- Morgan Stanley's Frankfurt Offices Raided As Part Of Cum-Ex Tax Fraud Probe
Morgan Stanley’s Frankfurt Offices Raided As Part Of Cum-Ex Tax Fraud Probe
German regulators have been staying busy over the last few weeks.
Just days after we noted that Deutsche Bank offices in Frankfurt were being raided as part of a money laundering probe the bank reportedly tipped regulators off to, it now looks like Morgan Stanley is also dealing with a regulatory raid by German prosecutors.
The Morgan Stanley raid is related to the “rapidly widening” Cum-Ex scandal, which is centered on cross-border tax fraud.
“Authorities are searching a bank and the homes of two suspects in a probe over Cum-Ex and related strategies,” Bloomberg reported Tuesday morning, stating that more than 75 officers were on hand to take part in the raid.
The same report notes that Morgan Stanley confirmed that it had been targeted and said that the investigation relates to a “historic activity” and that the bank is “continuing to cooperate with the German authorities.”
The probe encompasses about 1,500 people from the financial industry and similar raids have been carried out at Barclay’s and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank is also said to face “major repercussions”.
Cum-ex reportedly diverted “at least 10 billion euros” in government revenue by exploiting German tax laws that allowed multiple investors to claim refunds of a tax on dividends that was paid only once, Bloomberg reported.
The practice was abolished in 2012, but the probe continues.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/04/2022 – 02:45 - This Time, NATO Better Take Putin's Ukraine Warnings Seriously
This Time, NATO Better Take Putin’s Ukraine Warnings Seriously
Authored by Ted Galken Casrpenter via AntiWar.com,
In one of the great foreign policy blunders of modern times, U.S. and European leaders repeatedly disregarded Vladimir Putin’s warnings that Russia would never tolerate Ukraine becoming a NATO military asset. Because of resistance from the French and German governments (which had as much to do with Ukraine’s chronic corruption as with concerns about Russia’s reaction), the Alliance delayed offering Kyiv a Membership Action Plan – an essential step toward membership. Nevertheless, at the 2008 summit in Bucharest, NATO’s existing members ostentatiously insisted that “someday” Ukraine would join the Alliance, and they repeated that pledge on numerous occasions thereafter.
Worse, Western officials typically insisted that Russia would have nothing to say about the matter. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary General, was especially blunt and arrogant on that score. He summarily rejected Moscow’s demands in late 2021 that NATO provide binding security guarantees to Russia, including a commitment that Ukraine would never be offered membership, and that NATO military forces would not be deployed in that country.
Stoltenberg’s response could not have been more uncompromising. “NATO has an open-door policy. This is enshrined in NATO’s founding treaty … The message today to Russia is that it is for Ukraine as a sovereign nation to decide its own path. And for the 30 NATO allies to decide when Ukraine is ready to become a member.”
Western officials implicitly assumed that Russia could be intimidated and eventually compelled to accept Ukraine as part of NATO. They dismissed the Kremlin’s increasingly pointed warnings that efforts to make Kyiv an Alliance asset would cross a red line that violated Russia’s security. Their assumption that Moscow would tamely accept a NATO presence inside Russia’s core security zone proved to be spectacularly wrong, and Ukraine is now paying a very high price in treasure and blood for their miscalculation.
One might hope that NATO leaders would have learned an important lesson from such a costly mistake. However, they are stubbornly ignoring a new set of ominous warnings from Moscow, and this time, the price of such tone-deaf arrogance could be utterly catastrophic. Indeed, it is creating the risk of a nuclear clash between Russia and the United States. In his first speech announcing the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin warned all outside parties (clearly meaning NATO members) not to interfere. “Anyone who tries to interfere with us . . . must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history.” [Emphasis added]
Yet the Biden administration and other NATO governments boast about how much the Alliance is supporting Ukraine’s military resistance to Russia’s invasion. The centerpiece of the effort to this point has been a surge of weapons shipments to Ukraine, including a focus on heavier and more powerful systems. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin vows that the United States will “move Heaven and Earth” to keep arming Ukraine. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman gushes that the United States has again become the “arsenal of democracy,” as it had been in World War II
The policy constitutes an extremely risky venture that could make the United States a belligerent in a perilous war. Moscow has declared on multiple occasions that convoys carrying weapons from NATO countries into Ukraine are legitimate targets of war. Putin could easily interpret the U.S.-orchestrated cascade of NATO weaponry to support Ukraine’s military resistance as unacceptable interference. The same is true of another Biden administration measure – sharing intelligence data with Kyiv, even providing Ukrainian forces with real-time targeting information. In one case, that intelligence sharing apparently enabled Ukraine to shoot down a Russian plane with several hundred troops aboard.
As they did during the prewar period, NATO countries are ignoring the warnings coming out of Moscow. Adopting a defiant stance, they instead are boosting their military aid and creating a full-fledged proxy war against Russia. The Kremlin’s warnings are becoming more strident. Putin himself recently admonished NATO members not to test Russia’s patience by continuing to escalate their support for Ukraine. Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-in chief of both RT and Sputnik and a close associate of the Russian president, stated that Russia might have little choice except to use nuclear weapons if Western policy continues on its current course.
Once again, though, hawks in the foreign policy blob are supremely confident that continued US and NATO belligerence will deter the Kremlin. Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, contends blithely that warnings from Putin about using nuclear weapons in response to mounting Western military assistance to Kyiv should be ignored. “The threat of escalation is cheap talk,” McFaul states confidently. “Putin is bluffing.”
In an April 27 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former deputy undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey even emphasized that the United States must be prepared to demonstrate that it would “win” a nuclear war against Russia. Other hawks pressure the Biden administration not to give in to Russia’s “nuclear blackmail.” They seem serenely oblivious to the probable consequences if they are wrong. Two analysts even scorned the administration for being excessively fearful of a direct “skirmish” with Russia, as though a clash with a major nuclear power would be the equivalent of a dust-up on a middle school playground. Unfortunately, the policies that Washington is pursuing by pouring arms into Ukraine and creating a proxy war against Russia suggest that administration policymakers may be nearly as clueless as the ultra-hawks outside government to the dangers.
Western officials and members of the foreign policy establishments in the United States and Europe speak openly of helping Ukraine win its war and inflict a humiliating defeat on Russia. What such individuals do not seem to comprehend is that Ukraine is a vital Russian security interest, and the Kremlin will do whatever is necessary – probably even the use of tactical nuclear weapons – to prevent a defeat. The failure to understand just how important Ukraine is to Russia caused Western leaders to disregard Moscow’s warnings over more than a decade against making Kyiv a military ally. For the same reason, they seem to be making an even more dangerous blunder by ignoring Putin’s latest warning about making Ukraine a pawn in a NATO proxy war against Russia. It is imperative to take the new warnings very seriously and back away from a looming war with potentially horrific consequences.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/04/2022 – 02:00 - "'An Anti-Majoritarian Check" – Greenwald Exposes The Radical Fallacies Of SCOTUS Hyperbole
“‘An Anti-Majoritarian Check” – Greenwald Exposes The Radical Fallacies Of SCOTUS Hyperbole
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,
Politico on Monday night published what certainly appears to be a genuine draft decision by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Alito’s draft ruling would decide the pending case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which concerns the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy except in the case of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormalities. Given existing Supreme Court precedent that abortion can only be restricted after fetal viability, Mississippi’s ban on abortions after the 15th week — at a point when the fetus is not yet deemed viable — is constitutionally dubious. To uphold Mississippi’s law — as six of the nine Justices reportedly wish to do — the Court must either find that the law is consistent with existing abortion precedent, or acknowledge that it conflicts with existing precedent and then overrule that precedent on the ground that it was wrongly decided.
Protesters gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court on May 03, 2022, in Washington, DC, after a leaked initial draft majority opinion obtained by Politico, in which Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito allegedly wrote for the Court’s majority that Roe v. Wade should be overturned (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Alito’s draft is written as a majority opinion, suggesting that at least five of the Court’s justices — a majority — voted after oral argument in Dobbs to overrule Roe on the ground that it was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “deeply damaging.” In an extremely rare event for the Court, an unknown person with unknown motives leaked the draft opinion to Politico, which justifiably published it. A subsequent leak to CNN on Monday night claimed that the five justices in favor of overruling Roe were Bush 43 appointee Alito, Bush 41 appointee Clarence Thomas, and three Trump appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), while Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by Bush 43, is prepared to uphold the constitutionality of Mississippi’s abortion law without overruling Roe.
Draft rulings and even justices’ votes sometimes change in the period between the initial vote after oral argument and the issuance of the final decision. Depending on whom you choose to believe, this leak is either the work of a liberal justice or clerk designed to engender political pressure on the justices so that at least one abandons their intention to overrule Roe, or it came from a conservative justice or clerk, designed to make it very difficult for one of the justices in the majority to switch sides. Whatever the leaker’s motives, a decision to overrule this 49-year-old precedent, one of the most controversial in the Court’s history, would be one of the most significant judicial decisions issued in decades. The reaction to this leak — like the reaction to the initial ruling in Roe back in 1973 — was intense and strident, and will likely only escalate once the ruling is formally issued.
Every time there is a controversy regarding a Supreme Court ruling, the same set of radical fallacies emerges regarding the role of the Court, the Constitution and how the American republic is designed to function. Each time the Court invalidates a democratically elected law on the ground that it violates a constitutional guarantee — as happened in Roe — those who favor the invalidated law proclaim that something “undemocratic” has transpired, that it is a form of “judicial tyranny” for “five unelected judges” to overturn the will of the majority. Conversely, when the Court refuses to invalidate a democratically elected law, those who regard that law as pernicious, as an attack on fundamental rights, accuse the Court of failing to protect vulnerable individuals.
