- Don't Be Fooled: H.R. 4 Is Just Another Power Grab
Don’t Be Fooled: H.R. 4 Is Just Another Power Grab
Authored by Kyle Hupfer via RealClearPolitics.com,
In June, Democrats failed to sell the federal takeover of state elections known as H.R. 1/S. 1 to the American people. The bill was a laundry list of left-wing fantasies, including using taxpayer dollars to fund political candidates, undermine widely supported voter ID requirements, and totally destroy the authority of states to run their own elections. Americans saw the bill for what it was — a Democrat power grab — and it failed.
Now, Democrats are coming back to the table with new legislation called H.R. 4. They’re dishonestly calling it a compromise. Don’t fall for their partisan lies: H.R. 4 has the same rotten core as H.R. 1 and would make our elections far less secure.
H.R. 4’s goal is to eviscerate the right of states to manage their own elections with appropriate transparency and ballot-security safeguards. It will attempt to misuse the 1965 Voting Rights Act to achieve this goal. “Preclearance” is central to H.R. 4 — this plank of the law would require every state election official to submit any election law changes to the Department of Justice for approval. In short, Democrats want states to ask Washington, D.C., for permission to pass local laws that would, for example, require voter ID — a policy that polls consistently find roughly 80% of Americans in support. Joe Biden and Democrats want their politicized Department of Justice to control how states manage their own elections. This is the same Department of Justice that recently sued the State of Georgia over its new election integrity laws. The RNC intervened to protect Georgia in that lawsuit, and we expect another win there for Republicans on the heels of our recent victory in Brnovich v. DNC, which banned ballot trafficking in Arizona. This Department of Justice is currently trying to strong-arm states into making their elections less secure and transparent, and Joe Biden wants to expand its mandate to control every aspect of state-level elections.
That is big-government totalitarianism at its very worst. It bears mentioning that the Supreme Court found old preclearance formulas to be unconstitutional in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder case. Preclearance’s subjugation of state law to Washington overreach undermines the rights of states to develop and apply best voting practices informed by local knowledge. Democrats are trying to revive an outdated, unconstitutional provision from the 1960s in their stop-at-nothing efforts to undermine election integrity.
H.R. 4 contains other provisions that should concern every American who wants elections to be free, fair, and transparent. The bill takes aim at efforts to clean up voter rolls, attempting to handcuff local officials who attempt to keep their voter lists up-to-date and accurate. For example, the bill would prohibit states from participating in an inter-state accountability process to ensure accurate lists. The bill would also force federal courts to take inaccurate census data and subject every existing strict voter ID requirement to Department of Justice review.
This is not what the American people want. Polling shows that Americans — including a majority of Democrats and minority voters — support voter ID. Polling also shows that 68% of voters believe that state legislatures should decide the voting rules and regulations for their state, not the federal government. That number alone should invalidate Democrat attempts to strip all local authority from state-level election officials.
Democrats are upset that states like Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Iowa have taken the initiative and passed strong election integrity laws. They can’t bear the thought that states might act without input from D.C. bureaucrats. That concept is antithetical to their power-grab mentality, and so they want to suppress state-run elections.
Democrats failed to pass H.R. 1, and H.R. 4 will meet a similar fate. H.R. 4 is totally out of line with public opinion and an extreme power grab that Americans will reject. As Democrat lies and schemes continue to fail, Republicans will continue to ensure the security and transparency of our elections.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 23:30 - Pentagon Claims Only One Explosion Occurred During Kabul Airport Attack As Death Toll Hits 170
Pentagon Claims Only One Explosion Occurred During Kabul Airport Attack As Death Toll Hits 170
Crowds continued to throng Kabul airport on Friday despite the deadly attacks that rattled the airport yesterday, even as the death toll climbed to north of 170 and the British government released new information about UK personnel who were killed.
But despite the fact that multiple reporters on the ground reporter hearing at least two explosions, the Pentagon has just announced that, actually, only one suicide-bombing took place during the “coordinated” attack on the airport. Despite early reports to the contrary, the Pentagon insists that there was only one explosion that rocked the perimeter of Kabul’s airport, not two.
Army Major General William Taylor told reporters that officials now believe there was only one suicide bomber.
“We do not believe that there was a second explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, that it was one suicide bomber,” Gen. Taylor said.
He explained that “very dynamic events” like those on Thursday often lead to some misinformation being reported.
Additionally, the reported toll of the bombing rose sharply, with local health officials saying that as many as 170 people were killed and at least another 200 were wounded. According to the NYT, that estimate has been corroborated by interviews with people on the ground.
In other news, Spain’s leftist PM slammed the US withdrawal, while celebrating Spain’s success when it comes to evacuating 2,206 people via 17 flights, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a news conference, calling the rescue operation “mission accomplished.”
Still, the situation inside Afghanistan is “a tragedy, a crisis, a failure,” he added. Spain had harbored “many doubts” about the US decision to pull out. “All of this is going to bring a series of consequences from the point of view of geopolitics, security and migratory flows that evidently we will have to have to reconsider, and take measures jointly.”
When pressed by reporters, Gen. Taylor declined to detail how U.S. will follow through on Biden’s vow to “hunt down” ISIS-K terrorists while also withdrawing troops: “We have options there right now, that we can ensure the commander has the ability to take action as those opportunities present themselves”
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed Friday that two British nationals and the child of another British national were killed during Thursday’s attacks. Raab said he was “deeply saddened” by the deaths and added that “Yesterday’s despicable attack underlines the dangers facing those in Afghanistan and reinforces why we are doing all we can to get people out. We are offering consular support to their families.
Activity at the airport picked up again on Friday, though the size of the crow thronging outside the airport perimeter had shrunk considerably from the levels from earlier in the week. The US military and the Taliban tried to exert what authority they could, as militants with Kalashnikov rifles helped keep crowds farther away from the airport’s entrance gates, guarding checkpoints with trucks and at least one Humvee parked in the roads. The American military resumed evacuation flights, and the White House said early Friday that 12,500 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan in the previous 24 hours, despite the attacks.
Still, an estimated hundreds of thousands of Afghans and western citizens remain in Afghanistan despite being desperate to escape from the rule of the Taliban.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 23:00 - CCP's Anti-Satellite Weapons Present Complex Challenge For US: Experts
CCP’s Anti-Satellite Weapons Present Complex Challenge For US: Experts
Authored by Andrew Thornbrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued to develop an array of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons designed to overwhelm U.S. assets in space, even as advisers to the Biden administration issued calls for cooperation between the two nations.
Military vehicles carrying cruise missiles are displayed in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images) The CCP’s growing arsenal of space weapons now includes missiles, cyberweapons, satellite jamming devices, space robots with grabbing arms, and high-powered lasers designed to blind satellites from the ground as they pass overhead.
Development of these capabilities has been ongoing since at least 2007, when the CCP successfully exploded a satellite with a missile in low-earth orbit. And earlier this year, the chief of operations for the U.S. Space Force testified that both Russia and China were continuing the development of electronic warfare packages, signal jammers, and directed energy weapons.
Underscoring the centrality of space in modern military doctrine, the CCP has continued ASAT launches disguised as rocket tests, increased Sino-Russian cooperation in space, and developed new technologies, including so-called inspector satellites capable of grabbing other objects in space, and “nesting doll” systems consisting of seemingly harmless satellites that then release other, smaller satellites of unknown capabilities.
Experts say that China’s emerging ASAT technologies present an immediate threat to U.S. and international security, but disagree on the exact nature of that threat and the United States’ ability to effectively deter and counter it.
A Persistent Threat
Bill Woolf, the president and founder of the Space Force Association, told The Epoch Times that space-based capabilities were vital to contemporary security strategy, but warned that the proliferation of new technologies likely meant that the CCP and other actors had the ability to attack U.S. space infrastructure.
“Space is such a critical capability to all of our military operations in the U.S., and with our allies and partners,” Woolf said. “So, talking about the technology, it’s safe to presume that there’s technology out there that can disrupt, degrade, or deny our space capabilities.”
