Latvia Calls For NATO To Allow Ukrainian Strikes Inside Russian Territory

Latvia Calls For NATO To Allow Ukrainian Strikes Inside Russian Territory

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics called for NATO to allow Ukraine to conduct strikes inside Russian territory, adding the alliance should not fear Moscow’s response. The White House has resisted sending Kiev missiles with the range to hit targets inside Russia. 

During an interview on the sidelines of  NATO summit in Romania, Rinkevics stated “[w]e should allow Ukrainians to use weapons to target missile sites or air fields from where those operations are being launched.” Allies “should not fear” escalation from Moscow, he added. 

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics (right) alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, via AP.

While the White House has not publicly told Kiev that it cannot hit Russian territory, in May, President Joe Biden said, “we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia.”

However, the Biden administration has explicitly authorized attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, Ukrainian territory that was annexed by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin reacted sharply to a series of attacks in Crimea, including by destroying large swaths of Ukraine’s power grid. 

Ukraine is seeking Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) with a range of nearly 186 miles. So far, the White House has only been willing to send Kiev munitions with a range of 50 miles. Ukraine has offered the Biden administration targeting control.

In June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threatened that Russia would annex more Ukrainian territory if Kiev received longer-range weapons. “The longer the range of armaments that you will supply, the further away we will move from our territory the line,” he said. 

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani warned against direct confrontation with Russia. “We don’t want problems with the other countries,” he said, “we are not in danger directly.”

He went on to say Italy wanted to avoid escalation. “We are against an escalation of the conflict,” Tajani added.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/02/2022 – 03:30

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The US Is Now Propping Up Tiny Moldova’s Energy Sector Too

The US Is Now Propping Up Tiny Moldova’s Energy Sector Too

This week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the US is prepping more aid to the Ukrainian government, particularly focusing on propping up its devastated energy infrastructure, but also for the first time unveiling that the tiny country of Moldova will be receiving significant aid for its failing energy grid.

“We know that standing up for Ukraine means accepting difficult costs, particularly for our European allies, but the cost of inaction would be far higher,” Blinken began in Wednesday comments. “Caving to Russia’s aggression, accepting its brazen attempts to redraw borders by force, to tear up the rulebook that has made all of us more secure – that would have repercussions not only in Europe but quite literally around the world.”

Moldova file image

That’s when he announced decisions made at a NATO meeting of ministers in Romania: “When we convened that group yesterday here in Bucharest, I announced that the United States will commit over $53 million to send equipment to help stabilize Ukraine’s energy grid and keep Ukraine’s power and electricity running.” 

He specified $1.1 billion going to both Ukraine and Moldova:

We’ve also submitted a request to Congress for $1.1 billion to secure Ukraine and Moldova’s energy sector and restore their energy supply.  And we will take strong, coordinated action to ensure that President Putin cannot hold the rest of the world hostage to weaponized energy.

Starting last month, Moldovan authorities began informing Western allies it is suffering “massive” blackouts in relations to stepped of Russian airstrikes in neighboring Ukraine.

“As a result of Russia’s bombardment on the Ukrainian energy system, within the last hour, we have massive electricity blackouts in the whole country,” Moldovan deputy prime minister Andrei Spinu stated during the initial round of the major Russian assault on Ukraine’s energy grid weeks ago.

Moldova, an EU aspirant (and seen as ‘NATO-friendly), is heavily reliant on Russia as well as Ukrainian transit points for all of its energy needs. 

Russian energy giant Gazprom this week accused Ukraine of diverting natural gas supplies transiting to Moldova and threatened to cut supplies. Previously Gazprom threatened to cut natural gas supplies being sent to Moldova after accusing Ukraine of siphoning off a large quantity during transit.

Additionally, Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria is also seen as a potential flashpoint, and early in the invasion of Ukraine there was constant speculation that the Kremlin was eyeing an incursion into Moldova next. Currently Russia has what it calls “peacekeeping” troops in contested Transnistria. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/02/2022 – 02:45

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UK Summons Chinese Ambassador Over Beating Of BBC Journalist

UK Summons Chinese Ambassador Over Beating Of BBC Journalist

Authored by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times,

The UK’s Foreign Office has summoned Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang to explain the treatment of a BBC journalist, foreign secretary James Cleverly confirmed on Tuesday.

Foreign Office minister David Rutley told Parliament earlier in the day that the department will demand a “full and thorough explanation” from the Chinese ambassador.

Edward Lawrence, a BBC reporter in China, was arrested in Shanghai on Sunday while reporting on protests against the communist regime’s zero-COVID policy.

A BBC statement said Lawrence was handcuffed, beaten, kicked, and held for a few hours before being released.

Footage circulated online appeared to show Lawrence being tackled to the ground by a group of police and taken away. The crowd could be heard chanting, “Release the man.”

The BBC on Sunday said no official explanation or apology had been given “beyond a claim by the officials who later released him that they had arrested him for his own good in case he caught Covid from the crowd.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian later rejected the BBC’s statement, saying Lawrence didn’t reveal his identity when being arrested and refused to cooperate with the police.

