Parts of the Atlantic Ocean are experiencing an “exceptional” marine heatwave, sparking concerns about marine life impacts off the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland, while scientists — particularly ones who monitor hurricanes are worried about an active season in the tropics.
Meteorologist Colin McCarthy tweeted, “We are witnessing one of the most extreme marine heatwave events ever recorded in modern history.” He said a 4,000-mile-long stretch of superheated water extends from the coastal waters off of West Africa to the coastal waters just south of Iceland.
A ~4,000 mile long stretch of severe marine heatwave conditions extends all the way from the coastal waters off of West Africa to the coastal waters just south of Iceland.
We are witnessing one of the most extreme marine heatwave events ever recorded in modern history. pic.twitter.com/OExUnItRI7
Parts of the North Sea are experiencing the highest temperatures in decades. Some areas are under category four marine heat wave – defined as “extreme,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Water temperatures in some areas are 9 Fahrenheit above average levels for this time of year.
‘Beyond extreme’ by definition.
Ireland and the British Isles are at the epicentre of a major marine heatwave. We have not seen the North Atlantic look like this in modern records.
Marine heatwaves are categorised from 1 to 5. There are hotspots hitting category 5. pic.twitter.com/2lle3hrsGv
“The eastern Atlantic, from Iceland down to the tropics, is much warmer than average. But areas around parts of north-western Europe, including parts of the UK, have among some of the highest sea-surface temperatures relative to average,” Stephen Belcher, the Met Office’s chief scientist, said in a statement.
Met Office Chief Scientist Professor Stephen Belcher said, “May 2023 has seen the highest temperatures of any May since 1850.”
The heatwave is “very exceptional,” Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told CNN. He said it’s “currently the strongest on Earth.”
Richard Unsworth, an associate professor of biosciences at Swansea University in the UK, said the Atlantic heatwave is “totally unprecedented.”
Scientists alarmingly indicate that superheated water might adversely affect marine life because warm water holds less oxygen.
Forecasters said the abnormally hot waters in the tropical area of the Atlantic could already be responsible for two disturbances heading towards the Caribbean Sea.
Some areas in the Atlantic have recorded temperatures only seen during peak hurricane season in September, indicating this could be a long hot summer ahead.
Meteorologist Ben Noll said these much warmer than average waters in the topics are happening in an area known to be a “breeding ground for hurricanes.”
This map highlights (🟡) where current sea surface temperatures are warmer than they would typically be during *September*!
In other words, yellow areas indicate where the sea is as warm right now as it would normally* be in three months time!
“The Atlantic is definitely on fire,” Micheal Fischer, an assistant scientist with the University of Miami-NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, told Miami Herald.
There could be several causes for rising sea surface temperatures, with the weather phenomenon El Niño underway that tends to have a warming effect around certain parts of the world. Some have also said the lack of dust from the Sahara, which usually cools parts of the Atlantic by reflecting sunlight.
Two consequences of the marine heatwave in the Atlantic could be devastating marine wildlife on the coasts of Europe and increased tropical disturbances in the North American region.
The directive came from the top: A memo from the U.S. secretary of defense ordering Pentagon leaders and the commanders of the six military branches to review and recommend changes to “policies, programs, and processes that may negatively affect equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion for all our people.”
The secretary called for reviews to ensure diversity in promotions, prohibit pregnancy-based discrimination, bias awareness, “bystander intervention in response to improper remarks or other communications made by peers or superiors,” and a Workplace and Equal Opportunity survey to “include metrics concerning harassment and discrimination, extremist groups and activities.”
The Secretary was Mark Esper. The President was Donald Trump. It was the pandemic summer of 2020 and there was violence on the streets in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
As Esper—who Trump would later fire via a November Tweet—was installing expanded focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training in the armed forces during the summer of 2020, the Democrat-controlled House and split Senate were deliberating the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (FY21 NDAA), the annual defense budget.
Congress incorporated Esper’s initiatives into the spending plan, adding a requirement for the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a “Chief Diversity Officer” and “Senior Advisors for Diversity and Inclusion” within each branch to advise on “training in diversity dynamics and … leading diverse groups effectively.” The NDAA also called for renaming military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, was objecting to DEI-related training being imposed on all federal employees, not just uniformed military. A September 2020 directive from the Office of Personnel Management required agencies to identify any training on topics such as “critical race theory” or “white privilege.”
Trump that same month issued an executive order prohibiting federal funding for training on “divisive concepts” with specific reference to prohibiting teaching, instructing, or training on these concepts within the uniformed services. Ensuing OPM guidance required that it approve all such training programs “before being used.”
Nevertheless, Congress adopted the FY21 NDAA encoding the enhanced DEI training into statute. Outgoing President Trump vetoed the defense budget, citing a host of objections, including the removal of Confederate generals’ names from military bases.
In their final act of 2020, the House and Senate overrode Trump’s veto in supermajority votes and adopted the defense budget. It went into effect Jan. 1, 2021—three months after the fiscal year began and three weeks before President Joe Biden would enter the Oval Office.
On Jan. 20, 2021, the day he was inaugurated, Biden issued an executive order revoking Trump’s September 2022 directive and lifting its restrictions on DEI-related training in the military.
