It’s been more than a year since Russia invaded Ukraine and forced refugees to seek destinations for new (or temporary) homes.

As this ongoing conflict has dragged on, it has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian crises in Europe in recent times. Millions of people have fled their homes and sought temporary or permanent asylum in countries across Europe, and the world.

As Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes details below, this map by Pranav Gavali uses UNHCR data as of March 11, 2023 to highlight the countries that became Ukrainian refugee destinations.

Top Refugee Destinations in Europe

Over eight million Ukraine residents have found shelter outside of the country since February 2022, primarily in Europe.

The largest share of refugees at 35% have actually gone directly to Russia. Despite various reports of forced transfers of Ukrainian refugees to Russia, the country claims to have helped evacuate civilians without force.

The next largest intakes were from Poland and Germany, thanks in part to their close proximity and strong regional economies. Both have welcomed more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees, with Poland accepting over 1.5 million alone.

Czechia, Italy, and Spain are the next highest recipients of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, taking in a collective total of 10%.

And some refugees have ended up outside of Europe as well, though the UNCHR’s tracker only includes European countries. The U.S. for example is the fifth largest Ukrainian refugee destination overall, taking in more than 200,000 refugees through December 2022.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

Two officials from the Treasury Department will visit European allies to demand trade with Russia ends…

The White House plans to send a clear message to its European partners in the economic war against Russia, “you are either with us or against us.” Two US Treasury officials will visit European and Central Asian partners next month to demand all sanctions on Russia be implemented.

Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The AP reports the officials will have a simple message, “1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or 2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.”

Rosenberg and Nelson will provide their European counterparts with intelligence on alleged sanctions evaders. If those countries fail to crack down on those still doing business with Russia, then Washington is threatening to issue “penalties.” It is unclear how far the Joe Biden administration is willing to punish NATO allies for violating sanctions.

The policy echoes President George W. Bush’s doctrine that countries must either actively align with Washington in its Middle East wars, or else be judged as working “with the terrorists.”

It is unclear how Europe will respond to the Joe Biden administration’s threats. Some EU members were in favor of a plan that would lift sanctions on the Belarusian fertilizer industry.

Additionally, stricter sanctions implementation could threaten the Black Sea grain export agreement. The deal, brokered by Turkey and the UN, allows Ukraine’s heavily mined Black Sea ports to export agricultural products. Moscow has been willing to extend the agreement several times but is threatening to terminate it over Western sanctions preventing Russia from reaping the agreement’s benefits.

After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the White House unleashed a series of sanctions that it considered an economic nuclear weapon. However, the attempt to isolate Moscow’s economy has largely floundered. While the Russian rouble has dipped in recent days, throughout most of the war Moscow has weathered the sanctions by increasing trade with Asia.

Washington has only rallied its NATO allies and other close partners to adopt the sanctions. Meanwhile, China has added more countries to its Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey are two of the latest prospective members.

Upon becoming a member of the SCO, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi observed that the more countries the US sanctions, the more these targeted nations may cooperate as trading partners.”The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US, such as Iran, Russia or other countries, can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger,” he said. “The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped, their perception is a wrong one.”

Authored by Peter Schweizer via The Gatestone Institute,

China is a rival power. They are supplanting the United States on the global stage, both in terms of their economic capability and in terms of their military capability.

They also talk openly about wanting to reorient the world — to move it away from an American‑led Western coalition. They want to create something very different, and everybody essentially recognizes that, with the exception, it seems, of President Joe Biden.

Now, that is a pretty bold statement. If you look at Biden, what he has said publicly and some of the actions he has taken, he is on an island by himself.

Biden repeatedly says, “China is not a threat. We should welcome the rise of China. It is good not only for China but good for the United States that China is becoming more powerful. The fact is that they are not a threat to us.”

This has been Biden’s consistent position over the last decade. When he chose to set up the Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, very interesting, there is a list of threats that they list.

This is a Biden Center that is focused on foreign policy, national security. They say the three biggest threats that the United States faces in the world today are global terrorism, climate change and Russia.

To put that in the context of what we know is going on in the world stage today. We have had the Chinese government, and Chinese government entities, that have hacked numerous databases in the United States, including those of the US Office of Personnel Management.

There have been reports that the Chinese were hacking into our research centers that were studying information related to COVID. We know that the way that China handled COVID was certainly poor and damaging to the United States. We know that they challenged US military actions in the South China Sea.

It is a glaring omission for the Biden Center, focused on foreign policy diplomacy, to exclude China as one of the three major threats. When you compare it to, for example, Russia…

I’m not suggesting that Russia is not a world power that needs to be watched.

But the notion that a declining power like Russia, which has domestic problems, a shrinking economy, a shrinking demographic base, is somehow a bigger threat than China is laughable.

It is indicative of a larger issue, which is that Biden essentially has a soft spot for Beijing.

The question, of course, is why?

It is impossible to answer that question without looking at the commercial ties that Biden has with China. They are extensive. They are lucrative. They are unique. They speak to one of the oldest realities in American politics, which has followed him.

It seems that in American media — which focuses on Wall Street firms holding fundraisers that focus on the role that big oil plays on Capitol Hill because of their lobbying but also because of their campaign contributions –we ought to have room to discuss, not campaign contributions to the Biden family, but money going into the Biden family’s pockets, in this instance, from China.

When I say money going to the Bidens’ pockets from China, do I mean an American company in China? No. Do I mean a Chinese company in China? No. What I mean directly and clearly is the Chinese government itself, which is run, of course, by the Chinese Communist Party.

That is what makes what the Bidens have done commercially with Beijing unique compared to anything that relates to corruption. I’ve been covering corruption for more than a decade. I’ve called out Republicans and Democrats. The Biden case, to me, is unique because it is not just rank‑and‑file corruption where somebody gets a paving contract for their business.

