Restaurants In Lockdown-Loving, High-Crime Cities Still Reeling While Others Thrive
More than two and a half years after the Covid-19 pandemic reached America, there’s a enormous divide among America’s restaurant markets. In deep-blue cities that embraced lockdowns, the number of diners is still far below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, restaurant businesses are prospering in states that were quickest to reject Covidian authoritarianism.
That’s the finding of a Fox News report centered on data from OpenTable, a company that helps more than 60,000 restaurants worldwide manage reservations, payments and operations.
Civil unrest and crime have likely played a defining role too. It’s probably no coincidence that the worst-performing city — Minneapolis — was at the epicenter of the George Floyd riots that ravaged deep-blue cities. Strikingly, the number of average daily diners in Minneapolis is still less than half what the city enjoyed in pre-Covid, pre-Floyd 2019.
“We’re just getting killed in Minneapolis,” restauranteur Greg Urban told Fox News. “People don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe coming to Minneapolis. It’s a public safety issue right now.”
Happily, Urban is geographically — and politically — diversified, with nightspots in Austin, Pensacola and Lakeland, Florida too.
The 10 worst cities represent a who’s who of cringe-inducing, high-crime, vaccination-forcing, mask-adoring metropolises, with the likes of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Philadelphia rounding out the top five losers.
Meanwhile, the list of the 10 best-performing restaurant cities includes four from Florida which, under Governor DeSantis, helped set an example that emboldened other red-state governors to shift policies and begin rising out of the depths of public health madness. Underscoring a clear Sunbelt trend, Texas and Arizona placed two cities apiece.
10 Worst Lockdown-Hammered Restaurant Cities (Change in Daily Diners: July 2022 vs July 2019)
Minneapolis (-54.3%)
San Francisco (-45.9%)
Portland (-45.2%)
Seattle (-40.8%)
Philadelphia (-39.2%)
New York (-37.9%)
St. Louis (-28.2%)
Washington, DC (-27.3%)
Baltimore (-24.9%)
Chicago (-22.8%)
10 Best-Performing Restaurant Cities (Change in Daily Diners: July 2022 vs July 2019)
The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.
The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington—not Miami, as has been widely reported—according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016–2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team—Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten—has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.
Some former FBI officials worry that Auten, a top bureau expert on Russia and nuclear warfare, will have a hand in analyzing the boxes of documents agents seized from Trump’s home on Aug. 8 to help determine if any of the alleged Top Secret material he kept there might have been compromised, potentially putting national security at risk.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
An examination of the bureau agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid reveals other connections between them and FBI officials who played key roles in advancing the Russiagate hoax.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in Justice’s national security division, who happens to be a Democratic National Committee donor, has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation with Alan Kohler, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
Kohler replaced Bill Priestap in that post after Priestap stepped down from the bureau amid criticism of his role in the Russiagate probe. Kohler had worked at FBI headquarters under Priestap, specializing in countering Russian intelligence threats.
Before that, he worked in London as the FBI’s liaison with British intelligence and law enforcement. The sources say Kohler was close to Stefan Halper, an academic and longtime FBI contractor whom the bureau ran as an informant in a failed effort to suborn Trump campaign officials. He also worked closely with Stephen Somma, a lead case agent in the Crossfire Hurricane probe whom Horowitz said was “primarily responsible” for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal. Somma is a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, where he has been reassigned to the China desk.
In 2019, Kohler was promoted to special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s Washington field Office, where he worked alongside then-assistant agent-in-charge Timothy Thibault, who was reassigned by Wray just days prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, after whistleblowers raised questions about political bias. They asserted that Thibault, who has taken aim at Trump and Republicans on social media, worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.
The Washington field office’s counterintelligence division is now run by Anthony Riedlinger, who previously worked at FBI headquarters as a section chief under Priestap. Some of the agents involved in the raid on Trump’s home came from that Washington field office, according to the sources and FBI case documents.
Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at Justice, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June and personally inspected the storage facility while interacting with both Trump and one of his lawyers. Trump allowed the three FBI agents Bratt brought with him to open boxes in the storage room and look through them. They left with some documents. After leaving, Bratt made a request to Trump’s lawyer for increased security at the facility and asked to see surveillance footage from the security cameras. The lawyer complied with the requests. Months went by before the Justice Department took the politically explosive step of sending FBI agents unannounced to Trump’s home, seizing documents, photos, and other items not just from the storage facility but from multiple rooms on the property, including the former president’s office.
Former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the search warrant that agents obtained is quite wide-ranging. He pointed out that it authorized the seizure of any information in any form related to “national defense information,” which he said “does not necessarily include classified material.”
“This is a huge, broad search warrant and a huge, broad investigation leveled against the former president,” Swecker said.
What’s more, he said the physical search of the former president’s residence was far more sweeping than first reported and included unsupervised snooping in several dozen bedrooms, as well as numerous storage rooms and closets, including those of the former first lady. FBI agents took numerous boxes and containers of documents and other material, including several binders of photos and even three passports held by the former president.
Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the DOJ seeks to “narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” details of the warrant reveal agents had the authority to seize entire boxes of records—including those potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege—if just a single document inside the container were marked with a classified marking.
Agents were allowed to also seize any containers or boxes “found together with” ones containing classified papers, according to ATTACHMENT B (“Property to be seized”) of the warrant. In addition, the FBI agents were given the authority to confiscate “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021,” which covers Trump’s full term in office. That meant they were able to take any item related to the Trump administration.
All told, dozens of boxes and containers were removed from Trump’s residence, very few of which actually contained classified information, the sources said.
According to Federal Election Commission records, Bratt has given exclusively to Democrats, including at least $800 to the Democratic National Committee. The sources said he is close to David Laufman, whom he replaced as the top counterintelligence official at Justice. An Obama donor, Laufman helped oversee the Russiagate probe, as well as the Clinton email case, which also involved classified information.
A Senate investigator told RCI that Laufman was the “mastermind” behind the strategy to dust off and “weaponize” the rarely enforced statutory relic—the Foreign Agents Registration Act—against Trump campaign officials, a novel legal move that the investigator noted is similar to the department’s current attempts to enforce the Presidential Records Act against Trump—which is a civil, not a criminal, statute—by invoking the Espionage Act of 1917.
Laufman signed off on the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.
Suddenly resurfacing as a media surrogate for the Justice Department defending the Mar-a-Lago raid, Laufman has been a key source for stories by the Washington Post, CNN, and other outlets.
On CNN, for instance, he claimed the documents seized from Trump’s storage were “particularly stunning and particularly egregious,” and their discovery ”completely validates the government’s investigation” into the former president—though he quickly added, ”Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen.”
Swecker said that there is strong reason to fear that the FBI’s counterintelligence division might politicize this case.
“For sure, the FBI has dug themselves into a huge hole because of how they handled the Clinton (email) case and then Crossfire Hurricane and Hunter Biden,” Swecker said. “Myself and many of my colleagues think they are treading on very thin ice here.”
“Unfortunately,” he added, “you can’t recuse an entire FBI division.”
Patel: ‘It’s Just Insane’
Former federal prosecutor and Trump administration official Kash Patel said the FBI may have a personal interest—and a potential conflict—in seizing the records stored by Trump.
He noted that Trump in October 2020 authorized the declassification of all the investigative records generated from the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane as well as the Clinton email investigation, codenamed “Midyear Exam,” and he said that the FBI may have confiscated some of those records in its raid, ensuring they won’t be made public. In addition, he said, the agency may be digging for other documents to try to justify, retroactively, their questionable, politically-tinged 2016 opening of the Trump-Russia “collusion” case, which came up embarrassingly short on evidence.
“Tragically, the same FBI characters that were involved in Russiagate are the same counterintel guys running this ‘national security investigation’ against Trump,” said Patel, who deposed Crossfire Hurricane team members as a former House Intelligence Committee investigator.
