- Russian Soldier Handed Life Sentence In Ukraine's First War Crimes Trial
Russian Soldier Handed Life Sentence In Ukraine’s First War Crimes Trial
A district court in the Ukrainian capital has wrapped up the country’s first ever war crimes trial involving a Russian soldier who stood accused of shooting 62-year old Oleksandr Shelipov in northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region during the first week of the invasion in late February. It’s unprecedented given the timing, as the war is still ongoing.
The 21-year old Russian soldier, identified as Vadim Shishimarin, earlier pleaded guilty, and has now been sentenced to life in prison by the Ukrainian court. The ten day trial against the Russian army sergeant examined charges of “violating the rules and conduct of war.”
21-year-old tank commander Vadim Shishimarin in a Kiev court, via Reuters Shishimarin had defense counsel – with his lawyer stating the defense will appeal the verdict. “This is the most severe sentence and any level-headed person would challenge it,” his lawyer was quoted as saying after the verdict and sentencing. “I will ask for the cancellation of the court’s verdict.”
The Russian soldier’s defense team said it currently has no contact with the Kremlin, with Putin’s office appearing to take a hand’s off approach. “We have no way to protect his interests on the ground,” Russian presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a Monday press briefing. He said Moscow will pursue “other channels.”
According to the court proceedings, a higher ranking commander had told the young sergeant to execute the Ukrainian civilian:
Judge Serhiy Agafonov said Shishimarin, carrying out a “criminal order” by a soldier of higher rank, had fired several shots at the victim’s head from an automatic weapon.
“Given that the crime committed is a crime against peace, security, humanity and the international legal order … the court does not see the possibility of imposing a (shorter) sentence,” he said.
Further, as Reuters reports the atrocity happened after a small group of Russian troops were separated from their unit while under attack:
Ukrainian state prosecutors said Shishimarin and four other Russian servicemen stole a car to escape after their column was targeted by Ukrainian forces.
After driving into Chupakhivka, the soldiers saw Shelipov riding a bicycle and talking on his phone. Shishimarin was ordered to kill Shelipov to prevent him reporting on their location, the prosecutors said.
In court last week, Shishimarin acknowledged he was to blame and asked the victim’s widow to forgive him.
A Kiev court sentences a Russian soldier to life in prison for killing an unarmed civilian, in the first trial involving what authorities in Ukraine describe as “war crimes” by Moscow’s troopshttps://t.co/45mmmLI7EX
— TRT World (@trtworld) May 23, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The proceeds set a precedent for what Ukraine has indicated will be more war crimes trials to come. Likely this will be “answered” by Russia’s own war crimes tribunals against captured members of Azov battalion who last week emerged from the Azovstal steelworks plant in Mariupol.
“We are planning to organize an international tribunal in the republic,” Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Denis Pushilin said. He stated that a charter for the tribunal is “in the works.” Western media has been speculating that particularly Azov commanders could face execution.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/24/2022 – 02:45 - UK's Johnson Urges Talks As Unions Threaten "Biggest Rail Strike In Modern History"
UK’s Johnson Urges Talks As Unions Threaten “Biggest Rail Strike In Modern History”
Authored by Alexander Zhang via The Epoch Times,
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged rail unions to talk to the government before causing “irreparable damage” with strike action.
The National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) is holding a ballot of its 40,000 members on plans to strike over jobs, pay, and conditions. The ballot is set to close on Tuesday, and the union has claimed that a yes vote could lead to “the biggest rail strike in modern history.”
Another union, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), has also warned of a “summer of discontent” with similar action on the way unless pay disputes are resolved.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said on Monday:
“Railways are going through difficult times with passenger numbers down. We need to make sure they’re fit for the future.”
He said the government wants “a fair deal for staff, for passengers, and taxpayers” so that “money isn’t taken away from other essential services” such as the National Health Service.
“The prime minister is firmly of the view that unions should talk to the government before causing irreparable damage to our railways—strikes should be the last resort not the first,” he added.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told The Sunday Telegraph that ministers are looking at drawing up laws which would make industrial action illegal unless a certain number of staff are working.
Shapps said the government hopes the unions will “wake up and smell the coffee” and suggested that strikes could put more people off rail travel.
He also accused unions of going straight to industrial action rather than using it as a last resort, adding that railways were already on “financial life support” because of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.
Referring to a pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto, which promised minimum services during rail strikes, he said:
“We had a pledge in there about minimum service levels. If they really got to that point then minimum service levels would be a way to work towards protecting those freight routes and those sorts of things.”
Unions have reacted to the threat with anger.
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said, “Any attempt by Grant Shapps to make effective strike action illegal on the railways will be met with the fiercest resistance from RMT and the wider trade union movement.”
He said the government needs to “focus all their efforts on finding a just settlement” to the rail dispute rather than “attack the democratic rights of working people.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/24/2022 – 02:00 - Mitt Romney Calls On NATO To Prepare For Potential Russian Nuclear Strikes
Mitt Romney Calls On NATO To Prepare For Potential Russian Nuclear Strikes
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The United States and other NATO nations should prepare a devastating response to a possible Russian nuclear strike, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said on Saturday.
Romney, in an opinion article for the New York Times, said that “Russia’s use of a nuclear weapon would unarguably be a redefining, reorienting geopolitical event,” adding:
“We should imagine the unimaginable, specifically how we would respond militarily and economically to such a seismic shift in the global geopolitical terrain.”
There is little evidence to suggest that Russia is going to use a nuclear weapon in its conflict with Ukraine, as doing so would risk a significant escalation under the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. Several weeks ago, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson downplayed concerns Moscow may use nukes in a bid to avoid defeat in Ukraine, where Russian forces have struggled.
But Romney, 75, claimed that if Russian President Vladimir Putin “loses in Ukraine, he not only will have failed to achieve his life’s ambition to reverse what he sees as the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe’ of the 20th century—the collapse of the Soviet Union—but he will also have permanently diminished Russia as a great power and reinvigorated its adversaries.”
Neither Putin nor other top Kremlin officials have said they would launch a nuclear strike in connection with the Ukraine war, although Russia’s leadership has often said they would respond with nuclear force if Russia’s existence is threatened.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in May that Russia would use a nuclear weapon if conditions written into its military doctrine are met.
One of those says that Russia can use nuclear weapons if its enemies are also using them or using other weapons of mass destruction against Russian territories or allies. If Russia’s critical military or government sites are attacked, that could also trigger a nuclear response.
Romney, a former GOP presidential candidate in 2012, also suggested that the United States or NATO “could engage” in Ukraine and “potentially obliterat[e] Russia’s struggling military” if nuclear weapons are deployed.
As President Joe Biden signed a $40 billion military package Saturday to provide assistance to Ukraine, Western nations, Romney said, should continue to provide support to the country by sending weapons or other forms of aid in its fight against Russia.
It comes as Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines suggested that Russia may use a nuclear weapon if top officials believe they are losing the war.
“We’re supporting Ukraine, but also we don’t want to ultimately end up in World War III, and we don’t want to end up in a situation where actors are using nuclear weapons,” Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 10.
“We perceive that as something that [Putin] is unlikely to do unless there is effectively an existential threat to his regime and to Russia from his perspective.