We are not just talking about some American company giving a sweetheart job to a politician’s relative. We are talking about a foreign government, which happens to be our chief rival on the global stage, engaging in lucrative commerce with the family of the then‑vice president, now the president of the United States, Joe Biden.

This is different and unique in the realm of this kind of stuff I’ve seen before. What are these relationships? How do they work? What is the relationship between the Biden family and China? What are the details? Why is it a concern?

Let me break this out in a couple of phases. First of all, what is the actual commercial relationship between the Biden family and the Chinese? Second of all, what are the implications of it? This is a commercial relationship that not only has made the Bidens money. It has advanced the strategic and military interests of the Chinese government itself.

What are the relationships?

The first one is a private equity arrangement or deal that Hunter Biden has with the Chinese government itself. This is a deal that began and was finalized in December of 2013. It led to the creation of something called Bohai Harvest RST or BHR Partners.

Essentially, the Chinese government poured in a billion dollars. They later expanded that to a-billion-and-a-half dollars for BHR, a private equity investment firm. One of the partnering firms that created BHR was Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Hunter Biden was put on the board of directors of BHR Partners. His partner Devon Archer became the vice chairman and sat on the investment committee. What is astonishing about this is, first of all, that the Chinese government funded this venture. Again, these are not individual Chinese companies. This is Chinese government money.

Second of all, it is astonishing that Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of this firm. His firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, got an equity stake of 20 percent in this firm even though Hunter Biden had zero background in private equity and zero background in China. It begs the question, why did they choose to do business with Hunter Biden? It is pretty clear why.

Only a few months before this deal was finalized, then Vice President Joe Biden became the point person on Obama administration policy towards China. The timing here is also quite astonishing. That is the first tie you have, this billion-and-a-half dollar, now more than two‑billion‑dollar private equity firm, BHR. Hunter Biden gets an equity stake in the firm and joins the board of directors.

In 2017, his lawyers admitted that he also took a personal stake. In addition to the firm that he owned part of, he took a personal stake in these deals. That is deal number one. Then there is deal number two with the Chinese government. This involves a real estate firm called Rosemont Real Estate, of which Hunter Biden was a co‑founder.

Again, Hunter Biden has no background in commercial real estate. He has no background in China. What happens is, in 2013, a Chinese firm called Gemini, which is registered on the Hong Kong stock exchange ‑‑ it is closely linked to the Chinese military, specifically the People’s Liberation Army – shows up and becomes a partner with Hunter Biden’s real estate firm.

Rosemont then becomes Gemini Rosemont Realty. The Chinese government is later to put in more than $100 million in cash. They publicly say that they are going to put billions of dollars of equity into this entity to make it even more successful. Here you have two large deals.

There are several others we could talk about that relate to the Chinese government doing business with the son of the sitting vice president, who clearly has no experience and has no reason even to be at the table with the Chinese government. Alas, here he is. Those are the deals.

We do not know how much money Hunter Biden made. We can assume, based on the private equity deal, that it is probably in the tens of millions of dollars. There is no requirement for them to disclose any of these deals.

That is part of the problem, and I think it needs to be changed. Those two are the nature of the deals. Here is why these deals are even more troubling and why this is not just a case of corruption.

Hunter Biden is a willing participant. He is on the board of directors of this private equity firm. When you look at what that private equity firm does, the first thing they do is they become an anchor investor in a Chinese firm called China General Nuclear (CGN).

Why is this interesting? This is a nuclear energy firm that about eight months after Hunter Biden’s BHR becomes an anchor investor, they are charged by the FBI in the United States.

That firm was stealing nuclear secrets in the United States. In particular, CGN is trying to gain technologies related to the small nuclear reactors that are put on submarines, which provide a huge military advantage to the United States.

Already you have this remarkable fact that the son of the sitting vice president is on the board of directors of a Chinese government‑funded firm that buys into another Chinese firm that is engaged in nuclear espionage in the United States. It goes further.

Another acquisition they make is that Hunter Biden’s BHR firm buys half of a company called Henniges in Michigan — and another Chinese entity buys the other half. That other half is bought by AVIC, which is the Chinese state‑owned aviation military contractor.

AVIC builds all the military aircraft for the Chinese military. These two entities, Hunter Biden’s BHR and AVIC, buy Henniges in Michigan, which produces machine‑tool‑related systems. They are dual‑use technologies, which means the anti‑vibration technologies they make can be used for civilian purposes and also for military application.

You have a case the son of the sitting vice president on the board of directors of a firm that has bought American precision machine tool company whose acquisition is going to literally benefit the Chinese military.

What I think is important about the Biden story is not simply the fact that the Biden family made money because of the Chinese military and that Joe Biden speaks very kindly about the Chinese since those deals have gone down, but also that the Biden family involving the son of the vice president directly benefit the Chinese military.

It is said that by 2030, the Chinese Communist Party’s goal is to achieve military parity with the United States with the goal, eventually, according to President Xi Jinping, of achieving superiority over the United States.

To me, this is a central issue of concern that we should have in this country. China is a power that has demonstrated over the last decade that they want, by 2025, to supplant the United States as the major economic power in the world. Then by 2030, they want to match the United States militarily.

The Chinese government has also spoken openly about their desire to upturn and change the global order for their benefit. What we have in the Biden family is a family that has become wealthy by enabling, helping, aiding and abetting the Chinese in doing exactly that.

In terms of Hunter Biden doing nothing wrong, it does not seem that there has been anything illegal. I have always contended that the problem in Washington DC is that some of the worst crimes or worst acts of corruption are done by people who engage in legal behavior. In Washington DC, the political class gets to make their own rules.

