Americans Panic-Bought Guns And Ammo; What About Armored Vehicles? Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/22/2020 – 18:25
Readers may recall, back in 2018, we noted how the armored car business in Mexico was flourishing, thanks to cartel wars erupting across the country.
We even said, “As global automakers now realize that there is money to be made in bulletproofing a car, it is only a matter of time before these cars hit the streets of the United States.”
This leaves us with today: America has transformed into a chaotic mess. Social unrest and violent crime plague major US metro areas. Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing cities for suburban life.
There’s also been panic-buying of guns, ammo, and bulletproof vests since the virus pandemic began in March. Another round of buying was observed when social unrest was sparked across the country following George Floyd protests in Minnesota in late May.
With no end to the unrest and violence, nevertheless, an upcoming presidential election that is undoubtedly going to lead to chaos no matter who wins, the next trend in security could be wealthy folks buying low-key armored vehicles.
Canadian firm Inkas are offering armored vehicles indistinguishable from an ordinary Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Range Rover, Cadillac, and or Lincoln.
The Toronto-based company even sells a “military-style, ultra-high-end SUV that puts any Hummer, Jeep, or G-Wagen to shame,” said Bussiness Insider.
“The Sentry Civilian boasts a private jet-like cabin complete with leather captain’s chairs, an entertainment system, and a long list of optional luxury features. But you’d never know that looking at the vehicle’s exterior — on the outside, the SUV gets bullet-resistant glass, run-flat tires, and an armored passenger compartment.”
Here’s an inside view of the Sentry Civilian, a blend of security and luxury.
The civilian use of armored vehicles made national attention earlier this year when InfoWars founder Alex Jones rolled up to an anti-gun control rally in Richmond with a ‘battle tank.’
So the big question we ask since Americans have panic bought pretty much everything under the sun – will they start buying low-key armored vehicles as the country becomes more dangerous?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3kJEM79 Tyler Durden
Senior editor, Ash Bennington, welcomes back Tony Greer, editor of the Morning Navigator, to discuss the ongoing inflation trade. Tony expounds on his bullish posture toward oil and some of the technical indicators he uses to analyze different securities. He also reviews some of the current policy stances that emerged from last week’s FOMC meeting, explaining how he leverages these policy shifts to seek out price inflation across different asset classes. Real Vision reporter Haley Draznin monitors the continued volatility in the markets and addresses the potential risks investors are paying close attention to in the coming weeks including another stimulus relief bill out of Congress, a new spending bill, and surging coronavirus cases in the U.S. and abroad.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RMAYFW Tyler Durden
President Donald Trump recently instructed federal agencies to end training related to “White Privilege” or “Critical Race Theory,” calling them “anti-American propaganda.”
“These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce,” Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought wrote in a memo to federal employees, according to Fox News.
Meanwhile, colleges across the country are seeing a growing trend of racial sensitivity classes and trainings, and Campus Reform has rounded up some of the most extreme examples.
Columbia University hosted a five-week “deconstructing whiteness” lecture series for white-identified students in July. The goal was to “engage in exploration of their white identities and build community and accountability around deconstructing whiteness and white privilege to facilitate the development of an antiracist lens.” In an email reportedly sent to students, the university’s law school said the workshop “will not be a support group for white students. Nor will it be comfortable or easy.”
In the West Point Military Academy’s “Behavioral Science and Leadership” seminar, cadets are required to read “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction.” The school website said the school’s leadership course is an “introduction to the concepts of race, gender, and sexuality in the American political system” with a focus on the “inherent inequalities found.”
All freshmen at the University of Pittsburgh will be required to take the one-credit course. One goal outlined in the syllabus is to provide an overview of the Reconstruction Amendments and “the agenda of Radical Republicans.” Other lessons included focusing on challenging a student’s past education in regards to American history and “ritual practices that teach anti-Black and pro-White sentiment…”
Houghton College in Houghton, New York announced a course to “explore the complex role of American Protestant Christianity in the construction of historic and contemporary notions of race and U.S. systems of racial hierarchy.” In the course to be launched in spring 2021, students will be asked to “interrogate the role of race and faith in the formation of your values…” One of the course outcomes is to be able to assemble a framework and vocabulary that “connects theories about race, racism, white supremacy, theology, resistance and anti-racism to justice-seeking liberatory movements and praxes for social transformation.”