With that in mind, however, Woolf stressed that the military-centric development of ASAT technologies in space was not novel and presented merely one more layer of complexity to the international security space.
“People get pretty animated when they say that space has become a military domain,” Woolf said. “[But] space has been a military domain since we deployed military capabilities into space.”
The militarization of space has been ongoing from the Cold War up through the present. In the 1970s, for example, the Soviet Union successfully mounted a bomber-defense gun to a satellite and performed the only publicly known test fire of a ballistic weapon in space. Similarly, Russia was caught last year testing a new space-based ASAT weapon.
Gen. Jay Raymond (R), Chief of Space Operations, and CMSgt Roger Towberman (L), with Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett present President Donald Trump with the official flag of the United States Space Force in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on May 15, 2020. (Samuel Corum-Pool/Getty Images) Likewise, the CCP has repeatedly been observed developing classified ASAT technologies since its explosive demonstration in 2007 and, in 2019, the Pentagon issued a report acknowledging that the CCP’s primary goal was to target the United States and allied satellite capabilities.
Woolf explained that the CCP was specifically pursuing a course of action aimed at undermining the United States and allied space assets, but that this militarization of outer space was a natural evolution of the domain given the technologies there.
“In their doctrine they discuss that they will attempt to degrade or deny all of our space capabilities,” Woolf said of the CCP.
For Woolf, the primary challenge facing the United States and its allies in space is determining which threats present the most immediate danger, and how to deter and counter them.
“Regardless of the threat, because the threat’s out there,” Woolf said, “the key becomes what are the warnings?”
Deterrence Difficult in ‘Most Obscure Battlefield’
The problem of determining what constitutes a reliable warning is something that Paul Szymanski has often thought about. Szymanski is an author and researcher specializing in space strategy, and has spent the last 43 years studying space warfare, during which time he helped to develop intelligence indicators to signal possible enemy actions in space.
According to Szymanski, notable risks facing the United States in space are the relative difficulty of determining who is doing what in space and why.
Particularly in the era of cyberwarfare and false flag attacks, or those designed to look like they are perpetrated by someone other than the actual culprit, Szymanski worries that current technologies simply do not have sufficiently accurate sensors and algorithms to effectively determine what is happening to space infrastructure in real time.
“It’s the most obscure battlefield,” he said.
Further, there is great difficulty in conceptualizing space conflict, Szymanki noted, because assets in orbit can be physically distant but mathematically close for the purposes of carrying out attacks. And once a vital system goes down, it may be too late for a nation to recover.
“That’s the big thing about space,” Szymanski said, “it’s always worldwide.”
“I don’t think you can defend in space,” he added. “It might just be whoever shoots first wins.”
A Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on June 17, 2021, the first crewed mission to China’s new space station. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images) Concerning the CCP’s expanding arsenal of ASAT technologies, Szymanski said that “inspector” satellites equipped with arms likely presented a more serious threat than laser technologies, as the use of ASAT lasers would take time to correctly target satellites on orbit, while human-controlled inspectors could easily be used to knock rival satellites out of orbit.
“I was surprised that [the U.S. is] already admitting that China has these inspector satellites with manipulator arms,” Szymanski said. “If you’ve got something like that, you can do just about anything.”
“I can say that [the CCP is] certainly going for it,” Szymanski said. “Certainly, this manipulator satellite is an ASAT, though they can conveniently call it a ‘maintenance satellite.’”
The CCP has disguised the military applications of such technologies for years by developing dual-purpose technologies that offer an innocuous research function that conceals military functionality. Experts have previously called such dual-use technologies and programs a direct threat to the United States.
Szymanski also noted that there are immense political difficulties concerning decisions about which space systems should be funded first, as most space systems provide information rather than hard assets and it is difficult to define a specific monetary or strategic value to them.
“The trouble with space is it’s all information,” Szymanski said. “How do you measure the value of communications versus imagery?”
Many Threats, Few Ripostes
Ultimately, Woolf and Szymanski offered competing views on the status quo of the new space race, and what it might mean for the future of U.S. strategy.
For Woolf, the answer lies primarily in developing, supporting, and enforcing a rules-based order in outer space that complements the order commonly recognized throughout the international community.
“Just like every other domain, there needs to be identified norms of behavior, clearly articulated, that say this is how folks behave in space,” Woolf said.
Szymanski, meanwhile, expressed weariness with the idea that the United States should continue to seek a rules-based order with a rival apparently set on violating rules-based norms. He felt that the United States’ dedication to deterring the CCP rather than confronting it might only result in buying the CCP more time to prepare a first and, perhaps, fatal blow.
“I get the impression that we’re going to self-deter and the space war is going to be over before we can do anything about it,” Szymanski said.
“The only purpose of the Space Force is to support terrestrial forces,” Szymanski added. “If you lose a war in space, you may as well not even start the war on the ground.”
“They want to say, ‘we have the technologies, we’ll win,’ but we had the technologies in Afghanistan. Why aren’t we winning?”
To that end, Woolf noted that persistent threats have always been a reality of politics and that it is the job of the military and government to uphold the rules by doing the best they can based on knowledge of extant and emerging threats.
“There is a threat,” Woolf said. “We just have to be prepared for that eventuality and have the systems in place to mitigate the impact of that potential threat.”
Andrew Thornebrooke is a freelance reporter covering China-related issues with a focus on defense and security. He holds a MA in military history from Norwich University and authors the newsletter Quixote Hyperdrive.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 22:30 - Japan Plans To Build Undersea Tunnel To Help Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into The Pacific
Japan Plans To Build Undersea Tunnel To Help Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into The Pacific
In a world where the UN is pressuring the west (but oddly not China) to drastically lower emissions to save the world from global warming, where ESG investing is the hottest new trend in the investment universe, it’s remarkable that the government of Japan would do something so retrograde as to dump treated wastewater from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant off shore.
TEPCO has finally settled on a plan to get rid of the nuclear wastewater that has been building up in the ruined reactors of the nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi. The utility will construct an underwater pipeline 1 kilometer long to dump the water directly from the ruins of reactor No. 1 into the Pacific Ocean, where experts believe currents will quickly dilute it and carry it away.
The undersea tunnel will be constructed by hollowing out bedrock on the seabed near the No. 5 reactor at the Fukushima plant, and will stretch 1km east to the sea, according to the Japan Times.
The news, which was reported Tuesday, isn’t exactly a surprise. TEPCO, the Japanese utility tasked with overseeing the cleanup of the plant, which became the epicenter of a major nuclear disaster when an earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck the plant, causing three reactors to melt down. Aside from Chernobyl, Fukushima is the only nuclear incident to earn a Level 7 designation on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
According to Nikkei, TEPCO is planning to officially announce the decision Wednesday. The final plan will then be presented to Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority next month for review. The fishing industry in the area is understandably opposed to the measure, but few analysts expect their resistance to scuttle the plan, given the lack of alternatives for disposing of the radioactive wastewater.
Since the Japanese government first approved the plan in April, TEPCO has explored whether it should release the water along the shore, or further out at sea.
The plan to dump it further from shore eventually won out, as experts decided that this strategy had a better chance of seeing the wastewater flushed away by Ocean currents (apparently, the flow of the currents can greatly complicate the dumping).
Innkeepers and other business operators in Fukushima were also in favor of discharging the wastewater far enough away to prevent reputational damage (or any potential blowback). Before releasing the wastewater, TEPCO plans to remove as much radioactive material as it can, then dilute what remains with at least 100 parts of seawater.
Before dumping the water, TEPCO says it will remove as much radioactive material as it can, then dilute whatever is left with 100 parts of seawater.
To be sure, Japan’s fishermen aren’t the only party opposed to the plan. Back in April, China slammed Japan’s plans to dump the wastewater in the Pacific, even going so far as to threaten retaliation.
Pumping the water out of (at least one) the rectors is an important step toward cleaning up Fukushima Daiichi, but the effort remains a long way from finished. Last year, TEPCO outlined a 44-year plan to decommission reactor No. 2.