In June 2021, Biden issued another executive order to “enable Federal employees [including DOD], managers, and leaders to have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities, be supported in building skillsets to promote respectful and inclusive workplaces and eliminate workplace harassment, have knowledge of agency accessibility practices, and have increased understanding of implicit and unconscious bias.”
Conservatives had argued for years that DEI training, as it was being implemented in the military, was a misguided attempt to impose political correctness with little relevance in the ranks and was, in fact, hurting morale and exacerbating tensions, potentially degrading force readiness.
With Democrats in control of the House and the Senate knotted at 50-50, those 2021-22 objections got nowhere. DEI proponents, largely progressives, argued the military has always been in the forefront of societal change, and that the new programs were merely updates of 1971 programs that were last addressed in 1997.
Conservatives were further agitated when Biden’s newly appointed Secretary of Defense, former U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, ordered a 60-day stand down “to address extremism in the ranks” in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol protest.
Two factors have changed the tenor of the debate in 2023—Republicans regained a narrow majority in the House in the 2022 midterms and the military is experiencing its most significant recruiting shortfalls in the half-century history of the all-volunteer force.
Only the Marine Corps and newly created Space Force met recruiting goals in 2022 while the three largest branches fell short, or marginally attained reconfigured goals.
The Pentagon projects that trend will continue in 2023 in what it calls the “most challenging recruiting environment in the 50 years of the all-volunteer force,” primarily because of a strong job market and quality-of-life issues.
The Army missed its 2022 recruiting goal by 15,000 active-duty soldiers, or 25 percent of its target, leaving the nation’s largest military force 7 percent smaller than it was two years ago.
The Navy fell shy even after lowering its recruiting quota, increasing its oldest enlistment age to 41 from 39, and relaxing other standards, including for those with criminal backgrounds.
The Air Force met 2022 goals but anticipates missing its manpower objectives for the first time since 1999 by as much as 10 percent in 2023.
The Army estimates it will fall at least 20,000 soldiers short of its ideal 485,000 active-duty force in 2023. It has lowered its goal to 452,000.
Even military academies are seeing shortfalls. Applications to attend the Air Force Academy dropped by 28 percent for the class of 2026, the Naval Academy by 20 percent, and West Point by 10 percent.
In addition to a strong job market and perceived quality-of-life issues, the DOD cites two other factors aggravating recruitment efforts.
Only 23 percent of 17-to-24-year-old Americans are eligible, or capable, of serving because of obesity, low test scores, criminal records, and behavioral health issues, the Pentagon states.
Plus, it notes, surveys show only 9 percent of the nation’s military-age population has “a propensity to serve” in public service, including the armed forces, underscoring a growing “civilian and military cultural divide” where more than 80 percent of those now serving in the military come from families of military veterans.
During congressional hearings through winter and spring, senior military leaders said the recruitment shortfalls follow a historic pattern when competition from the private sector for workers increases.
In a May 11 hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee, Austin said “headwinds” fostered by “two years of Covid” are also impairing recruitment.
“It is not the first time we have seen challenges in recruiting,” he said, noting he was a recruiter himself at one point in his Army career. “I am optimistic” that the military will get out of “this trough” and attract the people needed to fill its lower ranks again soon.
Congressional Republicans, while acknowledging those claims, say the DOD is purposely overlooking another reason some young Americans, especially constituencies that traditionally have filled the all-volunteer ranks, are not signing up: the Biden administration’s imposition of mandatory expanded DEI training and other “woke” programs, such as support for transgender members.
“Asking young Americans to put their lives on the line for a nation they are required to acknowledge is inherently racist” is not a good recruitment strategy, Heritage Foundation Center for National Defense Director Thomas Spoehr told The Epoch Times.
Right now, the former Army lieutenant general said, “military leaders will have to fight a perception of political indoctrination” to meet recruitment quotas.
Spoehr said “direct ‘cause-and-effect’ studies on the impact of woke policies such as these do not exist,” but suggested “common sense” dictates they are hurting recruiting.
“Is anyone surprised that potential recruits—of whom many come from rural or poor areas of the country—don’t want to spend their time being lectured about white privilege?” he asked.
Pentagon leaders and branch brass have refuted GOP claims regarding DEI’s alleged influence on recruiting and readiness by stating there is no anecdotal or statistical evidence to support the contention.
During more than four months of hearings, various DOD officials also blunted House Republicans’ claims by touting highest-ever military retention rates; if DEI was such an onerous issue, they insist, those who’ve been subjected to the training wouldn’t be reenlisting at three times the rate of decades ago.
Spoehr said the key stat not detailed is how many completing a first enlistment are signing on for another. Otherwise, it’s no surprise that those who’ve chosen to make a career in the military are making a career in the military.
“People in the military are not free agents,” he said, noting they often have car loans, mortgages, children in school like everyone else. “To some degree, they are invested already in service, in their pension plans. They’re not at complete liberty to leave. They will leave when they can. I do not take a lot of stock in retention” arguments.
When retention outpaces recruitment, Spoehr warned, it is indicative of things “getting out of whack” with a force that “gets older, gets more costly. The military is a pyramid. You need a lot of junior people.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) also dismissed the Pentagon’s defense of DEI by citing retention. Just as the DOD claims there is no data to support claims that DEI is hurting recruiting, it is avoiding asking questions about the programs in surveys canvassing prospective recruits about motivations to join or not join.
