Authored by Tony Kevin via Consortium News,

Last Friday The Guardian Australia website carried a news report, with a follow-up piece on Monday, whose implications for free speech are profoundly disturbing.

They concern a Radio New Zealand, or RNZ, broadcasting employee — unnamed, but everyone in the small New Zealand broadcasting world will soon know who it is — who has been placed on leave while their professional conduct is investigated. Obviously, a career hangs in the balance. 

The malign ghosts of Orwell’s 1984 stalk this story.

‘Russian Garbage’

This unnamed person in RNZ committed the cardinal sin of “inappropriate editing” of incoming Reuters news feeds on the war in Ukraine to insert “Russian garbage” in the contemptuous words of Paul Thompson, chief executive of RNZ. That is to say, they drew on Russian news sources to insert balancing pro-Russian material to the incoming Western news agency feeds. The Guardian tells us that in fact accurate information about Ukraine was added to the Reuters copy:

“The articles in question made a range of amendments: adding the word ‘coup’ to describe the Maidan revolution; changing a description of Ukraine’s former ‘pro-Russian president’ to read ‘pro-Russian elected government’; adding references to a ‘pro-western government’ that had ‘suppressed ethnic Russians’; and on several occasions adding references to Russian concerns about ‘neo-Nazi elements’ in Ukraine.” 

And more truth was added to the story, The Guardian says:

“In one article, a paragraph was added reading: ‘The Kremlin also said its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the Minsk agreement peace accords, designed to give Russia speakers autonomy and protection, and the rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine since a coup ousted a Russian-friendly Ukrainian government in 2014.’

Another added that Russia launched its invasion ‘claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.’”

This, it seems, is an offence not to be countenanced any longer in New Zealand. “An RNZ spokesperson, John Barr, said in a statement after the first article came to public attention that ‘RNZ is taking the issue extremely seriously and is investigating how the situation arose,’” the newspaper wrote.

The Guardian, in its effort to “correct” the story, says: “Ukraine says these claims are discredited Kremlin propaganda … The anti-corruption movement was peaceful and had widespread public support. Yanukovych fled to Russia months later after his security forces shot dead more than 100 unarmed protesters.”  

[Consortium News has published numerous stories laying out the facts of the events of 2014, including these two exhaustively corroborated accounts: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev]

‘Gutted’

The RNZ executive Thompson was “gutted” to learn what has been going on under his watch. We read that 250 past published articles have been gone through “with a finetooth comb” to investigate and counter such offensive inserted material, and thousands more are being reviewed.

Sixteen such offending  articles have been found and warning commentaries added to them. Investigations continue while the staffer remains indefinitely suspended. The responsible minister is being briefed. Clearly these editors have not delved very deeply into the Ukraine story.

Luke Harding’s Involvement 

Both Guardian articles carry a tagline that says “Additional reporting by Luke Harding.” This should be a key warning to everyone in New Zealand’s and Australia’s broadcasting world, indeed in the entire English-speaking world.

Harding carries a formidable reputation as an inveterate anti-Russian British journalist with alleged strong links to the U.K. anti-Russian disinformation system and even to MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service.

He was heavily involved in the Julian Assange affair and in the now discredited campaign to label former U.S. President Donald Trump as under Russian control. He is known as a leading Western disinformation warrior.

Normal Editorial Practice

Australian Broadcasting Company journalists edit incoming feeds from Reuters and other wire services all the time. They add context, link to previous stories, add Australian-relevant material. 

The problem is, this person in RNZ was adding such context from the “wrong ‘side.’”

The ABC has long been exposed as an obedient servant of the U.S.-dominated Five Eyes intelligence network and runs along approved anti-Russian and anti-Chinese editorial lines. RNZ, by contrast, is still widely respected in New Zealand. But it committed the sin of allowing counter-perspectives to be heard on the responsibility for the present tragic war in Ukraine.

Read the two Guardian articles to see what exactly Harding in London and his colleagues in U.K. disinformation appear to be objecting to. It sends a strong message across the Tasman Sea, from New Zealand to the Australian media world: We watch every word you say and every word you write.

Cancelled for the Same Thought Crimes  

The examples of journalistic misconduct identified in the two articles match exactly research and opinions on the historical context and causes of the war in Ukraine and mounting Russia-West tensions that I have been trying to express publicly in Australia as an expert former senior diplomat since publication of my book Return to Moscow in 2017.

As a result I have been cancelled, unpersoned, silenced — dropped down the Australia Broadcasting Company memory hole, never to be allowed on its airwaves again. 

