Month: March 2024

Authored by Will Jones via DailySceptic.org,

Decarbonising the steel and electricity industry in pursuit of Net Zero represents a real and present danger to national security and must be abandoned, a former Security Minister has warned.

Writing in a foreword to a new paper from campaign group Net Zero Watch, Sir Gerald Howarth, Minister for International Security Strategy under David Cameron, said:

Our adversaries are watching us like hawks, so let us leave them in no doubt: we are rearming and rebuilding, and Net Zero is firmly on hold.

Professor Gwythian Prins, a defence expert and one of the paper’s authors, agrees that with the recent deterioration of the world’s security situation, “luxury beliefs” such as Net Zero must be jettisoned as a matter of urgency:

This is the moment when the music stops. The Port Talbot closure harshly exposes the costs of luxury ‘green’ beliefs. We cannot be dependent on imports for the full range of necessary steels to rebuild our arsenals – the Navy first and foremost – and, most ridiculously, we cannot depend for them on our global antagonists.

Furthermore, our armed forces are wholly dependent on oil to keep them in the field, and our electricity grid will collapse without gas. Any attempt to abandon them will leave us entirely at the mercy of hostile powers.

The paper also includes a contribution from Gautam Kalghatgi, a Professor of Combustion and Energy Engineering, who ridicules plans to decarbonise the armed forces through use of batteries and biofuels.

Historian (and Daily Sceptic regular) Guy de la Bédoyère sets out the eternal historical lesson that technological laggards usually end up the victims of conquest by their more advanced neighbours.

Mr. de la Bédoyère said:

It is impossible to diminish the effectiveness of a nation’s armed forces without making it a sitting duck for a more ambitious rival’s greed. But that’s exactly what our leaders seem to want to do.

Andrew Montford, Director of Net Zero Watch said:

The three contributors make it clear that Net Zero is leaving us at the mercy of hostile powers. A Net Zero army and a Net Zero economy could both be brought to their knees in a matter of days. In these dangerous times, our politicians must re-order their priorities.

A civilian United States Air Force employee has been arrested for using a foreign dating website to share classified information with someone presenting the personality of a flirtatious woman in Ukraine. The indictment provides no information about the identify of the person on the other end of the conversation, but it’s easy to imagine the chump was unwittingly vying for the affection of a couple of chuckling Russian intel officers named Boris and Dmitry. 

The man apparently caught in a honey trap is David Franklin Slater, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel who held a top secret clearance while assigned to United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said the 63-year-old Slater showed a “blatant disregard for the security of his country and his oath to safeguard its secrets.” 

In his role at Strategic Command, Slater attended briefings on the Ukraine war that were classified “Top Secret // Sensitive Compartmented Information.” Seemingly entranced by flirty conversation and ego-stroking — e.g., “you are my secret informant love!” — Slater allegedly shared classified information about military targets in the Ukraine war and America’s assessment of Russian military capabilities. 

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. According to the indictment, Slater’s communications with the purported Ukrainian woman — identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 1” — started that same month and continued into April of that year, when Slater left the job under circumstances that have yet to be publicized.

For weeks, via email and the unidentified foreign dating site, the “woman” repeatedly fawned over Slater, using his/her wiles to press him to spill secrets:  

• March 7: “American Intelligence says that already 100% of Russian troops are located on the territory of Ukraine. Do you think this information can be trusted?”
• March 11: “Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting.”
• March 15: “By the way, you were the first to tell me that NATO members are traveling by train and only now (already evening) this was announced on our news. You are my secret informant love! How were your meetings? Successfully?”
• March 18: “Beloved Dave, do NATO and Biden have a secret plan to help us?”
• March 23: “Dave, it’s great that you get information about [Specified Country 1] first. I hope you will tell me right away? You are my secret agent. With love.”
• April 12: “Sweet Dave, the supply of weapons is completely classified, which is great!”
• April 14: “My sweet Dave, thanks for the valuable information, it’s great that two officials from the USA are going to Kyiv.”
• April 19: “Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very unpleasant “surprise” for Putin! Will you tell me?”
• April 21: “You have a job in the Operations Center today, I remember, I’m sure there is a lot of interesting news there?”

