Elon Musk Says Congress Has Inquired About X's Actions In Brazil

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has received an inquiry from the U.S. House of Representatives regarding alleged illegal actions it took in Brazil, Elon Musk said on Wednesday.

In a post on the social network, the owner of X said the platform had “just received an inquiry from the House of Representatives regarding actions taken in Brazil that were in violation of Brazilian law.”

“There were hundreds if not thousands. This is getting spicy,” Mr. Musk added.

Mr. Musk did not provide further details regarding the alleged inquiry, including which House lawmaker or lawmakers had sent the request or exactly what details are being sought.

The U.S. House could not be immediately reached for comment and X did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

In a later post on Wednesday, Mr. Musk, a self-declared free speech absolutist, further claimed X was being asked to “suspend sitting members of the Brazilian parliament and many journalists” from the platform.

The businessman’s online comments came shortly after Brazilian Supreme Court justice and president of the Superior Electoral Court, Alexandre de Moraes, opened an inquiry into Mr. Musk.

The inquiry—backed by the current leftist government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—came after the Tesla CEO challenged a court order requiring the removal of certain accounts on X as part of alleged efforts to crack down on fake news and misinformation in Brazil.

‘Twitter Files Brazil’

It is not clear which accounts are subject to the block issued by Brazil’s highest court and neither Mr. Musk nor Brazilian authorities have disclosed further details, including when the order was first issued.

However, according to a report published by investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger and colleagues David Ágape and Eli Vieira, titled “Twitter Files Brazil,” those targeted by the order included sitting members of Brazil’s congress and journalists.

That report—which included more than two years of communications between Twitter’s legal team and Brazilian courts—further claimed that Brazil is “engaged in a sweeping crackdown on free speech led by a Supreme Court justice” and that Justice de Moraes had demanded access to Twitter’s internal data in 2020 before the platform was acquired by Mr. Musk and renamed.

Justice de Moraes had also demanded to see private information regarding Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate, the report stated.

The Supreme Court justice also allegedly ordered Twitter to de-platform individuals responsible for specific posts that he wanted to be censored “without giving users any right of appeal or even the right to see the evidence presented against them” according to Mr. Shellenberger and his colleagues.

According to the internal files shared in the report, Twitter in Brazil was threatened with a $30,000 fine if it did not comply with the orders within one hour.

Despite the order from Brazil, Mr. Musk defiantly said on X last week that his company would lift all restrictions on Brazilian accounts that had been targeted by the Supreme Court’s order because they were unconstitutional.

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (L) and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes (R) attend a meeting at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on April 18, 2023. (Eraldo Peres/AP Photo)

‘Principles Matter More Than Profit’

Mr. Musk further claimed the judge in the case had applied “massive fines and threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil” and that as a result, X would likely lose all revenue in Brazil and have to close its office there.

“But principles matter more than profit,” Mr. Musk wrote, explaining X’s decision.

Space X boss Mr. Musk also suggested that Justice de Moraes “should resign or be impeached” from his role, and accused him of having “brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil.”

Following Mr. Musk’s challenge to the court order, the justice said Mr. Musk would be investigated for alleged obstruction of justice, criminal organization, and incitement, writing:

“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders, and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil.”

X risks being fined 100,000 reais (around $19,740) per day if it fails to comply with the court order.

Despite the alleged inquiry from the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Musk appeared unfazed on Wednesday, instead doubling down on his criticism of Justice de Moraes, this time calling him a “dictator.”

The tech mogul also stressed that while X respects the laws of Brazil and all countries in which it operates, “when given an order to break the law, we must refuse.”

It comes as Justice de Moraes has long been criticized by the right for allegedly overstepping his bounds as part of censorship efforts, with the Supreme Court justice long accused of engaging in political persecution.

Last year, he announced former President Jair Bolsonaro is being investigated for his alleged role in the storming of government buildings in Brasília.

Mr. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 14:40

Berkeley Students Disrupt Dinner At Law Dean’s Home; Accuse Law Professor of Assault

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

UC Berkeley’s law school dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and his wife, law professor Catherine Fisk, faced a bizarre scene this week when third-year students invited into their home for a dinner held a disruptive protest and refused to leave. The students accused Fisk of assault after she tried to pull a microphone from the hands of Malak Afaneh, leader of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

Afaneh has been featured by Berkeley on its website discussing how “As a proud Muslim immigrant, a first gen, low income student, and a survivor, I know exactly what it feels like to not have anyone in your corner.” She added:

“As leaders at Berkeley Law, we have the privilege of being in spaces where we can gain access surrounding the U.S. legal system, information that is gatekept and withheld from the very communities that often need it the most.”

It appears that one of those privileged spaces was the Dean’s home.   Chemerinsky was warned that protests might be held at his home. Moreover, flyers appeared around campus opposing the dinners.

Chemerinsky discussed this threat in a statement to the school:

“The students responsible for this had the leaders of our student government tell me that if we did not cancel the dinners, they would protest at them. I was sad to hear this, but made clear that we would not be intimidated and that the dinners would go forward for those who wanted to attend. I said that I assumed that any protest would not be disruptive.”

The Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine depicted Dean Chemerinsky in a cartoon with a bloody knife and fork, which were denounced as anti-Semitic and raised images of the ancient blood libel against Jews.

Others attacks Chemerinsky as effectively a Zionist operative.

Once at the dinner, Afaneh and others began their protest. She started by saying “as-salamu alaykum” — or peace and blessings to you — when Fisk took hold of her and tried to take away her microphone.

Fisk teaches civil rights and civil liberties at Berkeley.

An Instagram post by the two student groups said that Fisk was guilty of “violently assaulting” Afaneh. In the video, there is physical contact but it is not violent. It is reminiscent of the recent controversy involving Tulane Professor and former CNN CEO Walter Issacson who was accused of assault in pushing a disruptive protester out of an event.

There are already petitions to seek punishment for the “assault.” One petition states:

“On the last day of Ramadan, UC Berkeley Law Professor Catherine Fisk, and Dean Chemerinsky’s wife, assaulted a Palestinian Muslim hijabi law student that was exercising her First Amendment rights to draw attention to UC complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Fisk and Chemerinsky would rather resort to violently assaulting one of their students than face the truth of their support for genocide.”

The suggestion is that you have a First Amendment right to enter a private residence, stage a loud protest, refuse to leave, and prevent others from associating.

Technically there was physical contact but no police complaint has been filed. Even under torts, there is a notion of molliter manus imposuit or “he gently laid hands upon.” The doctrine is used as a defense for using limited, reasonable force to keep the peace or respond to trespass to land or chattel.

Both Fisk and Chemerinsky can be heard saying that this is their home and that the protest must stop. Evently Afaneh and ten other students left the dinner.

In a statement Wednesday, Chemerinsky wrote that

“The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. . I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.”

The problem is that these students have been told for years that deplatforming and disrupting events are forms of free speech. This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others.  Student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.  Academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech.  CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,”  Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).

Berkeley has lost cases in court over its failure to protect free speech.

Many faculty and deans remained quiet for years as conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters were cancelled on campus or deplatformed. It is only recently that some have become openly alarmed over the anti-free speech movement that they have fostered either directly or through their silence.

In this case, the students felt justified to stop a dinner event in a private home. They also showed little fear that they would face any repercussions for their actions.

Ironically, I raise this very hypothetical in my torts classes each year.  I also invite my students to my house for dinners. When we get to trespass, I present the hypothetical of what would occur if some of them refused to leave and what my options might be. The Chemerinsky home just became that very hypothetical.

For many of us, the lack of civility and respect by the students is disturbing but hardly surprising. There are many students who feel enabled for years by administrators and faculty at schools like Berkeley.

Dean Chemerinsky can be criticized for fueling this rage by denouncing conservative justices as “partisan hacks” simply because he disagrees with their jurisprudential views. Nevertheless, Chemerinsky has had a long and widely respected career as a scholar and administrator.

Clearly, neither Chemerinsky nor Professor Fisk deserved this disruption or the lack of respect. They refused to yield to the threats over this dinner and I respect them for that. Chemerinsky has tried to navigate the tensions on campus while supporting free speech rights. Chemerinsky and Fisk open their home to hold these dinners and most students clearly value and respect their gracious hospitality.

I also would not fault the Dean for declining to pursue discipline over the incident since this occurred in a private residence. However, I take a harsher view of disruptions of classes and public events. The protesters can demonstrate outside of a room or a hall to express their opposition to a speaker. What they cannot do is prevent others from speaking or hearing opposing views. Those responsible for such disruptions should be suspended or, for repeat offenders, expelled.

Regrettably, the scene that unfolded at the home of Dean Chemerinsky will be viewed by many as a triumph rather than an embarrassment for their cause. Disruption has become the touchstone of protests in higher education. At the same time, schools like UCLA have paid “activists-in-residence” or now bestow degrees in activism.

We now have a culture of disruption that has been consistently fostered by academics and administrators on our campuses. When asked “why the home of a dean?,” these students would likely shrug and answer “why not?”

In that sense, this is the ultimate example of the chickens literally coming home to roost. These students have been enabled for years into believing that such acts of disruption are commendable and that others must yield in the cancellation of events. For weeks, they demanded that these dinners be halted despite other students wanting to attend. In that sense, the appearance in an actual home is alarming, but hardly unexpected in our current environment.

For students such as Afaneh, it is just part of  “the privilege of being in spaces” to continue one’s activism.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 14:00

Ugly 30Y Auction Tails For First Time Since November, Lowest Foreign Demand Of 2024

After two consecutive ugly auctions (and in the case of yesterday's 10Y reopening, very ugly), moments ago the Treasury completed the week's coupon issuance when, on the day when the BLS published a doctored PPI report to boost market sentiment, it sold $22 billion in 30Y paper in what was yet another ugly auction.