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted various weekly online workshops to “explore the ways that white supremacy manifests in our lives, our communities, and our work” at the School of Music. The workshop description stated that it was intended for “students who hold white privilege” but all students were welcome. Participants were required to read the book Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad.
A University of Arizona course is set to explore “the various sources of white power and privilege.” The six sessions are designed for people who are interested in “unpacking the ways we are constantly bombarded with messages that uphold white superiority and racial hierarchy” and “how racial violence works in conjunction with other forms of structural racism.”
In this three-credit course at American University in Washington, D.C., students will develop “strategies for antiracist engagements.” Students will examine “the social, legal, and media constructions of white racial identities in relation to issues of racial justice.”
The course at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts focuses on “cultural politics, political geographies, and historical development of racial capitalism.” According to the school’s website, the course will do this “through and against a history of racial capitalism that privileges the U.S. nation-state in particular.”
This one-credit course at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania will “address religious theories justifying racial domination.” In particular, the class will highlight and discuss practices foundational to the process of “whiteness-making.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FUIlZf Tyler Durden
Matt Gaetz Calls On Florida AG To Investigate Mike Bloomberg ‘For Potentially Engaging In Bribery And Vote Buying” Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/22/2020 – 17:45
Update (1815ET): Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has called on the state’s Attorney General to investigate Bloomberg for “Potentially Engaging In Bribery And Vote Buying.”
#BREAKING: I’m calling on the Florida Attorney General to launch an investigation into @MikeBloomberg for potentially engaging in bribery and vote buying in the state of Florida. pic.twitter.com/2pAjZlAwSh
Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg – who has committed at least $100 million in Florida towards electing Joe Biden, has raised another $16 million to pay the court fines and fees of nearly 32,000 Black and Hispanic felons so that they can vote in the November election.
The money will go towards a program organized by the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. By state law, former prisoners who are already registered to vote in Florida are barred from participating in the election if they have outstanding legal debts to the state, according to the Washington Post.
Bloomberg has raised money from both individuals and foundations, according to his advisers. The billionaire views the donations as a more cost-effective way of adding Democratic voters in Florida than investing money to persuade non-felons to change their vote, according to a memo.
“We have identified a significant vote share that requires a nominal investment,” it reads. “The data shows that in Florida, Black voters are a unique universe unlike any other voting bloc, where the Democratic support rate tends to be 90%-95%.“
The memo also notes that Biden is currently polling worse among Cuban American voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, while other Hispanic groups are in favor of Biden by a margin of 3 to 1.
Florida voters passed a statewide constitutional amendment in 2018 that gave former felons, except those convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses, the opportunity to vote in upcoming elections. The Republican-controlled legislature subsequently passed, and the Republican governor signed, a law that conditioned their return to the voting rolls on the payment of all fees, fines and restitution that were part of their sentence.
The Republican effort is expected to limit the political benefit to Democrats of the constitutional change, which passed by ballot initiative with 65 percent support. A study by the University of Florida found that nearly 775,000 former felons still owed money related to their convictions and would be barred from the voting booth by the law. The vast majority are too poor to pay their outstanding debts, according to evidence presented in court documents challenging the law. –Washington Post
Beyond Bloomberg, several philanthropic groups have poured money into paying off debts owed by felons – including a nonprofit founded by LeBron James. Bloomberg’s effort, meanwhile, is “narrowly focused only on Black and Hispanic voters” whose debts are less than $1,500.
“Mike wanted to get this done for two reasons,” a Bloomberg adviser told the Post. “One, because it’s the right thing to do for the democracy. And two, because it immediately activates tens of thousands of voters who are predisposed to vote for Joe Biden.”
The Bloomberg memo pointed out that the 31,790 targeted voters, including 25,548 who are Black, are nearly equivalent to the margin by which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won election in 2018, and about three times as big as the margin that elected Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) that same year.
