Today’s News 30th March 2022

• BoE Gov Warns Of "Historic Shock" To Real Incomes As Stagflation Slams British Economy
  BoE Gov Warns Of “Historic Shock” To Real Incomes As Stagflation Slams British Economy

  As the Bank of England scrambles to try and tame inflation with aggressive rate hikes, Bank of England Gov. Andrew Bailey warned during a speech this week that the British economy is sliding into stagflationary hell as the energy price crunch spurs inflation that’s hotter than at any point during the 1970s.

  

  While HMG has sought to alleviate the impact of higher energy prices with direct fiscal transfers to millions of British families (perhaps they should ask the San Francisco Fed how that might turn out), Bailey warned that the British economy is already on the cusp of slipping into stagflation.

  According to Bailey, surging energy costs have forced the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee to confront the biggest challenge in its short history (it was former in 1997): how can a central bank tackle inflation without driving the economy into recession?

  Assuming the war in Ukraine drags on (the latest headlines point to a breakthrough in peace talks, but whether progress actually materializes remains to be seen),  Bailey expects the UK’s consumer-price inflation to top 8% during the second quarter (it’s already higher than 6%, more than 3x the central bank’s inflationary target).

  These inflationary pressure represent a “historic shock” to incomes.

  Bailey said Britons were facing a “very large shock to aggregate real income and spending” from rising prices of energy and imported goods. He told an event organised by Bruegel, the think-tank, in Brussels: “This is really an historic shock to real incomes.”

  One of the main differences between today and the 1970s is that the oil shock back then lingered for years, while Bailey said he and his fellow policymakers hope that this latest bout of inflation will start to ease before the end of the year.

  “The shock from energy prices this year will be larger than any single year in the 1970s. The caveat is that the 1970s had a succession of years and we very much hope that would not be the case now. But as a single year, this is a very, very big shock.”

  To further underscore the difficulty of the situation, the British Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that UK household real income this year would contract at the sharpest rate since records began in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the OBR cut its UK growth forecast for 2022 from 6% to 3.8%.

  Bailey said: “We expect it to cause growth and demand to slow. We’re beginning to see the evidence of that in both consumer and business surveys.”

  With its inflation and growth forecasts pulling the central bank in different directions, Bailey suggested that the BoE is now caught between a rock and a hard place.

  “This is a big trade-off,” he added. “I think it’s the biggest trade-off the Monetary Policy Committee has faced in its now approaching 25 years life.”

  The prescription, of course, is QT and rate hikes. And with the conservative government reluctant to embrace the level of fiscal expansion seen abroad (most notably in the US), Britons should probably brace for hard times ahead, as the only cure for runaway inflation is demand destruction.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/30/2022 – 02:45

• EU Seeks End To 'Golden Passport' Schemes, Urges Revoking Visas To Russians
  EU Seeks End To ‘Golden Passport’ Schemes, Urges Revoking Visas To Russians

  Authored by Nicholas Delinger via The Epoch Times,

  The European Commission has called for EU members to cease the practice of selling citizenship to investors and to suspend the sale of immigration visas to citizens of Russia and Belarus.

  

  On Monday, the European Commission issued a recommendation to member states of the European Union, urging these nations to limit access to such so-called “golden passport” programs to individuals connected with the Russian and Belarusian governments, in response to the former nation’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

  “Some Russian or Belarusian nationals who are subject to sanctions or are significantly supporting the war in Ukraine might have acquired EU citizenship or privileged access to the EU, including to travel freely in the Schengen area, under these schemes,” the European Commission said.

  For years, the sale of EU visas has been a multi-billion dollar industry and a valuable source of income for the nations participating. However, this practice has been the bane of regulators in the European Parliament, many of whom consider such programs a security risk for the visa-free zone of the Schengen Area, which encompasses most the the EU.

  Presently, only three EU states have programs for the direct sale of passports: Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Malta, all of which have committed to ending such programs.

  However, golden visa schemes remain somewhat more widespread. Like golden passport programs, these schemes allow for investors to receive immigration benefits from significant investment in the country sponsoring them, with little or no expectation that they must reside in the country.

  The new push may be interpreted as the EU’s latest effort to undermine Putin’s grip on power by punishing the Russian oligarchs, many of whom enjoy time spent abroad in Western Europe with their lavish fortunes.

  Previously, European officials have targeted the Russian oligarchy with measures such as freezing Russian assets, impounding the private jets, and seizing the summer homes of the nation’s wealthiest expatriates. In so doing, policymakers hope to stir discontent among the keys to power in the Russian Federation, placing pressure on Putin to walk back the war in Ukraine.

  However, with the suspension of golden passport programs, there is an additional benefit: such a policy would close the door to potential security risks, as oligarchs sympathetic to Putin’s Russia could possibly use their security as citizens of European countries to undermine the EU.

  The European Commission urged members to review carefully Russian and Belarussian beneficiaries of such program, cautioning nations to withdraw the naturalization of any individual blacklisted by EU members or who “supports by any means the war in Ukraine or other related activities of the Russian government or Lukashenko regime breaching international law.”

  It said some Russians or Belarusians are among 877 individuals listed for asset freezes and travel bans imposed since 2014 who might have acquired EU citizenship and had access to the Schengen area.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/30/2022 – 02:00

• Humilitainment: How To Control The Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions
  Humilitainment: How To Control The Citizenry Through Reality TV Distractions

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

  “Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

  – Professor Neil Postman

  Once again, the programming has changed.

  Like clockwork, the wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis has shifted gears.

  We have gone from COVID-19 lockdowns to Trump-Biden election drama to the Russia-Ukraine crisis to the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings to Will Smith’s on-camera assault of comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards Ceremony.

  The distractions, distortions, and political theater just keep coming.

  

  The ongoing reality show that is life in the American police state feeds the citizenry’s voracious appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.

  Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

  This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today: as long as we are distracted, entertained, occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

  The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

  We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).

  “Living is easy with eyes closed,” observed John Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

  As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

  Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.

  “We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

  On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

  This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.

  Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.

  This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

  It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

  A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

  “Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the government’s brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment as things happening to other people.

  The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

  This explains how we keep getting saddled with leaders in government who are clueless about the Constitution and out-of-touch with the needs of the people they were appointed to represent.

  This is also what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

  Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.

  Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

  We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

  This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

  How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.

  In totalitarian regimes where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.

  In countries where tyranny hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.

  Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism, the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.

  As George Orwell recognized, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

  Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses.

  In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.” In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

  Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

  Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).

  Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake.

  Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.

  In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.

  Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the guise of entertainment and news.

  Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.

  While television news cannot—and should not—be completely avoided, the following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV news.

  1. TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is worth reporting. Although there are still some good TV journalists, the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television “news” hosts at face value, it is your responsibility to judge and analyze what is reported.

  2. TV news is entertainment. There is a reason why the programs you watch are called news “shows.” It’s a signal that the so-called news is being delivered as a form of entertainment. “In the case of most news shows,” write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful book, How to Watch TV News (1992), “the package includes attractive anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to hold the audience, the creation of the illusion of intimacy, and so on.”

  Of course, the point of all this glitz and glamour is to keep you glued to the set so that a product can be sold to you. (Even the TV news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products, everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although the news items spoon-fed to you may have some value, they are primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be sold to advertisers.

  3. Never underestimate the power of commercials, especially to news audiences. In an average household, the television set is on over seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves to be in control of their media consumption, are not really bothered by this. But TV is a two-way attack: it not only delivers programming to your home, it also delivers you (the consumer) to a sponsor.

  People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated and have more money to spend. They are, thus, a prime market for advertisers. And sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Such commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost more to produce than the news stories themselves. Moreover, the content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of the news stories, cannot be ignored. Most commercials are aimed at prurient interests in advocating sex, overindulgence, drugs, etc., which has a demoralizing effect on viewers, especially children.

  4. It is vitally important to learn about the economic and political interests of those who own the “corporate” media.

  There are few independent news sources anymore. The major news outlets are owned by corporate empires.

  5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts. Because film footage and other visual imagery are so engaging on TV news shows, viewers are apt to allow language—what the reporter is saying about the images—to go unexamined. A TV news host’s language frames the pictures, and, therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is often determined by the host’s commentary. TV by its very nature manipulates viewers. One must never forget that every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but the edited form of the event. For example, presenting a one- to two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a TV talk show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage is a regular staple on news shows. Add to that the fact that the reporters editing the film have a subjective view—sometimes determined by their corporate bosses—that enters in.

  6. Reduce by at least one-half the amount of TV news you watch. TV news generally consists of “bad” news—wars, torture, murders, scandals and so forth. It cannot possibly do you any harm to excuse yourself each week from much of the mayhem projected at you on the news. Do not form your concept of reality based on television. TV news, it must be remembered, does not reflect normal everyday life. Studies indicate that a heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is much more dangerous than it actually is.

