Dec 02

Today’s News 2nd December 2022

  • November Payrolls Preview: A Miss Will Be Good For Stocks But A Huge Miss Means Recession
    November Payrolls Preview: A Miss Will Be Good For Stocks But A Huge Miss Means Recession

    The jobs print on Friday is the final big event in what has been a very hectic macro week. Consensus is looking for a +200K printm down from 261K (Goldman is on the low end at +175k) with +0.3% average hourly earnings MoM, down from 0.4% prior. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 3.7% while the Labor Force Participation rate increases modestly to 62.3% from consensus 62.2%.

    In its full preview (see below and in report available to pro subs) Goldman’s forecast reflects continued declines in online job postings as well as weakness in Big Data employment indicators in November. Nonetheless, layoff activity outside of tech remains muted and Goldman believes that the recent increase in jobless claims mostly reflects seasonal distortions (we disagree).

    More importantly, the whisper is for a (far) softer print after this week’s ADP miss, rise in weekly continuing claims, spike in challenger job cuts, and drop in ISM’s employment sub-index. Specifically for the jobs data, Goldman trader John Flood says that we are still primarily in a “bad is good” and vice versa set up, “but I am getting the sense we are approaching the end of the line in regards to this type of mind set.”

    He explains why:

    Caught my eye today when S&P sold off after ISM miss (49 vs 49.7 expected and now in contractionary territory). Growth/Recession concerns now being talked about more than how much higher rates can go after Powell’s speech yesterday (most investors finally have their heads around a 5%ish terminal rate that will be sticky for at least the majority of next year).

    In terms of the market’s reaction to the headline jobs print, this is what the Goldman trader expects:

    • >261k (aka higher than last print) S&P down at least 2%
    • 175k – 261k S&P down 1 – 2%
    • 125k – 175k S&P up 50bps – 1%
    • 0 – 125k S&P up 1 – 2% <0 S&P down 1 – 2% on R word fears

    A somewhat contrarian take from Morgan Stanley’s sales team which writes that “it may be difficult to get a similar (large) reaction post NFP as post CPI given recent price action, lack of new risk taking, and the magnitude the CPI surprise that drove the equity rally. Short dated options suggesting the same thing.”

    According to Morgan Stanley (whose forecast is for a 180K print) the implied move (1d straddle) for Friday is “only” ~1.15%, roughly half what it was into CPI when it was ~2%. The market is implying 30% extra variance for Friday (last two prints have realized 100%+), and this is combined with the fact that vols have come off meaningfully (VIX closed below 20). The market is pricing in no short-term vol premium – which is aided by flows that have been overwriting in nature (delta for sale / vol for sale).

    Morgan Sanley’s conclusion:

    I think the sweet spot for risk is +100-125k. This allows Fed to go 50, as part of a continued step down… this is what the Feds want to do and why they have had a hard time pushing back on easing financial conditions the last few weeks.

    • +25k payroll would be bad for stocks – too fast of a step down in jobs, especially after +260k a month earlier.
    • 250k+ may make the Fed more hawkish at the next meeting, and may put 75bps back in play.

    The bank also warns that in case of an NFP miss, the magnitude of a rally may be smaller than the decline on a large beat, given less incremental relaxation of the dovish narrative given 50bps is largely priced and SPX sits ~4000.

    * * *

    Having discussed the market reaction, here is a summary of what consensus expected tomorrow, courtesy of Newsquawk:

    The rate of payroll additions is expected to cool once again, with analysts forecasting 200k nonfarm payrolls will be added in November (prev. 261k), while the unemployment rate is seen unchanged at 3.7%. Given that the Fed’s policymaking is currently centred around managing inflation, traders will be closely watching the wages metrics; the expectation is for wage growth to continue cooling, and this will likely form a key part of how traders will react to the data, with any upside in the wages measures likely to result in a hawkish market reaction, while any miss relative to expectations will likely incite a dovish reaction.

    EXPECTATIONS: The US economy is expected to have added 200k nonfarm payrolls in November, further cooling from recent trend rates (three-month average 289k, six-month average 347k, 12 month average 442k). The unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged at 3.7%; analysts will be closely watching the participation rate, which has inched lower in the last two reports, currently at 62.2%. Similarly, there will also be attention on the U6 measure of underemployment, which rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 6.8% in October. Analysts note that in the November data, seasonal adjustments may be a factor weighing on jobs growth, particularly the adjustments to holiday hiring; these however may be partly offset by seasonal adjustments in the construction sector.

    PROXIES: As a proxy, weekly data for the survey week that coincides with the official November jobs report showed initial jobless claims picking up slightly to 223k from 214k going into the October jobs data; continuing claims also ticked up to 1.51mln vs 1.44mln in the comparable October period. Further, although the ADP’s gauge of US national employment is difficult to use for comparison purposes, it showed a cooling rate of payroll additions, printing 127k from a previous 239k, and below the expected 200k.

    WAGES: Rates of headline inflation have been easing as energy prices fall back, and wage growth has also been cooling. The pace of monthly average hourly earnings is also expected to ease, with analysts expecting growth of +0.3% M/M (prev. +0.4%), while the annual measure is seen falling a touch to 4.6% Y/Y from 4.7%. Average workweek hours are expected to be unchanged at 34.5hrs. The ADP’s measure of wage growth – again, not perfectly comparable with the BLS data, given that the ADP factors in bonuses while the BLS data does not – corroborates the slowing wages argument, with its most recent report stating that wage gains for job changers easing to 15.1% from 15.2%, while wage gains for job stayers pared to 7.6% from 7.7%.

    POLICY IMPLICATIONS: Various labor market proxies suggest that the Fed’s policy tightening is helping to alleviate some of the tightness in the labor market, and also seems to be having an impact on slowing wage growth. The ADP’s chief economist said that “turning points can be hard to capture in the labor market, but the data suggest that Federal Reserve tightening is having an impact on job creation and pay gains,” with companies “no longer in hyper-replacement mode,” while “fewer people are quitting and the post-pandemic recovery is stabilizing.” The question is whether the easing labor market will be enough to derail Fed tightening; analysts at Oxford economics do not think so: “Job growth likely continued to slow in November but the implications for the Fed are minor,” it wrote, adding that “the moderating pace of job gains will be welcomed by the Fed but won’t alter its plans to continue to raise interest rates.” As this report is being published, money markets are discounting a 50bps rate hike at the FOMC’s December 14th confab, with rates expected to peak out between 5.00-5.25% in the middle of 2023. With the Fed in data-dependent mode, and inflation front and center of its policy decision making, traders have been using the playbook that any upside in price metrics (in the case of the jobs report, the wages measures) will see traders increase bets of a more hawkish Fed, while any downside in the wages numbers would likely result in a dovish reaction.

    ARGUING FOR A STRONGER THAN EXPECTED REVIEW

    • Job availability. JOLTS job openings declined 353k to 10.3mn workers in October, and online measures declined further. While labor demand remains elevated, these declines nonetheless argue for a further drop in the pace of job growth. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—edged up in November (+1pt to 32.8).

    • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market indicate a further slowdown in job growth, with both key measures available this month consistent with below-consensus payrolls. For example, private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 127k, below expectations for 200k.

    • Normalizing business births. The birth-death adjustment—the BLS assumption for net business formation—appears to have flattered the October payroll figures. As shown below, the payroll statistics assumed a 151k larger boost from business formation in October 2022 than in October 2019. Half of this evolution is ultimately revised away, implying a positive bias from the birth-death adjustment of around +75k in last month’s report. For tomorrow’s report, the whipsaw pattern in the birth-death adjustment in recent months suggests scope for a more normal—or perhaps even negative—contribution to payroll growth (mom sa).

    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas increased 138% month-over-month in November, following an 8.8% increase in October (SA by GS). Nevertheless, roughly 70% of the announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas were in the tech sector, which accounts for a very small share of overall employment. Goldman continues to expect that many laid-off workers will be able to find new jobs relatively quickly, and that the required reduction in aggregate labor demand will come primarily from fewer job openings rather than lower employment.
    • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys generally decreased in November. The GS services employment survey tracker decreased by 0.8pt to 50.8 and the bank’s manufacturing survey employment tracker decreased by 1.4pt to 51.3.
    • Covid. Rising covid cases could also weigh on tomorrow’s report if a significant number of hourly workers missed work during the survey week due to illness. Illustratively, the test positivity rate in New York City rose from 9.6% to 11.2% between the October and November payroll survey weeks.

    ARGUING FOR A STRONGER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

    • Momentum. At +200k, consensus already embeds a 61k deceleration in job growth relative to November (and an 89k  deceleration relative to the three-month average). Month-over-month slowdowns of this magnitude are relatively infrequent, occurring in 27% of instances since 2010 (60k or larger, first print basis, excludes Census workers). Momentum is particularly strong in the healthcare industry (+75k average in both the last 3 and the last 6 months). We assume another ~75k rise in healthcare payrolls on the back of rising hospital utilization and continued labor shortages (2.1mn job vacancies at the end of September).

