Apr 21

Today’s News 21st April 2022

  • China Doubles Russian Coking Coal Imports As Rest Of World Shuns Moscow 
    China Doubles Russian Coking Coal Imports As Rest Of World Shuns Moscow 

    It has been nearly two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, with no end in sight as Moscow gears up for ‘phase two’ of the conflict. In response to Russia’s invasion, Western countries have hit Moscow with a plethora of sanctions, though accomplishing very little to dismantle the country’s key energy sector. 

    Outbound shipments of Russian coking coal to China doubled in March to 1.4 million tons, compared with 550,000 tons for the same month last year, according to Bloomberg, citing Chinese customs data. 

    China has resisted Western sanctions on Russian energy products as it panic hoards heavily discounted coal used for steel-making. Russian coal trades well below market prices than what other top suppliers, like Indonesia and Mongolia, are offering. 

    We noted earlier this month that Chinese commodity firms purchased Russian coal and crude in yuan due to Western sanctions isolating Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. This may suggest, and is just one example, of a new emerging economic order dubbed the “Bretton Woods III.”

    Reports China uses local currency to purchase Russian energy products only suggest that the path to a new world order is accelerating as commodity-based currencies become utilized for trading rather than dollars. 

    Moscow is also considering a rupee-ruble payment system for Indian oil traders, while Saudi Arabia could start pricing some of its brent in yuan for Chinese traders.

    And while the White House made sanction demands for G-20 nations not to buy Russian energy products, Biden’s sanctions are hitting a “BRIC+ wall” as Brazil, Russia, India, and China, widely known as BRICs, have not bowed to US pressure. Nor have Mexico, Saudi Arabia, or South Africa.

    Russia is offering deep discounts on its energy products as some countries find these cheap commodities irresistible and are trading outside of the dollar system (in local currency), ignoring the West’s sanctions on Moscow. 
     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/21/2022 – 02:45

  • To Fight Russia, Europe's Regimes Risk Impoverishment & Recession
    To Fight Russia, Europe’s Regimes Risk Impoverishment & Recession

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    European politicians are eager to be seen as “doing something” to oppose the Russian regime following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Most European regimes have wisely concluded—Polish and Baltic recklessness notwithstanding—that provoking a military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia is not a good idea. So, “doing something” consists primarily of trying to punish Moscow by cutting Europeans off from much-needed Russian oil and gas.

    The problem is this tactic doesn’t do much to deter Russia in anything other than the short term because Russian oil can turn to numerous markets outside of Europe. Most of the world, after all, has declined to participate in the US and European embargoes and trade sanctions, opting for more measured approaches instead.

    By limiting energy sources for Europeans, however, Europe’s regimes are likely to succeed in pushing up the cost of living for Europeans while doing little to cut off Russia’s economy from global markets.

    Can Europe Totally Cut Itself Off?

    For understandable reasons, most European regimes have been reluctant to completely cut themselves off from Russian oil and gas. This is because Europe has become increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas as Europe’s regimes have increasingly committed themselves to unreliable “renewable” energy sources. This is especially the case in Germany—Europe’s largest economy—which faces a “sharp recession” if it cuts off Russian gas. There has been much talk of heavy sanctions against Russia, but this has stopped short of a full-on ban on Russian oil and gas imports.

    Nonetheless, the European Parliament last week began drafting a plan for a full embargo of Russian oil and gas.

    Yet, even as pressure mounts for Europe’s regimes to be seen as doing more to stymie Moscow, European politicians want to proceed slowly. This, however, only gives Moscow more time to adjust logistics to transfer oil exports to other parts of the world.

    If Europe were to fully ban oil immediately, this would send oil prices soaring for Europe and others. According to analysts at JP Morgan:

    A full and immediate embargo would displace 4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, sending Brent crude to $185 a barrel as such a ban would leave “neither room nor time to re-route [supplies] to China, India, or other potential substitute buyers,” the investment bank said in a note. That would mark a 63% surge from Brent’s close of $113.16 on Monday.

    This could trigger recessions across Europe’s economies, and policymakers know it. Hungary, for instance, has repeatedly opposed an embargo on Russian oil, out of concerns for ordinary Hungarians who already have a standard of living well below wealthier countries like Germany and France. Meanwhile, French policymakers have conveniently timed an embargo to occur after French elections this year.

    Even beyond the short term, oil woes for Europe would not necessarily end because OPEC has already stated that it cannot pump enough oil to replace Russian oil.

    In any case, Europe does not appear to be succeeding at convincing OPEC to do much to punish or isolate Russia in oil markets. The Saudi regime has only announced increased cooperation with Russia in recent months, and the Ukraine War does not appear to be an important topic for OPEC.

    This isn’t to say that none of this will hurt Moscow at all. Time will be necessary to modify Russian oil markets to serve other consumers outside Europe, and this will mean declining revenues, at least in the short term. Moreover, US financial sanctions make it more difficult for Russian merchants to do business globally.

    In spite of the West’s claim that it’s fighting some kind of war for democracy against authoritarianism, though, it looks like the biggest beneficiaries of growing European embargoes on Russian oil at some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Beijing will happily accept oil and gas supplies no longer sold in the West, and possibly at a discount as potential markets for Russian oil shrink in number. Moreover, if oil prices are driven up by dislocations caused by European embargoes, this is likely to benefit at least some of the oil-fueled dictators among OPEC’s members.

    Meanwhile, ordinary Europeans are likely to find themselves paying much more for energy—and consequently for other goods and services as well. Recession risk is also growing in Europe.

    The United States to the Rescue?

    As is so often the case, Europe has looked to the United States to bail it out yet again. Biden Administration has stated that it can send US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe to largely replace Russia in meeting Europe’s energy needs. But, it’s not that simple. As David Blackmon has noted at Forbes:

    While committing the US to help Germany and other European nations wean themselves off of Russian natural gas seems to be a noble goal, there is just one problem: The President apparently didn’t talk the US LNG industry about it before he made the agreement. Reading the quotes from executives at Tellurian in the New York Times article linked here, it is apparent that they were caught off-guard by the President’s announcement. “I have no idea how they are going to do this…”

    In the Age of Covid, federal politicians have no doubt become accustomed to conjuring whatever they want through the “miracle” of printing money. But in the real world, it’s still necessary to produce oil and gas (and other commodities) through actual physical production. Also complicating matters is the fact oil and gas industries in the United States are still largely in private hands. This means Biden can promise whatever he wants, but the private sector will still have to do the work, and market incentives may not necessarily favor selling everything to Europe.

    Not even money printing can make oil and gas magically appear on the other side of the Atlantic.

    Ultimately, the frenzy of sanctions and embargoes pursued by “the West” may do little more than raise the cost of living for its own residents. Even worse are the side effects of these sanctions for poorer countries in Africa and Asia which are need Russian grain and Russian oil in many cases to keep those countries residents living above subsistence levels.

