The US Treasury Department on Tuesday has announced new anti-Wagner sanctions in a belated attempt to cut off the group’s weapons funding, at a moment the Russian government has essentially pardoned the mercenary outfit for treasonous actions. It remains unclear what role Wagner will play inside Russia, if any, as its founder Yevegny Prigozhin sets up shop in neighboring Belarus after President Lukashenko mediated a deal on his behalf.

The fresh sanctions, announced Tuesday, target four companies accused of “gold dealing” on Wagner’s behalf as well as an individual Washington says made “weapons deals” tied to Wagner.

Companies in Russia, the UAE, and Central African Republic “have engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund the Wagner Group to sustain and expand its armed forces, including in Ukraine and Africa,” according to the Treasury statement. Wagner in Africa is essentially a foreign policy arm of the Kremlin, which might explain why Moscow sees the group as somewhat indispensable.

Africa has lately been known as a place with the largest Wagner mercenary presence outside of the Ukraine conflict, which has deeply alarmed Washington and West. The US and its allies have long hoped to thwart and dismantle Wagner’s presence there, and deal-making with multiple African governments. 

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement, “The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali.”

“The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else.”

And the individual listed, identified as Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov (Ivanov), is a Russian executive of Wagner Group who “worked closely with Prigozhin’s entity Africa Politology and senior Malian government officials on weapons deals, mining concerns, and other Wagner Group activities in Mali,” the Treasury statement alleged.

The Treasury announcement further says action is being taken against a gold mine directly owned by Prigozhin:

Diamville SAU (Diamville) is a gold and diamond purchasing company based in the CAR and controlled by Prigozhin. Diamville is one of several Prigozhin-connected entities that is intimately involved in the CAR mining sector. In 2022, Diamville participated in a gold selling scheme that entailed converting CAR-origin gold into U.S. dollars. Following the imposition of U.S. sanctions on several Russian financial institutions, participants in the scheme planned to move the proceeds by transferring cash by hand. Additionally, Diamville shipped diamonds mined in the CAR to buyers in the UAE and in Europe.

The Treasury statement identifies Mali as a major base of Wagner’s illicit activities in Africa.

Going back years, the Malian government has contracted with Wagner to assist its national armed forces in rooting out al-Qaeda affiliated groups which are active there. Wagner has recently come under allegations of massacring civilians in the context of its large firefights with Islamist insurgents.

Authored by Debbie Lerman via The Brownstone Institute,

Scandalous incompetence. Profound stupidity. Astounding errors. This is how many analysts – including Dr. Vinay Prasad, Dr. Scott Atlas, and popular Substack commentator eugyppius – explain how leading public health experts could prescribe so many terrible pandemic response policies.

And it’s true: the so-called experts certainly have made themselves look foolish over the last three years: Public health leaders like Rochelle Walensky and Anthony Fauci make false claims, or contradict themselves repeatedly, on subjects related to the pandemic response, while leading scientists, like Peter Hotez in the US and Christian Drosten in Germany, are equally susceptible to such flip-flops and lies. Then there are the internationally renowned medical researchers, like Eric Topol, who repeatedly commit obvious errors in interpreting Covid-related research studies. [ref]

All of these figures publicly and aggressively promoted anti-public health policies, including universal masking, social distancing, mass testing and quarantining of healthy people, lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

It seems like an open-and-shut case: Dumb policies, dumb people in charge of those policies. 

This might be true in a few individual cases of public health or medical leaders who really are incapable of understanding even high school level science. However, if we look at leading pandemic public health and medical experts as a group – a group consisting of the most powerful, widely published, and well-paid researchers and scientists in the world – that simple explanation sounds much less convincing. 

Even if you believe that most medical researchers are shills for pharmaceutical companies and that scientists rarely break new ground anymore, I think you’d be hard-pressed to claim that they lack basic analytical skills or a solid educational background in the areas they’ve studied. Most doctors and scientists with advanced degrees know how to analyze simple scientific documents and understand basic data. 

Additionally, those doctors and public health professionals who were deemed experts during the pandemic were also clever enough to have climbed the academic, scientific, and/or government ladders to the highest levels.

They might be unscrupulous, sycophantic, greedy, or power-mongering. You might think they make bad moral or ethical decisions. But it defies logic to say that every single one of them understands simple scientific data less than, say, someone like me or you. In fact, I find that to be a facile, superficial judgment that does not get to the root cause of their seemingly stupid, incompetent behavior.

