Jun 09

Today’s News 9th June 2022

  • Bulgaria Says "We've Done Enough" On Ukraine Aid As NATO-EU Cracks Deepen
    Bulgaria Says “We’ve Done Enough” On Ukraine Aid As NATO-EU Cracks Deepen

    Bulgaria says it’s “done enough” for Ukraine and has no plans to send heavy weapons, a Tuesday statement from Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov indicated.

    “We’ll do what we have promised to do and there’s no need to reignite the debate every two weeks,” Petkov said. “We’ve supported the incoming refugees, we have sent all kinds of humanitarian aid, we have also been involved with repairing Ukraine’s heavy weapons and we’re in line with all sanctions against Russia.”

    Via Glasove.com: there have been recent allegations that Bulgarian weapons have appeared in the conflict, but Bulgaria’s government says otherwise.

    The pushback from Bulgaria’s leader comes amid growing pressure after most NATO countries have ramped up their military supplies to Kiev, including some Baltic and Western European states transferring heavy weapons, up to an including even tanks.

    Since the war’s start and Western calls for heavier armaments to help Ukrainian forces repel the Russian invasion, the question of aid to Ukraine has threatened to fracture Petkov’s ruling coalition government, resulting in an earlier agreement that Sofia would refrain from supplying arms or ammunition.

    Previously European media reported: 

    The Bulgarian Socialist Party, or BSP, is traditionally friendly towards Russia and since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year, it threatened to leave the country’s coalition government if Sofia were to send weapons to Ukraine. The party’s departure would topple the current Bulgarian government.

    BSP supporters and allies have argued that supplying arms would make Bulgaria a party to the conflict, resulting in Russian retaliation, which has been the position of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.

    A week ago a report in The Wall Street Journal detailed growing dissent against the US-UK plan for bigger arms for Ukraine: “Cracks are appearing in the Western front against Moscow, with America’s European allies increasingly split over whether to keep shipping more powerful weapons to Ukraine, which some of them fear could prolong the conflict and increase its economic fallout,” the report said.

    Prime Minister of Bulgaria Kiril Petkov (Left), via EPA/EFE

    It continued: “At the center of the disagreement—which is splitting a group of Western European powers from the U.S., U.K. and a group of mostly central and northern European nations—are diverging perceptions of the long-term threat posed by Russia and whether Ukraine can actually prevail on the battlefield.”

    The UK’s Boris Johnson in particular has been at the forefront of telling the Ukrainians to not concede any territory or negotiation with the Russians, despite that this uncompromising approach is sure to end in more death and destruction. Geographically and geopolitically, eastern European states like Bulgaria have much more to lose if the chart an uncompromising approach to “standing up” to Moscow.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/09/2022 – 02:45

  • UK's NHS Scrubs The Word "Women" From Ovarian Cancer Guidance To Be More "Inclusive"; Report
    UK’s NHS Scrubs The Word “Women” From Ovarian Cancer Guidance To Be More “Inclusive”; Report

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    The National Health Service website in the UK has altered its guidance pages on ovarian cancer, removing instances of the word “women” in a move that sources say is intended to be more “inclusive” toward trans, non-binary and intersex people.

    The Post Millennial reported the development, noting that “The NHS’s erasure of ‘women’ is from their resources on ovarian, cervical, and womb cancers, all of which only impact women.”

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    The PM posted screenshots of the NHS guidance before and after the woke mob intervened:

    BEFORE:

    AFTER:

    The NHS website also now states that ovarian cancer can affect “trans men, non-binary people and intersex people with ovaries.” 

    The report notes that when the NHS was contacted for an explanation, they were unaware of the changes and referred the reporter to NHS Digital, an agency that manages the government health site.

    NHS Digital eventually responded, noting “We use language that is inclusive, respectful and relevant to the people reading it.” 

    The group added “It is not correct to say that there is no mention of women on the ovarian cancer pages. We have updated the pages as part of our routine review of web pages to keep them in line with the best clinical evidence, and make them as helpful as possible to everyone who needs them.”

    The report also notes that guidance on prostate cancer on the NHS site has not been altered and still notes that only men can get it.

    Believe it or not, some ‘doctors’ are agreeing to transplant wombs into trans people. That is happening:

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    The British Health Secretary Sajid Javid commented on the development, saying “I don’t think it’s right,” and adding “biological sex matters”.

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    Javid told Sky News “You won’t be surprised to know that as a health secretary, I think that your that your sex matters, your biological sex is incredibly important to make sure you get the right treatment, the very best treatment.”

    He noted that he is looking into the matter, adding “It’s important that when messaging is given to people for cancers that words like women and men are used,” adding that prostate cancer, for example, only affects “those that are biologically male”.

     “I know there’s some sensitivity around this language, but we have to use common sense and use the right language so that we can give people the best possible patient care,” Javid further asserted.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 06/09/2022 – 02:00

  • Paul Mason's Covert Intelligence-Linked Plot To Destroy The Grayzone Exposed
    Paul Mason’s Covert Intelligence-Linked Plot To Destroy The Grayzone Exposed

    Authored by Kit Klarenberg & Max Blumenthal via The Grayzone,

    Leaked emails reveal British journalist Paul Mason plotting with an intel contractor to destroy The Grayzone through “relentless deplatforming” and a “full nuclear legal” attack. The scheme is part of a wider planned assault on the UK left.

    A former Trotskyist and BBC journeyman, journalist Paul Mason has made a career as the establishment’s favorite gatekeeper of the UK left. Since the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, he has cemented his position as one of Britain’s most vocal “left” cheerleaders for Western military intervention. 

    Paul Mason (Creative Commons)

    While leading a “U.K. left” delegation to Kiev and a demonstration through to streets of London in support of NATO military escalation against Russia, Mason has accordingly used his platform to assail journalists, academics, Labour party members and private citizens who oppose shipping piles of advanced weaponry to Ukraine. 

    In a series of recent columns, Mason called for the state-enforced suppression of facts and perspectives he considers overly sympathetic to the Kremlin, and demanded “state action” against members of the media that oppose the NATO line on Ukraine. He placed The Grayzone at the top of his fantasy censorship target list.

    Mason has since announced a run for parliament on the Labour ticket to wage his crusade against “disinformation” from inside the House of Commons.

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    The Grayzone, meanwhile, has learned through anonymously leaked emails and documents that Mason has been engaged in a malicious secret campaign that aims to enlist the British state and “friendly” intelligence cut-outs to undermine, censor and even criminalize antiwar dissenters. 

    In one leaked email, Mason thundered for the “relentless deplatforming” of The Grayzone and the creation of “a kind of permanent rebuttal operation” to discredit it. In another, the celebrity journalist declared that “the far left rogue academics is who I’m after,” then rants that he is motivated by fear of an emergent “left anti imperialist identity” which “will be attractive because liberalism doesn’t know how to counter it.”

    Mason is joined in his covert crusade by Amil Khan, the founder of a shadowy intelligence contractor called Valent Projects. In the cache of leaked emails, Khan proposed to Mason the initiation of a “clever John Oliver style stunt that makes [The Grayzone] a laughing stock,” as well as a “full nuclear legal to squeeze them financially.”

    The Grayzone has previously revealed Khan’s extensive involvement in the Syrian dirty war, during which he provided public relations guidance to jihadist groups, trained anti-government activists in communication strategies, and secretly oversaw supposed citizen journalist collectives backed by foreign governments. His goal was to flood international media with pro-opposition propaganda, destabilize the government of Bashar Assad, and ready the ground for Western regime change.

    This ethically dubious work was conducted for a variety of intelligence-adjacent British Foreign Office contractors, such as ARK, a firm founded by probable MI6 operative Alistair Harris, and IncoStrat, which has been plausibly accused of producing propaganda for the blood-stained UK and Saudi-backed insurgents.

    After leaving the Middle East, Khan reinvented himself as an expert in countering “disinformation”, and has since charged a number of blue chip clients a premium for his dubious services. As this outlet reported, the same techniques of manipulation and information warfare that Khan honed in Syria were turned against Western citizens when he oversaw a British quasi-state funded astroturf YouTube project designed to counter public skepticism of Covid-related restrictions.

    Khan’s email communications with Mason illustrate the grudge he has harbored since The Grayzone exposed his devious exploits. In the missives, he descends into self-delusion, insisting this outlet’s factual, objective reporting was, in fact, state-sponsored retaliation for his crusading work “opposing military dictators and kleptocrats.”

    Together, Khan and Mason plotted to assemble a coalition of anti-Grayzone actors, including the US and UK government-funded “open source” outlet Bellingcat, which Mason revealingly described as a channel for “intel service input by proxy.” Khan proposed convening the de facto Victims of Grayzone Memorial Foundation at an in-person summit to “come up with a plan that addresses [The Grayzone’s] objectives and vulnerabilities.”

