- Non-Citizen Voting Push Is Part Of Agenda To Rid America Of Citizenship: Election Expert
Non-Citizen Voting Push Is Part Of Agenda To Rid America Of Citizenship: Election Expert
Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The recent New York City law to allow at least 800,000 noncitizens to vote in municipal elections is unconstitutional and likely to be overturned in court, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s election law reform initiative and former member of the Federal Election Commission.
“It’s actually pretty clear that it violates the New York State Constitution—it has a provision that specifically says that you have to be a citizen to vote in all elections in the state of New York, and that includes local elections,” Spakovsky told The Epoch Times on Jan. 19.
“I also think it is bad from a policy point of view, because it basically cheapens and diminishes the concept of citizenship.
“It ought to be something that makes American citizens mad, particularly because of the potential number of aliens that’s involved.”
Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, at an immigration event in Washington in this file photo. (The Epoch Times) New York City Mayor Eric Adams allowed the measure to become law on Jan. 9, which includes the provision that voting noncitizens must be in the city for 30 days or more and have authorization to work.
“I believe that New Yorkers should have a say in their government, which is why I have and will continue to support this important legislation,” Adams said in a statement. “I believe allowing the legislation to be enacted is by far the best choice, and look forward to bringing millions more into the democratic process.”
The following day, the Republican National Committee filed a suit in the New York Supreme Court along with City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borrelli, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), and other Republicans.
Poll workers help voters inside a polling location in Austin, Texas, Oct. 13, 2020. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images) The law applies to legal aliens, but Spakovsky said New York City’s sanctuary policies that shield illegal aliens would open the floodgates.
“Does anybody really believe that the election department is going to investigate the lawful status of any alien who registers to vote?” he said.
“And so that means, of course, that lots and lots of illegal aliens will also get registered to vote.”
Although he doesn’t think any states will try to change their election laws to include voting rights for noncitizens, Spakovsky said there’s a push from the progressive left to change the concept or definition of “citizen.”
“The whole point of the open borders crowd is to do two things: one, extinguish the line between legal and illegal aliens in this country. And second, to frankly, get rid of the whole concept of citizenship,” he said.
New York City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a Democrat, told colleagues before the recent vote that many noncitizens struggle to become citizens but should still be able to vote in the meanwhile because they pay taxes and live and work in the city.
“They want to be citizens, they want to be able to vote for the president, but at least we have the opportunity to allow them to vote for the elected officials that are representing them in the city,” said Chin.
However, Spakovsky said paying tax doesn’t make someone a citizen.
“My response to that is that first of all, the vast majority of illegal aliens do not pay taxes. In fact, they get free rides from many jurisdictions,” he said.
“This is being pushed by the progressive left today because they believe that aliens will vote for them … and keep them in power.”
A Border Patrol agent organizes illegal immigrants who have gathered by the border fence after crossing from Mexico into the United States in Yuma, Arizona, on Dec. 10 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Spakovsky said the inability for the Trump administration to get a question placed on the 2020 Census about citizenship status was a major win for the progressive left to blur the lines between citizen and noncitizen.
“One of the main reasons they wanted that done is for apportionment purposes, they did not want congressional seats apportioned based on citizen population—if they did, places like California would lose congressional seats,” he said.
“That’s why California probably has four or five more congressional seats than they should have, because of the huge population of illegal aliens in the state.”
The Biden administration supports the creation of a citizenship pathway for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. A decade-old estimate puts the number of illegal aliens at 11 million, and since then, millions more have crossed the southern border.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 01/23/2022 – 00:00 - "Career Advancement Tied To Whether You Have Kids" As China's Birth-Rate Hits Record Low
“Career Advancement Tied To Whether You Have Kids” As China’s Birth-Rate Hits Record Low
After China’s once-in-a-decade census had already corrected the number of births in the country downwards considerably in 2020, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that the latest release from the National Statistics Bureau of China (NBS) shows that in 2021, even fewer babies were born in the country.
The statistic only counted 10.62 million births in 2021, down from twelve million in 2020. Meanwhile, China’s population stagnated at around 1.41 billion people.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The country’s fertility rate stood at 1.3 children per woman in 2020. It has been below the 2.1 threshold necessary for a stable population since the 1990s. Despite the early warning signs, China only scrapped its long-standing one-child policy in 2016, as fear of overpopulation gave way to fear of aging societies.
The 7.5 births per 1,000 people last year is the lowest birth rate since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, attributed the falling fertility rate to China’s economic and social development.
Countries tend to experience lower birth rates in line with economic development as increased education access and concentration on careers become new priorities for the population. That is certainly the case elsewhere in Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea where birth rates have fallen to new lows. The situation is especially concerning in South Korea where there were more deaths than births last year.
However, in the wake of the sinking birth rate and rapidly aging population, the Chinese government has been ramping up efforts to encourage people to have more children. As RT reports, in addition to allowing couples to have up to three children in 2021, officials have also adopted policies aimed at reducing financial pressure on families and creating more beneficial conditions for raising children.
Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert for the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said that birth numbers are likely to fluctuate in the 10 million range before declining further in the absence of more policy changes.
“Career advancements could be tied to whether you have children or not; economic incentives; or even direct cash payouts by society to meet the cost of raising a family,” Huang suggested to Reuters.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 23:30 - A Litany Of Absurdity
A Litany Of Absurdity
Allison Pearson writing for the Telegraph recounts her anti-lockdown views from early on, and how so many people who implemented draconian policies are now running from them and their own responsibility.
In the course of her column, she provides a list of absurdities imposed on the British people. This column is excerpted below.
At the end of the Second World War, Gaullists and Communists insisted that the majority of the French people had played a part in the Resistance. Actual figures for those who actively opposed the Nazis vary between 400,000 and 75,000. Something not entirely dissimilar is happening now as the Government prepares to lift Plan B restrictions next week, and fervent advocates of lockdown try to distance themselves from its dire consequences. Scientists whose mathematical models persuaded anxious ministers to impose drastic restrictions on human freedom not even seen during the Blitz are suddenly keen to emphasise that these were merely worst-case “scenarios”, not something on which you’d want to base actual policy.
Did they mention that at the time, I wonder? Or has the Eddie-the-Eagle reliability of their predictions given rise to a certain hasty revisionism? Sorry, that’s unfair. Eddie the Eagle never predicted up to 6,000 Covid deaths a day this winter (actual number: 250).
Michael Gove, the Cabinet’s most hawkish lockdown supporter, admitted last week to the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs that he was a “bedwetter” who got things badly wrong (unlike Boris) when he called for further restrictions over Christmas. Wes Streeting, the shadow Health Secretary, now says that we must never lock down again without explaining why the useless, No-opposition Opposition party not only failed to challenge any of the destructive rules, but continually called for them to be stricter.
Cracks are even opening up in the wonkish façade of the Behavioural Insights Team, the so-called Nudge Unit, which bears much of the responsibility for terrifying the British people into complying with measures so cruel that I predict future generations will refuse to believe we ever allowed them to happen. Simon Ruda, co-founder of the team, told Unherd: “In my mind, the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public.” Eh? It’s a bit like the kid who drops a banger in the tin of fireworks, claiming he never meant to start a fire. Honest, guv!
For those who were part of the lockdown Resistance, it is gratifying, but also oddly unbearable, to see the people who attacked us admitting that the “misinformation” we were accused of spreading 18 months ago turns out to be remarkably close to the truth. I am not a particularly rebellious person, and certainly not a brave one, but if I encounter any kind of injustice, my inner Welsh dragon starts breathing fire. I can’t help it. During the lockdowns, Idris the Pearson dragon seldom stopped fuming at the thousands of harrowing stories which readers shared with me. Like the lecturer who emailed about one of his students, a glorious young man, who fell to his death after hiding on the roof when police raided his house because a small party there breached lockdown regulations and the lad didn’t want to get into trouble. He paid with his young life for the stupid rules that were made – and repeatedly broken, as we now know – by middle-aged men in Westminster.
When the Resistance dared to suggest that some lockdown measures were disproportionate, crazy and unsupported by science, let alone common sense, we were reviled. That is no exaggeration. I regret to say your columnist was called, in no particular order, a Covid denier (I nursed my entire family through the virus), a granny killer (I didn’t see my own mother for 18 months) and a spreader of disinformation. When I protested on social media that putting padlocks on the gates of playgrounds was a terrible idea, back came a fusillade of vicious accusations: “You want people to die!”
To question the official narrative that nothing mattered except keeping people safe from Covid was heresy. Witches like me had to be burnt at the stake before we could spread our subversive ideas to all Sage-fearing people. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? It is now widely acknowledged that the NHS was never overwhelmed (that’s why the Nightingales were shut without being used). And even those prophets of doom at the BBC finally acknowledged this week that half of “Covid deaths” since Christmas are not actually “from” Covid but “with” Covid.
That is not to deny that some of us came up with occasional wrong answers. I certainly did, although I will be proud for the rest of my life that my Planet Normal co-pilot, Liam Halligan, and I had the guts to keep asking the questions.
Admittedly, the lockdown tragedy did have its moments of unintentional comedy. Who can forget the immortal exchange between Sky News’s Kay Burley and the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock?
Burley: “How long will the ban on casual sex last?”
Hancock [serious face]: “Sex is OK in an established relationship, but people need to be careful.”
Careful, unless you were the Secretary of State for Health, of course, in which case sex outside your established relationship was fine and dandy because, well, it was with a colleague. What No 10 would doubtless call a “work event”.
How did we listen to that bonkers, ahem, advice with a straight face? With the UK set to be one of the first countries to come out of the pandemic, I thought it was worth starting to compile a list of the most lunatic measures. Lest we forget.
Some of my followers on Twitter offered these. I’m sure you will have your own.
1. “Church yesterday. Wafer but no wine for communion. Service followed by wine and biscuits to mark the vicar’s retirement.”
2. “The one where you could work in a control room with multiple people for 12 hours then be breaking the law if you sat on a bench drinking coffee with one of them.”
3. “Forming a socially distanced queue at the airport before being sardined into a packed plane with the same people, two hours later.”
4. “Swings in our local park put into quarantine or removed – even though children were barely at risk from Covid as swings were outside.”
5. “No butterfly stroke allowed while swimming.”
6. “Pubs with no volume on the TV.”
