Month: August 2024

More signs of utopia unfolding in the liberal run wasteland of San Francisco…

A thief who ransacked an FBI truck in San Francisco and made away with thousands of dollars of equipment turned around and traded it all for a $20 bag of methamphetamine, according to a report by the NY Post.

The truck that was raided contained flash-bang grenades, a tear gas launcher, surveillance equipment and bulletproof vests. The perpetrator, 29 year old Gregory Acosta-Alvarez, was arrested after being caught on multiple surveillance cameras. 

After stealing equipment, he rode his bike to a nearby hotel where he was staying, according to the criminal complaint. By the time agents visited him at the hotel around 3 p.m., the ballistic vest and tear gas gun were already gone, the report says.

The report says the ballistics vest alone was worth $1,500.

When questioned, Alvarez claimed he traded the stolen items for $20 worth of meth. He remains in custody, facing charges for felony theft of government property, burglary, grand theft, and drug possession related to this incident and a 2023 arrest.

Either the man had no idea how much more meth he could have gotten with market prices…or inflation has really hit the meth market…

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Georgia-based Perdue Foods is recalling large quantities of chicken products after consumers complained about contamination, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

The recall is applicable to roughly 167,171 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat chicken breast nuggets and tenders that are potentially contaminated with metals, according to an FSIS announcement on Aug. 16.

“The problem was discovered after the firm received consumer complaints about metal wire embedded in the product and notified FSIS of the issue,” the agency stated.

“There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.”

The products being recalled are 22-oz. Perdue Simply Smart Organics Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets, 29-oz. Perdue Chicken Breast Tenders, and 22-oz. Butcherbox Organic Chicken Breast Nuggets.

All three products have a “Best if Used By” date of March 23, 2025, indicated on the back of the package.

The items were produced on March 23 with the establishment number “P-33944.” They were shipped to retail outlets nationwide and also sold online.

FSIS said it was concerned that some of these items may have already been bought by customers and urged them not to consume them. The agency advised customers to throw away the items or return them to the place of purchase.

People with questions about the recall can get in touch with Perdue consumer care at 1-866-866-3703.

The recall is among many food product recalls in recent months because of concerns about the presence of metals. In late July, Colonna Brothers of North Bergen, New Jersey, voluntarily recalled its cinnamon products amid concerns about an elevated presence of lead.

Earlier in April, H-E-B Grocery Company recalled three-ounce cups of Creamy Creations ice cream for potential metal presence.

On Tuesday the Israeli military (IDF) announced that it had recovered six deceased hostages in a hidden tunnel network under the Gaza Strip. 

The grim development has served to underscore that time is running out on getting the hostages back. A total of 105 hostages remain unaccounted for since they were brutally kidnapped on Oct.7, but many could already be dead, Israeli officials suspect. New controversy has emerged over the precise circumstances surrounding the deaths of the latest six recovered.

Most were elderly, and may have died significantly prior to the recovery operation. They are: Haim Peri, 80; Yoram Metzger, 80; and Alexander Dancyg, 75; Nadav Popplewell, 51, and Yagev Buchshtab, 35, and Avraham Munder, 79. They had all been residents of border communities which had been raided by Hamas.

The New York Times on Friday details the fresh controversy as follows:

A group representing relatives of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel said on Thursday that autopsies showed “bullets were found in the bodies” of six captives Israeli troops recovered from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, raising questions about how they died.

The group, the Hostages Family Forum, said that the autopsy results indicated that the six hostages “were taken alive and executed in the tunnels of Hamas.”

But an Israeli military spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter to families, said on Thursday that the autopsies showed “marks suggestive of gunshots” on the bodies and stressed it was too soon to determine whether gunshot wounds were the cause of death.

This has raised the question or even likelihood that they were all executed as hostage talks dragged on, and as the IDF has expanded its military operations in the Strip.

However, adding to the mystery is that four other bodies were found in the tunnels near the bodies – but which did not have bullets in them – and the military suspects these to be Hamas members.