    At one point, he even reached out across the Atlantic for advice from Nina Jankowicz, the disgraced former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board.

    It is uncertain how Mason and Khan became acquainted, but their mutual coincidence of needs, motives and vendettas is obvious. The public interest in releasing the pair’s private communications is also abundantly clear. If their planned criminalization of The Grayzone for publishing facts and opinions they abhor is successful, it will have dire ramifications for any and all journalists and independent media institutions seeking to challenge the status quo.

    When approached by The Grayzone, Paul Mason declined to comment on the incriminating correspondence with Khan, and claimed to have informed local police that “an attempt was made” to hack his email account. While dismissing the leaked content as “likely to be edited, distorted or fake,” he went on to pledge he would “not cease to identify and rebut Russian disinformation operations masquerading as journalism.” 

    In other words, Mason implied he plans to carry on with the very activity exposed in the leaked emails.

    On April 30 this year, Paul Mason emailed Amil Khan, making clear he was “keen to help” de-platform The Grayzone. He attached a bizarrely constructed “dynamic map of the ‘left’ pro-Putin infosphere” that resembled a spider’s web, with a mess of arrows linking the names of members of parliament, media outlets, activists, causes, and British minority communities.

    The barely coherent, racially-tinged chart connected the Russian government, Russian state broadcaster RT, the People’s Republic of China, and Beijing-based tech millionaire-financier Roy Singham to the “Muslim Community,” “Young Networked Left” and “Black Community” through a series of leftist outfits and UK Labour figures. No evidence was provided to support Mason’s linkages.

    At the center of Mason’s chart (see below) is Jeremy Corbyn. When Corbyn served as Labour leader, Mason plotted against him in private while simultaneously posing as one of his most ardent public supporters. He also sought to influence Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in a pro-war direction.

    The implication behind Mason’s Nixonian enemies chart was clear: Russia and China have weaponized the British left to corrupt key Labour constituencies – therefore the left must be neutralized.

    Mason suggested to Khan that he enlist the help of “pro traffic analysts to map” how these “different echo chambers interact, where their material begins – and work out who might [emphasis added] be pulling the strings.” 

    He nonetheless seemed certain about the dark forces animating The Grayzone, bombastically charging that its “attacks” on Khan and others are “fed by Russian and Chinese intel,” including hacking, “electronic warfare” and human intelligence.

    Mason compared this process to Bellingcat receiving “a steady stream of intel from Western agencies.” The US and UK government-funded outlet Bellingcat has frequently been accused of laundering CIA and MI6 dirt, a charge which the operatives behind it aggressively repudiate. However, Khan – a long-time advocate and associate of the outlet – did not once challenge Mason’s repeated characterization of the supposed citizen journalist collective as a clearing house for friendly spy agencies.

    Underlining the sensitivity of the pair’s malicious plans for The Grayzone, Mason stressed the need for their work to be conducted via “white label organisations operating with firm infosec – Signal/ProtonMail, clean phones.”

    Khan was clearly amenable to his suggestions. Five days later, he outlined two options for taking down The Grayzone: “some sort of clever John Oliver style stunt that makes them a laughing stock” – referencing a sting operation targeting academic Paul McKeigue conducted by the dubious, intelligence-linked Commission for International Justice and Accountability back in 2021 – “or full nuclear legal to squeeze them financially.”

    Mason was enthused by the latter prospect, submitting that it should be “combined with relentless deplatforming,” including cutting off The Grayzone from donation sources such as PayPal, in the manner of Consortium News and MintPress, and setting up “a kind of permanent rebuttal operation.”

    Khan agreed, proposing the pair “get a few people together who are looking at/been target [sic] by this together and do a centre of gravity analysis,” pooling “what we’ve all learnt about how they operate” in order to “come up with a plan that addresses their objectives and vulnerabilities, not just their arguments.” 

    Mason responded by launching into a conspiratorial aside asserting that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) post-February 16, 2022 reports showing a dramatic Ukrainian military escalation against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region represented “manipulated facts.” He then proposed “creating a dynamic reference catalogue debunking all [The Grayzone’s] allegetions[sic] and ‘facts,’” pitching the initiative as an alternative to direct engagement or “toe to toe” debate.

    “Keen” to move on the project, Mason suggested several information warriors to join them; Emma Briant, an academic researching disinformation; Chloe Hadjimatheou, the British intelligence-linked BBC journalist who produced a multi-part podcast series smearing critics of the NATO-backed Syrian White Helmets organization as Kremlin stooges and fascists; and Bellingcat, which he said could provide “intel service input by proxy.”

    Khan said he was “happy” to host a secret meeting of these individuals at Valent Projects’ London offices. After Mason proposed inviting a representative of the UK Foreign Office to the anti-Grayzone meet and greet, the Valent Projects chief reached out to a friend at the National Security Council’s Communications Directorate, a Whitehall unit “tasked with hybrid threats.”

    His Directorate source said the British government would be averse to sending a representative to the gathering, “as it could jeopardise outcomes later.” Nonetheless, they advocated convening people “targeted” by The Grayzone, to collate evidence that could be submitted to OFCOM, Britain’s communications regulator, and/or Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the name of both a government department and parliamentary committee, “as part of a formal complaint.” 

    They imagined that this process could somehow trigger an investigation into The Grayzone’s “funding and activities,” leading the government to “get properly involved.” Khan added that his pal suggested also approaching Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action for the initiative. The Grayzone has previously exposed these media charities as having participated in covert British state-funded efforts to “weaken the Russian state’s influence.”

    Khan said he would also be in touch with the Foreign Office’s newly-founded psychological warfare unit, the Government Information Cell. 

    Mason’s reaction was mixed. While hailing the prospect of triggering an official government investigation into The Grayzone as “a good idea,” he seemed crestfallen the plan did not include securing material from British intelligence on who funds the site, and “what their ultimate deliverables are on behalf of the ppl [people] their work benefits.”

    “An investigation into them would lead to what? Deplatforming? Anyway that’s progress,” he concluded.

    Khan reassured Mason that OFCOM and DCMS could task “other bits of government to get that intel; and the findings will automatically enter the system” – meaning The Grayzone and its contributors could end up slapped with “Russian state affiliated media” labels on social media, leading to algorithmic discrimination and potential shadow banning, among other penalties.

    “I think/hope there’s potential to go further [emphasis added]. It’s too easy for them to flip deplatforming with ‘the system is scared of us’. We need to look at their influence/legitimacy with audiences,” Khan stated.

    The the rest of the full report at The GrayZone

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 23:40

  • Shipping Stocks Crash After JPM Points To Latest Freightwaves Recession Alert
    Shipping Stocks Crash After JPM Points To Latest Freightwaves Recession Alert

    Yesterday, in “US Import Demand Is Dropping Off A Cliff“, we noted that Freightwaves (best known for sparking a crash in freight stocks at the end of March when the company’s CEO said that a “freight recession is imminent”) warned that “despite the strong levels of inbound cargo during the first five months of 2022, import demand is not just softening — it’s dropping off a cliff” or 36% in just the past few weeks…

    … as retailers (ahem Target and Walmart) “suddenly” realize they have over-ordered way too much inventory, and noted that as a result, “Drewry’s container spot rates from China to the West Coast have plunged 41% month-over-month to $9,630.” While there is much more in the full note, the gist was simple: shipping rates are sliding and are set to fall further as demand for cargo evaporates with the US sliding into recession.

    We bring this up because this morning JPMorgan also brought it up, with the bank’s European Transport and Logistics analyst Samuel Bland writing that a note titled “Freight Markets” (available to pro subscribers in the usual place), in which he draws attention to the FreightWaves article which he says “suggests that US import volumes of containers have fallen sharply in recent weeks. We see a similar thing in weekly data from LA and Long Beach ports.” Some details excerpted from the JPM note:

    • For context. March 2022 container volume vs the 2019 level was 4% higher globally and 43% higher on the Asia – North America lane in particular. “Normal” volume growth might be 3-4% CAGR, such that globally volume is quite weak, but very strong on Asia-US in particular. This focusing on demand on one lane, straining infrastructure and labor availability has driven up supply chain  congestion. Presumably, lower US volume would help to unwind this, freeing up to c.12% of ship capacity currently stuck in congestion.
    • Freight rates. Freight rates show a mixed pattern depending on which index is used. On a global basis, all the indices are down c.20% YTD, and by closer to 25% on a bunker-neutral basis. On the China-US West Coast lane in particular, SCFI is flat YTD, whereas the equivalent Freightos index is down 31% YTD. Importantly, the Freightos decline has all happened in the last month, with the indexed having been up YTD until early May.
    • Freight forwarder exposure. It is important to remember that sharply falling freight rates can be positive for freight forwarder  profitability in the short run. This is driven by forwarders not passing on all the saving to customers in the near term.
    • Bunker costs. We’d also highlight that the spread between low and high sulphur bunker fuel has widened sharply in recent weeks, to around $360 / tonne currently, up from nearer $120 / tonne in early May. This is most negative for those container lines with a high level of spot exposure and low level of scrubber fittings, both of which point to ZIM

    JPM concludes that since the strength of the US consumer has been a key ingredient in the level of freight rate increase seen since COVID, “this is negative for the sector generally, particularly container shippers and particularly ZIM.”