7. “Not allowing people to sit on a park bench. My elderly aunt kept fit by walking her dog every day, but she needed to rest. Since that rule, she stopped going out. She went downhill and died last April.”
8. “I got thrown out of a McDonald’s for refusing to stand on a yellow circle. I was the only customer.”
9. “Yellow and black hazard tape across public seats and benches outdoors.”
10. “I’m stuck in the infant in-patient ward with my nine-day-old sick baby, post C-section, unable to look after him. My husband (same household) is not allowed to be here with us. I’m having panic attacks, which is preventing me from producing milk for the baby.”
11. “I was advised by a council worker to keep my dog on a lead because people might stop to pet her and congregate too closely.”
12. “My bed-ridden mother-in-law with dementia in a care home where only ‘window visits’ were allowed. Mum was on the first floor. Had to wait for someone to die on the ground floor so she could be moved down there and finally seen by her family. After 12 months.”
13. “Two people allowed to go for a walk on a golf course. If they took clubs and balls, it was a criminal offence.”
14. “The one-way system in my local pub, which meant that to visit the loo you had to make a circular journey through the building, ensuring you passed every table.”
15. “My dad was failing in his care home. We weren’t allowed to visit him until the doctor judged he was end-of-life care because of one positive case in the home. We had 24 hours with him before he passed.”
16. “People falling down the escalator on the Underground because they were frightened of touching the handrails – even though you couldn’t get Covid from surfaces.”
17. “Rule of Six. My wife and I have three children so we could meet either my wife’s mum or her dad, but not both at the same time.”
18. “Nobody solved an airborne virus transmission with a one-way system in Tesco.”
19. “How about not being allowed for several months – by law – to play tennis outdoors with my own wife? We’d have been further apart from each other on court than in our own home.”
20. “On two occasions, I was stopped and questioned while taking flowers to my mother’s grave. One time, a police officer even asked for my mum’s name. No idea what he would have done with that information.”
21. “Birmingham City Council cutting the grass in two-metre strips – so the weeds could social-distance?”
22. “Northampton police checking supermarket baskets for non-essential items.”
23. “All the children at school were asked to bring in a favourite book, but it had to be quarantined for two days before being ‘exposed’ to the rest of the class.”
24. “Dr Hilary on Good Morning Britain advising people to wear masks on the beach – and that it would be a good idea to swim in the sea with one on, too.”
25. “Gyms and exercise classes forced to close, but fast-food outlets remained open.”
26. “They taped off every other urinal in my workplace.”
27. “Sign on the inside of work bathroom door: close toilet lid before flushing to prevent plumes of Covid-19.”
28. “We held our carol service in a local park, but had to send out invitations by word of mouth, rather than email, so we’d have plausible deniability if stopped by police.”
29. “Having to wear a disposable apron and gloves while visiting my mother in a care home, while she was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling Perspex wall.”
30. “Scotch eggs. You couldn’t drink in a pub unless you also had a ‘substantial’ meal.”
31. “Testing of totally healthy people and making them stop work based on a questionable positive test result, when they have no symptoms, creating NHS staff shortages, cancelled operations. Things that, you know, actually kill people…”
32. “My son works in the NHS on the Covid ward and could go to the local Sainsbury’s for his lunch. But when we were ill and isolating at home, he had to isolate as well – for 10 days.”
33. “My eight-year-old granddaughter telling me they weren’t allowed to sing Happy Birthday at school for her friend’s ninth birthday.”
34. “It was illegal to see your parents in their back garden, but legal to meet them in a pub garden with lots of other people.”
35. “I had to abandon my weekly choir practice – but my husband was allowed to sing as a spectator at a football match.”
36. “They removed all the bins in Regent’s Park and Hampstead Heath.”
37. “Having a flask of tea or coffee on a walk meant it was classified as a picnic – and thus verboten.”
38. “Bring your own biro to a dental appointment to fill in a form declaring you do not have Covid.”
39. “My neighbour refused to hang the washing out to dry – they thought the sheets might catch Covid and infect them.”
40. “My 12-year-old had to sit alone at her grandfather’s funeral – her first experience of one – even though we drove there together and hugged outside. There were three officials watching us all to ensure we didn’t break the rules.”
41. “We could only go outdoors once a day for exercise.”
42. “In pubs, wearing a mask to get from the door to the table, and the table to the toilet – but not wearing a mask while sitting down.”
43. “People in a Tier 3 area walking two minutes down the road for a pint in Tier 2.”
44. “In Wales, supermarkets were allowed to stay open, but the aisles containing children’s clothing and books were taped off.Because buying a baby’s jumper is so much more perilous than picking up a pint of milk.”
45. “The pallbearers all but threw my mother’s coffin in the grave and ran away. They had her down as a Covid death, but she died of cancer.”
46. “The one-way systems around supermarkets that led to people being forced into parts they didn’t want to be in, making them spend more time in the shop – while Covid simply circulated over the top of the shelves.”
47. “Children abandoned by social services and left in the clutches of terrible parents.”
48. “Police breaking into our student house and pinning my girlfriend by the neck up against the wall. I said: ‘This is England – you’re not allowed to do that.’”
49. “Residents of care homes forgetting who they were during the long months when family were not allowed to visit them.”
50. “Dying alone. How many died alone? How many?”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 23:00 - Starlink Satellites May Disrupt Detection Of Near-Earth Asteroids, Study Warns
Starlink Satellites May Disrupt Detection Of Near-Earth Asteroids, Study Warns
There is growing concern among astronomers that Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) may interfere with a ground-based detection system used for identifying near-Earth objects (NEOs) (otherwise known as asteroids).
The new study, titled “Impact of the SpaceX Starlink Satellites on the Zwicky Transient Facility Survey Observations,” warned images taken by a telescope in California have been recording streaks from Starlink satellites that could make it much harder to discover NEOs.
Twilight images taken by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an instrument that operates from Caltech’s Palomar Observatory near San Diego, scans the night sky every 48 hours, searching for NEOs. Between November 2019 and September 2021, researchers found “5301 satellite streaks that can be attributed to Starlink satellites.”
“We find that the number of affected images is increasing with time as SpaceX deploys more satellites. Twilight observations are particularly affected—a fraction of streaked images taken during twilight has increased from less than 0.5% in late 2019 to 18% in 2021 August,” lead author of the study Przemek Mróz wrote.
Mróz believes by the time Starlink launches 10,000 satellites, nearly all twilight images from ZTF will have streaks, making it more challenging to identify NEOs by the end of the decade.
To minimize the streaks, researchers said redesigning Starlink satellites with visors to block “sunlight from reaching the satellite antennas to prevent reflection” could reduce brightness (thus decreasing streaks in ZTF images).
So what are the implications of the streaks in ZTF imagery? The study’s co-author Tom Prince warned:
“There is a small chance that we would miss an asteroid or another event hidden behind a satellite streak…”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 22:30 - Big Tech Forcing MPs To Self-Censor In Australian Parliament: Craig Kelly MP
Big Tech Forcing MPs To Self-Censor In Australian Parliament: Craig Kelly MP
Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Australian members of Parliament are curating their speeches to avoid triggering censorship from Big Tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook, according to United Australia Party (UAP) leader Craig Kelly MP.
In a wide-ranging interview with Emeritus Law Professor David Flint, Kelly, who last year resigned from the Liberal Party to join the UAP, said Big Tech companies had become the “de facto Hansard” in reference to the official transcript of Parliamentary debates used across Commonwealth countries.
“On the floor of Parliament, I have to think, ‘If I say these words, will YouTube delete this?’” he told Flint in an episode of Australia Calling, which can be viewed on The Epoch Times website, as well as Rumble and YouTube.
“I think we need to enshrine ‘freedom of speech,’ especially in the age of these large tech giants who have so much control of what goes into the media,” he said. “People talk about the Murdoch media having so much control, they have nothing on the control that Facebook and YouTube do.”
“It’s also controlling other groups like Sky News Australia and other independent media commentators who use YouTube and Facebook to post their interviews and content,” he added. “They know in certain areas if they talk about something which is contrary to the economic interests of those (Big Tech) companies, they will have their platforms taken down.”
Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister Scott Morrison during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on May 13, 2021. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images) Kelly called on the platforms to be recognised as publishers saying they could not have it “both ways.”
“Facebook and YouTube today have taken the role of the ‘Old Town Square.’ They’ve got the right to say who goes into the Town Square, who’s allowed to stand up on the soapbox, and who’s allowed to speak and who is not allowed to speak,” he said.
Big Tech’s moderation of content has become an increasingly contentious issue with concerns platforms are not doing enough to curb online bullying, while at the same time, warnings or suspensions have been handed out in response to discussion on politics or COVID-19.
For example, Prof. Nikolai Petrovsky, lead researcher at Vaxine which is behind Spikogen (or COVAX-19)—now being rolled out in Iran—had his LinkedIn account restricted over “multiple violations” of the user agreement.
According to an email from LinkedIn posted online by Petrovsky, the social media company took action against the researcher when he wrote comments questioning the efficacy of vaccines, the use of mandates, and the manufacturing safeguards behind the drugs.
“Which media channels to trust and have integrity? Does anyone find these comments offensive?” the professor wrote.
Part 3 of the interview with Craig Kelly MP coming Thursday, Jan. 27.
Watch Next
Part 1 – Craig Kelly interview on Rumble
Part 2 – Craig Kelly interview on Rumble
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 22:00 - Germany Roiled By "Political Earthquake": Navy Chief Resigns After Saying "Putin Deserves Respect", Warning China Is "Not A Nice Country"
Germany Roiled By “Political Earthquake”: Navy Chief Resigns After Saying “Putin Deserves Respect”, Warning China Is “Not A Nice Country”
Just as the covid narrative is slowly disintegrating even as its MSM propaganda powers “cancel” anyone who dares to speak out against the lies – so the “Russia is about to invade Ukraine” plotline just suffered a major blow after the chief of Germany’s navy, vice-admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach , said on Friday that Crimea “will never come back”, and that what Putin “really wants is respect…and it is easy to give him the respect he really demands – and probably deserves.”
And sure enough, just one day later, on Saturday evening, he resigned from his post for having the temerity to speak out against conventional wisdom.
“I have asked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve me from my duties with immediate effect,” Schoenbach said in a statement cited by the Reuters news agency.
“The minister has accepted my request,” he added.