The high yield on today's sale stopped at 4.671%, higher than last month's 4.331% by 34 bps and also tailing the When Issued 4.661% by 1 basis point, the first tail for the 30Y tenor since last November.

The bid to cover dropped from 2.472 in March to 2.367, the lowest since November, and obviously below the 6-auction average of 2.37.

The internals were ago ugly as Indirects slid to 64.4% from 69.3%, which was the lowest since November. And with Directs awarded 18.3%, up from 16.8% last month, Dealers were left holding 17.3%, the most since November.

And even though the auction was ugly top to bottom, what is surprising is that so shellshocked was the market by the recent inflation data and yesterday's catastrophic 10Y auction, that yields actually dipped despite the auction effectively disappointing on every vertical, with 10Y yields dropping a bp to 4.56% from 4.57%.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 13:21

IMF Prepares Financial Revolution – Say Goodbye To The Dollar

Authored by Brandon Smith via The Burning Platform blog,

Global reserve currency status allows for amazing latitude in terms of monetary policy.

The Treasury Department understands that there is constant demand for dollars overseas as a means to more easily import and export goods. The petrodollar monopoly made the U.S. dollar essential for trading oil globally for decades.

This means that the central bank of the U.S. has been able to create fiat currency from thin air to a far higher degree than any other central bank on the planet while avoiding the immediate effects of hyperinflation.

Much of that cash as well as dollar-denominated debt  ends up in the coffers of foreign central banks, international banks and investment firms. Sometimes it is held as a hedge, or bought and sold to adjust the exchange rates of local currencies. As much as 60% of all U.S. currency (and 25% of U.S. government debt) is owned outside the U.S.

Global reserve currency status is what allowed the U.S. government and the Fed to create tens of trillions of dollars in new currency after the 2008 credit crash, all while keeping inflation more or less under control.

The problem is that this system of stowing dollars overseas only lasts so long and eventually the effects of overprinting come home to roost.

The Bretton-Woods Agreement of 1944 established the framework for the rise of the U.S. dollar. While the benefits are obvious, especially for the U.S., there are numerous costs involved. Think of world reserve status as a “deal with the devil.” You get the fame, you get the fortune, you get trophy dates and a sweet car – for a while. Then one day the devil comes to collect, and when he does he’s going to take everything, including your soul.

Unfortunately, I suspect collection time is coming soon for the U.S.

It may take the form of a brand-new Bretton Woods-like system that removes the dollar as global reserve currency and replaces it with a new digital basket system. (Something like the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency.)

Global banks are essentially admitting they plan for a complete overhaul of the dollar-based financial world, and the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC)-focused system built on “unified ledgers.”

There have been three recent developments all announced in succession that suggest the dollar’s replacement is imminent.

And by “imminent,” I mean before this decade is over.

The IMF’s XC framework: A centralized policy For CBDCs

The IMF’s XC platform was released as a theoretical model in November of 2022 and matches closely with their long discussed concept of a global SDR, only in this case it would tie together all CBDCs under one umbrella along with “legacy currencies” (dollars and euros and so on).

XC is marketed as a policy structure to make cross-border payments in CBDCs “easier” for governments and central banks. Of course, it places the IMF as the middleman controlling the flow of digital transactions. The IMF suggests that the XC platform would make the transition from legacy currencies to CBDCs easier for the various nations involved.

As the IMF noted in a discussion on centralized ledgers in 2023:

We could end up in a world where we have connected entities to some degree, but some entities and some countries that are excluded. And as a global and multilateral institution, we’re sort of aiming to, you know, provide a basic connectivity, a basic set of rules and governance that is truly multilateral and inclusive. So, I think that is – the ambition is to aim for innovation that is compatible with policy goals and that is inclusive relative to the broad membership of, say, the IMF.

To translate, decentralized systems are bad.

“Inclusivity” (collectivism) is good.

And the IMF wants to work in tandem with other globalist institutions to be the “facilitators” (controllers) of that economic collectivism.

Bank For International Settlements (BIS)’s Universal Ledger

Not more than a day after the IMF announced their XC platform goals, the BIS announced their plans for a single record for all CBDCs called the BIS Universal Ledger. The BIS specifically notes that the project is meant to inspire trust in central bank digital currencies while overcoming the fragmentation of current tokenization efforts.

While the IMF is focused on controlling international policy, the BIS is pursuing the technical aspects for the globalization of CBDCs. Both make it clear in their white papers that a cashless society is in fact the end game and that digital transactions must to be monitored by a centralized entity in order to keep money “secure.”

As the BIS argues in their extensive overview of Unified Ledgers:

Today, the monetary system stands at the cusp of another major leap. Following dematerialisation and digitalisation, the key development is tokenisation – the process of representing claims digitally on a programmable platform. This can be seen as the next logical step in digital recordkeeping and asset transfer…

The blueprint envisages these elements being brought together in a new type of financial market infrastructure (FMI) – a “unified ledger”. The full benefits of tokenisation could be harnessed in a unified ledger due to the settlement finality that comes from central bank money residing in the same venue as other claims. Leveraging trust in the central bank, a shared venue of this kind has great potential to enhance the monetary and financial system.

