iftttwall – Page 11184

Oil Price War Puts Entire Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia At Risk

Oil Price War Puts Entire Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia At Risk

Tyler Durden

Wed, 05/13/2020 – 18:45

Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

At no time since Ibn Saud first consolidated his Arabian conquests into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 has the ruling Saud dynasty faced such an existential threat to its continued rule over the country.

It is true that Saudi Arabia has been able to gain some temporary advantage in key Asian export markets, as its shipments to China more than doubled in April to 2.2 million barrels a day (bpd) and those to India, at 1.1 million bpd, were also the highest in at least three years. This, though, as much as any other factor that might endure, was a product of Saudi slashing its official selling prices (OSPs) for April crude sales to some of the lowest levels in decades, undercutting its rivals, and exactly the same happened again for May crude sales.

Even this very slight victory, though, has already been jeopardised by an indication that the scale of the trouble into which the House of Saud has placed Saudi Arabia is truly monumental. Just last week saw massive economic pressure force the Saudis into increasing the June delivery price for its Arab light crude oil to Asia by US$1.40 per barrel from May, albeit at a discount of US$5.90 to the Oman/Dubai benchmark average. Market expectations were that Saudi would continue to keep OSPs low to hold onto market gains.

Saudi Arabia did this because its finances are in an even worse state now than they were at the end of the Kingdom’s previous attempt to destroy the U.S. shale industry that ran disastrously from 2014 to 2016. Back then, Saudi had a much greater chance of success in destroying the U.S. shale industry than it did this year, for a wide variety of reasons, but even then the effort nearly destroyed the Saudi economy forever.

Back then Saudi had record-high foreign assets reserves of US$737 billion in August 2014, allowing it real room for manoeuvre in sustaining its SAR/US$-currency peg and covering the huge budget deficits that would be caused from the oil price fall caused by overproduction. Despite this relatively positive backdrop to Saudi’s 2014-2016 oil price war against U.S. shale, OPEC member states lost a collective US$450 billion in oil revenues from the lower price environment, according to the IEA.

Saudi Arabia itself moved from a budget surplus to a then-record high deficit in 2015 of US$98 billion and spent at least US$250 billion of its foreign exchange reserves over that period that even senior Saudis have said are lost forever. So bad was Saudi Arabia’s economic and political situation back in 2016 that the country’s deputy economic minister, Mohamed Al Tuwaijri, stated unequivocally (and unprecedentedly for a senior Saudi) in October 2016 that: “If we [Saudi Arabia] don’t take any reform measures, and if the global economy stays the same, then we’re doomed to bankruptcy in three to four years.” That is to say, that if Saudi kept overproducing to push oil prices down – just as it did this year, yet again – then it would be bankrupt within three to four years.

On the pure economics, some have said that around US$300 billion is sufficient to defend the SAR/US$-peg and that, within those parameters, Saudi Arabia’s current foreign exchange reserves are ample. However, this does not factor into the investment proposition equation the negative market bias that now faces Saudi Arabia, which will adversely affect its ability to raise the sort of debt and equity capital that is required to slow the drawdown rate on these reserves. Even before the reputational damage that Saudi Arabia has suffered as a result of embarking on exactly the same strategy that was so disastrous for its last time – and choosing to do it whilst facing the most dangerous global pandemic since the 1918 Spanish ‘flu – an overhang in its sovereign debt issuance was already building, stretching investor appetite for any more.

Specifically, Saudi Arabia has already tapped international bond markets twice this year and has borrowed a total of US$19 billion from local and international investors. Attracting a new pool of investors onto which to load its now toxic-looking debt will not be helped by the way in which it completely disregarded those trusting souls who bought into the Saudi Aramco IPO, despite there being every indication that the Saudis would indeed violate their minority share holder rights, as analysed in depth in my new book on the global oil market.

In terms of the actual facts that Saudi apologists overlook, in March Saudi Arabia’s central bank depleted its net foreign assets at the fastest rate since at least 2000. In that month alone, according to even the Saudis’ own figures, the Kingdom’s foreign reserves fell by just over SAR100 billion (US$27 billion). This is a full 5 per cent decrease from just the previous month, and the total reserves figure now stands at just US$464 billion, the lowest level since 2011. It leaves only US$164 billion of ‘fighting reserves’ that can be used on everything else that Saudi needs when the US$300 billion needed to keep the economic cornerstone SAR/US$-peg is subtracted. Indeed, if the 5 per cent reserves drop figure is assumed for April and May as well (and it may well have been more) then Saudi’s foreign exchange reserves now are just over US$418 billion.