  7. One of the reasons many people are addicted to watching TV news is that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, which gives the illusion of participation in American life. But an “opinion” is all that we can gain from TV news because it only presents the most rudimentary and fragmented information on anything. Thus, on most issues we don’t really know much about what is actually going on. And, of course, we are expected to take what the TV news host says on an issue as gospel truth. But isn’t it better to think for yourself? Add to this that we need to realize that we often don’t have enough information from the “news” source to form a true opinion. How can that be done? Study a broad variety of sources, carefully analyze issues in order to be better informed, and question everything.

  The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, a populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all.

  It’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and push back against the real menace of the police state.

  If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows more absurd by the minute.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/30/2022 – 00:05

• Visualizing All Crude Oil Pipelines & Refineries Across US & Canada
  Visualizing All Crude Oil Pipelines & Refineries Across US & Canada

  Pipelines are the primary method of transporting crude oil around the world, delivering oil and its derivative products swiftly to refineries and empowering reliant businesses.

  And, as Visual Capitalist’s Christina Kostandi and Niccolo Conte detail below, North America is a major oil hub, with the U.S. and Canada alone are home to more than 90,000 miles of crude oil and petroleum product pipelines, along with more than 140 refineries that can process around 20 million barrels of oil every day.

  This interactive graphic uses data from Rextag to map out crude oil pipelines and refineries across the U.S. and Canada, showcasing individual pipeline diameter and daily refinery throughput.

  

  <!–

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  The Longest Crude Oil Pipeline Networks in North America

  Since 2010, U.S. crude oil production has more than doubled from 5.4 million barrels a day to more than 11.5 million. Meanwhile, the pipeline networks needed to transport this newly produced oil have only expanded by roughly 56%.

  Today, the largest pipeline network across the U.S. and Canada (with a diameter of at least 10 inches) is the 14,919 mile network managed by Plains, which spans from the northwestern tip of Alberta all the way down to the southern coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

  

  Enbridge owns the next largest crude oil pipeline network, with 12,974 miles of crude oil pipelines that are at least 10 inches in diameter. The Canadian company, one of the world’s largest oil companies, transports about 30% of the crude oil produced in North America.

  Following the networks of Plains and Enbridge, there’s a steep drop off in the length of pipeline networks, with Sunoco’s crude oil pipeline network spanning about half the length of Enbridge’s at 6,409 miles.

  The Largest Crude Oil Refineries in North America

  These various sprawling pipeline networks initially carry crude oil to refineries, where it is processed into gasoline, diesel fuel, and other petroleum products.

  The refineries with the largest throughput in North America are all located in the Gulf Coast (PADD 3), with the five refineries that process more than 500,000 barrels per day all located in the states of Louisiana and Texas.

  

  While Texas and Louisiana have six refineries that process more than 400,000 barrels per day, there are only two other facilities outside of these states with the same kind of throughput, located in Whiting, Indiana (435,000 barrels per day) and Fort McMurray, Alberta (465,000 barrels per day).

  Fort McMurray’s facility is an upgrader, which differs from refineries as it upgrades heavy oils like bitumen into lighter synthetic crude oil which flows through pipelines more easily. Many oil refineries aren’t able to directly convert bitumen, which is extracted from oil sands like those found in Alberta, making upgraders a necessary part in the production and processing of crude oil from oil sands.

  The Uncertain Future of New Pipelines in North America

  The development of new pipelines remains a contentious issue in Canada and the U.S., with the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline emblematic of growing anti-pipeline sentiment. In 2021, only 14 petroleum liquids pipeline projects were completed in the U.S., which was the lowest amount of new pipelines and expansions since 2013.

  But domestic energy production is once again in the spotlight due to the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports and Russia’s impending export ban on raw materials. North American consumers are now facing surging gasoline and energy prices as foreign oil is proving to be far less reliable in times of geopolitical turmoil.

  It’s important to note that pipelines are not a perfect solution, as leaks and spills in just the last decade have resulted in billions of dollars of damages. From 2010 to 2020, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration recorded 983 incidents that resulted in 149,000 spilled and unrecovered barrels of oil, five fatalities, 27 injuries, and more than $2.5B in damages.

  But over the past five years, liquid pipeline incidents have fallen by 21% while pipeline mileage and barrels delivered have increased by more than 27%. Along with these infrastructure improvements, pipeline developers and operators emphasize the lack of better alternatives, as freight and seaborne transportation are both far less efficient and result in more carbon emissions.

  Currently, pipelines remain key components of energy consumption across the U.S. and Canada, and as global energy markets face supply squeezes, international sanctions, and geopolitical turbulence, the focus on them has grown.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 23:45

• Saudi Arabia May Raise Its Oil Prices For Asia To Record Premiums
  Saudi Arabia May Raise Its Oil Prices For Asia To Record Premiums

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  

  Asian refiners and traders expect top crude exporter Saudi Arabia to once again hike significantly the prices of its crude going to Asia in May to a record premium over the Middle Eastern benchmarks, a Bloomberg survey showed on Tuesday.

  The soaring oil prices and the “buyers’ strike” over purchasing Russian crude could be an opportunity for Russia’s key ally in the OPEC+ pact, OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia, to hike its official selling prices (OSPs) to another all-time high over the Oman/Dubai benchmark, off which Middle Eastern crude is priced in Asia.

  Per the Bloomberg survey of five traders and refiners, Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco could increase its OSP for May for Asia for Arab Light—the Kingdom’s flagship grade—by a massive $5 per barrel to a premium of nearly $10 a barrel over the Oman/Dubai benchmark.

  Earlier in March, Saudi Aramco lifted its April price to Asia for its flagship grade to $4.95 a barrel premium over Oman/Dubai, which was the largest ever premium of Arab Light to the Middle East benchmark.

  If in early April Saudi Aramco raises the price of Arab Light for May by as much as traders and refiners in the Bloomberg poll expect, Arab Light will be sold in Asia in May at a premium of $9.95 per barrel over the Oman-Dubai benchmark. This would be a new record differential for the Saudi crude prices to Asia.

  Saudi Arabia generally sets the pricing trends of the other major Middle Eastern oil producers, and it usually sets the OSPs of its crude for the following month around the fifth of each month, typically after the monthly OPEC+ meeting.

  The meeting of the OPEC+ group is scheduled for March 31, and producers have signaled they would keep the production plan as-is, that is, raising the OPEC+ collective production quota by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) for May.  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 23:25

• German States Outlaw Letter "Z" Displays As Ukraine Asks World To Criminalize
  German States Outlaw Letter “Z” Displays As Ukraine Asks World To Criminalize

  Public displays of the letter “Z” have been outlawed in two German states, after authorities in Bavaria and Lower Saxony announced over the weekend that anyone who displays the letter – which has become synonymous with support for Russia’s war in Ukraine – will be subject to a fine or three years in jail, according to The Local.

  

  “The Russian war of aggression on the Ukraine is a criminal act, and whoever publicly approves of this war of aggression can also make himself liable to prosecution,” said an Interior Ministry spokesperson in a Monday press statement.

  The letter became a hot-button issue after tanks amassed at the Ukrainian border displayed it – possibly to distinguish them from Ukraine’s tanks.

  Chapter 140 of Germany’s criminal code recognizes “incitement to crime of aggression” as an offense, according to Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. The Local reports that there have been displays of “Z” in both Lower Saxony and Bavaria. -NPR

  Russia’s war of aggression against #Ukraine is a criminal offense. Anyone publicly approving the war may be liable to prosecution in Germany. This applies to using the “Z” symbol, too. German security authorities are keeping an eye on the use of the symbol. – Ministry of Interior https://t.co/diQEgGwR7a

  — German Embassy (@GermanyinUSA) March 28, 2022

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

  Meanwhile, Ukraine is asking the entire world to criminalize the usage of “Z” – with Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeting on Tuesday: “I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”

  “‘Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.”

  I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ’Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.

  — Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) March 29, 2022

  The actual meaning of the letter has never been confirmed, however Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a series of tweets earlier this month that the “Z” stands for “Victory,” “for the truth,” “for peace,” as well as “denazification” and demilitarization.”

  pic.twitter.com/kNVJ3gFi3O

  — Минобороны России (@mod_russia) March 4, 2022

  Summing up the situation is Paul Joseph Watson: 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 23:05

• Weaker Yen Becoming A Double-Edged Sword For Japanese Stocks
  Weaker Yen Becoming A Double-Edged Sword For Japanese Stocks

  By Hideyuki Sano, Bloomberg Taking Stock markets commentator and analyst

  The yen’s weakness has helped fuel a world-beating rally in Japanese stocks. But its impact appears less pronounced this time and may even risk backfiring in an era of rising oil prices and U.S. interest rates.

