LNG tanker rates are surging as European demand for liquified gas soars.
Tanker rates are also soaring because traders use tankers as floating storage facilities.
Freeport LNG could return to normal operations by the end of next month.
European countries have boasted that their gas storage facilities have been filled at higher than usual levels before the start of winter. Yet more LNG cargos are arriving in Europe at such rates that they are jamming ports. And freight rates are through the roof, adding to already record LNG prices. Earlier this week, media reported that there were more than 30 LNG tankers idling off the coast of Spain, waiting to unload at one of its regasification terminals. Clearly, these terminals were not sufficient for the surge of LNG imports into the country, which sports the most LNG import terminals in Europe, at a total of six.
Yet Spain is not the only one in an “exceptional operational situation,” as the government in Madrid called it.
There are dozens of LNG tankers waiting to unload or serving as floating storage near other European ports as well. And as the LNG rush to Europe continues, an LNG tanker shortage is looming large.
“Every natural-gas buyer who is serious has taken LNG carriers into their portfolio,” Jefferies shipping research head Omar Nokta told the Wall Street Journal.
“There is very limited capacity out there and it’s super expensive to get.”
It’s the oldest of laws about supply and demand at work, but this same law is also pushing freight rates for LNG carriers sky-high, which is adding to already substantial LNG import bills in Europe and Asia.
According to Baltic Exchange data cited in the Wall Street Journal report, spot market LNG tanker rates have gone up sixfold since the start of the year, reaching $450,000 per day this week.
Brokers expect this to rise further to half a million dollars daily as demand remains strong ahead of winter. And that might not be the ceiling because one UK brokerage has forecast freight rates could soar to as much as $1 million per day before the year’s end.
An additional factor making the shipment of LNG more expensive is that a substantial portion of the available LNG fleet is currently being used as floating storage as traders await the price of the commodity to go higher still as winter begins. The Reuters report about the LNG tanker jams noted that LNG prices for delivery in November and December are $2 mmBtu higher than current prices.
The jams are also turning some of the tankers waiting to unload into floating storage, at least temporarily, helped by a dip in demand because of warmer-than-usual weather in Spain and lower industrial demand for gas across Europe because of the slowdown in economic activity, which in turn was caused by the gas shortage that began last year.
There’s more expensive news on the horizon, too. The restart of Freeport LNG, which shut down after a fire in June, hurting the affordability and availability aspects of Europe’s new-found LNG addiction, could be delayed.
Rystad Energy, the Norwegian energy consultancy, forecast recently that Freeport LNG could return to normal operations by the end of next month, but added that there is still the possibility of a delay. This delay, Rystad noted, could push gas prices higher in the United States. Higher U.S. gas prices would automatically increase LNG prices for the international market as well.
This is happening as the European Union tries to put its foot down and say it will install a ceiling on LNG prices. A proposal to that effect was made this week by the Commission and was discussed by European leaders at a meeting that took place on Thursday.
Even before the meeting, an agreement was unlikely as member states are split on the issue, but the push to tame gas prices and consequently, inflation is strong and some form of price control might end up being agreed to reduce the price pain.
There is some silver lining despite all the bad price news. China’s LNG imports are expected to decline sharply due to weak demand and high spot market prices, which will free up more cargos for Europe. It’s only too bad it cannot build more LNG import terminals in weeks.
Israel Destroys Iranian Drone-Making Plant In Syria
The Israeli Air Force reportedly destroyed an Iranian drone factory during a bombing raid on Syrian territory on Friday, coming at a moment that Iran-manufactured drones are focus on international attention for their alleged use by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The attack is being described as the first such Israeli operation in Syria in a month. Prior to this latest attack, Israeli attacks on Syria had come almost weekly. But Israel’s Haaretz in describing this new operation presented “a more complicated picture of a drone manufacturing and weapons storage site not far from Lebanon and Israel’s borders,” citing an external war monitor.
As is typical with Israeli actions, the aim was reportedly to disrupt an Iranian arms manufacturing operation believed to be supplying Hezbollah.
According to Newsmax, “The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the facility assembled unmanned vehicles whose parts were manufactured in Iran and then secretly shipped to Dimas in southern Syria, according to news outlets Ynet and Haaretz.”