On Tuesday, Zhao accused the British public broadcaster of always “distorting the truth,” lambasting the broadcaster’s reporting on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and the zero-COVID policy in mainland China.

“The UK side must respect facts, be prudent in what it says or does and stop its practice of double standards,” Zhao said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

Speaking to reporters at NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Bucharest, Cleverly confirmed he had summoned the Chinese ambassador.

“It is incredibly important that we protect media freedom. It is something very much at the heart of the UK’s belief system, and it is incredibly important that journalists can go about their business unmolested and without fear of attack,” he said.

Answering urgent questions in Parliament, Rutley reiterated Cleverly’s earlier statement saying the arrest of Lawrence was “deeply disturbing and wholly unacceptable,” and that “journalists must be able to do their job without fear of arrest or intimidation.”

Commenting on the BBC’s statement that Lawrence was beaten and kicked by police during his arrest and was held for several hours, Rutley told MPs, “In response, we are calling in the Chinese ambassador to make clear the unacceptable and unwarranted nature of these actions, the importance of freedom of speech, and to demand a full and thorough explanation.”

He said the UK government recognises that the COVID-19 restrictions in China are “challenging for the Chinese people,” and urged the Chinese authorities to “respect the rights of those who decide to express their views about the situation.”

Government Urged to ‘Get Serious With China’

The incident comes as the relationship between the UK government and China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) becomes increasingly strained following Beijing’s upending of democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong, its reciprocal sanctioning of British politicians who are vocal critics of the CCP’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and the beating of a Hong Kong protester at the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester.

The BBC has also been targeted by the CCP after the UK revoked the license of the Chinese state-controlled CGTN network.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday said the so-called “golden era” of the Sino–British relationship is over, and said the UK will strengthen its resilience and economic security.

But he stopped short of calling the Chinese regime a threat, and said the UK will stand up to the UK’s competitors with “robust pragmatism” instead of “grand rhetoric” and “simplistic Cold War rhetoric,” irking China hawks in Parliament.

A man is arrested while people gather on a street in Shanghai to protest on Nov. 27, 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

DUP MP Jim Shannon, who requested the urgent question session, urged the government to take tougher actions.

Shannon said the arrest and assault of Lawrence is not the first attack on freedom of speech, but “just another example in the long line of journalists and human rights defenders, who are silenced, arrested, or simply disappear by the CCP.”

He welcomed Sunak’s commitment that the golden era of China and UK relations is over, and urged the prime minister to follow up with “tougher actions” to “protect British citizens, human rights defenders, pro-democracy activists, and religious and ethnic minorities targeted by the CCP.”

Rutley responded by saying Shannon’s points will be raised with the Chinese ambassador.

Former ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Tim Loughton questioned the use of summoning Zhao.

“We have had an awful lot of calling in the Chinese ambassador. If robust pragmatism is to mean anything, should there not be clear consequences?” Loughton asked.

He urged the government to expel Manchester Consul General Zhao Xiyuan, who admitted to pulling the hair of a protester, and sanction Chinese officials oppressing protests in China.

“When are we going to get serious about China?” he asked.

Rees-Mogg said the UK should also “take tougher action in international forums” and “do things that the Chinese would not want us to do” to show the UK is “not a pushover” and “not going to support the communist running dogs.”

Labour MP Marie Rimmer also mentioned the beating of a protester in Manchester, saying “action is desperately needed.”

Rutley told MPs the government is waiting for the conclusion of a police investigation into the Manchester incident, saying it will take action after seeing the process through.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/02/2022 – 02:00

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November Payrolls Preview: A Miss Will Be Good For Stocks But A Huge Miss Means Recession

November Payrolls Preview: A Miss Will Be Good For Stocks But A Huge Miss Means Recession

The jobs print on Friday is the final big event in what has been a very hectic macro week. Consensus is looking for a +200K printm down from 261K (Goldman is on the low end at +175k) with +0.3% average hourly earnings MoM, down from 0.4% prior. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 3.7% while the Labor Force Participation rate increases modestly to 62.3% from consensus 62.2%.

In its full preview (see below and in report available to pro subs) Goldman’s forecast reflects continued declines in online job postings as well as weakness in Big Data employment indicators in November. Nonetheless, layoff activity outside of tech remains muted and Goldman believes that the recent increase in jobless claims mostly reflects seasonal distortions (we disagree).

More importantly, the whisper is for a (far) softer print after this week’s ADP miss, rise in weekly continuing claims, spike in challenger job cuts, and drop in ISM’s employment sub-index. Specifically for the jobs data, Goldman trader John Flood says that we are still primarily in a “bad is good” and vice versa set up, “but I am getting the sense we are approaching the end of the line in regards to this type of mind set.”

He explains why:

Caught my eye today when S&P sold off after ISM miss (49 vs 49.7 expected and now in contractionary territory). Growth/Recession concerns now being talked about more than how much higher rates can go after Powell’s speech yesterday (most investors finally have their heads around a 5%ish terminal rate that will be sticky for at least the majority of next year).