It all but guarantees that Japan will be dealing with the cleanup of the disaster at Fukushima for some time. It might not even be finished by the time Japan hosts its next Olympics.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 22:00 - Obama Defense Secretary Already Calling For Fresh Military Occupation Of Afghanistan
Obama Defense Secretary Already Calling For Fresh Military Occupation Of Afghanistan
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
The chaos in Afghanistan created by the appalling organisation of withdrawing from the country by the Biden administration has already prompted globalists to begin fresh calls for a new US military occupation of the country, with Obama’s former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declaring that US forces will have to return.
In an interview on CNN, Panetta, also a former CIA head, proclaimed “The bottom line is, our work is not done. We’re going to have to go after ISIS.
Following the suicide bombings Thursday that killed over 100 people, 13 of them US marines, Panetta said “We’re going to have to go back in to get ISIS. We’re probably going to have to go back in when Al Qaeda resurrects itself, as they will, with this Taliban. They’ve gave safe haven to Al Qaeda before, they’ll probably do it again.”
“We can’t leave the War on Terrorism, which still is a threat to our security,” Panetta added.
Watch:
“There’s no question that it’s probably Joe Biden’s worst nightmare to lose 13 Marines as a result of what’s happened here,” says former CIA director Leon Panetta of the deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
“This has to be the worst day in his administration.” pic.twitter.com/ykI8bt53De
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) August 26, 2021
Panetta’s comments come as it has been revealed that The 20 year occupation of Afghanistan has cost $2.3 TRILLION, according to new figures published this week by the Brown University Costs of War project.
“We’re probably going to have to go back in” to Afghanistan, Leon Panetta tells CNN. Was that the plan along with flooding middle America with refugees or are they that incompetent?
— LaserDog (@mefollowthem) August 27, 2021
Under president Trump ISIS had been practically wiped out, with what remnants were left over severely weakened, yet now the extremists are the biggest threat to America again.
Everyone who voted for Biden in the name of restoring “normality” to US foreign policy is, at best, a fucking idiot.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 26, 2021
Every Neo-Con, who for God knows what reason still has a large platform, has gallons of blood on their hands yet again
Why the fuck does anyone still listen to these parasites? Why do they have newspaper columns, TV interviews, verified Twitter accounts?
Go and crawl in a hole.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 26, 2021
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 21:30 - Watch: Mexican Standoff As Protesters Block AMLO's SUV For Two Hours
Watch: Mexican Standoff As Protesters Block AMLO’s SUV For Two Hours
It’s not very common when the president of a country is surrounded by angry protesters and is not allowed to leave their motorcade. That’s what happened to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on Friday morning when a radical group of demonstrators blocked his SUV and other vehicles en route to a military base in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The CNTE teachers union protesters prevented the president from entering the military facility where he typically delivers his daily press briefing in person, according to Bloomberg.
Video of the incident shows AMLO in the front seat of the SUV as more than 100 protesters surrounded the motorcade.
At one point in the standoff, AMLO spoke in a live stream from within the vehicle, saying he “cannot allow myself to be blackmailed by anybody.” The video was aired at his daily press briefing, where Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandon filled in for the president.
Mexico president Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke at a press conference via his car this morning after protestors blocked his arrival pic.twitter.com/6FTeNM1uQd
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) August 27, 2021
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“I cannot allow this because the president cannot be held hostage by anyone,” AMLO said.
Demonstrators yelled anti-government slogans and lightly damaged his vehicle.
#LoÚltimo | “Aquí me quedo (en la camioneta), no acepto chantajes”: AMLO contestó así a los integrantes de la CNTE que retienen su camioneta en Chiapas. https://t.co/RZKoJPzFeN
📹: Mariana Escobedo pic.twitter.com/CRhQdgTkON— Político MX (@politicomx) August 27, 2021
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The oddity behind the incident is that police, soldiers, and or the National Guard didn’t break up the protest during the two hours.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 21:00 - The Mask Mandate Farce
The Mask Mandate Farce
By Betsy McCaughey of The Epoch Times
Students wear protective masks as they arrive for classes at the Immaculate Conception School while observing COVID-19 prevention protocols in The Bronx borough of New York on Sept. 9, 2020. (John Minchillo/AP Photo) Newly sworn-in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is wasting no time taking sides in the school mask wars. Even before taking the top job, she told NBC’s “Today” that she intends to mandate masks for all public school students in the state.
She’s got President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party on her side, but the science is against her. There are no studies that demonstrate forcing young kids to wear masks reduces the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
Mandating masks also ignores the fundamental fact that not all masks are created equal. That should be the basis for a truce in the mask wars breaking out all over the nation. Mandates that settle for cloth masks with cartoon characters on them are a joke.
Most of the masks kids are wearing are laughably ineffective. A cloth mask blocks only 3 percent of viral particles from reaching the wearer, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. For such a minuscule difference, who would force kids to struggle with masks all day?
Instead of mandating masks, school districts should hand out effective masks, such as N95 or KN95 masks, at the beginning of the school day to kids whose parents request them. These masks block 95 percent of incoming viral particles. The masks were in short supply at the beginning of the pandemic, but no longer.
Flat surgical masks made from nonwoven polypropylene would be an improvement over what most kids wear. They block out 56 percent of virus particles, according to the same British study. But note that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns a surgical mask “does NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection” in a health care setting.
Helping families who favor masking is smarter than producing classrooms full of kids with soiled, ineffective masks and many outraged parents.
The delta variant accounts for 98 percent of U.S. cases now and appears to be more dangerous to children. But would masks at school make a difference?
Not according to a CDC study of 169 Georgia elementary schools last winter. CDC researchers found that schools requiring staff and teachers to mask up had 37 percent fewer cases of COVID, and schools that improved air quality and ventilation had 39 percent fewer cases. Those approaches work. But mandating that students wear masks had no statistically significant impact on the spread of COVID. Mandating masks and letting masks be optional produced the same results. Not surprising considering the kinds of masks most kids wear.
Yet a week after releasing the Georgia study, the agency reversed course and recommended universal masking in school without offering new findings to justify that 180-degree flip. Perhaps the agency looked at the rising cases among children and panicked.
No surprise. Over the course of the pandemic, the CDC has earned a reputation as the “Centers for Disease Confusion.” The agency should have been guided by its own research.
Instead, it kowtowed to political correctness. Only a minority of Republicans support mandating masks, while 92 percent of Democrats agree, according to an Aug. 17 Axios/Ipsos poll.
Ten states—mostly blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey, and California—mandate masks. Other states leave it up to local school boards. And eight red states, including Florida, ban local school boards from mandating masks, insisting parents get to decide.
Last week, Biden escalated the mask wars by threatening federal Department of Education lawsuits against the seven states. The New York Times followed with a full-throated endorsement of Biden’s maneuver, calling mandatory masking a “common-sense public health” policy.
Sorry. The science doesn’t support it.
Hochul argues that the New York Health Department has the authority to require masking in the state. According to the letter of the law, she’s right. But the Health Department has lost credibility after forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients and covering up the deadly results. The Health Department can’t be trusted.
Instead, Hochul should put parents in charge and provide effective masks for families who want them.
That’s good advice for governors in every state. Mandating masks that don’t work is a farce.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 20:30 - "I Demand Accountability": Marine Commander Fired For Viral Video Ripping 'Inept' Afghan War Decisions
“I Demand Accountability”: Marine Commander Fired For Viral Video Ripping ‘Inept’ Afghan War Decisions
Though there are abundant examples of retired and former military officers publicly demanding accountability of the Biden administration over how the horribly bungled and now utterly tragic Afghan draw down and evacuation is going, it’s incredibly rare and almost unheard of to see an active duty officer voice criticisms directed at top Pentagon brass on a public level.
But one high ranking Marine officer has done just that in a now viral video. Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller until Friday was a sitting Marine infantry battalion commander in good standing, but late in the day it’s been confirmed he was promptly relieved of his command over his statements. “I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, ‘I demand accountability,'” the Lieutenant colonel said in the Facebook video which already racked up millions of views across various platforms.