    More in the full reports available to pro subscribers

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/02/2022 – 01:26

  • America To Unveil World's First Sixth-Generation Bomber Friday
    America To Unveil World’s First Sixth-Generation Bomber Friday

    Northrop Grumman Corporation and the US Air Force are set to unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft on Friday. 

    The B-21 Raider stealth bomber will be displayed at Northrop’s facility in Palmdale, California. There have been no photos, just renderings released in the public domain of the super secret aircraft that has been in development since 2015. 

    A team of more than 8,000 people from Northrop, 400 suppliers across 40 states, and the Air Force have been working on the B-21 program. 

    Northrop said the new stealth bomber “benefits from more than three decades of strike and stealth technology … and was developed with the next generation of stealth technology, advanced networking capabilities and an open systems architecture, the B-21 is optimized for the high-end threat environment.” 

    “The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence.

     “The Raider showcases the dedication and skills of the thousands of people working every day to deliver this aircraft,” Doug Young, sector vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, said in a press release. 

    The plane, according to Northrop, will be the “backbone of the future for US air power” with new capabilities and advanced technology to deliver conventional and nuclear payloads. It will be able to “defeat the anti-access, area-denial systems,” the defense company said. 

    Northrop even called the new aircraft a “digital bomber.” Here’s why: 

    “Northrop Grumman uses agile software development, advanced manufacturing techniques and digital engineering tools to help mitigate production risk on the B-21 program and enable modern sustainment practices.”

    At least six of these new bombers are in various stages of final assembly and testing at the company’s plant in Palmdale. Tomorrow’s big reveal will be the first time public eyes have ever viewed a sixth-gen bomber in real-life. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 23:30

  • Up To 40 Million Firearms Could Be Banned Overnight Due To New ATF Brace Rules
    Up To 40 Million Firearms Could Be Banned Overnight Due To New ATF Brace Rules

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is set to release its final rule on Braced firearms later this month. 

    In Analyzing the proposed rule, which was released June 2021, it appears that ATF has intentionally designed its Factoring Criteria for Rifled Barrel Weapons with Accessories Commonly Referred to as “Stabilizing Braces” to effect a complete ban of every pistol-braced firearm currently on the market. 

    Masquerading as a helpful rulemaking “to assist” gun owners and the firearms industry in complying with the law, in reality the proposed rule is designed with the obvious and specific intent to largely outlaw the use of stabilizing braces on firearms, threatening millions of current owners with imprisonment and putting a large segment of the gun industry out of business entirely.

    To accomplish this goal, the proposed rule creates “Worksheet 4999,” which contains three sections of analysis, each more restrictive than the last, designed to ensure that virtually no stabilizing brace is eligible for use on a non-rifle firearm, and thereafter ensuring that most firearms do not qualify to even use an allowed stabilizing brace.

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    Even if a firearm passes the checks listed in “Worksheet 4999” ATF reserves unto itself the unbridled discretion to override the results of the worksheet at any time and for any reason, creating a system where no person or company could possibly rely on anything the agency says.

    ATF in their proposed rulemaking claims that the number of Stabilizing braces in circulation is around 7-9 million. Whereas the Congressional Research Service estimates that the actual number of braces in circulation is anywhere between 10 – 40 million.

    If this proposed rule becomes law, millions of gun owners could find themselves in possession of illegal, unregistered short barreled rifles or shotguns overnight.

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    ATF attempted once before to effectively ban pistol braces in 2020, during the Trump administration. Because of the massive grassroots response to the rule change, ATF abandoned their attempt and withdrew the rulemaking. But now that a new anti-gun regime has taken control of the White House, the ATF feels empowered to revive its war on pistol braces and essentially ban an extremely popular gun accessory.

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    What is Gun Owners of America doing to combat this arbitrary and capricious regulation?

    We’ve submitted comments to the Federal Register detailing our arguments against the proposed rule.

    We’ve worked with 48 Senators to demand that the ATF withdraw its proposed rule.

    In Congress, we’re targeting the core of the issue, the National Firearms Act. The outdated and unconstitutional NFA allows ATF to regulate these sorts of items in the first place. We’re working with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and Congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia to pass the SHORT Act which would remove Short Barreled Rifles and Shotguns from the NFA.

    Finally, if the rule does go into effect, we’re prepared to take the fight to the courts.

    *  *  * 

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 23:05

  • California Senator Accused Of Faking Anti-LGBTQ Threat
    California Senator Accused Of Faking Anti-LGBTQ Threat

    California state Senator Scott Weiner – who in June suggested “Offering Drag Queen 101 as part of the K-12 curriculum,” for which “Attending Drag Queen Story Time will satisfy the requirement,” has been accused of a hate crime hoax.

    On Tuesday, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk made a Twitter thread pointing the finger at Weiner for contributing to the release of “thousands of pedophiles” in California “after just a few months in jail.”

    Click the tweet below to read the entire thread:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIn response, Weiner tweeted what he claimed to be a hateful, anti-LGBTQ message he received in response to Kirk’s thread.

    “Not even 24 hours after MAGA grifter Charlie Kirk tweeted homophobic lies about me, I received this thread repeating one of his lies.”

    Except, there’s a cursor at the bottom of the message, and grammar suggestions are underlined – leading many to accuse the California lawmaker of faking the entire thing.

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

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHow long until Weiner says he copied the message into a text editor?

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 22:40

  • Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?
    Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?

    Authored by Matt Stoller via BIG,

    “I Seen My Opportunities and I Took ’Em.” – George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

    Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona. Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management. Some rights reserved.

    Two of the classic works of late 19th century American political literature, representing precisely opposite views of how commerce in an industrialized democracy ought to work, are Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and the speeches of George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.

    George was one of the great political economists of his day, and he ran and lost for mayor of New York City on an anti-monopoly and land reform ticket. George was interested in why we experienced tremendous inequality in the midst of great wealth, and traced it to the exploitation of land.

    George was an international superstar, influencing both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, as well as environmentalists and the modern libertarian movement. (There’s an iconic statue of the greatest mayor in Cleveland history, Tom Johnson, with Johnson holding a copy of Progress and Poverty.) The modern academic profession of economics arose in part as a reaction to the popular success of George’s work. The game Monopoly comes directly from George, and in many ways, the national parks, as well as everything from spectrum allocation to offshore oil drilling, must wrestle with Georgeist thinking.

    But by land, he meant far more than just the plots upon which we live. “The term land,” George wrote, “necessarily includes, not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished from the water and the air, but the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which his very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature.” Unlike Marx, who saw the exploitation of capital over labor, George thought that the root of social disorder was a result of the power of the landowner over both capital and labor.

    By land, he meant all value drawn purely from nature or from collective human existence. He would, for instance, consider ‘network effects’ a form of land, and likely seek regulation or national control of search engines. George had his first run-in with monopoly in San Francisco, where a telegraph monopolist destroyed his newspaper by denying him wire service. But his key work, in 1879, was written before the rise of the giant trusts, just as railroads, which were really land kingdoms, were becoming dominant.

    A much more cynical set of works are the speeches of Plunkitt. Plunkitt was a political boss in New York City, a proud machine politician in office at the same time in the same political arena as George. Both men were interested in modern industry and wealth, and in both cases, the key fulcrum around which power flowed was not capital, but land. But while George sought a better world, Plunkitt just wanted to get rich, and saw in the purchase of land one of the key ways to do that.

    Plunkitt’s key moral guidepost was the practical wielding of political power to enrich oneself. He posited something called “Honest Graft,” which he distinguished from crime in a formulation that every important corporate lobbyist, knowingly or not, has since used. To Plunkitt, stealing would be taking something that doesn’t belong to you. But if you happened to know that the city would need a piece of land, and you got there first, well, that was simply smart. As Plunkitt put it:

    “I could get nothin’ at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted on. They couldn’t make the park complete without Plunkitt’s swamp, and they had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest in that?”

    George was part of the land reform anti-monopoly school of Anglo-American thought, from Frederick Douglass to Thaddeus Stevens. Plunkitt was a machine politician, and proud of it. The battle between these two elements of America, the desire to conserve the public weal versus the desire to cynically plunder it, is still fierce today. It will probably never end.

    And that brings me to the political conflict over our national parks, and the strange situation whereby a large government contractor, Booz Allen, somehow found itself in a position to rent us back our own land.

    Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.