This by-now-reflexive discourse about the Supreme Court ignores its core function. Like the U.S. Constitution itself, the Court is designed to be an anti-majoritarian check against the excesses of majoritarian sentiment. The Founders wanted to establish a democracy that empowered majorities of citizens to choose their leaders, but also feared that majorities would be inclined to coalesce around unjust laws that would deprive basic rights, and thus sought to impose limits on the power of majorities as well.
The Federalist Papers are full of discussions about the dangers of majoritarian excesses. The most famous of those is James Madison’s Federalist 10, where he warns of “factions…who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” One of the primary concerns in designing the new American republic, if not the chief concern, was how to balance the need to establish rule by the majority (democracy) with the equally compelling need to restrain majorities from veering into impassioned, self-interested attacks on the rights of minorities (republican government). As Madison put it: “To secure the public good, and private rights, against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our enquiries are directed.” Indeed, the key difference between a pure democracy and a republic is that the rights of the majority are unrestricted in the former, but are limited in the latter. The point of the Constitution, and ultimately the Supreme Court, was to establish a republic, not a pure democracy, that would place limits on the power of majorities.
Thus, the purpose of the Bill of Rights is fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian. It bars majorities from enacting laws that infringe on the fundamental rights of minorities. Thus, in the U.S., it does not matter if 80% or 90% of Americans support a law to restrict free speech, or ban the free exercise of a particular religion, or imprison someone without due process, or subject a particularly despised criminal to cruel and unusual punishment. Such laws can never be validly enacted. The Constitution deprives the majority of the power to engage in such acts regardless of how popular they might be.
And at least since the 1803 ruling in Madison v. Marbury which established the Supreme Court’s power of “judicial review” — i.e., to strike down laws supported by majorities and enacted democratically if such laws violate the rights guaranteed by the Constitution — the Supreme Court itself is intended to uphold similarly anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic values.
When the Court strikes down a law that majorities support, it may be a form of judicial tyranny if the invalidated law does not violate any actual rights enshrined in the Constitution. But the mere judicial act of invalidating a law supported by a majority of citizens — though frequently condemned as “undemocratic” — is, in fact, a fulfillment of one of the Court’s prime functions in a republic.
Unless one believes that the will of the majority should always prevail — that laws restricting or abolishing free speech, due process and the free exercise of religion should be permitted as long as enough citizens support it — then one must favor the Supreme Court’s anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian powers. Rights can be violated by a small handful of tyrants, but they can also be violated by hateful and unhinged majorities. The Founders’ fear of majoritarian tyranny is why the U.S. was created as a republic rather than a pure democracy.
Whether the Court is acting properly or despotically when it strikes down a democratically elected law, or otherwise acts contrary to the will of the majority, depends upon only one question: whether the law in question violates a right guaranteed by the Constitution. A meaningful assessment of the Court’s decisions is impossible without reference to that question. Yet each time the Court acts in a controversial case, judgments are applied without any consideration of that core question.
The reaction to Monday night’s news that the Court intends to overrule Roe was immediately driven by all of these common fallacies. It was bizarre to watch liberals accuse the Court of acting “undemocratically” as they denounced the ability of “five unelected aristocrats” — in the words of Vox‘s Ian Millhiser — to decide the question of abortion rights. Who do they think decided Roe in the first place?
Indeed, Millhiser’s argument here — unelected Supreme Court Justices have no business mucking around in abortion rights — is supremely ironic given that it was unelected judges who issued Roe back in 1973, in the process striking down numerous democratically elected laws. Worse, this rhetoric perfectly echoes the arguments which opponents of Roe have made for decades: namely, it is the democratic process, not unelected judges, which should determine what, if any, limits will be placed on the legal ability to provide or obtain an abortion. Indeed, Roe was the classic expression of the above-described anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic values: seven unelected men (for those who believe such demographic attributes matter) struck down laws that had been supported by majorities and enacted by many states which heavily restricted or outright banned abortion procedures. The sole purpose of Roe was to deny citizens the right to enact the anti-abortion laws, no matter how much popular support they commanded.
This extreme confusion embedded in heated debates over the Supreme Court was perhaps most vividly illustrated last night by Waleed Shahid, the popular left-wing activist, current spokesman for the left-wing group Justice Democrats, and previously a top aide and advisor to Squad members including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Shahid — who, needless to say, supports Roe — posted a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, in 1861, which Shahid evidently believes supports his view that Roe must be upheld.
But the quote from Lincoln — warning that the Court must not become the primary institution that decides controversial political questions — does not support Roe at all; indeed, Lincoln’s argument is the one most often cited in favor of overruling Roe. In fact, Lincoln’s argument is the primary one on which Alito relied in the draft opinion to justify overruling Roe: namely, that democracy will be imperiled, and the people will cease to be their own rulers, if the Supreme Court, rather than the legislative branches, ends up deciding hot-button political questions such as abortion about which the Constitution is silent. Here’s the version of the Lincoln pro-democracy quote, complete with bolded words, that Shahid posted, apparently in the belief that it somehow supports upholding Roe:
It is just inexplicable to cite this Lincoln quote as a defense of Roe. Just look at what Lincoln said: “if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, [then] the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” That is exactly the argument that has been made by pro-life activists for years against Roe, and it perfectly tracks Alito’s primary view as defended in his draft opinion.
Alito’s decision, if it becomes the Court’s ruling, would not itself ban abortions. It would instead lift the judicial prohibition on the ability of states to enact laws restricting or banning abortions. In other words, it would take this highly controversial question of abortion and remove it from the Court’s purview and restore it to federal and state legislatures to decide it. One cannot defend Roe by invoking the values of democracy or majoritarian will. Roe was the classic case of a Supreme Court ruling that denied the right of majorities to decide what laws should govern their lives and their society.
One can defend Roe only by explicitly defending anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic values: namely, that the abortion question should be decided by a panel of unelected judges, not by the people or their elected representatives. The defense of democracy invoked by Lincoln, and championed by Shahid, can be used only to advocate that this abortion debate should be returned to the democratic processes, which is precisely what Alito argued (emphasis added):
Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life. Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman’s right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality. Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some but not all circumstances, and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed.
For the first 185 years after the adoption of the Constitution, each State was permitted to address this issue in accordance with the views of its citizens. Then, in 1973, this Court decided Roe v. Wade….At the time of Roe, 30 States still prohibited abortion at all stages. In the years prior to that decision, about a third of the States had liberalized their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process. It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire Nation, and it effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State. As Justice Byron White aptly put it in his dissent, the decision Court represented the “exercise of raw judicial power,” 410 U. S., at 222….
Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences…..It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 979 (Scalia, J, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part). That is what tho Constitution and the rule of law demand.
Rhetoric that heralds the values of democracy and warns of the tyranny of “unelected judges” and the like is not a rational or viable way to defend Roe. That abortion rights should be decided democratically rather than by a secret tribunal of “unelected men in robes” is and always has been the anti-Roe argument. The right of the people to decide, rather than judges, is the primary value which Alito repeatedly invokes in defending the overruling of Roe and once again empowering citizens, through their elected representatives, to make these decisions.
The only way Roe can be defended is through an explicit appeal to the virtues of the anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian principles enshrined in the Constitution: namely, that because the Constitution guarantees the right to have an abortion (though a more generalized right of privacy), then majorities are stripped of the power to enact laws restricting it. Few people like to admit that their preferred views depend upon a denial of the rights of the majority to decide, or that their position is steeped in anti-democratic values. But there is and always has been a crucial role for such values in the proper functioning of the United States and especially the protection of minority rights. If you want to rant about the supremacy and sanctity of democracy and the evils of “unelected judges,” then you will necessarily end up on the side of Justice Alito and the other four justices who appear ready to overrule Roe.
Anti-Roe judges are the ones who believe that abortion rights should be determined through majority will and the democratic process. Roe itself was the ultimate denial, the negation, of unrestrained democracy and majoritarian will. As in all cases, whether Roe‘s anti-democratic ruling was an affirmation of fundamental rights or a form of judicial tyranny depends solely on whether one believes that the Constitution bars the enactment of laws which restrict abortion or whether it is silent on that question. But as distasteful as it might be to some, the only way to defend Roe is to acknowledge that your view is that the will of the majority is irrelevant to this conflict, that elected representatives have no power to decide these questions, and that all debates about abortion must be entrusted solely to unelected judges to authoritatively decide them without regard to what majorities believe or want.
For those interested, I’ve given numerous speeches over the years about the anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic values embedded in the Constitution and the Court, including this 2011 lecture at the University of Maryland, this 2012 speech at the University of Indiana/Purdue University, and this 2013 lecture at Yale Law School.
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/04/2022 – 00:05 - Gen. Milley Warns Congress: Chances Of War Among Great Powers "Increasing, Not Decreasing"
Gen. Milley Warns Congress: Chances Of War Among Great Powers “Increasing, Not Decreasing”
With NATO-Russia tensions boiling, the enduring fog of war on the ground in Ukraine, and constantly ratcheting rhetoric which has even of late dangerously included nuclear threats – this seems almost like an invitation for yet more escalation… not to mention the competing information war which has seen all sides consistently allege false flags in the works… Foreign Policy’s Pentagon correspondent reports the following on Tuesday:
Russian use of chemical or biological weapons against Ukraine would likely trigger a “reaction from the international community”: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Russia could also escalate the Ukraine conflict with a cyber attack, Austin said.
The warning came as Pentagon leaders briefed lawmakers at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the Defense Budget.
Image: Associated Press Austin had issued a similar warning of a “significant reaction” from the West if Russia were to use chemical weapons or WMD in Ukraine a month ago during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.
In the early part of April, there had actually been attempts of Ukrainian Azov militants to claim they were victims of a Russian chemical gas attack – but this was met by general skepticism among many war analysts and media pundits – despite UK government attempts to give it credibility.
