Month: July 2024

Authored by Mary Lou Lang via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) found 200 missing children, including sex trafficking victims, abused children and runaways in a six-week nationwide operation, the Department of Justice announced July 1.

“One of the most sacred missions of U.S. Marshals Service is locating and recovering our nation’s critically missing children,” said USMS Director Ronald Davis.

“This is one of our top priorities as there remain thousands of children still missing and at risk.”

Of the children found, 173 were endangered runaways, one was a family abduction, another was a non-family abduction and 25 were considered otherwise missing. The youngest was a 5-month-old baby.

The USMS carried out Operation We Will Find You 2 along with federal, state and local agencies from May 20 to June 24.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) offered technical assistance in the operation.

Operation We Will Find You 2, the second such nationwide missing child operation, focused on geographical areas with large clusters of critically missing children, according to the DOJ.

It was conducted in the District of Arizona, the Eastern District of California, the Southern District of Florida, the Western District of Michigan, the Eastern District of North Carolina, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the District of Oregon.

One case in the Eastern District of North Carolina involved a one-year-old who was reported missing in Raleigh after the child’s mother failed to surrender her to the Department of Social Services, according to the release. The mother, who had been convicted of strangling her four-year-old son to death, was arrested and U.S. Marshals safely recovered the child.

Another case involved a 12-year-old girl who went missing from her family home in Portland, Oregon, on May 21 after she reported being sexually abused by family members.

Police officers contacted the child on her cell phone and she agreed to meet them at a grocery store. The child and a friend then called the police back, telling them her father was trying to force her into his car. USMC was able to intervene.

The child told law enforcement she had been raped by two males and that her father had touched her inappropriately. She was placed in a foster home then in a state-run shelter after the foster home placement did not work out.

Another case involved a 16-year-old girl reported missing after she ran away from a group home in Phoenix. The girl had been a victim of sex trafficking.

An investigation showed the child was possibly being sex trafficked in Los Angeles, and her suspected trafficker was murdered on May 25. The girl had told a family member she was going on vacation to Miami, and when she arrived a new sex trafficker took her to the beach and told her to make money.

Marshals found the girl in Flint, Michigan, on June 11, and she was taken into custody for a probation violation. A man she was found with was arrested for driving without a license and insurance. The Homeland Security Investigations is investigating the suspected trafficking case.

In New York, a 16-year-old girl who was a prior victim of human trafficking was reported missing in November of last year. The NYC Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit requested the USMS’s assistance in the case.

Two arrest warrants were executed for a 27-year-old man who was the prime subject in the case. On June 3, the girl was found in the man’s bedroom and evidence of sexual exploitation was discovered. The girl was placed in the care of the Administration for Children’s Services.

“Operation We Will Find You is a shining example of the results we can achieve when we unite in our mission to find missing children,” said President and CEO Michelle DeLaune of NCMEC in a press release.

“We are grateful that vulnerable children have been recovered as part of this operation, and we commend the U.S. Marshals Service and all the agencies involved for their commitment to protect youth and ensure these children are not forgotten.

“Behind every statistic, there is a child who deserves to grow up safe from harm.”

For much of the past year, Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick has had a nice, round number in mind for his 2024 year-end price target: after (somewhat accurately) predicting in late 2022 that Bitcoin could tumble as low as $5000 in the aftermath of the FTX collapse, Kendrick flipped in mid-2023 at which point – and ever since – he has argued that due to the “seismic changes in the institutional approach to Bitcoin in the United States”, the cryptocurrency would hit all time highs in 2024 (it did) and rise as high as $100,000 (it has yet to do that).

Then, at the start of 2024 and after the SEC approved bitcoin ETFs, Kendrick doubled down on the nice round numbers, and said that based on his ETF inflow assumptions, while he still thinks that an end-2024 Bitcoin price target of $100,000 is realistic, looking further out, the Standard Chartered strategist predicted that an end-2025 level closer to $200,000 is possible. This assumes that between 437,000 and 1.32 million new bitcoins will be held in spot US ETFs by end-2024. In USD terms, this should be roughly USD 50-100Bn.

