Trump May Not Need To Pull Trigger On Tariffs, Economist Says

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

Economists near-universally warn that President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose “across-the-board” 20-percent tariffs on imports will trigger inflation, disrupt domestic industries, and spur global trade wars.

Despite overwhelming critical consensus, Trump calls tariffs “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” and hasn’t backed down since his Nov. 5 reelection.

But the threats may be a “negotiating tactic” to give the United States leverage in mediating trade pacts, Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) President Adam Posen said during a Nov. 14 virtual event.

And it may be working already.

Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada, “and maybe some others, are likely lining up offers,” he said. “These offers will be in the form of, ‘We promise to buy more natural gas from the U.S. ... We promise to move more production to the U.S.’”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested on Nov. 8 that European Union (EU) nations can buy more liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States to avoid tariffs.

Speaking to reporters after congratulating the president-elect on his reelection, von der Leyen said Trump appeared eager to sustain what the Congressional Research Service calls “the world’s largest trade and investment relationship,” which accounts for 46 percent of global gross domestic product.

About 48 percent of LNG used by EU nations is imported from the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Noting that EU nations import up to 16 percent of LNG from Russia, von der Leyen said there’s room for a deal.

“Why not replace it by American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices?” she asked.

Posen said this is exactly what Trump’s team wants to achieve.

“The ideal outcome for the Trump administration is they’ve made this threat, a set of threats, but they don’t actually have to implement them, and they get these goodies,” he said.

In the short term, Posen said, some nations may acquiesce. “They’ll say: ‘Okay, we don’t want to be on the bad side of the U.S. We don’t want a bad side of a President Trump.’ But in [the] medium-term, two to four or five years out, I think the reverberations could be quite large.”

Responses from “like-minded U.S. allies” will differ from those from China, Mexico, and nonaligned nations, such as India and Indonesia, he said.

Allies are “probably just going to try to make nice with Trump: ‘We’re going to be aligned with the U.S. on national security and, therefore, against China,’” Posen said. “We should just … try to be on the inside of a ‘Fortress America economy’ and grow with them.”

There are at least two problems with this scenario, he said. “Getting these goodies is really not necessarily going to solve a bunch of problems. A number of people close to the president-elect believe trade deficits are really a big deal.

“These measures are likely to actually increase U.S. trade deficits because they'll drive up the dollar, drive up inflation.”

Posen said the second problem is that “this is not a one-round game,“ adding that ”once this happens ... the question is, how do economies adapt and how do they cope?”

“Maybe in that sense ... people start building the U.S. out. That’s something we’re going to watch,” he said.

The CSCL East China Sea container ship sits in a berth at the Port of Oakland in Oakland, Calif., on June 20, 2018. A 2023 study estimated that under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, tariffs decreased imports from China by 13 percent each year from 2018 to 2021. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

‘Asymmetric Trade Warfare’

Without an effort to renegotiate trade deals before imposing “across-the-board” tariffs, which also would slap a 25-to-100 percent fee on imports from Mexico, “I think the Trump administration is underestimating how other countries might react,” he said.

A 60-percent tariff on imports from China will spur “asymmetric trade warfare,” Posen said.

“If the U.S. says, ‘Well, we don’t want steel, we don’t want batteries, we don’t want EVs from China’ ... then the Chinese can say, ‘Well, we don’t want Hollywood movies, we don’t want American video games, we don’t want American accounting firms,’” he said.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) is among those in Congress lobbying for a hard line against imports from China, calling on the Biden administration to slap “an automatic 25-percent tariff on all China goods” during a February 2023 House hearing.

“I represent Hollywood. Let me give you an example of my constituent’s issues with China,” he said. “Hollywood is told they can only get 40 movies into China each year. That means if you make a movie critical of China, that doesn’t go to China.

“But it also means that none of your movies are going to China. They control it and do it with lobbyists, and that means China can control what Congress does.”

But Posen said China will remain “a special case,” noting Elon Musk “is going around saying to people in China: ‘Count on me. I'll keep things from getting out of hand.’”

He said Mexico is also “a special case, unfortunately for Mexico.”

“There’s so many issues where the Trump administration is going to play hardball, on the border, on drugs, on their new judiciary reforms, on their energy deregulation, or lack thereof, in addition to blocking Chinese investment in Mexico and then reviewing [the United States–Mexico–Canada trade pact].”

According to a Coalition for a Prosperous America 2023 analysis, annual direct China investment into Mexico quadrupled between 2007 and 2016. In 2021, Chinese companies invested $385 million in Mexico.

If the Trump administration imposes a 25-to-100 percent tariff, Posen said, “Mexico is going to be in trouble.”

“I’m not sure how they’re going to react,” he said.

The Trump administration may also not foresee responses from “the big emerging markets” such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, Poland, Turkey, Nigeria, and South Africa, he said.

“The Biden administration did a terrible job of engaging with these countries, kept using rhetoric like, ‘You’re our friends ... our allies,’ and didn’t offer anything,” Posen said.

Paying lip service to “friend-shoring” is not enough, he said, citing Indonesia’s recent deal with China as a lost opportunity unlikely to be reversed for a generation.

“I think we’re going to see a lot of that. And so these big emerging-market countries with geopolitical strength are going to actually do pretty well, and they’re probably going to successfully play off the U.S. and China,” Posen said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 07:20

Russia Fires ICBM Into Ukraine For First Time, Kiev Confirms

Ukraine's Air Force Command says that Russia has, for the first time in the multi-year war, launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) targeting the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. This unprecedented escalation follows Ukraine's recent use of US-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and British Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets deep within Russia. The use of an ICBM is Russia demonstrating its greater capabilities in response to Ukraine's long-range missile strikes.

A senior Ukrainian military official told the Financial Times that Russia launched an ICBM called "RS-26 Rubezh" that has a range of 3,700 miles and can strike any European capital.

Source: Financial Times 

Although RS-26 Rubezh can be used to deliver a thermonuclear warhead or an Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, Thursday morning's attack on the Dnipro region was non-nuclear, instead some sort of conventional warhead. 

"Using these kinds of missiles, whether RS-26 or a true ICBM, in a conventional role does not make a lot of sense because of their relatively low accuracy and high cost," Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, wrote on X.

"But this kind of a strike might have a value as a signal," Podvig added.

And yes, it does.

Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told CNN that the ICBM strike on Ukraine is a "message" to Kyiv's Western backers. He emphasized that this week's escalations, including the Biden-Harris administration greenlighting Ukraine's use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets in Russia, have likely prompted this escalation. 

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for nuclear weapons use. He stated, "The use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response." 

Davis continued, "Clearly, what the Russians have done here is to take the nuclear warheads off the missile and launch the missile either as an inert missile without anything on it or maybe with some sort of conventional warhead." 

"They are trying to send a message. They're trying to massively say to the West, 'Look, the use of these Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles maybe is challenging Russia's critical interests.' And so they're trying to intimidate us into backing down here," he added. 

Videos posted on X show what could be warheads from the ICBM striking targets in Dnipro. 

BREAKING:

New video shows a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) striking Ukraine.

The video shows reentry vehicles from its MIRV hitting the city of Dnipro.

It’s the first time in history that an ICBM is used in war. pic.twitter.com/o198cJXvXm

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 21, 2024

BREAKING: Russia has launched a non-nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) against Ukraine, marking a first in history.

The missile hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

ICBMs can be equipped with nuclear warheads.

This is seen as a dire warning. pic.twitter.com/UqgJplbWzz

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) November 21, 2024

What's clear is that the Biden-Harris administration knew exactly what they were doing by provoking Russia with the deployment of ATACMS and British missiles. US officials have since closed the US Embassy in Kyiv "out of an abundance of caution."

In markets, Goldman's Ece Kepekci commented on the situation: 

"Think particularly in Europe, there is a real geopolitical risk premia now as Ukraine/Russia following a series of escalations. Europe gave up its early rally yday on the back of further missile  attacks (early this morning "Ukraine says Russia Fired ICBM"). Off ramps not obvious but again this is not a new conflict and you're supposed to fade geopolitical escalation. Sentiment has come down quite a bit "the bull-bear spread in the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) weekly survey was 8.1 vs 21.5 last week."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, "It's a very dangerous position that the outgoing administration is taking," adding, "There is a new escalation happening."...

Democrats endgame? Start WW3 before Trump enters the White House? 

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 07:00

Trump Appointments Signal Aim To Boost US Energy Investment And Production

By Ed Crooks of Wood Mackenzie

“Personnel is policy.” That aphorism about the realities of US presidential government was coined by Scot Faulkner, who was director of personnel for Ronald Reagan’s triumphant election campaign in 1980. What he meant was that, while US presidents can do almost anything, they can’t do everything. The day-to-day business of the administration is carried on by appointed officials. And if presidents want to make real progress towards their policy objectives, they need to make sure that their officials are as committed to those goals as they are.

That is why President-elect Donald Trump’s first two picks to be his senior energy officials are particularly significant. There is still a great deal of uncertainty around exactly how energy policy will play out in his second administration. But the announcements he has made give a clear sense of the direction he wants to set and the objectives he wants to achieve during his four-year term.

Last week, President-elect Trump named Chris Wright, the chief executive of oilfield services company Liberty Energy, to be his energy secretary, and Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, to be the interior secretary and head of a new National Energy Council at the White House.

The common thread in the thinking on energy expressed by both Wright and Burgum is that they want to boost production of all types of energy, including fossil fuels. They do not deny that human-caused climate change is a real threat that needs to be addressed. But they argue that there are other priorities for policy that are more important and more urgent, and that oil and gas can continue to play the central role in the global energy system into the indefinite future.

If they get to take the reins of energy policy-making under the Trump administration, they will undoubtedly aim to help the oil and gas industry in every way possible. But several low-carbon sectors could also benefit, or at least not be hit as hard as they might have feared.

Meet Chris Wright and Governor Doug Burgum

Announcing their nominations, President-elect Trump said that Wright and Burgum would be working on cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investment and focusing on innovation, with the aim of boosting energy production to cut prices and “win the AI arms race with China (and others)”.

Chris Wright has become one of the highest-profile CEOs in the industry thanks to his tireless advocacy for American energy in general, and oil and gas in particular. He has made his case in a variety of public forums, including YouTube videos and in a 180-page report titled ‘Bettering human lives’.

That report makes its argument in 10 key points, which include: “Global demand for oil, natural gas, and coal are all at record levels and rising — no energy transition has begun” and “Zero Energy Poverty by 2050 is a superior goal compared to Net Zero [emissions] 2050.”

Wright summarises his position on climate change like this:

“Climate change is a real and global challenge that we should and can address. However, representing it as the most urgent threat to humanity today displaces concerns about more pressing threats of malnutrition, access to clean water, air pollution, endemic diseases, and human rights, among others.”

Tackling those other more pressing problems, he argues, would be helped by the strongest possible growth in US oil and gas production. This would displace supplies from authoritarian regimes and geopolitical rivals of the US and substitute for dirtier fuels, including coal and traditional biomass.

On policy, Wright warns that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which extended and expanded tax credits for a range of low-carbon energy technologies, “appears poised to drive the U.S. electricity grid along the European path [to] higher prices and more grid stability problems”.

He is not opposed to all forms of low-carbon energy, but says the world needs a massive increase in research and innovation, as opposed to subsidies for existing technologies. His company has worked on low-carbon energy sources, including advanced geothermal, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) and sodium-ion batteries. The world needs more and better energy, which means contributions from “all viable energy technologies,” Wright says.

One of the peculiarities of the US system of government is that the energy secretary – the job that Chris Wright is being proposed for – does not have primary responsibility for many of the decisions most relevant to the energy industry. A US energy secretary does have responsibility for overseeing energy policy, but the most vital part of the job relates to nuclear weapons. The secretary is tasked with “maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent” for the US, and reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation.

Many of the key decisions related to energy, such as oil and gas leasing programmes, lie with the Department of the Interior. So the proposal that Governor Burgum of North Dakota should head that department, as well as the new White House energy council, is also highly significant for the industry.

Governor Burgum, like Wright, has a record of recognising the need to act on climate change while also aiming to boost oil and gas production. In 2021, he set a goal of reaching net zero emissions for North Dakota – described as “carbon neutral status” – by 2030. That is a much more ambitious schedule than California’s – the Golden State is aiming for net zero by 2045.

Another crucial difference is that Governor Burgum has envisaged his state reaching net zero largely through carbon capture and storage (CCS). As he has pointed out, North Dakota hit the “geologic jackpot” in its potential for sub-surface storage of carbon dioxide. Its estimated capacity of 250 billion tons could take all of the US’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy for almost 50 years.

In a sign of North Dakota’s enthusiasm for CCS, the state’s Public Service Commission last week voted unanimously to approve the route permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed US$8 billion carbon dioxide pipeline system, which would take captured emissions from ethanol plants for storage.

But despite his support for decarbonisation, Governor Burgum has also been a strong critic of the Biden administration’s energy policies. He signed up to a joint statement with other Republican governors in June, arguing that the president’s “rhetorical and regulatory hostility towards traditional energy” was holding back US oil and gas production.

One sector that could be particularly favoured under the new administration is gas-fired power generation. President-elect Trump said in the statement announcing Governor Burgum’s nomination that he wanted to “undo the damage done by the Democrats to our Nation's Electrical Grid, by dramatically increasing baseload power”. That will certainly mean acting on his pledge to scrap President Biden’s emissions rules for power plants, which could potentially have ended up forcing gas-fired generation to shut down. But he could go further. A national version of the Texas system that subsidises gas-fired power plants is possible.

Wood Mackenzie view

Some of the critical issues for energy policy under the second Trump administration remain highly uncertain. The future of the IRA tax credits for low-carbon energy is likely to be decided by a tight vote in the House of Representatives, given the Republicans’ slender majority there. Energy industry leaders – including Darren Woods, chief executive of ExxonMobil, who last week attended the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan – have urged President-elect Trump not to sweep away all of President Biden’s energy policies.

“I don’t think the stops and starts are the right thing for businesses,” Woods told the Wall Street Journal. “It is extremely inefficient.”

But while the prospect of a sharp reversal in policy is a concern, the appointment of two senior officials who have been champions for investment in energy, with a brief to continue that work in the federal government, will be welcomed by many in the industry.

The power and renewables sector is threatened by the potential curtailment or elimination of the production and investment tax credits (PTC and ITC) for wind, solar and storage. But it could benefit from other changes under a Trump administration, including permitting reform and regulatory changes that could make it easier to add new transmission capacity.

Wood Mackenzie’s “severe downside scenario” represents a worst-case outlook, with total installations of wind, solar and storage over the next decade about 30% lower than in our previous base case forecast. But for that to play out, several factors have to turn against the industry, including not only a phase-out of the PTC and ITC, but also increased permitting challenges. If the new administration lives up to its rhetoric about supporting investment in all kinds of energy, permitting and regulation could become easier, not harder.

However, the new administration’s plans raise important questions about the balance of supply and demand for energy, and especially for natural gas. President-elect Trump has promised to end immediately the “pause” on approvals for new LNG export projects, which will add to demand for US gas over time. A surge in gas-fired power generation, which the new administration sees as important for supplying new data centres for AI, would add additional demand pressure.

On the supply side, Wood Mackenzie analysts think government regulations and access to acreage are not the most important issues. US oil and gas production is determined principally by commodity prices, cash flows and corporate capital allocation strategies. The federal government can take actions that will help, including expediting investment in new pipeline infrastructure. But it cannot guarantee that additional production will flow.

Those conditions, with stronger demand but a limited supply response, would be bullish for energy prices. Although President-elect Trump’s stated goal is to drive down energy costs for American consumers, it is possible that his policies could have the opposite effect.

COP29 makes little progress in its first week

The election victory for President-elect Trump, who plans to take the US out of the Paris climate agreement for a second time, cast a shadow over the first week of the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. There were more signs of disharmony among the assembled nations, with Argentina withdrawing its official delegation, and France’s environment minister choosing not to attend after a diplomatic spat with the hosts Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, negotiators are attempting to secure a global agreement on climate finance, which could pledge more than US$1 trillion a year in investment, loans and grants to low- and middle-income countries to support emissions reductions and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. So far, there appears to have been little movement on agreeing a deal.

The conference began with an announcement of significant progress towards finalising the rules for international carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris agreement. But on that issue, too, much work remains before the market can start working as intended.

One group of leading figures in international climate policy has argued that the entire process of COP negotiations is “no longer fit for purpose”.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 06:30

Russia Is The Biggest Threat To Global Peace... According To Brits

Amid major conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, which country do Brits think is the biggest threat to global peace?

To find out, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu visualized data from a YouGov UK survey conducted in April 2024 with a sample size of 5,248 adults.

Data and Key Takeaways

The data featured in this infographic is also listed in the table below.

From these results, we can see that almost half of Brits believe Russia is the biggest threat to world peace. This is of course, due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, along with a variety of historical reasons.

When asked about which side was winning the conflict, a majority (44%) of Brits believed neither side had an advantage. 26% believed Russia had the advantage, while only 6% said the same for Ukraine.

The country with the second-highest share of responses is China, at 11%. This could be due to the looming threat of China’s potential invasion of Taiwan by 2030.

According to other YouGov surveys, 60% of Brits believe China is a rival or enemy of the UK, while only 12% believe the country is an ally or friend.

If you enjoy infographics like these, check out the Public Opinion category on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 05:45

Nigeria's Richest Man Confronts "Oil Mafia" With New $20B Refinery

By Alex Kimani of OilPrice.com

Two months ago, Nigeria’s beleaguered energy sector witnessed a very significant event: the Dangote Oil Refinery began producing gasoline and selling it domestically to Nigeria's state oil firm, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), marking the first time in decades Africa’s largest oil producer is refining its own crude. The state-of-the-art $20 billion refinery was launched in January 2024, but only began producing gasoline in September, expected to reach full operations in November. The giant refinery has a capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude per day, more than enough for the country’s needs. To sweeten the deal further, the facility is buying crude and selling refined fuels in Nigeria in the local currency, saving the country’s much-needed foreign exchange, especially the US dollar.

Unfortunately for Aliko Dangote, Africa’s second richest man and owner of the refinery, his bold move has put him on a collision course with what he refers to as Nigeria's ‘oil mafia’.

"I knew there would be a fight. But I didn’t know that the mafia in oil, they are stronger than the mafia in drugs," Mr Dangote told an investment conference in June.

"They don’t want the trade to stop. It’s a cartel. Dangote comes along and he’s going to disrupt them entirely. Their business is at risk,” says Mr Emmanuel, a Nigerian oil expert.

According to the BBC, since oil was discovered in the West African nation in 1956, the country’s downstream sector has largely been a cesspit of shady deals with little accountability by the NNPC. For decades, Nigeria has been producing and exporting its crude which is then refined abroad. NNPC swaps Nigeria’s crude oil for refined products, including petrol, which are shipped back home. Incredibly, it only started publishing its accounts five years ago, despite the fact that oil revenue accounts for nearly 90% of Nigeria’s export earnings. In other words, until recently, only the NNPC knew exactly how much money changed hands and who was involved in these "oil swaps".

Dangote’s new refinery should definitely be a boon for the country. Unfortunately, its arrival has coincided with developments completely out of his control. Since the 1970s, the NNPC has been subsidizing fuel prices for local buyers. Every year, the state-owned firm has been gradually clawing this money back by depositing lower royalty payments with the Nigerian treasury. However, Nigeria’s new President Bola Tinubu was forced to scrap the subsidy in 2023 after it cost the government $10bn, more than 40% of the total money it collected in taxes. Further, he stopped the policy of artificially propping up the value of the naira, and let market forces determine its value. Nigerians are now paying ~$2.30 per gallon of gasoline, dirt-cheap by U.S. standards but triple what they were paying just a couple of years ago.

Only time will tell whether the Dangote Refinery is able to achieve its full potential. Nigeria is the home of the famous Bonny Light crude, a light-sweet crude oil grade produced at the Bonny oil hub and an important benchmark crude for all West African crude production. Bonny Light has particularly good gasoline yields, which has made it a popular crude for U.S. refiners, particularly on the U.S. East Coast. Two years ago, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCGROUP) CEO Melee Kyari revealed that Nigeria is losing nearly all the oil output at oil hub Bonny,

“As you may be aware, because of the very unfortunate acts of vandals along our major pipelines from Atlas Cove all the way to Ibadan, and all others connecting all the 37 depots that we have across the country, none of them can take delivery of products today. The reason is very simple. For some of the lines, for instance, from Warri to Benin, we haven’t operated for 15 years. Every molecule of product that we put gets lost. Do you remember the sad fire incident close to Sapele that killed so many people? We had to shut it down, and as we speak, we have a high level of losses on our product pipeline,” he said.

Oil theft remains a major problem for the Nigerian energy sector, and could hinder the refinery from buying all of its crude locally.

“NNPC doesn’t have enough crude for Dangote. Despite all this instruction to give ample supply of crude to the refinery, NNPC can’t supply Dangote with more than 300,000 barrels per day," says Mr Akinosho of the Africa Oil+Gas Report told BBC.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas multinational divestment from the Niger Delta that kicked off over a decade has hit a peak.  Numerous oil and gas majors have exited the Nigerian market over the past few years despite Africa’s largest economy opening its doors for wider exploration courtesy of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021. Nigeria’s oil production has declined to 1.3 million barrels per day currently from around 2.1 million barrels per day in 2018.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 05:00

UK Inks Defense Pact With Moldova To Counter 'Russian Aggression'

In yet another development which sets up the Western allies and Russia for a future potential direct military clash, the United Kingdom and Moldova have inked a new defense pact to counter 'Russian aggression'.

It was announced and confirmed by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy while he visited the Moldovan capital of Chisinau on Wednesday. The tiny Eastern European nation bordering Ukraine has experienced the same kind of internal political pro-EU vs. pro-Russia tug of war historically on display in other countries such as Ukraine or Georgia.

The UK foreign ministry described the new defense agreement as about "building on extensive cooperation between the two countries and strengthening Moldovan resilience against external threats."

moldpress, Moldova State News Agency

Lammy said, "Moldova is a vital security partner for the UK, which is why, to reinforce their resilience against Russian aggression and to keep British streets safe, I am deepening cooperation on irregular migration and launching a new defence and security partnership."

The British top diplomat called out Russia directly in his comments, accusing it of interference in Moldova's sovereign affairs. "With Ukraine next door, Moldovans are constantly reminded of Russia’s oppression, imperialism and aggression," he said.

Lammy continued, "Despite unprecedented Kremlin interference, the people of Moldova have chosen freedom, democracy, and independence. A decision we must help them protect."

A broader foreign ministry statement also described that "The Foreign Secretary has committed to working with President Sandu, who won re-election earlier this month, despite unprecedented Russian interference, to bolster Moldova’s resilience against the growing Russian hybrid threats they face. He will also offer UK support to tackle corruption in the region."

An additional £5 million of UK humanitarian funding for Moldova was also announced. The Kremlin has long complained that Western NGOs in Eastern Europe play a dual purpose, using aid as well as their status to spread influence on behalf of foreign powers.

One thing which has long alarmed the West is the presence of Russian 'peacekeeping' troops in Moldova's breakaway Transnistria region. Pressure also heightened after last June the European Union formally launched accession talks with Moldova, putting yet more distance between it and Russia.

Via BBC

As for Transnistria, although it has diverse ethnic demographics almost equally apportioned between Russians, Moldovans, Romanians and Ukrainians, the Russian demographic slightly ekes out its counterparts with a plurality of 29% of Transnistrians belonging to the group.

The pro-Russian cultural sentiment of the region is exemplified by its flag, which has remained the same as it was when Transnistria was a part of the Soviet Union. That representative Russian demographic, coupled with broader dissatisfaction of the Moldovan government, has fostered support for assimilation into the Russian Federation for quite some time.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 04:15

UK School Removes All Christmas References From Panto To Make Children Feel "Safe"

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

A school in the UK announced to parents that it was removing all Christmas references from a panto in order to make children feel “safe”.

Yes, really.

The head teacher of Wherwell Primary School in Andover, Hampshire, banned any reference to the festive season from a Jack and The Beanstalk show so as not to offend any non-Christians who were attending.

Mandy Ovenden said the embargo was necessary in order to make children feel “safe” and “valued”.

“When we chose to invite the travelling pantomime to Wherwell, our request was a practical step to ensure all children at the school would be able to attend and enjoy the show,” said the school.

“Our aim, as always, is to foster inclusivity in our school community, and be a place where children and their families feel safe, welcomed and valued.”

Ovenden said the school had requested the company putting on the play “that the show contain no reference to Christmas.”

According to a report by the Telegraph, parents were outraged, asserting that the decision “shouldn’t be allowed” in order to merely ensure that “a few people will not be offended.”

In order to ensure a “fully inclusive event,” the head teacher asked that all Christmas references be eradicated because, “We have a number of families who either do not celebrate Christmas or do so in a different way.”

Chaplins, the company behind the Jack and The Beanstalk play, said it normally included references to Christmas at this time of year.

Because God forbid children in a supposedly Christian country be exposed to anything related in any way to Christmas during Christmastime.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 03:30

Prison For Le Pen? French Establishment Desperate To Stop Rise Of Conservatives

EU elites and globalists with extensive political influence have been on the war-path the past several years as it has become increasingly evident that the European populace is shifting more conservative with each new election.  In Germany, leftist officials are attempting an outright ban of the conservative AFD Party, primarily because they stand against mass immigration (a position which progressives claim is "xenophobic"). 

The AFD is currently the second most popular political party in Germany and is expected to gain substantial influence in the 2025 federal elections, unless their candidates are blocked from participation.    

In Austria, the conservative Freedom Party won a parliamentary election victory in September, though left wing and centrist parties are seeking to cement a coalition to nullify the FP's ability to govern.  The European media has consistently compared the success of the Freedom Party to the rise of the Third Reich - The only fallback of failing leftists is to claim their opponents are "literally Hitler."

A similar coalition coup was exploited in France under Emmanuel Macron in order to stop Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party.  The coalition is a fragmented mess but it served its purpose of disrupting the will of French voters seeking smaller government and secure borders. 

Keep in mind, the same people that constantly howl about "threats to democracy" are now trying to silence some of the largest political parties in Europe because they won't submit to progressive ideologies.  For example, if the AFD is banned, who is going to represent the will of millions of conservative German voters?  The leftist establishment does not care about those voters or their concerns, nor do they care about fair elections.  Their vision of democracy is a sham.

There is, in fact, a coordinated effort by the leftist regime in Europe to shut down any and all public dissent, starting with opposition movements and their access to the ballot box.  Recent news from France highlights this reality, as efforts are now underway under the French government to pursue legal actions against Marine Le Pen. 

Le Pen has been accused by Paris prosecutors of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2009 and 2016.  One problem is that the law Le Pen is being charged with was not created until 2016.  Furthermore, Le Pen argues that National Rally employees can also work within the EU parliament and that the two roles often overlap.  She assert that no laws were broken and no one received EU funds that were not already owed to them.

If convicted Le Pen could receive up to 5 years in prison (3 suspended) and extensive fines of €300,000, but the real kicker is that she could also be banned from participating in elections for five years even if she files an appeal.  Government officials admit that Le Pen might not spend any time in jail (she might become a conservative martyr if that happened), but her inability to run for office would effectively end the chances of the National Rally in the 2027 elections.  It's an election which many analysts suggest could catapult the NR to power in France.   

“It’s no surprise,” Le Pen told reporters after the prosecution's closing arguments. "I note that the prosecutors' claims are extremely outrageous."

Le Pen said she felt prosecutors were "only interested" in preventing her from running for president in 2027. "I understood that well," she said.  The case is set to conclude in early 2025.

Establishment media outlets accuse Le Pen of using "Trump-style rhetoric" to distract from her charges.  The Guardian claims:

"Yet just as January 6 did not stop Trump from being able to move back into the White House, Le Pen’s strategy may well work in her favour. The longer her claims of a political trial get airtime without proper contextualisation, the more likely the French public may think there is some truth to it – it chimes with the widespread anti-elite sentiment among French voters..."

This constitutes considerable gaslighting on the part of The Guardian.  The "contextualization" is that Le Pen is innocent until proven guilty, and there has been a clear and observable pattern of persecution of right-leaning political figures across the western world in order to stop their constituents from having a say in the governmental process.  Trump is just one example of lawfare being used to create accusations of criminality from the thinnest of threads.  The American public was savvy enough to see through the smoke and noise. 

It's undeniable that Le Pen's situation rings rather similar and The Guardian is pretending as if she's being conniving for pointing it out.

The establishment acts as if it is the purveyor of law and order, but only when it serves their purposes and keeps them at the bureaucratic helm.  The will of the people is only acceptable when it aligns with the designs of the elites.  They are actively conjuring a narrative in which the political process is only democratic so long as conservative groups are rejected.  Their mere presence is painted as an abomination and their success is treated as an existential threat to civilization.

The fact that progressives are taking the mask off and going full authoritarian to stop right wing movements from winning fair and square suggests they are deeply afraid and clinging to the last vestiges of their unnatural reign.         

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 02:45

Trump Names Former AG Matthew Whitaker As US Ambassador To NATO

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he has chosen former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to be the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

Matthew Whitaker, former acting U.S. Attorney General, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference 2020 (CPAC) hosted by the American Conservative Union in National Harbor, MD., on Feb. 28, 2020. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

In a statement released on social media, the president-elect said Whitaker was selected because he is a “strong warrior and loyal patriot, who will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended.”

A former acting attorney general during his first term in office, Whitaker will also “strengthen relationships with our NATO allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to peace and stability,” Trump said.

Whitaker, he also suggested, will promote Trump’s “peace through strength” foreign policy agenda and has “full confidence” in his abilities.

Other than Whitaker, Trump also selected former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be his U.S. ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. All three roles require confirmation in the Senate unless Trump opts to use recess appointments.

Whitaker, a former University of Iowa football tight end, started his role as acting attorney general in November 2018 before leaving in February 2019, after Trump’s then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned at the then-president’s request.

Before that, he served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa between 2004 and 2009. Later, he was Sessions’s chief of staff from October 2017 until November 2018.

So far, Whitaker has not publicly commented on Trump’s announcement.

Since leaving office, Whitaker has frequently appeared on Fox News, giving his opinions on the many of legal issues Trump had faced since he left the White House in early 2021.

About two weeks ago, he told Fox News that he believes Trump should be granted a “clean slate” from his legal cases, following Trump’s election win on Nov. 5.

In that segment, he also responded to questions on whether he would serve as Trump’s attorney general. However, Trump last week named former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general, although some Republican senators have signaled in media interviews that Gaetz’s nomination may turn into a protracted, uphill battle for Trump to get him nominated.

Earlier this week, Whitaker wrote on X that “weaponization of the” Department of Justice will be “rooted out once and for all” under Trump.

As ambassador to NATO, also known as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, Whitaker will be tasked with advancing the United States’ foreign policy interests within the 32-member military alliance.

“The permanent representative helps formulate and articulate the U.S. position on NATO security matters as well as U.S. policy toward NATO. At National Security Council (NSC) meetings, they outline U.S. policy toward NATO and potential opportunities for cooperation with NATO allies,” the Council on Foreign Relations states. “They further advise NSC participants on the positions and actions of other NATO member states.”

In the past two years, NATO allowed both Finland and Sweden to join its ranks in the midst of the Russia–Ukraine war, which started in February 2022. Members of NATO, including the United States, have been continually supplying Ukrainian troops with weapons in the conflict.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv closed down on Wednesday after it received “specific information of a potential significant air attack” and after Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed that Ukraine used U.S.-made long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMSs) to strike its territory for the first time since the war began.

On the campaign trail, Trump has said that he wants to quickly end the war in Ukraine after taking office. A member of Trump’s transition team and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., claimed on social media that the current administration provided the ATACMSs to Ukraine to “get World War 3 going.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/21/2024 - 02:00

There Are No "Easy Wars" Left To Fight, But Do Not Mistake The Longing For One

Submitted by Alastair Crooke 

There Are No "Easy Wars" Left To Fight, But Do Not Mistake The Longing For One

Israelis, as a whole, are exhibiting a rosy assurance that they can harness Trump, if not to the full annexation of the Occupied Territories (Trump in his first term did not support such annexation), but rather, to ensnare him into a war on Iran. Many (even most) Israelis are raring for war on Iran and an aggrandisement of their territory (devoid of Arabs). They are believing the puffery that Iran ‘lies naked’, staggeringly vulnerable, before a US and Israeli military strike.  

Trump’s Team nominations, so far, reveal a foreign policy squad of fierce supporters of Israel and of passionate hostility to Iran. The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way.

The Israel Lobby could not have asked for more. They have got it. And with the new CIA chief, they get a known ultra China hawk as a bonus.

But in the domestic sphere the tone is precisely the converse: The key nomination for ‘cleaning the stables’ is Matt Gaetz as Attorney General; he is a real “bomb thrower”. And for the Intelligence clean-up, Tulsi Gabbard is appointed as Director of National Intelligence. All intelligence agencies will report to her, and she will be responsible for the President’s Daily briefing. The intel assessments may thus begin to reflect something closer to reality. 

The deep Inter-Agency structure has reason to be very afraid; they are panicking -- especially over Gaetz.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have the near impossible task of cutting out-of-control federal spending and currency printing. The System is deeply dependent on the bloat of government spending to keep the cogs and levers of the mammoth ‘security’ boondoggle whirring. It is not going to be yielded up without a bitter fight.

So, on the one hand, the Lobby gets a dream team (Israel), but on the other side (the domestic sphere), it gets a renegade team.  

This must be deliberate. Trump knows that Biden’s legacy of bloating GDP with government jobs and excessive public spending is the real ‘time bomb’ awaiting him. Again the withdrawal symptoms, as the drug of easy money is withdrawn, may prove incendiary. Moving to a structure of tariffs and low taxes will be disruptive.

Whether deliberate or not, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest. We have only glimpses of intent -- and the water is being seriously muddied by the infamous ‘Inter-Agency’ grandees. For example, in respect to the Pentagon sanctioning private-sector contractors to work in Ukraine, this was done in coordination with “inter-agency stakeholders”. 

The old nemesis that paralyzed his first term again faces Trump. Then, during the Ukraine impeachment process, one witness (Vindman), when asked why he would not defer to the President’s explicit instructions, replied that whilst Trump has his view on Ukraine policy, that stance did NOT align with that of the ‘Inter-Agency’ agreed position. In plain language, Vindman denied that a US president has agency in foreign policy formulation.

In short, the ‘Inter-Agency structure’ was signalling to Trump that military support for Ukraine must continue.

When the Washington Post published their detailed story of a Trump-Putin phone call -- that the Kremlin emphatically states never happened -- the deep structures of policy were simply telling Trump that it would be they who determine what the shape of the US ‘solution’ for Ukraine would be.

Similarly, when Netanyahu boasts to have spoken to Trump and that Trump “shares” his views regarding Iran, Trump was being indirectly instructed what his policy towards Iran needs to be. All the (false) rumours about appointments to his Team too, were but the interagency signalling their choices for his key posts. No wonder confusion reigns.

So, what can be deduced at this early stage?  If there is a common thread, it has been a constant refrain that Trump is against war. And that he demands from his picks personal loyalty and no ties of obligation to the Lobby or the Swamp.  

So, is the packing of his Administration with ‘Israel Firsters’ an indication that Trump is edging toward a ‘Realist’s Faustian pact’ to destroy Iran in order to cripple China’s energy supply source (90% from Iran), and thus weaken China? -- Two birds with one stone, so to speak? 

The collapse of Iran would also weaken Russia and hobble the BRICS’ transport-corridor projects. Central Asia needs both Iranian energy and its key transport corridors linking China, Iran, and Russia as primary nodes of Eurasian commerce. 

When the RAND Organisation, the Pentagon think-tank, recently published a landmark appraisal of the 2022 National Defence Strategy (NDS), its findings were stark: An unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the US war machine. In brief, the US is “not prepared”, the appraisal argued, in any meaningful way for serious ‘competition’ with its major adversaries -- and is vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare.

The US, the RAND appraisal continues, could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theatres with peer and near-peer adversaries -- and it could lose. It warns that the US public has not internalized the costs of the US losing its position as the world superpower. The US must therefore engage globally with a presence—military, diplomatic, and economic—to preserve influence worldwide.

Indeed, as one respected commentator has noted, the ‘Empire at all Costs’ cult (i.e. the RAND Organisation zeitgeist) is now “more desperate than ever to find a war it can fight to restore its fortunes and prestige”.  

And China would be altogether a different proposition for a demonstrative act of destruction in order “to preserve US influence worldwide” -- for the US is “not prepared” for serious conflict with its peer adversaries: Russia or China, RAND says. 

The straitened situation of the US after decades of fiscal excess and offshoring (the backdrop to its current weakened military industrial base) now makes kinetic war with China or Russia or “across multiple theatres” a prospect to be shunned.

The point that the commentator above makes is that there are no ‘easy wars’ left to fight. And that the reality (brutally outlined by RAND) is that the US can choose one -- and only one war to fight.  Trump may not want any war, but the Lobby grandees -- all supporters of Israel, if not active Zionists supporting the displacement of Palestinians -- want war. And they believe they can get one. 

Put starkly and plainly: Has Trump thought this through? Have the others in the Trump Team reminded him that in today’s world, with US military strength slipping away, there no longer are any ‘easy wars’ to fight, although Zionists believe that with a decapitation strike on Iran’s religious and IRGC leadership (on the lines of the Israel’s strikes on Hizbullah leaders in Beirut), the Iranian people would rise up against their leaders, and side with Israel for a ‘New Middle East’.  

Netanyahu has just made his second broadcast to the Iranian people promising them early salvation. He and his government are not waiting to ask Trump to nod his consent to the annexation of all Occupied Palestinian Territories. That project is being implemented on the ground. It is unfolding now. Netanyahu and his cabinet have the ethnic cleansing ‘bit between their teeth’. Will Trump be able to roll it back? How so? Or will he succumb to becoming ‘genocide Don’?  

This putative ‘Iran War’ is following the same narrative cycle as with Russia: ‘Russia is weak; its military is poorly trained; its equipment mostly recycled from the Soviet era; its missiles and artillery in short supply’. Zbig Brzezinski earlier had taken the logic to its conclusion in The Grand Chessboard (1997): Russia would have no choice but to submit to the expansion of NATO and to the geopolitical dictates of the US. That was ‘then’ (a little more than a year ago). Russia took the western challenge -- and today is in the driving seat in Ukraine, whilst the West looks on helplessly.

This last month, it was US retired General Jack Keane, the strategic analyst for Fox News, who argued that Israel’s air strike on Iran had left it “essentially naked”, with most air defences “taken down” and its missile production factories destroyed by Israel’s 26 October strikes. Iran’s vulnerability, Keane said, is “simply staggering”.

Kean channels the early Brzezinski: His message is clear -- Iran will be an ‘easy war’. That forecast however, is likely to be revealed as dead wrong. And, if pursued, will lead to a complete military and economic disaster for Israel. But do not rule out the distinct possibility that Netanyahu -- besieged on all fronts and teetering on the brink of internal crisis and even jail -- is desperate enough to do it. His is, after all, a Biblical mandate that he pursues for Israel!

Iran likely will launch a painful response to Israel before the 20 January Presidential Inauguration. Its riposte will demonstrate Iran’s unexpected and unforeseen military innovation. What the US and Israel will then do may well open the door to wider regional war. Sentiment across the region seethes at the slaughter in the Occupied Territories and in Lebanon. 

Trump may not appreciate just how isolated the US and Israel are among Israel’s Arab and Sunni neighbors. The US is stretched so thin, and its forces across the region are so vulnerable to the hostility that the daily slaughter incubates, that a regional war might be enough to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down. The crisis would pitch Trump into a financial crisis that could sink his domestic economic aspirations too.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 23:25

Trump Takes His Time With Secret Service Director Choice

Authored by Susan Crabtree via ReaalClearPolitics,

It just might be the most personal hiring decision President-elect Trump will ever make, but if he’s already chosen, he’s keeping the contenders in suspense.

After surviving two assassination attempts in roughly two months, Donald Trump is in the awkward position of owing his life to the Secret Service agents and officers who intervened to protect him, even as he remains deeply critical of the failures that allowed the near-misses to occur.

And the threats against Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and the leaders of the incoming administration aren’t going away. In late September, then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s controversial choice for attorney general, said he was briefed by senior members of the Department of Homeland Security that there were five known assassination teams threatening Trump’s life, three of which he said were foreign. Just three days after the election, the Justice Department charged three people in connection to an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.

Still, just days after the second attempt on this life, Trump heaped praise on the agent for quick action after spotting suspect Ryan Routh’s rifle sticking out of the bushes along the perimeter of his Florida golf course and then opening fire. Trump contrasted that swift intervention with the first attempt July 13 when a bullet grazed his ear.

“And, in this particular case, you had a very sharp agent, as good as you could find, and did a fantastic job,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’s “Hannity.” 

“But somebody could have missed the barrel of that rifle,” he added. “Somebody of lesser talents or somebody that was distracted could have missed or could have been shot, I mean, frankly, could have also been shot.” 

Trump acknowledged the incident at his golf club in West Palm Beach ”worked out very well” but said the July 13 incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, when shooter Thomas Crooks killed rally goer Corey Comperatore and wounded two others before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper, “was a very different story.”

“Somebody should have been on that building. And that’s a different story. But they also showed great … they were very brave, because, when those bullets were flying, they were … they were … trying to protect me.” 

The dual sentiments no doubt factor into Trump’s decision-making regarding his choice to lead the beleaguered Secret Service. Even before the two assassination attempts, the agency was facing criticism over its DEI hiring priorities, lack of thorough applicant vetting, and the lowering of its training and physical fitness standards. At the same time, Secret Service morale hovered among the lowest of all federal agencies.

The congressional reports and a review panel’s findings also cite the inexperience of two agents in charge of security for the Butler rally, as well as the failure of supervisors to re-check their work and make the necessary changes. They also chronicled a litany of mistakes, including failing to check whether a local law enforcement agent was posted on the building where the Crooks perched, not including that building in the official event perimeter, and maintaining siloed communications between the Secret Service and local law enforcement partners.

Even though Trump was thankful for the eagle-eyed agent who spotted Routh hiding in the bushes at his West Palm Beach golf course, critics faulted his Secret Service detail for failing to sweep the perimeter. The 58-year-old had been camping out on the perimeter of the course 12 hours ahead of time but went unnoticed until Trump was within several hundred feet of his loaded rifle. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe explained the decision not to search the perimeter of the golf course because the golf game was considered off-the-record, or “OTR” in agency parlance, meaning it was not on Trump’s official schedule even though he regularly played the course on the weekends.

After the attempts on Trump’s life, the agency faced an avalanche of criticism from congressional committees, internal agency whistleblowers, and a scathing report from a bipartisan Independent Review Panel recommending a thorough overhaul of the Secret Service leadership.  

The two assassination attempts within two months were the lowest point for the Secret Service since President Ronald Reagan was shot in early 1981. But Trump’s big win has boosted confidence within the agency that major reforms will begin once he names and installs a new director.

Now that Trump has won, and Secret Service employees expect the incoming president to choose new leaders, agents and officers are deeply divided on who is the best candidate to thoroughly overhaul the agency. The top reform many seek is to allow the Secret Service leaders to jettison DEI priorities and return to making hiring decisions instead of delegating recruiting and vetting to administrative personnel unfamiliar with the rigors of the protective assignments.

The top two names circulating among current and retired Secret Service agents and officers are Sean Curran, the leader of Trump’s personal detail, and Dan Bongino, a conservative commentator and host of a popular podcast who previously served for 12 years in the Secret Service.

Both were with Trump Saturday night for the Ultimate Fighting Championship match between Jon Jones and Stipe Mocic at Madison Square Garden. Curran was a part of Trump’s security team that night, and Bongino was part of Trump’s entourage of Cabinet picks, politicians, and celebrities, including Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Dana White, Joe Rogan, Speaker Mike Johnson, Kid Rock, and Jelly Roll.

During the event, according to a Secret Service source, Bongino told other special agents protecting Trump that “Help is on the way.”

During Bongino’s Monday podcast, however, he was far more coy about Trump’s, and his, intentions.

“So, I know a lot of you are interested in a lot of the behind the scenes about who’s what ... I’m just here again to repeat, none of this stuff is my decision, okay – about anything,” he told his listeners.

“You guys know what I’m talking about. And there’s a lot to think about if that decision were to happen, and you guys will be the first to know,” he added. “Because I love you, and you guys matter. And so just hang with me, you know?”

Curran was caught that night at the Madison Square Garden fight in an elevator pic with Trump and Musk. Curran usually tries to operate behind the scenes, though his image is immortalized in the iconic photo of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the first assassination attempt. Curran appears to Trump’s left as the then-GOP nominee pumps his fist in the air, blood trickling down his cheek and an American flag fluttering in the background.

The choice between Curran and Bongino is highly competitive, and each have constituencies pulling for them. Trump is very close to Curran, who served as the assistant special agent in charge of Trump’s security detail while he was president and then moved to lead the detail in 2021, when Biden won and Trump was out of office. That top leadership role continued while Trump was running for reelection. Curran’s supporters for the director job credit him for pushing back against the outmoded protocol that because Trump is technically a former president, he shouldn’t therefore be allotted more security assets.

Instead, Curran continually tried to persuade Secret Service top brass to allocate higher security resources because Trump obviously faced far more threats as one of the most well-known and controversial political figures in the world and could not be treated like other former presidents. Until the assassination attempts, however, Secret Service leaders rejected those requests, and sources say Curran has the receipts – a long-running written record of those leadership denials.

Curran was successful in obtaining more security resources for Mar-a-Lago even before the assassination attempts, although the agency was so slow in installing them that a juvenile managed to enter the property and jump into a pool late last year.

Secret Service sources say that just a few days after Trump’s decisive election win, Curran told fellow agents that he believed Trump would tap him for the top role. Many veteran agents have reached out to RCP to back Curran’s candidacy, arguing that he’s an even-keeled leader and exceptional agent regarding his training, drilling, and performance levels.

But others have faulted him for allowing an inexperienced female agent to serve as one of two agents in charge of security plans for the Butler rally, without supervisors modifying the plan after required walk-throughs and extra scrutiny. Others, including Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who runs the security firm Blackwater, have criticized the Secret Service leadership for a “lack of seriousness” in securing Trump throughout this campaign. He also said the perimeter should have been extended to 1,000 meters from the stage because that’s how far an expert sniper can accurately shoot.

Trump has repeatedly praised the agents who put themselves in the line of fire to protect him in the moments after he was shot in Butler, but Prince wasn’t as impressed.

“The Secret Service detail did an awful job getting Trump off the X and let him stand up again,” Prince told a panel of Republican House members at the Heritage Foundation in August.

“[It showed] great instincts of the president to come back defiant, having just been shot in the head to come back and say, ‘Fight, fight, fight,’” Prince acknowledged. “But he never should have had the opportunity to do that because his detail should have put him horizontal and moved him off there immediately.”

If Trump taps Curran to lead the Secret Service, he will reject the recommendations of two bipartisan blue-ribbon commissions who recommended in 2015 and again this year that the next president choose someone outside the agency to fill the director role.

Dan Bongino for many years has been highly critical of the Secret Service, and he was especially so after the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life. Bongino also sat on the Heritage panel to Prince’s left and took a broader view. The conservative commentator argued that the problems in the Secret Service were systemic and directly related to DEI initiatives and the lowering of meritocracy and training standards.

Rep. Cori Mills, a Florida Republican who had served as a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division before becoming a security specialist in the private defense sector, appeared on the same panel.  

Responding to Bongino’s testimony, Mills said, “I think you’re saying DEI plays a major role, not meritocracy, with regards to the current culture that has been fostered [at the Secret Service.]

Bongino provided a terse response: “Not a [role] – but the major role,” he stressed.

The former Fox News host has a solid following on social media and among active and retired Secret Service agents and officers who argue that he would go to the mat to overhaul the agency and end DEI and other non-meritocracy hiring priorities. But some fear Bongino has been away from the Secret Service too long to know how to sort out the bad apples in leadership. Others argue that it depends on who Bongino would tap as his deputy to run the day-to-day agency operations while he’s dealing with the bigger picture and broad reforms.

Because Trump will continue to face threats from Iran throughout his time in the Oval Office, the Secret Service director will no doubt have an elevated role in the Trump administration and will likely be constantly interacting with the intelligence community to assess the threat levels. If confirmed, that elite group of national security Cabinet members would likely include Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence, or DNI, and John Ratcliffe, who previously served as DNI and whom Trump nominated to become his CIA director, as well as whomever Trump names as FBI director.

Kash Patel, a former National Security Council official in the last Trump administration, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, who had served as an FBI agent for several years, are contenders for the FBI director job. Bongino’s brash style may be better equipped to square off with those outsized egos and cut through the agency’s bureaucracy and woke policies. Some in the Secret Service community are hoping Trump appoints a leader who is listening to the rank-and-file to distinguish the bad actors from the hard-working agents and push out the ineffective and manipulative leaders.

Besides Bongino and Curran, there are several other top contenders to lead the Secret Service and the necessary reforms, including Tom Armas, a U.S. Marine general who also previously served several years as a Secret Service agent but spent the majority of his career in the military. Armas worked with Bongino in the Secret Service’s New York Field Office and has received high praise for his 9/11 bravery. Armas ran into the collapsing World Trade Center buildings and carried many people to safety amidst the chaos, dust, and debris.

If selected, Armas would follow in the footsteps of Randolph “Tex” Alles, a formerU.S. Marine Corps general and the first Secret Service director selected from outside the agency in its 159-year history. Trump chose Alles to lead the agency from 2017 to 2019. During that time, Alles built a good rapport among rank-and-file agents, but many believed several agency leaders successfully sabotaged him. Alles was swept out of the agency when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson left her post in April 2019.

Secret Service sources are also touting Michael D’Ambrosio, a respected senior career agent and former platoon commander in the U.S. Marines, for a leadership post. D’Ambrosio aggressively helped rush Trump off stage during a Nevada campaign rally eight years ago when a protester rushed the stage.

Other names in the mix include Jim Lewis, a former Secret Service agent who now serves as a senior Department of Homeland Security official, and Billy Davis, a high-performing agent who retired in 2015 after 29 years with the Secret Service (Davis is also known as a former Clemson University football player).

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 23:00

Unity, But Not Compromise, Is The Path Forward

Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics,

It really happened. Donald Trump won convincingly, just as I predicted. So I don’t need to publish a retraction or correction today like we are due from so many liberals for their substitution of wishful thinking for reasoned analysis in the leadup to the election.

But, on the other hand, I don’t want to waste your time and mine rehashing all the reasons why Trump won, or more significantly, why Kamala Harris lost. In retrospect, the possibility of a Harris victory seems as remote as Trump winning the Hispanic male vote. Oh wait!

So instead, let’s look forward. In particular, the example of Rodney King seems appropriate. King was famously the victim of a televised police beating in Los Angeles in 1991. When four officers were found not guilty the following year, the city erupted in violence, leading King to make his appeal for calm: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

King was a victim who became a leader, a man who put aside his own pain and embraced the possibility of a better world – a world where we can all get along.

That world seems as distant as ever today, but maybe that’s because we haven’t fully understood what it means to get along. For Rodney King, it meant simply, can we stop killing each other? Can we stop spiraling out of control, looking for revenge and expecting perfection from others while we ourselves are less than perfect?

Those were big questions. But for us American citizens, in the wake of the 2024 election, it also means confronting just how far apart we are – in philosophy, in goals, in tactics – and then deciding if we want to stay together or get a divorce. The possibility of a shooting civil war is remote at best, but if we continue to move in opposite directions, it will be hard to achieve the unity that many of our leaders espouse.

And if this is a national crisis, it is also a personal one. I doubt I’m the only one who has been confronted with friends and family members who are so disheartened by the nation’s rejection of the Democratic presidential candidate – and particularly the elevation of Donald Trump – that they hold me personally responsible. This, despite the fact that I rarely talk politics except in my own home, or in my columns.

I believe those personal relationships can be healed by time because politics is only a small part of how we get along on an individual level. But when it comes to bringing together two political parties that are diametrically opposed on border policy, taxes, military readiness, spending, crime, abortion, lawfare and government expansionism, it is much harder to put aside our daggers.

So the question becomes, how do we restore normalcy to our civic discourse? How do we avoid recriminations and self-congratulation? And most importantly, how can President-elect Trump, with his MAGA mandate, govern in order to bring about the unity that he says he wants?

What exactly would that unity even look like? Is it possible to unify abortion-rights advocates with anti-abortion stalwarts? Proponents of globalism with America-first nationalism? Those who protect illegal immigrants with those who mourn the needless murders and rapes that an open border has caused?

The common idea of unity is bipartisanship or compromise. The winning side will generously surrender a portion of its power in order to let the losing side claim some victories as well. The idea is that the losers will repay the favor by giving the winners respect and honor. This is the fantasy version of unity. No party in power will surrender its ability to promote its agenda if it has true principles rather than duplicitous pragmatism. Nor should it.

A more realistic view of unity is the Civil War model. Two sides are diametrically opposed. One side will prevail. You fight like hell to make sure it is yours. President Lincoln’s goal wasn’t to crush the South, but that result was necessary in order to ensure that his vision of “one nation indivisible” would quash the secessionist movement and stop the spread of slavery. Unity was his goal, but compromise was not – at least until the war was decisively won and Reconstruction would begin.

So it must be for Donald Trump in the wake of his historic victory. The public has given him his marching orders, and he intends to follow them relentlessly – bringing real change to the way government works. His first term provided mostly ephemeral results, with the exception of three Supreme Court justices. The wall was built – and then unbuilt. American energy was unleashed – and then leashed again. Peace was on its way to the Middle East with the Abraham Accords – and then dashed into a million pieces by Hamas.

This time around, Trump knows he only has four years to fulfill his plans. So he’s moving with lightning speed to do exactly what Abraham Lincoln accomplished in his four years in the White House: unite the country by demonstrating strength, wisdom and patriotism.

This ambitious goal perhaps explains Trump’s seemingly antagonistic selection of Cabinet secretaries. Matt Gaetz for attorney general? Robert Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services? Pete Hegseth for Defense? Tulsi Gabbard to oversee the intelligence agencies, including the CIA? There were other qualified candidates for all those positions, but would they have fought as fiercely as these picks to revolutionize the agencies they would helm?

Turning back to our Civil War model, after first selecting traditional generals who were consensus choices, Lincoln decided to go with his gut and promoted Ulysses S. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant and “scorched earth” William Sherman to bring the enemy to their heels. Trump seems to be after the same kind of unsparing determination. Go big or go home.

To his enemies, that translates as Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies,” but leveraging one’s political capital to push the nation inexorably in one direction is not necessarily the act of a dictator. That kind of insistent progress is the very definition of unity as exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the force of his personality and his political vision to reshape politics for three decades and beyond.

Trump has certainly dominated the political conversation for the last decade. By not compromising with his enemies, I think it is safe to say he believes he can eventually persuade them to accept his unifying MAGA vision for America just as FDR convinced the nation to celebrate his transformative New Deal.

And any Republican senator who stands in Trump’s way had better be prepared to reap the whirlwind.

Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His book “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA and on X/Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 22:35

Hezbollah Chief Vows More Attacks On Tel Aviv While Awaiting Israel's Response To Ceasefire Plan

In his third major address since becoming Hezbollah's Secretary General in the wake of Hassan Nasrallah's death, Naim Qassem threatened to target Tel Aviv in response to recent Beirut strikes.

"We will not leave the capital under Israeli enemy attacks. When Beirut is under attack by the enemy, the response must be in Tel Aviv," he said. The Hezbollah chief added that "The enemy must understand that things will not remain as such when Beirut is attacked."

He laid out that Israel must pay a "heavy price" for the assassination of Hezbollah media relations chief Mohammed Afif this week, which happened in Beirut.

Drones and rockets fired from Lebanon into Tel Aviv have already begun ramping up in the past days, even though such targeting that deep into Israel remains rare.

Monday saw a Hezbollah missile strike Tel Aviv, near a shopping mall and busy area, which wounded five people and caused extensive damage.

Tehran Times reports, "An Israeli media outlet reported among the missiles that landed in Tel Aviv was a Fateh 110 missile, which is a surface-to-surface missile recognized for its significant destructive power. It is engineered to strike critical targets with pinpoint accuracy within a margin of up to ten meters."

Currently, Biden's Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein is going between warring capitals, seeking to finalize a US-proposed peace plan.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government are said to be backing the ceasefire, and are awaiting Israel's response. However, the prospect that a ceasefire will be reached soon doesn't look promising. Below is what Secretary-General Qassem said in his speech regarding the plan:

"We got the negotiation document, we examined the document and we transferred our notes about it," he said. This comes as Hochstein delayed his arrival in Israel as he attempts to smooth over more details of the deal.

In Qassem's opinion, "Israel expects to get through the agreement what it did not get on the ground," referring to the Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon. Several attempts to reach an end to hostilities have failed, including those proposed by US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.

"In the past, we agreed to the Biden-Macron proposal on the basis of ending the war, but they killed Nasrallah," Qassem said. "We went through a real crisis after his assassination, but after 10 days we managed to recover and heal our wounds."

Hezbollah has been revealing an ever-more sophisticated drone arsenal...

⚡️Hezb-Allah publishes first footage from onboard a Kamikaze drone pic.twitter.com/4FdGE6D8Jd

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 18, 2024

Many details of the plan remain secret. At this moment, the skies over Lebanon are as dangerous as ever, with Israeli warplanes pounding Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Tyre and the south, and especially the capital suburb of Dahieh.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 22:10

This Is How It Begins: The Deep State Wants To Terminate The Constitution

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary.”

- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

This is how it begins.

This is how it always begins, justified in the name of national security.

Mass roundups. Raids. Indefinite detentions in concentration camps. Martial law. The erosion of habeas corpus protections. The suspension of the Constitution, at least for select segments of the population. A hierarchy of rights, contingent on whether you belong to a favored political class.

This is what you can expect in the not-so-distant future.

Once you allow the government to overreach the restraints imposed  by the Constitution, no matter what that threat might be, it will be that much harder to restrain it again, no matter which party is at the helm.

We’ve seen this played out time and again.

Some years ago, for instance, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and deploy the National Guard “to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”

In other words, they wanted the government to use the military to round up and lock up the unvaccinated in concentration camps.

That didn’t happen, but it so easily could have.

Now the script has been flipped, and it’s the soon-to-be Trump Administration promising to use the military to round up and lock up undesirables in concentration camps.

At this moment in time, those so-called “undesirables” are illegal immigrants, but given what we know about the government and its expansive definition of what constitutes a threat to its power, any one of us could be next up in the police state’s crosshairs.

Once you give the government a taste of that kind of power—to disregard the Constitution, even for a day; to use the military for domestic policing; to rely on mass deportations and concentration camps in order to sidestep due process procedures—it won’t be so easy to rein it in when it runs amok.   

And it will run amok.

You don’t have to be an illegal immigrant or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is why significant numbers of people are worried: because this is the slippery slope that starts with supposedly well-meaning intentions for the greater good and ends with tyrannical abuses no one should tolerate.

We’ve already allowed the government to significantly undermine our constitutional republic.

We’ve allowed ourselves to be seduced by the false siren song of politicians promising safety in exchange for relinquished freedom. We placed our trust in political saviors and failed to ask questions to hold our representatives accountable to abiding by the Constitution. We looked the other way and made excuses while the government amassed an amazing amount of power over us, and backed up that power-grab with a terrifying amount of military might and weaponry, and got the courts to sanction their actions every step of the way. We chose to let partisan politics divide us and turn us into easy targets for the government’s oppression.

Consider for yourself.

We are in the grip of martial law. We have what the founders feared most: a “standing” or permanent army on American soil. This de facto standing army is made up of weaponized, militarized domestic police forces which look like, dress like, and act like the military; are armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment; are authorized to make arrests; and are trained in military tactics.

We are in the government’s crosshairs. The U.S. government continues to act as judge, jury and executioner over a populace that have been pre-judged and found guilty, stripped of their rights, and left to suffer at the hands of government agents trained to respond with the utmost degree of violence. Consequently, we are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.” With alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by the government’s standing army of militarized police who shoot first and ask questions later.

We are no longer safe in our homes. This present menace comes from the government’s army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized SWAT teams who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes.

We have no real freedom of speech. We are moving fast down a slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts. In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American who criticizes the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

We have no real privacy. We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. This government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

We are losing our right to bodily privacy and integrity. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws and forced breath-alcohol tests to forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, and forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no real privacy, no real presumption of innocence, and no real control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. The groundwork being laid is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

We no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have allegedly been associated with some criminal scheme.

We have no due process. The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

We are no longer presumed innocent. The burden of proof has been reversed. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Rarely, are we even given the opportunity to do so. The government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database. Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government coupled with artificial intelligence will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

We have lost the right to be anonymous and move about freely.  At every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. Likewise, digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

We no longer have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

We have no guardians of justice. The courts were established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the courts have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests.

We have been saddled with a dictator for life. Secret, unchecked presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—now enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

We are one crisis or state of emergency away from having the Constitution terminated.

Mind you, the powers-that-be want the Constitution terminated.

They want us to be censored, silenced, muzzled, gagged, zoned out, caged in and shut down.

They want our speech and activities monitored for any sign of “extremist” activity.

They want us to be estranged from each other and kept at a distance from those who are supposed to represent us. They want taxation without representation. They want a government without the consent of the governed.

Connect the dots.

This was never about politics, populist movements, or making America great again.

This is what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

It’s what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the slippery slope begins in just this way, with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps.

The danger signs are everywhere.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 21:45

American Dream? Depends... Home Price-to-Income Ratio By State

With steadily increasing home prices and stagnating wages among lower-wage workers, home ownership for many Americans has become increasingly unaffordable.

The home price-to-income ratio measures the relationship between the median home price and the median household income. This metric is often used to gauge housing affordability, accounting for variations in the cost of living.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows home price-to-income ratio of each U.S. state, using data from a Construction Coverage analysis of Zillow and U.S. Census Bureau data as of June 2024.

Hawaii and West Coast Have the Most Unaffordable Homes

The table below shows the home price-to-income ratio for each U.S. state, where Hawaii (9.1) and California (8.4) at the top—both well over the national average of 4.7.

Rank State Ratio 1 Hawaii 9.1 2 California 8.4 3 Montana 6.6 4 Oregon 6.4 5 Massachusetts 6.3 6 Washington 6.3 7 Idaho 6.1 8 Washington 6 9 Colorado 6 10 Nevada 5.9 11 Utah 5.7 12 New York 5.7 13 Arizona 5.7 14 Florida 5.7 15 Maine 5.5 16 Rhode Island 5.4 17 New Jersey 5.2 18 New Hampshire 5.1 19 Vermont 5 20 New Mexico 4.9 21 Wyoming 4.8 22 North Carolina 4.8 23 Tennessee 4.8 24 Delaware 4.6 25 South Carolina 4.5 26 Virginia 4.4 27 Georgia 4.4 28 Maryland 4.3 29 Connecticut 4.3 30 South Dakota 4.2 31 Texas 4.1 32 Alaska 4 33 Wisconsin 4 34 Minnesota 3.9 35 Missouri 3.7 36 Alabama 3.7 37 Pennsylvania 3.6 38 Nebraska 3.6 39 Arkansas 3.6 40 Michigan 3.5 41 Indiana 3.5 42 Louisiana 3.5 43 North Dakota 3.4 44 Illinois 3.3 45 Ohio 3.3 46 Oklahoma 3.3 47 Kentucky 3.3 48 Mississippi 3.3 49 Kansas 3.2 50 Iowa 3 51 West Virginia 2.9

Despite Hawaii and California ranking in the top five for median income (adjusted for cost of living), both states also consistently rank first and second respectively when it comes to median home prices.

Hawaii and California also rank second and third, respectively, when ranking states by the highest salary needed to live comfortably for a single working adult.

According to ATTOM, Hawaii has the highest median house prices in the U.S., at around $852,000.

The Aloha State’s limited land availability, strict housing regulations, and high demand for housing in a desirable climate, are some contributing factors to its high home prices.

Californian cities Los Angeles, San Jose, Long Beach, and San Diego are the top four large U.S. cities with the highest home price-to-income ratios.

Home prices in California have reached unprecedented highs due to a persistent imbalance between high demand and limited supply, which is exacerbated by strict zoning laws, geographic constraints, and a robust economy attracting high-income residents.

To learn more about housing affordability, check out this graphic that shows the top 10 global markets by median price-to-income ratio.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 21:20

Food Lobbyists Plot To Have It Their Way With RFK Jr.

Authored by Lee Fang via RealClearInvestigations,

America’s most famous fast-food fan may be an unlikely candidate to make America healthy again, but Donald Trump seems willing to tackle the eating habits that have led to skyrocketing rates of obesity. The junk food industry is not lovin’ it.

RealClearInvestigations has learned that representatives of companies that make snack foods, sugary beverages, and cooking oils are already meeting to discuss how to thwart the reform agenda of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former consumer rights attorney Trump has said he will nominate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Their response provides an early example of what experts predict will be a massive effort by D.C. lobbyists to position their clients in response to Trump’s pledge to change how Washington does business.

Although much of the early criticism of Kennedy’s nomination has focused on his skepticism regarding some vaccines, the nominee is a longtime critic of the food industry, which he says is a leading contributor to America’s obesity epidemic. In recent months, he has called for a crackdown on food additives, limits on certain crop protection chemicals, stronger guidelines regarding what he says are conflicts of interest among regulators and business, and a review of any substance causing, what he argues, Americans to be “mass poisoned by big pharma and big food.”

Kennedy’s nomination sets up what may turn out to be the biggest reversal between the first Trump administration and the second. The last time around, Trump’s appointees, acting in deference to traditional business interests, moved to reverse regulations on neurotoxic insecticides and added delays to updates for school lunch nutritional standards. 