Austin this week repeating the chemical attack possibility, despite there being no evidence of Russia’s intent, keeps the door wide open for Ukrainian fighters who are no doubt desperate for direct Western intervention in the war to float the claims again.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley also gave his assessment of how Russia’s war is going in the Congressional testimony. He said we are now witnessing “the greatest threat to peace and security of Europe and perhaps the world” in decades.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is threatening to undermine not only European peace and stability, but global peace and stability that my parents and generations of Americans fought so hard to defend,” Milley said.
On the question of whether a broader war could break out, he said:
“The potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing.”
He described that the US is “at a very critical and historic geo-strategic inflection point,” meaning the US military ust “maintain readiness and modernize for the future” at the same time. And more via Reuters wire:
- U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHINA AND RUSSIA IS THAT THE FIRST IS A CHALLENGE AND THE SECOND HAS BECOME A REAL-TIME THREAT
- U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: WAR IN UKRAINE CHANGES AND COMING WEEKS WILL BE CRUCIAL
Meanwhile, at China’s Foreign Ministry…
“Not an inch of #NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
—Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow, 9 Feb 9 1990 pic.twitter.com/2dNqJkN2gs— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) May 3, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“If we do not do that, then we are risking security of future generations,” Milley stressed. The top general had also in the testimony said that while China poses a “challenge” for the United States, the Ukraine invasion has now made Russia “a real-time threat”.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 23:45 - Here's Why AK-47 Ammo Could Shoot To The Moon
Here’s Why AK-47 Ammo Could Shoot To The Moon
Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,
7.62×39, which many may know as a standard Russian caliber, famously used by the AK47, will be much more expensive soon, along with many other Russian calibers. Here’s why.
In August 2021, the administration announced a ban on Russian ammunition imports, which accounts for almost 40% of ammunition in the US Market, according to industry insiders.
Steph with TMGN gives some background on the Russian Ammo Ban:
The reason behind the ban? An Aug. 20, 2020 poisoning of a Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. Almost a full year later, the Biden admin (after failing to push gun control through the legislative process) decided to cut a significant supply of ammunition into the United States.
Although current imports that were approved before the ban’s passage will continue, no new import will be approved thanks to the Biden administration. So once those ammunition shipments are sold, there will be no restock.
To make matters worse, Russian ammo accounts for many of the more budget-friendly brands of ammo in the US Market. This import ban is, of course, an attempt to price gun owners out of being able to enjoy their 2nd amendment right.
This backdoor gun control has become all too common for Biden, who, even during his recent announcement of the new “ghost gun rule,” mentioned his “regulatory authority” in subverting Congress and governing via executive fiat.
Naturally, after the import ban was announced, prices for popular Russian calibers like 7.62×39, 5.45×39, and 7.62x54R shot up from their already high pandemic pricing. But, as current pre-approved imports continue, the price has come down slightly.
As of Apr. 8, 2022, the Biden admin has now raised a 32.3% duty on all imports from Russia and Belarus thanks to the aptly named “Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act,” or HR 7108 for short.
This duty increase was confirmed to TMGN by a representative of Barnaul Ammunition.
The 32.3% raise itself comes from HR 7108, making Russia & Belarus ineligible for the “most-favored-nation” tariff rates that the United States currently applies to imports from WTO member countries.
How does this affect Russian Ammo imports, you might ask? Well, because this new law applies to all current imports, we can expect the price to increase dramatically on all Russian ammo still on its way to the US Market.
Most components needed for ammunition production are trading at a much higher value than in years past. As supply tightens and prices increase through duties and taxes, we will see a significant increase in cost to the consumer. Additionally, this cost increase is compounded by the current commodities shock, supply chain issues, and more.
Hopefully, in the future, US companies will start to produce these calibers in larger quantities or find a friendly nation overseas to import from. As of right now, our advice is to grab this ammo while you can.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 23:25 - Are Biden Democrats Holding A Losing Hand?
Are Biden Democrats Holding A Losing Hand?
“Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.”
In the movie classic “Cool Hand Luke,” the convict Luke, played by Paul Newman, explains that to his fellow inmates after winning the pot in a hand of poker without even a pair of deuces.
President Joe Biden should take notice. For, right now, “nothing” is the hand he is looking at going into the 2022 election.
With the economy the predominant issue, the last business day of April brought disquieting news for Democrats.
“Nasdaq Caps Worst Month Since 2008,” blared Saturday’s lead headline in The Wall Street Journal. “Dismal Data Fuel Stagflation Fears,” ran the top headline in the Financial Times.
“Market Plunge Reflects Alarm of Pain Ahead,” blared The New York Times. Subhead: “Decline in April was worst in two years.”
“Trajectory in Question as Markets Tank Again,” said page one of The Washington Post. To what was the Post referring?
Nasdaq had closed down over 4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over 900 points on the day. The S&P 500 was off 3.6% Friday, raising April’s loss to nearly 9% of its value. Not since World War II has the S&P begun a year with a worse performance.
This bloodbath in the markets is piled atop an 8.5% inflation rate and a shrinkage of 1.4% in the GDP over the first quarter. If a similar decline follows in the second quarter, the economy on which Biden’s party stands or falls in November will officially be in recession.
With Biden’s disapproval rating already running 10 points higher than his 42% approval, the economic issue could bring an even larger rout of House Democrats than would be normal at the midterms.
The issue now ranked second as a national concern is the crisis on the border where 2 million illegal migrants crossed over in Biden’s first year and the “gotaways” who evaded every U.S. official while sneaking in are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Some 8,000 migrants now cross the U.S. border every day. And according to the Biden administration itself, half again that many will be crossing daily if Title 42, which enables border authorities to turn back migrants into Mexico for health concerns, is lifted this month.
Third in voters’ concern is the explosion in violent crime, especially “mass killings” that involve four victims dead or wounded, not including the perpetrator. This year, mass killings are nearly matching the record number set in Biden’s first year.
There was a time when mass murder, like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago by the Al Capone gang, or Charlie Starkweather’s murderous rampage across the Great Plains in 1958, were rare events.
Now people shooting up malls, trains and subways, and running down people with cars and trucks are daily occurrences.
Biden is not responsible for the explosion of carjackings and mass killings or cop shootings. But his party has come to be identified with its left wing’s campaign to “defund the police” and refocus on the “root causes” of crime, the social conditions said to produce criminals, rather than the criminals themselves.
The Republican Party has come to be identified with solutions that involve more police, more prosecutors and more prison cells and inmates, which, increasingly, is where the country is at.
In addition to the issues turning against the Democrats, Biden has himself become a drag on the party. His low poll numbers, verbal foot faults, visible frailty and perceived “cognitive decline” all handicap efforts to portray him as a strong, engaged and decisive leader.
The wild card in Biden’s poker hand is the war in Ukraine.
Biden has funneled $3.7 billion into the Ukrainian war effort and sent Javelin and Stinger missiles and, lately, heavy artillery. He is pressing Congress for an additional $33 billion — $20 billion of that in military aid — over the next five months of this fiscal year.
Thus far, the U.S. political class in this capital has been largely united and supportive of the Ukrainians.
But dissent is rising. Why, it is being asked, are we so focused on the Eastern borders of Ukraine when the Southern border of the United States is being breached illegally by 200,000 invaders every month, and thousands more “gotaways” — some of whom are sex traffickers, drug dealers, terrorists and members of Mexican cartels.
The future of the United States is not likely to be altered in a significant way by who eventually controls Mariupol or the Sea of Azov.
But more than 2 million migrants every year walking into the United States at will cannot but have an impact on the future character and composition of the nation that has lost control of its border.
Is whether Moscow controls Luhansk and Donetsk, which it did for the duration of the Cold War and for decades before, more important to us than whether the America we grew up in becomes more of a Third World than a Western nation?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 22:45 - FOMC: More Room For Hawkish Than Dovish Surprises
FOMC: More Room For Hawkish Than Dovish Surprises
By Steve Englander, head of G10 FX and North America Macro Strategy at Standard Chartered
Summary:
- The strong consensus is that policy rates move 50bps higher and QT is announced
- We see a hawkish stance as more likely than dovish at this meeting
- Widening the scope for 75bp hikes at future meetings or faster QT are the main hawkish risks
- Indicating satisfaction with market pricing would be seen as dovish
- Market fears may rise as FOMC approaches and unwind temporarily if the FOMC does just as expected
Hawkishness not yet interrupted
Money markets are pricing a c.52bps hike for the fed funds target rate on 4 May and 255bps by end-2022, near peak levels for both (Figure 1). To us this signals that 50bps is the base and 75bps a long shot possibility for this meeting. Some FOMC participants have signalled that 75bps moves are under consideration, but for future meetings beyond May. There is also a consensus that details on quantitative tightening (QT) will be announced with caps on balance sheet run-off quickly moving up to a total of about USD 100BN by late Q3 or early Q4. A Bloomberg survey suggests that most (like us) expect QT to begin mid-May.
As always, the market question is what can be hawkish or dovish versus these expected outcomes, and which side is more likely. Notwithstanding our expectation that the Fed hikes less than markets expect over 2022, we do not see much room for dovishness at the May meeting. It took a while for the FOMC to form a consensus and we don’t see an incentive for that consensus to break in H1. Monthly run rates for core PCE and average hourly earnings have come off their year-end peaks (Figure 2), but the levels remain too high and the drops too tentative for the FOMC to back off, in our view.
On the whole, we see a risk of hawkish fears continuing to build as the FOMC meeting approaches and maybe beyond. So expectations of Fed hikes could rise as we approach the FOMC meeting, putting pressure on asset prices and supporting the USD. If the FOMC sticks to the script and raises the policy rate by 50bps and announces QT – but no more – there may even be a brief relief rally. However, for a dovish rally to last, we think a clear turn in US economic data is needed, which has not yet happened.