In terms of the market’s reaction to the headline jobs print, this is what the Goldman trader expects:

  • >261k (aka higher than last print) S&P down at least 2%
  • 175k – 261k S&P down 1 – 2%
  • 125k – 175k S&P up 50bps – 1%
  • 0 – 125k S&P up 1 – 2% <0 S&P down 1 – 2% on R word fears

A somewhat contrarian take from Morgan Stanley’s sales team which writes that “it may be difficult to get a similar (large) reaction post NFP as post CPI given recent price action, lack of new risk taking, and the magnitude the CPI surprise that drove the equity rally. Short dated options suggesting the same thing.”

According to Morgan Stanley (whose forecast is for a 180K print) the implied move (1d straddle) for Friday is “only” ~1.15%, roughly half what it was into CPI when it was ~2%. The market is implying 30% extra variance for Friday (last two prints have realized 100%+), and this is combined with the fact that vols have come off meaningfully (VIX closed below 20). The market is pricing in no short-term vol premium – which is aided by flows that have been overwriting in nature (delta for sale / vol for sale).

Morgan Sanley’s conclusion:

I think the sweet spot for risk is +100-125k. This allows Fed to go 50, as part of a continued step down… this is what the Feds want to do and why they have had a hard time pushing back on easing financial conditions the last few weeks.

  • +25k payroll would be bad for stocks – too fast of a step down in jobs, especially after +260k a month earlier.
  • 250k+ may make the Fed more hawkish at the next meeting, and may put 75bps back in play.

The bank also warns that in case of an NFP miss, the magnitude of a rally may be smaller than the decline on a large beat, given less incremental relaxation of the dovish narrative given 50bps is largely priced and SPX sits ~4000.

* * *

Having discussed the market reaction, here is a summary of what consensus expected tomorrow, courtesy of Newsquawk:

The rate of payroll additions is expected to cool once again, with analysts forecasting 200k nonfarm payrolls will be added in November (prev. 261k), while the unemployment rate is seen unchanged at 3.7%. Given that the Fed’s policymaking is currently centred around managing inflation, traders will be closely watching the wages metrics; the expectation is for wage growth to continue cooling, and this will likely form a key part of how traders will react to the data, with any upside in the wages measures likely to result in a hawkish market reaction, while any miss relative to expectations will likely incite a dovish reaction.

EXPECTATIONS: The US economy is expected to have added 200k nonfarm payrolls in November, further cooling from recent trend rates (three-month average 289k, six-month average 347k, 12 month average 442k). The unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged at 3.7%; analysts will be closely watching the participation rate, which has inched lower in the last two reports, currently at 62.2%. Similarly, there will also be attention on the U6 measure of underemployment, which rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 6.8% in October. Analysts note that in the November data, seasonal adjustments may be a factor weighing on jobs growth, particularly the adjustments to holiday hiring; these however may be partly offset by seasonal adjustments in the construction sector.

PROXIES: As a proxy, weekly data for the survey week that coincides with the official November jobs report showed initial jobless claims picking up slightly to 223k from 214k going into the October jobs data; continuing claims also ticked up to 1.51mln vs 1.44mln in the comparable October period. Further, although the ADP’s gauge of US national employment is difficult to use for comparison purposes, it showed a cooling rate of payroll additions, printing 127k from a previous 239k, and below the expected 200k.

WAGES: Rates of headline inflation have been easing as energy prices fall back, and wage growth has also been cooling. The pace of monthly average hourly earnings is also expected to ease, with analysts expecting growth of +0.3% M/M (prev. +0.4%), while the annual measure is seen falling a touch to 4.6% Y/Y from 4.7%. Average workweek hours are expected to be unchanged at 34.5hrs. The ADP’s measure of wage growth – again, not perfectly comparable with the BLS data, given that the ADP factors in bonuses while the BLS data does not – corroborates the slowing wages argument, with its most recent report stating that wage gains for job changers easing to 15.1% from 15.2%, while wage gains for job stayers pared to 7.6% from 7.7%.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS: Various labor market proxies suggest that the Fed’s policy tightening is helping to alleviate some of the tightness in the labor market, and also seems to be having an impact on slowing wage growth. The ADP’s chief economist said that “turning points can be hard to capture in the labor market, but the data suggest that Federal Reserve tightening is having an impact on job creation and pay gains,” with companies “no longer in hyper-replacement mode,” while “fewer people are quitting and the post-pandemic recovery is stabilizing.” The question is whether the easing labor market will be enough to derail Fed tightening; analysts at Oxford economics do not think so: “Job growth likely continued to slow in November but the implications for the Fed are minor,” it wrote, adding that “the moderating pace of job gains will be welcomed by the Fed but won’t alter its plans to continue to raise interest rates.” As this report is being published, money markets are discounting a 50bps rate hike at the FOMC’s December 14th confab, with rates expected to peak out between 5.00-5.25% in the middle of 2023. With the Fed in data-dependent mode, and inflation front and center of its policy decision making, traders have been using the playbook that any upside in price metrics (in the case of the jobs report, the wages measures) will see traders increase bets of a more hawkish Fed, while any downside in the wages numbers would likely result in a dovish reaction.