For instance, he told The Epoch Times, he and others have asked the Navy if “they regularly collect data on why people are not enlisting? And, why they are not reenlisting? And, they don’t have it. Navy leadership may have their own opinions, their narratives” that no data could change.
A second reason, Waltz said, is “a so-so economy … have you seen the bonuses they are offering?”
Overwhelming Anecdotal Evidence
The first Green Beret ever elected to the House, Waltz is a West Point graduate and 26-year Army combat veteran who continues to serve as a colonel in the Florida National Guard.
He emphatically refutes the Pentagon’s contention that there isn’t ample anecdotal evidence that DEI is depressing recruitment.
“One of the things that I hope you can impart,” he told The Epoch Times, “is this is not an issue that a bunch of Republican lawmakers are making up or exacerbating for political reasons. This is coming from the ranks.”
For instance, Waltz said, “I would never have known the Air Force suggest to cadets that they shouldn’t say ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or ‘girlfriend’ or ‘boyfriend.’ I would not have known that West Point was asking cadets to discuss their ‘white rage.’ This is coming from the service members.”
And he knows contacting a congressional representative about perceived injustices is frowned upon. “I would have been petrified as a cadet to go to a congressman” with complaints, Waltz said. “They feel they have no avenues to express discomfort.”
Spoehr “was not aware” of DEI as a recruiting and readiness issue until he saw a 2021 Gallup poll “detecting this big drop in loss of confidence in the U.S. military” that cited “the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, DEI programs, and support for transgenders to enter without restrictions.”
That, he said, was followed by an October 2022 analysis that maintained “wokeism” was the “chief worry of grizzled American veterans today.”
Spoehr wrote in an American Heritage column that month that veterans were alarmed by “the weakening of [the military’s] fabric by radical progressive (or ‘woke’) policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness.”
During a House Oversight Committee March 28 subcommittee hearing, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said people in southern states, always a mainstay in military recruiting, are not happy with the “‘wokeism’ permeating the Pentagon.”
“Southern families, conservative families, we are not going to encourage our young men and women to join the military and endure this stuff,” he said. “In society, ‘woke’ is a social discussion but in the military, ‘woke’ is weak—and that is the problem.”
The Pentagon refuses to see this disconnect, Higgins said. He waved printouts of two Epoch Times articles documenting how, according to the Navy and Marine Corps, three of its biggest challenges are “climate instability, COVID’s ongoing impact, strengthening a naval culture of inclusiveness and respect.”
“What’s happening now is families are holding our youngsters back. Families are saying, ‘Don’t join!’” he said.
The nation’s military leadership is a “laughingstock,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Texas) said during the hearing. “The administration’s intent in clear—cleanse the military of conservatives, and the consequences are devastating.”
“The U.S. Army has fallen 15,000 soldiers short of its recruitment goal this year,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) in a tweet. “Maybe we ought to stop imposing vaccine mandates, preferred pronouns, and ‘woke’ education training on them. Just a thought.”
A 2021 Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) survey of more than 8,600 military families revealed those now serving were less likely to recommend their children enlist. Quality of life was the top-cited concern. MFAN’s survey do not ask questions about politics.
But in testimony before Congress, Independent Women’s Forum Senior Fellow Dr. Meaghan Mobbs said the MFAN survey confirms what her group is hearing from veterans encouraging family members not to follow in their footsteps.
“Such a precipitous drop in such a short period of time is alarming,” she said, attributing that decline to DEI and ‘wokeism.’ “Unfortunately, it will be many years before the full effect of such a decrease will be known, and it will take at least a generation to fix.”
Critics maintain the Biden Era Pentagon is also relying on the fact that, as most veterans will recount, there’s always some form of “baloney”—not their most commonly-used ‘b’ word—that soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardians, and Marines must endure during their time in the military.
Sure, Waltz said, it’s “just more nonsense, nothing new. That is what the services do. ‘Really, this is not that many hours, it’s a big picture thing.’”
But DEI is not about fostering awareness and respect for each other, he said, it’s an indoctrination of the best of America’s youth.
“When you are imposing this stuff on very young 18- and 19-year-olds, it has an impact over time,” he said.
The bill would require the DOD to institute “a hiring freeze of Equal Opportunity and Equal Employment Opportunity personnel at a ratio of 1:2,000 EO/EEO staff to uniformed service members.”
It would require the DOD to audit DEI programs “that have caused greater division within the force. These programs are diverting focus and resources away from lethality and readiness against our potential adversaries.”
The audit will require the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, listing all FY22 DEI programs and expenses by Dec. 1.
“The report shall include a description of the purpose of the program and how many man-hours were spent participating in the program, billets and personnel (both civilian and uniformed) dedicated to each program, and the total costs associated with each program,” the bill states.
In the interim, the bill would bar “the use of appropriations to fund DOD race-conscious selections, assignments, accessions, or promotions,” prohibit “the instruction or propagation of critical theories, such as critical race theory as part of military training or at the service academies,” ban “the use of non-merit-based criteria in the consideration for selection for the military service academies,” and suspend “the use of appropriated funds to investigate extremism in the military.”
The bill would require “a cost/benefit analysis be submitted to Congress before funds are appropriated … that affirms the proposed policies or programs will improve war-fighting capabilities and there is no less expensive alternative available.”
Waltz’s proposed ‘Warrior Act’ seeks a more complete audit of DEI programs than those the Pentagon has provided in response to Republican requests since 2021.
In response to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and 11 other GOP senators, a 2022 letter from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Army Gen. Mark Milley estimated the armed forces dedicated nearly 6 million hours and about $1 million in additional expenses to DEI training sessions in 2021.
“This averages to just over 2 hours per Service member in a total force of 2.46 million members and is comparable to other Joint Force periodic training requirements,” Milley wrote in the letter.
The GOP senators said they were “alarmed” by the data and accused Biden of being “more focused” on enacting a woke agenda in the military than on confronting America’s adversaries.
Their math took the Pentagon estimate and factored in the less than 100 documented cases of “extremism” reported during the span, calculating that 58,000 hours of DOD manpower hours were expended in training for every instance.
During the March 28 hearing before House Oversight & Accountability Committee’s National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, Veterans on Duty, Inc. Chair Jeremy Hunt testified that the Pentagon’s DEI program “subjects some service members to 11-week resident DEI training classes—despite the military’s history of leading the fight against discrimination.”
Hunt, a West Point graduate and former Army officer who is black, said his alma mater now “lectures cadets about ‘addressing whiteness,’ while the Air Force Academy has started the bizarre practice of appointing cadet DEI officials.”
He said the army spent $114 million on DEI in 2022 and “in some cases we are paying these ‘DEI bureaucrats’ $200,000 a year” despite there being “no data to determine if it actually works, which we know it doesn’t, and whether there was any type of underlying data that necessitates the dramatic increases of this programs.”
Spoehr said he believes Waltz’s bill will gain traction and be adopted because Democrats, even the progressives who lobby for DEI, are beginning to realize it could be affecting recruitment.
“I do, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Just the other day, Lloyd Austin decreed there would be no more drag queen shows on military installations. That came as a surprise to me. I thought they were heading down the path that we’re going to have drag queen story hour at the installation library.”
Spoehr said there is bipartisan concern about “military recruiting and readiness in the context of countering China. People are taking this seriously. [Waltz’s] bill, I can see it succeeding.”
Retired Navy Capt. Frederick J. Passman, Continental Commander of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS), said mere presence in the military teaches people to “make sure that we respect various opinions.”
Stressing he was not speaking on behalf of the NOUS, which he emphasized is “apolitical and nonpartisan,” Passman told The Epoch Times that under current DEI protocols, “I feel very grateful for having been in when I was and to have served in the time that I did.”
He regards DEI training as “rocks and shoals” that place “too much focus on things that don’t have anything to do with the accomplishment of the mission. It is taking time taking away from mission accomplishment.”
A warship drilling to fight—and to survive a fight—will foster “good teamwork” and doing so is “part and parcel … of a successful command,” he said.
“The break-way times for specific types of training evolutions that aren’t related to mission accomplishment creates confusion and distractions and is counter-productive,” Passman said, noting what especially “bothers me” is “gender identification. Superiors being called on the carpet because they didn’t use the proper pronoun for a subordinate? That is unacceptable.”
And besides, he said, in the terms of the Navy, it already has a cadre of skilled “attitude adjustment” specialists—the chiefs, the veteran enlisted non-commissioned officers who are the lifeblood of every ship, every squadron, every fleet.
“The best solution is what has always worked. Let the chiefs administer ‘attitude adjustment training,’” Passman said. “Back in the day, you got ‘sea lawyers’ who end up mysteriously ‘tripping down the ladder to the boatswain’s locker.’ After a few years, they become excellent sailors. That is considered totally unacceptable these days.”
Paul Gagne of the Massachusetts NOUS, a retired chief who administered plenty of on-the-job “attitude adjustment” training during his Navy career, said the whole DEI conversation is a bunch of “baloney.”
“I’m an old chief raised by old chiefs. I’m not going to sugarcoat this: The reality is the people you need to recruit are going to turn away,” he told The Epoch Times.
He also pointed a broadside to GOP politicians who may also need some “attitude adjustment.”
“I’m really tired of the ‘politi-speak,’ the ‘wokeism’ talk, the labels, the whole conversation,” Gagne said. “It’s not hard. It’s very simple. If you want a certain type of people in your service, market your recruiting to them.”
“Team Brandon has also made the USA utterly toxic to 80% of humanity. Sort of what they accused Trump of doing but they actually did it! LOL. They are the gift that keeps on giving.”
– Jacob Dreizin
Strange doings at a strange time in a strange land. Videos of widespread military vehicle maneuvers around our nation popped up on the Web at mid-weekend while the American citizenry went about its holiday weekend business (including Father’s Day revels and “Juneteenth” celebration mass shootings): Scenes of armored personnel carriers rolling down Walnut Street in downtown Philly; B2 bomber wings over Minnesota; Tank columns galumphing along an Idaho highway… leading to widespread suspicions that something untoward is up. Durned if I know what it is.
Tanks on highway, Great Falls, Idaho
Among things one can know: The “Joe Biden” presidency is whirling around the drain in plain sight, and with it, likely, the Globalist hopes and dreams of making everybody eat bugs while they take away everything you own. Last week, audiotapes surfaced of the main parties to the Ukraine grift (Biden and Poroshenko) working things out in 2016 over the phone in “JB’s” final days as vice-president. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has got its mitts on Biden family bank records galore detailing the abstruse money-laundering activities that were run through obscure European banks and innumerable Biden shell companies. Well, sonofabitch…!
It’s getting hard even for Democrats to ignore the accumulating evidence of the Biden family’s global grift operation, and “JB’s” obvious advancing mental deterioration, provoking moves that should lead to his ejection from office. Last week, their captive mainstream news media broadcast a cavalcade of embarrassing public idiocies committed by the Commander in Chief — declaring “God save the Queen” incongruously at the end of a Gun Safety Summit in Connecticut; groping actress Eva Longoria’s boobs after a White House movie screening; cracking a weird joke about the “Philadelphia girl” in his bed (Dr. Jill Biden); being introduced at an I-95 bridge collapse event by brain-damaged PA Senator John Fetterman who tossed up a word salad about the federal “delegadation” aiming to fix “infructure,” while dressed-up looking like Uncle Fester out of The Addams Family. The indignity of it all was really something to behold.
You understand, “Joe Biden’s” reelection campaign is another rank hoax, yet another trip laid on the American public by a desperate, degenerate Democratic Party that doesn’t know what to do next with public opinion souring on it. There’s no way this gibbering near-corpse can run again. He can’t even perform as a puppet anymore. He’s a broke-down engine pulling a train of failure, perfidy, and treason five miles long behind him. The Ukraine war project he presides over looks more and more like an effort to conceal and cover-up his family’s bribery schemes by laying waste to the pitiful chump of a foreign land that went along with the grift — and which, anyway, is winding up as yet another American military humiliation with the Russians finishing off what’s left of Ukraine’s army in the failed “spring offensive.”
Do you suppose that all these military vehicle movements around the country in recent days signal a constitutional crisis in the offing, necessitating martial law? Let me lay it out: Absolutely no one believes that Vice-president Kamala Harris is up to the job of stepping-in when “Joe Biden” gets bum-rushed out of the White House. Nor, I’m sure, are they willing to force her to resign hastily without a substitute vice-president (say, Gavin Newsom) in place — a cumbersome process that requires approval by both the House and Senate. But if Harris were flat-out forced to resign, then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would automatically become president.
Mr. McCarthy is, arguably, just another houseboy of the now-heinous administrative state (or deep state, or permanent bureaucracy, or blob, as it’s sometimes called). But he is not a Democrat, and is subject to the fractious pressures in the Republican Party, and could plausibly be induced to fire-and-replace post-haste the whole honking host of seditious rogues running the executive agencies — from AG Merrick Garland, to FBI Director Chris Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, Treasury Secretary Yellen… every last one of them — which could even lead to prosecutions of these scoundrels.
Any way you cut it, it looks like the sudden catastrophic downfall of the Democratic Party, an existential crisis that would amount ineluctably to one possible outcome: nominate Bobby Kennedy, Jr. or die. But then, what would Mr. Kennedy do about all the remaining bad actors in the Party of Chaos? My guess is that almost all of them down to the rank-and-file would snap out of the mass formation psychosis they’ve been locked in for seven years and completely flip, denouncing the tyrannical madness that their deposed leadership inflicted on our country. They might even believe it never happened, or that they were not responsible for it, like the whole thing was no more than a bad dream.
Or maybe, what we’re seeing in all these military movements is the prelude to a real live military coup d’état? Just sayin’…
‘Hawkish’ FedSpeak Hits Big-Tech; Bitcoin Soars As The Buck Breaks Down
Despite Powell’s reiteration of the ‘hawkish pause’ with two more rate-hikes a “pretty good guess” if the economy continues as they expect, rate-hike expectations were barely changed today with the longer-end of the STIRs market pushing higher (still pricing in rate-cuts though)..
Source: Bloomberg
The Atlanta Fed’s Bostic confirmed his “baseline is to hold rate [high] through year-end,” adding that he doesn’t expect rate-cuts for “most of 2024.”
The market is pricing in one rate-hike and one rate-cut back by Jan 2024…
Source: Bloomberg
The Chicago Fed’s Goolsbee also noted that last week’s decision to hold rates was “a close call.”
But despite the modest hawkish shift, the dollar dived after recovering back to pre-Powell levels…
Source: Bloomberg
Nasdaq underperformed as Small Caps led but with an hour to go, selling restarted as Bostic commented on higher rates for longer leaving the big tech index down over 1%. S&P underperformed The Dow, closing near the lows of the day…
0-DTE traders were aggressively buying calls into the morning decline in Nasdaq
The Russell 2000 outperformed the Nasdaq 100, with the ratio between the two finding resistance…
It was deja vu all over again in ‘short-squeeze’ land as early selling was caught as Europe closed and ‘most shorted’ stocks were squeeze back (but not green)
Source: Bloomberg
‘Long Duration’ – unprofitable – tech stocks sold off once again (but bounced once again), back to 2 week lows…
Source: Bloomberg
AI tumbled again, erasing the post-earnings spike…
We note this rollover in AI-tech-stocks is occurring at an ‘interesting’ time…
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin topped $30,000 for the first time since April 26th (extending gains ignited by news of a Citadel-sponsored exchange)…
Source: Bloomberg
We are sure this helped somewhat…
₿𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: Federal Reserve Chairman says “crypto appears to have staying power as an asset class” pic.twitter.com/APbt2KXtfD
— Documenting ₿itcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) June 21, 2023
Oil surged today, dragging WTI back above $72.50 – its highest in two weeks…
Which pulled Energy stocks higher (rotating out of long-duration tech – which may have been helped by Biden’s “dictator” comments about Xi)…
Source: Bloomberg
And the world and his pet rabbit has given up on the energy trade (Goldman notes Energy is among the most net sold sectors in the past month both globally and in the US on the Prime book, driven by long-and-short sales)…
Source: Goldman
A well-bid 20-year auction put some much-needed lipstick on an otherwise pig-like day for bonds are UK inflation and Powell’s hawkishness sent yields higher. By the close, Treasuries were practically unch across the curve with 30Y -5bps on the week (while 2Y is unch)…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold extended yesterday’s losses intraday, falling to its lowest in over 3 months below bouncing back barely into the green…
Finally, we note that Economic Surprise Indices are diverging notably with Europe deep in negative territory, China tumbling, and US rebounding modestly…
Source: Bloomberg
Which is ironic since Europe is hiking and US is pausing (with China easing the whole time to no avail).
Collapsed I-95 Bridge Will Reopen This Weekend, Governor Says
Governor Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll announced the section of I-95 that collapsed during a tanker fire ten days ago would be reopened this weekend, ahead of the two-week timeline and well before the initial estimates of ‘months.’
“Based on the tremendous progress these crews made over the weekend and the time it takes to complete the remaining steps, I can now say that we will have I-95 back open this weekend,” Shapiro said in a statement.
The governor continued, “We have worked around the clock to get this done, and we’ve completed each phase safely and ahead of schedule. That’s all due to the incredible coordination with our local, state, and federal partners – and thanks to the hard-working men and women of the Philadelphia Building Trades who are making this happen.”
Based on the tremendous progress these crews made over the weekend, I can now say:
We will have I-95 back open this weekend.
We have worked around the clock to get this done, and we’ve completed each phase safely and ahead of schedule.
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) June 20, 2023
During a Tuesday press conference, Gov. Shapiro said temporary highway lanes had been refilled by a recycled glass aggregate. A live shot of the construction area around 0700 ET shows the partial bridge completion.
The next step for crews is to pave the stretch of the completed roadway to partially reopen one of the most critical transportation arteries in the Mid-Atlantic area. More than 160,000 drivers per day travel the stretch of highway in Northeast Philadelphia.
Watching the government complete such a critical project in record time is astonishing. Maybe because, as US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg described last week, the closure of the bridge has the risk of sparking supply chain chaos across the East Coast.
Traffic is still a nightmare around the closed stretch of I-95.
One person on Twitter said, “Has to be a Record of when any roadwork gets done in PA. Funny what happens with a little effort.”
Workers in America and around the world are reporting significantly higher levels of financial hardship compared to last year, as a cooling economy and high inflation has left a growing number cash-strapped and planning to quit in search of better-paid jobs.
Despite a softening economy and workers reporting growing levels of financial stress, the “Great Resignation” seems poised to continue, according to the latest PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) workforce study.
Just over a quarter (26 percent) of workers surveyed by PwC plan to change employers in the next 12 months in hopes of finding better paid work, up from 19 percent last year.
Around 42 percent said they are planning to demand pay raises to offset the higher cost of living, up from 35 percent last year.
“With the ongoing economic uncertainty, we see a global workforce that wants more pay and more meaning from their work,” Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader of PwC’s people & organization practice, said in a statement.
While inflationary pressures have eased in recent months, they remain well above pre-pandemic levels, squeezing households and undercutting financial well-being.
Tough Times More Widespread
Employees in the United States and elsewhere increasingly feel cash-strapped as inflationary challenges and economic headwinds continue to impact workers’ wallets.
PwC’s “2023 Hopes and Fears Global Workforce Survey,” which polled 54,000 workers in 46 countries, showed that a growing number of households struggled to pay bills every month or could not pay bills most of the time.
The share of workers who said their household could not pay the bills most of the time doubled from 2 percent last year to 4 percent in 2023.
At the same time, the percentage of workers who say their household can pay all the bills every month and still has some money left over to sock away or for discretionary spending like holidays fell sharply from 47 percent to 38 percent.
Around one worker in five is doing multiple jobs, with 69 percent saying they were doing so for extra income and just 36 percent to learn new skills.
Negative Feedback Loop
Workers who are struggling financially are also less able to meet future challenges, including investing in developing new skills and adapting to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
Those who struggle to pay their bills are less likely (50 percent) to actively seek new skill development opportunities than those who can comfortably pay their bills (62 percent).
Similarly, financially secure workers (57 percent) are more likely to seek feedback and improve their performance at work compared to financially struggling workers (45 percent).
Ballot harvesting. Stuffing ballot boxes. Tampering with voting equipment. Stealing ballots. Censoring candidates. These were some of the concerns raised, notably by former President Donald Trump, in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
As we approach 2024, how great a concern is election security for the 2024 presidential candidates? The Epoch Times submitted questions to major candidates in both parties to find out.
The questions centered on three concerns: Did election tampering affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? What should be done to ensure a fair election in 2024? Will you accept the outcome of the 2024 contest?
Former Ambassador Nikki Haley responded directly to our questions. Representatives of former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis referred us to their previously published views on the matter.