It said Florida voters have largely already made up their minds about the November election, leaving “only a small margin of voters that are targets for persuasion.” –Washington Post
“We know to win Florida we will need to persuade, motivate and add new votes to the Biden column,” reads the document. “This means we need to explore all avenues for finding the needed votes when so many votes are already determined.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/303k2zE Tyler Durden
Nonprofit homelessness advocates have spent the COVID-19 pandemic trying to house homeless people in hotels rather than crowded shelters where the coronavirus can easily spread. Time and again, these advocates have run into opposition from NIMBY neighbors and city officials.
The latest example comes from Bakersfield, California. On Tuesday, Los Angeles Times columnist Erika Smith published a story detailing how a local hospital scuttled plans to lodge homeless residents in a nearby motel because it was too close to their employee parking lot.
Bakersfield’s local homeless nonprofit, the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative (BKRHC), had planned to rent out 21 rooms in the city’s Rosedale Inn for several months at the cost of $383,966. Funding was to be provided by the state’s Project Roomkey, a largely federally funded program that pays for putting up homeless people in hotel rooms and providing services to them while they’re there.
The Times reports that previous attempts to house some of Bakersfield’s homeless residents in hotels had fallen through because of opposition from nearby homeowners. BKRHC’s director, Anna Laven, had hoped that the Rosedale Inn, which was not near any residential neighborhood, would be a less controversial location.
But while it wasn’t next to any housing, the roadside motel was near the Bakersfield Heart Hospital, whose employee parking lot is located a short distance from the Rosedale Inn.
Using the inn as temporary housing for the homeless required the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment to issue a conditional use permit to the BKRHC. In an August 10 letter, the hospital’s lawyers argued against the plan.
Granting BKRHC’s permit “would significantly add to the problems which already emanate from the Rosedale Inn which includes but [is] not limited to, illicit drug use, vagrancy, theft, and vandalism of hospital property, theft and vandalism of cars parked on hospital property and an increased exposure of patients and staff of the hospital to COVID-19 and other adverse consequences,” reads the letter.
The letter from hospital attorneys also asserted that the homeless themselves would be made worse off by being housed in the Rosedale Inn, given the reported crime and drug use that happens there.
That letter didn’t manage to convince the city’s zoning board, which voted to grant BKRHC a conditional use permit. However, the hospital appealed the decision to the Bakersfield City Council, which proved more receptive to its concerns. It rejected BKRHC’s permit application, leaving the organization without much hope of finding another motel to serve as a site for its Project Roomkey initiative.
This is hardly the first time that a plan to put up homeless people in hotels during COVID-19 has been shot down as a result of neighborhood opposition.
New York City’s decision to lodge 300 homeless men in a hotel on the city’s wealthy Upper West Side neighborhood met with such fierce opposition from existing residents that the city eventually agreed to relocate the men.
Back in April, the mayor of Florence, Kentucky pressured a hotel to back out of an agreement it had made with two local nonprofits to rent out 40 rooms to serve as temporary housing the area’s homeless population.
Whether they represent wealthy, urban, and liberal communities, or poorer, rural, conservative ones, few local politicians seem to like the idea of having homeless people live indoors nearby. Zoning codes requiring additional approval for temporary housing arrangements often enable this rank NIMBYism.
Worse still this NIMBYism serves only to interfere with voluntary arrangements made by nonprofits serving the homeless, the hotel owners willing to house them, and the homeless themselves who are eager to avoid bunking in dangerous shelters.
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It has long been feared that Google, which controls almost 90% of U.S. Internet search traffic, could sway an election by altering the search results it shows users.
New data indicate that may be happening, as conservative news sites including Breitbart, the Daily Caller, and the Federalist have seen their Google search listings dramatically reduced.
The data come from the search consultancy Sistrix, which tracks a million different Google search keywords and keeps track of how highly different sites rank across all the search terms.
The tracker shows that Google search visibility for Breitbart first plunged in 2017, before falling to approximately zero in July 2019:
Googling the name “Breitbart” still pulls up the website, but it is nearly eliminated from any searches that don’t explicitly name it. For example, Googling the names of Breitbart’s reporters sometimes forces users to click through page after page of less-relevant results before hitting a Breitbart link. In the case of Joel Pollak, the first Breitbart link appears on the bottom of page 7 of Google search results. In comparison, a search on the small Google competitor DuckDuckGo gives multiple links to Pollak’s Breitbart work on the first page.