An innocuous interview I conducted from Moscow with Paul Barclay for the respected ABC program “Big Ideas” in February 2022 was “disarchived” — yes, you read it right — a few weeks later, under pressure from unidentified critics.

Ukraine is Losing

The war in Ukraine now winds steadily towards its inevitable pro-Russian denouement. Russia clearly has the military edge and this will not change now. Billions of dollars’ worth of supplied U.S./NATO equipment continues to be destroyed in combat.

In suicidal offensives ordered by the doomed Zelensky regime in Kiev, an estimated half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or crippled since February 2022. [Exact casualty figures are very hard to come by]. Many more proxy warriors will die in coming weeks as this brutal war of attrition demanded by the U.S. and NATO continues to destroy what is left of poor Ukraine. 

Australians and New Zealanders with naïve faith in the professional integrity of their national broadcasters will continue to be insulated from these tragic truths. 

Fortunately, for those who dare to read them, there are now plenty of accessible reliable sources of alternative perspectives on Russia-West relations and the pivotal importance of the war in Ukraine in transforming the world. This world now looks very different from outside the Western laager. We are in the midst of huge global changes.

But, thanks to the likes of Harding and his Anglo-American friends, we won’t find such information anywhere on the ABC or RNZ. We Antipodeans in the colonies will be the last to know. 

* * *

Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.

On Thursday the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that “several” US federal government agencies were hit in what’s being acknowledged as a global cyberattack.

The attack utilized a vulnerability in widely used software, with the agencies have “experienced intrusions affecting their MOVEit applications,” according to a US government statement. “We are working urgently to understand impacts and ensure timely remediation,” Eric Goldstein, a top US cybersecurity official, said.

Initial suspicion has fallen on a Russian-speaking ransomware group, known as CLOP, which has claimed responsibility for a similar ongoing hacking campaign which targeted entities ranging from BBC to British Airways to Shell oil, to schools and hospitals, as well as some US state governments in the Midwest.

CNN reviews of a recent and ongoing hacking campaign as follows: 

But the news adds to a growing tally of victims of a sprawling hacking campaign that began two weeks ago and has hit major US universities and state governments. The hacking spree mounts pressure on federal officials who have pledged to put a dent in the scourge of ransomware attacks that have hobbled schools, hospitals and local governments across the US.

As part of this, the famous Johns Hopkins University and Health System has also been deeply impacted.

Officials in a letter to the Hopkins community said that an early and ongoing investigation found that the attack “may have impacted the information of Johns Hopkins employees, students and/or patients.”

The Johns Hopkins attack came to light on May 31 and also had exploited the vulnerability in the MOVEit software. It’s not believed at this time that individual patient medical records were compromised.

A cybersecurity expert, Bill Sieglein, has been cited in local media to explain…

“This was called a ‘zero-day attack,’ meaning the attackers, who are out of Russia, a group known as CLOP, they discovered a vulnerability in this piece of software called MOVEit. MOVEit is a piece of software that allows you to move large data files between networks and between systems. They found a vulnerability before anybody knew about it and, all at once, launched an attack worldwide,” Sieglein said.

CNN has noted that at this point the persistent attacks may be the work of multiple bad actors. “The Russian hackers were the first to exploit the vulnerability, but experts say other groups may now have access to software code needed to conduct attacks,” the report notes.

“The ransomware group had given victims until Wednesday to contact them about paying a ransom, after which they began listing more alleged victims from the hack on their extortion site on the dark web,” CNN explains. “As of Thursday morning, the dark website did not list any US federal agencies.”

After delivering an epic condemnation of the Deep State (‘permanent Washington’) in his previous episode – which has now been view over 90 million times – Tucker Carlson turns his acerbic eye first to his former employer – Fox News – and then to the “wannabe dictator” in The White House.

On Tuesday this week, shortly after former President Trump’s arrest, Fox News ran two video feeds (of Biden and Trump) simultaneously with the following chyron: “wannabe dictator speaks at The White House after having his political rival arrested.”

The words were on the screen less than 30 seconds but the effect was immediate inside Fox as Carlson notes “the women who run the network panicked… first they scolded the producer… less than 24 hours after that, he resigned (he’d been at Fox for more than a decade, considered one of the most capable people in the building.”

Then, the company issued a public apology: “the chyron was taken down immediately,” adding ominously that the situation was “addressed.”

The rest of the media were ‘outraged’ – “suggesting Biden is a dictator crossed the line” remarked The Washington Post.

Several members of the liberati called for the banning of any criticism of the President, laughingly demanding an action that only dictators would do, demanding actions against Fox News, such as banning it from military bases or revoking its broadcasting license.