There are three major assertions made by the BIS in their program:

• First, the digitization of money is unavoidable. Cash is going to disappear primarily because it makes moving money easier, and existing cryptocurrencies are “a flawed system that cannot take on the mantle of the future of money.”

• Second, our existing decentralized payment methods are unacceptable because they are “risky.” Only central banks are qualified and “trustworthy” enough to mediate the exchange of money.

• Third, the use of Unified Ledgers is largely designed to track and trace and even investigate all transactions (for the public good, of course).

The BIS system deals far more in the realm of private transactions than the IMF example. It is the technical foundation for the centralization of all CBDCs, governed in part by the BIS and the IMF, and it is scheduled to go into wider use in the next two years.

There are already multiple nations testing the BIS ledger today.

Now, it’s important to understand that whoever acts as the middleman in global money exchange is going to have all the power, over both governments and their citizens.

In other words, whoever controls the unified ledger also controls all the world’s money.

If every movement of wealth is monitored, from the shift of billions between governments down to your payment for groceries and gas, then every single transaction can be rejected.

Your access to food and fuel would depend on the whim of the observer. Which might not even be human…

Historically, such granular control over individual transactions hasn’t been possible. Numbers vary, but the average American currently makes 39-70 transactions per month, 1-2 per day. The development of AI makes it possible to assess and analyze massive amounts of data in real-time and to develop very detailed profiles of individuals simply based on their purchases… And, of course, to identify and prevent anti-social purchasing behavior in real-time.

The SWIFT Cross Border Project (another way to control entire nations)

As we’ve seen with the attempt to use the SWIFT payment network as a bludgeon against Russia, there is an obvious motive for globalists to control a high-speed large-scale transaction hub. Again, this is all about centralization, and whoever controls the hub has the means to control trade… up to a point.

Locking Russia out of SWIFT didn’t work, though, did it?

The Russian economy suffered minimal damage exactly because there are other methods for transferring money between nations to keep the flow of trade running. However, under a CBDC based global monetary umbrella, it would be impossible for any country to work outside the boundaries. It’s not only about the ease of shutting a nation out of the network, it’s also about having the power to immediately block the transfer of funds on the receiving end of the exchange. (Just like in the example above.)

Any funds from any source could be intercepted before reaching their recipient.

Once governments are completely under the thumb of a centralized monetary system, a centralized ledger and a centralized exchange hub, they will never be able to escape.

This control will inevitably trickle down to the general population.

Does this sound nuts? Here’s the really scary part: The vast majority of nations are going right along with this program!

China is most eager to join the global currency scheme.

Russia is still part of the BIS, but their involvement in CBDCs is still unclear.

The point is, don’t expect the BRICS to counteract the new monetary order. It’s not going to happen.

CBDCs automatically end the dollar’s global reserve currency status

So what do all these globalist projects with CBDCs have to do with the dollar?

The bottom line is this: A unified CBDC system excludes the need or use-case for a global reserve currency entirely.

The Unified Ledger model takes all CBDCs and homogenizes them into a pool of liquidity, each CBDC growing similar in characteristics over a short period of time.

The dollar’s advantages disappear in this scenario. The value of all currencies becomes relative to the middle-man. In other words, the IMF, BIS and other related institutions dictate the properties of CBDCs and thus there is no distinguishing aspect of any individual CBDC that makes one more valuable than the others.

Sure, some countries might be able to separate their currency to a point with superior production or superior technology. But the old model of having a big military as a way to prop up your currency is dead.

All the world’s currencies, from dollars to Malaysian ringgit, would become nothing more than line items on the Universal Ledger.

Eventually the globalists will make two predictable arguments:

1) A world reserve currency under the control of one nation is unfair and we as global bankers need to make the system “more equal.”

2) Why have a reserve currency at all when all transactions are moderated under our ledger anyway? The dollar is no better for international trade than any other CBDC, right?

Finally, the dollar has to die because it’s an integral part of the “old world” of material exchange. Remember, originally the dollar was defined as “three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure silver.” Tangible assets like physical precious metals have no place in the purely digital future the globalists envision.

The globalists desire a cashless society because it is an easily controlled society. Think of the Covid lockdowns – if they had a cashless system in place at that time, they would have gotten everything they wanted. Refuse to take the experimental vaccine? We’ll just shut off your digital accounts and starve you into compliance.

Without physical money, you have no alternative unless you plan to live completely off the land and barter goods and services (a way of life most people in the first world need a lot of time to get used to).

I believe that a sizable percentage of the American populace would resist a cashless society, but in the meantime, there is still the inevitability of a dollar crash to deal with. Globalist organizations are pushing CBDCs to go active very quickly, and this plus centralized ledgers will dethrone the dollar.

This means that those trillions in greenbacks held overseas will start flooding back into America all at once, causing a historic inflationary disaster.

Exactly the kind of disaster that might convince the nation to accept a new, digital currency…

As much as our nation has benefited from global reserve currency status in the past, it will suffer equally as the dollar dies.

That’s one reason it’s absolutely crucial to own physical precious metals. Untrackable, non-digital forms of money like gold and silver will be even more highly prized in the near future than they are today.

*  *  *

With global instability increasing and election uncertainties on the horizon, protecting your retirement savings is more important than ever. And this is why you should consider diversifying into a physical gold IRA. Because they offer an easy and tax-deferred way to safeguard your savings using tangible assets. To learn more, click here to get your FREE info kit on Gold IRAs from Birch Gold Group.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 13:20

Stamp Prices Rise By 8%, For The Second Time In 4 Months

It's only appropriate that on the day the BLS reported that prices are once again galloping away from the Fed's 2% inflation target - and hit fresh monthly record highs - that the Post Office announced stamp prices would also rise to a record high... for the second time this year.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the price of the woefully misnamed First-Class Mail Forever stamp will increase to 73 cents on July 14, 2024, up by a nickel from the 68 cents one currently costs. When it was first introduced in 2007, a Forever stamp was 41 cents. The stamps were named as such so one knew they could use the stamp "forever," regardless of when it was purchased.

This is the second time the price of the Forever stamp will increase this year: it rose to 68 cents in January, from 66 cents.

The latest proposed changes also include a nickel hike to the price to mail a 1-ounce metered letter, to 69 cents, the postal service said Tuesday in a news release.

Mailing a postcard domestically will soon cost 56 cents, a 3-cent increase, while the price of mailing postcards and letters internationally are both rising by a dime to $1.65.

All told, the proposed changes represent a roughly 7.8% increase in the price of sending mail through the catastrophically run agency. The silver lining: the price of renting a Post Office Box is not going up, and USPS will reduce the cost of postal insurance 10% when mailing an item, it said. The only problem: virtually nobody rents PO Boxes any more or uses insurance for that matter.

The increases, part of the Postal Service's 10-year plan toward profitability - which will never be achieved since no government agency has ever managed to not burn through taxpayer funds - are hurting mail volume and USPS' bottom line, according to Keep US Posted, a nonprofit advocacy group of consumers, nonprofits, newspapers, greeting card publishers, magazines and catalogs.

The group called for the proposed increases to be rejected and for Congress to take a closer look at the Postal Service's operations, citing findings by NDP Analytics in March. That would mean firing tens of thousands of useless dead weight workers, which of course would be the proper solution because - as with the US deficit itself - the problem is not the revenues, it is the spending.

"If rate increases continue to proceed at this frequency and magnitude without critical review, it risks plummeting volume further and exacerbating USPS's financial challenges," according to the report commissioned by the Greeting Card Association and Association for Postal Commerce.

USPS in November reported a $6.5 billion loss for fiscal 2023, and is projecting a $6.3 billion deficit in 2024.

But wait, there's more, because today we celebrate soaring prices not only through postage stamps but also through mass transit: according to Bloomberg, New Jersey Transit riders can expect higher prices after the system’s board voted to raise fares to help cover a $107 million shortfall. The 15% fare hike, which would go into effect July 1, would be followed by 3% increases each year thereafter to account for inflation (just in case one wonders what the true inflation target is).

Proponents say the higher prices are needed to close the budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, while still maintaining current service. The cash-strapped agency last raised fares in 2015.

“While a fare increase is always an option of last resort and we recognize the impact an increase of any size has on all our customers, I remain strongly committed to ensure that the overall service levels are not reduced,” Kevin Corbett, the system’s president and chief executive officer, said at the Wednesday meeting.

Public-transit agencies across the US are struggling as pandemic-era aid sunsets and ridership remains stubbornly below pre-Covid levels with many workers embracing a hybrid work environment. NJ Transit officials acknowledged earlier this year that the raised prices could curb ridership, estimating a potential loss of 1.4% the next fiscal year.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 13:02

Hidden Behind Climate Policies, Data From Nonexistent Temperature Stations

Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts July, August, and September will be hotter than usual. And for those who view warmer temperatures as problematic, that’s a significant cause for concern.

“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” said United Nations secretary-general António Guterres on March 19. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink.

“Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts. Sirens are blaring across all major indicators: Last year saw record heat, record sea levels, and record ocean surface temperatures. … Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting.”

President Joe Biden called the climate “an existential threat” in his 2023 State of the Union address. “Let’s face reality. The climate crisis doesn’t care if you’re in a red or a blue state.”

In his 2024 address he said, “I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a climate crisis. At least, I hope you don’t.”

When recalling past temperatures to make comparisons to the present, and, more importantly, inform future climate policy, officials such as Mr. Guterres and President Biden rely in part on temperature readings from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).

The network was established to provide an “accurate, unbiased, up-to-date historical climate record for the United States,” NOAA states, and it has recorded more than 100 years of daily maximum and minimum temperatures from stations across the United States.

The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore.

“They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist.

“NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”

He calls them “ghost” stations.

Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements.

NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.

