May 27

Today’s News 27th May 2022

  • EU Suspends Russia's Access To Vital Crime Data Sharing Program
    EU Suspends Russia’s Access To Vital Crime Data Sharing Program

    Amid the unprecedented waves of EU and US sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its Ukraine invasion, and as tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions continue between Moscow and European capitals, among the last frontiers of Russia-Europe cooperation remains in the area of crime monitoring and data sharing.

    But that too appears to be winding down, as Russian state media has announced the European Union has suspended its drug traffic data sharing program with Russian law enforcement agencies. “The EU has suspended contacts and data sharing with Russia as part of the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said,” TASS reports.

    Image: dpa via AP

    “The European Union has unilaterally suspended expert contacts and data sharing with us” as part of the EMCDDA, Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov confirmed. “The annual OSCE-wide Anti-Drug Conference has been postponed indefinitely,” he added.

    The Russian official slammed the move as counterproductive, with the inevitable consequence being that drug traffickers will be able to act with greater impunity as a country the size of Russia (literally the world’s largest by land mass and border area) is cut out of the program.

    “We believe this is a destructive approach. It plays into the hands of drug traffickers, who are taking advantage of the disagreements among countries to increase illicit drug supplies to Europe,” he said.

    Russia, however, remains and will likely continue to remain a vital country within INTERPOL – the world’s largest international policing organization, representing 194 member countries.

    According to the INTERPOL website, “Russia is the world’s largest country by area, and shares borders with countries in northern Asia and Europe. Identifying, investigating and preventing serious crime across Europe and Asia is a large part of the daily work carried out by INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Moscow.”

    Further it highlights Russian law enforcement’s importance in tracking international crime as follows: “The NCB’s global police cooperation activities are centered on Russia’s crime areas of priority concern; these include terrorism, organized crime – particularly drug and financial crime – and the international fugitive investigations these generate. Cybercrime is also an emerging crime area of concern.” Given rapidly deteriorating diplomatic relations with the West, this too could eventually be threatened as a vital area of close coordination.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 05/27/2022 – 02:45

  • The WHO's Pandemic Treaty "Is Tied To A Global Digital Passport And ID System"
    The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty “Is Tied To A Global Digital Passport And ID System”

    Commentary by Aaron Kheriaty via Human Flourishing,

    We must oppose this to maintain national sovereignty and democratic norms…

    A clever play on words from the man that many are hoping will preserve free speech on Twitter.

    The WHO recently announced plans for an international pandemic treaty tied to a digital passport and digital ID system.

    Meeting in December 2021 in a special session for only the second time since the WHO’s founding in 1948, the Health Assembly of the WHO adopted a single decision titled, “The World Together.”

    The WHO plans to finalize the treaty by 2024. It will aim to shift governing authority now reserved to sovereign states to the WHO during a pandemic by legally binding member states to the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations.

    In January of 2022 the United States submitted proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, which bind all 194 U.N. member states, which the WHO director general accepted and forwarded to other member states. In contrast to amendments to our own constitution, these amendments will not require a two-thirds vote of our Senate, but a simple majority of the member states.

    Most of the public is wholly unaware of these changes, which will impact the national sovereignty of member states.

    The proposed amendments include, among others, the following. Among the changes the WHO will no longer need to consult with the state or attempt to obtain verification from the state where a reported event of concern (e.g., a new outbreak) is allegedly occurring before taking action on the basis of such reports (Article 9.1).

    In addition to the authority to make the determination of a public health emergency of international concern under Article 12, the WHO will be granted additional powers to determine a public health emergency of regional concern, as well as a category referred to as an intermediate health alert.

    The relevant state no longer needs to agree with the WHO Director General’s determination that an event constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. A new Emergency Committee will be constituted at the WHO, which the Director-General will consult in lieu of the state within whose territory the public health emergency of international concern has occurred, to declare the emergency over.

    The amendments will also give “regional directors” within the WHO, rather than elected representatives of the relevant states, the legal authority to declare a Public Health Emergency of Regional Concern.

    Also, when an event does not meet criteria for a public health emergency of international concern but the WHO Director-General determines it requires heightened awareness and a potential international public health response, he may determine at any time to issue an “intermediate public health alert” to states and consult the WHO’s Emergency Committee. The criteria for this category are simple fiat: “the Director-General has determined it requires heightened international awareness and a potential international public health response.”

    Through these amendments, the WHO, with the support of the United States, appears to be responding to roadblocks that China erected in the early days of covid. This is a legitimate concern. But the net effect of the proposed amendments is a shift of power away from sovereign states, ours included, to unelected bureaucrats at the WHO. The thrust of every one of the changes is toward increased powers and centralized powers delegated to the WHO and away from member states.

    Leslyn Lewis, a member of the Canadian parliament and lawyer with international experience, has warned that the treaty would also allow the WHO unilaterally to determine what constitutes a pandemic and declare when a pandemic is occurring. “We would end up with a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire world,” she cautioned. Under the proposed WHO plan, pandemics need not be limited to infectious diseases and could include, for example, a declared obesity crisis.

    As part of this plan, the WHO has contracted German-based Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems to develop a global vaccine passport system, with plans to link every person on the planet to a QR code digital ID.

    “Vaccination certificates that are tamper-proof and digitally verifiable build trust. WHO is therefore supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology,” explained Garret Mehl, head of the WHO’s Department of Digital Health and Innovation.

    “The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.”

    This system will be universal, mandatory, trans-national, and operated by unelected bureaucrats in a captured NGO who already bungled the covid pandemic response.

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to Aaron’s ‘Human Flourishing’ Substack here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 23:40

  • NYC Exodus To Florida Accelerates As People Fed Up With Violence And High Taxes 
    NYC Exodus To Florida Accelerates As People Fed Up With Violence And High Taxes 

    New York City struggles with a sharp rise in violent crime as the new mayor fails to make the metro areas safer. Public safety is worsening and has likely resulted in a continued exodus of residents.

    NYPost reports that 21,546 New Yorkers left the state for Florida during the first four months of this year, a 12% rise over the same period last year. 

    The exodus of New Yorkers first began before COVID-19 because of high taxes, then accelerated during the pandemic as the city went into lockdown. Now people are leaving in droves as the metro area descends into chaos.

    For some more context about the exodus, 2022 totals are 55% higher than the same period in 2019 (pre-COVID). A stunning trend that is only gaining momentum. 

    New Yorkers are frightened to walk the streets, nevertheless travel in the subway, which is plagued with criminals. In April, a mass shooting in a subway car left more than a dozen people injured. Last Sunday, a Goldman Sachs research analyst was shot in the chest, in an unprovoked attack, on the subway. The analyst died on the spot.

    The toxic environment of crime and high taxes have forced some Wall Street firms to move operations to the Sunshine State as an attractive place for long-term expansion. City dwellers have fallen in love with the state because there’s no personal income tax. 

    If migration trends persist, the number of New Yorkers leaving the state for Florida could shatter last year’s figure of 61,728. 

    Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams has been absolutely wrong about migration trends reversing. It’s only accelerating as NYC descends into darkness as another failed liberal city implodes under the weight of violent crime and high taxes. An environment businesses and or households will no longer tolerate because technology has allowed them to become more mobile.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 23:20

  • China Paralyzed As Feud Erupts Between Xi And Li Over Covid Response
    China Paralyzed As Feud Erupts Between Xi And Li Over Covid Response

    For the past several months there had been rumors that a quiet feud had erupted within Beijing’s top echelons, the result of disagreement within the communist party whether Xi Jinping’s “zero covid” policy was the proper solution for the country of 1.4 billion and which two and a half years ago unleashed the coronavirus plague on the world. Well, now it’s official because as Bloomberg reported this morning, China finds itself gripped by “discord” at the very top level, with president Xi and premier Li on opposite sides of the the “zero covid” ring.