“I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability.” – Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller on the failures in Afghanistan that led to American servicemen dying. pic.twitter.com/JPH3nTctrG
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) August 27, 2021
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Following the horrific deaths of 13 American soldiers and over 160 Afghans during yesterday’s suicide attack on Kabul airport, Scheller shredded the “ineptitude” of the military’s top leadership, even questioning whether the entirety of the botched withdrawal and evacuation effort means Americans have “died in vain” over the course of the whole two-decade long war.
His focus in the scathing critique was to question whether top brass stood up to the Biden administration, even while knowing that the administration’s decision-making would lead to chaos, disaster, and possible deaths – as is tragically playing out now…
“I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say ‘hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone,'” he said.
“Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say ‘we completely messed this up.’” Scheller questioned further. What makes the short video unprecedented and raw is also that he’s in uniform, sitting in what appears to be his base office (such ‘political speech’ in open contradiction of the chain of command while in uniform violates DoD policies). The long-serving officer of 17 years knows this, as he later acknowledged in a short follow-up message. “Did any of you throw your rank on the table…” – and question? …Sheller himself does just that, and is now paying the price for it.
Politico and others later in the day Friday confirmed that not only was Scheller quickly relieved of command within 24 hours, but that action is being taken which will lead to discharge from the service altogether, likely pending UCMJ proceedings.
Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, who posted a viral video demanding accountability from military leaders over Afghanistan, has been relieved of his duties and will leave the Marine Corps, the service confirms.
— Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) August 27, 2021
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“I’ve been in the Marine infantry for 17 years. I started my tour with Victor 1-8, that’s the current unit that’s doing perimeter security, dealing with the mess that’s going on there,” Scheller explained in the video.
It’s being widely reported that until being relieved on Friday, he was commander of the School of Infantry East (SOI-EAST) at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
In the video he ripped everyone from top Marine commanders to the Secretary of Defense for failures in Afghanistan which led to more senseless deaths.
“But we have a secretary of defense that testified to Congress in May that the Afghan National Security Forces could withstand the Taliban advance,” he said. “We have Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs — who the commandant is a member of that — who’s supposed to advise on military policy. We have a Marine combatant commander. All of these people are supposed to advise.”
1. Lt Col Scheller is substantively 100% right.
2. When I was in, and if he made this, I would’ve relieved him of command. No politics.
3. But the standard has changed. The leadership changed it. The rule is now uniformed military can do politics. So I would give him a medal. https://t.co/ruHzagEQf0
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 27, 2021
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Should things continue to spiral downhill in Kabul over these coming days, possibly with more terror attacks looming, could the American public witness more such symbolic acts of ‘rebellion’ to come within the ranks of active duty US troops against the Biden administration?
* * *
Lt. Col. Scheller’s full video comments can be viewed here.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 20:00 - Evacuation Warnings Issued As Massive Caldor Fire Nears Lake Tahoe
Evacuation Warnings Issued As Massive Caldor Fire Nears Lake Tahoe
Remember all those city-dwellers from the West Coast metro areas who swarmed iconic Lake Tahoe because of the virus pandemic and social unrest?
Well, many might be rethinking their move amid threats of a dangerous wildfire burning near the Tahoe basin. Smoke has made the air quality around Tahoe unbreathable, and the first evacuation warnings have already been posted.
As of Thursday evening, the fire burned 139,000 acres and may wipe out a small town of Grizzly Flats. The fire is 12% contained, and its rapid growth threatens lake area homes.
Winds and temperatures are expected to increase in the coming days as humidity decreases, adding to the many challenges for firefighters. Two thousand nine hundred firefighters, 21 helicopters, 245 engines, and dozens of heavy machinery have been working around the clock to contain the blaze. Preliminary damage assessments show 650 homes, businesses, and other structures have been destroyed so far. Another 18,000 structures are in the path of the fire.
CH47F on the #caldorefire via @NVNationalGuard pic.twitter.com/HBX8MTzL4w
— Andrew Wagner (@andrewwagnerme) August 24, 2021
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This is the closest I’ve seen the northern spotfire get to hwy 50 east of Kyburz. Homes here have fire closing in on both sides. Strike teams here to stomp out any crossing embers. Cal fire says efforts are being made to send in night ops. Weather permitting #caldorefire @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/fPbV3FWxzb
— Van Tieu (@Van_Tieu) August 24, 2021
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@calfire backburning on Slug Gulch Road near Omo Ranch #caldorefire @CBSSacramento @GoodDaySac pic.twitter.com/axA8ugjYND
— Rachel Wulff (@rachelwulff) August 24, 2021
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES satellite data shows the Caldor Fire is less than 15 miles southwest from the lake.
Fire officials issued a new evacuation warnings Thursday that included areas inside the Lake Tahoe basin.
Earlier this week, Emily Lauren fled the area and told local television station KXTV that she wanted to get out before people started panicking. “There are 20,000 or more people in Tahoe, and I didn’t want to deal with the traffic and leaving…and sitting in 10 hours of one lane trying to get out,” she said.
The fire is one of 88 large fires and complexes in 13 states. There were more than a dozen big fires in California.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 19:30 - The Structural Changes Taking Place In The Economy Are "Very Dangerous"
The Structural Changes Taking Place In The Economy Are “Very Dangerous”
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
Markets Are Focused On The Fed And Tapering, Not Jobs
Markets are not focused on jobs as much as it is about when tapering will begin. Some economists are going as far as calling the last “a remarkably strong jobs report.” I beg to differ. Let’s be clear, most of these are not new jobs but simply people returning to the slots made when Covid-19 disrupted the economy. A huge X factor here is of course how Covid-19 fear is handled going forward.
The fact is, Covid-19 is not going to disappear completely and we will have to deal with it one way or another. Yes, jobs are being restored and much of this is being pushed forward by some states no longer giving out the “bonus” unemployment benefits showered upon us by the Federal government. This has resulted in a drop in the number of workers claiming they are no longer unemployed. It has also dropped the unemployment rate.
While jobs and getting people back to work is most likely a key factor in the action the Fed decides to take, in some ways it is far more important. Getting people back to work is key to productivity which is necessary if we want the economy to recover. Paying people to stay home produces nothing and is a burden upon society. This is why investors being preoccupied with when the Fed will taper rather than unemployment is misplaced.
Of course, I’m looking at “the long run.”
A recent article in Barron’s titled; “The big job gains are over, says this economist. But The Fed Is On The Right Track.” gave me pause. If almost ten million people that were in the workforce prior to the pandemic don’t, or are slow to return to work, the economy is about to lose a great deal of productivity and this means a great deal of pain in coming years.
As far as the Fed being on the right track, so far there is little indication the Fed is about to do much of anything.
The structural changes taking place in the economy are very dangerous. In addition to not enough workers rushing to return to work, the 4% year-over-year growth in wages screams future inflation. With this comes the potential tail risk of soaring inequality which is something we should not overlook. Some people think companies will not continue offering higher wages in the future but it is very possible a self-feeding loop may have begun.
A toxic brew is being created by current Fed policies that highlight its role as the great enabler. If the Fed was not on its current path other countries would be unable to pursue similar pathways without damaging their currencies and economies. This is creating a rather soggy foundation on which to build a solid recovery. The only way to really move forward is to face our problems and clear the zombie companies that are growing in number from existence.
The whole idea that more job openings exist than unemployed workers most likely ignores the fact many companies are on a “full-court press” to hire workers on many different platforms. This means multiple ads being placed for the same job slot. Another factor is that, for now, companies are looking to hire more workers than they need with the thought that before long many of these workers will quit or they can cull them at any time. It could prove all the misguided interest in tapering is masking the real state of the jobs market.
Something is broken in the economy and the wild gyrations we continue to see in part are rooted in the fact many Americans are still collecting money from pandemic emergency unemployment claims. This has created a strange relaxed environment in which it seems many Americans would be happy to see the current subsidized and artificial version of the economy continue to roll on forever. Since people have yet to see the problems caused when governments run up huge debts from deficit spending, little concern is being generated and reality is being ignored.