    These policies will make life more difficult to ordinary innocent people worldwide while failing to actually end the war in Ukraine. But that’s a price wealthy men like Biden and Macron are apparently willing to pay.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/21/2022 – 02:00

  • Greenwald: Former Intel Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big-Tech Monopoly Power Vital To National Security
    Greenwald: Former Intel Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big-Tech Monopoly Power Vital To National Security

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via Substack,

    When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech’s centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.

    (l) An illustration of the CIA logo (Getty Images); (r) An illustration shows the logos of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft displayed on a mobile phone and a laptop screen. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

    A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech’s power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech’s monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow.

    While one of their central claims is that Big Tech monopoly power is necessary to combat (i.e., censor) “foreign disinformation,” several of these officials are themselves leading disinformation agents: many were the same former intelligence officials who signed the now-infamous-and-debunked pre-election letter fraudulently claiming that the authentic Hunter Biden emails had the “hallmarks” of Russia disinformation (former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Obama CIA Director Michael Morrell, former Obama CIA/Pentagon chief Leon Panetta). Others who signed this new letter have strong financial ties to the Big Tech corporations whose power they are defending in the name of national security (Morrell, Panetta, former Bush National Security Adviser Fran Townsend).

    The ostensible purpose of the letter is to warn of the national security dangers from two different bipartisan bills — one pending in the Senate, the other in the House — that would prohibit Big Tech monopolies from using their vertical power to “discriminate” against competitors (the way Google, for instance, uses its search engine business to bury the videos of competitors to its YouTube property, such as Rumble, or the way Google and Apple use their stores and Amazon uses its domination over hosting services to destroy competitors).

    One bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), and has attracted ample support in both parties, as has a similar House bill co-sponsored by House Antitrust Committee Chair David Cicilline (D-RI) and ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO). The amount of bipartisan support each bill has garnered — and the widespread animosity toward Big Tech reflected by this Congressional support — has shocked Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook lobbyists, who are accustomed to getting their way in Washington with lavish donations to the key politicians in each party.

    This letter by former national security officials is, in one sense, an act of desperation. The bills have received the support of the key committees with jurisdiction over antitrust and Big Tech. In the Senate, five conservative Republican Committee members who have been outspoken critics of Big Tech power — Grassley, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MI), Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) — joined with Democrats to ensure the passage of one bill out of the Judiciary Committee by a 16-6 vote, with a companion bill passing that Committee with the support of 20 of twenty-two Senators. As The Intercept‘s Sara Sirota and Ryan Grim report: “Both bills have Big Tech reeling” since “a floor vote would likely be a blowout for Big Tech.”

    The extreme animus harbored by large parts of the left and right toward Big Tech make it very difficult for any lawmaker to go on record in opposition to these proposed bills if they are forced to publicly take a position in a floor vote. Many Senators with financial ties to Big Tech — including the two California Senate Democrats who represent Silicon Valley and are recipients of their largesse (Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla) — have expressed reservations about these reform efforts and have refused to co-sponsor the bill, yet still voted YES when forced to vote in Committee. This shows that public pressure to rein in Big Tech is becoming too large to enable Silicon Valley to force lawmakers to ignore their constituents’ wishes with lobbyist donations. These politicians will work behind the scenes to kill efforts to rein in Big Tech, but will not vote against such efforts if forced to take a public position.

    As a result, Big Tech’s last hope is to keep the bill from reaching the floor where Senators would be forced to go on record, a goal they hope will be advanced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York due to his close ties to Silicon Valley. “Both [Schumer’s] children are on the payroll of companies the proposals would seek to rein in,” reported The New York Post: “Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist at Amazon, according to New York state records. Alison Schumer works at Facebook as a product marketing manager.” Despite that, Schumer claimed to The Intercept that he supports both bills and will vote in favor of them, even though he has engaged in maneuvers to impede the bills from getting a full floor vote.

    This is where these former intelligence and national security officials come in. While these former CIA, Homeland Security and Pentagon operatives have little sway in the Senate Judiciary and House Antitrust Committees, they command great loyalty from Congressional national security committees. Those committees, created to exert oversight of the U.S. intelligence and military agencies, are notoriously captive to the U.S. National Security State. The ostensible purpose of this new letter is to insist that Big Tech monopoly power is vital to U.S. national security — because it is necessary for them to censor “disinformation” from the internet, especially now with the grave Russian threat reflected by the war in Ukraine — and they thus demand that the anti-Big-Tech bills first be reviewed not only by the Judiciary and Antitrust Committees, but also the national security committees where they wield power and influence, which have traditionally played no role in regulating the technology sector:

    We call on the congressional committees with national security jurisdiction – including the Armed Services Committees, Intelligence Committees, and Homeland Security Committees in both the House and Senate – to conduct a review of any legislation that could hinder America’s key technology companies in the fight against cyber and national security risks emanating from Russia’s and China’s growing digital authoritarianism.

    Why would these former national security and intelligence officials be so devoted to preserving the unfettered power of Big Tech to control and censor the internet? One obvious explanation is the standard one that always runs Washington: several of them have a financial interest in serving Big Tech’s agenda.

    Unsurprisingly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has himself pushed the claim that undermining Big Tech’s power in any way would threaten U.S national security. And there is now an army of well-compensated-by-Silicon-Valley former national security officials echoing his message. A well-researched Politico article from September — headlined: “12 former security officials who warned against antitrust crackdown have tech ties” — detailed how many of these former officials who invoke national security claims to protect Big Tech are on the take from the key tech monopolies:

    The warning last week from a dozen former national security leaders was stark: An antitrust crackdown on Silicon Valley could threaten the nation’s economy and “cede U.S. tech leadership to China.”

    But the group was united by more than their histories of holding senior defense and intelligence roles in the Trump, Obama and George W. Bush administrations: All 12 have ties to major tech companies, either from working with them directly or serving with organizations that get money from them, according to a POLITICO analysis….

    Seven of the 12, including Panetta, hold roles at Beacon Global Strategies, a public relations firm that according to a person familiar with the matter counts Google as a client…Five of the former officials, including former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo and former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, serve as advisory board members at Beacon. Panetta and Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama, are senior counselors for the firm….

    Frances Townsend, who was a counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, is on the national security advisory board for American Edge, a Facebook-funded group that opposes changes to strengthen antitrust laws….Townsend is also on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, which counts Facebook and Google as funders; the board of trustees for Center for Strategic and International Studies, which counts Apple and Google as funders; and the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, which receives money from Microsoft and counts Facebook and Google in its highest membership category.

    As Rep. Buck, the Colorado House Republican who favors reform, put it: “It is not surprising that individuals who receive money from Big Tech are defending Big Tech. At the end of the day, Big Tech is harming U.S. competition and innovation through anticompetitive practices.” In other words, these former intelligence officials are exploiting their national security credentials to protect an industry in which they have a deep financial interest.

