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Anatomy of right wing propaganda:
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 11, 2023
- Trump aide Stephen Miller creates phony legal organization.
- Miller invents a story to back up a Trump conspiracy theory.
- Coordinating with the GOP House Judiciary, Jim Jordan tweets out the propaganda.
- Trump family claims victory. pic.twitter.com/mzJReLImmx
Then former Trump aides, MAGA influencers, and far right disinformation blogs tweet out the phony story. The MAGA Republican disinformation machine is all very coordinated and sophisticated, but very transparent if you are looking closely. And yes, House Republicans are in on it. pic.twitter.com/N9hqUvsP6L
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 11, 2023
Once you narrow in on the claim, it gets even more spurious and ridiculous: “DOJ authorized the search on Mar-a-Lago?!!l Uhh. Duh? Then they call it the “Biden White House” DOJ. There’s literally nothing being said here. Just a weak attempt to tie it to Biden personally.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 11, 2023
Now it’s being laundered through Fox and Murdoch properties. They cite the “report” to give them legal cover — the “report” that came from Trump propagandist Stephen Miller. pic.twitter.com/4AWSqeOAnr
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 11, 2023
This is interesting. A weaved maze of obscurities.
Twitter Isn’t a Company Anymore
It’s been merged into a new entity called X Corp. Here’s what that could mean.
BY NITISH PAHWA AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 10, 20234:29 PM
https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/twitter-inc-x-corp-elon-musk-x-nevada.html
In a court filing on Tuesday, April 4, Twitter Inc. quietly revealed a major development: It no longer exists. The company is currently being sued by right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, who accused it of violating federal racketeering laws when it banned her account in 2019. Loomer has a Twitter account again, and her absurd lawsuit is bound to fail—but until it does, Twitter, as a defendant, must continue to submit corporate disclosure statements to the court. And so, in its most recent filing, the company provided notice that “Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists.” As the “successor in interest” to Twitter Inc.—that is, the survivor of the merger—X Corp. is now the defendant in Loomer’s suit. Its parent corporation is identified as X Holdings Corp.
It’s hard to know what to make of Musk’s transformation of Twitter into X Corp. (When asked for comment, Twitter responded with a poop emoji, as is its recent custom.) Elon Musk, who owns Twitter as well as X Holdings Corp., has not yet revealed this merger to the public. But it appears to have been on his mind since he first plotted his purchase of the social media company. In April 2022, Musk registered X Holdings I, II, and III in Delaware, three separate companies designed to facilitate his purchase of Twitter. According to that deal, Twitter would merge with X Holdings II, but keep its name and general corporate structure while continuing to operate under Delaware law. X Holdings I, controlled by Musk, would then serve as the merged entity’s parent company, while X Holdings III would take on the $13 billion loan that a group of big banks provided Musk to help cover the $44 billion purchase. (According to Twitter’s demands in its litigation against Musk, X Holdings I would be intended “solely for the purpose of engaging in, and arranging financing for, the transactions.”)
Here’s where things get interesting. As the merger agreement stated, X Holdings II would cease to exist as a functioning entity after merging with Twitter. So the official structure after Musk’s takeover was: X Holdings I oversees Twitter Inc., while X Holdings III handles the cash. The Nevada filings show this exact arrangement is no longer in effect.
According to the Nevada secretary of state’s online business portal, Elon Musk registered two new businesses in the state on March 9: X Holdings Corp., and X Corp. Then, on March 15, Musk applied to merge those Nevada businesses with two of his existing companies: X Holdings I with X Holdings Corp., and Twitter Inc. with X Corp. In the latter’s case, the articles of the merger mandate that X Corp. fully acquire Twitter—meaning that, for all intents and purposes, “Twitter Inc.” no longer exists as a Delaware-based company. Now it’s part of X Corp., whose parent company is the $2 million X Holdings Corp. And that means X Holdings I no longer exists, either. Both X Holdings Corp. and X Corp. now fall under Nevada’s jurisdiction instead of Delaware’s. (It seems an anonymous SPAC-trader tracker first broke this news.)
Wait, Twitter soon to be X?
The structural overhaul was acknowledged in the Loomer case about three weeks after X Corp. was registered in Carson City. So far, it doesn’t appear that the changeover has been noted in other legal documents, much less announced to the public. Currently, the company known as “Twitter Inc.” is involved in a host of litigation: against the entire country of India over censorship concerns, against vendors who claim Twitter is not paying them what they’re owed, and against former Twitter employees who claim Musk violated labor laws when he fired them en masse last fall. As far as we can tell, there are no updates in any of those cases regarding Twitter’s transformation into X Corp.
So why is X Corp. now a thing, and why is it established in Nevada? Some vintage Musk lore may provide insight here.
Elon Musk has long been attached to the letter X, even outside of his kids’ names. In 1999, he founded X.com, an online bank that soon merged with another company to become PayPal. The letter appeared in other business ventures over the years: SpaceX, Tesla’s Model X car, the three X Holdings corporations, and “Project X,” the official SEC-recognized name for the Twitter purchase’s $13 billion bank loan. After completing the Twitter takeover in October, Musk claimed this purchase would “accelerate” the creation of an “everything app” that would be named—you guessed it—after the letter X. Such a “super app,” Musk has stated, could resemble something like China’s WeChat, the combination messaging/social networking/payment app that boasts a billion users; Twitter’s functions would play an important role in this megasize app.