Patel noted that the Horowitz report indicated FBI analyst Auten hid exculpatory information about Trump’s adviser Page from other investigators and the FISA court, which should be more than enough to keep him at arm’s length from other investigations involving Trump.
“And to top it all off, this guy admits [to Horowitz’s investigators] he’s unrepentant about his role in making up the biggest hoax in election history, and Wray still lets him be a supervisor at the FBI,” he said. “It’s just insane.”
The Justice Department’s national security division has ultimate authority over the grand-jury probe of Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act, including alleged mishandling of classified material—the same statutes invoked in the Clinton email investigation. (In that case, in contrast, the FBI never searched the former secretary of state’s Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion, where she set up an unsecured basement server to send and receive at least 110 classified emails and where she also received government documents by fax.)
Former FBI counterintelligence official and lawyer Mark Wauck said he is troubled by signs that the same cast of characters from the Russiagate scandal appears to be involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
“If these people, who were part of a major hoax that involved criminal activity and displays of bias and seriously flawed judgment, are still involved, then that’s a major scandal,” he said in an interview.
UN Report Finally Acknowledges China’s Forced Labor Programs
Leave it to the United Nations to wait several years before pointing out the blatantly obvious. With their overt obsession with climate change, one has to wonder how they find any time to address REAL problems in the world, including state sanctioned slavery. Perhaps they stalled for so long because the nation in question is China?
A new UN report on contemporary forms of slavery has found it “reasonable to conclude” that forced labor is taking place in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. The area has long been criticized by the alternative media as the base of operations for massive slave labor camps which China uses to house undesirables, including millions of native tribal Uyghurs according to human rights groups.
The reality of concentration camps in China was denied by the CCP spin machine for years, but leaked documents on camp brainwashing programs in 2019 as well as leaked video footage in 2020 have put that question to rest.
The indoctrination programs used by China are common practice among communist countries, which view religious beliefs and practices as unacceptable competition to the collectivism and worship of the state. If a group of people holds something in higher regard than the government (such as God or spiritualism), then they might be harder to control because they believe in something greater than themselves, or greater than their own personal survival. They become dangerous to the authorities.
The Uyghur programs seem to follow a Mao/Soviet model, which focuses on forced labor, separation of families and elaborate propaganda sessions designed to instill loyalty. Although, there is some evidence that the camps also use the threat of torture and death as a means to inspire compliance.
The programs also appear to be an extension of the ethnic cleansing efforts used by China to pacify and absorb Tibet after invading militarily in 1949. China’s modus operandi is to claim that the regions they ethnically cleanse are “already a part of China” even when they are clearly separate, not only by geography and national boundaries but by culture. Claiming historic ownership is their way of justifying their actions. Again, this is typically communist.
In a report released on Tuesday, a UN special rapporteur, Tomoya Obokata, said that evidence pointed to forced labor “among Uygur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing”. The UN has not adopted the report as their official position, which is not surprising, but it is one of the first incidents of the UN openly acknowledging the CCP’s forced labor operations.
The Chinese government was quick to dispute the rapporteur’s findings, accusing Obokata of “abusing his authority” to “malignly smear and denigrate China and serve as a political tool for anti-China forces”.
“We solemnly urge [a] certain special rapporteur to immediately change course, respect plain facts, observe the mandate of the Human Rights Council and code of conduct of the special procedure, perform duty in a fair and objective manner,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. “There has never been forced labor in Xinjiang,” he added.
Here we have another very typical communist reaction to being caught red handed (no pun intended), which is to play the victim and then gaslight the people that are pointing out their criminality.
China argues that labor programs were actually meant to “combat radicalism” and “fight terrorism,” though they have offered no legitimate evidence of either. The CCP also suggests that camps produce workers that are “paid,” though this claim has been refuted by prisoners and insider leaks. Whether paid or not, all the evidence shows that Uyghurs and other groups are indeed separated from their families and shipped out against their will to work in Chinese factories.