ARGUING FOR A STRONGER THAN EXPECTED REVIEW

  • Job availability. JOLTS job openings declined 353k to 10.3mn workers in October, and online measures declined further. While labor demand remains elevated, these declines nonetheless argue for a further drop in the pace of job growth. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—edged up in November (+1pt to 32.8).

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market indicate a further slowdown in job growth, with both key measures available this month consistent with below-consensus payrolls. For example, private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 127k, below expectations for 200k.

  • Normalizing business births. The birth-death adjustment—the BLS assumption for net business formation—appears to have flattered the October payroll figures. As shown below, the payroll statistics assumed a 151k larger boost from business formation in October 2022 than in October 2019. Half of this evolution is ultimately revised away, implying a positive bias from the birth-death adjustment of around +75k in last month’s report. For tomorrow’s report, the whipsaw pattern in the birth-death adjustment in recent months suggests scope for a more normal—or perhaps even negative—contribution to payroll growth (mom sa).

  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas increased 138% month-over-month in November, following an 8.8% increase in October (SA by GS). Nevertheless, roughly 70% of the announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas were in the tech sector, which accounts for a very small share of overall employment. Goldman continues to expect that many laid-off workers will be able to find new jobs relatively quickly, and that the required reduction in aggregate labor demand will come primarily from fewer job openings rather than lower employment.
  • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys generally decreased in November. The GS services employment survey tracker decreased by 0.8pt to 50.8 and the bank’s manufacturing survey employment tracker decreased by 1.4pt to 51.3.
  • Covid. Rising covid cases could also weigh on tomorrow’s report if a significant number of hourly workers missed work during the survey week due to illness. Illustratively, the test positivity rate in New York City rose from 9.6% to 11.2% between the October and November payroll survey weeks.

ARGUING FOR A STRONGER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

  • Momentum. At +200k, consensus already embeds a 61k deceleration in job growth relative to November (and an 89k  deceleration relative to the three-month average). Month-over-month slowdowns of this magnitude are relatively infrequent, occurring in 27% of instances since 2010 (60k or larger, first print basis, excludes Census workers). Momentum is particularly strong in the healthcare industry (+75k average in both the last 3 and the last 6 months). We assume another ~75k rise in healthcare payrolls on the back of rising hospital utilization and continued labor shortages (2.1mn job vacancies at the end of September).

More in the full reports available to pro subscribers

Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/02/2022 – 01:26

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America To Unveil World’s First Sixth-Generation Bomber Friday

America To Unveil World’s First Sixth-Generation Bomber Friday

Northrop Grumman Corporation and the US Air Force are set to unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft on Friday. 

The B-21 Raider stealth bomber will be displayed at Northrop’s facility in Palmdale, California. There have been no photos, just renderings released in the public domain of the super secret aircraft that has been in development since 2015. 

A team of more than 8,000 people from Northrop, 400 suppliers across 40 states, and the Air Force have been working on the B-21 program. 

Northrop said the new stealth bomber “benefits from more than three decades of strike and stealth technology … and was developed with the next generation of stealth technology, advanced networking capabilities and an open systems architecture, the B-21 is optimized for the high-end threat environment.” 

“The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence.

 “The Raider showcases the dedication and skills of the thousands of people working every day to deliver this aircraft,” Doug Young, sector vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, said in a press release. 

The plane, according to Northrop, will be the “backbone of the future for US air power” with new capabilities and advanced technology to deliver conventional and nuclear payloads. It will be able to “defeat the anti-access, area-denial systems,” the defense company said. 

Northrop even called the new aircraft a “digital bomber.” Here’s why: 

“Northrop Grumman uses agile software development, advanced manufacturing techniques and digital engineering tools to help mitigate production risk on the B-21 program and enable modern sustainment practices.”

At least six of these new bombers are in various stages of final assembly and testing at the company’s plant in Palmdale. Tomorrow’s big reveal will be the first time public eyes have ever viewed a sixth-gen bomber in real-life. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 23:30

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/Xv5gwHf Tyler Durden

Up To 40 Million Firearms Could Be Banned Overnight Due To New ATF Brace Rules

Up To 40 Million Firearms Could Be Banned Overnight Due To New ATF Brace Rules

Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is set to release its final rule on Braced firearms later this month. 

In Analyzing the proposed rule, which was released June 2021, it appears that ATF has intentionally designed its Factoring Criteria for Rifled Barrel Weapons with Accessories Commonly Referred to as “Stabilizing Braces” to effect a complete ban of every pistol-braced firearm currently on the market. 

Masquerading as a helpful rulemaking “to assist” gun owners and the firearms industry in complying with the law, in reality the proposed rule is designed with the obvious and specific intent to largely outlaw the use of stabilizing braces on firearms, threatening millions of current owners with imprisonment and putting a large segment of the gun industry out of business entirely.