But here’s the former Fox News host’s first point:

“Democrats were very very angry… but why were they angry? If the banner was false, why the hysteria? Lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore… if some cable news producer had called Biden a genius, or secretly Sudanese, would anyone be yallin gabout it?”

So, calling Joe Biden a ‘wannabe dictator’ apparently crossed the line:

“So, if you’re being honest with yourself, you have to wonder if Joe Biden is a wannabe dictator?”

The White House spokesperson’s response was akin to ‘of course, Joe Biden is not a dictator, just because he wants to put his political opponent in jail for a crime that he himself committed…doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse’.

Carlson sarcastically questions whether Biden is actually a dictator by highlighting characteristics of dictators, such as enriching themselves, suppressing protests, censoring dissent, and surveillance.

“It is not an easy thing to be a dictator” Carlson remarks, “there are a lot of steps.”

“…there’s nothing the population can do about it in a dictatorship, it’s no longer possible to fight injustice.”

None of that sounds like anything Biden would do right?

Not-dictator-y at all…

Watch the latest Tucker on Twitter episode below:

Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 15, 2023

Full transcript below:

(00:00) Hey it’s Tucker Carlson. On Tuesday afternoon the Biden administration had Donald Trump arrested it was a pretty big news story you may have seen it. Just before 9 pm that night as part of its coverage Fox News ran two live video feeds next to one another on the right Donald Trump addressed his supporters in New Jersey on the left Joe Biden spoke at an event for the Secretary General of NATO in Washington beneath those videos at the bottom of the screen Fox’s Banner read this way “wannabe dictator speaks at the (00:32) White House after having his political rival arrested.”

Those words are up for less than 30 seconds but the effect was immediate. Inside Fox the women who run the network panicked first they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen. Less than 24 hours after that he resigned. He’d been at Fox for more than a decade he was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately

Then the company issued a public apology (01:02) for the 27 second long wannabe dictator Line “the Chiron was taken down immediately” Fox’s PR department said and then added ominously it was “addressed”

That was all true but it was not enough to save Fox News from the ensuing scandal.

For a time in the rest of the media Fox’s assessment of Donald Trump’s arrest seemed to overshadow Trump’s arrest itself.

“Suggesting that Biden is a dictator” declared the Washington Post quote “crossed the line”.

Alexander Vindman agreed strongly. Vindman is the perennial MSNBC (01:38) guest, and full-time Ukraine promoter you may remember from Russia gate. On Twitter he demanded that the Pentagon pulled Fox News from all military bases it is “absolutely unacceptable for American forces Network to carry programming that directly spuriously attacks the commander-in-chief of American armed forces”.

Vindman wrote in other words Joe Biden must ban all criticism of himself because that’s what non-dictators do.

John Cusack went further still “for the crime of calling Biden a dictator Fox should be shut down” wrote (02:12) the 80s era movie star. “The government has to take away their broadcasting license” and so on was all over the Internet.

Democrats were very very angry but why were they angry if the banner on Fox was false why the hysteria lies don’t seem to bother anyone anymore.

If some cable news producer had called Joe Biden a genius or accused him of being secretly Sudanese would anyone be yelling about it would Fox News have apologized for it probably not but calling Joe Biden a wannabe dictator that stung.

So you’ve got to wonder if you’re being (02:50) honest with yourself is Joe Biden a wannabe dictator.

That question came up yesterday at the White House briefing here’s how it went “last night Fox News ran a Chiron that referred to the president as a wannabe dictator and I’m wondering if White House has any comment on so look there are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this that was wrong about what we saw last night but I don’t think I’m gonna get into it there’s no comments on White House I think I just commented.”

Oh no comment necessary of course Joe Biden is not a wannabe dictator just because he’s trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he himself committed doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse come on that’s absurd.

It takes a lot more than jailing your political Rivals to earn the title wannabe dictator that’s the consensus in Washington tonight and in some ways for once the consensus may be right.

It is not a small thing to be a wannabe dictator it’s quite a (03:51) process there are a lot of steps.

First off there is the money – the one thing that all dictators have in common is they enrich themselves and their families their tribe even as the countries they govern grow steadily poorer and more desperate.They take kickbacks from businesses and from other dictators they use the official functions of their government to funnel cash to themselves they don’t bother to hide the fruits of this they live in garish mansions with big Lawns far from the teeming cities even as their own citizens languish in growing (04:25) poverty in some cases literally living in tents on the street.

