Month: August 2022

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary (emphasis ours),

The DOJ just released the affidavit submitted in support of the search warrant of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Here it is for download.

As expected, the judge allowed the Government to heavily redact the affidavit before it went public. In yesterday’s order, the judge found that parts of the affidavit must remain sealed because:

disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e).

This aligns with the DOJ representations that (1) information in the affidavit “could be used to identify many, if not all” of the witnesses; (2) the affidavit would provide a “roadmap for anyone intent on obstructive the investigation.”

Affidavit allegations:

• Classified materials and “evidence of obstruction”

• The contents of the boxes reviewed by the FBI

• Discussions of declassification.

 

• Allegations of improper storage of materials.

• Details regarding the search of Trump’s office.

Other thoughts.

Some aren’t so convinced. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kash Patel, one of the foremost experts on Russiagate, has stated he didn’t know what was in the boxes taken from Mar-A-Lago by the FBI. The New York Times also has doubts about whether the documents included Russiagate materials:

None of those documents or any other materials pertaining to the Russia investigation were believed to be in the cache of documents recovered by the F.B.I. during the search of Mar-a-Lago, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

In fact, many of the Russiagate documents declassified by Trump may already be in possession of the National Archives. According to June 2022 reporting from Politico:

Former President Donald Trump has told the National Archives to grant journalist John Solomon access to non-public administration records, according to Solomon and a spokesperson for the former president.

Solomon said Trump specifically directed the Archives to give him access to documents related to the Russia probe that were declassified in the final days of his administration. And he said the Archives have been cooperative and accommodating.

Then there’s the issue of classification. Does it matter if the documents at Mar-A-Lago were classified or unclassified?

As we stated when the warrant was released, the statutes in question do not necessarily require the documents to be classified. One of the statutes mentioned in the warrant – 18 USC § 2071 – prohibits the removal of “any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office. . .” Prosecution under § 2071 does not depend on the classification of the document.

The Espionage Act (18 USC § 793) is also referenced in the warrant. Over at Lawfare they guessed that “the part of the Espionage Act that is likely most relevant in this case is § 793(d).” They ended up being wrong. The affidavit cites to 793(e), which prohibits the unauthorized possession and retention of documents “relating to the national defense.”

The Espionage Act does not contain the term “classified.” And although the law’s application considers the status of classification, there’s a question of whether the documents must be classified for charges to be brought. See US v. Morison, 844 F.2d 1057, 1076 (4th Cir. 1988) (discussing the narrowing of the definition of documents “relating to the national defense” to those documents “which had been ‘closely held’ by the government and was ‘not available to the general public’”). This leads us to ask whether the government can consider a document to be “closely held” if it isn’t classified.

The affidavit answers that question, stating “information related to the national defense” has been construed broadly by the courts.

Make no mistake: the Garland DOJ would see no issue with prosecuting for the retention of unclassified documents. But maybe they don’t need to go that far, as they’re alleging the materials at Mar-a-Lago were classified. From the DOJ’s April 29, 2022 letter to Trump’s attorneys: “among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages.” And back in May 2022, NARA stated it had “identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials.” And now we have the affidavit’s allegations that the materials were classified.

Read more here…

[ZH: Some hot takes from The Federalist‘s Sean Davis and others]

And a Breitbart article pic.twitter.com/EJHjQrh5WB

— Jeff Cunningham (@jeffrygc) August 26, 2022

According to the government’s own affidavit demanding authority to raid Trump’s home, the unprecedented raid was necessary because a bureaucrat at the National Archives was mad that Trump had “newspapers, magazines, [and] printed news articles.” https://t.co/RwcfYi8ADP pic.twitter.com/OSpDrc1KeJ

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 26, 2022

Transparency is one of DOJ’s and FBI’s passions. pic.twitter.com/1friuvyTyG

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 26, 2022

In the affidavit, the Justice Department acknowledged that Trump’s lawyers and former officials pointed to his “absolute authority to declassify documents” as president.

If the DOJ explains why they ignored that point, their rationale is completely redacted. pic.twitter.com/5sqyNVMioD

— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) August 26, 2022

If the NHTSA is investigating Tesla’s Autopilot use around motorcycles, as we reported it was just days ago, they may want to hurry up.

That’s because yet another motorcyclist has died as a result of a an accident with a Tesla, this time in Boca Raton, Florida. It is unclear whether or not Autopilot was involved in the accident. 