To accomplish this goal, the proposed rule creates “Worksheet 4999,” which contains three sections of analysis, each more restrictive than the last, designed to ensure that virtually no stabilizing brace is eligible for use on a non-rifle firearm, and thereafter ensuring that most firearms do not qualify to even use an allowed stabilizing brace.

Even if a firearm passes the checks listed in “Worksheet 4999” ATF reserves unto itself the unbridled discretion to override the results of the worksheet at any time and for any reason, creating a system where no person or company could possibly rely on anything the agency says.

ATF in their proposed rulemaking claims that the number of Stabilizing braces in circulation is around 7-9 million. Whereas the Congressional Research Service estimates that the actual number of braces in circulation is anywhere between 10 – 40 million.

If this proposed rule becomes law, millions of gun owners could find themselves in possession of illegal, unregistered short barreled rifles or shotguns overnight.

ATF attempted once before to effectively ban pistol braces in 2020, during the Trump administration. Because of the massive grassroots response to the rule change, ATF abandoned their attempt and withdrew the rulemaking. But now that a new anti-gun regime has taken control of the White House, the ATF feels empowered to revive its war on pistol braces and essentially ban an extremely popular gun accessory.

What is Gun Owners of America doing to combat this arbitrary and capricious regulation?

We’ve submitted comments to the Federal Register detailing our arguments against the proposed rule.

We’ve worked with 48 Senators to demand that the ATF withdraw its proposed rule.

In Congress, we’re targeting the core of the issue, the National Firearms Act. The outdated and unconstitutional NFA allows ATF to regulate these sorts of items in the first place. We’re working with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and Congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia to pass the SHORT Act which would remove Short Barreled Rifles and Shotguns from the NFA.

Finally, if the rule does go into effect, we’re prepared to take the fight to the courts.

*  *  * 

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 23:05

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/IjPqZgS Tyler Durden

California Senator Accused Of Faking Anti-LGBTQ Threat

California Senator Accused Of Faking Anti-LGBTQ Threat

California state Senator Scott Weiner – who in June suggested “Offering Drag Queen 101 as part of the K-12 curriculum,” for which “Attending Drag Queen Story Time will satisfy the requirement,” has been accused of a hate crime hoax.

On Tuesday, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk made a Twitter thread pointing the finger at Weiner for contributing to the release of “thousands of pedophiles” in California “after just a few months in jail.”

Click the tweet below to read the entire thread:

In response, Weiner tweeted what he claimed to be a hateful, anti-LGBTQ message he received in response to Kirk’s thread.

“Not even 24 hours after MAGA grifter Charlie Kirk tweeted homophobic lies about me, I received this thread repeating one of his lies.”

Except, there’s a cursor at the bottom of the message, and grammar suggestions are underlined – leading many to accuse the California lawmaker of faking the entire thing.

How long until Weiner says he copied the message into a text editor?

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 22:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/j9fIELn Tyler Durden

Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?

Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?

Authored by Matt Stoller via BIG,

“I Seen My Opportunities and I Took ’Em.” – George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona. Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management. Some rights reserved.

Two of the classic works of late 19th century American political literature, representing precisely opposite views of how commerce in an industrialized democracy ought to work, are Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and the speeches of George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.

George was one of the great political economists of his day, and he ran and lost for mayor of New York City on an anti-monopoly and land reform ticket. George was interested in why we experienced tremendous inequality in the midst of great wealth, and traced it to the exploitation of land.

George was an international superstar, influencing both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, as well as environmentalists and the modern libertarian movement. (There’s an iconic statue of the greatest mayor in Cleveland history, Tom Johnson, with Johnson holding a copy of Progress and Poverty.) The modern academic profession of economics arose in part as a reaction to the popular success of George’s work. The game Monopoly comes directly from George, and in many ways, the national parks, as well as everything from spectrum allocation to offshore oil drilling, must wrestle with Georgeist thinking.

But by land, he meant far more than just the plots upon which we live. “The term land,” George wrote, “necessarily includes, not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished from the water and the air, but the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which his very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature.” Unlike Marx, who saw the exploitation of capital over labor, George thought that the root of social disorder was a result of the power of the landowner over both capital and labor.

By land, he meant all value drawn purely from nature or from collective human existence. He would, for instance, consider ‘network effects’ a form of land, and likely seek regulation or national control of search engines. George had his first run-in with monopoly in San Francisco, where a telegraph monopolist destroyed his newspaper by denying him wire service. But his key work, in 1879, was written before the rise of the giant trusts, just as railroads, which were really land kingdoms, were becoming dominant.

A much more cynical set of works are the speeches of Plunkitt. Plunkitt was a political boss in New York City, a proud machine politician in office at the same time in the same political arena as George. Both men were interested in modern industry and wealth, and in both cases, the key fulcrum around which power flowed was not capital, but land. But while George sought a better world, Plunkitt just wanted to get rich, and saw in the purchase of land one of the key ways to do that.