But in somewhat of a contrast to Romney’s comments, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) last week called on the White House to deescalate the conflict and guarantee that the United States won’t engage in a first-use nuclear strike against Russia. Markey called on the administration to announce a no-first-use during a Senate hearing with Haines.
“I think that, increasingly, people in our country and around the world are worried that this could escalate and that nuclear weapons could become involved,” Markey remarked. “So, from my perspective, I think it would be wise for our country to say flat out, ‘We will not use nuclear weapons if nuclear weapons have not been used against Ukraine or the United States.’”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 23:40 - US Navy Sailors Deserting At "Staggering" Rate Amid Mental Health Crisis
US Navy Sailors Deserting At “Staggering” Rate Amid Mental Health Crisis
A troubling new statistic shows U.S. Navy desertions are soaring and may point to an even more significant issue of an emerging mental health crisis in the service.
NBC News reports the Navy has 342,000 active sailors. In 2021, there were 157 deserters, compared with 98 in 2020 and 63 in 2019. The total number of deserters who remain at large last year increased to 166 from 119 in 2019. Most of them were under the age of 25.
An expert who reviewed the federal statistics obtained by NBC described the trend as shocking.
“That’s staggering,” said Benjamin Gold, a defense attorney for U.S. service members.
Navy officials couldn’t explain what was causing the desertion rate to skyrocket. They pointed to “many different stressors” in the service.
Other military branches didn’t observe soaring desertions during the last several years. In fact, desertions in the Army and Marine Corps declined. The Coast Guard didn’t have any.
The average active-duty enlisted age was 21.6 years. Many at this stage in life don’t plan too far out and aren’t expecting harsh conditions upon joining the military. In fact, servicemen and women sign a multi-year contract that is nearly impossible to break. For a young person who joined the military and their expectations were immediately crushed, it’s near impossible to leave.
“It’s hard for a young person at that age to grasp the amount of power and control that their employer has over their lives,” said Rick Jahnkow, an organizer with the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, a nonprofit group. “They don’t understand the commitment.”
The jump in desertions follows a string of deaths, many of which are suspected suicides, outlining rising mental health issues plaguing the service.
Over the last year, seven crew members of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier have died, including four by suicide.
This all suggests that youngsters who signed up for the military are locked in unbreakable contracts that some fear trapped if things don’t turn out the way they expected. This may cause them to become a deserter or, in extreme circumstances, take their own life.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 23:20 - Immigration Disappears From Kamala Harris' Public Schedule
Immigration Disappears From Kamala Harris’ Public Schedule
Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),
It was her first overseas trip, and Vice President Harris, recently deputized to address what the White House calls “the root causes of migration,” was in Guatemala trying to break through with a simple message. “Do not come,” Harris told would-be migrants last June. “Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders.”
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) They did not listen, or if any migrants did hear Harris last year, many ignored her message. Just last month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, 234,088 migrants were apprehended at the southern border, the highest mark ever recorded.
Asked that same month if President Biden had confidence in Harris and her ability to handle the situation, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied, “he absolutely does.” But as the flow of migrants accelerates across the southern border, immigration has disappeared from the vice president’s public schedule.
A compilation of that schedule by the Los Angeles Times, reviewed by RealClearPolitics, shows that Harris has not hosted an immigration-specific event since last summer. The last one, a meeting with Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander leaders in the White House last August, touched briefly on immigration.
White House officials dispute any characterization that Harris’ public schedule tells the whole story. “The vice president continues to lead implementation of the Root Causes Strategy and has been engaging with Cabinet and other Administration officials on this effort,” Harris’ Press Secretary Kirsten Allen told RCP.
Addressing the challenge remains part of the vice president’s policy portfolio. She leads top-level meetings that are not always made public, and she has taken point in diplomatic efforts in the region. For instance, it was Harris who traveled to Honduras for the inauguration of President Xiomara Castro in January. Administration officials hoped to find a new ally in that executive, someone who would help stem the flow of the millions of people heading north through Central America to the southern border. According to an official White House readout, Harris and Castro discussed “a broad range of issues.” Among them migration, but also coronavirus and the economy as well as corruption and gender-based violence.
Despite those efforts, the influx has not slowed, and Biden is expected to end enforcement of Title 42, the pandemic policy that allowed Border Patrol to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants on public health grounds. Warnings from some Democrats in border states, including Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, have gone unheeded.
The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for more record-breaking numbers at the border, and NBC News reports that there is concern in the department that they won’t have enough funding to address a surge if Title 42 is lifted, compounding a challenge that Biden has faced since the beginning of his presidency.
As the number of interdictions started to rise and chaotic images from the southern border flooded cable news, concern grew, even among Democrats. Biden’s own pollsters, the New York Times reported, warned that the issue was “a growing vulnerability.” Biden still insisted that he could get the situation under control, albeit with divine intervention.
“Is there a crisis at the border?” RCP asked the president as he walked out of the East Room of the White House after a speech last March.
“No,” Biden replied over his shoulder. “We’ll be able to handle it,” he said while walking side-by-side with Harris. “God willing.”
Two weeks later, the Associated Press reported at the time, Biden tapped Harris to lead the administration efforts to tackle the migration challenge at the southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem. Republicans were eager to assign blame and dubbed Harris “border czar.”
The vice president rejected that framing and sought to clarify her mission. As the White House press secretary explained to reporters last March, Harris “will be helping lead that effort, specifically the root causes – not the border,” admitting that there has been “some confusion over that.”
The president was also confused: When Biden and Harris met with the Congressional Black Caucus in April that year, he praised his vice president, saying she would do “a hell of a job” handling immigration, according to a new book by New York Times’ reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. But Harris corrected him then and there, the two write. “Excuse me,” she said, “it’s the Northern Triangle – not immigration.”
Biden eventually clarified the mission. “It’s not her full responsibility,” he later told reporters, but “when she speaks, she speaks for me.”
Whether she wanted the job or not, Harris embraced the challenge. She has made three trips to the region, and she traveled to the southern border to hear directly from Border Patrol. The vice president has met both with law enforcement and migrant groups, stressing all the while that the question “cannot be reduced to a political issue.”
Politics were there from the beginning though, and some feared that deputizing Harris to tackle such a mammoth challenge ran the risk of unfairly saddling her with a thankless mission for which there is no easy solution. “She is qualified to do the job,” Chuck Rocha told RCP of Biden’s decision to turn this part of his policy portfolio over to his vice president. Rocha helmed Latino outreach for Sen. Bernie Sanders in both of that candidate’s presidential bids, and Rocha credited Harris for being “a staunch advocate of the progressive wing of the immigration movement.”
All the same, Rocha warned last year that expectations should be tempered: “It has been an issue that we have been trying to fix for generations, one that I don’t think any one person can totally solve.”
Biden has called on Congress to take up comprehensive immigration reform since he got to the White House. There is no bipartisan appetite on Capitol Hill for the bill that he sent to Congress on his first day in office. The administration has subsequently been left to its own devices, and Harris released a 20-page plan last July to address the problem.
“We will build on what works, and we will pivot away from what does not work,” Harris wrote in an introduction to the plan that focuses on creating partnerships with Northern Triangle countries to combat corruption, violence, and poverty.