So they don’t really hide it – it’s all pretty blatant and Ordinary People resent it of course they do and want to be dictators know they resent it but they don’t care there’s nothing the population can do about it in a dictatorship it’s no longer possible to fight Injustice in a system like that.

People can’t gather in large numbers to protest the rule of the dictator.

If they try that they’ll be arrested by a state Security Services even years after the (04:55) fact a visit for men in body armor at The Breakfast Table that happens and if citizens persist in believing they can gather in groups to protest they may be shot to death a bullet to the throat and then just to make the humiliation complete to make the lesson gin clear to everyone else watching their relatives can be arrested for daring to complain that their children were killed for complaining.

That actually happens in some places ask Ashley Babbitt’s mother. Here she is in handcuffs foreign ‘s mother much less like poor Ashley (05:45) Babbitt she’s dead now that’s the message you’ll want to be dictator would send and by the way it’s not just public protest that would be banned in a dictatorship you wouldn’t be allowed to complain from your own home.

Unauthorized opinions expressed on the internet would be censored. Go too far press too deep tell too much truth and they’ll just erase your opinions. They have no choice really it’s a matter as they say of trust and safety, you must trust the leader or else you will jeopardize his safety, not that you (06:15) really can jeopardize his safety at this point the leader has nuclear weapons and you don’t he’ll remind you of that from time to time

In any case you’re in the process of being disarmed anyway along with everyone else who has shown questionable loyalty to the leader those who support the regime can keep their weapons and use them freely including on public transportation. That’s a core Civil Right for them but for those who dissent from the program self-defense is an unaffordable privilege turn in your (06:43) guns.

Mr & Mrs peaceful opposition you’re a danger to society and We Know Who You Are and in fact the wannabe dictator does know who they are because he knows everything technology has made him All-Seeing.

A report in Wired Magazine just this week revealed that the highly non-dictatorial by demonstration is busy tracking the phones of millions of Americans without their knowledge and without bothering to get a warrant and at the same time the same non-dictatorial Administration is stockpiling a massive Trove of damaging (07:14) information about these same Americans to be used at some point we are sure for entirely Noble purposes.

So the administration now knows everything: where you spend your days, who you talk to, what you think, your porn habits. Not a big deal the administration already knows what you buy of course because they’ve leaned on the big Banks to turn over your confidential credit card information not because anyone here is a wannabe dictator to be clear but just because it’s nice to have that information just in case in the words of (07:45) the Fox News PR department a situation arises that needs to be quote addressed.

It’s all totally normal it’s not a dictatorship okay.

But in the end the main reason you know Joe Biden is not a wannabe dictator is because he just does not fit the profile.

As a man dictators have that look you know one when you see one. Dictators build Cults of personality around themselves and they use those called to deny the glaringly obvious.

In his later years named just one example North Korean dictator Kim il-sung developed an enormous (08:19) baseball-sized tumor on the back of his neck it was huge it was grotesque it was right there you couldn’t ignore it you couldn’t possibly not see it but in North Korea State media did ignore it – they pretended it didn’t exist and so in some important sense it didn’t if a tumor grows on a neck but no one acknowledges it is it really there.

Thankfully nothing like that is happening in our country or ever will .

If Joe Biden never developed some profound physical or medical problem that was obvious to everybody journalists would (08:51) say something, this is not North Korea.

We don’t have state media here if Joe Biden was say incapable of completing a full sentence or mistook his sister for his wife or suddenly started falling down in public for no reason the New York Times would report on that and then get to the bottom of what was actually happening.

That would be its Duty in a free country like ours. It’s not like they would cover it up the very idea of a cover-up sounds like a conspiracy theory a dangerous one actually so stop it and by the way if Joe Biden was a (09:22) wannabe dictator he’d have the family to match – all dictators do.

Saddam Hussein had Uday and kuse they were princelings who lived Above the Law indulging their most decadent fantasies with total confidence they would be never held to account by the police. As the sons of a dictator they knew they could do exactly what they wanted and so that’s what they did.

There’s no one like that around Joe Biden – he doesn’t have weird sex scandals at the heart of his family that no one in the media will ever talk about; he doesn’t have a near (09:52) do well former nightclub owning brother who’s made a living for 30 years by being related to him.

Not at all that’s dictator stuff.

Joe Biden doesn’t award ridiculous inflated titles to his relatives that the media are then required to take seriously; he doesn’t call people Doctor who didn’t go to medical school and then force you to nod along like it’s real when everyone knows it isn’t – Nikolai chesco did that with his wife Elena.

Joe Biden would never do that.