  The broad Topix index has gained 5.6% this month, outperforming most of its major global peers. While the yen’s slide to a more than six-year low has aided some exporters, the main drivers behind the market’s gains were banks and energy trading firms, which have benefited from higher borrowing costs and oil prices, respectively.

  The diminishing correlation between a cheaper yen and higher stocks not only costs Japanese shares a historically reliable catalyst but also reflects an economy increasingly dependent on offshore manufacturing. That has made Japanese businesses benefit less from a competitive currency and more vulnerable to imported inflation.

  

  “In recent years, Japanese corporate earnings have become less responsive to the yen’s moves,” said Hiroshi Watanabe, senior economist at Sony Financial Group Inc. That’s because a strong currency more than a decade ago prompted many firms to shift a large part of their production outside Japan.

  12-month forward earnings per share of firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s main board closely tracked the dollar-yen exchange rate until 2016, when the link started becoming much more tenuous.

  

  In a sign that a weaker yen is now more of a damper than boost to foreign investors, the latter were net sellers of local shares in the first three weeks of March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. To these overseas investors, who account for more than two-thirds of brokerage trading in Japan, the yen’s rapid depreciation may lead to huge currency losses.

  “Prices of imported food and resources are rising, which will surely slow the Japanese economy because wages remain stagnant,” said Tetsuro Ii, chief executive at Commons Asset Management in Tokyo. “If the yen keeps falling, that may become a net negative.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 22:45

• Mayor Lightfoot Assigned 70 Chicago Cops To Personal Security Detail Created In 2020
  Mayor Lightfoot Assigned 70 Chicago Cops To Personal Security Detail Created In 2020

  The Democratic rulers of ultra-liberal cities love to pay lip service to their voters’ calls to ‘defund the police’ – except, of course, when it comes to their own protection.

  In the latest example of this disturbing trend, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has, for the past two years, enjoyed a security detail consisting of some 71 Chicago PD officers, despite proposing to cut the department’s budget by $80 million back in 2020 as a sop to the “defund” movement (while the city’s murder rate continues to spiral out of control).

  

  The detail, known as Unit 544, started with a handful of officers, but has since grown into a group that includes 65 officers, five sergeants, and a lieutenant, according to a Chicago Sun Times report.

  As if this weren’t already excessive enough, Lightfoot has an additional personal bodyguard detail made up of approximately 20 officers. The department sent a memo to its officers in the summer of 2020 (at the height of the defund movement) inviting them to apply to join the mayor’s detail.

  “The unit’s mission will be to provide physical security for City Hall, the mayor’s residence and the mayor’s detail command post,” the memo read. “Through the coordination of intelligence and resources, officers will respond to all threats related to the mayor’s physical properties to ensure its protection.”

  Around the time the unit was established, city residents who lived near the mayor’s house were complaining that the precinct’s limited resources were too often being dedicated to the mayor’s residence, where protesters repeatedly gathered.

  Lightfoot told the Sun-Times that the unit was created to ensure proper coordination between officers who provided security at her residence, and those who provided security at city hall.

  “…[Y]ou know, if there was some kind of emergency at City Hall, for example, the right hand wouldn’t necessarily know what the left hand was doing because they all reported to different chains of command.”

  […]

  “…[I]n 2020 in particular, there were a significant amount of protests all over the city, and some of them targeted at my house. All the more reason why having a unified command to understand and share intelligence and be ready to respond if there was any kind of threat was very important.”

  Lightfoot also tried to play down the proposed PD budget cut as the result of a ‘pandemic-related budget shortfall’, not an example of her bowing to the “defund” movement.

  She also blamed President Trump for threatening her security: “When the president of the United States uses the world’s largest megaphone and platform to target you personally, terrible things happen…And he not only blew a dog whistle, he pointed really evil and dangerous people right at my doorstep.”

  Of course, the political winds have shifted dramatically since 2020 – so much so that President Biden recently included additional funding for federal and local law enforcement in his 2023 budget proposal, which he unveiled yesterday.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 22:25

• Biden Budgets Billions For Climate, "Environmental Justice", & Global Gender Equity
  Biden Budgets Billions For Climate, “Environmental Justice”, & Global Gender Equity

  Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  President Joe Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2023 budget would involve billions of dollars in climate-related spending, including $11 billion for international climate finance, as well as multibillion-dollar investments said to “advance equity and equality globally.”

  

  Submitted on March 28—more than a month after it was legally due on the first Monday of February—the budget would total $5.8 trillion.

  With energy prices up from 2021 and an economically disruptive war raging in Eastern Europe, the president didn’t highlight climate or environmental concerns in a brief, pre-prepared statement on the budget request. However, he did claim that his budget would “continue our equitable growth.”

  Yet, according to a fact sheet from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as well as a 156-page summary from that same agency, a significant proportion of prospective spending would be in the name of climate and what the fact sheet describes as “environmental justice.”

  The Ecological Society of America, a large organization of ecological scientists, states that “environmental justice is understood in many ways” on its webpage defining the term.

  It first lists the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) definition, which appeared as early as 1998 in a Clinton administration report, where it was attributed to the EPA Office of Environmental Justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.”

  The webpage then notes that “a broader definition views [environmental justice] ‘both as a field of study and a social movement that seeks to address the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harms, and asks whether procedures and impacts of environmental decision-making are fair to the people they affect,’” referencing a definition from University of Michigan professor Bunyan Bryant.

  Bryant, professor emeritus for Environmental Justice, has elsewhere written that “the destructive power of market forces” has led humans “to wreak destruction upon the Earth and upon each other.”

  A search of Federal Election Commission filings from Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2020, shows that all donations from people who listed “Ecological Society of America” or “The Ecological Society of America” as their employer went to Democratic candidates and causes, such as the Biden Victory Fund, Biden for President, and the online fundraising platform ActBlue.

  Climate and Equity

  Environmental spending in Biden’s proposed budget would include $3.3 billion on new energy programs, with $500,000 for weatherizing and retrofitting low-income homes.

  In addition, Biden would allocate $80 million to a Grid Deployment Office, which would aim to modernize the U.S. electrical grid.

  The EPA’s discretionary funding would be boosted to $11.9 billion, a rise of 29 percent from the enacted level for 2021. Biden seeks to enlarge EPA’s staff by 1,900 full-time equivalents, reversing a trend of staffing reductions under the Trump administration.

  More than $18 billion would go to climate resilience and adaptation, a major winner in the recently passed omnibus legislation.

  “These critical investments will reduce the risk of damages from floods and storms, restore the Nation’s aquatic ecosystems, and make HUD-assisted multifamily homes more climate-resilient,” the OMB fact sheet reads.

  An additional $1.45 billion goes to what are described as the EPA’s “environmental justice efforts,” which the fact sheet claims will “advance racial equity.”

  The budget would also provide $47 million in environmental justice-related funding to the Department of Energy and $1.4 million to establish a new Office of Environmental Justice within the Department of Justice.

  Biden’s budget would also devote $11 billion to international climate finance, including $1.6 billion for a Green Climate Fund, a program said to fund climate adaptation and mitigation in the developing world.

  Equity is a dominant theme both in the climate-related funding and elsewhere in the spending proposal. The OMB’s full, 156-page proposal uses the word “equity,” or close variations thereof, at least 75 times. “Equitable,” or close variations thereof, shows up 38 times.

  Months after the Taliban took control in Afghanistan and halted U.S. gender-related programs in that nation, Biden’s FY 2023 budget aims for “equity” not just in the United States, but around the world.

  The Biden administration had previously published the first National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality in 2021.

  The OMB’s budget fact sheet highlights $2.6 billion in spending said to “advance gender equity and equality across a broad range of sectors.”

  As part of that effort, Biden’s FY 2023 budget would allocate $200 million to the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, which already received $200 million in the FY 2022 funding that was finalized through the recent omnibus.

  OMB Director Shalanda Young will testify about Biden’s proposed budget to the House Committee on the Budget on March 29.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 22:05

• Cathay Pacific Airways Secures World's Longest Flight As It Now Avoids Russian Airspace
  Cathay Pacific Airways Secures World’s Longest Flight As It Now Avoids Russian Airspace

  The international community is increasingly isolating Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The latest example is Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. rerouting its New York-Hong Kong flight away from Russian airspace, making it the world’s longest commercial passenger flight by distance. 

  According to a Cathay memo sent to flight staff and seen by Bloomberg, the New York-Hong Kong flight, using Airbus SE’s A350-1000, will be rerouted to avoid Russian airspace altogether. The new distance will total 10,326 miles for a 16-17 hour flight versus the old route across Russia that totaled 8,071 miles and take about 15 hours. 

  

  Cathay’s new flight will supersede Singapore Airlines Ltd.’s Singapore-New York JFK flight, which was once considered the longest flight in terms of distance. 