Returning to some specific examples, I would argue that it is irrational to conclude, as Dr. Prasad did, that someone like Dr. Topol, Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has published over 1,300 peer-reviewed articles and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine [ref] cannot read research papers “at a high level.” And it is equally unlikely that Anthony Fauci, who managed to ascend and remain atop the highest scientific perch in the federal government for many decades, controlling billions of dollars in research grants [ref], was too dumb to know that masks don’t stop viruses.

There must, therefore, be a different reason why all the top pro-lockdown scientists and public health experts – in perfect lockstep – suddenly started (and continue to this day) to misread studies and advocate policies that they had claimed in the past were unnecessary, making themselves look like fools.

Public health experts were messengers for the biodefense response

The most crucial single fact to know and remember when trying to understand the craziness of Covid times is this:

The public health experts were not responsible for pandemic response policy. The military-intelligence-biodefense leadership was in charge.

In previous articles, I examined in great detail the government documents that show how standard tenets of public health pandemic management were abruptly and secretly thrown out during Covid. The most startling switch was the replacement of the public health agencies by the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security at the helm of pandemic policy and planning.

As part of the secret switch, all communications – defined in every previous pandemic planning document as the responsibility of the CDC – were taken over by the National Security Council under the auspices of the White House Task Force. The CDC was not even allowed to hold its own press conferences!

 As a Senate report from December 2022 notes:

From March through June 2020, CDC was not permitted to conduct public briefings, despite multiple requests by the agency and CDC media requests were “rarely cleared.” HHS stated that by early April 2020, “after several attempts to get approvals,” its Office of Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs “stopped asking” the White House “for a while.” (p. 8)

When public health and medical experts blanketed the airwaves and Internet with “recommendations” urging universal masking, mass testing and quarantining of asymptomatic people, vaccine mandates, and other anti-public health policies – or when they promoted obviously flawed studies that supported the quarantine-until-vaccine biodefense agenda – they were not doing so because they were dumb, incompetent, or misguided. 

They were performing the role that the leaders of the national security/biodefense response gave them: to be the trusted public face that made people believe quarantine-until-vaccine was a legitimate public health response. 

Why did public health leaders go along with the biodefense agenda?

We have to imagine ourselves in the position of public health and medical experts at top government positions when the intelligence-military-biodefense network took over the pandemic response. 

What would you do if you were a government employee, or a scientist dependent on government grants, and you were told that the quarantine-until-vaccine policy was actually the only way to deal with this particular engineered potential bioweapon?

How would you behave if an unprecedented event in human history happened on your watch: an engineered virus designed as a potential bioweapon was spreading around the world, and the people who designed it told you that terrifying the entire population into locking down and waiting for a vaccine was the only way to stop it from killing many millions? 

More mundanely, if your position and power depended on going along with whatever the powers-that-be in the NSC and DHS told you to do – if your job and livelihood were on the line – would you go against the narrative and risk losing it all?

And, finally, in a more venal vain: what if you stood to gain a lot more money and/or power by advocating for policies that might not be the gold standard of public health, but that you told yourself could bring about major innovations (vaccines/countermeasures) that would save humanity from future pandemics?

We know how the most prominent Covid “experts” answered those questions. Not because they were dumb, but because they had a lot to lose and/or a lot to gain by going along with the biodefense narrative – and they were told millions would die if they failed to do so.

Why understanding the motives of public health leaders during Covid is so important

Paradoxically, deeming public health experts stupid and incompetent actually reinforces the consensus narrative: that lockdowns and vaccines were part of a public health plan. In this reading, the response may have been terrible, or it may have gone awry, but it was still just a stupid public health plan designed by incompetent public health leaders.

Such a conclusion leads to calls for misguided and necessarily ineffectual solutions: Even if we replaced every single HHS employee or defunded the HHS or even the WHO altogether, we would not solve the problem and would be poised to repeat the entire pandemic fiasco all over again.

The only way to avoid such repetition is to recognize the Covid catastrophe for what it was: an international counterterrorism effort focused myopically on lockdowns and vaccines, to the exclusion of all traditional and time-tested public health protocols.