Then, at the start of May, once it became increasingly realistic that not only did Trump have a fighting chance of defeating Biden but that Gary Gensler’s days are likely numbered – with the SEC’s relentless pushback against Ethereum ETFs unexpectedly collapsing – Kendrick made a follow up observation in which he once again returned to his nice, round number prediction, forecasting that bitcoin will surge above $100,000 “when we get closer to Trump election victory we can rally hard from say Sept. to year-end.”

Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick predicts that bitcoin will surge above $100,000 once Trump fires @GaryGensler: “when we get closer to Trump election victory we can rally hard from say Sept. to year-end”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 6, 2024

So here we are, two months later and not only is bitcoin not anywhere closer to the nice, round number but it has in fact dropped somewhat notably from where it traded in late May.

What gives?

As Kendrick explains in his latest note published this morning, “frustrated BTC bulls have come up with a number of theories as to why we are stuck in a range. The most popular (the one I have heard the most which also makes sense) is that longer term holders continue to sell to nearer term buyers. Hence rallies are sold into and dips are bought.”

The question then is what macro driver will be enough to make this stop? Kendrick thinks there will be a combination of Treasury yield movement which coalesces with a constructive US political backdrop, both of which he believes “will happen soon.”

Starting with the first, on Treasury yields the strategist previously identified 3 drivers that should be constructive BTC in the attached note:

• A steeper nominal 2Y/10Y curve
• A greater increase in breakevens than real yields
• An increase in term premium

And while far from perfect, Kendrick believes that there is a “reasonable correlation” between each of these and BTC prices, shown here as 3 month changes. Interestingly, in recent weeks the UST movements have started to improve for BTC direction (or have at least started to go sideways) whereas BTC prices have been weak, which suggests that there is something else holding back the prices.

But if the increasingly favorable moves in rates are not having an impact on bitcoin prices, then what is it: “why have BTC prices been weaker than the UST drivers would suggest?”

Here, Kendrick thinks it has to do with the current state of the US Presidential election.

Recall the previously discussed positive relationship between Trump’s electoral odds (shown here as the % probability of victory as reflected in betting markets) and BTC prices. The logic here is that both regulation and mining would be looked at more favorably under Trump:

Looking at the above chart, it is safe to say that BTC prices got ahead of Trump probabilities on ETF inflows, but BTC prices are now lagging. Why the lag?

Kendrick believes that this time BTC prices are lagging Trump probabilities because the probability of Biden stepping down/being replaced has been increasing. Specifically, the combined odds of Trump and Biden have now fallen to as low as 90% this week, the lowest level since March. That is, betting markets are saying there is a 10% chance someone other that Trump or Biden will win the Whitehouse.

Indeed, today’s story sources by the CIA’s favorite mouthpiece that Democrats are now in disarray and that Hunter Biden is effectively in charge of the country…

Hunter Biden has joined meetings with President Biden and his top aides this week at the White House, four people familiar with the matter tell my colleagues, who are told the reaction from some senior White House staff has been,  “What the hell is happening?”

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) July 2, 2024

… has sent Kamala Harris’ odds of becoming the Democrat nominee soaring.

this is pretty terrifying pic.twitter.com/wy2k464YE6

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 2, 2024

In a probability sense, this means the market is now saying Trump is most likely to win (BTC positive), followed by Biden (BTC negative) but with a reasonable non-zero chance Biden is replaced and someone else – Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom – wins (BTC negative). From a bell-curve perspective this is the equivalent of a fat left tail event.