    As Bloomberg notes, shortly after Premier Li Keqiang held the previously discussed “rare” video call with thousands of Chinese officials across the nation to warn of an even worse economic crisis than two years ago, and calling on them to better balance Covid controls and economic growth, those same government officials charged with implementing policy at the ground level found themselves stumped and unsure whether they should still listen to: supreme leader Xi – who continues to emphasize the need for officials to push for zero Covid-19 cases – or Li, who continuously urges them to bolster the economy and hit preordained growth targets.

    This apparent dilemma has led to paralysis within a nation normally hailed for speedy implementation of orders from above, Bloomberg reports, citing eight unnamed senior local government officials.

    While analysts saw Li’s impromptu meeting as an attempt to strengthen consensus on the urgency to revive the economy, four senior officials said it did little to change their view that controlling the Covid outbreak still took priority: “One said that from a personal career perspective, a cadre’s hard work means nothing if they fail to contain an outbreak, while the upside for kicking off economic projects was limited.”

    For a glaring example of just how deep the schism within China’s core runs, one should look at who did not attend Li’s mammoth meeting – which brought together cadres right down to the county level, featuring officials from nearly all government departments including propaganda, environment, and utilities, according to notices on county-level government websites – the top-ranking Communist Party official for many cities was absent because they had to focus on ensuring Covid control, said a BBG source, adding that it signaled that pandemic work still trumped the economy. Attendance for party heads wasn’t mandatory.

    Which is bad news for Li who is tasked with restoring the economy… without actually being allowed to do anything:

    “He is being put in the impossible position of trying to rescue the economy without being able to adjust the one policy — zero-Covid — that is causing the most economic damage,” McArver said, referring to Li.

    For Li, who will depart the post of China’s second in command next March, the stakes couldn’t be higher: the Chinese Communist Party prepares to hold a twice-a-decade leadership conclave later this year, where Xi is expected to win a landmark third term, yet where rumor also has it some of his challengers are sharpening their knives if covid is still uncontained and if the economy remains a complete mess. The top party ranks will also be reshuffled, clearing the way for other cadres to move up the ladder if they can avoid any missteps, particularly in handling Covid outbreaks.  

    The paralysis is reflected in market sentiment. On Wednesday, the benchmark CSI 300 Index remained flat after sliding as much as 1.1% while shares in Hong Kong declined as investors have lost hope that – besides constant jawboning – China will be unable to implement a major stimulus.

    Which is a problem because as Li warned on Wednesday, when he delivered his starkest warnings about the economy’s weak performance, Beijing is facing another economic crisis with “difficulties in some aspects, to a certain extent, are greater than when the epidemic hit us severely in 2020.” He said China must avoid a contraction in the second quarter, adding that the nation would pay a huge price with a long road to recovery if the economy can’t keep expanding at a certain rate.

    It is unclear if Xi had heard the message.

    Meanwhile, as reported earlier this month, the latest official data also showed a contraction in industrial output for the first time since 2020 and a jump in the surveyed jobless rate to 6.1% in April, close to a record. High-frequency data for May showed the economy remained in a deep slump, according to Bloomberg’s aggregate index of eight indicators.

    Xi hasn’t directly addressed the depths of China’s economic struggle in recent weeks, though his more generic comments have received prominent treatment in state-run newspapers. “China’s resolve to open up at a high standard will not change and the door of China will open still wider to the world,” Xi said at a recent trade council anniversary meeting, in a typical comment.

    Li, by contrast, has emerged as a more candid figure. At the same trade council event in Beijing earlier this month Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said the premier “woke up” when some delegates shared their frustrations over China’s Covid policy.

    “Li came over afterward and asked us how we were doing and how was business,” Wuttke said, adding that he was surprised by the move. “It was a very positive gesture. His actual crossing the street, showing up and saying ‘let’s chat’ was impressive.”

    Meanwhile, as it scrambles to address these two contradictory mandates, China prepares to unleash the latest bubble: according to Bloomberg, bank managers at several state-owned lenders have been told they will be held accountable for failing to meet loan issuance targets. They have struggled to implement orders to introduce more liquidity, as companies that meet requirements are reluctant to borrow given the uncertain outlook of economy, according to banking business heads and executives.

    In other words, with little actual loan demand, China has no other option than to flood markets with said loans, which will then promptly find their way into speculative activity – such as equities and housing, both of which will soon be on the receiving end of trillions more in liquidity. In fact, as we noted last night, it appears that China’s housing bubble is already making a comeback.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 23:00

  • China's Military Must Be Able To Destroy SpaceX's Starlink Satellites: Researchers
    China’s Military Must Be Able To Destroy SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites: Researchers

    The Chinese military must be able to destroy SpaceX’s Starlink satellites if they pose a threat to national security, according to an April publication by Chinese military researchers.

    The researchers speculated that US military drones and stealth fighter jets could boost their data transmission speed by more than 100x using the Starlink network. Notably, SpaceX has signed a contract with the US Department of Defense to develop technology based on the Starlink platform – which includes instruments sensitive enough to track hypersonic weapons traveling at 5x the speed of sound or faster.

    The paper also recommends developing a satellite surveillance system with ‘unprecedented scale and sensitivity’ in order to track every Starlink satellite, according to the South China Morning Post.

    The study was led by Ren Yuanzhen, a researcher with the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications under the PLA’s Strategic Support Force. Co-authors included several senior scientists in China’s defence industry. -SCMP

    “A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functions and destroy the constellation’s operating system,” reads the paper, published in China’s peer-reviewed journal Modern Defence Technology.

    SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk is generally considered popular in China, however he received harsh criticism after two Starlink satellites came ‘dangerously close’ to the Chinese space station last year.

    Starlink satellites could threaten China’s national security in space and on the ground, according to the researchers. Photo: Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications

    Musk notably provided over 12,000 Starlink dishes to Ukraine to help facilitate broadband internet amid the war with Russia – which SpaceX is providing free of charge.

    “All critical infrastructure uses Starlink, all structures that are needed for the state’s functioning use them,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation. “We need to receive them constantly because they are one of the elements of the foundation of our fight and resilience.

    Another concern from the Chinese researchers is that Starlink satellites all contain ion thrusters, which could allow them to rapidly change orbits for a rapid move against high-value targets in space.

    On the public-facing side of things, Starlink’s popularity has continued to grow – experiencing a 275% increase since January.

    The research paper also suggests that the unprecedented scale and flexibility of the Starlink system would allow the West to insert military payloads into SpaceX commercial launches – necessitating the development of new anti-satellite capabilities and a surveillance system that can obtain super-sharp images of small satellites in order to identify unusual features.

    China claims it has already developed numerous ground-based laser imaging devices that can photograph orbiting satellites at a millimetre-resolution, but in addition to optical and radar imaging, the country also needs to be able to intercept signals from each Starlink satellite to detect any potential threat, according to Ren.

    He said China had also showed its ability to destroy a satellite with a missile, but this method could produce a large amount of space debris, and the cost would be too high against a system consisting of many small, relatively low-cost satellites. -SCMP

    “The Starlink constellation constitutes a decentralised system. The confrontation is not about individual satellites, but the whole system. This requires some low-cost, high-efficiency measures,” wrote the researchers.