  

  “Such flight changes are likely to only be temporary given the costs carriers face from high oil prices and uncertainty over the accessibility of Russian airspace,” Bloomberg said, adding that other airlines are also rerouting flights away from Russian airspace. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 21:45

• Profiles In Courage: The Canadian Truckers
  Profiles In Courage: The Canadian Truckers

  Authored by Margaret Anna Alice via ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ Substack,

  Celebrating the Winter of Love & the Worldwide Freedom Convoy Movement

  

  “The importance of the event [the storming of the Bastille] lay simply in the psychological fact that for the first time the people received an obvious proof of the weakness of an authority which had lately been formidable.

  “When the principle of authority is injured in the public mind it dissolves very rapidly. What might not one demand of a king who could not defend his principal fortress against popular attacks? The master regarded as all-powerful had ceased to be so.

  “The taking of the Bastille was the beginning of one of those phenomena of mental contagion which abound in the history of the Revolution. The foreign mercenary troops, although they could scarcely be interested in the movement, began to show symptoms of mutiny.”

  —Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution (paperback, Kindle, audiobook)

  This profile may seem like old news. The Canadian Truckers Freedom Convoy is so February. The hypnotizing bauble is now yo-yoing over the Ukraine. That’s what we’re supposed to be fixated on now.

  Forget about the contagious burst of freedom that broke out in Canada—and especially forget about the emergency powers seized by Tyrant Trudeau without ever deigning to engage in diplomatic talks with the truckers, physicians, veterans, business owners, or ordinary citizens who gathered to support them.

  Ottawa residents Alycia @plantbasedb and @SounguiFitness who live in centertown curious about the protests went to check them out and found only love and kindness. Songui brought his mother to the protests. She had only seen the mainstream coverage and she changed her mind. pic.twitter.com/T9UB1DgJkN

  — Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) February 10, 2022

  But I cannot forget. And I will not forget. Because what the Canadian truckers achieved in that courageous act of peaceful mass noncompliance is one of the most beautiful expressions of what I described as the secret to capsizing tyranny in my second essay, COVID IS OVER! … If You Want It, courtesy of Étienne de La Boétie’s The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude:

  “You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.”

  This video from Dr. Roger Hodkinson conveys the euphoria that erupted around the world as we witnessed the Canadian truckers—after two cruel years of escalating tyranny and breaches of rights—stand up and say, “NO! NO MORE.”

  The truckers did not do this for themselves. Indeed, they risked everything—their income, their licenses, their rigs, their assets, even their freedom. The State threatened to take their children away and said that if they were arrested, their dogs would be seized and considered “relinquished” after eight days. They fearlessly put everything on the line to fight for the freedom of not only Canadians but all of humanity.

  And what happened next was magic.

  I call it the Winter of Love. When I saw this jubilant photo1 of a Canadian couple kissing while holding the Canadian flag aloft, I immediately thought of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “The Kiss”:

  

  Both of these epic images capture the elation of liberation following years of terror, repressions, and fatalities wrought by totalitarian regimes. The first was a physical war, the latter psychological. Each teaches us the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  During the most exuberant three-and-a-half weeks in Canadian history, tens of thousands of citizens converged on Ottawa. Canadians like Sirka Sie—a reader, friend, and chef who sent me the opening video her daughter filmed of her—leapt up and down on the side of the road, cheering on the Freedom Convoy as it rolled through their neighborhoods.

  Once the convoy reached Ottawa, kids frolicked in bouncy castles (much to the chagrin of grinch politicians); grandmothers batch-baked muffins; Sikhs danced and practiced seva by serving up free food; and protesters broke into snowball fights, played street hockey, soaked in hot tubs, thawed out in saunas, roasted marshmallows, whipped up batches of cotton candy, threw pancake parties, set off fireworks, danced, and sung “O Canada” while hugging police officers and “Lean on Me” when cops arrived to arrest them in Milk River, Alberta.

  This woman, a program director at a Calgary radio station, traveled to Ottawa to see the protest for herself, and an irrepressible smile bubbles up as she finds herself awash in an ocean of love:

  The last living signatory of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Brian Peckford2 delivered an electrifying speech in which he announced the filing of a lawsuit against the government for violating this sacred charter:

  Naturally, Trudeau; WEF-penetrated Cabinet members3; and the complicitous, state-funded media fabricated an ersatz narrative so incongruous with the thousands of hours of live-streamed joy that only the most brainwashed failed to recognize the uproarious dissonance.

  In yet another demonstration of how closely the establishment left has aligned itself with authoritarianism, public figures like Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, and Michael Moore unironically bashed the working-class dissenters; counter-protesters labeled them “terrorists”; and so-called “anarchists” vehemently opposed them.

  I proudly drew ire from Montréal-based “anarcho-syndicalists” Liberté Ouvrière for “support[ing] the truckers and talk[ing] of the Great Reset, a conspiracy theory” in my Letter to Justin Trudeau, LOL.

  And then, of course, you have tyranny apologists/propagandists like The Guardian mocking the idea of “standing up for freedom” and equating the concept of freedom with right-wing extremism as part of their “War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength” campaign.

  The media spray-painted these magnanimous, loving, responsible folks as Nazis, racists, misogynists, and transphobes (you know, the usual repertoire of slurs slung when they can’t supply any substantive criticisms)—all while the Naziesque blackface leader behaved like a petulant tyrant, first tucking tail and hiding while feigning COVID, then slandering the peaceful protesters, then hysterically overreacting by pole-vaulting to a last resort that was only to be invoked after all other avenues had been exhausted (none of which had been attempted)—thus earning the well-deserved descriptors as “a disgrace to any democracy” by German Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Christine Anderson and “exactly like a tyrant, like a dictator” by Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes, all while presiding over “a dictatorship of the worst kind,” according to Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakusic.

  Contrary to the media narrative, the protesters represented a cross-section of every conceivable demographic (minus pro-tyranny Covidians), prompting some to express their disgust and others to wear signs asking, “Am I Racist?” and “Do I Look Like a White Supremacist?”

  

  One protester humorously thanked Justin Trudeau for “bringing everybody together” in unity against him for his divisive rhetoric.

  Real People’s Media covered the Freedom Convoy with an emphasis on the indigenous community. In this video, Audrey Redman (Dakota-Cree from Saskatchewan) and Neecha (Ojibway Nation of Saugeen) share their experiences of the demonstrations, which they witnessed from the outset.

  Audrey says:

  “It was such an event of unity that brought everyone together.… I’ve never been anywhere … other than a powwow, where people were so united and happy to be together.”

  In this message from the Mohawk women from Grand River, the speaker notes:

  “We send love and gratitude to all of the brave men and women who are holding the line, uniting together with kindness and compassion in their hearts for freedom so that truth and justice may prevail.”

  My contact at Real People’s Media shared the following statement by owner and cofounder Kanenhariyo:

  “Real People’s Media has been on the ground in Ottawa for several days, and our teams did not see or film any swastika or Confederate flags. We have filmed for several days and we have not heard any hate- or race-based speeches.

  “This movement has attracted many different groups and cultures. But Real People’s Media correspondents have not observed any obvious hate, racism, or violence.”

  In what appears to have been a literal false flag event, a highly suspicious character held a Confederate flag with a semi truck printed on it. An eyewitness who was present confided in me:

  “I saw the Confederate flag guy up close that first weekend. Pretty much the only person out of thousands I saw wearing a mask, and he was masked and wearing very cop-like sunglasses.”

  “I remember looking at him many times as he was a sore thumb in a sea of smiling faces.”

  “A very odd flag. I thought to myself where on earth would you get a Confederate flag with a truck superimposed in the middle? In all my time visiting in the Southern states, I had never seen anything like it.”

  “From this photo, it looks like he must have been there starting early! I was on the hill by noon at latest, and there were hundreds more people.”

  Additionally, there are reports that Justin Trudeau’s photographer, Adam Scotti, was present taking photos with the guy who “just happens to have a brand new confederate flag that still has wrinkles on it.”

  Whether or not the “Nazi flag guy” was legitimate, the protesters denounced and attempted to identify him, and this infinitesimal drop in the ocean by no means represented the overall movement.

  In at least one instance where a swastika appeared on a protest sign, it was being used to convey the fascistic policies of the Canadian government. The sign is clearly not advocating for Naziism but rather condemning today’s medical tyranny for its similarities to the Third Reich’s discriminatory and genocidal laws. That said, use of the swastika makes for horrific optics that can and will be exploited by the propagandists, so it is prudent for protesters to avoid inadvertently baiting the media with such symbols of hatred.

  Fortunately, the awake among us observed ample evidence of the reality on the ground, thanks to innumerable round-the-clock live-streamers, including Mr. Sunshine Baby, Viva Frei, Press for Truth, Ottawalks, and ZOT. The footage shot by the myriad participants in this historic event is now being woven into the forthcoming documentary, Trucking for Freedom:

  Heather Heying4 covered the Canadian truckers with her usual lucidity and passion at her Substack, from Truckers for Freedom to “Proud to Be Canadian Again” to We Leave When We Are Free to Get Ready for the Biggest Game of Whack-A-Mole the World Has Ever Seen.

