Today’s News 2nd March 2022

• Whitehead: "These Are Dangerous Times For America And The World"
  Whitehead: “These Are Dangerous Times For America And The World”

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”

   – Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

  Let me tell you about the state of our nation: things are getting worse, not better.

  

  Easily distracted by wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis and conveniently diverted by news cycles that change every few days, Americans remain oblivious to the many governmental abuses that are still wreaking havoc on our freedoms: police shootings of unarmed individuals, invasive surveillance, roadside blood draws, roadside strip searches, SWAT team raids gone awry, the military industrial complex’s costly wars, pork barrel spending, pre-crime laws, civil asset forfeiture, fusion centers, militarization, armed drones, smart policing carried out by AI robots, courts that march in lockstep with the police state, schools that function as indoctrination centers, and bureaucrats that keep the Deep State in power.

  These are dangerous times for America and the world.

  Yet while you may hear plenty about the dangers posed by Russia and COVID-19 in President Biden’s State of the Union address, it’s still the U.S. government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life.

  Consider for yourself.

  Americans have little protection against police abuse. The police and other government agents have been generally empowered to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts. It is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. What is increasingly common, however, is the news that the officers involved in these incidents get off with little more than a slap on the hands.

  Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. This is true, whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated government agencies with their secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities.

  Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty. We once operated under the assumption that you were innocent until proven guilty. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. Indeed, the government—in cahoots with the corporate state—has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, we are all potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

  Americans no longer have a right to self-defense. While the courts continue to disagree over the exact nature of the rights protected by the Second Amendment, the government itself has made its position extremely clear. When it comes to gun rights in particular, and the rights of the citizenry overall, the U.S. government has adopted a “do what I say, not what I do” mindset. Nowhere is this double standard more evident than in the government’s attempts to arm itself to the teeth, all the while viewing as suspect anyone who dares to legally own a gun, let alone use one in self-defense. Indeed, while it still technically remains legal to own a firearm in America, possessing one can now get you pulled over, searched, arrested, subjected to all manner of surveillance, treated as a suspect without ever having committed a crime, shot at, and killed.

  Americans no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

  Americans no longer have a say about what their children are exposed to in school. Incredibly, the government continues to insist that parents essentially forfeit their rights when they send their children to a public school. This growing tension over whether young people, especially those in the public schools, are essentially wards of the state, to do with as government officials deem appropriate, in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents, is at the heart of almost every debate over educational programming, school discipline, and the extent to which parents have any say over their children’s wellbeing in and out of school.

  Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police forces. With local police agencies acquiring military-grade weaponry, training and equipment better suited for the battlefield, Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts patrolled by a standing military army.

  Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from abortion and euthanasia to forced blood draws, biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

  Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy. Despite the staggering number of revelations about government spying on Americans’ phone calls, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Google searches, emails, bookstore and grocery purchases, bank statements, commuter toll records, etc., Congress, the president and the courts have done little to nothing to counteract these abuses. Instead, they seem determined to accustom us to life in this electronic concentration camp.

  Americans no longer have a representative government. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered the age of authoritarianism, where all citizens are suspects, security trumps freedom, and so-called elected officials represent the interests of the corporate power elite. This topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

  Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the Supreme Court have become the architects of the American police state in which we now live, while the lower courts have appointed themselves courts of order, concerned primarily with advancing the government’s agenda, no matter how unjust or illegal.

  I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

  This steady slide towards tyranny, meted out by militarized local and federal police and legalistic bureaucrats, has been carried forward by each successive president over the past seventy-plus years regardless of their political affiliation.

  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  Big government has grown bigger, and the rights of the citizenry have grown smaller.

  We are walking a dangerous path right now.

  Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives. And for as long as we let them, government officials will continue to trample on our rights, always justifying their actions as being for the good of the people.

  Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow. Therein lies the problem.

  The pickle we find ourselves in speaks volumes about the nature of the government beast we have been saddled with and how it views the rights and sovereignty of “we the people.”

  Now you don’t hear a lot about sovereignty anymore. Sovereignty is a dusty, antiquated term that harkens back to an age when kings and emperors ruled with absolute power over a populace that had no rights. Americans turned the idea of sovereignty on its head when they declared their independence from Great Britain and rejected the absolute authority of King George III. In doing so, Americans claimed for themselves the right to self-government and established themselves as the ultimate authority and power.

  In other words, in America, “we the people”— sovereign citizens—call the shots.

  So when the government acts, it is supposed to do so at our bidding and on our behalf, because we are the rulers.

  That’s not exactly how it turned out, though, is it?

  In the 200-plus years since we boldly embarked on this experiment in self-government, we have been steadily losing ground to the government’s brazen power grabs, foisted upon us in the so-called name of national security.

  We have relinquished control over the most intimate aspects of our lives to government officials who, while they may occupy seats of authority, are neither wiser, smarter, more in tune with our needs, more knowledgeable about our problems, nor more aware of what is really in our best interests.

  The government has knocked us off our rightful throne. It has usurped our rightful authority. It has staged the ultimate coup. Its agents no longer even pretend that they answer to “we the people.”

  Worst of all, “we the people” have become desensitized to this constant undermining of our freedoms.

  How do we reconcile the Founders’ vision of the government as an entity whose only purpose is to serve the people with the police state’s insistence that the government is the supreme authority, that its power trumps that of the people themselves, and that it may exercise that power in any way it sees fit (that includes government agents crashing through doors, mass arrests, ethnic cleansing, racial profiling, indefinite detentions without due process, and internment camps)?

  They cannot be reconciled. They are polar opposites.

  We are fast approaching a moment of reckoning where we will be forced to choose between the vision of what America was intended to be (a model for self-governance where power is vested in the people) and the reality of what it has become (a police state where power is vested in the government).

  We are repeating the mistakes of history—namely, allowing a totalitarian state to reign over us.

  Former concentration camp inmate Hannah Arendt warned against this when she wrote:

  “No matter what the specifically national tradition or the particular spiritual source of its ideology, totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships, but by mass movement, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign policy openly directed toward world domination.”

  So where does that leave us?

  Aldous Huxley predicted that eventually the government would find a way of:

  “making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

  The answer? Get un-brainwashed. Stop allowing yourself to be distracted and diverted.

  Learn your rights. Stand up for the founding principles.

  Make your voice and your vote count for more than just political posturing.

  Never cease to vociferously protest the erosion of your freedoms at the local and national level.

  Most of all, do these things today.

  Ultimately, I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we need to shift the center of power back to “we the people.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 23:25

• Hollywood Studios Pause New Film Releases In Russia
  Hollywood Studios Pause New Film Releases In Russia

  Over the last seven decades, Hollywood has served as the unofficial — but massively influential — propaganda arm of the US government. If national interests are so required, film studios will create wartime propaganda and or even, like we’re witnessing today, pause theatrical releases in Russia. 

  The Walt Disney Company announced Monday that “given the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis, we are pausing the release of theatrical films in Russia, including the upcoming Turning Red from Pixar.” Dinsey is the first major studio to protest Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine five days ago. 

  “We will make future business decisions based on the evolving situation. In the meantime, given the scale of the emerging refugee crisis, we are working with our NGO partners to provide urgent aid and other humanitarian assistance to refugees,” the studio continued. 

  

  WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T Inc., followed next by announcing it would delay the release of “The Batman.” 

  “In light of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, WarnerMedia is pausing the release of its feature film ‘The Batman’ in Russia,” the studio said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the situation as it evolves. We hope for a swift and peaceful resolution to this tragedy.”

   And Sony is delaying all of its theatrical releases in the country, including the upcoming “Morbius.”

  The Motion Picture Association (MPA) said in a statement Monday that it “stands with the international community in upholding the rule of law and condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” 

  “On behalf of our member companies, who lead the film, TV and streaming industry, we express our strongest support for Ukraine’s vibrant creative community who, like all people, deserve to live and work peacefully,” MPA said. 

  So whatever the US government is committed too, such as collapsing the Russian economy via a series of sanctions, you can bet Hollywood wouldn’t be too far behind. And maybe as studios pause theatrical releases in the country, it’s only a matter of time before studios gears up for pro-NATO-themed propaganda. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 23:05

• Escobar: Follow The Money – How Russia Will Bypass Western Economic Warfare
  Escobar: Follow The Money – How Russia Will Bypass Western Economic Warfare

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  The US and EU are over-reaching on Russian sanctions. The end result could be the de-dollarization of the global economy and massive commodity shortages worldwide…

  

  So a congregation of NATO’s top brass ensconced in their echo chambers target the Russian Central Bank with sanctions and expect what? Cookies?

  What they got instead was Russia’s deterrence forces bumped up to “a special regime of duty” – which means the Northern and Pacific fleets, the Long-Range Aviation Command, strategic bombers and the entire Russian nuclear apparatus on maximum alert.

  One Pentagon general very quickly did the basic math on that, and mere minutes later, a Ukrainian delegation was dispatched to conduct negotiations with Russia in an undisclosed location in Gomel, Belarus.

  Meanwhile, in the vassal realms, the German government was busy “setting limits to warmongers like Putin” – quite a rich undertaking considering that Berlin never set any such limits for western warmongers who bombed Yugoslavia, invaded Iraq, or destroyed Libya in complete violation of international law.

  While openly proclaiming their desire to “stop the development of Russian industry,” damage its economy, and “ruin Russia” – echoing American edicts on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and others in the Global South – the Germans could not possibly recognize a new categorical imperative.

  They were finally liberated from their WWII culpability complex by none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Germany is finally free to support and weaponize neo-Nazis out in the open all over again – now of the Ukrainian Azov battalion variety.

  To get the hang of how these NATO sanctions will “ruin Russia,” I asked for the succinct analysis of one of the most competent economic minds on the planet, Michael Hudson, author, among others, of a revised edition of the must-read Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

  Hudson remarked how he is “simply numbed over the near-atomic escalation of the US.” On the confiscation of Russian foreign reserves and cut-off from SWIFT, the main point is “it will take some time for Russia to put in a new system, with China. The result will end dollarization for good, as countries threatened with ‘democracy’ or displaying diplomatic independence will be afraid to use US banks.”

  This, Hudson says, leads us to “the great question: whether Europe and the Dollar Bloc can buy Russian raw materials – cobalt, palladium, etc, and whether China will join Russia in a minerals boycott.”