The biggest problem before us is that tapering is easier said than done and politically unpopular. QE has made the wealthy and powerful much richer and they “control the strings.” Risk can build slowly and while some people predict a massive deflationary cycle may happen in the future as defaults surge, it is just as likely inflation is being baked into the whole financial system. This makes strong stagflation the most probable scenario we face in the future.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 19:00 - "It Feels As If Nobody Knows Anything": A "Mystery" Market Meltup
“It Feels As If Nobody Knows Anything”: A “Mystery” Market Meltup
If you stopped paying attention for a couple of seconds, you have not have noticed that the S&P 500 just doubled off its pandemic lows at the fastest pace it has doubled since 1932.
Making sense of why the market has shot up like this is another story. With much of the economy still shut down, unemployment rampant and prices rising, “it feels as if nobody knows anything” about why the market keeps rising, Bloomberg wrote in a new piece this week.
Steve Chiavarone, a portfolio manager and head of multi-asset solutions at Federated Hermes Inc., told Bloomberg:
“If someone would have told me in March of last year, when Covid was first rearing its ugly head, that 18 months later we would have case counts that are as high—if not higher—than they were on that day, but that the market would have doubled over that 18-month period, I would have laughed at them.”
He continued:
“Even if you could forecast the virus, you didn’t necessarily get the market right. Even if you could forecast an election outcome, you didn’t necessarily get the market right.”
And it isn’t just analysts getting the market wrong directionally – it has also been the inability to predict earnings throughout the pandemic. Earnings estimates have beaten analyst expectations “by an average of more than 19% in the past five quarters”, the report notes.
Now, it looks as though analysts (and investors) are chasing the idea that higher valuations could wind up filling out. And this mindset has led to some astronomical S&P 500 targets for the year, with some banks setting their sights as high as 4,825.
30 year Wall Street experts like Julian Emanuel, the chief equities and derivatives strategist at brokerage BTIG, say they’re “at a loss” to explain the run up. Emanuel points out that in an environment where the PPI is rising at a 13 year high and the economy is expected to expand at 6.2%, bonds should be selling off “aggressively”.
Emanuel said:
“In what world could you possibly have imagined that 10-year yields would be closer to 1.2%? The absolutely impossible is literally commonplace now.”
He also noted the influx of retail traders playing a role. Shares traded by customers of retail brokers are up from 700 million pre-pandemic to 2.9 billion earlier this year.
Emanuel said:
“The investing public has become a force unto itself. If you ignore the investing public, you’re ignoring them at your peril.”
But of course the discussion always winds up turning back to the Central Bank.
And while investors and analysts claim that within their respective bubbles they can’t find an explanation for the unprecedented runup in stocks, they really need to just look no further than the Fed’s $8.3 trillion balance sheet.
Despite this, CEOs like Peter Mallouk have confidence that the market will eventually correct itself still: “We’re not there yet. But that’s what’s coming, and that’s the big picture that really drives everything.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 18:30 - What Does It Cost To Run Big Business?
What Does It Cost To Run Big Business?
Submitted byy Marcus Lu of Visual Capitalist
How much does it cost to run one of America’s largest corporations? For household names like Apple, Costco and Walmart, well over $100 billion each year.
To get a better sense of their massive scale, this chart compiles financial data from some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, and includes U.S. military spending as an additional point of comparison.
To determine each company’s total cost of operations, we combined its selling, general & administrative expense (SG&A) and its cost of goods sold (COGS).
SG&A covers all of the costs associated with selling products and services, as well as managing day-to-day operations. This includes employee salaries, office rent, and marketing expenses. COGS refers to any costs directly associated with producing goods, such as raw materials and labor.
Operating Costs vs. Military Spending
At $778 billion, U.S. military spending in 2020 was the highest in the world. It dwarfs that of China, which took second place with $252 billion in spending. Beyond these two, there are no other countries that spent more than $100 billion on defense.
Massive government budgets like this may seem untouchable, but today’s chart proves otherwise. As the largest employer and retailer in America, Walmart spent $537 billion (70% of U.S military spending) to keep itself running.
Combine this with Amazon’s operating costs, and we reach $900 billion in expenses (16% more than U.S. military spending).
Operating Costs vs. Military Spending
At $778 billion, U.S. military spending in 2020 was the highest in the world. It dwarfs that of China, which took second place with $252 billion in spending. Beyond these two, there are no other countries that spent more than $100 billion on defense.
Massive government budgets like this may seem untouchable, but today’s chart proves otherwise. As the largest employer and retailer in America, Walmart spent $537 billion (70% of U.S military spending) to keep itself running.
Combine this with Amazon’s operating costs, and we reach $900 billion in expenses (16% more than U.S. military spending).
More Costs Doesn’t Mean More Profits
These businesses may be expensive to run, but how good are they at making money?
This can be measured by operating margin, which determines how much profit is generated from each dollar of revenue, after operating costs are deducted. We calculate it with a simple formula: operating earnings divided by revenues. Operating earnings are revenues less SG&A and COGS.
From the companies in this graphic, Apple had the greatest operating margin at 38%. Walmart was at the opposite end of the scale with a 4% margin.
This highlights the differences in business strategy. Walmart’s competitive advantage is cost leadership, meaning it strives to beat its competitors by offering the lowest prices possible. The retailer’s sheer scale (4,743 locations across the U.S.) is what enables this strategy to be effective.
Apple, on the other hand, combines strong branding and premium quality to command a high price for its products. This results in greater margins and valuations—at the time of writing, Apple is the world’s most valuable corporation with a market cap of $2.4 trillion.
These businesses may be expensive to run, but how good are they at making money?
This can be measured by operating margin, which determines how much profit is generated from each dollar of revenue, after operating costs are deducted. We calculate it with a simple formula: operating earnings divided by revenues. Operating earnings are revenues less SG&A and COGS.
From the companies in this graphic, Apple had the greatest operating margin at 38%. Walmart was at the opposite end of the scale with a 4% margin.
This highlights the differences in business strategy. Walmart’s competitive advantage is cost leadership, meaning it strives to beat its competitors by offering the lowest prices possible. The retailer’s sheer scale (4,743 locations across the U.S.) is what enables this strategy to be effective.
Apple, on the other hand, combines strong branding and premium quality to command a high price for its products. This results in greater margins and valuations—at the time of writing, Apple is the world’s most valuable corporation with a market cap of $2.4 trillion.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 18:10 - Russia Announces Plan To "Routinely Deploy" Hypersonic Missiles On Warships
Russia Announces Plan To “Routinely Deploy” Hypersonic Missiles On Warships
Russian President Vladimir Putin previously the Zircon hypersonic missile as capable of traveling upwards of Mach 9, or about 6,900 mph and a distance of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles). The experimental hypersonic has been increasingly made public this summer, particularly after it was successfully test-fired from a warship on White Sea off the northwest coast of Russia.
Russian media is now widely reporting the hypersonic for the first time will be fitted to the country’s warships, marking the first time it will ever be “routinely deployed”.
Russian Defense Ministry via AP Earlier this week Russia’s Defense Ministry announced a deal was finalized with rocket design bureau NPO Mashinostroyenia to roll out with Zircon hypersonics which can be easily deployed aboard warships.
“A government contract on the delivery of the 3M22 missile (the Tsirkon hypersonic missile) has been signed. The contract has been handed to CEO of the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building Alexander Leonov at the [Army-2021] international military-technical forum,” the Defense Ministry’s press statement said according to RIA Novosti.
The National Review has meanwhile speculated which vessels are the most likely candidates to be outfitted first:
But, according to earlier reports sourced by statements from anonymous Russian defense industry insiders, the honor will go to Admiral Golovko—the third frigate of the Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class. Tsirkon [or Zircon] is likely to eventually make its way to numerous ships in Russia’s naval roster, including the Kirov-class battlecruisers Petr Velikiy and Admiral Nakhimov, as well as the modernized Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates and the Karakurt/Buyan/Gremyashchiy-class corvettes.
And submarines are soon to follow…
The missile will also figure prominently into the offensive capabilities of Russia’s new Yasen-M class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines, seven of which are expected to enter service through 2028. Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to suggest in late 2019 that a land-based Tsirkon variant is in the works, but all current signs point to Tsirkon being a ship and submarine-launched weapon for the foreseeable future.