They get to rig the game, as it were, to ensure that the real lucrative stuff that is corrupt — and should be illegal — is the very stuff that they engage in. To me, they did something profoundly wrong, which is set up a business enterprise with our chief rival on the global stage and make money with them.

Hunter Biden has stepped off the board of directors of BHR. Here is the problem: he still retains his equity stake with this Chinese firm. He still has other deals that he conducted with the Chinese from which he benefited.

The fact is: he got caught, not necessarily with his hand in the cookie jar but with an empty cookie jar and a pile of cookies on the table.

The manner in which the Bidens have handled this scandal speaks to me to the fact that there is something here that needs to be explored. Joe Biden has not answered questions related to this very well.

The Biden team has lied repeatedly. I can go into greater detail if people want me to. They have lied repeatedly about what the nature of this relationship has been. They have had to correct the record later. They have had to modify their answers later. This is and should be a central part of the national conversation we are having in the country.

A couple of examples: The first is a December 2013 trip that Joe Biden took on Air Force Two to Beijing, and Hunter Biden tagged along with him.

The Bidens’ response was that Hunter Biden was there purely as a private citizen and did not engage in any business activity while he was there. That was the first position. Then, lo and behold, it turned out that a reporter with The New Yorker talked to a Chinese business executive that was involved in setting up BHR.

That Chinese executive told The New Yorker, “Well, actually, Hunter came and got me, and we went and met with the vice president. I shook the vice president’s hand on that trip.” Already you have the fact that they were claiming that there was no commercial side to this trip, that Hunter Biden engaged in no commercial behavior.

We now know that his Chinese partner was introduced to the vice president of the United States and they discussed whatever they discussed on that trip. Here is the second lie that they made. We highlighted the fact that December 2013, Joe Biden and his son go to Beijing on Air Force Two. About 10 days later, the BHR, the private equity deal is finalized.

They responded by saying, “Well, no. This is a coincidence. They are not connected. Hunter was not really involved in setting up BHR. That took place in June of 2013. It did not take place during this December 2013 trip with the vice president.” That was their position. Then our friends at Judicial Watch got a hold of all his travel logs.

The Secret Service has the travel logs of where Hunter Biden went. Remember, they said BHR was set up in June of 2013? Where was Hunter Biden in June of 2013? He was in Beijing, China.

The point is, they have lied about this repeatedly. They have tried to downplay it and say, “Well, he was not really that heavily involved in BHR,” and then had to admit that he was on the board of directors.

It has been subterfuge from the beginning. They need to be called out on it. They seem quite concerned and nervous about this. The American people understand if somebody’s giving you a sweetheart deal, particularly an actor like China, they are not doing it without getting something in return. They are not that stupid.

This is the problem we have had in Washington for quite some time. We have issues with people on both sides of the aisle. It is not just one side of the aisle.

This sort of effort by foreign governments and foreign entities to strike bargains with members of the American political elite and members of the political elite, first and foremost, the Bidens, their willingness to strike these deals ought to appall people. Generally, when they learn about them, they do.

The problem is the way that rules are written in Washington DC, they are written by the political class themselves. They carve out certain things. Think about this for a second. If Joe Biden owns $2,500 in General Electric stock, he is required to disclose that based on the disclosure rules that were passed by Congress.

If he gets a $250 campaign contribution from a GE executive, it is disclosed by the FEC. If his adult son flying on Air Force Two, clearly close with the vice president, strikes a series of deals with a foreign government that are lucrative and beneficial to him, there is no requirement for disclosure — which, to me, is shocking.

One of the things that has to change is that we need greater transparency. The political class in Washington is very corrupt. They are very creative. It is like water running downhill. You put up a barrier and it finds a way around it.

That is what they often do with these rules and laws. If you create a ban on certain types of commercial activities involving members of the political class’ family, they find a way around it.

The great gold mine that they have discovered are these foreign entities. With Hunter Biden, you have these deals in China. You also have the deal in Ukraine that everybody’s familiar with. Again, where he gets a million dollars a year from a foreign, corrupt energy company in Ukraine right after his father is appointed point person on Ukraine policy.

He is given a million dollars a year by a company even though he has no background in Ukraine and no background in energy. Everybody knows what is going on. Unfortunately, it is legal.

There ought to at minimum be a requirement that you disclose any foreign dealings involving the family members of politicians, Republican, Democrat, executive branch, legislative branch. That would be very, very helpful. The way you discuss this and you explain this to people is: It is not a question about what is legal.

There are lots of things that are legal in Washington that are highly corrupt.

The key thing is, does this compromise Joe Biden? The fact that his son has a series of deals that they tried to cover up, and that they have lied about, with a foreign government, our chief rival on the global stage, does that put the president of the United States in a compromised position?

Has he done favors for that foreign power? One of the things that the great Roger Robinson has been working on. He does a lot of work in the equities markets. He is looking into the fact that in 2013, the Obama administration signed a letter which said that the Chinese companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange did not have to conform to Sarbanes‑Oxley auditing and some of the other requirements that US and other foreign firms do.

It is quite a cutout for the Chinese. They are still trying to figure out who is at the bottom of it. There are indications that there are Biden fingerprints.

In addition, President Biden talks very favorably towards China, he does not challenge them in the South China Sea and elsewhere, you have something very tangible of benefit to China that Joe Biden has done while his son was given these sweetheart deals by the Chinese government.

The Chinese Communist Party wanted Joe Biden elected. They did not want President Donald Trump. In the words of, I think, the Global Times publication from Beijing, they think that Biden is smoother than Donald Trump, which is probably the understatement of the week.

Clearly, they do not like Trump’s posture towards them. Trump continued to send ships to navigate the South China Sea much to their consternation. He strengthened our ties with Taiwan. He strengthened our ties with other allies in Asia. He took aggressive postures related to trade, technology transfer.

He was very clear and outspoken about the fact that COVID‑19 has origins in China and that China certainly did not act as an international partner in the way that they alerted or failed to alert us regarding that virus. The question about blackmail, to be blunt about it, is, are they going to need to blackmail Joe Biden? Joe Biden’s posture towards China is incredibly soft.

Something may emerge but I am not sure there is something that they want that he is not already prepared to give them. He certainly has a very different attitude towards trade with China than President Trump did.

He has been far less outspoken on the South China Sea. He continues to insist, “Oh, they are friends, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I’m not sure that the Chinese would have to blackmail the Bidens to get a lot of what they want. China has flexed its muscles with politicians in Australia, in New Zealand. This is the way they work. They are very shrewd.

They do not strike partnerships or collaborate on commercial relationships with political elites in the West unless they are getting something in return. They are not running a charity. President Xi is not running a Biden charity. He is running a country that wants to surpass the United States strategically. They are going to pull those levers if they need to. Generally, Biden’s posture towards them is the posture they want.

There is no question that the Obama White House would have to know about that, and that President Biden would have to know about that. CGN, you can google it now and it will give you the case information. They had engineer executives that pled guilty in the case.

Joe Biden is well aware of what is going on. He clearly understands what is going on. What we need is on Capitol Hill for the Senate committees, where the Republicans are in control, to look seriously at this stuff.

It is like a lot of other countries that are highly dependent on the United States. In this particular case, they very aggressively struck a deal with the vice president’s son to make money, but it is far more important in my mind to look at what is our chief rival China done.

The VAT Committee is spending a lot of time on China. The China stuff demands further attention. There has been zero curiosity by the mainstream media.

On Capitol Hill, there have been far too many people sitting on their hands, not wanting to discuss it, either because perhaps they are looking for similar types of deals themselves, or they do not have the stomach to go there because they are concerned about issues that might reflect poorly on them.

I think with the Chinese funding of over $20 million of the Biden Center of the University of Pennsylvania is deeply troubling. This has been the strategy that China has adopted. We need to remember that China is a Leninist State. They do not have the Marxism Leninism that the Soviet Union had in some respects. They have a more vibrant private sector than the Soviet Union ever did even under Gorbachev.

There is no question that the Communist Party of China runs China, and commercial ventures in China need to be approved by the party. All major companies have party committees that are embedded in them.

If I understand the ruling correctly, the Chinese Communist Party, just recently, a couple of years ago required the CEO of any company to be on that Chinese Communist Party committee that is embedded within their own company.

It should not surprise us that they are going to employ Leninist strategies for their strategic advantage. Not only for the Bidens. You see people on Wall Street. You see some of the big firms.

I would put Goldman Sachs and Blackstone in that category; they are entities that have been willing to turn a blind eye, and to say wonderful things about China that are simply not true — given the way that the Chinese Communist rule — in exchange for access and making money in the Chinese market.

It is a huge problem. The Bidens are complicit in it. The Bidens cashed in while he was vice president of the United States. He did not have any of these deals until he became vice president.

I think at that point, the Chinese realized, “This is a guy we want to do deals with. This is a guy that will be helpful to us in advancing our interest. Let’s strike a bargain,” and that is why they struck a bargain with the Biden family.

Let’s be honest about it. If Donald Trump Jr. flew over on Air Force One to Beijing, China with his father and got a billion‑and‑a‑half‑dollar deal, let’s say in the energy sector, where he has no experience, the mainstream media would be all over that story.

I would be all over that story for good reason, but there has been a complete lack of curiosity by the media, and even, as we have seen, suppression.

My hope is that people will start paying attention to this issue. We will start being a lot more aware that members of our political class are doing these kinds of deals overseas, and they are being paid by the foreign government. It should not be tolerated. Even if it is legal, it should not be tolerated just because they have written the rules in such a way to benefit themselves.

*  *  *

Peter Schweizer, President of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and author of the new book, Red Handed: How American Elites are Helping China Win.

The Washington state senate on Saturday approved a measure that would ban the sale of so-called “assault weapons.” It does not, however, ban possession. 

HB 1240 will make it illegal to sell, transfer, distribute, manufacture or import a long list of prohibited firearms. The bill bans several broad categories such as the AK-47 and AR-15 “in all its forms,” and then lists dozens of specific product lines, such as the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 and Bushmaster XM-15. 

It also bans the weapons by defining them as semiautomatic, centerfire rifles that accept a detachable magazine and also have at least one of many other listed features, such as a folding or telescoping stock. It also bars such weapons if they have an integral 10-round magazine. 

The bill was amended by the senate, so it now returns to Washington’s House of Representatives for a final vote. The House passed the original bill on a 55-42 vote, and Governor Jay Inslee previously signaled his support, saying, “Passing an assault weapon ban will be a momentous step forward for Washington state.” Tacoma-based firearm component-manufacturer Aero Precision begs to differ: 

Extremely sad day for gun owners of Washington. More updates to come soon, but one thing we know for sure is that this fight is far from over pic.twitter.com/5F4vv8C3Hr

— Aero Precision (@aero_precision) April 9, 2023

The bill’s supporters “don’t own firearms and don’t know anything about firearms,” said Republican Senator Keith Wagoner, who was able to amend the bill to explicitly exempt active duty military personnel who are ordered to duty in Washington, along with military retirees moving to the state. 

Violations will be considered “gross misdemeanors,” carrying a penalty of up to 364 days in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.  

The “assault weapon” bill is one of several measures advancing in the Washington legislature. On Friday, the Senate approved an already-House-approved bill that puts a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases and requires buyers to prove they took a safety class.

The impending infringements on gun rights triggered a surge in gun-buying as residents raced to beat the legislature: Background checks in the state rocketed 70% higher in April. 