President Joe Biden, joined by agency officials, speaks during a briefing on extreme heat conditions, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on July 27, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

The addition of the ghost station data means NOAA’s “monthly and yearly reports are not representative of reality,” said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and senior fellow for environment and climate at the Heartland Institute.

“If this kind of process were used in a court of law, then the evidence would be thrown out as being polluted.”

Critical Data

NOAA’s complete record of USHCN data is available on its website, making it a vital tool for scientists examining temperature trends since before the Industrial Revolution.

Jamal Munshi, emeritus professor at California’s Sonoma State University, wrote in a 2017 paper that because many of the stations in the USHCN, and their data, date back to the 1800s, they’ve been “widely used in the study of global warming.”

“The fear of anthropogenic global warming has generated a great interest in temperature trends such that even minute changes in the temperature record are scrutinized, and controversial implications for their effects on climate, extreme weather, and sea level rise are weighed against the cost of reducing emissions as a way of moderating these changes,” Mr. Munshi wrote.

“Energy and development policy around the world are impacted by these evaluations.”

Mr. Shewchuk said the USHCN data is the only long-term historical temperature data the United States has.

“In these days of apparent ‘climate crisis,’ you would think that maintaining actual temperature reporting stations would be a top priority—but they instead manufacture data for hundreds of non-existent stations. This is a bizarre way of monitoring a climate claimed to be an existential threat,” he said.

A member of a weather team breaks down a weather station on top of a radar truck being displayed during a NOAA education day to learn about tornadoes, in Memphis on Feb. 8, 2023. (Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images)

“Observed data is real. Altered and fabricated data is not real. Period.”

The website, noaacrappy, lists all of the ghost, or “zombie” stations, their location, how long they’ve been closed and then links to NOAA’s recordings.

Significantly, the map shows, not all of the stations used to interpolate temperature data are near the closed station. Thus, hypothetically, it’s possible that since Oklahoma City’s stations are all “zombies,” interpolation data is coming from as far away as Gainesville, Texas, which is more than 136 miles away, and Enid, Oklahoma, which is more than 100 miles away.

“For various reasons, NOAA feels the need to alter this data instead of fixing equipment problems they think exist,” Mr. Shewchuk said.

“Fixing temperature reporting stations is not rocket science. If we can go up to space to fix the Hubble telescope, we can surely come down to earth to fix a few thermometers.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 12:40

Spring, Summers, Nuclear Fall(out), Or Winter?

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Yesterday’s US CPI was radioactive. Headline and core were both 0.4% m-o-m, and 3.5% and 3.8% y-o-y. Energy prices were higher, which is bad. Shelter inflation was stuck at 5.7%, which is worse. But worst of all, services excluding shelter were 0.8% m-o-m and 4.8% y-o-y. In short, this is ammo for those who warned inflation risked getting stuck at 3-4%, especially against the backdrop of other data, including the small business survey earlier this week where inflation was seen as the #1 problem again.

Market reactions were extreme because it has been so very wrong this year - again. US 2-year yields shot up 23bp, and this morning are 4.97%. US 10-year yields soared 21bp, not helped by an ugly auction, and are 4.56% at time of writing. Stocks fell, and the dollar soared, with USD/JPY over 153 for the first time since 1990. Commodities were generally hit.

Then the Fed minutes’ tone, and that of President Biden, remained that rates are going to fall anyway at some point soon: I like the Seinfeld meme about that.

ladies and gentlemen, BRRRRANDON:
"Before the year is out, there'll be a rate cut" pic.twitter.com/nZ5qjNEMQ8

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 10, 2024

Our Fed-watcher Philip Marey has now shifted his first expected Fed cut from June to September, with only two cuts seen in 2024. Moreover, if Trump wins the US election and introduces tariffs, Philip sees only another two cuts before the Fed has to stop. In other words, the Fed Funds floor would be 4.50%, where the US 10-year is trading, implying no term premium.

For markets drinking their own saliva for rate cuts in January, then spring, then summer, the prospect of having to wait until fall/autumn is awful: it’s almost a nuclear fallout for some. But it can be worse, as a cacophony of jaw-dropping rates commentary shows.

We just saw a call for a 50bp Fed cut in June, suggesting economic collapse; that shelter inflation can’t come down unless the Fed cut rates to free up the US housing market (Turkish President Erdogan will be feeling proud); Larry Summers warns the Fed should hike; and Mohammad El-Erian says it should raise its CPI target to 2-3% in a supply-constrained world.

Two years ago, I argued if we couldn’t keep past levels of goods deflation in a de/re-globalising world at war, which looked hard, more disinflation would have to come from services, which nobody would want to see when it actually had to happen, so very hard choices would loom. That’s very much the dynamic we appear to be facing, even if not all of us are facing up to it.

Will that stop other central banks from cutting, as their economies underperform the US? The Bank of Canada left rates at 5%, as expected, and Christian Lawrence notes they are still minded to start cuts in June or July. Today it’s the ECB, where Elwin de Groot and Bas van Geffen expect no change, and President Lagarde’s comments are seen keeping the door open to begin cuts in June. The BOE will follow: Stefan Koopman says in August. (Please also see his fantastic Bank of England review preview: the points he raises about how policy decisions are made apply to all central banks.) Then again, the BOJ are now predicting 2% CPI ahead, so they should presumably be hiking much more than just another 10bps.