The alleged drone and weapons manufacturing site also appeared an ideal target for Israeli forces as the depot wasn’t far from Lebanon and Israel’s borders. No casualties were officially reported as a result.
As for alleged Iranian drone use inside Ukraine, Russia has continued its official denials, particularly in the face of calls for a UN Security Council investigation. According to a weekend Associated Pressupdate:
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the drones are Russian and warned that an investigation would violate the U.N. Charter and seriously affect relations between Russia and the United Nations.
U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said that “the U.N. must investigate any violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions — and we must not allow Russia or others to impede or threaten the U.N. from carrying out its mandated responsibilities.”
The US push at the UN comes following two weeks of dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns coming under stepped-up aerial attacks by cruise missiles as well as drones.
Israel bombed equipment used to assemble Iranian-made drones in #Syria near Damascus airport.
A radar and airstrip were also targeted at the airport. However, no casualties have been reported so far.https://t.co/B5aRwDspsp
Ukraine and the US say they can prove Russia is using them, citing that Ukrainian forces have lately shot down at least 16 Shahed-136 ‘Kamikaze drones supplied from Iran. US and allied investigators are reportedly analyzing the wreckage of the drones.
Gear up for a cold Winter in France. The protests have started already…
Nuclear reactor image from WSJ Tweet below
Pipe corrosion, maintenance, and labor unrest have nearly half of French nuclear reactors offline.
France is falling behind in its plans to return the country’s nuclear reactors to full power this winter after a rash of outages https://t.co/3Xi7CZPmeJ
Twenty-six of France’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline for maintenance or because of corrosion on piping that cools the reactor cores. Fixing the corrosion is taking longer than expected at several reactors, delaying their restart by as much as six weeks, according to regulatory filings and a French nuclear executive familiar with the matter.
Labor unrest is another obstacle. Strikes at 18 reactors owned by EDF SA, France’s state-controlled power giant, have delayed their restart by several weeks, threatening the government’s plans to have all of them back online by the end of the winter. EDF and union leaders said they reached an agreement Friday on salary increases, ending the strikes.
EDF, the world’s largest owner of nuclear plants, is one of Western Europe’s most important power companies. Its fleet of reactors normally exports large quantities of low-cost nuclear power to neighboring countries, helping stabilize prices across the region.
The situation changed drastically this year, when France swung from being one of Europe’s largest exporters of electricity to a net importer because of the outages at its reactors. The rash of outages has officials worried that France and the broader region might run short of electricity in the winter, when power demand in Europe peaks.
The outages have forced EDF to absorb huge losses because the company was forced to buy replacement power on Europe’s wholesale market, where prices have soared, for sale to retail clients at much lower prices.
Labor Unions Call for General Strike
Labor unions in France are calling for a general strike to protest soaring inflationpic.twitter.com/ELhy6sfEQ8
Protests are still going in Europe in France, Italy, Holland and
The home of the EU, Brussels, packed to the rafters with people protesting against EU green policies killing the farming industry, the WEF, amongst other things. pic.twitter.com/Q1yOThRFAr
In France, irritated farmers dump you know what on the street to protest worsening economic conditions and surging inflation. Pres. Macron is in trouble.pic.twitter.com/WFVv0pydCu
Protests in France, Serbia, Germany, Italy, and Spain
🇫🇷🇷🇸🇩🇪🇮🇹🇪🇸 Protests against government policies in almost all of Europe! France, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. People are beginning to understand, despite media manipulation: EU policies have brought poverty, hunger and cold. 😨 pic.twitter.com/XSfZ2r3SWR
— 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 (@apocalypseos) October 17, 2022
Check Out This Line of People in France
140,000 people took part in the France protest.
There were calls for France to withdraw from NATO.
Leftists and trade unions organized protests against soaring living costs, inflation EU NATO #France#Parispic.twitter.com/vWVbqziEFh
140,000 people took part in the France protest. There were calls for France to withdraw from NATO. Leftists and trade unions organized protests against soaring living costs, inflation EU NATO
Just a Prelude
If those reactors don’t come back on line in time, and that’s a good bet, things are going to get really messy in Europe.