Speaking at an event organized by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses on Friday, the vice-admiral redpilled the shocked audience when he dismissed as “nonsense” the notion that Russia was “interested in having a small and tiny strip of Ukraine soil and integrating it into their country.”
“Does Russia really want a small and tiny strip of Ukraine soil to integrate into their country? No, this is nonsense. Putin is probably putting pressure because can do it and he splits EU opinion.”
Schönbach went on to claim that what President Putin really wanted was the West to “respect” Russia, adding “giving some respect is low cost, even no cost. If I was asked, it is easy to give him the respect he really demands and probably also deserves.“
Addressing the issue of Crimea, the German Navy commander opined that the “peninsula is gone” and “will never come back — this is a fact.”
On Ukraine’s possible admission into NATO, Schönbach said, “Ukraine of course cannot meet the requirements because it’s occupied in the Donbas region by the Russian Army or by what they call as militias.” In this context, he also said the Crimea peninsula, which was annexed by Russia, is “gone” and is “not coming back”.
Then in an even greater transgression of conventional pro-China etiquette, the German had the temerity to point out the elephant in the room when he slammed China which is “not that nice country we probably thought” and added that that “Russia is an old country, Russia is an important country. Even we India, Germany, need Russia. We need Russia against China…” This, he said, is “easy” and “keeps Russia away from China” because China needs resources of Russia and they [Russia] are willing to give them because the sanctions sometimes do go the “wrong way”.
German Navy Chief VAdm Kay-Achim Schönbach minicing no words while pointing out concerns with China at @IDSAIndia event in Delhi. Highlights how “… China is not that nice country we probably thought” pic.twitter.com/IkXqYhfLLv
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) January 21, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Describing China as a growing “hegemonic power” which is using its money and power to put pressure on the international order, Schönbach said China has behaved as an enemy to some and has a “hidden agenda” in dealings with countries.
Giving an example of Chinese attempts to steal technology, the German Navy Chief spoke of Kuka robotics, a German company which was taken over by a “private” Chinese company and the “whole technology was gone” and “China is not paying back”.
In the context of this and other developments, he recalled German politicians’ view of China and said they believe that, “China is not that nice a country we probably thought of.”
Schönbach’s comments, which he insists were made in a private capacity, stirred up a diplomatic scandal, with Ukraine’s foreign ministry summoning the German ambassador to the country, Anka Feldhusen, on Saturday. Kiev described his remarks as “unacceptable.”
Breaking: Ukriane’s foreign ministry @MFA_Ukraine Summons German Envoy to Kyiv @AnkaFeldhusen over remarks by German Navy Chief in Delhi. Navy chief had said Crimea is lost forever to Russia, Ukriane can’t become NATO member. Ukraine statement: https://t.co/78Dm0E9eAw pic.twitter.com/uiv80PxDlW
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry also called on Germany to reject Schönbach’s comments regarding Crimea, saying they undermine the efforts to counter Russian aggression.
“Ukraine is grateful to Germany for the support it has already provided since 2014, as well as for the diplomatic efforts to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict. But Germany’s current statements are disappointing and run counter to that support and effort,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.
“The German partners must stop undermining unity with such words and actions and encouraging (Russian President) Vladimir Putin to launch a new attack on Ukraine,” Kuleba added.
Kyiv also highlighted its “deep disappointment” at the German government’s position “on the failure to provide defense weapons to Ukraine.” The lack of weapons support is another point of contention between the two countries. On Friday, reports emerged about Germany blocking Estonia from sending its German-made weapons to Ukraine.
And while it is unclear if the establishment was more shocked by his comments about Putin, Russia and Ukraine or his brutal honesty about China, what followed has been no less than a “political earthquake” with the country’s defense ministry immediately distancing itself from the controversial statements, and its spokesperson saying that characterizing the vice-admiral’s comments as not reflecting “in any way the position” of the ministry, both “in terms of the content and choice of words.”
Political Earthquake hits Berlin: 24 hours after German Navy Chief’s Delhi comments calling for respect for Putin/Crimea lost he resigns. German newspapers splashed with his resignation as top headline. He spoke at @IDSAIndia on Friday. https://t.co/CyRnPQ2g2p pic.twitter.com/Xc0HQ0qLAk
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The local media also went ballistic, and the biggest woke German tabloid Bild, asked Schönbach to step down. “Treten Sie zurück, Herr Vize-Admiral!”, says the paper.
German paper @BILD goes all gun blazing over remarks by German Navy Chief in Delhi, asking him to step down. “Treten Sie zurück, Herr Vize-Admiral!”, says the paper. https://t.co/CyRnPQ2g2p pic.twitter.com/FVFmAeLM0o
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In a bid to diffuse the situation, the (now former) Navy commander took to Twitter earlier on Saturday, saying that he “should not have done it that way,” and describing his remarks as a “clear mistake.”
“My defense policy remarks during a talk session at a think tank in India reflected my personal opinion in that moment. They in no way reflect the official position of the defense ministry,” he wrote.
Meine sicherheitspolitischen Äußerungen in einer Talkrunde eines Think Tanks in Indien gaben meine persönliche Meinung für diesen Moment vor Ort wieder. Sie entsprechen in keinster Weise der offiziellen Position des @BMVg_Bundeswehr. #deutschemarine
— chiefdeunavy (@chiefdeunavy) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
But several hours later, his name and photo disappeared from the official Navy chief’s Twitter handle and its bio was changed to “currently vacant”.
Twitter bio of German Navy chief official handle says “currently vacant”, picture of VAdm Kay-Achim Schönbach removed. pic.twitter.com/3XOyZPD51F
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Moscow, which views any NATO expansion into Ukraine as an existential threat to its national security, has consistently rebutted claims made by Western media and senior officials, according to which Russia is allegedly planning to invade its neighbor any day now. The Kremlin has called the idea “fake news,” while raising issue with the fact that some Western nations are sending weapons to Ukraine. Last month, Russia sent proposals to the US and NATO for treaties with security guarantees, but so far negotiations were unsuccessful in finding terms for an agreement.
Meanwhile, so-called “progressive, liberal” powers in the west are actively pushing for “kinetic” intervention, one which could quickly spiral out of control and escalate into a global war.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 21:18 - Majority Of Millennials, Gen Zers Want Limits On Abortion; New Poll Finds
Majority Of Millennials, Gen Zers Want Limits On Abortion; New Poll Finds
Authored by Kristan Hawkins via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),
By the time the midterm elections take place, targeted campaign ads and outreach will have littered the virtual American landscape, as politicians attempt to persuade voters that they have something to offer. In today’s partisan setting, abortion will be one of the issues raised. While the pro-life position once encompassed people of all political persuasions, the two parties today generally stand as polar opposites, making a new poll on the views of almost one-third of the electorate important news for the army of campaign consultants gearing up to make their pitch.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Far from being pro-abortion/straight-ticket voters without nuance, Millennials and Gen Zers share concerns about the extremes of abortion. They also desire to have a voice and a vote on life, and thoroughly reject the reckless and deadly policy pursued by the Biden administration and its corporate abortion allies on chemical abortion pills, according to a poll taken in early January and reported by Students for Life of America’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement.
Consider Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that almost 50 years ago stripped abortion policy away from the states, setting up almost limitless abortion and making ordinary political engagement almost impossible. An extraordinary 8 in 10 Millennials and Gen Zers want to vote on abortion policy, up from 66% in 2021, while 3 out of 4 want limits on abortion and 4 in 10 want either no abortion or abortion only for the traditional exceptions – in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger.
On taxpayer-funded abortion, a top policy position of the Democrat-controlled White House, Senate and House, 55% opposed using those resources to pay for abortions worldwide, and 54% support Hyde Amendment protections that limit taxpayer funding of abortion to the exceptions.
Education is key in working with these voters, which is the central mission of SFLA’s in-person, 50-state operation. A 10-percentage point shift in Millennial and Gen Z views on Roe, from positive to negative, took place after respondents learned more about its impact. For example, almost 6 in 10 opposed Roe after learning that it allows for abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
All of this means that if Roe becomes a historical footnote and the issue of abortion is returned to the states – possibly through the Dobbs v. Jackson case under consideration now – that’s a positive for most voters. In fact, the poll found that 65% of Millennials and Gen Zers oppose people in power deciding who is fully human and deserving of legal rights.
But the biggest news comes from Millennial and Gen Z’s response to cutting-edge policy being discussed at the state level, from chemical abortion pill limits to “heartbeat” legislation. In fact, more than half of Millennials and Gen Zers would support a limit on abortion after a preborn baby’s heartbeat is detected.
The poll also shows that the real losers in the abortion policy debate of our day are those pushing no-test, online sale of chemical pills, which can lead to injury, infertility and even death for the women taking them, as well as the obvious termination of the baby’s life.
Recently, Biden’s FDA drastically reduced health and safety standards for chemical abortion pills, and the president nominated Dr. Robert Califf to be commissioner of the agency, a role he held during the Obama administration – when he also weakened standards. This appointment will further expose women to the drugs’ risks. Califf joins HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who took legal action against the FDA during the Trump administration, forcing it to drop health and safety standards for the pills. This is leading to a state-by-state push for health and safety standards.
The new poll examined Millennial and Gen Z views on the separate harms women are now exposed to as a result of this deadly shift in policy. The Biden administration supports none of these protections in its new FDA-approved protocols.
More than 6 in 10 opposed no-test, online distribution of chemical abortion pills, with strong support for each of the screenings and protocols once in place. More than 6 in 10 support screening for a mother’s blood type, as Rh-negative women (15% of the population) can become sterile if not treated properly; 59% supported an ultrasound exam before selling the pills to prevent death from complication from an ectopic or late-term pregnancy; and 62% supported required follow-up exams so women didn’t die from infection.
Concern for women in dangerous situations motivated Millennial and Gen Z voters: 65% supported in-person purchase to prevent abusers or sex traffickers from using the drugs against women without their knowledge and consent, while almost 6 in 10 opposed young girls being left alone with an abortion sales team or coercive sexual partner without adult engagement from a judge, parent or guardian.
And for politicians looking for a winning issue, consider this: Almost 7 in 10 Millennials and Gen Zers said they are more likely to vote for a politician who supports health and safety standards for chemical abortion.