“It will not be easy, and progress will not be instantaneous,” the vice president warned, “but we are committed to getting it right.” Biden should know. He was deputized by then-President Obama to deal with a similar mission amid an earlier surge of migrants, many of them unaccompanied children. On a tour of Central and South American nations in 2014, he offered U.S. help to root out corruption, provide economic opportunity, and ensure safety in the Northern Triangle nations.
“We have to deal with the root causes,” Vice President Biden told reporters gathered for a press conference in the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, echoing the exact phrase his administration now uses eight years later.
Biden understands the challenge, and that tackling it without help from Congress is arduous and thankless, if not impossible.
“I said when we became a team and got elected, that the vice president was going to be the last person in the room,” he joked last March when he announced that Harris would helm the mission. “She didn’t realize that means she gets every assignment.”
“I gave you a tough job, and you’re smiling, but there’s no one better capable of trying to organize this for us,” the president continued after the levity. The vice president didn’t flinch. She thanked him “for having confidence in me.” Then Harris added, “there’s no question that this is a challenging situation.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 23:00 - "It's Sick": Polish PM Says Norway Should Share "Gigantic" Oil & Gas Profits
“It’s Sick”: Polish PM Says Norway Should Share “Gigantic” Oil & Gas Profits
One by one European countries have cut energy ties with Russia, but often at a significant cost, and inter-EU rifts are beginning to show as the inevitable consequence of higher prices are felt. At the same time, Norway as western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer is reaping the profits windfall.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has taken the unusual step of urging for Norway to share its “gigantic” profits made as a result of soaring oil and gas prices, posing during a Sunday Q&A at a political youth forum, “But should we be paying Norway gigantic money for gas — four or five times more than we paid a year ago?” He then asserted in the negative, “This is sick.”
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, via AP. “They should share these excess profits. It’s not normal, it’s unjust. This is an indirect preying on the war started by Putin,” the Polish leader stressed.
That’s when he presented the controversial ‘solution’, saying: “Write to your young friends in Norway…They should share it, not necessarily with Poland [but] for Ukraine, for those most affected by this war. Isn’t that normal?“
There will likely be further such possible similar scathing rebukes to come and sour grapes expressed at least behind close doors, given some ‘frontline’ European countries see themselves as first to make the greatest energy and economic sacrifices for the sake of supporting the West’s economic war on Putin, while others on the periphery indirectly reap the benefits.
Poland, as a prime example, had weeks after the Russian invasion terminated a badly needed deal to receive Russian gas by way of the Yamal-Europe pipeline. Warsaw refused to pay according to Putin’s mandated rubles mechanism. As others sat on the fence or else like Hungary defied pressure to cut off Russian supply, Poland prided itself on its stoic resolve no matter what… “Gas was like our drug” one prominent Polish economic pundit was previously quoted as saying:
Pawel Różyński, an economic commentator in the conservative daily, Rzeczpospolita, said Russia was “like Pablo Escoabar”. “Gas was like our drug and turned out to be very addictive because it was cheap, efficient and more ecological than other sources of energy. Poland has been forced to get sober very fast … but we have lost a lot of time defending coal because we thought it protected our sovereignty … and one of the side-effects will be much higher energy costs.”
Ironically it was Scandinavian countries Norway and Denmark, which previously inked a deal with Poland to deliver gas from the North Sea via the €2.1bn Baltic Pipe project, that have played an instrumental part in Poland’s ability to reduce energy supply from Russia in the first place. Baltic Pipe is expected to come online in 2023, which Warsaw has seen as essential in diversifying its energy sources amid a years-long struggle to wean itself off Russia.
Baltic Pipe, via baltic-pipe.eu:
Bloomberg writes of Poland and its energy demand, “The country sees its gas needs rising by about 50% over the current decade as its utilities build new power plants in place of aging coal-fired units.” Further the report notes that “The deal with Norway and Denmark to build the link from the North Sea was crucial for the Polish ruling Law & Justice party’s policy to cut energy ties with Russia.”
Poland has long been at the European forefront of warning that Moscow at any time held the power to ‘weaponize’ its energy hold over Europe, something which it should be remembered former US President Trump a few short years ago came under fire for. He had irked many Western leaders, and was condemned and his arguments dismissed in Western mainstream press, by calling them out as “captives to Russia” (in remarks at the time aimed squarely at Germany).
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 22:40 - Elon 'Mad As Hell' Musk Just Blew Up 2022
Elon ‘Mad As Hell’ Musk Just Blew Up 2022
Commentary by Franke Miele via RealClear Politics,
The most significant political event in the last 18 months happened last week. No, it wasn’t the Pennsylvania primary, and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the sham Jan. 6 committee.
(Patrick Pleul/Pool via AP, File) It was the announcement by Elon Musk that he’s as mad as hell, and he’s not going to take this anymore. OK, he didn’t use those exact words from the 1976 movie “Network,” but he might well have been channeling the character Howard Beale when he announced to the world that he was voting Republican this year.
News anchor Beale was characterized as “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves” when he realized the system he worked in – network television – was rigged, and that powerful forces were manipulating him and the audience. In a soliloquy eerily relevant today, Beale threw out the script and started telling the uncomfortable truth.
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad,” he told his viewers. “Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work, or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter, punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it! … I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad!”
Well, Elon Musk has gotten mad – and when the world’s richest man gets mad, he just might shout loud enough that everyone will hear him.
The entrepreneurial wizard who founded or co-founded Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal had already been in the news for his announced plan to purchase Twitter and take it private with the intention of restoring free speech to the platform. That alone could have earned him the title of “The Mad Prophet of Silicon Valley,” for like Howard Beale, Musk had discovered that powerful forces were manipulating him and his audience on Twitter, and Musk wasn’t taking it anymore.
By making a legitimate buyout offer, Musk gained the right to inspect the books, so to speak, and what he started to uncover about the social media giant was distressing. Long-blocked accounts were suddenly resurrected. Fake accounts (or bots) were confirmed to be inflating user numbers. Unhappy Twitter employees started to out themselves as operatives of the Democratic Party – or as one employee said, in an undercover Project Veritas video, “commies.”
But all of that was child’s play compared to Musk’s next move, which was to expose the left’s “diversity is us” sloganeering as a sham. That he did so on Twitter just added icing to the cake. Here was Musk throwing down the gauntlet on Wednesday:
“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold,” Musk wrote, adding a popcorn emoji to suggest the show was just getting started.
The next day, Musk commented on his own post: “Judging by the relentless hatestream from the far left, this tweet was spot on.”
That hate is not unexpected. As many conservatives have noted since Musk made his announcement, “Welcome to our world.” There is only one permitted narrative, and it is that Republicans are dangerous white supremacists who live in a fantasy world and are mostly Russian propagandists. Democrats, on the other hand, are noble social justice warriors who ensure an open border, keep women’s sports safe for men, and punish schoolchildren for using the “wrong” pronouns.
Yep, you can bet that the mainstream media will try to silence, smear, cancel, and crush Musk. But like Donald Trump, Musk can take it. Being a billionaire has its advantages.