The hawkishness can show itself in the statement with ‘inflation pressures continue to rise substituting for ‘inflation remains elevated as a nod to the risk of fed funds moving more than 50bps at future FOMC meetings. Or ‘the Committee expects to begin reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities’ could be replaced by the Committee expects to begin reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage- backed securities, initially by run-off, starting in May’. Even if the statement text is little changed, Fed Chair Powell could convey similar sentiments at the press conferenceFOMC statements so far have addressed neither what the level of neutral is nor the risk of and extent to which policy rates could exceed neutral. In the press conference, reference to the risk that estimates of neutral are rising or that policy rates could exceed neutral for a significant period or a significant amount would be viewed as ramping up the hawkish stance. In our view, much of the perception of increased hawkishness in recent weeks has come from the shift in Fed language across the hawkish/dovish spectrum from the need to get policy rates to neutral to the possible need to tighten beyond (with how much and how long unspecified).
We think the Fed at this point sees conveying a hawkish stance as more desirable than showing any wavering. The bar to added hawkish hints is largely that there is so much already on the plate for this meeting and so much uncertainty on forces beyond the Fed’s control economic spillovers from the COVID surge in China and the Russia-Ukraine war – that the FOMC may see it as prudent to go slow on further hawkish surprises at this point.
We don’t think there is a major incentive to surprise on the dovish side at this meeting. The FOMC still characterizes the US economy as red hot’. We see signs of a slowdown (Figure 3), but we suspect the FOMC would want to see more evidence before backing off. Nonetheless, the most likely indications of dovishness would be a press conference comment that the market is pricing likely Fed policy adequately, which would be taken by market participants as a signal that the Fed has no desire to drive rates further up. Alternatively, some reference could be made to small indications that supply-chain issues (other than China) are beginning to resolve themselves. Given market positioning, any supply-chain optimism or suggestion that rates markets have enough hikes priced would be seen as dovish, but on balance extending the frontiers of Fed hawkishness seems more likely than pulling back.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 22:30 - Taibbi: PayPal's IndyMedia Wipeout
Taibbi: PayPal’s IndyMedia Wipeout
Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,
In the last week or so, the online payment platform PayPal without explanation suspended the accounts of a series of individual journalists and media outlets, including the well-known alt sites Consortium and MintPress.
Each received a variation of the following message:
Unlike many on the list, Consortium editor Joe Lauria succeeded in reaching a human being at the company in search of details about the frozen or “held” funds referenced in the note. The PayPal rep told him that if the company decided “there was a violation” after a half-year review period, then “it is possible” PayPal would keep the $9,348.14 remaining in Consortium’s account, as “damages.”
“A secretive process in which they could award themselves damages, not by a judge or a jury,” Lauria says. “Totally in secret.”
Consortium, founded by the late investigative reporter Robert Parry, has been critical of NATO and the Pentagon and a consistent source of skeptical reporting about Russiagate, as well as one of just a few outlets to regularly cover the Julian Assange case with any sympathy for the accused. Ironically, one of the site’s primary themes involves exploring disinformation emanating from the intelligence community. The site has had content disrupted by platforms like Facebook before, but now its pockets are being picked in addition.
This episode ups the ante again on the content moderation movement, toward the world hinted at in the response to the Canadian trucker protests, where having the wrong opinions can result in your money being frozen or seized. Going after cash is a big jump from simply deleting speech, with a much bigger chilling effect. This is especially true in the alternative media world, where money has long been notoriously tight, and the loss of a few thousand dollars here or there can have a major effect on a site, podcast, or paper.
As MintPress founder and executive director Mnar Adley points out, the current era of content moderation — characterized by private platforms either overtly or covertly working with government to identify accounts for censure — really began with PayPal’s historic decision in 2010 to halt donations to Wikileaks. In that case, PayPal acted after receiving a letter from the State Department claiming the site’s activities were illegal.
“PayPal banning donations from WikiLeaks really set up the blueprint for today’s censorship,” Adley says.
Lauria believes PayPal is basing a potential claim on his company’s funds on a list of restricted activities in its service agreement that includes providing “false, inaccurate or misleading information.” He notes, of course, that “false” is “what they think is false, that is,” which is troubling for a pair of big reasons.
One is the ongoing possibility of government or law enforcement involvement in fact-checking decisions, as PayPal announced just last year it would be cooperating with authorities in a content moderation campaign. The other is that the thread connecting the recent affected accounts — which include the former RT contributor Caleb Maupin and the host of the Geopolitics and Empire podcast Hrvoje Morić, among others — is that they’re all generally antiwar voices, who’ve been critical either of NATO or of official messaging with regard to the Ukraine conflict.
Alan McLeod of MintPress is one of the writers who received the notice about improper “activity” in his account. He assumed at first there had to be a mistake.
“The claim that my activity is ‘inconsistent’ with their user agreement is complete nonsense because I literally haven’t used my PayPal account since at least August of 2021,” he says. “I actually assumed [the suspension] was because it’d been inactive for too long.”
McLeod’s most recent article is entitled, “The NATO to TikTok Pipeline: Why is TikTok Employing So Many National Security Agents?” In it, he laid out a long list of “former spooks, spies, and Mandarins” hired by TikTok:
While simultaneously being the Content Policy Lead for TikTok Canada, Alexander Corbeil is also the vice president of the NATO Association of Canada, a NATO-funded organization chaired by former Canadian Minister of Defense David Collenette… Another NATO-linked new recruit is Ayse Koçak, a Global Product Policy manager at the company. Before joining TikTok last year, she spent three years at NATO…
If this is what qualifies as “false, inaccurate, or misleading information,” while CNN, MSNBC, and Fox’s daily rollout of ex-military analysts with undisclosed lobbying ties is upheld as the unobjectionable truth, it’s more or less finita la commedia for independent media. “I guess writing about big social media outlets being staffed with former NATO officials might be controversial,” McLeod quipped.
The experience of MintPress exemplifies the logistical Whac-a-Mole controversial publishers have to play now in order to survive as businesses. In addition to the PayPal ban — which hit McLeod, Adley, and one other former Mint contributor, forcing the company to stop paying its writers via the platform — MintPress last month saw two of its fundraising campaigns on GoFundMe shut down. According to Adley, the outlet was able to receive about 90% of donations across a two-year campaign before they were abruptly cut off. At least GoFundMe didn’t try to keep “damages,” as several thousand dollars earmarked for MintPress were instead returned to donors.
Adley believes the chief crime of MintPress is that it exists as an alternative to monolithic messaging surrounding issues like Ukraine. Moreover, she believes it’s in trouble with PayPal not for being false, but precisely for printing true uncomfortable things, like McLeod’s NATO-to-TikTok story, or Dan Cohen’s recent piece about the 150-odd Western public relations firms working with Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. Several of these MintPress pieces about Ukraine have gone viral in recent weeks.
“We name the names, we break through the propaganda, we show the profiteers,” Adley says. “There’s so few of us left that do that, and I think that’s why we’ve become a target.”
As is the case with a lot of these accounts, MintPress falls out of the mainstream on whole ranges of issues. It’s come under heavy fire for its coverage of Syria, for instance. A lot of political moderates will struggle to connect with its point of view. This however is the whole point of alternative media, whose brief is to explore themes the traditional press won’t or can’t. If traditional news consumers feel comfortable reading them, these sites probably aren’t doing their jobs correctly. Censorship of them is especially concerning if law enforcement plays any role, since these are among the last media concerns to evince any skepticism about national security messaging. Unfortunately, there is reason to suspect this is the case.
On July 26th of last year, PayPal announced a new partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to “fight extremism and hate through the financial industry and across at-risk communities.” In describing the arrangement, PayPal talked about a third actor — the government:
PayPal and ADL have launched a research effort to address the urgent need to understand how extremist and hate movements throughout the U.S. are attempting to leverage financial platforms to fund criminal activity. The intelligence gathered through this research initiative will be shared broadly across the financial industry and with policymakers and law enforcement.
While companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter at least occasionally explain why prominent accounts have been suspended, neither PayPal nor the ADL will comment about how suspensions and confiscations of companies like MintPress and Consortium fit into their efforts to head off “criminal activity.” I reached out this week not just to the media relations offices of PayPal and the ADL, but to figures quoted in last year’s announcement, including ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt and PayPal Chief Risk officer Aaron Karczmer, getting no response anywhere.
The ADL’s silence is particularly galling because some of the suspended accounts have written extensively about neo-Nazi movements not just in Ukraine, but in the U.S. and in other countries, including Russia. McLeod only just recently published a thread on the Nazi symbols worn by soldiers on both sides of the Ukraine conflict:
Lol. This article from German outlet Die Welt, ‘the lie of the neo-Nazi battalion’ is all about downplaying Nazis’ role in the Azov Battalion.
But in the image ititself chose to illustate the article, there are 3 separate unambiguous, objectively Nazi symbols.
[Thread 🧵] pic.twitter.com/TNxsEW1a9y
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) April 22, 2022
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Some person in the replies doing whataboutism and asking why I don’t highlight Russian Nazis. Well, I do. https://t.co/v0GOMmNyxo
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) April 22, 2022
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Is the ADL really interested in suppressing these voices? Why will they not answer questions on this front? At the very least, the ADL and PayPal should both explain the nature of their relationship to “policymakers” and “law enforcement.” Are they getting recommendations on whom to suspend from authorities? How do they identify sites for censure? So long as PayPal takes money from customers without guaranteeing they will explain suspension or confiscation decisions, or at least deigns to answer media queries about its decisions, media outlets should probably think twice about using their services.