51 year old biker Ingrid Eva Noon was traveling west on Southwest 18th Street on her Kawasaki Vulcan, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, when, shortly after 2AM, a driver in a Tesla “struck her motorcycle from behind”.

The Sheriff’s office did confirm that the driver “had drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of the crash” and it isn’t yet clear whether or not the vehicle was on Autopilot at the time of the accident. An investigation is ongoing. 

However, the incident is eeriliy similar to other incidents the NHTSA is already investigating wherein Teslas on Autopilot potentially fail to recognize motorcycles in front of them. In the incidents the NHTSA is looked at, “Teslas collided with motorcycles on freeways in the darkness.”

Recall, about 20 days ago we wrote that the NHTSA was investigating potential Autopilot crashes that left two motorcyclists dead. 

The Tesla’s were “apparently running on Autopilot”, according to APs coverage of the story. The accidents wound up killing 2 motorcyclists, the report says. The NHTSA is looking at whether or not Tesla vehicle automation stops the vehicles for motorcycles. 

Both accidents were similar in nature: the NHTSA said it “sent investigation teams to two crashes last month in which Teslas collided with motorcycles on freeways in the darkness”. In both instances, the motorcyclists were killed. 

The agency now has suspicions “that Tesla’s partially automated driver-assist system was in use” during both accidents. 

The first accident was at 4:47am, July 7 on State Route 91, on a freeway in Riverside, California, the report says. A Model Y collided with a green Yamaha V-Star motorcycle that was ahead of it and the driver of the bike was ejected from his motorcycle. 

Another crash happened at 1:09am on July 24,  on Interstate 15 near Draper, Utah. A Model 3 was behind a Harley Davidson, the Utah Department of Public Safety said. 

“The driver of the Tesla did not see the motorcyclist and collided with the back of the motorcycle, which threw the rider from the bike,” the statement says. The rider of the Harley was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver told authorities he had Autopilot on, the report says. 

Authored by Alex Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Pfizer cannot use the government as a shield from liability for making false claims about its COVID-19 vaccine, lawyers for a whistleblower argued in response to Pfizer’s motion to dismiss a False Claims Act lawsuit.

“Respondents claim fraudulent certifications, false statements, doctored data, contaminated clinical trials, and firing of whistleblowers can be ignored based on the theory that they contracted their way around the fraud,” lawyers for Brook Jackson, who worked as regional director at one of the clinical trials used to develop the Pfizer vaccine, wrote in their Aug. 22 response.

“A drug company cannot induce the taxpayers to pay billions of dollars for a product,” they countered, “that honest data would show poses more risks than benefits, and that ignores the actual contract and the law itself.”

Jackson’s lawsuit alleges that Pfizer and two of its subcontractors violated the False Claims Act by providing bogus clinical trial results to garner the FDA approval of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Under federal law, individuals can sue on behalf of the government and win treble damages if they can prove an individual or company deliberately lied to the government.

One of Jackson’s attorneys, Warner Mendenhall, told The Epoch Times that the payout could be as much as $3.3 trillion.

“It would be enough to bankrupt Pfizer,” Mendenhall said.

Mendenhall, whose law firm has won multimillion-dollar False Claims Act cases, based his estimates on the more than $2 billion the U.S. government has paid Pfizer for more than 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

In motions to dismiss the lawsuit, Pfizer and its subcontractors argued that besides Jackson’s allegations being false, the government, not a private citizen, can initiate a False Claims Act complaint and that the lawsuit against them should, therefore, be dismissed.

“The Relator may not pursue the claims against Pfizer without the Government first pursuing them in an administrative proceeding,” Pfizer’s motion states.

The companies also argued that the FDA was well aware of Jackson’s claims for at least two years before the lawsuit was filed against them and that it publicly responded to Jackson’s allegations by expressing the agency’s “full confidence” in the data used to support the vaccine.

However, Mendenhall said a false claims action is independent of the government’s knowledge and that Jackson only has to prove Pfizer and its subcontractors presented fraudulent information to the FDA.

Jackson was third in command of the clinical trials conducted by Ventavia Research Group as part of Pfizer’s application for emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine. She was there for only 18 days before being fired by Ventavia after reporting what she called “absolute mayhem” and an utter disregard for safety protocols and federal regulations in developing the vaccine.

Jackson has submitted over 400 exhibits as part of her complaint. Jackson said that a former Taco’s cashier was among those tasked with injecting patients with the experimental jab. She alleged that the trial staff falsified patient signatures on informed consent paperwork. And she has described a daily mess of unsanitary conditions.

Jackson also responded for the first time to Pfizer’s characterization of her as an anti-vaccine, anti-government individual out for money as vengeance for her firing.

Jackson has worked on a long list of government-run clinical trials for vaccines and said she is pro-vaccine. She pointed out that her children have had all their childhood vaccines and that her entire family gets the flu vaccine yearly. Jackson received the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it was available and was initially one of its biggest cheerleaders.

While she is seeking compensation for her termination as part of her actions against Pfizer and the other companies, Jackson said she plans to donate any money she receives under her legal action against the companies to those injured by the vaccine.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s blood money,” she said. “The world should be disgusted by what went on here with the shameful actions behind this dangerous vaccine.”

LastPass, one of the world’s most popular password managers, has confirmed it has been hacked…err, has had a “security incident”. 

Last week the company started notifying its users of a “recent security incident” where an “unauthorized party” gained access to a developer account and accessed parts of its password manager’s source code and “some proprietary LastPass technical information,” according to The Verge. 

The company said that some source code was stolen, but that no passwords were taken. 

It wrote a letter to its users on Wednesday which stated: “Two weeks ago, we detected some unusual activity within portions of the LastPass development environment. After initiating an immediate investigation, we have seen no evidence that this incident involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults.”

It continued: “We have determined that an unauthorized party gained access to portions of the LastPass development environment through a single compromised developer account and took portions of source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information. Our products and services are operating normally.”

“In response to the incident, we have deployed containment and mitigation measures, and engaged a leading cybersecurity and forensics firm. While our investigation is ongoing, we have achieved a state of containment, implemented additional enhanced security measures, and see no further evidence of unauthorized activity,” the letter concluded. 

In a FAQ attached to the bottom of the letter, the company says that users Master passwords had not been compromised: “This incident did not compromise your Master Password. We never store or have knowledge of  your Master Password. We utilize an industry standard Zero Knowledge architecture that ensures LastPass can never know or gain access to our customers’ Master Password.”

The company also said that no data from clients vaults had been taken because the hack happened in the developer environment. The letter wrote: “This incident occurred in our development environment. Our investigation has shown no evidence of any unauthorized access to encrypted vault data.  Our zero knowledge model ensures that only the customer has access to decrypt vault data.”

LastPass is used by more than 33 million clients worldwide. 

According to the Verge report, the company has explained to its users that they don’t have to do anything specific to respond to the hack. And, as long as this week’s disclosure covered the extent of it, and there’s no additional details about the breach that come out over the next few days, maybe LastPass (and its users) can move forward from the incident…

By Alyssa Sporrer, by American Shipper

As its name suggests, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this month is designed to reduce inflation, but it also includes $300 billion worth of grants and incentives for clean energy and initiatives to combat climate change. 

The goal of the incentives is to accelerate electric vehicle adoption, green ports, increase renewable energy capacity and support products made in the U.S. There are also tax reforms and provisions for health care.

The climate legislation is supposed to help the U.S. lower greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

1. Incentives for electric trucks

The tax credit for purchasing an EV covers the price difference between a diesel truck and an electric truck, or 30% of the truck’s purchase price, whichever is lower. But it’s capped at $40,000 per vehicle purchase.

New heavy-duty electric trucks can cost over $300,000, so it’s unclear how much this tax credit would incentivize fleet owners to invest in EVs.

The tax credit may be “geared more toward incentivizing the purchase of smaller vehicles, such as cargo vans or box trucks used for short-haul package delivery in urban areas,” Beia Spiller, director of the transportation program at the nonprofit research group Resources for the Future, which studies the implications of vehicle electrification, told FreightWaves in a previous interview.

The IRA also includes a credit for building EV charging infrastructure of up to $100,000 per charger.

2. Renewable energy incentives

The IRA includes production and investment tax credits for battery storage and renewable wind and solar energy. This should make it greener and cheaper for supply chain companies to power their warehouses, distribution centers and stores.

Independent environmental and energy research nonprofit Resources for the Future projects the act will reduce electricity costs for the retail industry by 5.2% to 6.7% over the next decade, saving electricity consumers $209 billion to $278 billion. 