This figure is set to decrease much further, as lower oil prices endure and the lower oil production targets recently agreed are adhered to by Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the Kingdom slipped into a US$9 billion+ budget deficit in the first quarter and a number of independent analysts are predicting that its overall gross domestic product could shrink by more than 3 per cent this year (the first outright contraction since 2017 and the biggest since 1999), whilst the budget deficit could widen to 15 per cent of economic output.

Over and above the sheer stupidity involved in launching a strategy of overproducing oil to push down prices that had already failed before and doing so at a time when it was obvious that the coronavirus would itself annihilate oil demand and pricing, the number one mistake that the al-Sauds made – and for which they will be held personally responsible for by their people in the coming months – is to eradicate all trust in them on the part of the U.S. Everyday Saudis do not, perhaps, care that much for the U.S. certainly, but they do care about the country’s increased political and economic insecurity that has been caused by the latest oil price war, directly and indirectly.

To the U.S. – and this has been reiterated repeatedly to OilPrice.com by various senior sources in the U.S. Presidential Administration over the past few weeks – Saudi Arabia has broken the basic deal (and therefore, trust) established in 1945 between the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Saudi King at the time, Abdulaziz, in the Great Bitter Lake segment of the Suez Canal that has defined the relationship between the two countries ever since. The deal was that the U.S. would receive all of the oil supplies it needed for as long as Saudi Arabia had oil in place, in return for which the U.S. would guarantee the security of the ruling House of Saud. This has subsequently altered slightly to ensure that Saudi Arabia also allows the U.S. shale industry to continue to function and to grow. If this means that Saudi Arabia loses out to U.S. shale producers by keeping oil prices up but losing out on export opportunities to U.S. firms then that is just the price that the House of Saud must pay for the continued protection of the U.S. – politically, economically, and militarily.

Now that this trust has been broken all options are on the table. U.S. President Donald Trump warned the al-Sauds specifically a while back that: “He [Saudi King Salman] would not last in power for two weeks without the backing of the U.S. military.” According to various sources – and as highlighted in advance by OilPrice.com as a serious option under consideration – on 2 April, Trump actually told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the telephone that unless OPEC started cutting oil production he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the Kingdom.

This, though, is not the end of matters for the U.S. Having already made it plain that any further nonsense from Saudi will not be tolerated by the U.S. from the political perspective, optimism is high amongst senior Democrats, and some Republicans, in both Houses, that Saudi can be made to pay for the economic hardship it has caused the U.S. The mechanism is the ‘No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act’ (NOPEC) Bill, which makes it illegal to artificially cap oil (and gas) production or to set prices, as OPEC, OPEC+, and Saudi Arabia do. The Bill would also immediately remove the sovereign immunity that presently exists in U.S. courts for OPEC as a group and for each and every one of its individual member states. This would leave Saudi Arabia open to being sued under existing U.S. anti-trust legislation, with its total liability being its estimated US$1 trillion of investments in the U.S. alone.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3dM0xQz Tyler Durden

Limitless Limiting Principles

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the tax return cases. Several Justices repeatedly asked Douglas Letter, counsel for the House, what limiting principle exists for Congress’s subpoena power. He refused to give an answer. Jon Adler and Mike Dorf faulted Letter. I wrote that Letter may have deliberately refused to answer those questions.

Steve Sachs wrote that a limit may not be needed. Under Article V, Congress has the power to propose a constitutional amendment “on any topic under the sun.” Therefore, Congress could request just about any information that could help the development of a proposed amendment.

Ilya Somin suggests that courts could apply something of a good-faith standard:”if the supposed amendment turns out to be a complete sham cooked up purely for purposes of subpoenaing information, that fact is likely to leak out, and courts should be able to take notice of it and rule accordingly.” I’m not sure what a “complete sham” would mean in this context. There have been countless constitutional amendments proposed that had zero prospects of ratification. I suspect their authors would maintain they are not shams.

