage … who have made net-zero commitments, so we can take our impact into the entire universe of people who work with our company.”

  In one of the most concerning statements of the morning, Jope declared that for this system to work, “It has to go from government and regulators, into the capitalist system, big companies, small and medium-sized entities; but actually, the ultimate democratization, the ultimate way of moving markets is when the consumer is voting with her wallet.”

  First, the growing alliance between big government and big business—with a little help from the media—carries substantial fascist overtones.

  Second, the consumer you reference doesn’t have a free choice, Alan. What you hope to do is akin to taking a popular candidate off an electoral ballot—like they do in electoral autocracies such as Russia—and forcing people to choose between limited options that are unlikely to be their preference.

  There’s a reason a natural market exists for these goods; there’s consumer demand, which is in turn fulfilled by producers. These people are trying to both fundamentally alter demand by changing consumer preferences, while fundamentally altering supply by destroying producers who don’t join their team.

  Faber frames these efforts as “We are not going to say what’s good or what’s bad. We are just providing the information for people to make decisions.”

  Simply put, that is a lie.

  As has clearly been stated by members of this WEF panel, what these elites are actually doing is steering investment away from companies that don’t align with their vision for the world, and severing relationships with companies—causing a trickle-down reduction in choice for the rest of the market—that don’t get on board.

  This isn’t about information; it’s about control, and power.

  Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or Zero Hedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/01/2022 – 02:00

• Luongo: The Big Questions We Should All Be Asking Geopolitically
  Luongo: The Big Questions We Should All Be Asking Geopolitically

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  To say that current events are ‘messy’ today would be the height of understatement. Everyday the headlines blare at us some new set of contradictory data points convincing us of some lie that serves someone’s purpose.

  

  No matter how hard we try to keep up with things, cutting out the extraneous to find the nuggets of signal from the jungle of noise is more than a full-time job.

  Sometimes, however, it’s best to take a few steps back, fall back on first principles and remind ourselves who the players are, what they want and then ask the big question of each of them… are they succeeding?

  But to even ask that question we have to ask ourselves honestly the following question:

  “What will they be willing to do to survive under present circumstances?”

  This is the most uncomfortable question you can ever ask anyone. What would you do to survive? To protect your family? Your position? Your conception of yourself?

  Everyone’s morality has limits. Everyone. Everyone has a shadow, a dark side, a place where they retreat to their Hobbesian self and see the world purely in terms of ‘a war of all against all.’ Anyone who refuses to admit this to themselves is someone you should run screaming from.

  Those that always claim the moral high ground, who are always “the goodies!” are those without limits on their behavior. As the great H.L. Mencken proclaimed nearly 70 years ago:

  The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts.

  This is the context in which we have to ask that question, “What will they do?”

  Of course, the answer is, “Whatever they have to.”

  This is why I never rule anything out in my analysis. It’s why I’m always willing to leap five or six steps ahead to the big move, because that’s the limit of the behavior of the group under study. Today it may be Davos, tomorrow it may be The Fed, the day after it’s Russia.

  They all have a preferred end-state, a solution to their personal equation, with their own set of input variables. For me I see this as a set of differential equations to be solved. We all want them to reduce to a set of outcomes which will leave someone closer to their preferred outcome.

  And the scary part for all of us should be realizing that not only is there no single set of outcomes here where everyone is maximized, there isn’t even a ‘win/lose,’ condition here.

  There are only losers, us.

  Because the first rule of any organization is self-survival. Throw the mission statements, corporate bloviating and HR virtue signaling into the dumpster fire. At the end of the day all that matters is survival. Only when that is as secure as it can be can an organization begin thinking beyond its collective lizard brain.

  No different than you or me. And at this point every major faction has been reduced to this, their event horizon is just out of reach, striving for it almost half…. There!

  But, like Xeno’s paradox never reaching it because it was never attainable in the first place.

  What I fear more than anything else, what I see from too many people analyzing the intersection of geopolitics, markets and ideology, is complacency. There is a stunning amount of normalcy bias in the punditocracy, too much ‘cooler heads will prevail’ and not enough ‘everyone’s got a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.’

  So when thinking about Davos and their stated goals for the Great Reset and saving the world from Climate Change do you really think there’s a limit to their behavior?

  Do you really believe they wouldn’t start a nuclear war, unleash a virulent plague, engineer a cure that’s worse than the disease, create a false flag mass shooting at a school or leak a Supreme Court opinion?

  When thinking about the Federal Reserve in the context of an unprecedented assault on its autonomy and the commercial banking interests it was created to protect, do you really think today, at this point in time, they wouldn’t engender an economic collapse to save themselves from another group (say Davos) from destroying it?

  So, everyone pontificating about how the Fed only has one or two more rate hikes in them because that’s what the models say, that’s what the Fed’s past behavior supposedly tells them, what will you tell your clients when the Fed hikes that fourth time by 50 basis points. Or accelerates the run rate of QT to $125 billion per month and allows the US 10-year note to rise to 6%? 8%? 10%?

  Are you going to shrug and say, “Uh, sorry my bad.”

  When faced with the prospect of a nuclear re-armed Ukraine in bed with Neoconservative ideologues in Congress and the U.S. State Department committed to a singular vision of hegemony for the planet, would Russia not fight a vicious war of attrition using World War II artillery tactics to grind their adversaries into paste while grimly pledging itself to their eradication?

  What about the terminally corrupt and morally bankrupt Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill who have gotten personally rich and weaved an immense web of bullshit so vast and encumbering we can barely keep track of even the surface level details?

  Would they not do anything to protect their malfeasance from breaking free from the containment of plausible deniability which is the true coin of the realm in D.C.?

  Today newly-confirmed FOMC Chair Jerome Powell was summoned by President Select Biden to the White House to have a chat about the economy. Biden and the Democrats are scared to death of this fall. Biden obviously wants Powell to stop hiking rates. The Democrats only want to lose 40 seats in the House in November.

  That’s all the vote fraud infrastructure George Soros’ money pays for.

  Powell’s barely even begun the tightening cycle and these people are shamelessly, after holding up his confirmation for a year, after playing the most egregious power politics in the Fed’s history, summoning Powell like a dog to the White House and say, “Don’t hurt our chances this fall.”

  If I’m Powell I’m smiling like the Cheshire Cat before vanishing into the bowels of the Marriner-Eccles building, and considering a 75 basis point hike just for the lulz.

  Or he could see his shadow, get spooked and cut a deal. But at this point with who? Who do you cut a deal with? Bond-holders? Davos? Biden? Who?

  Seriously, this is what our politics is reduced to by these venal Davos-controlled halfwits? And there are people out there still engaging in one-sigma thinking?

  I’ve been telling you for a year that no one is asking the right questions about what the Fed is willing to do, not just to save itself, but possibly the much larger goal of breaking the people who are intentionally breaking the world for their benefit.

  Too many can’t get past the budget or tax receipt numbers. The bond markets? Stocks? The Fed couldn’t possibly burn all of that down, could they? Those unwilling to ask that question seriously are those that keep looking away from the Abyss because the Abyss stares back.

  They refuse to contemplate what happens when the board state is so screwed up, when the Jenga tower that fragile, that the only winning move is to nudge the table and watch it all come crashing down.

  The Fed has looked into this Abyss in the past and they’ve always shied away, but that was when there was still time. But Davos has pushed us to the brink of societal collapse across the West, it has refused to even contemplate they are the Abyss and because of that the Fed may be staring at the heroic choice of jumping in and letting us pick up the pieces.

  The question I have for you then is simple, “What are you prepared to become if that happens?”

  We already know what the big players are doing.

  *  *  *

  Join My Patreon if you are sure of what you are capable of

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 23:40

• China Prepares Launch Of Most Advanced Aircraft Carrier On 'Dragon Boat Festival'
  China Prepares Launch Of Most Advanced Aircraft Carrier On ‘Dragon Boat Festival’

  China is preparing to launch the country’s third aircraft carrier, called the Type 003, amid increasing fears of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. 

  Last week, the Maritime Safety Administration announced a notice requesting that berths at the Jiangnan Shipyard on Changxing Island, where Type 003 has been under construction since 2017, be cleared, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP).

  SCMP spoke with Lu Li-shih, a former instructor at the Taiwanese Naval Academy, who said the launch would end dry dock work and then begin tests and equipment installations for sea trials.   

  

  A military insider suggested the launch of the new aircraft carrier could be seen as soon as this Friday, coinciding with Dragon Boat Festival

  “The aircraft carrier needs to go into sea trials as soon as possible – it may take several years to achieve initial operational capability,” said the insider. 

  Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie explained that “time is precious” for Type 003, adding, “the installation of all of the weapon systems and the activation of its propulsion system will only start after the hull is proven to have no leaks once it goes into the water.”

  Type 003 was supposed to be launched last month to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the Chinese Navy, but the event was postponed due to the widespread outbreak of COVID in Shanghai. 