    The market’s reaction was quick, and just as FreightWaves crashed truckers two months ago, this time they demolishes shipping stocks which tumbled Wednesday: the Russell 3000 Index Marine Transportation Subsector dropped 4.8% for its biggest decline in a month, with all 15 members of the index were down Wednesday. Among the components, Eagle Bulk Shipping plummeted as much as 12%, its biggest intraday decline in a month, to lead a drop among index members Other notable decliners include Matson -9.3%, Genco Shipping & Trading -8.3%, Costamare -7.4%, Safe Bulkers -6.9%.

    The news of a looming shipping recession quickly spread around the globe. In Europe, shares in major shipping companies including Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and Kuehne & Nagel fell, on both the JPM note and also after Nordnet Bank economist Per Hansen noted similar concerns about lower freight rates as the container shipping market normalizes and about the impact of a possible recession in the US. Maersk dropped as much as 8.3%, the most intraday in a month, while Hapag-Lloyd falls as much as 8.3% and Kuehne & Nagel drops 4.4%

    A similar dumpfest was observed in Asia too, with shipping stocks in Japan and South Korea following their global peers lower following the JPMorgan reference to the FreightWaves article:

    • Japan’s Mitsui OSK -7%, Kawasaki Kisen -7.6%, Nippon Yusen -6.7%
    • South Korea shipping companies: HMM -3.8%, Korea Line -2.1%, Pan Ocean -3%
    • Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine -3.1%, Yang Ming Marine -2.3%, Wan Hai Lines -3.1%
    • Hong Kong-listed Cosco Shipping -6.7%, Orient Overseas -7%, Pacific Basin -5.5%, SITC International -6%
    • China’s Cosco Shipping Holdings -4.6%, Cosco Shipping Energy -3.4%, China Merchants Energy Shipping -3.1%, Ningbo Marine -1.1%

    And while shipping is certainly one of the most leading recessionary indicators, and a recession most certainly is looming, what we find fascinating is just how little work the “market” had done on shipping stocks: after all, all Freightwaves – and by extension JPM – did was to look at the latest shipping rates and volumes, data that is available to every Bloomberg terminal subscriber. And yet, not a single one appeared to have pulled it up… until today. Which begs the question: does anyone even remember how to do simple fundamental analysis any more?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 23:20

  • Obama Approved US Intel Statement On Russia-DNC Hack Before FBI Received Server Images
    Obama Approved US Intel Statement On Russia-DNC Hack Before FBI Received Server Images

    Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Barack Obama approved a statement by the U.S. intelligence community in October 2016 accusing Russia of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), despite the U.S. government not having obtained the DNC server images crucial to ascertaining whether Moscow was involved in the theft.

    President Barack Obama speaks alongside Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson (R) following the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, October 7, 2016. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    FBI emails recently made public during the trial against now-acquitted DNC attorney Michael Sussmann show the bureau was still in the process of requesting images of the DNC servers on Oct. 13, 2016. The server images, which are equivalent to a virtual copy of the alleged crime scene, were taken by private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

    On Oct. 7, six days before CrowdStrike agreed to mail the server images to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a statement accusing Russia of hacking U.S. political organizations and disseminating emails allegedly stolen through the hack. The statement was approved and encouraged by Obama, according to then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

    “The president approved the statement. I know he wanted us to make the statement. So that was very definitely a statement by the United States government, not just Jim Clapper and me,” Johnson told the House Intelligence Committee in June 2017, referring to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

    The DHS, ODNI, and the office of Barack Obama did not respond to requests for comment.

    The Oct. 7, 2016, statement said that the U.S. intelligence community, which is composed of more than a dozen agencies including the FBI, was “confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.”

    “The recent disclosures of alleged hacked emails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” the statement said.

    The lack of server images at the time the statement was released highlights the question of what the intelligence community used to establish Russia’s involvement.

    On Aug. 31, 2016, CrowdStrike provided a report on the DNC hack to the FBI. The FBI special agent who reviewed the report called it “heavily redacted,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the Russia investigation. FBI Assistant Director James Trainor was so frustrated with the redactions that “he doubted its completeness because he knew that outside counsel had reviewed it.”

    The “outside counsel” Trainor referred to is all but certainly Michael Sussmann, who served as the DNC’s point of contact for all intrusion-related matters. Sussmann was acquitted last month of one charge of lying to the FBI about whether he was representing the DNC when he took a white paper to the FBI that alleged a connection between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia. The FBI agents who reviewed the paper found the claims in it unfounded within 24 hours.

    On Sept. 30, 2016, one week before the release of the statement accusing Russia of the hack, the FBI was still seeking copies of the CrowdStrike reports without the redactions. That day, FBI Agent Adrian Hawkins listed copies of the unredacted CrowdStrike reports as the number one priority request to the DNC, according to another email made public as a trial exhibit in the Sussman case.

    The FBI never received the unredacted reports, according to a government court filing in the case against Roger Stone. According to the filing, lawyers for the DNC told prosecutors that “no redacted information” in the CrowdStrike reports “concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors.”

    Special counsel Robert Mueller alleged that the hack of the DNC during which emails were stolen took place on or around May 25 to June 1, 2016. That timeframe is significant because CrowdStrike has since told The Epoch Times that the DNC systems were not hacked during that time frame. Crowdstrike had deployed 200 sensors and other counter-intrusion technologies on the committee’s network within the first week of its engagement, which began on May 1, 2016.

    “There is no indication of any subsequent breaches taking place on the DNC’s corporate network or any machines protected by CrowdStrike Falcon,” the company told The Epoch Times in August 2020.

    CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry, who was in charge of the firm’s work on the DNC intrusion, has told congressional investigators that his company did not have concrete evidence that emails had been stolen from the DNC.

    “We have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated,” Henry told lawmakers on Dec. 5, 2017.

    The alleged hacking of the DNC and the subsequent release of the committee’s emails was the nexus of allegations of collusion with Russia that plagued the administration of President Donald Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 23:00

  • BIS Calls For Centralization Of Crypto – Predicts Rise Of CBDCs
    BIS Calls For Centralization Of Crypto – Predicts Rise Of CBDCs

    While citing multiple problems with the decentralization model for cryptocurrencies (some of them valid and some of them not), the Bank for International Settlements has concluded in a report released this week that crypto ‘can’t fulfill the role of money.’  As noted in the report:

    “Building on permissionless blockchains, crypto and DeFi seek to create a radically different monetary system, but they suffer from inherent limitations. A system sustained by rewarding a set of decentralised but self-interested validators through fees means that network effects cannot unfold. Instead, the system is prone to fragmentation and costly to use.

    Fragmentation means that crypto cannot fulfill the social role of money. Ultimately, money is a coordination device that facilitates economic exchange. It can only do so if there are network effects: as more users use one type of money, it becomes more attractive for others to use it. Looking to the future, there is more promise in innovations that build on trust in sovereign currencies.”

    Not surprisingly, this falls in line with a previous report from the BIS in May that predicts the expansive rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) in the near term.

    Whether or not one is an avid supporter or investor of crypto, it’s safe to say that a defining flaw of blockchain assets is the fact that anyone with proper knowledge can produce a cryptocurrency that is similar or identical to any other in terms of performance and characteristics.  This means that while crypto production or mining is often limited to a certain number of coins, which conjures up artificial rarity, this does not stop thousands of other coins from being invented that offer the same qualities. 

    In other words, a specific coin’s success is dependent not on the value of the technology (usually), but on branding and fickle popularity.  This can be as fleeting as any other digital asset; for example, for every Facebook there are multiple Myspace-type failures that were once used by millions of people and then abruptly abandoned.  Even Facebook has the potential to easily implode in terms of user significance in a short amount of time.  The same dynamic goes for cryptocurrencies.  Values are determined by market favor in the way that many stocks are valued. 

    That is to say, the users become a commodity, the ONLY commodity backing the value of a cryptocurrency.