The Times report continues: 

How and when the hostages died has been a matter of contention. Hamas has blamed the deaths on Israeli airstrikes, and the Israeli military has acknowledged some of them likely died while Israel was carrying out military operations in the area where they were found. Some Israel news outlets reported the hostages may have suffocated when the tunnel filled with toxins after an airstrike.

And there has also been speculation that their deaths may be related to large-scale Israeli airstrikes above the tunnels:

On Tuesday, Adm. Hagari was asked again about how the hostages died at a news conference. He repeated what he had said in June — that the “hostages were killed while our troops were operating in Khan Younis” — and added that a forensic examination would reveal more.

Israeli news media reported on Tuesday that initial assessments suggested that five of the six hostages had died from suffocation when an Israeli airstrike hit another tunnel, causing the one they were in to fill with carbon dioxide. The Times could not confirm those reports.

Or it could be that as IDF troops were close in on the location of the militants and hostages, the Hamas members decided to conduct a summary execution on the spot.

Some within Israeli media have speculated on the possibility of a ‘friendly fire’ accident by the IDF, which wouldn’t be the first time. At this point, an official autopsy report on the six has not been made public, and it’s uncertain if the official findings when they are produced will ultimately quell the controversy.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A U.S. judge has dismissed charges against a woman who possessed a machine gun, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that shifted the framework for how courts analyze cases dealing with constitutional rights.

Machine guns fall under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, U.S. District Judge John Broomes found.

That means prosecutors must show that the law barring possession of machine guns is rooted in historical firearm restrictions, under the 2022 Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, he added.

“In this case, the government has not met its burden under Bruen and Rahimi to demonstrate through historical analogs that regulation of the weapons at issue in this case are consistent with the nation’s history of firearms regulation,” Broomes wrote in his 10-page ruling on Aug. 21. “Indeed, the government has barely tried to meet that burden. And the Supreme Court has indicated that the Bruen analysis is not merely a suggestion.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in Bruen, said that when the Second Amendment is found to apply, government officials must show that the regulation in question “is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

In the recent ruling in United States v. Rahimi, the justices found that a law prohibiting people under domestic violence-related restraining orders from possessing guns does not violate the Second Amendment, and they clarified how courts should analyze such regulations.

“A court must ascertain whether the new law is ’relevantly similar‘ to laws that our tradition is understood to permit, ’apply[ing] faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. He said that some courts had misunderstood Bruen.

Broomes’s decision came after prosecutors charged Tamori Morgan, a Kansas resident, with illegally possessing an Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 .300 caliber machine gun and a machine gun conversation device.

Morgan’s lawyer argued that the charges should be dismissed because the law that she allegedly violated unconstitutionally strips people of their right to possess machine guns. He noted that the history of machine gun prohibition is limited, with Congress not enacting the ban until 1968.

Government lawyers argued that machine guns are not covered by the Second Amendment and, even if they are, banning their possession is consistent with English common law and a North Carolina law that banned dangerous and unusual firearms.

Broomes sided with the defendant, noting that hundreds of thousands of machine guns are legally possessed because the 1986 law included a grandfather clause.

“Even today, it is perfectly legal for a person who has not been divested of his firearm rights under some other provision of law to acquire and possess a machinegun, so long as it was lawfully possessed by someone before the relevant date in 1986, and so long as he complies with the National Firearms Act’s requirements to obtain and possess the weapon. In that sense, machineguns are not unusual,” he wrote.

The judge cautioned that the ruling applies only to Morgan and that the government could later demonstrate that the machine gun ban is rooted in the nation’s history.

“Importantly, this decision says little about what the government might prove in some future case,” Broomes said. “Rather, under Bruen’s framework for evaluating Second Amendment challenges, it is the government’s burden to identify a historical analog to the restrictions challenged in this case. This the government has failed to do. The court expresses no opinion as to whether the government could, in some other case, meet its burden to show a historically analogous restriction that would justify § 922(o).”