Breitbart saw that stark reduction in search, even as little else in the news outlet’s reporting model changed. Other conservative news sites, such as the Daily Caller, also were de-ranked at similar times.
Both Breitbart and the Daily Caller have confirmed that their Google traffic fell dramatically as their search rankings fell.
Internal Google files have hinted at such action. In 2018, the Daily Caller reported on a leaked exchange the day after President Trump’s 2016 election win. In it, employees debated whether Breitbart and the Daily Caller should be buried.
“This was an election of false equivalencies, and Google, sadly, had a hand in it,” Google engineer Scott Byer wrote, according to the documents obtained by the Daily Caller.
“How many times did you see … items from opinion blogs (Breitbart, Daily Caller) elevated next to legitimate news organizations? That’s something that can and should be fixed.” Byer wrote.
He added, “I think we have a responsibility to expose the quality and truthfulness of sources.”
In the leaked exchange, other Googlers pushed back, saying that it shouldn’t be Google’s role to rank sources’ legitimacy — and that hiding sites would only add to distrust.
Google did not respond to a request for comment about the data presented here.
An expert in search engine optimization pointed RealClearPolitics to a public Google document from 2019 outlining how the company now employs humans to go through webpages and rate them based on “Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness.” “Google has acknowledged they use human search quality raters who help evaluate search results,” said Chris Rodgers, CEO and founder of Colorado SEO Pros.
Google does not directly use such ratings to rank sites, but “based on those ratings Google will then tweak their algorithm and use machine learning to help dial in the desired results,” Rodgers explained.
The Google guidelines instruct raters to give the “lowest” ranking to any news-related “content that contradicts well-established expert consensus.” And how does one determine “expert consensus”? The Google guidelines repeatedly advise raters to consult Wikipedia, which it mentions 56 times:
“See if there is a Wikipedia article or news article from a well-known news site. Wikipedia can be a good source of information about companies, organizations, and content creators.”
The document cites the Christian Science Monitor as an example.
“Notice the highlighted section in the Wikipedia article about The Christian Science Monitor newspaper, which tells us that the newspaper has won seven Pulitzer Prize awards,” the document tells raters. “From this information, we can infer that the csmonitor.com website has a positive reputation.”
The reliance on Wikipedia could partly explain the de-rankings, as the crowdsourced encyclopedia calls Breitbart “far right” and alleges that the Daily Caller “frequently published false stories.” But Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, recently wrote an essay about how “Wikipedia is badly biased.”
In addition to the human ratings used to test algorithms, Google also has human-maintained blacklists — but they are supposed to be very limited. In congressional testimony this summer, Rep. Matt Gaetz asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai if the search engine manually de-ranked websites. Gaetz cited Breitbart, the Daily Caller, as well as WesternJournal.com and Spectator.org, two other conservative news sites that Sistrix data show have been nearly removed from Google searches.
Pichai responded that his company only removes sites if they are deemed to be “interfering in elections” or conveying “violent extremism.”
It remains unclear why the conservative sites were de-ranked. “Only Google can truly know why these sites have seen ranking losses,” SEO expert Rodgers said.
Jeremy Rivera, of JeremyRiveraSEO.com, told RealClearPolitics that there are several possible reasons for de-ranking. Both Breitbart and the Daily Caller have “low-quality” sites linking to them, he said, and they host many ads, which create slow page-load times. “Page-load speed is a direct ranking factor,” he said.
Several news outlets, on both the left and right, have avoided the near-total blackout experienced by Breitbart and the Daily Caller, but saw their search listings reduced significantly. Among them is The Federalist, which saw search listings fall dramatically this spring after coming under fire for running articles that critics said downplayed the danger of COVID-19.
Some left-leaning news sites were docked too.
Other major sites, such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and CNN, have not seen dramatic changes in rankings, according to Sistrix data.
Some observers say the trends show innovation at work, as companies try to present users with the highest-quality information. “These are inherently subjective questions,” said Berin Szóka of TechFreedom, noting that the First Amendment gives “complete discretion of private media companies, which includes Google. … They have the same right to decide what content to carry that Breitbart and Fox do.”
Others worry that the near-blacklisting of conservative outlets could tip election outcomes this year. A 2015 peer-reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that a search engine could sway more than 10% of undecided voters in an election simply by altering what results are shown.