  Hudson is adamant that “Russia’s Central Bank, of course, has foreign bank assets in order to intervene in exchange markets to defend its currency from fluctuations. The ruble has plunged. There will be new exchange rates. Yet it’s up to Russia to decide whether to sell its wheat to West Asia, that needs it; or to stop selling gas to Europe via Ukraine, now that the US can grab it.”

  About the possible introduction of a new Russia-China payment system bypassing SWIFT, and combining the Russian SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) with the Chinese CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System), Hudson has no doubts “the Russian-China system will be implemented. The Global South will seek to join and at the same time keep SWIFT – moving their reserves into the new system.”

  I’m going to de-dollarize myself

  So the US itself, in another massive strategic blunder, will speed up de-dollarization. As the managing director of Bocom International Hong Hao told the Global Times, with energy trade between Europe and Russia de-dollarized, “that will be the beginning of the disintegration of dollar hegemony.”

  It’s a refrain the US administration was quietly hearing last week from some of its own largest multinational banks, including notables like JPMorgan and Citigroup.

  A Bloomberg article sums up their collective fears:

  “Booting Russia from the critical global system – which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions – could backfire, sending inflation higher, pushing Russia closer to China, and shielding financial transactions from scrutiny by the west. It might also encourage the development of a SWIFT alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the US dollar.”

  Those with IQs over 50 in the European Union (EU) must have understood that Russia simply could not be totally excluded from SWIFT, but maybe only a few of its banks: after all, European traders depend on Russian energy.

  From Moscow’s point of view, that’s a minor issue. A number of Russian banks are already connected to China’s CIPS system. For instance, if someone wants to buy Russian oil and gas with CIPS, payment must be in the Chinese yuan currency. CIPS is independent of SWIFT.

  Additionally, Moscow already linked its SPFS payment system not only to China but also to India and member nations of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). SPFS already links to approximately 400 banks.

  With more Russian companies using SPFS and CIPS, even before they merge, and other maneuvers to bypass SWIFT, such as barter trade – largely used by sanctioned Iran – and agent banks, Russia could make up for at least 50 percent in trade losses.

  The key fact is that the flight from the US-dominated western financial system is now irreversible across Eurasia – and that will proceed in tandem with the internationalization of the yuan.

  Russia has its own bag of tricks

  Meanwhile, we’re not even talking yet about Russian retaliation for these sanctions. Former President Dmitry Medvedev already gave a hint: everything, from exiting all nuclear arms deals with the US to freezing the assets of western companies in Russia, is on the table.

  So what does the “Empire of Lies” want? (Putin terminology, on Monday’s meeting in Moscow to discuss the response to sanctions.)

  In an essay published this morning, deliciously titled America Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century: the MIC, OGAM and FIRE conquer NATO, Michael Hudson makes a series of crucial points, starting with how “NATO has become Europe’s foreign policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.”

  He outlines the three oligarchies in control of US foreign policy:

  • First is the military-industrial complex, which Ray McGovern memorably coined as MICIMATT (military industrial Congressional intelligence media academia think tank). Hudson defines their economy base as “monopoly rent, obtained above all from its arms sales to NATO, to West Asian oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus.”

  • Second is the oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM). Their aim is “to maximize the price of energy and raw materials so as to maximize natural resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major US priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany threatened to link the western European and Russian economies together.”

  • Third is the “symbiotic” Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which Hudson defines as “the counterpart to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents.”

  As he describes these three rentier sectors that completely dominate post-industrial finance capitalism at the heart of the western system, Hudson notes how “Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (namely, the Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).”

  Hudson shows how “the most pressing US strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In addition to creating profits and stock market gains for US companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy.”

  He warns how food prices will rise “headed by wheat.” (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) From a Global South perspective, that’s a disaster: “This will squeeze many West Asian and Global South food-deficient countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.”

  As for blocking Russian raw materials exports, “this threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel, aluminum.”

  And that leads us, once again, to the heart of the matter: “The long-term dream of the US new Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its managerial kleptocracy seeking to cash in their privatizations in western stock markets.”

  That’s not going to happen. Hudson clearly sees how “the most enormous unintended consequence of US foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and countries along the Belt and Road initiative.”

  Let’s confiscate some technology

  Now compare all of the above with the perspective of a central European business tycoon with vast interests, east and west, and who treasures his discretion.

  In an email exchange, the business tycoon posed serious questions about the Russian Central Bank support for its national currency, the ruble, “which according to US planning is being destroyed by the west through sanctions and currency wolf packs who are exposing themselves by selling rubles short. There is really almost no amount of money that can beat the dollar manipulators against the ruble. A 20 percent interest rate will kill the Russian economy unnecessarily.”

  The businessman argues that the chief effect of the rate hike “would be to support imports that should not be imported. The fall of the ruble is thus favorable to Russia in terms of self-sufficiency. As import prices rise, these goods should start to be produced domestically. I would just let the ruble fall to find its own level which will for a while be lower than natural forces would permit as the US will be driving it lower through sanctions and short selling manipulation in this form of economic war against Russia.”

  But that seems to tell only part of the story. Arguably, the lethal weapon in Russia’s arsenal of responses has been identified by the head of the Center for Economic Research of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO), Vasily Koltashov: the key is to confiscate technology – as in Russia ceasing to recognize US rights to patents.

  In what he qualifies as “liberating American intellectual property,” Koltashov calls for passing a Russian law on “friendly and unfriendly states. If a country turns out to be on the unfriendly list, then we can start copying its technologies in pharmaceuticals, industry, manufacturing, electronics, medicine. It can be anything – from simple details to chemical compositions.” This would require amendments to the Russian constitution.

  Koltashov maintains that “one of the foundations of success of American industry was copying of foreign patents for inventions.” Now, Russia could use “China’s extensive know-how with its latest technological production processes for copying western products: the release of American intellectual property will cause damage to the United States to the amount of $10 trillion, only in the first stage. It will be a disaster for them.”

  As it stands, the strategic stupidity of the EU beggars belief. China is ready to grab all Russian natural resources – with Europe left as a pitiful hostage of the oceans and of wild speculators. It looks like a total EU-Russia split is ahead – with little trade left and zero diplomacy.

  Now listen to the sound of champagne popping all across the MICIMATT.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 22:45

• World Athletics Council Bans "All Russian & Belarusian Athletes" From International Sporting Events
  World Athletics Council Bans “All Russian & Belarusian Athletes” From International Sporting Events

  More and more international sports leagues are banning Russian athletes from competing after the country invaded Ukraine. The latest is the World Athletics Council announced: “all athletes, support personnel and officials from Russia and Belarus will be excluded from all World Athletics Series events.” 

  Upcoming events include the World Athletics Championships Oregon22, the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, and the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships Muscat 22, which begin on Friday in Oman (4 March).

  The Council also agreed to consider further measures, including the suspension of the Belarus Federation, at its scheduled Council meeting next week (9-10 March).

  The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has been suspended from World Athletics since 2015, due to doping violations, and therefore is not currently eligible to host World Athletics events or send teams to international championships.

  The Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) process remains in place but Russian athletes who have received ANA status for 2022 are excluded from World Athletics Series events for the foreseeable future.

  This means that all Russian ANA or Belarusian athletes currently accredited for the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships Muscat 22 and the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22 (18-20 March) will have their accreditation withdrawn and entries denied, as will any support personnel and officials. – statement via World Athletics Council

  World Athletics Council President Sebastian Coe said in a statement, “the world horrified by what Russia has done, aided and abetted by Belarus. World leaders sought to avoid this invasion through diplomatic means but to no avail given Russia’s unswerving intention to invade Ukraine. The unprecedented sanctions that are being imposed on Russia and Belarus by countries and industries all over the world appear to be the only peaceful way to disrupt and disable Russia’s current intentions and restore peace.”

  Coe said, “imposing sanctions on athletes because of the actions of their government goes against the grain.” However, “this is different as governments, business and other international organizations have imposed sanctions and measures against Russia across all sectors.” 

  

  Russian athletes were also barred from competing in international ice skating and skiing events on Tuesday, one day after being banned from hockey and soccer competitions. 

  Here’s an updated list of international sporting events Russia has been banned from (courtesy of AP News): 

  ARCHERY

  Russia and Belarus flags and anthems banned at all World Archery international events.

  AUTO RACING

  Formula One canceled the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi in September.

  Intercontinental Drifting Cup in Sochi in June canceled.

  BADMINTON

  Russia and Belarus athletes and officials banned from participating in all Badminton World Federation tournaments from March 8. Also, all BWF events in Russia and Belarus canceled. However, a few Russian players at two Para events in Spain this week and next week allowed to play as already on site, but as neutrals with no flags or anthems.

  BASKETBALL

  EuroLeague suspended Russian clubs CSKA Moscow, UNICS Kazan, and Zenit St. Petersburg, with all three in top eight standings. Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar was also suspended from second-tier EuroCup.

  SPORT CLIMBING

  Boulder and Speed World Cup in Moscow in April to be relocated.

  CURLING

  European championships in Perm, Russia, in November to be relocated.

  World Curling Federation begun process to remove Russian entries from women’s world championship in Canada this month and men’s world championship in Las Vegas in April.

  EQUESTRIAN

  International Equestrian Federation canceled all remaining events this year in Russia (51) and Belarus (six), including the Eurasian Championships in Moscow in July.

  FENCING

  Alisher Usmanov, a Russian, stepped down as president of the International Fencing Federation.

  GYMNASTICS

  The International Gymnastics Federation canceled all World Cup and World Challenge Cup events in Russia and Belarus. Russia and Belarus flags and anthems banned at all FIG events. Canceled events included an acrobatics World Cup in Oktyabrskiy, Russia, in May, and a trampoline World Cup in St. Petersburg in September.

  FIELD HOCKEY

  Russia booted from Women’s Junior World Cup in South Africa in April.

  ICE HOCKEY

  Russia and Belarus banned from all International Ice Hockey Federation events. Russia men out of world championship in May. World junior championships in Russia in 2023 moved to Serbia. NHL suspended all business dealings in Russia. Finland’s Jokerit club withdrew from Kontinental Hockey League conference quarterfinals.