PayPal was sued earlier this year by three other account-holders for similar freezing of accounts without explanation. One of the original complainants was Chris Moneymaker, winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker, who claimed PayPal placed a hold on $12,000 of his money (the firm ultimately returned the funds, according to Bloomberg). The litigation involving the other complainants is still pending. PayPal meanwhile has periodically cut off other controversial media outlets, on both the left and the right. A former Infowars employee named David Knight, for instance, saw his independent broadcast show cut off last year, ironically after he broke with Alex Jones over the Stop the Steal issue.
All of this is going on at a time when the Biden administration just announced the formation of a dystopian “Disinformation Governance Board,” preposterously headed by a bubbly former Kennan Institute fellow, Nina “The Singing Neoliberal” Jankowicz. In a detail Jonathan Swift couldn’t have written better, Jankowicz — who once cited the author of the greatest news hoax of our generation, Christopher Steele, as an expert on the “evolution of disinfo” — last year put out a video of herself as the “Mary Poppins of Disinformation.” In it, she sang a variation of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” featuring lines like:
They’re laundering disinfo and we really should take note
And not support their lies with our wallet voice or vote…
You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation 💁🏻♀️ https://t.co/eGV9lpctYn pic.twitter.com/WVQFA2bPmq
— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) February 17, 2021
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As many have pointed out, this is a literal nanny singing about the joys of the nanny state, in a song that includes lines about using the “wallet” to starve speech. There’s a fine line between parody and horror, and we’re tumbling fast to the horror side.
Subscribe to TK News by Matt Taibbi
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 22:05 - SCOTUS Leak Sparks Rise In Democrats' Odds Of Controlling Senate/House After Midterms
SCOTUS Leak Sparks Rise In Democrats’ Odds Of Controlling Senate/House After Midterms
About six months until the midterm elections, a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion signals the potential for Roe v. Wade to be overturned after five decades. The news sparked speculation that if the highest court in the land rules to overturn abortion as a “sacred” right to women, it could spark political gyrations ahead of the elections in November, and politicians on the Left were quick to pounce.
Jim Bianco of Bianco Research tweeted the question: “Will the Roe decision impact the midterms?”
Bianco points to political future odds on PredictIt have seen a “massive spike in volume” following the leak.
The first contract is “Which Party will Win the House in the 2022 Elections?”
Outlined in the chart is a surge in volume and a jump in odds for Democrats from 11% on 5/1 to 17% on 5/2. Republicans saw a decline of 90% on 5/1 to 84% on 5/2.
The next contract is “Which Party will Control the Senate After 2022 Election?“
Again, another massive volume spike in political futures with Democrats increasing from 22% to 28% and Republicans declining from 78% to 74%.
On Tuesday, President Biden reacted immediately to the leaked draft and said:
“I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.
“And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November.”
The Democrats now have a compelling message, something they lacked this year as the highest inflation in four decades crushes working poor Americans who struggle with record-high gas and food prices moved to the right side of the political aisle. Now, there’s a chance that some middle of the fence voters could be swayed to vote Democrat based on a potential ruling by the Supreme Court.
Still, Republicans have a significant lead over Democrats as a recent Gallup poll suggests Americans are far less concerned about abortion than other issues, according to Newsweek, which also said, “Roe v. Wade may not have a major effect on Republicans’ chances in the midterm elections.”
Mark Spiegel of Stanphyl Capital commented on Bianco’s tweet and said:
“I doubt that during our economic misery (due to inflation), this “theoretical” decision will sway many votes in December.
“The strong anti-choice crowd ALWAYS votes Republican and the adamant pro-choicers always vote Democrat. Those in the middle will prioritize their pocketbooks.”
The timing of the leak (given the collapsing approval ratings) and the immediate politicization by the Biden administration are mere coincidence of course.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 21:45 - Goldman Warns 'Dollar Dominance On A Downtrend'
Goldman Warns ‘Dollar Dominance On A Downtrend’
As we have noted numerous times in the past (since 2014), nothing lasts forever…
And while he falls short of the apocalyptic views of The World Bank’s former chief economist:
“The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank.
“The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”
…and Zoltan Poszar’s recent warnings of the backlash against US weaponization of the dollar against Russia, noting that
“…wars tend to turn into major junctures for global currencies, and with Russia losing access to its foreign currency reserves, a message has been sent to all countries that they can’t count on these money stashes to actually be theirs in the event of tension… it may make less and less sense for global reserve managers to hold dollars for safety, as they could be taken away right when they’re most needed.”
…and Dylan Grice’s fears over the end of dollar hegemony…
never seen weaponization of money on this scale before…you only get to play the card once. china will make it a priority to need no USD before going for Taiwan. it’s a turning point in monetary history: the end of USD hegemony & the acceleration towards a bipolar monetary order
— Dylan Grice (@dylangrice) February 27, 2022
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Goldman Sachs’ Zach Pandl argues that the Dollar’s role as the dominant international currency will likely continue to decline over the coming years, reinforcing his view that the Dollar will weaken over the medium term.
Within a country’s borders, the typical money medium used by households and firms is largely dictated by government rules and regulations. At an international level, by contrast, currency users have a choice. For over six decades, the US Dollar has been the world’s dominant international currency, reflecting both the convenience of using the US currency and a lack of suitable alternatives. But the Dollar’s international role is now under pressure on both fronts. US foreign policy choices may discourage heavy reliance on the Dollar in some cases, while policy changes by other governments, as well as technological innovation, may help facilitate diversification away from it. The Dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves peaked at around 85% in the 1970s and fell to below 60% last year, a downward trend we expect to continue over the coming years as other nations pivot toward other fiat currencies and, potentially, alternative money mediums.
US foreign policy doing the Dollar no favors
Pressures on the Dollar’s dominant international role partly stem from US foreign policy choices, in particular, the US’ aggressive use of extraterritorial financial sanctions. Given that all transactions in Dollars eventually pass through the US financial system, preventing US banks and their subsidiaries from transacting with a sanctioned entity effectively shuts that entity out of the global financial system. For example, an EU business could be prevented from trading with Iran, even if it’s legal under domestic EU law, because its bank could run afoul of US sanctions. For this reason, the EU Commission has said that US sanctions and trade disputes with other countries represent a threat to the EU’s economic and monetary sovereignty. Overuse of sanctions by the US could discourage other countries from transacting in the Dollar in the first place, a risk that US officials are well aware of. Former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in 2016 that the US “must be conscious of the risk that overuse of sanctions could undermine our leadership position within the global economy, and the effectiveness of our sanctions themselves… if they excessively interfere with the flow of funds worldwide, financial transactions may begin to move outside of the United States entirely—which could threaten the central role of the US financial system globally.” Similarly, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in 2014: “I do have a number of problems with the sanctions [on Russia for its annexation of Crimea]. When we talk about a global economy and then use sanctions within the global economy, then the temptation will be that big countries thinking of their future will try to protect themselves against potential dangers, and as they do, they will create a mercantilist global economy.”
Will the recent imposition of sanctions on Russia’s central bank over the war in Ukraine be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Countries hold foreign exchange reserves as a store of value to use in times of crisis. But when the Russian government recently needed its reserves to stabilize the country’s financial system, they were immobilized by Western sanctions. As a result, other nations may worry that the value of their Dollar-denominated financial assets is only as solid as their relationship with the US at the time, which may motivate sovereign investors to search for alternative assets, including a more diversified mix of foreign currency holdings.
Dollar facing stiffer competition
Competition for the Dollar has also gotten stiffer, especially from China, which has taken significant steps to modernize and open up its financial system, leading to a wave of fixed income portfolio inflows in recent years. Since 2016, mutual fund and ETF holdings of Chinese bonds have increased sixfold and official reserve allocations to the Yuan have increased almost fourfold.
We expect both of these trends to continue over the coming years, due to likely increases in China’s weight in major benchmark indices, as well as the Yuan’s relatively high nominal and real yields, its relatively cheap valuation, and China’s increasing strategic importance. The Bank of Israel, for instance, cited related considerations when explaining the ramp-up of its Yuan-denominated reserve assets this year. And China’s efforts to develop the first major central bank digital currency (CBDC) may also help facilitate international use of the Yuan, perhaps first by Chinese tourists abroad and partner countries in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Separately, recent institutional upgrades to the EU—as well as the prospect of positive cash yields—could help the Euro compete with the Dollar in international currency choice over time. While the Euro functions as an international currency today, primarily in trade with its regional neighbors, it has fallen well short of the project’s initial aspirations, and is generally thought to be “punching below its weight”, for several reasons.
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First, the Euro area has lower macroeconomic stability than other highly-developed economies, due in large part to an incomplete fiscal union and therefore more persistent internal imbalances.
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Second, the Euro area lacks a large supply of the type of high-quality government bonds sought by sovereign investors.
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And third, Europe lacks the geopolitical reach of the US, in part because foreign affairs and defense policy are still conducted at the member state level. While the European Union has a coordinator for regional foreign policy, and arguably some aspects of “soft power”, it lacks the type of global military arrangements that help underpin Dollar dominance.
However, Europe tends to take steps forward in times of crisis, and the policy responses to recent disruptions are likely building a better foundation for the single currency for the future. While not billed as an effort to speed up Euro internationalization, the EU Recovery Fund/NGEU project— Europe’s response to the Covid pandemic—helps address the Euro’s structural weaknesses, and may therefore have positive implications for the currency’s global use over time. The program addresses macroeconomic instability through intraregional transfers—in effect, a step toward fiscal federalism— and also creates a new supply of highly-rated government bonds, which should be attractive to sovereigns and other international investors. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents new challenges for the EU and Euro area, and may damage economic growth over the short term, but could be positive for the Euro over the long term if it results in an increase in defense spending and more “hard power” for the region.