It’s also possible that X is meant to be more of an everything company than an everything app. In late 2020, YouTuber and longtime Tesla investor Dave Lee tweeted that Musk should “form a holding company called X” to serve as the “parent company of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and Boring Company.” (Musk’s response: “Good idea.”) In that light, Musk’s choice of Nevada as home base for X Corp. takes on extra significance, considering the entrepreneur has established some of his largest ventures in the Silver State. In 2016, he opened a Tesla Gigafactory near Reno to produce electric vehicle batteries; earlier this year, he announced a $3.6 billion expansion of the facility in order to manufacture electric trucks. Nevada also hosts a few projects from Musk’s Boring Company, like the transit tunnel built under the Las Vegas Convention Center in 2021, and the still-in-development Vegas Loop. In 2020, when Musk threatened to move Tesla headquarters out of California in response to the state’s pandemic-shutdown measures, he proposed Nevada as a potential option before settling on Texas. With the new filing, Musk now operates at least three businesses in Nevada, one of which is now part of an overarching X company.
No matter which path he chooses, Musk’s X faces a difficult future. A now-tech-skeptical Congress would undoubtedly cast a close eye over an American version of WeChat, as would regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission now taking a firmer stance against tech monopolies. And investors might not be happy if Musk tries to stuff each of his separate companies into X Holdings Corporation. For now, his Twitter is likely to garner only more scrutiny, making the big X he just put on it all the more fitting.
I think it goes way beyond specific actions of securement or rules of storing safely protecting kids, given those rules are effective and are of great worth. But it's the whole culture and environment that has been created and the social culture of worshiping military firearms for the general public. The violence and hate and frustrations that are instilled and nurtured by political power struggles and culture wars. That needs to stop in order for any particular set of rules or regs to really help.
Same as in the banking and train derailment debacles. Maybe one rule or policy doesn't cause or address a specific problem. But the general culture or environment and the totality of all the rules and regs that is created has the overall power of persuasion and desired results.
Boils down to what the description of "fine" is I guess. Like I said, planets die, suns die, and at some point don't cycle back to what they once were, life sustaining or not. I don't agree that humanity has no possibility of hurrying that death. The belief that humanity's time with this marble can't effect dramatically future cycles is up for debate. Who knows how many cycles the earth has left. Maybe one of the cycles is some part of another dead planet that's "just fine", takes the world out or even our moon out, and this planet doesn't have the time or means to cycle back from the destruction humans have made.
Philosophical debates and futuristic imaginations are sometimes fun, but none of that was my point and a detraction from the reasons why I posted what I did.
Humanity has control over this cycle and effect on our world as we know it and our time on it. How we control our time on this planet and the costs and ramifications are the point. How we invest, what we invest in, and what we don't. The length of time of our cycle and the quality of life in it is greatly effected by what we do and the actions we take now. And the future of "humanity's world" is in question.
I would suggest anyone to watch the video, pay attention to current science, facts and figures. The video is only about 15 minutes long and well worth the watch. The brown ostrich is real, very real, no matter how people think of it or ignore it. The market, our decisions, our financial worth, our health, our homes, and our lives will be effected. The time is upon us now, and reality can be a real bitch if we try to ignore it.
It's unlikely that we're damaging the earth in a manner where the earth will not return to it's recent
One of the cops is still alive, barely. Just graduated from the academy the end of March. I see no end in sight to this crap. Data shows it's only getting worse and more lethal.
Officer Nickolas Wilt, a new officer to the LMPD, ran towards the gunfire today to save lives. He remains in critical condition after being shot in the head. pic.twitter.com/yPNZBfAl7I
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
Just graduated from the academy the end of March. The blues should stick together and work to get this crud under control a lot more. This gun culture is only growing worse by the day as long as the GOP gets their way.
Officer Nickolas Wilt, a new officer to the LMPD, ran towards the gunfire today to save lives. He remains in critical condition after being shot in the head. pic.twitter.com/yPNZBfAl7I
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
Black lawmaker who was expelled to return to Tennessee House
By JONATHAN MATTISE and TRAVIS LOLLER
14 minutes ago
https://apnews.com/article/tennessee-expulsion-democracy-election-nashville-60e64c8c972d48cce64992b9e1f8f04c?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — One of the two Black Democrats who were expelled last week from the GOP-led Tennessee House was reinstated Monday after Nashville’s governing council voted to send him straight back to the Legislature.
The unanimous vote by the Nashville Metropolitan Council restores Rep. Justin Jones to office just four days after Republicans stripped him of his seat. Moments after the decision, Jones began marching to the Capitol.
Republicans banished the two lawmakers over their role in a gun-control protest on the House floor in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting.
The other lawmaker, Justin Pearson, could be reappointed Wednesday at a Wednesday of the Shelby County Commission.
Where does the Tennessee House Speaker actually live?
Judd Legum
11 hr ago
https://popular.info/p/where-does-the-tennessee-house-speaker
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) (Screenshot/WATE)
Last week, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) led the charge to expel two members of the Tennessee House, Justin Jones (D) and Justin Pearson (D). Jones and Pearson were expelled for expressing solidarity with protesters in the House gallery who were calling on the legislature to take action after a mass shooting left six people, including three children, dead. (Sexton also voted to expel Representative Gloria Johnson (D), but she retained her seat.) According to Sexton, Jones and Pearson were expelled for breaking "several rules of decorum and procedure" by speaking from the floor without being recognized. No one in the history of the Tennessee legislature has ever been expelled for a procedural violation.
But while Sexton is imposing draconian punishment for technical violations of procedural rules, an investigation by Popular Information reveals that Sexton may be in violation of the fundamental rules of the legislature prescribed in the Tennessee State Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 5a of the Tennessee State Constitution states: "Each district shall be represented by a qualified voter of that district."
Sexton represents the 25th district, a community located about 115 miles east of Nashville. It is a deep red district, and in 2022, Sexton won reelection with more than 82% of the vote. There is evidence, however, that Sexton is not a qualified voter of the 25th district.
On his official website, Sexton lists his address in Crossville as 186 Homestead Drive, a more than 4,000 sq foot, four-bedroom home that sits on more than an acre of land. But, according to property records, Sexton sold that house in October 2020 for $420,000. Sexton then purchased a much smaller, 1200 sq foot, two-bedroom condo in a nearby retirement community. Sexton listed that condo as his residence when he filed to run for reelection in 2022.