Notice Joe Biden dressed like a dictator (10:19) he doesn’t do photo ops and mirrored sunglasses driving a sports car to convince you that he isn’t frail and senile; but instead powerful viral and wise, that’s just not his style.

If Joe Biden was a dictator he’d be wearing epaulettes and carrying a tasseled riding crop and he isn’t yet so calm down if he was a dictator Biden’s speeches would look like Nuremberg rallies a blood red backdrop armed Soldiers by his side screaming about crushing his eternal enemies honestly Biden did come close to that (10:50) one time last September at a speech in Philadelphia but it wasn’t in any sense dictatory dictatory.

It was necessary as MSNBC assures at the time quote Biden aimed to Showcase his faith in the military apparatus – in its ability to back the Democratic order see it was about democracy not dictatorship, no cause for alarm, he is not a dictator.

A dictator would stockpile ammunition for his own bureaucrats including his tax collectors; he’d redefine the legal code to make disloyalty to the regime the most serious crime.

He claimed dominion over (11:24) the most intimate parts of his citizens lives – he defined what attitudes they were allowed to have about sex and religion and how to raise their families.

He would even in his final grandiose stage of dictatorship claim ownership of their children and Joe Biden wouldn’t do that and to prove he would never do that Biden just this week released this video: “these are our kids these are our neighbors not somebody else’s kids they’re all our kids and our children are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions (11:56) aloft. – it matters a great deal how we treat everyone in this country, lgbtq Americans, especially children you’re loved you’re heard and this Administration has your back.”

See Joe Biden isn’t saying your children belong to him like a dictator would he’s saying something very different from that he’s saying America’s children are quote our children not his alone ours. You share your children with Joe Biden evenly right down the middle with alternating weekends you’ve got joint custody with Joe Biden and you can thank (12:30) heaven that you do.

A nation is like a family every family has a head a father that’s Joe Biden our nation’s father and this ladies and gentlemen is now his Fatherland just don’t call it a dictatorship or we’ll have to issue a statement disavowing you know the death of Jeffrey.

A California state senator has urged parents to “flee” the state if they “love their children” in response to what he calls alarming language in a new gender identity bill.

Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) is one of two lone Republicans on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee , and has served in the state legislature for 11 years, according to the Daily Signal, who notes that he was the lone voice warning against language in the bill, AB 957, which was amended on June 5 by a Democratic senator to rewrite the state’s Family Code to list “gender affirmation” alongside a child’s need for “health, safety and welfare.”

Under AB 957, introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D) and co-authored by Sen. Scott Weiner (D), a parent could lose custody of their child for not “affirming” their claims about gender identity.

“I’m now in year 11 in the state legislature, and all the time we’re proposing policies to protect children. After 11 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to start protecting parents.

That’s just not happening.

I’ve been here and witnessed a full frontal assault on charter schools, taking away parents’ choice in how their children are going to be educated to the detriment particularly of children of color.

In recent years, we have put government bureaucrats between parents, children, and doctors when it comes to medical care—and now we have [AB 957] where if a parent does not support the ideology of the government, [children are] going to be taken away from the home…” -Scott Wilk

“I  was born and raised in this state. I love this state, but I’m not going to stay in this state. It’s just too oppressive and I believe in freedom and so I’m going to move to America when I leave the legislature,” Wilk continued.

Watch:

NEW: Sen. @ScottWilkCA warns parents to flee his own state.

“In the past when we’ve had these discussions and I’ve seen parental rights atrophied—I’ve encouraged people to keep fighting—I’ve changed my mind on that.

If you love your children, you need to flee California.” pic.twitter.com/9HGLiUFBsw

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) June 14, 2023

In response to the outrage, a spokesperson for Sen. Wilson tried to downplay concerns, saying “It’s not saying [affirmation] is the most important factor or determining factor. It’s one of many factors that the judge should consider while working out a custody agreement.”

Sure…

According to sources close to The Federalist, the Bidens allegedly ‘coerced’ a foreign national – identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky – to pay them $10 million in bribes.

Whether or not the FBI investigated this explosive claim is unknown, however.

On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting. -The Federalist

According to the FBI’s Confidential Human Source behind the controversial FD-1023 document that the agency had been stonewalling until last week, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS warned Zlochevsky to stay away from the Bidens.

Then, after Donald Trump won the 2016 US election, Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was ‘dismayed,’ and feared that an investigation would reveal the $10 million payments – which consisted of $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to Joe Biden.

After the CHS told Zlochevsky he hoped he’d taken precautions to protect himself, the Burisma founder allegedly detailed the steps he’d taken to avoid detection – including never directly paying the “Big Guy,’ while claiming that it would take a decade to unravel the various money trails. Zlochevsky then mentioned the 17 audio recordings of conversations with the Bidens that he kept for insurance.

