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Senior editor Ash Bennington hosts managing editor Ed Harrison to discuss how the roiling civil unrest in the U.S. could affect businesses and financial markets. They look at the correlation of the Citi Surprise index and bond yields, and Ed introduces three historical parallels to compare to the current moment. Ed and Ash reaffirm that Real Vision’s core remit is to analyze markets. In the intro, Jack Farley gives an overview of global PMI data and Goldman Sachs’ revised forecast for the S&P 500.

As more and more US cities announce curfews in an attempt to regain control of their citizenry, and following his reported rage-filled call with “weak” governors, NBC News reports that President Donald Trump is considering invoking a 213-year-old federal law that would allow him to deploy active-duty U.S. troops in an effort to control the riots spreading across the nation faster than COVID.

“You have to dominate,” Trump said Monday in a video conference with governors and law enforcement.

“If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.”

According to four persons familiar with the internal White House discussions, NBC News says Trump has warmed to the idea of using the Insurrection Act, adopted in 1807, which was last invoked during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.

At a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility that the president could invoke the act.

“The Insurrection Act, it’s one of the tools available, whether the president decides to pursue that, that’s his prerogative.”

Critically, while governors can ask for federal assistance (sending active-duty troops to deal with civil unrest) and more often prefer to manage with National Guard forces as a repellent (though prohibited from carrying out law enforcement duties on US soil), the president could invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops without a request from a governor.

Those troops would be allowed to conduct law enforcement missions.

To invoke the act, NBC News says that Trump would first have to issue a proclamation to “immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time,” according to the law.

Senator Tom Cotton tweeted earlier:

“Anarchy, rioting, and looting needs to end tonight. If local law enforcement is overwhelmed and needs backup, let’s see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they’re facing off with the 101st Airborne Division. We need to have zero tolerance for this destruction. “

And reportedly urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act “if necessary” so U.S. troops can “support our local law enforcement and ensure that this violence ends tonight.”

Of course, while the state of the nation may require such a move by the president, we can only imagine the ‘Resistance’ response as Trump moves in the “Hitlerian” direction “they” had warned the nation of, and one step closer to martial law (and tyrannical lockdowns not based on shitty epidemiologist models of virus spread and aging bureaucrats).

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Six hundred physicians recently signed a letter to President Trump calling for an end to the coronavirus lockdowns.

The physicians wrote that, far from protecting public health, the lockdowns are causing “exponentially growing negative health consequences” for millions of Americans.

Since the lockdowns began, there have been increases in alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence. There has also been an increase in calls to suicide hotlines. This is a direct result of the mass unemployment and limitations on people’s activities resulting from the lockdowns. As long as millions of Americans are sitting at home wondering how to survive until the government says they can go back to work — assuming the lockdowns did not drive their employers out of business, there will be more substance abuse and suicides.

At the start of the lockdowns, Americans were told to stay away from emergency rooms and doctors’ offices to avoid exposure to coronavirus. This has led Americans to neglect their health. US hospitals have seen a 40 percent decline in the number of patients admitted for severe heart attacks since March. Does anyone believe that the coronavirus panic just happened to coincide with a miraculous decline in heart attacks?

Physicians have also become unable to help many stroke victims who coronavirus lockdowns have kept from seeking medical assistance.

Early in the coronavirus panic, hospitals were told to cancel elective procedures to ensure space was available for an expected wave of coronavirus patients. But hospitals were not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. Beds and other resources were unused.

According to the American Hospital Association, this has cost healthcare providers tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. Inner-city and rural hospitals that already operate on slim profit margins are especially hard hit by the financial impact of the lockdowns. These hospitals may have to cut back on services. Some may even close. This will make it even more difficult for rural and inner-city Americans to obtain quality, affordable healthcare.

Postponing needed surgeries will have serious consequences. Many patients whose surgeries have been delayed will find that their once easily treatable conditions now require intensive and expensive care.

Some people are forgoing disease management and checkups that could keep them from developing more serious problems. The coronavirus lockdowns have even caused the canceling of chemotherapy treatments.

According to the physicians’ letter to President Trump, the coronavirus lockdowns are preventing 150,000 Americans a month from finding out they have cancer. Skipped routine cancer screenings mean cancer is not detected in an early stage, when it is most easily treated.

The coronavirus lockdowns have upended the lives of Americans to “protect” them from a virus with a 0.2 percent fatality rate, with the majority of those fatalities occurring in nursing homes and among people with chronic health conditions. Instead, the rational response would be to protect the vulnerable, and let the rest of the people live their lives. But politicians and government-anointed “experts” do not respond rationally to a “crisis,” especially when a panicked reaction can increase their power and prestige.