From here Kendrick sees 2 possible outcomes:

1. Biden stays in the race and, given market pricing, will be expected to lose to Trump (BTC positive)
2. Biden exits the race and the newcomer will be perceived to have more chance to beat Trump than Biden had (BTC negative)

The good news is that we won’t have long to wait to find out the answer: the key date is 4 August, that’s when Ohio law requires Presidential candidates to be registered. So, if Biden is still the Democratic nominee on 4 August he will still be so in the first week of November.

Going forward what the Standard Chartered analysts expects to see is the following:

1. Most likely (90%) – in late July we conclude that Biden will run, Trump probabilities increase further, the fat left tail is removed. BTC moves higher, vol and skew moves higher. A fresh all-time in August is likely, then $100k by US election day
2. Least likely (10%) – in late July Biden steps aside, BTC prices dip to $50-55k. If the new Democratic candidate is very credible (Michelle Obama) BTC prices stay soft. If not, it is a fantastic buying opportunity. BTC prices bounce back to $100k by US election day

Watch this space for early moves in BTC vol and skew.

More in the full note from Kendrick available to pro subscribers.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield in Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Tanja Benton, who had worked 16 years at the firm when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.

Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted fetal cell lines were involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and she could not “in good conscience consume the vaccine, which would not only defile her body but also anger and dishonor God.”

BlueCross BlueShield said her position involved “regular external public-facing interactions” so she couldn’t keep it. Ms. Benton said her position became fully remote in 2020 but BlueCross BlueShield said it would have involved some in-person interaction with clients.

Ms. Benton was told to pursue other positions within the company and applied for two. But she was fired on Nov. 4, 2021, and told five days later that, “Unfortunately, all positions require the vax now,” according to an email entered in the case.

Her lawsuit charged that BlueCross BlueShield violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says an employer may not “discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of that person’s religion. Employers can disregard religious exemption requests if they can prove accommodating them would create undue hardship.

BlueCross BlueShield “cannot prove that allowing Plaintiff to continue her employment as a Bio Statistical Research Scientist without being vaccinated for COVID-19 constitutes an undue hardship,” the suit stated. The company “also cannot show that it made any good-faith efforts to accommodate plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

BlueCross BlueShield was also accused of violating the Tennessee Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination by employers at the state level.

“We’re disappointed by the decision,” Dalya Qualls White, chief communications officer for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“We believe our vaccine requirement was the best decision for our employees and members, and we believe our accommodation to the requirement complied with the law. We appreciate our former employees’ service to our members and communities throughout their time with our company.”

A lawyer representing Ms. Benton did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, presented with the case, cleared Ms. Benton to sue her former employer.

Company lawyers had argued the firm would be unduly burdened by providing Ms. Benton an indefinite exception despite her role as a “public-facing employee.” The lawyers said she could not have continued working remotely indefinitely.

The company also asserted that Ms. Benton did not hold a sincerely held religious belief and “denies that the COVID-19 vaccine was derived from aborted fetus cell lines, which is verifiably false,” according to the company’s filing.

Johnson & Johnson used cells derived from an aborted fetus in the design, production, and testing of its COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also utilized the cells in early testing. The companies have said the final products do not contain aborted fetal cells.

As the summer holiday travel season is in full swing, U.S. airports are getting quite busy these days.

In fact, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to figures released by the Transport Security Administration (TSA), they’re busier than ever.

Sunday, June 23 even broke the all-time record for most people screened at U.S. airports, with 2.99 million people passing through TSA safety checks. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, tough. According the TSA, 8 of the 10 busiest travel days ever at U.S. airports have occurred in the past month and more records are expected for the Independence Day travel period.

“We expect this summer to be our busiest ever and summer travel usually peaks over the Independence Day holiday,” TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a statement.

As Felix shows in the chart below, daily passenger throughput at U.S. airports has consistently exceeded pre-pandemic levels this year after roughly matching 2019 traffic in 2023. With an average of 2.73 million passengers per day passing through TSA checkpoints, June 2024 was the busiest month ever at U.S. airports and there are no signs of Americans’ appetite for air travel waning in July.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Following an abysmal 2020, when airport throughput fell below one million passengers per day, flight traffic picked up noticeably in the second quarter of 2021, as the vaccine rollout proceeded rapidly.

Passenger throughput started climbing steadily, with TSA safety checks exceeding two million in a single day for the first time in the Covid era on June 11, 2021. Throughout the busy summer season, the daily average hovered around the two million mark, trailing 2019 passenger numbers by roughly 500,000 a day on average. By the end of 2021, the gap had narrowed to 350,000-400,000 before gradually climbing closer to pre-pandemic levels throughout 2022.

Prior to the pandemic, daily passenger volumes of 2+ million were the norm rather than the exception. At the onset of the pandemic, daily passenger throughput fell as low as 100,000 in April 2020, before slowly climbing back to its current level. In 2023, the TSA performed an average of 2.35 million safety checks per day, compared to 925,000 in 2020 and 2.32 million in 2019. Through June 29 of this year, average daily passenger traffic stands at 2.43 million for this year.

Authored by T J Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

President Joe Biden spoke to the nation from the Emergency Operations Center in Washington, on July 2, and announced five new actions to “address extreme weather, including heat and other hazards.”

“Extreme weather events don’t just affect people’s lives, they also cost money,” he said. “They hurt the economy, and they have a significant negative psychological effect on people.

“Last year, the largest weather related disasters cost over—get this—$90 billion in damages in America.”

Calling attention to the “nearly 2.5 million people” displaced in 2023 due to weather-related disasters, the president emphasized the threat extreme weather poses to transportation systems, power grids, farms, fisheries, and forests.

Extreme Heat

President Biden said the Department of Labor is proposing a new rule that, once finalized, will “establish the nation’s first-ever federal safety standard for excessive heat in the workplace.”

He said it would reduce heat injuries, illnesses, and deaths for more than 36 million in the workforce, including workers in the construction, postal, and manufacturing sectors.

The proposed rule would require employers to identify heat hazards, develop emergency response plans related to conditions affecting the head, and provide training to employees and supervisors on the signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses. Employers would also be required to create rest breaks, provide shade and water, and allow new workers to acclimatize themselves to the heat.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), “serious occupational heat-related illnesses and injuries become more frequent, especially in workplaces where unacclimatized workers are performing strenuous work” when the heat index is as low as 80°F. According to the NWS heat index calculator, that heat index could be when the air temperature is as low as 78.6°F with 60 percent relative humidity.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that approximately 2,302 heat-related deaths occurred in the United States in 2023.

“Already, tens of millions of Americans are under heat warnings from record shattering temperatures,” President Biden said.

“Last month here in DC, the temperature went to 100 degrees; In Phoenix, Arizona, 112 degrees; In Las Vegas, 111 degrees. Above normal temperatures also are expected for much of the country in July, especially in central and eastern United States.”

He said his administration would convene the first ever “White House Summer on extreme heat” to bring together state, local, tribal, and territorial leaders, as well as international partners in an effort to protect communities and workers from extreme weather.

New FEMA, EPA Actions

Aside from the heat, the president called out other types of extreme weather, such as Hurricane Beryl, currently in the southern Caribbean, saying it was “the earliest time ever a dangerous category five hurricane has been recorded in American history.”

He announced two new actions involving FEMA.

Once finalized, a new rule will require FEMA to factor the effects of future flooding into every federally funded construction project.

FEMA is also announcing nearly $1 billion in grants for more than 650 projects nationwide intended to help communities protect against natural disasters such as extreme heat, storms, and flooding.

President Biden emphasized these grants would advance his “Justice 40 Initiative,” which aims to deliver 40 percent of overall benefits, such as clean transit, clean energy, and climate investments, to “the poor communities always left behind.”

In addition, he announced that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be releasing a new report showing continued impacts of climate change on the environment and the health of the American people.