There is common ground to be found on the abortion issue for people of all parties, beginning with putting the opinions and needs of “We the People” over a handful of judges. Once Roe is gone, a long overdue debate will truly begin.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 21:00 - 'Smart' Gun Mocked After Demonstration Fail
‘Smart’ Gun Mocked After Demonstration Fail
Smart guns are being pushed in mainstream media to prevent unauthorized people from firing guns in the hopes of preventing mass shootings.
Biometric recognition technology using fingerprints and or RFID technology is used to activate the high-tech pistols.
However, as outlined by the pro-gun website Bearing Arms, smart guns aren’t so smart after a possible demonstration failure.
Smart guns could be prone to reliability issues in life in death situations.
* * *
Submitted by Bearing Arms.
Over the last week or so, so-called smart guns have been everywhere in the mainstream media. In the Second Amendment community, there’s been a ton of talk about them as well. Especially since we all know it’s just a matter of time before lawmakers try to mandate smart guns as the only guns.
However, there are problems with these kinds of firearms. We all know it. I’ve talked about a few of them.
One of the big ones is reliability. The more whizzbangs you put in a device, the higher the likelihood of failure becomes.
Firearms are a technology that has more than a century of development. While there are tweaks here and there, the core of a semi-automatic firearm hasn’t changed all that much. As a result, it’s reliable.
Smart guns don’t have that. What makes them “smart” is a technology that exists elsewhere, but also has problems just about everywhere.
And, as John Boch over at The Truth About Guns notes, it seems they can’t even handle the “gun” part that well, either.
Last week, we lambasted reports of a new “smart gun” that Reuters raved about in a glowing “exclusive.” Reuters reporter Daniel Trotta wrote that the third-generation prototype fired “without issue” during a live-fire demonstration for investors and the media.
Now though, additional footage of the event has since surfaced that shows the LodeStar Works gun couldn’t manage to fire two rounds without an issue during one of the exercises.
Whoops.
…
Here’s another recording that is embeddable from a local TV reporter. It shows the LodeStar not-so-smart gun can’t even fire two rounds back-to-back.
During a demonstration to share holders last week, the operator clicks the key pad on the side of the 9mm smart gun. Once unlocked, the smart gun is operable. @Lodestarguns @6abc https://t.co/gVzML0sARg pic.twitter.com/c8O8zNbp6i
— Christie Ileto (@Christie_Ileto) January 18, 2022
We can clearly see the shooter state he’s going to fire two rounds. He fires one, then pulls the trigger several more times, only the weapon does fire.
Yeah, that’s the reliability thing we were talking about.
The truth of the matter is that smart guns aren’t ready for prime time. Not by a mile. But, companies working on them know they can gin up publicity–and likely some degree of investment–by sending out a few press releases and telling the media about how awesome their new firearms are.
Yet I have yet to see one of these smart gun folks who is actually a gun person. They seem to generally be technology people who decide to build a smart gun, rather than a gun person who wants to build one.
Of course, gun folks know that there’s not really much of a market for these kinds of guns. We’ve heard about them for years. They’re always just around the corner, and yet absolutely no one seems the least bit interested in them. I have yet to find a gun person who is excited by the concept, though some such as myself are ambivalent about the technology itself. Others, however, are downright hostile to it, mostly because they figure someone will try to mandate them for everyone.
Luckily for those folks, smart guns look like they’re at least another decade out at a minimum.
If these companies think they’ve got something, they need to stop turning to the anti-gun mainstream media and start looking at the gun media instead. Let us test and evaluate the weapons. We’ll tell you if they’re ready or not.
I’m not holding my breath on that, though.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 20:40 - Don't Believe The Democrats' "Medical Bankruptcy" Narrative
Don’t Believe The Democrats’ “Medical Bankruptcy” Narrative
Authored by Sally C. Pipes via RealClear Health (emphasis ours),
Americans collectively have about $140 billion in outstanding medical debts, according to a recent study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Alyssa Keown/Battle Creek Enquirer via AP Those hefty bills are driving many people into bankruptcy – at least according to prominent progressives. Left-wing leaders have long stoked fears of “medical bankruptcy” to boost support for government-run, single-payer healthcare.
During his last run for president, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., declared that enormous medical bills force a staggering 500,000 people to declare bankruptcy each year – a fact that, if true, would justify drastic reforms to the healthcare system.
But the dystopian portrait painted by Sanders and his allies doesn’t reflect reality. Medical bills can certainly be onerous to many families. But they’re rarely the sole, or even the main, cause of personal bankruptcies.
Sanders based his numbers on a 2019 editorial published by the American Journal of Public Health. The authors conducted a study in which about two-thirds of the 700,000 debtors surveyed said medical expenses contributed “somewhat” or “very much” to their bankruptcy.
That’s not exactly a direct, causal relationship. A more accurate conclusion would be that medical expenses played a role in families’ deteriorating finances.
Often, the main cause of bankruptcy isn’t a surge in debt – it’s a precipitous drop in income. Someone diagnosed with cancer may certainly face burdensome medical bills. But the far bigger threat to one’s finances comes from no longer being able to work full-time – or at all – during a treatment regimen.
Other research confirms that healthcare bills alone rarely drive people into bankruptcy. A 2018 study in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed the percentage of people with medical bills who went bankrupt, rather than how many bankruptcy filings included some level of medical debt. The study concluded that medical bankruptcies, specifically those caused by hospitalization, make up just 4% of all bankruptcies.
Facts like these haven’t slowed the push for single payer. Representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, seized upon the JAMA study’s $140 billion statistic soon after it was published, tweeting that the solution was Medicare for All.
The thinking goes that enrolling most Americans in a fully government-run healthcare system funded by tax dollars – rather than the current mix of public and private money – will prevent people from going bankrupt.
But once again, the math doesn’t check out. Government-sponsored, single-payer healthcare isn’t “free.” It’s funded by enormous, broad-based taxes on businesses and workers alike. Those taxes constrain economic growth and, by definition, leave people with less cash on hand to meet their other financial obligations.
Consider Canada, which has a single-payer system revered by American progressives. A family making the average income of 75,300 Canadian dollars – about US$59,700 – pays $6,500 in taxes just to cover its share of the national health insurance tab, according to a September 2021 report from the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank. An average family of four pays an estimated $15,039 in healthcare taxes. Those figures are on top of all the other taxes Canadians pay to support everything from education to national defense.
Canadians pay a higher share of their total compensation to the government than Americans, according to OECD data.
That explains, in part, why Canadians declare bankruptcy at higher rates than their U.S. counterparts. In 2019 – the year before the pandemic and its ensuing flood of stimulus programs caused a marked decrease in bankruptcies in both countries – about 137,000 Canadians sought protection from insolvency, out of a total population of almost 38 million, a rate of 3.6 bankruptcies per 1,000 residents.
That same year, slightly more than 770,000 Americans declared bankruptcy, out of a total population of 329 million at the time – a rate of 2.3 bankruptcies per 1,000 residents.
Medical bills don’t cause nearly as many bankruptcies as progressive lawmakers want people to believe. And single payer certainly wouldn’t prevent people from going insolvent.
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Healthcare Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All (Encounter 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 20:20 - 'Russia Secretly Plotting Regime Change In Ukraine': UK Govt Issues Astounding Charge
‘Russia Secretly Plotting Regime Change In Ukraine’: UK Govt Issues Astounding Charge
update(7:58pmET): On Friday we observed that something is in the air, as the tit-for-tat ratcheting allegations being traded between the West and Russia are getting more and more brazen and bizarre. Indeed it’s feeling like a false flaggy weekend…
And now enter a Saturday evening UK government statement that’s absolutely extraordinary as far as grand narrative accusations go. An official GOV.UK press release says Russia is secretly plotting regime change in Ukraine, with the aim of installing a pro-Kremlin political leader in Kiev:
“We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine,” the UK statement begins. Though without offering anything in the way of specific proof for the bombshell claims, we are even told who specifically Moscow has in mind to install as a pro-Russia puppet, according to the unprecedented accusations.
Below is the official UK government statement, almost in full:
“We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine. The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate.
We have information that the Russian intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians including:
- Serhiy Arbuzov, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2012-2014, and acting Prime Minister in 2014
- Andriy Kluyev, First Deputy Prime Minister from 2010-2012 and Chief of Staff to former Ukrainian President Yanukovich
- Vladimir Sivkovich, former Deputy Head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council (RNBO)
- Mykola Azarov, Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2010-2014
Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:
The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.
Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy. As the UK and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.”
Some pundits were quick to note that the alleged plot sounds eerily familiar to events centered in Kiev in 2014, but in reverse…
Sounds like Britain has taken what the US actually did to Ukraine in 2014, and rebooted it for Russia. Here’s Obama-Biden official Victoria Nuland & then-US Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt privately deciding to install Arseniy Yatsenyuk (“Yats is the guy”) as Ukraine’s next Prime Minister: https://t.co/PDoXBIY5kM pic.twitter.com/0fTraRMEvl
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 22, 2022
Journalist Aaron Mate reviews the
evidenceanonymous officials say allegations…On this front, the NYT now claims that British intelligence “played a major role in exposing Russian interference in the 2016 elections.”
How did Britain “expose” Russian interference? Are they talking about the Steele dossier? pic.twitter.com/lk4OZz4jOG
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 22, 2022
And a key question would further remain…
Could Moscow really install a pliant regime? Does it have a Ukrainian Quisling? A Ukrainian Pétain? https://t.co/SQ8zN4CwKZ
— Jeff Stein (@SpyTalker) January 23, 2022
* * *
The Pentagon and US intelligence is said to be watching Ukraine’s northern neighbor Belarus very closely, given Moscow’s recent statements confirming it is currently moving more S-400 missile systems into the allied country.
“Russia is moving two divisions of its S-400 Triumph air-defense systems, designed to take down enemy warplanes, into neighboring Belarus to take part in military exercises, the Ministry of Defense confirmed on Friday,” Russian state sources report.
S-400 missiles are reportedly being transported to Belarus all the way from Russia’s far east. While it comes as tensions are on edge, as the world’s eyes are watching the Russia-Ukraine border, the transfer of major military hardware to Minsk is said to be part of preparations for joint Belarus-Russian war drills set to run February 10 through 20.
The exercises will in part be aimed at “reinforcing the state border.” This is also likely intended as a response to this week’s White House-ordered “lethal aid” delivery to Ukraine’s military. The UK has also been flying in repeat plane-loads of weaponry, most likely including anti-tank missiles.