    The view that preservation of Big Tech is vital for national security is by no means a unanimous view even in that world. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and others have vehemently argued that this claim is a “myth.” As veteran internet security expert Bruce Schneier observed: “These bills will encourage competition, prevent monopolist extortion, and guarantee users a new right to digital self-determination.” But the National Security State has enough True Believers combined with paid shills to make it appear as if Americans should be desperate to preserve and protect Big Tech’s power because this power is crucial to keeping America safe and, particularly, fighting Russia.

    There are indeed valid and rational reasons for these officials to view Big Tech monopoly power as a vital weapon in advancing their national security agenda. As I documented last week when reporting on the unprecedented censorship regime imposed in the West regarding the war in Ukraine, Big Tech censorship of political speech is not random. Domestically, it is virtually always devoted to silencing any meaningful dissent from liberal orthodoxy or official pieties on key political controversies. But in terms of foreign policy, the censorship patterns of tech monopolies virtually always align with U.S. foreign policy, and for understandable reasons: Big Tech and the U.S. security state are in a virtually complete union, with all sorts of overlapping, mutual financial interests:

    Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.

    Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation….Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.

    It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.

    Needless to say, the U.S. security state wants to maintain a stranglehold on political discourse in the U.S. and the world more broadly. They want to be able to impose propagandistic narratives without challenge and advocate for militarism without dissent. To accomplish that, they need a small handful of corporations which are subservient to them to hold in their hands as much concentrated power over the internet as possible.

    If a free and fair competitive market were to arise whereby social media platforms more devoted to free speech could fairly compete with Google and Facebook— as the various pending bills in Congress are partially designed to foster — then that new diversity of influence, that diffusion of power, would genuinely threaten the ability of the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House to police political discourse and suppress dissent from their policies and assertions. By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed.

    In this new letter, these national security operatives barely bother to hide their intention to exploit the strong animosity toward Russia that they have cultivated, and the accompanying intense emotions from the ubiquitous, unprecedented media coverage of the war in Ukraine, to prop up their goals. Over and over, they cite the grave Russian threat — a theme they have been disseminating and manufacturing since the Russiagate fraud of 2016 — to manipulate Americans to support the preservation of Big Tech’s concentrated power, and to imply that anyone seeking to limit Big Tech power or make the market more competitive is a threat to U.S. national security:

    This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyber-attacks, to bring about a change in the global order. We must confront these global challenges. . . . U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in Ukraine. . . . At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an aggressor. . . .

    The Russian government is seeking to alter the information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving content that would show the true facts on the ground. .. . . . Indeed, it is telling that among the Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort through lies and disinformation. U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. . . . Providing timely and accurate on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world (including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s aggression. . . . [T]he United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian cyber-attacks . . .

    In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push back on the Kremlin . . . . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the test. The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology sector to ensure that the safety of its citizens and the narrative of events continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.

    It is hardly controversial or novel to observe that the U.S. security state always wants and needs a hated foreign enemy precisely because it allows them to claim whatever powers and whatever budgets they want in the name of stopping that foreign villain. And every war and every new enemy ushers in new authoritarian powers and the trampling of civil liberties: both the First War on Terror, justified by 9/11, and the New Domestic War on Terror, justified by 1/6, should have taught us that lesson permanently. Usually, though, U.S. security state propagandists are a bit more subtle about how they manipulate anger and fear of foreign villains to manipulate public opinion for their own authoritarian ends.

    Perhaps because of their current desperation about the support these bills have attracted, they are now just nakedly and shamelessly trying to channel the anger and hatred that they have successfully stoked toward Russia to demand that Big Tech not be weakened, regulated or restricted in any way. The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

    It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of “disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during…

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:50

  • China & Russia Pledge Deepened Strategic Ties 'No Matter What'
    China & Russia Pledge Deepened Strategic Ties ‘No Matter What’

    China has remained undeterred by Washington threats over its deepening ties and closer cooperation with Russia even as the Kremlin commits to military takeover of the Donbas region of Ukraine. On Wednesday Beijing affirmed it will “continue strengthening strategic ties with Russia,” according to a top diplomat.

    This even as Washington has ramped up the rhetoric seeking to highlight horrific war crimes alleged in places like Bucha, or now Mariupol. While recently the Biden administration admitted it “has not seen” China providing Russia with military equipment, as some prior admin officials alleged was likely happening, the accusation and suspicion has lingered over Beijing, still under Western pressure to come out definitively against the Russian invasion (though it remains that Beijing officials have resisted even using the word “invasion” to describe the conflict). 

    “No matter how the international landscape may change, China will continue to strengthen strategic coordination with Russia for win-win cooperation, jointly safeguard the common interests of the two countries and promote the building of a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind,” Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said in a late Tuesday statement.

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    The statement, issued via the Chinese Foreign Ministry, came after Le met with Russian envoy Andrey Ivanovich Denisov. The meeting was apparently full of optimism even as unprecedented Western anti-Russia sanctions seek to wreck its economy and bring Iran levels of isolation. According to Bloomberg:

    He said that a nearly 30% jump in trade between the nations during the first three months of 2022 demonstrate “the great resilience and internal dynamism of bilateral cooperation.”

    In return, the Russian envoy was quoted as saying that relations with China continue to be a top “diplomatic priority”. 

    “Russia always regards developing relations with China as its diplomatic priority and is ready to further deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic coordination and all-round practical cooperation in the direction set by the two heads of state, so as to continuously benefit the two peoples and safeguard international equity and justice,” Denisov said. 

    Bloomberg, meanwhile, notes the following: “While bilateral trade did grow in the first quarter, much of that was before the invasion of Ukraine, with Chinese exports to Russia slumping in March to the lowest level since mid-2020, according to data released last week.”

    “The increasing sanctions on Russia by many nations, the drop in the Russian currency and U.S. efforts to stop Russia from using the dollar probably pushed Chinese firms to hold back on exports,” the report adds.

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    The meeting and statements are without doubt only to reinforce NATO countries’ voiced suspicions of what’s being dubbed China’s “no-limits” ties with Moscow. China in return has said Russia’s security concerns of NATO expansion are legitimate and that Beijing sees the negotiating table as paramount to ending the fighting in Ukraine, which has killed thousands on both sides.

    Seeking to prove this point while flexing its diplomatic muscle, this week China announced it is sending a high-level diplomatic delegation to eight central and eastern European countries to discuss the Ukraine crisis. 

    “Huo Yuzhen, China’s special representative to China-Central and Eastern Europe Cooperation, will head a delegation to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, according to Wang Lutong, the director general of European affairs at China’s foreign ministry,” The South China Morning Post reported Tuesday.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:30

  • Taibbi: America's Intellectual No-Fly Zone
    Taibbi: America’s Intellectual No-Fly Zone

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News Substack, (emphasis ours)

    From left to right, from Chomsky to Carlson, war-skeptical voices are being denounced at levels not seen since Iraq…

    In a 1979 essay called, “My Speech to the Graduates,” Woody Allen wrote:

    More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

    Allen was satirizing the notion that there are always good choices in life. Often, there aren’t.