I can’t say I love everything about Elon Musk or his public persona, but I love that he has 91 million followers on Twitter and isn’t afraid to offend them. He is to the younger generation what Steve Jobs was to mine, and his refusal to bow to cancel culture will inspire many to do the same. The fact that a person identified as a liberal icon, someone who has been welcomed in Democrat circles for years, would publicly recant his previous support for leftist ideology speaks volumes about where we are as a nation.
A genius who knows how to put together cars and rockets has deconstructed contemporary American politics with penetrating simplicity: The party of “kindness” is now the party of “division & hate.” Wow.
That truth bomb just blew up the 2022 midterm elections, and maybe beyond!
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 22:20 - How Inflation Changed The Price Of A Burger
How Inflation Changed The Price Of A Burger
With inflation standing at 8.3% year-over-year in April, everyday items are becoming pricier for U.S. consumers. As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, food prices in particular took some significant steps up, as seen in the example of shopping for hamburger ingredients.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Meats experienced some of the highest price increases among food items: Ground beef now costs almost 15 percent more than in April 2021 and bacon is 17.7 percent more expensive than one year ago.
On the other hand, the price of tomatoes was up just 0.4 percent over the course of one year, showing that some item suffered less inflation than others.
At a 6.2 percent price increase, fresh vegetables as a whole saw the lowest rate of inflation of any food category.
Energy – the most volatile item in the Consumer Price Index together with foods – drove overall price increases even more. In short supply following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions, energy costs rose by 30.3 percent since April 2021. This increase is independent of the base effect as energy prices had already reached pre-pandemic levels again one year ago.
Inflation had already started to rise in 2021 in the aftermath of Covid-19 lockdowns that continue to affect global supply chains. It was further pushed up by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that saw energy supply disrupted by sanctions and Ukrainian products missing from world markets. As a result, inflation is reaching an increasingly broad range of products. For example, while the price of used cars and trucks had already skyrocketed in 2021, new vehicles have now also become 13 percent more expensive than they had been a year ago.
Given the high price of gas and cars, inflation is indirectly encouraging another behavior – using public transportation. The category became 2.7 percent more expensive over the past year.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 22:00 - Five Major Challenges Facing The Energy Industry
Five Major Challenges Facing The Energy Industry
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
Record-high prices at the pump, a looming diesel shortage right when the summer season is starting, and an uncooperative OPEC are probably reasons for many headaches among government officials around the world.
Yet these are, in fact, manifestations of deeper problems in the energy industry.
Underinvestment
In the past decade or so, Europe and, to a lesser but no less significant extent, North America, have made it their mission to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and increase their reliance on renewable energy.
This has spurred an investor exodus from oil and gas and the emergence of the so-called ESG investing trend. Money for new oil and gas developments has become more difficult to tap as banks join the ESG movement, and companies have had to cut back on spending.
Saudi Arabia’s oil minister warned that underinvestment in oil and gas would have a boomerang effect on consumers earlier this year, and he is not the only one. Many OPEC officials have made the same warning but, apparently, to no avail. After all, none other than the International Energy Agency said last year the world does not need new oil and gas exploration because we won’t be needing any more new oil or gas supply.
Of course, it was only a few months later that the IEA changed its tune, calling on OPEC to boost production, and it demonstrated one of the harsh realities of the energy industry: you cannot reverse a process that has been going on for years in a matter of months.
Low discovery rates
A topic that doesn’t get much talked about, the average rate of new oil and gas discoveries is, in a way, comparable to the average conversion rate of solar panels: it is well below 30 percent.
Bloomberg recently reported that three wells that Shell had drilled offshore Brazil had come up dry. The supermajor had paid $1 billion for drilling rights in the area and had spent three years drilling to come up empty-handed. Exxon had also failed to tap any significant oil reserves in its Brazilian blocks, which cost it $1.6 billion.
The news highlights the risky nature of oil and gas exploration even in places like Brazil, which has been touted as the next hot spot in the industry, probably alongside Guyana. Brazil has become a magnet for supermajors because of its prolific presalt zone, but, as one local energy consultant told Bloomberg, the big discoveries have already been made—back when the discovery rate was close to 100 percent.
The average successful discovery rate for the oil and gas industry is much lower than that, however, at 24.8 percent, according to Bloomberg. And there are fewer and fewer big discoveries to be made.
Production cost inflation
Broader inflation trends, in large part driven by soaring energy costs, have not passed the energy industry itself. In the U.S. shale patch, production costs have risen by some 20 percent. Two companies recently warned they would be reporting higher costs for their second quarters, Continental Resources and Hess Corp, and they are far from the only ones experiencing these higher costs.
Shortages of raw materials such as frac sand and, earlier this year, steel piping for wells, are one reason for the production cost inflation, not just in the shale patch but everywhere where these raw materials are used in oil fields. A shortage of labor is a special problem for the U.S. shale patch, too, helping to drive production costs higher. Lingering supply chain problems from the pandemic are also in the mix.
The bigger problem is that the industry is not expecting any respite in the coming months, either, as Argus recently reported, citing oil and gas executives. The production cost squeeze comes at a time when the federal government really needs more oil and gas, which is probably the worst possible time as it has discouraged drillers further from spending more on new drilling.
Cyberattacks
Cybersecurity has become a cause for concern in the energy industry in the past few years as cyberattacks have multiplied significantly. The Colonial Pipeline hacking really helped out things in perspective on the cybersecurity front, but little action followed, it seems.
A brand new survey by DNV, the Norwegian risk assessment and quality assurance consultancy, revealed this week that the industry is quite uneasy about cyberthreats and, what’s worse, not really prepared to handle them.
According to the study, 84 percent of executives expect cyberattacks will lead to physical damage to energy assets, while more than half—54 percent—expect cyberattacks to result in the loss of human life. Some 74 percent of the respondents expect environmental damage as a result of a cyberattack. And only 30 percent know what to do if their company becomes a target of such an attack.
Geopolitics
The most chronic risk in the energy industry, geopolitics is never far away when prices start swinging wildly or, as is the case right now, remain stubbornly high. The prospect of an EU oil embargo on Russia, although dimming in the past few days, is one big bullish factor for oil prices. The lack of progress on Iran nuclear talks is another. And then there is, of course, OPEC’s evident unwillingness to respond to calls from the West for more oil.
Russia itself does not seem bothered by the embargo prospects at all. “The same oil that they [the EU countries] bought from us will have to be purchased elsewhere, and they will pay more, because the prices will definitely rise; and once the cost of delivery and freight increase, it will be necessary to invest in building the corresponding infrastructure,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said this week.
Iran is meanwhile boosting its oil exports, which go almost exclusively to China. The country has signaled it will not agree to a deal with the U.S. unless the U.S. meets its demands, and it appears that the ball is now in Washington’s court. In the meantime, China will have Iranian oil, but no one else will.
For the U.S., the price problem has become so dire that now President Biden is seeking a meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed, whom he has consistently refused to communicate with, instead communicating with his father, King Salman. Biden has also been openly critical of MbS for his alleged role in the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist, calling the Kingdom a “pariah” with “no redeeming social value.” Geopolitics can be awkward.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 21:40 - Average Age Of Vehicles On US Highways Keeps Getting Older
Average Age Of Vehicles On US Highways Keeps Getting Older
The average age of vehicles on US highways rose for the fifth consecutive year and to a record high, as supply-chain disruptions and inventory challenges prompt owners to hold on to their cars and trucks longer, according to research from S&P Global Mobility.