No response was received from the campaigns of Republican candidates Trump, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, or Democrat candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The views of Trump, Scott, Ramaswamy, and Biden were available through media interviews and public statements.
Here’s what they said.
Impact of Fraud in 2020
Trump made broad claims of election interference immediately after the 2020 election and stands by them.
“That was a rigged election, and it’s a shame that we had to go through it. It’s very bad for our country. All over the world, they looked at it, and they saw exactly what everyone else saw,” Trump said in a May 11 town hall-style meeting on CNN.
Trump claimed election interference causes a difference of 16 percentage points in the outcome of the election.
The former president cited censorship on Twitter and “millions of votes” caught on camera in cases of “stuffing ballot boxes.” He referred to alleged evidence from government cameras as proof.
DeSantis acknowledged some election tampering in a May 26 interview on MSN but said much of the fault lies with Trump.
The Florida governor said that the COVID-19 state of emergency contributed to the use of ballot collection, also called ballot harvesting, which is the collection of absentee ballots from voters by a third party for delivery to a ballot drop box.
While legal in many states, critics claim it is an opportunity for fraud.
“Of course, I think that that’s wrong,” DeSantis said. “But if I were the candidate, I would have gone in and combated that, either had our people doing the same ballot harvesting or been more aggressive to try to head that off in terms of some of the legal challenges.”
DeSantis also said the government colluded with tech companies to censor negative information about Biden, which he called “election interference.”
“It’s totally unfair, but I’ll also point out that was Donald Trump’s FBI and Donald Trump’s DHS that was doing that. He didn’t have control over his own agencies,” DeSantis said. “If someone in my government were doing that, they would have been fired the next day.”
Pence called the 2020 contest “an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law” in a March 2021 article for Heritage Foundation.
“I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election,” Pence wrote.
Yet Pence famously refused to decertify the election results in the Senate.
“But once states had certified those elections, once the courts had reviewed them, once the Congress had considered any objections, I knew my duty was clear,” he said in a June 7 town hall-style event on CNN
Haley, Scott, and Ramaswamy have said they believe some election tampering did occur but that it did not change the outcome of the race.
There was fraud in the 2020 election, but no court or state legislature found that it was enough to change the outcome,” Haley told The Epoch Times.
Scott said there was evidence of minor irregularities and even fraud, but he saw no evidence of a rigged election. “Thus far, no justice, judge or fact finder has found evidence indicating the election results in those states should be overturned,” Scott said in a statement issued on Jan. 5, 2021.
Ramaswamy said much the same in a May 19 interview on NPR.
“I have a lot of issues with the suppression of information by social media companies and internet companies that led up to that election,” Ramaswamy said.
“But in the technical sense of, you know, do I think that there was large-scale ballot fraud or whatever that changed the election outcome based on how the votes were counted? I have seen no evidence of that.”
Corrective Actions
Biden has obviously accepted the results of the 2020 election. However, he has voiced concerns about possible election interference in 2024. His concern centers on the enactment of laws aimed at voter suppression.
“The Georgia Republican Party, the state legislature has now given itself the power to make it easier for partisan actors—their cronies—to remove local election officials,” Biden said at Atlanta University in January 2022.
Biden stated concern that laws preventing voting by mail or ballot drop boxes would keep many from having their votes counted.
Some 80 bills were introduced in 23 states this year that would place new limits on voting by mail and obtaining absentee ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
President Biden warned early this week that the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real.”
The president made the comments to donors during a trip to California. “When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado River drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” he said, according to Reuters. “They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real,” Biden added.
Biden has previously recognized that the policy of the US and NATO backing Ukraine against Russia risks nuclear war. In October 2022, he saidthe chances of “nuclear armageddon” were higher than at any point since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
But since warning of nuclear armageddon, Biden has done nothing to ease tensions with Russia and has escalated US involvement in the war, including by giving the green light for European countries to send US-made F-16s to Kyiv.
Biden administration officials have also repeatedly expressed support for Ukrainian attacks on Crimea using US-made weapons, which is a major redline for Russia.
According to a recent report from The New York Times, the administration has “shrugged off” Ukrainian attacks inside Russia as US officials are no longer as concerned about escalation as they were earlier in the war.
The report said that during the first year of the war, Biden administration officials worried that if Ukraine hit targets inside Russia, Moscow could retaliate against NATO. But those fears are gone as the administration does not seem concerned over the recent attacks inside Russia, which have included drone attacks on residential areas in Moscow and a cross-border raid in Russia’s Belgorod region that was carried out using US armored vehicles.
“It’s not like we’re going to go out and investigate this,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters when asked if the US thought Ukraine was behind the attacks in Moscow. According to the Times, administration officials seem even less concerned behind closed doors.
DOJ ‘Violating Its Own Internal Policies’ With Hunter Biden Wrist-Slap
Joe Biden’s DOJ violated its own internal policies to hand Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea deal for tax crime and gun charges, according to former US Attorney Brett Tolman.
Putting aside for one second the fact that the DOJcompletely ignored the body of evidence on Hunter’s laptop which, at minimum, reveals several FARA violations (more on that later), Tolman noted in a Tuesday Twitter thread that the DOJ failed to follow its own guidance in its handling of the Hunter situation, and are “ignoring decades of policy and precedent to seek felonies not misdemeanors and seek sentences within the guideline range.”