    Sometimes the fork in the road ahead asks you to choose between different routes to hell. The late, great Gilbert Gottfried once made the same point in a standup routine about stranded missionaries just slightly less subtle than Allen’s bit.

    Indomitable public intellectual Noam Chomsky gave an interview to Current Affairs last week called, “How to Prevent World War III.” Regarding Ukraine, Chomsky revisited “My Speech to the Graduates”:

    There are two options with regard to Ukraine. As we know, one option is a negotiated settlement, which will offer Putin an escape, an ugly settlement. Is it within reach? We don’t know; you can only find out by trying and we’re refusing to try. But that’s one option. The other option is to make it explicit and clear to Putin and the small circle of men around him that you have no escape, you’re going to go to a war crimes trial no matter what you do. Boris Johnson just reiterated this: sanctions will go on no matter what you do. What does that mean? It means go ahead and obliterate Ukraine and go on to lay the basis for a terminal war.

    Those are the two options: and we’re picking the second and praising ourselves for heroism and doing it: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

    Immediate shrieking outrage of course ensued (why doesn’t Twitter have a special “torch” emoji for denunciatory mobs?). Chomsky was judged a genocide-enabling, America-hating Kremlin stooge. A tiny sample:

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    I reached out to Chomsky about the brouhaha. The good professor was charmingly unaware he’d set off a social media meltdown, but commented in a general way.

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    TK News subscribers can click here to read the rest.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 23:10

  • The State Of Marijuana Legalization In The US
    The State Of Marijuana Legalization In The US

    After successful ballot measures in the 2020 U.S. election legalized recreational marijuana use in Arizona, New Jersey and Montana, state legislatures in New York, Virginia, New Mexico and Connecticut passed bills in 2021 to legalize weed.

    That means that, as the world celebrates ‘4/20’, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that this brings the tally of legal weed states to 18 (along with D.C.).

    Infographic: The State of Marijuana Legalization in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The new development is bringing recreational marijuana to more East Coast states, after the American West had long been the hotbed of legalization efforts. Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize the drug in 2012.

    New Jersey is expected to actually start selling legal weed on April 21, while New York, Connecticut and Virginia haven’t set a start date yet. Sales have been up and running in Arizona and Montana as well as in New Mexico.

    While setting up a licensing system for dispensaries selling recreational weed usually takes more time, possession and consumption are already legal in all states that passed bills or had successful ballot measures.

    South Dakota actually gave the recreational and medical use of cannabis the green light at the same time in the 2020 elections, but the state’s Supreme Court ruled the ballot measure on recreational weed invalid for technical reasons after a complaint funded by Governor Kristi Noem. 

    There are currently 37 states that have medical marijuana laws, including all that allow recreational use.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:50

  • China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis – Part 1
    China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis – Part 1

    By Eric Mertz of the General Crisis Watch Substack

    A third of farmers in Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning report they can’t get the necessary inputs to begin farming.

    A worker transplants rice seedlings in China’s Jilin province, where up to a third of farmers have insufficient agricultural inputs after authorities sealed off villages to fight Covid-19

    This report from the CCP administrations in those regions comes mere weeks before farmers were due to start planting, meaning they would at best miss the best time to plant – driving down yields – and at worst not be able to plant at all. The later seems likely, given the recent fertilizer shortage brought about by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The war in Ukraine will have a further impact for China, due to their reliance on roughly 2 million tons of corn from Ukraine each year, most of which is used as livestock feed for China’s pig farms.

    This disruption in corn to Chinese pig farmers comes as demand is increasing after three years of severe cuts due to African Swine Fever resulting in mass culling. Though its entirely possible China isn’t out of the woods yet. Chinese pig farmers are reportedly losing $75 per hog slaughtered, as opposed to a profit of $175 per hog last year. This is extremely significant for Chinese nutritional health, as pork makes up over 60% of the average Chinese meat consumption at ~54 pounds per person per year.

    The domestic situation is not helped by trucking volumes in rural areas dropping by 87% for the year. Vice-Premiere Hu Chunhua has already called on provincial authorities to adjust their Zero COVID policies to stop arresting farmers for working their fields during the lockdowns. This crisis seems to be driven by local officials implementing strict policies which results in truckers facing two-week quarantines. At a cost of ¥3360 ($556) for the 14 days spent in a camp, this amounts to half the annual average income for truck drivers in China. The situation linking rural areas to the cities aren’t much better as major cities, and even entire provinces, shut down highway travel to prevent becoming another Shanghai. Beijing has ordered provincial authorities to implement priority passes to get long-haul truckers in to deliver goods, but it is likely too-little too-late.

    Political Infighting

    To make matters worse, the political infighting between former party leader Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Clique and Xi Jinping’s Tsinghua clique may have just broken into the open. Vice-Premiere Sun Chunlan – the woman responsible for implementing China’s COVID policy – has summoned a number of Shanghai officials before her to answer accusations of “lying flat”. This comes after reports of party and local government mismanagement began to circulate on Western social media websites.

    There have already been reports of assassination attempts against Xi in the past. And Xi hasn’t left China since his state visit to Myanmar 822 days ago. In that time, he has purged top leadership of China’s internal apparatus of oppression.

    Now, with the 14th National Party Congress convening in March of 2023 – and with it the selection of the next President of the People’s Republic of China – it appears Xi may be in a very real life-or-death struggle for control over the party.

    However, these are not the only issues facing China. There is more to come.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:30

  • Cause Of China Eastern Plane Crash Remains A Mystery One Month Later
    Cause Of China Eastern Plane Crash Remains A Mystery One Month Later

    One month after China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 plunged out of the sky while beginning its descent to a destination in Guangxi, killing all 132 people on board, a report issued by China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China claimed that no irregularities had been found regarding the plane or its crew – meaning that after a month of investigation, the cause of the crash remained a mystery.

    The report claimed that investigators are still trying to extract data from the heavily damaged black boxes and the cockpit voice recorder – data that might offer some insight into the plane’s condition and the crew’s actions in the final minutes of the flight. The US National Transportation Safety Board is helping Chinese investigators in their efforts to download information from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, Fox News reports.

    Both black boxes are being analyzed by American experts at a government lab in Washington.

    The crew, including the flight’s pilots, made no mention of any malfunctions or other issues that might have caused the crash at any point during the flight.

    The crash left a crater measured to be 20 meters deep in the mountainside, shattered the plane and set off a fire in the surrounding forest. More than 49,000 pieces of plane debris were found. It took two days to find the cockpit voice recorder and six days for the flight data recorder, which was buried 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground.

    Flight MU5735 was headed from the city of Kunming in southwestern China to Guangzhou, the capital city of southwestern Guangxi, a critical export hub for China, when it dropped out of the sky. 132 people, including 123 passengers and 9 crew, died during the crash.

    As a precaution, China Eastern and its subsidiaries grounded all their Boeing 737-800s – the model of plane involved in the crash – which included more than 200 planes. But they have all since returned to service.