Semiconductor shortages and inventory challenges were the top drivers in pushing US average vehicle age to 12.2 years, another all-time high.
Chip supply constraints have caused continued parts shortages for carmakers, who have been forced to cut production. The constrained supply of new cars and light trucks, amid a strong demand for personal transportation, could have influenced consumers to continue operating their existing vehicles longer, as inventory levels for both new and used vehicles were depleted across the industry. – S&P Global Mobility
The finding reflects that used car life cycles are being extended because new vehicle supplies are tight. Kelley Blue Book recorded average new car prices at $46,526 in April, another obstacle for prospective buyers. Despite used car prices reversing from lofty levels, they remain out of reach for many, thus consumers are holding on to their vehicles longer.
About a decade ago, a used vehicle with over 100,000 miles would’ve been deemed a lemon by a consumer, though now, it’s common to see multiple owners for one with 200,000 miles.
The increasing average vehicle age and higher mileage point to a “notable increase in repair revenue in the coming year,” Todd Campau, associate director of aftermarket solutions at S&P Global Mobility, told Bloomberg.
There’s reason to believe the average age of vehicles on US highways will continue marching higher as tight supplies of new and used cars have sparked an unaffordability crisis.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 21:20 - Pfizer Moves To Dismiss Lawsuit From COVID-19 Vaccine Trial, Citing 'Prototype' Agreement
Pfizer Moves To Dismiss Lawsuit From COVID-19 Vaccine Trial, Citing ‘Prototype’ Agreement
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Pfizer has asked a U.S. court to throw out a lawsuit from a whistleblower who revealed problems at sites that tested Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of Pfizer pharmaceutical company, at the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Jan. 17, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Brook Jackson, the whistleblower, alleged in a suit that was unsealed in February that Pfizer and associated parties violated clinical trial regulations and federal laws, including the False Claims Act.
In its motion to dismiss, Pfizer says the regulations don’t apply to its vaccine contract with the U.S. Department of Defense because the agreement was executed under the department’s Other Transaction Authority (OTA), which gives contract holders the ability to skirt many rules and laws that typically apply to contracts.
That means that Jackson’s claim that Pfizer must still comply with the Federal Acquisition Regulations “is simply wrong,” Pfizer said.
Warner Mendenhall, a lawyer who is working on Jackson’s case, said in a recent interview that Pfizer has “clearly not followed federal procurement laws.”
“And now they’re saying, ‘of course we didn’t follow federal procurement laws, we didn’t have to—this was just for a prototype,’” he added.
Mendenhall, who declined an interview request, said lawyers for Jackson are working on figuring out legal ways to counter Pfizer’s argument.
“We may lose on this issue because their contract imposes … none of the normal checks and balances on quality control and consumer protection that we fought for decades in this country,” he said.
The contract in question was outlined in a base agreement and a statement of work for the agreement, which was signed in the summer of 2020.
The government agreed to pay up to $1.9 billion for 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine pending U.S. regulatory clearance. That included the manufacturing of the vaccine on top of researching and developing it.
The contract was granted under the “prototype” provision, which falls under the OTA. The rules for prototypes state that just one of four conditions must be satisfied. The condition that was satisfied in the Pfizer contract was the involvement of a “nontraditional defense contractor.”
Federal law defines nontraditional defense contractors as “an entity that is not currently performing and has not performed” a contract or subcontract for the Department of Defense for at least one year preceding the solicitation of the OTA agreement. Pfizer has dozens of contracts with the military.
That means the government certified “an absurd fiction” to use an OTA to grant the contract, Kathryn Ardizzone, counsel with Knowledge Ecology International, told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Department of Defense and other government agencies have increased the use of the OTA over time. Thirty-four such agreements were hammed out in fiscal year 2016; by fiscal year 2018, that number was 173, according to the Government Accountability Office (pdf).
Because the agreements shield contract holders from some regulations and laws, “the increasing use of OTAs, which includes in contexts where it’s inappropriate to do so, is undermining the rule of law and jeopardizing the public’s interests,” Ardizzone said. The Pfizer contract is an example of an inappropriate context, because the contract “was not about producing a prototype,” she asserted.
As far as Pfizer’s argument, about the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) not applying to the agreement, it’s not clear that is the case.
The base agreement only mentions the regulations pertaining to the handling of classified information. The statement of work does not mention any.
“I’m not sure what it means when an OTA is silent on a regulation that appears in the FAR,” Ardizzone said. “That would be up for the judge to decide, and it might side with Pfizer since the prevailing view is that FAR regulations do not necessarily apply for an OTA.”
Pfizer, in its motion to dismiss, noted that the government did not join Jackson’s suit—it was filed on the government’s behalf—nor have regulators rescinded clearance of its vaccine, which was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late 2020, after Jackson revealed issues at sites managed by Ventavia Research Group, a Pfizer subcontractor.
“The agreement makes no mention of the FDA regulations and FAR provisions cited in relator’s complaint,” Pfizer said. “The agreement instead conditions payment, more simply, on Pfizer’s delivery of an FDA authorized or approved product. Pfizer’s vaccine has satisfied that condition since December 2020, as the complaint acknowledges, and the vaccine continues to satisfy that condition today. The Court should reject Relator’s express certification claim for this reason alone.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 21:00 - Ukraine War Pushes Globe's Total Displaced Persons Past 100 Million For 1st Time Ever
Ukraine War Pushes Globe’s Total Displaced Persons Past 100 Million For 1st Time Ever
The United Nations Refugee Agency has cited conflicts not only in Ukraine but also disasters and war in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to calculate that the world’s total number of displaced persons has now surpassed 100 million for the first time in recorded history.
“One hundred million is a stark figure — sobering and alarming in equal measure,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Monday. “It’s a record that should never have been set” – which should “serve as a wake-up call,” according to the official.
Refugee center for fleeing Ukrainians, via AP “To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile,” Grandi said.
Specifically on Ukraine, the new UN statement said, “In 2022, the war in Ukraine has displaced 8 million within the country this year and forced around 6 million to leave the nation.”
The UN is expected to release a comprehensive official report covering the new data in June. “The number of refugees, who are primarily driven out of their homes and living situations by war, conflict and disasters, now represents more than 1 percent of the entire world population and would equal the 14th most populous country if the people represented a nation,” according to preliminary details from the UN.
Many among the total 100 million are internally displaced persons in conflict zones and disaster stricken regions, such as Yemen. Significantly, that figure represents 1% of the world’s total population.
A quarter of those are under the age of 18. “This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution, and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes,” Grandi urged.
Over 100 million people forcibly displaced in the world, @Refugees says
The war in Ukraine & protracted conflict in places like Ethiopia & DR of Congo were factors behind the high numbers.https://t.co/bNFBTiEVcn
— Seifesilassie Gebremeskel (@SeifGebre) May 23, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
An estimated 38 million were internally displaced within their home countries in 2021, which includes 14.4 million impacted by conflict, and 23 million fleeing natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes.
The UN statement added that “Meanwhile, weather-related events such as floods, storms and cyclones resulted in some 23.7 million internal displacements in 2021, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region.”