    Every day, visitors to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Northern Arizona hike into an area named Coyote Buttes North to see one of the “most visually striking geologic sandstone formations in the world,” which is known as The Wave. On an ancient layer of sandstone, millions of years of water and wind erosion crafted 3,000-foot cliffs, weird red canyons that look like you are on the planet Mars, and giant formations that look like crashing waves made of rock. There are old carvings known as ‘petroglyphs’ on cliff walls, and even “dinosaur tracks embedded in the sediment.”

    The Wave is unlike anywhere else on Earth. It is also part of a U.S. national park, and thus technically, it’s open to anyone. Yet, to preserve its natural beauty, the Bureau of Land Management lets just 64 people daily visit the area. Snagging one of these slots is an accomplishment, a ticket into The Wave is known as “The Hardest Permit to Get in the USA” by Outside and Backpacker Magazines.

    To apply requires going to Recreation.gov, the site set up to manage national parks, public cultural landmarks, and public lands, and paying $9 for a “Lottery Application Fee.” If you win, you get a permit, and pay a recreation fee of $7. The success rate for the lottery is between 4-10%, and some people spend upwards of $500 before securing an actual permit.

    But while the recreation fee of $7 goes to maintaining the park – which is what Henry George would appreciate – the money for the “Lottery Application Fee” is pure Plunkitt. That money goes to the giant D.C. consulting firm, Booz Allen and Company. In fact, since 2017, more and more of America’s public lands – over 4,200 facilities and 113,000 individual sites across the country at last count – have been added to the Recreation.gov database and website run by Booz Allen, which in turn captures various fees that Americans pay to visit their national heritage.

    You can do a lot at Recreation.gov. You can sign up for a pass to cut down a Christmas tree on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, get permits to fly-fishing, rifle hunting or target practice at thousands of sites, or even secure a tour at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. There are dozens of lotteries to enter for different parks and lands that are hard to access. And all of them come with service fees attached, fees that go directly to Booz Allen, which built Recreation.gov. The deeper you go, the more interesting the gatekeeping. As one angry writer found out after waiting on hold and being transferred multiple times, the answer is that Booz Allen “actually sets the Recreation.gov fees for themselves.”

    Lately, hundreds of sites have begun requiring the use of the site. A typical example is Red Rock Canyon, which added “timed entry permit” in the past two years. Such parks, before adding these new processes, usually do a “trial” period followed by a public comment period, and then the fees are approved by a Resource Advisory Council, objects of derision composed of people appointed by the government bureaus. As one person involved in the process told me, these councils are sort of ridiculous. “Agencies fill it with people beholden to them,” he said. “so the council playing committee rubber stamps whatever they send their way, often even if it makes no sense.”

    The entry permit almost always become permanent. This includes heavily visited lands like Acadia National Park (4 million annual visitors), Arches National Park (1.5 million), Glacier National Park (3 million), Rocky Mountain National Park (4.4 million), and Yosemite (3.3 million). There’s nothing wrong with charging a fee for the use of a national park, as long as that fee is necessary for the upkeep and is used to maintain the public resource.

    That was in fact the point of the law passed in 2004 – the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act – to give permanent authority to government agencies to charge fees for the use of public lands. But what Booz Allen is doing is different. The incentives are creating the same dynamics for public lands that we see with junk fees across the economy. Just as airlines are charging for carry-on bags and hotels are forcing people to pay ‘resort fees,’ some national parks are now requiring reservations with fees attached. And as scalpers automatically grabbed Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster using high-speed automated programs, there are now bots booking campsites.

    None of this is criminal, though the fee structure may not be lawful, but it is very George Washington Plunkitt. “I Seen My Opportunities,” he said, “and I Took ’Em.”

    Honest Graft

    The entry point for Booz Allen can be traced back to the Obama administration, and a giant failed IT project. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, pledging that by 2014, the government would have a website up in which uninsured Americans could buy health insurance with various subsidies. In perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments of the Obama administration, Healthcare.gov failed to launch the day the new health law came into force, and millions couldn’t sign up to take advantage of it.

    It’s hard to overstate the shame of that moment. The government had spent $400 million over four years – more time than it took the U.S. to enter and win World War II – and yet, the dozens of contractors couldn’t set up a website to take sign-ups. The whole thing was an embarrassing disaster, a festival of incompetence and greed. (Despite the failure, the main IT contractor’s CEO became a billionaire. Honest graft indeed.)

    President Obama hired Google’s Mike Dickerson to come in and fix the Healthcare.gov website, which Dickerson and his team did. This wasn’t some miracle, it’s not like websites were new technology. The government itself created the internet and most of the underpinnings of digital technology, and it had many functional and important systems. But the Google name at that point was magic, and so the U.S. Digital Service, designed to help the government use technology, was born. After Dickerson, the new head was Google’s Matt Cutts, and then health care monopolist Optum’s Mina Hsiang. The U.S. Digital Service, far from being particularly competent, is a branding exercise. It is full of people from Amazon and Google, and tends to push the government to outsource its technology to third party contractors.

    Following the U.S. Digital Service’s playbook is what led the government to bid out and allow the creation of Recreation.gov, with its weird and corrupt fee structure. In 2017, Booz Allen got a 10-year $182 million contract to consolidate all booking for public lands and waters, with 13 separate agencies participating, from the Bureau of Land Management to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to the National Park Service to the Smithsonian Institution to the Tennessee Valley Authority to the US Forest Service.

    The funding structure of the site is exactly what George Washington Plunkitt would design. Though there’s a ten year contract with significant financial outlays, Booz Allen says the project was built “at no cost to the federal government.” In the contractor’s words, “the unique contractual agreement is a transaction-based fee model that lets the government and Booz Allen share in risk, reward, results, and impact.” In other words, Booz Allen gets to keep the fees charged to users who want access to national parks. Part of the deal was that Booz Allen would get the right to negotiate fees to third party sites that want access to data on Federal lands.

    It’s a bit hard to tell how much Booz Allen was paid to set up the site. Documents suggest the firm received a lot of money to do so, but it’s also possible that total amount was the anticipated financial return. I wrote to Recreation.gov team leader Julie McPherson at Booz Allen to find out what they were paid to build the site, and I haven’t heard back. Regardless, there’s a lot of money involved. For instance, as one camper noted, in just one lottery to hike Mount Whitney, more than 16,000 people applied, and only a third got in. Yet everyone paid the $6 registration fee, which means the gross income for that single location is over $100,000. There’s nothing criminal about this scheme, but it is a form of Honest Graft, or of handing a Ticketmaster-like firm control of our national parks.

    Judgment Day

    In 2020, an avid hiker named Thomas Kotab sued the Bureau of Land Management over the $2 “processing fee it charges to access the mandatory online reservation system to visit the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area.” He claimed, among other things, that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act mandated that this fee was unlawful, because it had not gone through the notice-and-comment period required by the act. Kotab, an electrical engineer by training, is one of those ass-kickers in America, who just goes after a grift because, well, it’s just wrong.

    A few years later, a judge named Jennifer A. Dorsey, appointed by Obama in 2013, agreed with him. She looked at the statute and found that Congress authorized the charging of recreation fees for the purpose of taking care and using Federal lands, not administrative fees that compensated third parties. As such, Booz Allen’s ability to set its own prices was inconsistent with the law mandating the public’s right to comment on what we are charged for using our own land.

    The BLM sought to appeal, but then dropped it in July. Rather than a bitter procedural argument about classifying fees, the government and Booz Allen have decided they’ll just go through the annoying process of having the public comment on Booz Allen’s compensation, and then ignore us using their phony advisory council process. Here, for instance, is the Mojave-Southern Great Basin Resource Advisory Council Meeting in August simply proposing to substitute new standard amenity fees “equal to the associated Recreation.gov reservation service fee.”

    One notable part of this saga is that technically, the BLM and Booz Allen owe refunds to everyone who went through Red Rock Canyon’s timed entry system from 2020-2022, but they’ll probably ignore that and steal the money. That verges into actual graft from the ‘honest’ type, but I suspect Plunkitt did that as well from time to time.

    And yet, it’s not over. The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act authorization runs out in October of 2023, which means that Congress has to renew it. Hopefully, an interested member of Congress who loves Federal lands could actually tighten the definitions here, and find a way to stop Booz Allen and these 13 government agencies from engaging in this minor theft via junk fees. It wouldn’t be hard, and it would be fun to force a bunch of government agencies to actually do their job and either take over the site themselves or pay Booz Allen a fee for its service. (Another path would be Joe Biden, through his anti-junk fee initiative, simply asserting through the White House Competition Council to the 13 different agencies that they end Booz Allen’s practice of charging these kinds of fees.)