The world’s most valuable company saw its smartphone market share in China shrink in May, even after “deep” discounting, according to UBS analysts citing Counterpoint Research. Apple is also struggling in the US market. 

UBS analyst David Vogt wrote that Apple’s iPhone sales have lost market share despite heavy discounting in China. In May, iPhone “sell-through” declined by 2% year-over-year (YoY), marking the fifth consecutive monthly decline.

The sell-through market share in China fell to 15.3% from 16.9% YoY.

The sell-through market share in the US also fell. 

Europe was unchanged. 

“Importantly, heavy discounting by Apple in China tied to the “618” e-commerce festival was not enough to mitigate share loss in the region,” Vogt said. 

He estimated that “iPhone sell-through in China was largely flat YoY during May-24 in a market that grew 11% YoY.”

“While Apple bulls may note the data is backward-looking and is not likely indicative of Apple’s AI smartphone opportunity next year, we note that iPhone share loss to Huawei and other Chinese OEMs acts as a material governor on iPhone unit growth,” the analyst continued. 

Vogt warned: “Given Huawei’s refreshed product line-up, this tailwind for Apple is unlikely going forward.” 

What’s troubling for Apple is that iPhone market share across major markets is sliding, except for India.  

Vogt noted that he had a Neutral rating and a $190 price target on Apple:

Our Apple $190 price target is 27x our CY25/CY26e EPS reflecting a challenging growth backdrop, higher rates, and undefined AI strategy. At 27x, Apple would be trading at a 30% premium to the market, roughly in-line with the trailing 5 year average.

In the markets, Apple shares soared to new highs of $220 per share, pushing its market cap to nearly $3.34 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world, surpassing even Nvidia. Stock buybacks have played a significant role in driving equity prices to these new heights. 

Meanwhile, Jefferies analysts said iPhone discounts have helped the company reverse its underperformance in the Chinese smartphone market. The bank, which raised its price target to $215 from $200, said that Apple recorded robust numbers during 618.

Apple shares trade at a slight premium to the 12-month average price target of Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

Apple’s recent introduction of Apple Intelligence “will position the company as the leader in the consumer AI experience,” Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang wrote in a note.

However, Goldman’s chief equity strategist David Kostin warned in a note this week that AI companies face a brutal earnings day of reckoning in this upcoming earnings season.  

Authored by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

Robert Reich is on his fifth myth, but so far, he has just been recycling the same progressive talking points in each one. The overall message is that big corporations and the super wealthy wield too much political power and that they shape the law in their own favor, contributing to terrible economic inequality. For Reich, the U.S. economy is a zero-sum game and the people at the top have rigged it so they win and everybody else loses.

His solution is strong labor unions, high taxes on the rich, a high minimum wage, more trust-busting, and government wealth redistribution. He sees the economy through the lens of political power, and so the only solutions he can think of are ones that exploit the power of government to channel more of the fixed pie of wealth to a different group of people. Of course, many of his policy proposals would not even do that but would instead backfire and have unintended consequences that outweigh and confound the intended consequences.

Instead of going through all that, I just want to point out two blind spots.

Reich, along with other progressives like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, never address the root cause of what they correctly diagnose as excessive corporate power over politics. They also don’t see the elephant in the room: the Federal Reserve.

As I mentioned in my response to his second myth, the only reason big businesses reach for state power is because they know that state power can help them. If the government were constrained in such a way that no economic benefit could be gained by some special interest, then businesses wouldn’t seek it. The fact that businesses put millions of dollars into political candidates’ campaigns and into lobbying is explained by the fact that there are billions of dollars to be gained by having a politician in your pocket and laws crafted in your favor.

In Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow, Ludwig von Mises explained what these “pressure groups” seek:

A pressure group is a group of people who want to attain for themselves a special privilege at the expense of the rest of the nation. This privilege may consist in a tariff on competing imports, it may consist in a subsidy, it may consist in laws that prevent other people from competing with the members of the pressure group. At any rate, it gives to the members of the pressure group a special position.