    Another factor that has a potential for adding “value” to crypto is the development of infrastructure that eases trading and use of a coin.  It’s not enough for a cyptocurrency to exist, it also needs to have various assets in place that create functionality and convenience.  Some crypto assets like Bitcoin already enjoy this kind of infrastructure development, often because of billions of dollars of investment by international banks.  This seems to run contrary to the original motivation for crypto as a counter to major banks.

    Is “fragmentation” in crypto a problem for central banks and the BIS to solve?  No.  It’s far outside of their purview, but they have decided to make it their business.  The formation of the crypto world was intended to act as an alternative to the edicts and economic control of central bankers, at least that was how many people were sold on the idea.  But it is quickly becoming obvious that central banks plan to co-opt the movement towards blockchain and digital products and exploit them as a means to gain even more centralized power than most people thought possible.  Maybe that was the plan from the very beginning.

    A BIS survey suggests that around 60% of central banks around the world are now planning on introducing digital currencies in the near term.  These currencies would be “bridged” together through various infrastructure plans, and the BIS argues that crypto coins should be bridged together as well within the same system.  They do not specify what the mechanism for that bridge would be, but the IMF has mentioned on multiple occasions that their Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket would fill the role.  

    Essentially, the idea central banks have for crypto is to congeal all coins and currencies into one bridged basket system along with CBDCs, giving banks and the BIS even more control in the process.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 22:40

  • Time To Pour Some Cold Water On China's Red-Hot Stock Rally
    Time To Pour Some Cold Water On China’s Red-Hot Stock Rally

    By George Lei, Bloomberg markets Live Analyst and Commentator

    Chinese tech stocks are poised for their biggest weekly advance in months, boosted by news of a potential wrap-up of the probe into Didi as well as relaxed Covid curbs in Shanghai and Beijing. Still, it might be premature to call a bottom in the tech sector, let alone the broader market.  

    The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index has rallied about 15% since last Friday, poised for the best week in almost three months; the Hang Seng Tech Index is also on course for its biggest weekly gain since the end of April.

    Chinese equities are “bumping along the bottom” and will stage a “very strong and sustained recovery” once there’s a clear exit strategy from Covid Zero, said Chi Lo, a senior strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. JPMorgan also sees a “turning point” in China stocks with buying opportunities emerging, according to a Monday note by strategist Marko Kolanovic.

    The Golden Dragon Index has mostly consolidated in a 6,000-8,000 range over the past three months. The gauge may be forming a bottom, yet it is still more than 10% away from its 200-day moving average. Hang Seng Tech, among other stock indexes, remains far below the 200-DMA.

    “Expecting the regulator to change other rules, which currently harm the companies in my coverage, seems a bit too soon,” according to DZ Bank’s Manuel Muehl, who was the first among more than 70 analysts tracked by Bloomberg to go bearish on China tech.

    For broader Chinese stocks, how fast and far the rebound goes depends very much on how long Covid Zero lasts. BNP’s Lo sees little room for policy change this year but possibly more clarity into the second quarter of 2023: “The point here is the timing of that we don’t know,” he added.

    Bets on China reopening have always been risky. In early March, Trip.com and casino operator Wynn Resorts climbed 10.8% and 8.6% respectively on a report that China might experiment with a laxer Covid policy as soon as this summer. The gains quickly fizzled and current prices are about 15% and 22% below their respective closings back then. China is showing “little evidence” of reopening aviation and the industry will continue to suffer, IATA Director General Willie Walsh said on Tuesday.

    A case in point is Hong Kong. The city has allowed most mildly ill patients to stay at home since February, yet it announced last week that people infected with Covid sub-variants including BA.2.12.1 will be sent to government facilities for mandatory quarantine, even if they are not severely sick. Unless and until Hong Kong fully embraces living with the virus, it will be a stretch to expect China to abandon its pandemic rules any time soon.

    “Any new waves of Covid could return cities back to lockdowns” as long as “the leadership remains dedicated to its Zero Covid Strategy,” Nomura analysts led by Chief China Economist Ting Lu wrote in a report on Wednesday. Economic data are likely to improve in June, representing a brief respite rather than a real turning point since the property sector will still be under stress and fiscal stimulus will be used primarily to fill the funding gap of local governments, Lu argued.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 22:20

  • Beijing And Shanghai Have The Most Dollar-Rich Billionaires In The World
    Beijing And Shanghai Have The Most Dollar-Rich Billionaires In The World

    After looking at the ultra-wealthy, globally, it appears Beijing has the highest concentration of dollar-rich billionaires. This is according to a new study published by MoneyTransfers.com. 

    The site concluded that Beijing is home to 145 dollar billionaires and that it has retained its first position globally after added 35 new people to its list in 2020. 

    MoneyTransfers’ CEO Jonathan Merry commented: “China continues to rip big from its optimization of the investment market by liberalizing and facilitating investments. The trickle-down has seen certain regions emerge as investment hubs. One of these is Beijing. Its modernization and dynamism provide the perfect scene for incubating business ideas, particularly in technology.”

    The analysis also showed that China has the highest number of dollar-rich billionaires. The country is the only one who has over 1,000 people whose net worths are over a billion dollars, the report says. The U.S. comes in second:

    “Chinese cities also dominate the global top 10 inhabited by these ultra-rich,” MoneyTransfer.com reported. “Shanghai follows Beijing in the second position with 113 billion dollar-rich individuals. It outranked New York from 2020 after gaining another 30 of these in 2021.”

    New York is the third most attractive city to the ultra rich, the report notes. London is fifth and Moscow is seventh. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 22:00

  • 6 Members Of Haiti's Special Olympics Delegation Go Missing In Florida: Police
    6 Members Of Haiti’s Special Olympics Delegation Go Missing In Florida: Police

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

    Six members of Haiti’s Special Olympics delegation mysteriously went missing just a day into the 2022 event in Orlando, Florida, according to local law enforcement.

    In an announcement, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said that officers are “actively investigating a missing person’s case involving members of the Haitian delegation participating in the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games.”

    “We are in communication with Walt Disney World, Special Olympics, and our Law Enforcement and Federal partners,” the sheriff’s office stated.

    “At this time, we believe this is an isolated event and do not suspect foul play.”

    Anyone with information is asked to contact the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.

    In an attached missing persons bulletin, the sheriff’s office said that all of the members had turned in their room keys and “left behind their personal bags and belongings.”

    All of them are adults, aged between 18 and 32. They are Antione Mithon, 32, Nicholson Fontilus, 20, Peter Berlus, 19, Anderson Petit-Frere, 18, Steevenson Jacquet, 24, and Oriol Jean, 18. The bulletin said they are “in the United States competing in a soccer competition from Haiti.”

    The bulletin states that they were last seen at 710 S Victory Way, in Kissimmee, Florida, on June 6, 2022 at about 2:30 p.m. local time. Kissimmee is south of Orlando.

    “The individuals are all adults, five of whom are not Special Olympics athletes and one who is an adult with intellectual disability,” the Special Olympics said in a statement to CNN.

    “The well-being of these delegates is our foremost concern. Local authorities have indicated they have no reason to believe the health and safety of any of the individuals is at risk. To expand the reach and effectiveness of law enforcement’s efforts to locate these individuals, they have been reported as missing persons.”

    Petit-Frere recently introduced himself as one of the soccer players on Team Haiti.

    “My name is Anderson Petit-Frere, I am from Port-au-Prince and I am 18 years old,” he wrote on the Special Olympics Haiti’s Instagram account at the start of the games.

    The games run from June 5 through June 12.

    “The 2022 Special Olympics USA Games will unite more than 5,500 athletes and coaches from all 50 states and the Caribbean and 125,000 spectators during one of the country’s most cherished sporting events,” organizers said.

    credittrader
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 21:40

  • ECB Preview: QE Ends But Too Soon For Rate Hikes
    ECB Preview: QE Ends But Too Soon For Rate Hikes

    Submitted by Newsquawk

    • ECB policy announcement due Thursday 9th June; rate decision at 12:45BST/ 07:45EDT, press conference from 13:30BST/ 08:30EDT
    • Policymakers are set to announce that purchases under APP will end as of July 1st
    • The Governing Council will likely confirm that rate hikes will commence at the July meeting

    OVERVIEW: Since its previous meeting, Eurozone inflation has continued to pick up, with the headline rising from 5.9% Y/Y to 7.4% Y/Y in April, and then extending to 8.1% in May. This has struck a sense of alarm at the central bank, which has resulted in an increasingly hawkish tone from members of the Governing Council. A blog post in May penned by President Lagarde deviated from her usually non-committal stance; she now expects “net purchases under the APP to end very early in the third quarter. This would allow us a rate lift-off at our meeting in July”. Furthermore, she added that “we are likely to be in a position to exit negative interest rates by the end of the third quarter”, going on to state that “even when supply shocks fade, the disinflationary dynamics of the past decade are unlikely to return”. This was viewed as giving the green light for purchases under APP to cease as of July 1st, paving the way for rate hikes at the July and September meetings, analysts said.