The lesson of the unnecessary lockdowns is clear: Government bureaucrats and politicians, even the media’s beloved Dr. Fauci, must be stripped of the ability to infringe on our liberty and prosperity.

Joe Biden showed up at a black church on Monday to pander for votes, in what Bloomberg descriebd as a “subdued and sometimes meandering speech” as violent protests over the death of George Floyd grip the nation.

Speaking to an audience at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, the former Vice President said he would establish a police oversight board in his first 100 days as president, while promising that his coronavirus relief efforts would “deal with institutional racism.”

Biden, who told black voters last month that if they don’t vote for him “you ain’t black,” said “I’ve never taken for granted” the black vote, adding “I’ve never ever done that. It has to be earned, earned every single time.”

He also stumbled at times during his “sometimes meandering” speech, offering the following suggestion on police training:

“Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person comin’ at ’em with a knife or something to shoot ’em in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing.”

Biden today on police training: “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person comin’ at ’em with a knife or something to shoot ’em in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing.” pic.twitter.com/2xgqvlQtJ2

— The Recount (@therecount) June 1, 2020

When it came to criticizing Trump’s response to COVID-19, he said “45-60,000 people would be alive instead of dead” because “he didn’t listen to guys like me back in January.”

That said, Biden notably called Trump ‘xenophobic‘ one day after his January 31 travel ban which blocked foreign nationals who had been in China over the preceding two weeks from entering the US.

After President Trump implemented his travel ban from China on January 31, Joe Biden said in Iowa “this is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysterical xenophobia and fear-mongering.” pic.twitter.com/gru4jsiCVf

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 1, 2020

Meanwhile, Delaware State Senator Darius Brown said that the protests were about deeper, longstanding issues of injustice.

“What African Americans are expressing over the past few days are the need for economic opportunity,” he said, adding “The African American community wants you to bring home the bacon for us.”

Brown noted that blacks did not share equally in the country’s recovery from the 2008-2009 economic crisis overseen by Biden as President Barack Obama’s vice president.

“The African American community did not experience the same economic opportunity as they did during the 90s,” he said.

Biden met with the leaders as cities around the country have endured days of protests, vandalism and looting.

“The Band-Aid has been ripped off by this pandemic and this president,” he said. “It’s been minorities. It’s been blacks. It’s been Hispanics” who have kept working, and getting ill during lockdowns.

“They are the ones out there making sure the grocery stores are open,” he said. –Bloomberg

Later in the speech, Reverend Shanika Perry suggested that Biden should address his previous support for the 1994 Crime Bill signed by former President Bill Clinton which has been credited with sending a flood of black men to prison.

“They have issues with the participation in that,” said Perry. “They want to know how you plan to undo the impacts of the mass incarceration.”

“We have qualified black women who are capable of helping you lead this country,” she added.

Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

With cities across the United States facing raging unrest in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department, law enforcement agencies have had their hands full trying to control the massive backlash on all fronts.

And now, things may have gotten much more complicated after the long-dormant hacktivist group Anonymous has made a sudden reappearance to support those who are fighting against police across the country.

On Saturday night as major cities like Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis and Chicago were awash in battles between police and civilians, the hacker collective made its first set of moves to kick off its return to the scene.

One of the first actions the group took was hijacking the police radio scanners belonging to the Chicago PD and using it to play NWA’s 1988 hip-hop classic “Fuck Tha Police,” the protest song against police harassment and brutality that became the unofficial anthem of the Los Angeles Uprising of 1992.

While the group controlled Chicago police scanners, they also played polka music – a fitting choice considering that the Windy City is the unofficial U.S. capital of the European musical genre.

Anonymous apparently now been hacking Chicago PD radios all night and playing polka music and Fuck The Police so the cops can’t communicate about protests lmfao pic.twitter.com/cAGPRRcROX

— elijah daniel (@elijahdaniel) May 31, 2020

Hijacked chicago police radio plays NWA’s “Fuck The Police” pic.twitter.com/I3NWWYZwem

— doomer zoomer (@doomerzoomeer) May 31, 2020

The Minneapolis Police Department’s website was also disabled along with the parent City of Minneapolis site, according to a number of user reports.

By early Sunday, visitors to the site continued to notice issues, including being forced to enter “captchas” proving they weren’t bots in the front-end interface hosted by security firm Cloudflare – a common sign that the sites were facing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks meant to disable the site by flooding it with traffic, Variety reports.