  JUDO

  Kazan Grand Slam, a World Judo Tour event, in May canceled. Russia President Vladimir Putin suspended as honorary president and ambassador of International Judo Federation. Sergey Soloveychik, Russian president of the European Judo Union, resigned.

  KARATE

  Karate 1-Premier League event in Moscow in October to be relocated.

  MODERN PENTATHLON

  Russia and Belarus athletes and officials banned from all International Modern Pentathlon Union events.

  ROWING

  Russia and Belarus athletes and officials banned from World Rowing events.

  RUGBY

  Russia and Belarus suspended from all internationals and cross-border club events. Russia men’s team barred from Rugby Europe Championship and qualifying for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Russia women’s team barred from Rugby Europe Championship, sevens world series, and qualifying for the Rugby World Cup Sevens in South Africa in September. Russian Rugby Union’s membership of World Rugby suspended.

  SKATING

  Russia and Belarus banned from all International Skating Union events, including world figure skating championships in France this month.

  SKIING

  All International Ski Federation events in Russia to the end of the season canceled or relocated. The World Cup cancellations included ski cross in Sunny Valley last weekend, aerials in Yaroslavl last week and Moscow this Saturday; moguls in Kuzbass this weekend; cross-country in Tyumen this month; and women’s ski jumping in Nizhny Tagil and Chaikovsky this month. Russian athletes to compete under FIS flag and anthem.

  SOCCER

  FIFA and UEFA suspend Russia national teams and clubs from all competitions. National men’s team barred from World Cup qualifying playoffs this month and UEFA Nations League from June. National women’s team banned from Women’s European Championship in July.

  Champions League final in May relocated from St. Petersburg to Paris. Spartak Moscow barred from Europa League last 16.

  UEFA canceled sponsorship from Russian energy company Gazprom which covered Champions League, UEFA national team competitions and the 2024 European Championship.

  SQUASH

  World junior championships in St. Petersburg, Russia, in August to be relocated.

  SWIMMING

  World governing body FINA rules all Russia and Belarus athletes and officials to compete as neutrals with no country flag, colors or symbols. FINA Order awarded to Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrawn. World junior championships in Kazan, Russia, in August canceled. Diving world series in Kazan in April canceled.

  TAEKWONDO

  World Taekwondo and European Taekwondo Union will not organize or recognize any events in Russia and Belarus. Russia and Belarus flags and anthems banned at all international events. World Taekwondo withdrew honorary 9th dan black belt conferred on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

  TENNIS

  International Tennis Federation canceled all of its events in Russia and postponed a minor tournament in Ukraine in April. Russia is the defending champion in the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup.

  VOLLEYBALL

  Men’s world championship in Russia in August to be relocated.

  Volleyball National League games in Russia in June and July to be relocated.

  WEIGHTLIFTING

  European youth championships in Kazan, Russia, in August to be relocated.

  OTHER

  At Winter Paralympics, Russia and Belarus to compete as neutrals with no national flag, anthem or symbols in Beijing starting on Friday.

  SportAccord World Sport and Business Summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in May canceled.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 22:25

• Biden Unveils Plan To Fight Inflation, Revives 'Build Back Better', During First State Of The Union
  Biden Unveils Plan To Fight Inflation, Revives ‘Build Back Better’, During First State Of The Union

  Update (1015ET): Coming in at just over an hour (1 hour and 20 seconds, to be exact), President Biden’s State of the Union was notably shorter than those of his immediate predecessors – both Barack Obama and President Trump, both of whom regularly delivered SOTUs that were longer than 70 minutes. It was also four minutes shorter than last year’s address to a joint session of Congress.

  He also concluded with a line that many complained was bizarre, telling his audience to “go get him”. Go get who?

  “Go get him!”

  Who are we getting??

  — Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) March 2, 2022

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

  Biden ends his speech by screaming into the microphone, “Go get him”

  — Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) March 2, 2022

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  Go Get Him?

  — Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) March 2, 2022

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  Toward the end of the speech, President Biden claimed that he wanted to “hold law enforcement accountable” while also insisting that he wanted to “fund the police”. At one point, he even waxed poetic about the two NYPD officers who were recently killed by an unhinged, dangerous criminal.

  Toward the end, Biden also urged Congress to ‘protect a woman’s right to an abortion’ as the US Supreme Court is set to rule this year on whether a Mississippi ban on the procedure after 15 weeks can remain.

  Meanwhile, check out the reaction in online betting markets to Biden’s speech.

  Here are the odds of Republicans retaking the House.

  

  And the odds of them retaking the Senate.

  

  Now it’s time for the rebuttals.

  * * *

  Update (1000ET): While pushing Americans to “reset” after the divisiveness of the pandemic, President Biden also pushed for a “reset” of “Build Back Better”, the central aspect of his domestic agenda.

  Except Biden has a new name for it: instead of “Build Back Better”, he’s conjured up a proposal he’s calling “Building a Better America.”

  As BBG described it, it’s pretty much the ideas he proposed before: only messaged as more about deficit reduction and reducing inflation.

  It includes much of the old plan, including capping the cost of child care for poor families, but it also includes measures to supposedly boost manufacturing, shore up supply chains, all while “promoting renewable energy”.

  On the immigration front, Biden called for the US to “revise our laws” and back his immigration reform package to create a guest worker program.

  And earlier in his speech, he promised Americans that Pfizer’s COVID therapeutic would be available to anyone at any pharmacy.

  On the Fed, Biden exhorted the GOP to let his Fed nominees get a vote in the Senate. Biden called on Senate Republicans to stop blocking a vote on his five nominees to the Federal Reserve.

  “Confirm my nominees for the Federal Reserve, which plays a critical role in fighting inflation.”

  Moving on, Biden also proposed a four-part “unity agenda” including measures to combat the opioid epidemic, something that includes going after the traffickers. He also said proposed allocating more resources for addiction treatment and “mental health”.

  At around 2200, Biden pointed to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as he discussed “the harms” caused by social media, before proposing we “ban targeted advertising to children” and “demand tech companies stop collecting data on our children”.

  * * *

  Update (0930ET): Not even a half-hour into his speech, President Biden has defied press reports claiming he would seek to avoid directly referencing America’s inflationary issue. During the part of his speech where Biden laid out his policy for combating inflation, Biden spoke the word aloud quite liberally.

  By the way, Biden mostly hewed to the vision laid out by his office (via official releases and press leaks), whereby he plans to miraculously cure inflation by pushing American firms to be more competitive on pricing. Biden wants companies to “lower your costs – not your wages.”

  The only problem with that logic is wages are typically one of the largest financial burdens borne by business owners.

  Still, Biden insisted that fighting inflation is his “top priority”.

  “With all the bright spots in our economy, record job growth and higher wages, too many families are struggling to keep up with the bills, Inflation is robbing them of the gains they might otherwise feel,” Biden said in remarks prepared for his State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington Tuesday evening. “I get it. That’s why my top priority is getting prices under control.”

  “My top priority is getting prices under control,” Pres. Biden says. “One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poor. But I think I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs—not your wages.”

  Biden also proposed new minimum corporate tax rates that would affect a large swath of the Fortune 500 (the firms that produce more than half the country’s GDP?)

  “My top priority is getting prices under control,” Pres. Biden says.

  “One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poor. But I think I have a better idea to fight inflation. Lower your costs—not your wages.”https://t.co/SLfrkxjM7F #SOTU pic.twitter.com/xYsrc1stO6

  — ABC News (@ABC) March 2, 2022

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  Biden also laid out his plan for alleviating the impact of inflation: just upgrade to an electric vehicle.

  Electric vehicles would save Americans $80 a month at the pump, Biden insisted. He also proposed cutting the cost of child-care, a perennial Democratic priority. Biden pushed for passing the “Paycheck Fairness Act” to raise the minimum wage to $15, while also pushing to extend the child tax credit, giving poor families more direct federal stimulus for each child that they have.

  Sounds nice, but it will that help combat inflation, or exacerbate it?

  * * *

  Update (0855ET): The time has finally arrived, Americans are about to watch 79-year-old President Biden deliver his first official State of the Union Address (last year’s big speech wasn’t technically a SOTU since it followed so closely after Biden’s inauguration).

  Readers can watch live below. The speech begins at 2100ET (CBS News’ primetime coverage begins at 2000ET):

  PredictIt is already taking action on what President Biden might (or might not) say when it comes to the two big elephants in the room: inflation, and the US response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  

  And for those trying to squeeze some entertainment out of what’s expected to be a very dry speech, we present the President Biden SOTU bingo card.

  

  There’s also been talk over the last couple of hours that President Biden is preparing to announce a major ban on Russian aircraft in US airspace.

  Confirmed: President Biden will announce tonight during his State of the Union address that the US is banning Russian aircraft from US airspace, joining a growing number of countries closing their skies to Russia following Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

  — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 2, 2022

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  This follows decisions by UK, EU and Canada to do so. The White House said they were considering the large number of US flights that go over Russian airspace to get to Asia while making this decision.

  — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 2, 2022

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  Considering the events of the past two weeks and the corresponding moves in energy markets, Biden’s focus on climate change and green energy has stoked fears that he could send oil prices even higher.

  During the SOTU, oil may jump by $5

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 2, 2022

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  Here’s more on the prospective ban from Reuters. Meanwhile, First Lady Jill Biden is preparing to bring a few guests to tonight’s event. They include: Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US.

  As we mentioned below, there will be not one, but two rebuttals to tonight’s speech. On top of that, we are certainly looking forward to hearing how many pinocchios all those liberal fact-checkers ascribe to the president’s speech.

  * * *

  Beginning at 2100ET on Tuesday, President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address (newly elected presidents don’t deliver a SOTU during the year in which they first take office). According to a summary of his planned remarks released by the White House Sunday night, it appears Biden appears to focus on domestic issues, while media reports have claimed that he will discuss the steps his administration has taken to sanction Russia.

  On the domestic side, Biden’s main goal will be pitching a revival of his domestic agenda, which collapsed after Sen. Joe Manchin effectively killed Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan in the Senate.

  

  Some of the key issues raised in the outline include fighting inflation (or “reducing the cost of everyday expenses working families face”), the administration’s crackdown on corporate power and influence (or “promoting fair competition to lower prices, help small businesses thrive, and protect consumers”), helping revive America’s unions (“enacting the Protecting the Right to Organize Act”), raising the federal minimum wage to $15, and “a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program”.