    During the accident, the plane was cruising at 29,100 feet and began a sharp descent after 1420ET, briefly recovering more than 1,000 feet before resuming its dive before losing contact altogether as it fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes. The incident marked Chian’s deadliest passenger plane crash since 1994.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 22:10

  • Former Democrat Lawyer Doesn't Want Clinton Tweet Admitted In Durham Case
    Former Democrat Lawyer Doesn’t Want Clinton Tweet Admitted In Durham Case

    By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

    The lawyer charged with hiding his work for the Clinton campaign from the FBI filed a motion requesting that special counsel John Durham not be able to use a Hillary Clinton Twitter post that made reference to alleged Trump–Russia collusion claims.

    Michael Sussmann in an undated interview. (CNN/Screenshot via NTD) Special counsel John Durham in 2018.

    Durham wrote last week that he wanted an October 2016 Twitter post from the Clinton campaign that promoted an allegation that there was a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. The campaign’s lawyer, Michael Sussmann, was charged last year with lying to the FBI by allegedly stating that he wasn’t working on behalf of any client when he pushed the Trump-Russian bank claim to then-FBI General Counsel James Baker.

    On Oct. 31, 2016, Clinton wrote on Twitter: “Donald Trump has a secret server … It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank.” She later wrote that “computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

    The claims about the alleged secret backchannel between the bank, reportedly identified as Alfa Bank, and former President Donald Trump’s business were ultimately refuted by the FBI.

    Durham also sought to preserve a Twitter post from Clinton’s campaign that included a lengthy statement from former adviser Jake Sullivan, who now works as President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan claimed. “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

    Last week, Durham argued that these Twitter posts are material because Sussmann “had communicated with the media and provided them with the Russian Bank-1 data and allegations” before articles on the claims were published. He also kept Clinton campaign staff “apprised of his efforts” while they “communicated with the Clinton Campaign’s leadership about potential media coverage of these issues.”

    But Sussmann’s lawyers over the past weekend, in court, wrote that the Clinton campaign’s Twitter posts about the matter, including the Sullivan one, should not be preserved for Sussmann’s trial.

    “The Tweet, which was posted on October 31, 2016, does not reveal anything about Mr. Sussmann’s state of mind over a month earlier, when he purportedly made the alleged false statement,” his attorneys wrote. “There is no evidence that Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with Mr. Baker had anything to do with the Clinton Campaign’s broader media strategy.”

    They responded to Sullivan’s statement and touting of a Slate story on the Trump-Russian bank claim: “First, contrary to the Special Counsel’s misleading statement of the law, the Tweet is hearsay and it is plainly being offered for the truth: so that the Special Counsel can argue that the Campaign’s plan all along was to make a public statement about ‘federal authorities’ looking into the ‘direct connection between Trump and Russia.’”

    “Second, the Tweet—which Mr. Sussmann did not author, issue, authorize, or even know about—is irrelevant, prejudicial, and would only confuse and distract the jury from the single false statement charge it must decide,” they continued.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:50

  • YouTube Terminates Page Belonging To Hong Kong's Only Candidate For Chief Executive
    YouTube Terminates Page Belonging To Hong Kong’s Only Candidate For Chief Executive

    Citing the need to comply with US sanctions against John Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong’s sole candidate to succeed Carrie Lam following her decision not to seek another term, YouTube has erased his campaign page.

    In response, the city’s former No. 2 official said he was “disappointed” in the decision, but maintained the move wouldn’t affect his election campaign. He added he would do his best to communicate with the public using other channels so that people could know him better, according to the Washington Post.

    Lee was added to the US sanctions list in 2020 along with Lam and a host of other HK officials for their work in undermining the Democratic rights of the Hong Kong people, going against international law. Lee was cited for overseeing the creation of a special new police force designed to enforce the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing.

    In response to YouTube’s decision, Lee said that the US sanctions placed upon him (initially imposed in August 2020 by the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control under then-Secretary Steven Mnuchin) were unfair. “The so-called sanction imposed by the US government due to my work in safeguarding national security is unreasonable, bullying and deliberately wants to put pressure on me,” he said in a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon. “It would not make me hesitant, it only makes me believe what I am doing is correct.”

    In a statement given to the Washington Post, Google said that it “…complies with applicable US sanctions laws and enforces related policies under its Terms of Service. After review and consistent with these policies, we terminated the Johnlee2022 YouTube channel.”

    Meanwhile, a Meta (formerly known as Facebook) spokesman said Lee can continue to run his Instagram and Facebook campaign pages as a “de-monetized presence”, adding that it had also taken steps to prevent his use of payment services.

    The decision to censor Lee’s YouTube page probably won’t have much of an impact on his campaign, since he is the only candidate approved by China to run for the office on May 8.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:30

  • Californians Rally Against 'Infanticide Bill'
    Californians Rally Against ‘Infanticide Bill’

    Authored by John Fredricks via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    On the steps of the California State Capitol over a thousand people gathered in the shadow of the building complex while several California Highway Patrol officers scanned the surroundings for potential threats under the cloudy skies.

    “We are calling this a lobby day, not a protest,” Gina Gleason, director of Real Impact, a Christian activist organization, told The Epoch Times.

    “’Protest’ is too aggressive for what we are doing.”

    People rally against Assembly Bill 2223 in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Many of those attending the rally had driven from Southern California, as well as flown into the Sacramento airport, to rally against the passing of Assembly Bill (AB) 2223.

    People rally against Assembly Bill 2223 in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who introduced the bill, said at an April 5 Judiciary Committee meeting that the bill is meant to prevent pregnant women from being prosecuted for terminating their pregnancy or losing their baby.

    AB 2223 would prohibit holding a person—the mother or a health care provider—responsible for “miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death” of a baby based on “their actions or omissions” related to the pregnancy, according to the state legislative information website.

    Although the bill doesn’t give a precise definition of “perinatal,” it commonly entails the time frame between 22 weeks of pregnancy and seven days after birth, according to the committee’s bill analysis.

    “We’re talking about a bill that will not only terminate a child’s life, [but also] post-birth up to 30 days or longer,” Pastor Jack Hibbs, of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, told The Epoch Times. “The law, if passed, prevents an investigation or an autopsy on why the child died. It is literally unbelievable, and that’s why yesterday when I was being interviewed by news crews from Australia, England, and Germany, they could not believe it either.

    People rally against Assembly Bill 2223 in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    “[Wicks’s bill] may be coming from the best intentions, but I am here to tell you in Sacramento that it is not only wrong, it is unlawful regarding our First Amendment, and most importantly, it is a violation of God’s word,” Hibbs said.

    “God is a God of life. It’s evident that the things that we enjoy in life are beautiful and precious, and we preserve them; but that you’re assuming the position of God—that you have no right.”