“Such manipulations are difficult to detect, and most people are relatively powerless when trying to resist sources of influence they cannot see,” the authors warn. “When people are unaware they are being manipulated, they tend to believe they have adopted their new thinking voluntarily.”
The paper further suggests that Google’s 87% market share is a concern. While competitors are growing in popularity, their market share numbers remain low: Microsoft’s Bing has 7.2% of the pie, and DuckDuckGo has 1.75%.
“Because the majority of people in most democracies use a search engine provided by just one company… election-related search rankings could pose a significant threat to the democratic system of government,” the paper concludes.
* * *
After publication, a Google spokesperson responded:
“There is no validity whatsoever to these allegations of political bias. Our systems do not take political ideology into account, and we go to extraordinary lengths to build our products for everyone in an apolitical way. Anyone can easily cherry-pick a range of conservative, progressive or non-political sites that have seen traffic changes over time. The improvements we make to Search undergo a rigorous testing process and are done to provide helpful information for the billions of queries we get every day.”
The spokesperson has not responded to specific follow-up questions about whether any progressive news site had seen as stark a fall as Breitbart or the Daily Caller, or whether Google’s quality ratings (which are part of their testing process) might be ideologically skewed due to reliance on Wikipedia.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33Qry1F Tyler Durden
$138 Billion Bridgewater Set Up 50 “Tent Offices” In The Woods Outside Of Its HQ For Its Traders Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/22/2020 – 17:05
In keeping with a bizarre string of decisions (or lack of decisionmaking, as we pointed out) that could be at the heart of Bridgewater’s awful -18.6% YTD performance so far this year, would it surprise you if we told you the fund manager was setting up office tents in the middle of the woods for its employees?
Well, apparently, that’s exactly what the company did. The $138 billion hedge fund now has tents set up in the woods across from its Westport, Conn. headquarters so that its traders can “continue to work from their desks” while also “breathing fresh air,” according to the NY Post.
The tents were set up in May and can accommodate about 50 of Bridgewater’s 1,500 staff members. They were set up because indoor safety protocols for Covid were deemed to be too stressful. The result, according to Nir Bar Dea, cohead of Bridgewater’s investment engine? Chirping birds that can disrupt calls and at least one falling tree.
“We’re sitting outside—that’s never been a part of our plans,” Bar Dea, who has likely already been fired for talking to the press, told Fortune. Bridgewater is going to keep the setup through October or “until the weather gets too cold to comfortably work outdoors,” Bar Dea continued.
Perhaps Bridgewater should stop doing its best Bear Grylls impressions and start focusing more on its returns. We noted just days ago that it has been an ugly year, performance-wise, for Ray Dalio.
In addition to the fund’s worst losses in a decade, there is a “sprawling list of troubles” being dealt with internally, according to Bloomberg. These trouble include internal computer models misreading the market (also known as the New York Fed model), $3.5 billion in redemptions during the first 7 months of the year and Dalio losing an arbitration fight with ex-staffers.
He also has ongoing feuds with his co-chief executive and has laid off “dozens” of employees, according to the report.
And what changes has Dalio made to adjust, aside from tents in the woods? Apparently none.
“We are operating in the same way we have always operated,” he told Bloomberg TV. Dalio says the firm still has 45 commitments from investors, many around $1 billion.
The firm’s key issue, according to insiders, was that it adopted a risk off strategy in March while the market was tanking, and then failed to put risk back on despite the Federal Reserve guaranteeing it would backstop the market with unlimited QE.
Former employees say that the fanfare surrounding Dalio has also “distracted him from the firm”. Dalio doesn’t want to adjust his computer models to add new data that’s standard at other firms, including tracking oil tankers.
Bridgewater has cut dozens of jobs amidst the chaos and its number of investors has dropped from 350 to about 300. Clients that remain on the roster tout the firm’s 10.4% annualized gain since 1991 – and its “unparalleled customer service”.
Given his fund’s performance this year, we can’t help but think: Maybe Dalio needs a little more time in solitude in the woods himself, perhaps to do some “deep thinking”…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HnVNFQ Tyler Durden
FBI agent John Robertson, the man who found Hillary Clinton’s emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, claims he was advised by bosses to erase his own computer.