Under Section 2-2-122(a)(5) of the Tennessee Code, "[t]he place where a married person's spouse and family have their habitation is presumed to be the person's place of residence." Sexton has two adult children from a previous marriage. He has one school-aged child with his current spouse, Lacey. There is significant evidence that Sexton's wife and family do not live in Crossville.
Sexton's youngest child is enrolled at John Edwards Classical Academy, a private Christian school outside of Nashville. Sexton and his spouse are shown regularly attending events on the school's Facebook page. The school is more than two hours from the Sextons' purported residence in Crossville.
During the legislative session, representatives who live a significant distance from Nashville generally stay in Nashville during the week and commute home during the weekend. But the Tennessee legislature is only in session from January to April. According to one of Sexton's Crossville neighbors, he lives elsewhere year-round.
The neighbor said that Sexton is only around on weekends, except occasionally in the summer when school is out of session. Sexton's presence is conspicuous because he lives at the end of a small cul-de-sac and, as Tennessee House Speaker, is often accompanied by law enforcement. "He says he lives here," the neighbor said, "but he's not here."
The neighbor shared this information with Popular Information on the condition of anonymity because they were fearful of the implications of speaking publicly about one of the most powerful people in Tennessee.
Sexton's office did not respond to a detailed request for comment about his residency. This is how Sexton has dealt with the issue when his residency was previously questioned. In February, Sexton was repeatedly asked on camera by the Tennessee Holler if he lives in Crossville or Nashville. He responds by ignoring the question:
If Sexton wanted to relocate his family to the Nashville suburbs, why didn't he simply run in the new district? Well, his child's school is located in District 50, which leans Democratic. It is currently represented in the Tennessee House by a Democrat, Bo Mitchell. In 2020 and 2022, Mitchell ran unopposed, collecting 100% of the vote. In 2018, Mitchell beat his Republican opponent by 13 points.
The cost to Tennessee taxpayers
While the evidence suggests that Sexton lives in the Nashville area, Sexton still collects tens of thousands of dollars from Tennessee taxpayers based on the premise that he is a full-time resident of Crossville.
Under Tennessee law, during the legislative session, all members receive a per diem expense "for meals and incidentals equal to the allowance granted federal employees for such expenses in the Nashville area." In 2022, that was around $79 per day. But members who live more than 50 miles outside of Nashville are entitled to a much larger per diem, $313 in 2022, to cover the cost of lodging in Nashville. These per diems are also available when the legislature is out of session if a member has to travel to Nashville to conduct official business.
Sexton has taken the larger per diem, which is pegged to the cost of a hotel room in Nashville. On the form, Sexton claims a roundtrip commute of 236 miles. During the 2022 legislative session alone, he billed taxpayers $19,093.
He also billed taxpayers another $16,276 for travel to Nashville when the legislature was not in session, for a total of $35,369 in 2022. This money is listed as "non-taxable" because it is supposed to reimburse members of the legislature for actual expenses incurred. In contrast, Mitchell, who lives in the area outside of Nashville where Sexton lives the majority of the time, claimed $4,977 for all of 2022.
In 2021, when there was a short special session in October, Sexton claimed an even larger amount in per diem expenses, $42,617. In the same year, Mitchell claimed just $5,810. So far in 2023, Sexton has claimed $14,085, while Mitchell has claimed $2,528. In total, Sexton may have overcharged Tennessee taxpayers as much as $78,756 since 2020.
Sexton's office did not respond to a detailed request for comment about his claimed per diem expenses.
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April 12, 19 and 26 | 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT. Register once to access all three sessions.
Session 1 | Quality journalism
Session 2 | Media bias
Session 3 | Fact-checking
SESSION 1 | APRIL 12, 2023
What is quality journalism?
News outlets help us make informed decisions as engaged citizens in a democracy, but the process of creating the news isn’t always transparent. This session will pull the curtain back on how quality, ethical journalism is done and how it seeks to inform us fairly and accurately.
Journalists Brandon Pope of WBEZ and Molly Parker of Lee Enterprises will discuss their work to build credibility and trust with the public and the standards that guide the newsgathering processes.
About the panelists
Brandon is an award-winning and Emmy-nominated journalist, host, podcaster, media critic and columnist, with experience covering a range of topics from politics?to sports. He is currently the host of On The Block: Powered by Block Club Chicago on CW26, and the MAKING podcast series from WBEZ and NPR. He is president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and is an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago.
Molly, a ProPublica distinguished fellow, is an investigative reporter with Lee Enterprises’ Public Service Team, where she works with regional reporters in 25 states to produce impactful, data-driven local journalism. Her investigative work has highlighted oversight failures in public housing, examined shortcomings in child welfare services and exposed a culture of abuse and cover-ups inside a rural Illinois mental health hospital. She is also an adjunct professor of investigative reporting and media ethics at Southern Illinois University.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT.
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SESSION 2 | APRIL 19, 2023
Understanding news media bias
People frequently perceive and allege bias in news coverage, but what does this really mean? What makes a piece of news biased, and who decides? This session will empower you to evaluate the fairness, accuracy and impartiality of news coverage.
Journalists Amethyst J. Davis of the Harvey World Herald and Stephanie Casanova of Signal Cleveland will join us to talk about how the journalistic standards we learned about in Session 1 can be applied to confront and avoid bias in news reporting.
About the panelists
Amethyst is the founder of the Harvey World Herald in Harvey, Illinois, where she oversees growth and development, including outlining editorial trajectory and content. A member of the community advisory board for Chicago Public Media, she was recently named a Casey Fellow with the National Association of Black Journalists Black News & Views, where she covered health and COVID-19 for the NABJ’s newly launched digital news service.
Stephanie is the criminal justice reporter with Signal Cleveland, a nonprofit newsroom in Ohio. She formerly covered criminal justice and breaking news at the Chicago Tribune. A bilingual journalist, she has been a reporter and copy editor for local newspapers in South Dakota, Kansas and Arizona.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT.