When Xi Jinping’s predecessor as leader of China and its Communist Party, Hu Jintao, was removed from the closing session of the Party Congress on Oct. 22 in full view of the 2,300 delegates, it was a demonstration to the world that Xi had swept aside all rivals and is now the undisputed ruler of the nation.
Yet, in his political report to the Congress, Xi listed an array of deep-seated problems, which his victory does nothing to resolve because they are the product of the political system he is determined to defend. Indeed, his victory will exacerbate these problems because in choosing subordinates, he has given priority to loyalty to him over experience and competence in government.
More importantly, the problems have essentially been caused by the very political system that Xi and his supporters are ever more determined to defend. They include economic problems like the debt mountain, an ecological catastrophe, a “zero-COVID” strategy that has led to isolation and perpetual lockdown, and the increasing hostility of the United States and its allies.
China’s body politic is terminally sick. It is like a person suffering from an advanced stage of uremia who can only be saved by a kidney transplant. China requires a political transplant: a democratic revolution.
Instead of systemic change, Xi has chosen a trajectory that has intensified China’s problems. He has replaced the “reform and opening” of Deng Xiaoping with regression and closure. He prioritizes state-owned enterprises over the private sector that produces the wealth. To rule, he relies upon techno-totalitarianism, not trust. His premature strategic challenge to the United States and its allies has turned their benign partnership into hostility and distrust. In all this, he is alienating 500 million Chinese who produce wealth, and enjoyed the newfound freedoms to create businesses, and travel and study abroad that Deng’s strategy brought them.
As unsolved problems give birth to crises – the debt mountain led first to the collapse of the property sector, and now to a slow-motion financial crisis – Xi will intensify confrontation with the United States and its allies, to mobilize nationalist sentiment behind him, exploiting the chauvinism long nurtured by the regime. This will be very dangerous for the world. Xi will be surrounded by yes-men who will not dare to restrain him.
We cannot sit back and wait for China’s autocracy to implode. We must be proactive.
We have great assets to mobilize, such as the world’s major reserve currencies, capital markets, pools of investment finance, and centers of scientific and technological creativity. After a slow start, the United States is taking decisive action; its allies must follow suit.
We cannot dictate how China is governed, but we can enable those Chinese who want systemic change to achieve it. Occasions such as the 20th Congress give a false picture. This is a regime that is outwardly strong and inwardly weak. If Xi were truly strong, he would not need to have his predecessor dragged out of the Congress. If the Party were truly confident, it would submit itself to the judgment of the people in free elections in place of this charade of strength and unity.
La Nina Transforms Australian Desert Into Wetlands
Australia is experiencing the third consecutive year of La Nina — an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that usually brings above-average rainfall to the country. Cooling of the western Indian Ocean is one of the drivers of La Nina and has transformed deserts into wetlands this year.
“With a third consecutive La Nina period on the way for only the fourth time since records began, large parts of Australia have seen unrelenting rainfall with little chance for the ground to dry up,” according to the Australian website news.com.au.
Sydney has already exceeded rainfall records dating back more than a century. The recent deluge of wet weather has been a relief for a country battling extreme drought, which sparked intense wildfires in 2019-20.
Rain has transformed deserts into areas overflowing with water in the country’s remote central region, especially in Channel Country, Queensland.
One cattle farmer about 300 miles West of Charleville told The Australian he was ‘blessed’ with rain.
“We couldn’t ask for anything better. We’re getting good rains at the right time,” farmer Nathan Keogh said.
“The stars couldn’t have aligned more perfectly. The cattle are fat and the pastures couldn’t be better.
“It lifts everybody’s spirits. It can be hard out here in drought times, but this is a game-changer. It’s a lot easier when it’s green.”
Another area in Channel Country shows rivers coming to life after all the rainfall.
“The region experiences flooding rains roughly once a decade, which spread across floodplains through Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory into Lake Eyre, bringing out some of the most unique wildflower scenery in the country,” news.com.au explained.
And mainstream media outlets like WaPo cite researchers who blame “climate change” for Australia’s flooding. We will note the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stating: “El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration.”