According to Pentagon officials cited in Fox News, there’s concern that Russia can much more easily target Kiev if it wants, given all its military assets in Belarus:
Advanced Russian fighter jets have now arrived in Belarus, north of Ukraine. The Pentagon is concerned that Ukraine’s capital is “now in the crosshairs,” another official added.
But Russia has repeatedly sought to assure the West that there are no “invasion plans” – as has been the charge over the last two months.
Russian fighter jets arriving in Belarus, north of Ukraine. U.S. officials concerned Ukraine’s capital “now in the crosshairs.”
pic.twitter.com/5RhuUkFmfN— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) January 22, 2022
But both sides are now accusing the other over the potential for a provocation which could quickly result in a shooting war on the ground. Likely any conflict should it erupt would center in Donbass, in Ukraine’s east.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 20:03 - 10 Travel Destinations For Post-Pandemic Life
10 Travel Destinations For Post-Pandemic Life
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. The resulting travel bans decimated the tourism industry, and international air travel initially fell by as much as 98%.
Almost two years later, travel is finally back on the table, though there are many restrictions to consider. Regardless, a survey conducted in September 2021 found that, as things revert to normalcy, 82% of Americans are looking forward to international travel more than anything else.
To give inspiration for your next vacation (whenever that may be), Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu created this infographic listing the 10 most visited countries in 2019, as well as three of their top attractions according to Google Maps.
Bon Voyage
Here were the 10 most popular travel destinations in 2019, measured by their number of international arrivals.
*Estimate | Source: World Bank
France was the most popular travel destination by a significant margin, and it’s easy to see why. The country is home to many of the world’s most renowned sights, including the Arc de Triomphe and Louvre Museum.
The Arc de Triomphe was built in the early 1800s, and honors those who died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In 1944, Allied soldiers marched through the monument after Paris was liberated from the Nazis.
The Louvre Museum, on the other hand, is often recognized by its giant glass pyramid. The museum houses over 480,000 works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Art isn’t the only thing that France has to offer. The country has a reputation for culinary excellence, and is home to 632 Michelin-starred restaurants, the most out of any country. Japan comes in at second, with 413.
While You’re There…
After seeing the sights in Paris, you may want to consider a visit to Spain. The country is the southern neighbor of France and is known for its beautiful villages and beaches.
One of its most impressive sights is the Sagrada Familia, a massive 440,000 square feet church which began construction in 1882, and is still being worked on today (139 years in the making). The video below shows the structure’s striking evolution.
At a height of 172 meters, the Sagrada Familia is approximately 52 stories tall.
Another popular spot is Ibiza, an island off the coast of Spain that is famous for its robust nightlife scene. The island is frequently mentioned in pop culture—Netflix released an adventure/romance movie titled Ibiza in 2018, and the remix of Mike Posner’s song I Took a Pill in Ibiza has over 1.4 billion views on YouTube.
Beaches Galore
If you’re looking for something outside of Europe, consider Mexico or Thailand, which are the 7th and 8th most popular travel destinations. Both offer hot weather and an abundance of white sand beaches.
If you need even more convincing, check out these links:
- The 13 Best Beaches in Mexico
- The Best Resorts in Mexico: 2021 Reader’s Choice
- The Best Night Markets in Bangkok, Thailand
- The Best Rooftop Bars in Bangkok
Expect Turbulence
Under normal circumstances, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year by international tourists. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTCC), this spending accounted for an impressive 10.4% of global GDP in 2019.
Travel restrictions introduced in 2020 dealt a serious blow to the industry, reducing its share of global GDP to 5.5%, and wiping out an estimated 62 million jobs. While the WTCC believes these jobs could return by 2022, the emerging Omicron variant has already prompted many countries to tighten restrictions once again.
To avoid headaches in the future, make sure you fully understand the rules and restrictions of where you’re heading.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 20:00 - "Unseemly": NPR Refuses To Correct Story After Supreme Court Deems It False
“Unseemly”: NPR Refuses To Correct Story After Supreme Court Deems It False
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
National Public Radio (NPR) is refusing to correct a story that was challenged by a trio of Supreme Court justices, triggering a flood of criticism.
Citing anonymous sources, reporter Nina Totenberg said Chief Justice John Roberts “asked the other justices to mask up,” or wear masks, because Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concerns for her safety amid the recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
Totenberg said that because Justice Neil Gorsuch refused the request—Gorsuch has not worn a mask on the bench recently—Sotomayor began attending oral arguments from her chambers.
In rare public statements a day later, all three justices responded to the report.
Sotomayor and Gorsuch said Sotomayor did not ask Gorsuch to wear a mask, adding that “while we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”
Even worse for NPR, which is partially funded by taxpayer money, Roberts said separately that “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”
Despite the direct challenges to the story, though, NPR has not issued a correction.
“The chief justice issued a statement saying he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench’. The NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come ‘in some form.’ NPR stands by its reporting,” Totenberg wrote in a follow-up story.
Ask and requests are synonyms that mean essentially the same thing.
The only change to the initial piece was hyperlinking to the new one.
An NPR spokesman told The Epoch Times via email that the outlet “continues to stand by Nina Totenberg’s reporting.”
Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University, said that the decision not to correct the story means NPR is calling the justices liars, “which, frankly, comes off as unseemly.”
“The justices have made a public statement and, if NPR wants to dispute it, they need to do more to provide context and even identify their source. The general public knows NPR is a largely agenda-driven news outlet, and they will lose in a credibility contest with Supreme Court justices,” he added.
Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images)
The NPR spokesman and Totenberg declined to answer or did not respond to several sets of questions, including whether any other NPR employees verified the sources cited by Totenberg, who was fired from the National Observer for plagiarism.
While Totenberg said Roberts “asked” other justices to wear masks in her story, during an appearance on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” prior to the justices’ statements, she said Roberts “suggested” that the other justices don face coverings.
NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, said that the different descriptions mean the story “merits a clarification, but not a correction.”
“After talking to Totenberg and reading all justices’ statements, I believe her reporting was solid, but her word choice was misleading,” she wrote.
The reporter told McBride that she did not know how Roberts allegedly conveyed what she claimed he did.
“In the absence of a clarification, NPR risks losing credibility with audience members who see the plainly worded statement from Roberts and are forced to go back to NPR’s story and reconcile the nuances of the verb ‘asked’ when in fact, it’s not a nuanced word,” McBride said.
Readers and listeners have apparently contacted the outlet expressing concern over what happened.
“In order for the story to be true as NPR first reported, Roberts would’ve had to have asked ‘in some form,’ but he said he didn’t, full stop,” one said.
Joe Concha, a media critic at The Hill, wrote on Twitter that “NPR couldn’t have handled this any worse,” linking to McBride’s piece.
The Society of Professional Journalists says ethical journalism should be “accurate and fair” and recommends reporters largely stick to sources that are clearly identified. Reporters should also “respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity, and fairness,” the group said, adding that mistakes should be acknowledged and corrected promptly and corrections and clarifications should be explained, “carefully and clearly.”
Totenberg later spoke to the Daily Beast, criticizing McBride for the column.
“She can write any [expletive] thing she wants, whether or not I think it’s true. She’s not clarifying anything!” the reporter said.
“I haven’t even looked at it, and I don’t care to look at it because I report to the news division, she does not report to the news division.”
Responding to Justice Roberts’ direct challenge to her reporting, she claimed that “I did not say that he requested that people do anything, but ‘in some form’ did.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 19:30 - Americans Are Forming Tenant Unions In Backlash Against Corporate Landlords
Americans Are Forming Tenant Unions In Backlash Against Corporate Landlords
The resurgent American labor movement is coming for America’s landlords.
Perhaps taking a cue from the warehouse workers, digital-media employees and Starbucks baristas who have waged high-profile unionization drives over the past year or so, it appears tenants across the nation are forming “tenant unions” to gain leverage over their landlords, with many rebelling against corporate landlords in particular, according to a report from WSJ.
That’s a problem for Blackstone and the other private equity giants that found an opportunity in the pandemic-inspired housing market frenzy. While tenant unions have existed in some form for over a century, WSJ says that – particularly in high-cost cities like NYC and San Francisco – the organizations are seeing a resurgence.
Hundreds of new tenant unions have been formed during the pandemic, estimated Katie Goldstein, director of housing campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy. The progressive organization with 50 affiliate groups across the country is one of a handful of activist networks advising tenant unions.
WSJ’s reporter even confirmed that the increase was indeed happening with landlord trade organizations, which responded that many of the new organizations only have a few members.
But before mom-and-pop landlords start to panic, these tenant ‘associations’ actually have little legal power or standing. Unfortunately (for landlords), some progressive lawmakers are talking about maybe trying to change that.
Some lawmakers in San Francisco, responding in part to tenant complaints, said they plan to consider this year a proposal to force city landlords to meet with tenant unions. The proposal would impose temporary rent reductions on landlords that fail to do so.
Then again, some people who spoke with WSJ shared stories about how tenants unions did help them avoid an eviction when a new corporate landlord took over.
Alicia Roberts spent years living at the Paradise Apartments in St. Petersburg, Fla. When Paradise sold to a new landlord in April, she expected a new stove. Instead, she missed a rent payment and got an eviction notice.
Not long after she was told to leave, she joined the St. Petersburg Tenants Union…
[…]
If it wasn’t for the union, Ms. Roberts said, “I’d probably be gone.”
If nothing else, the trend is a symptom of a hard fact of life. Because the reality is, even before the latest inflationary wave, many American workers have been struggling with the consequences of stagnant wages and rising rents, health-care costs and tuition inflation, much of which amazingly escaped the notice of the CPI numbers for years.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 19:00 - Wife Stands Off With Hospital To Keep Her Husband Alive, And Wins
Wife Stands Off With Hospital To Keep Her Husband Alive, And Wins
Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Sentiments expressed in random phone calls for Anne Quiner as her husband Scott lay in a hospital bed breathing through a ventilator ranged from “I hope your husband dies a vegetable” followed by a litter of profanity, to “he should have taken the vaccine; I hope he dies,” before hanging up.
Anne and Scott Quiner at Gooseberry Falls State Park in 2018. (Courtesy of Anne Quiner) While not the traditional Hallmark expressions for one to get well soon, Quiner said it was a feeling shared among some of the doctors at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, where Scott had been hospitalized for COVID-19 complications in November.