  I found this letter Heather shared from a Canadian particularly moving and am grateful to powerhouse Steve Kirsch for exponentially multiplying its views at my request (thanks, yet again, for amplifying love and truth, Superhero Steve! 🤗):

  In Faces of Protest, Heather shared these radiant, heart-swelling portraits of protesters by photographer Dan Aponte:

  

  Through gentle resistance and brilliant tactical maneuvers such as blockades at Ambassador Bridge and border shutdowns at Coutts and Surrey, the Canadian truckers and protesters inflicted an injury to the principle of authority that awakened the world to the realization that totalitarianism hinges on compliance, showing that We the People must stand up and take back our freedoms from the self-proclaimed “elites” to end our enslavement.

  As Michael Malice observes, “The victory here is that their machinations are made public.”

  Badass tyranny resister Pastor Artur Pawlowski urged Canadian truckers to hold the line, and pilot Greg Hill explained why summoning courage was so pivotal at this moment in history:

  And summon courage they did, becoming a catalyst that would spark Freedom Convoys around the globe—most notably in Australia, where the Canberra convoy rose from the ashes of the Australians’ despondency and reinvigorated a downtrodden people. In Paris, the police joined the protesters in denouncing Macronian authoritarianism. These demonstrators would not have been so emboldened without the Canadian truckers’ example.

  Arguably the most essential workers, truckers possess an unparalleled power to stop entire countries and make the honking cry for freedom heard.

  As polymath Dr. Jessica Rose (a.k.a. “Unacceptable Jessica”) writes:

  “When they stop flowing on the roads of the world, the human societal network stops flowing in turn: the truckers are the red blood cells in the circulatory system of human society as we know it.”

  The Canadian truckers gallantly used that power to enact Thomas Jefferson’s dictum, “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”

  In a galvanizing speech at a People’s Convoy USA event, attorney Tricia Lindsay outlines the responsibility of citizens to defend themselves against a tyrannical government:

  After nearly a month of peaceful civil disobedience in Canada, the festive atmosphere transformed from Christmas to Krystallnacht as fascism lashed back.

  

  Instead of listening to the concerns of its citizens, the Canadian government and its colluders:

  • banned honking;

  • brutally arrested those who violated this injunction;

  • illegally stole GoFundMe donations;

  • froze GiveSendGo donations;

  • shut down the Freedom Convoy Facebook page;

  • seized fuel and then returned it contaminated;

  • tried to entrap protesters with agent provocateurs;

  • attempted to set fire to an apartment building (foiled by the truckers and later confirmed to be a hoax);

  • declared a “state of emergency” and invoked the Emergencies Act without meeting the necessary threshold, setting the stage for future violations of Canadians’ inalienable rights;

  • rifle-whipped protesters;

  • mowed down and tear-gassed protestors;

  • trampled an elderly disabled Mohawk woman just after she’d said they were doing this so their children and grandchildren could have “peace and love and happiness”;

  • said “time for the protesters to hear our jackboots on the ground” and called the horse trampling video “awesome!!!” in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) group chat;

  • clubbed and tear-gassed reporter Alexa Lavoie in the face;

  • staged an arrest;

  • beat and faux-arrested demonstrators;

  • froze and seized donor bank accounts and crypto wallets (although the latter has proven more challenging);

  • threatened to “actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges” in the coming months;

  • arrested politicians for openly supporting the Freedom Convoy; and

  • laid the asphalt for digital IDs and a future surveillance state where similar outbursts of freedom become impossible.

  They weren’t all bad cops, though. One was giving out hugs until a colleague admonished him to stop fraternizing with the enemy, and numerous police officers spoke out against enforcing tyranny.

  The first Canadian cop to publicly condemn the mandates—a noble act that earned his suspension—former Calgary Police Officer Brian Denison called on his fellow officers to disobey unlawful orders.

  Retired Ontario Provincial Police Officer Ed Grenier also urged his fellow officers to heed their conscience and not take action against peaceful citizens.

  Calgary Police Officer Nick Motycka relays the devastation he felt when witnessing “police doing politicians’ dirty work like hired goons.”

  Ontario Police Constable Erin Howard is under investigation for calling the truckers “true heroes” who are “fighting for our rights and freedoms,” while Edmonton Police Service Constable Elena Golysheva was placed on leave after posting this tearful video lamenting the loss of the very freedoms she fled to Canada to enjoy.

  There was even a sizable number of standup politicians.

  Leader of the Opposition Candice Bergen consecutively kicked derrière on February 8, February 9, and February 10. MP Raquel Dancho also gave Trudeau a terrific walloping.

  MP Pierre Poilievre said “freedom is on the march,” and delivered an impassioned lesson on the true emergencies facing Canadians.

  MP Melissa Lantsman reproved Trudeau for “fan[ning] the flames of an unjustified national emergency,” and he responded by accusing the descendent of Holocaust survivors of standing with “swastika wavers.”

  Just after Parliament was suspended, MP Andrew James Bernard Scheer described Trudeau’s “massive power grab.”

  MP Joël Lightbound expressed empathy for the protesters; reprimanded his party for normalizing restrictions and failing to adjust policies based on the latest scientific data; and critiqued their divisive “politicization of the pandemic.”

  In a speech that may have been responsible for spurring Trudeau to end the Emergencies Act out of fear the Senate was about to vote it down, Senator Donald Neil Plett eloquently eviscerated Trudeau for his historically unprecedented actions and behavior toward Canadian citizens, noting:

  “For three weeks, the prime minister did little more than hurl insults. He actually left town and let the crisis fester and worsen. He is supposed to be the prime minister for all Canadians, even those he may disagree with, but he clearly does not see things that way, and the result is that his policies are seriously dividing Canadians.

  “Then after three weeks of inaction, Justin Trudeau came out and used the ultimate tool in his toolbox. The nuclear option, the Emergencies Act. It is hard to refute the accusation that this is a Prime Minister who is at war with many of his fellow citizens. Instead of trying to understand their concerns and the impact of his government measures on them, he is now using all the power he can muster to crush them. He has taken the sweeping powers of the Emergencies Act and turned it on the very people who were just asking to be heard.

  “This is a prime minister who does not like opposition. He admires the basic dictatorship of China. He does not listen. He preaches. He does not debate, he insults. He does not convince, he imposes.”

  Although it was a melancholy day when Trucker Convoy organizer Tom Marazzo announced the decision to peacefully withdraw at a February 19 press conference, that same day saw one of the most inspiring speeches of the entire protest when a naturalized Canadian who had grown up under the Romanian dictatorship and witnessed the fall of Ceaușescu reminded the crowd:

  “They have the force; we have the power!”

  “Violence is the last resort of a dictator, but I assure you that his days are numbered.”

  “We are not asking you any more to give us our freedom back. We are taking it back!”

  Also on February 19, the scintillating Neil Oliver cannonaded Trudeau in this blistering diatribe:

  “The increasingly puffy and pasty prime minister Justin Trudeau—looking more and more like a waxwork dummy left too close to a radiator—has clutched, desperately, drowning man that he surely is, at emergency powers.

  “He evidently fears the truckers, and their wives and their little ones, and their freedom protest, and so feels as vulnerable as a desiccated sandcastle facing the incoming tide.”

  He closes with these triumphant lines:

  “People ought not to fear the power of governments. Governments ought to fear the power, the righteous power of their people.

  Lest anyone think the Canadian truckers’ movement ended in defeat, this prolonged act of civil disobedience achieved significant tangible as well as intangible victories.

  As early as January 31, the number of Canadians saying they wanted restrictions to end had tipped by a striking 15 percentage points since early January, making the pro-freedom contingency the majority at 54 percent. Two weeks later, that was up to a remarkable two thirds of Canadians. So much for a “small fringe minority.”

  The protesters not only bent the needle of public opinion, but they exerted direct pressure on the premiers, who undoubtedly had upcoming elections in mind as they recalibrated their positions to the will of the people. One by one, the premiers began lifting COVID restrictions—Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, Jason Kenney in Alberta, Heather Stefanson in Manitoba, Doug Ford in Ontario, Francois Legault of Quebec, Tim Houston in Nova Scotia, Dennis King in Prince Edward Island, Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick, and Andrew Furey in Newfoundland and Labrador—until all of the provinces had eventually been liberated.

  As mentioned above, the Canadian truckers ignited a worldwide Freedom Convoy movement. In the United States, that took the form of the People’s Convoy.

  Radio show host and writer March Twisdale joined the US convoy and blogged about her cross-country journey and the dazzling people she met along the way.