    Note, despite the pressing need to move on rates, the current  sequencing between asset purchases and rate hikes means that a hike to the deposit rate will not take place at the June confab. For some of the more hawkish voices on the GC, such as Austria’s Holzmann, the recent inflation metrics emphasize the need for a 50bps hike. However, this is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved at the upcoming meeting given that the discussion around the magnitude of a hike will likely be a feature of the July gathering.

    In terms of market pricing, at the time of writing, the market looks for around 132bps of tightening this year, which would imply 25bps hikes at the three of the four meetings after June, with one meeting expected to see a 50bps increase. Given the need for flexibility and lack of certainty surrounding the Eurozone outlook, it is hard to see how much vindication market participants will get for the aforementioned rate path. We will also be presented with the latest batch of macro projections from the Bank which will inevitably see an upgrade to the current 5.1% forecast for 2022 inflation. Of potentially greater interest will be the more medium-term forecasts and how they align with the Bank’s 2% target. Finally, reporting over the weekend has suggested that policymakers could opt to strengthen the wording in its statement to underscore its commitment to avoiding fragmentation within the Eurozone.

    PRIOR MEETING: As expected, the ECB refrained from tweaking its monetary policy settings with rates left unchanged and the parameters of its bond-buying operations maintained. As such, the ECB stated it will lower purchases under APP to EUR 30bln from EUR 40bln in May and then to EUR 20bln in June before concluding in Q3. At the accompanying press conference, introductory remarks from Lagarde stated that several factors point to low growth ahead, new pandemic measures in Asia are contributing to supply chain issues and inflation pressures have intensified across many sectors. On policy measures, Lagarde refrained from providing any firmer pointers on when in Q3 purchases under APP will conclude. Lagarde also reiterated her line from the previous press conference that the “some time” linkage between the end of APP and start of rate hikes could mean “weeks” or “several months”. In the wake of the meeting, Reuters ECB sources suggested that policymakers saw a July hike as still possible, but they were unanimous in their support for April’s decision. Meanwhile, Bloomberg sources suggested there was a growing consensus for a 25bp rate hike in Q3. Finally, during her remarks, Lagarde didn’t add anything to the reports ahead of the meeting which suggested that the Bank was looking at crafting a crisis tool if bond yields were to jump.

    RECENT DATA: Since the prior meeting, inflation has continued to pick up with headline Eurozone Y/Y CPI rising from 5.9% to 7.4% in April and then extending to 8.1% as rising energy and food prices continue to drive price pressures higher. The core reading (ex-food and energy) also remains at elevated levels, rising to 4.4% in May from 3.9% as input prices are passed on to consumers. Elsewhere, attention has also been placed on Q1 wage data which rose from 1.5% Y/Y to 2.8% Y/Y. As a reminder and as highlighted by ING, chief economist Lane had mentioned that wage growth at 3% is consistent with reaching the goal of 2% inflation in the medium term. On the growth front, Q1 Q/Q GDP growth was confirmed at 5.0%. Timelier PMI metrics saw the Eurozone composite PMI metric slip to 54.8 from 55.8 with the report noting that “Strong demand for services helped sustain a robust pace of economic growth in May, suggesting the eurozone is expanding an underlying rate equivalent to GDP growth of just over 0.5%. However, risks appear to be skewed to the downside for the coming months.” Finally, unemployment in the Eurozone has continued to drift lower, with the April unemployment rate at 6.8%.

    RECENT COMMUNICATIONS: Arguably, the most important intervention from the Bank came from President Lagarde with her now infamous May 23rd blog post in which she deviated from her usually non-committal stance to state that she expects “net purchases under the APP to end very early in the third quarter. This would allow us a rate lift-off at our meeting in July”. Furthermore, “we are likely to be in a position to exit negative interest rates by the end of the third quarter”. Lagarde also went on to state “even when supply shocks fade, the disinflationary dynamics of the past decade are unlikely to return”. Chief Economist Lane (May 30th, pre-inflation) attempted to temper some of the more hawkish views on the GC by stating that monetary policy normalisation will be “slow” and the natural thing would be for 25bps increments. At the dovish end of the spectrum, the likes of Italy’s Panetta (May 25th) has acknowledged that negative rates are “no longer needed today”, however, he wishes to avoid a “normalisation tantrum”, adding that “normal does not mean neutral”. From a hawkish perspective, Austria’s Holzmann (1st June, post-inflation) says the “record Eurozone inflation print backs the need for a 50bps hike”. France’s Villeroy has been relatively vocal since the prior meeting, noting that too weak a EUR “would go against the ECB inflation target”. He also noted that he judges the neutral level of interest rates to be in the range of 1-2%.

    RATES/TIERING/TLTRO: The ECB is expected to stand pat on rates with the deposit, main refi and marginal lending rates to be held at -0.5%, 0.0% and 0.25% respectively with policymakers likely to refrain from moving on rates at the upcoming meeting and therefore preserve their sequencing commitments which state that rate hikes will not take place until asset purchases cease (expected early Q3). In terms of signalling how the Bank intends to tighten policy in the coming months, it remains to be seen if the statement will stay as is for now or be modified to align with Lagarde’s blog post which noted “we are likely to be in a position to exit negative interest rates by the end of the third quarter”. Regardless, Lagarde will likely state that rate hikes are forthcoming at the accompanying press conference. For some of the more hawkish voices on the GC, such as Austria’s Holzmann, the recent inflation metrics back the need for a 50bps hike. However, this is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved at the upcoming meeting given that the discussion around the magnitude of a hike will likely be a feature of the July gathering. As it stands, market pricing looks for around 132bps of tightening this year, which would imply 25bps hikes at the three of the four meetings after June, with one meeting expected to see a 50bps increase. Elsewhere, analysts at Rabobank expect the ECB to confirm that the TLTRO-III discount will not be extended after June.

    BALANCE SHEET: Current forward guidance notes that “net asset purchases under the APP should be concluded in the third quarter”. Since the prior meeting, guidance has been clear that this will be “early Q3” and as such, consensus is firmly in favour of purchases ending on July 1st. Policymakers will continue to note that reinvestments from PEPP and APP will continue to support favorable liquidity conditions in the Eurozone. That said, there have been some concerns that the levels of reinvestments might not be enough to prevent fragmentation in the Eurozone as the ECB begins to normalize policy. Accordingly, there have been reports suggesting that the ECB could formulate a “new tool” to address this issue. A recent report in the FT has suggested that policymakers are expected to “strengthen their commitment to prop up vulnerable eurozone countries’ debt markets if they are hit by a sell-off”. As it stands, it doesn’t appear that the specifics of such a tool have been designed and therefore, for now, policymakers will likely enhance some of the language surrounding future bond purchases. One option, as suggested by the FT would be for the statement to incorporate similar language to that of Lagarde’s recent blog post which reads “If necessary, we can design and deploy new instruments to secure monetary policy transmission as we move along the path of policy normalisation, as we have shown on many occasions in the past.”

    ECONOMIC FORECASTS: From an inflationary perspective, clearly inflation has surprised to the upside since the previous projection round in March. Accordingly, analysts at Nordea expect the 2022 forecast of 5.1% to be revised higher to around 7%. Nordea suggests that this will most likely understate the inflationary outlook given that the cut-off date for submitting the projections will likely not account for recent price movements, including the May HICP release. Of potentially greater interest will be the medium-term outlook and how it aligns with the Bank’s 2% inflation target. As it stands, inflation next year is expected to pull back to 2.1%. A figure materially above 2% could be viewed as a green-light for the current path of market expectations which looks for 132bps of tightening by year-end. From a growth perspective, given the fallout from higher prices, Nordea expect 2022 and 2023 GDP projections to be cut to around 3.0% and 1.5% respectively from 3.7% and 2.8% respectively. Finally, in terms of market reaction, ING notes that “any message that does not signal the ECB’s openness to a 50bp hike in July would likely fall short of the market’s hawkish expectations and push EUR/USD closer to 1.0500.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 21:21

  • White House Defends Biden's Plans To Visit 'Pariah' Saudi Arabia & Meet With MbS
    White House Defends Biden’s Plans To Visit ‘Pariah’ Saudi Arabia & Meet With MbS

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The White House on Tuesday defended President Biden’s plans to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, a country he once vowed to make a “pariah.” Although the dates for Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia haven’t yet been set, he did confirm that he has plans to meet with MbS, who is the Kingdom’s de facto leader. Defending the MbS meeting, the White House said it will “serve the US national interest.”