The April 14 message from Slater’s love-target, in which “she” thanks him for sharing information about two American officials visiting Kiev, seemingly refers to a visit from Montana Senator Steve Daines and Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz. That’s the conclusion of the New York Post, which notes they were the first American government officials to travel to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. 

ZeroHedge was unable to determine Slater’s marital status or find a photo of him. He will appear in court on Tuesday. Charged with one count of conspiracy to disclose national security information and two counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information, Slater faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count.

Given the steep price he’s poised to pay, Slater can only hope that, if he was throwing secrets to a Russian, it was at least a Russian like this: 

Via The Libertarian Institute,

The Department of Defense has deployed four laser systems designed to intercept drones and rockets in the Middle East. The Pentagon has been developing a laser-style interceptor to reduce the cost of shooting down UAVs and rockets. 

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus announced the new deployment of Directed Energy Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) prototypes to the Middle East. The Army developed the weapons system in coordination with RTX, formerly Raytheon. The former employer of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, RTX, has received over $100 million to develop the platform. 

DE M-SHORAD, according to RTX, is a 50-kilowatt vehicle-mounted laser designed to intercept drones, missiles, and rockets at short range.

RTX and the Pentagon believe laser systems will be a cheaper alternative for downing cheap drones and rockets. The four interceptors deployed to the Middle East are mounted on Stryker armored vehicles.

The 2024 Pentagon funding bill authorized nearly $700 million in spending on the development and procurement of DE M-SHORAD systems. 

American soldiers occupying Iraq and Syria have come under rocket and drone attack over 150 times in the past five months. The strikes come in response to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, with Shia militia groups taking responsibility for some of the attacks.

After a drone killed three American soldiers in Jordan, President Joe Biden ordered a massive round of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Dozens were killed, including some civilians. 

The Pentagon believes the Middle East is a good environment to test DE M-SHORAD as it will present unique challenges.

“Our high-energy lasers are so susceptible to weather. That’s why I think this is going to be a great laboratory because anytime there’s a dust storm, anytime there’s that kind of thing, it starts to alter the physics of the light particles that actually shoot that beam,” Mingus explained. 

The Biden administration and its fawning PR industry, also known as the mainstream media, have over the past year been desperate to explain to ordinary deplorables Americans why the US economy is ackchyually doing “so much better” than most peasants give the 81-year-old’s handlers credit for (see “The Economy Is Great. Why Do Americans Blame Biden“, “Voters Are More Upbeat on Economy, but Biden Gets Little Benefit, WSJ Poll Shows“, “Is Biden Going Down With the Ship Called Bidenomics?”, “Why Biden Touts Jobs When Americans Care About Prices“, and so on).

And yet, for all the seasonal adjustments, data rigging, propaganda and angry outbursts by the senile president,  there may be a very simple reason why Biden will lose the Nov 2024 election not just on the catastrophic debacles that are immigration and foreign policy (Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel), but also on the economy, and that has to do with the snuffing of what was once the American dream – namely, owning a house.

According to Zillow, the income needed to comfortably afford a home in the US has leapt 80% since 2020, far exceeding what the BLS reports has been a 23% increase in median household income over the same period.

The real estate website found home buyers today need to make more than $106,000 a year, up $47,000 from 2020, a change driven largely by higher prices and borrowing costs.

“Housing costs have soared over the past four years as drastic hikes in home prices, mortgage rates and rent growth far outpaced wage gains,” said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.

Some math: in 2020, a household earning $59,000 a year could comfortably afford the monthly mortgage on a typical US home, assuming the rule of thumb that a buyer can spend up to 30% of their income on housing and make a 10% down payment. That was less than the US median income of about $66,000 at the time, meaning more than half of American households had the financial means to afford homeownership.