Lastly, while cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy today, the technology could eventually be applied to certain types of international payments, possibly displacing the Dollar. The Western conflict with Russia, for example, demonstrates the key challenge that cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin aim to solve: the need for parties who may not know or trust each other to transact value. Gold often served this role as an alternative international money medium to fiat currency in the past. Before Bitcoin, there was no digital equivalent to gold, because digital payments required a centralized intermediary. While there is no guarantee that Bitcoin will serve this purpose in the future, its foundational blockchain technology demonstrates that a scarce digital medium can be created through cryptographic algorithms and the careful use of economic incentives, and some market participants may prefer this type of digital medium to traditional fiat currencies for certain types of international payments.
Declining dominance, eventually a declining Dollar
In recent days and weeks, the Dollar has continued to appreciate as markets have discounted even more monetary tightening by the Fed, and, over the near term, the outlook for rate hikes in the US relative to other economies will likely remain the primary driver of Dollar exchange rates. But over a medium-term horizon, the balance of risk around the Dollar is skewed significantly to the downside, in our view, due to the currency’s high valuation (more than 10% overvalued on our standard models) and three potential structural changes in global capital flows:
(i) fixed income flows back to the Euro area as the ECB exits negative rates,
(ii) outflows from US equities on any sustained underperformance, and
(iii) de-Dollarization efforts by official institutions designed to reduce exposure to Dollar-centric payment networks.
The Dollar maintains its role as the world’s leading international currency for many reasons – with reinforcing complementarities or “network effects” a key factor – so this structure will not change overnight. But the shifting tactical and structural trends reinforce our conviction in a weaker Dollar over the medium term.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 21:25 -
- China-Controlled Condo Conversion At NYC's Waldorf Astoria Faces Mounting Problems
China-Controlled Condo Conversion At NYC’s Waldorf Astoria Faces Mounting Problems
The Waldorf Astoria is one of the most historic hotels in the US. It’s history includes a stretch of ownership by President Donald Trump (long before the start of his political career) and more recently, it became emblematic of the impact of foreign money on American real estate when Chinese insurer Anbang bought the property in one of the most richly valued American commercial real-estate deals in recent memory (the company bought the property for nearly $2 billion back in 2015).
Now, WSJ reports that the Chinese developer’s attempts to turn the property around by converting it into luxury condos has hit a wall, the latest indication that the problems facing Chinese developers aren’t limited solely to the domestic market.
Just last week, the American CEO/frontman for the project abruptly quit, leaving the conversion – which is already two years behind schedule – to flounder.
According to the report, the Chinese company that’s now in control of the Waldorf (having taken over after Anbang’s founder was imprisoned for nearly two decades in China a few years ago during an anti-corruption crackdown/political purge) is aiming to finish the conversion before the end of next year, although they acknowledged that work may continue into 2024.
Costs now are expected to run to more than $2 billion, company insiders told WSJ. That means the total acquisition and conversion costs could potentially exceed $4 billion if cost overruns rear their ugly head.
But even if they don’t, the conversion of the Waldorf is already expected to be one of the largest, most intricate and most expensive condo conversions and hotel rebuilds ever undertaken.
On top of the run-of-the-mill issues pertaining to the supply-chain crunch, high materials costs and general permitting insanity, the conversion of the Waldorf has faced other issues unique to it: demolishing rooms in the century-old hotel has been a difficult process, and the fact that it’s a designated landmark has led to other complications.
As if all these issues weren’t enough, the Chinese state-controlled company running the conversion opened a sales office to market the converted condos just before the pandemic hit and sent the real-estate market in NYC into a tailspin (although real-estate prices have rebounded substantially since).
One luxury real-estate agent told WSJ that no sales have been reported for any of the properties soon-to-be-completed units. On the hotel side, when the property does reopen, it will feature 375 guest rooms and 375 residences. Prices are expected to start at $1.8 million for a studio apartment, before soaring to tens of millions of dollars for a penthouse. Residents will have separate entrances and amenities from hotel guests, including a 25-meter Starlight Pool overlooking Park Avenue.
While a new sales incentive for brokers allowing them to collect their commission once a contract is sign has led to a frenzy of traffic, Donna Olshan, a luxury real-estate agent whose firm publishes a weekly report on the state of the luxury real-estate market in NYC, said the uncertainty in the global economy was likely giving many buyers second thoughts.
“Now we don’t just have Covid, which people have gotten used to, we have war. Inflation. Rising interest rates. And China is all upside down,” Olshan said. “When you put that cocktail together, that can be daunting for a developer.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 21:05 - Closure Of Russian Restaurants Cost McDonald's $127 Million In Q1
Closure Of Russian Restaurants Cost McDonald’s $127 Million In Q1
Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The closure of all 850 McDonald’s restaurants in Russia has cost the fast-food chain $127 million in the first quarter of 2022.
People sit on the terrace of a closed McDonald’s restaurant in Moscow on Aug. 21, 2014. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images) The fast-food company announced during its first-quarter earnings report on April 28 that its suspension of operations in Russia cost it $27 million in leases, supplier costs, and employee wages, and another $100 million in unsold inventory for its supply chain.
McDonald’s is losing roughly $55 million a month to pay staff, landlords, and suppliers “for keeping the infrastructure going” for its restaurants in Ukraine and Russia, said Chief Financial Officer Kevin Ozan.
Those losses altogether dragged its earnings down by 13 cents per share in the first three months of the year.
McDonald’s had also temporarily shuttered its 108 locations in Ukraine for safety reasons.
According to McDonald’s, Russia and Ukraine both accounted for roughly 2 percent of its global sales and less than 3 percent of its operating income.
McDonald’s opened its first store in the Soviet Union two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
It was a symbolic moment in the waning years of the Cold War, as the restaurant drew large crowds on its opening day.
After heavy pressure from the Biden administration and activist consumers protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, McDonald’s announced in early March that it would be temporarily closing all of its 850 locations in Russia after more than 30 years in the country.
Since the end of February, more than 750 primarily Western companies have since curtailed operations in Russia.
Rosinter Restaurants Holding PJSC, which operated more than 200 restaurants in Russia including nine McDonald’s locations, said on April 28 that it earned a net profit for fiscal 2021 of 94.8 million rubles versus a loss of 1.83 billion rubles in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
Starbucks, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola were among those who suspended their business activities in Russia, along with Yum Brands, which had 1,000 KFC restaurant franchises and 50 Pizza Hut locations in Russia.
It is not known when or if McDonald’s will ever resume its operations in Russia and Ukraine, but the fast-food chain said it is still committed to continuing to pay its employees in both countries.
Excluding costs to support its operations in Russia and Ukraine, as well as other one-time expenses, McDonald’s had earned a profit of $2.28 per share last week, beating earlier estimates of $2.17.
McDonald’s comparable sales in its overseas markets surged nearly 15 percent, despite the draconian CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus lockdowns in China that have temporarily closed restaurants across the country.
Meanwhile, menu price hikes and a new loyalty program helped the fast-food chain beat estimates for quarterly sales and profit with shares rising 2 percent, despite rising inflation, the war in Ukraine, and pandemic lockdowns in China, announced the company in its report.
Many American restaurant chains have raised prices to offset skyrocketing costs from salaries to ingredients and paper packaging.
Commodities prices for the company have roughly doubled since the fourth quarter in the United States and Europe and are now as much as 14 percent higher for the year, said Ozan.
The 8 percent jump in McDonald’s menu prices in the first quarter versus the prior year did little to dent sales.
The rising cost of gas, rents, and groceries for lower-income customers have caused some to buy cheaper or fewer McDonald’s menu items in certain areas, said Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski to investors.
In “certain parts of the business and in certain geographies, there is a little bit of a trade down that we’re seeing that we’re just keeping an eye on,” he said.
“We need to make sure that we continue to have value be an important part of our proposition.”
McDonald’s will analyze its options in those regions and will try to provide clear direction to investors no later than the end of the current quarter, said Kempczinski.
The CEO had touted the success of the introduction of its digital loyalty program late last year, which now has 26 million subscribers, and has helped increase profits by 3.5 percent in first-quarter comparable sales in its primary U.S. market.
The fast-food chain’s global comparable sales rose in the first quarter to 11.8 percent, above estimates for an 8.2 percent gain.
Total revenue increased 11 percent to $5.67 billion, beating expectations of $5.59 billion.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 20:45 - Mike Rowe Says Truckers "Aren't Buying Putin Price Hike" Spin As Diesel Hits New High
Mike Rowe Says Truckers “Aren’t Buying Putin Price Hike” Spin As Diesel Hits New High
Baltimore native Mike Rowe became famous as the Dirty Jobs jobs guy on the Discovery Channel. Now he’s filming the second season of “How America Works” on Fox Bussiness, showcasing the many individuals that work around the clock to keep the US economy humming.
During Monday’s “Fox and Friends” show, Rowe sat down with Steve Doocy to discuss out-of-control inflation. He said the tuckers he knows aren’t buying the “Putin Price Hike” narrative.
As the national average for diesel prices at the pump jump to a record high of $5.32 a gallon, Rowe said truckers are sending him pictures and videos of them filling up, spending more than a thousand dollars at a time.
“I get video almost every day now from people who we featured on ‘Dirty Jobs” and ‘How America Works.’
“They’re just sending me videos of them at the gas pump and some of them are filling up 18-wheelers. And, I’m not kidding you, $1,100, $1,200.
“Most people, all we can think about is the price for us at a relative terms know it’s awful.
“When you put $1,200 in your gas tank and just six months ago it was costing you $600 or 700, the exponential reality of it is starting to sink in. You just can’t walk that back. It touches every single thing that matters in this country. From food production to transportation … all of it,” Rowe explained.
Doocy then asked: “Are truckers buying the ‘Putin Price Hike’?”
Rowe responded by saying, “The ones I know aren’t… A guy said to me the other day, it’s like … falling down the stairs in slow motion. We’re watching it happen. It’s happening in real-time, and it’s not just diesel. It’s not just gasoline …”
He then explains that the rising cost of energy and fertilizer has resulted in higher food prices.