In videos that have gone viral this year, Kennedy has singled out ultra-processed food as a priority for what Kennedy has called his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda. In one video devoted to the potential dangers of Yellow 5 food dye, Kennedy stands before a table with Doritos chips and Cap’n Crunch cereal and claims the ingredients used in such products are one reason more than 40% of American adults are classified as obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The dye, also known as tartrazine, has been linked to behavioral problems in children and other health risks. The European Union requires child warning labels for products with tartrazine. 

Kennedy has made similar arguments about the widespread use of seed oils – including those from corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and peanuts – especially in highly processed foods. Research suggests that high levels of seed oils, rich in polyunsaturated fat, can cause inflammation. America's overreliance on seed oils in fast food and snack products, Kennedy claims, is a major overlooked factor in the health crisis. 

Food industry leaders began sounding the alarm even before the election. In October,  Invariant, a powerful government relations firm that advises many food companies on how to shape policies in Washington, D.C., warned clients of Kennedy’s growing sway over Trump and the Republican Party.

"Increasing number of voices on the right target the food industry," an October memo stated, which went out to clients that include McDonald’s and America’s largest candy makers. The lobbyists warned that Kennedy’s MAHA movement “had gained increasing momentum among conservative figures who have taken a more vocal interest in the way food is produced and regulated.”

Those initial alarm bells have become a siren among snack food makers and agribusiness representatives, according to records obtained by RCI. Last Friday, lobbyists for major processed food producers huddled over Zoom to discuss the rise of MAHA and how best to handle Kennedy’s recently announced nomination.

Danielle Beck, a participant on the call who represents PepsiCo, makers of Doritos and Cap’n Crunch, and the Corn Refiners Association, a trade group for the largest producers of corn-based seed oils, noted that Congress could limit Kennedy’s abilities. 

The "traditional agriculture and food stakeholders," Beck noted, "might look to leverage, you know, the appropriations process" to curb what Kennedy is allowed to "initiate or implement."

Congressional appropriators often use the annual funding process to limit federal authorities. In 2010, under sway from industry sources, the House Appropriations Committee inserted a provision into federal funding that forced tomato paste on frozen pizzas to be counted as a vegetable under dietary regulations. 

The lobbyists noted that Kennedy’s lengthy set of demands could also be exploited to stymie his overall agenda. "If RFK Jr. is focused on twenty different things, chances of success are likely limited," observed Ken Barbic, another Invariant lobbyist representing processed foods firms and farming interests. 

Invariant, though founded by Heather Podesta, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, boasts bipartisan influence. Barbic, for instance, served during the first Trump administration in the Department of Agriculture and the firm employs a number of former GOP aides. 

The Senate confirmation process, the lobbyists added, could be another process through which industry may shape the MAHA list of priorities. As Kennedy meets with individual senators, Beck noted, "serious conversations and commitments can be made to secure those votes that might end up resulting in some shifts in RFK’s overall agenda."

In other words, in order to line up more than 50 votes in the Senate, the lobbyists suggest Kennedy may be convinced to trade away some of his MAHA demands. 

Similar strategy sessions have percolated across Washington Beltway lobbying shops representing food, beverage, and drug industries. The American Farm Bureau, which represents pesticide companies and farming interests, recently said it was working to “combat misinformation that has been spread by several sources including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding critical crop protection tools and agricultural practices.” 

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents Kellogg, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, and other processed foods firms, has also met with lawmakers, preparing for a fight over MAHA agenda items, according to a report from Politico.

Other Kennedy proposals could spark a ferocious backlash from corporate America, particularly his suggestion that the U.S. fall in line with most of the industrialized world and ban direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. Drug firms spend more than $1 billion per year on television spots. Shutting off the gusher of ad dollars would likely mobilize stark opposition from media conglomerates and the drug lobby. 

But it is RFK’s ideas around wellness and nutrition that have percolated most with the new Trump coalition. The farm and processed food lobby must contend with a sea change within the Republican Party, which now relies on populist vigor increasingly receptive to the idea of reforming the way American food is produced and sold.

In September, Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, led a roundtable discussion with popular food industry critics. During the hearing, the stars of this nascent movement, including Dr. Casey Means and her brother Calley Means, food blogger Vani Hari, and author Max Lugavere, took turns at the microphone to pin the blame for America’s poor health mainly on the influence of processed food companies. 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Kennedy ally, was scheduled to host a similar roundtable but had to cancel at the last minute due to Hurricane Helene flooding in North Carolina.

Such rhetoric suggests a political realignment on food and wellness issues. Bernie Sanders, perhaps the Senate’s most liberal lawmaker, has held a series of hearings on chronic disease, focusing on the influence of corporate actors, and departing Biden administration officials have called for an overhaul of the dietary guidelines. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to provide a new definition of the "healthy " food label with stronger limits on saturated fats, sodium, and added sugars, a proposal that might find continuity under a Kennedy-controlled agency.

Kennedy himself is a former Democrat-turned-independent who was briefly floated as the Environmental Protection Agency chief for President Barack Obama in 2008. He has worked on several successful litigation efforts that have challenged the safety of widely used chemicals. Kennedy was part of the team that challenged glyphosate, sold as Roundup, over its links to cancer, a case that led to a $290 million verdict for the plaintiffs.  

While such regulatory interventions were once the province of the left, the MAHA movement capitalizes on a shift in media consumption by those in the Trump orbit. 

Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country, has emphasized the dangers posed by high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and sugary, processed foods. He has hosted many of the most vocal activists aligned with the MAHA movement, including the Means siblings. 

"I love this idea of you teaming up with Robert Kennedy, and I love this 'Make America Healthy Again' idea," said Rogan during his sit-down with Trump during the campaign, which garnered over 50 million views on YouTube. 

"There are chemicals and ingredients in our food that are illegal in other countries because they've been shown to be toxic,” Rogan added during the interview. 

Trump, in response, pledged to give Kennedy wide latitude over health policy, though he said he disagreed with his views on energy and the environment. In the past, Kennedy has opposed expanded oil and natural gas fracking and previously supported a moratorium on new nuclear energy – priorities of the new administration.

Yet Kennedy’s focus on health taps into a rich vein of new populist energy that defies easy ideological definition. The outreach to podcasters and wellness influencers has been credited with helping Trump secure the young male vote, which swung away from Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points.

It is a dynamic agribusiness interests have noticed. The Invariant team credited the rise of RFK’s influence to the growing prominence of podcasts and independent media. 

"Trump appeared on more than 35 different podcasts," noted Jenny Werwa, a strategic communications consultant with Invariant.

When seeking influence with policymakers, the food and beverage industry typically focuses advertising dollars on insider Beltway media, such as Politico and Punchbowl News, added Werwa during the call with clients last Friday. Instead, she suggested, the industry should “think about how you might be able to partner with non-traditional media for content,” adding that Rogan and certain independent Substack publishers should be considered moving forward. 

Consumer brands generally seek to avoid public engagement in politics, typically working through third parties and industry groups. 

Invariant is one of many lobbying firms in the middle of the conflict. The firm not only represents highly processed snack producers, corn refiners, and fast food establishments like McDonald's, but also Campbell Soup, McCain Foods, and the American Beverage Association, the lobby group for sugary sodas.

The lobbyists at the firm shared a memo outlining additional steps. Clients in the “food and agriculture space need to continue both defensive efforts – including legislative and regulatory efforts – while also considering offensive approaches that engage positively in the broader health focused debate.” The offensive approaches, however, are yet to be seen. 

In the meantime, food industry giants might also hang some hope on the influence and taste of Kennedy’s boss. In a viral post-election photo, Trump is shown having dinner on his private plane with his son Don Jr., Kennedy, and Elon Musk. The menu: Big Macs and fries.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 20:55

Nvidia Drops After Revenue Forecast Disappoints Exuberant Expectations

Earlier today we wrote an extensive preview of what to expect from Nvidia's Q3 earnings (here), but for those who missed it here is the summary: sky high expectations, which only go higher in 2025 and beyond when the full rollout of Blackwell is expected to hit the P&L, with everyone already long (Goldman desk positioning is 9 out of 10) and anything less than perfection would be punished by the market. The bull/bear case summarized by Goldman was as follows:

• Bulls playing for a ‘break-out’ trade on an expected beat/raise (with downside arguably cushioned by the upcoming Blackwell launch)
• Bears playing for a reset in the stock driven by a growing list of moving parts (Blackwell noise, scaling laws, custom ASICs/silicon, ROICs, etc) vs valuation back at ~15-mo highs.

In terms of expectations, Q3 revenue was projected to come in at $33.25BN, while the median analyst estimate for Q4 revenue is $37.1BN but buyside bogeys were $38BN+ and some were as high as $41BN. Keep in mind that that number has moved around a lot in the past few days as analysts have made last-minute tweaks to their models. While the current high sales estimate for the third quarter is $41.2 billion, some investors have have said that the whisper number may be even higher than that!

Beyond the headlines, JPM says that the key near-term bogeys are the following:

1. The margin guide (with a few saying JPM's 73.8% buyside bar is too high),
2. The possibility of hiccups in the Blackwell ramp which - given the steep ramp - could push revenues to the April quarter;
3. Any guidance on F26 and beyond.

Other things to look out for when the company starts speaking will include how much supply it’s getting from its manufacturing partners. Like most chipmakers, Nvidia outsources production. Taiwan Semiconductor is the best in the business, and Nvidia’s pace of growth heavily depends on how well TSMC is able to provide Nvidia with the capacity it needs.

Amusingly, Nvidia shares actually closed down today, though far from session lows, ahead of the earnings report. Still, shares are up nearly 200% so far this year, and one of the best performers on the S&P 500 Index. Nvidia’s market cap north of $3.6 trillion makes it the biggest weighting in the S&P 500, meaning that any move in the stock could swing the entire market.

With that in mind, here is what NVDA reported moments ago:

• Revenue $35.08 billion, up +94% y/y, beating the median estimate of $33.25 billion (but in line with Goldman's expectations of $35BN).
  • Data center revenue $30.8 billion vs. $14.51 billion y/y, beating estimates of $29.14 billion
  • Gaming revenue $3.3 billion, +15% y/y, beating estimates of $3.06 billion
  • Professional Visualization revenue $486 million, +17% y/y, beating estimates of $477.7 million
  • Automotive revenue $449 million, +72% y/y, beating estimates of $364.5 million
     
• Adjusted gross margin 75% vs. 75% y/y, and in line with estimates of 75%
  • Adjusted operating expenses $3.05 billion, +50% y/y, beating estimates of $2.99 billion
  • Adjusted operating income $23.28 billion vs. $11.56 billion y/y, beating estimates of $21.9 billion
     
• Adjusted EPS 81c, beating estimates 74c

The revenue trend, as expected, is impressive especially at the Data Center level where all the growth is.

Here is a full breakdown of recent results:

But while the Q3 results were stellar, the company's guidance came in on the weak side of the buyside expectations we discussed in our premium preview.

• Revenue is expected to be $37.5 billion, plus or minus 2%: The “plus or minus 2%” means Nvidia expects 4Q revenue between $36.75 billion and $38.25 billion. The low end is ugly, and even the high end is below the median buyside bogey.