Former FBI Director James Comey, you may recall, announced days before the 2016 presidential election that he had “learned of the existence” of the emails on Weiner’s laptop .
Weiner is the disgraced husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Robertson alleges that the manner in which his higher-ups in the FBI handled the case was “not ethically or morally right.”
His startling claims are made in a book titled, “October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election,” an excerpt of which has been published by the Washington Post.
Book: Obama DOJ threatened to prosecute FBI agent if he told anyone about Clinton emails on Weiner laptop. BTW, DOJ is still protecting Clinton. https://t.co/4E8WJYnLFB
Told to Erase Laptop Containing Investigation of Anthony Weiner Laptop
Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton’s emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop.
It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney’s office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action.
“He had told his bosses about the Clinton emails weeks ago,” the book contends . “Nothing had happened.”
“Or rather, the only thing that had happened was his boss had instructed Robertson to erase his computer work station.”
This, according to the Post report, was to “ensure there was no classified material on it,” but also would eliminate any trail of his actions taken during the investigation.
Now that the WaPo has confirmed (as I first reported @ RealClearInvestigations in 2018) the fact that FBI agent John Robertson blew the whistle on Comey covering up new Hillary emails he discovered on Weiner laptop, how was that suppression of evidence not obstruction of justice?
FBI Did Nothing About Hillary Clinton’s Emails For Months?
Robertson’s assertions match up with a Wall Street Journal report from 2018 .
In that report, text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, lawyer Lisa Page, indicated the former had been called to discuss the newly discovered emails on September 28th.
Those emails wouldn’t be revealed until former Director James Comey notified Congress about them on October 28th.
McCabe learned about Clinton emails on Weiner laptop a month before @FBI alerted Congress, report says https://t.co/lE8SmvOKX4
These allegations make it difficult to say Comey did not lie to the public – if not Congress .
Robertson’s story is being revealed as U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the FBI’s role in the origins of the Russia probe into President Trump’s campaign.
Recently released documents from the DOJ show multiple FBI officials had “accidentally wiped” their phones after the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested them .
Erasing evidence is a consistent theme for the Obama-era FBI.
Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has voted to authorize over three dozen subpoenas and depositions of some of these officials, including Comey.
Kevin Clinesmith, one of the FBI officials involved in gathering evidence in the Russia investigation, pled guilty last month to making a false statement.
He was accused by the Inspector General of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said in July that he expects further indictments and jail time to come out of Durham’s probe.
Democrats, Comey, and others at the FBI might be a little nervous.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3cnHBIr Tyler Durden
Amid Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Beta shut-ins, and concerns over 2nd or 3rd (or whetever) waves of COVID cases, there is plenty of noise but WTI prices managed a small rebound todays after yesterday’s bloodbath in black gold.
Energy traders struggled “to assess the uncertainty with U.S. production as we approach the last two months of hurricane season [and] how bad the demand outlook will get following the winter wave of the coronavirus,” as Libyan oil production slowly bounces back, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.
Algos will be eyeing the inventory data but there is a lot of nuance due to the storms…
API
Crude +691k (-4.0mm exp)
Cushing +298k
Gasoline -7.735mm (-1.9mm exp) – biggest draw since Sept 2017
Distillates -2.104mm (+1.2mm exp)
Some serious errors from expectations in the API data with a surprise (but small) crude build, a huge gasoline draw and a surprise distillate draw…
Source: Bloomberg
While the bounce Tuesday was welcome for oil bulls, analysts said uncertainty around the outlook for both demand and supply was likely to keep a lid on the market in the near term.
The measures “put in place to curb the pandemic have a direct and comparatively marked impact on oil demand,” said Barbara Lambrecht, analyst at Commerzbank, in a note.
WTI hovered around $39.80 ahead of the API data and was largely unchanged after the print…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3cl4coZ Tyler Durden
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced legislation Monday to crack down on what he called “violent” protests, but civil liberties groups say it’s an obvious attempt to punish protected First Amendment activities.
DeSantis’ proposed legislation is called the Combating Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act. The bill would raise criminal penalties for protest-related offenses, make organizers and other participants liable for violence and/or property destruction that occurs at protests, and block state funding to county and local governments that cut law enforcement budgets, among other provisions.