Let’s consider an example. The House is considering a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to alter, by law, the president’s qualifications. Here, it may be reasonable to subpoena certain information from the President to determine how to properly structure that amendment. Does this amendment have any chance of ratification? Almost certainly not. Is it a sham? I wouldn’t say so. Many people would genuinely support this amendment. Or maybe the House is considering an amendment that would create a maximum-age limit for the presidency. (Derek Muller proposed this amendment.) Would it be reasonable to request the health records of the President and his family members? I think so. It will always be possible to craft, in good faith, a proposed amendment that requires the specific information the House already wanted.

Perhaps the answer is that Congress’s subpoena powers is unlimited because of Article V. So long as the House can draft up a possible constitutional amendment, it can seek any information to facilitate that process. But Article V would not provide the sort of limiting principle the Justices asked for.

Ilya also suggests that Article I may provide several limiting principles. For example, he cites Lopez and Morrison, which imposed some limitations on Congress’s powers under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses. I wish these limitations were meaningful, but after Raich, these powers are still quite broad. NFIB put only the slightest crimp on federal power, and the Court has not show any willingness to expand that doctrine in the last decade. Ilya also mentions the commandeering doctrine. This doctrine, thankfully, has far more teeth. Congress cannot order states, or state officials, to take certain actions.

Ilya offers two examples:

For example, Congress could not subpoena information related to Trump’s many affairs and his divorce settlements with his two previous wives. Marriage and divorce are matters largely left to state regulation, not federal. Similarly, Congress could not use its legislative authority to investigate whether it should force state or local governments to curtail possibly unethical business dealings by the Trump family. The anti-commandeering rule forbids such laws.

I agree. Congress’s Commerce & Necessary and Proper powers could not support the first hypothetical statute. Domestic law is reserved to the states. And the second hypothetical statute would run afoul of the Commandeering Doctrine.

But there is there is another element of Article I that Ilya did not mention: the spending power. Congress cannot force states to take action directly; but it can condition funds on states taking those actions. Here, the leading precedent in South Dakota v. Dole. Randy and I offered this summary in An Introduction to Constitutional Law.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion. He explained that “[t] he spending power is of course not unlimited, but is instead subject to [four] general restrictions.” First, “the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of ‘the general welfare.'”… Second, Congress must place conditions on the funds “unambiguously.” States need to know what they are getting into when they accept federal money…. Third, the conditions must relate to “the federal interest” for which the spending program was established. Chief Justice Rehnquist found that “[t] he condition imposed by Congress is directly related to one of the main purposes for which highway funds are expended — safe interstate travel.” The majority opinion did not define how closely “related” the condition must be to Congress’s “purpose.” Justice O’Connor’s dissent provided a more narrow test for “relatedness,” or “germaneness.” Fourth, “[o]ther constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to conditional grant of federal funds.” … In addition to these four limitations, Chief Justice Rehnquist identified a fifth factor: A condition becomes unconstitutional when “the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion.'” Such coercion would, in effect, commandeer the state legislature to comply with the condition.

Congress could not force a state government to investigate possible corruption. But Congress could condition funds on the state performing that function. Congress could not regulate family law. But Congress could condition funds on states regulating family law in a specific fashion. And information could be requested to facilitate the drafting of such legislation.

Proposed legislation could be crafted in a very precise way to stick to the requirements of Dole. The statute would pursue the general welfare; the conditions would be unambiguous; the condition relates, broadly, to law enforcement concerns or domestic matters; no other provision (such as the Due Process Clause or the Bill of Attainder Clause) bars that condition; and the amount of funding is small, and non-coercive.

Any competent legislator can draft a bill to accomplish those goals. Such a bill need never become law. And courts would be loathe to call it a “sham.” Justice O’Connor’s dissent would have put some teeth into the “germaneness” requirement. Alas, the majority rejected that approach. But given the broad confines of Dole, Congress could investigate a virtually unlimited range of conduct, pursuant to the spending clause.

During oral argument, Doug Letter alluded to the spending power. Early in the argument, Chief Justice Roberts asked Letter about a limiting principle. Letter responded with a discussion of “bankruptcy proceedings.” Roberts interjected, “do you think bankruptcy proceedings is a subject on which legislation could not be had?” Letter answered that “obviously, bankruptcy could be” subject for possible legislation. Letter than added, “Congress’s legislative authority is extremely broad, especially because of its appropriations–.” Roberts interrupted him, and cut him off. I think Letter was going to say “its appropriations power.” That is, the Spending Clause.