In comments made two weeks ago, Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, who is chief of US Strategic Command, warned about Russia’s growing capabilities related to its military’s rapid modernization of hypersonic weapons.
“Russia is pursuing modernization of its conventional and strategic forces,” Adm. Richard said. “Nuclear weapons remain a foundational aspect of Russia’s strategy and they have recapitalized over 80% of their strategic nuclear forces, including expanded warhead delivery capacity.
“Like China, Russia is investing heavily in developing hypersonic weapons and a variety of other missiles,” he continued.
Crucially Adm. Richard warned that “current terrestrial and space-based sensor architecture may not be sufficient to detect and track these hypersonic missiles” – in reference to US defensive capabilities when it comes to thwarting hypersonics.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 17:50 - Erik Prince Responds To Psaki's Comments, Issues Warning For Kabul Airport
Erik Prince Responds To Psaki’s Comments, Issues Warning For Kabul Airport
One day after White House press secretary Jen Psaki slammed ex-Blackwater head and current military contractor Erik Prince as “soulless” for charging Americans and Afghans seats on chartered evacuation flights out of Kabul, Afghanistan, Prince responded to Psaki’s comments.
Prince joined Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast on Thursday and denounced Psaki’s claims that he is profiteering off the disastrous situation unfolding in Kabul. He told Bannon:
“I almost wear it as a badge of honor if she attacks me. I think those are tougher words for me than she has ever even had for the Taliban. I’m certainly not in this to make money, but … I can’t just bill an owner of an airplane to fly their uninsured jet into a war zone to evacuate people. I have to charge something, and unlike the federal government which just prints money ad nauseam and creates it and then wastes it, that’s not how we can roll as private citizens. … She’s firing torpedoes at boats that are trying to help at a Dunkirk type of evacuation.”
Prince, who founded Blackwater, was concerned about “attacks on any of the outgoing aircraft.”
He criticized Washington “who decided to give up Bagram, our largest airbase in the region – which is actually defendable – to say we’re gonna do our final staging out of Kabul, an airport in the middle of a city of four and a half million surrounded on hills by three sides, where just ten guys, with a couple of motor tubes can shut the whole place down and destroy billions of dollars of U.S. aircraft and kill 1000s of people on those aircraft, and that’s what I’m afraid we’re in store for over the next few days, a few hours.”
Prince is worried the Taliban may go on a hunting spree for Americans and or Afghan allies. He said “someone at the State Department didn’t get the memo to destroy sensitive technology” at the abandoned embassy.” Now the terror group has an “entire database on a computer with all the biodata, phone numbers, and address for everyone who worked for the U.S.”
It appears the Blackwater founder’s main concern is that Kabul’s airport is not defendable as 13 U.S. service members lost their lives in a bomb attack on the facility.
Evacuation flights from Afghanistan continued on Friday as President Biden confirmed the hard deadline exit of all U.S. personnel is Aug. 31. It remains to be seen what happens to Americans and Afghan allies who are left behind, and just how much they will be willing to pay to the private sector to do something the US government can not.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 17:30 - Watch: Taliban Take Joyride In US Black Hawk Helicopter
Watch: Taliban Take Joyride In US Black Hawk Helicopter
A video of a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk circulating on social media shows Taliban fighters taxiing around the Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan.
“Reportedly a Taliban captured Afghanistan Air Force UH-60 Blackhawk at Kandahar. Important to note it is only shown taxiing not flying,” Joseph Dempsey, a defense analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, tweeted Wednesday.
ويډيو|کندهار ولايت
د کندهار هوايي ډګر الوتنو ته چمتو کيږي، دا بلېک هاک امريکايي چورلکه چې خرابه شوې وه جوړه او فعاليت ته چمتو شوې.@A_Jahid_Jalal pic.twitter.com/XJB1sqn4E6— Jahid Jalal -جاهد جلال (@A_Jahid_Jalal) August 25, 2021
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The US-made helicopter, manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft, taxied around the runway for at least a minute. There was no word if the helicopter left the ground or the status of its airworthiness. It’s likely the Taliban lacks pilots.
Since the Taliban has taken over the country, Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books, said the terror organization now “controls 75,000 military vehicles. This is about 50,000 tactical vehicles, 20,000 Humvees they control about 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles, and even about 150 armored personnel carriers.”
Multipurpose helicopters UH-60 Black Hawk and Mi-17 of the Afghan Air Force at the Kandahar airbase, captured by the Taliban.
#Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/b2mtSK6YPf— Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_A) August 14, 2021
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“We built them a pretty amazing war chest and now all of it is in the hands of the Taliban,” said Andrzejewski. “We know that last month, as late as July, seven new helicopters were being delivered in the capital city of Kabul.”
Alexander Mikheev, the head of the Russian state exporter Rosoboronexport, said the Taliban have an extensive helicopter fleet of more than 100 Mi-17 helicopters of various types.
Video reportingly shows #Taliban captured Kunduz airport with #Afghanistan Air Force Mi-35 Hind attack helicopter pic.twitter.com/u7jZJdR800
— Joseph Dempsey (@JosephHDempsey) August 11, 2021
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Earlier this week, Taliban fighters showed off their new US special forces weapons and gear left behind for the now-defunct Afghan Army.
“It is unconscionable that high-tech military equipment paid for by US taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and their terrorist allies,” 25 senators told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
For now, the Taliban are likely to seek helicopter pilots and other experienced operators for fixed-wing aircraft they’ve hijacked over the last few weeks.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 17:10 - Record Plastic Prices May Go "Stratospheric" As Hurricane Approaches Gulf Coast
Record Plastic Prices May Go “Stratospheric” As Hurricane Approaches Gulf Coast
Tropical Storm Ida has strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane, making landfall on Isla de la Juventud, the second-largest Cuban island. The hurricane is expected to strike Louisiana late Sunday or early Monday.
At 1315 ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicated Ida was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane. NHC said the storm has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
1:15 PM EDT: Data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that #Ida has strengthened to a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. Tropical storm conditions are occurring on Cayo Largo, Cuba https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB pic.twitter.com/aYXq5lRDq1
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 27, 2021
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Ahead of Ida’s arrival, offshore oil and natural gas explorers are shuttering platforms and evacuating workers as per SOP. There’s also concern that the hurricane could disrupt major chemical plants along the Gulf Coast that may send record plastic prices to “stratospheric” levels.
Ida could strike parts of the central Gulf Coast as a major hurricane (Category 3 or stronger) on Sunday evening or Monday. Landfall projections are currently for Louisiana.
The rapid intensification from Tropical Depression 9 to Tropical Storm Ida to Hurricane Ida occurred in about a day.
Already, Bloomberg data shows about 1.3 million barrels per day of U.S. Gulf Coast production capacity has been halted. Here’s the list so far of offshore rigs and their capacity in barrels per day taken offline:
- BP
- Atlantis, 200,000 b/d
- Mad Dog, 100,000 b/d
- Na Kika, 130,000 b/d
- Thunder Horse, 250,000 b/d
- Shell
- Turritella (including Stones field) 50,000 boe/d (at peak)
- Mars, 60,000 boe/d
- Olympus, 100,000 boe/d
- Appomattox, 175,000 boe/d
- Ursa, 150,000 boe/d
- Equinor
- Titan, 2,000 boe/d (producing rate in the second quarter)
- BHP
- Shenzi, 100,000 b/d and 50 mmcf/d gas
With more than a million barrels per day of Gulf of Mexico output offline, this could place upward pressure on crude futures at a time when prices have fallen 5% over the past month.
Another concern is assets onshore such as chemical plants, operated by Exxon., Dow and others which are located in the hurricane’s path. These plants produce polypropylene, high-density polyethylene, and PVC. Readers may recall plastic prices soared after the Arctic blast in February severely damaged pipes at chemical plants across the Gulf Coast.
Polypropylene is found in anything from plastic parts for machinery and equipment and even fibers and textiles. Any disruption to these plants because of weather-related issues could cause shortages and send prices even higher.