“But you have to talk about fertilizer too. … There’s no food without fertilizer in this country. The cost of fertilizer is hundreds, hundreds of percent higher than it was. When you combine that with the cost of energy, the average person has now really gotten the memo, but not from the gas pump, from a restaurant, a steak. The cost of a steak is almost two times what it was six, seven months ago.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has launched an information war against the American people to persuade them President Putin was responsible for inflation.
However, most people aren’t buying the Biden narrative. A new Rasmussen poll revealed, “76% of Republicans think Biden bears most responsibility for higher fuel prices, as do 24% of Democrats and 54% of voters not affiliated with either major party.”
With a little more than six months to the midterm elections, the Biden administration has yet to convince the American people that Putin is responsible for the highest inflation in four decades — this could prove disastrous for Democrats come November.
In March, a Quinnipiac University poll revealed that more Americans blame Biden than the Ukraine invasion or corporate greed for the rise in fuel prices.
Americans understand inflation was ripping higher well before the Ukraine conflict. The Biden got desperate last week by having the Department of Homeland Security announce the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” to
control narrativescombat whatever they deem ‘misinformation’ ahead of the midterm elections.And when did the vast majority of this inflation occur? Pre-Ukraine. Hard to dispute that.
Watch Mike Rowe’s full interview here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 20:25 - Latest Shanghai Lockdown Controversy Involves Elderly COVID Patient Mistaken For Dead
Latest Shanghai Lockdown Controversy Involves Elderly COVID Patient Mistaken For Dead
Since the initial lockdown in Shanghai began nearly six weeks ago, there has been an abundance of horror stories ranging from elderly patients dying in the city’s nursing homes (without being officially declared COVID casualties) to COVID workers suspected of murdering the city’s pets (or at the very least those suspected of having been exposed to COVID).
But the latest controversy has been inspired by footage apparently showing a senior citizen being mistaken for dead by staff at an ‘aged care center’ in Shanghai.
Readers can watch the video below:
The Putuo district government confirmed the mistake on Monday morning and announced an investigation, which has already swept up six people.
The incident was officially reported Sunday afternoon, sparking an online controversy when videos circulating widely on Chinese social media showed two men who appeared to be mortuary workers handling a yellow body bag outside the Shanghai Xinchangzheng welfare hospital.
In the video, the staff members can be seen moving the body, then returning to deliberate with two people in white hazmat suits after realizing that the patient is still alive.
According to the SCMP, the incident triggered a horrified response from many Shanghai residents, whose grief and anger have reached a new peak. What’s more, the local government is facing mounting criticism for its handling of the Omicron outbreak.
Punishments are being handed down, but it’s not clear whether this will be enough to satiate the public backlash. Four officials, including a director of the care home and a doctor, had been either sacked or reprimanded. Ge Fang, director of the Shanghai Xinchangzheng Welfare Hospital, has been fired, while a doctor in charge was barred from practicing medicine and will face further police investigation.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 19:45 - Russia Is Returning To The Gold Standard: Is China Next?
Russia Is Returning To The Gold Standard: Is China Next?
Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance
No sooner was it that I wrote an article talking about how Russia was going to back the ruble with gold than “one of the Russia’s most powerful security/intelligence officers and a close ally of Putin” has admitted the country’s intentions to do just that.
And I’m predicting that no sooner will the gravity of this decision finally sink in with the West that China will follow closely in Russia’s footsteps and do the same.
Russia backing its currency with gold represents one of the most drastic changes to the foreign currency market in decades. As of 2022, precisely zero countries still adhere to a gold standard, though many countries still hold gold in reserve.
The new global monetary system is likely going to look like Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries with commodity-backed, sound money on one side – and the west and our allies, with our “infinite” fiat, under the tutelage of rocket surgeon Neel Kashkari, on the other.
Despite the enormity of the situation, the news hasn’t really been digested by global markets yet. The FX market has been relatively calm, but for the ruble strengthening, and gold prices have crashed so far this week, with front month futures falling nearly $50/oz. on Monday, back down to about $1,860/oz.
Ruble vs. Euro chart from Zero Hedge
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Aside from the FX market, the news also hasn’t been digested by US politicians or financial “thought leaders” yet.
However, there are underground rumblings starting to catch the ears of those who are actively listening. Ronan Manly wrote for BullionStar.com last week:
On Tuesday 26 April in an interview with newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta (RG), the Secretary of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that Russian experts are working on a project to back the Russian ruble with gold and other commodities.
Manly was kind enough to translate the interview with RG, which stated Russia’s intentions to back the ruble with gold in crystal clear fashion:
RG Question: And what do we need to do to ensure the ruble’s sovereignty?
Nikolai Patrushev: “For any national financial system to be sovereignized, its means of payment must have intrinsic value and price stability, without being pegged to the dollar.
Now experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a two-circuit monetary and financial system.
In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble, which should be backed by both gold and a group of goods that are currency values, and to put the ruble exchange rate in line with the real purchasing power parity.”
Manly concludes, matter-of-factly:
So there you have it. The Russian Government is actively working on creating a gold and commodity backed Russian ruble with intrinsic value which is outside the orbit of the US dollar.
…
What we are seeing now is Nikolai Patrushev and the Kremlin confirming this simple equation of linking the Russian ruble to gold and commodities. In other words, the beginning of a multilateral gold and commodity backed monetary system, i.e. Bretton Woods III.
Just days ago I published an in-depth analysis by my friend Lawrence Lepard, about what Bretton Woods III might look like. For anyone concerned about the future of the monetary system, it is a must-read: Putin Knows The Monetary System Is A Credit Based Ponzi Scheme: Lawrence Lepard
Finally, to take Manly’s analysis one step further, I think China isn’t going to be far behind Russia in adopting a gold standard.
Going back to last summer, before the invasion of Ukraine happened and before inflation was an issue, I wrote an article arguing that it was the most common sense scenario for China to affix its new digital currency to gold.
That was before Russia decided they were ready to take a stand against the west’s monetary policies and before China became interested in buying distressed strategic oil assets from Russia while the rest of the globe tries to shut the country down economically.
Now, Russia and China are closer than they’ve ever been and arguably more unified in their interests of keeping the U.S., the west and NATO in check than they’ve ever been.
China has also kept one eye on Taiwan, as I noted in an article last month exploring whether or not President Xi is actively entertaining the idea of catalyzing World War III. For now, those concerns have taken a back seat to the country’s bizarre recent reaction to a Covid “outbreak” that it is fruitlessly trying to control.
Meanwhile, as Russia accepts payment for oil only in rubles or gold, “the digital yuan has already been piloted in various Chinese cities and was used in more than $8 billion worth of transactions in the second half of 2021,” CNN reported earlier this year. In other words, the rubber is starting to hit the road for China’s digital currency.
And, with everyone locked in their homes once again, it’s extremely convenient timing.
Is the picture becoming clear yet, or do I need to spell it out for you?
If you haven’t read them yet, numerous articles that explain my position on Russia and China creating their own monetary system include:
-
Russia And China Might Collectively Challenge The Dollar’s Reserve Status
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The Dominance Of The U.S. Dollar Is Fading Right Before Our Eyes
-
The Dollar Dethroned: We Have Reached The End Of Monetary Policy As We All Once Knew It
Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance . This post is public so feel free to share it: Share
Disclaimer: I am long gold and silver and tons of miners. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities. I own or may own all names I mentioned or linked to in this piece. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I get shit wrong a lot.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 19:25 -
- US Drone Carrying Guns Across Canadian Border Intercepted After Hitting Tree
US Drone Carrying Guns Across Canadian Border Intercepted After Hitting Tree
In what appears to be an illegal movement of firearms from the U.S. to Canada, law enforcement in Ontario said they intercepted a drone carrying handguns.
Global News reports Lambton County Ontario Provincial Police found a drone that smashed into a tree along the St. Clair River near Port Lambton. On the other side of the river resides Michigan, and not too far away is Detroit.
Few details are known, but investigators say it’s believed the handguns were being transported across the border from the U.S. when the drone got stuck in the tree near Port Lambton.
Police say they seized the handguns, while St. Clair Township firefighters removed the drone from the tree. – Global News
Lakeshore News provided more color about the guns: “Attached to the drone was a bag containing eleven handguns which investigators believe were coming from the U.S.”
Gun smuggling has been a problem on the northern border (as well as the southern border).
In 2021, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a new cross-border task force with Canadian law enforcement “to disrupt and dismantle the illegal movement of firearms, ammunition, and explosive weapons across the U.S.-Canadian border.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 19:05 - Subpoenas Issued In Georgia Ballot-Trafficking Investigation
Subpoenas Issued In Georgia Ballot-Trafficking Investigation
Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times,
Georgia election officials last week issued subpoenas to obtain the identities of individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who may have engaged in the crime of ballot trafficking.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger holds a press conference on the status of ballot counting in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 6, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images) The offenses are alleged to have occurred in both the 2020 presidential election and the December 2020 U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia.
Recipients of the subpoenas are the election watchdog organization True the Vote (TTV), the group’s founder Catherine Engelbrecht, and the research contractors that worked on the 15-month investigation into illegal vote trafficking in Georgia and a half-dozen other swing states.
“We presented our data a year ago to Governor Kemp (a Republican) and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They covered it up for seven months,” alleged Engelbrecht in an April 30 television interview on Real America’s Voice.
“The GBI told us they had no jurisdiction,” Engelbrecht said.
“We gave our data to the FBI in Atlanta. No response for seven months,” she said.
“We filed a full complaint with the Georgia Secretary of State in November of 2021. We heard nothing for six months. Finally, we got the subpoenas.”