  At 320 meters long, the new carrier will be outfitted with a high-tech electromagnetic catapult system, launching China’s stealth fighters with heavier weapon loads and more fuel. Here’s how the new aircraft carrier compares with others: 

  

  Sea trials and installation of equipment could take at least two years. The Pentagon doesn’t expect the carrier to become operational until 2024. 

  China is modernizing and expanding its maritime capabilities for dominance in the Indo-Pacific region and, more specifically, in the Taiwan Strait. 

  News of Type 003 about to launch comes as Beijing sent a massive group of fighters into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone on Monday. 

  Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Command recently denounced “collusion” between Taiwan and the US after President Biden pledged the West would defend Taiwan if under attack by Chinese forces; however, the White House was quick to follow by saying there’s been no change in the One China policy or its approach of “strategic ambiguity.” 

  And now, there will be three Chinese aircraft carriers the West and allies have to worry about. There are plans for a fourth carrier that could be nuclear-powered. This is an attempt by Beijing to project power and dominate the Indo-Pacific region as Thucydides Trap between China and the US inches closer. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 23:20

• A Case For Government As A Borrower To Limit Tyranny
  A Case For Government As A Borrower To Limit Tyranny

  Submitted by Gary Marshall, first published in Real Clear Markets. Gary Marshall is a Public Finance researcher living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He can be reached by email at grimmer9 at gmail.com or through his website at www.economart.ca.

  Many are resigned to the belief that salvation from the perpetual destruction of wealth, property and life by those directing ruinous government is a myth. But, an end of government tyranny is within our grasp, and a little exercise in thought and reason should reveal the solution to all our economic ills and slay this monster forever.

  

  I have detailed two facts in Public Finance that most in the field ignore perpetually and inexplicably. The first: that government is in deficit to the whole of its expenditures, that it has no money or funds with which to pay its bills, that taxpayers, rather resident citizens, and specifically their property, assets, and incomes fund government and all of it. 

  The second: that it makes no difference whether government taxes or borrows from the collective of the assets, property and incomes that comprise the source of government funds, that a superficial equivalence exists between Taxation and Borrowing in raising funds for public expenditures. 

  I use the phrase ‘superficial equivalence’ because Taxation and Borrowing are not the same. Taxation bears immense costs in government waste and in deterrence that disappear with Borrowing. 

  We are all familiar with government waste. Though government does supply a small number valued public goods, the majority of funds that pass into its control are squandered on politically useful, but dubious, harmful, and barren undertakings. The politicians and their employ eagerly institute regulations and laws for their own benefit, favored voting blocks, and the special interests that dominate them at great cost to us all.

  But the greater and generally unaccounted cost inherent in Taxation is its weighty and poignant role as deterrent. The same instrument, essentially a fine or punishment, used to penalize speeders and criminals is used to raise funds for public expenditures. As it is with fines and the lawless, so it is with tax levies and the productive. The ubiquitous scourge of Taxation persecutes and chases away enterprising and hard-working spirits, and we are all poorer for it.

  With the institution of full Public Borrowing, with the financial inducement of interest and eventual return of all principle these costs shall disappear. With deterrence erased the productive class shall thrive through full enjoyment of the rewards of their efforts, not penalized with the loss of large fractions of income. Worthy economic activities squelched, halted, curbed, delayed or concealed will of a sudden re-emerge and resume. Firms and people having sought tax refuge elsewhere will have every reason to return.

  With a capital charge imposed, government must borrow funds instead of eagerly and obnoxiously confiscating them by daily entering the financial markets. The people, former taxpaying slaves transformed into Public Bankers, shall become the arbiters of which public expenditures are worthy and which are not. When private bankers fail to adhere to prudent lending practices and endanger the financial health of the institution, depositors withdraw and move funds elsewhere. Government, perpetual dependence imposed, must embrace sound financial measures, must embrace cost and benefit analysis in all undertakings. If it should falter, government shall find itself starved of funds until the perpetrators of waste or corruption are replaced. 

  Suppose we have an economy producing 100 units per year with 40 units allotted to government and the remaining 60 units left to the rest of the people. With the institution of full Public Borrowing, one would expect government expenditure to decline sharply.  I estimate that about 75% of public expenditures go to waste. If correct, the size of the government’s allotment should reduce from 40 units to 10. 

  I estimate the deterrent effect upon the economy at approximately 35% in an economy with a 40% tax rate. If correct, the economy should grow steeply in size, from 100 units to 135.

  An economy of size 135 less 10 units for government would deliver 125 units to the people, beyond a doubling of the former allotment of 60. This explosion in wealth and prosperity would have no precedent in history. The same outcome repeats the following year and into perpetuity, the initial explosion in wealth building upon itself, compounding such that accruing assets always outpace accruing liabilities by at least 4 to 1.  

  There may be some dispute about the size of government waste and the effect of deterrence and, thus, the size of the incomparable augmentation of wealth. But the direction and result is clear. 

  Some have argued that none would lend to a government bereaved of the means of Taxation. By simple calculation, the increase in assets, 65 units, far surpasses the incurred liability of 10 units. How is a community so enriched, its Public Credit so enhanced by the abolition of all Taxation unable to provide security to or repay its lenders? It would be as if lenders turned away the wealthiest corporation in the world. 

  A learned community would never persist with taxing resident citizens when enlightened as to its punishing costs. With the stagnant, medieval fields of economics once again rendered fertile, a declaration uttered by the authorities of a small town, city, province, state, region or nation would set the many peoples of our world, united in purpose, on a blessed and enriching path. Abolish all Taxation and institute full Public Borrowing, and I guarantee the meek, suffering poverty and tyranny, shall inherit the earth as prophesied by a great man long ago. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 23:00

• QT2 Officially Begins: What Happens Next?
  QT2 Officially Begins: What Happens Next?

  For the second time in the past decade, the Fed will try (and fail) to shrink its balance sheet to some “reasonable” size, a process known as Quantitative Tightening 2. What this means in theory is that, as shown below, the Fed’s balance sheet will shrink by $95BN or so every month for the foreseeable futures as existing TSYs ($60BN/month) and MBS ($35BN/month) matures.

  

  What it means in practice, is that we will get a brief period of BS shrinkage for a few months before the “next big crisis” emerges and the Fed blows up the balance sheet again.

  

  We know this will happen with 100% certainty and without a trace of doubt, if for no other reason than the green agenda of the anti-climate change crusaders, the one event that western politicians have been salivating over for decades, will cost $150 trillion over the next 50 years, of which roughly $2 trillion will come in the form of global QE every year (as we explained in “Here is The Hidden $150 Trillion Agenda Behind The “Crusade” Against Climate Change“.)

  But while everyone knows what happens in the medium-to-long term, traders are more focused on how to trade the next few weeks.

  For one answer we go to the latest note from JPMorgan flow trader Andrew Tyler who writes that “the question the market needs answered is whether growth is stabilizing after a move lower or if there is more decay to come…. I think it is premature to call the bottom in stocks, which appears to be a consensus view, given QT is about to launch and we are going to get another 100bps in rate hikes over the next 8 weeks.” We wonder if his permabullish “buy the dip, any dip” co-worker Marco Kolanovic has read this… we doubt it.

  Tyler then pivots to JPM’s preview of QT2, as follows:

  • QT2 kicks off tomorrow
  • Today, on the Rates Sales podcast, they hosted JPM Economist Peter McCrory, who discuss the impact of QT on markets. Podcast is here.
  • The TL; DR version is that QT2 could act as a 25bps rate hike in 2022.
  • Mike Feroli had published a note, A Roadmap for QT2 (full note available to pro subscribers). The note contains information on the mechanics, impact on financial conditions, the long pathway to normalization, and some thoughts on bank deposits.
  • As noted above, by the end of 2023, the Fed is set to shed over $1T in longer-duration assets (in theory), with JPM speculating that “the reduction in bank reserves should have little effect on lending or deposit growth” (it’s very wrong).

  And here it gets really funny: JPM calculates that “to get back to a “normal” size balance sheet, QT2 may last until 2026 or 2027.” Uh, we have some bad news: by 2027, the US will have been in at least one depression, and we will be lucky if the Fed’s balance sheet is only twice as large as it is now (and the price of cryptos will be about 10-100x higher than it is now). In any case, readers can track the Fed’s activities in real-time in Treasuries (here) and MBS (here).

  QT2 aside, there is still the question of the Fed’s rate hikes, at least until the Fed pulls a 180 some time around the August Jackson Hole symposium and the Fed “pauses” in September. According to JPM, here’s what to look for: the market continues to price according to Fed guidance (50bps hikes in June and July; 50% of maximum QT pace). Currently, the market has a ~50% probability of a 25bps hike in Sept and 50% probability of a 50bps hike. The market then prices in 25bps in both November and December. This week, keep an eye on whether Waller’s narrative is echoed by other speakers; or, if the Bostic mention of a September pause remains. If we see the Fed pivot and/or turn dovish, then this would benefit stocks.