We need to wake up to the fact that, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (if not earlier), we have ceded control of the agencies that are supposed to be in charge of public health to an international military-intelligence-pharmaceutical cartel. 

This “public-private partnership” of bioterrorism experts and vaccine developers is not interested in public health at all, except as a cover for their very secret and very lucrative biowarfare research and countermeasure development.

Public health was shunted aside during the Covid pandemic, and the public health leaders were used as trusted “experts” to convey biowarfare edicts to the population. Their cooperation does not reflect stupidity or incompetence. Making such claims contributes to the coverup of the much more sinister and dangerous transfer of power that their seemingly foolish behavior was meant to hide.

Earlier this month, UBS Group AG successfully “completed” the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse. With the merger completed, UBS plans to begin the first phase of a massive headcount reduction of Credit Suisse’s workforce in July. 

The upcoming layoffs should not be a surprise to readers. We have detailed “Massive Layoffs On Deck At Credit Suisse“ and “UBS Reportedly Re-Starts Layoffs” following a $3 billion deal, first announced in March and brokered by the Swiss regulators that allowed UBS to purchase the struggling Swiss lender.

As previously noted, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti has been hush-hush about what’s on the chopping block at Credit Suisse. He was recently brought back to ensure the integration of the two banks, which could take several years, will go smoothly. 

A person familiar with the upcoming layoffs told Bloomberg that half of Credit Suisse’s workforce, including bankers, traders, and support staff across New York, London, and Asia offices, will be fired. There will be three rounds, with the first expected next month and two other rounds between September and October. 

The person stated the headcount at Credit Suisse stands approximately at 45,000. When UBS took over the troubled lender, its workforce jumped to about 120,000. It plans to cut jobs to save $6 billion. Two people said UBS would reduce its headcount by 30%, or 35,000 people. 

The people said UBS hopes to keep most of Credit Suisse’s private bankers. However, many have departed from the bank. 

The people said that the first round of job cuts is related to the “extensive overlap” in both banks’ domestic operations. 

Ermotti has stated that the “base case scenario” for UBS is to keep Credit Suisse’s domestic unit. The people expect businesses to be fully merged. 

An incoming tsunami of bank layoffs at Credit Suisse will add to the thousands of firings this year and last. Bloomberg Vonnie Quinn said Monday that bank layoffs are mounting and quite possibly the worst since the financial crisis. 

In an audio recording subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith, former President Donald Trump is heard showing people without security clearances a document that Trump describes as a “highly confidential” Pentagon plan to attack Iran. In the newest example of selective dedication to secrecy depending on whether it serves the establishment agenda, the recording appears to have been leaked, with CNN first to share the two-minute audio segment, followed by The New York Times and others. 

The recorded conversation was referenced in the 49-page indictment of Trump, who was charged on June 8 with 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 via “willful retention” of classified records, along with six charges relating to false statements or obstruction of justice in regard to his alleged efforts to impede the special counsel investigation. 

CNN plays a recording of Donald Trump discussing classified documents:

“It’s like highly confidential…This is secret information.” pic.twitter.com/h3YaLkdzmF

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) June 27, 2023

Trump’s statements in the recording appear to contradict two defenses he’s publicly advanced regarding the case:

• In a Fox News interview earlier this month, Bret Baier asked Trump about the part of the indictment that describes the conversation. Trump denied that he was showing a classified document, claiming he was only sharing “newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.” In the recording, however, he refers to a Pentagon plan that is “secret” and “like, highly confidential.” 

• Trump has claimed he declassified any documents that were in his possession, even saying he could “declassify…even by thinking about it.” However, as he talks about the Iran attack plan in the recording, Trump says, “See, as president I could have declassified it, but now I can’t.”

Present at the July 2021 conversation at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey were Trump, a writer and a publisher working on an autobiography for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and at least two Trump aides.  

Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed a copy of the tape that was in the possession of Trump’s current deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, who was one of the aides present for the conversation.The 27-year-old Oklahoma native was questioned about the recording during a grand jury appearance.    

Trump was showing his guests the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iran as a means of refuting a claim by his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley. In July 2021 — the same month as the recording — Milley told the New Yorker that he spent the last four months of the Trump presidency trying to make sure Trump didn’t start a war with Iran as part of a scheme to remain in power after his term was set to end. 