  Citing sources from inside the White House, Bloomberg reported Monday that Biden plans to pitch his stalled climate legislation, framing it as “a way to battle inflation and save the average American family $500 per year”. Although convincing ordinary working Americans to care about climate change is certainly a tall order.

  BBG also acknowledged that Biden is making his pitch at a time when his approval ratings have “dropped precipitously”. We noted the other day that, according to one popular poll (the ABC/Washington Post poll), Biden’s approval rating has fallen to a fresh all-time low of 37%.

  

  Source: ABC News

  On the climate change front, Biden’s claim that his green energy initiatives will save families money is based on calculations from “the Rhodium Group”. Biden also plans to discuss how $47 billion in climate change funding from last year’s infrastructure bill is being deployed.

  The proposal comes after Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better economic package – which included tax credits for renewable power and clean energy manufacturing – stalled in Congress.

  The administration’s estimate of savings is based on an analysis by the Rhodium Group last October that said clean energy tax credits, investments in efficiency and other changes necessary to pare U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will help consumers financially. According to Rhodium’s assessment, households would save roughly $500 a year in energy costs in 2030, under a mix of federal regulations, state actions and congressional legislation.

  It represents a sop to climate activists, who have been pressuring the administration to frame the fight against climate change as something that could save American families money.

  For years, environmental advocates have urged politicians to frame the fight against climate change as something that can yield big economic dividends. Biden will embrace that narrative in his speech, linking tax credits for renewable power and electric vehicles with household savings.

  Circling back to Biden’s domestic agenda, it appears he plans to avoid using the word “inflation”, referring instead to “price increases” while he tries to revive support for his flagging domestic agenda.

  On the Russia front, NPR reports that Biden plans to discuss the steps his administration has taken to threaten the financial stability of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

  He’s also expected to talk about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Jackson is the first Black woman to be nominated to the country’s highest court.

  Another aspect of his plan for fighting inflation is to make American industry “more competitive” in an effort to drive down prices (ironically, his agenda also includes plans to raise wages, which would likely have the opposite effect).

  Here’s what the administration’s summary said about “promoting fair competition to lower prices”.

  President Biden will explain that we can also lower costs by promoting fair competition in the U.S. economy. The Administration has taken decisive actions in the first year to stop the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses. He will also announce new actions the Biden-Harris Administration is taking this year to tackle some of the most pressing competition and consumer protection problems across our economy. Specifically, he will announce new steps to:

  And in addition to paycheck fairness, Biden also plans to announce more assistance for low-income students trying to go to college.

  Providing up to more than $2,000 in additional assistance to low-income students by increasing the Pell Grant award. President Biden will note that broad access to education beyond high school is increasingly important for economic growth and competitiveness in the 21st century, but also remind us that higher education has become unaffordable for too many families. Over 6 million students depend on Pell Grants to finance their education, yet the amount of money in these grants has not kept up with the rising cost of college and DREAMers still do not have access. During his State of the Union Address, President Biden will call on Congress to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by more than $2,000.

  Finally,  here’s what Deutsche Bank said about the State of the Union:

  While not everything in the document will eventually become policy, it is a useful barometer of the administration’s current thinking. In short, Biden plans to champion the historically strong economic recovery while unveiling a plan to help slow inflation, which includes making American manufacturing jobs more productive and competitive, strengthening domestic supply chains, requesting legislation that reduces costs of health care, energy, and education, reducing the deficit, promoting competition, and eliminate barriers to jobs.

  Biden is also reportedly expected to discuss his administration’s efforts to roll back COVID-inspired measures, like the CDC’s new masking guidance.

  Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa will deliver the GOP response to the SOTU, and Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan representative and member of the ultra-liberal “squad” will deliver a rebuttal from the progressive left, a new SOTU tradition of the Democratic party.

  Meanwhile, here are what Biden voters thought were his greatest accomplishments over the last year…

  “Well… he’s not a Republican.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 22:24

• White House Says US Can Focus On Two Theaters As It Did In WWII
  White House Says US Can Focus On Two Theaters As It Did In WWII

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  With all eyes on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, President Biden’s top Asia official on the National Security Council said Monday that the US can still focus on increasing its “engagement” in the Asia Pacific to counter China.

  According to Reuters, Kurt Campbell, the Indo-Pacific coordinator on the National Security Council, pointed out that the US has been deeply engaged in two theaters simultaneously before, including during World War II and the Cold War.

  

  “It’s difficult. It’s expensive. But it is also essential, and I believe that we’re entering a period where that is what will be demanded of the United States and this generation of Americans,” Campbell told an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund.

  “There is a deep recognition and intention here inside the government, in the White House, to sustain every element of our engagement in the Indo-Pacific,” he added.

  Reuters reported of his comments further:

  Campbell said coming months would show U.S. “determination” to sustain high-level engagement with the region President Joe Biden has declared a priority for policy and resources in pushing back against China’s expanding influence.

  In a sign of President Biden’s efforts to maintain focus on the region, his administration sent a delegation of former US military officials to visit Taiwan on Monday. In another sign, a US warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, marking the second time this year the US Navy transited the sensitive waterway.

  At the start of the Biden administration, US officials made clear that countering China would be the top foreign policy priority. This was demonstrated by an uptick in US military activity in the South China Sea during Biden’s first year in office.

  The United States will not take its eye off the Indo-Pacific despite the #Ukraine crisis, engaging in two theaters simultaneously as it had done during #WorldWarII and the Cold War, said the White House’s Indo-Pacific policy coordinator. https://t.co/4gFwKyeNJg via @epochtimes

  — The Epoch Times Australia 🇦🇺 (@AuEpochTimes) March 1, 2022

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  China views the US activity as a serious provocation and has grown closer to Russia as the two countries face similar pressure from the West.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 22:05

• China Buys 700K Barrels of Iranian Oil Every Day, Violating US Sanctions
  China Buys 700K Barrels of Iranian Oil Every Day, Violating US Sanctions

  Iran has been subjected to crippling oil-export sanctions for the last several years, but that hasn’t stopped China, whose imports of Iranian oil have increased by the month (read: here), traders and ship-tracking firms told Reuters. Chinese buyers are ramping crude purchases at low prices as the international crude benchmark Brent soars and outweighs any risks of U.S. sanctions. 

  Indeed, as Reuters notes, Chinese imports of Iranian crude continued to skyrocket this year despite the sanctions that, if enforced, would allow Washington to cut off those who violate them from the U.S. economy. But when the U.S. president is unlikely to wake up from his afternoon nap or refuse to be disturbed while eating ice cream and do anything to punish China for violating the terms of the embargo, Chinese importers exceeded 700,000 bpd for January, according to estimates by three tanker trackers, which exceeded the 623,000 bpd peak recorded by Chinese customs in 2017 before former President Trump reimposed sanctions in 2018 on Iranian oil exports. 

  One tanker tracker said imports between November to December were on average 780,000 bpd. 

  Much of the buying comes from independent Chinese refiners (otherwise known as “teapots”), who, traders said embraced Iran’s cheaper crude as Brent prices soared last month from $77 to $91. Teapots paid a discount to market, transacting $5 a barrel below Brent. 

  

  Consulting firm Petro-Logistics, which tracks oil flows, said Iran’s total crude exports soared in December to over 1 million bpd, the highest in three years. 

  “Iran’s oil exports are mostly going to China, often through convoluted routes and transshipments, with small volumes going to Syria each month,” said CEO Daniel Gerber.

  Petro-Logistics expects total Iranian oil exports at 800,000 bpd in January and 700,000 bpd in February. Another tracker firm, OilX, said 1 million bpd could be seen for both January and February.

  Iranian imports are increasing as Iranian and U.S. officials continue negotiating to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. If such a deal is reached in Vienna, lifting most international sanctions on Tehran would mean Iranian crude exports could flood the world and divert sales away from the Chinese teapots. 

  The Ukrainian crisis likely gives Iran a stronger hand in the negotiations as Brent is driven above $100 a barrel on geopolitical concerns. Increasing political pressure on President Biden to tame inflation, more importantly, high gas prices at the pump ahead of midterms could make western politicians more receptive to a deal to squash oil prices. 

  On Friday, a senior U.S. State Department official told WSJ there were only days left to close the remaining difference between Iran and the U.S. for a deal. 

  “Final decisions have to be taken this week—either we have a deal or we do not,” an official from one of the European countries at the talks said Monday. “The context of the current international crisis means the window of opportunity is closing.”

  In the meantime, it appears the U.S. will punish countries who violate its sanctions, though it won’t dare touch China as it is too afraid of what an escalation could look like.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 21:45

• Half Of Biden's 500 Million Free COVID-19 Tests Unclaimed: Officials
  Half Of Biden’s 500 Million Free COVID-19 Tests Unclaimed: Officials

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  About half of the 500 million free COVID-19 tests that President Joe Biden recently made available haven’t been claimed, according to the White House.

  

  Biden administration officials told The Associated Press that Americans have placed 68 million orders for packages of tests, which contain four COVID-19 tests each. That leaves about 46 percent of the stock still available.

  “We totally intend to sustain this market,” Dr. Tom Inglesby, testing adviser to the White House COVID-19 response team, told AP about the unclaimed tests. “We know the market is volatile and will come up and down with surges in variants.”

  The shortfall in tests being claimed is likely because of a significant drop in COVID-19 cases across the United States, as well as an easing of restrictions such as vaccine or masking mandates in primarily Democrat-led states in recent weeks.

  “There is no question some people found out they were positive from taking one of these tests and were able to keep other people from getting infected,” Tim Manning, supply coordinator for the COVID-19 response team, told AP.

  On the first day that COVID-19 tests were made available in January, the COVIDtests.gov website received more than 45 million orders, officials told AP. Fewer than 100,000 orders per day are coming in now.

  About one month ago, the federal government said it would procure another 100 million COVID-19 tests via iHealth Labs.

  “This effort supports the president’s plan to deliver 500 million free at-home COVID-19 tests to the nation in response to the Omicron variant,” the Department of Defense said in a Jan. 29 statement. “The procurement was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act to supply critical medical resources to the nation.”

  Biden had announced the new testing measure after facing criticism that his administration has mainly focused on getting people vaccinated and that they haven’t done enough to encourage testing amid the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

  The White House didn’t respond to a request for additional comment by press time.