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SESSION 3 | APRIL 26, 2023
How fact-checking works
With the digital deluge of misinformation, it’s getting more difficult to know what to trust. A number of fact-checking organizations have emerged and are taking up the charge to combat the spread of misinformation. These fact-checking platforms have debunked some of the most viral images and videos springing up on social media.
Fact-checkers Dan Evon of the News Literacy Project’s RumorGuard™ platform and Rafael Olavarria of Factchequeado will talk about their work and share skills you can use to check the accuracy of information.
About the panelists
Dan debunks viral rumors for NLP’s RumorGuard platform, which empowers the public to push back against misinformation. Prior to joining NLP in 2022, Dan worked as a reporter for Snopes.com, the internet’s oldest fact-checking site, where he monitored disinformation networks and addressed viral rumors.?
A Venezuelan immigrant who fled political persecution, Rafael graduated?with a degree in international affairs from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. He began his journalism career as a producer and writer for CNN and was a multimedia journalist with Univisión, where he won 11 Southeast Emmy Awards.
Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT.
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PXD got a good boost today with XOM talk of acquiring. Hold it in my ret act for it's good divys and low PE
TECH
FBI warns against using public phone charging stations
PUBLISHED MON, APR 10 202310:14 AM EDTUPDATED 3 MIN AGO
Rohan Goswami
@ROGOSWAMI
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/10/fbi-says-you-shouldnt-use-public-phone-charging-stations.html
KEY POINTS
The FBI is warning consumers about “juice jacking,” where bad actors use public chargers to infect phones and devices with malware.
The law enforcement agency says consumers should avoid using public chargers at malls and airports, and stick to their own USB cables and charging plugs.
The FBI recently warned consumers against using free public charging stations, saying crooks have managed to hijack public chargers that can infect devices with malware, or software that can give hackers access to your phone, tablet or computer.
Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers. Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices. Carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead. pic.twitter.com/9T62SYen9T
— FBI Denver (@FBIDenver) April 6, 2023
A tentative press conference is scheduled for 1130.
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
Total deceased is 5. At least 6 more were transported to UL hospital.
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
There is no longer an active aggressor threat. The suspected shooter has been neutralized.
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
We are confirming reports of an active aggressor in the 300 block of East Main. Please stay out of the area. There are multiple casualties.
— LMPD (@LMPD) April 10, 2023
For a bit there, didn't think a trade or two were going to happen early. But as usual, didn't disappoint. Here's hope for lots of volatility giving us many good trades today. BOIL KOLD
Doesn't surprise me, Musk's and Twitters worth is more tied to the extreme right GOP, Russia, and definitely the Saudis and China than any company's worth or fundamentals.
Twitter lifts restrictions on Russian government accounts
"Economichna Pravda" — Saturday, 8 April 2023, 16:17
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/04/8/7397036/
Twitter has lifted restrictions on accounts linked to the Russian government that were put in place last April after the full-scale Russian invasion.
Source: The Telegraph
Tests conducted by the media last week showed that Russian government accounts appear at the top of certain search results and in other account suggestions for subscriptions.
In particular, we are talking about the accounts of Russian President Putin, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and their embassy in Britain.
Last April, in the weeks after Russian troops entered Ukraine, Twitter said it would "not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict", saying the policy would instantly apply to Russian government accounts.
It said this would mean the accounts would not be recommended in searches, the home timeline and other parts of the service.
However, now Russian government accounts featured at the top of certain search results and would show up in Twitter’s algorithmically-driven For You feed for a newly created account, even when it did not follow them.
A former Twitter executive confirmed that it would be exceedingly unlikely that this change would have happened accidentally, or without the knowledge and direction of the company's staff.
Twitter also lifted restrictions on Russian and Chinese state media accounts last week, among them RT and the Global Times, introduced in 2020.
Elon Musk reveals plans for a new factory making Megapacks on Shanghai visit, while Apple mulls 'decoupling' from China
Sam Tabahriti
Apr 9, 2023, 8:20 AM
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-plans-new-megapack-factory-in-china-2023-4
We will exceed, we're just at the beginning, but "exceeding" can be quite subjective when you compare the costs and population differences and it's effect on that difference. The difference of why it happened then and why it is happening at this degree now. The difference of recovery times and recovery abilities, what's available to recover and the difference of demand for those availabilities, the difference of way before any industrial age and now. If it eliminated whole populations then just with natural forces, what does it say for our future when this environment we have created now is just the beginning? The world is made up of humans and their actions, and like a human, the older it gets the weaker it becomes.
What that says to me; be afraid, be very afraid. That shows only a few feathers of the slow brown ostrich event that is happening getting quicker as time moves on. There will be more water, more flooding, more drought, more extremes, and a lot more costs. Should get even fuller when the extreme heat comes and melts the snow higher up faster than before due to all the fires that burned all the shade. Faster heating of the earth when the more reflective snow quickly melts and exposes all the soot and carbon garbage that soaks in the heat instead of reflecting it. That is what doesn't get washed down and into water storage creating more poisons and crud to filter out, at more expense and loss. They said the discovery shows that some ice sheets in Antarctica, including the “Doomsday” Thwaites glacier, could suffer periods of rapid collapse in the near future, further accelerating the rise of sea level. The temperature of the world’s ocean surface has hit an all-time high since satellite records began, leading to marine heatwaves around the globe, according to US government data.
Those extremes in such a short time are NOT a good thing. It only shows the destruction of earths refrigeration like all the blood and water you find on the bottom of your freezer or floor when it goes on the blink. This has been projected and foreseen for quite some time and it's happening at a faster rate than previously thought. Fossil fuels, political debauchery, and humanities inabilities to comprehend or endure the slightest of sacrifices for future life are the cause. Because we selfishly ignore "use what we need and need what we use", we are now up against not having what we need, let alone want.