These estimations were based on expected natural gas prices. One of the benefits of more clean energy is it insulates electricity consumers from volatile natural gas prices.

The nonprofit predicted the GHG emissions from the electricity sector would drop between 70% and 75% by 2030 below 2005 levels. Without the IRA, those emissions were estimated to decrease by about 49% in the same time frame.

“As the nation looks to increase production of renewable energy and the sustainability of the supply chain, these new public investments will help support more solar, more electric trucks and new clean-energy technologies and infrastructure,” Susan Uthayakumar, chief energy and sustainability officer at Prologis, said in a statement.

3. Supporting domestic supply chains

The IRA is expected to drastically increase the demand for components needed in solar panels, wind turbines and EVs. This could create more jobs in the clean energy and manufacturing sectors. 

But there’s a catch. Some of the incentives hinge on a certain amount of raw materials being sourced in the U.S., the final product being constructed in the U.S. or meeting worker training and competitive wage standards.

While these conditions support domestic supply chains and labor rights, some experts think it may slow the adoption rate of EVs and renewable energy. Domestic supply chains for EV and solar panel production are not mature right now. 

It’s unclear whether these incentives will spur the expansion of these domestic supply chains or how fast that may occur.

The National Association of Manufacturers “remains staunchly opposed to the IRA. It increases taxes on manufacturers in America, undermining our competitiveness while we are facing harsh economic headwinds such as supply chain disruptions and the highest rate of inflation in decades.”

4. Greening ports

The IRA includes $3 billion in grants and rebates for port authorities and marine terminals to purchase zero-emission cargo-handling equipment until September 2027. The goal is to address air pollution in and around ports.

But it defines zero-emission port equipment and technology as being “human-operated equipment or human-maintained technology” and therefore excludes automated technology from being grant eligible.

Zero-emission cargo handling equipment or technology must emit no air pollutants or GHGs, or it must capture 100% of those emissions produced by vessels at berth to qualify for the grants.

“This would go a long way to help seaports meet their emission reduction goals,” said Elaine Nessle, executive director of the Coalition for America’s Gateway and Trade Corridors. “Freight projects often have economic benefits for the entire country, but they can also negatively impact local communities, so it’s good to have resources at the federal level to offset those negative impacts.”

Steven Hoffenberg, known mentor to Jeffrey Epstein and a convicted Ponzi schemer, was found dead in an apartment in Derby, Connecticut on Friday morning.  Police could not identify the body initially due to extreme decomposition over the course of at least seven days.  The cause of death has not been released but autopsy reports indicate no signs of trauma.

A private investigator for a woman who identified herself as a sexual assault victim of Epstein’s called police and requested a welfare check at the multifamily home on Tuesday, she had not heard from Hoffenberg for five days and that was unusual, police said.

It should be noted that this suggests that Hoffenberg was in fact in contact with one of Epstein’s alleged victims for an extended period of time leading up to his death.   

Hoffenberg was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1997 for his involvement in a financial scam that swindled thousands of investors out of $460 million, though Hoffenberg maintained that Epstein was the actual architect of the plan.  Epstein was never charged.

While it is likely that Hoffenberg’s death will be connected to “natural causes” associated with his older age (77), it is yet another strange footnote in the saga of the highly politically connected Jeffrey Epstein and his “Lolita Express.”  The infamous plane ride which whisked numerous political leaders off to Epstein’s island of Little Saint James, where some of them would allegedly participate in sex with underage prostitutes and exploited minors in exchange for money and favors.

The Department of Justice has apparently been in possession of Epstein’s client list for some time.  The demands have been growing for the release of this list ever since his “suicide” in jail, after Epstein told prison officials for weeks that he would never try to kill himself. 

Close Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was recently convicted in December of helping Epstein groom teenage girls for prostitution, is in a position to confirm client details of any list that might be in the DOJ’s hands.  For now, Epstein’s client list remains unconfirmed.  Given the numerous political elites that visited his island over the decades, it might stay that way.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The US Army reports it is having some serious problems when it comes to recruiting new soldiers. Last month, according to the AP: “Army officials … said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer.”

The army is not alone in missing recruitment goals:

Senior Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps leaders have said they are hopeful they will meet or just slightly miss their recruiting goals for this year. But they said they will have to dip into their pool of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year.