JPMorgan’s Bullish China Stock Call Is Backed By History
By Ye Xie and Amy Li, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and analysts
The meltdown that engulfed Chinese stocks Monday is a clear sign investors are worried that President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on power will exact a heavy toll on free enterprise and economic growth. But some Wall Street banks haven’t given up on China just yet. JPMorgan’s strategist Marko Kolanovic, for one, is urging investors to buy the dip (ZH: as he always does with everything).
While the quant guru’s bullish call on the nation’s assets has misfired this year, history shows a market rebound after a rout of this scale is more than likely.
Monday’s selloff in Chinese assets was savage with few precedents outside economic crises.
Following the Party Congress where Xi stuff the Politburo Standing Committee with his allies, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index of 65 Chinese stocks sank as much as 21%. The MSCI China Index fell more than 8%, the most since 2008. Foreign investors took out a record 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) from the mainland’s stock market via the connect programs — more than wiping out the inflows this year.
Markets are clearly worried that Xi’s consolidation of power means a likely continuation of recent economically damaging policies, including Covid Zero and the campaign to rein in private-sector enterprises. “The market got the feeling of a continuous lack of focus on the state of the Chinese economy,” said Giuliano Gasparet, head of equity at Generali Insurance Asset Management.
For some investors, though, the selloff may be overdone. “We believe this is a good opportunity to add given an expected growth recovery, gradual COVID reopening, and monetary and fiscal stimulus,” JPMorgan’s Kolanovic wrote in a note Monday.
The widely followed strategist has been one of the most vocal China bulls throughout the year, even as his colleague at one point controversially labeled Chinese stocks as “uninvestable.” (The word was never meant to see the light of day, Bloomberg later reported.)
Kolanovic’s thesis has been that China’s economic stimulus would lead to a recovery. Yet the call has floundered as continued Covid restrictions severely hampered the economy.
Still, he may be on to something this time. Prior to Monday, there have been only 13 times when the MSCI China Index tumbled at least 8% over the past three decades. The index rebounded in 11 out of those 13 occasions in the the next five days, and advanced 10 times in the following 60 days. In fact, since 1998, the hit ratio for the next 60 days is 100%.
These historic stats looks encouraging. But for the markets to have a sustained recovery, Beijing needs to retool its Covid policies and rebuild investor confidence. As Yan Wang, China strategist at Alpine Macro, puts it, “market volatility will remain high until investors get better clarity on how Xi Jinping will manage the country going forward.”
US Wants To Break Up Taiwan’s Chip Hub To Shield Supply Chains In Event Of China Invasion
The global semiconductor industry is entirely dominated by Taiwan. And that is a significant security risk for Western countries if China were to invade the island nation.
“If you allow yourself to think about a scenario where the United States no longer had access to the chips currently being made in Taiwan, it’s a scary scenario.
“It’s a deep and immediate recession. It’s an inability to protect ourselves by making military equipment. We need to make this in America,” US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CNBC this past summer.
In August, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a controversial trip to Taiwan. In one of her meetings, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. founder Morris Chang told Pelosi very bluntly that Washington’s efforts to rebuild domestic chip manufacturing would fail.
“He was pretty blunt, and the esteemed guests were a bit surprised,” one person familiar with the talks told Financial Times.
As tensions between Taiwan and China mount, Washington plans to shift the global semiconductor supply chain out of the region to the US and elsewhere. And the reason for it is due to a scenario where China invades or blockades Taiwan, which would mean the global chip industry would grind to a halt overnight.
“If China cuts off TSMC’s supply chain, it could cause a major crisis in the world economy,” said Paul Clifford, a non-resident fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. TSMC is moving toward shifting “some of their production out of Taiwan because of that concern.”
Jason Hsu, a former Taiwanese lawmaker and now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the US is playing a delicate balancing act by pressuring TSMC to move production lines to the US while it unleashes an economic war on China’s semiconductor industry. He said that puts Taiwan at risk.
The West’s concerns around Taiwan’s security and independence are why the Biden administration is pursuing the CHIPS Act to expand domestic semiconductor output. One problem for TSMC is that Washington is beginning to diversify chip manufacturing away from Taiwan.