Later, Letter gave the same answer to Justice Alito:

JUSTICE ALITO: But you were not able to give the Chief Justice even one example of a subpoena that would be –that would not be pertinent to some conceivable legislative purpose, were you?

MR. LETTER: As –as I said, Your Honor, the –that –that’s correct, because this Court itself has said Congress’s power is –to legislate is extremely broad, especially when you take into account appropriations.

Here, the House was hinting at a limit, that would not really limit at all.

At bottom, perhaps Congress’s subpoena power has no meaningful limits. Maybe there doesn’t need to be a limiting principle. Maybe Steve Sachs is right, as a matter of first principles. That may be the House’s position, which explains Letter’s strategy. I don’t have a strong opinion on this question.

Generally, when a Justice asks for a limiting principle, you are probably going to lose. And efforts to manufacture limiting principles before conference–a form of armchair quarterbacking–will not work. (I wrote about this phenomenon in Unprecedented). Cases will be decided on the briefs. And Letter, who did not make any unnecessary concessions, will be happy to have the case decided on the briefs.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3cx9NHT
via IFTTT

Greta Thunberg Isn’t a Coronavirus Expert

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been invited by CNN to be an “expert panelist” on a Thursday night event about the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you are a bit confused by this choice, that’s fair. Thunberg not really an expert in the field for which she is most well known, and that field is not virology or epidemiology or economics. I don’t mean that as a slight against her angry performance at the United Nations last year. Honestly, more teenagers should snarl derisively at the elected and appointed leaders ruining the world.

Still, it was a performance and she is a performer, not an expert in pandemics or economics. Her inclusion on a panel that CNN is promoting as “Coronavirus: Facts and Fears” seems like a poor use of airtime. Sweden has taken a unique and interesting approach to COVID-19 that may prove useful for informing American policy. If the network wanted to share that experience with American news consumers in a way that could inform them, it might’ve been better to book a Swedish epidemiologist rather than a Swedish 17-year-old the internet loves to fight over.

Is this more evidence for the so-called “death of expertise”? That idea, most memorably expressed in a book of the same name by anti-Trump conservative radio host Tom Nichols, says that Americans have rejected expertise in policymaking (and other fields) in favor of misinformed hucksterism and conspiracy theorizing. The best piece of evidence for this trend is the election of President Donald Trump. Yet if public polling is to be believed, Americans trust the experts more than they trust Trump on the coronavirus.

Thunberg’s inclusion does say something pretty dreadful, however, about institutional media. People who talk about a decline in institutions usually mean public entities like the Justice Department or the presidency, or civic organizations like the Lion’s Club. But the media is an institution too, and it has been weakened not by the death of expertise (we have plenty of experts!) but by the cancer of cynicism.

Trump embodies that cynicism and so does media coverage of his behavior. His campaign rallies feature racist attacks on immigrants, but look at how many people showed up! His coronavirus press briefings are a word salad of half-truths and random speculation, but look at the ratings!

Inviting Thunberg to this panel was a deeply cynical decision by CNN. They knew it would be a big deal on Twitter, that it would raise the profile of the event even as it caused people who weren’t going to tune in anyway to get Mad Online. CNN knew they could get publications like Reason to write articles like this one providing free publicity beforehand, and that many publications—CNN.com included—will write recaps afterward, likely with a CNN video embedded. People who would not otherwise watch the panel if it included exclusively public health experts and economists will watch it because Thunberg is on it.

Electing celebrities won’t fix what’s wrong with American politics, and encouraging their performative antics won’t either.

CNN’s producers can, of course, invite whomever they want to their events. But when a news network makes a choice like this one—to provide a global platform on an issue of global importance to a teenager with no expertise—those of us who find that decision disconcerting should demand better. Media institutions like CNN are not victims of celebrity pseudo-expertise, they are the driving force behind it.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2YZJyG5
via IFTTT

Would Gov. Cuomo Rather Have No Businesses in New York Than Businesses That Employ Fewer People?