    Just hours before the demonstration, hundreds attending the rally gathered in a conference area within the Hyatt hotel, adjacent to Capitol Park, to discuss the process of an assembly bill, and a breakdown of the language used to describe AB 2223.

    “They say they are trying to protect women with this bill,” Gleason said. “But the bill describes the situation as ‘prenatal death’ as a result of pregnancy and birth as a ‘pregnancy outcome?’”

    “We are urging the senate health committee to help make the right decisions.”

    Greg Burt, of the California Family Council, a faith-based activist group, said to the large crowd that when he “heard the language of the bill, I could not believe how far they have gone.”

    “This is a bill supporting abortions after birth … It’s infanticide.”

    Burt, a former reporter, said though the bill itself does not mention the word “infanticide,” if passed, it would allow mothers the justification needed to end a child’s life after birth for “pregnancy-related causes.”

    Burt said a “pregnancy-related cause” is ambiguous because it is “not defined” in the text.

    “Postpartum depression is an example of a pregnancy-related [cause], meaning that a mother who’s depressed could kill her child, and there would be justification to do so,” he said.

    The Legislative Office Building in Sacramento, Calif., on April 19, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Back on the steps of the California State Capitol, ralliers began to softly sing in sync together Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves the Little Children, and God Bless America.

    “Some friends and I from church came up here today to oppose this bill together,” rallier Vanessa Le told The Epoch Times. “People need to be aware of how evil this bill is, and we need to do all that we can to stop it.”

    “We are praying for our lawmakers to have their hearts opened to see the evil in this bill and its prevention of human life.”

    When several members of California’s faith community approached the steps to speak out against the bill, the volume of the crowd decreased to hear them, as the audio equipment was outfitted for a rally of only 500 people.

    Those in favor of passing the bill have been referenced as coming to unsafe conclusions supported by “fact-checked” sources.

    “Despite the plethora of ‘fact check’ articles that have denied and downplayed the stark truth … the chief council for the pro-abortion majority of California State Assembly Committee on Judiciary stated that “the perinatal death language could lead to an unintended and desirable conclusion,” said attorney Olivia Summers with the American Center for Law & Justice, a politically conservative, Christian activist organization.

    “The analysis goes on to say the bill may not be sufficiently clear that perinatal death is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy-related outcomes, including death of a newborn for any reason during the perinatal period after birth including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications.”

    The crowd was encouraged to be polite in sharing their grievances with AB 2223 at the 4 p.m. Assembly Health Committee hearing.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 21:10

  • Taiwanese TV Station Accidentally Broadcasts News Of Mainland Invasion
    Taiwanese TV Station Accidentally Broadcasts News Of Mainland Invasion

    In news that’s vaguely reminiscent of the time Hawaiians received a false alert warning of an impending nuclear strike, a TV station in Taipei has apologized after falsely reporting that the island was under attack from Beijing.

    During its morning news broadcast on Wednesday, the government-funded Chinese Television System warned on its lower-third news chyron that New Taipei City was under attack.

    “New Taipei hit by guided missiles from the Chinese Communist forces. Ships at the Taipei Port [in New Taipei] exploded, facilities and vessels all destroyed” read one ticker that ran just after 0700 local time accompanying footage of a worker in full COVID gear disinfecting a workplace at the Presidential Office, according to SCMP.

    There were other latest news ticker alerts that read “Banqiao Railway Station suspected under arson attack by enemy spies with explosives” and “New Taipei Government sets up joint emergency handling center as war is feared.”

    The broadcast continued to flash other apocalyptic warnings, including “Magnitude-7 powerful quake occurs in Taishan [New Taipei]”, “Quake causes No 2 Nuclear Power to stop operation”, and “Domestic airline plane crash-landed at Keelung River, fuselage breaks into two and many passengers trapped.”

    The TV station quickly apologized for the error and said it had accidentally broadcast captions from a fire department emergency drill.

    SETN television news network reported that even the island’s security authorities had been startled by the news and called the CTS news station director to ask what had happened.

    The massive mistake, which caused many viewers to panic before heading out to work during the early morning hours, prompted Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, and its supporters to ask that the National Communications Commission – the island’s broadcasting media regulator – punish CTS, possibly by taking it off the air.

    Of course, the dry run might not be completely unjustified, since fears of an invasion by the mainland have intensified since Russia launched its incursion into Ukraine.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 20:50

  • "Taiwan Is Part Of China": Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call
    “Taiwan Is Part Of China”: Chinese Defense Minister Warns Pentagon Chief In 1st Call

    US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, wherein Wei conveyed a warning that no one can change Taiwan’s status as part of China.

    The Wednesday phone call was the first that the two defense leaders have held. Wei informed Austin that “If the Taiwan issue were not handled properly, it would have a damaging impact on Sino-US relations,” according to Reuters.

    Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, file image

    The call was intended as a follow-up between last month’s virtual meeting between presidents Biden and Xi, wherein Biden warned over China’s deepening cooperation with Russia it executes its war against Ukraine. 

    A Pentagon official later said the Austin emphasized that the US will continue to adhere to the ‘One China’ status quo policy, which is the typical response from Washington officials anytime Beijing warns over US officials stoking the pro-independence movement on the democratic-run island.

    Chinese state-run English language Global Times further described the importance of the call as one of Beijing conveying its unwavering resolve to Washington on the Taiwan issue. GT writes that Wei stressed “the importance of the Taiwan question, while demanding the US to stop its military provocations at sea, and not to throw mud or threaten China with the Ukraine issue.”

    Further, “Wei stated a solemn position over the Taiwan question, as he stressed that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and this is a fact and a status quo no one can change.”

    Meanwhile, in the latest “scare” on the island…

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

    Without doubt part of the “provocations” Beijing has in mind is that the US has been increasingly sending high-level officials to Taipei. In the latest example, just a week ago:

    A delegation of United States lawmakers led by vocal China critics Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham arrived in Taiwan on Thursday for a two-day trip as Beijing threatened “strong measures” in response.

    The group of six US legislators is making the latest in a string of visits by foreign politicians to Taiwan in defiance of Beijing’s efforts to isolate the island nation.

    Early this month there was talk that Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan after an official trip to Japan – but the whole Asia trip was called off at the last minute due to her testing positive for Covid-19, after which she quarantined for a period. This would have made her the first House Speaker to visit Taiwan since 1997,when Republican Newt Gingrich did. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 20:10

  • US "Always Preparing The Next" Weapons Package For Ukraine: Biden Official
    US “Always Preparing The Next” Weapons Package For Ukraine: Biden Official

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

    White House official Matt Miller said the US is planning multiple weapons packages for Ukraine in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden has already authorized the transfer of over $3 billion in arms to Kiev amid a war which American officials believe will last for years. 

    Speaking with MSNBC on Tuesday, Miller said, “The question about another package is really the easiest one you could ask me. The answer is yes, of course, we are always preparing the next package of security assistance to get into Ukraine.”

    Via CNN

    Several top US officials have said the war will drag on for years. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley said, “I do think this is a very protracted conflict, and I think it’s measured in years. I don’t know about decade, but at least years for sure.”