Plunkitt’s key moral guidepost was the practical wielding of political power to enrich oneself. He posited something called “Honest Graft,” which he distinguished from crime in a formulation that every important corporate lobbyist, knowingly or not, has since used. To Plunkitt, stealing would be taking something that doesn’t belong to you. But if you happened to know that the city would need a piece of land, and you got there first, well, that was simply smart. As Plunkitt put it:

“I could get nothin’ at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted on. They couldn’t make the park complete without Plunkitt’s swamp, and they had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest in that?”

George was part of the land reform anti-monopoly school of Anglo-American thought, from Frederick Douglass to Thaddeus Stevens. Plunkitt was a machine politician, and proud of it. The battle between these two elements of America, the desire to conserve the public weal versus the desire to cynically plunder it, is still fierce today. It will probably never end.

And that brings me to the political conflict over our national parks, and the strange situation whereby a large government contractor, Booz Allen, somehow found itself in a position to rent us back our own land.

Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.

Every day, visitors to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Northern Arizona hike into an area named Coyote Buttes North to see one of the “most visually striking geologic sandstone formations in the world,” which is known as The Wave. On an ancient layer of sandstone, millions of years of water and wind erosion crafted 3,000-foot cliffs, weird red canyons that look like you are on the planet Mars, and giant formations that look like crashing waves made of rock. There are old carvings known as ‘petroglyphs’ on cliff walls, and even “dinosaur tracks embedded in the sediment.”

The Wave is unlike anywhere else on Earth. It is also part of a U.S. national park, and thus technically, it’s open to anyone. Yet, to preserve its natural beauty, the Bureau of Land Management lets just 64 people daily visit the area. Snagging one of these slots is an accomplishment, a ticket into The Wave is known as “The Hardest Permit to Get in the USA” by Outside and Backpacker Magazines.

To apply requires going to Recreation.gov, the site set up to manage national parks, public cultural landmarks, and public lands, and paying $9 for a “Lottery Application Fee.” If you win, you get a permit, and pay a recreation fee of $7. The success rate for the lottery is between 4-10%, and some people spend upwards of $500 before securing an actual permit.

But while the recreation fee of $7 goes to maintaining the park – which is what Henry George would appreciate – the money for the “Lottery Application Fee” is pure Plunkitt. That money goes to the giant D.C. consulting firm, Booz Allen and Company. In fact, since 2017, more and more of America’s public lands – over 4,200 facilities and 113,000 individual sites across the country at last count – have been added to the Recreation.gov database and website run by Booz Allen, which in turn captures various fees that Americans pay to visit their national heritage.

You can do a lot at Recreation.gov. You can sign up for a pass to cut down a Christmas tree on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, get permits to fly-fishing, rifle hunting or target practice at thousands of sites, or even secure a tour at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. There are dozens of lotteries to enter for different parks and lands that are hard to access. And all of them come with service fees attached, fees that go directly to Booz Allen, which built Recreation.gov. The deeper you go, the more interesting the gatekeeping. As one angry writer found out after waiting on hold and being transferred multiple times, the answer is that Booz Allen “actually sets the Recreation.gov fees for themselves.”

Lately, hundreds of sites have begun requiring the use of the site. A typical example is Red Rock Canyon, which added “timed entry permit” in the past two years. Such parks, before adding these new processes, usually do a “trial” period followed by a public comment period, and then the fees are approved by a Resource Advisory Council, objects of derision composed of people appointed by the government bureaus. As one person involved in the process told me, these councils are sort of ridiculous. “Agencies fill it with people beholden to them,” he said. “so the council playing committee rubber stamps whatever they send their way, often even if it makes no sense.”

The entry permit almost always become permanent. This includes heavily visited lands like Acadia National Park (4 million annual visitors), Arches National Park (1.5 million), Glacier National Park (3 million), Rocky Mountain National Park (4.4 million), and Yosemite (3.3 million). There’s nothing wrong with charging a fee for the use of a national park, as long as that fee is necessary for the upkeep and is used to maintain the public resource.

That was in fact the point of the law passed in 2004 – the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act – to give permanent authority to government agencies to charge fees for the use of public lands. But what Booz Allen is doing is different. The incentives are creating the same dynamics for public lands that we see with junk fees across the economy. Just as airlines are charging for carry-on bags and hotels are forcing people to pay ‘resort fees,’ some national parks are now requiring reservations with fees attached. And as scalpers automatically grabbed Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster using high-speed automated programs, there are now bots booking campsites.

None of this is criminal, though the fee structure may not be lawful, but it is very George Washington Plunkitt. “I Seen My Opportunities,” he said, “and I Took ’Em.”

Honest Graft

The entry point for Booz Allen can be traced back to the Obama administration, and a giant failed IT project. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, pledging that by 2014, the government would have a website up in which uninsured Americans could buy health insurance with various subsidies. In perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments of the Obama administration, Healthcare.gov failed to launch the day the new health law came into force, and millions couldn’t sign up to take advantage of it.