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a plan to curtail corporate bailouts, and he’s taking it to Washington, D.C. He has proposed the “Americans First Law,” which would require that corporations return government money if they do not restore their workforce to pre-coronavirus levels. New York’s congressional delegation will introduce the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“No handouts to greedy corporations, no political pork, and no partisanship,” Cuomo said at a Tuesday press conference.

“I understand businesses need to recover, this doesn’t have to be a giveaway to the rich millionaires who are doing just fine anyway, and it doesn’t have to be a giveaway to big business,” he noted. “It shouldn’t be that another episode in history where somehow the rich figure out a way to get more assistance when it is supposed to be about helping average Americans.”

Cuomo’s said his concerns were informed by his time as New York Attorney General during the 2008 financial crisis, when the federal government rescued Wall Street with an aid package that partially bolstered executive compensation. But Cuomo’s suggestion that corporations will be able to magically return to business as usual after months of being on economic life support makes little sense.

For instance, lawmakers attached similar conditions to $25 billion in federal bailout money for the airline industry. One such requirement stipulated that airlines keep employees hired through September 30, by which time many Americans believed life would be somewhat back to normal. But United Airlines has since announced it will convert 15,000 employees from full-time to part-time and begin layoffs on October 1. One analyst anticipates that 20 to 30 percent of airline jobs will disappear over the next year as major American carriers seek to reduce costs in response to a prolonged stretch of historically low air travel. The CARES Act also requires airlines to continue flying near-empty planes at a huge financial loss, causing carriers to burn through money that could soften those planned layoffs in the fall.

Nevertheless, Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) took to Twitter to speak to a manager after he found out about United’s actions. “I’m at the airport, flying back to DC, and multiple United employees have told me the company is cutting their hours, pay & benefits immediately,” he said. “This is AFTER United took billions in bailout money that was earmarked for workers.”

United, like Delta and JetBlue, was likely to massively cut payroll regardless of whether it received a bailout, but it was unlikely they were ever going to close up shop completely. Large corporations can restructure through bankruptcy, while smaller businesses have less leverage with their creditors and a harder time bouncing back from economic slumps. (This is one reason why Rep. Justin Amash (L-Mich.) and hundreds of economists opposed the corporate bailouts in the CARES Act.)

While Cuomo is right to bemoan providing further subsidies to the country’s largest companies and their wealthy investors, requiring all firms that received assistance to operate at a loss (or else) is simply another form of economic denialism.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Lpmwk1
via IFTTT

Senate Votes Down Protections Against Warrantless Government Collection of Americans’ Browser and Search History

An amendment that would forbid the feds from accessing Americans’ web browser and search history without a warrant died by just one vote in the Senate today.

By a vote of 59-37, Senators declined to accept an amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) and Sen. Steve Daines (R–Mont.) to a bill reauthorizing the expired USA Freedom Act. As part of resurrecting the Freedom Act, several lawmakers are attempting to push through reforms to better protect Americans from unwarranted, secret searches authorized through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.

The proposed amendment by Wyden and Daines simply prohibited using the section of the law allowing for third-party data collection to include web browser and search history information. This amendment would only protect American citizens and only covered warrantless searches.

Still, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) opposed the amendment and even circulated a rival amendment that would specifically amend the law in the opposite direction and make it clear that these records were permitted for search targets.

The amendment required 60 votes to pass and fell short by just one vote. The split was not entirely partisan. In fact, 10 Democrats helped McConnell bring the amendment down. Among them were national security state fan Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.), former vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine (D–Va.), and Sen. Mark Warner (D–Va.).

But more important was the identity of one of the four senators who didn’t vote: former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The amendment lost by a single vote. Had he been there, maybe things would have turned out differently.

Read the roll call for the amendment here.

In better news, another reform amendment offered by Sens. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D–Vt.) passed this afternoon by a vote of 77-19. Their amendment bolsters the independent amicus curiae process for the FISA Court, which allows the court to name independent advisers to advocate on behalf of the rights of people targeted by FISA Court investigations. We saw the value of these independent advisers last year when the court went back to evaluate what went wrong with the warrants used by the FBI to justify wiretapping Carter Page, a former aide to Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. David Kris, appointed by the court to review the process, pushed back against the FBI’s attempt to classify the flaws of the warrant applications as training issues and called for stronger procedures to verify the accuracy of warrant requests.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Z0kCOF
via IFTTT

Was Professor Panic’s Flawed Computer Model Virtue-Signaling To His Radical Climate Activist Lover?