For example, the Pentagon’s dependency on Taiwan for chips that power leading-edge devices and weapons is central to the battle for tech supremacy between the US and China. Due to future disruption risks, the DoD has to source chips from more secure supply chains.
Besides the US, there are efforts in Europe, Japan, Singapore, and India to increase semiconductor manufacturing. New manufacturing plants could take a couple of years to start producing chips.
The West’s strategy to diversify semiconductor supply chains out of Taiwan is becoming more clear:
“Everyone realizes that there is a big watershed moment here for the whole industry,” said Peter Hanbury, a partner and expert in semiconductor and technology supply chains at Bain, the consultancy. “But it kind of snuck up on people.”
Credit Suisse analysts recently pointed out if Taiwan’s chip plants were disrupted for any reason. The production of automobiles to computers would be severely impacted.
As of right now, the West’s goal is to break up Taiwan’s chip hub, though, as we noted earlier, TSMC’s Chang warned that any such move would fail.
However, TSMC customers are already looking to diversify production out of the region, as explained by Sebastian Hou, managing director at Neuberger Berman, an investment management company:
“There have been some concerns among TSMC customers since two years ago … It was the time when in Taiwan we started to have more fighter jets from China hovering around the Taiwan Strait, and that has become a daily routine.”
So far, those customers include Qualcomm and Nvidia, who have recently stated that some chip production from TSMC’s facilities would be shifted elsewhere.
Hanbury said the big question would be if Apple changes manufacturing partners due to the increasing risks in the Taiwan Strait.
“Taiwan’s monopoly in semiconductor production creates instability,” Brad Martin, director of the National Security Supply Chain Institute at the Rand Corporation, said. “If the US is faced with a need to make a decision between protecting its economy and defending Taiwan, that starts to become a very stark decision.”
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the West wants TSMC and others in Taiwan to shift chip production elsewhere, so chip supplies aren’t drastically disrupted in the event of a China invasion.
We won’t waste our readers’ time going into the details (they can click on the hyperlink above for the details), suffice to point out that since then, the yen has cratered by about 30 big figures…
… prompting the BOJ to intervene, in an act of futile desperation, in the FX market by blowing what now appears to be $50 billion (and rising fast) in open market yen purchases to contain the collapse of the currency. Of course, until and unless the BOJ ends YCC, all interventions will be completely pointless, and the USDJPY can easily hit 200 within the next 12 months unless Kuroda allows the 10Y yield to rise above 0.25%… which he won’t do as the alternative is an immediate bond market collapse.
But while the yen has been remarkable, it is the move in the yuan that has been the real stunner… just as we predicted. Behold the biggest stealth devaluation in modern Chinese history!
And tonight, one day after the biggest drop in US-traded Chinese stocks following the absolute revulstion to what happened in China over the weekend, it went from bad to worse for the offshore yuan which cratered as low as 7.3686, a relentless drop in recent days and the lowest level on record for the offshore yuan…
… which was sparked by the official fixing of the onshore yuan at 7.1668, which while still stronger than the estimate of 7.2198 (if well of record spreads observed in the past few weeks), was still the weakest reference rate in 14 years. In kneejerk reaction, the USDCNY, which is limited how far away from the reference rate it can trade, immediately proceeded to dump by 0.6% to 7.3050, the highest (i.e., weakest) since Dec. 2007.
Commenting on the move, Mizuho Bank Asia FX strategist Ken Cheung said that the yuan fixing at 7.1668 is “a clear sign of the PBOC letting go of the currency as outflow pressure mounts” adding that “the weaker fixing means the policies are going back to normal after the 20th party congress.”
Cheung also wrote that “the previous CNY fixing guidance could be a temporary measure and the PBOC is now letting the CNY to be more driven by market forces.”
Which begs just two questions: how long until the current stealth devaluation which has seen the yuan drop the fastest 15% on record, is called for what it is, especially when compared to the dwarf of an official devlauation that took place back in August 2015.
The second question: the last time China devalued aggressively – and officially – bitcoin saw its first sizable move from the low-hundreds into four digits. Will this time Beijing be successful at blocking off the capital flight firewall, or will those $55 trillion in Chinese bank assets finally starting moving out again…
And then there is thinking inside a bubble which is in a box in a cage in the basement tucked behind the furnace with a giant sign “Beware of the Leopard!” draped across it (apologies to Douglas Adams.)