Washington is poised to become the 10th state to impose such an “assault weapon” ban, joining California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, along with the District of Columbia. 

There’s a distinct possibility all of those bans will be obliterated by the Supreme Court in the not-too-distant future. Keep an eye on two cases making their way through the federal court system: Bianchi v Frosh, which challenges Maryland’s ban, and Miller v Bonta, which targets California’s. 

After last summer’s Supreme Court Bruen ruling, gun control laws can only be upheld if they are consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That new standard has resulted in an ongoing series of gun control laws being rejected. Most recently, a federal judge applying that framework blocked California’s “Unsafe Handgun Act,” which among other things, requires that handguns must stamp a unique identifier onto fired bullets, with the intent to facilitate police investigations.  

Authored by Josh Hammer via The Epoch Times,

The Roman historian Suetonius described Julius Caesar as timid and noncommittal as he initially approached the Rubicon River – a shallow and narrow waterway that, at the time, demarcated the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper – in January 49 B.C.E.

In fact, the historian ultimately attributed Caesar’s decision to cross the waterway, precipitating a four-year civil war and ultimate Caesarian dictatorship, to the supernatural. Prior to crossing, again according to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the now-infamous phrase: “The die has been cast.”

While we cannot know for certain whether New York County, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s catastrophic decision to successfully indict and arraign a former president of the United States was partially attributable to an intervening apparition, we can reasonably conclude that the actions of this past week have cast a most woeful die for the trajectory of our decadent, declining republic. The 34-count formal indictment of former President Donald Trump, laughably meritless on the legal merits and scandalously imprudent on the broader political judgment, represents a genie that cannot, and will not, ever be returned to its bottle.

Much ink has already been spilled on the glaring legal deficiencies in Bragg’s case, which ought to be evident to any competent first-year law student and which had led Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr., U.S. prosecutors and—in the not-so-distant past—Bragg himself to eschew prosecution. The underlying New York State crime that Trump allegedly violated and which is the exclusive crime invoked in the formal indictment, falsifying business records in the first degree, has a two-year statute of limitations under New York criminal law. The final alleged criminal bookkeeping action—a “hush money” payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels by former Trump “fixer,” and more recent convicted felon, Michael Cohen—was on Dec. 5, 2017. The statute of limitations thus tolled over three years ago. That alone should suffice to dismiss the case.

Bragg’s theory appears to be that he can somehow evade this, and simultaneously enhance the misdemeanor to a felony, by proving—beyond a reasonable doubt, naturally—that Trump’s bookkeeping falsifications were done in furtherance of another crime. But Bragg, remarkably, has not said what that crime is. It appears to be some amorphous combination of skirting federal campaign law and/or New York State election law, in the context of Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run; but the former has a five-year statute of limitations (thus also tolled) and is also well outside Bragg’s legitimate prosecutorial jurisdiction as a county district attorney, and the latter should not properly apply to a U.S. presidential candidate. Moreover, even ignoring the dispositive statute of limitations and jurisdictional issues, the very thing Bragg would need to prove to a jury “beyond a reasonable doubt” to secure the felony enhancement—that Trump directed Cohen to make the payments with the specific intent to benefit his 2016 presidential campaign—is rebutted by Cohen himself, who has testified under oath that Trump requested the payments to be made furtively to spare his family personal embarrassment.

Alvin Bragg, lest it go unstated, is the same George Soros-funded “reform prosecutor” who has overseen a 22 percent year-over-year increase in New York City’s crime rate, even as he has downgraded a whopping 52 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. In the Big Apple, homicides are spiking, illegal guns are everywhere, single women are afraid to walk the streets of Manhattan alone, and commuters are terrified to ride the subway lest insane homeless persons push them into oncoming trains. Yet this is how Alvin Bragg, who, along with New York State Attorney General Letitia James, ran on an open and explicit “Get Trump” campaign platform, chooses to spend his time, expend his prosecutorial resources and seek misdemeanor-to-felony enhancements.

But the deed is done. If not dismissed beforehand, a trial would likely not unfold until later this year or early next. And in the interim, other ambitious prosecutors investigating Trump in Georgia and Washington, D.C., have now watched Bragg shatter the hitherto unbroken precedent of the ruling political party never criminally indicting a former and defeated president of the opposite political party, which had been—until this past week—one of the few remaining things to which we might point to distinguish our late-stage republic from its third-world banana republic equivalents the world over. Perhaps additional indictments in those jurisdictions will indeed follow. Either way, the political ramifications for the 2024 Republican presidential primary are legion.

With the precedent forever shattered, the onus now falls on the “deplorables” of the American Right to sober up and recognize that the United States is now at the point of no return when it comes to weaponizing governmental powers and partisan prosecutorial apparatuses to reward political friends and punish political enemies within the (sometimes highly debatable, as is the case here) confines of the rule of law. There is simply no choice but for the Right, and for Republican prosecutors in deep-red jurisdictions across the country, to prudentially and reasonably respond in kind, upping the ante further in the short- to mid-term in an attempt to ultimately de-escalate toward a long-term “mutually assured destruction” footing. Surely there is some creative and ambitious right-wing prosecutor in the Oklahoma Panhandle or West Texas who would like to summon Hunter Biden or Anthony Fauci out to “flyover country,” right?

Sometimes, the only way out is through.

Those who peaked below the surface of the latest H.8 statement which, as discussed previously, saw the biggest drop on record in the last two weeks of March, found another, perhaps even bigger surprise. As we detailed over the weekend, when breaking down the weekly change in small bank loans and leases by their core constituents, we found that whereas in the first week after the bank crisis (the one ending March 15) the bulk of the collapse in loans was in the traditionally volatile C&I space, the latest week was a surprise: that’s because while the plunge in C&I loans moderated substantially to just $6.9BN from $25BN the week before, the biggest slide was in one of the anchor pillars of the small bank sector: real estate loans.