  * * *

  Finally, going back to square one, the question is how does all of this impact the market in the coming days and weeks? According to Andrew Tyler, “the question is one of whether the US bounce is a bear market rally or the continuation of the longer-term bull trend. It is tough to say that we have seen the bottom in stocks given that we have seen a bottom when we still have potential for the Fed to increase its hawkish behavior due to the uncertainty surrounding the next few inflation prints. That said, if an investor wants to short this market, there are challenges given the relatively light positioning among hedge funds and the potential for vol-targeting funds to re-gross and for CTAs to reverse from short to long. Tactically, I think you ride the momentum higher which should be led by Tech and Energy; but, Energy is an idiosyncratic long play given the supply/demand dynamic and supercycle hypothesis.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 22:40

• Florida Truck Driver Charged With Crashing Rig While Smoking Meth
  Florida Truck Driver Charged With Crashing Rig While Smoking Meth

  By Mark Solomon of FreightWaves

  This isn’t a happy Memorial Day weekend for Florida truck driver Michael Calvo.

  

  The Cape Coral driver admitted to having smoked meth before he crashed into the back of a Publix shopping center Thursday afternoon in Haines City near Lakeland, according to reports that cited the Haines City Police Department.

  According to police, Calvo, 51, was making a delivery in the back of the shopping center when his truck tore an awning off the building and hit an unoccupied pickup truck, pushing it for about 200 feet. Both vehicles were totaled, reports said.

  After the wreck, an officer reportedly approached Calvo and asked if he needed medical assistance. Calvo told him that he thought he was being “pranked” by a television show and resisted exiting the tractor, reports said, citing police information. 

  After a few minutes, the officer was able to remove Calvo from the truck and asked him what caused his truck to crash, whether he had fallen asleep, been drinking or was experiencing a medical emergency, according to published reports.

  “I was smoking my meth pipe,” Calvo said, according to police information cited in the reports.

  Calvo was arrested and faces charges of possession of methamphetamine, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest without violence and possession of narcotics paraphernalia, according to reports.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 22:20

• Wall Streeters' Demand For Hamptons Rental Market Hit With Abrupt Chill As Recession Risks Flash
  Wall Streeters’ Demand For Hamptons Rental Market Hit With Abrupt Chill As Recession Risks Flash

  It’s been a brutal year for some on Wall Street. There’s been no corner of the market to hide in the first five months of the year, and stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrency markets have been clubbed like a baby seal. Poor performance in markets comes as the rental market in the Hamptons, also known as a playground for Wall Streeters during the summer months, faces an abrupt chill ahead of summer. 

  Jonathan Miller, CEO of real estate firm Miller Samuel, reports the median rental price in the first quarter slumped 26%. Brokers are reducing prices by as much as 39% to attract renters before the summer begins. 

  “There is a tremendous amount of inventory and people are not renting it. And it’s across all segments, from the very low to the very top of the market,” Enzo Morabito of Douglas Elliman told CNBC. 

  After two years of booming markets (2020-21) and asset prices soaring to the moon as the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet and lifted all tides for Wall Streeters, those days are long gone as the monetary wonks in Eccles reversed policy to remove liquidity from markets, sending asset prices spiraling lower this year. This means that Wall Streeters are feeling the pain, and perhaps some have pulled back from splurging their bonuses on luxurious beachfront rental properties on eastern Long Island. 

  

  Morabito said one beachfront mansion was asking $70,000 a month. Just weeks before summer, there are still no takers. He said one potential renter offered just $45,000. 

  “We were hoping the renter would split the difference, but it’s a different market right now,” he said.

  “There are a lot of questions in the air, about the economy, both locally and nationally,” said Harald Grant with Sotheby’s International Realty. “It all affects the market.”

  Median rents for May are 46% higher than the same month in 2019. Given the plunge in stocks and crypto prices, the dwindling demand of Wall Streeters, balking at the high rental prices, is an ominous sign of the cloudy economic outlook. 

  Samuel and Douglas Elliman said many renters who spent their summers in the Hamptons bought homes during the pandemic and have become permanent residents or second homes.

  “The buyers removed themselves from the rental market,” Morabito said. “Now, all of the sudden the people who bought want to rent it and the renters aren’t there. So you have this huge surplus.”

  The days of renting a beachfront mansion for $1.65 million per month appear to be over. Check out the massive reduction in rent for 155 Surfside Drive.

  

  The cooling of the Hamptons rental market is a sign of the slowdown in the economy as recession risks flourish. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 22:00

• As Biden Mulls Saudi Trip, Outcry Grows Over Death Sentence Of Child Defendant
  As Biden Mulls Saudi Trip, Outcry Grows Over Death Sentence Of Child Defendant

  Authored by Jessica Corbett via Common Dreams,

  Following reports that US President Joe Biden may visit Saudi Arabia during his trip to the Middle East next month, a human rights group on Monday highlighted global calls to release Abdullah al-Howaiti, a young man twice sentenced to death by the country’s courts.

  Reprieve pointed out in a statement that United Nations experts have urged the Saudi government to annul his sentence “because he did not receive a fair trial, as credible reports that he was tortured into making a false confession when he was 14 years old were not investigated.” Sharing the statement on Twitter, the group noted that the U.S. leader is considering a trip to Saudi Arabia and encouraged Biden to review what a trio of U.N. experts has recently said in response to the case.

  Arrested and tortured at 14
  Sentenced to death at 17
  At risk of “arbitrary execution”@JoeBiden @POTUS, before you visit #SaudiArabia 🇸🇦 read what UN legal experts say about Abdullah al Howaiti 👇🏼 https://t.co/Rx71pdYfnE

  — Reprieve US (@ReprieveUS) May 30, 2022

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

  “From the moment police raided the Howaiti family home and dragged out 14-year-old Abdullah, the Saudi justice system has been on autopilot, punishing him for a crime he cannot have committed,” said Jeed Basyouni, who leads Reprieve’s work on the death penalty across the Middle East and North Africa.

  “Every court knew how young he was,” she continued. “Every court heard he had an alibi. Every court was told he was tortured. But they sent him to death row and kept him in a cell, when he should have been playing football with his friends.”

  “Abdullah will never get back the teenage years he spent fearing for his life, but it’s not too late for the Saudi courts to do the right thing,” Basyouni added. “The world is watching.”

  Human Rights Watch (HRW) explained last year that “while Saudi authorities announced an end to the death penalty for children for certain crimes in 2018 and applied this retroactively to previous cases in 2020, the death penalty remains a possible punishment for the type of crime Abdullah al-Howaiti is accused of committing.” He is accused of murdering a police officer during a robbery of a jewelry store in Duba.

  “Al-Howaiti’s court proceedings flouted almost every internationally recognizable fair trial guarantee, and yet a Saudi court still sentenced him to die for a crime allegedly committed when he was 14,” said Michael Page, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, at the time. “In sentencing a child to die while ignoring torture allegations, the Saudi court made a mockery of the country’s alleged ‘reforms.'”

  Referencing al-Howaiti’s plea of not guilty and his written account from January 22, 2019, HRW outlined:

  Al-Howaiti said in the letter and to the court that interrogators subjected him to torture and ill treatment to force him to confess. He said they made him stand for hours at a time, beat him and slapped him on the face, flogged him with an electric cable on the soles of his feet and various parts of his body until he lost consciousness, forced him to hold his brother’s legs while he was being beaten, and lied that his mother and sisters were also in detention and would only be released once he confessed.

  Al-Howaiti eventually signed the confession prepared for him, after which authorities transferred him to a social observation home in Tabuk. He told another investigator there that his confession had been forcibly extracted. He said he was then transferred to a prison cell, where the criminal investigations interrogators from Tabuk arrived after midnight, blindfolded him, and transferred him back to the criminal investigation department.

  There, he said, an interrogator threatened to pull out his nails, suspend him from one hand, and torture him in ways he “could not begin to imagine,” prompting al-Howaiti to promise him he would not tell anyone else about his ill treatment.

  In March, the U.N. experts—Nils Melzer, special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; Miriam Estrada-Castillo, vice-chair of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; and Morris Tidball-Binz, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions—sent their letter to Saudi leadership that Reprieve elevated.

  After outlining the allegation about al-Howaiti’s treatment since his arrest in 2017, the experts’ letter states that “while we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of the information received, we are deeply concerned by the continuing imposition and execution of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of committing the crime, which amounts to a serious violation of international human rights law.”

  The top 5 executioners of 2021 are…

  🇨🇳 China – 1000+
  🇮🇷 Iran – 314+
  🇪🇬 Egypt – 83+
  🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia – 65
  🇸🇾 Syria – 24+

  — Amnesty International (@amnesty) May 28, 2022

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  Along with reminding the kingdom of its obligations under international law, the letter calls on the government not only “to annul the death sentence imposed on Mr. al-Howaiti,” but also “to promptly and thoroughly investigate the allegations of torture, and to ensure that he is re-tried in conformity with international norms and standards.”

  The letter further calls on the Saudi government “to adopt without delay the necessary legislative measures to abolish the imposition of the death penalty for children for all crimes” as well as “to consider establishing an official moratorium on all executions as a first step towards fully abolishing the death penalty in the country.”