In one recorded phone call with Dr. Linda Soucie in which Quiner was fighting to keep Scott on the ventilator, Soucie told Quiner, “Unfortunately, if we could turn back time and he had gotten the vaccine, then he wouldn’t be here,” just after Soucie had told Quiner, “After three years, I think we’ve gotten pretty good at determining who’s going to make it and who’s not, and unfortunately Scott’s in that range of the group that is not going to make it.”
In a recorded conference call, doctors told Quiner that they would be taking Scott off the ventilator on Jan. 13 because he would not recover due to what they said were his “destroyed lungs from COVID pneumonia,” and that their attempts at decreasing sedation only caused him pain.
Quiner told The Epoch Times that her petitions for alternative treatments, as well as to keep Scott on the ventilator, had been met with contempt.
With doctors determined to take Scott off the ventilator, Quiner sought legal counsel.
Making It Out Alive
Marjorie Holsten, Quiner’s attorney, told The Epoch Times that she filed a motion for a temporary restraining order that prevented the hospital from taking Scott off the ventilator.
Mercy Hospital then hired its own law firm that objected to the temporary restraining order on the basis that Holsten and Quiner’s position isn’t “supported by medical science.”
Because of this, the hospital requested that the court issue an order authorizing the hospital to take Scott off the ventilator.
The judge sided with Holsten, issuing the order based on the standard that irreparable harm would result if not issued, which Holsten said was easy to establish because if Scott had been taken off, he would have died.
On Jan. 15, Scott was transferred out of Mercy Hospital and taken to an undisclosed hospital in Texas, where Holsten said the doctors have reported Scott to be malnourished, having lost 30 pounds underweight, and dehydrated.
Both Holsten and Quiner said doctors in Texas were “horrified” by Scott’s condition when he arrived.
“One doctor said he didn’t know how Scott made it out of that hospital alive,” Quiner said. “He looked at his chart and said, ‘I can’t believe the heavy, sedating drugs they put him on.’”
The hospital was following a rigid late-treatment COVID protocol that has “very likely killed many people,” Holsten said.
Mercy Hospital is a part of the Allina Health hospital system.
When reached for comment on Scott’s treatment, a spokesperson for Allina Health told The Epoch Times that Allina Health “has great confidence in the exceptional care provided to our patients, which is administered according to evidence-based practices by our talented and compassionate medical teams. Due to patient privacy, we cannot comment on care provided to specific patients,” and that the hospital system wished “the patient and his family well.”
Currently, Holsten said Scott is “making tremendous progress.”
“Yesterday, Scott started following the doctor’s hands with his eyes, and now he’s blinking in response to questions,” Holsten said. “He was able to nod his head and move his legs for the nurse.”
The ordeal became a manifestation of Quiner’s biggest fear in taking Scott to the hospital after his symptoms worsened, Quiner said.
Since the beginning of COVID-19, rumors of neglectful treatment of COVID patients in hospitals fueled by financial incentives have circulated.
‘It’s a Bounty on People’s Lives’
Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and immunologist who has contributed to mRNA vaccine technology, said in a December 2021 interview on The Joe Rogan Experience said that the financial incentives aren’t rumors.
“The numbers are quite large,” Malone told Rogan. “There’s something like a $3,000 basically death benefit to a hospital if it can be claimed to be COVID. There’s a financial incentive to call somebody COVID positive.”
The hospitals receive a bonus, Malone added, from the government if someone is hospitalized and able to be declared COVID positive.
“They also receive a bonus—I think the total is something like $30,000 in incentive—if somebody gets put on the vent,” Malone said. “Then they get a bonus, if somebody is declared dead with COVID.”
It was Stew Peters, a podcaster on The Stew Peters Show, that broke Quiner’s story and garnered audience support that facilitated Scott’s release.
After sending the two recordings Quiner made of her conversations with her doctors to her patient advocate and Minnesota State Rep. Shane Mekeland, they both then contacted Peters who Quiner said called her “right away.”
“He told me, ‘If you don’t get social media involved and get this viral, they will kill your husband and you won’t have any say in it at all,’”
Quiner said. “That’s when Stew got me on his show and within moments the hospital got like 300,000 phone calls. They had to shut their phone lines down.”Quiner said it was Peters and his audience that were responsible “for helping me save my husband’s life.”
“Without their taking action, Scott would have died,” Quiner said.
At one point, there were so many phone calls that Quiner said the hospital began denying that Scott was a patient there.
“Our audience flooded the hospital and Frederickson & Byron Law Firm (the firm that represents Mercy Hospital) with calls, making them all
aware that the world was watching,” Peters told The Epoch Times.The Stew Peters Show put a team together that included Attorney Thomas Renz and coordinated with a doctor to take Scott’s case and the hospital
where Scott was transferred.On the Stew Peters Show, Dr. Lee Vliet, president and chief executive officer for the physician-founded Truth for Health, a nonprofit that has promoted early COVID treatment to keep people out of hospitals, said the CARES Act has documented hospital incentive payments.
“Hospital administrators know that they will be extra for doing the PCR tests and positive test results,” Vliet said. “A COVID diagnosis means admission to the hospital. On admission, there is an incentive payment. Use of remdesivir provides a 20 percent bonus payment from our government to the hospital on the entire hospital bill for that COVID patient.”
The use of remdesivir gives the hospital a 20 percent bonus payment from Medicare instead of other medicines, such as ivermectin, Vliet said.
“It’s a bounty on people’s lives, basically, to use remdesivir and prevent access to other medications such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin,” Vliet said.
She echoed Malone’s statement on hospital incentives for putting a patient on a ventilator and declaring a patient deceased from COVID.
In addition, she said the coroner gets a financial incentive for a COVID diagnosis.
She added that medical practices are paid more under Medicare and Medicaid services based on a higher percentage of their patients being vaccinated.
On average, she said, it has been calculated that hospitals receive a bonus of $100,000 minimum for every COVID patient who has the elements of COVID diagnosis with remdesivir and ventilator treatment before a COVID cause of death.
Vliet cites her research in an editorial in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons titled, “Biden’s Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals’ Incentive Payments for COVID-19.”
‘She Just Wants to Keep Her Husband Alive’
Married 35 years with three children, Quiner and Scott have been through much together, she said, and in these last few months, Quiner has faced some of the hardest parts without him.
After 14 years, amid fighting to keep her husband alive, Quiner had to put their dog Toby down earlier in January because he could no longer walk.
“One morning I got up and he could not get up at all,” Quiner said.
Quiner has been verbally attacked not just through phone calls but through news and social media, platforms her children warned she avoid.
“My family told me not to even go on to Twitter because I didn’t want to read what they were writing about me,” Quiner said.
Still, Holsten said Quiner continues to fight.
“She’s a trooper, and she hasn’t sought any of this,” Holsten said. “She just wants to keep her husband alive.”
On his transfer to Texas, Quiner said she’s relieved.
“That’s the first thing I felt,” Quiner said, “relief that he’s out of that hospital and in safe care.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 18:30 - Seeing Red: Is The Heydey Of Pandemic Stocks Over?
Seeing Red: Is The Heydey Of Pandemic Stocks Over?
The stock market, and the stocks that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, are off to a rough start in 2022. As Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross points out, if you’ve been watching your investment accounts, chances are you’ve been seeing a lot of red. Shaken by the uncertainty of a pandemic recovery and future interest rate hikes, investors have been selling off their stocks.
This market selloff—which occurs when investors sell a large volume of securities in a short period of time, leading to a rapid decline in price—has investors concerned. In fact, search interest for the term “selloff” recently reached peak interest of 100.
Which stocks were the hardest hit, and how much are their prices down so far this year?
The Lackluster Returns of Pandemic Stocks
Pandemic stocks and tech-centric companies have suffered the most. Here’s a closer look at the year-to-date price returns for select stocks.
Netflix fueled the selloff after it reported disappointing subscriber growth. The company added 8.28 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, which is less than the 8.5 million it added in the fourth quarter of 2020. It also projects to have slower year-over-year subscriber growth in the near term, citing competition from other streaming companies.
Meanwhile, Coinbase stock lost nearly a quarter of its value so far this year. As the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have plummeted, investors worry Coinbase will see lower trading volume and therefore lower fees.
The contagion also spread to other pandemic stocks, such as Zoom and DocuSign, as investors began to doubt the staying power of stay-at-home stocks.
Following the Herd
While investor exuberance drove many of these stocks up last year, 2022 is beginning to paint a different picture.
Investors are worried that rising rates will negatively impact high-growth stocks, because it means it’s more expensive to borrow money. Not only that, but they also may see Netflix’s growth as harbinger of things to come for other pandemic stocks.
The psychology of the market cycle also plays a role—amid these fears, investors have adopted a herd mentality and begun selling their shares in droves.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 18:00 - Unmask America
Unmask America
Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,
Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings.
This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covid.
We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of covid infections.
Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus
– former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams in February 2020.
The story changed from “masks don’t work,” to “masks may work,” to “masks work and you must wear one.” Now the narrative switches yet again: “cloth masks don’t work, so you should wear a surgical or ‘well-fitted’ mask,” or even wear two!
Note that even as covid evolves into a less dangerous omicron variant, we are supposed to increase the hysteria level by wearing masks intended for surgeons maintaining a sterile environment over open wounds. We are told this by the same political, medical, and media figures who have been “frequently wrong but never in doubt” about all things covid over the past two long years. And they spoke with just as much bogus certainty then as they do now.
Perversely, the Biden administration recently ordered 400 million surgical N95 masks for distribution across the country. Since N95 masks are considered disposable, and meant to be worn at most perhaps 40 hours, it is unclear what happens in a week or two when 330 million Americans run out of their “free” personal protective equipment.
The UK has sensibly ended its mask mandates, both in public places (offices and other workplaces, bars, restaurants, sporting events, theaters) and thankfully schools. One young university student broke down in tears at the news, lamenting the inhumanity of her experience over the past two years. As British Health secretary Savid Javid stated, “We must learn to live with covid in the same way we live with flu.”
Amen.
The arguments against masks are straightforward.
- Masks don’t work. Or at least cloth masks don’t.
Even the CDC now admits what Dr. Anthony Fauci told the world in February 2020: cloth masks don’t work and there is no reason to wear one:
“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”
I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.