The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source.

Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine. -The Federalist

According to the Federalist‘s sources, investigators out of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office found an earlier FD-1023 related to the same CHS, which led agents to question him or her again on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details regarding Burisma’s alleged bribery.

And Donald Trump was impeached for having the audacity to ask Ukraine to investigate.

In May, the House Oversight Committee released banking records which congressional investigators have been poring through to unravel the complex web behind the Biden family’s financial arrangements, which House Republicans claim provide concrete evidence of public corruption involving foreign nationals.

Authored by Alan Dershowitz  via the Gatestone Institute,

Overnight ugliness in China data spurred yuan weakness (pushing CNH to its weakest vs the dollar since Nov ’22), but the dollar’s weakness today (post-ECB) smashed yuan higher (its biggest jump since March) despite all those hopes of stimmies…

Source: Bloomberg

The ECB’s Christine Lagarde was not f**king around with nuance this morning as she hiked rates (as expected) and made it clear they will hike more – traders did not doubt her and the euro soared relative to the dollar (biggest EUR rally since early Feb)…

Source: Bloomberg

However, in US markets, traders pushed back against Powell’s apparently hawkish bluster, sending rate-change expectations dovishly lower (though still above pre-FOMC levels)…

Source: Bloomberg

‘Hot‘ retail sales numbers diverged from ‘Cold‘ jobless claims data and ugly industrial production opposed a beautiful resurgence in Empire Fed’s Manufacturing survey – so take your pick of what narrative (soft, no, hard landing).

As far as stocks are concerned – it’s the ‘never landing ever’ route as everything roared higher with Nasdaq leading the way. Nasdaq was up 2% from pre-FOMC at its highs today and Small Caps ramped back into the green since FOMC…

Nasdaq has now reversed almost all of its underperformance relative to Small Caps from last week…

Another day, another short-squeeze…

Source: Bloomberg

Ahead of tomorrow’s quad-witch, options-land was chaotic with 0-DTE traders pushing back hard against the opening ramp in stocks only to reverse it all, gamma-squeezing stocks to the day’s highs…

Source: SpotGamma

Here’s today’s winning lottery ticket (with over 350,000 contracts traded)…

Source: Bloomberg

Do Not Panic!! NVDA closed red!

Treasuries were aggressively bid today with the belly outperforming, erasing all the post-FOMC move with the short-end underperforming overall for the last two days (though all yields are lower from Tuesday’s close)…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar – mirroring the surge in the euro – plunged by the most since early Feb today, back to 6-week lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin bounced back modestly from last night’s bloodbath (that dump occurred right around the cash equity close, not at the FOMC)…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold rallied (helped by the weak dollar), erasing yesterday’s post-FOMC plunge…

Oil prices rallied today, reversing yesterday’s losses with WTI back above $71…

Finally, was today’s pump and dump in NVDA the top?

Source: Bloomberg

And, with quad-witching tomorrow, we thought this little chart from Nomura’s Charlie McElligott was worth noting…

Point-being, McElligott explains, despite a local Vol suppressing outcome from the Fed yesterday, a “higher for longer” message only increases the attractiveness of “left tail” hard-landing trades in both -SOFR and -VIX Call Spreads in coming months.

Translation: this is as good as it gets – brace!

Authored by Ryan McMaken via the Mises Institute,

The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) released new jobs data on Friday. According to the report, seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose 339,000 jobs in May, well above forecasts. The unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.4 percent to 3.7 percent (month over month).

Headlines in the mainstream media declared the headline employment data to be evidence of very strong job growth and economic success. According to Politico, the latest jobs numbers are evidence of a “remarkable resilience of President Joe Biden’s economy” and NPR declared the job market to be “sizzling hot.” 

Yet, May appears to be yet another month in which it seems nearly every economic indicator except the payroll jobs data points to an economic slowdown. The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is in recession territory. The Empire State Manufacturing Survey is, too. The Leading Indicators index keeps looking worse. The yield curve points to recession. Even Federal Reserve staffers, who generally take an implausibly rosy view of the economy, predict recession in 2023. Individual bankruptcy filings were up 23 percent in May. Temp jobs were down, year-over-year, which often indicates approaching recession. 

So how do we square all this with yet another jobs report that claims to tell us that the job market is the best it’s been in decades? 

Well, a lot of the jobs data isn’t actually very good. The headlines have focused on the so-called Establishment Survey which is a survey of employers and shows only the number of positions, not the number of employed persons. The Household survey, on the other hand, surveys people. 