  Meanwhile, in the United States, though Biden’s administration suspended federal executions following what critics called a “killing spree” under his predecessor, death row inmates are still being executed at the state level—conditions that fall short of the president’s campaign promise to “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 21:40

• Goldman Predicts That EV Battery Metals Are In For A "Sharp Correction"
  Goldman Predicts That EV Battery Metals Are In For A “Sharp Correction”

  Of all the commodities in the midst of a raging bull market, Goldman Sachs thinks the run in the battery metals is over and done with. The firm said this week that cobalt, lithium and nickel prices will drop over the next two years, according to a recap by Bloomberg. 

  Goldman analysts Nicholas Snowdon and Aditi Rai wrote in a note over the weekend: “Investors are fully aware that battery metals will play a crucial role in the 21st century global economy. Yet despite this exponential demand profile, we see the battery metals bull market as over for now.”

  While future demand looks strong, “investor exuberance has led to an oversupply”, the report says. 

  The analysts said there has been “a surge in investor capital into supply investment tied to the long term EV demand story, essentially trading a spot driven commodity as a forward-looking equity. That fundamental mispricing has in turn generated an outsized supply response well ahead of the demand trend.”

  

  Goldman is predicting a “sharp correction” in the prices of lithium, the report also says. The firm predicts lithium will average under $54,000 a ton this year and that Cobalt will drop to $59,500 a ton. 

  The bank concluded: “This phase of oversupply will ultimately sow the seeds of the battery materials super cycle over the second half of this decade. Then the demand surge will more sustainably overcome current supply growth.”

  In April we noted that Chinese EV manufacturers were grappling with the continued rising cost of all input materials. Remember, we just wrote days prior to that piece that Japanese automakers were also grappling with the skyrocketing cost of raw materials and a shortage of semiconductors. 

  Even as some parts have become unavailable, raw materials for other parts have skyrocketed in price. For example, palladium, nickel and aluminum have all surged to record highs this month. The metals are used in automobile catalytic converters, batteries and other car parts.

  

  The price hikes are likely due to the fact that 40% of palladium production comes from Russia, Nikkei noted last week. This has forced auto manufacturers to abandon buying from Russia and seek out alternative sources. 

  Back in February we broke down the cost of an EV battery here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 21:20

• 10 Examples When 'Empire Managers' Exposed Their Desire To Control Our Thoughts
  10 Examples When ‘Empire Managers’ Exposed Their Desire To Control Our Thoughts

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

  The single most-overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society is the fact that immensely powerful people are continuously working to manipulate the thoughts we think about the world. Whether you call it propaganda, psyops, perception management or public relations, it’s a real thing that happens constantly, and it happens to all of us.

  

  And its consequences shape our entire world.

  This should be at the forefront of our attention when examining news, trends and ideas, but it hardly ever gets mentioned. This is because the mass-scale psychological manipulation is succeeding. Propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening.

  To be clear, I am not talking about some kind of wacky unsubstantiated conspiracy theory here. I am talking about a conspiracy fact. That we are propagandized by people with authority over us is not seriously in dispute by any well-informed good faith actor and has been extensively described and documented for many years.

  More than this, the managers of the US-centralized empire which dominates the west and so much of the rest of the world have straightforwardly shown us that they propagandize us and want to propagandize us more. They have shown us with their actions, and they have at times come right out and told us with their words.

  Here are just a few of those times.

  1. Operation Mockingbird

  Let’s start with maybe the best-known example. In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “The CIA and the Media” reporting that the CIA had covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as Operation Mockingbird.

  It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media are meant to report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the agendas of spooks and warmongers.

  But it only got worse from there.

  2. Intelligence operatives now just openly working in the media

  The CIA Used To Infiltrate The Media. Now The CIA Is The Media.

  “This isn’t Operation Mockingbird. It’s so much worse. Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something *to* the media. What we are seeing now is the CIA openly acting *as* the media.”https://t.co/mFwHob0MFC

  — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) April 16, 2021

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  Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news pundits. The Washington Post has consistently refused to disclose the fact that its sole owner has been a CIA contractor when reporting on US intelligence agencies as per standard journalistic protocol. Mass media outlets now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper, Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash, Susan Hennessey, Ned Price, Rick Francona, Michael Morell, John McLaughlin, John Sipher, Thomas Bossert, Clint Watts, James Baker, Mike Baker, Daniel Hoffman, David Preiss, Evelyn Farkas, Mike Rogers and Malcolm Nance, as are known CIA assets like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, as are CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like Tucker Carlson.

  Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something to the media. What we are seeing now is the CIA openly acting as the media. Any meaningful separation between the CIA and the news media, indeed even any pretence of separation, has been dropped.

  3. Richard Stengel’s CFR remarks on propaganda

  At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about “fake news,” former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens – then shuts the session down when challenged about how propaganda is used against the third world pic.twitter.com/ClAT5POv7G

  — William Craddick (@williamcraddick) May 11, 2018

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  Former US State Department official and Time Magazine editor Richard Stengel expressed full-throated support for the use of propaganda on both foreign and domestic audiences during a 2018 event organized by the supremely influential think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

  “Basically every country creates their own narrative story,” Stengel said. “My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the chief propagandist. I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”

  Interestingly, years earlier during his time at the US State Department under the Obama administration Stengel actually provided his own definition of what precisely he means by the word “propaganda”, and it’s not nearly as innocuous as he made it sound for his CFR audience.

  “Propaganda is the deliberate dissemination of information that you know to be false or misleading in order to influence an audience,” Stengel wrote in 2014.

  Those are two mighty interesting positions for an empire manager to hold at the same time, especially one who just served on the presidential transition team of the current president.

  4. US officials telling the press they’re circulating disinfo about Russia to win an information war against Putin

  US Officials Admit They’re Literally Just Lying To The Public About Russia

  “And the only plausible reason I can think of that they would want the public to know about it is that they are confident the public will consent to being lied to.”https://t.co/mYBJ4kQhk8

  — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) April 7, 2022

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  Last month NBC News released a report citing multiple anonymous US officials who said the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out “intelligence” about Russia’s plans in Ukraine that is “low-confidence” or “based more on analysis than hard evidence”, or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.

  The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass to justify an invasion, about Putin’s advisors misinforming him, and about Russia seeking arms supplies from China.

  So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.

  That this happened while the mass media is continually churning out reports warning the public about the dangers of “disinformation” is an irony that was lost on almost everybody.

  5. Senators telling Silicon Valley representatives it’s their job to manipulate public thought to prevent dissent

  Friendly reminder that last year representatives of Google/Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were instructed on the floor of the US Senate that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” so as to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”https://t.co/X4Hc56fH0k

  — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) August 6, 2018

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  In 2017 representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter were called before the Senate Judiciary Committee and told they must “quell information rebellions” and were instructed to come up with a mission statement expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord” on their platforms.

  “We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America,” the tech giants were told by think tanker and former FBI agent Clint Watts, who added, “Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end.”

  When monopolistic billionaire corporations are faced with demands from a legislative body that could easily make their lives a lot harder and a lot less profitable by taking action, up to and including major antitrust cases, they are being made an offer they can’t refuse. This was made abundantly clear by Senator Dianne Feinstein during the 2017 hearings in her threat to intervene if those corporations failed to curtail the spread of unauthorized information online.

  “You have to be the ones who do something about it — or we will,” Feinstein told the online platforms.

  6. The Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board”

  Patriot Act co-author, former DHS secretary, surveillance porn addict, & Russiagate hoax spreader Michael Chertoff will be overseeing the review of the Ministry of Truth
  You can’t make this shit uphttps://t.co/IeAelhFy3m

  — Slow News Day (@SlowNewsDayShow) May 24, 2022

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  The Department of Homeland Security’s hotly controversial Disinformation Governance Board, which critics have not-unfairly labeled a government-run Ministry of Truth, has “paused” its operations pending a review in light of public outcry. That review will be headed by corrupt imperial swamp monsters Michael Chertoff and Jamie Gorelick, of all people.

  No government entity has any business appointing itself the authority to sort information from disinformation on behalf of the public, because government entities are not impartial and omniscient deities who can be entrusted to serve the public as objective arbiters of absolute reality. They would with absolute certainty wind up drawing distinctions between information, misinformation and disinformation in whatever way serves their interests, regardless of what’s true, exactly as any authoritarian regime would do.

  Whatever happens with that review we may be sure that the board’s mission will continue, either under its current name or under some other more carefully disguised iteration. The empire is expressing far too much enthusiasm for greater and greater control over public thought to just let this one slip past.

  7. The Smith–Mundt Modernization Act of 2012

  Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban http://t.co/NClezBI0 via @BuzzFeed

  — Michael Hastings (@mmhastings) May 18, 2012

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  In December of 2012 the US congress passed a revision of the Smith-Mundt Act as part of the 2013 NDAA which critics said ended restrictions that were put in place to prevent the government from propagandizing US citizens.

  The legislation was first highlighted in a BuzzFeed News article by journalist Michael Hastings, who the following year would die in a rather suspicious car wreck while reportedly working on a major story.