Fast forward just four years to today, when it takes roughly $106,500 in income to afford a typical home, and median earnings are about $81,000, putting a home purchase out of reach for most families.

In 14 large housing markets, led by a handful of cities in California, Zillow estimated that household income must be $150,000 or more to comfortably afford a typical home. Among the 50 largest metropolitan areas studied, only Pittsburgh still had an income threshold for affordability below the $59,000 national average from 2020.

If that sounds vaguely similar to saying that US housing has never been more unaffordable, that’s because it’s the exact same thing: as the following index of Housing (un)affordability from the NAR shows, housing has never been more unaffordable.

If that wasn’t enough, a model created by the Atlanta Fed shows that US homes fell below an affordability threshold in May 2021 and have remained there since. The Fed’s Home Ownership Affordability Monitor Index measures the ability of a median-income household to absorb the estimated annual costs of owning a median-priced home. The model, which incorporates nearly 20 years of data, found houses are in their longest stretch below the threshold since 2009.

Going back to the Zillow study, if showed the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home has nearly doubled since January 2020, to $2,188 (assuming a 10% down payment). And while mortgage rates have eased ever so modestly in recent months as investors expected the Fed eserve to begin cutting their benchmark interest rate this year, they have since resumed their upward climb again pushing what littler housing was affordable for an instant, back into the stratosphere.

And so for those wondering why Biden can’t get a favorable vote for his handling of the economy even from democrats, the answer is simple: the administration successfully converted what was once the American dream into an American nightmare.

Authored by Richard Porter via RealClear Wire,

The artificial reality Google’s woke programmers infused into their new AI chatbox, and the machine’s obtuse insistence on being woke even when obviously wrong, reflects a phenomenon in the First World Left that’s real – and that’s become dangerously pervasive.

On October 7, 2023, 3,000 Palestinian terrorists under the direction of Hamas entered Israel and committed heinous, inhumane atrocities as part of its surprise attack. This is the rare characterization of a public event that is a product of observation not opinion.

Nonetheless, a substantial percentage of Democrats (25% in a recent poll) expressed support for Hamas. Why? Surely not more than a handful of Democrats actually share Hamas’ worldview, which includes hatred of Jews and intolerance for abortion, women’s rights, and the LGBTQ movement.

So, roughly one in four Democrat voters simultaneously support Hamas while holding beliefs that are anathema to Hamas. While it is tempting to dismiss these people as idiots (or “low information” voters to use a term of art), that is observably not so: protestors at the most intellectually selective universities were holding signs supporting, for example, transgender rights and Hamas.

The post-10/7 transgender and Hamas supporters are useful in elucidating the phenomenon of woke Artificial Reality (AR). I do not mean the Metaverse or spatial computing or augmented reality, all of which are machine-based versions of manipulating environments or object.

Instead, Artificial Reality is when political or cultural beliefs distort sensory processing, causing the perception of reality to disconnect from observable reality.

Human beings naturally process sensory stimuli into a framework of memory, imagination and other ideas to create conceptual models that help us understand and interact with external, physical reality. Our sensory input processing empowers us to react to environmental challenges, and come up with ways to change the environment, in order to survive and thrive. Over thousands of years, imaginative problem-solvers (hunters, farmers, and eventually engineers) made the world safe and more hospitable to humans.

Artificial Reality arises when observation is supplanted, not supplemented, by ideas and our imaginations. This occurs when our pre-conceived notions of a concept, instead of the usefulness of the concept in surviving in or improving external reality, drives a person’s perceptions of reality.

Artificial Reality thrives among those who are more conceptual and less pragmatic and in areas or among groups where being right about external reality does not matter (when survival is not at risk) and where there are social benefits to accepting and espousing beliefs that are not supported by observations of external reality.