They are ignoring decades of policy and precedent to seek felonies not misdemeanors and seek sentences within the guideline range. The diversion agreement on the felony is offensive to everyone not politically connected who sought diversions and were literally laughed at by DOJ.
Thousands of people have been prosecuted under Project Safe Neighborhoods by DOJ. They brag about getting nearly 5 years of prison time on average for their gun cases. If they followed policy, Hunter would be looking at a minimum of 5 years in federal prison. But he’s a Biden.
Take a look at 18 USC 924(c) charges. Easy to prove given Hunter was distributed/dealing drugs with a firearm in his possession. Such charges were brought against thousands in inner cities across the country for last 20 years. Mandatory minimum sentences for all. Except Hunter.
Since Hunter “brandished” his firearm during the commission of a drug crime, he would be looking at a mand min of 7 years in fed prison. DOJ could also add on top mand min possession of child pornography if any of the girls were underage, plus on top of that years for tax evasion.
Still digesting all of this but the tax evasion being viewed as misdemeanor is perhaps the most shocking. If DOJ treated this consistently they would “source” the money and they would see the movement of monies and they would clearly bring money laundering and conspiracy if others received the money or the funds went into shell companies then you may have a large conspiracy and sophisticated means to hide the illegal monies and movement. This would be 100 percent consistent with all other cases involving such schemes and would mean years in prison.
One can’t truly appreciate how shocking this is by DOJ unless you have watched closely what DOJ has done over the past 30 years. This is the the most blatant hypocrisy that screams to the level of injustice many have suffered at the hand of DOJ pounding average Joe defendants.
Everyone can now see what so many have observed growing, the politics of prosecuting. When absolute power is given with no accountability or transparency, then consistency and fairness become obsolete.
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Of course, as The Federalist puts perfectly – this whole thing has been a completely smokescreen in order to help the Biden family politically.
Hunter’s lawyers are scrambling to declare “the five-year investigation” into their client as “resolved.” Corporate media like NBC News, similarly, claimed the DOJ’s “resolution suggests that prosecutors did not find cause to file charges related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign entities or other wrongdoing.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like when it strategically timed its political arrest of a Republican congressman to coincide with a GOP press conference detailing evidence of Biden corruption, the DOJ is working overtime to ensure that Hunter serves as a distraction from the bigger Biden problem. -The Federalist
What’s more, Hunter’s tax crimes were slow-walked by US Attorney David Weiss because, as Politico described, “the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue” that would have hurt Joe Biden’s chances in the 2020 US election.
Interested in the backgrounds of the corrupt DOJ attorneys behind the garbage Hunter Biden plea deal? This is one of them. https://t.co/ztZQdzdq2r
As IRS whistleblower Gary Shapeley told CBS News; “There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice,” adding “These deviations from the process seemed to always benefit the subject.”
A carefully orchestrated plea deal between the DOJ and Hunter means the younger Biden will only face probation — not jail time — for the two misdemeanor tax charges he plans to plead guilty to. A felony gun charge like the one Hunter received holds a maximum of 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. The younger Biden, however, will successfully avoid prosecution for his firearm falsehood so long as he forsakes his drug-plagued lifestyle for 24 months and never owns a gun again. -The Federalist
The federalist also points out the Ashcroft memo cited above by Tolman, which instructs federal prosecutors to pursue the “most serious, readily provable offenses.”
Fed Hawkishness Cushioning Impact From Treasury Liquidity Drain
Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,
The Fed’s current hawkish stance is limiting the impact to risk assets from the worst effects of the Treasury issuance-induced liquidity absorption.
Whether it was intended or not, the Fed’s “hawkish pause” last week has ironically been a blessing for risk assets. After the debt-ceiling rapprochement, Treasury is issuing debt hand-over-fist, with over $600 billion already in June, and another over $200 billion slated for this week alone.
Treasury has tilted issuance towards bills. This means Money Market Funds (MMFs) are able to pitch in. However, this depends on the effective yield offered on bills being attractive enough versus the return offered by the RRP facility.
Both one-month and three-month bill yields, which were lower than the OIS rate (which is approximately equal to what the overnight RRP facility would offer with daily re-investment) earlier in the year are now almost exactly the same. Yet bills offer intra-day liquidity while the RRP cash is redeemed only in the afternoon, and there are no counterparty limits on bills, unlike the RRP.
So MMFs are drawing down on their RRPs, and this liquidity is negating the impact of some of the issuance which the Treasury is using to refill its account at the Fed (the TGA). Over the past week, the fall in the RRP has more than compensated for the rise in the TGA, leaving reserves unchanged.
If the Fed had not been so hawkish when it passed on hiking rates last week, there is a high chance bill yields, which are term instruments, would have dropped sufficiently below the overnight RRP rate as the market priced out near-term hikes and replaced them with cuts. The RRP would then not have acted as a cushion and risk assets may have faced some turbulence.
Nonetheless, risk assets are not in the clear. It is not the change in reserves that is most important for the performance of stocks and commodities, but the change in their change, i.e. their impulse.
Stocks face short-term risk as the impulse is set to turn negative. Equity investors, unusually, should hope the Fed keeps up the hawkish talk, but doesn’t walk the walk.