It’s hard to overstate the shame of that moment. The government had spent $400 million over four years – more time than it took the U.S. to enter and win World War II – and yet, the dozens of contractors couldn’t set up a website to take sign-ups. The whole thing was an embarrassing disaster, a festival of incompetence and greed. (Despite the failure, the main IT contractor’s CEO became a billionaire. Honest graft indeed.)

President Obama hired Google’s Mike Dickerson to come in and fix the Healthcare.gov website, which Dickerson and his team did. This wasn’t some miracle, it’s not like websites were new technology. The government itself created the internet and most of the underpinnings of digital technology, and it had many functional and important systems. But the Google name at that point was magic, and so the U.S. Digital Service, designed to help the government use technology, was born. After Dickerson, the new head was Google’s Matt Cutts, and then health care monopolist Optum’s Mina Hsiang. The U.S. Digital Service, far from being particularly competent, is a branding exercise. It is full of people from Amazon and Google, and tends to push the government to outsource its technology to third party contractors.

Following the U.S. Digital Service’s playbook is what led the government to bid out and allow the creation of Recreation.gov, with its weird and corrupt fee structure. In 2017, Booz Allen got a 10-year $182 million contract to consolidate all booking for public lands and waters, with 13 separate agencies participating, from the Bureau of Land Management to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to the National Park Service to the Smithsonian Institution to the Tennessee Valley Authority to the US Forest Service.

The funding structure of the site is exactly what George Washington Plunkitt would design. Though there’s a ten year contract with significant financial outlays, Booz Allen says the project was built “at no cost to the federal government.” In the contractor’s words, “the unique contractual agreement is a transaction-based fee model that lets the government and Booz Allen share in risk, reward, results, and impact.” In other words, Booz Allen gets to keep the fees charged to users who want access to national parks. Part of the deal was that Booz Allen would get the right to negotiate fees to third party sites that want access to data on Federal lands.

It’s a bit hard to tell how much Booz Allen was paid to set up the site. Documents suggest the firm received a lot of money to do so, but it’s also possible that total amount was the anticipated financial return. I wrote to Recreation.gov team leader Julie McPherson at Booz Allen to find out what they were paid to build the site, and I haven’t heard back. Regardless, there’s a lot of money involved. For instance, as one camper noted, in just one lottery to hike Mount Whitney, more than 16,000 people applied, and only a third got in. Yet everyone paid the $6 registration fee, which means the gross income for that single location is over $100,000. There’s nothing criminal about this scheme, but it is a form of Honest Graft, or of handing a Ticketmaster-like firm control of our national parks.

Judgment Day

In 2020, an avid hiker named Thomas Kotab sued the Bureau of Land Management over the $2 “processing fee it charges to access the mandatory online reservation system to visit the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area.” He claimed, among other things, that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act mandated that this fee was unlawful, because it had not gone through the notice-and-comment period required by the act. Kotab, an electrical engineer by training, is one of those ass-kickers in America, who just goes after a grift because, well, it’s just wrong.

A few years later, a judge named Jennifer A. Dorsey, appointed by Obama in 2013, agreed with him. She looked at the statute and found that Congress authorized the charging of recreation fees for the purpose of taking care and using Federal lands, not administrative fees that compensated third parties. As such, Booz Allen’s ability to set its own prices was inconsistent with the law mandating the public’s right to comment on what we are charged for using our own land.

The BLM sought to appeal, but then dropped it in July. Rather than a bitter procedural argument about classifying fees, the government and Booz Allen have decided they’ll just go through the annoying process of having the public comment on Booz Allen’s compensation, and then ignore us using their phony advisory council process. Here, for instance, is the Mojave-Southern Great Basin Resource Advisory Council Meeting in August simply proposing to substitute new standard amenity fees “equal to the associated Recreation.gov reservation service fee.”

One notable part of this saga is that technically, the BLM and Booz Allen owe refunds to everyone who went through Red Rock Canyon’s timed entry system from 2020-2022, but they’ll probably ignore that and steal the money. That verges into actual graft from the ‘honest’ type, but I suspect Plunkitt did that as well from time to time.

And yet, it’s not over. The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act authorization runs out in October of 2023, which means that Congress has to renew it. Hopefully, an interested member of Congress who loves Federal lands could actually tighten the definitions here, and find a way to stop Booz Allen and these 13 government agencies from engaging in this minor theft via junk fees. It wouldn’t be hard, and it would be fun to force a bunch of government agencies to actually do their job and either take over the site themselves or pay Booz Allen a fee for its service. (Another path would be Joe Biden, through his anti-junk fee initiative, simply asserting through the White House Competition Council to the 13 different agencies that they end Booz Allen’s practice of charging these kinds of fees.)