Obviously, that rates dynamic favours USD vs. EUR, CAD, and GBP: and one also wonders how far any divergence can be pushed before G7 FX crosses start looking like JPY. On which, the Japanese authorities are not ruling out intervention: but what can that really do?   

Meanwhile, the real-world backdrop I was warning is not inflation-friendly risks getting far worse.

Both US and Israeli officials expect an imminent Iranian attack on Israel, which has made clear will see it retaliate directly against Iran; and there are suggestions the US might join Israel in a counterstrike as the US CENTCOM commander heads to Israel to coordinate. US President Biden, critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, has stressed an “ironclad” promise to stand behind Jerusalem if Tehran attacks it. Also, recall Iran is also a threshold nuclear state. Understandably, Brent oil, after dipping post-CPI, went straight back up again to $91. If we get escalation, where does one place US CPI? And Fed Funds? Or other central banks’ rates?

On another geopolitical front, the US is to deepen its defence pact with Japan. For one example, US Navy vessels will now be repaired in Japanese shipyards. Japan, a leading middle-power advocate for the “rules-based order”, is now part of “Team US”, and so stands behind the Philippines in its continued tense stand-off against China in the South China Sea. Bloomberg today refers to this pact, plus Australia (where the PM says, “Make more things here”), as NATO 2.0 for the Indo-Pacific: meanwhile, Russia and China warn NATO 1.0 to stay out of it. If you want a reason for the US to provide FX support for JPY, it would be this realpolitik – not the recent market dynamic.

China set CNY fixing at 7.0968, a record 1,579 pip spread to expectations. Clearly, Beijing doesn’t want to get into competitive FX devaluation under US CPI-related pressure. *If* it is going to act on the currency, expect it to happen when everyone is focused on something else. Yet as Chinese CPI rose only 0.1% y-o-y vs. 0.4% expected, and PPI was -2.8%, there seems to be a need to do something – and real stimulus has so far been ruled out despite Yellen telling China that’s what they should do when she was there: stimulate consumer demand, while the US stimulates its own supply. If only the world economy was coordinated like that, and the way the Chinese FX market clearly is!

Relatedly, Europe made a geopolitical splash in a bureaucratic way via a 703-page tome that shows China is not a market-based, but a state-capitalist economy: as 2/3rds of German firms in China complain they face unfair competition from locals. The report will likely open the door to far more EU trade actions against China, and subsidies to counteract it; that’s as the European Commission, the top EU competition regulator, approved a €2.2bn German state aid scheme for industry. So, yes, industrial policy and protectionism are here to stay; and they are both inflationary long before they are deflationary.

To conclude, the US CPI data were a shock; the flurry of wild rates commentary we have seen since underlines how tricky the path forward is for traditional thinkers and central banks alike; and geopolitics risks going from bad to much worse.

Spring – Summers – Nuclear Fall(out) – or Winter?

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 12:00

"Literally Gas Lighting": The Hilarious Reason For Today's PPI Miss: Seasonally Adjusted Gas Prices

There was something glaringly odd in today's PPI print.

But first, some background: as we detailed in our PPI post-mortem earlier, one day after CPI came in red hot, today's PPI unexpectedly missed expectations on the headline level, coming in at 2.1%, which despite being the hottest since April 2023..

... was below the 2.2% estimate. The miss - the smallest possible - proved to be so important to the market starved for any dovish news, that algos instantly ignored the fact that core CPI came in at 2.4%, hotter than the 2.3% expected.

Which bring us to the "odd" part.

Looking at the core number (excluding food and energy), we find that according to the BLS, the only reason PPI was even positive in March is because of services, where the biggest source of upside was the "index for securities brokerage, dealing, investment advice, and related services, which rose 3.1 percent." In other words, everyone was rushing to open a brokerage account so they can trade Jeo Boden or some other shitcoin.

But what about what really increased in March, which as we have shown previously, was gas prices which rose just over 6% based on, well, how much the average gas price rose across the US in March!

Here things get hilarious, because according to the BLS in March, while PPI Services rose by 0.3%, prices for final demand goods was actually negative, dropping by 0.1% MoM.

And then, reading a little further into the BLS press release we find this surprise: "the decline is attributable to the index for final demand energy, which moved down 1.6 percent."

Which then brings us to the absolute punchline, because in the very next sentence, Biden's Bureau of Gaslighting Services writes that "leading the March decline in the index for final demand goods, prices for gasoline decreased 3.6 percent."

Hold on a second, didn't we just show that gas prices - actual, real gas prices, which everyone across the country has to pay - rose by 6% in March?

Yes we did, but what we didn't anticipate is the amount of BS Biden's henchmen are willing to shove down our throats. And indeed, to understand how gasoline could possibly drop by 3.6% in a month where it rose over 6% we have to look at the category description, where we find the little trick beloved by propaganda ministries everywhere: "seasonally adjusted."