In fact, while the biggest drop among small bank loans in the latest week was the $18.7BN decline in real estate loans, this was a continuation of the $19.2BN drop in the previous week. Combining the two weeks reveals a $37.8BN plunge in real estate loans in the second half of March. This number is notable because it is the biggest since the collapse of the country’s then 2nd largest subprime lender, New Century Financial in March 2007, which as most traders over 40 recall, was the catalyst that ushered in the global financial crisis, and within the year led to the collapse of Bear Stearns and, eventually, Lehman.

Of course, for the past month we have been warning that real estate and especially Commercial Real Estate is the ticking solvency time bomb within both large and small banks, now that the liquidity crisis that crushed several “small” banks has been contained courtesy of nearly half a trillion in reserve injections by the Fed. And while we previously discussed at length the coming multi-trillion CRE maturity wall, (see “New “Big Short” Hits Record Low As Focus Turns To $400 Billion CRE Debt Maturity Wall“)…

… increasingly more are also seemingly starting to notice and, what is far more ominously, are taking a page out of the Margin Call playbook and quietly selling out of their real estate loan exposure: or to quote Kevin Spacey, “this is what the beginning of a firesale looks like.”

To be sure, it’s no longer just us that are focusing on the potential of CRE to be the next market crash catalyst. As Bloomberg wrote over the weekend, “almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?”

Well, there is another even bigger question as the video clip above suggests, but we’ll get back to it in a second.

Bloomberg quotes a recent must-read note by Morgan Stanley titled “Scaling Maturity Walls” (available to pro subs in the usual place) in which the bank’s credit strategists write that “refinancing risks are front and center” for owners of properties from office buildings to stores and warehouses, adding that “the maturity wall here is front-loaded. So are the associated risks.”

Looking at the charts below, Morgan Stanley’s James Egan writes that “roughly $400-450bn worth of CRE loans are scheduled to mature in 2023. This is on par with 2022, and both of those years are the largest on record ( Exhibit 12 ). From there it doesn’t get any easier, as maturities climb each year until 2027, reaching over $550bn.” And “while the maturity walls within other asset classes might not be very front loaded, the issue within commercial real estate is happening right now.”

As these maturities come due, Egan warns that he is left many more questions than answers, “chief among them: who is going to be responsible for refinancing these loans as they mature? That story differs depending on property type. The multifamily space has grown very reliant on the GSEs over the years. From 2023 through 2027, 46% of maturities are currently guaranteed by the GSEs. As a reminder, in the GSE space, borrowers will ask lenders for a loan, and if the property meets the eligibility criteria for agency guarantee, then the lender should generally feel comfortable that the loan will be guaranteed by the agency when quoting a rate lock. The agencies will inspect the property at different times depending on the exact program, but given that the majority of agency guaranteed multifamily properties are held by borrowers with multiple properties, there is incentive to continue to work with the agencies.”

But the real punchline is that as these maturities are picking up, the single largest lender in the Commercial Real Estate landscape is the one that is now under the most scrutiny: regional banks, something we have been warning about for months. As Morgan Stanley notes in the next chart, in the years since the GFC, origination volumes and the share of that volume has varied, but since 2014 the trend has clearly been away from CMBS and toward regional banks.

Meanwhile, as we discussed previously, rising rates and worries about defaults have already hurt CMBS deals. Sales of the securities without government backing fell about 80% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations.

“The role that banks have played in this ecosystem, not only as lenders but also as buyers,” will compound the wave of refinancing coming due, the analysts wrote.

Unfortunately, when apartment blocks are excluded, the scale of the problems facing banks becomes even starker. As much as 70% of the other commercial real estate loans that mature over the next five years are held by banks, according to the Morgan Stanley report.

“Commercial real estate needs to re-price and alternative ways to refinance the debt are needed,” the analysts said.

To be sure it’s not all doom and gloom, and as Bloomberg notes, there are some slivers of good news. Conservative lending standards in the wake of the financial crisis provide borrowers, and in turn their lenders, with some degree of protection from falling values. Additionally, sentiment toward multifamily housing also remains much more positive as rents continue to rise, one reason why Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust had a positive return in February even as rising numbers of investors lodge withdrawal requests. The availability of agency-backed loans will help owners of those properties when they need to refinance.

Alas, with regional banks now undergoing cardiac arrest, and unlikely to reboot their lending activity as long as deposit flight continues – which as discussed last week has slowed modestly but remains an existential risk to the regional banks and which is unlikely to be resolved as long as the Fed refuses to cut rates and remove depositors’ preference from shifting funds from banks to safer, and higher yielding money markets (see “JPM Asks If The Fed Will Restrict Reverse Repo Use To Short Circuit $1.5 Trillion Bank Run“)…

…. it doesn’t take rocket science to realize that, just like in March 2007 when the collapse of New Century finally shocked everyone into a state of brutal realization that the party was over, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

How much worse? Well, according to Morgan Stanley office and retail property valuations could fall as much as 40% from peak to trough, creating a feedback loop of liquidations, bank failures, defaults and from there even more liquidations:

US securitized credit – CRE: $1.35-1.46 trillion (30-32%) of CRE debt matures by YE 2025 and banks hold ~42-56% of maturing debt. Recent attention on US CRE is understandable as the asset class faces a trifecta of risks:

• (1) Maturity walls are front loaded. Acknowledging the variance in the numbers reported by different sources, we estimate that nearly $566-615 billion (22-24%) of the outstanding $2.6 trillion core CRE debt (excluding multifamily) matures by year-end 2024 and another $275-340 billion (11-13%) is due in 2025.
• (2) Bank dependence is high – both as direct lenders to the asset and also as buyers of both agency and non-agency CMBS. Banks hold 36-64% of debt maturing each year and account for nearly half the agency CMBS and 10-15% of the non-agency CMBS investor base.
• (3) Valuation concerns have increased in specific sectors such as office and retail.