It’s easy enough to see scams everywhere, and here is certainly one of them. But let’s not lose sight of the broader point. Henry George, at least in this fight, has won. Yes, Booz Allen gets to steal some pennies, but we have a remarkable system of public lands and waters that are broadly available for all of us to use on a relatively equal basis. And we can still see the power of George-ism in the advocacy of hikers and in the intense view that members of Congress had when they passed the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act in 2004, which strictly regulated fees that Americans would have to pay to access our Federal lands. Indeed, the anger and revulsion I felt at the fees Booz Allen puts forward comes from George, even if I didn’t necessarily trace it there at first.

We are in a moment of institutional corruption, but these moments are transitory as institutions change. George Washington Plunkitt, and his political descendants at Booz Allen, might have gotten rich, but Henry George imparted instincts to Americans that are far more permanent.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 22:15

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Congress Adds $45 Billion To 2023 Military Budget

Congress Adds $45 Billion To 2023 Military Budget

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The House and Senate have agreed to increase the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by $45 billion more than President Biden requestedPOLITICO reported on Wednesday.

The $45 billion increase was agreed on by the House and Senate Armed Service committees, but other details of the NDAA are still being finalized. The increase the two panels agreed on brings the bill to $847 billion.

US Air Force/Getty Images

Including programs outside of the jurisdiction of House and Senate Armed Service committees, the NDAA will reach $858 billion.

Once finalized, it will be the second year in a row that Congress significantly increases President Biden’s requested budget. Last year, the president asked for $753 billion but was granted an NDAA worth about $778 billion.

The Politico report said that the chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have largely agreed on the bill and have handed it off to congressional leadership.

Congress is looking to get the NDAA on the House floor for a vote as early as next week. Once approved by the House it will go to the Senate and then would head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

Over the past few months, lawmakers have been trying to tack on amendments to the spending bill that would give Taiwan unprecedented military aid, but the contents and amendments included in the NDAA aren’t yet clear.

You will find more infographics at Statista

One plan reported by The Washington Post would give Taiwan $3 billion annually for at least five years. If the Taiwan aid isn’t included in the NDAA, the White House could ask Congress to authorize the Taiwan aid as emergency funds, which is what has been done for Ukraine.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 21:25

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San Francisco Approves Lethal Police Robots After ‘Unhinged’ Board Of Supervisors Hearing

San Francisco Approves Lethal Police Robots After ‘Unhinged’ Board Of Supervisors Hearing

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted this week to give police the ability to use lethal, remote-controlled robots in certain situations where “risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.”

In a 8-3 vote following what one civil liberties advocate described as an “unhinged” meeting, the panel agreed to grant police the option despite strong objections from civil liberties and police oversight groups, AP reports.

Opponents said the authority would lead to the further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with poor and minority communities.

Supervisor Connie Chan, a member of the committee that forwarded the proposal to the full board, said she understood concerns over use of force but that “according to state law, we are required to approve the use of these equipments. So here we are, and it’s definitely not a easy discussion.”

So when can police deploy the robots? As EFF‘s Matthew Guariglia notes; “The robots listed in this section shall not be utilized outside of training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessments.”

And when can kill-mode be activated?Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when [1] risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and [2] officers cannot subdue the threat after using alternative force options or de-escalation tactics options, **or** conclude that they will not be able to subdue the threat after evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics. Only the Chief of Police, Assistant Chief, or Deputy Chief of Special Operations may authorize the use of robot deadly force options.”

As Guariglia further notes; The “or” in this policy (emphasis added) does a lot of work. Police can use deadly force after “evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics,” meaning that they don’t have to actually try them before remotely killing someone with a robot strapped with a bomb. Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed an amendment that would have required police to actually try these non-deadly options, but the Board rejected it.

Some highlights from Tuesday’s ‘unhinged’ meeting.

As Guariglia adds:

The Board majority failed to address the many ways that police have used and misused technology, military equipment, and deadly force over recent decades. They seem to trust that police would roll out this type of technology only in the absolutely most dire circumstances, but that’s not what the policy says. They ignore the innocent bystanders and unarmed people already killed by police using other forms of deadly force only intended to be used in dire circumstances. They didn’t account for the militarization of police response to protesters, such as the Minneapolis demonstration with  overhead surveillance of a predator drone.

More via EFF:

The fact is, police technology constantly experiences mission creep–meaning equipment reserved only for specific or extreme circumstances ends up being used in increasingly everyday or casual ways. This is why President Barack Obama in 2015 rolled back the Department of Defense’s 1033 program which had handed out military equipment to local police departments. He said at the time police must  “embrace a guardian—rather than a warrior— mind-set to build trust and legitimacy both within agencies and with the public.”

Supervisor Rafael Mandleman smeared opponents of the bomb-carrying robots as “anti-cop,” and unfairly questioned the professionalism of our friends at other civil rights groups. Nonsense. We are just asking why police need new technologies and under what circumstances they actually would be useful. This echoes the recent debate in which the Board of Supervisors enabled police to get live access to private security cameras, without any realistic scenario in which it would prevent crime. This is disappointing from a Board that in 2019 made San Francisco the first municipality in the United States to ban police use of face recognition.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/01/2022 – 21:00

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