In the recording, Trump portrays the Pentagon as having initiated planning for an attack and cites the document as proof: 

“Well, with Milley…let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. [PAPERS SHUFFLING] Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look, [PAPERS SHUFFLING], this was him. They presented me with this — this is off the record — but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Department of Defense and him.”

Of course, the mere existence of a DOD plan to attack Iran doesn’t necessarily eliminate the possibility that Trump — who seemingly checked off every item on billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson’s Israel-policy wish list except for war with Iran — may have asked the Pentagon to show him an option.

However, Trump tells his guests, “This totally wins my case you know…except, it is like, highly confidential.” Women are heard laughing, and then the discussion turns to the problem of how the purportedly Milley-refuting Iran plan could be brought to public knowledge.

“See, as president, I could have declassified it,” Trump says, eliciting more laughs. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” A staffer replies, “Yeah. Now we a have a problem.” 

In the Bret Baier interview, here’s how Trump described what was being discussed in the conversation:

“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. It may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”

There’s also laughter on the tape when a staffer — referring to the secret nature of the Iran plan — suggests that Hillary Clinton “would print that out all the time, you know.” Trump wisecracks, “She’d send it to Anthony Weiner. The pervert.” 

Most mainstream media reports on entirely omit Trump’s reference to Weiner. Some, like the New York Times and even the New York Post, reported that Weiner was discussed, but chose not to share Trump’s punch line. The Times even quoted Trump spokesman Steven Cheung as saying Trump was “speaking…quite humorously” about Wiener, yet the Times doesn’t let its audience know what Cheung is referring to, beyond a vague reference to “a quip.” 

It’s as if major outlets feel duty-bound to protect the nonexistent dignity of the utterly-disgraced former New York Democratic congressman and ex-husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. While married and in Congress, Weiner couldn’t stop sending sexual photos of himself to a series of women, before ultimately being jailed for sending obscene material to a 15-year-old who made her age clear to him. 

The two-minute recording ends with a product placement: Trump is heard saying, “Bring some Cokes in, please.”  

And as former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman notes; “Help me with this: DOJ is prosecuting Trump for sharing information with a reporter, when DOJ itself shared the same information with CNN.“

Strong housing data today is bad news for The Fed – and the market’s ‘pause-hopers’ – as it threatens to re-ignite the Owners Equivalent Rent segment of CPI (which has rolled over and is helping with the recent trend of disinflation).

For context, the housing macro data is seeing the biggest serial upside surprises since 2003…

Source: Bloomberg

Consumer confidence also spiked, according to The Conference Board, and Durable Goods orders also surged in May. All-in-all, hot, damned hot, as overall macro surprise data is soaring…

Source: Bloomberg

And that all sent hawkish shivers through the STIRs market – with a 25bp hike in July now trading at 75% odds (and that terminal rate – around 5.35% – holding through year-end)…

Source: Bloomberg

But long-duration stocks didn’t care. In fact from the moment the cash market opened, we were off to the races as the algos lifted everything (with Small Caps and Nasdaq leading the charge). The Dow lagged, weighed down by WBA’s weakness. Some late-day selling, profit-taking wiped a little lipstick off the pig…

Options-traders (all expiration and 0-DTE) panic-bought calls all day…

Source: SpotGamma

Which ignited a huge short-squeeze. ‘Most shorted’ stocks surged over 4% from their lows…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX was lower again on the day and with stocks higher, the outlier correlation of VIX and S&P has begun to fade from 30 year highs…

Source: Bloomberg

From around 1130ET, the market barely saw any negative TICKs…

Source: Bloomberg

Before we leave equity-land, we note that while many have noted the concentration of equity market performance, we point out that the ‘median’ stock’s performance is dramatically decoupled from the S&P 500 cap-weighted indices. We note that the last time these two indices decoupled to this scale was Q4 2021 (marking the peak in the S&P 500)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were all higher on the day with the belly underperforming (3Y +8bps, 30Y +2bps). Yields are all higher on the week now…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve (3s30s) flattened (inverted deeper) almost back to pre-SVB lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Bonds (even Bills) continue to offer an alternative (6mo bill yields at their widest vs the S&P’s earnings yield since Jan 2001)…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was lower on the day – despite the hawkish shift in rates – dumped during the early Asian market (Yuan strength) and then going nowhere…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin surged overnight up to $31,000 but fell back – still closing higher though…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices tumbled ahead of tonight’s API data, with WTI unable to hold $70, falling back to the recent range lows…

Gold continues to make lower highs and lower lows, back to 3-month lows…

Finally, to sum everything up…strong data (hawkish ‘good is bad’ signal), rate-hike odds up (hawkish response), stocks up (implied dovish signal, easing financial conditions), bond yields up (hawkish response to less recession risk, Fed reaction function), dollar down (implied dovish response to a hawkish shift?), commodities down (implied demand fears from hawkish response).