Beyond exposing the horrible practices of the Chinese government, the slave labor and concentration camp issue illustrates the much bigger problem of collectivist systems and their natural propensity to devolve into brutal dictatorship.
This is the eventual end path of every socialist/communist model; it is not as if China is being compelled by circumstances to round these people up, to torture them or use them as slave labor. There is no direct threat to China. Rather, the CCP and other collectivist governments see ideas as threats, because ideas and beliefs outside of state doctrine offer CHOICES, and the power of choice is the ultimate silver bullet to the monster of collectivism. Choice is death for authoritarians, so all choice must be eliminated.
A new report based on official figures from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) asserts that the effects of lockdown may now be killing more people than COVID-19.
The stats show that non-COVID excess deaths continue to outstrip COVID deaths, with 1,000 people dying each week from conditions other than the virus.
“The Telegraph understands that the Department of Health has ordered an investigation into the figures amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays to and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease,” reports the newspaper.
Despite some calling for the re-introduction of COVID restrictions such as face masks in the winter, “the country is facing a new silent health crisis linked to the pandemic response rather than to the virus itself,” states the report.
“Hundreds and hundreds of people dying every week – what is going on?” asked Dr Charles Levinson, the chief executive of Doctorcall, a private GP service.
“Delays in seeking and receiving healthcare are no doubt the driving force, in my view,” he added.
The long term impact of lockdowns is killing more people than Covid. @Telegraph
We told you, but you didn’t listen. You just shouted “Covid denier!” at us and carried on with the lockdown madness. Don’t ever say you weren’t warned.
“Daily Covid statistics demanded the nation’s attention, yet these terrifying figures barely get a look in. A full and urgent government investigation is required immediately.”
Cases of undetected cancers, cardiac problems and serious mental health conditions are surging, with excess deaths 14.4 per cent higher than the five-year average.
The The British Heart Foundation said it was “deeply concerned” by the situation.
But the media is largely disinterested, despite scaring the public for years with ominous COVID death toll numbers.
Experts have long warned that the effects of lockdown would end up killing more people than COVID, although they were demonized and censored at the time by the establishment.
Academics from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins have concluded that there could be around a million excess deaths over the next two decades as a result of lockdowns.
A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that there were conservatively 170,000+ non-Covid excess deaths in the U.S. through 2020 and 2021, numbers exacerbated by lockdowns.
Another study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and released in February concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
Stanford University professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya said that in years to come lockdowns will be looked back upon as the most catastrophically harmful policy in “all of history.”
Finnish Prime Minister ‘Party Girl’ Submits To Drug Test Over Leaked Videos
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has found herself at the center of a bizarre tabloid-fueled “scandal” after days ago multiple videos of the 36-year old head of state were leaked showing her recently partying with friends and local celebrities.
One of the videos purportedly shows her dancing very close-up to a man that’s not her husband, according to Fox News, with the whole spectacle leading to charges from media and the public of “inappropriate” behavior for someone in the nation’s highest office.
Marin has even been accused of being on drugs when the ‘wild’ party videos were taken, something she has firmly denied. Finnish politicians and opposition factions have been behind some of the drug use accusations.
“I did nothing illegal,” Marin said at a Friday press briefing responding to the allegations, according to a translation from the BBC. “Even in my teenage years I have not used any kind of drugs.”
Media coverage of the videos has taken over headlines in Finland and quickly went international, leading to the prime minister agreeing to submit to a drug test, in a highly unusual and unprecedented scenario:
Finland’s prime minister has said she has taken a drug test, after new footage emerged showing the leader dancing with a Finnish popstar.
Sanna Marin, 36, came under fire this week after a leaked video showed her partying, with some politicians saying she should be tested for narcotics.
At a news conference on Friday, Ms Marin said she had taken the test and expects the results next week. The prime minister repeated her denials that she has ever taken drugs.
Many of Marin’s supporters as well as media pundits have charged critics with unwarranted attacks over the party videos simply because she’s a woman.
A new video of Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s “party scandal” appeared in Finland today.