Our equity colleagues expect a 30-40% peak to trough correction in both asset classes.

We are glad that one month after we called CRE the “BIg Short 3.0”, one of the largest and most respected US banks agrees. We are not glad that if, or rather when we are proven right that with trillions in loan maturities which nobody wants to roll CRE is about to become the next Subprime, the US financial system will suffer another existential shock, or as some call it “credit event.”

Morgan Stanley’s conclusion: “commercial real estate needs to re-price and alternative ways to refinance the debt are needed.”

And while it may not have been Morgan Stanley’s intention, yelling “re-pricing” in a burning theater can be even worse than yelling fire: it’s the green light for everyone else to start selling… something the collapse in real estate loans suggest may have already started.

Much more in the must-read MS notes (here and here) available to pro subs.

Authored by Kate Farmer via RealClear Wire,

Since ChatGPT’s buzzy entrance into the tech world in late 2022, artificially intelligent text generation models have exploded in popularity, prompting one of history’s largest tech booms since the debut of the World Wide Web. AI is now popping up in every corner of modern life — even therapy.

Patients frustrated by long wait times and high prices in mental healthcare are increasingly turning to AI apps, websites, and chatbots for therapy. But despite their novelty, consumers should be wary. These young AI systems lack the regulatory oversight essential to ensure their safety, which can put vulnerable users at risk.

While the technology has rapidly developed in recent months, AI chat therapy is not new. The first computerized forms of AI therapy came in the 1960s and 70s, where programs like Eliza and ALICE could respond to basic user inputs and offer a rudimentary form of a ‘listening ear.’ Their creators, pessimistic about the ability of computers to recreate actual human conversation, generally regarded them as satire. But more advanced modern-day Natural Language Processing (NLP) models can generate highly convincing dialogues that pass the Turing test with flying colors. 

AI therapy systems have since left the realm of scientific experimentation and entered public markets, advertising their services as would a real clinic. Today, dozens of apps such as Woebot, Wysa, and Limbic offer a wide range of therapy services, mostly for free or at a small subscription fee. They exercise what Alexandrine Royer of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute calls “emotionally intelligent computing,” engaging empathetically with user inputs and responding with established therapy techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The sites all present the same disclaimers: that they are not a substitute for a real professional, that they cannot diagnose conditions or prescribe medicine, and to please seek emergency help in times of crisis. They also emphasize that the content of users’ sessions will be kept private.

But this unique “non-professional” space occupied by AI therapy apps and websites is almost entirely unregulated. AI therapy services, even highly sophisticated sites like Woebot, are still classified by the FDA as “general wellness” products — the regulatory category for “low risk products that promote a healthy lifestyle.” General wellness products are not subject to oversight in the way foods, cosmetics, or medical care are. They are held only to a set of vague “nonbinding recommendations” published by the FDA for suggested use (and that haven’t been updated since 2019). As long as AI therapy sites continue to disclaim the ability to treat specific conditions like anorexia or anxiety disorders, they are allowed to allege certain mental health benefits without verification from the FDA. 

It’s no secret AI makes mistakes. Every month, high-profile AI systems make news with laughable blunders. But the stakes are higher for mental health. AI therapists, and AI chatbots in general, cannot understand a user’s nuance and precise meaning every time, so they are forced to guess. Typically, this guesswork results in dialogue that is clunky and frustrating. At their worst, however, they can accidentally give out harmful advice — errors that can be life-threatening when issued to vulnerable users. High-profile AI therapy companies are aware of these blunders: some, like Woebot, have even issued press releases condemning other AI therapy models, while continuing to defend their own. 

But the confidentiality of user data, combined with the lack of transparency measures for AI therapy sites, makes it difficult for users and regulators to determine the safety and effectiveness of care. AI therapy systems often advertise positive statistics proving the effectiveness of their product, but the data is self-reported, and the studies are usually conducted internally by the companies themselves. Because of their FDA status as “general wellness products” (GWPs), not legally marketed devices, they are not held to any federal transparency requirements over the claims they make. Traditional FDA approval requires sufficient, valid scientific evidence assuring a product’s safety and efficacy — but no such requirements apply for GWPs. Without this oversight, AI therapy providers can make unsubstantiated claims about their model’s safety and benefits without repercussions.

This isn’t to say AI therapy services should be abandoned entirely. When actually used for “general wellness” — not for serious conditions, and certainly not for crisis episodes — they have the potential to offer unique, on-demand benefits that a regular therapist cannot. Their high degree of confidentiality, ease of access, zero wait times, and extremely low cost can make AI therapy sites a decent option down the line. However, until better user protections are in place, we cannot fully trust AI therapy systems to provide safe and effective care.

AI systems, as a whole, are popping up faster than the speed of regulation. It remains up to the FDA and other federal agencies to determine where and how AI therapy services will be subject to oversight. But, as in any period of great technological advancement, the oversight will eventually catch up, along with mechanisms for systems transparency and user protection. For now, however, the best medicine for users is probably to wait.

The U.S. has a dynamic electricity mix, with a range of energy sources generating electricity at different times of the day.

At all times, the amount of electricity generated must match demand in order to keep the power grid in balance, which leads to cyclical patterns in daily and weekly electricity generation.

The graphic below, via Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Sabrina Lam, tracks hourly changes in U.S. electricity generation over one week, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The Three Types of Power Plants

Before diving in, it’s important to distinguish between the three main types of power plants in the U.S. electricity mix:

• Base load plants generally run at full or near-full capacity and are used to meet the base load or the minimum amount of electricity demanded at all times. These are typically coal-fired or nuclear power plants. If regionally available, geothermal and hydropower plants can also be used as baseload sources.