Money market funds saw significant inflows for the third straight week (+$24.9BN) pushing total assets under management to a new record high of $6.24TN, despite the rebound in stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

As both retail and institutional MM funds saw inflows, US bank deposits (on a seasonally-adjusted basis) rebounded from last week’s big decline with $36.3BN in inflows in the week-ending 8/14…

Source: Bloomberg

Also, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, US bank deposits surged $72.3BN, erasing all of the prior week’s declines…

Source: Bloomberg

Particularly interesting is the fact that since the March 2023 SVB collapse in deposits, this week has now seen both SA and NSA deposits perfectly back in line…

Source: Bloomberg

Excluding foreign deposits (which saw major inflows), US banks inflows were not enough to offset last week’s outflows (SA +$13.5BN vs -$68.5BN and NSA +$46.2BN vs -$76.1BN). On an NSA basis, the inflows were almost entirely in large banks (+$45.7BN) and on an SA basis, small banks saw $5BN outflows (large banks +$18.5BN)

Source: Bloomberg

On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes rebounded in the week-ending 8/14 – after shrinking dramatically the prior week…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, US equity market capitalization rebounded strongly this week, despite negligible change in bank reserves held at The Fed…

Source: Bloomberg

Of course, now that Powell has pivoted, we suspect these inflow trends will shift (as rates decline)… unless, of course, the typical post-Jackson-Hole plunge prompts derisking.

With seven little words, Fed Chair Powell unleashed some chaos today as he confirmed “time has come for policy to adjust” and rate-cut expectations adjusted dovishly (though we note they were pretty much fully priced for this after the Minutes).

September rate-cut expectations rose to 32bps (so around a 1/3rd chance of 50bps, 2/3 chance of 25bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

2024 rate-cut expectations lifted to 104bps (just over 4 full cuts – well above the single-cut according to The Fed’s Dot-Plot) and 213bps thru the end of 2025…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold, bonds, and stocks rallied while the dollar tumbled…

Source: Bloomberg

The instant bid in stocks only really held in Small Caps…

…thanks to a huge short-squeeze…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar crashed to 2024 lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields tumbled, led by the short-end today (2Y -10bps, 30Y -2bps) and down 14bps on the week…

Source: Bloomberg

The 2Y yield snapped back below 4.00% and the curve (2s30s) pushed notably steeper…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin blasted off on the Powell headlines, setting the scene for the big short-squeeze we have discussed and testing $64,000…

Source: Bloomberg

Crude oil prices also surged, bouncing further off those early August lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we note that five of the six Powell Jackson Hole speeches saw the S&P 500 drop 7.5% on average in the next three months…

Source: Bloomberg

…and The Fed will begin cutting rates with the MSCI All-World Stocks Index at an all-time record high!!!

So brace!

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Talk about irony: The FBI, which was willing to use deadly force over Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, has been systematically mishandling similar information for years, according to bombshell findings released Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The DOJ-IG said it discovered the FBI’s mishandling of classified information while auditing a contract related to how the bureau destroys electronics containing “sensitive-but-unclassified” information, as well as classified national security information.

According to Horowitz’s audit, the FBI labels computers that handle such information when it sends them to a facility to be destroyed. However, it does not label internal hard drives extracted from those computers. The FBI also doesn’t properly track thumb drives and disk drives containing information of varying classification levels, according to Horowitz.

Compounding the security risk is the fact that those unmarked internal hard drives, thumb drives and disk drives often end up in a physically unsecured warehouse.

Horowitz said that when his staff visited an FBI “Media Destruction Team” facility last October, they found “non-accountable” hard drives and other electronic storage devices sitting in an open pallet-sized box. Horowitz said he’s not disclosing details about the facility since it’s not secured.

“A [property-turn-in] staff member told us that the pallet for the loose media was unsecured for extended periods, sometimes spanning days or even weeks because PTI would wrap the pallets and move them to the Facility shelves only when the box reached full capacity,” the Inspector General said.

During the same visit last October, Horowitz said his staff also found a container from January 2022 that identified its contents as “non-accountable.”

“Notably, the container’s shrink wrapping was torn, and boxes inside were visibly open and contained hard drives marked Secret,” he said.