Costs vs supply and demand will always rule. Wind, fire, air, water, mud, and lack of agriculture product are going to show us the errors in our ways.
This article basically only talks about a couple of brown ostrich feathers, there is still the whole bird coming soon at a theater near you. For example, my 70 yr old sister who lives in a fire danger area is as terrified that her home insurance gets cancelled as so many of her neighbors insurances has as she is of the fire itself (had to evacuate twice last year and go without electricity multiple times for an extended period this year). My niece who inherited a home and property in the same area found the best deal for insurance was at a cost that would pay for the value of property and home in about 7-9 years and she was lucky to get that. New homes or mortgages in the area many times can only get the required and supplied only by the lender at a much greater costs creating multiple times more cost to owning that home.
A hidden time bomb? A ‘Big Short’ investor sees financial disaster brewing in housing markets
PUBLISHED THU, APR 6 20231:18 AM EDTUPDATED THU, APR 6 202310:28 AM EDT
Sam Meredith
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/a-big-short-investor-sees-disaster-brewing-in-housing-markets.html
KEY POINTS
Dave Burt, CEO of investment research firm DeltaTerra Capital, was one of the few skeptics who recognized the housing market was on the brink of collapse in 2007.
Now, he believes an overlooked and unpriced climate risk could see history repeating itself.
“We think of this repricing issue as maybe a quarter of the size and magnitude of the [global financial crisis] in aggregate, but of course very, very damaging within those exposed communities,” Burt said.
An aerial view shows a flooded neighborhood in the unincorporated community of Pajaro in Watsonville, California, on March 11, 2023.
Josh Edelson | Afp | Getty Images
More than a decade after a U.S. mortgage meltdown threatened to destroy the international financial system, a “Big Short” investor once again sees financial disaster brewing in the real estate market.
Dave Burt, CEO of investment research firm DeltaTerra Capital which aims to help clients manage climate risk, was one of the few skeptics who recognized the housing market was on the brink of collapse in 2007.
He helped two of the protagonists of Michael Lewis’ bestselling book “The Big Short” bet against the mortgage market in the lead-up to the 2008 global financial crisis. As it turned out, they were right and were estimated to have made millions.
Now, Burt believes an overlooked climate risk could see history repeating itself.
“I’m always on the lookout for these big systemic issues and there’s a few reasons for that,” Burt told CNBC via videoconference.
“Professionally, if something is mispriced, then as an investor, which has been my job for most of my career, your main opportunity to add value is to identify something that is either too cheap to purchase for your clients or something that it is too expensive to sell for your client,” he said.
“From a personal perspective, and this is partly based on that professional perspective, I’ve seen when that goes wrong, how impactful that can be on economies and society and our most vulnerable. And I’m really thinking through the post-global financial crisis period here in the U.S. from 2008 to 2012 where there was a huge amount of human suffering.”
Eventually, you are going to hit either a local or national tipping point where there is going to be some type of bubble that bursts.
Jeremy Porter
HEAD OF CLIMATE IMPLICATIONS AT FIRST STREET FOUNDATION
Burt said DeltaTerra Capital’s research suggests that 20% of U.S. homes have “meaningful exposure” to a mispricing issue because of flood risk. If realized, he warned the fallout could resemble the extraordinary correction seen during the global financial crisis.
“We think of this repricing issue as maybe a quarter of the size and magnitude of the [global financial crisis] in aggregate, but of course very, very damaging within those exposed communities,” Burt said.
His comments come at a time when the housing market is currently experiencing a major fundamental shift because of higher mortgage rates and as global central banks keep up the fight against inflation by hiking interest rates.
In turn, Burt says some cracks are starting to appear in the terms of the cost of insurance. He noted the recovery in Florida from Hurricane Ian was an issue he’s watching closely, particularly because this storm surge exposed a flood insurance nightmare for homeowners.
“Will they become chasms this year? I’m not sure,” Burt said. “But an observation of the highest frequency fundamental data on home sales and home inventories indicates that things are definitely going south for these exposed properties.”
U.S. housing market overvalued?
While most investors remain skeptical of the impact of climate risks on their portfolios, a recent study warned the U.S. housing market could be overvalued by around $200 billion due to unpriced flood risks.
The analysis was published in mid-February in the journal Nature Climate Change. Authored by researchers from the Environmental Defense Fund, the First Street Foundation and the U.S. Federal Reserve, among others, the study modeled property-level changes in flood risk across the U.S. over the next three decades and warned that low-income households were particularly vulnerable to home value devaluation.
Cities are largely to blame for climate change. Could they also be part of the solution?WATCH NOW
VIDEO09:48
Cities are largely to blame for climate change. Could they also be part of the solution?
“The biggest reason why it matters from our perspective is that climate risk isn’t being priced into the housing market,” Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications at the First Street Foundation, told CNBC.
“The costs now or the valuations of homes don’t take into account the realization of that actual flood risk, and that’s not taking into account that we have a tremendous amount of overvaluation attached to properties across the country.”
Porter warned that as people continue to lack sufficient climate risk information when purchasing their homes, a danger persists that households could come to lose a significant proportion of their property value overnight.
“It is not that farfetched to say that you hit a tipping point,” Porter said. “It may be community by community. It may be a larger tipping point that you hit across the country in the real estate market. But eventually, you are going to hit either a local or national tipping point where there is going to be some type of bubble that bursts.”
Aerial photos show damage on Fort Myers Beach on March 1, 2023, caused by Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in late September 2022.
Orlando Sentinel | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
At present, the study said nearly 15 million U.S. properties face a 1% annual likelihood of flooding, with expected annual damages to residential properties forecast to exceed $32 billion.
It also warned the increasing frequency and severity of flooding amid the deepening climate emergency could see the number of U.S. properties exposed to flooding increase by 11% and average annual losses jump by at least 26% by 2050.