Longer-term things have ‘decoupled;…

Source: Bloomberg

Confused yet? Are macro data surprises at “as good as it gets” levels?

Anheuser-Busch has fired two marketing executives who were placed on leave after destroying the Bud Light brand with an advertising campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

According to the Daily Caller, Group VP for Marketing Daniel Blake, and Bud Light Marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid are “gone, gone” after initially being placed on leave, per an anonymous source.

“To my understanding if we publicly announced the word ‘fire’ it opens up the potential for them to sue us. Thats why we said leave of absence,” said the source in a text message to the Caller. “The wholesalers would have had an absolute HAY DAY with leadership if they didn’t remove her.” (Or maybe a field day?)

“To be fair- Daniel Blake was actually awesome. I think he was just caught in cross fire. But also he did hire her… so thats a fault,” the source continued.

“Wholesalers were told they are both gone for good by leadership during in person conversations. They already shifted all their direct reports to new people and the head of marketing,” they said.

Earlier in June, Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch opened an email the Caller sent asking for specifics about Blake and Heinerscheid but did not reply. The Caller specifically asked whether the two were still on leave, whether they were on paid leave or unpaid leave and whether they would be returning to work if they hadn’t yet. The company was given multiple days to respond to the deadline.

Bud Light has faced heavy criticism and lost its spot as America’s top-selling beer in early June due to a boycott that began after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney showed off a personalized beer can featuring the influencer’s face.  -Daily Caller

One Anheuser-Busch distributor told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, “Our year is screwed” because of slumping sales and since they don’t carry Modelo, which has taken the top spot.

For the week ending June 3, Bud Light sales were still down 24%, while Modelo Especial was up 12%. The latest numbers follow Memorial Day weekend images shared on social media showing desperate retailers marking 18-packs of Bud Light all the way down to just $2.99. 

Betting on a new ad campaign to stop the bleeding is a gamble. Dave Williams, vice president of consumer insights and analytics at Bump Williams, told USA Today this week that Bud Light faces further declines and Modelo will continue to take market share nationwide. 

Bud Light has an uphill battle to regain its customer base after abandoning them for a clownish trans-TikTok star. The damage seems irreversible as many beer drinkers have realized the light beer is ‘piss water masquerading as beer.’

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

While voters continue to have serious concerns about Joe Biden’s mental health, they are even less impressed with his vice president, according to the latest national NBC News poll.

Kamala Harris has a historically low approval rating of 32 percent in survey, compared with 49 percent who have a negative view of her. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they had a “very negative” view of Harris.

Her net negative rating of -17 is reportedly the worst for any vice president in the NBC poll’s history.

In Oct. 2019, then-Vice President Mike Pence had a 34% positive, 38% negative rating (-4).

In Dec. 2010, Joe Biden’s rating was 34% positive, 33% negative (+1).

In May 2003, Dick Cheney was at 47% positive, 24% negative (+23).

And in March of 1995, Al Gore’s rating in the poll was 42% positive, 27% negative (+15).

Kamala Harris’ terrible poll numbers come amid a concerted White House effort to broaden her appeal so she isn’t a liability on the Biden/Harris reelection campaign trail. While both Biden and Harris have seen historically low approval ratings throughout their time in office, Harris has consistently been the more unpopular of the two.

Axios reported in April that Senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn tasked White House political teams to schedule events featuring Harris promoting issues like abortion that are popular with their left-wing base.

Over the weekend, Harris marked the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling by blasting pro-life lawmakers as “extremists.”

“This fight is not only about people in one particular state; these extremists plan to take their agenda national. And that agenda, by the way, goes way beyond reproductive rights,” Harris declared at a pro-abortion rally Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Many of these same folks attack the right to vote, which prevents the teaching of America’s history.”