True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht in an interview with Facts Matter, in April 2022, in a still from the video. (The Epoch Times) In January 2022 Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, announced that an investigation into TTV’s allegations was underway.
An investigative team from TTV used cell phone tracking, geo-fencing, and video footage to show that 242 mules collected thousands of absentee ballots from voters and made 5,668 stops at drop boxes in the metro Atlanta area in late 2020.
The data is supplemented by statements from a whistleblower who also shed light on a number of NGOs orchestrating and funding the unlawful effort.
Ballot harvesting was outlawed in Georgia in 2019.
The evidence provided by TTV is the basis of Dinesh D’Dsouza’s new movie “2000 Mules”, which is scheduled to debut the first week of May at theaters nationwide and on streaming services.
Ballot trafficking is the act of a third-party intermediary, called a “mule,” collecting an unlimited number of absentee ballots from voters and depositing them in ballot drop boxes for money.
Ballot trafficking and ballot harvesting eliminate any documented chain of custody for the ballots and the practice makes official oversight of the handling of the ballots impossible.
The elections in Georgia figure prominently in D’Souza’s latest documentary film, but the scope of the problem of ballot trafficking affects all of the battleground states.
OPSEC Group’s Gregg Phillips conducted the geospatial investigation into ballot trafficking featured in Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” documentary to be released next week. (Screenshot/”2000 Mules”) In addition to the 242 mules uncovered in Georgia, Engelbrecht said that TTV has documented the actions of 202 mules in Maricopa County, Arizona; more than 100 in Milwaukee, 500 in Wayne County, Michigan; and 1,000 in Philadelphia.
TTV recently announced that at least 137,500 absentee ballots were cast through unlawful vote trafficking throughout several of Wisconsin’s largest cities in the 2020 election.
Joe Biden won Wisconsin by 21,000 votes.
Gregg Phillips, a cyber expert working with TTV, estimates that 4.8 million votes were trafficked nationally based on studies conducted by his group in Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Michigan.
“The numbers are staggering. In order to stay in power, officials in these states engaged in an absolute subversion of the election process. Fraud has been institutionalized,” alleged Engelbrecht.
Engelbrecht believes politics may be playing a role in the recent issuing of the Georgia subpoenas.
“It wasn’t until the Trump rally held in Georgia (on March 26) that we saw some movement from the GBI,” she said.
U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally at the Banks County Dragway in Commerce, Georgia, on March 26, 2022. (Megan Varner/Getty Images) The subpoenas were issued just weeks ahead of the May 24 primary, where Raffensperger is facing a stiff challenge from Republican Congressman Jody Hice, a vocal critic of Raffensperger’s conducting of the 2020 elections.
Raffensperger provoked the ire of some Georgia Republicans when he administered the mailing out of absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in the state of Georgia in 2020.
Raffensperger maintains the 2020 elections in Georgia were conducted legally and fairly.
He also has spoken against the suggested decertification of the state’s 2020 presidential election results due to alleged cheating by Democrats.
Hice has been an outspoken advocate for decertification and for more robust election reform in Georgia.
According to a recent poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, Hice, who has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, is in a statistical tie with Raffensperger.
In the four-person race, Raffensperger is polling at 28 percent and Hice has 26 percent, with 37 percent undecided.
The remaining 8 percent is divided between the other two Republican candidates.
Mail-in Voting Bodes Ill for Republicans
One hundred fifty-nine million people voted in the 2020 presidential election.
According to the United States Elections Project, in that election, 101 million people voted early in some way—35.8 million people voted early in person, and 65.6 million cast mail-in ballots.
As of November 23, 2020, there were 26.6 million absentee ballots that were still outstanding.
Across the country, the percentage of mail-in votes cast broke in favor of Democrats in 2020 by huge margins.
For example, in Georgia Biden got 65 percent of the absentee votes to 34 percent for Trump.
In Pennsylvania Biden received 76 percent of the absentee votes to 23 percent for Trump.
15.4 million, or 87 percent of the votes cast in California, were cast somewhere other than a traditional polling place, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Biden defeated Trump in California by over five million votes.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during a press conference in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 10, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images) Through a process she calls “lawfare,” Engelbrecht said Democrat-dominated states have steadily worked to change state election laws in order to dramatically increase the use of mail-in voting even prior to the pandemic.
She voiced her displeasure with the incumbent Republicans seeking reelection that are presiding over the upcoming midterm elections in Georgia, including Kemp, Raffensperger, and Attorney General Chris Carr.
“They have publicly torched our data. They have done whatever they could to delegitimize our work,” alleged Engelbrecht.
“A state official has tried to intimidate our contractors by warning them that there may be no more state contracts,” she said.
“It’s either fix 2020 or we have no hope for 2022,” she added.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 18:45 - Watch: Selfie App Scans Eyes For Neurological Diseases
Watch: Selfie App Scans Eyes For Neurological Diseases
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered an innovative way to detect neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s through a smartphone app that uses the device’s camera to monitor eye movement to assess cognitive health.
UC San Diego reports the new app utilizes the smartphone’s RGB selfie camera and the front-facing near-infrared camera to track how a person’s pupil changes in size. Those pupil measurements can reveal a person’s cognitive condition.
“While there is still a lot of work to be done, I am excited about the potential for using this technology to bring neurological screening out of clinical lab settings and into homes.
“We hope that this opens the door to novel explorations of using smartphones to detect and monitor potential health problems earlier on,” said Colin Barry, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student at UC San Diego and the lead author of the paper.
Barry said the pupils offer insight into a person’s neurological functions. An example of this would be pupil size increases during a challenging cognitive task or unexpected sound. Being able to measure changes in pupil diameter is called a pupil response test.
“A scalable smartphone assessment tool that can be used for large-scale community screenings could facilitate the development of pupil response tests as minimally-invasive and inexpensive tests to aid in the detection and understanding of diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. This could have a huge public health impact,” said Eric Granholm, a psychiatry professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of the MHTech Center.
Researchers said the app’s measurements were comparable to a handheld pupillometer used in doctor offices.
“For us, one of the most important factors in technology development is to ensure that these solutions are ultimately usable for anyone. This includes individuals like older adults who might not be accustomed to using smartphones,” said Barry.
More testing is needed, but one day, scanning for brain diseases could be as easy as opening up a smartphone app and snapping a few pictures of the eyes while sitting at home.
Watch the app scanning for brain diseases.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 18:25 - Dear Illinois Parents, Your Kid's Sex-Ed Curriculum May Be More Extreme Than You Think
Dear Illinois Parents, Your Kid’s Sex-Ed Curriculum May Be More Extreme Than You Think
Authored by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,
It doesn’t matter where you stand on the issues of sex-ed, pronoun usage or transgenderism in school, you should know who’s teaching your kids, what they’re teaching them and whether there’s more than meets the eye.
How far does the sex ed curriculum go? What’s being “normalized” by your school’s teachers? Who sets the agenda and how are your children’s teachers being trained? And how does the material align with your family values?
Judge for yourself in the case of AMAZE.org, an organization with materials that have made its way into Illinois schools. According to its website, AMAZE “takes the awkward out of sex ed. Real info in fun, animated videos that give you all the answers you actually want to know about sex, your body and relationships.”
AMAZE videos appear on standards proposed for Illinois’ New Sexuality Ed courses by the group’s partner organization Advocates for Youth, which are posted on this website. And Advocates for Youth appears as a resource on the Illinois State Board of Education website.
Some of the AMAZE videos cover some basic sex ed topics with little to object to. But there are others that many parents are sure to find objectionable. Take a look at these two short videos for a sample.
We were recently made aware of AMAZE by a parent from Avoca SD 37, a two-school district in the New Trier Township with some 700 total students. The parent noticed that AMAZE’s video for instructing young children on pronoun usage was linked in the principal’s April newsletter.
A FOIA by Wirepoints further revealed that other AMAZE videos are now part of the district’s curriculum. Avoca contracts out its 5th grade reproductive health education to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital, a leading youth transgender clinic in the midwest. Lurie’s education materials use AMAZE’s body odor, male anatomy and female anatomy videos.
The problem is, Lurie Hospital has effectively vetted AMAZE by using their materials. And now that students have seen the intro videos, they have knowledge of and access to the group’s other controversial videos like the ones above.
Some parents may be okay with normalizing porn for their children, but most won’t be. Many others will take exception to the group’s position on masturbation.
AMAZE will also step over the line for many parents with its handing of transgender issues like gender identity, transgenderism and puberty blockers.
While Avoca SD 37’s use of AMAZE is just one example, it may very well be that the company’s videos, or something like it, may soon be standard in sex ed curriculums statewide. Illinois passed legislation last year requiring ISBE to finalize new sex ed standards by August 1, 2022.
The spread of AMAZE into district curricula is concerning, not just because of its content, but because most parents have little idea of what’s actually being taught in their children’s classrooms.
It took a FOIA by Wirepoints, and subsequent questioning, to find out about AMAZE’s full role in Avoca’s sex ed lesson. It shouldn’t be that difficult.
Parents should have more power and control over curriculums. At the very least, they should know what’s being taught so they can choose whether or not to opt their children out.
* * *
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Supporters of Amendment 1 should get their story straight. Latest double-talk is about workplace safety.
- Chief Executive Magazine ranks Illinois third-worst state for doing business, yet Illinois politicians think businesses will move here because of…“equity!”
- Chicago car thefts spike sharply in 2022, up 100% along lakefront compared to 2019
- Close the revolving door for high-risk offenders in Cook County
- Two ‘Compelled Speech’ Matters Beg For Litigation In Illinois
- Secret union contract negotiations trample on Illinois taxpayers and parents’ rights
- Nine things Gov. Pritzker didn’t tell you about Illinois’ 2023 budget
* * *
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/03/2022 – 18:05
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