Strangely (or perhaps entirely to be expected), Russia and Vladimir Putin have even the conversation, with some pundits claiming that pro-Russian “trolls” are primarily responsible for driving the “scandal” into the spotlight.
The claim is that “Russian media accounts” have sought to spread the now viral clips in order to stir fresh domestic controversy at a moment Finland is applying to join NATO.
Russian trolls and far-right populists will go after anything to bring our democracies to their knees… Don’t fall for it !
Keep dancing @MarinSanna and keep fighting Putin !https://t.co/dNYmsXhhVb
“I think my ability to function was really good. There were no known meetings on the days I was partying,” the Finnish leader said in her defense. “I trust that people understand that leisure time and work time can be separated.”
“If someone has kissed me on the cheek, there’s nothing inappropriate or something I can’t handle or tell my husband,” Marin added, commenting on the video where she was seen getting physically close with a pop star.
In past columns, we have discussed the litany of “slam dunk” crimes that Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has declared as established against former President Donald Trump, none of which have been actually charged.
Indeed, Tribe appears intent upon running through the entire criminal code.
While some of us have suggested that we wait to see the actual evidence before evaluating the risk in the case, Tribe again is confident that the still uncharged case has already been made.
Just last month, Tribe declared Trump clearly guilty of the attempted murder of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021. Tribe again insisted that the case could be prosecuted “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious.” I guess there is no doubt. There is also no compelling legal basis for the claim. Nevertheless, Tribe promised more if needed: “There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”
It is a curious thing that none of these prior “proven” crimes have been charged. After the riot, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution? The failure of Racine to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the paucity of direct evidence of a crime that would hold up in court.
Now, without an indictment or the public disclosure of actual evidence beyond the inventory list, Tribe sees no reason to wait for proof. The evidence is, again, a “slam dunk” for conviction.
While the three criminal provisions cited in the warrant do not require that the documents be classified, the declassification of the documents could make the case more difficult and could raise difficult issues of a president’s inherent declassification authority. As I have previously discussed, we have not seen what Trump refers to as a “standing order” of declassification. However, to the extent that declassification relates to Trump’s intent in possessing these documents, a court could have to grapple with some novel constitutional questions. While a former president loses such inherent authority, Trump is claiming that he declassified the material when he was still president. Tribe dismisses such claims but, again, we have yet to see the alleged order or the specific claims made in past exchanges between the former president and the Justice Department.
Notably, at the start of the interview,Tribe argues against the release of any of the affidavit. While many of us thought the court would likely defer to the Justice Department, it was also clear (in my opinion) that portions could be released. Anyone familiar with these affidavits knows that there are portions that can be released, including sections with information that are already known to the target. We are interested in not only what was presented to the court but how it was presented given the history of the Department in making false or misleading statements in past Trump-related investigations.
Notably, Tribe also insisted that any release would “violate important rules on grand jury secrecy.” The problem is that we have not heard of any grand jury on the Mar-a-Lago matter. This was a warrant sought from the court based on probable cause of possible criminal offenses. There also has been no suggestion that the warrant incorporated material from other grand juries like the ongoing January 6th grand jury. Ironically, if Tribe has been given such information from sources, it would likely be a Rule 6(e) violation. Moreover, if this warrant is an attempt to acquire evidence for a separate investigation, it would contradict the public statements of the Justice Department that this was prompted to protect national defense information.
Tribe added that ” this man . . . I was going to call him ‘traitor’ but that is not quite right it is not treason.” Actually, Tribe previously suggested that Trump was a traitor and could be charged with treason.
Tribe has, of course, never lacked confidence that his lengthening list of crimes have been proven “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt.” He is not alone in such hair-triggered analysis.
It has been the signature of much of the legal analysis in the last six years. Yet, it would be useful. . . just once . . . if only for appearances . . . to start with the release of actual evidence before discussing slam dunk convictions.
Twitter Warns Employees Their Bonuses May Be Cut In Half
Twitter warned employees on Friday that their annual bonuses may be cut in half due to the company’s financial performance and economic uncertainty, according to the New York Times.