In fact, recruitment prospects are so grim that 2022 is looking to be the worst recruiting year for the army since 1973, when the US military transitioned to an all-volunteer—i.e., nonconscripted—force. The days of the post-9/11 surge in enlistments are long gone, and noted for two lost wars in recent years, the US military now faces a new environment of declining public support. Moreover, with its recent drive to showcase its commitment to so-called woke policy goals, the military may be alienating conservatives—a group that has long been a reliable source of recruits and political support.

Ultimately, of course, the military can always get more troops by raising pay and lowering standards. The latter requires only a policy change. And, given the federal government’s ability to essentially print money, the former is unlikely to be an insurmountable problem for the Pentagon either.

The good news, however, is that the military’s recruiting woes are likely yet another signal of declining support for the federal government and its institutions. The federal government has benefited immensely from the fact that the military has long been one of the most popular institutions within the central government. Even as many Americans claim they distrust the government or oppose “the bureaucracy,” widespread support for the government military bureaucracy has long helped to prop up the legitimacy of federal institutions. If falling enlistments are an indication of declining faith in the military overall, that would be a positive development, indeed.

The Economics of Recruitment

As has often been the case in the past, the military is now struggling to find enough willing recruits in an environment of low unemployment. After all, many recruits are motivated at least in part by promises of steady income, veterans’ benefits, and tuition reimbursement. These benefits look relatively less attractive when private-sector jobs are easy to find.

As a result, the military has been “throwing cash” at the problem. All the services are now “leaning on record-level enlistment and retention bonuses” to attract recruits, with higher bonuses for riskier or more skill-intensive work.

Military recruiting efforts, however, have long sought to “subsidize” salaries by promising psychic profits in the form of positive emotions obtained by fulfilling one’s supposed patriotic duty. Another benefit suggested by recruiters has been an alleged opportunity for “adventure.” Historically, recruitment efforts have relied on promising a variety of nonmonetary forms of “payment.”

In their analysis of military recruitment efforts, Peter Padilla and Mary Riege Laner identified at least four different types of benefits promised to potential recruits. These include patriotism, adventure/challenge, job/career/education, social status, and money. Emphasis has differed based on social trends (such as the prevalence of antiwar sentiment) and, of course, on the personal preferences of individual recruits.

The military, in any case, has recognized the need to appeal to all these aspects to meet recruitment goals. Even when military pay is generous, it is still necessary to get potential recruits to accept a job in which one cannot legally quit. Moreover, if a large number of potential recruits view the military as pursuing values and goals contrary to their own, monetary rewards would have to be raised quite high to overcome nonmonetary concerns.

Another strategy that can increase recruitment is to lower (or change) standards for new recruits. This has been done in various ways. For example, as tattoos have become more fashionable among middle-class youth, the military has granted many more waivers. The Air Force is now considering allowing members to grow beards. These changes, however, are based largely on appearance. Broader changes that would qualify as truly lowering standards include efforts to lower physical fitness requirements for women, older members, and marijuana users. For more than a decade now, the army has also been accepting more and more recruits with lower scores on aptitude tests and with no high school diploma.

Of course, there is no “correct” number of employees for the armed forces, and there is no functioning marketplace in the provision of “defense.” The size of the US military is arbitrarily determined by Congress and the White House based on political interests and goals. The military is nonetheless partly constrained by market realities, and by the subjective values of potential workers.

Support for the Military Is Falling

All else being equal, however, falling enlistment is evidence that workers are less interested in serving in the military outside mere economic considerations. This is reflected in the survey data suggesting that the military’s reputation among members of the general public has declined significantly.

For example, as the Military Times reported last year, “About 56 percent of Americans surveyed said they have ‘a great deal of trust and confidence’ in the military, down from 70 percent in 2018.” Moreover, according to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who believe that military officers “have high ethics” dropped 10 percent from 2017 to 2021.

As has long been the case, the military remains among the more trusted institutions in the US, but, as even the relentless promilitary Heritage Foundation admits:

A more candid appraisal, however, would see this for what it is: a vote of declining confidence by America in its oldest and heretofore most trusted institution.

More worrisome still—from the Pentagon’s perspective—is that much of this decline is coming from a drop in conservative and Republican support. Gallup reports that in its survey, military officers’ “image among the GOP is now the lowest Gallup has recorded since the first reading, in 2002, a period spanning Republican and Democratic presidencies.”