“When you buy a home, one of the most important considerations is the cost of maintaining that home and I think so many important decisions are made based on that,” Burt said.
“Ultimately, until people have good information about what these climate-related costs are going to look like, we’re creating new problems every day. I think that’s really the crux of the matter.”
Reflecting on the study’s findings, Jesse Gourevitch, a postdoctoral fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund, told CNBC that the overvaluation was more widespread among lower-income property owners.
He added that “if price deflation were to occur, this very much has the potential to widen wealth gaps in the U.S. and exacerbate inequality.”
Another significant risk, Gourevitch said, was likely to be the potentially detrimental effects on local government tax revenues because the total for municipalities typically relies heavily on property taxes. “And having that tied to a physical asset that is exposed to climate change I think introduces a lot of risks to the stability of that revenue stream,” Gourevitch said.
‘A humanitarian crisis’
Far from a domestic issue, Burt stressed that the climate risks associated with the U.S. housing market posed a major problem for countries worldwide.
“I think when you start thinking about these issues globally, you start thinking about the bigger implications that really the most exposed countries often happen to be the most impoverished as well,” Burt said.
“It is more of a humanitarian crisis when you start looking at this through the global lens.”
TOPSHOT - Aerial view shows an area completely destroyed by the floods in the Blessem district of Erftstadt, western Germany, on July 16, 2021.
SEBASTIEN BOZON | AFP | Getty Images
Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance company, observed steep economic losses in 2022 as the climate crisis drove more extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Ian in the U.S. and apocalyptic flooding in Pakistan. Reinsurance refers to insurance for insurance companies.
It estimated that these losses amounted to $270 billion last year, of which around $120 billion was covered by insurance. The insured loss total continues a trend of high losses in recent years.
“At the end of the day, someone has to pay for these increasing losses,” Ernst Rauch, chief climate and geo scientist at Munich Re, told CNBC. “No matter whether it is insured or not, it is an increasing economic burden.”
One area of particular concern, Rauch said, was flash flooding. This refers to a specific type of flooding in which rain falls so quickly that the underlying ground cannot drain it away fast enough.
He cited the excessive flooding seen in Germany in 2021 which caused overflowing rivers to devastate towns across western Germany, Belgium, Austria, and parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Rauch said the increasing frequency of these types of extreme local or regional rainfall events was still being underestimated. “It is no matter whether we talk about a typical homeowner in Germany or in other parts of the world,” he added.
Ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres a day, far faster than feared, study finds
Sediments from last ice age provide ‘warning from the past’ for Antarctica and sea level rise today, say scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/05/ice-sheets-collapse-far-faster-than-feared-study-climate-crisis
The rising oceans are among the greatest long-term impacts of global heating because hundreds of major cities around the world are on coastlines and are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. The West Antarctic ice sheet may already have passed the point at which major losses are unstoppable, which will lead eventually to metres of sea level rise.
‘Headed off the charts’: world’s ocean surface temperature hits record high
Scientists warn of more marine heatwaves, leading to increased risk of extreme weather
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/08/headed-off-the-charts-worlds-ocean-surface-temperature-hits-record-high
Graham Readfearn
@readfearn
Fri 7 Apr 2023 20.00 EDT
global map using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing areas in orange and red where temperatures have been above the long-term average. Photograph: University Of Maine
Oops, sorry. Just a little friendly fire. Thoughts and prayers, move on.
New Mexico officers kill homeowner in exchange of gunfire while responding to wrong address
Robert Dotson was killed when officers approached the wrong home.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-mexico-officers-kill-homeowner-exchange-gunfire-responding/story?id=98426959
ByNadine El-Bawab
April 7, 2023, 11:51 AM
0:48
National headlines from ABC News
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.
New Mexico State Police have launched an investigation after officers mistakenly responded to a wrong address and fatally shot the armed homeowner.
The Farmington Police Department said it received a call about a domestic violence incident at around 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Officers responded to the scene, but mistakenly approached 5305 Valley View Avenue instead of 5308 Valley View Avenue, police said.
Officers knocked on the front door of the wrong house and announced themselves several times, according to the Farmington Police Department.
When there was no response, officers asked dispatch to call the reporting party back and have them come to the front door, according to New Mexico State Police.
New Mexico State Police said body camera footage shows the homeowner, 52-year-old Robert Dotson, open the screen door armed with a handgun as the officers were backing away.
MORE: 2 arrested in murders of 3 Florida teens, 3rd suspect at large
"What followed was a chaotic scene with officers retreating and opening fire. Mr. Dotson was struck and later died at the scene," Chief Steve Hebbe said in a recorded statement.
Dotson was pronounced dead at the scene by the Office of the Medical Investigator.
After the initial shooting, Dotson's wife fired from the doorway of the residence and officers returned fire. Once she realized the individuals outside the house were police, she put the gun down and complied with their commands, according to state police.
His wife, who was not injured, has not been charged with a crime, according to state police.
MORE: Texas DPS releases video of altercation with Uvalde victim's mother
Officers involved in the shooting were not injured, according to state police.
Hebbe said body camera footage will be released after the officers provide their statements. They are expected to do so within a week.
PHOTO: The home at 5305 Valley View Avenue in Farmington, New Mexico.
The home at 5305 Valley View Avenue in Farmington, New Mexico.
Google Maps Street View
A decision on whether charges will be filed against the officers rests with the district attorney's office, state police said.
"This is an extremely traumatic event and that I am just heartbroken by the circumstances surrounding this. Mr. Dotson was not the subject of the call that our officers were responding to and this ending is just unbelievably tragic," Hebbe said.
"I'm extremely sorry that we are in this position. We'll find more facts as we go through this investigation over the next several days," Hebbe said.
Whoa. The story gets even crazier.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 8, 2023
It was just revealed that Harlan Crow’s brother is currently facing a lawsuit for allegedly financing a massive HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING ring.