“Our right to peacefully assemble is one of our most cherished as Americans, but throughout the country we’ve seen that right being taken advantage of by professional agitators, bent on sowing disorder and causing mayhem in our cities,” DeSantis said at a press conference Monday, flanked by Republican leaders and law enforcement officials. “I will not allow this kind of violence to occur here in Florida.”
Today I announced bold legislation that creates new criminal offenses and increases penalties for those who target law enforcement and participate in violent or disorderly assemblies. We will always stand with our men and women in uniform who keep our communities safe. pic.twitter.com/ITl5GmmrZJ
The proposal is part of a trend of conservative lawmakers introducing bills to further criminalize protests following massive demonstrations and violent unrest this summer over the police killing of George Floyd. Last month, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law making it a felony for protesters to camp on state grounds and criminalize marking government buildings with chalk.
Civil liberties groups in Florida say DeSantis’ legislation is an affront to the Constitution. In a statement, Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, called DeSantis’ proposed legislation “undemocratic and hostile to Americans’ shared values.”
“This effort has one goal: silence, criminalize, and penalize Floridians who want to see justice for Black lives lost to racialized violence and brutality at the hands of law enforcement,” Kubic said.
Specifically, DeSantis’ legislation would
make it a third-degree felony when seven or more people are in “an assembly and cause damage to property or injury”
make it a third-degree felony to obstruct traffic during an unpermitted protest and remove criminal liability for drivers who injure or kill someone “if fleeing to safety from a mob”
make it a second-degree felony to destroy property during an unlawful assembly
attach RICO liability to “anyone who organizes or funds a violent or disorderly assembly”
create a new mandatory minimum six-month sentence for striking a law enforcement officer during a “violent assembly”
prohibit state grants or aid “to any local government that slashes the budget for law enforcement services”
and hold defendants charged with a crime related to an unlawful assembly without bail until their first court appearance.
The legislative text has not been released yet, so there are no details on how exactly these proposals would be applied. DeSantis told reporters at his press conference that the law would only block funding to local governments that “disproportionately” targeted police budgets.
Carrie Boyd, policy director for Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, said in a statement that if DeSantis’ legislation passes, “it would put people at risk of going to jail who did nothing wrong.”
“We’ve already seen police abusing their power to arrest people who protest officer misconduct,” Boyd continued. “This type of legislation has no place in Florida and we ask the state attorney office to not prosecute if it does become law.”
Florida was largely spared from destructive violence and looting that spread across the country this summer. In fact, local investigative reporting has shown that much of the violence during Florida protests was instigated by police, not protesters.
In Fort Lauderdale, a May 31 clash between police and protesters led to one officer being indicted on battery charges and one protester hospitalized after she was shot in the head with a rubber bullet.
Fort Lauderdale police claimed they were responding to a mob of “violent agitators” that attacked police. However, the Miami Heraldreported that “the visual documentation supports what witnesses have been saying for weeks: that a police officer ignited the violent clash that lasted for two hours in the streets of downtown Fort Lauderdale.”
The Herald obtained body camera footage showing officers laughing as they shot protesters with rubber bullets. “Did you see me fuck up those motherfuckers?” one of the officers said, mistakenly under the impression that his body camera was turned off.
The Florida Times-Unionreported this week that the Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office has dropped the prosecutions of 63 out of 66 arrests made by Jacksonville police during protests over May 30 and 31:
The Sheriff’s Office recently released a dozen body-camera videos that show arrests of protesters. The videos show protesters seeming to comply with police — in one case a woman asked which way to walk and then she was arrested for not dispersing; in another case, a woman said she was walking to her car; in another case, a man on the Main Street bridge jumped over a concrete barrier after the crowd had bottlenecked. Each said they were following police orders and asked why they were arrested.
“You need to leave or you’re going to jail,” an officer says in one video. A woman limping away shouts back at them, “What is the matter with you people?” Officers then arrest her.
Several of DeSantis’ proposals, like making demonstrators and organizers liable for the actions of others might not be constitutional, while measures that would yank funding from cities to protect police officers’ feelings are simply brainless culture-war fodder.
DeSantis and state Republican leaders said the legislation will be their top priority for the next legislative session.
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