    “This trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia — when it comes — would be in the context of significant deliverables for the American people in the Middle East region,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

    “If he determines that it’s in the interest of the United States to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he’ll do so,” she added. Biden is expected to press MbS to increase oil output as Americans are facing record-high gas prices.

    But the plan has exposed the hypocrisy of the Biden administration as the US has banned the import of Russian oil over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine while turning to Saudi Arabia for help, a country that has been leading a brutal war against its neighbor Yemen with US support since March 2015.

    Biden’s plan to meet with MbS has drawn criticism from Congress. Six House Democrats sent a letter to President Biden urging him to “recalibrate” the US-Saudi relationship. 

    Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that if he were in Biden’s shoes, he wouldn’t meet with MbS because of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who US intelligence assessed was killed at the direction of the Saudi crown prince.

    “I wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t shake his hand. This is someone who butchered an American resident, cut him up into pieces and in the most terrible and premeditated way,” Schiff said.

    Democrats in Congress have also led a renewed effort to end the war in Yemen by introducing a war powers resolution to end US support for the conflict. The bill has 55 cosponsors, including five Republicans.

    Biden has received significant pushback mainly from members of his own party:

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    A two-month ceasefire in Yemen held relatively well with no Saudi airstrikes reported in that time, and the warring sides agreed to extend the truce.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 21:00

  • Nebraska GameStop Forced To Close After Four Employees Walk Out Over "Verbally Abusive" District Manager
    Nebraska GameStop Forced To Close After Four Employees Walk Out Over “Verbally Abusive” District Manager

    Power to the players…but maybe not the employees. Certainly that’s how some GameStop staff have been feeling in Lincoln, Nebraska.

    The store was forced to close over the weekend when its four employees decided to walk out over “bad working conditions” and a “verbally abusive district manager”, according to Yahoo Finance. 

    Incredibly it is the second time this year the location has seen its entire staff resign in protest.

    The employees left a sign on the door of the store near the mall which said: “We regret to inform you that we all quit.”

    It continued: “Our District Manager has no respect for us as employees or as human beings. We have been told by our district manager that we were supposed to have had this store achieving sales quotas and running perfectly 6 months ago. Which was 3 months before alot of us even got hired. Unfortunately, despite the staff’s best efforts, we are not god.”

    The sign then even listed competitors where customers could take their money, including a store called EntertainMart, located in the same mall. 

    “Spend your money at an establishment that respects it’s employees [sic],” the sign read. 

    The store told media on Monday that they would reopen “soon” and directed inquires to a PR firm, who “refused an on-the-record comment” over the phone or in writing. 

    Frank Maurer, the store’s recently promoted manager, told Yahoo: “For my health I had to leave.” He said after starting working at the store in 2021, “the stress and anxiety were so bad he had trouble sleeping and wasn’t even enjoying games anymore”. He was paid $17 per hour, he said, and didn’t get help when asked.

    “When I asked for support I was met with silence,” Maurer added.

    Talking about his district manager, he concluded: “He was abusive verbally. He would constantly threaten people’s jobs.” The staff would be told they could be easily replaced by other college kids, part of a ceaseless “churn and burn” mentality that Maurer said was part of why the store was struggling to meet its unrealistic quotas. “All he sees are numbers on a computer.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 20:40

  • Judge Rejects GOP Challenge To Mail-In Voting In Arizona
    Judge Rejects GOP Challenge To Mail-In Voting In Arizona

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A judge has ruled that Arizona’s legislature is within its constitutional rights to allow “no-excuse” mail-in ballots, denying the state GOP’s legal challenge ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

    People wait in line to drop off mail-in ballots in a file photo. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

    Mojave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen ruled against the Arizona GOP and its chair, Dr. Kelli Ward, in support of a 1991 law that permits no-excuse mail-in ballots.

    “Defendants for the past thirty years have applied the laws of Arizona as written,” Jantzen wrote in his ruling (pdf). “The laws are far from perfect and nobody anticipated thirty years ago that approximately 90 percent of Arizona voters would vote by mail-in ballot during a pandemic, but these laws are NOT in violation of the Arizona Constitution.”

    No-excuse mail-in ballots “are not inapposite of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution,” he added.

    The Arizona GOP signalled their intention to “explore their next steps” following the ruling, including to appeal it in a higher court.

    Election integrity in Arizona has been pressing issue since the 2020 general elections, the results of which have been vigorously disputed. In 2020, around 89 percent of voters voted by mail before election day.

    “The Republican Party of Arizona, under Chairwoman Dr. Kelli Ward, is concerned that if this ruling stands, Arizona’s most vulnerable voters will be deprived of the protections to which they are constitutionally entitled,” the Arizona GOP said in a statement on Monday.

    The Arizona GOP said it seeks to restore mail-in ballots for the “sick, elderly, and other absentee voters” to ensure they have the constitutionally guaranteed protection of election officials safeguarding their votes from “ballot traffickers.”

    “We are sorry that the most vulnerable voters of Arizona will not receive the protections to which they are constitutionally entitled if this ruling stands—people who truly cannot make it to the polls versus those who find convenience voting in the comfort of their homes,” said Alex Kolodin, the attorney representing the case.

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    The Arizona GOP argues that a lack of chain of custody “when a voter votes by mail under our current system” exposes the election system to weakness. They also argue that there is no possible way to ensure the secrecy of a ballot cast by mail.

    Ballot secrecy is a key pillar of the state’s mail-in ballot laws, which Jantzen noted in his written ruling.

    The language of the state constitution does not prohibit mail-in ballots yet does allow new laws concerning voting to be passed as long as secrecy in voting is preserved, Jantzen wrote.

    He noted that mail-in voting began in Arizona in 1918 “to allow people that could not get to the polls, mostly military people, an opportunity to vote.”

    “These laws mandated the mail-in voter keep his ballot private, so the legislature had the right to write election laws in 1918 that maintained secrecy, and they did so,” Jantzen wrote.

    On June 4, Ward, who has been challenging the no-excuse mail-in voter system, said on Twitter, “I want voting to occur in person and on Election Day, don’t you?”

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    The Arizona legislature approved no-excuse mail-in voting in 1991, and it became effective on Jan. 1, 1992. The law states that early ballots must be returned in envelopes “of a type that does not reveal the voter’s selections or political party affiliation and that is tamper evident when properly sealed.”

    Mail-in ballots must be folded and sealed in an envelope, Jantzen noted, along with an affidavit, in a way “so as to conceal the vote.” They are then either delivered, mailed, or deposited by the voter or the voter’s agent “at any polling place in the county.”

    A state Supreme Court appeal by Ward that challenged ballot boxes and remote voting was already rejected in April, Just The News reported.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 20:20

  • Massive Migrant Caravan Targeting Texas Could Be Biggest One Yet
    Massive Migrant Caravan Targeting Texas Could Be Biggest One Yet

    With their eyes on Texas, a massive new migrant caravan is underway in southern Mexico. It’s the largest of 2022 and—thanks in part to Mexican government accommodations—it might soon be the biggest one on record. 

    Many previous caravans have crumbled in sometimes-violent confrontations with National Guard troops, or upon reaching internal checkpoints where migrants are prevented from crossing Mexican state borders for lack of visas.

    However, caravan organizer Luis Villigran told Fox News the Mexican government has committed to start issuing 1,000 temporary work visas a day to the migrants he’s leading northward. 

    That will certainly ease migrants’ progress. At the same time, by authorizing migrants to work in Mexico’s northern states—where employment opportunities are more plentiful than in the south—the visas give migrants some reason to stay south of the U.S. border. 

    With numbers already estimated at 12,000 or more, the caravan departed the far-southwest Mexico border city of Tapachula on Monday, blocking multiple highway lanes as it began a thousand-mile journey to the Texas border. Organizers plan to make most of the trek by traveling along Mexico’s eastern coast. 

    The caravan includes people from a variety of countries, with Venezuelans reportedly representing a large share. Venezuela’s struggle to rebound from disastrous economic policies is made harder by U.S. sanctions that are meant to punish the regime but which end up making innocent citizens miserable—and encouraging migration to the United States.

    Villagran claims nearly 70% of the caravan are women and children, but photos in news accounts frequently depict crowds of adult males. 

    Migrants on the move in Mexico’s Chiapas state on June 7 (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

    The caravan’s departure coincides with the Summit of the Americas that Biden is hosting in Los Angeles this week. On Friday, summit participants are expected to sign a declaration about migration.

    Reporting on the draft of what will be hailed as the “Los Angeles Declaration” indicate it’s an aspirational document rather than a set of binding commitments. According to AP: 

    The agreement may call for more pathways to legal status, mechanisms to reunite families, more efficient and humane border controls and improved information sharing, according to experts who have seen early drafts.