Moreover, political rhetoric among many conservatives has decidedly turned against the Pentagon. This was noted last year in Foreign Policy:

The long Republican romance with the military appears to have finally come to an end. And as conservative politicians and pundits have put the U.S. military—and especially the top brass—in their cross hairs, their supporters and listeners have taken note. The consequences for the U.S. military could be dire.

Part of this is apparently due to the growing feeling among conservatives that military bureaucracy has committed itself to so-called woke politics. From Tucker Carlson to Ted Cruz to Sabastian Gorka, conservatives apparently are not nearly as enamored with the US military establishment as they once were. As Tucker Carlson complained back in May:

Most of the generals we see quoted in the press seem more committed to meeting some counterproductive diversity goal—hiring more pregnant Air Force pilots, assembling the world’s first transgender SEAL team—than on defending the United States.

The Effect on Enlistments

These trends among historical supporters of the military may be finally showing up in recruitment realities. It’s difficult to directly measure the ideological leanings of new recruits. After all, enlistment forms don’t ask for one’s political and ideological beliefs. But we can indirectly make some guesses about who is joining the military based on where most of the recruits are coming from. For example, as the New York Times reported in 2018, military recruiters rely heavily on new recruits from the nation’s most politically conservative region—the South—to meet recruiting goals:

In 2019, Fayetteville, N.C., which is home to Fort Bragg, provided more than twice as many military enlistment contracts as Manhattan, even though Manhattan has eight times as many people. Many of the new contracts in Fayetteville were soldiers signing up for second and third enlistments…. Military service was once spread fairly evenly—at least geographically—throughout the nation because of the draft. But after the draft ended in 1973, enlistments shifted steadily south of the Mason-Dixon line. The military’s decision to close many bases in Northern states where long winters limited training only hastened the trend.

The significance of geography for new recruits can also be seen in the fact that politically conservative regions also tend to grant military recruiters better access to local schools. As school districts in many left-leaning urban areas restricted recruiters’ access to high school students in recent years, this has further increased the reliance on recruits from promilitary suburbs, exurbs, and rural towns. These are areas that tend to be more politically conservative. Moreover, new recruits lopsidedly come from families with a history of military service. While the extent to which military personnel support Republicans has been overstated, the military does nonetheless lean conservative. All this would suggest that new recruits come both from households and regions that lean conservative themselves.

In other words, the military has becoming increasingly reliant on a dwindling number of communities and families. The military brass admits this model is not sustainable.

The larger issue here is not whether or not the military can meet recruitment goals without big changes to current standards and pay. After all, if the economy continues to weaken and unemployment rises, this could bail out recruiters in a big way. Rather, the enlistment situation helps to illustrate what may be a developing and hopeful trend in which many conservatives are finally abandoning their long love affair with the US regime through its military institutions.

U.S. President Biden has said he will cancel up to $10,000 student in federal student loans fees for American borrowers earning under $125,000 a year. He will also forgive as much as $20,000 for low and middle income groups who have received Pell grants.

The total federal student debt has skyrocketed over the past decade, rising from around $500 billion in 2007 to $1.75 trillion as of 2021.

But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, how is that distributed across states?

As data from the Education Data Initiative shows, in 2022, an average state, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, carried $29.0 billion in federal student loan debt.

You will find more infographics at Statista

But, at state level, the District of Columbia had the highest level of debt per borrower at $54,946, followed by Maryland ($42,861) and Georgia ($41,639).

The lowest levels of debt per borrower were recorded in Puerto Rico which had $28,242 followed by North Dakota ($28,604) and Iowa ($30,464).

Authored by Kane McGukin via BombThrower.com,

When it comes to markets, there’s an extreme fascination with timing the exact top or bottom; a sense of pride, for being that guy who ticked the top or nailed the drop.

Crowd gathers on the sub-treasury building steps across from the New York Stock Exchange in New York on “Black Thursday,” Oct. 24, 1929

Every investor becomes a trader at some point.

Chasing that tale, so they can tell the story of the time they got perfectly in or out of the market.

What’s lost in the hunt for perfect timing, is the realization that it’s less about, “what price did you pay or sell at?” and more about, “what percentage did you allocate?” The reason being, money is not static. There’s a need for it to always be flowing somewhere: to expenses, to investments, to others, etc. By chasing price, there’s a higher probability of your money flowing to another market participant’s wallet.