    SCMP notes that Chinese scientists have already developed lasers for blinding or damaging satellites, as well as cyber weapons that can attempt to hack into the satellite communication network.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 22:40

  • Suppressing the Truth About Suppressors
    Suppressing the Truth About Suppressors

    Op-Ed authored by John Velleco via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Big government leftists aren’t only trying to silence your voice on social media and through the Department of Homeland Security’s new Ministry of Truth, they’re also trying to silence your ability to simply possess a firearm suppressor.

    Hollywood, the “besties” of the left, likes to make it seem as if a suppressor completely silences a firearm, as seen by clever TV assassins and action-movie stars. Last year, New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman backed this up, calling silencers “tools of murder.”

    Sen. Bob Menendez (also from New Jersey) said, “Gun silencers are dangerous devices with one purpose and one purpose only—to muffle the sound of gunfire from unsuspecting victims.”

    I’ll give you one guess as to which two Washington politicians have been watching a few too many Hollywood movies. Hint: they’re the same two who introduced legislation in 2021 to ban all Americans from simply possessing a gun suppressor. Not using one. Possessing one.

    Gun suppressors (called “sound moderators” in the UK) only decrease the noise of a gunshot by 20 to 35 decibels. That leaves them still “louder than your average ambulance siren,” according to an article by the Associated Press posted by Police1. That organization is a part of the nation’s leading content, policy, and training platform for public safety. Their job isn’t to kiss babies and raise money; their job is to tell the truth when it comes to how guns work in the real world.

    As much as the left would have you believe these devices are only used for Hollywood hitman-style murders, the truth is that the greatest use of silencers is for sporting professionals (pdf). Many shooting pros build private ranges in their basements and use silencers out of respect for their neighbors—literally the opposite of committing a crime.

    Second to sporting, suppressors are used with small-caliber subsonic ammunition to rid local areas of disease-carrying vermin, like rats (pdf). Stopping disease from a distance is a good thing.

    Fortunately, not all politicians believe big-action Hollywood movies are documentaries. Rep. Bob Good, from Virginia, looked to protect Americans from the suppressor-grab introduced by Menendez and Watson-Coleman. Good’s 2021 legislation sought a complete deregulation of gun suppressors at the federal level and it preempts state laws that would regulate, tax, or prohibit the possession of these devices.

    “The Second Amendment is the guarantor or protector of all other rights,” Good told Breitbart News. “If our Second Amendment right is not safe, no rights are safe. Democrats continue to fear-monger and spread misinformation as a justification to undermine our constitutional rights. I’m pleased to introduce legislation that will remove regulatory burdens from purchasing accessories that protect hearing and promote safety.”

    There are more than 60,000 legal federal gun-suppressor permits throughout the United States. If suppressors are so dangerous and used only as “tools of murder” then one would expect there to be a plethora of federal prosecutions for crimes committed with a firearm fitted with a suppressor. In reality, such federal prosecutions are rare occurrences (pdf), and the vast majority of those are not because a crime was committed but rather because someone hadn’t properly registered the suppressor. In other words, Menendez was flat-out lying about how they’re used.

    It’s ridiculous to use Hollywood and fear to limit a person’s firearm use for competition, sport shooting, hunting, self-defense, teaching children about being responsible gun owners, or for any other constitutionally protected purpose. Don’t be fooled—bills like this do nothing to stop a criminal. They only serve to hurt your ability to use your firearm in a responsible manner.

    A suppressor is not a firearm and is incapable of discharging any projectile, yet it’s regulated in the same manner as a machine gun. A firearms suppressor is a simple accessory, like a scope, holster, or any of the hundreds of other firearms accessories available, and ought to be available for purchase over the counter like any other lawful product.

    Maybe President Joe Biden’s new Ministry of Truth should look at the Menendez and Watson-Coleman bill as their first order of business when rooting out misinformation. Somehow, I doubt they will.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 22:20

  • Russia Ready To Help Solve Global Food Crisis, On One Condition
    Russia Ready To Help Solve Global Food Crisis, On One Condition

    Italy says it’s working to intervene diplomatically with Russia to allow Ukrainian ports to open amid a growing global wheat and food supply crisis, given some 30% of the world’s wheat comes from war-ravaged Ukraine and Russia. 

    This culminated in a Thursday phone call between Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wherein the Italian leader is believed to have pressed Putin to order his military to unblock Black Sea ports.

    A statement from the Kremlin following the call said “Vladimir Putin emphasizes that the Russian Federation is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer, subject to the lifting of politically motivated restrictions by the West.”

    Putin’s office confirmed he spoke about “steps taken to ensure the safety of navigation, including the daily opening of humanitarian corridors for the exit of civilian ships from the ports of the Azov and the Black Sea, which is impeded by the Ukrainian side.”

    Draghi’s office in turn described that “the call was dedicated to developments in Ukraine and efforts to find a common solution to the ongoing food crisis, as well as the severe repercussions for the world’s poorest countries.”

    The United States and leaders of several European countries have blamed Russia for increasing world hunger and ratcheting food prices and lack of supply, which is impacting already struggling and poor countries the hardest. However, Putin said the accusations are “unfounded” – following Russian officials earlier blaming Ukraine’s military for deploying thousands of sea mines around its ports.

    As Bloomberg reviews, “Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said this week the government in Kyiv is to blame for the halt to grain exports from Ukraine because it mined its ports. Ukraine denies that, says it is Moscow that is preventing ships from docking and accuses it of stealing grain stores from occupied regions.” Further, “A White House spokesperson said Russia’s actions were increasing world hunger.”

    Late yesterday, the Russian government – after being accused of using the food supply as blackmail and a bargaining chip – announced its military will open up protected sea corridors for international shipping to pass through from seven Ukrainian ports that have thus far been militarized and blockaded.

    It’s yet to be confirmed the degree to which this has happened, and likely most shipping companies and vessels would still deem the situation and ports near frontline fighting areas to be unsafe, given also the presence of mines.

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    Russia has meanwhile stressed that its military is engaged in extensive and complex demining operations of mines placed by Ukrainian forces, making international shipping dangerous and impossible in some areas off Ukraine’s coast. 

    NATO in a message earlier this month warned all commercial traffic in the Black Sea of the growing danger of drifting mines as spillover from the Russia-Ukraine war. “The latest statement of regional authorities, confirming another sighting of a mine, shows the threat of drifting mines in the Southwest part of the Black Sea still exists,” a May 13 NATO shipping advisory said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 22:00

  • Meanwhile Back In Washington, & Somalia, & Syria, & Kenya, And…
    Meanwhile Back In Washington, & Somalia, & Syria, & Kenya, And…

    Authored by Tom Gallagher via Common Dreams,

    So we hear that former President George W. Bush finally came around to denouncing “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” This unexpected and belated outburst of truth-telling and self-criticism was, of course, unintentional—just one of those verbal gaffes that the man once entertained the nation with on a regular basis. Realizing his error, the former commander-in-chief quickly explained that the unjustified and brutal invasion he was condemning was, naturally, not that of Iraq, but Ukraine. He brushed his faux pas off as a result of his advanced age, and the audience had a good laugh about it all.

    Unfortunately, that crowd at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas was not the only group with reason to smile at the current state of affairs, for these are happy days throughout the entire war-making community. With the nation understandably and justifiably outraged at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s been widely noted that NATO is back in favor, arms manufacturers are back in clover, and increased military spending is way back in vogue in Washington—not that it ever suffered much of a downswing, mind you.

    Image: Special Operations Command Africa

    What’s also happening these days is that the public are paying much closer attention than usual to matters of war. With the Ukraine invasion streaming on every screen, most Americans appear to know far more of the activities of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries than they know about their own—a situation that our domestic military policy makers are probably quite comfortable with. Unfortunately, the rest of us ought to be quite uncomfortable with this situation—as a glance at the back pages of the past week’s news will show.