  Dr. Paul Alexander chronicled his participation in both the Canadian and US convoys, the latter of which culminated in meetings with Senators Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz—a dialogue with legislators that symbolized the stark contrast with Trudeau’s contemptuous refusal to talk with the truckers. Dr. Alexander wound his way back to Toronto, where he delivered a rousing speech at the Toronto World Wide Trucker Rally on March 19.

  Demanding accountability for oppressive and lethal policies, Dr. Alexander echoed the cries of those who have been suffering under the boot of authoritarianism worldwide and are thirsting for freedom and justice.

  One of my readers, retired British military officer and retired Canadian Armed Forces Reserve officer Stew Staudinger of Real Canadian Liberal, was kind enough to share this video in which he cogently explains how Justin Trudeau is guilty of crimes against humanity under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and why Canadians must take responsibility for seeing that justice is served.

  That process may already be underway. On March 14, a joint committee of Canada’s Parliament launched an “unprecedented” official “inquiry into the Trudeau government’s actions against the Freedom Convoy civil liberties protesters.” Once again, the eyes of the world will be on Canada as they see whether a tyrant gets away with criminal malfeasance.

  As Frederick Douglass warns:

  “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

  This is the moment in history when we must prescribe those limits, and the Canadian truckers have modeled the courage necessary to do so.

  *  *  *

  If you feel the work I am doing is worthwhile and want to make it possible for me to spend more time writing and researching in my aim to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, please consider supporting me, whether it be by subscribing, donating, buying me a coffee, or sharing my posts. I thank you for reading, thinking, sharing, and supporting my work in whichever ways you choose. Prefer to donate crypto? You can send Bitcoin using the following code: bc1ql706rr7vj7c7nzxnqfp9rldw8ddfc20f492jk0

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 21:25

• Avocado Prices Rocket To Decade High As Mexican Production Set To Plunge 
  Avocado Prices Rocket To Decade High As Mexican Production Set To Plunge 

  Even before the war in Ukraine, a majority of American households were under pressure from record-high food inflation and consumer prices at a four-decade high. The conflict and following sanction inflation have made everything worse. One food unrelated to Ukraine and found mainly in Mexico is avocados. Prices of the fruit are now at a decade high as supplies tighten (in terms of USD). 

  Ahead of Super Bowl 56, on Feb. 13, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suspended U.S. imports of Mexican avocados due to one of its inspectors being threatened by drug cartel members. At the time, we pointed out avocados prices had never been higher for the big football game. 

  Even though U.S. imports of avocados have been restored, prices have continued to rocket higher since Super Bowl 56. For a 20-pound box of avocados from the state of Michoacan, Mexico (the central hub of Mexican avocado production), prices soared 40% to around $38, a new decade high. 

  

  Two decades of data show prices for avocados have never been higher for this time of year. 

  

  The cause of the price surge is not as much related to trade disruption but instead tightening supplies. 

  “Lower availability and supply-side inflationary pressures are the main suspects,” David Magana, an analyst at Rabobank International, wrote in a note. 

  Keep in mind that 80% of all U.S. avocados originate from Mexico, and the rest are from the U.S. 

  USDA expects Mexican avocado output to plunge 8% in the 2021-22 crop year from a record high harvest in the prior growing season. 

  Bloomberg notes, “American importers of the fruit are still catching up from a temporary ban on shipments from Michoacan last month stemming from threats against U.S. inspectors.”

  Mission Produce Inc, the largest U.S. avocado wholesaler, has marked up prices by more than 50%. 

  “Partially offsetting price gains was an 18% decrease in avocado volume sold, which was primarily driven by lower supply, but exacerbated by price sensitivity in select international markets that competed for lower-cost sources of fruit,” CEO Steve Barnard told Bloomberg in a statement. 

  Factor in soaring costs of fertilizer, diesel, and freight, avocado prices are likely to remain elevated and or keep rising until millennials can no longer afford the yummy fruit, otherwise known as demand destruction. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 21:05

• Taibbi: Meet The Censored – Chris Hedges
  Taibbi: Meet The Censored – Chris Hedges

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

  This past weekend, celebrated journalist and author Chris Hedges woke up to find six years of episodes of his Russia Today show On Contact vanished from the show’s account on YouTube. Though almost none of the shows referenced Russia or Vladimir Putin directly, and the few that did tended to be unflattering, his association with Russian state media was enough to erase hundreds of interviews about topics ranging from Julian Assange’s imprisonment to censorship to police brutality to American war crimes in the Middle East.

  

  Now on Substack, Hedges has a long and uncomfortably colorful history of being muffled. The former New York Times correspondent covered wars from the Balkans to the Middle East to the Falkland Islands, and authored books like War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, American Fascists, and The Death of the Liberal Class, and through 2002, when he won the Pulitzer Prize as part of a team for Exploratory Reporting, he defined mainstream respectability and excellence in journalism. He might have had it easy, spending the latter part of his career on the Thomas Friedman/David Brooks Memorial Gravy Train of overpaid lectures, University trusteeships, and fellowships at obscure think-tanks, if he’d just kept his mouth shut.

  He didn’t. One of the few frontline American reporters who spoke Arabic, Hedges knew instantly the Iraq war would be a disaster and said so at every opportunity. He was booed offstage at a commencement address at Rockford College in 2003 by a crowd chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!,” and hustled off campus so fast that the school wouldn’t let him grab his jacket on the way out. For those who haven’t seen it, the video of that scene is a remarkable museum piece of Bush-era war mania:

  Episodes like this accelerated his departure from the New York Times and into the wilds of independent media, where paying options for dissident voices had been shrinking. As he points out below, someone like him in the past would have parachuted out of a big commercial enterprise like the Times into a life at NPR — broadcasting shows “at like one in the morning, or something,” he chuckles — but NPR, too, had by then been begun its purging of unorthodox and especially antiwar voices.

  By the 2010s, one of the last places where media figures pushed off the traditional career track could pick up a paycheck was Russia Today. In an arrangement Hedges plainly describes as a cynical marriage of convenience, the Russian state was happy to give voice to figures covering structural problems in American society, and those quasi-banned voices were glad for the opportunity to broadcast what they felt is the truth, even understanding the editorial motivation. Hedges ended up working at RT for six years hosting On Contact, where he interviewed authors and thinkers resting outside the cultural mainstream, from Nathaniel Philbrick to Cornel West to Nils Melzer to Noam Chomsky to many others (disclosure: I’ve also been a guest).

  As Hedges points out in the wide-ranging, unnerving interview below, the speech-control one-two he’s just experienced — first herded out of the mainstream for ideological offenses into a shrinking space of “allowable” dissent, then forced to watch as that space is demonized out of existence — is part of an effective pattern. “It’s how this works,” he sighs. He points to the Intelligence Community Assessment of January 6th, 2017, ostensibly intended to make a case for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which actually spent much of its time complaining about RT, especially its coverage of real but unflattering domestic issues.

  “They showed their hand,” he says, referring to the intelligence community’s complaints over reporting on everything from the pursuit of Assange to Occupy Wall Street to corporate overreach. From the Assessment:

  RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a “surveillance state” and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use…

  Hedges denounced Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “criminal act of aggression” after it began, and believes that if RT had been allowed to stay on YouTube, he — along with similarly critical former RT contributors like Jesse Ventura — wouldn’t have been permitted by the Kremlin to stay on air. On the other hand, seeing an American company vaporize six years of interviews having nothing to do with Russia shows space for voices like his continues to shrink in the West. In this sense he represents a kind of person we’ll be seeing more of in the future, caught between a censorship rock and a hard place, an outcast in domestic and foreign media systems.

  You can find Chris’s work on Substack now at the Chris Hedges Report, and some of the On Contact shows that were re-posted by independent accounts remain up. The launch of the new site has gone very well, but he warns that no place in media is safe now. “They’ll shut down Substack, I absolutely know. Either that, or they’ll create a way that sites like yours and mine won’t be on it,” he says.

  More from Chris on censorship, RT, Ukraine, and other issues:

  MT: What happened with YouTube?

  Chris Hedges: My entire archive of shows from On Contact was taken down. I was in London last week for Julian Assange — I was supposed to be a guest at the wedding, but then, the prison didn’t let me in of course. When I came back, I got a text from a friend of mine, with whom I’d done a half hour show, about a girlfriend who’d overdosed on fentanyl. And because I knew him, my interview with him is quite a powerful segment. And he said, the show doesn’t exist anymore. Then I checked, and nothing exists.

  The RT On Contact website is still up, but everything on YouTube is gone, and people watched it on YouTube. Some of that stuff had hundreds of thousands of views.

  MT: This two-step process feels like a backdoor way of getting rid of unorthodox voices. In other words, weren’t you on RT in the first place because you’d been bounced out for opposing the war in Iraq? Now, because of your association with RT, you’re off YouTube. Is this a way to get at, not just people connected with Russians, but people with unpopular views generally?