• Peak load or peaking power plants are typically dispatchable and can be ramped up quickly during periods of high demand. These plants usually operate at maximum capacity only for a few hours a day and include gas-fired and pumped-storage hydropower plants.

• Intermediate load plants are used during the transitory hours between base load and peak load demand. Intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar (without battery storage) are suitable for intermediate use, along with other sources.

Zooming In: The U.S. Hourly Electricity Mix

With that context, the table below provides an overview of average hourly electricity generation by source for the week of March 7–March 14, 2023, in the Eastern Time Zone.

It’s worth noting that while this is representative of a typical week of electricity generation, these patterns can change with seasons. For example, in the month of June, electricity demand usually peaks around 5 PM, when solar generation is still high, unlike in March.

Natural gas is the country’s largest source of electricity, with gas-fired plants generating an average of 176,000 MWh of electricity per hour throughout the week outlined above. The dispatchable nature of natural gas is evident in the chart, with gas-fired generation falling in the wee hours and rising during business hours.

Meanwhile, nuclear electricity generation remains steady throughout the given days and week, ranging between 80,000–85,000 MWh per hour. Nuclear plants are designed to operate for long durations (1.5 to 2 years) before refueling and require less maintenance, allowing them to provide reliable baseload energy.

On the other hand, wind and solar generation tend to see large fluctuations throughout the week. For example, during the week of March 07–14, wind generation ranged between 26,875 MWh and 77,185 MWh per hour, based on wind speeds. Solar generation had stronger extremes, often reaching zero or net-negative at night and rising to over 40,000 MWh in the afternoon.

Because wind and solar are often variable and location-specific, integrating them into the grid can pose challenges for grid operators, who rely on forecasts to keep electricity supply and demand in balance. So, what are some ways to solve these problems?

Solving the Renewable Intermittency Challenge

As more renewable capacity is deployed, here are three ways to make the transition smoother.

• Energy storage systems can be combined with renewables to mitigate variability. Batteries can store electricity during times of high generation (for example, in the afternoon for solar), and supply it during periods of peak demand.

• Demand-side management can be used to shift flexible demand to times of high renewable generation. For instance, utilities can collaborate with their industrial customers to ensure that certain factory lines only run in the afternoon, when solar generation peaks.

• Expanding transmission lines can help connect high-quality solar and wind resources in remote regions to centers of demand. In fact, as of the end of 2021, over 900 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity (notably more than the country’s current renewable capacity) were queued for grid interconnection.

Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

Elon Musk’s Twitter recently officially branded NPR “state-affiliated media.”  

The label is not only undeniably true, but probably an understatement.  Nonetheless, the designation predictably caused John Lansing, National Public Radio’s CEO, to clutch his pearls and attempt to un-bunch his panties.

By way of reply, Lansing issued this laughably preposterous statement:

NPR and our Member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable.

Now tell us the one about the three bears, John.  Sometimes Babylon Bee articles almost write themselves.

While the mainstream media have leaned liberal since Moby-Dick was a pup, it has recently gone full-on Marxist in lockstep with the Democrat party.  

Nearly every outlet uses virtually the same phrases to denounce conservatives and further its agenda.

Guns bad.  Abortion rights good.  “Toxic masculinity” bad.  “Trans women” good.  Appropriation bad.  Men in women’s locker rooms and bathrooms good.  Climate change bad.  Fundamentally transforming the United States good.  And on and on, ad infinitum.

The mainstream media will vociferously proclaim any conspiracy theory to be true, and any truth to be a conspiracy theory.  Doubt that?  They aggressively and shamelessly promoted the “Russian Collusion” fallacy for well nigh two years but reported that the Hunter Biden laptop story “had all the earmarks of Russian disinformation.”  Then came their reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, and the subsequent mask, social-distancing, and vaccine mandates.  Etc., etc., etc.

ABC recently went so far as to blur out the front of the podium at which Donald Trump was delivering his post-indictment speech, so those watching couldn’t see the number placed there for them to text if they wanted to receive official campaign notifications and updates.  Yet no network has ever deigned to prevent people from reading any message on any podium at which Joe Biden was speaking, before or after he became president.

If the Democrat party were to proclaim — tomorrow — that the Earth is flat, within minutes, MSNBC would solemnly aver, “The Earth is flat.”  

CNN would breathlessly announce, “The Earth is flat.”  NBC would report, “The Earth is, indeed, flat.”  CBS would cry, “Turns out the Earth is flat.”  ABC would declare: “The science is now settled.  The Earth is flat.”

The New York Times would run a front-page banner headline, above the fold, stating unequivocally, “Experts Say Earth Is Flat, Far-Right Flat-Earth Deniers a Danger to Humanity.”  

The Washington Post would run with “Far-Right Flat-Earth Deniers a Danger to Humanity, Experts Say.”

If former President Trump — and his roughly 75 million supporters — disagreed with the now conventional wisdom that the Earth is flat, the media would haughtily sniff: “Trump’s baseless claim that the Earth is not flat is part of ‘The Big Lie’ which he and his radical-right supporters traffic in and expound.”

Mainstream journalists would report that “far-right Republicans cling to their long-debunked belief that the Earth is round.”  

The “ladies” on The View would say something like, “Whacko conspiracy theorists on the right claim that the Earth isn’t flat.  But that ship has long since sailed.  It is an irrefutable fact that it is as flat as a pancake that Donald Trump sat on.”  (The ladies would then smirk and giggle.)

The mainstream media are indeed “state-affiliated” when Democrats reign.  It would more properly be termed “Deep State–affiliated” when they don’t.

Unfortunately, “fake news” is all too real.

Mainstream media outlets have made themselves a joke.

Albeit a bad one.