According to Mises, what gave rise to these special interest groups and their successes was interventionism. Interventionism is the idea that the government can and should control the market economy. It is the rejection of liberty and limited government.

Even without special interests, interventionism spirals into ever larger governments. For example, one price control is implemented, and not only does it not accomplish the intended goal, but it also brings about many unintended consequences. The government, acting under the framework of interventionism, then seeks to regulate and control those side effects. Those measures similarly fail, and before long the government has committed itself to a host of interventions and all the bureaucratic mess required to enforce them.

When interventionism is combined with pressure group politics, it inevitably leads to inflationism. Special interests vie for ever increasing government expenditures, but they also understand the unpopularity of taxation:

This system leads also to a constant increase of public expenditures, on the one hand, and makes it more difficult, on the other, to levy taxes. These pressure group representatives want many special privileges for their pressure groups, but they do not want to burden their supporters with a too-heavy tax load. … 

Pressure group politics explains why it is almost impossible for all governments to stop inflation. (Mises, Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow)

Enter the Federal Reserve. The government cannot fund all the special projects with taxes alone, but inflation is a subtle way to spread the costs around.

The unevenness of the effects of monetary expansion (called “Cantillon effects”) explains why it is such a successful tool for a system based on interventionism and pressure group politics. Newly created dollars are spent on some special interest program, and this pulls resources away from where they would have been used in an undistorted market economy. The new money ripples out from its origin, from buyer to seller, causing prices to rise with each step. This process results in a permanent change in wealth and incomes, rewarding those closest to the money spigot.

Thus, instead of getting a tax bill for all the things special interest groups acquire from the government, ordinary citizens just see higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, and everywhere else. As we have seen, it’s easy for politicians to blame “corporate greed” or supply-chain factors for these higher prices. Not only does the blame-shifting parry citizens’ anger, but it also lays a foundation for future government interventions to address those “problems.”

The Fed, then, is a progressive blind spot for two reasons:

(1) it enables the government to give big corporations what they want, and

(2) it exacerbates the very economic inequality progressives claim they hate.

If the progressive left really wanted to curtail corporate influence over politics, ending the Fed would starve the corporate lobbyists out.

No corporation would spend millions of dollars lobbying for a subsidy or government contract that the government couldn’t afford. If you don’t like evil corporations eating at the government trough, then take away the trough.

And if the progressive left really wanted to moderate income and wealth inequality, the answer is the same: end the Fed.

The Cantillon effects of inflation may be summarized in progressive terms as “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.”

The fact that progressives turn a blind eye to the Fed reveals either economic ignorance or political deceit. Maybe they don’t understand the economic effects of inflation.

If they do, then their whole program is an evil scheme to help themselves and their cronies get rich at the expense of the classes they purport to champion.

A federal court halted President Biden’s war on America’s energy independence by reversing a temporary moratorium on permitting new licenses for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. This is a major blow to radical climate warriors in the White House ahead of the November presidential elections. 

Late Monday, US District Judge James D. Cain Jr. in Louisiana ruled in favor of Louisiana and 15 other red states that had challenged the “temporary pause” on new LNG export licenses. Donald Trump appointed Judge Cain, who wrote that the pause “is completely without reason or logic and is perhaps the epiphany of ideocracy.” 

The White House announced in January that the Energy Department would temporarily stop approving new LNG export licenses to assess the impact of shipments on global warming.  

Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, called Cain’s ruling “a big win for the country’s energy industry and the millions of jobs it supports.”

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the DoE’s halt on new licenses sparked a lot of uncertainty in her state, with tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure in question. She called yesterday’s decision “a major victory for American energy.”

The ruling means DoE must restart its permit approval process soon. However, it’s unclear when this will happen.