  “It removes the protection for Americans,” an unnamed Pentagon official told Hastings. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”

  Hastings’ report sparked online controversy, with many agreeing with his analysis of what would become known as the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 and others saying concerns were unfounded. Either way, with all that’s happened over the last ten years, it’s clear now that Americans were right to be worried about a dramatic escalation in domestic propaganda.

  8. Reagan’s Psychological Operations

  Robert Parry shows how three decades ago the US began an operation to flood the world with psyops, https://t.co/xXRRRufsBS

  — Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) March 25, 2017

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  The late Robert Parry wrote numerous articles for Consortium News about the Reagan administration’s operations of mass-scale psychological manipulation, which related directly to Parry’s extensive work on the Iran-Contra affair during that time.

  Parry described how Reagan and his neocon goons were obsessed with countering the public war-weariness and distrust of US interventionism which followed the Vietnam War in order to gain more consent for the depraved agendas the administration was working to roll out in Latin America. Central to this goal of consent-manufacturing, which the White House called “public diplomacy” in public and “perception management” in private, was a particularly odious-sounding spook named Walter Raymond Jr.

  In an article titled “The Victory of ‘Perception Management’,” Parry wrote the following:

  During his Iran-Contra deposition, Raymond explained the need for this propaganda structure, saying: “We were not configured effectively to deal with the war of ideas.”

  One reason for this shortcoming was that federal law forbade taxpayers’ money from being spent on domestic propaganda or grassroots lobbying to pressure congressional representatives. Of course, every president and his team had vast resources to make their case in public, but by tradition and law, they were restricted to speeches, testimony and one-on-one persuasion of lawmakers.

  But things were about to change. In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, NSC Advisor Clark foresaw the need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. “We will develop a scenario for obtaining private funding,” Clark wrote. (Just five days later, President Reagan personally welcomed media magnate Rupert Murdoch into the Oval Office for a private meeting, according to records on file at the Reagan library.)

  As administration officials reached out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim not only at foreign audiences but at U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding the Nicaraguan Contras.

  9. Canadian military leaders using Covid regulations as an opportunity to test out psyop techniques on civilians

  Sad that a tragedy like COVID was used to test Canadians’ reaction to fear propaganda. I hope we didn’t lay down our freedoms at the alter of gov created fear, segregation, & hatred. Was that the purpose of the secret military op, testing our malleability? https://t.co/IPtx8eVa7u

  — Dr. Leslyn Lewis (@LeslynLewis) September 29, 2021

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  Last year Ottawa Citizen reported that the Canadian military used the Covid outbreak as an excuse to test actual military psyop techniques on its own civilian population under the pretense of assuring compliance with pandemic restrictions.

  Some excerpts:

  • “Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes.”

  • “The plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, also known as CJOC, relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. The campaign called for ‘shaping’ and ‘exploiting’ information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.”

  • “A separate initiative, not linked to the CJOC plan, but overseen by Canadian Forces intelligence officers, culled information from public social media accounts in Ontario. Data was also compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings and BLM leaders.”

  • “’This is really a learning opportunity for all of us and a chance to start getting information operations into our (CAF-DND) routine,’ the rear admiral stated.”

  • “Yet another review centred on the Canadian Forces public affairs branch and its activities. Last year, the branch launched a controversial plan that would have allowed military public affairs officers to use propaganda to change attitudes and behaviours of Canadians as well as to collect and analyze information from public social media accounts.”

  • “The plan would have seen staff move from traditional government methods of communicating with the public to a more aggressive strategy of using information warfare and influence tactics on Canadians.”

  So empire managers are not just employing mass-scale psychological operations on the public, they’re testing them and learning from them.

  10. The US government funding “independent” media in Ukraine

  White House fact-sheet says part of the mammoth $33 billion spending package it’s requesting for Ukraine will be to “support independent media.” Because nothing screams “independent” like being directly funded by the US Government as part of its “information warfare” initiative pic.twitter.com/O3JshV1Mg9

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 28, 2022

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  Lastly, there’s the fact that the infamous $40 billion proxy war package sent to Ukraine includes funds allocated to “Counter Russian disinformation and propaganda narratives, promote accountability for Russian human rights violation, and support activists, journalists, and independent media to defend freedom of expression.”

  So information warfare. The US government is funding information warfare to manipulate public perception of this war and running cover for those manipulations by calling them activism, journalism, and independent media.

  Given that the mainstream western press have been uncritically reporting even the most outlandish stories coming out of Ukraine without a shred of evidence, we can expect this government-funded propaganda to spread throughout the western world.

  *  *  *

  My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

  Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 21:00

• These Are The Best (& Worst) Months For Stock Market Gains
  These Are The Best (& Worst) Months For Stock Market Gains

  Many investors believe that equity markets perform better during certain times of the year.

  Is there any truth to these claims, or is it superstitious nonsense? Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu investigates the issue using data gathered by Schroders, a British asset management firm.

  

  What the Data Says

  This analysis is based on 31 years of performance across four major stock indexes:

  • FTSE 100: An index of the top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)

  • MSCI World: An index of over 1,000 large and mid-cap companies within developed markets

  • S&P 500: An index of the 500 largest companies that trade on U.S. stock exchanges

  • Eurostoxx 50: An index of the top 50 blue-chip stocks within the Eurozone region

  The percentages in the following table represent the historical frequency of these indexes rising in a given month, between the years 1987 and 2018. Months are ordered from best to worst, in descending order.

  

  There are some outliers in this dataset that we’ll focus on below.

  The Strong Months

  In terms of frequency of growth, December has historically been the best month to own stocks. This lines up with a phenomenon known as the “Santa Claus Rally”, which suggests that equity markets rally over Christmas.

  One theory is that the holiday season has a psychological effect on investors, driving them to buy rather than sell. We can also hypothesize that many institutional investors are on vacation during this time. This could give bullish retail investors more sway over the direction of the market.

  The second best month was April, which is commonly regarded as a strong month for the stock market. One theory is that many investors receive their tax refunds in April, which they then use to buy stocks. The resulting influx of cash pushes prices higher.

  Speaking of higher prices, we can also look at this trend from the perspective of returns. Focusing on the S&P 500, and looking back to 1928, April has generated an average return of 0.88%. This is well above the all-month average of 0.47%.

  The Weak Months

  The three worst months to own stocks, according to this analysis, are June, August, and September. Is it a coincidence that they’re all in the summer?

  One theory for the season’s relative weakness is that institutional traders are on vacation, similar to December. Without the holiday cheer, however, the market is less frothy and the reduced liquidity leads to increased risk.

  Whether you believe this or not, the data does show a convincing pattern. It’s for this reason that the phrase “sell in May and go away” has become popularized.

  Key Takeaways

  Investors should remember that this data is based on historical results, and should not be used to make forward-looking decisions in the stock market.

  Anomalies like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 can have a profound impact on the world, and the market as a whole. Stock market performance during these times may deviate greatly from their historical averages seen above.

  Regardless, this analysis can still be useful to investors who are trying to understand market movements. For example, if stocks rise in December without any clear catalyst, it could be the famed Santa Claus Rally at work.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 20:40

• US National Guard To Cooperate With Taiwan Military: President Tsai
  US National Guard To Cooperate With Taiwan Military: President Tsai

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday that the United States is planning on “cooperation” between its National Guard and Taiwan’s military amid mounting threats from communist China.

  

  The announcement comes as China, which wants to claim the self-ruled island as its own, has stepped up its military harassment of Taiwan in recent years.

  Last week, China’s military organized military drills in the sea and air spaces surrounding Taiwan, a move it described as a “solemn warning” to Washington against its “collusion” with the liberal democratic island.

  Col. Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, said the regime’s military conducted “multi-service joint combat readiness patrol” and “actual combat drills” near Taiwan, according to a May 25 statement.

  The warning came after U.S. President Joe Biden angered the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing when he said in a May 23 statement that America would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan if it was attacked, stating that it was the “commitment we made.”

  U.S. officials said there had been no change to the longstanding U.S. policy toward Taiwan known as “strategic ambiguity” under which the administration has remained intentionally ambiguous on the subject of whether the United States would defend Taiwan, should it be invaded by the CCP.

  President Tsai Ing-wen met with visiting U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) at her office in Taipei this week, and noted that Duckworth was one of the main sponsors of the Taiwan Partnership Act, aimed at developing a partnership between the National Guard and Taiwan as a means of maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.

  The Act has received bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress but has yet to become law.

  “As a result, the U.S. Department of Defense is now proactively planning cooperation between the U.S. National Guard and Taiwan’s defence forces,” Tsai said, without providing further details.

  “We look forward to closer and deeper Taiwan-U.S. cooperation on matters of regional security,” Tsai added.

  Duckworth and 51 other senators sent a letter to Biden in mid-May, calling for Taiwan to be included in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

  Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam have signed up to be part of the IPEF initiative, however, Taiwan was not included in the IPEF last week.

  Tsai said on Tuesday that the island will keep expressing its willingness to participate.

  “In the near future, we look forward to Taiwan and the United States working together in taking new steps to develop concrete plans that further deepen our economic partnership.”