That's right, as shown in the chart below, according to the BLS, the seasonally-adjusted gas price in March magically dropped by 3.6% even though the unadjusted, as in real, gas price rose by 6.3%, exactly what the AAA also reported in its daily summary of what gas prices across the US truly are.

Now, for those wondering "did I pay 3.6% less or 6.3% more for gas in March", we have the answer and unfortunately it is the one that leaves less money in your pocket (it always is). But for the BLS, the seasonal adjustment in this one category which actually soared, meant all the difference in the world because - you see - if Biden's propaganda ministers had used the real gas price, PPI would have been 0.4% higher and risen 2.4% YoY, both blowing away estimates, sending stocks tumbling, and making it impossible to manipulate the OER and shelter inflation data in next month's CPI to come up with a big miss (the current plan).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is literally "gas-lighting."

Finally, for those asking if you can pay seasonally adjusted taxes (lower of course) using your seasonally adjusted checking account balance (higher of course), we suggest you try it. Just make sure you first have a good plan how to survive Bubba's nightly foreplay for all the years you will spend in prison right after.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:48

First Texas, Now Iowa: State, Local Cops To Start Arresting Illegal Migrants In July

Following a path blazed by the once and future Republic of Texas, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Wednesday signed into law a measure making it a state crime to enter the Hawkeye State after being deported or denied entry into the country. As an "aggravated misdemeanor," it would subject illegal immigrants to imprisonment for up to two years. 

Reynolds raced to sign the bill just one day after it cleared the state legislature. In a statement issued after the signing, she said President Biden's neglect of border security made it imperative for Iowa to step up and fill the void: 

“The Biden Administration has failed to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, putting the protection and safety of Iowans at risk. Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them. This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott watches Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds speak at a 2021 press conference along the Rio Grande (AP/Eric Gay via The Gazette)

In December, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law making it a state crime to illegally enter the Lone Star State from a foreign nation. Under that law, illegal border crossings are now a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. Repeat offenses will be a second-degree felony subject to prison sentences from two to 20 years. Judges can kill the charges if an arrested immigrant agrees to go back to Mexico. 

Iowa's law is slated to take effect on July 1, but will certainly be challenged for allegedly exceeding state authority. The Texas law been on a litigation rollercoaster. In the latest move, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lower court's injunction against enforcement of the law. While all that has been going on, nobody has been arrested under its authority.  

Via the New York Times, here are the specifics on Iowa's particular assertion of state authority:

The law makes it a misdemeanor for a person to enter Iowa if they were previously deported from the United States, denied entry to the country, or left the country while facing a deportation order. In some cases, including people with certain prior convictions, the state crime would become a felony. To enforce the new law, Iowa police officers would be allowed to make arrests in most places, but not in schools, places of worship or health care facilities.

The ACLU's Mark Stringer condemned Iowa's new law, saying it "tells Iowa judges to order someone to be deported or jailed before they have an opportunity to seek humanitarian protection that they are entitled to."

Construction is underway on the new Forward Operating Base in Eagle Pass.

This base camp will house Texas National Guard soldiers deployed to respond to Biden’s border crisis.

It will also provide our soldiers additional resources and regional support to secure the border. pic.twitter.com/7kQMyYHr6n

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 2, 2024

The new Iowa law isn't the only way the state has aligned with Texas. Joining at least 13 other states, Iowa has deployed 115 National Guard soldiers to Texas in support of Operation Lone Star, a combined Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety operation aimed at repelling illegal immigrants at the border and arresting human smugglers and drug traffickers.  

In support of that operation, Texas has begun building "Forward Operating Base Eagle" in the border city of Eagle Pass. It will house upwards of 1,800 soldiers, and will include a 700-seat dining facility, workout equipment, a recreation center and laundries, vehicle maintenance bays, weapons storage rooms and a helipad.  

 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 11:40

O.J. Simpson Dead At 76 After Cancer Battle

OJ Simpson, the once-celebrated football star who was famously acquitted in the 1994 murder case of his ex-wife and her friend, is dead after a multi-year cancer battle. He was 76yo. 

"On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace," a statement from the family read, which was posted on X. 

On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer.

He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.

-The Simpson Family

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) April 11, 2024

In May 2023, OJ posted a video on X detailing how he recently "caught cancer" and "had to do the whole chemo thing." 

Never before a game! pic.twitter.com/F0rFCwWQ3n

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) May 30, 2023

According to TMZ News, "OJ had reportedly been battling prostate cancer in recent years, and his health took a turn for the worse of late -- with him landing in hospice care within the past few months." 

Back in the mid-90s, Baby boomers, GenX, and some older millennials remember days after the killings, Simpson was with longtime friend Al Cowlings in a white Ford Bronco in a low-speed televised chase through Los Angeles. Simpson was in the back seat with a handgun, threatening to kill himself. 

*Developing... 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/11/2024 - 10:57