Harris claimed that pro-life Republicans are passing laws in State legislatures that deprive women of health care “rights,” and they “don’t even understand how a woman’s body actually works,” despite the fact that many pro-life lawmakers are women.

In the NBC poll also found that Joe Biden had a 43 percent job-approval rating among all registered voters, with 53 percent disapproving.

A combined 44 percent of registered voters say they’d “definitely” or “probably” consider voting for a third-party or independent candidate for president — if the other candidates include Biden and Trump. That’s a greater share than the poll found saying that in the 2008 and 2012 cycles, but it’s down slightly from the 46 percent who said they’d consider a third-party candidate in 2016.

The survey also showed that majorities of registered voters had concerns about the mental and physical health of both Biden and former president Donald Trump.

Sixty-eight percent of voters were concerned that Biden doesn’t have the necessary mental and physical health to be president, including 55 percent who said they have “major” concerns, compared with 55 percent who said they have concerns about Trump’s mental and physical health, including 44 percent who had major concerns.

Despite these concerns, Biden has an edge over Trump in a head to head matchup, garnering support from 49 percent of registered voters versus Trump’s 45 percent.

In this hypothetical rematch, Biden enjoys advantages among women (55 percent-38 percent), voters 18-34 (65 percent-30 percent), Latinos (66 percent-26 percent) and Black voters (73 percent-20 percent), as well as independents (47 percent-33 percent) and those who “somewhat” disapprove of Biden’s job as president (50 percent-39 percent).

Trump, meanwhile, has the edge among white voters (51 percent-43 percent), men (51 percent-42 percent), whites without college degrees (60 percent-35 percent) and rural voters (68 percent-26 percent).

In a hypothetical contest between Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the two men are tied at 47 percent each.

Ford is now the latest U.S. company to announce sweeping layoffs, with Bloomberg reporting this week that the auto manufacturer plans to lay off “hundreds of salaried workers” that are primarily engineers. Monetary policy continues to work wonders.

The layoffs are part of a plan to boost profits and lower operating costs as the company shifts toward EVs, the report says. And after all, who needs engineers when you can adopt Tesla’s technology, like Ford announced it would be doing with charging standards just weeks ago?

The cuts will be to engineers in EVs, traditional combustion engine models and commercial vehicles, the company said. The layoffs will number in the hundreds, despite CEO Jim Farley claiming earlier this year the company would need 25% more engineers than rivals to produce its EVs. 

The company expects to lose $3 billion in 2023 on its EV business but hopes for 8% returns on battery powered models by the end of 2026. Ford plans on building 2 million EVs per year by that point. 

T.R. Reid, a company spokesman, told Bloomberg: “We’re not cost competitive. We have specific priorities and ambitions that have implications for skills, assignments and staffing needs. These changes are consistent with that. They’ll make us cost effective.”

Tesla has forced many EV manufacturers to think closer about costs, with Elon Musk’s company starting 2023 by slashing prices on its best selling models, successfully stoking much-needed demand to maintain its dominance in the EV market. 

And it looks as though Tesla is still spearheading the industry for the time being. Recall, as part of Ford’s shift to EVs, it announced its customers would be able to tap into Tesla’s 12,000 Superchargers. 

“This is great news for our customers who will have unprecedented access to the largest network of fast chargers in the US and Canada with 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers plus 10,000+ fast-chargers already in the BlueOval Charge Network,” said Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, at the time. 

“Widespread access to fast-charging is absolutely vital to our growth as an EV brand, and this breakthrough agreement comes as we are ramping up production of our popular Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, and preparing to launch a series of next-generation EVs starting in 2025.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

‘Admiral’ Rachel Levine, The Biden administration’s transgender Assistant Secretary for Health, has declared that “gender-affirming care” (blocking puberty, removing genitals, or adding fake genitals) is necessary to keep people, including children, mentally healthy and to stop them from killing themselves.

Yes, really.

“It’s such an important issue for our youth and adults,” Levine stated in the video produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, adding “We often say that gender-affirming care is health care—gender-affirming care is mental health care—and gender-affirming care is literally suicide-prevention care.”

Biden’s assistant secretary for health says “gender-affirming care” for minors — meaning irreversible sex reassignment surgeries and puberty blockers — is “mental health care” pic.twitter.com/Wsyw6WiFaP

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 26, 2023

The comment came during an awkward discussion with an extremely young ‘trans activist’ and ‘musician’.