In a note in early February, Matt Egan and Brent Bennett of RealClear Wire wrote that the president’s politically motivated actions mainly targeted “Texas and Louisiana, red states that account for the bulk of US LNG exports.” Some have speculated that Biden’s action could have been a move to retaliate against red states that opposed open southern borders. 

A separate report from the Washington Free Beacon said Biden’s Climate Czar, John Podesta, ultimately pushed the decision. 

Here’s more from RealClear Wire’s Larry Behrens about Podesta’s LNG attack:

As a well-known climate warrior, it makes sense Podesta would be pushing for policies against American energy interests. Yet at the same time, Podesta’s brother, Tony, one of DC’s most well-connected mega lobbyists, has financial connections to foreign LNG companies, including one with links to a Russian oligarch. It is concerning to see the Podesta family standing to profit from a policy priority of the White House who employs another Podesta. Foreign companies, including Russia, are clear beneficiaries Biden’s LNG attack. It should be raising questions about potential conflicts of interest and profit motives at the White House.

Meanwhile, Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesman, told the Washington Post, “We are disappointed in today’s ruling. We remain committed to informing our decisions with the best available economic and environmental analysis, underpinned by sound science.”

The move by radical climate warriors in the White House to dent America’s energy independence comes as US LNG exports have doubled over the last four years.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Scammers are impersonating utility company representatives to defraud people by threatening the deactivation of service, the nonprofit Better Business Bureau (BBB) is warning.

In utility scams, the criminals “may impersonate water, electric, and gas company representatives, threatening residents and business owners with deactivation of service if they don’t pay up immediately,” an alert issued on June 20 reads.

Typically, the scammers create an environment of false urgency by claiming that customers need to make an overdue payment within the hour or risk having their essential utilities shut down. The frequency of scams increases during certain times of the year, however, according to the nonprofit.

“Utility scams happen any time of year, but will typically pop up during extreme cold or heat events when many people are more likely to need their heat or air conditioning,” the BBB website states.

In some instances, a fake representative may visit a home wearing a lookalike uniform and claim that the electric meter isn’t working properly and should immediately be replaced, according to the BBB’s alert.

Scammers seek entry to homes to perform repairs or energy audits, but with the intent to steal valuables and siphon off “personally identifiable information that just happens to be out in plain sight,” according to the website.

Offering energy discounts is another tactic.

In certain cases, the criminals may attempt to access the homeowner’s electricity account information to switch the service to another utility provider without consent in an illegal practice called “slamming.”

The BBB report detailed an incident in the report: “A lady claimed to be from [company name redacted] and told us our power would be shut off in 45 minutes and we were to call the billing department. [My] husband called the number and they asked for a credit card. He didn’t feel right about it and called [company name redacted] and they said it was a scam.”

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advises people who have been defrauded in a utility scam to report the matter to the utility company, the state attorney general, and the agency via reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Red Flags and Recovery

If a person has already made payments to the scammer through a debit or credit card, they can contact the card-issuing company, notify it of the fraudulent charge, and request a payment reversal, according to the FTC.

The same process can be repeated in the case of a bank transfer, wire transfer, or money transfer; contact the relevant firm and seek a reversal of the transaction.

If the customer paid via cash, the individual must get in touch with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455 to have the package intercepted.

Any payments made via cryptocurrency are irreversible, the FTC warns.

“Once you pay with cryptocurrency, you can only get your money back if the person you paid sends it back. But contact the company you used to send the money and tell them it was a fraudulent transaction. Ask them to reverse the transaction, if possible.”

Fraudsters can conduct the utility scam in person, via text, or through a call. The BBB warned that if a caller specifically asks someone to make payment via a prepaid debit card, gift card, wire transfer, or a digital wallet app, this is considered a “huge warning sign.” Legitimate utility firms typically accept a check or a credit card, it said.

Another red flag is if the so-called utility representative puts pressure to make immediate payments, typically within the hour, and engages in intimidation tactics to gain personal and banking information.