    It’s easy enough to see scams everywhere, and here is certainly one of them. But let’s not lose sight of the broader point. Henry George, at least in this fight, has won. Yes, Booz Allen gets to steal some pennies, but we have a remarkable system of public lands and waters that are broadly available for all of us to use on a relatively equal basis. And we can still see the power of George-ism in the advocacy of hikers and in the intense view that members of Congress had when they passed the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act in 2004, which strictly regulated fees that Americans would have to pay to access our Federal lands. Indeed, the anger and revulsion I felt at the fees Booz Allen puts forward comes from George, even if I didn’t necessarily trace it there at first.

    We are in a moment of institutional corruption, but these moments are transitory as institutions change. George Washington Plunkitt, and his political descendants at Booz Allen, might have gotten rich, but Henry George imparted instincts to Americans that are far more permanent.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 22:15

  • Congress Adds $45 Billion To 2023 Military Budget
    Congress Adds $45 Billion To 2023 Military Budget

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The House and Senate have agreed to increase the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by $45 billion more than President Biden requested, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.

    The $45 billion increase was agreed on by the House and Senate Armed Service committees, but other details of the NDAA are still being finalized. The increase the two panels agreed on brings the bill to $847 billion.

    US Air Force/Getty Images

    Including programs outside of the jurisdiction of House and Senate Armed Service committees, the NDAA will reach $858 billion.

    Once finalized, it will be the second year in a row that Congress significantly increases President Biden’s requested budget. Last year, the president asked for $753 billion but was granted an NDAA worth about $778 billion.

    The Politico report said that the chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have largely agreed on the bill and have handed it off to congressional leadership.

    Congress is looking to get the NDAA on the House floor for a vote as early as next week. Once approved by the House it will go to the Senate and then would head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

    Over the past few months, lawmakers have been trying to tack on amendments to the spending bill that would give Taiwan unprecedented military aid, but the contents and amendments included in the NDAA aren’t yet clear.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    One plan reported by The Washington Post would give Taiwan $3 billion annually for at least five years. If the Taiwan aid isn’t included in the NDAA, the White House could ask Congress to authorize the Taiwan aid as emergency funds, which is what has been done for Ukraine.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 21:25

  • San Francisco Approves Lethal Police Robots After 'Unhinged' Board Of Supervisors Hearing
    San Francisco Approves Lethal Police Robots After ‘Unhinged’ Board Of Supervisors Hearing

    San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted this week to give police the ability to use lethal, remote-controlled robots in certain situations where “risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.”

    In a 8-3 vote following what one civil liberties advocate described as an “unhinged” meeting, the panel agreed to grant police the option despite strong objections from civil liberties and police oversight groups, AP reports.

    Opponents said the authority would lead to the further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with poor and minority communities.

    Supervisor Connie Chan, a member of the committee that forwarded the proposal to the full board, said she understood concerns over use of force but that “according to state law, we are required to approve the use of these equipments. So here we are, and it’s definitely not a easy discussion.”

    So when can police deploy the robots? As EFF‘s Matthew Guariglia notes; “The robots listed in this section shall not be utilized outside of training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessments.”

    And when can kill-mode be activated? “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when [1] risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and [2] officers cannot subdue the threat after using alternative force options or de-escalation tactics options, **or** conclude that they will not be able to subdue the threat after evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics. Only the Chief of Police, Assistant Chief, or Deputy Chief of Special Operations may authorize the use of robot deadly force options.”

    As Guariglia further notes; The “or” in this policy (emphasis added) does a lot of work. Police can use deadly force after “evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics,” meaning that they don’t have to actually try them before remotely killing someone with a robot strapped with a bomb. Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed an amendment that would have required police to actually try these non-deadly options, but the Board rejected it.

    Some highlights from Tuesday’s ‘unhinged’ meeting.

    As Guariglia adds:

    The Board majority failed to address the many ways that police have used and misused technology, military equipment, and deadly force over recent decades. They seem to trust that police would roll out this type of technology only in the absolutely most dire circumstances, but that’s not what the policy says. They ignore the innocent bystanders and unarmed people already killed by police using other forms of deadly force only intended to be used in dire circumstances. They didn’t account for the militarization of police response to protesters, such as the Minneapolis demonstration with  overhead surveillance of a predator drone.

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    More via EFF:

    The fact is, police technology constantly experiences mission creep–meaning equipment reserved only for specific or extreme circumstances ends up being used in increasingly everyday or casual ways. This is why President Barack Obama in 2015 rolled back the Department of Defense’s 1033 program which had handed out military equipment to local police departments. He said at the time police must  “embrace a guardian—rather than a warrior— mind-set to build trust and legitimacy both within agencies and with the public.”

    Supervisor Rafael Mandleman smeared opponents of the bomb-carrying robots as “anti-cop,” and unfairly questioned the professionalism of our friends at other civil rights groups. Nonsense. We are just asking why police need new technologies and under what circumstances they actually would be useful. This echoes the recent debate in which the Board of Supervisors enabled police to get live access to private security cameras, without any realistic scenario in which it would prevent crime. This is disappointing from a Board that in 2019 made San Francisco the first municipality in the United States to ban police use of face recognition.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 21:00

  • Lebanon Pushed Into Deeper Crisis As Parliament Again Fails To Elect President
    Lebanon Pushed Into Deeper Crisis As Parliament Again Fails To Elect President

    Via The Cradle,

    The Lebanese parliament on Thursday failed for the eighth consecutive time to elect a new president, as a majority of lawmakers continue to oppose the options laid on the table.

    During the first round of voting on Thursday, 111 votes were cast in the 128-seat parliament, with 52 lawmakers casting blank votes, while 37 voted in support of Michel Moawad, the son of the late president René Moawad.

    Via picture alliance/AP

    The 37 votes cast for Moawad are a drop from last week’s session, when 42 lawmakers voted for the candidate who is backed by the anti-Hezbollah bloc made up of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the Kataeb party, and a few ‘independent’ lawmakers.

    Some lawmakers even wrote in mock choices on their ballots, with one vote cast for Brazil’s socialist president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Following the voting session, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced that a ninth attempt to elect a president will take place next week.

    The Lebanese presidency, which has been reserved for the country’s Christian Maronite sect since the National Pact of 1943, has remained empty since the end of Michel Aoun’s term in September after six years in power.

    Hezbollah’s ‘Loyalty to the Resistance’ party, along with its allies in the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) all oppose Moawad’s candidacy. Hezbollah’s lawmakers, specifically, have maintained that their preferred candidate for the presidency is the leader of the Marada Movement, Suleiman Frangieh.

    The pro-resistance bloc has also been calling for dialogue to elect a “consensual president” among all political sides. However, US and Saudi-backed parties like the LF have opposed this. Christian political leader Samir Geagea said earlier this week that “dialogue with [Hezbollah and its allies] is a waste of time.”

    In response to this divisive stance, PSP leader Walid Jumblat called Geagea’s remarks “absurd” and said that “talking to all parties is necessary to elect a new president.”

    According to Article 49 of the Lebanese constitution, a presidential candidate is elected either by winning a two-thirds majority of parliament on the first ballot – 86 members, the same number required for a legal quorum – or by a simple majority of 65 votes in subsequent rounds.

    So far, no candidate has been able to secure the support of enough lawmakers, in either the first or subsequent rounds of voting. Former president Aoun’s own election in 2016 came after a more than two-year vacancy at the presidential palace, as lawmakers made 45 failed attempts before reaching a consensus on his candidacy.

    Further muddying the waters, the US, France, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have all expressed their desire to see the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander, Joseph Aoun, be named as Lebanon’s new president. Since 2019, the Levantine nation has been shouldering what the World Bank describes as the world’s worst economic crisis in the past 150 years, caused by rampant corruption in the financial sector.

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    A prolonged power vacuum would only exacerbate the situation, as Beirut is currently unable to enact sweeping reforms demanded by international lenders as a condition for releasing billions of dollars in loans.

    At a forum organized on 4 November at the Wilson Center, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, warned that the current situation in Lebanon could lead to a “complete disintegration of the state and the collapse of its security forces.”

    Leaf added that, as the crisis becomes more unbearable, she expects Lebanese lawmakers to pack their bags and leave for Europe, abandoning the country as “unsalvageable.” “We are putting pressure on political leaders to do their job, but nothing is as effective as popular pressure. Sooner or later, people will rise again,” Leaf pointed out.

    She added that collapse will enable Lebanon “somehow to be rebuilt from the ashes, freed from the curse of Hezbollah.” The US official concluded that the US and Saudi Arabia share the same vision for Lebanon, and are cooperating to achieve it.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 20:35

  • Senate Approves Legislation To Avoid Rail Strike
    Senate Approves Legislation To Avoid Rail Strike

    By Zachary Stieber of the Epoch Times

    The U.S. Senate on Dec. 1 approved legislation aimed at heading off a nationwide rail strike, a day after the House passed the measure.

    Senators voted 80–15 to pass the bill, which would impose a tentative agreement on rail workers and prohibit a potentially costly strike. Congress is allowed to take such action under the Railway Labor Act; it last took action to prevent a shutdown in 1994.