“Long-term outages induced by tropical weather could fuel stratospheric price rises that downstream supply chains and consumers cannot easily afford,” Jeremy Pafford, head of North America market development at data provider ICIS, said. “With the majority of U.S. commodity plastic resin capacity stationed on the Texas and Louisiana coasts, one devastating hit could bring months’ worth of polyethylene, polypropylene and/or polystyrene shortages.”
The US economy is already facing unprecedented pressure from frozen supply chains and record shortages: could yet another unexpected price spike be the straw that finally breaks the middle class’ back?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 16:50 - BP
- How The Fed Is Enabling Congress's Trillion-Dollar Deficits
How The Fed Is Enabling Congress’s Trillion-Dollar Deficits
By Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute
With the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium there’s been much talk about when the central bank might allow interest rates to rise, presumably through the process of “tapering.” Tapering would mean easing monthly bond purchases, which would “effectively increase interest rates.“
Much of the discussion over the Fed’s policies on interest rates tends to focus on how interest rate policy fits within the Fed’s so-called dual mandate. That is, it is assumed that the Fed’s policy on interest rates is guided by concerns over either “stable prices” or “maximizing sustainable employment.”
This naïve view of Fed policy tends to ignore the political realities of interest rates as a key factor in the federal government’s rapidly growing deficit spending.
While it is no doubt very neat and tidy to think the Fed makes its policies based primarily on economic science, it’s more likely that what actually concerns the Fed in 2021 is facilitating deficit spending for Congress and the White House.
The politics of the situation—not to be confused with the economics of the situation—dictate that interest rates be kept low, and this suggests that the Fed will work to keep interest rates low even as price inflation rises and even if it looks like the economy is “overheating.” If we seek to understand the Fed’s interest rate policy, it thus may be most fruitful to look at spending policy on Capitol Hill rather than the arcane theories of Fed economists.
Why Politicians Need the Fed to Keep Deficit Spending Going—at Low Rates
Federal spending has reached multigenerational highs in the United States, both in raw numbers and proportional to GDP.
If all this spending were just a matter of redistributing funds collected through taxation, that would be one thing. But the reality is more complicated than that. In 2020, the federal government spent $3.3 trillion more than it collected in taxes. That’s nearly double the $1.7 trillion deficit incurred at the height of the Great Recession bailouts. In 2020, the deficit is expected to top $3 trillion again.
In other words, the federal government needs to borrow a whole lot of money at unprecedented levels to fill that gap between tax revenue and what the Treasury actually spends.
Sure, the Congress could just raise taxes and avoid deficits, but politicians don’t like to do that. Raising taxes is sure to meet political opposition, and when government spending is closely tied to taxation, the taxpayers can more clearly see the true cost of government spending programs.
Deficit spending, on the other hand, is often more politically feasible for policymakers, because the true costs are moved into the future, or they are—as we will see below—hidden behind a veil of inflation.
That’s where the Federal Reserve comes in. Washington politicians need the Fed’s help to facilitate ever-greater amounts of deficit spending through the Fed’s purchases of government debt.
Without the Fed, More Debt Pushes up Interest Rates
When the Congress wants to engage in $3 trillion dollars of deficit spending, it must first issue $3 trillion dollars of government bonds.
That sounds easy enough, especially when interest rates are very low. After all, interest rates on government bonds are presently at incredibly low levels. Through most of 2020, for instance, the interest rate for the ten-year bond was under 1 percent, and the ten-year rate has been under 3 percent nearly all the time for the past decade.
But here’s the rub: larger and larger amounts put upward pressure on the interest rate—all else being equal. This is because if the US Treasury needs more and more people to buy up more and more debt, it’s going to have to raise the amount of money it pays out to investors.
Think of it this way: there are lots of places investors can put their money, but they’ll be willing to buy more government debt the more it pays out in yield (i.e., the interest rate). For example, if government debt were paying 10 percent interest, that would be a very good deal and people would flock to buy these bonds. The federal government would have no problem at all finding people to buy up US debt at such rates.
Politicians Must Choose between Interest Payments and Government Spending on “Free” Stuff
But politicians absolutely do not want to pay high interest rates on government debt, because that would require devoting an ever-larger share of federal revenues just to paying interest on the debt.
For example, even at the rock-bottom interest rates during the last year, the Treasury was still having to pay out $345 billion dollars in net interest. That’s more than the combined budgets of the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Veterans Affairs combined. It’s a big chunk of the full federal budget.
Now, imagine if the interest rate doubled from today’s rates to around 2.5 percent—still a historically low rate. That would mean the federal government would have to pay out a lot more in interest. It might mean that instead of paying $345 billion per year, it would have to pay around $700 billion or maybe $800 billion. That would be equal to the entire defense budget or a very large portion of the Social Security budget.
So, if interest rates are rising, a growing chunk of the total federal budget must be shifted out of politically popular spending programs like defense, Social Security, Medicaid, education, and highways. That’s a big problem for elected officials, because that money instead must be poured into debt payments, which doesn’t sound nearly as wonderful on the campaign trail when one is a candidate who wants to talk about all the great things he or she is spending federal money on. Spending on old-age pensions and education right now is good for getting votes. Paying interest on loans Congress took out years ago to fund some failed boondoggle like the Afghanistan war? That’s not very politically rewarding.
So, policymakers tend to be very interested in keeping interest rates low. It means they can buy more votes. So, when it comes time for lots of deficit spending, what elected officials really want is to be able to issue lots of new debt but not have to pay higher interest rates. And this is why politicians need the Fed.
The Fed Is Converting Debt into Dollars
Here’s how the mechanism works.
Upward pressure on rates can be reduced if the central bank steps in to mop up the excess and ensure there are enough willing buyers for government debt at very low interest rates. Effectively, when the central bank is buying up trillions in government debt, the amount of debt out in the larger marketplace is reduced. This means interest rates don’t have to rise to attract enough buyers. The politicians remain happy.
And what happens to this debt as the Fed buys it up? It ends up in the Fed’s portfolio, and the Fed mostly pays for it by using newly created dollars. Along with mortgage securities, government debt makes up most of the Fed’s assets, and since 2008, the central bank has increased its total assets from under $1 trillion dollars to over $8 trillion. That’s trillions of new dollars flooding either into the banking system or the larger economy.
For years, of course, the Fed has pretended that it will reverse the trend and begin selling off its assets—and in the process remove these dollars from the economy. But clearly the Fed has been too afraid of what this would do to asset prices and interest rates.
Rather, it is increasingly clear that the Fed’s purchases of these assets are really a monetization of debt. Through this process, the Fed is turning this government debt into dollars, and the result is monetary inflation. That means asset price inflation—which we’ve clearly already seen in real estate and stock prices—and it often means consumer price inflation, which we’re now beginning to see in food prices, gas prices, and elsewhere.
This certainly isn’t a new trick. Just as we must look back to the Second World War to find similarly huge increases in government spending, the Second World War also provides an earlier example of this debt “monetization” scheme.
David Stockman describes the situation in his book The Great Deformation:
[During the war] the Federal Reserve became the financing arm of the warfare state. Making short shrift of any pretense of fed independence, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau simply decreed that interest rates on the federal debt would be “pegged.” …
Obviously the only way to enforce this peg was for the nation’s central bank to purchase any and all treasury paper that did not find a private sector bid at or below the pegged yields. Accordingly, the Fed soon became a huge buyer of Treasury securities, thereby “monetizing” federal debt on a scale never before imagined.
This follows a textbook scheme that central banks have used during many wars and crises.
Joe Salerno describes this mechanism in his essay “War and the Money Machine”:
Under modern conditions, inflationary financing of war involves a government “monetizing” its debt by selling securities, directly or indirectly, to the central bank. The funds thus obtained are then spent on the items necessary to equip and sustain the armed forces of the nation.
But the money need not be spent on armed forces, of course. It can be spent on anything, such as bailouts and “stimulus.” The possibilities are endless, and the scheme can be used for any type of perceived emergency. But the mechanism is the same.
Now, most of the time in the past, this was considered a very radical thing to do, but it’s now standard operating procedure in this alliance between Congress and the Fed. You want huge deficits? Call in the central bank.