A post-October 7th pro-Hamas, pro-transgender supporter screens the external stimuli of that heinous day through the lens of intersectionality: the belief that identifiable groups systemically oppress other groups; that oppressors are inherently evil; and that oppressed have a common interest in overturning the existing dynamic.

In their Artificial Reality, the intersectional ideologue sorts all humans into dualities of good vs evil, oppressed vs oppressors, poor vs rich, Arabs vs Jews, gay vs straight, black and brown vs white and so forth, and believe that overturning the present power dynamic, even via murder and mayhem, is a social virtue.

After Oct. 7, people who are not wedded to intersectionality would either drop the theory or drop Hamas from the framework. For example, many Israelis share common beliefs with progressive American Democrats, but after 10/7 they didn’t pigeon-hole the facts into a narrative that excused Hamas atrocities: They re-examined their previous views.

Only those who live far away from Hamas are sanguine about the militants’ approach to human rights. Neighboring Egypt won’t accept refugees from Gaza, Hamas’s home base. Neither will any other nation in the region, including those who aim to destroying Israel. Why would that be?

The First World is so rich, generous and remote from external threats that we increasingly indulge impractical things, like high heels, pants without belts, the metaverse — and AR — because practicality does not matter. In some ways impracticality (manicured nails, gender ideology) conveys status: the rich and safe are more likely to indulge the fanciful.

Those living in their AR bubbles also support other policies that are observably dangerous, such as defunding police and releasing repeat offenders from jail without bail.

Human Artificial Reality is a mortal danger when it flourishes, leading people or governments to pursue policies at odds with external reality. The safer and richer we are, the lower the personal cost of AR, which increases the risk of AR spreading socially and impacting policies and leaders. Artificial Reality is not just Google’s problem; it is a first world problem with real world consequences.

When leaders act on AR, when they contextualize murder and mayhem, or act on the belief that the inhumane are just and evildoers are good, then death, destruction and misery will become all too real for us yet again.

Richard Porter is a lawyer in Chicago and National Committeeman to the RNC from Illinois.

While Israel has over the past months and even years regularly attacked Syria – especially in Damascus and its environs – with airstrikes, it remains extremely rare for projectiles to be fired the other way, from Syria onto Israel.

But that very rare event appears to have taken place Tuesday, as an Israeli Air Force fighter jet was scrambled and shot down a “suspicious aerial target” that flew into Israeli airspace from Syria. 

Israeli media citing the IDF believes that it was a drone, however, few details were given and the military says it is unclear precisely who was behind the attack.

Israel has said that both Hezbollah and Iranian officers and troops have long been present in Syria, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes their positions at least on a weekly basis at this point. Syria did near the start of the Gaza war, within days after the Hamas Oct.7 attack, fire rockets into the occupied Golan Heights territory, but that was essentially a one-off.

Fears persist that the ongoing Hezbollah-Israel fighting along the southern Lebanese border could at any moment spill over into a bigger regional conflict that would certainly have immediate impact on Syria and the Golan.

As for fighting in Lebanon, Israeli media has tallied, “Hezbollah has named 232 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 37 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 30 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.”

On Sunday, Arab media sources did claim a new development which suggests escalation. Hezbollah said it struck Israeli ground forces on Lebanon’s own territory, which suggests an ‘invasion’ or border breach of some kind was attempted: 

Hezbollah claimed to thwart two separate Israeli attempts to enter Lebanese territory late Sunday evening, saying it struck Israeli soldiers “directly” with rockets and artillery shells.

According to a statement by the group, two groups of Israeli forces attempted to cross into Lebanese territory from the town of Ramya along the central part of the Lebanese border and the town of Rmeish in the west.

The two infiltration attempts occurred within half an hour of one another.

If accurate, this would mark the first instance of Israeli troops attempting to enter Lebanon since that start of the conflict which began in the aftermath of Oct.7.