BREAKING: The DOJ-IG has found that the FBI systematically mishandled TROVES of classified information.
Pictured below is an FBI storage facility. The camera above the door doesn’t work, and the doors were kept open at all hours — allowing non-authorized personnel access to… pic.twitter.com/QRbvU8FPcy

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 22, 2024

Horowitz added that after his team spotted the box, the FBI’s Asset Management Unit “promptly secured” it with additional shrink wrap. However, the FBI’s PTI supervisor and contractor told Horowitz that they would not be aware if someone was to take hard drives from the pallets because these assets are not counted or otherwise tracked.

According to the DOJ-IG, at least 395 people have access to the FBI’s unsecured facility as of May, including 28 task force officers and 63 contractors from at least 17 companies.

“There is no physical barrier preventing FBI and non-FBI personnel and contractors from other Facility operations from accessing PTI’s work area and the pallets of unsanitized assets in the Facility shelving space,” he said.

And even though there is apparently a door to the Media Destruction Team’s work area, the FBI doesn’t close it to prevent non-Asset Management Unit personnel from accessing the area, the IG found.

If all those security failures weren’t enough, Horowitz also said one of the key surveillance cameras at the facility wasn’t working when his team visited. The FBI apparently told Horowitz last December that it was installing a new camera there, but it still wasn’t in place when the DOJ-IG made a follow-up visit in February.

“We believe that the combination of the FBI’s lack of accountability of the electronic storage media, lack of internal physical access control, and lack of sufficient video surveillance compounds the risk of media, potentially with sensitive and classified information, being lost or stolen without detection,” Horowitz concluded.

It appears as if the problems identified by Horowitz have been around for almost a decade, if not longer.

During his investigation, Horowitz said his staff determined that an interim accreditation was granted in 2015, but had expired in March 2016. An accredited open-storage secure area is a space with reinforced construction in which classified materials, up to and including at the Secret collateral level, may be stored.

“Following our observations, the FBI performed a site visit in November 2023 to confirm the remediation of the security enhancements required from a 2015 open storage inspection checklist. The FBI granted the Facility its final open storage accreditation in January 2024,” he said.

“The FBI stated that the lack of final accreditation was an administrative oversight and that enhancements had been completed in the interim. However, the FBI could not provide evidence of when the required enhancements were completed.”

FBI whistleblower Greg Roman told Headline USA that the label “Classified National Security Information” indicates some of the FBI’s unsecured boxes potentially contained Top Secret information.

“Second, it appears the location of this facility warehousing these hard drives, flash drives, floppy disks ie external media is located in Cheverly, MD just outside of Washington DC: Does that mean FBI offices from across the country were sending this ‘stuff’ to an undisclosed FBI facility near DC for proper destruction?” Roman added.

“That might indicate why none of was marked.”

The IG said his audit is still ongoing, but he wanted to alert the FBI about its problems so they can fix them promptly. The IG made a series of recommendations for how the FBI could improve its security and disposal procedures, and the bureau agreed with them all—such as placing its boxes of non-accountable hard drives inside secure cages at the warehouse.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

It’s called blowback: several years after California passed Proposition 47, which reclassified felony theft offenses as misdemeanors and effectively greenlit shoplifting of items below $950, the retail industry had had enough, and the same state that idiotically tried to give minorities a back-handed reparation by encouraging their petty theft (with the tongue-in-cheek promise of not prosecuting it), the state has seen countless retailers flee, social cohesion collapse, crime explode and after a decade of Prop 47, the circle is complete as California just enacted a package of bills to fight the very same retail crime it initially encouraged.

As RetailDive reports, with governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of a package of 10 bills last week, California has a new suite of tools to fight organized retail crime and other property theft, while holding on to criminal justice reforms that the governor says have clamped down on recidivism and saved the state billions.

According to Newsom, the California Retailers Association was instrumental in developing the package and getting it to his desk, or, more accurately, a makeshift work surface set up at a Home Depot location in San Jose. CRA President Rachel Michelin, speaking alongside the governor and several other stakeholders, said work on the legislation was cooperative, but that the problem was brought to legislative leaders and law enforcement by retailers.

“We worked collaboratively. And I’ll say I was able to rethink the way I approach this issue, and I think I was able to have them rethink how they approach this issue,” Michelin said. “Retailers have never been about mass incarceration or that type of mentality. We’ve always wanted to be part of the solution.”