    Biden excluded Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua from the summit, which prompted the leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—key countries in the ongoing mass migration dilemma— to skip the summit themselves. Their absence guarantees the summit will be a dud. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 20:00

  • Texas LNG Export Terminal Shuttered For Three Weeks After Explosion
    Texas LNG Export Terminal Shuttered For Three Weeks After Explosion

    Update (1749ET): The explosion at Freeport LNG at Quintana Island has forced operations at the oil and gas export facility to be halted “for a minimum of three weeks,” according to local news KPRC.

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    Freeport receives about 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day or roughly 16% of the total US LNG export capacity. This means LNG exports will shrink and result in more supply on the grid, pushing down natural gas prices.

    Here’s earlier footage of the explosion. 

    * * * 

    A “small explosion” at Freeport LNG terminal in Surfside Beach, Texas, resulted in the plunge of natural gas futures on Wednesday afternoon. 

    Local news KHOU reports the incident occurred around 1140 local time in the 1500 block of Lamar Street at the facility on Quintana Island. 

    “We are in the process of monitoring the situation and will provide information accordingly,” Freeport’s Director of Corporate Communications Heather Browne told The Facts. 

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    The Facts posted a picture of the export terminal showing black smoke rising from the facility. 

    Houston-based energy firm Criterion Research shared more views of the facility via local news KPRC’s live aerial view. 

    Criterion points out that the facility is the fourth largest in the US in terms of flows. Freeport receives about 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day, or roughly 16% of total US LNG export capacity.

    Natgas contracts slumped as much as 12% on the news to $8.43. 

    For those puzzled by the price action, US NatGas’s slump is in response to the prospect that fewer LNG exports would mean more supply domestically, though inversely, it would mean higher prices in Europe since the US has been increasingly sending LNG across the Atlantic to ween European countries off Russian supplies. 

    Criterion sheds more color on the importance of the Freeport LNG terminal and how a disruption at the facility could push more supply back onto the grid. 

    It’s very early and the situation is still developing, but we can give a bit of background on the situation and potential worse-case impacts.Through the first eight days of June, Freeport has been receiving an average of 1.95 Bcf/d and the facility’s latest high was 2.0 Bcf/d this morning.

    Assuming the worst-case scenario is a complete facility outage through the end of October, Freeport LNG’s incident could push back an average of 1.95 Bcf/d to the grid and add +285 Bcf to storage. Even a two-month outage through July 2022 would add +105 Bcf to inventories.

    The other factor to keep in mind is that it is smaller, but Freeport does pull a good amount of power from the grid. According to the EIA, the electric-driven facility pulls 690 MW of power supply when fully operational.

    Others seem to be agreeing with Criterion’s view:

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    With almost three-quarters of US LNG heading to Europe in the first four months of this year, this ‘explosion’ has the potential to seriously up-end global natgas supplies.

    Will Putin is blamed for this explosion? We doubt it because…

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 19:49

  • How Fake Is Twitter's User Data?
    How Fake Is Twitter’s User Data?

    Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Over the last several weeks, the perception has grown that Elon Musk will not be the emancipator of Twitter, freeing it finally from its mysterious algorithms that throttle, block, and ban perfectly wonderful accounts solely based on the political vendetta of employees and management.

    The Twitter application is seen on a digital device in San Diego on April 25, 2022. (Gregory Bull/AP Photo)

    It’s said that he has cold feet, as if Elon’s demand for better data is purely a cover for emotional doubt. That’s simply not true. What he has intuited—that Twitter underreports the sheer fake accounts and bot armies that use its platform—could in fact become another scandal for our age.

    Twitter says it’s only 5 percent.

    Elon has crowd-sourced the question and suspects it is closer to 20 percent.

    The truth is out there, but Twitter is not forthcoming. Why might this be? Here is where we get to the core of the issue: the reach data provided by these companies—this pertains not only to Twitter but to hundreds of thousands of sites—form the basis of its pricing structure for advertisers and therefore drive the fundamentals of the business model.

    [ZH: According to WaPo, Twitter execs have agreed to deliver the ‘firehose’ of all their data to Musk (a service they already provide to several clients). Of course what we do not know is how accurate that ‘firehose’ is…]

    The business model is that these companies sell your content—which you provide because you want your views known—to advertisers so that they can sell to you. Advertisers are charged for access to your brain based on an overall estimate of how many users are on the platform and how broad is the reach. Accuracy is of huge importance here.

    But accuracy has not exactly defined the way these companies have long operated. The data are subject to manipulation in the extreme. For example, Twitter has proven to be absolutely awful at policing the number of fake accounts that pretend to be some famous person with large followers. One might suspect that getting rid of such accounts should be part of Twitter’s main focus.

    I’ve dealt with it for years and spent far too much time getting rid of them. Who has such time? It’s ridiculous. But have a look at this problem which has been going on for many weeks now. Brownstone’s Martin Kulldorff has a famous Twitter account but I can easily search his name which turns up many fake accounts. Notice the slightly different spellings. This isn’t rocket science! Does Twitter do anything about it? Not in many weeks.

    If this is any indication of the underlying realities, Twitter has a very big problem. Instead of focusing its energies on censoring good accounts, it might have applied its energies to solving a problem that affects all users.

    And yet there is more at stake. Consider that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has initiated an investigation into Twitter. If the company has falsely reported its real user base, that stands in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paxton has given the company until June 27, 2022, to produce evidence for how it calculates the numbers it has routinely touted to advertisers. We’ll see. It will probably end up in court.

    Twitter’s reluctance to comply with Elon’s demand, and seeming lack of transparency here, is hardly unusual in this industry. It affects the whole of the digital world. The data is easily manipulated. Users are not necessarily users. People have learned to game the system to manufacture influence. Companies count as a user people who have created accounts and forgotten about them, not having logged in for years.

    I’ve been working hard recently to clean up my accounts out there, and discovered for myself just how tricky this can be. I once thought Snapchat would be a thing, so I got an account (don’t judge me). Then it bored me. I found the app the other day and decided to delete my account. After 30 minutes of trying, having completely forgotten my logins and so on, and then searching forever for the way out, I finally gave up. Yes, I could have solved the issue but doing so is too arduous. Same goes probably for another dozen or two such accounts.

    Meanwhile, I’m sure these companies list me as a user. In other words, it’s a racket.

    Years ago, I had begun to watch the behavior of a certain media team that was using YouTube and I noticed that there was something not quite right about the wild claims they were making. One day I did a deep drill down into this alleged traffic. It turned out that 95 percent were views of only a few seconds, and most of those came from strange and far-flung places in the world. It turned out that the production company was paying pennies on views that were not actual views. But to know that, you have to look very carefully and very deeply. It’s there but buried.

    The problem is systematic and gigantic. Facebook faced a similar problem. The overcharges in this realm are legion. The ability to generate fake users, views, and traffic is rather easy to achieve. It proves too tempting for these outlets, especially because investors and advertisers are so easily bamboozled. I’ve long been on the admin side and see the realities, and they are nothing like what these companies report.

    If Elon can manage to get to the bottom of this, he will have had an amazing impact on the whole social media industry. Even if he never becomes the owner of Twitter, he will force new levels of transparency and truth. There could be huge scandals lurking out there, not only at Twitter and YouTube, but also at Facebook, TikTok, and many more. These revelations could prompt yet another deep correction in company valuations.

    There is a larger point here. Think about the use of the energies of these companies. They have their staff working long hours with deep focus to find reasons to ban anyone with right-of-center views. They have deleted thousands and even millions of legitimate accounts of people who have said truthful things, all at the behest of their government masters. Bans continue unabated, daily, hourly.

    And while they have been doing this, they have allowed bot armies to run uncontrolled in ways that radically diminish user experience. In other words, they are not doing their actual jobs and instead are using the platform to push an agenda.

    This is obviously unsustainable. But these are times of truth. It’s all going to come out. These are the days of the great reckoning.

    What is happening to Twitter now is happening to the entire economic environment. A new poll reveals a dramatic loss in economic optimism. A Wall Street Journal poll says that 83 percent of those surveyed rate the economy as not good or poor. The dissatisfaction is intensifying.

    Frothy social media companies, platforms that won big from lockdowns that they pushed and championed on behalf of governments around the world, could see a serious cleaning of their clocks in this environment. With or without Elon’s proposed takeover of Twitter, the privileged censors who have relied on inflated numbers for years are not going to fare well.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 19:40

  • Even If Ukraine's Ports Open Up Tomorrow, It Will Take "Months" To Demine Them: UN
    Even If Ukraine’s Ports Open Up Tomorrow, It Will Take “Months” To Demine Them: UN

    At a moment global humanitarian and hunger relief groups are warning of a “catastrophe” for already vulnerable populations particularly in Africa and the Middle East which rely heavily on Ukrainian and Black Sea region grain exports, the United Nations has said it will likely take “months” to de-mine Ukraine’s ports. The war-torn country is the fourth biggest exporter of grain in the world.