    Several current and former high-level US officials believe Russia will face a bloody and costly insurgency fueled by American weapons in Ukraine. In January, James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander for NATO, said, “Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

    On Tuesday, Biden responded affirmatively to a question asking if the next security package would include artillery. Last week, the White House authorized an $800 million arms transfer to Kiev that includes Howitzers. 

    Since Biden took office, the US has approved the transfer of over $3 billion in weapons to Ukraine. However, many US political leaders are demanding the White House give more support to Kiev, with Democratic Senator Chris Coons even calling on Biden to consider deploying American soldiers to Ukraine.

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

    “Come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine… If the answer is never, then we are inviting another level of escalation in brutality by Putin,” Coons said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:50

  • Bill Ackman Dumps Entire Netflix Stake, Loses $430 Million In 4 Months
    Bill Ackman Dumps Entire Netflix Stake, Loses $430 Million In 4 Months

    Back on Jan 27, and just days after NFLX crashed after its dismal Q4 2021 earnings (not to be confused with its even more dismal Q1 2022 earnings yesterday) we reported that with proceeds earned from his massive Treasury short, Bill Ackman had purchased 3.1 million shares of Netflix stock in the mid-$300s.

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

    Ackman said that “beginning on Friday and over the last several days, we acquired more than 3.1 million shares of Netflix… which makes us a top-20 holder.”

    Well not any more, because after NFLX stock crashed a record 35% today, Ackman today was less than delighted with the latest opportunity the market presented him with, in this case to lose some $430 million in less than four month, because unlike other investors who double down when presented with a real opportunity to invest in a name they believe in, Ackman decided to bail instead demonstrating yet again that for so many traders the real “strategy” is to buy high and sell low.

    In a release published after the close, Ackman’s Pershing Square said that it has sold its entire investment in Netflix, which was purchased in January. “The loss on our investment reduced the Pershing Square Funds’ year-to-date returns by four percentage points. Reflecting this loss, as of today’s close, the Pershing Square Funds are down approximately two percent year-to-date.”

    Here is how Bill Ackman, best known for such stellar investments as JCPenney, Herbalife, Valeant and so on, justified to his investor his latest cash bonfire:

    While we have a high regard for Netflix’s management and the remarkable company they have built, in light of the enormous operating leverage inherent in the company’s business model, changes in the company’s future subscriber growth can have an outsized impact on our estimate of intrinsic value. In our original analysis, we viewed this operating leverage favorably due to our long-term growth expectations for the company.

    Yesterday, in response to continued disappointing customer subscriber growth, Netflix announced that it would modify its subscription-only model to be more aggressive in going after non-paying customers, and to incorporate advertising, an approach that management estimates would take “one to two years” to implement. While we believe these business model changes are sensible, it is extremely difficult to predict their impact on the company’s long-term subscriber growth, future revenues, operating margins, and capital intensity.

    We require a high degree of predictability in the businesses in which we invest due to the highly concentrated nature of our portfolio. While Netflix’s business is fundamentally simple to understand, in light of recent events, we have lost confidence in our ability to predict the company’s future prospects with a sufficient degree of certainty. Based on management’s track record, we would not be surprised to see Netflix continue to be a highly successful company and an excellent investment from its current market value. That said, we believe the dispersion of outcomes has widened to a sufficiently large extent that it is challenging for the company to meet our requirements for a core holding.

    That’s a lot of words to say we did zero actual analysis when we bought over $1.2 billion in NFLX shares, and now that we have lost a third of our investment and finally did the analysis, we realized we had just wasted a lot of LP cash.

    Of course, saying that would be a little too truthy, so even the “lessons learned” was couched in corporate speak:

    One of our learnings from past mistakes is to act promptly when we discover new information about an investment that is  inconsistent with our original thesis. That is why we did so here.

    Here is the real “learnings”: while some traders double down when they have confidence in their investment, and having done their homework are able to take advantage of market dislocations and double down, others – who are only looking at price – buy high and sell low.

    It’s clear which type of investor Ackman is.

    And speaking of real investors, once again Carl Icahn mops the floor with Ackman: as a reminder, the venerable corporate raider made more than $2 billion on NFLX, after buying $321 million in 2012 and selling everything three years later to make a $2 billion profit.

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

    Ackman, on the other hand, just lost nearly half a billion in less than 4 months.

    Needless to say, it would be delightfully ironic if Icahn was quietly buying up the shares that Ackman was selling.

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

    And yes, with the selling overhang now gone, expect NFLX stock to soar in the coming days and weeks.

    Here is the full Pershing Square letter (pdf link).

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:30

  • Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable ICBM As Putin Warns Enemies It's "Food For Thought"
    Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable ICBM As Putin Warns Enemies It’s “Food For Thought”

    In a new ‘message’ aimed at the West, Russia on Wednesday test launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat, according to Interfax citing the Russian defense ministry.

    President Vladimir Putin said in a statement which accompanied the announcement that the new Sarmat missile will provide “food for thought for those who try to threaten Russia.” He congratulated the armed forces on the successful test launch. According to another translation, he said that the Sarmat will “make the madmen who attempt to threaten Russia think.”

    The new heavy Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Wiki Commons.

    “Sarmat is the most powerful missile with the biggest hitting range in the world. It will significantly strengthen the combat power of the Russian strategic nuclear armed forces,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

    The test took place in Russia’s far north, reportedly at the Plesetsk spaceport which lies about 800 km north of Moscow. 

    According to a state media description, “The missile was developed as a replacement for the ICBM R-36M2 (NATO Reporting Name SS-18 Satan). It is expected to be effective in destroying enemy strategic targets around the globe with kinetic impact energy and without the use of the nuclear warhead.”

    The Kremlin released footage of the Wednesday launch of the “Satan”…

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

    Lately there’s been widespread speculation over whether Putin would be “willing” to use tactical nukes in Ukraine – something which Foreign Minister Lavrov categorically rejected in Tuesday statements.

    On Tuesday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked in an interview with India Today about the possibility of using nukes, to which he responded that Russia will only use conventional weapons in Ukraine.

    Meanwhile, in another alarming development picked up by Russia observers…

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

    And in Washington…

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:15

  • Rubio: Biden's Child Allowance Made Tax Season Worse
    Rubio: Biden’s Child Allowance Made Tax Season Worse

    Authored by Senator Marco Rubio via RealClearFlorida,

    Tax season is always a stressful time, especially for working families. This year, however, it proved more stressful than usual.

    Over the last few weeks, many Americans came to the shocking realization that instead of getting a refund – a refund they’d been counting on to offset the last 12 months of rising prices – they would owe money to the federal government. Why? Because President Joe Biden’s now-expired government child allowance disrupted a longstanding tax benefit.