CNN’s dubious medical expert Dr. Lena Wen, previously an uber-masker, now tells us cloth masks are “little more than facial decorations. And heroic skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya cites both a Danish study and a Bangladeshi study which found cloth masks show little efficacy in preventing covid.
Are we seriously prepared to wear tight and uncomfortable surgical masks all day to evade omicron?
- Masks are filthy.
Humans lungs and our respiratory system are designed to inhale nitrogen and oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is literally a waste product, removed from the blood via our lungs. Masks may not trap injurious levels of carbon dioxide against our nose and mouth, but they certainly get filthy very quickly unless changed constantly. They also encourage mouth breathing, which can cause “mask mouth” symptoms including acne, bad breath, tender gums, and lip irritation.
Why would we ever interfere with natural breathing unless we felt sick, displayed symptoms, and were worried about infecting others? And in that case, why not just stay home?
- Masks are dehumanizing.
Humans communicate verbally and nonverbally, and masks impede both forms. Masks muffle and distort our words. Our facial expressions are important cues to everyone around us; without those cues communication and understanding suffer. Infants and toddlers may be most affected, as a lack of facial engagement with parents and loved ones impedes the human connections and attachments formed during childhood.
Perhaps most disturbing, however, are the symbolic effects when millions of Americans dutifully wear masks based on flimsy evidence provided by deeply unimpressive people. Facelessness–the lack of individual identity, personality, and looks– is inherently dehumanizing and dystopian. Like prison or military uniforms, masks reduce our personal characteristics. Mask are muzzles, symbols of rote acquiescence to an ugly new normal nobody asked for or voted for.
- Risk is inevitable.
Risk is omnipresent, and heavily subjective (e.g., covid risk varies enormously with age and comorbidities). Nobody has a right to force interventions like masks onto others, just as nobody has a right to a hypothetical germ-free landscape. Exhalation is not aggression, short of purposefully attempting to sicken others. People wearing masks arguably shed slightly fewer covid virus particles than those not, but this does not justify banning the latter from public life. As always, the overwhelming burden of justification for any intervention—including mask mandates—must rest on those proposing it, not those opposing it.
In sum, Americans are not children. Tradeoffs are part of every policy, whether government officials admit this or not. We know how to coexist with flu, just as we live with countless bacteria and viruses in our environment. We will similarly coexist with covid. The goal is not to eliminate germs, and zero covid is an absurdity. A healthy immune system, built up through diet, exercise, and sunlight will always be the best frontline defense against communicable disease. But diet, exercise, and sunlight cannot be outsourced to health officials or mandated by politicians.
Whatever slight benefits masks may provide are a matter for individuals to decide for themselves. People who feel sick with symptoms should stay home. We can all wash our hands frequently and thoroughly. Otherwise it is time for Americans to assert themselves against the dubious claims and non-existent legality of government covid measures.
It is time to get back to normal life, and that starts with visible human faces.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 17:30 - Here Comes The Pivot: JPM Sees Sharp Slowdown In US Economy, "No Further Hawkish Developments From The Fed"
Here Comes The Pivot: JPM Sees Sharp Slowdown In US Economy, “No Further Hawkish Developments From The Fed”
For much of the past month we have been warning that as the broader investing public has been fascinated by the mounting speculation that the Fed will hike 4 times (or even “six or seven” times, thank you Jamie Dimon) and commence shrinking its balance sheet, the US economy had quietly hit a major air pocket and – whether due to Omicron or because the vast majority of US consumers are once again tapped out (see more below) – US GDP growth is now rapidly collapsing and may turn negative as soon as this or next quarter as the US economy contracts for the first time since the covid shutdowns in Q1/Q2 2020.
10Y yield LOD 1.82128% as market realizes that Fed is hiking “six or seven times” into a deep slowdown
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 20, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Throw in the lack of a new Biden stimulus (BBB is dead as a doornail, courtesy of Manchin), and soaring gas prices (Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America all see Brent hitting triple digits in the near term, while a Russia-Ukraine war would send oil to $150 and crash the global economy), and we are willing to go on the record that a recession before the November midterms is virtually assured.
But while this is obviously a wildly contrarian view for now, especially with the labor market still supposedly helplessly backlogged with a near record number of job openings coupled with still soaring inflation, others are starting to notice…
Tightening into a slowdown… Déjà vu? pic.twitter.com/pczXzMVSxb
— Julien Bittel, CFA (@BittelJulien) January 22, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
… and so is the bond market, which traditionally is the first to sniff out major market inflection points, and which after surging to multi-year highs earlier this week, yields have suddenly slumped.
Nowhere is it clearer what is coming than in the ongoing collapse in the yield curve which at the fulcrum 5s30s, is just 30bps away from where the Fed was when it ended its tightening cycle in 2018.
So it was with some surprise that we were reading the latest big bank weekly reports where precisely this slowdown is being increasingly flagged. Consider the following from JPMorgan’s latest Fixed Income Strategy note by Jay Barry (available to professional subs), who writes that JPMorgan’s Economic Activity Surprise Index (EASI) “has swung sharply into negative territory in recent weeks, indicating data have underperformed relative to consensus expectations.”
This was punctuated by the December retail sales data, as the important control group fell 3.1% over the month (consensus: 0.0%).
The weakness in data, JPM explains for the benefit of the Fed which in hopes of recovering its “credibility” after destroying it in 2021 when it said inflation was transitory and is now scrambling to fix its error is now willing to crash the market just to reduce aggregate demand, “indicates consumption should moderate in 1Q22.” And since consumption accounts for 70% of US GDP, guess what that does to overall US growth?
Or don’t guess and read what JPM now expects: “we forecast growth decelerated from a 7.0% q/q saar in 4Q21 to a trend like 1.5% in 1Q22.” It’s not just retail sales, however, or that recent Empire Fed Manufacturing Survey, which just suffered its 3rd biggest monthly drop in history (with only March and April 2020 worse)…
… more locally, initial claims surged 55k to 286k in the week ending January 15, their third straight increase and the highest weekly reading since October.
And while the seasonal volatility in claims around the new year could be amplifying the rise, this was the survey week for the January employment report and presages a much weaker payroll growth this month. In fact, as we discussed in our December jobs report commentary, it is now likely that January payrolls will be negative.
Of course, one can blame the Omicron spike in December for much of this slowdown, and many do – especially those who confused the surge in inflation in 2021 as a “transitory” phenomenon – and are now using covid as a smokescreen to argue that the current slowdown is transitory, but the reality is that there is much more to the current sharp slowdown, and Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett put it best on Friday when he said that the “End of Pandemic = US Consumer Recession” (more here).
Here is the punchline of what the BofA CIO said: “retail sales 22% above pre-COVID levels…
…payrolls up 18mn from lows, inflation annualizing 9%, real earnings falling a recessionary 2.4%, stimulus payments to US households evaporating from $2.8tn in 21 to $660bn in 2022, with no buffer from excess US savings (savings rate = 6.9%, lower than 7.7% in 2019 & and the rich hoard the savings), and record $40bn MoM jump in borrowing in Nov’21…
… “shows US consumer now starting to feel the pinch.”
Alongside the realization that an exit from covid means the US is entering a consumer recession, comes Hartnett’s admission that any Fed hiking cycle will be short (it not sweet) and will be followed by easing as soon as 2023!. Indeed, according to Hartnett, while the broader economy certainly needs more hikes to contain inflation, it will take far fewer rate hikes to crash markets, because “when stocks, credit & housing markets have been conditioned for indefinite continuation of “Lowest Rates in 5000 Years” might only take a couple of rate hikes to cause an event (own volatility)”.
And since Wall Street always leads Main Street (sorry peasants), it is Hartnett’s view that the current “rates shock” is grounds for an imminent “recession fear”, and as noted above, the Fed hiking into a slowdown guarantees not only an economic a recession but also a market crisis.
The only question at this point is when will the Fed realize that it can’t possibly hike rates enough to offset the surge in inflation which incidentally is not demand driven, but is due to continued supply constraints, over which the Fed has no power!
Which is why JPMorgan’s economists go on a limb and perhaps seeking to assure markets, write that “next week’s FOMC meeting will not present the case for further hawkish developments”…. and “is only likely to ratify expectations next week and not surprise market participants with another hawkish pivot.”
Putting it all together is Goldman Sachs, which agrees with JPMorgan that there will be no hawkish surprises from the Fed, and wrote on Friday that if anything, the Fed will be more dovish than expected, and as such Goldman sees “the conditions in place for a large cover rally into and around the FED next week and when month-end new capital comes back into the equity markets, with corporates dry powder.”
Of course, there is always the risk that Joe Biden, now beyond dazed and confused and terrified of the upcoming Democratic implosion after the Nov midterms…
… does not realize how devastating a market crash will be for the US economy where financial assets are now 6.3x greater than GDP…
… and will order Powell to keep hiking and tightening just to break inflation’s back (as discussed above, and as Blackrock also noted recently, the Fed is completely powerless to halt supply-driven inflation), even if it means the destruction of the entire wealth effect that the Fed spent the past 13 years trying to create. In that case, all bets are off.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 17:00 - Bulls & Bears Collide In Crypto-Land: Hot-Hands Versus HODLers
Bulls & Bears Collide In Crypto-Land: Hot-Hands Versus HODLers
Bears are on the hunt for Bitcoin HODLers profits, whilst supply dynamics approach a new equilibrium, and derivative markets remain heated…
Amid the “fear and panic” in the crypto markets, as Bitcoin drops 50% from all-time-highs, Glassnode.com’s ‘Permabull Nino’ details the current uncertainty that overhangs the Bitcoin market, and the psychology of its participants attempting to regain their footing in the following areas:
-
HODLer profits sitting at key historical levels, and the overall observable investor response
-
Zoomed out supply dynamics and spending behavior among short-term and long-term holders, and what it indicates about investor sentiment in the medium to long term
-
Derivative activity, and what it can imply about shorter term expectations towards Bitcoin price action
HODLers Profits Under Siege
The Bitcoin price is currently trading down ~50% from the ATH set in November 2021. As the drawdown worsens, an increasingly significant volume of BTC supply has fallen into an unrealized loss. Approximately 5.7 million BTC are now underwater (~30% of circulating supply).