* * *
Meanwhile according to the latest note from Rabobank:
Inflation and geopolitical instability aren’t going to go away any time soon. Linking the two, as one should, a former German ambassador to Moscow tells @Tagesspiegel that President Putin is hoping his blockade of Ukraine’s grain supplies will lead to a migration crisis, with starving people then fleeing to Europe, that destabilizes the EU and pushes them to soften sanctions on Russia. Does he look wrong in that call when Germany, France, and Italy are already hardly hawkish? More pointedly, does the West have any answers to a hybrid warfare that weaponizes food, as in the past?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 20:40 - Oil Market Faces Elevated Hurricane Risk
Oil Market Faces Elevated Hurricane Risk
By Jake Lloyd-Smith, Bloomberg Markets Live Commentator and Reporter
The most consequential event for the oil market this week may come on Tuesday, but not from the battlefields of Ukraine or a high-profile analyst talking the talk.
With WTI more than 40% higher YTD on the fallout from the invasion, rising demand, and tight product markets, another bullish risk comes to the fore: Atlantic hurricane season looms and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is set to issue its initial outlook.
It could be a difficult few months, with scope for interruptions to offshore supply, as well as to refinery operations. President Joe Biden — who’s already ordered a vast SPR crude release as oil prices rallied — has warned “another tough hurricane season” awaits with storms that’ll be more intense.
Separately, early projections from Colorado State University and AccuWeather suggested a rough ride.
Officially, the hurricane season starts on June 1, beginning at almost the same time as the US summer driving season, which will elevate gasoline and diesel demand.
[ZH: As if right on cue, the National Hurricane Center has spotted a pre-season tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico already. NHC said the system is located over the north-central Gulf of Mexico and has a very low chance of strengthening into a named tropical storm. It is expected to move inland over the central Gulf coast early this week. ]
Stockpiles of both key fuels are low and falling, with prices rallying to records.
Given all the risks, it’s unlikely those prices have yet topped out.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 20:20 - US Army Mulls Letting Soldiers Switch Bases If Local Laws Discriminate Against Gender Identity
US Army Mulls Letting Soldiers Switch Bases If Local Laws Discriminate Against Gender Identity
The US Army is circulating a draft policy that would allow soldiers to move bases if they feel state or local laws discriminate against them on the basis of race, religion, sex, or gender, according to Military.com, citing two sources with direct knowledge of the plans.
Transgender Army Capt. Jennifer Sims, 2017 The guidance adds specific language on discrimination to an existing policy, and would need final approval from Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. If enacted it would constitute one of the Army’s most pro-LGBTQ policies to date.
“Some states are becoming untenable to live in; there’s a rise in hate crimes and rise in LGBT discrmination,” said Lindsay Church executive director of Minority Veterans of America, an advocacy group. “In order to serve this country, people need to be able to do their job and know their families are safe. All of these states get billions for bases but barely tolerate a lot of the service members.”
If finalized, the new rules would clarify what situations would entitle a soldier to a so-called compassionate reassignment. Right now, those rules are vague but are mostly used for soldiers going through family problems that cannot be solved through “leave, correspondence, power of attorney, or help of family members or other parties,” according to Army regulations.
The updated guidance, which sources said was drafted in response to several state laws but before a draft of a potential Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, would instruct commanders that they can use compassionate reassignment specifically to remove troops facing discrimination from their duty stations. -Military.com
According to a 2015 Rand study, around 6% of the US military is gay or bisexual, while 1% is transgender or nonbinary – numbers which Military.com suggests are “likely low,” given that the survey was taken just four years after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and before transgender troops could openly serve.
The leaked draft policy follows comments by Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, the service’s top enlisted leader, who told lawmakers that the force is considering a response to the end of Roe v. Wade.
“The answer is yes, we are drafting policies to ensure we take care of our soldiers in an appropriate way,” he told a House Appropriations Committee subpanel. “There are drafts if it were to be overturned, but that would be a decision for the secretary of the Army to decide the policy.”
That said, the policy change allowing for switching bases was written in April, weeks before the Roe v. Wade draft decision leaked, according to the report.
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 20:00 - White House Press Secretary Says There’s No Timeline for When Baby Formula Shortage Ends
White House Press Secretary Says There’s No Timeline for When Baby Formula Shortage Ends
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on May 22 said she didn’t have a timeline for when parents in the United States “will be able to readily” obtain baby formula.
“The president understands the struggle of moms and dads and parents and caregivers and making sure that … a child has … a healthy way of eating,” Jean-Pierre said during a press gaggle on Air Force One en route to Tokyo.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre holds her first news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on May 16, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) She added,
“A healthy formula … safe formula … is our number one priority … which is why we have been very, very acutely aware of … the process that we’ve initiated with the flyover and also the DPA [Defense Production Act].”
President Joe Biden, who is currently in Japan after visiting South Korea, invoked the DPA on May 18 to accelerate domestic production of baby formula, in the face of a nationwide shortage.
A day later, the White House announced an operation titled Operation Fly Formula, to transport the equivalent of up to 1.5 million eight-ounce bottles of Nestle baby formula from Switzerland to Indiana, via commercial air cargo with contracts with the Pentagon.
“I don’t have a timeline for you yet,” Jean-Pierre continued.
“We want to … make sure it goes very quickly, because it’s so critical. And we know … what families are going through. … but I don’t have an exact timeline. …. clearly, we want this to happen as fast as possible, as quickly as possible.”
A U.S. military cargo plane carrying 35 tons of baby formula arrived in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Sunday. The formula, made in Nestle’s plant in Zurich, Switerzland, would be enough to feed 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for a week.
Jean-Pierre said the shipment from Zurich would be “enough for over half a million bottles.”
“This formula was manufactured in an FDA-approved facility and will be inspected on arrival like all food imports,” she added.
“We prioritize this for the first shipment because this formula type serves a critical medical purpose and is in short supply in the United States as the result of the Abbott Sturgis plant closure.”
Supply chain disruptions and a February recall by Abbott Nutrition have led to the current nationwide shortage of infant formula. According to Datasembly, the United States out-of-stock rate for baby formula was relatively stable, ranging between 2 and 8 percent, in the first half of last year. The rate stood at 43 percent for the week ending May 8.
On Sunday, Abbott Chief Executive Robert Ford apologized for the shortage and said the firm’s Sturgis plant would reopen during the first week of June.
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, responded to Jean-Pierre’s no timeline comment on Twitter, saying that Biden administration officials “were warned 7 months ago.”
“Was told a baby formula shortage was coming – he [Biden] did nothing,” McDaniel wrote in a separate post several hours later.
In November last year, there were media reports of parents struggling to find baby formula on the shelves of Walgreens, Target, and Walmart. On May 12, AFP published an interview with a woman in Washington who said she had known about the supply crunch “for almost seven months.”
On May 19, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, published a timeline that he said chronicled the failure of the Biden administration and U.S. Food and Drug Administration in “creating the infant formula crisis.” One key event on the timeline was how the nationwide out-of-stock rate for baby formula reached 11 percent in November, up from 8 percent in July.
“There were warning signs of an impending infant formula shortage as early as last fall,” Burr said according to a statement. “The Administration downplayed the shortage until it became a political liability for them.”