Levine also claimed that those who oppose lopping off kids’ private parts have “weaponised” the term “gender affirming care”.

Admiral Levine laments that “opponents” of irreversible sex reassignment surgeries and puberty blockers for minors “have weaponized” the term “gender-affirming care” pic.twitter.com/27U5pzLNJt

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 26, 2023

A few months ago, Levine emphasised that sex-change operations on children, which also involve sterilisation the case of boys, are supported at “the highest levels” of the Biden administration, and hoped that they become a normal everyday occurrence.

Levine also previously described such practices as “empowering,” vowing that the administration will continue to push for the procedures to be available in all states.

Related:

Video: Trump Vows To “Sign A Law Prohibiting Child Sexual Mutilation In All 50 States”

Levine also declared during the latest video that ‘Pride’ should not just be celebrated for one month only and that it should instead be an entire “Summer of pride.”

ADMIRAL LEVINE, Biden’s assistant secretary for health, says it’s no longer just Pride month — it’s a “Summer of Pride” pic.twitter.com/Y84AuBzQo0

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 26, 2023

The entire fifteen minute debacle is here, if you can stomach it. The comments have mysteriously been turned off. Wonder why?

Twitter doesn’t turn off comments:

GROOMER pic.twitter.com/yww0UoGoCv

— Ńíčhøłäś  (@ChaoticJoker314) June 26, 2023

pic.twitter.com/aUZZh6uPqb

— Christopher-Aaron Felker (@ChairmanCAP) June 26, 2023

I would not let that person within a mile of my child!!

— Villager12 (@JMAU73) June 27, 2023

Evil, evil man.

— BMF (@Lafcurve) June 26, 2023

This coming from Someone who waited till they were 54 yrs old, had his family before he has a full grown man decided to “transition”.
Who pretends to be an Admiral of what nobody knows.

— Vicky Allen (@VickyAl53411513) June 26, 2023

Perverts

— Quack (@Docterduck) June 26, 2023

No this is not care nor is it affirming.

— jim dana (@jimdana10) June 26, 2023

Levine still has a D.

Why hasn’t he chopped it off?

— Snoop Bailey (@realsnoopbailey) June 26, 2023

The old guy in the skirt is using Jedi mind control on the young Harry Potter lookalike to force the words “I completely agree“, out of his mouth… that’s my take.

— Paul Hoffman (@paulhoffman007) June 27, 2023

It is butchering of children.

How did we get to this level of depravity?

— Charles X Proxy™ (@Charlemagne0814) June 26, 2023

It’s not mental health care. It’s genital mutilation and it blocks proper development of so many human aspects. This should be illegal and considered what it is: crimes against humanity. Please remove these child abusers from office.

— Anna Lisa McClelland (@annalisamcc) June 27, 2023

Mutilating children is now “mental health care” — for who? Groomers?

— Look A Squirrel (@Reds_Herring) June 27, 2023

*  *  *

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Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Ukraine has lost over 15 percent of the Bradley fighting vehicles that the US has provided, a US military official told The New York Times in an article published on Monday.

The article detailed how Ukraine was struggling to make gains in its counteroffensive that was launched about three weeks ago due to heavy minefields laid by Russian forces and other stiff resistance.

The report reads: “The fierce resistance has taken a toll on Ukraine’s weaponry. The United States committed 113 Bradley fighting vehicles in March. At least 17 of them — more than 15 percent — have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting so far, the official said.”

The US announced a new $325 million weapons package for Ukraine earlier this month that included 15 Bradley vehicles to replace ones that were damaged or destroyed in the first few days of the counteroffensive. Ukraine has also been losing German-made Leopard tanks and is seeking more from Berlin.

The Times report also quoted an unnamed senior Biden administration official who said Ukraine’s struggles in its counteroffensive have been “sobering” for the US. “They’re behind schedule,” the official said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that the counteroffensive was going “slower than desired” but vowed his troops will fight on. “Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It’s not,” he said.

While acknowledging that the counteroffensive has not gone well for Ukraine so far, US and Ukrainian officials have stressed the assault is in its initial stages and that significant advances could still be made.

Leading up to the counteroffensive, the Discord leaks and media reports revealed that the US did not expect Ukraine to regain significant territory. But the Biden administration pushed for the assault anyway and has rejected the idea of a ceasefire or peace talks.