    President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill.

    A dozen unions representing more than 100,000 workers hammered out the agreement in the fall, but four of the unions later voted against ratifying it.

    Workers had been preparing to strike on Dec. 9 absent the legislation or a new deal being reached.

    Operators have warned that lost economic output resulting from a shutdown could reach or even eclipse $2 billion a day, while business groups have said a strike would disrupt the transport of crucial items, including food and chemicals.

    “A rail shutdown would’ve killed our supply chain, hurt workers and small businesses, and sent consumer prices through the roof. Passing legislation to avoid one was the right move to protect American jobs and keep our economy moving,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said after the vote.

    The Senate is split 50–50. To pass the filibuster, a measure needs at least 60 votes. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was among the Republicans pledging to vote against the bill, which would impose a tentative agreement on rail workers.

    The House of Representatives on Nov. 30 passed the bill in a 290–137 bipartisan vote, and separately approved seven days of paid sick leave, which wasn’t part of the original agreement.

    The agreement includes a 24 percent pay increase over five years and five $1,000 payments.

    Reaction

    The Association of American Railroads, which includes major operators, hailed the Senate vote.

    “The Senate acted with leadership and urgency with today’s vote to avert an economically devastating rail work stoppage,” Ian Jefferies, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

    “As we close out this long, challenging process, none of the parties achieved everything they advocated for. The product of these agreements is a compromise by nature, but the result is one of substantial gains for rail employees. More broadly, all rail stakeholders and the economy writ large now have certainty about the path forward,” he added.

    The industry thanked the Biden administration for pressuring Congress to act, even as many unions had urged Congress not to intervene.

    Some spoke out against the Dec. 1 vote.

    “What took place in the United States Senate today is a symptom, and further illustration, of a larger issue in our country. Almost every elected member of Congress campaigns on being ‘for the working class’; the actions of many today demonstrated they are for the corporate class,” the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen said in a statement.

    “The dereliction of duty and inability to hold corporations accountable for a lack of good faith to their employees will not be forgotten. Those who spoke against us provided no basis and resorted to their only skill set: passing blame and avoiding the issues.”

    Amendments

    Before taking up the bill itself, the Senate voted on amendments.

    Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) offered an amendment that would have implemented a 60-day “cooling-off period” during which a strike couldn’t be initiated.

    “My amendment would certainly avoid a strike. We all agree on that,” Sullivan said on the floor. “It will give negotiators more time to get to an agreement, and it will not make Congress the entity of last resort in these kinds of negotiations where the knowledge of the issues that are very complicated have not been thoroughly studied and have not received the due diligence that I believe every American, every union member wants us to have.”

    The proposal was defeated 26–69.

    Another amendment, offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), would have added seven days of paid sick leave to the agreement, as the House did. It was rejected in a 52–43 vote—it needed 60—despite support from some Republicans, including Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) voted against the amendment.

    “I am proud that the House of Representatives passed legislation to guarantee seven days of paid sick leave for all rail workers. While I’m disappointed that we were unable to get the 60 votes we needed in the Senate, we did receive the votes of every Senate Democrat, but one, as well as six Republicans,” Sanders said in a statement after the vote.

    He said that he would do everything he could “to make sure that rail workers in America are treated with dignity and respect.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 20:31

  • US Poised To 'Dramatically Expand' Training Of Ukrainian Forces
    US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces

    As if the Pentagon and US intelligence hadn’t already escalated its presence enough inside Ukraine, given there are already literally a small contingent of “boots on the ground” – as we detailed last month, CNN is now reporting that the Biden administration is considering “dramatically” increasing its training of Ukrainian forces.

    The proposal would involve US advisers training “much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics” at American installations in Germany, and perhaps other locations in Europe, according to the new report.

    CNN begins by reporting that “The Biden administration is considering a dramatic expansion in the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany, according to multiple US officials.”

    US advisers training Ukrainians in 2015, via NPR.

    “If adopted, the proposal would mark a significant increase not just in the number of Ukrainians the US trains but also in the type of training they receive,” the report continues, also noting that this far “only a few thousand” Ukrainian soldiers have been trained on specific US-provided weapons systems. 

    According to further details in CNN:

    Under the new program, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry maneuvers with artillery support – “much more intense and comprehensive” training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal.

    This is a significant statement given the ongoing British program at multiple UK bases is large in size. However what’s being mulled by the Pentagon would see some 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the United States every six months. Multiple US officials have meanwhile projected they expect the war could take years before there’s a final ceasefire and resolution. 

    The UK’s own infantry training program for Ukraine forces has a stated goal of training at least 10,000 Ukrainian troops. 

    The Kremlin for its part has warned repeatedly of such deepening Western involvement which clearly is now going far beyond just weapons shipments. Russia this week walked away from New START nuclear arms reduction treaty negotiations with the US while citing its growing involvement in backing Kiev as a major reason for halting resumption of talks. 

    Earlier in the conflict, Russia’s military vowed to attack any inbound foreign weapons shipments or training grounds inside Ukraine…

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    Prior to Russia’s February invasion, the Pentagon as well as US intelligence had been deeply involved in advisory training for Ukraine forces. US advisors however withdrew (in an official capacity at least) just prior to the Feb.24 assault. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 20:10

  • DHS Warns (Again) Of "Heightened Threat Environment" In Terrorism Bulletin
    DHS Warns (Again) Of “Heightened Threat Environment” In Terrorism Bulletin

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Nov. 30 issued a warning about a “heightened threat environment” ahead of the holiday season in the United States.

    “Our homeland continues to face a heightened threat environment—as we have seen, tragically, in recent acts of targeted violence—and is driven by violent extremists seeking to further a political or social goal or act on a grievance,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

    Faith-based institutions, government buildings, U.S. infrastructure, schools, and public gatherings could be targeted by groups of people or lone actors who might have “a range of ideological beliefs” and “personal grievances” in the coming weeks and months, the DHS’s National Terrorism Advisory System stated in a Nov. 30 bulletin.

    The bulletin is the seventh of its kind since January 2021 after President Joe Biden took over, and it’s set to run through May 24, 2023.

    The bulletin made reference to the Nov. 19 mass shooting targeting a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Officials haven’t established a motive in the shooting, and the suspect, 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich, later identified himself as “nonbinary” and used “they/them pronouns,” according to lawyers.

    “Perceptions of government overreach continue to drive individuals to attempt to commit violence targeting government officials and law enforcement officers. Some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances based on perceptions that the government is overstepping its Constitutional authorities or failing to perform its duties,” the DHS added.

    Other Alleged Threats

    Other threats, the DHS stated, could be linked to Islamist terrorism. ISIS leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was recently killed in a battle in Syria, the terrorist group reportedly confirmed, marking the second ISIS leader to die in 2022.

    “Recent incidents have highlighted the enduring threat to faith-based communities, including the Jewish community. In early November 2022, an individual in New Jersey was arrested for sharing a manifesto online that threatened attacks on synagogues,” the DHS bulletin stated. “The individual admitted to writing the document, in which he claimed to be motivated by … (ISIS) and hatred towards Jewish people.”

    A view of the home of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband, Paul Pelosi, was violently assaulted after a break-in at their house, according to a statement from her office, in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2022. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

    The bulletin also noted the alleged attack targeting outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband, Paul, in late October. Court papers filed by local and federal prosecutors say the suspect, David DePape, 42, broke into their San Francisco home, made threatening statements, and later attacked Pelosi with a hammer.

    “While violence surrounding the November midterm elections was isolated, we remain vigilant that heightened political tensions in the country could contribute to individuals mobilizing to violence based on personalized grievances. Over the past few months we observed general calls for violence targeting elected officials, candidates, and ballot drop box locations,” the DHS stated.

    “In October 2022 in San Francisco, California, an individual allegedly broke into the home of a Member of Congress and attacked their spouse with a hammer.”

    DePape, according to DHS, was “allegedly inspired by partisan grievances and conspiracy theories.” However, people who know DePape have called the incident into question, said that he previously held progressive viewpoints, and said he wasn’t violent.

    NBC News also retracted a report on Nov. 4 in which journalist Miguel Almaguer cited sources who gave conflicting information about the attack. No explanation was given by the network, and NBC hasn’t responded to several requests for comment.

    In the retracted report, Almaguer wrote that Paul Pelosi had opened the door when police arrived, and he then went back toward DePape. Court papers state that when police arrived, they saw Pelosi and DePape struggling over a hammer before DePape struck the elderly man in the head.

    “Potential changes in border security enforcement policy, an increase in noncitizens attempting to enter the U.S., or other immigration-related developments may heighten these calls for violence,” the DHS stated, likely referring to the agency’s move to drop the Title 42 border enforcement policy.