“When the infant formula shortage is finally resolved, the Biden Administration will attempt to take credit for solving a crisis they first, created and secondly, ignored,” Burr said.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 19:40 - "I Need To Get The F*ck Out Of This Car": Two Separate Teslas Ignite Last Week, One Trapping Driver, One Burning Child's Car Seat
“I Need To Get The F*ck Out Of This Car”: Two Separate Teslas Ignite Last Week, One Trapping Driver, One Burning Child’s Car Seat
Solar flares? The alignment of the planets? Just plain old terrible production quality? What possible explanation could their be for two separate Teslas catching fire within a couple days of each other this weekend?
In fact, the incidents in question took place so close to each other, that we couldn’t even finish writing about one of the stories before the other one broke – we so combined them into one piece.
First, it was reported late last week that a blaze in California had been started by a 2019 Tesla Model 3.
Owner Ediel Ruiz said that after taking a trip in the vehicle, he was greeted with a notification on his phone that his car’s alarm was going off. When he looked outside at the car, it was filled with smoke and flames.
Ruiz said the first thing to melt was his 4-month-old’s car seat, according to KBAK.
“Honestly, I didn’t know how to react, I mean it just kind of happened,” he said. “We had that, the stroller, formula, [his partner] had just graduated from USC the day prior. All her graduation stuff burned up.”
“We were going to go to Bakersfield to go eat at Texas Roadhouse. Luckily, for whatever reason, her grandparents canceled and we didn’t go. It didn’t happen while we were driving.”
He called the California City Fire Department to help remove the vehicle after the blaze: “I tried to make it clear that the car was completely gone. I don’t think they understood how bad the fire was. So when he showed up, he said, ‘I’m not prepared or equipped to remove this, I can’t drive this down the freeway or the ash will go everywhere.’”
Then, on Monday morning, it was reported by electrek that an almost brand new Model Y caught fire after powering down while driving. The incident happened last Friday, when the owner was says the car “pushed an error notification and then powered down” before the cabin began filling with smoke.
He told the fire department: “I had to smash the window to get out of the car. I kicked through the window. Everything stops. The power didn’t work. The door didn’t open. The windows didn’t go down so I’m thinking I need to get the f*ck out of this car so I kicked through.”
“Oh f*ck there’s the fire,” you can hear someone on the video say. “I swear to God, all of a sudden my car just shut down, it just said ‘error, error, error’, and then all of a sudden the battery started smoking…”
“It’s going to be interesting to see the results of this investigation,” electrek wrote. To which we ask, what investigation?
Here is video of the incident, where you can see clearly how the driver had to kick the window out:
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 19:20 - NYC Parents Want In-Person Meeting With Mayor Over Toddler Mask Mandate: "Our Calls Have Gone Unanswered"
NYC Parents Want In-Person Meeting With Mayor Over Toddler Mask Mandate: “Our Calls Have Gone Unanswered”
Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A frustrated group of more than 200 New York City parents have called the city’s mayor and public health chief to sit down and talk to them about the prolonged mask mandates for toddlers.
A girl, wearing a mask, walks down a street in the Corona neighborhood of Queens in New York City on April 14, 2020. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images) Under the city’s public health policy, masks remain mandatory for children aged 2 to 4 in public schools and daycare centers. Mayor Eric Adam’s order to extend the mandate beyond its March expiration was initially struck down by a Staten Island judge, who called it “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable,” but was later restored by an appeals court.
In their letter sent to the City Hall, the parents alleged that the mayor’s office has repeatedly ignored their complaints about forcing preschoolers to mask up.
“We write this letter because our hundreds of phone calls and emails, and our direct requests for meetings, have gone unanswered,” the parents wrote. “We are now publicly requesting a meeting, by May 17, with both Mayor Eric Adams and Commissioner Ashwin Vasan to discuss NYC’s Toddler Mask Mandate.”
Specifically, the parents wanted the mayor and his health team to explain the reasoning behind the decision, including how exactly continuing to mask the youngest New Yorkers does more benefits than harm.
“We want to review the city’s analysis of how the benefits of covering the faces of babies who are still in diapers outweighs the harms,” the letter read. “We want to know why our young children continue to be masked even as every other resident of this city is given the option to unmask, regardless of vaccination status.”
In a statement to The New York Post, which first reported the matter, Adams said that he’s willing to unmask the children, but only when “the science says it is safe to do so.”
“My team of health experts and I will continue to evaluate the data, day after day, and we will continue to communicate with New Yorkers with additional updates,” the mayor told The Post.
Among the co-signers of the letter is Danyela Souza Egorov, a Manhattan-based mother of two. She told The Epoch Times that the parents have yet to receive any response from City Hall regarding their request.
“The parents are very frustrated because we don’t know which metrics are being used to decide this for us, or when, if ever, our toddlers will be able to take the masks off,” Egorov said, adding that wearing a mask may impede a child’s speech and language development. “At this point, I think the risk of COVID is very low for this particular group, but the risk of not being ready for kindergarten is very high.”
Egorov, who is running for New York State Senate as a Democrat, said parents should be able to decide whether their children wear masks.
“It’s very important to give the option to people—families who feel that they should continue using masks should continue to use masks,” she said. “Families who feel that at this point, the masks are causing more problems than benefits for their children, should have the right to unmask.”
The Epoch Times also reached out to the New York City Department of Health to ask whether Vasan or Adams are planning to meet the petitioning parents. In response, a spokesperson for the department directed The Epoch Times to the mayor’s statement to The Post.
“The Health Department has participated in approximately 2,000 community conversations and hundreds more community events and briefings with stakeholders,” the spokesperson added. “We will continue to dialogue with New Yorkers, but, in the meantime, we will continue to implement policies that protect children from contracting COVID-19.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 19:00 - Unprecedented: US Air Force To Join Israelis In Mock Attack On Iran
Unprecedented: US Air Force To Join Israelis In Mock Attack On Iran
As if an intense proxy war with nuclear powerhouse Russia isn’t bringing enough heat, the Biden White House has now given the greenlight for unprecedented U.S. participation in an Israeli drill simulating a massive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
According to The Times of Israel, “The U.S. Air Force will serve as a complementary force, with refueling planes drilling with Israeli fighter jets as they simulate entering Iranian territory and carrying out repeated strikes.” The mock attack on Iran will happen this month, as part of a broader Israeli military exercise called “Chariots of Fire.”
The US Air Force is joining apartheid Israel to do military exercises simulating entering Iranian territory and launching airstrikes.
The US and Israeli militaries are blatantly threatening Iran with war.https://t.co/j8upZD96FR
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 17, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In September, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said the IDF had “greatly accelerated” preparations for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Dozens of Israeli air force fighter jets are expected to take part in the exercise and fly hundreds of miles from Israel to the west above the Mediterranean in a way that simulates a flight route to Iran,” reports Axios. General Michael Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, landed in Israel on Tuesday to observe the exercises.
Though there’s no indication of an imminent real-world strike, U.S. participation in the drill is an implicit endorsement of an Israeli-initiated war of aggression—and a signal that the United States might not only agree to it, but participate.