  During Duckworth’s visit to Taiwan, dozens of Chinese warplanes entered its air defense zone and were scrambled by Taiwan’s military jets.

  Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 20:20

• YouTube CEO Reassures Davos Elites That They Will Continue To Control The Narrative
  YouTube CEO Reassures Davos Elites That They Will Continue To Control The Narrative

  Yet another story out of Davos that went mostly unnoticed by the mainstream, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki addressed issues of “misinformation” on the internet at the WEF forum and how the content platform plans to deal with it.

  As we all know, the concept of “misinformation” is treated arbitrarily by Big Tech corporations according to whatever narrative corporate oligarchs and governments want to push at the time. If you are confused as to what they consider misinformation to be, just take any fact, piece of evidence or opinion that’s contrary to the mainstream narrative of the day and assume it is now “misinformation.” It’s as simple as that.

  We saw this with painful clarity throughout the covid fear campaign of the past two years. Any discussions on medical facts that did not support the CDC, the WHO or Anthony Fauci’s assertions that we should be living in terror were swiftly removed from social media. In the meantime, corporate legacy media outlets were pushed the forefront and widely promoted despite their lack of audience support.

  The acceptable narrative was this – The masks work, the lockdowns work, the vaccines work, and vaccines passports are necessary and justified. If you tried to point out that the evidence showed any or all of these claims were false, you were probably censored or blocked by a Big Tech platform or two.

  If you pointed out that the Level 4 virology lab in Wuhan China is the most likely source of the Covid-19 virus, then you were probably censored. If you pointed out that Anthony Fauci and his cohorts funded gain of function research on covid at the Wuhan Lab, then you were accused of spreading “misinformation.” If you pointed out that the average vaccine is tested for 10-15 years while the covid mRNA vaccines were barely tested at all before release, then you were probably blocked for “misinformation.” All of these things are considered facts or are greatly supported by hard evidence today, but two years ago they were labeled misinformation on YouTube.

  And what about the Biden Laptop story? Oh yeah, that was called “misinformation” too, even though it was indeed a concrete fact.

  Wojcicki has left little doubt that despite YouTube being caught numerous times mislabeling the truth as misinformation, the company will continue on the same exact path and serve establishment interests.

  The CEO suggested at the Davos conference this past week that the platform would work harder to remove incentives for the publishing of “misinformation.” The WEF made this query during the interview:

  WEF: “So it sounds like, bury, to the extent that you can, things that are not credible sources and don’t recommend. But it also still sounds like a work in progress, do you think it always will be a work in progress?”

  Wojcicki: “I think there’ll always be work that we have to do because there will always be incentives for people to be creating misinformation…The challenge will be to keep staying ahead of that…I think there’ll always be work. But after all this work that we have put in, this has been a huge initiative for us for at least over, you know, five, six years. I think we’ve come a long way. And I would challenge you if you go and you look and you do a search or you look at your home page in terms of what you’re seeing when it comes to sensitive topics, you’re going to see them coming from more authoritative sources.”

  Beyond the suppression of alternative media sources with inconvenient facts, Wojcicki noted that the terms of service for YouTube would adapt to events. Despite the fact the YouTube still allows Russian news to operate on the site, the narrative could still be molded, suggesting that criticism of the Ukraine narrative could now be considered a violation.

  Wojcicki: “…What we saw was if there was denial or trivialization associated with the conflict, with the war in Ukraine, that would also become a violation. So, the first and most important thing for us was to really focus on the responsibility, figure out how we could be good players in making sure that users can get authoritative and the right information. And what we’re really seeing in this conflict is that information does play a key role, that information can be weaponized.”

  Of course, the weaponization of information is exactly what social media platforms including YouTube have been engaged in lately. This can be done through suppression of honest sources as much as censorship.

  As the legacy media continues to falter and lose its audience to the alternative media, the establishment narrative must be encouraged by some other means. Big Tech platforms have taken up the propaganda mantle, asserting that information must now be filtered by the “authorities” instead of being allowed to spread freely. According to YouTube and other companies, average people are not capable of deliberating on data and information themselves and coming to their own conclusions. This is apparently too dangerous to allow.

  But who determined that Big Tech corporations are qualified to dictate what is factual and what is misinformation? No one voted for them to do the job and very few people want them to do the job. According to polls, around 75% of Americans do not trust social media to make fair content moderation decisions. While 63% of people say they support the “removal of misinformation,” most people could not agree on what misinformation actually is. In the minds of establishment bureaucrats and Big Tech, they are the one’s that decide what it is. In other words, label the truth a threat and then offer to be a moderator for that threat, and in doing so gain power from thin air.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 20:00

• Biden Raising Gas Prices On Purpose, Top Republican Says
  Biden Raising Gas Prices On Purpose, Top Republican Says

  Authored by Allen Zhong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A top Republican said on Friday that President Joe Biden is raising gas prices on purpose.

  

  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made the remarks when he was asked on Fox Business’s “Wall Street with Maria Bartiromo” to respond to Biden’s recent comments where he said raising gas prices is part of “an incredible transition.”

  “I think that’s the main takeaway from his statement, that he is telling the American people they’re doing this to you on purpose, that the transition period is being imposed by policies coming from the Biden administration,” he said.

  “This is a conscious effort by the Biden administration to destroy fossil fuel production in the United States, to get away from fossil fuels, and you’re living this experience. This is an irresponsible shutting down of oil and gas production in America, making us more dependent on oil and gas from bad actors, and it’s destroying the American economy,” he continued.

  

  Biden characterized the soaring cost of gasoline in the United States as an “incredible transition” on Monday while taking questions from reporters during his trip to Japan.

  “When it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” he said alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

  The comment came as the national average cost of a gallon of gas sat at a record-high $4.596, with several states paying more than $6.00.

  Biden went on to take credit for gas prices not being “even worse.”

  “What I’ve been able to do to keep it from getting even worse—and it’s bad,” he said.

  His comments were widely denounced by Republicans.

  Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) criticized Biden for being “completely out of touch with everyday Americans.”

  Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel released a statement the following day blaming the Biden administration for the continually elevated cost of gas.

  “Another day, another new record high gas price in Biden’s America,” the statement reads. “Joe Biden doesn’t care about the historic inflation and skyrocketing gas prices families are facing every day as a result of his failed agenda. The pain is the point for Biden and Democrats, and Americans will continue to suffer as long as Biden is in charge.”

  

  Biden and other senior administration officials have continually blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the inflated gas prices. In response to the invasion on Feb. 24, the United States and many of its Western allies put a halt to all imports of Russian oil and gas.

  While the cost of gas did spike dramatically after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, it had already been rising steadily throughout Biden’s first year in office. After the sanctions, the price leveled off before increasing to new record highs in recent weeks.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 19:40

• Former Pacific Hurricane Could Become First Atlantic System With Florida In Crosshairs
  Former Pacific Hurricane Could Become First Atlantic System With Florida In Crosshairs

  On the eve of the official June 1 start date of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, probabilities are increasing that the first organized tropical system could form later this week. 

  Remnants of Hurricane Agatha in southern Mexico will play a crucial role in forming the tropical depression that could develop in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico or the northwestern Caribbean Sea on Thursday or Friday. 

  “A highly likely solution is for moisture and residual energy from Agatha to give birth to a new storm system on the Atlantic side,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Courtney Travis said.

  The National Hurricane Center (NHC) places formation chances at 30% over the next 48 hours and 70% odds over the next five days. 

  2 PM EDT Tuesday May 31: A low pressure area is forecast to form near the Yucatan Peninsula in a couple of days. There is a high chance of this system becoming a tropical depression as it moves northeastward over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and southeastern Gulf of Mexico. pic.twitter.com/hCjC8gEn97

  — National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) May 31, 2022

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  The first name storm of the season would be called “Alex.” 

  

  The European weather model points to circulation late Thursday or Friday and could become an organized storm near Florida by the weekend. If the model is correct, South Florida could be hit with heavy rains, high winds, and coastal flooding. 

  “Regardless of development, locally heavy rainfall is likely across portions of southeastern Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, and Belize during the next few days, spreading across western Cuba, southern Florida, and the Florida Keys by the end of the week,” NHC said. 

  

  … And just what the US Gulf Coast needs: A tropical system, as this year’s hurricane season could be active and jeopardize offshore drilling and inland refinery operations, comes when the Biden administration struggles to stomp out high pump prices. It only takes one perfect storm to paralyze the Gulf Coast energy complex. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 19:20

• Chinese Media And Influencers Blame US For Spread Of Monkeypox
  Chinese Media And Influencers Blame US For Spread Of Monkeypox

  Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  With the outbreak of monkeypox, Chinese state media and social media influencers in China have claimed that the monkeypox virus originated in a U.S. laboratory. They have also made claims that monkeypox will cause the next pandemic, despite European and American scientists pointing out that the possibility of a pandemic is extremely small due to the close contact needed to transmit the virus.

  

  They have also said that, at present, patients are infected with a natural monkeypox virus with no links to a laboratory.