    DHS is the agency that oversees Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 19:45

  • Banks Developing Technology To Track Gun Purchases Under Guise Of Flagging Potential Mass Shooters
    Banks Developing Technology To Track Gun Purchases Under Guise Of Flagging Potential Mass Shooters

    Banks have been working on technology to “identify potential mass shooters” by tracking gun-related purchases and filing “Suspicious Activity Reports” with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

    Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown

    According to comments made by Amalgamated Bank Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Sims Brown at the New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday, the strategy would employ credit card companies to more closely track gun purchases, Bloomberg reports.

    “We’re at the very early stages of this — this particular code just got approved in October, so those detection scenarios are still being brought together,” said Brown, adding “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”

    The strategy would mirror ways banks try to identify and stop fraudsters from using customers’ funds. 

    The International Organization for Standardization approved a new merchant category code earlier this year that banks will use when processing transactions for gun and ammunition stores after Amalgamated submitted an application on the matter. Gun-control advocates were quick to celebrate the move, arguing it would help banks flag suspicious activity at these retailers. -Bloomberg

    Banks have come under pressure from Congressional Republicans over what they plan to do with the tracking codes, with conservative policymakers expressing concern that lenders will use the data to create unofficial lists of gun owners in the US.

    “What I’m hearing from other banks is that they have been honoring this process and this system, filing Suspicious Activity Reports across a myriad of industries to stop a myriad of crimes — or at least alert authorizes of them,” said Brown. “And I have every confidence that banks are going to do the same thing here.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 19:20

  • 100-A-Day: Chicago Vehicle Thefts Explodes As SAFE-T Act Changes Debated
    100-A-Day: Chicago Vehicle Thefts Explodes As SAFE-T Act Changes Debated

    Authored by Matt Rosenberg via Wirepoints.org,

    One hundred motor vehicle thefts a day.

    That’s the recent daily count in Chicago in October as motor vehicle thefts spiked dramatically in the last three months. Compare that to the first half of the year when Chicago was averaging “just” 35 thefts a day.

    It’s just one part of the Great Unraveling of Chicago’s justice system that stems from emboldened criminals, a demoralized police force and a leadership class obsessed with soft-on-crime legislation like the SAFE-T Act. Late amendments to the Act under consideration today in the final day of the fall veto session could lessen the damage somewhat but key flaws and a lawsuit challenging the Act will remain.

    As will the onslaught of car thefts in Chicago so outlaws can perpetrate serious crimes. The sheer volume of vehicle thefts now in the city is striking. According to the city’s data portal, Chicago is on track to suffer 20,234 by year’s end. That would be 91 percent more than last year, more than double the last pre-Covid pre-George Floyd year of 2019, and far greater than any year since 2006. 

    Worse, the motor vehicle theft arrest rate projected for year-end based on data through November 21 is a stunningly low 2.5 percent. That’s lower than at any point in the last two decades. It’s no wonder the bad guys are emboldened. They face no consequences.

    Rise of the “Kia Boys”

    Starting in summer months, a new phenomenon spread nationally to major metro regions including Chicago. Crafty young car thieves, self-styled “Kia Boys,” learned – and shared on widely viewed videos – how to hack into and steal late-model Kia and Hyundai vehicles by activating the ignition with just a USB computer plug. This after breaking, entering and then stripping the steering column. 

    As crime website CWB Chicago reported, boosting a Kia or Hyundai leaves thieves a longer “shelf life” in which to use the stolen car compared to a carjacked vehicle which usually prompts quick notifications to police.

    Other car thefts continue as well, many stemming from delivery drivers leaving their engines running while they briefly run into a building. 

    Stolen vehicles often taken for shootings, robberies, carjackings

    Police say some cars are stolen for joy rides but in most cases the thefts are to facilitate serious crimes. 

    One Chicago cop told Wirepoints: “It’s not like 30 or 40 years ago where they’re selling the stolen car for quick cash or they’re chopping it up for parts. Most…are being stolen expressly to use in shootings or in robberies so they can get away. If police see a stolen car they’re not going to know who’s driving it and who it belongs to…and police can’t chase the stolen cars. Basically if they jump back in the car, they kind of get away scott free. Even if the car isn’t taken in a carjacking, even if it’s just stolen….it leads into these other higher-level crimes.”

    The officer added, “they’re driving these cars and taking them back to go do shootings in neighborhoods where they live or hang out. Or they’re using them to do robberies, usually in nicer areas. If you catch these guys, they’ll tell you. They do robberies in nicer areas because they’re easier victims, they’re easier targets.”

    Once again, Chicago’s black residents get the worst of it

    Whether for shootings in the ‘hood or robberies in upscale climes, the car thefts are being committed most often in low-income minority neighborhoods of Chicago: 

    Those five districts accounted for more than a third of all car thefts citywide. They are predominantly populated by black Chicagoans, with smatterings of Hispanic and white residents. They mainly lie on the city’s troubled South Side, though one straddles the city’s north-side divider. 

    The malfeasance continues

    Cook County courts have put their characteristic stamp of misfeasance and ineptitude on Chicago’s growing vehicle theft problem. 

    As CWB Chicago reported, one Kia Boy taken into custody had been convicted in a weapons case but released on probation before leading police on a high speed chase that required a helicopter and ground units to track and arrest him. Another Kia Boy less than two months before his vehicle theft bust this week had been charged and released for felony unlawful use of a weapon. After the gun charge he had been slotted to attend a “restorative justice” court which may include case resolution in a “peace circle.”

    Motor vehicle thefts – and the Kia Boys who perpetuate them – may be just one type of criminal activity in Chicago, but they are emblematic of a city increasingly sliding towards chaos.

    Count on city and state leaders to completely ignore this data as they push full steam ahead on the SAFE-T Act. 

    Appendix

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 18:55

  • GOP Senators Say They Will Block Military Funding Unless Vaccine Mandate Scrapped
    GOP Senators Say They Will Block Military Funding Unless Vaccine Mandate Scrapped

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Republicans in the Senate have threatened to block the National Defense Authorization Act unless a vote is held on the current COVID vaccine mandate for military personnel.

    The effort is being headed up by Florida Senator Rick Scott and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, along with 11 other senators, including Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.

    Scott told Fox News “I think on the NDAA one thing that’s going to be important is that we don’t give cloture unless they agree that we’re not going to keep kicking people out of the service for their – if they’re unvaccinated,” adding “I think that we’ve got to start standing up for people.”

    In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senators state “The Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate has ruined the livelihoods of men and women who have honorably served our country.”

    “While the Department of Defense certainly must make decisions that will bolster military readiness, the effects of the mandate are antithetical to readiness of our force, and the policy must be revoked,” the letter further states.

    During a press conference, Paul stated “The vaccination mandate has forced our nation’s young patriotic men and women to choose between their faith, their medical autonomy and their careers.”

    “At a time when the military is struggling to meet targets for recruitment, the administration is firing soldiers we invested in and trained,” Paul further noted.

    For five decades now, the NDAA has been viewed as vital legislation for Congress each year, covering spending for the military, including the annual pay raise and new program starts.

    Despite attempts to stop mandatory vaccines for active duty personnel, and to uphold exemption rights, the Biden administration has continually pushed for dishonourable discharges and even court martialing for troops who disobey orders to get the shots.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 18:55

  • Is A Santa Rally Coming This Year
    Is A Santa Rally Coming This Year

    After yesterday’s face-ripping, short-squeezing meltup after Powell’s “more dovish than expected” speech which saw the S&P close above the 200DMA for the first time since April, any commentators were quick to opine that Christmas came early for stocks. But did it, and did the ramp on the last day of November simply pull forward what is traditionally a much more gradual December meltup?

    As TS Lombard’s Skylar Montgomery Koning explains in a lengthy note from Wednesday, “historically equities outperform into year-end.” In the chart on the bottom left, she shows average and median S&P changes on a monthly basis vs the 30y comparable – and, indeed, the S&P does tend to outperform in the last three months of the year on both an average and a median basis. As for the December performance specifically, the equity rally does tend to gain momentum in the two weeks before Christmas, which mark a turning point for the bottom 25th percentile (although the December 2018 crash is still vivid for so many traders). So, there is some historical evidence for the Santa rally hypothesis.

    However, as Koning observes, “it is important to note, that an observable pattern is worthless unless there is a reasonable explanation.”

    To be sure, there is some logic to seasonality and many touted explanations for the Santa rally exist. For one, risk assets tend to have an inverse relationship with volatility. In this cycle, there has been a tight inverse relationship between rates volatility and equity directionality (see chart on next page bottom left). Of course, since the market has essentially traded a one-factor model (Fed funds expectations) this year, this relationship could be expected; but it also makes sense long term: as Koning notes, “as an investor, I’m much happier allocating to risk assets when they aren’t making 2 standard deviation moves on a regular basis. As market participants go off on holiday, markets close and event risk is limited (i.e., there is less uncertainty), you would expect volatility to fall” which it usually does except in some very high profile cases… such as the unforgettable brief bear market of Dec 2018.