  Chris Hedges: Yeah. That’s how it works. They push you to the margins and then, they demonize those spaces on the margins. This has long been the habit of the dominant ruling elites. So for instance, Robert Scheer, whose website I write for, Scheerpost — and of course, we were all fired from Truthdig, this is just a never ending saga — but he ran Ramparts. I think it was Spiro Agnew said, “It’s a magazine with a bomb in every issue.” We could never get advertisers.

  So they push you into a space that they then demonize, and then use it as an excuse to shut you down. But they’ve already in essence created the space in which you exist.

  I have a couple strikes against me. One, I was pushed out of the New York Times, because I spent so many years in the Middle East, and many years in Gaza. And of course, I was the Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times. I’m very outspoken about Israel, and I’m a very strong supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Which alone is enough — I just saw my friend, Cornel West, denied tenure at Harvard over this. And I’m also a fierce critic, as you are, of the Democratic party. Those are all flags that will get you locked out of even the quote- unquote “liberal media” like MSNBC.

  MT: This freeze-out led to your tenure at RT?

  Chris Hedges: I’d been marginalized for a long time because of those issues. RT gave me space, and I took it. But it wasn’t a show about Russia. We never did a show on Russia. The irony is that, in fact, the very few times Putin was mentioned, he was not described in flattering terms — it was as an autocrat. There was one show where Syria came up, and Russian war crimes. So there was nothing on the show, ever, that was in any way flattering to the Putin regime.

  But the point of the show was, of course, critiquing and looking at our own society, and that was the problem.

  TK News subscribers can click here to read the rest

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 20:45

• Shanghai Lockdowns Force Bankers And Traders To Sleep In The Office
  Shanghai Lockdowns Force Bankers And Traders To Sleep In The Office

  As it turns out, China’s factory laborers aren’t the only ones who are being forced to quarantine at work (with many sleeping on factory floors with only a piece of cardboard as a mattress) during the latest round of “targeted” CCP lockdowns.

  Bankers, traders and other white-collar workers on China’s Wall Street are also finding they have no choice but to ride out the lockdown at the office, as management demands that workers bed down for a long stretch without going home.

  

  According to Reuters, “more than 20,000 bankers, traders and other workers are bedding down in office towers in Shanghai’s Lujiazui district as they bid to keep China’s giant financial hub ticking” during the first round of the city’s two-part staggered lockdown.

  As the section of Shanghai east of the Huangpu River closes for a total of five days, finance workers are scrambling to make sure they can continue to work throughout the nine-day shutdown (which could be extended if case numbers fail to decrease). Teams have reportedly adopted 12-hour split-shift rotations in a financial hub that handled more than 2,500 trillion yuan ($292 trillion) of financial transactions last year.

  A handful of local firms have confirmed the strategy, according to Reuters:

  • Amundi BOC Wealth Management said its senior executives, as well as key investment, trading and risk-management staff are all working and sleeping in their offices. And they’re far from the only ones.
  • Haitong Securities said Chairman Zhou Jie arranged emergency on-site duty shifts at its subsidiaries in Pudong on Sunday night before leading more than 150 key staff to work in offices starting Monday. The brokerage has also resorted to two-team rotation shifts between its two office areas, it announced.
  • HFT Investment Management, BNP Paribas’ Chinese fund joint venture, has placed 52 workers in offices to work around the clock during the lockdown period.
  • Sinolink Securities issued a notice on Sunday night calling on staff to rush back to its headquarters in Pudong before midnight, so as to “ensure continuity of system operation and trading”.

  The number of new confirmed community transmitted cases in the major financial hub of Shanghai reached 4,477 on Tuesday. Although this number was a record high, only 2.1% of cases showed symptoms.

  Restive Shanghai residents have at times pushed back aggressively against the government’s heavy handed measures, even before the broad-based lockdowns were announced (previously, the local authorities had implemented “targeted” lockdowns on housing complexes and other areas where outbreaks had been discovered). Some residents lashed out as they were unable to receive vital services like kidney dialysis or other urgent treatment. In one high-profile case highlighted by the NYT, a nurse who suffered an asthma attack died after she was denied care by a hospital, which cited COVID prevention protocols in its decision to turn her away.

  As frustration builds, the CCP is once again resorting to baseless conspiracy theories – including telling its citizens that the US is to blame for the rise of COVID – to try and deflect public anger away from the government.

  Chinese media is telling their citizens America made COVID-19, again—this time using #Moderna as the scapegoat. #China’s COVID-19 cases are rising, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is blaming the United States for it.

  🔥WATCH HERE 👉https://t.co/g50cMPnt6E pic.twitter.com/fBbVVAJeuA

  — David Zhang (@DavidZhangEET) March 29, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 20:25

• CIA Officer Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Claims Credit For Trump Loss
  CIA Officer Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Claims Credit For Trump Loss

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.

  “I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter.

  “I lost the election for Trump? Well then I fell [sic] pretty good about my influence,” he also wrote.

  

  Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020, alleging that the effort to distribute its contents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” despite not knowing whether the laptop was legitimate.

  The letter was the core of a story from Politico that claimed the New York Post story on the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

  The Post was the first to report on emails on the laptop, which was dropped off at a computer repair store and never picked up by then-candidate Joe Biden’s son, according to the store’s owner.

  While the FBI picked up the computer and a hard drive from the owner, the bureau’s apparent inaction in probing the matter prompted him to pass on a copy of the hard drive to a lawyer representing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who in turn passed it on to the Post.

  The Oct. 14, 2020, story about the emails came as some voters were still deciding whether to vote for Biden or Trump. The story was widely questioned by legacy news outlets, suppressed by social media platforms, and claimed to be part of a Russian effort, despite top officials like Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe saying there was no evidence that was the case.

  Sipher is one of the few former officials who signed the letter to respond to fresh questions about its contents, after more legacy outlets, including Politico, said they’ve confirmed it is legitimate.

  Sipher got into arguments with former acting DNI Richard Grenell and others on Twitter, where he later said his claims of helping Trump lose were sarcasm.

  He also write that “the letter didn’t say the laptop was disinformation” but in May 2021 posted a link to the Politico story that did say that.

  Nick Shapiro, once a top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan—both Shapiro and Brennan signed the missive—and who provided it to Politico, has not responded to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

  Most other signers didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined the requests, the Post reported.

  James Clapper, a former DNI, told the paper that he stands by the statement “made AT THE TIME,” adding that, “I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate.”

  “The letter explicitly stated that we didn’t know if the emails were genuine, but that we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts,” added Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “I spent 25 years as a Soviet/Russian analyst. Given the context of what the Russians were doing at the time (and continue to do—Ukraine being just the latest example), I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 20:05

• US Top Commander In Europe Forced To Rebut Latest Biden Remarks
  US Top Commander In Europe Forced To Rebut Latest Biden Remarks

  In yet another awkward contradiction out of this US administration concerning Ukraine, which at this point seems to come almost daily, the head of US European Command was forced to issue a contrary explanation after Biden on Monday said multiple times that US forces are “helping train” Ukrainian troops in Poland. 

  This triggered a rebuttal of the US Commander-in-Chief from Gen. Tod Wolters, who also serves as NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe. On Tuesday Gen. Wolters denied that the US is currently training Ukraine forces in Poland. 

  “I do not believe that we are in the process of currently training military forces from Ukraine in Poland,” the top general told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. 

  

  He said further according to The Hill when pressed on Biden’s series of statements, which the White House had later sought to downplay as gaffes and merely lacking in nuance:

  “There are liaisons that are there that are being given advice,” Wolters told Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), without elaborating further. “And that’s different than [what] I think you’re referring to with respect training.”

  But again, as we detailed earlier, Biden had actually asserted that American forces were training Ukrainians in Poland multiple times, strongly suggesting this was anything but “confusion” or a mere gaffe on the president’s part…

  Today Biden said the U.S. is “helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland.”

  Biden’s staff has already walked this back, admitting he was confused. pic.twitter.com/Xj59bsPdMe

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 29, 2022

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  National security adviser Jake Sullivan previously stated that the US currently has 10,500 troops in Poland, some of which the president visited over the weekend. Across Europe, Washington has bolstered its presence to the tune of 100,000 total troops. The U.S. has 10,500 troops in Poland as part of the 100,000 total that it has stationed across Europe, told reporters.

  When initially asked Monday about this “training the Ukrainian troops” remark, Biden offered the dubious explanation that he was actually referencing he himself “being with and talking with the Ukrainian troops who are in Poland.”

  But it remains that not only his own advisers have had to offer repeat corrections, but now even the US head of European Command in Senate testimony. This goes beyond an awkward situation, but even into the realm of dangerous, given many of these walked-back remarks serve as a huge provocation to Russia (especially Saturday’s regime change statement fiasco from Warsaw).