  “Jimu News,” a subsidiary of state-run Hubei Daily Group, published an article on May 23 implying that escaped monkeys from a truck involved in a traffic accident on Jan. 21 in Pennsylvania have something to do with the recent monkeypox outbreak in the United States and Europe.

  The four monkeys that escaped, among the 100 being transported by the truck, were recaptured next day.

  The first confirmed case of monkeypox in the United States appeared in Massachusetts on May 18. The patient was diagnosed after returning to the United States from Canada. Cases have since appeared in New York City, Florida, and Utah.

  

  Meanwhile, Chinese social media influencers who are supportive of China’s ruling communist regime have echoed claims similar to those made by official state media outlets.

  On May 20, a blogger named “Guyan Muchan” posted a few screenshots on Chinese social media Weibo of a document claiming that to be a “monkeypox biochemical pandemic plan leaked by the United States,” implying that the U.S. government was aware of the outbreak in advance.

  “Guyan Muchan” has 6.41 million followers on Weibo, and the post has been liked by more than 7,500 users and received more than 660 comments. Influenced by this post, someone even commented that the United States is “evil beyond human imagination.”

  The document was actually from a hypothetical biohazard scenario published in a research report by the U.S. think tank Nuclear Threat Initiative in 2021. The document is available for viewing on its website.

  Major international media, such as Reuters and Bloomberg, further pointed out that: “Pandemic preparedness scenarios and symposiums are not proof that pandemics are planned, nor are these scenarios a new occurrence.”

  After the false claim is debunked, “Guyan Muchan” has continued to spread similar claims blaming the U.S. for the spread of the monkeypox.

  

  A self-proclaimed “patriotic” cartoonist “Sweet Potato Bear Lao Liu” also posted claims that the spread of the monkeypox virus was related to a U.S. laboratory. On May 21, he posted on his Weibo account that the United States may have modified and upgraded the monkeypox virus to develop a more virulent and transmissible variant, to lead to the next pandemic.

  Zhao Shengye, an internet technology blogger, further claimed on his Weibo account that, after researching the monkeypox virus that appeared in Europe and the United States, he believes the probability of the monkeypox being produced in a laboratory through virus gain-of-function research was greater than 99.9 percent. Zhao has 4 million Weibo followers.

  A major mainland Chinese news portal NetEase News published an article on May 23, titled “Is the Monkeypox Virus Man-made? The United States wrote the data on the outbreak of monkeypox last year, which is terrible.” The article claims that monkeypox has more than 50 mutations, which exceeds the mutation rate of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus that caused COVID-19. It added that no viral evolution in nature would have such a fast mutation rate.

  Such claims have been refuted by international scientists.

  David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told the Newsweek that the claims are baseless as “there’s no evidence for monkeypox being generated in a lab.”

  Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, echoed the point, “All indications are that the monkeypox outbreak involves a natural monkeypox virus.”

  Daniel Bausch, an infectious disease expert and president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, told Axios that the risk of a monkeypox pandemic is extremely low.

  “I don’t think there’s a reason for panic, I don’t think we’re going to have tens of thousands of cases,” he said of the virus.

  According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, monkeypox is not known to spread easily between people, requiring direct contact with bodily fluids, lesion fluids, or prolonged face-to-face contact.

  Li Linqing contributed to the report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 19:00

• Ukraine Fires Own Human Rights Chief For Perpetuating Russian Troop 'Systematic Rape' Stories
  Ukraine Fires Own Human Rights Chief For Perpetuating Russian Troop ‘Systematic Rape’ Stories

  For over the past two months, an avalanche of stories have hit Western mainstream press which purported to document instances of mass rape carried out by Russian troops against Ukrainian civilians. One particular story in Time took off, driving outrage and condemnation by Western officials and receiving repeat coverage on CNN and other major US networks.

  It alleged “a systemic, coordinated campaign of sexual violence” – relying chiefly on testimony gathered by Ukraine’s appointed top human rights representative. It included a particularly shocking story of 25 teenage girls being gang-raped by Russian troops – nine of which became pregnant. According to the report:

  Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova said that 25 teenage girls were kept in a basement in Bucha and gang-raped; nine of them are now pregnant. Elderly women spoke on camera about being raped by Russian soldiers. The bodies of children were found naked with their hands tied behind their backs, their genitals mutilated. Those victims included both girls and boys…

  Ukrainians are speaking up about rape as a war crime to ensure the world holds Russia accountablehttps://t.co/tEilTSgmbS

  — TIME (@TIME) April 24, 2022

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  As has been the pattern in prior wars, whether in Syria or Libya, the media claims got more and more sensational and over-the-top as the conflict intensified, and as Western powers became more deeply involved, yet with no concrete or definitive proof.

  But one consistent detail in the majority of the stories is that the aforementioned Ukraine human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova, is often the central figure feeding Western correspondents the shocking rape stories.

  For example, she’s featured in this April Newsweek piece: 

  Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights, alleged on Friday that Russian soldiers have raped children during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

  In a Facebook post, Denisova alleged that an 11-year-old boy was raped by Russians in front of his mother who was tied to a chair and forced to watch as it happened in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

  

  Many such stories which presented ever-more horrifying details as the war progressed quickly went viral, particularly among pro-Ukraine activists on Twitter and other social media, to the point where prominent pundits would begin casually agreeing amongst themself that Russians simply are “animals”.

  And below is another example among many, which tended to be based on “reports say” for many of the most central, damning claims…

  

  But recently, within the last couple of weeks, as investigators began to dig deeper into the allegations, it seems the media stories started to dry up. The geopolitical analysis blog Moon of Alabama details what happened in the following:

  However, a bunch of eager NGOs in Ukraine, hoping for fresh ‘western’ money for new ‘rape consultation and recovery’ projects, tried to find real rape cases. They were disappointed when they found that there was no evidence that any rape had taken place 

  (machine translation):

  On May 25, a number of media outlets and NGOs published an open appeal to Lyudmila Denisova calling for improved communication on sexual crimes during the war.

  The signatories insist that Denisova should disclose only information about which there is sufficient evidence, avoid sensationalism and excessive detail in their reports, use correct terminology and take care of the confidentiality and safety of victims.

  “Sexual crimes during the war are family tragedies, a difficult traumatic topic, not a topic for publications in the spirit of the ‘scandalous chronicle.’ We need to keep in mind the goal: to draw attention to the facts of crimes,” the appeal reads.

  An entire global activist movement even sprang up which focused on highlighting Russian sexual crimes in Ukraine, based on the premise that Russia’s military is using “rape as a tool” as part of its arsenal to spread a campaign of terror…

  Th woman also shouted ‘Don’t rape us!’ as the security encircled her quickly to take her off the red carpet. The incident again brought to light the Ukraine crisis at #Cannes.https://t.co/Ghs9UCKC7q

  — WION (@WIONews) May 21, 2022

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  And now on Tuesday, Interfax, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, and others are reporting that Lyudmyla Denisova has been fired – precisely for floating and perpetuating fantastical claims of mass rape but without providing evidence…

  Ukraine’s parliament just fired human rights ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova. MPs claimed her work focusing on the rape of Ukrainians by Russian troops which “couldn’t be confirmed with evidence […] only harmed Ukraine and distracted the global media from Ukraine’s real needs.”

  — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) May 31, 2022

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  “Ukrainian lawmakers dismissed the country’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, concluding that she had failed to fulfill obligations including the facilitation of humanitarian corridors and countering the deportation of Ukrainians from occupied territory,” The Wall Street Journal reported late in the day.

  “Lawmaker Pavlo Frolov said Ms. Denisova was also accused of making insensitive and unverifiable statements about alleged Russian sex crimes and spending too much time in Western Europe during the invasion,” the report added.

  Frolov said in a Facebook post announcing her dismissal as the country’s top human rights investigator: 

  “The unclear focus of the Ombudsman’s media work on the numerous details of ‘sexual crimes committed in an unnatural way’ and ‘rape of children’ in the occupied territories that could not be confirmed by evidence, only harmed Ukraine.”

  Such accusations of mass rape by the enemy de jour are made in every war (Libya, Syria) . They rarely turn out to be true.https://t.co/bF0NVhQiFl https://t.co/i4rE2LMZMV

  — Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) April 21, 2022

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  Needless to say this is an absolutely devastating blow to Ukraine’s ‘information war’ which has been in full force since the Russian invasion (as naturally in war each side will enter into propaganda campaigns against the other simultaneous to the actual ground war, and while seeking to sway world opinion).

  Angry pushback has started already within hours after the news of Denisova’s removal was confirmed, including from UN accounts and US media pundits…

  Dismissal of Ombudsperson Denisova is contrary to int standards, undermines independence of important human rights institution in #Ukraine. We call on authorities to take steps to ensure independence of Ombudsperson & abide by int standards in law&practice https://t.co/C3689VYRih

  — UNHumanRightsUkraine (@UNHumanRightsUA) May 31, 2022

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  That Ukraine’s parliament took the drastic step of dismissing her in such a public manner also speaks volumes – strongly suggesting that Ukrainian officials themselves don’t believe the bulk of the ‘systematic rape’ claims.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 18:40

• Who Is John Durham Targeting Next?
  Who Is John Durham Targeting Next?