    First, there was the announcement that President Biden would be sending troops back to Somalia. Why? In the words of National Security Council spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson, the purpose is to wage “a more effective fight against Al Shabab.” Al Shabab, (“the youth”), a fundamentalist Islamic group thought to have 5,000-10,000 members, has been fighting for control of Somalia since the 2000s.

    The U.S. started bombing Somalia in 2011. The following year Al Shabab declared allegiance to al-Qaeda. The U.S. has bombed Somalia in every subsequent year. The reason we can be waging war in Somalia? Well, it’s not something much discussed, since the fact that we bomb Somalia is not much discussed in the first place. Used to be that the justification and authorization cited for almost all of the bombs we have dropped in this century was the 2002 Authorization of the Use of Military Force resolution (the one that only Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California opposed.) Since that authorization was actually repealed last September, the White House/Pentagon’s operative rationale here now seems to be a sort-of “We’ve always done it this way” thing.

    This move on the part of Biden—who declared it “time to end the forever war” when he announced the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan—will reverse President Trump’s decision to remove almost all of the 700 Americans previously stationed in Somalia, which Watson called “a precipitous decision to withdraw.” The unofficial word is that about 450 will return. Biden has also approved the Pentagon’s request to attempt assassinations of about a dozen suspected Al Shabab leaders, part of an overall effort—in the words of an unnamed senior administration official—to reduce “the threat to a level that is tolerable.” A prime example of the type of “threat” that Americans might face in that part of the world was the attack that killed three soldiers at the American air base at Manda Bay, Kenya on January 2, 2020. (American soldiers killed in Kenya? We’ll return to that.)

    And elsewhere on the assassination-attempts-on-enemy-leaders front, the very next day the Pentagon spoke for the first time about civilian casualties resulting from its March 18, 2019 drone strike near Baghuz, Syria. The U.S. military had not originally intended to discuss this matter at all, until the New York Times uncovered the incident in a November, 2021 series on civilian deaths resulting from U.S. air strikes. This recent Pentagon acknowledgment came a week after the Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for that series. Although the bulk of its investigation remains classified, the Pentagon does acknowledge 73 casualties including 56 dead, 52 of whom it claims “were enemy fighters, including one child.” The enemy in this case refers to the Islamic State (ISIS). Anonymous officials familiar with the findings acknowledged that all males at the site, armed or not, were assumed to fall into the “enemy fighters” category, despite the Times report that the camp’s occupants included “captives and scores of wounded men who were no longer in the fight and, according to the law of armed conflict, were not legal targets.”

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    The justification offered for this bombing was the defense of our Syrian Defense Force allies in Syria’s civil war. At the press conference announcing its report, Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby characterized the Times’ findings as “not comfortable, not easy and not simple to address,” but he assured those present that “We actually do feel bad about this.” No wrong doing was found on the part of any American involved in the military operation, however, nor was anyone found to have improperly covered it up. And why are U.S. military forces currently at war in Syria? Again, it would pretty much seem to come back to the undeniable fact that this is just the sort of thing we do, ever since four airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

    The very next day following the Pentagon’s self-exoneration in the Syria bombing, it took the opportunity to present even happier news: Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has nominated Lt. Gen Michael E. Langley to a position that puts him in line to become the U.S. Marine Corp’s first black four star general. If formally nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate, Langley will assume the top position of the U.S. Africa Command, a group said to currently number about 2,000 men and women, about 1,500 of whom actually operate out of Stuttgart, Germany (a country that is host to 40 U.S. military bases and about 35,000 American military personnel). The actual extent of the Africa Command remains a bit murky, though. In 2020, the news website Intercept published a Pentagon planning document that listed 29 U.S. military bases in fifteen different African nations.

    And why are we in Africa? According to the Africa Command’s website, the organization “counters transnational threats and malign actors.” Indeed, these “malign actors” do appear to be on the rise. For instance, in the course of the decade plus in which the U.S. has been bombing Somalia, the number of militant Islamist organizations operating in the continent has risen from about five to 25. And now it appears that there are at least 29 locations there where Americans might now be threatened.

    So, with just a brief look at what’s not streaming on every screen, it’s hard to avoid thinking that if there were half as many Americans who knew what our own military was up to around the globe—or if there were half as many Americans who could name even half the countries we repeatedly bomb—as there are Americans who know what the Russian military is doing, people might start talking about making some real changes there.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 21:40

  • Texas Law Forces Companies To Be Neutral On Guns Or Face Consequences
    Texas Law Forces Companies To Be Neutral On Guns Or Face Consequences

    Woke companies who want to continue operating in Texas will have to effectively take a vow of neutrality on guns following the latest school shooting.

    Gun rights advocates gathered outside the state Capitol in Austin in 2019 (Eric Gay / The Associated Press)

    Thanks to a June 2021 law endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) signed by Governor Greg Abbott, firearm makers, retailers and industry groups have special protections using language typically reserved to shield people from racism, sexism, ageism or other ‘isms, Bloomberg reports.

    The bill requires companies signing contracts with state government agencies to verify that they don’t discriminate against the gun industry – which forces them to ignore calls from Democrats to sever business ties in the state over the latest shooting in Uvalde, TX in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

    “Texas has pro-gun legislation which clearly makes a statement at ensuring that the firearms industry is well protected,” said Janice Iwama, a professor at American University, who studies the impact of gun legislation. 

    Meanwhile, the National Shooting Sports Foundation wants states to follow in Texas’ footsteps, as companies in the industry are regularly denied services by banks. Similar bills have been advanced in Oklahoma and Louisiana, while additional measures have been introduced elsewhere.

    The Texas law has already cast ripples across Wall Street, where Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. had been curtailing some ties to gun companies, including by not lending to those that make military-style weapons for civilian use. Citigroup Inc. had also put in place restrictions for retailers that it works with.

    The Texas bill requires any public contract valued at or more than $100,000 to include a provision that states the company does not and will not discriminate against a firearm entity or trade association. -Bloomberg

    Texas’ law caused virtue signaling banks such as BofA, JPMorgan and Goldman to stop underwriting Texas muni bonds, however Citigroup returned to the market last year, and earlier this month JPMorgan took a first step to re-enter the market with an attempt to appeal to state lawmakers.

    This isn’t the first time woke corps have bent the knee. Earlier this week, State Farm withdrew support of a program providing LGBTQ-themed children’s books to teachers and libraries, after conservative groups slammed the insurance company as “a creepy neighbor,” a play on its slogan “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

    “State Farm tells us they’re a good neighbor, but would a good neighbor target 5-year-olds for conversations about sexual identity?” a narrator says in a Monday video by the conservative group, Consumers’ Research. “That’s what State Farm is doing.”

    “Conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents,” said State Farm spokesman Roszell Gadson in a statement to the Washington Post on Tuesday. “We don’t support required curriculum in schools on this topic. We support organizations providing resources for parents to have these conversations. We no longer support the program allowing for distribution of books in schools.”

    Get woke, go broke.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 21:20

  • Baby Formula Export Scheme Worth $200 Million Lands Florida Trio In Prison
    Baby Formula Export Scheme Worth $200 Million Lands Florida Trio In Prison

    Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

    A Florida trio was recently sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a $200 million baby formula fraud scheme that began some nine years before the current critical shortages. 