In politics – as in some many aspects of life – it’s always handy to know where your enemies are. In this case the DC Democrats are right there, which is right where we want them.
From the utterly oblivious nonsense coming out of Nancy Pelosi – inflation and crime are not big issues this November – to the inability of any major Democrat to even hint about being open to any limits on abortion – well, they may get Cartman’s mom from “South Park” vote at least –
– to doubling down on “climate change” as people are facing utility rate hikes and power grid instability, the tone deafness is astonishing.
But why is this happening – why are the Democrats focusing on what, the polls clearly state, are not the major concerns of voters?
One possibility is that they are true believers and absolutely mean everything they say and are cretain they are making the world better and are just fighting an honest and truthful fight.
Mm-hmm.
Another possibility is that they are rock paper stupid, but there is a difference between intellectual dishonesty and intellectual deficiency and it would seem the former, not the latter, would make more sense (though one must also wonder if it is inconceivable to them that they may not represent the feelings and ideas of the general public –
Then there is the knowledge that they can win because the game is so rigged by the media, voting systems, and the power to shame away from polite society anyone or thing that would dare to ask for better explanations of the whys and wherefores of their policies, let alone disagree with them. This confidence that they can run a hamster on a platform of giving each and every tweaker in the nation a bag of cash and a machete and still prevail definitely plays a role in the Democrat mindset. Look at New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, etc. and it’s pretty much what they’ve been running on locally and winning so it seems to work.
Of course, a major difficulty with running on the issues voters care about is that the voters care about them because the Democrats made them care by causing the problems in the first place – inflation, crime, energy instability, etc. can all be appropriately laid at their feet
But it may be a combination of all those things plus one extra very important fact: they are only talking amongst themselves.
Imagine a conference room full of Democratic operatives strategizing campaign themes and one says “hey, maybe we should layoff the January 6 stuff and focus on issues that the vast majority of everyday Americans really care about?”
The first sound heard in response would be crickets. The second sound would be of a pink slip hitting the table. The third sound would be the revocation of a building security clearance. The fourth sound would be the pinging of cell phones as the entire room simultaneously engages in ritualized contact info removal.
In other words, many Democratic candidates are engaged in campaigns that are not being run by people who are- first and foremost – interested in winning but by people who are deathly afraid of saying the wrong thing, being socially ostracized, and seeing their future careers instantaneously evaporate in a woke cloud of revenge.
It’s one of the reasons why excuses for the upcoming mid-term bloodbath are already coming out – it wasn’t us or our ideas but it was the Saudis and the oil companies conspiring to raise gas prices – https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/gas-prices-biden-approval-rating-midterms-democrats.html– and Trump is a liar and people are stupid and evil – MSNBC’s execrable Joy Reid tweeted “It’s terrifying how many Americans will choose literal fascism, female serfdom, climate collapse and the reversal of everything from Social Security & Medicare to student loan relief bc they think giving Republicans the power to investigate Hunter Biden will bring down gas prices” – and Trump is evil and people can’t vote – https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/democrats-bad-midterm-polls-bad-vibes.html – and on and on.
It’s also the reason for this –
For those unaware, Allan Fung is a Republican who may very well take – it’s a toss-up, maybe even leaning his way, right now – a congressional seat in deep blue Rhode Island. This race has gained the attention of the House Majority PAC – which was created by Pelosi as part of her effort to indenture to herself every other Democrat in Congress by controlling huge amounts of campaign cash – that has just begun airing the above advertisement on the state.
A short breakdown of the ad (do watch if you have 30 seconds): It begins by invoking Charlottesville (really?) kids in cages (again, really?) and January 6 (no surprise there), then has Trump inciting a riot “resulting in the death of five police officers (huh? are they counting Ashli Babbitt?) to overturn the election, and finishing with the obligatory “Fung is too loyal to Trump, too extreme” boilerplate.