Fresh Hezbollah missile attacks have left towns across northern Lebanon without power…

⚡️Reports of power outages in the western Galilee after a missile strike by Hezb-Allah pic.twitter.com/uqn6Qy6DIV

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) March 4, 2024

Any potential scenario where Israel were to move ground troops into southern Lebanon would likely spark a bigger war with Hezbollah, which could engulf all of Lebanon. Already Israel has launched airstrikes deep into Lebanese territory, including all the way up to the Bekaa Valley. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

Gearing Up for ‘Biden’ Versus Trump: Not If, But When and How to Replace Biden

President Joe Biden is declining at a geometric, not an arithmetic, rate.

His cognitive challenges are multifaceted.

His gait is shaky. His daily use of stairs now risks the chance of a tenure-ending fall. Even when he sticks to the teleprompter, he so slurs his speech, mispronounces words, and glides his syntax that at times he becomes as incomprehensible at the podium as he is unsteady in his step.

He now speaks a strange language foreign and untranslatable to most Americans. White House transcribers leave hiatuses in their written texts of his remarks to reflect that they either have no idea what he said, do not wish to publicize their guesses at what he said, or do not wish the public to know what he was trying to say.

Despite the circling-the-wagons media and the passive-aggressive sycophants like the opportunistic Gov. Gavin Newsom in waiting, the left understands that Biden will be lucky to get to the August convention. This spring and early summer, he will not campaign as a normal presidential candidate, and this time around, there is no pretense of the COVID epidemic to excuse his absence.

The people have already polled numerous times that their president is unfit to serve now and, in the future, should not run. So the 2020 Faustian bargain is in shambles. Remember its quid pro quos: all the major Democratic presidential candidates of 2020 nearly simultaneously pulled out the primaries to coronate Biden—but only on the condition that Biden would play to the hilt his “ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton” schtick that would offer a veneer to the otherwise unpopular hard left agenda of the new Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren/the Obamas/Squad Democratic Party.

The people voted for a “return to normalcy,” all while the left destroyed the southern border, unleashed a critical legal theory/George-Soros crime wave, dismantled hard-won deterrence abroad, and printed money to spur hyperinflation.

Moreover, it is increasingly clear that the entire Biden family consortium is compromised and corrupt. Neither Hunter nor Jim nor Frank Biden had any consulting skills, business expertise, or corporate experience to warrant leveraging over $25 million from foreign interests. Their only commodity was to sell corrupt parties the appearance that Joe Biden would be quite willing to help their various causes if they enriched his family. Everyone knows that to be true, and only now, as Biden sinks into incoherence, are his protectors shrugging about the obvious money-making schemes that revolved around a corrupt senator, vice president, and private citizen, Joe Biden.

None of Biden’s record is popular. His policies on the border, economy, energy, foreign policy, and crime poll below 50 percent. And this trifecta of Biden’s mental deterioration, family corruption, and failed presidential record will only grow worse.

Then there is the Kamala Harris issue—the Spiro Agnew insurance policy of our age that so far has protected Biden from overt efforts to replace him. She is as unpopular as Biden and often as incomprehensible, but without the excuse of age or mental diminishment. Of all the major Beltway elected officials, only Sen. Mitch McConnell polls worse.

By August, Democratic donors and politicos may well conclude that the only way to rid the party of both is to release Biden’s delegates, open up the convention, and let candidates fight over the now-free delegates. Harris then will not be nominated, but not through a backroom, Machiavellian removal of a black woman. Instead, she will “fairly” lose an “open” and “transparent” free-for-all of various Democratic want-to-be replacements and recede into a sober and judicious Mike Pence-like retirement.

The problem with this scenario, of course, is that late-season convention or post-convention machinations in the modern era don’t work out too well. In 1976, Ronald Reagan, after losing a series of early primaries and being declared nearly inert, suddenly caught fire and entered the August 1976 Republican convention in Kansas City within striking distance of incumbent Gerald Ford. President Ford, remember, had never been elected either president or vice president.