    U.S. District Court Judge Roy K. Altman sentenced South Florida residents Johnny Grobman, 48, Raoul Doekhie, 53, and Sherida Nabi, 57, each to 18 years in prison on Friday. He also ordered the three to forfeit over $200 million in fraudulently obtained profits. The three used the profits from the baby formula sales to buy a $9 million mansion in Florida, a 48-foot yacht, and several properties outside the U.S.

    Federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida said the trio convinced U.S. infant formula manufacturers to sell them the products at deeply reduced prices, in some cases receiving up to 60% discounts, by claiming they had a government tender to purchase the formula on behalf of the impoverished country of Suriname in South America.

    Instead of shipping the formula to Suriname, the three sold the products for full price in the U.S., raking in record profits.

    Following a 13-day trial in February 2020, a federal jury found Grobman, Doekhie and Nabi guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud; wire fraud; money laundering; conspiring to obtain pre-retail medical products worth $5,000 or more by fraud or deception, theft of pre-retail medical products; and smuggling goods from the United States.

    Two weeks after the trial ended, Grobman requested a new trial, which Judge Altman later denied. 

    As of publication, attorneys for the three did not respond to FreightWaves’ request seeking comment. Court records confirm the three are now in custody. However, a reason was not given for why the sentencing took place more than two years after the convictions. 

    The sentencing comes at a time when the U.S. is dealing with a nationwide infant formula shortage after a massive recall at manufacturing giant Abbott Laboratories’ Michigan plant. 

    How the scheme worked

    According to court documents, the trio negotiated steep discounts from the victim companies by pledging to redistribute the products in Suriname when in fact, they intended to sell those goods in the U.S. at a substantial markup, a business practice known as diversion.

    Doekhie and Nabi, who are married, set up a company called Tropical Marketing & Distribution N.V., based out of Suriname. The pair created a website for a fictional entity called the Suriname Tender Office to “support their false misrepresentation that they had a government tender for the victim companies’ products,” according to court records.

    Grobman was listed as the manager of Nutrisource I LLC, as well as J Trading LLC and as a registered agent of Vejota Holdings LLC. All three companies show the same principal address in Aventura, Florida.

    Court filings claim the three concealed their scheme by fabricating purchase orders, covertly shipping the products abroad and then immediately bringing them back, a practice known as  U-turning, filling dummy cargo containers with sheetrock and falsifying export documents. 

    Once the products returned to the U.S., court records state Grobman would submit false shipping documents to U.S. Customs agents.

    A fourth man, Edgar Torres, who received a reduced sentence of 25 months in exchange for cooperating with the government against Doekhie, Nabi and Grobman, served as president and registered agent of Le Mare Transport, a freight forwarding company in Medley, Florida.

    During the trial, Torres testified they would swap out the cargo containers’ baby formula with sheetrock that was the same weight as the product they were supposed to be exporting to Suriname. They would replace the etched cargo seals, which the infant formula manufacturers installed to prevent tampering, using a special machine that could carve identical markings, in a concerted effort to avoid detection by customs officials and victim companies, court records said.

    Through their companies, Grobman and Torres would sell the infant formula to distributors in the U.S., then split the profits with Doekhie and Nabi, court documents said.

    Prosecutors claimed about 60 companies were defrauded between March 2013 and December 2018.

    The scam reportedly started to unravel in 2017 after one of the manufacturers refused to do business with the group after a truck driver alerted the company about possible delays with their products.

    “The fraud perpetrated by these defendants is nothing short of egregious,” said U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez in a statement. “The 18-year prison sentences reflect the seriousness of the defendants’ crimes.”   

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 21:00

  • Watch: Boeing Starliner Conducts "Picture-Perfect Landing" In New Mexico Desert 
    Watch: Boeing Starliner Conducts “Picture-Perfect Landing” In New Mexico Desert 

    Four hours after Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft detached from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, the capsule safely returned to Earth, landing in the New Mexican desert. 

    The parachute-assisted landing occurred at 1849 ET in the desert of White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. Its return marks a significant milestone for Boeing after a failed test flight in 2019. 

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    Starliner was uncrewed when it launched from Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida last week. It delivered 800 pounds of cargo to the ISS and had “Rosie the Rocketeer,” a mannequin outfitted with sensors to monitor the cabin environment that astronauts will experience during future flights. 

    NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the Starliner mission is a “major and successful step on the journey to enabling more human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station on American spacecraft from American soil.” 

    NASA outlined that Starliner met all planned test objectives that would soon pave the way for commercial flights.  

    • Starliner launch and normal trajectory to orbital insertion
    • Launch of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V and dual-engine Centaur second stage
    • Ascent abort emergency detection system validation
    • Starliner separation from the Atlas V rocket
    • Approach, rendezvous, and docking with International Space Station
    • Starliner hatch opening and closing, astronaut ingress, and quiescent mode
    • Crew habitability and internal interface evaluation
    • Starliner undocking and departure from space station
    • Starliner deorbit, and crew module separation from service module
    • Starliner descent and atmospheric entry with aero-deceleration system
    • Precision targeted landing and recovery

    NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said Starliner made a “picture-perfect landing” and “meet all mission objectives.” 

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    Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will be a human spaceflight program redundancy program for the space agency. If one spacecraft encountered issues, the agency will lean on the other for upcoming missions. Also, this marks a time when the West has become less reliant on Russia for space operations. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 20:40

  • Yuan, Dollar Divergence Heralds More Losses Ahead
    Yuan, Dollar Divergence Heralds More Losses Ahead

    by George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live Commentator and analyst

    The Chinese yuan is on track for the first weekly slide in more than two months, despite a much lower dollar and good news on the trade front. That’s a tell-tale sign of how pessimistic market sentiment is and may only reinforce expectations that yuan’s downtrend is here to stay.

    The Chinese currency has lost 1% so far this week in offshore trading and 0.7% onshore. While the drop itself doesn’t seem very remarkable, the context is key: the yuan couldn’t hold on to its Monday rally amid news of possible US tariff removals. It also failed to benefit from a 1.3% weekly decline in the dollar index.

    The last time a weaker greenback couldn’t help at all was in March: the dollar index lost 0.9% in the week ending March 18, while the onshore yuan dropped 0.34% and its offshore counterpart declined 0.14%. Since then, the Chinese currency has weakened more than 5.5%. Only the Turkish lira, Argentine peso and Hungarian forint lost more among 24 emerging-market peers tracked by Bloomberg.

    Following a brief rebound from May 13 to 24, the offshore yuan is sliding once again and is now poised to revisit 6.80 support. A breach may open up path toward year-to-date low at 6.8380, last seen on May 13, when the dollar index found its recent top. Further losses could send the currency toward 6.90, a level last seen in August 2020.

    The discord between China’s top leaders over whether to prioritize Covid control or economic growth is paralyzing the implementation of policy responses, according to eight senior local government officials and financial bureaucrats. It may also amplify the negative sentiment toward broader Chinese assets and weigh heavily on the yuan, independent of what the dollar does.

    On Thursday, China’s trade-weighted yuan fell below 100 for the first time in seven month, according to a Bloomberg replica of the CFETS RMB index that tracks the exchange rate against 24 peers. Fidelity International and Credit Agricole CIB both predicted more downside for the trade-weighted gauge, with the dollar-yuan pair possibly testing 7 level in the coming months.

    “China and the US are moving in different directions and I don’t see PBOC stand in the way of depreciation,” said David Loevinger, Los Angeles-based managing director at TCW Group Inc. and a former China specialist at the US Treasury. He said the big selloff is over and the next 6- to 12-month view is a gradually weaker yuan.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 20:20

  • Israel Informs US It Killed Iranian IRGC Colonel, Officials Infuriated Over Media Leak
    Israel Informs US It Killed Iranian IRGC Colonel, Officials Infuriated Over Media Leak

    Israeli defense and intelligence officials have owned up to the brazen assassination of a senior Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officer, which took place in Tehran on Sunday. A pair of unidentified gunmen drove up to IRGC Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei as he sat in his car outside his home. The Quds Force colonel was shot five times, and his death was quickly blamed on Israeli intelligence given prior similar killings.