So, when we look at a market like Bitcoin, or anything for that matter, what does capitulation look like?

Well, it looks exactly like it has in markets for nearly a century.

WHAT IS CAPITULATION?

To help paint the picture, I’ll refer to an old text: “Tape Reading & Market Tactics”, by Humphrey B. Neill. A text originally written in 1931 and updated in 1959 and 1970. Tape reading is a lost art but still present in some ways. It’s an understanding of prices and what they tell you about the psychology of the market.

“Heavy volume at the end of a move is extremely important, inasmuch as it generally indicates a turning-point in the market. … increasing activity of transactions at the top without stocks’ making further headway. … extreme activity near and at the top is indicative of a substantial reaction to follow. This is true, likewise, at the bottom.”

As markets move towards major turns at the top or bottom they get wild and euphoric, which is accompanied by increasing activity and volume. It’s when prices stall and fail to continue with the increased volume that you find the top or bottom. To gauge the market’s temperature, one must look past the noise of headlines, and watch to see if price and volume are aligned or are diverging.

“During the rally, what has been going on? Two things: first, the buying of stocks by those who are covering their previous short sales; and, second, new buying by those who expect the advance to continue. Both factions are spending their money to purchase something; but one faction is closing out a transaction, while the other is entering one. The man who covers his short position is in a greater hurry than the long buyer. The short seller will rush to cover if he believes that the rally will endure for some time. … You would also like to determine whether there are many more Smiths than Joneses – more short-coverers than long buyers — because if the rally is due mainly to short-covering it is likely to be brief, and may be followed by further declines. How can you tell which it is? Watch the volume and, in this situation, the rapidity of price changes.”

THERE’S MORE THAN THE SUPPLY SQUEEZE NARRATIVE SUGGESTS?

As it relates to Bitcoin, we know that there’s been a liquidity crisis. Many crypto exchanges, lending firms, and hedge funds are playing hot potato trying to figure out who actually has the collateral? Who borrowed it? Who lent it? And, who leveraged it?

We know that traditional hedge funds have been shorting Bitcoin as a hedge to QQQ (an odd thing to do in my opinion, but they have been). There’s a mountain of pressure to the downside. There are short sellers in the market.

So, on a rally, one must determine, are they removing their positions or simply taking a breather? To answer that, one must determine if what follows is “good buying”.

“(By ‘good buying’ is meant purchases made by those who are in a position to know the underlying conditions of the market, and also the buying done by those who are sponsors of certain issues.) You notice large blocks of stocks taken at steadily rising prices. At intervals, the market becomes quieter … very little weakness apparent … there are few huge blocks frequently changing hands at lower prices.”

When “good buying” begins it’s done by professionals, those who understand the landscape and the dynamics that have caused the drawdown. They have the capital to support prices to a point where the market weakness can’t, or has trouble pushing through the capital they are buying with. In these times, you’ll also notice that the speed and frequency of price declines will begin to slow.

“In the event that the unexpected happens, and volume increases at lower prices, it would be well to sell your trading-holdings at once and stand aside. A further increase in volume in the downward direction will wipe out the rally, and we are back where we started from. … But do not argue with the tape. Find out whether the buyer is stronger than the seller, or the opposite, and act accordingly. Volume will give you your answer. … …At the turn, some stocks may soar into new highs (or may make new lows, if the downward trend is about to be reversed), but the majority are simply traded in heavily without gaining or losing ground. … If a major turning-point is imminent, study the action of the second- and third rate stocks. They may give you early confirmation of the reversal. For example, in 1929 the inactive stocks began their decline some weeks ahead of the market leaders.”

It’s the weak stocks that lead the way. The frothy, high growth or “junk” names that pop late stage – and also falter sooner than larger, sturdy names, as investors begin to dump risk and seek safety.

“The public is attracted by price-changes, not by volume; that is to say, the public does not analyze the action of volume. It is prior to and during these final stages of a move that the professionals and pools unload their stocks on the inexperienced. The unwary, having seen prices advance steadily with only minor set-backs, misinterpret the feverish activity and buy heavily – which is just what the professionals want. In fact, pool-managers operate upon this human weakness and engineer rapid run-ups of prices, knowing that thousands of traders and buyers will be attracted by this activity. Volume increases tremendously at these points, and newspapers carry front-page stories.”