  The National Poison Control Center and other poison control centers have issued warnings about rapid tests having a toxic chemical, sodium azide, which is a colorless and odorless powder that testers dip cotton swabs into.

  “It is important to know that the extraction vial in many rapid antigen kits includes the chemical sodium azide as a preservative agent,” the center stated. “The BinaxNow, BD Veritor, Flowflex, and Celltrion DiaTrust COVID-19 rapid antigen kits all contain this chemical.”

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 21:25

• Oil Hits $110 As Biden Begins SOTU Address; Goldman Says Emergency Oil Release Won't Do Jack
  Oil Hits $110 As Biden Begins SOTU Address; Goldman Says Emergency Oil Release Won’t Do Jack

  With Joe Biden set to begin his first State of the Union address any second, it is only appropriate that WTI oil has exploded higher, and just printed at an 8 year high of 108.63, rising more than $3 since the cash market close, and more than $10 in the past 24 hours!

  

  At the same time, Brent which traditionally trades at a premium, just hit $110:

  • *BRENT CRUDE OIL EXTENDS RALLY ABOVE $110 A BARREL

  One reason for that is a rather grim assessment from Goldman which echoes what we said earlier, namely that today’s IEA release of 60 million barrels of emergency oil reserves will do exactly nothing to halt oil’s tremendous surge higher.

  As Goldman’s Damien Courvalin writes, writing about the release of 60 mb of emergency oil reserves following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “we do not view this as sufficient relief, representing an only 1-month offset to a potential disruption to one-third of Russia’s 6 mb/d seaborne oil export flows, for example, consistent with the rally in prices after today’s announcement.“

  As such, Goldman reiterates its view – discussed here yesterday – that only demand destruction – through even higher prices – is now likely the only sufficient rebalancing mechanism, with supply elasticity no longer relevant in the face of such a potential large and immediate supply shock.

  This leaves risk to our one-month $115/bbl Brent price forecast still skewed to the upside, with today’s $105/bbl spot prices only at the level we believed was required to balance the oil market prior to any escalation in Ukraine.

  Furthermore, Courvalin writes that a short-term deescalation or a potentially faster ramp-up in OPEC+ production would also not derail the bank’s view for structurally higher prices, with Dec-23 Brent $24/bbl below our forecast; “Similarly, we do not expect a large price sell-off should an agreement with Iran be reached soon. Case in point, the global oil deficit in February is turning out to be twice as large as our above-consensus forecast while Iraq is experiencing 0.5 mb/d of outages, enough – if sustained and combined – to fully nullify Iran’s potential return to the global oil market.”

  All of that means that Brent $200 calls expiring this summer look quite cheap.

  

  The silver lining, is that at least one person is delighted by this tremendous ascent in oil prices: Jerome Powell. As we said almost a month ago, the quickest and safest way to “burn out” inflation is to send oil to $200… triggering a global recession if not depression.

  If Powell really wants to burn out inflation, he should send oil to $200+

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 8, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 21:06

• Cargo Ship Carrying 4,000 Luxury Cars Sinks In Heavy Seas
  Cargo Ship Carrying 4,000 Luxury Cars Sinks In Heavy Seas

  Two weeks after a roll-on-roll-off (RORO) car carrier loaded with thousands of Volkswagen AG vehicles, including VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley, and Lamborghini- branded models, caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean, it sunk Tuesday morning, according to Bloomberg. 

  We chronicled the incident last month (read: here & here), noting that the shipment of luxury vehicles had been bound for the US market, where a shortage of supply and surging demand has led to a severe crunch of new car supply.

  

  Now the 656-foot long RORO, called Felicity Ace, has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, about 220 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands, around 0900 local time. 

  

  The RORO was severely damaged from a fire that broke out on Feb. 16 and was leaning 45 degrees to its starboard side as a fleet of tug boats and salvage craft accompanied the vessel as it was being towed back to shore. The ship sank due to rough seas:

  “The weather was pretty rough out there,” Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management (Singapore), a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone. “And then she sank, which was a surprise.”

  Volkswagen had 4,000 vehicles on board, and vessels in the area monitored the situation. Adamson said. “There doesn’t appear to be any oil pollution yet — they’re checking on that.” 

  For any car enthusiast hoping to score a waterlogged Porsche, Bentley, and or Lamborghini, well, the ship sank in waters about 3,000 meters (9,842 feet) deep. 

  A cargo ship carrying cars made by @Porsche, @Audi and @Lamborghini has sunk after catching fire in the Atlantic. The Felicity Ace went down about 220 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal. pic.twitter.com/cWOmssppxK

  — Michael Board (@MikeBoard1200) March 1, 2022

  So you’ll need much more than a scuba diving suit to retrieve the exotic cars.  

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 21:05

• Visa, Mastercard Block Certain Russian Firms Due To Sanctions
  Visa, Mastercard Block Certain Russian Firms Due To Sanctions

  The Western world continues to obsess about using financial weapons to implode Russia’s economy. The latest is payment and credit card giants Visa and Mastercard blocked certain Russian financial institutions from their payment networks to comply with international sanctions, according to Bloomberg. 

  On Monday, Mastercard said it had “blocked multiple financial institutions” from its payment network without naming names.

  “We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve,” Mastercard said.

  “Visa is taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions, and is prepared to comply with additional sanctions that may be implemented,” the firm said in a statement Tuesday.

  

  The move comes after European nations and the U.S. announced a series of sanctions to cut off Russia from the global financial system. One restrictive measure removed “selected Russian banks” from the SWIFT messaging system that will harm their ability to operate globally. Also, restrictive measures were placed on the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves to support the ruble.

  

  The U.S., European Union, and the U.K. also targeted Russian oligarchs to find and seize their assets. The trans-Atlantic task force will “identify, hunt down, and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs,” said a senior Biden Administration official.

  “We’ll go after their yachts, their luxury apartments, their money, and their ability to send their kids to fancy colleges in the West,” the official said. 

  The wide-ranging sanctions were in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine five days ago. Russian forces are marching towards the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, though they have made little progress over the past 24 hours due to logistical difficulties. It seems Western sanctions have yet to deter Russian President Putin from backing down. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 20:35

• "Game Over?" – Russia To Be In Technical Default Within Hours
  “Game Over?” – Russia To Be In Technical Default Within Hours

  More than two decades ago, on August 17, 1998, Russia defaulted on its debt and devalued the ruble, sparking a political crisis that culminated with Vladimir Putin replacing Boris Yeltsin and which also eventually resulted in the spectacular implosion of a then little known hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management (which was staffed to the gills with “brilliant” Nobel prize winners) which after receiving a Fed-led Wall Street bailout, ushered in the era of too big to fail.

  We bring this up because in just a few hours, Russia will be in another technical default.

  Amid the flurry of capital controls imposed by Moscow today, the Russian central bank banned coupon payments to foreign owners of ruble bonds known as OFZs in what it said was a temporary step to shore up markets in the wake of international sanctions. What it really is, is a technical default on upcoming interest and maturity payments, with a trigger due as soon as tomorrow.

  The Bank of Russia issued the instruction to depositaries and registries as part of a raft of measures announced this week that included a freeze on local security sales by foreigners. It could leave foreign investors who held almost 3 trillion rubles ($29 billion) in the debt at the start of February unable to collect income on their holdings, which are already blocked from sale by restrictions.

  “Issuers have the right to make decisions on the payment of dividends and the making of other payments on securities and transfer them to the accounting system,” the central bank said in an emailed reply to questions. “However, the payments themselves will not be made by depositories and registrars to foreign clients. This also applies to OFZ.”

  The decision by the central bank was taken to “avoid mass sales of Russian securities, the withdrawal of funds from the Russian financial market and to support financial stability,” it said.

  With as much as half of its foreign reserves frozen abroad by sanctions aimed at punishing the Kremlin for invading Ukraine, the Bank of Russia said Monday it would harden capital controls with a ban on transferring foreign currency abroad. While initially it clarified that the step wasn’t aimed at stopping the servicing of debt, some investors and economists said the phrasing of the decree could amount to a default.

  “Game over? I think they underestimated how far sanctions will go and now don’t have much left to do,” Viktor Szabo, a fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in London told Bloomberg. “All Russian markets have fallen apart.”

  “This will likely be a technical default, we’ll see how long it goes on for,” said Nick Eisinger, co-head of emerging-markets active fixed income at Vanguard Asset Management in London. “We also see strong likelihood of technical default on Eurobonds at the sovereign level.”

  The central bank didn’t specify how long the ban will last. On Monday, the Interfax news service reported the temporary suspension will be in effect for half a year unless the regulator lifts it ahead of time. The decision underscored how rapidly Russia’s free-market credentials have disintegrated since the Ukraine invasion.

  But it won’t matter: just a one ban day will be enough to push Russia into a technical default – the next coupon payment on OFZ bonds is due Wednesday on notes maturing in 2024, according to Bloomberg.

  The news came shortly after we learned that the world’s biggest settlement systems Euroclear and Clearsteam are no longer handling Russian assets — reversing the much-heralded opening of the local debt market to international investors nine years ago.

  Russian sovereign bonds collapsed last week, sending the yield on the 10-year benchmark up 240 basis points to 12.28%. The ruble’s drop of more than 20% so far this year is the worst slump globally, prices compiled by Bloomberg show.

  

  “A potentially weaker willingness on the part of the Russian government to service its debt on time and in full, raise the probability of more severe credit outcomes for foreign holders of Russian debt securities,” Moody’s Investors Service said in an statement.

  And while Russia is about to re-default – something it certainly has experience with – its economy devastated yet rich in natural resources, the question is how the US will handle the brutal, new reality where oil is now virtually assured to hit $150 if not $200 at a time when the main US output is hyperfinancialization, with the value of financial assets at last check some 6.3x times greater than GDP.

  

  For the answer, please reread “Shades Of 2008 As Oil Decouples From Everything.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 20:15

• Zuckerberg Election Funds Violated Wisconsin Bribery Laws, Special Counsel Finds
  Zuckerberg Election Funds Violated Wisconsin Bribery Laws, Special Counsel Finds

  Approximately $9 million directed to five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin violated the state’s prohibition on bribery, according to The Federalist‘s Margot Cleveland, citing a report submitted on Tuesday by a special counsel appointed by the state.