Oops: while this was above the median consensus of $37.1BN, it was far below the buyside expectations of $38.8BN; It was also well below Goldman's Q4 revenue expectations of $39BN and close to where the bank saw the stock dropping -10%.  In fact, some estimates for Q4 revenue were as high as $41 billion!

The rest of the guidance was in line but far less important:

• Gross margins are expected to be 73.0% and 73.5%, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points.
• Operating expenses are expected to be approximately $4.8 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively.
• Other income and expense are expected to be an income of approximately $400 million, excluding gains and losses from non-affiliated investments and publicly-held equity securities.
• Tax rates are expected to be 16.5%, plus or minus 1%, excluding any discrete items.

Nvidia has only missed analysts’ estimates on quarterly revenue once in the past five years. And it has exceeded expectations by as much as 20% in recent periods, creating a very high bar for its performance.

The muted outlook suggests that AI excitement may be getting ahead of reality according to Bloomberg. Nvidia investors had bid up the shares nearly 200% in 2024, turning it into the world’s most valuable company at $3.6 trillion in market cap. But the chipmaker has had trouble keeping up with demand for its products and struggled with production snags this year.

To be fair, even with the disappointing outlook, Nvidia’s growth over the past two years has been staggering, simply because not one chipmaker has been able to take its market share (Intel unprecedented collapse in recent years can be largely to blame for that). Its sales are poised to double for a second year in a row, and it now notches more money in profit than it used to generate in total revenue (thanks to that 75% profit margin).

Nvidia's data center division alone now has more revenue than its two nearest rivals, Intel and AMD combined. Net income this year is on course to exceed revenue at Intel, a company that was the chip industry’s titan for decades.

The company’s biggest moneymaker is its accelerator chip, which helps develop AI models by bombarding them with data. Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot debuted in 2022, a frenzy of artificial intelligence services has created insatiable demand for the product.

Other recent earnings reports have given strong signals for AI. Major Nvidia customers, including Microsoft, Amazon's AWS and Meta have reaffirmed their commitment to spend on AI infrastructure, even if few have actually done the spend, as we noted during the recent Meta earnings call.

Nvidia hopes to stay ahead of rivals by accelerating its pace of innovation. That includes a commitment to updating its lineup annually; the company is currently introducing a design called Blackwell, which is faster and has an improved ability to link up with other chips, and which is expected to hit the company's P&L early next year, as a bevy of manufacturing challenges have slowed the Blackwell rollout. For now, Nvidia can’t fill all the orders it’s receiving, the company has said. After production improves, supplies will be plentiful, according to CEO Jensen Huang. For his sake, hopefully by then no competitors will have been able to come out with a faster, cheaper chip.

The Santa Clara, CA-based company has rapidly expanded its product lineup to include networking, software and services, as well as fully built-out computer systems. Huang is traveling the world lobbying for a broader adoption of his technology and trying to spread its use by corporations and government agencies.

Shares of Nvidia fell as much as 5% in after hours trading following the announcement, before settling about 2% lower, far below the 8.8% straddle. They previously closed at $145.89 in New York.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 20:39

Wealthy Private Schools In Upscale Miami Are Starting To Price Out Their Teachers

The rich neighborhoods in Miami are getting so rich, they're starting to price out the teachers.

For example, Ransom Everglades, a top private school in Miami’s upscale Coconut Grove, serves the city’s wealthy families, including new Wall Street South transplants.

It boasts amenities like an Olympic pool, sailing, and a waterfront football field, it offers 24 varsity sports, 62 arts courses, and a cutting-edge science center. And with a 10-to-1 student-teacher ratio, admission is highly competitive—only one in seven sixth-grade applicants were accepted this year, according to parents.

But the school is struggling to retain teachers due to the increasing cost of living in the area. So much so that it has been building an endowment to help give teachers stipends to offset their living expenses, according to Bloomberg.

Ransom Everglades' board, led by chair Miguel Dueñas, is creating a $30 million endowment to help its 132 teachers with living costs in Miami’s pricey market. They’ve raised $15 million so far from parents and alumni, aiming to provide each teacher at least $11,000 annually for housing expenses through the fund’s returns.

Dueñas commented: “The biggest issue that schools are facing right now in South Florida is the cost of living for teachers. So trying to solve that, or help it, is something that is strategic in nature for all schools.”

Bloomberg writes that Ransom Everglades faces a challenge in balancing competitive teacher pay with affordability for families, all despite charging $52,000 in annual tuition—less than elite New York schools like Dalton, which cost $65,000.

While offering perks like tuition discounts for teachers' children and free meals, salaries are constrained by housing costs in Miami, where prices have surged 75% over five years.

Head of school Rachel Rodriguez emphasized that housing affordability is the biggest obstacle in recruiting top talent, as Miami ranks poorly for both affordability and income inequality.

Private school teachers nationwide earn about 25% less than their public-school counterparts, and Florida ranks second-to-last for public-school teacher pay.

Compounding this, Miami’s private-school teacher salaries trail cities like New York by 17%. Gulliver Prep, another Miami-area private school, is exploring higher tuition for wealthy families and donor-funded stipends to close the pay gap.

Without these adjustments, teachers like Jonathan Scholl, who left Ransom for a more affordable life in Denver despite lower pay, may continue to seek opportunities elsewhere, exacerbating a crisis for South Florida’s elite schools.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 20:30

"Some Of Them Are With Pedophiles": Trump's Border Czar To Prioritize Locating 300,000 Unaccounted-For Children

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming border czar said he would prioritize locating or rescuing 300,000 unaccounted-for children who entered the United States as illegal immigrants and are at risk of exploitation.

Then-acting ICE Director Tom Homan speaks at an event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, on June 5, 2018. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

“The third rail is we got over 300,000 missing children,” Tom Homan told Fox News on Monday, likely referring to a government report issued earlier this year. “Over half a million children have been trafficked into the United States. This administration released them to unvetted sponsors, and they can’t find 300,000. And based on three-and-a-half decades, some of these children are in forced labor.”

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) inspector general released a report finding that 323,000 illegal immigrant children are unaccounted for inside the United States. As of May 2024, more than 32,000 children who were served notices to appear in court did not appear, while the safety of an additional 291,000 could not be verified because they were not placed into removal proceedings, making monitoring their status challenging, according to the report.

Those figures came from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and covered the period from October 2018 to September 2023

“We already found some in forced labor, some of them are in for sex trafficking, some of them are with pedophiles,” Homan said. “We need to save these children. That’s going to be the third rail.”

The DHS report noted that ICE, which Homan had overseen under the first Trump administration, should “take immediate action” to ensure those unaccounted-for children are safe.

Two other priorities, or “rails,” Homan said, are to secure the U.S.–Mexico border as well as deport illegal aliens who are criminals and “national security threats” still residing in the United States.

Both Homan and Trump have said they will initiate a wide-ranging mass deportation plan after the president-elect takes office on Jan. 20, 2025. Trump said on Monday he would be prepared to declare a national emergency to move things forward.

Some pro-immigration groups and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have said they are opposed to Trump’s deportation proposals, while the ACLU has signaled it will file lawsuits to block such plans from being initiated.

On Monday, the ACLU said it sued ICE to seek records on how “privately chartered deportation flights run by ICE ... could be expanded to carry out a mass deportation and detention program.”

What DHS Report Says

The DHS inspector general said in the August report that unaccounted-for children who don’t show up for immigration court dates can be “considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”

The office faulted ICE for failing to consistently “monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children” once they are released from federal government custody.

During the period from October 2018 to September 2023, 448,820 unaccompanied children were released by ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The U.S. government defines an unaccompanied migrant child as someone under 18 who lacks lawful immigration status and has no parent or guardian in the country to take custody of them. When they’re apprehended by DHS, they’re transferred to the HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

ICE and the Department of Justice may initiate removal proceedings. However, some children are able to stay in the United States legally if they qualify for asylum, special visas for victims of abuse, trafficking, and other crimes, or other types of immigration relief. In those cases, removal proceedings may never start.

By some estimates, there are around 11 million illegal immigrants who currently live in the United States, some being able to do so under temporary protected status orders issued by DHS.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 20:05

Col. MacGregor: Trump & The Storm Of The Century

Authored by Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.)

The fear in many nations’ capitals is that President Donald Trump’s return to Washington might make Israel feel more confident in attacking Iran. According to Mike Evans, founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, "There is no world leader Trump respects more than Netanyahu."

The evangelical leader also confides that President Trump would support an Israeli attack before his inauguration on the assumption that the destruction of Iran’s oil production facilities would devastate Iran’s economy, inducing Iran to end the war with Israel before President Trump assumes his office. This thinking by no means excludes an Israeli decision to strike Iran’s nuclear development sites as well. 

What Trump will or will not do is unknown. When the illusive stillness in the standoff between Tehran and Jerusalem will end is also unknown. 

One thing is certain: If America joins Israel in its war against Iran, the outcome will be a geopolitical showdown that could dramatically alter the world as we know it. It is the storm of the 21st century and, for the moment, the American ship of state is sailing right into it.

At a minimum, Trump should demand answers from his civilian and military advisors to four important questions.

Question 1. What is the American purpose in waging war against Iran? Is Washington’s purpose to destroy the Iranian state? To destroy its capability to wage war against Israel? To eliminate Iran’s developing nuclear capability? Or to decapitate the Iranian state in the hope that the Iranian people will overthrow their national government? 

All these goals demand serious study and analysis. In some cases, they overlap; in others they do not. The answers require identifying resources, manpower, capabilities, and the time needed to achieve these goals. 

It is obvious that America’s air and naval forces will have to deliver powerful disabling strikes through dense Iranian air and missile defenses while potentially defending themselves and American military bases against attacks by Iranian and allied forces in the region. How long can these forces operate before their stocks of munitions are exhausted and their human and materiel losses are replaced? 

Based on these answers, the stated objectives may or may not be attainable. National political and military leaders habitually plan and organize to achieve short, decisive outcomes, but wars always last longer than anticipated.

Question 2. How will U.S. military power achieve the objectives? 

What is the right mix of weapon systems and munitions? What targets promise effects that profoundly shape Iran’s ability to fight? In the aftermath of the Second World War, studies of bombing effectiveness revealed that the most important contribution air power made to Germany’s defeat was the destruction of Germany’s fuel production and the transportation network to move it. Its second-most important contribution was to cause German air forces to defend Germany’s cities and industries, thus stripping the German army of its close air support. But thousands of tons of bombs were still dropped on thousands of targets with minimal impact on the German war machine. 

Can air and missile power alone compel the Iranian State to submit to Israeli and American demands? To date, no amount of precision-strike forces linked to space-based and terrestrial, persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities has delivered victory in war. 

The Kosovo air campaign inflicted enormous damage on the Serbian economy, but its impact on Serbian ground forces was minimal. Yet once Moscow withdrew its promise of energy and food support to the Serbian people, the destruction of power plants and civilian and commercial infrastructure did induce the Serbian leadership to remove its forces from Kosovo. 

Read the full article here.

Tyler Durden Wed, 11/20/2024 - 19:40