The news come amid a legal battle with Elon Musk to complete a $44 billion sale, and after reporting declining quarterly revenues last month for the first time since 2020 – swinging the company to a net operating loss of $344 million (for which they blamed the Musk deal).
Advertisers, who generate most of Twitter’s revenue, have been skittish as economic fears over the war in Ukraine tamp down spending and Mr. Musk’s acquisition bid generates uncertainty about the company’s future.
Mr. Musk, who agreed to buy Twitter in April, is now trying to pull out of the deal. Twitter has sued him to force the acquisition. The company is set to face off with Mr. Musk in an October trial in Delaware Chancery Court. -NY Times
The company currently employees over 7,500 people – many of whom were livid after Musk announced his acquisition plans – and then disappointed when he indicated that he wanted to pull out of the deal.
In the Friday email, Twitter CFO Ned Segal told employees that the financial headwinds would probably affect annual bonuses – with the bonus pool currently at 50% of what it would be if the company had met its financial targets, according to two employees. That said, the figure can rise or fall based on the company’s earnings, as Twitter ties its annual bonuses to its performance against revenue and profitability goals.
The company has been slashing costs in order to cope with the financial and economic backdrop – slowing hiring and reducing its real estate footprint.
“Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES!”
– Ghostbusters
After the July FOMC meeting the headlines were abuzz with this crazy notion that the Fed ‘pivoted’ off of tight monetary policy.
They say these things because this is what they want. It’s the world they want, not the world they’ve got.
For nearly three weeks credit spreads, equity, bond and currency markets tried to convince us that the Fed had indeed done something it hadn’t done.
The commentary from the financial Twitterati and the headlines from the regime-controlled media tried desperately to spin a 75 basis point hike into a dovish event.
Financial commentary and its incessant chasing the news cycle and Overton window manipulation leads people down blind allies. It leads them to forget the first rule of watching a central bank:
Respond only to what they do, not what they say.
The fact is the Fed raised rates for a second time by more than most people thought they would raise total in this cycle.
Jerome Powell didn’t say anything anyone could have possibly, under different circumstances, construed as ‘dovish’ during July’s presser. But that didn’t stop the ‘experts’ from taking the ECB’s side and talking their own hedge books.
Eurodollar futures tried to blackmail the market into this false reality. Now it’s having to walk this back as the yield curve inversion has moved back to March from December. But, I want you to note the insanity of the Dec/Mar spread.
There is no pivot, folks. There won’t be a pivot anytime soon.
It finally took the FOMC minutes coming out confirming what Powell didn’t say to get markets to wake up to reality.
If you are confused about any of this just think about the sources of this ‘expert’ commentary and who they work for and then you tell me they aren’t talking their book by talking ‘pivot.’
If the FOMC minutes didn’t convince you that the Fed isn’t about to pivot in September, St. Louis Fed Head James Bullard came out yesterday and said he backs another 75 basis points in four weeks, taking the Fed Funds rate to 3.0%
Bullard, a voting member of the FOMC and one of the biggest hawks at the US central bank, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Thursday that he backed another 75 basis-point increase in September, arguing “we should continue to move expeditiously to a level of the policy rate that will put significant downward pressure on inflation.”
The basis for the pivot argument is that the Fed has always in the past blinked in the face of economic Armageddon, the pressures for which are certainly building. It’s a fair point and one I would normally share. I hate to be the guy to be having the Fed’s back here, but their actions and messaging have been very clear if you have had ears to listen for the past eighteen months.
That said, this situation is different than past iterations both economically and, more importantly, politically. There are stresses within the monetary system which weren’t present previously. The tremendous geopolitical stresses emanating out from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine weren’t present either.
And this is where most ‘experts’ try to hide behind the numbers and not stray out of their lane as opposed to leaning into a new paradigm. They are uncomfortable getting in the mud pit with the politicians and the oligarchs, preferring to stay in the world of CPIs, PPIs, and trade deficits.