The new legislation tackles not just retail theft, but also other property theft and damage, including auto theft. Broadly speaking, related to retail crime, the law focuses on online marketplaces and repeat offenders, gives law enforcement and prosecutors more leeway and puts cargo theft in focus.

The National Retail Federation and Retail Industry Leaders Association, which have both focused on retail crime in recent years, declined to comment on the new laws, referring Retail Dive to the CRA.

Specifically, per a fact sheet from the governor’s office, under the legislation:

• Prosecutors can bundle the value of stolen property from different retailers or jurisdictions to reach the $950 “felony grand theft” threshold. Thefts and related offenses from different counties can be tried together.
• A person can be arrested for shoplifting even if an officer didn’t witness the act.
• Probation for shoplifting or petty theft is extended from one year to two.
• Courts can issue “retail theft restraining orders” that would ban anyone “convicted of organized retail theft, shoplifting, theft, vandalism, or assault of a retail employee from entering the establishment for up to two years.”
• Retailers can’t be cited or fined for repeated theft reports.
• Anyone “possessing more than $950 of stolen goods with intent to sell, exchange, or return the goods” now faces up to three years in jail, and prosecutors needn’t prove the defendants knew those goods were stolen.
• Sentencing is enhanced for “large-scale resale of property.”
• Online marketplaces must collect information on “high-volume third-party sellers.”
• The state’s existing organized retail theft law and its regional property crimes task forces, which were scheduled to sunset, were made permanent.
• Cargo theft, as related to retail crime, now includes railroads, according to Michelin. 

“All of these things in this package is going to help retailers, law enforcement and district attorneys be able to provide the consequences for the behaviors that we need to make sure people don’t continue doing this behavior, which is what we’ve always needed,” Michelin said.

The new legislation doesn’t go as far as Prop 36, a referendum that California voters will consider in November, in stiffening penalties for retail theft.

The detail gaining the most attention —and even some notoriety in the 2024 presidential election — is that California now categorizes thefts of goods worth less than $950 as misdemeanors.

And the punchline: Prop 36 would recategorize lower-level thefts as a felony for people with prior convictions and allow for more extensive prison sentences. 

The Energy Information Administration’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory report released earlier this week revealed that developers and power plant owners added 20.2 gigawatts (GW) in new capacity in the first half of 2024, a 21% year-over-year rise amid increasing demand from AI data centers, reshoring trends, and other electrification trends. 

Solar power led the way, contributing 12 GW, or 59% of all new additions, with Texas and Florida accounting for 38% of the growth in the first half. Battery storage capacity also saw significant growth, with around 21% of the capacity gains. Wind power added about 12% (2.5 GW).

However, rising energy demand on power grids, from AI data centers and other electrification trends, which we outlined in “The Next AI Trade,” have also slowed the retirement of coal and NatGas power generators. 

On the atomic front, nuclear power increased during the first half, with Unit 4 (1,114 MW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant coming online in April. This makes Vogtle the largest nuclear facility in the US. Only one of the plant’s reactors is operational. 

EIA forecasts that utility-scale electric generating capacity will more than double in the second half of 2024, reaching about 42.6 GW. 

Here’s UBS’ take on the EIA report:

The era of flat electricity demand in developed markets has ended, with large-scale AI and cloud-computing capacity driving a resurgence in demand. With many AI mega-cap leaders committed to zero emission pledges, we expect a strong multi-year cycle of investment in utility-scale renewable power generation and storage capacity. Broadly, we think companies exposed to electrification, energy efficiency, and renewable energy would fare better under a potential Harris presidency, while a Trump administration would likely favor the traditional energy sector. Given the challenges listed renewable energy investments tend to face, we suggest investors look to private infrastructure investments in renewables, which can help diversify portfolios due to their low correlation to other asset classes while providing stable income streams that are often tied to inflation. However, investors should consider the risks inherent to private markets before investing, including illiquidity, long lockup periods, leverage, and over-concentration.

What’s overwhelmingly clear is that after electricity peak demand and energy growth rates fell flat for decades, that is all changing in the era of AI data centers. We have outlined the companies that will prosper in the powering up America theme.