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time USAF tankers facilitated aggression in the region: Before a halt was announced in 2018, American tankers controversially aided Saudi strikes in Yemen. In addition to directly killing civilians—including 131 men, women and children gathered at a 2015 wedding celebration—the Saudi campaign has plunged Yemen into one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
To the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, the hawkish participation in the Israeli drill is a “puzzling” extension of a pattern, as Biden perpetuates an aggressive Trump-like posture toward Iran that Biden previously condemned:
“Biden heavily criticized former President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal and opposed his ‘maximum pressure’ strategy seeking to force Iran to capitulate by crushing its economy through unprecedented sanctions. Yet, 18 months into his presidency, Biden has yet to shift away from Trump’s sanctions policy.”
The saber-rattling move by Biden comes as talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are stalled. A key sticking point: Iran wants the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps removed from the list of designated—and sanctioned—terrorist organizations.
As with sanctions, Biden’s intransigence on the IRGC designation represents another hypocritical embrace of Trump policy. Parsi notes that, in 2017, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote a New York Times op-ed arguing that such a designation by the Trump administration would needlessly escalate tensions.
But hey, whether it’s Ukraine or Iran, ditching honest diplomacy in favor of nerve-racking brinksmanship seems to be the Biden administration’s trademark.
Sure, it pushes us deeper into the threshold of World War III. On the other, as Biden’s approval rating has just reached yet another a new low, at least it helps keep our mind off surging price inflation, baby formula shortages and an economy that’s teetering along the edge off the abyss.
Maybe that’s the point.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 18:40 - It's Not Just The USA: The Economic Instability Is Global
It’s Not Just The USA: The Economic Instability Is Global
Authored by Paul Tolmachev via The Mises Institute,
The actions of the authorities in developed countries, essentially an extension of the Keynesian economic policy discourse, have brought the economies into disrepute. These actions consist of immense stimulus and virtually unfunded government indexation of voter income in the face of expected impoverishment amid COVID, lockdowns, and other global problems.
The government is making money cheaper, just to maintain electoral support. This leads to a dispersal of demand and a proliferation of zombie companies, it distorts the incentives for healthy competition, it reduces business efficiency, and it kills the innovation factor of economic growth. Most importantly: it creates leverage – the dominance of needs over opportunities, demand over supply-in other words, it leads to dramatic market disequilibrium.
Before COVID times, such imbalances over the past 20 years were bought with new leverage, and the imbalances went away for a while, giving birth to inevitable new imbalances in the future. The Austrian cycles perfectly describe this process, its starting points and its consequences. In fact, this leftist social agenda for buying electoral loyalty is a new political doctrine based on simplification, and most importantly, on the abolition of any concern for tomorrow.
In СOVID times, however, all that has changed. Another injection of mega liquidity, the cheapening of money by all possible means – from direct budgetary donations to the inflating of the Fed’s balance sheet – occurred against a background of blocked demand, rather than falling due to economic stagnation. As a result, the savings of all agents increased abnormally, people stopped wanting to work, the flow of investment into the stock market and into financial assets increased, creating hyperinflation in them and moving them away from their fair value.
The assumption was that, once the restrictions were lifted, the intensified and unmet buying intentions would sharply accelerate the economy, because the capacity and potential of supply is enormous: supply has the capacity to satisfy demand, synergistically accelerating the economy. This has not happened, however, because there have been structural shifts as a result of excessive lockdowns: gaps in supply chains, reduced labor force participation, and labor shortages in general, hypertrophied growth of commodity markets, and geopolitical tensions that reinforce all of the above factors. As a result, supply is unable to meet the demand because of cheap money, and inflation is again eating away at the economy.
At the same time, instead of reducing its clumsy intervention, the government, on the contrary, increases social programs and government spending in the form of infrastructure projects. In this way it depresses business through the inevitable increase in the tax burden and further contributes to the compression of supply, reducing efficiency, the desire to invest and, in general, worsening business expectations and expanding the mandate and the number of bureaucratic entities.
Against this same backdrop, by continuing its conciliatory policy with resource autocracies, the government is forcing a green agenda at the worst possible time, underfunding both conventional and alternative energy, which cannot cover the current need for the capacity provided by conventional energy. A cursory reading of Klaus Schwab’s The Great Reboot is enough to understand the inadequacy of such a utopian concept, the adherence to which, as we can see, leads to anti-utopian consequences.
The result was a geopolitical tension caused by differing interests, preferences and expectations of global players: Russia, as a resource autocracy, saw a window of opportunity and the vulnerability of the economic position of the Collective West – and played the tactical card. In the short horizon, the calculation proved correct: on the whole, post-conservative externalities and leftist populist policies of Western power elites weakened developed economies, led to stagflation and increased the threat of recession. The blow to the Western world in the form of the military conflict in Eastern Europe and its aftermath was well-timed for the resource autocracy itself, which from within needed a new impetus for self-preservation and confirmation of the regime’s legitimacy by the population.
What do we get in the end?
We end up with structural shifts, when all the post-Soviet problems multiply manifold.
Stagflation is already a fact today; recession is inevitable tomorrow. Social discontent, which will inevitably happen and is already taking place in various parts of the Western world, will force governments to continue to care about today without thinking about tomorrow – and to continue the policies of populism and leftist expansive discourse, which will inevitably lead to even greater leverage and exacerbate economic, and therefore social, imbalances.
Commodity inflation will not end quickly, since significant exporters of raw materials are in conflict and alternative channels of resource importation have not been established. New energy is clearly insufficient against the background of limiting imports of old energy from the resource autocracy. This means that traditional energy supplies must be recanalized, which is inevitably accompanied by rising costs and acceleration of inflation. Supply is under stress from rising costs – logistical lockups, commodity inflation and labor shortages. An additional stress is on the way, or rather, already in the room – rising credit costs and a potential drop in demand.
At the same time, China, as the embodiment of an alternative sociopolitical pole, benefits in the short horizon. Against the background of universal turbulence and socio-economic disequilibria in the Western world, the ability to centrally stimulate the market in the initial stages of the capitalist impulse can be quite a success story. At this point, there are still no acute dependencies on state injections, no meaningful imbalances in supply and demand dynamics, and no ideological constraints on imported raw materials.
China, with its own problems of growing state capitalism in the form of hypertrophied infrastructure capex and an authoritarian political frame leading to market and innovation inefficiencies over the long haul, now has a distinct advantage. It lies in the possibility of directive economic management and linear monetary and fiscal incentives. This is an advantage that Western states no longer have and that, by the way, China itself will soon lose, because games of “big government” do not succeed for too long. They always end in one thing: social and economic collapse in its various forms and outcomes.
As a result, Western economies are faced with a dilemma as never before: to continue state expansion and addiction treatment with a new dose, or to start bringing the economy into balance. Of course, this is associated with tough and unpopular political decisions, all the more painful in a situation of global tension. But this is precisely the situation in which politicians show their true skills, namely the ability to convince voters to sacrifice something today for the sake of a better tomorrow. Otherwise, there will be no tomorrow at all.
So far, we have been assured of only one thing: we are living in one day and there is no tomorrow. In short, it’s like Keynes: we are all going to die in the long run. I think we’ve been through this before.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 05/23/2022 – 18:20
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