These are ‘facts’ which can be pointed at to give the illusion of competence and expertise. But since we know that most of these numbers are basically so much government bureaucracy promulgated bullshit the entire analytic process is, in my view, foundationally flawed.
The better analytic framework is to assess the incentives and the motivations of the people setting policy, identify where they are in conflict and then see what picture emerges.
And, as I’ve tried to communicate in post after post, that picture is simpler than it looks while simultaneously challenging to the worldviews of so many.
It really does breakdown into two camps at this point, those who back the old European colonialists trying to leverage what’s left of their power using financial and kinetic warfare to grasp for the brass ring of global control (The Davos Crowd) and those who stand against that.
That second group is not formally united by anything long term or even organized. They just know that it’s finally time for humanity to stop giving credence to the wishes of a bunch of old, entitled Europeans and their White Man’s Burden.
The only question is whether there are those that have a positive incentive within the West’s power elite to oppose Davos and their dystopian desires. In discussion after discussion the biggest obstacle I encounter is presenting the Fed’s (and those the Fed represents) incentives as out of phase, or even orthogonal, to that of Davos.
It’s a simpler world to just think it’s all just one big club, and to quote George Carlin, “we ain’t in it!” But is it really?
Because if that were the case then the Fed wouldn’t be raising rates when the clear loser is the bedrock on which Davos’ power rests. They would meekly go along with the needs of Europe and European banks, who clearly do not want higher rates.
The entire Davos agenda is based on selling us this lie that we as a species have to create and spend hundreds of trillions of dollars to combat Climate Change and marry that with a Minority Report style, AI-driven, technocratic full surveillance state fueled by CBDCs.
The real hard sell is that this is necessary to control everyone’s behavior ensuring we don’t ever approach this type of Apocalypse ever again.
Too bad the whole thing is a bald-faced lie and anyone still believing in it is engaged in the biggest political cope of all time.
Under that rubric there is no need for a dominant central bank or reserve currency. The Fed itself is no longer needed, nor the banks who it ultimately serves.
Under that scenario, what do you think the Fed is capable of doing? If you think they aren’t capable of taking rates to 5% or 6% then you aren’t reading the room properly.
This late summer rally in stocks leaves them with plenty of ammunition from the perspective of the guys who scream about the Fed subsidizing the ‘Wealth Effect.’
The media’s obsession with not calling the current economic conditions a recession also support the Fed tightening further.
Keynesian dogma that the Fed Funds Rate should be higher than the projected inflation rate says the same thing.
So, while the Fed stays the course and refuses to knuckle under to pivot, because it would mean its destruction, the counter-move by Davos is to accelerate the tensions between the US and China/Russia on geopolitical terms.
If you’re confused why Ukraine is shelling the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant or sabotaging ammo dumps in Crimea when they should be surrendering and trying to save lives at this point, now you know.
Nothing they tell you is the Real Story. Their allergy to the truth at this point is complete. You know they are lying because things are serious. They spoon feed us lies to keep us and the markets pacified, to keep relevant court stenographers at Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN and the War Street Journal.
The algorithms key off this and keep things levitating until a critical mass of players finally perceive the truth.
There is no spoon, there is only an insatiable monster lurking just behind the facade of the hot chick with too much makeup on.
Ukraine Launches Drone Attack On Russian Black Sea Fleet HQ In Crimea
Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev has confirmed that a Ukrainian drone has crashed into the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Saturday morning, in what looks to be the clearest indicator yet that Ukrainian forces are ramping up offensive actions against the Russian-controlled peninsula.
Al Jazeera and other international media are describing that “A drone has been shot down over the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in annexed Crimea – the second such attempted attack in less than a month.” In a Telegram message, Razvozhayev said the drone crashed into the roof of a building, catching fire. While some initial reports are conflicting, it’s clear that the drone slammed into a building at the Sevastopol port.
No casualties were reported in the Russian statements; however, coming after the major Novofedorovka Saky Airbase explosion of Aug.9 and a string of other alleged attacks and “sabotage operations” deep in Russian territory, this certainly signifies a new escalation in the war.