Harlan is the major GOP donor who showered Clarence Thomas with lavish gifts. pic.twitter.com/fPVukEeiyG
In reality, the whole thing is just a clusterfuck shitshow. With most of the GOP hell bent on a shitshow of different clusterfucks.
clus·?ter·?fuck 'kl?-st?r-?f?k
plural clusterfucks
vulgar slang
: a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation : a muddled mess
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clusterfuck
On the less serious side, kind of reminds me of the new show "Lucky Hank" with Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) premier first episode. Where he walks in on the other professors voting him out as chair, then they take a vote for new chair and "Hank" gets voted back in all at one meeting. Good actor, funny show.
Council meeting Monday, It will be comparatively quick. Not sure the GOP thought it all the way through, maybe they did, but just don't care, which would not be surprising. Part of who they are. At any rate, they might of started something they can't finish. Hope the expelled members keep up the protests, reinstated or not. The GOP are the ring leaders of the mass killing of our children, they alone bear the responsibilities for lack of protection from the number one killer. The gun industry has paid them well which is the only thing they care about.
Majority of Nashville council members say they will vote to reinstate expelled legislator
At least 23 members of the Metropolitan Council vowed to send Justin Jones back to his seat in the Tennessee Legislature after he was expelled following protests over gun violence.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/majority-nashville-council-members-say-will-vote-reinstate-expelled-le-rcna78706
April 7, 2023, 12:38 PM MDT
By Rose Horowitch and Megan Lebowitz
A majority of members of the Nashville Metropolitan Council will vote to reinstate Justin Jones to the Tennessee state Legislature after he was expelled from the House of Representatives on Thursday over his protests on the chamber floor against gun violence.
Twenty-three members of the 40-seat Metropolitan Council confirmed to NBC News or on social media that they plan to vote to reinstate Jones to the Legislature.
The council, which currently has 39 members, will hold a special meeting Monday to discuss an interim replacement for Jones' seat. Vice Mayor Jim Shulman said he expects the council will take action to suspend the rules at the meeting to vote on a successor to fill Jones' seat instead of holding a monthlong nomination period.
In interviews with NBC News, members expressed outrage at Jones' expulsion and said hundreds of constituents have reached out to demand that he be reinstated.
“They removed the voice from 140,000 people who voted for them," said Councilmember Burkley Allen. "It’s a terrible precedent to set, that we disagree with you and you’ve disrupted our House proceedings and therefore we’re expelling you. That’s not the way democracy works.”
Jones and two other Democratic state lawmakers led a protest on the House floor last week to call for stricter gun safety measures after a mass shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville. Jones and Pearson used a bullhorn to lead chants and spoke without being recognized. Tennessee House leaders called the protest an “insurrection.” But Nashville Councilmember Brett Withers pushed back on the characterization, saying claims that the protest was an insurrection were “unfounded.”
Jones was expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives in a 72-25 party-line vote on Thursday, and the other ousted member, Justin Pearson, was booted in a vote of 69-26 later in the day. Rep. Gloria Johnson was also up for expulsion but clung to her seat. Johnson, who is white, said the disparity “might have to do with the color of my skin,” The Tennessean reported. Both Jones and Pearson are Black.
Under the Tennessee State Constitution, an interim successor can be appointed by the legislative body of the expelled member's county until a special election is held. For Jones, that is Nashville. The Nashville council, which is the legislative body of the city and Davidson County’s consolidated government, is officially a nonpartisan body, but Councilmember Russ Bradford said most members are Democrats.
Pearson is from Memphis, and Shelby County Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery did not immediately respond to NBC's request for comment on the process for Pearson's potential replacement or reinstatement.
In an interview with MSNBC, Jones said Thursday "was a very grave day for democracy and a very dangerous precedent was set not just for Tennessee, but for the nation.”
Not sure if they want to point them out. Keep them in the "shadows". lol One thing for sure, a lot of money flow goes through them.
Regulators are beginning to play a more active role. In March, the Bank of England said it would conduct a stress test of the UK financial system, which would cover non-banks, though it noted that the exercise would not amount to “a test of individual firms’ resilience.”
That article stated 16, this says 20, either way it's discrimination to a portion of the population.
Supreme Court rules West Virginia transgender athletes can compete on female sports teams
BY ZACH SCHONFELD AND BROOKE MIGDON - 04/06/23 2:42 PM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/3937891-supreme-court-rules-west-virginia-transgender-athletes-can-compete-on-female-sports-teams/
The Supreme Court has ruled that transgender athletes in West Virginia can compete on female school sports teams in response to a challenge by the state to allow it to enforce a law that prohibits such athletes from doing so.
In a brief, unsigned order, the justices denied the state’s emergency request to lift an appeals court’s injunction, which enabled a transgender girl to compete on her middle school’s female teams until the three-judge panel reaches a final decision.
The appeals panel is now set to hear the student athlete’s appeal in full, and the case could ultimately return to the high court.
Justice Samuel Alito in a statement joined by Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting from the decision said the case “concerns an important issue that this Court is likely to be required to address in the near future.”
West Virginia in 2021 became the seventh state in the nation — and the sixth that year — to enact a law prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams. The measure, officially titled the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” bars transgender female athletes from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity in public elementary schools, high schools and universities.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) could not cite a specific example of a transgender athlete with an unfair competitive advantage in his state when asked during an interview following his approval of the bill, but he said his experience as a girls’ basketball coach led him to believe the legislation is fair.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice speaks in the House Chambers at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on Jan. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, File)
A lawsuit filed the following month by civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a now-12-year-old transgender girl, alleges the law is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on sex and transgender status.
Becky, who entered middle school in the fall of 2021, had been planning to try out for her school’s cross country team when the law took effect.
A federal district judge had handed Becky a preliminary victory — allowing her for months to compete on her school’s female sports teams — before reversing course in his final ruling in January.