The most fascinating part of the ad is the photo the Democrat creators chose to end the spot with – Fung happily standing with two people; their faces are pixelated but one is a woman wearing an American flag scarf and the other is a man dressed as a Revolutionary War soldier, complete with tri-corner hat and red, white, and blue uniform. That means that someone specifically chose to represent evil Trumpian fascism with the flag and Independence Day.
Seriously.
Locally, Fung is running inflation and heating oil price increases and opposing tax hikes ads; Pelosi – and Fung’s opponent Seth Magaziner – are running things like the above and commercials about abortion and the standard “Kevin McCarthy will end Social Security” claptrap.
Yes, Rhode Island is “blue” but, more importantly, it’s pretty blue collar (outside of Brown University, East Greenwich, Jamestown, Barrington, and half of Newport, of course, and only one of which is in the district) so the disconnect between potential Democratic voters and existing Democratic politicians and strategists is all the more glaring.
That failed campaign managers – see Steve Schmidt, who went from Meg Whitman’s malpractice of a California gubernatorial campaign to the Lincoln Project grift and Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore’s 2000 poorly targeted effort and after still got a number of sweet gigs – can go on with their lives as long as they can blame something else for losing is a well-known fact in DC circles as long as you keep the consultanocracy and media establishment well and truly oiled.
This fact is obvious to the folks behind Katie Hobbs’ desert disaster, Kathy Hochul’s “empire strikes back” campaign, and Nevada’s Sisolak betting on the hard way.
And, staying in Nevada, there is the issue of rank incompetence caused by the groupthink political blinders. The House Majority PAC has run an abortion-related advertisement against April Becker, the Republican running in the 3rd congressional district. The ad features Dr. Adam Levy, intoning against “botched, back-alley abortions…far too many women died…” etc. The problem with the ad, beyond the obvious, is that Dr. Levy not only has himself caused the death of a patient during a botched abortion but was also charged with sexual assault of a minor under 16 years old and lewdness with a child under 14 years old, eventually entering an “Alford” plea to lesser charges of abuse and neglect.
But if you don’t play along and actually try to win by ignoring the hivemind obsessed with identity politics and Trump and abortion and Trump and January 6 and Trump and suggest trying – somehow – to connect on issues that matter to typical voters?
Adios, sayonara, goodbye, and never darken our doors again.
Hong Kong Government Loses Court Bid To Invalidate 20,000 Vaccine Exemptions
A challenge that mounted earlier this month in Hong Kong to invalidate Covid vaccine exemptions issued by certain doctors has lost in court.
In late September, Hong Kong sought to invalidate certain Covid exemptions issues by doctors who were suspected of malpractice.
Big brother really seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. As if enough people hadn’t already been forced into getting the jab, Hong Kong police “arrested six doctors last month for allegedly issuing vaccination exemption letters without conducting proper consultations,” SCMP wrote last week.
From there, the government made a legal challenge to 20,000 vaccination exemption certificates linked to doctors over suspected malpractice in the country’s High Court. But the court then ruled that the government has no power to invalidate the exemptions and a temporary ban on a plan to revoke the exemptions will now likely become permanent.
The country’s health secretary couldn’t identify the source of his authority, Mr Justice Russell Coleman ruled: “A government minister gets his or her legal powers from legislation – and not from an announcement made in a press release.”
“It does not seem to me to be correct to leap from the desirability of enabling the secretary to ‘do something’ when some [medical exemption certificates] are called into question to the conclusion that [the law] must be read as conferring such a power,” his ruling continued.
“The question does not identify a choice between being ‘pro-government’ or ‘anti-government’; it identifies a distinction between what is lawful and what is unlawful,” the ruling continued.
Litigant Kwok Cheuk-kin was granted an application to restrain authorities from invalidating the certificates. According to reporting by SCMP, he then called the ruling a “miserable loss” for the government and a “disgrace” to city leader John Lee Ka-chiu.
Executive councillor and barrister Ronny Tong Ka-wah said that the government was considering an appeal. “Amending the laws is not moving the goalposts. The goalposts are in the wrong position so, of course, we have to put them in the right place,” he said.
“The citizens of Hong Kong are the biggest winners of the present judicial challenge,” Kwok concluded. You can read the full SCMP writeup here.