The Household survey over the past two years has not shown nearly as much job growth as the Establishment Survey. 

Specifically, we find that since 2022, the Establishment Survey and the Household Survey have ceased to follow a similar trend, with a sizable gap forming between the two surveys. In fact, over the past two years, the two surveys show a gap of 2.2 million: 

Moreover, in May, while the Establishment Survey showed a gain of 339,000 jobs month-over-month, the Household Survey showed a loss of 310,000 employed persons. That’s a gap of more than 600,000. Looking at month-to-month changes, we can also see how the two surveys have diverged since April 2022. 

Part of this growing gap may be due to the fact that the number of responses to the Establishment survey has dropped off in recent years, suggesting that the survey is waning in its reliability as an indicator of the overall economy. The Household Survey, meanwhile, has not seen as large a drop off in responses. 

Another factor is the fact that the Establishment Survey does not track self-employed workers, and self-employment has been a significant factor in employment trends over the past three years. Self-employment collapsed in April 2020, but surged by April 2021 to historic highs. It is unknown, of course, how many of these workers were actually replacing lost income from covid-related job losses in this period. By 2023, however, self-employment had collapsed again, and year-over-year self-employment growth dropped by 6.5 percent in May. Excluding the covid lockdown period, that’s the largest year-over-year percentage drop since December 2007, when the Great Recession officially began. 

We might also note that overall, the total number of payroll jobs, as shown in the Establishment Survey, is now up by 3.7 million jobs since the previous peak in March 2020 peak. The Household survey, on the other hand, shows total employed persons up by only 1.9 million persons over the same period. That’s a gap of 1.7 million. 

The fact that the two different employment reports tell two different stories has led some economists to wonder about the media’s rosy jobs narrative. As reported by Yahoo Finance last week, economist Ian Shepherdson noted

“This is the strangest employment report for some time… [R]ight now the data suggest that economic growth is stronger than is indicated by most other monthly data. The downward trend in job growth since the summer of 2021 now appears to have flattened-off, though that could change with revisions.”

And economist Paul Ashworth pointed out: 

“The bigger-than-expected 339,000 increase in non-farm payroll employment in May will dominate the headlines, but the employment report was not all positive — with a big drop in the household survey measure of employment driving the unemployment rate up to a seven-month high of 3.7% and average weekly hours worked edging down to a three-year low.”

We might also note that the year-over-year gain in average hourly earnings in May (according to the Household Survey) fell to a 25-month low. If the Cleveland Fed’s “Nowcast” is right about inflation for May, then May will have been another month of falling real wages.

Part of the confusion and contradictory date no doubt arises from the fact that “jobs” are not at all homogeneous and employment trends can differ greatly across different industries and regions. This is the natural outcome of fact that monetary inflation is not at all neutral as it enters the economy—as the Austrian School has long pointed out.  The current trend of rapidly decelerating monetary growth will have sizably different effects across the economy. The Establishment Survey is especially inept at capturing these trends in real time. 

This week both Presidents Vladimir Putin and his close ally Alexander Lukashenko have addressed worst case scenarios which could spin out of the Ukraine war. Both in separate interviews have addressed what the West fears most in fresh remarks. It comes as Russian tactical nukes are being delivered to Belarusian bases.

First, Belarus’ Lukashenko said in a Wednesday interview on Rossiya-1 television that the Western allies are very afraid that a new, large-scale war will break out in Europe, resulting in “global catastrophe”. 

“I have met with people playing an important role in this, who make radical, drastic and final decisions in the event of an `if’,’” Lukashenko said, according to Russian state media translation. “What they fear most is a nuclear disaster, and they have been sincere about this. They are afraid of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. It’s only natural,” he added.

He stressed that Belarus certainly seeks to avoid this as well. “We are not seeking that either, and we, too, are afraid. Because this, experts say, could cause a global catastrophe, and this planet may deorbit, if all these weapons explode,” Lukashenko said.

His words came the same day he confirmed that Belarus has begun taking delivery Russian tactical nukes on its territory, in line with previous announcements which deeply alarmed the West. According to more of the Belarusian strongman’s words in TASS:

According to Lukashenko, Russia may use nukes, if the enemy invades its territory or if this act of aggression threatens the existence of the state. He urged talks as long as there is an opportunity for them, but the West, he said, has been banning Ukraine from engaging in any.