Was Professor Panic’s Flawed Computer Model Virtue-Signaling To His Radical Climate Activist Lover?

Tyler Durden

Wed, 05/13/2020 – 18:25

An analysis of computer models used by Professor Neil Ferguson to predict that millions would die of COVID-19- models on which Western leaders had based the ongoing lockdowns – have been torn to shreds. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that his dire models may have something to do with his married lover being an environmental activist.

*Neil Ferguson and his married OkCupid lover Antonia Staats*

As Conservative Woman‘s Janice Davis reports, “The source code behind the Ferguson model has finally been made available to the public via the GitHub website. Mark E Jeftovic, in his Axis of Easy website, says: ‘A code review has been undertaken by an anonymous ex-Google software engineer here, who tells us the GitHub repository code has been heavily massaged by Microsoft engineers, and others, in an effort to whip the code into shape to safely expose it to the public. Alas, they seem to have failed and numerous flaws and bugs from the original software persist in the released version. Requests for the unedited version of the original code behind the model have gone unanswered.’”

According to Jeftovic, the code produces ‘non-deterministic outputs,’ which means it will spit out different results for identical inputs – rendering it inappropriate for scientific use.

“Investigation reveals the truth: the code produces critically different results, even for identical starting seeds and parameters,” he said, adding that the output would even vary depending on which type of computer was used to run the simulation.

Jeftovic has been left scratching his head over why Ferguson’s team failed to see that their software was so flawed, calling it “garbage in / garbage out,’ only no matter what the input is – the output is always garbage, which is responsible for the lockdowns that have ground the global economy to a halt.

Another expert, Martin Armstrong (who has a controversial record) also reviews the Ferguson model code and comes to very similar conclusions. He says that it ‘is such a joke it is either an outright fraud, or it is the most inept piece of programming I have ever seen in my life . . . This is the most unprofessional operation perhaps in computer science. The entire team should be disbanded and an independent team put in place to review the work of Neil Ferguson . . . The only reasonable conclusion I can reach is that this has been deliberately used to justify bogus forecasts intent for political activism . . . There seems to have been no independent review of Ferguson’s work, which is unimaginable!’ –Conservative Woman

Meanwhile, the Conservative Woman also points out that Ferguson’s now-public affair – banging his married lover with strict lockdown measures in place, right after he recovered from coronavirus – should also be called into question.

His lover, 38-year-old Antonia Staats, is a left-wing activist who works for the US-based organization Avaaz – which promotes global activism on a number of topics, including climate change.

The Guardian has called Avaaz the globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network, and it has a world-wide following of around 10million people. It is loosely connected with Bill Gates, through the World Economic Forum, which also lists Al Gore and Christine Lagarde on its board. Staats works as a senior campaigner on climate change for the group, and is said to be sympathetic towards the aims of Extinction Rebellion. Indirectly, on the surface at least, this ties Ferguson to climate change, a cause that the lockdown has served very well by managing to shut down the world economy. –Conservative Woman

So, was it idiocy on the part of Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London? Or is there a more sinister explanation for what went down?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3cwsNWW Tyler Durden

Would Gov. Cuomo Rather Have No Businesses in New York Than Businesses That Employ Fewer People?

“No handouts to greedy corporations, no political pork, and no partisanship,” Cuomo said at a Tuesday press conference.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Lpmwk1
via IFTTT

92% Of Cook County COVID-19 Victims Had Pre-Existing Conditions

92% Of Cook County COVID-19 Victims Had Pre-Existing Conditions

Tyler Durden

Wed, 05/13/2020 – 18:05

Authored by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,

A Wirepoints analysis of COVID-19 deaths from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office reveals that 92 percent of victims from the virus had pre-existing medical conditions.

The medical examiner’s database showed COVID-19 as the primary cause of death for 2,303 people. Of those, 2,112 were shown to have at least one underlying condition as a secondary cause of death. Those conditions, also known as comorbidities, included hypertension, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. There were no secondary causes reported for 191 deaths.