The disruptions to Chicago PD scanners and Minneapolis municipal sites came right after social media accounts claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous released a video on May 28 putting Minneapolis PD on notice that the group “will be exposing your many crimes to the world,” adding that last Monday’s “brutal killing of George Floyd… is merely the tip of the iceberg in a long list of high-profile cases of wrongful death at the hands of officers in your state.”

Anonymous message for the American Spring.

#Anonymous #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #ICantBreathe #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/LY6XldgdNp

— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) May 31, 2020

The group added:

“After the events of the past few years, many people are beginning to learn that you are not here to save us but rather you are here to oppress us and carry out the will of the criminal ruling class. You are here to keep order for the people in control, not to provide safety for the people who are controlled.

“In fact, you are the very mechanism that elites use to continue their global system of oppression.”

The video, which has been viewed millions of times all over the world, featured the iconic Guy Fawkes mask made famous by Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta, as well as its trademark electronically-distorted voiceover.

The day so far: #Anonymous have taken down and exposed

The #Minneapolis PD website.

Hacked Chicago PD radios.

Promises to expose Ferguson PD.

Released Trump and Epstein docs regarding their crimes. https://t.co/TZTspuRYt9#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/M7O0fhlKm7

— Anonymous (@LatestAnonNews) May 31, 2020

The mysterious group generally takes aim at those it accuses of misusing and abusing power. However, it is very hard to pin down the group’s ideology or its size – beyond its tagline that “we are legion.” The group also lacks central leadership, membership criteria, or a public face.

However, beyond the somewhat menacing tone adopted by those who affiliate with the group, it is largely a nonviolent protest group using online attacks to go after its targets.

The group first appeared on the scene in 2008 after it released a controversial, copyrighted Church of Scientology video featuring Tom Cruise. After the Scientologists demanded its removal, the group launched a number of DDoS attacks on the sect.

Since then, the group has taken aim at groups ranging from the Islamic State group (ISIS) and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to corporations like PayPal, Sony, and Visa.

After a catastrophic March and an euphoric April, in May risk assets posted another strong performance, as the global growth rate of Covid-19 cases continued to slow, offering hope that the worst of the pandemic may have passed according to the monthly DB review of the best and worst performing assets of the prior month. Furthermore, as countries throughout the developed world moved to ease their lockdown restrictions, data showed that economic activity might be starting to gradually pick up again, which further helped to boost investor sentiment.

Looking at the overall sample of assets tracked by the German bank, a total of 33/38 of the noncurrency assets had a positive return over the month, meaning that 12/38 are now positive on a YTD basis too.

Oil was the big story once again in May, though it marked a reversal of fortunes for WTI as it gained +88.4% over the month, bringing an end to a run of 4 successive monthly declines. The moves came as global oil demand started to pick up again, thus moving WTI from the worst performer in the April sample to the best in May, even if this still leaves it down -41.9% on a YTD basis. Brent crude saw a similar move higher, though not as extreme, climbing +39.8% in May to leave it “only” -46.5% lower on a YTD basis.

Commodities more broadly had a good month as well: silver was one of the best performers in May, up +19.3% in its biggest move higher since April 2011. Meanwhile gold cemented its existing lead as the top YTD performer in our sample with a further +2.6% rise in May, which means it’s now up +14.0% on a YTD basis.

Equities for the most part had a strong performance, with the majority of indexes seeing solid increases in May. Brazil’s Bovespa led the way with a +8.6% increase, while the NASDAQ’s +6.9% move higher means the index is now solidly positive on a YTD basis. The worst performance overall was the Hang Seng, however, which fell -6.3% in May amidst further political unrest in Hong Kong.

In fixed income, sovereign bonds in southern Europe made gains as President Macron and Chancellor Merkel unveiled a proposal for a new EU recovery fund that was met positively by investors. BTPs and Spanish bonds were up +1.7% and +1.6% in May, outperforming bunds which fell -1.3%. Though the proposal would need to be decided unanimously among the EU member states, investors were cheered by the prospects of progress, and the spread of Italian and Spanish ten-year yields over bunds fell by -43bps and -30bps, respectively. Reflecting this renewed risk appetite in fixed income, US HY saw the strongest performance among our credit sample, with a +4.2% gain in May.

Finally in FX, the pound sterling was one of the worst performing currencies, falling -2.0% against the US dollar and -3.3% against the euro. It comes as little progress has been made in negotiations with the EU on the UK’s future relationship, and ahead of an important high-level meeting between the two sides taking place later this month. It also covers a month where negative rates were debated in the UK. Emerging markets were among the stronger FX performers however, with the EM FX index up +1.9%, paring back some of their YTD losses.

Here are the best and worst performing assets in May in local currency and USD terms…

… and here are the top and bottom assets of 2020 to date:

Source: Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid