MSM Climate Alarmists Stumped After 'Boiling Oceans' Result In Very Quiet Hurricane Season
Climate alarmist journalists at leftist corporate media outlets sounded the alarm early this hurricane season in the Atlantic and Caribbean region that "literal hot water" and "unprecedented ocean heat," fueled by "human-caused climate change," would unleash a very active and devastating hurricane season.
Yet, 3.5 months into hurricane season and peak season realized last week, John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist, wrote on X that the number of named storms in 2024 (as of Sept. 14) totals 7, compared with 20 at this exact point in 2020.
The 2020 vs 2024 hurricane scoreboard has been updated. Maybe the oceans aren't hot enough? pic.twitter.com/p5COdugtHW
So what happened to AP News, PBS, Vox, and other leftist corporate media outlets pushing climate doom headlines 24/7, igniting climate anxieties for America's heavily medicated population who believe the propaganda that Earth is doomed in several years unless fossil fuels are banned and more solar and windmills are purchased from China.
It's embarrassing for these woke media outlets to focus so much on imminent climate doom and, like Al Gore's climate prediction over the last several decades, never actually play out.
"Get used to it. Forecasters predicted months ago it was going to be a nasty year and now they are comparing it to record busy 1933 and deadly 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis," AP journos wrote earlier this hurricane season, who tried to scare the hell out of readers.
Shewchuk noted the low hurricane activity is "not unexpected" - because "Not only does global warming make the tropical atmosphere more stable, thus inhibiting tropical convection (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/08/global-warming-inhibits-hurrican…) -- but Tonga's unprecedented global warming spike further contributes to tropical suppression."
This is not unexpected. Not only does global warming make the tropical atmosphere more stable, thus inhibiting tropical convection (https://t.co/p0rBHzPiTz) -- but Tonga's unprecedented global warming spike further contributes to tropical suppression. pic.twitter.com/Q8dxMpZl0k
Instead of focusing on cow farts and Taylor Swift's private jet, maybe, just maybe, it's time for corporate media to focus on the massive 2022 eruption of the underwater volcano in Tonga, known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, that catapulted plumes of soot, water vapor, and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. It's likely been one of the major drivers in recent Earth's warming trends. To totally ignore this massive eruption demonstrates bias and agenda-driven within 'trust the science' leftist corporate media, as well as several federal agencies focused on weather.
"Nothing Will Slow Me Down" - Trump Reacts After Being Reportedly Targeted By Shooter With AK47 While Golfing, Secret Service Returned Fire
Update (1615ET): The former president has issued a statement confirming he is "safe and well" and declaring "nothing will slow me down"...
AP reports that the alleged shooter fled in an SUV and was later apprehended in a nearby county by local law enforcement, the officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity about an ongoing investigation.
An AK-style firearm was recovered at the scene near Trump’s golf course, one of the officials and a third law enforcement official said.
The golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, and agents were a few holes ahead of him when they noticed the person with the firearm, the officials said.
The person appeared to push the muzzle of the rifle through the fence line and that’s when agents fired, the officials said
CNN reported that police have recovered a backpack and a GoPro camera.
They think the attempted Trump shooter wanted to film it.
The following clip shows a heavy police presence on the roads leading to the golf club...
BREAKING: Donald Trump *was* the intended target of the shots fired at Trump International Golf Club according to CNN.
Agents opened fire on a man who was at the Trump International Golf Course after they saw what appeared to be a gun according to the NYP.
The Trump campaign on Sunday said that former President Donald Trump is safe after reports of gunshots in his vicinity outside the Trump International Golf Course.
“President Trump is safe following gunshots in his vicinity,“ a brief statement released by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said.
”No further details at this time.”
The U.S. Secret Service wrote on social media platform X that it is working with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the incident, adding that it occurred before 2 p.m. ET.
“The former president is safe,” the federal agency said.
The sheriff’s office will provide more details about the incident “soon,” the agency added.
CNN is reporting the shots were intended for the former president...
BREAKING: CNN has said: "Officials believe the shots fired at Trump International Golf Club were intended for former President Donald Trump." pic.twitter.com/FhHpOSGy1p
CNN goes on to report that a person has been detained in connection to the incident at Trump International Golf Club on Sunday, according to a law enforcement source.
Secret Service fired at the suspect, according to multiple sources.
Officials believe an armed individual intended to target former President Donald Trump at his golf club, according to sources briefed on the matter.
However, The New York Post said two people exchanged fire at Trump golf club in Florida, targeting each other (a narrative that has since been deleted).
The White House was quick to express their "relief" that Trump was not hit:
“The President and Vice President have been briefed about the security incident at the Trump International Golf Course, where former President Trump was golfing. They are relieved to know that he is safe. They will be kept regularly updated by their team.”
As the above suggests, no one is really sure WTF happened for now.
However, one thing we know for sure, the same rhetoric that likely prompted the first assassination attempt has not stopped...
Legacy media has spent the week hyperventilating over conservatives “inciting threats” for expressing their opinions on the migrant issues in Ohio.
Meanwhile they didn’t stop calling Trump a “n*zi” and a “threat to Democracy” for one second since J13.
La Nina "Favored To Emerge In September-November" & "Persist Through January-March 2025"
The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center wrote on X this past week that the probability of a La Nina weather pattern now stands at 71% and "is expected to persist through January-March 2025," adding, a "La Nina watch remains in effect."
La Nina odds are currently higher, yet CPC expects the weather phenomenon to be "weak."
"A weaker La Niña implies that it would be less likely to result in conventional winter impacts, though predictable signals could still influence the forecast guidance," the weather agency wrote in an update.
La Nina patterns occur when sea-surface temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean cool. The cooler waters push the jet stream northward, allowing more precipitation across the western US. Due to the movement of the jet stream, areas of the southern US record less precipitation than normal during La Nina patterns.
Ben Noll, a meteorologist with New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, provided more color about the La Nina weather pattern on X:
The ocean has taken some significant strides toward La Niña thresholds in recent weeks.
Trade winds have been much stronger than normal, causing upwelling of cooler, sub-surface waters.
This year, the sub-surface is quite a reservoir of cooler than average water, primed to be moved toward the surface as wind stresses come and go.
Traditional indices suggest this year's La Niña will be of a weak to moderate variety.
However, alternative approaches like the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) offer a different view. This index, which compares the sea surface temperature anomaly in the central equatorial Pacific with the rest of the global tropics, is a better indicator of the ENSO-related change of rainfall and thunderstorms patterns, particularly in a warming world.
RONI suggests that a moderate to borderline strong La Niña is possible. In fact, recent values of RONI have dipped to -0.75˚C, in La Niña territory!
On the balance of recent trends and guidance, and considering the increasing frequency of La Niña in recent decades, I continue to think that La Niña 2024-25 has room to develop into a formidable event...
The ocean has taken some significant strides toward La Niña thresholds in recent weeks 📉
Trade winds have been much stronger than normal, causing upwelling of cooler, sub-surface waters.
This year, the sub-surface is quite a reservoir of cooler than average water, primed to be… pic.twitter.com/F76Fr3x53q
Here are the typical La Nina impacts across the Lower 48:
Meteorologist Noll provided a new update on forecasted snowfall anomalies across the Lower 48.
❄️ Make sure you have a good shovel this winter...
...especially if you live in Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, northern Minnesota, British Columbia, the Canadian Prairies, or Labrador! pic.twitter.com/7YRSMwPpPI
La Niña 2024-25: this graph compares the traditional La Niña forecast (green trace) with the relative La Niña forecast (orange trace).
The traditional forecast bottoms out around -0.95˚C (near moderate strength) while the relative forecast reaches -1.50˚C (strong event). pic.twitter.com/W58HUcsoRX
In mid-August, the 208th edition of the Farmers' Almanac published the "Wet Winter Whirlwind." It noted, "There will be a lot of precipitation and storms"—all dependent on location."
Power bills are only getting more expensive for cash-strapped households battered by Biden-Harris' inflation storm. Consider heating your home with wood or coal to offset electric costs if you can.
Watch: Kamala Harris Gives Trainwreck Answers To Simple Questions In First Solo Interview
One might think that weeks of debate prep with an actor playing Donald Trump would prepare Vice President Kamala Harris for a simple post-debate interview. One would be wrong.
On Friday, Harris gave her first interview since last week's debate - this time, instead of going with a major news network, she sat down with an ABC News affiliate in Philadelphia.
Despite several softball questions, Harris had absolutely no answer when reporter Brian Taft asked he about "one or two specific things" she'd do as president when it comes to "bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people."
"Well, I'll start with this," Harris began. "I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager. I grew up in a community of hardworking people. You know, construction workers and nurses and teachers. I try to explain to some people who might not have had the same experience, but a lot of people will relate to this."
She then kept going - spitting word salad all over the place.
Watch:
Oh my goodness this is an absolute train wreck.
Reporter: What are your specific plans to bring down prices?
Kamala: "I grew up a middle class kid... I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn. Ya know?"pic.twitter.com/lhOdWoygy2
Just for the sake of clarity, the 1st clip came from the @TrumpWarRoom account, which I believe sourced it from WPVI's website. The 2nd clip came from WPVI's 6 PM broadcast, which my news-clipping service recorded live. WPVI aired portions of the interview from 4 PM - midnight…
As PJ Media notes further, the carnage didn't stop there - as Harris was unable to articulate how she's different from President Joe Biden.
"I wonder if there are one or two spots, policy areas or approaches, where you would say 'I'm a different person," Taft asked.
"Well, I'm obviously not Joe Biden," replied Harris, nervously. "And, umm, you know, I offer a new generation of leadership, For example, thinking about developing and creating an opportunity economy where it's about investing in areas that really need a lot of work and maybe focusing on, again, the aspirations and the dreams but also just recognizing that at this moment in time some of this stuff we could take for granted years ago, we can't take for granted anymore."
Reporter: How are you different from Joe Biden?
Kamala: *Nervously repeats herself and fails to explain how she’s different from Joe Biden* pic.twitter.com/ALh0vE5aZh
Kamala uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing:
"My focus is very much about what we need to do over the next 10-20 years to catch up to the 21st century around, again, capacity, but also challenges." pic.twitter.com/8nEjI8kDpf
“One debate doesn’t change the issues Americans are facing every day.”
- James Rickards
By now, you’ve probably heard enough debate about The Debate, so I’ll spotlight only a few points everybody else left out. You might know this, but Hollywood plays a larger role in the Kamala campaign than just stuffing the endorsements of celebs such as George Clooney, Taylor Swift, and John Legend into the corporate media tank. In fact, much bigger playas, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, are producing and directing things backstage at Kamala Central, so what gets in the Kamala news plays as a Spielberg movie like The Color Purple. Just so you know. . . .
Ms. Harris had the advantage Tuesday night of being able to speak in declarative sentences, while her opponent, Mr. Trump, is given, shall we say, to a more choppy, telegraphic speech delivery. It lent Ms. Harris the appearance of being intelligent. The catch was, everything she said was disingenuous or an outright lie.
One whopper — more significant than you might realize — was her stating that she was in the US Capitol building when the J-6 riot happened. You’d think she’d want to be on-hand there, seeing as a joint session of Congress was about to certify her as the first female veep in US history — a chance to be joyful and shine! But, in fact, at 11:15a.m. on 1/6/21 — hours before protesters breeched the Capitol — Kamala Harris was spirited away a few blocks to 430 South Capitol Street, the headquarters building of the Democratic National Committee, where a pipe bomb (or facsimile of one) had been planted hours before by some DC law enforcement person (Capitol police? FBI? DC Metro Police? A paid “contractor” to the preceding outfits?). The exact identity of the culprit has never been released by the FBI, though they have all perp’s cell phone data and closed circuit TV footage.
The plan, you see, was to disrupt the election certification process underway at mid-day in the House chamber by creating a furor over the discovery of the pipe bomb planted to assassinate veep-elect Kamala Harris — a joint blob / Democratic Party operation.
The pipe bomb ruse, it turned out, was never needed because the FBI-instigated riot at the Capitol created a big disruption just in time to send the politicians scurrying for safety and cancel scrutiny of various state’s electors’ reports.
After that scare, the Senators and Congressmen did, in fact, drop the certification challenge and returned to hurriedly finish the certification process later that night of 1/6/21. The pipe bomb story barely made the news, and the scant news about it was expeditiously memory-holed thereafter. After nearly four years, as averred to above, the FBI has come up with. . . nothing. It is important that you understand just how nefarious your federal agencies are, and how corrupt the news is.
Now, as for the Harris-Trump debate, otherwise, and given the rigged features of the exercise, it’s obvious that Mr. Trump muffed several major scoring opportunities. When Ms. Harris dredged up the notorious hoax about “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, Mr. Trump could have addressed the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis and asked them why they did not “fact-check” the utterance, which had been thoroughly debunked by the Left-wing site Snopes.com, advertising itself as “the definitive Internet reference source for researching urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.” Nor did they fact check the likewise debunked “suckers and losers” hoax about US soldiers supposedly uttered by Mr. Trump at the Normandy D-Day cemetery.
Actually, Muir and Davis “fact-checked” Mr. Trump over thirty times and Ms. Harris hardly at all.
In any case, Mr. Trump blew many other chances to pin Ms. Harris with her own lies and hypocrisies — like, failing to state plainly that in nearly four years she never actually visited the Mexican border (whatever her designated title was: “Border Czar,” “Root Causes Detective”) . . . failing to clarify that the president has been removed from the abortion debate altogether and has no role in telling women what to do with their own bodies under current law. . . that Ms. Harris’s voteless selection as nominee was a paradigmatic affront to “our democracy” that even her own fellow party members ought to recognize . . . that the War in Ukraine was actually started in early 2014 by Barack Obama, Victoria Nuland, and the CIA, not by Mr. Putin . . . and omitting to state that all — every last one — of the 2020 election lawsuits across the nation were dismissed on procedural grounds and not on the merits of their arguments, which were never heard in court. That’s just a short list. It is also rumored that Ms. Harris got the debate questions beforehand, since her husband, Hollywood lawyer Doug Emhoff, is a close friend of Dana Walden, Co-chair of the Disney Corporation board of directors (Disney owns ABC-News.)
Anyway, that much-awaited event is over now and we are into the homestretch of this election. Kamala Harris has still shown no disposition to meet the press, to answer any questions impromptu and unscripted. The voting public seems to be losing patience with that. Her poll numbers are sinking, despite her admirable ability to speak in declarative sentences and lead joyful laugh-fests.
What remains for our sore-beset country beyond that vortex of nefarious blobbery and balloting lawfare is the interesting development that our government is now pressing to commence World War Three before the election can happen. “Joe Biden,” of course, is lately as absent from the public consciousness as Rutherford B. Hayes, but whoever acts in the president’s name these days just gave permission for Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with long-range missiles. So, far, the UK and the Netherlands have officially jumped in on that decision.
Note that the Ukrainians have no ability to actually do the targeting of said missile themselves, which involves satellite technology, meaning whatever missiles happen to get fired into Russia will be done by NATO personnel. Mr. Putin has made it clear that such action will have consequences. We might infer that means Russia will strike back at some NATO targets. I must imagine his primary target will be NATO headquarters in Brussels. Other targets would probably follow, perhaps even in the USA.
Prepare to duck-and-cover, or possibly to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
Harvard, Columbia, UNC See Drop In Black Freshman Enrollment After Supreme Court Ruling On Affirmative Action
Harvard University is feeling the impact of the Supreme Court's decision to ban the use of race in college admissions - as the woke Ivy League institution has reported a noticeable decline in the number of back students in its incoming class, marking a significant shift in the demographics of one of America’s most elite institutions.
According to a statement released by Harvard on Wednesday, black students make up just 14% of the new class of first-year undergraduates, down sharply from 18% last year. Meanwhile, latino students saw a bump, now accounting for 16% of the class—up 2 percentage points. Asian American students, who were at the center of the affirmative action debate, held steady at 37%, Bloomberg reports.
The ruling has sent shockwaves through the world of higher education, forcing colleges and universities to scramble for new ways to promote diversity. For decades, affirmative action policies aimed to boost enrollment of underrepresented groups, particularly black and hispanic students, while asian applicants were often perceived to be disadvantaged by these same policies. Now, it appears the tables are turning.
Columbia University also reported a significant drop in black freshman enrollment, with the percentage plummeting from 20% to 12% in just a year. Conversely, Asian American or Pacific Islander students at Columbia surged, jumping 9 points to 39%. Similar trends were observed at other prestigious schools, including MIT, Brown, and Tufts.
That said, Yale and Princeton, two of Harvard's fiercest rivals in the Ivy League, reported a steady percentage of black freshmen, but both schools saw a slight dip in Asian American enrollment.
Harvard, known not only for being the oldest but also the richest college in the U.S., insists it remains dedicated to fostering a diverse student body. "Our community is strongest when we bring together students from different backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs," said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid. Still, the university revealed that 8% of its incoming class chose not to disclose their race or ethnicity, double the 4% from last year - a possible indication of the uncertainty surrounding the new admissions landscape.
Harvard was a named defendant in the Supreme Court case along with the University of North Carolina. In UNC’s freshman class, the share of Black freshmen declined to about 8% from almost 11% a year earlier. Asian American students edged up by a percentage point to nearly 26%. -Bloomberg
The Supreme Court ruling was a major victory for Students for Fair Admissions, the group that argued Harvard unfairly penalized Asian Americans during the admissions process by giving them lower ratings on subjective measures like leadership and likability, while favoring black and hispanic applicants. Chief Justice John Roberts noted in the ruling that universities can still consider how race has affected an applicant's life, “be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.”
In response, Harvard has tweaked its application process, now asking students to reflect on how their life experiences, achievements, and extracurricular activities have shaped them. However, this year, admissions officers were not privy to applicants' self-reported answers regarding race and ethnicity, nor could they see aggregated data.
Looking ahead, Harvard and several other top-tier universities are bringing back standardized testing requirements for applicants in 2025—a move that could further influence diversity numbers in the future.
To counter the decline in diversity, Harvard is stepping up its recruitment efforts, including a new rural recruitment initiative and continuing programs targeting minority students and first-generation college hopefuls. As for financial accessibility, about 21% of this year’s 1,647 first-year students qualified for Pell Grants, a federal aid program for low-income students.
Every event organizer with experience knows that venue size really matters. If you have 30 people meeting in a room with no extra chairs, it feels like a crowd. If you have 5,000 people meet in a venue designed for 50,000, it is a failure and flop. That latter scenario I actually witnessed, at an event at which I was tagged to speak, and it was depressing and sad, really a disaster.
It could have been otherwise if the organizers had correctly estimated the demand. Instead I rolled up to a huge but largely empty parking lot, and rattled around an exhibitor space with plenty to exhibit but hardly anyone seemed to be there. There were in fact thousands in attendance but once the feeling of event failure seized the place, people could not wait for it to end.
From that experience, I learned: always underestimate the number of people you expect. It’s not easy because every event organizer is excited for what he is doing. There is a tendency to believe that everyone else shares your enthusiasm. It’s the same with homeowners who put their houses on the market at far too high a price, or authors who imagine that their book will become a bestseller.
The subtle psychology of full and empty, high and low, profoundly affects economics too.
The size of the Whole Food bag within the last several weeks has shrunk by a third or so, and gone up in quality.
The reason will be clear to anyone with experience in marketing. If you have spent $150 and walk out with a bag only halfway full, you feel ripped off, and sense that you have not received your money’s worth. But if you shrink the bag and the customer walks out with a full sack of stuff for the same amount of money, some of the edge seems to disappear.
It’s a different form of shrinkflation, to be sure, but it makes sense from the point of view of the seller. Let’s please be clear: these end-point grocery sellers have costs too. They have gone up just as much as the final retail price. They still have to maintain their slim margins, and simply cannot sell at a loss for everything.
Yes, you can draw people in with some products that sell below cost. I suspect that Whole Foods does this with flowers, for example. Again, it makes sense. Offer the best and lowest-priced flowers in town and people will rock up just to buy them but remember that there are other goods they need. The store hopes to make up the difference in unplanned purchases. If it doesn’t work, it stops.
Pricing is hard and requires a complex mix of accounting and soothsaying concerning customer psychology. The store of course wants to extract a higher price, a drive that is matched on the other side by the customer’s desire to buy everything for free. The key to the price is finding the negotiated compromise.
When I was out buying my first car, and having already read a bit on economics, the salesman asked me “What do you want to spend on a car?” My answer came easily: “I want to spend exactly zero. In fact, I want you to pay me.” He was truly startled but it set the negotiating terms on a good and honest starting point. I did end up buying.
This is the market at work and it is meaningful and often magical the way it works without a central plan. This becomes a serious challenge in inflationary times when the quantity of money is rising and reducing the value of each unit. Inflationary forces flow unpredictably from sector to sector, good to good, service to service. It produces grave difficulties for both buyers and sellers. Everyone wants to leave a transaction with the perception that he is better off. A changing value of money adds another layer of challenge.
And yet, these days, we are hearing all about how corporate greed is responsible for inflation. Terrible people at the sales’ end points are somehow “gouging” the customer. To be sure, every grocery store would love to do this, but they simply cannot. This is because of the wonderful reality of competition. The customer can always go somewhere else or decline to buy altogether.
The Harris/Walz campaign promises to implement national rules against gouging customers. What are the standards they will use to judge? We do not know but the only safe way to avoid being charged would be never to raise the price, regardless of input costs. It would only take a matter of days before such a rule would turn to losses and then shortages and then bankruptcies and closings. Next will come mandates to sell, and then government takeovers of groceries, which would inevitably be followed with rationing.
Rationing groceries is not an unheard of practice in U.S. history. Nearly all grocery staples were rationed during the Second World War. Every household was issued tickets for sugar, meat, butter, cheese, milk, eggs, coffee, all animal fats (thus the invention of vegetable fat), canned goods, chocolates, aluminum foil, and clothing and footwear. People were annoyed but it was explained that this was necessary for the war effort.
How much easier would rationing be in our time? The tickets could be dropped into our bank accounts and deployed using smartphones with identification and QR codes. The federal government could easily build out an application for download, and even issue cards. It could be built off the existing SNAP program and the EBT card that replaced food stamps. This would not be a technical challenge.
Five years ago, this might have sounded like a far-flung prospect. These days, it is a highly realistic probability with national anti-gouging laws. It could easily be promoted as a scheme to end corporate greed. Tragically, the stores themselves would not be as against this as one might suppose. It would put an end to the investigations and paperwork associated with anti-gouging compliance, and the program could be sweetened with trillions in subsidies for the stores themselves.
Such dystopian scenarios are no longer crazy. Remember that only four years ago, we were all locked out of churches and other houses of worship on major religious holidays, and the schools for which people pay in taxes were shut sometimes for a year or even two. This was a test run of compliance and central planning. As terrible as it is to say, some of our leaders believe that this system is better than a market-based economy.
Plus, this time they have a great excuse: save the environment. Every school kid for decades has been taught about reducing resource use and told to valorize all recycling. It seems perhaps like nothing is wrong with that but consider the lesson here: our use of resources is paristical on nature and a clean environment. If that is always true, where is the end point? Perhaps austerity through bread lines is the way to go.
It does not inspire confidence in our leaders that they cannot give an accurate account of what causes grocery prices to go up, and think nothing of blaming the retailers who are themselves victims of declining purchasing power. Is it because they know no economics? Or is it because they aspire to bring about a central plan gradually through the imposition of ever more rules and systems, with the belief that with digital tools, they can finally make socialism work?
I’ll take Whole Foods smaller bags, as regrettable as they are, over a central plan. At least we still have some choice. At least we still have flowers, food, and household items, and it is up to us whether and to what extent we consume them. Under a government plan, you will have no choice and no voice.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Biden Says 'Working Out' Letting Ukraine Hit Russia With US Long-Range Missiles
President Joe Biden's latest words to reporters related to the Ukraine war strongly suggest the US could be close to greenlighting Ukraine's ability to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory.
The pattern of recent history is also that if Zelensky lobbies hard enough in western capitals, there's eventual capitulation, even should there be great risk of NATO escalation with Russia. This is how the F-16 program happened, and it was rushed through with negative results thus far.
Amid the latest pleas from Zelensky for the West to take off all restrictions on use of offensive weaponry, Biden when asked by reporters Tuesday if the US will allow Ukraine forces to use longer-range missiles to target sites inside Russia, said: "We’re working that out right now."
Last week while visiting Germany, Zelensky urged, "We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace."
"We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin," he said.
Biden's latest remark about working out whether to lift all range restrictions come the same week the US has accused Iran of supplying Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles. The White House quickly hit Iran with new sanctions, and there's the potential that another strong 'answer' of the US will be to give Kiev what it wants in terms of lifting arms restrictions.
Secretary of State Blinken while in London this week, just ahead of another trip to Kiev, had this to say:
“It’s not just the system itself that counts,” said Blinken. “You have to ask: Can the Ukrainians effectively use it, and sometimes that requires significant training, which we’ve done. Do they have the ability to maintain it?”
So there continues to be mixed signals. The Pentagon has lately said that Ukraine has long-range capabilities with its drone program. Still, pieces and key aspects of a potential new policy are in motion:
Britain and France build and supply Storm Shadow and Scalp-EG cruise missiles to Ukraine, but it is has become apparent that US technology is also involved and Washington has held back from approving that technology’s use for strikes inside Russian territory. Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, is due to meet with Biden in Washington on Friday.
Pressure is building in Congress too...
Given the escalating Russian attacks on civilian targets across Ukraine, Chair @SenatorCardin is urging the easing of restrictions on Ukrainian’s use of U.S.-provided weapons, adding that America "must act swiftly to grant these permissions."
Just on Tuesday several oblasts in Russia were rocked by wave after wave of Ukrainian drones, described as one of the single biggest drone attacks of the war.
One Moscow woman died as a result of a drone slamming into her apartment building. If these attacks are done by missiles and not just UAVs, the casualties and devastation will be much worse. Such would certainly cross Putin's red lines and he would likely escalate the war with major attacks on the Ukrainian capital and perhaps even government buildings like the parliament.
Stocks, Bullion Bounce, Banks Battered As Brent Busts Before Debate
With both the presidential debate and CPI prints on deck, traders were not in an adventurous mood today, and after a rocky last few days of trading, where stocks first dropped 1.7% Friday only to rebound 1.2% on Monday, Tuesday saw a mini rollercoaster, as emini futures first dropped, then gained, only to slide to session lows after Europe closed, before recovering all losses and closing near session highs, and just around 5,500, a key psychological resistance level.
Today's moves were so phlegmatic that not even the 0DTE crew tried to move stocks much either way.
And speaking of phlegmatic, this is how Goldman's trading floor described today's market "uninspiring tape and eerily quiet intraday trading (again) which is concerning…... no smoking gun on this sharp move lower but feels like risk is to the downside in an illiquid and low volume tape. Tonight’s must watch debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has unnerved investors more than before the June event with Joe Biden."
The market got some much needed tailwind thanks to Oracle, which surged to an all time high after reporting solid results...
... and supported the AI trade just as it was about to crack the most important long-term support levels.
Strength in Mega Cap Tech, up 1.3%, helped offset the cyclical weakness: AI Winners were up 70bp, while Defensives rose 35bp, with the bid led by Wireless, Utilities and Real Estate.
Which is not to say there were no casualties: banks got crushed after first Goldman and then JPMorgan warned that Q3 revenues and the full year Net Interest Income outlook would likely disappoint, sending their stocks sharply lower...
... with the largest US bank at one point tumbling the most since the covid crash. A far more ominous plunge, however, took place at Ally Financial: one of the largest US auto loan lenders finally admitted what everyone else knew already: both delinquencies and charge offs are surging, and results in one of the biggest drop in ALLY stock on record.
The rest of the market was generally solid and closed in the green, with the exception of energy...
... and with good reason: ahead of today's presidential debate where inflation and the price of various goods will be a key topic, it was imperative that oil be hammered, and sure enough, Brent plunged 3.3%, one of its biggest one-day drops of 2024, sending the price to 2021 levels.
Of course, the last time oil was here, it then promptly doubled int he next 3 months, and while another war doesn't appear imminent, the fact that hedge funds are the most bearish on oil they have ever been...
... suggests that a historic short squeeze may be looming, especially since Goldman warned that while financial demand may be low (boosted by historic shorting), physical demand remains quite resilient.
As such, it wouldn't take much work by Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ to spark a massive squeeze, an April 2020 in reverse if you will, as all those who are short oil are unable to find deliverables to cover. And so we wait.
Oil and banks aside, however, the action remained choppy at the index level with no change to the broader narrative even as micro headlines pick up. As UBS notes, "the market remains surprisingly resilient despite the increased activity in equity capital markets and high yield issuance, Election uncertainty and growth concerns with crude oil down 4%. Brent dropped below $70 for the first time since December 2021 after China’s weak import data adds to oversupply concerns ."
UBS warns that "a lack of liquidity is contributing to the choppiness. Lots of investors remain on the road attending various conferences and the uncertainty around the Fed cut pace and the election is keeping investors on the sideline and will not go away near term." And the punchline: "investors are already set up very defensively (look at recent action in defensives like Staples and Wireless names ) and/or there is plenty of cash on the sidelines as last week’s healthy equity capital markets activity and performance showed."
Defensive is correct, and one need look no further than the record takedown by foreign (Indirect) buyers in today's 3Y auction...
... which led to continued buying on the short-end, and pushed the 2s10s curve - which until last week had just emerged from the longest stretch of inversion on record - to the most steep it has been since the summer of 2022.
Bonds were not the only "flight to safety": so was bullion, which extended its rebound from Friday's swoon to trade just shy of its record high...
... and even bitcoin appears to once again be catching a more solid bid.
And now, all attention turns to the bloodbath that will be the Kamala-Trump debate in a few hours.
Topline: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is refusing to help some local governments pay for storm recovery while its aid fund faces a $6.2 billion deficit. The White House keeps blaming Congress for not providing enough money, but the fiscal crisis is partially FEMA’s own fault.
FEMA has $8.3 billion in “unliquidated obligations” set aside to help victims of storms from before 2012, according to a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report titled “FEMA’s Inadequate Oversight Led to Delays in Closing Out Declared Disasters.” It is money that FEMA has promised to spend in the future, but it’s unclear when or if it will actually help American families.
Meanwhile, the money can’t be used to help victims of hurricanes from this summer.
Key facts: FEMA grants must be used before a “period of performance” deadline. If the deadline is extended, FEMA officials are supposed to provide a detailed written justification.
FEMA has recently extended deadlines by up to 16 years for $7 billion of grants, sometimes without explanation, according to the OIG report.
For example, FEMA set aside billions to help the Northeast recover from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The money was supposed to be used up by October 2016, but FEMA extended the deadline to September 2026. $4.5 billion of it was still unused as of last year and is unavailable for victims of this year’s storms.
The extensions are awarded based on “subjective” criteria, the report says. Auditors wrote that “As a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open.”
Even when extensions are not granted, FEMA does not always enforce its deadlines. There was $9.4 million set aside for grants with deadlines over 12 months ago as of June 2023, according to the report. FEMA recouped an additional $5.7 million while the audit was taking place.
Background: The inspector general report is the latest controversy in what has been a challenging year for FEMA. There were a record 28 storms that each caused over $1 billion in damages last year, and there have been 19 so far this year.
In July, the Government Accountability Office reported that FEMA greatly underestimated how much money it would need to spend on the Covid-19 pandemic and had not requested enough money from Congress over the last few years.