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 19:45

• Buchanan: Asia's Autocrats Are Calling, Mr. Biden
  Buchanan: Asia’s Autocrats Are Calling, Mr. Biden

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  While President Joe Biden was in Brussels and Warsaw showing U.S. solidarity with Ukraine, the 38-year-old autocrat who rules North Korea made a bold bid for the president’s attention.

  

  For the first time since 2017, Kim Jong Un test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, the largest road-mobile missile ever launched.

  While it flew 600 miles from Pyongyang into the Sea of Japan, the mammoth missile flew for 71 minutes, reaching an altitude of 3,852 miles.

  Had it been fired in a normal trajectory, its missile warheads could have reached Washington, D.C., and every city in the USA.

  As any first strike on the United States with such a weapon would ensure the destruction of Kim’s dynasty, regime and country, clearly, this ICBM test is a bid to demand new negotiations with the U.S.

  Kim’s goals are to have the U.S. lift sanctions, recognize his regime, remove U.S. bases and troops from South Korea, and start up trade while he steadily expands his arsenal of missiles and nuclear warheads as both an insurance policy and an instrument of extortion.

  The U.S. and South Korea have both expressed skepticism about the launch, believing Pyongyang may have test-fired an upgraded and older Hwasong-15 that carries a single warhead.

  But Kim is not the only Asian autocrat on the move.

  China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin lately sent a flotilla of 10 warships — destroyers, frigates, corvettes — five Chinese and five Russian — through the Tsugaru Strait between Japan’s home islands of Honshu and Hokkaido and then back again through the Osumi Strait off the Japanese island of Kyushu.

  This is believed to be the first joint Chinese-Russian naval patrol ever conducted in the Western Pacific.

  Beijing has also begun anew flying fleets of dozens of jet fighters and bombers into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, to test the island’s defenses and send a message to Taipei as to whom it is that the island truly belongs.

  China also continues to press its claim to Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, even as it completes the militarization of Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea.

  Last week, the New York Post reported:

  “China has equipped at least three islands it has built in a disputed area of the South China Sea with anti-aircraft missile systems, fighter jets and laser and jamming equipment — a buildup that threatens all other nations in the region, a top US military commander said.”

  Adm. John Aquilino, who heads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, is quoted as telling the Associated Press that China’s activity in East Asia is part of “the largest military buildup since World War II.”

  To what end?

  China’s Navy now has 355 warships if all vessels from corvettes to carriers are counted. That is 50 more vessels than the U.S. Navy, though the U.S. Navy has many more missile tubes for firing weapons and Beijing has no warship of the size or firepower of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

  Yet, again, China seems on the move far beyond what it claims as its territorial waters in the South and East China Seas.

  Last week, in what Australia’s former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called “one of the most significant security developments … in decades,” the Solomon Islands revealed that it was signing a security pact with Beijing that would permit the establishment of Chinese bases there.

  Among the Solomons chain is Guadalcanal, familiar to U.S. Marines from the first days of fighting in the Pacific in World War II.

  The Solomon Islands are 1,400 miles from Australia, and the alarm in Canberra at the prospect of a Solomons-China security treaty is shared by New Zealand.

  Again, what would be the purpose of Chinese security ties to unthreatened islands so far from China but so close to Australia?

  Beijing appears to be playing a long game, the goal of which is domination of East Asia and the Western pacific, severance of the U.S. alliances there and the expulsion of American power back to Guam and Hawaii.

  Consider the state of play:

  China’s partners in East Asia, North Korea and Russia possess nuclear weapons. But none of America’s allies — Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines — has ever tested a nuclear weapon.

  Nor has Taiwan, which spends a piddling 2% of GDP on defense, despite the growing menace of Beijing. In the final analysis, all of our allies and partners on the far side of the Pacific depend for their defense on America.

  Yet of all those Asian nations allied with the United States, every one is more economically dependent on their trade with China than they are with their trade with the United States.

  Before the Ukraine crisis exploded with the invasion ordered by Putin’s Russia, the foreign policy consensus was that America would be making a historic “pivot to Asia.” For that is where the challenges of the future to America’s global primacy would appear to come.

  That may still be true.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 19:25

• Top Biden Economist Says Farmers To Increase Crop Production On "Price Signals" To Avert Food Shortage
  Top Biden Economist Says Farmers To Increase Crop Production On “Price Signals” To Avert Food Shortage

  The White House’s chief economist told reporters at a daily press briefing on Monday that American farmers will respond to “price signals” to increase crop production to mitigate food shortages worldwide following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

  A reporter asked Cecilia Rouse, the chair of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, about the White House’s plan to deal with food shortages when it comes to wheat. 

  Rouse said, “well, first we are a net exporter of many food commodities, and farmers respond to price signals, and so with the price of food rising, they will be responding by making additional plantings and try to take advantage of increase pricing.” 

  She added: “The market will work as the market will work.” 

  Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse is asked how the White House is planning on dealing with food shortages. pic.twitter.com/MpJUghx63R

  — The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 28, 2022

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  The war in Ukraine has disrupted the global food supply. Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. 

  

  We’ve outlined the emerging market countries that will first feel the brunt of food price shocks and shortages. Bloomberg data shows the most reliant countries on Ukraine wheat, including Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey. 

  

  The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts that global food prices could soar another 8%-20%. 

  

  The issue with Rouse’s response is that the costs of plantings have skyrocketed. Fertilizer and diesel prices are at record highs, and this may deter some farmers from additional plantings or even switching crops that require less fertilizer. The farmers who decide to plant wheat may spread less fertilizer on fields, which could impact harvest yields later this year. 

  Bread, cooking oils, and meat prices have surged. Countries are now adopting food protectionism (see: Argentina) by limiting or ceasing exports of farm goods to mitigate domestic shortages. 

  Last week, President Biden warned that there could be global food shortages: 

  “We did talk about food shortages. And it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well,” Biden said at a presser in Brussels. 

  As we’ve previously noted, the “”Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis,” maybe the White House should refocus its efforts on securing domestic supplies first before exporting farm goods abroad. The last thing Biden needs before midterms this fall are food riots. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 19:05

• NFL Orders Teams To Hire Minority Or Female Offensive Assistant Coaches For 2022 Season
  NFL Orders Teams To Hire Minority Or Female Offensive Assistant Coaches For 2022 Season

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The NFL will require every team to hire a minority or female offensive assistant coach for the 2022 season in an effort to ensure more opportunities for diverse candidates.

  

  The policy was adopted by NFL owners during their annual meeting on March 28 and requires all 32 NFL teams to hire an offensive assistant coach who is “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority,” regardless of whether or not the team already has a coach who satisfies those requirements among their staff.

  It is unclear exactly when the policy goes into effect.

  According to the NFL, the individual hired will “receive a one-year contract and work closely with the head coach and offensive staff to gain experience.”

  Teams will receive funding toward the coach’s salary for up to two years from a league-wide fund.

  “In recent years, head coaches have predominantly had offensive backgrounds. We believe this resolution will assist greatly in continuing to source and identify diverse candidates earlier in their career, providing pipeline depth and furthering developing the diverse offensive pipeline,” the updated NFL policy reads.

  The policy adopted Monday is an adjustment to the Rooney Rule adopted by the National Football League in 2003 which requires league teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation vacancies.

  That rule was adopted based on recommendations by the league’s Workplace Diversity Committee in an attempt to “develop a deep, sustainable talent pool at all levels of the organization” and “increase the number of minorities hired in head coach, general manager, and executive positions,” according to the NFL.

  The Rooney Rule has regularly been updated and expanded since it went into effect.

  However, there were just five minority head coaches in the NFL last season: Ron Rivera, Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores, David Culler, and Robert Saleh.

  Over 60 percent of the NFL players in 2021 identified as non-white, according to Market Watch, citing data from Statista.

  In February, former Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit in federal court against the NFL and three football teams accusing them of discrimination after he was fired as head coach at the end of the season.

  “However, well-intentioned or not, what is clear is that the Rooney Rule is not working,” Flores said in a legal complaint.

  Elsewhere on Monday, the NFL announced a number of other policy changes, which included ownership diversity, to encourage and attract a diverse range of prospective ownership groups.

  “Accordingly, when evaluating a prospective ownership group of a member club pursuant to League policies, the membership will regard it as a positive and meaningful factor if the group includes diverse individuals who would have a significant equity stake in and involvement with the club, including serving as the controlling owner of the club,” the policy reads.

  Officials also announced a Diversity Advisory Committee which is being set up to examine how diverse hiring practices are among the league and its teams.

  Outside experts on the committee include former Houston Texans general manager Rick Smith and former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey, as well as Pamela Carlton, the founder and president of Springboard, ESPN reported.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/29/2022 – 18:45

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