    Hundreds of merchant vessels had been stranded in the war’s opening months at Ukrainian ports following the Russian invasion, and still nearly 100 remain stuck along with their crews. This week a special advisor on maritime security at the UN’s International Maritime Organization told Bloomberg: “Even if the ports wanted to reopen tomorrow it would take some time until ships could enter or depart.” But it remains that before this, “Completely removing sea mines in the port areas would take several months.”

    Image via Yonhap News

    The de-mining issue has stalled UN-sponsored negotiations in Istanbul between Russia and Turkey to establish a ‘grain corridor’ to get the vital exports needed for much of the world’s food moving again. Kiev has charged that both the Russian naval blockade as well as Russian forces’ theft of Ukraine’s grain is the reason for the emerging global food and supply crisis, while the Kremlin has long blamed Ukraine for heavily mining its own ports.

    Statements from the Ukrainian and Russian governments, as well as in international reports, indicate there are literally multiple thousands of mines up and down Ukraine’s coast. For this reason, Ukrainian government officials have estimated that if it started demining efforts now, it would take a whopping six months to clear the coast of Ukrainian and Russian mines, as cited in The Guardian.

    In his latest statements, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the onus is on the Ukrainian side: 

    “We state daily that we’re ready to guarantee the safety of vessels leaving Ukrainian ports and heading for the (Bosphorus) gulf, we’re ready to do that in cooperation with our Turkish colleagues,” he said after talks with his Turkish counterpart.

    “To solve the problem, the only thing needed is for the Ukrainians to let vessels out of their ports, either by demining them or by marking out safe corridors, nothing more is required.”

    Ukraine has rejected this narrative or that it bears responsibility for placing mines in the face of an invading power. The standoff and firm words on Wednesday strongly suggesting there’s no resolution to the crisis in sight.

    “Freight and insurance costs spiked after several merchant ships were hit in the early days of Russia’s invasion, and some shipping companies are still avoiding the Black Sea,” Bloomberg details of a still dangerous situation for Black Sea shipping. “Three mines were detected free-floating in March, two off the coast of Turkey and one near Romania. In the northwest of the Black Sea near Ukraine, commercial ships have stopped operating,” the report adds.

    In terms of estimated numbers, there were initially 2,000 commercial ships stuck at Ukrainian ports – but in recent weeks this is down to over 80 international ships which represent some 450 crew members.

    Most of Ukraine and Russian grain exports originate at these 9 ports. Russian exports have largely resumed.

    But again, even if a deal between Russia and Ukraine to lift the blockade were struck tomorrow, the presence of mines would make it unsafe for commercial maritime traffic:

    According to the UN, Russia and Ukraine supply about 40% of the wheat consumed in Africa, where prices have already risen by about 23%.

    However, Markiyan Dmytrasevych, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of agrarian policy and food, said on Tuesday that even if Russia lifted its blockade, thousands of mines would remain floating around the port of Odesa, and elsewhere.

    Meanwhile, spokesman for the World Food Programme, Petroc Wilton, told Sky News on Wednesday that an already bad situation is about to get a lot worse. “Food prices were already going really, really high,” he said, and explained: “The concern now is that Ukraine is making these things worse, but also because of the impact that the Ukraine crisis is having on aviation fuel costs, (and) is having on international shipping costs.”

    He emphasized: “So the real concern right now is that Ukraine will make an already dire situation so much worse.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 19:20

  • Tennessee Governor Signs Executive Order To Enhance School Safety, Calls For 'Single Point Of Entry'
    Tennessee Governor Signs Executive Order To Enhance School Safety, Calls For ‘Single Point Of Entry’

    Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order on Monday to ensure working safety protocols at schools, and to evaluate training for law enforcement for handling active shooter scenarios, in a bid to fortify school security across the state after the recent mass shooting at a school in Texas in which 21 people were killed.

    “Parents need to have full confidence that their children are safe at school, and thankfully, Tennessee has built a firm foundation with our practical approach to securing schools, recognizing crisis, and providing confidential reporting of any suspicious activity,” Lee, a Republican, said in a statement.

    “This order strengthens accountability and transparency around existing school safety planning and assures Tennessee parents that our efforts to protect students and teachers will continue.”

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on April 30, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    For parents, the executive order (pdf) creates a “School Safety Resources and Engagement Guide” to provide parents with information about how to report suspicious or concerning activity to school administrators and local law enforcement. The guide would also help parents inquire about building security and compliance at their child’s school, and provides parents ways to access mental health resources for their child.

    Lee in the order called on parents and the community to work with law enforcement to ensure simple practices, such as “ensuring a single point of entry and multiple points of exit, securing vestibules and other access points, and reporting suspicious activity.”

    Tennessee state agencies will also provide more guidance to help local school districts implement current school safety law. Under the law, public schools are required each year to carry out a school security assessment and submit a safety plan to the state’s school safety center.

    The guidance will include more frequent audits of local school security assessments and safety plans, and will also provide a set of “best practices” for school leaders to enhance the security of a building against an intruder.

    Among a slew of other measures, the executive order will ensure that educators, school leaders, and staff will have additional training and educational materials no later than Aug. 1.

    For law enforcement, the executive order directs the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance to “evaluate and assess law enforcement training standards” and to recommend improvements to existing training for active-shooter scenarios. The department must provide a report to the governor by July 1.

    The executive order will also direct the same department to “review the use of armed security guards in non-public schools” and, with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, report to the governor regarding “the need for active-shooter training for armed guards.”

    At a press conference on Monday, Lee was asked by reporters multiple times about the issue of gun laws and gun violence.

    “There are a lot of conversations that are happening all across the country about laws that affect gun ownership and red flag laws, and waiting-period laws. And there will be those conversations all across the country. We’re not looking at gun restriction laws in my administration right now,” Lee said. “One thing to remember—criminals don’t follow laws. Criminals break laws. Whether they are a gun law, a drug law, criminals break laws. We can’t control what they do but we can control what we can control and that’s what we’re working on today.”

    Separately, he said, “Certainly, gun violence is a serious problem in our country, and it has been a rising problem in our country.” He noted that gun violence is just one aspect of violent crime. “Crime is a problem,” he said.

    When asked again about the administration’s actions on gun laws, he said: “We are not talking in our administration about gun laws, gun registries. We’re working on school safety, and what’s been laid out and what’s been laid out in this plan today.”

    The May 24 Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, Texas, resulted in the deaths of 19 students and two teachers. Officials said an 18-year-old shooter entered the school via a back door that was unlocked.

    Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arrendondo became the target of accusations that he was responsible for a delayed police response to the shooting, after it was revealed that officers, after having entered the building, waited about 45 minutes to breach the classroom where the shooter, as well as students and teachers, were.

    Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said that Arrendondo held back officers from immediately breaching the classroom because he thought the situation was a barricaded suspect, not an active-shooter one.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 19:00

  • Chinese Passenger Car Sales Down 17% Year Over Year
    Chinese Passenger Car Sales Down 17% Year Over Year

    While Chinese passenger car sales look like they might bump higher sequentially for May, the country’s sales numbers are still down year over year.

    Sales are supposed to be down 17% year over year, according to Bloomberg and preliminary data from the China Passenger Car Association.

    This marks a 30% rise from April, totaling 1.35 million units sold.

    China continues to face tough comps, as last year’s demand was robust due to pull forward of demand aiming to capture EV subsidies and this year has slowed again due to a new round of Covid lockdowns. 

    Things aren’t going phenomenally for the global auto market in other countries, either. In Europe, we just noted that sales plunged by 20% in April, marking the 10th month in a row that sales fell. 

    At the time, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association noted that it was the steepest decline this year. The losing streak continues months after Goldman had opined that European automakers had already priced in a “stressed” scenario. 

    And in the U.S. we noted that May showed a marked slowdown in auto sales, as well. Companies like Honda and Mazda saw sales plunge between 27% and 63% year over year. As we noted, the lack of stimmy money and unemployment check bonuses, combined with the fact that rates are rising and spending is slowing, made for a tumultuous May report for some of the most well known legacy auto manufacturers. 

    It’s sure going to be tough to keep the melt-up in auto prices going with sales slowing down so much. Over the last year, both new and used car prices have soared amidst growing demand and a gummed up supply chain that’s keeping inventory sparse. With demand starting to falter and supply woes starting to ease, we wouldn’t be surprised to see prices start to come back down toward Earth…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 06/08/2022 – 18:40

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