The agency’s Disaster Relief Fund nearly ran out of money this August, and FEMA was forced to pause 650 projects that were not deemed essential for “life-saving services.” The same thing happened in October 2023 and seven other times since 2001.
Yet FEMA continues to approve new expenses related to the Covid-19 pandemic, even though the public health emergency officially ended in May 2023.
Summary: There’s no use in obligating billions of dollars to help victims of natural disasters if the money is just going to sit in a bank account.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Markets are manipulated, yes, but they're still structures of tightly bound, self-organizing complexity which lend themselves to sudden non-linear collapses.
Just as thunderstorms scent the air before their arrival, market crashes often announce themselves in the autumn zephyrs. Markets don't crash when everyone's in full-blown panic? they crash when the headlines and data are reassuring, analysts are confident in ever-higher profits, and complacency reigns supreme, evidenced by record-high household allocation in stocks and bullish sentiment readings.
Markets crash after a brief bit of panic selling is immediately bought and markets are returned to a permanently high plateau of valuation as we saw in August, as the S&P 500 shot back up within a whisker or two of all-time highs. Punters buy every dip because this quick reaction to any drop has been richly rewarded for 15 years, and everyone has confidence in the Fed Put , ie the belief that the Fed will move Heaven and Earth to restore "market confidence" and the wealth effect .
In other words, market participants have embraced moral hazard : there is no real downside, there is only upside to buying every dip.
Markets crash when the rot beneath the surface is invisible or goes unnoticed. The few doom-and-gloomers who note extremes are immediately mocked off the stage, and the headlines tout the resilience of the economy, markets, employment, profits, and the techno-wonders heading our way.
After the crash nobody predicted, analysts swarm like ravenous locusts to the digital airwaves to lay claim to their prescience: look, look, I added a one-line disclaimer about "irrational exuberance" at the end of my report!
I'll spare you the analog charts and go right to the chase: the Oasis Indicator , brought to our collective attention by Joe Sullivan-Bennett via BondVigilantes.com: The Peculiar Relationship Between Oasis & Periods Of Extreme Market Volatility (Zero Hedge). (Fun fact: Before Oasis Wonderwall , there was George Harrison's 1968 soundtrack LP Wonderwall .)
Those turning up their nose at the Oasis Indicator might benefit from pondering these "jaws of death" charts. Everything is extreme and stays extreme until it doesn't. Consider the gaping pearly teeth of the SPX (S&P 500) and JPY (Japanese yen).
Or the Mack the Knife of SPX and Fed reserves: You know when that shark bites with his teeth, Scarlet billows start to spread...
And last but not least, the 2-year Treasury yield and the Nasdaq Index:a loaded mousetrap if there ever was one.
There's no convincing the complacent. You either sense what's coming or you don't. It's like a sixth sense in a way, an intuitive awareness developed by absorbing huge losses in previous "unpredicted" crashes.
Markets are manipulated, yes, but they're still structures of tightly bound, self-organizing complexity which lend themselves to sudden non-linear collapses.
But never mind, a little autumn shower never hurts anyone. And so nobody carries an umbrella on a day that starts out sunny and clouds over too quickly to respond.
CIA Director William Burns and Richard Moore, the head of the UK’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, spoke at an unprecedented joint public event in London on Saturday, where they praised Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
Moore said the Kursk invasion was "typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians, to try and change the game" and said it had "brought the war home to ordinary Russians."
Burns said the operation in Kursk was a "significant tactical achievement" that boosted morale in Ukraine. While the fighting continues in Kursk, Russian forces have been making more rapid gains in Ukraine’s Donbas region since the invasion was launched.
I think there was a moment in the fall of 2022 when there was a genuine risk of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.
I have never thought, however, and this is the view of my agency, that we should be unnecessarily intimidated by that. Putin’s a bully and he is going to continue to saber-rattle from time to time.
And Burns acknowledged that despite the Kursk operation being an 'achievement' it has actually done little or nothing toe weaken President Putin's power:
Burns described the Kursk offensive as a "significant tactical achievement" that has served to boost Ukrainian morale as well as expose some of the vulnerabilities of Putin’s Russia and his military. Last year’s short-lived insurrection carried out by former Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin also helped to dent this narrative, Burns said.
The CIA chief does not, however, see Putin’s grip on power weakening. "He does one thing really well, and that’s repress people at home."
💥 MI6 chief Richard Moore is sharing a stage with CIA chief Bill Burns for the first time. Moore says UK and US decide between them who should carry out certain operations using a "best athlete model" (whoever is best for the job) pic.twitter.com/B1O3tu0OZx