In the end, in one of the most acrimonious Republican conventions in memory, a wounded Ford won the nomination by only 117 delegate votes out of some 2,257 cast. In some sense, Ford never recovered and lost the election to Jimmy Carter, even as the tumult gave Reagan the exposure and his team the experience needed to win the nomination in 1980.

About two weeks after the 1972 Democratic convention, a desperate George McGovern and the Democratic hierarchy removed Vice President running mate Sen. Thomas Eagleton from the ticket due to revelations of little-known past electric shock treatments given to combat depression. After futile efforts, the Democrats settled on the Kennedy clan’s Sargent Shriver, who had never run for office. McGovern would have lost anyway to an incumbent Nixon. But the margin of defeat in one of the greatest landslides in presidential history was often attributable to the sheer chaos of changing a vice presidential candidate so late in the campaign.

In sum, the Democrats can—and may have to—replace Joe Biden, and they can ensure that Kamala Harris is not the nominee, but the means of doing so will be chaotic and messy and will wound the winner for the rest of the campaign.

Trump’s Circuitous Path to Victory

Donald Trump challenges have now been discussed ad nauseam, and they are threefold: he must either beat or postpone campaign-season court trials – and find perhaps $800 million to $1 billion to post bonds, pay interests on them, and meet gargantuan legal fees – without turning off donors and supporters and by avoiding the diversion of Republican National Committee and various campaign funds to his own personal defense.

As in the past, Trump will be vastly outspent, perhaps by 3-1 or 4-1. Molly Ball’s infamous Time 2022 essay outlined the left-wing scheming that ensured a mail-in/early balloting election by aggregating the deep state, the corporate boardroom, the social media monopolies, and the 2020 riotous street thugs of Antifa and BLM. What she called a “cabal” and “conspiracy” was designed not so much as a one-off to defeat Trump as to create a permanent system by which a Trump-like candidate could never win a presidential election, both in 2020 and afterward.

Given changes in the 2020 state voting laws that saw 60-70 percent of the ballots in many swing states not cast on Election Day, while the rejection rate of faulty ballots counter-intuitively plunged despite such an influx, Trump will have to win by 3–4 points. Otherwise, in the swing states, we will again stare at the late-evening televised wizardry in which his huge leads mysteriously melt on the screen as drop boxes and mail sacks are tallied.

To achieve a 51-plus majority in the popular vote—no Republican has achieved such a national ballot margin in 36 years since George H.W. Bush beat Mike Dukakis in 1988—Trump will have to win, or win back, more Independents, apostate Democrats, and RINO Never-Trumpers.

He can do that in only two ways:

• One, he must hammer away at Joe Biden’s disastrous record on the border, energy, race, foreign affairs, the economy, and social issues that scare moderates and fence-sitters, especially when comparisons are made to the achievements of 2017-2020. Inner-city residents are being tag-teamed by both the influx of thousands of illegal aliens who apparently have first claims on stretched social services and street criminals who loot, assault, and carjack mostly their law-abiding neighbors with impunity.

• Two, Trump needs to model his remarks after his Iowa Primary victory speech or his recent Fox Townhall event with Fox’s Laura Ingram. Translated, that means there is no reason to reference Nikki Haley’s deployed husband, to refer to her as a “birdbrain,” or to say much of anything other than she will lose, and in the process, she is needlessly hurting more than half of America by draining resources away from the only real chance to repeal the current socialist agenda.

Haley is imploding without any need for a Trump push. Magnanimity, rather than salt in her self-inflicted wounds, is the better strategy to unite the party. Trump has cemented his base. He will increase his share of minority voters who have been hurt the worst by the Biden socialist agenda. But to ensure victory and a Republican Congress, he cannot give swing voters a reason not to vote for policies and initiatives that they overwhelmingly prefer over those of the now hard-left Democratic Party.