This finding is important because Gov. J.B. Pritzker has refused to release any statewide comorbidity data as part of his official Illinois Department of Health releases. Wirepoints asked for data directly from the governor’s office on April 21st, but we were told it was not available. We’ve since released a piece asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker why that’s so: Who’s most at risk for COVID-19 and why isn’t Illinois publishing that data?

Understanding who is most at risk – and who is not – is central to a public understanding of the virus. It’s also central to helping decide when and how to open up our economy and schools. What Cook County’s and other comorbidity data across the country implies is that the risk of death for healthy Illinoisans is far lower than Gov. J.B. Pritzker might lead people to believe based on his protracted lockdown and drawn out reopening plan.

Cook County reports that of the 2,303 victims where COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause of death, 92 percent had one or more comorbidities.

Hypertension affected 1,070 victims, or more than 46 percent of all deaths. Diabetes impacted 973 victims, or 42 percent of the total. Pulmonary disease was part of 397 deaths, or 17 percent. And 215 of those deaths, about 9 percent, were accompanied by obesity or morbid obesity.

Yet others had conditions including cancer and cardiovascular and kidney diseases. The numbers above add up to more than 100 percent because many victims had more than one pre-existing condition.

The Cook County data lines up with city of Chicago data on comorbidities for city deaths. Though the city does not provide any broader detail, it does report that 1,090 of Chicago’s 1,160 COVID-19 deaths had underlying conditions. That’s 94 percent.

What’s stark about the Cook comorbidity data is just how few young adults die from COVID-19 in the absence of some pre-existing condition. Just 3 of the 15 deaths in the 20-29 age bracket had no comorbidities. Same goes for the 30-39 and 40-49 age brackets, where just 26 of the 132 deaths were accompanied with no underlying causes.

The above data is key to mapping out a reopening strategy for schools, universities and workplaces. Younger, healthier adults face far less risk from COVID-19 than originally feared.

On the flip side, it shows who is at risk: anyone with pre-existing conditions, including the elderly. As of May 8, the average age of all COVID-19 deaths in Illinois was 74, a clear sign of where the true risk lies.

Even more, almost 50 percent of all Illinois deaths have been tied to long-term care facilities, the subject of an upcoming Wirepoints piece. That means nearly 1,600 deaths occurred outside the general public.

For months, Illinois residents have lived in fear, a fear that has been exacerbated by a lack of transparency and open reporting from the state. The state didn’t release hospitalization data until outside pressure forced it to. Antibody testing results are still being held back, which we wrote about in With New FDA Action, Gov. Pritzker and Dr. Ezike Have No Excuse for Further Stonewalling Antibody Testing.

And Wirepoints shouldn’t be forced to seek out and compile partial comorbidity data based on tips from others. The state should be open and transparent with all of its COVID-19 statistics.

Regardless, the data continues to be revealed, even with the state’s stonewalling. The information we now know paints a compelling case for a far different reopening plan than Gov. Pritzker has introduced.

Hat tip to CWB Chicago for making us aware of the examiner’s online database. The link to the examiner’s office is here.

* * *

Click here for the full list of Cook County COVID-19 victims

Read more about COVID-19 and the impact on Illinois:

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/35Xm06d Tyler Durden

FBI ‘Mistakenly’ Releases 9/11 Bombshell In Court: Key Saudi Diplomat Who “Tasked” Hijackers Named

FBI ‘Mistakenly’ Releases 9/11 Bombshell In Court: Key Saudi Diplomat Who “Tasked” Hijackers Named

Tyler Durden

Wed, 05/13/2020 – 17:45

It’s being called “a complete government cover-up of the Saudi involvement” according to 9/11 victims’ families who are in a lengthy ongoing lawsuit seeking to expose Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks and US efforts to cover it up.

A new bombshell has been dropped which the families of victims are hailing a huge success: FBI court documents inadvertently left a key Saudi embassy official’s name unredacted, revealing one of the government’s most sensitive secrets regarding the September 11 attacks and state sponsorship.

A Yahoo News exclusive reveals, based on what has since been admitted as “a giant screw-up,” the identity of “a mysterious Saudi Embassy official in Washington who agents suspected had directed crucial support to two of the al-Qaida hijackers.”

Ironically the ‘accidental’ release of the information was related to filings by Attorney General William Barr and acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to get information pertaining to the kingdom’s role in the attacks permanently banned from public access, citing the usual “state secrets” and national security concerns.