“I am confident and I have it on good information that the overwhelming majority in Ukraine, including the military who has been fighting and getting killed over there, would like to stop this war now,” the Belarusian leader maintained. “But then there are those hyped-up top-level officials led by [Ukrainian President] Volodya Zelensky. He is a `hero’ now, touring the globe. He is being kissed, hugged and all that. I thought he was smarter,” Lukashenko lamented.

Separately, President Putin in the middle of this week voiced something similar, saying that a nightmare scenario is that “the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe.”

Lukashenko says he’s receiving “tactical” nuclear weapons from Russia & would use them in case of “aggression” against Belarus.
“We got missiles & bombs from Russia. A bomb 3x more powerful than Hiroshima & Nagasaki … a million people would die immediately.” pic.twitter.com/n4UNb69OjC

— Alec Luhn (@AlecLuhn) June 14, 2023

According to the Russian leader’s fresh statements reported on by foreign war correspondent and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar [emphasis ZH]…

“We were forced to try to end the war that the West started in 2014 by force of arms. And Russia will end this war by force of arms, freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis. There are no other options,” Putin said.

“The Ukrainian army of the US and NATO will be defeated, no matter what new types of weapons it receives from the West. The more weapons there are, the fewer Ukrainians and what used to be Ukraine will remain.”

And importantly, he emphasized that “Direct intervention by NATO’s European armies will not change the outcome. But in this case, the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe. It looks like the US is ready for that too.”

Putin strongly suggested that Russia too is “ready” for this worst case outcome if the situation unravels further. While Ukraine has thus far received many dozens of main battle tanks from the West, some of which have already been destroyed on the battlefield by Russia’s superior combination of arms, it’s widely believed the bigger escalation will come with the eventual supply of F-16 fighter jets.

Authored by Chris Menahan via Information Liberation,

Starbucks has been ordered by a jury to pay over $25 million in damages to a former regional manager they fired for being white as a sacrificial offering to the Black Lives Matter movement.

From The New York Times, “White Starbucks Manager Fired Amid Furor Over Racism Wins $25 Million”:

In April 2018, two Black men entered a Starbucks shop in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia for a business meeting with a white man who had not yet arrived. While they waited, and before ordering, one of the two asked to use the bathroom. He was refused. Eventually, they were asked to leave. When they did not, an employee called the police.

The subsequent arrests, captured in videos viewed millions of times online, prompted accusations of racism, protests and boycott threats. The company’s chief executive apologized publicly, describing the way the men had been treated as “reprehensible.” Starbucks took the extraordinary step of temporarily closing 8,000 stores to teach workers about racial bias.

Starbucks employees said they were forced to watch “video after video” of white cops attacking blacks as part of said “racial bias” training.

On Monday, in a surprising twist, a federal jury in New Jersey ordered Starbucks to pay $25.6 million to a former regional manager after determining that the company had fired her amid the fallout from the Rittenhouse Square episode because she was white.

The jury found that Starbucks had violated the federal civil rights of the former manager, Shannon Phillips, as well as a New Jersey law that prohibits discrimination based on race, awarding her $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages.

Laura Carlin Mattiacci, a lawyer for Ms. Phillips, said she and her client were “very pleased” with the unanimous verdict, adding that “she proved by ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that punitive damages were warranted” under the New Jersey law.

[…] Ms. Phillips said in the suit that Starbucks, as part of its damage-control effort after the arrests, had sought to punish her and other white employees in and around Philadelphia even if they had not been involved in the events that led to the police being called.

Ms. Phillips said she had thrown herself into the company’s efforts to restore its credibility and had sought to support hourly workers, organizing managers to staff stores and cover for employees who were scared to run a gantlet of protesters.

Amid the image-burnishing campaign, Ms. Phillips said one of her superiors, a Black woman, told her to suspend a white manager who oversaw stores in Philadelphia, though not the one in Rittenhouse Square, because of allegations that he had engaged in discriminatory conduct — allegations that Ms. Phillips said she knew to be untrue.

In contrast, Ms. Phillips said, no action was taken against the manager who oversaw the Rittenhouse Square store, a Black man who Ms. Phillips said had promoted the employee who called the police.

Ms. Phillips said she was fired not long after balking at the order to suspend the white manager. She said that she had not been previously told that she was doing a bad job and that the only explanation she was given for the firing was that “the situation is not recoverable.”

Starbucks denied in court filings that Ms. Phillips had been fired because she was white and said she was let go because she performed poorly in response to the episode that led to the arrests.

“During this time of crisis,” a lawyer for Starbucks wrote in a court filing, the company’s “Philadelphia market needed a leader who could perform,” adding that “Ms. Phillips failed in every aspect of that role.”

Justice is served!