  

  Spearheaded by retired state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman who was tasked with investigating concerns over election integrity in 2020, the investigation which began last August has resulted in a 150-page report full of recommendations for the state’s legislative body which cited “numerous questionable and unlawful actions of various actors in the 2020 election.”

  According to the report, the flow of Zuckerberg grant funds to five Wisconsin counties was the first ‘unlawful action’ noted. According to Gableman, the arrangement violated Wis. Stat. § 12.11, which prohibits election bribery by providing it is illegal to offer anything of value to or for any person in order to induce any elector to go to the polls or vote.

  According to the report, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg providing financing that allowed the Center for Tech and Civic Life to offer nearly $9 million in “Zuck Bucks” to Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay counties. In exchange, the “Zuckerberg 5,” as the report called the counties, in effect, operated Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts. Those grant funds then paid for illegal drop boxes to be placed in Democratic voting strongholds.

  The illegal use of drop boxes represented a second area of concern to the special counsel’s office. The report notes state election code limits the manner in which ballots may be cast, providing that an elector must personally mail or deliver his or her ballot to the municipal clerk, except where the law authorizes an agent to act on the behalf of the voter. –The Federalist

  The report also claims that the “Zuckerberg 5” violated both federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection, as the grant money targeted specific voters for special voting privileges – to the disadvantage of similarly situated Wisconsin voters in other counties. What’s more, said counties allowed private groups working with the granting organization, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, to “unlawfully administer aspects of the election.” In one case, an organization was unlawfully ’embedded’ in local government election administration.

  Remember when Zuckerberg gave the Obama 2012 Campaign access to “a unified computer database that gathers and refines information on millions of committed and potential Obama voters.”

  Seems like that should accounted for as a political contribution.https://t.co/CB9zrc1W0b https://t.co/oOagSDiDRJ

  — Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) March 1, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAlso disturbing, the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) illegally told clerks to ignore the state election code governing voting in nursing homes – where 100% of registered voters allegedly cast ballots in the 2020 election, and unheard-of rate which the Federalist notes included many ineligible voters.

  Meanwhile, Wisconsin illegally maintained non-citizens and incapacitated citizens on the state’s voting rolls according to the special counsel’s report.

  Special Counsel Gableman detailed many other substantial problems with the 2020 election, but equally troubling to the widespread violations of election law established in the report were the attempts by government officials to impede the investigation. Both the Wisconsin Election Commission and the state attorney general “have refused to cooperate with the Legislature’s investigation and actively obstructed it,” according to the report, with a separate appendix detailing how the Office of Special Counsel and the state Assembly have been blocked from investigating portions of the Wisconsin government. -The Federalist

  The special counsel recommends eliminating the Wisconsin Election Commission, among other remedies.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 19:55

• Is COVID Policy Comedy, Tragedy, Or Both?
  Is COVID Policy Comedy, Tragedy, Or Both?

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  The Saturday Night Live skit on Covid policy is a welcome relief, a cultural sign that rationality has started to return.

  Yes, the segment is truly hilarious.

  And it reveals so much about the present moment in which even highly politicized elites are realizing that the dissidents in the Covid wars had it right all along. 

  At the same time, the skit speaks to a deeper truth about the last two years. For many in the professional Zoom class, the entire occasion tragically became an opportunity for signaling virtue, pontificating about politics, and tightening alliances with their class compatriots, even as billions around the world suffered at the hands of overlords who massively neglected the lessons of traditional public health in favor of a wild experiment in pointless compulsion. 

  They shut down the “economy” (two weeks turned into two years) but for people in a certain class and age group, it was a welcome relief from the burdens of going to the office. The value of seeming to be part of a grand political mission outweighed the cost of not going out to eat. The lack of empathy for the workers who had no such luxury, church goers locked out of their houses of worship, and kids torn from their peers, to say nothing of millions who fell into poverty – and we could go on – was truly startling. 

  No, there was nothing amusing about any of this. Not to be humorless here but this was an unprecedented catastrophe the world over. It should not be reduced to fodder for late-night amusement. It’s tragedy not comedy. Every family has a tragic story to tell. And it is far from over, for the collateral damage will be with us for a generation or two. 

  Perhaps in the future we can treat the arrival of pathogens as a time for patients and doctors to work together to promote wellness. Perhaps researchers can focus on therapeutics. Perhaps public-health agencies can work on being truthful with the public. Perhaps we can be more careful about mandating injections for vast swaths of humanity that did not want them or had already earned their natural immunity. 

  None of this will happen unless we can talk openly about it, without censorship, and do so seriously. The prevailing emotion right now as I type is the opposite: you can now laugh about how preposterously everyone behaved but don’t get serious about investigations or rethinking anything. 

  For that matter, an interview I did with a world-class pathologist in Canada was just deleted by YouTube for “medical misinformation.” The censorship is as ruthless as ever! 

  We will be fully over the political side of this mess when the following has become a political, social, and cultural consensus: 

  1) Emergency powers were never justified. They were imposed in a panic, one deliberately generated in Congressional testimony by Anthony Fauci who manipulated the US president into believing that he could on his own “shut down” the economy to make a virus go away. The whole episode was pathetic and contradictory to the whole experience of public health. 

  2) All “mitigation measures” deployed have not proven effective and certainly caused vast harm. The schools should never have been forced closed. The hospitals should have done business as usual. Doctors should have been free to treat patients. Travel should never have been stopped. Stay-at-home orders served no purpose. Hundreds of thousands of businesses were wrecked for no reason at all. Mandatory masks are not just pointless but inhumane, especially for kids. Testing the healthy, as track-and-trace theater, proved a waste. The vaccines should never have been mandated anywhere.

  3) Even if C19 mutates in a worse way, or some new pathogen comes along, there is no public-health justification for shutting down society, dividing the social classes, canceling gatherings, limiting building capacity, restricting travel, or otherwise violating the rights of conscience and bodily autonomy. Contra the CDC, people should not have to wait breathlessly for the bureaucrats to look at the “science” to discover whether and to what extent we can exercise our human rights. 

  4) All public-health interventions need to be limited to informing the public of all available information, seeking therapeutics, quarantine for the sick by choice, and otherwise allowing doctors to practice medicine. Yes, society might need to respond to new pathogens but society is fully capable of doing so without central direction from unelected bureaucrats on power trips. Everything on this page from the CDC has to go.

  5) The science behind pandemic management needs to be decentralized and include genuine discussion and debate rather than allowing a small cabal to take full power while censoring everyone else. 

  And for each of these points, there need to be iron-clad guarantees. No more discretionary power for unelected bureaucrats to impose horrible rules on anyone. The power of the CDC, and all their sister bureaucrats in the states, needs to be reined in, starting with the many documents posted on government websites that presume that in the event of a virus, this agency or that gets to become the central manager of society while ignoring all constitutional restraints on power. 

  In short, we need freedom back, and a guarantee that nothing like this can ever happen again. Some degree of levity about the comedic qualities of the last two years is merited but it needs to be complemented by a serious commitment toward radical reform. We need a new way to think about how a good society can develop freely even in the presence of infectious disease. Freedom needs to be nonnegotiable. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 19:35

• Biden To Ban Russian Flights Over US Airspace As Boeing Suspends Support Service For Russian Airlines
  Biden To Ban Russian Flights Over US Airspace As Boeing Suspends Support Service For Russian Airlines

  Among the many things to be announced by Joe BIden in his SOTU speech tonight, one will be that the U.S. government will ban Russian aircraft from American airspace, broadening aviation restrictions as the West expands sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

  • PRESIDENT BIDEN PLANS TO ANNOUNCE ON TUESDAY THE UNITED STATES WILL BAN RUSSIAN FLIGHTS FROM U.S. AIRSPACE FOLLOWING EU AND CANADA – RTRS

  This echoes a report from the WSJ which earlier noted that an order barring Russian-owned and -operated aircraft from U.S. airspace is expected to be issued as soon as within the next 24 hours.

  The U.S. move would follow earlier prohibitions by European and Canadian authorities. The restrictions, which Russia has retaliated against by issuing a similar ban on European flights, have disrupted airline flight plans as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalates.

  Meanwhile, in a potentially far more ominous development, Politico reporter Lee Hudson tweeted that Boeing has suspended aircraft maintenance and support services for Russian airlines,

  “We have suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed our office in Kyiv,” Hudson tweets, citing company statement.

  JUST IN: From Boeing, “We have suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed our office in Kyiv. We have also suspended parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines.”

  — Lee Hudson (@LeeHudson_) March 1, 2022

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  In other words, going forward anyone flying in a Russian Boeing will do so knowing that the plane was not serviced and is a potential death trap, even more so than just flying in a 737 MAX, the airplane best known for being “designed by clowns, who in turn were supervised by monkeys.” Naturally, this means that all Russian commercial flights will be effectively grounded overnight.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 19:32

• Apple, Ford Lead Latest Round Of US Companies Cutting Russia Ties
  Apple, Ford Lead Latest Round Of US Companies Cutting Russia Ties

  As another market day comes to an end in the US, another flurry of American companies have announced plans to cut ties with Russian business partners, or simply stop selling their products in the Russian Federation. These companies include Apple, Nike, Ford and others, all of whom have released statements on Tuesday.

  

  For starters, Apple has halted all product sales in Russia, while halting exports to Russia sales channels. It’s also pulling RT News and Sputnik News from App Stores outside of Russia, and is disabling traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine.

  Here’s the full Apple statement on Russia, where it announced plans to limit Apple Pay and other services, while taking other steps to protect Ukrainians and their interests.

  “We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence. We are supporting humanitarian efforts, providing aid for the unfolding refugee crisis, and doing all we can to support our teams in the region. We have taken a number of actions in response to the invasion. We have paused all product sales in Russia. Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country.”

  “Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia. And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens. We will continue to evaluate the situation and are in communication with relevant governments on the actions we are taking. We join all those around the world who are calling for peace.”

  Apple described the decision as an attempt to protect the “safety and precautionary measure” for citizens in Ukraine. However, as one Bloomberg presenter pointed out, the move is largely symbolic.

  Moving on, like Shell and BP divesting their Russian assets, Ford also said it would “suspend” its joint venture in Russia and instead find ways to support “Ukrainian nationals”, in part by making a large ($100K) donation to “the Global Giving Ukraine Relief Fund”.