    The NY Times days later reported that “The Israelis told the Americans the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the Quds Force known as Unit 840, according to the intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information.”

    Banner of the slain IRGC colonel in Tehran after his killing, via AP.

    It described, “Unit 840 is tasked with abductions and assassinations of foreigners around the world, including Israeli civilians and officials, according to Israeli government, military and intelligence officials.” Col. Khadaei was reportedly the deputy head of the covert unit.

    The Israelis didn’t comment for the story, however the Times stressed “But according to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has informed American officials that it was behind the killing.”

    The Israeli government is now said to be infuriated by the leak and are calling for an internal US intelligence investigation. Knesset member Ram Ben Barak, who heads the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said “It mainly harms trust.” 

    “We have very many close relationships and a lot of cooperation between us, which all depend on trust, and when it is violated in some way then it damages future cooperation,” he said in an Israeli radio interview Thursday. “I hope the Americans investigate the leak and figure out where it came from and why it occurred.”

    There’s currently speculation that the assassination was intended to highlight Iranian covert efforts to kill Israeli officials and civilians, something which Tehran has rejected. The timing, some pundits have said, was meant to further disrupt the stalled nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers in Vienna. A separate follow-up Thursday report in The Wall Street Journal suggests the slain Quds Force colonel was part of Iranian efforts to take out an Israeli diplomat, however this cannot be confirmed.

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    “An Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer shot and killed outside his Tehran home led the group’s efforts to assassinate opponents of Iran around the world, including recent failed plots to kill an Israeli diplomat, an American general and a French intellectual, according to people familiar with the matter,” WSJ writes citing anonymous sources.

    President Ibrahim Raisi had vowed in a Monday speech revenge on Israel, after semi-official ISNA news agency claimed that the Guards uncovered and arrested spies backed by Israeli intelligence. The reports were not commented on by Israel. “The thugs and terrorist groups affiliated with global oppression and Zionism will face consequences for their actions,” Raisi had said.

    The assassination is being widely viewed as the biggest foreign sponsored attack inside Iran since the killing of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. Israel was widely acknowledged as behind that killing which also took place in a Tehran suburb.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 20:00

  • Biden’s ATF Pick, Senator Clash Over 'Assault Weapon' Definition During Judiciary Hearing
    Biden’s ATF Pick, Senator Clash Over ‘Assault Weapon’ Definition During Judiciary Hearing

    Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Senate Judiciary Committee on May 25 met to consider the nomination of Steven Dettelbach to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco (ATF), leading to a tense exchange between Dettelbach and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) over the definition of an “assault weapon.”

    President Joe Biden (R) listens as Steve Dettelbach, nominee for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, speaks at the Rose Garden of the White House on April 11, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    The meeting comes in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 dead, sparking renewed cries among Democrats for stricter federal gun control legislation.

    In its 50-year history, the ATF has had recurring difficulties in getting Senate confirmation for appointed directors, with only one nominee—B. Todd Jones, appointed by President Barack Obama—ever being confirmed by the Senate.

    In September 2021, President Joe Biden was forced to withdraw the nomination of his first pick for ATF director—David Chipman—after Chipman proved too controversial even for some Democrats. In the absence of a Senate-confirmed ATF head, the agency has for decades been run by non-confirmed acting directors.

    “I vow, if I’m given the privilege of serving as director, to partner with others to advance the cause of public safety, and to approach that task—especially here and now—with an open heart, with open ears, and with an open mind,” Dettelbach concluded his opening remarks.

    Reviving a common GOP line of questioning for would-be gun regulators, Sen. Cotton during his questioning of Dettelbach asked for a definition of the word “assault weapon,” a catch-all term often used by gun control advocates but which many have difficulty defining.

    Citing a 2018 campaign Dettelbach mounted to become attorney general of Ohio, Cotton noted “you called for a ban on ‘assault weapons.’ What is an ‘assault weapon,’ could you define it for me?”

    “Senator, when I was a candidate for office I did talk about restrictions on assault weapons, I did not define the term and I haven’t gone through the process of defining that term,” Dettelbach admitted.

    He continued, “That would only be for the Congress—if it chose to take that up—to do, and if you chose to take it up, I would be at the ATF and there’s perhaps expertise or data we could give you so you could make the appropriate decision to both protect the public and protect the Second Amendment.”

    “So you’re running for public office and you called for a ban on assault weapons but you don’t have a definition for assault weapons?” Cotton asked.

    “Senator, it would only be for a legislative body—whether it was the Ohio legislature or the Congress—it would only be for a legislative body to do that work, and I acknowledge that that would be a difficult task to define assault weapons because, on the one hand, you don’t want it to be so narrow that it doesn’t offer the protections that are intended, and on the other hand you don’t want it to be so broad that it infringes unnecessarily on the rights of citizens,” Dettelbach responded.

    “I acknowledge that that’s a difficult task but it would be for this body to do, not for me,” he added.

    “Why is it so hard to define assault weapons?” Cotton asked.

    “Well, I think senator, it’s what I told you which—it’s you don’t want to be so narrow as to be meaningless and you don’t want to be so broad as to infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans unnecessarily,” Dettelbach responded.

    Pushing further, Cotton argued that while various types of firearms exist—ranging from pistols to shotguns to rifles—there is no category clearly defined as an “assault weapon.”

    “Can you go into a federally-licensed firearm dealer and find a category of weapons on the wall labeled as ‘assault weapons?’” Cotton asked.

    “I don’t believe that’s a category of weapons that’s labeled on the wall of retailers—it’s not necessarily what retailers call it that would affect the decision of a legislative body but, no, in answer to your question,” Dettelbach responded.

    “It’s what politicians and lawyers in Washington call it,” Cotton retorted.

    During the hearing, several Democrats took the opportunity to push for stricter gun control laws in the wake of the Texas shooting.

    “You come here at a moment of extraordinary anguish, anxiety, and anger in this country,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Dettelbach. “And I believe that we must move forward with gun violence prevention reforms that make our laws more effective and give you more tools you need in saving communities and individuals.”

    “I believe in the Second Amendment,” Blumenthal insisted. “It’s the law of the land. There are measures we can take that are consistent with the Second Amendment that will separate people from firearms if they are dangerous to themselves or others—red flag statutes, background checks, safe storage … ghost gun bans, and others.”

    Blumenthal called for the Senate “to seize this moment of extraordinary challenge … to make sure you have a mandate from the United States Congress to do your job.”

    “We’re the only civilized nation on earth that watches our citizens, our children, get gunned down and does nothing to prevent it from happening again,” said Senate president pro tempore Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in an impassioned statement.

    “We’re cowards if we don’t act, cowards!” Leahy added.

    Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), against many in his party, rejected efforts to tie the ATF nomination to the Texas shooting.

    “I don’t think the shooting in Texas has anything to do with the ATF nominee,” Tester told reporters.

    Some Republicans, by contrast, attributed the Texas shooting and other shooting to causes beyond the availability of firearms.

    “For far too long [we’ve] failed to look back at the root causes of rampage violence,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said.

    “Questions involving things like ‘Why is our culture suddenly producing so many young men who wanna murder innocent people?’ It raises questions like, could things like fatherlessness, isolation from families, the breakdown of civil society or the glorification of violence be contributing factors?