Deep-pocketed investors unload into strength, while smaller investors fomo in. The same is the case on reversals and at points of capitulation. As markets begin to unwind, those with capital come in and support prices, as weak hands are washed out.

“…ear-marks of a ‘clean-out’ of a temporarily oversold condition. … a terrific churning of stocks, little headway was made for approximately three hours. There was no progress on heavy volume. That was our signal.”

The key to watch for when it comes to capitulation, is prices stalling as volume and frenzy is picking up. If an increase in activity can’t push prices further, then it is most likely that the tide is beginning to turn.

CODA: WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Bearing in mind that this is not financial advice, and it’s still too early to tell in any case: In June we did see some uptick in volume into the lows of the Bitcoin price, although it wasn’t significant, when looking at it on weekly and monthly charts.

For a confirmation of a trend change we would need to see Bitcoin trade and stay above $32,000 USD on heavy and or persistent volume to show that the buyers have regained control.

*  *  *

Follow Kane McGukin’s Substack here. Sign up for The Bombthrower mailing list to get updates straight into your inbox and get a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you’re at it. Follow me on Gettr, Telegram or if you haven’t been kicked off Twitter yet, there.

(Today’s post was adapted from a previously published note to The Crypto Capitalist Letter premium subscribers by Kane McGukin, who publishes The Mesh Point Substack).

Starting all the way back in April, some US defense officials had been expressing concern that Ukraine weapons shipments sent from Washington were entering a big “black hole” once they cross the border into the conflict – given there appeared little to no oversight or accountability in terms of arms and serial number tracking. 

Ukrainian government officials have taken pains to to try and assure Western allies and international press that they are indeed carefully monitoring the weapons and munitions provided from allies, also to ensure they don’t end up on the black market or in the hands of unauthorized militants or terrorists. 

But now we have the closest thing thus far to confirmation that indeed there’s a lack of necessary oversight, given on Thursday the Pentagon’s acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell told Bloomberg that while he believes Ukrainian forces are using up all that they’ve been given by the US, it remains that there’s little “fidelity” as to where the weapons actually end up. This is due in large part, he explained, to the Ukrainians tracking external arms via hand receipts.

For this reason he’s looking to trace, test, and audit whether the Ukrainians are properly logging US-supplied military hardware. He says the Pentagon is on “alert” – looking evidence of gaps, missing weapons, and lack of oversight in the system. 

Speaking of the Defense Department’s multi-billion dollar military assistance program, O’Donnell was quoted as follows in Bloomberg:

NATO officials “seem confident that the security was sufficient for the transfer of weapons” and “as far as we can tell, right now, everything that is supposed to shoot and go boom, they are using every bit of it,” O’Donnell said. But, he added, “this needs to be tested” through auditing.

…O’Donnell said the system had to be tested because Ukrainian officials do their accounting of American equipment with “hand receipts, it’s all paper.” Once equipment gets to Ukraine “I don’t think they have much fidelity” as to where it ends up, he said.

To illustrate the enormity of such an undertaking as overseeing an audit on whether the arms make it to their designated Ukrainian military recipients, the Pentagon IG explained the following:

“We have developed a universe of thousands of Ukraine-related contracts” that come in under $2 million each, Acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell said in an interview. That’s more than 7,800 contracts valued at a combined $2.2 billion, O’Donnell added, even before an approaching deluge of bigger-ticket orders for advanced weapons such as the long-range HIMARS rocket systems prized by Ukrainian troops.

It must be remembered that the US infamously armed the jihadi resistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only to have many of those weapons go straight into the hands of the Islamic State and other al-Qaeda affiliate groups. The consequence was an Islamic Caliphate that took over large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

US mainstream media has begun to begrudgingly admit there’s a serious problem…

We removed a tweet promoting our recent doc, “Arming Ukraine,” which quoted the founder of the nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman’s assessment in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/EgA96BrD9O

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 8, 2022

And in Ukraine, Neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion have been incorporated into the national  armed forces. In an interview months into the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked about the presence of these extremist groups within Ukraine’s military. Zelensky insisted they are “defending our country,” saying “they are what they are.” But regardless, this certainly isn’t stopping the Biden administration from pouring serious amounts of weaponry and military hardware straight into their hands.