  As part of the global community, Ford is deeply concerned about the invasion of Ukraine and the resultant threats to peace and stability. The situation has compelled us to reassess our operations in Russia. In recent years, Ford has significantly wound down its Russian operations, which now focus exclusively on commercial van manufacturing and Russian sales through a minority interest in the Sollers Ford joint venture. Given the situation, we have today informed our JV partners that we are suspending our operations in Russia, effective immediately, until further notice.

  While we don’t have significant operations in Ukraine, we do have a strong contingent of Ukrainian nationals working at Ford around the world and we will continue to support them through this time.

  Ford Fund is also making a $100,000 donation to the Global Giving Ukraine Relief Fund for humanitarian aid to assist Ukrainian citizens and families who have been displaced during this crisis.

  Athletic wear juggernaut Nike has closed its online stores and said it won’t sell any new merchandise in Russia because it can no longer “guarantee” delivery.

  Nike made the announcement on its Russian website. It wasn’t immediately clear if the change was a new corporate policy or the result of supply-chain difficulties following the nation’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Nike didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, per Bloomberg.

  Also on the tech front, Snap Inc., owner of Snapchat, the popular social media app, won’t be running any more Russian advertising.

  Finally, social messaging and media app Snapchat, owned by parent company Snap Inc., said it had stopped running all advertising in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and is halting ad sales to all Russian and Belarusian entities as part of “complying with all sanctions targeting Russian businesses and individuals.”

  The company has continued to offer the app in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus because it “remains an important communications tool for family and friends.”

  The company noted that Ukraine is the birthplace of Looksery, the company whose technology laid the foundation for Snap’s augmented reality platform, “and has been the home of more than 300 of Snap’s most creative and talented team members.” That includes both Snap employees currently based in Ukraine as well as those who are from Ukraine originally and now live elsewhere.

  Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta are facing potential blowback from the Russian government after both companies cut off RT and other allegedly state-backed broadcasters from their platforms, angering the Kremlin, which has railed about the possibility of passing laws to punish these moves.

   But the real big question is: with all the US companies rushing to cut financial ties with Russia, does all this risk backfiring?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 19:15

• Ukraine's 2nd Largest City Pummeled Under Russian Strikes As Calls For Western Intervention Grow
  Ukraine’s 2nd Largest City Pummeled Under Russian Strikes As Calls For Western Intervention Grow

  Update(1700ET): Into the late night hours local time, there were widespread reports of a series of large explosions outside Kiev’s city limits. This as there’s said to be a convoy of infantry, tanks, and artillery that stretches “forty miles” that’s still approaching Kiev – though it’s believed the Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital has been severely hampered by logistical, supply, and fuel issues.

  Calls have grown in US Congress to give Ukraine “everything they need as rapidly as possible” – as the latest words from Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell ahead of Biden’s evening State of the Union indicated. Both in the media and in some corners of Europe calls for “confronting” Russia’s militarily have grown, as expected. 

  Ukrainian government officials, including top ministers apparently, are reportedly working to run the country from bomb shelters and metro stations under Kiev. Tuesday evening into overnight hours it appears most of the heavy Russian shelling is still focused on Ukraine’s second largest city.

  🇺🇦 Kharkiv this evening pic.twitter.com/AfSyPO3uRn

  — Intelsky (@Intel_sky) March 1, 2022

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  Heavy multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) shelling of Kharkiv continues as battles rage at its outskirts tonight pic.twitter.com/mlFvHZPn1n

  — ELINT News (@ELINTNews) March 1, 2022

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  Also on Tuesday European Parliament moved closer to granting Ukraine “candidate status” – ironically not long after Turkey’s Erdogan chided the body for suddenly seeking to fast-track Ukraine after Turkey has sought EU entry for years: 

  The European Parliament adopted a resolution on Tuesday calling on the European Union institutions “to work towards granting” Ukraine the status of EU candidate country, it said in a statement.

  The resolution, which also demanded the EU to impose “tougher sanctions” on Russia, was voted in favor by 637 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It condemned “in the strongest possible terms Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and demands that the Kremlin end all military activities in the country.” 

  Meanwhile the economic war against Russia from the West has continued ratcheting up, with the latest including the UK barring any ships with Russian ties access to British ports. A UK government statement said: 

  “The ban on Russian ships from UK ports, and new economic sanctions against key Russian financial institutions including its central bank, in close coordination with our allies, will degrade Russia’s economy and help make sure Putin loses,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in the statement. 

  ⚡️ Russian forces have struck Independence Square in central Kharkiv with a powerful explosion.

  According to a video of the event, the blast detonated right in front of the headquarters of the Kharkiv Oblast government.

  Video: Ukraine NOW/Telegram pic.twitter.com/poZjYcjRjD

  — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 1, 2022

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  Further measures were listed as “including against the Russian Central Bank and the state’s sovereign wealth fund, also mean the majority of Russia’s financial system” – all now covered under UK sanctions.

  The Czech Republic introduces potential 1 to 3 year prison sentence for public support of Russia’s actions, expressed online or in any other space

  🇨🇿🇷🇺

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 1, 2022

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  What an odd little map the NYT has created. Ukrainians fleeing violence by heading to the west are “refugees,” while Ukrainians fleeing violence by heading east to seek refuge in Russia are just “migrants” (and are graphically minimized to the point of being barely visible). pic.twitter.com/Rp31UdVwLw

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 1, 2022

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  * * *

  earlier

  Update(1349ET): Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan issued some strong words on Tuesday which are sure to be taken as provocative both by Russia and Turkey’s European allies. “Asked about Ukraine’s bid for European Union membership at a news conference in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey, an EU candidate for decades, would support any enlargement of NATO and the EU.”

  • EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RECOMMENDS GIVING UKRAINE EU CANDIDATE STATUS

  Of course, Turkey has lobbied for entry into the EU for years, and has long stood as NATO’s second largest military, behind the United States. This fact was cause for stinging sarcasm in his words:

  Erdogan called on the bloc to show the “same sensitivity” it showed for Kyiv’s membership bid for Turkey’s application, and slammed member states for being “not sincere”.

  “Will you put Turkey on your agenda when someone attacks (us) too?” he said.

  In the overnight hours, huge blasts in Kharkiv have been reported…

  #BREAKING: Massive explosion reported over Kharkiv, Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/OfC4gzhbMA

  — Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) March 1, 2022

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  Turkey has for months walked a tightrope on the Ukraine issue amid Russia’s prior military build-up. But with the Russian invasion now in full-swing, Ankara has gotten more vocal – but is still seeking to strike more of a balance compared to the firm hardline of European countries:

  “Our call to both Russia and Ukraine is: let the firing stop as soon as possible, let Russia and Ukraine make a beautiful contribution to peace,” Erdogan said Tuesday during a joint news conference with Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, on Tuesday.

  

  On Monday Turkey had closed the straits under its control to all warship traffic, especially Russian vessels, in line with the Montreux Convention.

  Russian and Ukrainian delegations are set to meet for a second round of ceasefire talks, but it’s looking increasingly shaky that this will even happen:

  #UPDATE Polish President Andrzej Duda (L), during a visit by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg (R), said his country would not send military planes to Ukraine since it would be seen as “military interference” pic.twitter.com/Y67w8tgtRr

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 1, 2022

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  TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINIAN, RUSSIAN DELEGATIONS WILL MOST LIKELY NOT MEET ON WEDNESDAY, RUSSIA HAS ‘UNREALISTIC’ DEMANDS -CNN TURK

  

  Currently, some wild theories are circulating in the US mainstream and even among political leaders over just what is behind Putin’s decision for an all-out invasion…

  Russia analysis is the worst analysis https://t.co/keCRlbo1U8

  — Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) March 1, 2022

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  * * *

  Update(10:53amET): Russia’s military is urging civilians to leave areas near Ukrainian army bases and communications facilities in Kiev, warning that it is now conducting strikes against these specified targets. 

  “In order to suppress information attacks against Russia, the technological facilities of the SBU and the 72nd main PSO center in Kyiv will be hit with high-precision weapons,” the Russian MoD statement said according to TASS. “We call on Ukrainian citizens attracted by Ukrainian nationalists to carry out provocations against Russia, as well as residents of Kyiv living near relay nodes leave their homes.”

  Based on widely circulating footage, it appears the invading Russian forces have begun to take out communications towers and antennas, as well as Ukrainian military infrastructure – also amid continuing reports that residential areas are increasingly under threat amid the siege of Kiev.

  Russians are destroying the Kyiv TV Tower.
  They are trying to cut us off from communications. pic.twitter.com/ppi264K5Jf

  — Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) March 1, 2022

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  A massive TV tower in Kiev has been hit, with the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs confirming of some national broadcasts:

  “The channels will not work for a while,” the ministry said in its statement. “The backup broadcasting of some channels will be enabled in the near future.”

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has meanwhile appealed to the UN Human Rights Council to “strip Russia” of its membership on the UNHRC. According to the AFP, Blinken said:

  Putin success in ousting Ukraine government would see rights, humanitarian crises ‘only get worse’, Blinken tells UN rights council

  US defense officials on Tuesday said they believe Russia’s advance on Kiev has been slowing due to fuel and supply challenges.

  There’s been confusion over the prior reported EU jets to Ukraine…

  It’s official – Europe won’t transfer fighter planes to Ukraine. Poland decided not to, and Slovakian defense ministry spokesperson confirms to me just now: “Slovakia will not provide fighter jets to Ukraine.”

  — Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) March 1, 2022

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  For the past week there have also been conflicting reports as to the degree of Belarus’ active participation on the ground in Russia’s invasion:

  • MILITARY UNITS HAVE MOVED FROM BASES BUT COUNTRY COULD MOBILISE IN 2-3 DAYS IN EVENT OF DANGER – RIA CITES BELTA
  • LUKASHENKO SAYS NO BELARUS MILITARY UNITS HAVE MOVED FROM BASES BUT COUNTRY COULD MOBILISE IN 2-3 DAYS IN EVENT OF DANGER – RIA CITES BELTA

  * * *

  “Kyiv is special. If we protect Kyiv, we will protect the state. This is the heart of our country, and it must keep beating,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday. He gave a stirring video address to European parliament, the day after he signed a formal application for Ukraine seeking EU membership.