    For the year of 2021, President Biden replaced the child tax credit for working parents with a government child allowance for every parent, including those not working. The benefit was intended to provide monthly payments for every child in a residence. But because of delays and incompetence, those payments did not begin until July. The remainder of the payments were left to be claimed when families filed their annual tax returns.

    The decision to set up a new monthly payment regime midway through the year meant that many taxpayers unknowingly used half the refund they were expecting to see when they filed their taxes. The result has been either a smaller return than expected or, for many, the realization that they owed money. This result was entirely predictable, but the Biden administration did nothing to warn families, preferring to talk up how the new monthly payments allowed households to pay for the ever-increasing costs of groceries, gas, and rent.

    That’s not all. President Biden’s plan appears to have confused Washington bureaucrats, who overpaid a significant number of Americans. Some households didn’t have to pay that free money back, but others will be hounded by the IRS until they break even. Neither scenario is desirable.

    And good luck trying to get clarity from the IRS on this mess. The agency’s current return backlog is the largest in its history, the fruit of inefficient processing procedures and remote-work policies. Dealing with the issues produced by the government child allowance will probably lead to even more backlog and bureaucratic mess-ups.

    President Biden’s government child allowance was never a good idea. It should have been obvious from the beginning that giving American households with no working adults over $6,000 in cash welfare payments was neither pro-work nor pro-family. We’ve seen the workforce shortages and out-of-control inflation that resulted – consequences that are hurting everyone, but especially low-income parents. And now we’re seeing the program disrupt the lives of the very people it was supposed to help. It’s no wonder that popular support for the child allowance last year was middling at best.

    Fortunately, there’s a better way of helping families. In 2017, I worked with Ivanka Trump and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) to double the federal child tax credit. Over the three years following its implementation, that credit proved to be a lifeline for working families. Millions of parents claimed the credit annually on their tax returns, resulting in generous refunds that gave them the freedom to cover large purchases, pay off debt, or invest in their children’s education. Research from the Tax Foundation shows that the expansion benefited families in every income bracket – except the highest earners.

    This was no fluke. It was simply an example of what a well-crafted government program can accomplish. And we can do more. Congress should expand the child tax credit for working parents again, from $2,000 to $3,500 (and $4,500 for young children). This would put more dollars in working parents’ pockets, strengthening American families during an era of rising prices and global insecurity.

    For the time being, however, we are left with the fallout of President Biden’s government child allowance. It’s been said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. For the next three years, at least, that list merits an addition: government mismanagement.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 19:10

  • Delta Slammed On Social Media After Calling COVID A "Seasonal" Virus
    Delta Slammed On Social Media After Calling COVID A “Seasonal” Virus

    Even with the end of the Federal travel mask mandate, Delta Airlines faced massive backlash with a statement it made about Covid being a “seasonal virus” this week. Because, as we all know, just because a virus intensifies in certain months doesn’t make it a “seasonal” virus, right? After all, we don’t just walk around saying “It’s flu season!”.  

    Wait, maybe we do. OK, scratch that.

    Delta wrote in an initial statement after the federal mask mandate was lifted: “We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus.”

    That one sentence set off a firestorm among passengers, medical experts and public health leaders, according to NPR, who promptly “turned to social media to dispute the claim and call out the lack of scientific evidence behind it.”

    Delta was forced to update its statement, telling NPR that it did so “for clarity and accuracy” and declining to comment further.

    Delta’s new statement now reads: “We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 transitions to a more manageable respiratory virus — with better treatments, vaccines and other scientific measures to prevent serious illness.”

    But NPR seems to taking exception with the fact that Delta has used the idea of Covid being a seasonal virus in the past. They pointed out that CEO Ed Bastian said last week he had made certain decisions “given the fact that we really do believe that the pandemic has moved to a seasonal virus.”

    Yale epidemiologist and global health activist Gregg Gonsalves was one of the many representing “scientific” outrage over the completely meaningless and innocuous statement, taking to Twitter and writing: “I don’t care what you think about masking, but Delta’s comment that #SARSCOV2 has transitioned to become an ‘ordinary seasonal virus’ is just bonkers, has no basis in science and is outright misinformation misleading their customers (of which I am one!).” 

    “My source says that Delta did not consult with its senior medical advisor before releasing this misinformation. Hope Delta will correct ASAP!” wrote Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist. 

    Oh yeah Eric? Well our source says people are tired of arguing over pointless semantics and just want to get on with their normal, maskless, lives. Hope you will correct ASAP!

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 18:55

  • CDC Asks DoJ To Appeal Lifting Of Mask Mandate "To Protect Public Health"
    CDC Asks DoJ To Appeal Lifting Of Mask Mandate “To Protect Public Health”

    Having exhausted our incredulity glands and satire organs yesterday while discussing the possibility that the Biden administration will appeal the ruling that struck down the mask mandate for public transportation, we choose to just report the news and nothing but the news today.

    The CDC has asked the Justice Department to appeal a judge’s ruling that threw out a mask requirement for plane and air travel, setting up a court battle over the decision. 

    “CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC’s legal authority to protect public health,” the agency stated.

    DoJ had said Tuesday that it stood ready to appeal the ruling, issued Monday by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, but that it would do so only “subject to the CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health.”

    Well, the CDC ‘deems’ it so…

    The full statement from The CDC reads as follows:

    To protect CDCs public health authority beyond the ongoing assessment announced last week, CDC has asked DOJ to proceed with an appeal in Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc., et al., v. Biden, et al.

    It is CDCs continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health.

    CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary. CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDCs legal authority to protect public health.

    CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. CDC’s number one priority is protecting the public health of our nation.

    As we have said before, wearing masks is most beneficial in crowded or poorly ventilated locations, such as the transportation corridor.

    When people wear a well-fitting mask or respirator over their nose and mouth in indoor travel or public transportation settings, they protect themselves, and those around them, including those who are immunocompromised or not yet vaccine-eligible, and help keep travel and public transportation safer for everyone.

    Forget all those videos showing cheering passengers… and screw all those airlines who made the decision – based on their customers demands – to lift the mask mandate… and ignore for one moment that there is no ‘science’, other than ‘political science’ behind the mandate for mask-wearing.

    Presumably, it is simply the fact that some ‘freedom‘ was given back to the American public that was just unacceptable.

    For all the blue-checks whose bloviation is so grandiosely amplified among the echo chambers of Washington, remember: “you are free to wear masks if you like… if they work, they will protect you, if they don’t why mandate them?”

    In the meantime, which airline will panic and signal all their virtue by re-mandating mask-wearing based on this CDC decision?

    We give the final word to Bill Maher who dropped some ‘science’ about vaccinated mask-wearers during a recent Real Time segment.

    “I don’t understand these people,” Maher said, adding “They say they’re going to continue to wear masks even after they sound the all-clear. It’s like having sex with a condom and then saying, ‘You know what? I think I’m going to leave it on for the rest of the night.’”

    He went on to explain “you’re never going to have a 100% COVID free atmosphere… there’s always going to be variants, we just have to live again.”

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/20/2022 – 18:40

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