As the bears apply pressure to the in-profit cohort of holders, Bitcoin bulls are defending a historically significant level of the Percent of Supply in Profit metric. This magnitude of ‘top heavy supply’ was defended in two instances in the last few years:
-
May 2020 – July 2020, the quiet recovery period following the extreme move downwards from Covid-related panic.
-
May 2021 – July 2021, the choppy and accumulative period following a historical deleveraging event.
The reaction from this level will likely provide insight into the medium term direction of the Bitcoin market. Further weakness may motivate these underwater sellers to finally capitulate, whereas a strong bullish impulse may offer much needed psychological relief, and put more coins back into an unrealized profit.
We can establish an appreciation of market-wide psychology by observing who is parting ways with their coins, and why and when these spends are taking place. The Percent of Transfer Volume in Profit chart displays the proportion of coins spent on-chain that were last moved at lower prices, as a gauge for macro fear and greed.
-
Percent of Transfer Volume in Profit > 65% signals that a large amount of coins are being spent in profit. This historically occurs during bullish impulses, as holders take advantage of market strength.
-
Percent of Transfer Volume in Profit < 40% signals that on-chain volumes are dominated by coins acquired at higher prices. This historically occurs in market downtrends and especially capitulation events.
The sell-off this week saw less than 40% of spent volume in profit, reaching levels that historically coincide with capitulation events. Past instances at this level have preceded a bullish reversal, and a period of general risk-on behaviour.
The low levels of profitable coin spends is also evident in the Realized Profit chart, which shows the profitability of BTC moved, on a USD basis. In-profit holders are displaying a notable unwillingness to spend coins, with consistent Realized Profit values below $1 Billion/day. In the face of tumultuous and unconvincing price action, this signals that this cohort of holders are patiently waiting for higher prices to spend their respective supply.
Climbing realized profits, especially above the $1 Billion level and accompanied by positive price performance, signals demand absorption of coins, and is a metric to watch in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Realized Losses remain elevated and trending higher, as underwater holders spend coins that were acquired near the market top through October and November.
On average, daily Realized Loss values are ~$750 Million/day, behavior that is comparable to the May – July 2021 capitulation lows. The consistency of large loss realization events is indicative of uneasiness within the market, however also reflects an estimate of demand inflows to absorb these spent coins.
Sustained periods of large realized loss does put the onus on the bulls to prove sufficient demand support. A macro decline in realized loss values would be a more encouraging signal for the bulls, as it provides an early indication of sell-side exhaustion.
The stalemate at play between price action, Realized Profits, and Realized Losses is visible in the 28-day Market Realized Gradient (MRG), which compares the momentum in Market Cap (speculative value) versus the Realized Cap (real capital inflows).
-
Positive values signal that a bull trend is in tact, and upwards momentum in spot markets is growing.
-
Negative values signal that a bear trend is in play, and momentum favors the bears.
-
Large values signal that Bitcoin is possibly overbought (positive) or oversold (negative), as market valuation deviates from more fundamental capital inflows or outflows, respectively.
The MRG trend and values indicate that current market pricing is nearing a point of equilibrium with capital inflows, with a month’s long bullish divergence developing. A firm break above zero would signal a bullish reversal is in play, whilst a break down would suggest momentum is accelerating to the downside.
Cohorts and Psychology
We can also analyse the psychology and spending behaviour of both Short-Term Holders (STH) and Long-Term Holders (LTH) by looking at changes in their respective Realized Caps and supply dynamics.
The following metric is calculated as the difference between the daily change of LTH and STH realized caps. Interpretation is as follows:
-
Negative Values (red) signal that the STH Realized Cap is increasing more on a daily basis than the LTH Realized Cap. This occurs during bull runs when long term holders distribute supply into new holders.
-
Positive Values (green) signal that the LTH Realized Cap is increasing more on a daily basis than the STH Realized Cap, which occurs during bearish accumulation markets as STH activity decreases, and unspent coins mature into the LTH cohort.
Values currently sit near zero with a general trend to the upside, indicative of a softening of distribution by LTHs, the market reaching a new equilibrium, and a potential reversal into accumulation. Note however, that the process of establishing similar market equilibrium and possible macro bottoms has historically taken several months to resolve.
The modest distribution of coins from LTHs to STHs is reflected in the Total Supply Held metric, as the net volume of coins held by the STH cohort has increased in recent months.
The supply held by this cohort sits at ~3 Million BTC, a relative historical low, and a level that signifies a transition into a HODLer dominated market. This has been in effect since the May 2021 deleveraging event. Low STH supply levels are typical of bearish trends, as old coins remain dormant, and younger coins are slowly accumulated by high conviction buyers.
Next we turn to the Realized Cap HODL Waves, which reflects the breakdown of the Realized Cap by coin age, and cost basis. The chart below has been filtered for coins younger than 3 months to further highlight the forces at play within the shorter term holder cohort.
Generally speaking, lower values in this metric speak to a bearish trend where old coins are dormant, and young coins are gradually accumulated and taken off market.
At present, around 40% of the Realized Cap is held in coins under 3mths old, owned by buyers entering near the market top, or during the present correction. The 1-3m band is expanding and a constructive view would see these coins continue to mature into the 3m+ band, creating a net decline in young coins. A more bearish observation would be if older coins start being spent, causing these bands to swell, and signifying an additional influx of liquid supply that must be absorbed.
Derivatives Fireworks on the Horizon
Amidst downwards pressure in Bitcoin holder profitability but yet favorable medium to long term supply dynamics, futures markets remain a powder keg for short term volatility with Perpetual Futures Open Interest at ~250k BTC – a historically elevated level.
Since April 2021, this has paired with large pivots in price action as the risk for a short or long squeeze increases, resolved in market wide deleveraging events.
Alongside high open interest, funding rates this week moved into negative territory, indicating that shorts were increasingly hungry for leverage. As perpetual swap markets were pushed below spot prices, it does add further bias towards a potential oversupply of short positions in close proximity to the current price.
In addition to large outstanding open interest, and negative funding rates, trading volume continues to drip lower, currently around $30B per day. This is coincident with levels in December 2020, and reflects a marked reduction from the 2021 bull market highs, hitting well above $70B/day. Should a deleveraging event occur, thinner trading volumes may accentuate the impact.
As Open Interest continues charging for a big move, funding rates drop, and futures volumes contract, Crypto-Margined Open Interest continues its march downwards versus Cash-Margined Open Interest.
With only 40% of Open Interest sitting in Crypto-Margined products and in a convincing downtrend since May 2021, Cash-Margined Futures data becomes increasingly higher signal and worthy of more market participants’ attention. Note that this trend is primarily driven by a relative reduction in crypto-margin on Binance, Bybit, Huobi and OKEx exchanges.
In summary, there is evidence that the market is reaching some form of price and momentum equilibrium, within what is a broader bearish market structure. Bitcoin bears certainly have the upper hand, however modest bullish divergences are appearing across a number of on-chain metrics and indicators. Coupled with elevated future open interest, and a bias that appears to be a short heavy market, a risk of a deleveraging to the upside remains on the table.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 16:30 -
- 1 Cop Killed, 2 Critically Wounded In Harlem Shooting
1 Cop Killed, 2 Critically Wounded In Harlem Shooting
NYC Mayor Eric Adams is off to a rocky start to his four-year term at Gracie Mansion.
Two weeks after 17 were killed (including 8 children, according to the mayor’s revised numbers) in a disastrous fire in a Bronx high rise, the deadliest fire the city had seen in decades, Adams is facing a rash of police-involved shootings, including one incident Friday that left one cop dead and two others critically wounded.
It’s the latest development in a crime wave that has been worsening across the US, with NYC seeing violent crime surge to levels unseen in years.
The news was reported Saturday afternoon by the New York Times. The shooting occurred in Harlem, where the officers were responding to a domestic violence call, according to the report. The shooter opened fire on them while inside the apartment.
Source: NYT Police initially erroneously said that two cops had died, but later revised the total to 1. The shooter was shot in the head and is in critical condition.
The office killed was Jason Rivera, 22, who joined the department in 2020.
Police Commission Keechant Sewell addressed the media during a press briefing outside the hospital where the two wounded cops had been taken, the NYT reports.
Speaking at a news conference at the hospital where the two officers were taken after being shot, Keechant Sewell, the police commissioner, described Officer Rivera as a “son, husband, officer and friend” who had been “killed because he did what we asked him to do.”
“I’m struggling to find the words to express the tragedy we are enduring,” said Ms. Sewell, her voice rising in anger. Like the man who hired her, Mayor Eric Adams, she began her job overseeing the largest police force in the United States this month.
“We’re mourning, and we’re angry,” she added.
Mayor Adams had been in the Bronx earlier attending a vigil for a baby who had been shot in the face with a stray bullet Wednesday night, another high-profile crime that drew intense media attention.
“This was just not an attack on three brave officers,” he said. “This was an attack on the City of New York” and “an attack on the children and families of this city,” Adams said at the news conference.”
Even the NYT acknowledged that the stream of major crimes had “tested” Adams’ pledge to tackle the resurgent crime problem in the city, a major piece of his successful primary campaign in a city beset by more progressive candidates vying for the spotlight.
During the briefing, the NYPD’s chief of detectives delivered a breakdown of the incident that led to the fatal shooting.
Around 6:30 p.m. on Friday, three officers from the 32nd Precinct answered a 911 call from a woman who said she was fighting with her son. When the officers arrived at the apartment, they were met by the woman and a second son. There was no indication from the 911 call, officials said, that there were weapons in the apartment.
The woman told the officers that the son she had been fighting with was in a back bedroom at the end of a long, narrow hallway. As officers Mora and Rivera approached the bedroom, the door swung open and Mr. McNeil began firing. After shooting the two officers, Mr. McNeil tried to leave the apartment and was shot by the third officer, whose name has not been released.
Mr. McNeil, 47, was on probation after being arrested in New York on a felony drug charge around 2003, officials said. He also had four arrests in other states, all more than a decade ago.
Unfortunately this isn’t the only cop shooting to happen recently. Friday’s shooting brings the total number of NYPD officers shot since the start of 2022 to 5; 4 were shot, with the first cop shooting taking place just hours into the New Year. Another officer was shot on Tuesday, meaning four cops have now been shot in the span of 72 hours.
And progressive DAs want to let more violent criminals out of prison.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/22/2022 – 16:00
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