The FBI mistakenly revealed the identify of a top Saudi embassy official who had continuing direct contact with individuals involved in running the Los Angeles al-Qaeda terror cell which produced some of the hijackers: his name is Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah.

Al-Jarrah was an official diplomat of the Saudi foreign ministry and embassy in D.C. who oversaw Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers throughout the US from 1999 and 2000. Crucially he’s been revealed as a key “link” between the Saudi government and the Los Angeles cell, specifically two terrorists which went on to fly a plane into the Pentagon.

The Yahoo News report describes the huge significance of the Al-Jarrah revelation as follows:

Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric who served as the imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles and Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi government agent who assisted two terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who participated in the hijacking of the American Airlines plane that flew into the Pentagon, killing 125.

After the two hijackers flew to Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000, al-Bayoumi found them an apartment, lent them money and set them up with bank accounts.

A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI “update” about the investigation stated that FBI agents had uncovered “evidence” that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” to assist the hijackers by yet another individual whose name was blacked out, prompting lawyers for the families to refer to this person as “the third man” in what they argue is a Saudi-orchestrated conspiracy.

That “third man” is newly revealed by the FBI ‘mistake’ as Al-Jarrah — believed to have “tasked” intermediaries to assist some among the 9/11 hijackers.

Current and former FBI officials speaking on anonymity have said that top leaders at the bureau have sought to quash this whole investigation from the start. “There were definitely people at FBI headquarters who wanted this closed,” one former official told Yahoo.

The report continues:

Relatively little is known about Jarrah, but according to former embassy employees, he reported to the Saudi ambassador in the United States (at the time Prince Bandar), and that he was later reassigned to the Saudi missions in Malaysia and Morocco, where he is believed to have served as recently as last year.

Jarrah has been on the radar screen of the lawyers for the 9/11 families for some time and is among nine current or former Saudi officials who they suspect have important information about the case and have sought to either question them or get access to FBI documents that mention them.

The families have also tapped former agents to help investigate the activities of the potential witnesses, including Jarrah.

Jarrah “was responsible for the placement of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees known as guides and propagators posted to the United States, including Fahad Al Thumairy,” according to a separate declaration by Catherine Hunt, a former FBI agent based in Los Angeles who has been assisting the families in the case.

Hunt conducted her own investigation into the support provided to the hijackers in Southern California. “The FBI believed that al-Jarrah was ‘supporting’ and ‘maintaining’ al-Thumairy during the 9/11 investigation,” she said in her declaration.

*Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah (left), via Gulf-based Thumbay Group.*

Musaed Ahmad Al-Jarrah (pictured above left, and below), former Saudi Foreign Ministry official assigned to the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC between 1999 and 2000.

A spokesman for the 9/11 families whose father was killed in the attacks, Brett Eagleson, said of the Jarrah revelation that ultimately it confirms a Saudi chain of command behind 9/11 which goes direct to the Saudi embassy in D.C.

Below: Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador to the US, speaking to former President George W Bush at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August 2002. An ‘indirect link’ between Prince Bandar and an al-Qaeda suspect is revealed in a 9/11 investigatory report. Al-Jarrah reported directly to Prince Bandar, who later became Saudi intelligence chief and kingdom’s national security council head.

“It demonstrates there was a hierarchy of command that’s coming from the Saudi Embassy to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs [in Los Angeles] to the hijackers,” Eagleson said.

And no doubt there’s still a mountain of evidence kept secret by the US government concerning the real 9/11 story. At this point we’re still surely at the mere tip of the iceberg as the official narrative continues to unravel even by the mainstream media’s belated admission (whereas in prior years any critical approach to official Washington’s 9/11 mythology got one dismissed as ‘conspiracy theorist’ and ‘truther’ etc..).

Given the 9/11 lawsuit driven by victims’ families is nowhere near finished, it is likely to slowly chip away and wrest more damning information from the feds.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yJ0Rkd Tyler Durden

Senate Votes Down Protections Against Warrantless Government Collection of Americans’ Browser and Search History

An amendment that would forbid the feds from accessing Americans’ web browser and search history without a warrant died by just one vote in the Senate today.

Read the roll call for the amendment here.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Z0kCOF
via IFTTT