  “Our people are motivated and we are fighting for freedoms and our lives,” Zelensky said. “We are fighting for our survival,” he added while urging the body to “prove” that they stand with Ukraine. This as he’s urging both NATO and the US to impose a No-Fly Zone, an appeal which both so far have rejected. 

  

  Satellite imagery being widely reported on Tuesday morning suggests a massive column of Russian infantry many miles in length is now en route ready to bear down to the Ukrainian capital. Estimates as to its size have varied, but there’s consensus it’s at least many, possibly dozens of miles, long. 

  CNN describes it as “A massive 40-mile-long Russian military convoy — made up of armored vehicles, tanks, towed artillery and other logistical vehicles — has reached the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, according to satellite images from Maxar Technologies.”

  Kiev officials have said the city has erected fortifications, while much of the civilian population has sought the safety of shelters or underground bunkers ahead of what’s expected to be a large-scale final Russian assault, also after two other large cities have in the past days come under heavy rocket barrage and shelling. 

  BREAKING: Satellite photos reveal large Russian military convoy north of Kyiv, stretching 64 kilometers (40 miles) in total (📷: @Maxar) pic.twitter.com/61JLz8Gubf

  — BNO News (@BNONews) March 1, 2022

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  The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, warned the people of the city as well as the world on Tuesday that “the enemy is on the outskirts of the capital,” and emphasized that national forces are “preparing to defend Kyiv.”

  “Our armed forces, Territorial Defense Forces, are fighting heroically for our land,” Klitschko said. “Fortifications and checkpoints have been built at the entrances to the city. I ask everyone to keep calm. Do not go outside unnecessarily and stay in shelters in case of alarm,” he added.

  Moscow has meanwhile reaffirmed that its military operation will not stop until it meets the objectives of “demilitarizing” Ukraine. However, talks just inside Belarus on Monday between a Ukrainian delegation and Russian delegation left agreeing to keep talking. Those talks lasted a reported five hours.

  The latest on the #Ukraine crisis from @DaveClark_AFP with @olacicho in Moscow
  ▶️ Russian forces strike cities in eastern Ukraine
  ▶️ Western powers vow further sanctions
  ▶️ More than 660,000 people have fled conflicthttps://t.co/K69VMdFjuw pic.twitter.com/W6SpzFp3qV

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 1, 2022

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  The Russian side has since confirmed that this second round of potential ceasefire talks will take place Wednesday, March 2. Ukrainian and Russian media are confirming the next round:

  Another Ukrainian media outlet, Glavkom, citing sources in the Ukrainian delegation, disclosed the terms advanced by the sides during the first meeting. It said that Russia allegedly demanded Ukraine commit to paper its off-bloc status at the parliamentary level and organize a referendum on this matter. Apart from that, the Russian side demanded Ukraine recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the administrative borders of the corresponding regions and drop its demand that Crimea should be returned to Ukraine. Ukraine, according to Glavkom, demanded a ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory.

  At the same time, on an international level communications between Russia and the West appear to be spiraling toward non-existent. With the European airspace closure around Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov opted to address an assembly of the UN Human Rights Council remotely, instead of traveling. 

  More and more media pundits and US officials have begun to call for a West-imposed No Fly Zone:

  Perhaps the biggest risk-calculation/moral dilemma of the war so far. A massive Russian convoy is abt 30 miles from Kyiv. The US/NATO could likely destroy it. But that would be direct involvement against Russia and risk, everything. Does the West watch in silence as it rolls?

  — Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) February 28, 2022

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  Even the video speech prompted a mass-walkout, as Fox described:

  As soon as the U.N. president turns over the floor to Lavrov, dozens of diplomats stand and leave the meeting chamber without a word.

  Lavrov said he was “compelled” to make his address by video after the European Union restricted his “freedom of movement.”

  Currently Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov is warning that Russia has preparations underway to launch a “large-scale information and psychological operation” against Ukraine, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Tuesday. “Its goal is to break the resistance of Ukrainians and the Ukrainian army with lies,” Reznikov said in the statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 19:07

• New Yorkers Lash Out At ConEdison Over Soaring Electricity Bills
  New Yorkers Lash Out At ConEdison Over Soaring Electricity Bills

  By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles of OilPrice.com

  • New Yorkers blame distributor ConEdison for quickly rising electricity bills.

  • Some customers complain that their (energy) supply bill has tripled in past months.

  • The deregulated system may lower costs somewhat, but all of the fuel volatility risk is transferred directly to the consumer.

  Sky-high electric bills on the front page. Europe? The U.K? No, just north of New York City, where local politicians criticized Consolidated Edison of NY, the local electric utility. And further, local business people noted that they had warned of this potential problem a decade ago when the last governor decided to close down the nearby nuclear power plant, Indian Point. Some customers complain that their supply bill (for their electricity usage, not the lines or wires) has tripled in past months. For the typical consumer this is a noticeable increase.

  

  Con Edison—which in the past has taken the stand that it just delivers the electricity (they don’t actually produce it) so go complain somewhere else—announced that it “was reviewing our practices…” and will work out programs to help customers who are struggling to pay these rapidly escalating electricity bills. Meanwhile the staffer of a local member of Congress said, “At the end of the day, it is Con Edison that bills New Yorkers, and, therefore Con Ed that bears direct consumer responsibility for this egregious price hike…” Politicians have focused on how to help consumers pay their bills this winter, both here and in Europe. They don’t focus on the possibility that the existing wholesale electricity market, set up three decades ago to make electricity competitive, may bear responsibility for the mess as well.

  Here is how it works. The local utility is a delivery mechanism. It delivers a product (electricity in this case) produced and marketed by somebody else. In theory, the delivery company should not care about the price or quality of the product. And most local delivery utilities do not. They are simple delivery vehicles (“like the milkman”, a former Con Ed executive explained)  that charge fixed costs for their regulated service. Which from a business point of view is not a great set up. High prices or poor service on the part of electricity producers encourages consumers to either go off the grid or cut back on consumption. The local distribution utility’s business and relationship with the customer depends on another company’s skills and probity. Is that a good business strategy? Doesn’t sound like a good one for Con Edison.

  Now for the second issue, a little more technical. The unregulated electricity market sets prices on the basis of marginal cost. Generally speaking, natural gas is the marginal fuel and gas-fired generators frequently set the price for our region’s electricity. Remember that in a marginal cost market, every generator gets the same price regardless of production costs. So if the price of gas goes up the price of all electricity (not just that generated by gas) goes up equally as well. (In this instance low cost electricity producers like hydroelectric facilities reap a huge financial windfall). This differs from the old electricity pricing model which added up the prices of all fuels used to generate electricity and raised or lowered prices on the basis of their aggregate cost. In theory, prices go up quickly when marginal fuel price rises and falls just as quickly when the price drops. Although, in practice the price of electricity tends to fall a lot more slowly than the price of sometimes volatile fuel. Generators manage to keep the difference when that happens. 

  The third issue is one of prudence. The market organizations that manage our electricity grid look for the lowest price electricity. They don’t require a mix of fuels to be on the safe side. They don’t pay generators to run facilities with more expensive fuels in order to maintain diversity. They go for the low price. So, there is not much extra supply to bring on line when the cheap fuel (in this case natural gas) suddenly becomes expensive. This is the literal price we pay for our partly deregulated energy system. The previously regulated system was financially incentivized to maintain redundancy and dampen overall price volatility. But—and this is key—the old regulated utility was designed to absorb the financial risk associated with volatile fuel expense and then settle up later with state regulators. A deregulated system may lower costs somewhat but all of the fuel volatility risk is transferred directly to the consumer. Some members of the public are discovering the true meaning of deregulated energy markets this winter. 

  Does this sound like a discussion of European dependence on Russian gas rather than New York State power generation?  Well, in a way, utility deregulation almost always results in the same outcome. Go for the cheapest fuel source and assume nothing will go wrong. And when it does, let the consumers pay. The only thing we find remarkable here is that consumers continue to accept this.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 18:55

• Summers: Biden Needs To Pivot From COVID, Prepare America For 'Struggle Ahead'
  Summers: Biden Needs To Pivot From COVID, Prepare America For ‘Struggle Ahead’

  During tonight’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden needs to ditch the “usual laundry list of policy proposals,” and switch from “being the ‘protect the middle class from the pandemic’ president to being ‘prepare America for the struggle ahead’ president,” according to former Treasury Secretary and Democratic heavyweight Larry Summers, who spoke with Bloomberg TV on Friday.

  

  “We are looking at an event of potentially vast significance and concern,” Summers said in a follow-up interview Monday – referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s increasing alignment with Beijing.

  “Our ability to meet these challenges depends on recognizing them for what they are.”

  According to Summers, Biden will need to rally Americans to support the principles of democracy against authoritarianism.

  “The United States faces far graver challenges to its security than anyone would have thought likely even several years ago,” said Summers, who served as head of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration.”That needs to have ramifications for almost every aspect of our national life.”

  Summers, also a former director of the White House National Economic Council, likened the importance of the tightening bonds between Moscow and Beijing today to the realignment of China toward the U.S. that President Richard Nixon achieved in 1972.

  American corporate leaders are among those that may need to rethink their approaches in the new environment, he said. “Anyone who thinks that is not a challenge to their ability to flourish and profit as a business is making an enormous mistake.” -Bloomberg

  “There was a tendency for some CEOs to treat the United States as a kind of primitive loyalty, but to emphasize that they had to do what was best for their company — which could mean going anywhere and doing anything,” he said yesterday.

  When it comes to China, Summers says that too much effort has been spent by US policymakers on corporate interests in that country – while Washington remains “underinvested” in US technological competitiveness.

  

  “When we see the dominant emphasis in the economic policies of many countries shift from international integration to self-reliance as a dominant economic value, we know we are headed into a much more dangerous world,” Summers added – while urging Biden to put “more emphasis on our stake in what’s happening globally” – particularly when it comes to challenges such as safeguarding the US Dollar as the global reserve by moving to contain inflation, resisting global aggression, and addressing semiconductor shortages.

  Of note, in November Summers was critical of the Biden administration for being “behind the curve” on inflation ravaging the economy.

  “We are going to need to spend more on national defense and more on global security — in terms of not just military threats, but threats from climate change and threats from pandemics.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/01/2022 – 18:35

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