  Authored by Hans Mahncke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is coming to an end [ZH: has now ended with Sussman’s acquittal] but rather than provide definitive answers to the origins of the Russiagate hoax, the trial has thrown up many new mysteries and unanswered questions.

  

  Durham’s overarching trial narrative was that the FBI was duped by Sussmann when he presented them with data purportedly tying Trump to the Kremlin via the Russian Alfa Bank. It may have been Durham’s only viable strategy given the fact he was facing a jury of twelve Washington D.C. residents, a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 20 to 1.

  This strategy did give Sussmann’s team the opportunity to highlight serious misconduct by the FBI, with a flurry of new information about FBI malfeasance and abuses coming to light.

  What does this all mean for Durham? Can he now do a U-turn and go after the FBI that he spent the past two weeks calling a victim? Can he go after Sussmann’s associates like tech executive Rodney Joffe? And what about Hillary Clinton, who we learned greenlighted the plan to vilify Trump?

  The Danchenko Case

  Durham’s most immediate concern will be his second big case—that being against Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko.

  Danchenko was indicted in November 2021 for lying to the FBI, the same type of charge that Sussmann faced. Specifically, Danchenko is alleged to have lied about his own sources, making up a conversation with Sergei Millian, a man he never met, and concealing from the FBI his conversations with Clinton operative Charles Dolan.

  There are a number of crucial differences between Sussmann’s and Danchenko’s situations. Perhaps most importantly, Danchenko was charged in Virginia, not in Washington D.C. That means the jury pool will be more favorable to Durham.

  

  Like Sussmann, Danchenko talked to the FBI in Washington but, unlike Sussmann, he later repeated his lies at his home in Virginia when the FBI came for follow-up interviews. That Durham chose to charge Danchenko in Virginia where the lies were repeated instead of in Washington where they were first told, gives us an insight into how Durham views the Washington jury pool.

  The second big difference is that Danchenko is charged with five lies, not just one. In fact, an analysis of the only publicly available Danchenko interview transcript appears to show other lies. However, Durham charged just five, perhaps because he has audio recordings of those lies, which would be another difference between the Sussmann and Danchenko cases.

  Lastly, Danchenko does not enjoy Democratic Party privilege. Sussmann is a high-powered, well-connected Democratic Party lawyer who represented Clinton and who himself is represented by a high-powered team of top lawyers.

  Whether by design or coincidence, most decisions from Obama-appointed Judge Christopher Cooper went Sussmann’s way. Such is the way of Washington that Cooper is married to Amy Jeffress, a former senior official with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and lawyer for Lisa Page. Page was front and center of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. Cooper’s marriage was officiated by Obama’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, the man who overlooks Durham.

  Danchenko’s situation is very different. He’s a Russian national with few connections. There will be no special privileges and he will likely be convicted.

  Danchenko’s trial will be held in October and Durham is facing a number of discovery obligations this coming month. But once he has those matters under control, he will probably move on to bigger fish.

  Will Durham Pursue Private Operatives?

  The looming question is whether those bigger fish will involve anyone bigger than Sussmann, who was, after all, a leading campaign lawyer for Clinton. There are two broad categories of people who may be in Durham’s sights.

  First, there are private actors—people from outside the government who pushed the Clinton campaign’s smears against Trump. A number of Clinton operatives were implicated as part of the case against Sussmann, including Joffe, Clinton lead campaign lawyer Marc Elias, and Fusion GPS co-founders Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson. Fusion GPS is the political consulting firm that coordinated with Sussmann to push false stories about Trump into the media.

  We also heard testimony that Clinton herself greenlighted the scheme to use the press to vilify Trump with false accusations of Russia collusion. But will any of these people face consequences?

  

  The person most likely in Durham’s crosshairs is Joffe, who was remarkably offered a top government job in the case of a Clinton election victory, which may have been what motivated him to get involved in the scheme. Joffe was also the person who brought the false Alfa Bank data to his attorney, Sussmann, who later brought it to the FBI.

  During the past two weeks we learned that after setting things in motion with Sussmann, Joffe took things into his own hands by taking the same fake Alfa data that Sussmann brought to FBI general counsel Baker to FBI agent Tom Grasso. Joffe told Grasso that he got the info from a reporter and that Grasso should keep Joffe’s name secret.

  In essence, with Sussmann’s help, Joffe was creating the appearance of two separate information streams into the FBI when in fact all the fake data was coming from Joffe himself. The scheme was simple, effective, and devious. First, Sussmann would get the FBI to investigate Trump, and then Joffe would come in “independently” to back Sussmann’s fake story.

  During Grasso’s testimony it was also revealed that Joffe was a confidential human source for the FBI and that he worked on “Russian-related cyber matters.” There was at least a suggestion that Joffe might have had a role in analyzing the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee in May 2016. If Joffe was involved in shaping the narrative of the alleged hacking, it would cast yet more doubt on the flimsy yet prevailing conclusion that the Russian government was responsible.

  Joffe has thus far not been charged with any offense. However, in court last week it emerged Joffe misled the FBI on where he got the Alfa data from. Second, he concealed his connections to Sussmann and the Clinton campaign from the FBI. But those two alleged lies happened in 2016 and are now time-barred under the five-year statute of limitations.

  Why wasn’t Joffe charged? There are two possibilities: Either Durham messed up and let the statute of limitations lapse or Durham has far more serious charges in mind for Joffe than lying to the FBI. Durham has made mistakes but it’s unlikely he got this wrong. Major fraud against the United States government has a seven-year statute of limitations and may be what Durham is contemplating for Joffe.

  What about Clinton and her top lieutenants? Not much was said about Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s 2016 campaign foreign policy adviser and current national security adviser who was pushing the Russia hoax during the 2016 campaign.

  However, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook was on the witness stand. He testified that Clinton was personally briefed on the Trump-Russia nonsense and gave the green light to hand the info to the media. While Mook’s admission is significant in that, for the first time, there is unequivocal evidence that directly ties Clinton to the Russiagate hoax, it is not a crime to lie to the media. Mook claimed he did not know the false data was being given to the FBI, nor did he state that Clinton knew.

  Will Durham Pursue Government Actors?

  That still leaves the public actors, in particular people like former FBI director James Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and former FBI counterespionage director Peter Strzok.

  Through Sussmann’s lawyers—who spent most of their time casting doubt on the FBI—we found out that the FBI’s leadership was rooting for the fake scandal. An internal text message revealed the following:

  “People on the 7th floor to include the Director are fired up about this server.”

  

  Despite FBI cyber analysts having dismissed Sussmann’s server data as laughable, FBI leadership opened a full investigation into the matter, which they then farmed out to the lead agent in the FBI’s Chicago office, Curtis Heide. This is important because Heide is currently under DOJ investigation for concealing exculpatory evidence from the investigation, another fact that was revealed during the trial. Heide also happened to be in charge of the investigation of Trump 2016 campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and he was the arresting officer when Trump confidant Roger Stone’s home was raided in Florida.

  Sussmann’s lawyers made the case that the FBI was not duped but was in on the scam, telling the jury, “They didn’t want to know.” While Sussmann’s team maintained that their client wasn’t responsible, it is notable that high-powered Washington lawyers would admit that the FBI promoted the Russia hoax.

  

  Sussmann’s team also elicited evidence that FBI leadership prevented field agents from interviewing David Dagon, a tech expert who helped Joffe assemble the Alfa data, supposedly because FBI leadership did not want to interfere in the 2016 election. Had FBI agents interviewed Dagon—who is now cooperating with Durham—they would likely have found out about Joffe’s role in the scheme.

  We also know that McCabe lied to his DOJ supervisors in March 2017 about the Russia investigation whose predicate had by that point completely fallen apart. He was not charged even though Durham has had access to the documents that prove that McCabe lied. Those documents have now been made public by Sussmann’s team but it is too late to charge McCabe as the five-year statute of limitations period has passed.

  The same limitation period also applies to Comey’s statements to Congress in March 2017 when he talked up the Russia investigation despite knowing it no longer had any basis. We further already knew that Strzok lied to his DOJ supervisors about how the whole investigation got started, another lie that has now lapsed under the statute of limitations.

  

  Given these circumstances, why was no one charged? The answer may simply be that Durham is effectively fenced in and limited to pursuing private actors. Aside from having only a barebones team and limited budget, Durham works under Biden’s DOJ, which is headed by Attorney General Garland, whose counsel is Margaret Goodlander, who happens to be Sullivan’s wife. It’s very difficult to take on government actors under such circumstances. This could change if Republicans win control of the House in November and provide Durham with political cover. But given that most offenses have lapsed such a development might come too late for Durham.

  The Sussmann trial did, however, achieve at least two important successes. First, we now have documented evidence in the form of an internal text message that Comey and his group of FBI leaders were out to get Trump. Second, the trial revealed that Clinton herself greenlighted the scheme to vilify Trump with false claims of Russia collusion.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 05/31/2022 – 18:20

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