    Moreover, over time the bias is for equities to go up: over the S&P’s history, its average return is 7% per annum. In quiet holiday markets without any impetus to the contrary, equities have a bias to revert to trend and grind up. Last week’s Thanksgiving holiday was a case in point: with little on the data front, the US market closed for a day and a half, limited data announcements and many on holiday, market trading was muted, equity volatility fell and equities ground higher. In fact, across DM equity markets, Japan and the United States (both of which have national Thanksgiving holidays) outperform significantly in November.

    Volatility does indeed fall into year-end. According to an analysis from the TS Lombard strategists looking at equity vol on a change and level basis  historically volatility has fallen going into the summer and Christmas holidays. The net result is lower average vol in the summer and December (see charts below left). And, indeed, we have seen volatility decline across assets from the mid-October peak, although rates and FX vol are still historically elevated.

    Psychology plays a role. With regard to the end of the year, it is also important to note that money managers are judged on annual calendar year performance. Because of the propensity for equities to rally as the end of the year approaches, investors who have lost money have an incentive to chase the rally upwards, while those who have made money are more likely to settle their books. Or, in a year like 2022, where they have made money by being short risk, with the market rallying, those who have made money buy upside exposure so as not to bleed P&L into year-end. Options data back this up: the CBOE put/call ratio drops significantly in December (i.e., investors want more upside vs downside exposure – see the chart below right).

    User Beware – fundamentals dominate. The major point here is that dispersion within months is massive; historically the maximum return observed in October is +11%, while the minimum is -22%. Additionally as shown in the first chart up top, both average and median numbers illustrate that while seasonality can guide returns, a large fundamental force can more than negate it. And a case in point is October, where the average return is significantly below the median. This is because October has had two historical risk asset collapses: Black Monday in 1987, when US equities fell more than 20% in a day; and the Lehman collapse, which took place in mid-September 2008 but the bulk of the equity decline came in October 2008 (-17%). Moreover, there are three stumbling blocks to the Santa rally narrative.

    • First: Equity performance already looks overdone. Equities have rallied 10% in the period October-November – the median rally over 4Q is 5.5% (and the average is 4.3%). Additionally, when the S&P rallies above its 50 & 100DMA, it looks technically vulnerable as it heads towards its 200DMA. Moreover, the rally in equities contrasts with the rates volatility rebound on the recent spate of Fed hawkish speak (see the chart on the previous page on the left).
    • Second: There is a lot of event risk into year-end. This week alone we will have a key speech from Powell (speaking at the Brookings Institution ahead of the quiet period), US core PCE and a jobs report, followed by an OPEC meeting at the weekend. Then virtually every DM central bank will report over a two-week period. Plus there will be the US CPI one day before the final Fed meeting of the year (on 14 December), where we will get a new set of projections, dots and the markets pivot narrative will be put to the test.
    • Third: Recession generally implies lower risk assets and higher volatility. As TS Lombard economists warn, the rates market and economists are telling us we are headed toward a recession – which has been our base case since the summer. We have covered the risk asset implications here. But it is also important to note that as the economy deteriorates into a recession, adverse sentiment kicks in and things tend to become non-linear, accelerating the slowdown. Correspondingly, volatility tends to rise from half a year before the recession begins, spiking at the start of the recession (see chart below).

    More in the full note available to pro subs.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 18:30

  • Matt Taibbi Dominates Munk Debate: Let It Be Resolved – Don't Trust Mainstream Media
    Matt Taibbi Dominates Munk Debate: Let It Be Resolved – Don’t Trust Mainstream Media

    On Wednesday night, veteran journalist Matt Taibbi and bestselling UK author Douglas Murray mopped the floor in a Munk debate over why public trust in mainstream media has fallen to an all-time low. Their opponents, Canadian journalist Malcom Gladwell and the New York Times‘ Michelle Goldberg, were… shall we say, unpersuasive in their arguments that essentially boiled down to ‘so what if we get a ton of stuff wrong, when it comes to the big picture, we get it right!’

    Prior to the debate, Taibbi and Douglas weren’t expected to win… however a post-debate poll gave the two a massive victory.

    One point Taibbi made is that mainstream outlets have become a “Demographic hunting business” for which “ethical guardrails have been tossed out.”

    “You feed the audience news you know they will like,” Taibbi said. 

    We agree wholeheartedly – though ZeroHedge strives to call out bullshit on all sides of every aisle, while at the same time being extremely clear on where we stand. So, in our obvious bias towards Matt, who is awesome (and no offense to Douglas), you can watch his opening statement below. If you want to watch the rest of the debate, sign up for $9.99/month (Canadian) at Munk and check it out.

    You can read Taibbi’s entire opener below…

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

    “Be it resolved: don’t trust mainstream media.” My name is Matt Taibbi, I’ve been a reporter for 30 years, and I argue for the resolution. You should not trust mainstream media.

    I grew up in the press. My father was a reporter. My stepmother was a reporter. My godparents were reporters. Every adult I knew growing up seemed to be in media. I even used my father’s TV mic flag as a toy. I’d go in the backyard, stand with my back to the house, and play “live shot”:

    Chet, I’m in Norwell, Massachusetts, where firefighters are battling a three-alarm blaze…

    I love the news business. It’s in my bones. But I mourn for it. It’s destroyed itself.

    My father had a saying: “The story’s the boss.” In the American context, if the facts tell you the Republicans were the primary villains in this or that disaster, you write that story. If the facts point more at Democrats, you go that way. If it turns out they’re both culpable, as was often the case for me across nearly ten years of investigating Wall Street and the causes of the 2008 crash for Rolling Stone, you write that. We’re not supposed to nudge facts one way or another. Our job is to call things as we see them and leave the rest up to you.

    We don’t do that now. The story is no longer the boss. Instead, we sell narrative, as part of a new business model that’s increasingly indifferent to fact.

    When there were only a few channels, the commercial strategy of news companies was to aim for the whole audience. A TV news broadcast aired at dinnertime and was designed to be consumed by the whole family, from your crazy right-wing uncle to the sulking lefty teenager. This system had its flaws. However, making an effort to talk to everybody had benefits, too. For one, it inspired more trust. Gallup polls twice showed Walter Cronkite of CBS to be the most trusted person in America. That would never happen today.

    After the Internet arrived and flooded the market with new voices, some outlets found that instead of going after the whole audience, it made more financial sense to pick one demographic and dominate it. How? That’s easy. You feed the audience news you know they will like. When Fox had success targeting suburban and rural, mostly white, mostly older conservatives – the late Fox News chief Roger Ailes infamously described his audience as “55 to dead” – other companies soon followed suit.

    Now everyone does it. Whether it’s Fox, or MSNBC, or CNN, or the Washington Post, nearly all Western media outlets are in the demographic-hunting business. This may be less true in Canada, where there’s a stronger public media tradition, but in the U.S., it’s standard.

    Call it the “audience-optimization” model: instead of starting with a story and following the facts, you start with what pleases your audience, and work backward to the story. In this system, the overwhelming majority of national media organizations cater to one “side” or the other. For instance, according to a Pew Center survey from a few years ago, 93% of Fox’s audience votes Republican, while in an exactly mirroring phenomenon, MSNBC’s audience is 95% Democratic.

    Our colleagues on the other side tonight represent two once-great media organizations. Michelle, the Pew survey says the audience for your New York Times is now 91% comprised of Democrats. Malcolm, the last numbers I could find for the New Yorker were back in 2012, and even then, only 9% of the magazine’s readers were Republicans. I imagine that number is smaller now.

    This bifurcated system is fundamentally untrustworthy. When you decide in advance to forego half of your potential audience, to fulfill the aim of catering to the other half, you’re choosing in advance which facts to emphasize and which to downplay. You’re also choosing which stories to cover, and which ones to avoid, based on considerations other than truth or newsworthiness.

    This is not journalism. It’s political entertainment, and therefore unreliable.

    With editors now more concerned with retaining audience than getting things right, the defining characteristic across the business — from right to left — is inaccuracy. We just get a lot of stuff wrong now. It’s now less important for reporters to be accurate than “directionally” correct, which in center-left “mainstream” media mostly comes down to having the right views, like opposing Donald Trump, or anti-vaxxers, or election-deniers, or protesting Canadian truckers, or any other people deemed wrongthinkers.