In March, Monica Martinez, executive director of Utilities United Against Scams, warned about a new scam trend targeting customers.

“A more recent scam uses fraudulent websites that are identical to a utility payment page and that are promoted on search engines to trick customers into clicking the page and making a payment,” she said.

In April, the FTC charged bill payment company Doxo for allegedly impersonating billers such as utility companies and misleading consumers, while collecting millions of dollars in junk fees.

US consumers have been well aware of the ‘shrinkflation’ phenomenon in recent years, but now there’s a new emerging trend: Some of the world’s largest packaged goods makers are getting very creative by rebranding existing products for expanding uses, then marked up substantially, and marketed in a way to trick consumers about some new blockbuster innovation. This is happening at a time when consumers are pulling back spending, and the goal of the new sales tactic is to drive more revenue with less. 

Bloomberg’s Leslie Patton and Deena Shanker penned a note explaining how packaged goods giants are quickly adopting a new strategy after years of ‘shrinkflation’ – called ‘upflation’ – an attempt to create new applications with existing products. 

What’s clear is that while the consumer in aggregate appears healthy, under the surface, low/mid-tier consumers are struggling and have entered an ultra-thrift phase. This means working poor consumers are pulling back on essential items that P&G, Unilever, and Edgewell sell. These companies have recorded declining sales volumes in recent quarters. 

In many cases, consumers are trading down products for more affordable private-label brands. Even more wealthy consumers are trading down high-end retailers for Walmart. Now, top brands are attempting to convince consumers to ditch private-label brands for their new innovative products. 

Companies have pointed out that upflation is working, and these existing products with expanded use are performing much better than previous forecasts. 

“P&G’s most recent earnings report highlighted an almost two-year trend where revenue growth came from people buying fewer things at higher prices. The consumer-goods giant did, however, post higher than expected sales in its grooming division, which it partly attributed to its total body shaving and intimate hair removal products. In an interview, the company said the total body deodorants are growing, too,” the journalists noted. 

However, not everyone is convinced about upflation. 

Maia James, who runs a product review site Gimme the Good Stuff, told Bloomberg, “Is this really something new or are they just marketing this as something different?”

One example of upflation is grooming startup Manscaped, which describes its shavers like a toothbrush: “Everyone needs it, no one wants to share it.” 

Another is all-over-body deodorants, who Aleta Simmons, a dermatologist in Nashville, said,  “I don’t think most people need them.” She added that anyone with severe body odor should seek a doctor. 

With expanded use and new marketing, these all-over-body deodorants are sold for double the price by major brands. 

The emergence of upflation appears to be only a North American phenomenon at the moment. It comes as companies attempt to boost sliding sales.

“I think a lot of people are craving simplicity,” said Kathryn Kellogg, who runs a lifestyle brand called Going Zero Waste. She said more consumers are shifting towards a low-consumption lifestyle. 

And we wonder why…

Andrea Wilkerson, vice president of P&G’s skin and personal care analytics and insights, said consumers are willing to pay for innovation. 

The question remains whether upflation—or essentially just rebranding an existing item for new applications—is enough to spur consumer demand for top brands amid sliding sales. 

A slew of companies have warned about a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, including General Mills Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Harmening last week, who said the current operating environment is becoming more complex.

Godman told clients in recent weeks that it’s time to short the ‘middle-income consumer‘… 

Earlier this year, “volume” cast a dark cloud over the annual Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference, where the major packaged food makers gathered to discuss industry trends. 

According to General Mills CEO Harmening, ice cream isn’t just a dessert anymore—it’s a snack for between meals with Haagen-Dazs Bites. Food companies are also getting creative to take old products and excite consumers about new applications. 

However, the outlook for upflation in the medium term remains uncertain, as consumers are grappling with elevated inflation, depleted personal savings, and insurmountable credit card debt. People will likely see through the upflation gimmick, opting instead to purchase cheaper private label brands and use them for multiple purposes.