In sum, after Super Tuesday, when Haley will either quit the race or become inert, Trump needs to call her, politely remind her of her promise to support the nominee, and welcome her back into the fold.

If she is wise, she will likely agree to disagree, let bygones be bygones, and thus pledge to support the assured nominee, Trump.

Two of her three choices are in her own interest:

1) She endorses him, and Trump wins, and she is vibrant in 2028;

2) she endorses him, and Trump loses, and she is still viable;

3) she opposes him, and Trump either wins—and she is persona non grata—or he loses, and she is blamed for splitting the party and his defeat. Breaking her public promise to support the nominee will bleed what support she retains, and would prove a suicidal blunder.

Trump has achieved the greatest political comeback since Richard Nixon arose from the ashes of defeat in California in 1962 to win the nomination and presidency in 1968. Trump’s Phoenix-like rebirth from January 2021 to the present was achieved by Biden’s failure, the natural empathy accruing from the weaponization of the law by partisan or corrupt prosecutors against him, and Trump’s greater success in giving independents fewer reasons to vote against him.

If he can praise those he defeats, call for unity, and campaign in 50 states in non-Republican strongholds, then he can win—even despite the hatred of the left, the corruption of the media, the weaponization of the bureaucracy, and the eroding trust in the way we vote.

We can’t help but notice them: car washes seem to be everywhere nowadays. 

Everywhere you go, new ones are popping up and, with that, they’re usually packed. We were gifted some insight as to why this is happening last week, when Bloomberg revealed that the models are “fueled by private equity” and “subscription based”. In other words, catnip to investors. 

They’re so popular that the town of Streetsboro, Ohio, had to put a moratorium on them, the article noted. Similar bans have happened in places like Buffalo, New Jersey and Alaska. 

Mayor Glenn Broska told Bloomberg: “A car wash does not provide a lot of jobs for the community, and they take up a lot of space. If you want to invest your dollars into a car wash, then God bless you. But at the same time, I’m responsible for 17,500 people and have to be cognizant of their wishes.”

Despite the disruptions caused by Covid-19, Americans have continued frequenting car washes, maintaining strong retail fundamentals, according to Bloomberg. The industry has seen significant investment, with around 50 groups actively consolidating or expanding car wash businesses, investing over $750 million in expansion efforts last fall.

Although 2023 faced financial challenges, slowing mergers and acquisitions, the outlook remains optimistic with potential for high revenues.

The American car wash industry, with a history dating back to the early 1900s, has evolved significantly from manual washes to automated systems. This evolution reflects not only technological advancements but also the cultural significance of cars. The industry, once characterized by small, family-owned operations, has grown into a scalable business model emphasizing efficiency and sustainability, with leading companies focusing on reducing water usage and improving recycling methods.

Ian Rickwood, CEO and founder of Henley Investment Management said: “We think this is the coffee market in the early ’90s, when Starbucks got going. One came to town, and people said, ‘$5 for a coffee, surely nobody will buy more than one cup a day.’ And of course, another one opened and another one opened and the category expanded because people began to change their habits.”

Bloomberg writes that decades ago, car wash businesses relied heavily on manual labor, requiring up to 50 employees, and were significantly affected by weather conditions, impacting profits.

Nowadays, technological advancements have streamlined the washing process to as little as 90 seconds, reduced labor costs through automation, and introduced stable income through membership models, mitigating weather-related risks. The 2017 tax reforms under Donald Trump provided a boost by allowing full depreciation on new equipment, an incentive Congress is considering reinstating.

Emil Khodorkovsky of real estate firm Forbix commented: “If private equity thinks it’s sexy, they’re gonna throw money at it, right?”

The sector stands out for its potential, with locations earning up to 80% of their revenue from subscriptions and boasting a 50% margin before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The move towards membership models not only increases usage and revenue but also presents a significant growth opportunity, potentially increasing annual washes in the U.S. from 2 billion to 3 billion.