    “But instead the left once again is calling for more gun control. They wanna crack down on law abiding Americans and federal firearms licensees who wanna follow the law instead of armed criminals.”

    Lee also blasted gun control groups like the Brady Campaign for “[wasting] no time in trying to profit off of this tragedy,” noting that immediately following news of the shooting several gun control groups sent out emails asking for donations to “play off of [peoples’] emotions” about the shooting.

    Despite his party’s calls for a doomed test vote on a gun control bill to show where Republicans stand, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a May 25 statement that there would be no such vote. Instead, Schumer called for Americans to vote Democrat in November for more wide-reaching gun control legislation.

    To be confirmed, Dettelbach will need to prove more popular with several moderate Democrats than Biden’s previous nominee.

    In September, controversy surrounding Chipman fractured the Democratic unity needed for a confirmation. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), along with moderate Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) signaled strong skepticism toward the nominee.

    It remains unclear whether these moderates will feel more confident in Dettelbach. Because the Senate is evenly-divided, a single defection would cause Dettelbach’s nomination to fail, leaving the ATF without a Senate-confirmed director.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 19:40

  • Watch: Photo Bomb, Chicago Style – Man Points Gun At Live TV Crew
    Watch: Photo Bomb, Chicago Style – Man Points Gun At Live TV Crew

    “Good day, Chicago!”

    …

    Chicago police are looking for a man who took photo-bombing to the next level on Wednesday morning as a local Fox affiliate aired the quite aspirationally-titled “Good Day Chicago.”  

    During a live shot from the corner of Clark and Hubbard Streets in downtown, a man crossed behind reporter Joanie Lum and pointed a gun over her shoulder at the crew.

    Video then shows him pointing the gun across the street before merrily skipping away down the sidewalk. 

    So far, there’s no media framing of the incident as an example of black-on-Asian violence.

    Chicago’s in the midst of yet another wave of gun violence that included the killing of a teen next to the famed “Bean” sculpture in Millennium Park on May 14.

    Chicago police are gently referring to the man in Wednesday’s TV incident as a “person of interest.”

    He’s likely to face charges of aggravated assault with a firearm.

    Maybe he’ll plead not guilty by reason of over-caffeination:

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 19:20

  • Cost Of EV Batteries May Increase 15% Amid Supply-Chain Disruptions: Report
    Cost Of EV Batteries May Increase 15% Amid Supply-Chain Disruptions: Report

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

    The cost of electric vehicle batteries is set to soar amid the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict and supply chain disruptions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Monday.

    While electric vehicle sales have remained strong so far this year with 2 million electric cars sold worldwide in the first quarter, IEA said that further efforts to diversify battery manufacturing and critical mineral supplies are needed to reduce the risks of bottlenecks and increased prices going forward.

    A growing number of countries and carmakers across the globe have set out ambitious vehicle electrification targets for the coming decades amid a push to address climate change.

    However, IEA warned that soaring prices for some critical minerals essential for battery manufacturing, supply chain disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in China, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remain the greatest obstacles to strong electric vehicle sales.

    The biggest battery manufacturer in the world is China and more than half of all lithium, cobalt, and graphite processing and refining capacity is located in China.

    In 2021, more than half of all electric vehicles were assembled in China, which is set to maintain its manufacturing dominance.

    “In the longer term, greater efforts are needed to roll out enough charging infrastructure to service the expected growth in electric car sales,” the report also noted.

    Supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have already pushed up the price of key components used in electric vehicles such as cobalt and nickel—the most important of these components—given that Russia is the world’s third-largest supplier.

    Russia is also home to the world’s largest nickel producer, Norilsk Nickel, which produced 145,817 metric tons of nickel in 2021 and is also a large provider of aluminum, which is used in batteries.

    According to the U.S. Geological Survey (pdf), Russia produced 3.7 million metric tons of aluminum last year, making up 5.44 percent of the global production of around 68 million metric tons.

    Meanwhile, lithium, another key component in electric vehicles as well as other electric devices, has seen unprecedented demand as vehicle makers move to battery-powered cars and away from fossil fuels.

    The raw materials that make up the key components in batteries are located deep in the earth’s core and new mining infrastructures take time to set up. The production capacity of existing facilities is also still relatively low, further limiting supply. China produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries.

    Prices for lithium were over seven times higher in May 2022 than at the start of 2021, according to IEA, while prices for cobalt and nickel also rose.

    “All else being equal, the cost of battery packs could increase by 15 percent if these prices stay around current levels, which would reverse several years of declines,” the agency warned.

    IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said, “Policy makers, industry executives, and investors need to be highly vigilant and resourceful in order to reduce the risks of supply disruptions and ensure sustainable supplies of critical minerals.”

    The IEA said it is “working with governments around the world on how to strategically manage resources of critical minerals that are needed for electric vehicles and other key clean energy technologies.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 19:00

  • Rising Rates Are Squeezing Landlord Profits
    Rising Rates Are Squeezing Landlord Profits

    We can’t say we’re surprised. It appears that the rising rate environment (read: literally we are still only at 1% rates) has put pressure on investors who paid top dollar for apartments over the past year. 

    Profits for landlords who have borrowed to buy new apartments and for those who have turned to renting these properties to tenants are starting to come under pressure, according to a new article by the Wall Street Journal. 

    Tenants may find that their rents are being raised as a result of the financial pressures, too, the report notes. It says that annual volume of rental apartment purchases “almost doubled” between 2019 and 2022 while investors spent $63 billion on apartment buildings. 

    But it isn’t just rates that are pressuring the buyers – the sheer speed with which prices moved higher also means shrinking returns for owners. Apartment building prices rose 22.4% during this year’s first quarter, the report says. 

    This type of negative leverage for the owners hasn’t been this prominent since the 2008 crisis, the report notes. Nitin Chexal, chief executive of real-estate investment manager Palladius Capital Management, compared today’s environment to 2008, stating: “You’re seeing a lot of the same mistakes.”

    However, defaults are not expected to be as prominent as 2008 due to investors having less debt. However, outstanding mortgage debt backed by multifamily buildings has “more than doubled since the financial crisis to $1.8 trillion”. 

    The Wall Street Journal wrote that “The median asking rent for any rental unit rose to $1,827 in April, according to Realtor.com, the highest rent on record and a nearly 17% gain from the prior year.”

    If rent growth continues to slow while rates rise, landlords could experience “far reaching consequences”, the report says. 

    David Brickman, CEO of real-estate finance company NewPoint Real Estate Capital and former head of housing-finance company Freddie Mac concluded: “There’s no question you’re going to have rent growth; the question is whether it will outpace interest rates.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 18:40

  • East Coast Diesel Inventories Tighter Again; Other Numbers Offer Buyers Hope
    East Coast Diesel Inventories Tighter Again; Other Numbers Offer Buyers Hope

    By John Kingston of FreightWaves.com

    The trucking sector’s most important statistic in the weekly Energy Information Administration statistical report wasn’t a good one. But a lot of others were.

    With so much focus on the diesel market on the East Coast, the level of inventories has been the key data point to determine whether any easing of the squeeze in supplies is in sight. 

    The information in the weekly report was not positive for the trucking industry. Inventories of ultra low sulfur diesel in the region that the EIA calls PADD 1, which contains the key East Coast markets, declined to 19.375 million barrels from 20.4 million barrels a week before.

    Comparisons of how low these figures are relative to historical figures are difficult in that ULSD has only been the standard diesel product for roughly 10 years. But the latest figures are some of the lowest of the past five to eight years.  