The Fed has apparently been more than happy to oblige. As noted by David Wessel at Brookings, the Fed is definitely doing its part.
Wessel writes:
Between mid-March and late June 2020, the Treasury’s total borrowing rose by about $2.9 trillion, and the Fed’s holdings of U.S. Treasury debt rose by about $1.6 trillion. In 2010, the Fed held about 10% of all Treasury debt outstanding; today it holds more than 20%.
And, as noted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in May 2020,
Since the crisis began, neither domestic nor foreign holdings of debt have increased significantly. Instead, the Federal Reserve has sharply increased its ownership of U.S. debt…. In fact, the Federal Reserve has indirectly purchased nearly all new debt issued since the recent crisis began.
Another estimate concluded the Fed “bought 57 percent of all Treasury issuance over the past year.”
Indeed, measuring indirectly, we find that from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2020, total public debt grew $4.5 trillion. During that same period, federal debt held by the central bank increased $2.5 trillion. That’s 55 percent of the increase in total debt. Not surprisingly, the Federal Reserve holds 24 percent of all federal debt as of the first quarter of 2021.
Of course, the Fed doesn’t need to buy 100 percent of the new debt that’s issued. There are still many factors that buoy the demand for US debt in addition to the central bank’s purchases. European regimes and China, among others, are all at least as profligate as the United States when it comes to debt and spending, and so US debt by comparison continues to look relatively stable and like a relatively safe bet.
But these other factors clearly aren’t enough to keep the interest rate paid on US debt as low as the politicians need it to be. So the central bank steps in to “help out.”
Hiding the True Cost of Spending
The political benefit to the US government goes beyond just keeping interest rates low. Converting government spending into monetary inflation obscures the true cost of trillions of dollars of new spending.
Rather than raise taxes to fund spending, deficit spending is more politically feasible for policymakers, because the true costs are moved into the future, or they’re hidden behind a veil of price inflation.
Ludwig von Mises long ago noted the political importance of inflation as a means of allowing the regime to “free itself” from having to ask the taxpayers for another tax increase.
Or, as Robert Higgs puts it in Crisis and Leviathan,
Obviously, citizens will not react to the costs they bear if they are unaware of them. The possibility of driving a wedge between the actual and the publicly perceived costs creates a strong temptation for governments pursuing high-cost policies during national emergencies.
The Myth of Fed Independence
As Stockman notes, when this sort of monetization takes place, it is all the more clear that alleged “Fed independence” is a fantasy. The Fed is today a critical partner is enabling the federal government’s spending plans, and in manufacturing a politically motivated low–interest rate environment.
Economists and Fed watchers may pore over Fed documents and Fed commentary to try to figure out how the Fed views the economics of low–interest rate policy. And that surely is a factor. But the political realities are something else, and remain very much at the center of it all.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 16:30 - Dovish Powell Sparks "Most Painful" Meltup To 52nd Record High In 2021
Dovish Powell Sparks “Most Painful” Meltup To 52nd Record High In 2021
All that angst and jitters heading into today’s Jerome Powell speech, with so many fearing that the Fed Chair would finally make good on urgent warnings from a growing number of Fed speakers that the Fed’s easing is causing bubbles across all asset classes – including housing and certainly stocks – and warns traders that the big, bad taper is coming, and… nothing.
Instead, Powell was far more dovish than almost anyone had expected, barely mentioning the upcoming taper (and only in the context of what the Fed said in the recent Minutes), while reserving the bulk of his speech to discuss why inflation is transitory. The result was a nearly 1% surge in the S&P, with spoos rising above 4,500 for the first time up some 50 points from session lows…
… and leading to the 52nd all time high for 2021, which means that at this pace 2021 will be a year with a record number of records!
So “concerned” is Powell about wealth inequality that he made the world’s richest tech billionaires even richer again, thanks to another new all time high in the Nasdaq, which has continued its merry meltup, and just days after it rose above 15,000 for the first time, it was trading just shy of 15,500.
Predictably, Powell’s dovishness sparked a waterfall in the dollar and yields, with the 10Y and the Bloomberg Dollar index both sliding.
With the dollar freefalling, gold and silver surged…
… as did oil…
… as did cryptos.
After pushing higher earlier in the week, yields promptly collapsed after Powell’s dovish commentary…
… and just one day after 30Y yields finally caught up to stocks, today we observed a sharp divergence again in yet another manifestation of the QE trade where everything – except the dollar – was bought.
In a way, Powell was only a secondary catalyst to today’s move. The key driver behind the current meltup: a continue short squeeze, the third in the past month…
… and one which was triggered by wrong positioning by hedge funds, which as we noted earlier, appear to have an extremely bearish bias as revealed by Goldman’s sentiment indicator which just hit the lowest level in 63 weeks.
This upside meltup, which Goldman trader Scott Rubner said “would be the most painful“, may also explain why CNN’s fear and greed index is barely above the midline after spending much of the past month in “extreme fear” territory.
Finally, not only is breadth ugly, but trading volumes are slumping as stonks rally to the moon. While there was just 67 new 52-week highs on the NYSE…
The 50-day average daily trading volume across all members of the S&P 500 Index has declined to just shy of 2 billion shares, the lowest since the coronavirus pandemic first began to roil markets in late February 2020.
While August has historically been one of the quietest periods for trading, the equity benchmark’s average volume this year is still below its 10-year average for the month and is set to be the lowest since 2018… so who’s buying?
Whoever it is, they aren’t stopping – it has now been 10 months since the S&P suffered a 5% drawdown or greater…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 16:11 - US Intel Agency Has "Moderate" Confidence Covid Escaped From Wuhan Lab: Origins Report
US Intel Agency Has “Moderate” Confidence Covid Escaped From Wuhan Lab: Origins Report
An unclassified version of the US intelligence community’s coronavirus origins report includes an assessment from one agency which has “moderate confidence” that Covid-19 emerged from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, while four other agencies assessed with “low confidence” that the virus has a natural origin. The rest of the US intelligence community (which was awfully confident Donald Trump was working with Russia) declined to commit one way or another.
According to the Washington Examiner‘s Jerry Dunleavy:
The one unnamed spy agency leaning toward the Wuhan lab theory with moderate confidence said COVID-19’s emergence probably involved experimentation, animal handling, or sampling from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to an unclassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The four unnamed spy agencies, and the NIC, with low confidence in the natural origin hypothesis assessed that the initial infection was most likely from an animal infected with either COVID-19 or a close progenitor virus, with those analysts giving weight to China’s alleged lack of foreknowledge and the numerous vectors of potential natural exposure.
That said, US officials say a lack of cooperation from China has hampered efforts to get down to the truth. As Bloomberg notes, “China’s government was also uncertain about the virus’s origins, which was a reason Beijing didn’t cooperate.”
The report also concludes that the virus was not engineered as a biological weapon, and most agencies assessed that it was not genetically engineered.
As we noted two days ago, Beijing threatened a “counterattack” if the report blamed China for the leak.
On Wednesday, with the Biden Administration report set to be released in a matter of days, a senior Chinese bureaucrat warned during a press conference that Beijing would “retaliate” if the intelligence report fingers a lab leak from the WHO.
“We will continue to cooperate with international organizations like the WHO in their research and in their search for the origins,” said Fu Cong, director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Arms Control Department. “But we do not accept baseless and unfounded accusations that are politically motivated. And if they want to baselessly accuse China, so they better be prepared to accept the counterattack from China.”
It wasn’t clear just how Beijing would retaliate: some speculated it could do so by sending even deadlier virus variants, or by intentionally closing down shipping ports.
By sending more variants? Or by intentionally closing down shipping ports??
— AGTrader (@ag_trader) August 25, 2021
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After details of the report leaked on Wednesday, groups of scientists, activists and politicians said the inconclusive report demonstrated the need for further probes, according to the Washington Post.
“It is good they did that review, but I don’t think we should all move on just because it was inconclusive,” said Anita Cicero, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “I’m actually disturbed that much of the scientific and public health community seems complacent to make their best guesses and move on without getting to the root cause of the pandemic.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/27/2021 – 16:00
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