Russian media statements say the Saturday drone attack involved a low-flying UAV approaching from the bay.
Videos from before and after the UAV crash are circulating online, with some Ukrainian channels suggesting it was a “suicide drone” – meaning it intended to crash into a target. It’s unclear whether Russian anti-air defenses were active. Video footage suggests small arms fire engaging the drone from the ground, however.
#Ukraine: A suicide UAV struck the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in #Sevastopol– It looks like the same kind of modified Chinese commercial drone that used to strike the oil facility in Rostov in June.
Reports are still conflicting over whether it was “shot down” or intended to crash into its target.
Another Crimea official, Oleg Kryuchkov has said on Telegram that “attacks by small drones continue” in various towns across Crimea. He is urging civilians to “remain calm.”
“The goal is not military but psychological,” he wrote. “The explosives are minimal and not capable of inflicting significant harm.”
This includes reports of anti-aircraft activity in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, as well as the western town of Yevpatoria and the southern town of Bakhchysaray – all on Saturday.
Ukraine-linked media accounts suggested that attacks on Crimea by US-supplied HIMARS attacks could come next, though it’s unclear if Washington has as yet transferred rockets with a long enough range to reach deep into Crimea…
The video allegedly shows the moment when the drone flew over the temporary occupied #Sevastopol. It can be heard firing small arms fire at it.
So it seems Ukraine’s forces now taking up President Zelensky’s call to “liberate” Crimea, given the intensifying assaults of the past two weeks:
On August 19, Russian air defenses were activated in the eastern city of Kerch, which is the terminus of the Crimea Bridge (also called the Kerch Strait Bridge), a high-profile, $4 billion project to link the occupied Ukrainian region with the Russian mainland. No damage to the bridge or the city was reported in the incident.
Ukrainian officials have avoided publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, but an unnamed senior Ukrainian official was quoted in The New York Times as saying an elite Ukrainian military unit operating behind enemy lines was carrying out at least some of the attacks.
On August 10, Zelensky said in a Western media interview, “Crimea is Ukrainian and we will never give it up.”
“This Russian war against Ukraine and against the entire free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea – with its liberation,” Zelensky said. “Russia has turned our peninsula … one of the best places in Europe, into one of the most dangerous places in Europe.” Of course, this means the possibility of a negotiated settlement now seems more distant than ever, given Russia has viewed attacks on Crimea as a huge escalation requiring a response.
Many investors like to use price-to-earnings ratios as a short-hand valuation tool for both individual equities and the broad stock market. Most of the time this can be useful but there are also times when it can be very misleading. Typically, those times are at the top or the bottom of the earnings cycle.
When earnings are unduly depressed due to recession or are over-inflated due to opposite economic circumstances, the denominator in the ratio is no longer representative of sustainable earnings potential. As a result the metric itself appears dramatically elevated at the bottom of the cycle or somewhat depressed at the top of the cycle, sending a false signal regarding value.
Today, the S&P 500 Index sports a price-to-earnings ratio of 21 on trailing 12-months’ operating earnings and 18 on analyst estimates of operating earnings over the next 12 months. Relative to the past five years, these levels are about average, leading many investors to the conclusion that stocks, after their decline so far this year, are now fairly valued.
However, it’s crucial to note that the profit margins underlying those earnings currently sit at their highest levels in decades (if not in history).
Those price-to-earnings ratios then are only valuable to the extent that extremely elevated profit margins are sustainable.
Because if profit margins fall, it will quickly become apparent that earnings were over-inflated and thus price-to-earnings ratios were misleadingly low.
As my friend John Hussman points out (and small businesses have been suggesting for months now) there is a compelling case to be made that this is precisely the case.
Labor costs have been surging. Typically this puts a great deal of pressure on profit margins but it has not exerted its normal effect as of yet thanks to massive pandemic subsidies.
Going forward, though, it’s likely this relationship reasserts itself and profit margins normalize, a risk today’s price-to-earnings ratios don’t reflect,