    Last week’s figure was encouraging, because it marked the first time in several weeks that East Coast ULSD stocks had risen. It raised the possibility that inventories were headed up. And while the latest report is still more than the PADD 1 inventories of 19.19 million barrels from two weeks ago, the fact that stocks went down again was a surprise.

    “I did not expect it,” Andrew Lebow of Commodity Research Group said of the decline.

    “The problem is on resupply, and it looks like the only way we’re going to resupply is to ramp up refinery capacity and production.”

    And that’s where most of the other news was positive from the perspective of diesel consumers. Among the statistics in the report that are hopeful for industries that use diesel:

    • U.S. refineries are cranking away. Total refinery utilization for the country was 93.2%. That’s the highest level since the end of 2019. On the East Coast, utilization was 97%, highest since June 2018. However, PADD 1 refinery capacity at that time was listed at about 1.2 million barrels per day. It’s now 818,000 b/d. East Coast refinery utilization is up almost 13 percentage points in just five weeks. 

    • The end result of all that refinery activity is that total distillate production in the U.S., including diesel, was 5.137 million b/d. That is the highest since January 2020, when the country’s refineries would have been making heating oil for the winter. Within that number, U.S. refineries produced 4.875 million b/d of ULSD, up from 4.69 million a week earlier. It was the highest number since August 2020.

    • Exports of all distillates rose to 1.124 million b/d from just over 1 million last week. However, that is still down from the range of 1.3 million to 1.5 million b/d it was running at a few weeks ago. Lebow noted that the arbitrage to export diesel to Europe is closed and what is moving offshore now would likely be deals completed when that window was open and traders could make that movement work. The recent high-water mark for distillate exports — they are not broken out in the weekly reports by specific distillate products — was 1.739 million b/d the week of April 8.

    Despite the tighter East Coast diesel market, the reaction in the physical diesel market was relatively muted. According to benchmark administrator General Index, the spread between ULSD in the Gulf Coast and in New York Harbor narrowed for the third day in a row Wednesday, tightening to 17.73 cents a gallon from 21.5 cents a day earlier. It has moved in relatively steadily for the past seven trading days, dropping from the New York Harbor number holding a premium of 76 cents on May 16 to the latest number. 

    The spread between the Gulf Coast and the East Coast is a good indicator of the tightness in PADD 1. Historically, the New York price is a few cents more than the Gulf Coast, but the recent squeeze drove it up to astronomical numbers that at the start of the month swung between about 50 cents and 65 cents. Watching the spread narrow, even in light of the tighter inventories reported by the EIA, suggests some level of easing in the East Coast inventory squeeze.

    On the CME commodity exchange, the futures price for June barrels of ULSD rose 9.56 cents a gallon to settle at $3.8644 a gallon, a gain of 2.54%. The June contract has only two more trading days before its final day, and it is showing signs of a mild squeeze, far from the enormous surge in front-month pricing when May barrels headed toward that contract’s close.

    The 2.54% gain in ULSD contrasts with a 0.9% increase in the price of RBOB gasoline, an unfinished product used to make finished gasoline. West Texas Intermediate crude was up just 0.04%, while global crude benchmark Brent increased 0.54%.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 18:20

  • "People Are Not In A Good Place" – Mom-And-Pop Investors Panic As Fed Abandons Them
    “People Are Not In A Good Place” – Mom-And-Pop Investors Panic As Fed Abandons Them

    The question that wealth managers are getting across the nation is: “Where can I go to stop getting poorer?”

    Where indeed?

    As institutional investors continue to dump stocks to cash…

    …Corporate insiders have been buying…

    … and as Vanda notes, the panic-bid-ramps in the last few days have been driven largely by retail traders…

    …retail seem to be behind the quick late afternoon recoveries in the S&P 500 in the last few days.

    We suspect that institutional asset managers were the cohort of investors reducing equity allocations in the morning last Friday and yesterday, while retail aggressively bought the dip towards the end of the trading session.

    The large inflows from retail towards the end of the day – without additional selling pressure from institutional investors – were probably the main force behind these sharp intraday rebounds.

    However, as The Wall Street Journal reports, retail ‘investors’ are suffering greatly as the market meltdown accelerates, with some wondering if they will live long enough to see their investments recover.

    As a reminder, the Nasdaq is suffering its largest drawdown since the great financial crisis and the S&P 500 is teetering on the brink of a bear market (while under the surface a number of the largest companies in the world are down very dramatically)…

    The collapse in these widely-held stocks have sparked shock and horror among America’s investing class who have enjoyed a decade on ‘easy street’, buying every dip knowing The Fed will always be there for them.

    WSJ cites one asset manager whose retired clients have thrown in the towel and moved to cash:

    “Those people were not in a good place,” said the CIO.

    “They had a lot of anxiety about goals and dreams and being able to live their lifestyles.”

    Another investor, Craig Bartels, a 46-year-old real-estate broker in Zionsville, Ind., looked to the distant past for advice, reading Ray Dalio’s recent book on economic history and Adrian Goldsworthy’s “How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower.”

    “This sounds like us right now,” he thought, adding that:

    “I don’t think we’re anywhere near the bottom.”

    Another investor, who lives in Manhattan, exclaimed:

    “When you’re banking on that money saved over your lifetime to carry you through and it starts to go away, you feel helpless,” he said.

    “I don’t want to go back to work at 66.”

    Many investors, like Susan Wagner, a recent retiree, have taken their retirement money out of the markets altogether this month.

    “The anxiety was literally me losing sleep, tossing and turning at night wondering how much more we were going to lose,” Ms. Wagner said. Her wife, a former radiologist, was hesitant but eventually agreed.

    “It was too nerve-racking, and I was quite emotional about it,” Ms. Wagner said.

    “I was very upset by what was happening.”

    Perhaps most notably, veteran bond trader Rick Reider, head of BlackRock’s massive fixed income group, admits that:

    “My stomach is churning all day,” adding that “there are so many crosscurrents of uncertainty, and we aren’t going to get closure on any of them for weeks, if not months.”

    Simply put, professional and amateur investor alike – everyone is clueless (and shocked) when The Fed does not have your back.

    And for an anecdote of that ‘cluelessness, one so-called ‘economist’ is quoted as saying in the WSJ article:

    “The Fed is going too far, inflation is a nightmare and the real-estate market is going to crash.”

    So what is it that you want ‘Mrs.Economist’?

    Former Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher said it best in January:

    “Let’s face it Joe, I want to come back to the alcohol metaphor we started with, the market has been wearing beer goggles for the longest possible time…and they just assume the Fed’s going to bail them out. I think the strike price on the Fed put has moved significantly…and unless we have a dramatic turn in the markets that indicates it can infect the real economy, I don’t believe – under this chair in particular who has a credit market background – that they will be weak in following through on what they pronounced.”

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    Back in February 2020, he offered some more thoughts about Wall Street’s ‘lost generation’.

    “The Fed has created this dependency and there’s an entire generation of money-managers who weren’t around in ’74, ’87, the end of the ’90s, and even 2007-2009.. and have only seen a one-way street… of course they’re nervous.”

    “The question is – do you want to feed that hunger? Keep applying that opioid of cheap and abundant money?”

    As we warned at the time, if Fisher is correct, however, that would be bad news for the generation of Wall Street traders who still have never faced a drawn-out bear market in equities (just swift and vicious bear-market corrections like we saw in February and March 2020). If the Fed truly is intent on abandoning the “Fed put”, then two-way volatility might finally become a more regular feature in equity markets.

    It appears after a ten-year consequence-free party, the hangover is here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 05/26/2022 – 18:00

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