“This is America; people are going to make money. And they figured out how to make money with a car wash,” Broska concluded. 

You can read Bloomberg’s full feature here.

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Supreme Court imposed a temporary pause on the enforcement of Texas’s immigration law on Monday, which would have granted state law enforcement powers to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally.

Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees the federal circuit handling the case, issued an administrative stay, effectively postponing the implementation of SB4 until March 13. This temporary pause allows the Supreme Court additional time to review the case but does not provide a clear indication of the court’s ultimate stance.

The Biden administration filed an emergency application on Monday, urging the Supreme Court to prevent Texas from enforcing the law. SB4 will allow state law enforcement officials to prosecute and arrest illegal immigrants who recently crossed the border.

Under the Texas law, it would become a state crime to illegally enter or reenter Texas from a foreign country. State and local law enforcement would gain the authority to arrest and prosecute violators, and state judges could order individuals to leave the country, with potential prison sentences of up to 20 years for those who don’t comply.

The law would have gone into effect on Tuesday without the high court’s intervention.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra temporarily blocked Texas state officials from enforcing SB4, responding to a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Judge Ezra, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, rejected the Lone Star state’s argument that it could enforce its border in the face of an “invasion” by illegal immigrants.

“I haven’t seen, and the state of Texas can’t point me to any type of military invasion in Texas. I don’t see evidence that Texas is at war,” Judge Ezra wrote.

Immigration arrests and deportations are federal responsibilities, and the Texas law would interfere, according to the March 1 ruling.

Judge Ezra found that should Texas prevail in its challenge, the federal government would “suffer grave irreparable harm,” as it might mean the “nullification of federal law and authority” and inspire other states to pursue similar laws. It could mean that states might be able to “permanently supersede federal directives.”

“SB4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice,” he wrote.

The judge also ruled that the Biden administration was likely to prevail in its challenge and that the law contravenes the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

Judge Ezra noted that this is a “notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War.”

However, over the weekend, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals suspended Judge Ezra’s order on administrative grounds at Texas’s request, pending the merits of an appeal. The appeals court stayed its decision for seven days to give the federal government a chance to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Justice Alito, responding to the DOJ’s plea, paused the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ order until March 13, granting Texas until the end of next Monday to present its case (pdf).

If the Supreme Court ultimately sides with Texas, SB4 could take effect on March 13 at 5 p.m. ET.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who signed SB4 into law in December, contends that the legislation is necessary to reduce illegal migrant crossings. He accuses the Biden administration of failing to address illegal immigration concerns.

After the high court issued its order, Mr. Abbott posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) showing new border wall construction underway.

“Texas continues to add more border wall in Cameron County. We will use every tool and strategy to secure our border until President Biden fulfills his constitutional duty to enforce federal immigration laws already on the books,” Mr. Abbott wrote in the post.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.

Amid chaos across markets today, oil was relatively calm, ending lower on broad risk-off sentiment, finding technical support intraday ahead of Powell’s Humphrey Hawkins testimony tomorrow.

“The anticipation of the Fed chairman holding interest rates steady into mid-year is a pressure point to crude prices,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president at BOK Financial.

“Higher interest rates will keep the US dollar elevated, which is a headwind for crude exports.”

 

API

• Crude +423k (+1.3mm exp)

• Cushing

• Gasoline (-1.4mm exp)

• Distillates (-400k exp)

Crude stocks rose just 423k barrels last week according to API, well below expectations…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was trading around $78.175 ahead of the print and was unphased after…

WTI isholding above its 200DMA intraday…

Finally, China set its annual growth target at about 5%, raising expectations for officials to unleash more stimulus as they try to lift confidence in a slowing economy. However, the nation also set a more ambitious target for reducing the energy needed for economic expansion, or energy intensity, this year.

So that didn’t help.