    In the zeal to “hold Trump accountable,” or oppose figures like Vladimir Putin, ethical guardrails have been tossed out. Silent edits have become common. Serious accusations are made without calling people for comment. Reporters get too cozy with politicians, and as a result report information either without attribution at all or sourced to unnamed officials or “people familiar with the matter.” Like scientists, journalists should be able to reproduce each other’s work in the lab. With too many anonymous sources, this becomes impossible.

    We had an incident a few weeks ago where the lede of a wire service story read, “A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland.” That’s the kind of story where if you get it wrong, you can start a war, but they still put all their chips on one unnamed source. That’s very risky practice even if you’re right.

    That story turned out to be wrong, which sadly is no longer uncommon. In the Trump years an extraordinary number of “bombshells” went sideways. From the “pee tape” to the Alfa Server story to speculation that Trump was a Russian spy (recruited before disco) to false reports of Russians hacking a Vermont utility to an evidence-free story about Trump’s campaign manager somehow sneaking undetected to meet the most watched human on earth, Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, we’ve accumulated piles of wrong stories.

    I’m no fan of Donald Trump. I wrote a book about the man called Insane Clown President. But I’ve compiled a list of over 100 of these “bombshells” that went belly up, from “Bountygate” to MSNBC saying Russian oligarchs co-signed a loan for Trump to countless others, because these stories offend me. A good journalist should always be ashamed of error. It bothers me to see so many of my colleagues so unashamed.

    This by the way isn’t a wholly new phenomenon. After the WMD fiasco American news media didn’t do a self-audit. Instead we promoted the people who got it wrong and fired the ones who didn’t.

    The excuse, “At least we’re not Breitbart,” doesn’t even hold. Think about another of these bombshells, the one in which Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen supposedly went to Prague to meet with Russian hackers. This story came from the now-disgraced dossier of former British spy Christopher Steele. It’s been refuted multiple times, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who flatly declared Cohen “never traveled to Prague.” Yet the tale will not die.

    From MSNBC to CNN to McClatchy we’ve had leading media outlets continue to take seriously the idea that Donald Trump’s lawyer traveled to Prague to scheme with “Kremlin Representatives” over how to fix the election using Romanian hackers, who according to Steele would afterward retreat to Bulgaria, and use that country as a “bolt hole” to “lie low.” If that’s not a conspiracy theory, I don’t know what is.

    This story is every bit as nuts as the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. I would venture to say it’s crazier. It’s at least more creative. No serious journalist would go near a story like this without a lot of evidence. Yet our leading media people believed it with none. Because they’re not doing journalism. They’re selling narrative, and this was good narrative.

    News media shouldn’t have a “side.” The press has to be seen as separate from politics, not just because this is a crucial component of trustworthiness, but also because the media derives all its power from the perception of its independence. If a news organ is seen as too connected to one or another party, it loses its ability to serve as a check on power. How can you “hold Trump accountable” without credibility?

    Getting things right is hard enough. The minute we try to do anything else in this job, the wheels come off. Until we get back to the basics, we don’t deserve to be trusted. And we won’t be.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 18:05

  • Parler "Terminates" Kanye West's Deal To Buy Social Media Company
    Parler “Terminates” Kanye West’s Deal To Buy Social Media Company

    After a month in a half since Parlement Technologies announced it had entered into an agreement in principle to sell Parler to Kanye “Ye” West, the social media site tweeted it had terminated the deal. 

    Late Monday afternoon, around 1500 ET, Parler tweeted:

    “In response to numerous media inquiries, Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November.”

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

    As Variety noted, “the announcement of the termination of West’s deal to buy Parler came shortly after West appeared on Alex Jones’ Infowars — where, among other things, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.” 

    Parler and West in mid-October announced the deal to buy the popular social media platform, a favorite among American conservatives. Both parties were expected to close on the deal in the fourth quarter of 2022

    Axios noted Ye’s crumbling financial empire, including the loss of his Adidas deal, played a crucial role in the termination. 

    “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community,” the company said Thursday.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 17:44

  • CNN Starts Layoffs And WaPo Ends Sunday Magazine Amid "Economic Headwinds"
    CNN Starts Layoffs And WaPo Ends Sunday Magazine Amid “Economic Headwinds”

    It’s no secret that the Mainstream Media is in steep decline – what with the flagrant peddling of establishment narratives and occasional propaganda that almost launches WWIII.

    A few recent examples:

    And so, it comes as no surprise that MSM outlets are in financial trouble.

    To wit, on Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter noted CNN has started layoffs as as “part of continued cost-cutting by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.”

    “It will be a difficult time for everyone,” said CEO Chris Licht in a Wednesday memo, who noted that paid contributors will learn their fate on Wednesday, while full-time employees would be informed of their status on Thursday.

    “Our people are the heart and soul of this organization,” Licht added. “It is incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many. I recently described this process as a gut punch, because I know that is how it feels for all of us.”

    The cuts are not a surprise, with Licht warning employees in late October that the news division would be undergoing a restructuring, citing “widespread concern over the global economic outlook.”

    But they do come amid decreasing morale at CNN, which has already seen significant turnover this year since the Discovery merger. One of the first moves made after the merger closed was to shut down the CNN+ streaming service, laying off a couple hundred employees in the process. -Hollywood Reporter

    Meanwhile, the Washington Post is also trimming fat – announcing that it will cease publication of its Sunday magazine, and will eliminate a number of editorial positions related to the product.

    In a Wednesday email to staffers, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said that the move is part of the company’s “global and digital transformation.”

    Buzbee said in an email to almost a dozen magazine staffers that the cuts were “no reflection on the quality of your work,” but rather due to “economic headwinds.”

    Maybe stop being establishment hacks?

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 17:40

  • White House "Isn't Taking A Side" On Cause Of Anti-Lockdown Protests In China
    White House “Isn’t Taking A Side” On Cause Of Anti-Lockdown Protests In China

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    The Biden White House says it “isn’t taking a side” on the cause of anti-lockdown protests in China, a ‘walking on eggshells’ remark seemingly designed to protect the administration from charges of hypocrisy.

    Over the past week, multiple major cities across China have seen massive protests against lockdowns, with the normally compliant Chinese exploding into rage in response to their government’s ‘zero COVID’ policy.

    Much of the unrest blew up in response to an incident in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, where at least 10 people, some say up to 40, were killed during an apartment fire because lockdown rules stopped residents from fleeing the burning building.

    Most of the city’s residents have been prevented from leaving their homes for over 100 days as a result of the draconian rules, which are still in place nearly three years after the pandemic began.

    While Chinese citizens are now clearly being subjected to human rights abuses in the name of maintaining a brutal lockdown, the White House could only respond with a mealy-mouthed statement.

    Appearing on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby was asked if the Biden administration agreed with protesters that COVID restrictions should be lifted and whether President Xi Jinping should stand down.

    Kirby prevaricated by saying the White House was “on the side of peaceful protest,” but that the administration was not “taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about.”

    WATCH:

    “I would not say at all that we would agree with criticism that we’ve been less than firm or consistent. In fact, Brian, we’ve been very, consistent about the right of peaceful protest and we’ve been very vocal about it in China just over the last few days,” said Kirby.

    “We believe that these individuals should be able to peacefully protest and assemble and to make their minds known to their government there in China just like we’ve said the same in Iran and around the world. And we stand up for peaceful protest, and again, we’ve been very consistent about that,” he added.

    Co-host Steve Doocy then asked, “Absolutely, the White House is always for peaceful protests, but, John, you know what the protesters are saying, they’re saying, hey, Xi Jinping’s got to go or loosen the COVID restrictions that are keeping people stuck in their houses for months. So, between he’s got to go or loosen restrictions, which side is the White House on when it comes to supporting the protestors?”

    Kirby responded, “Steve, we’re on the side of peaceful protest. We’re on the side of individuals being able to freely assemble and to express their views, whatever those views are. We’re not taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about. Largely though, Steve, you know that these protesters are really out there about the lockdown. Their main concern, what drove them to the streets was the very severe, very stringent COVID policies by Xi’s administration, and that’s what’s really been driving all this public protest.”

    The spokesman then asserted, “we don’t believe, here in the United States, that lockdowns are the answer.”

    This doesn’t correlate with what Biden himself has said on many occasions.

    Back in August 2020, the president said he wouldn’t hesitate to lockdown the entire United States if it was necessary to stop COVID.

    “I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists,” said Biden at the time.

    In comparison, two months previously in June, President Trump told Fox News, “We won’t be closing the country again. We won’t have to do that.”

    Indeed, if the presidential election had taken place a year earlier, there’s almost no doubt that Biden would have lobbied for for more draconian lockdowns that those that were imposed by states during the final 10 months of the Trump administration.

    As we highlighted yesterday, Anthony Fauci once again defended brutal Chinese lockdowns, admitting that the Communist government is forcefully locking people inside buildings but adding that if it means people get vaccinated then he is “okay” with it.

    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behind the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/01/2022 – 17:15

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