The state’s transgender athlete restrictions are “constitutionally permissible,” District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin wrote in the January ruling, because the state legislature’s definition of “woman” and “girl” are “substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females.”
For the purposes of school sports, West Virginia law defines both “woman” and “girl” as an individual who is “biologically female,” or was assigned female at birth.
Becky appealed, and a divided three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a February ruling blocked the ban’s enforcement until the panel could consider the dispute in full.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) then filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court, asking the justices to take the unusual step of intervening in the case immediately without oral argument or extensive briefing. Twenty-one Republican attorneys general backed Morrisey before the high court.
“I would grant the State’s application. Among other things, enforcement of the law at issue should not be forbidden by the federal courts without any explanation,” Alito wrote, taking aim at the lower court for ordering the injunction in a brief decision.
Morrisey called the high court’s decision a “procedural setback.”
In this Nov. 1, 2018, file photo, Patrick Morrisey speaks to reporters after a debate in Morgantown, W.Va. (AP Photo/Raymond Thompson, File)
“This is a procedural setback, but we remain confident that when this case is ultimately determined on the merits, we will prevail,” Morrisey said in a statement. “We maintain our stance that this is a common sense law—we have a very strong case. It’s just basic fairness and common sense to not have biological males play in women’s sports.”
Becky has asserted the West Virginia law violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. As a minor, Becky is formally represented by her mother, Heather Jackson, and is identified by her initials in court filings.
“Applicants’ emergency motion fails at every requisite step, including by failing to identify any harm that warrants this Court’s intervention to block B.P.J. from continuing what she has been doing for more than a year and a half. This Court’s intervention should be reserved for true emergencies. This is not one,” attorneys for Becky wrote in their brief.
West Virginia contended the injunction lacked any reasoning and would upset the status quo. The law “easily” meets the Supreme Court’s standard for allowing sex-based distinctions, Morrisey’s office wrote in their brief.
Lawmakers push for state of emergency for Chesapeake Bay fisheries
Biden administration’s Title IX changes would prevent broad bans on transgender athletes
“Biological differences between males and females matter in sports. Both Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment allow that judgment,” the state wrote.
At least 20 states since 2020 have enacted laws that bar transgender athletes from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Updated 2:55 p.m.
I believe your right.
Banks are in turmoil but a bigger financial crisis may be brewing elsewhere
By Anna Cooban, CNN
Updated 12:03 PM EDT, Thu April 6, 2023
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/business/non-banks-shadow-banks-risks-explainer/index.html
The International Monetary Fund warned this week of “vulnerabilities” among so-called non-bank financial institutions, saying global financial stability could hinge on their resilience. The Bank of England called attention to the same issue last month.
And global investors surveyed by Bank of America in the middle of the recent banking crisis pointed to a group of US non-banks — rather than traditional lenders such as the newly defunct Silicon Valley Bank — as the most likely source of a credit crisis.
But what exactly are non-banks and how risky are they?
The term encompasses financial firms, other than banks, that provide all manner of financial services, including lending to households and businesses. It’s a diverse cast list: non-banks range from pension funds and insurers, to mutual funds and high-risk hedge funds.
And the sector is big. According to the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a body of global regulators and government officials, non-banks had about $239 trillion on their books in 2021, accounting for just under half of the world’s total financial assets.
The sector has grown strongly since the global financial crisis in 2008, with its asset base expanding by 7% a year on average, according to FSB data.
As interest rates hit rock-bottom in the years that followed the crisis, many savers and investors turned to non-banks in search of higher returns. Meanwhile, as regulators placed more restrictions on bank lending, certain types of borrowers, such as riskier consumers, increasingly sought out non-banks for finance.
Non-banks that provide credit are known as “shadow banks,” although the term is often used imprecisely to mean all non-banks. It is this type of institution that is worrying the investors polled by Bank of America.
Shadow banks now make up about 14% of the world’s financial assets and, like many non-banks, operate without the same level of regulatory oversight and transparency as banks.
What are the risks?
Some of the risks that non-banks run increase when interest rates are rising, as they are now. The sector’s larger size means its troubles could, on their own, destabilize the entire financial system but they could also spread to traditional banks through real and perceived interconnections.
One of the risks is the likelihood of credit losses. In a report in November, the European Central Bank called out the “persistent vulnerabilities” in the non-bank sector, including “the risk of substantial credit losses” if its corporate borrowers started to default amid a weakening economy.
While the economic outlook in Europe has brightened since the start of the year, fears of a US recession have grown following the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank and the rescue of First Republic Bank last month. Economies on both sides of the Atlantic remain fragile, as interest rates are expected to rise further and energy prices are still high despite recent falls.
The other risk stems from what is known as “a liquidity mismatch,” which exists in open-ended funds, a type of mutual funds. Open-ended funds allow jittery investors to pull their money quickly but often have cash tied up in assets that can’t be sold as quickly to return money to clients.
Rising interest rates and an uncertain economic outlook have also made funding for some European non-banks both more expensive and harder to come by, Nicolas Charnay, who covers European financial institutions at S&P Global Ratings, told CNN.
Since non-banks do not take deposits from customers, they are mostly exempt from the strict requirements for loss-absorbing capital and liquidity imposed on banks. And most are not subject to regular tests by regulators to ensure they can cope in a range of adverse scenarios.
In a report in February, S&P Global Ratings pointed out another alarming feature of many non-banks.
“Shadow banks cannot access emergency central bank funding in times of stress and we don’t expect governments to use taxpayers’ funds to recapitalize a failed shadow bank,” the firm said.
“This means that public authorities have limited tools to mitigate contagion risks.”
Ill health at a big non-bank or in a large part of the sector could infect traditional lenders because non-banks both lend to and borrow from banks, and many invest in the same assets as their conventional peers.
A notorious example is the collapse of US fund Archegos Capital Management two years ago, which caused about $10 billion worth of losses across the banking sector. More than half of that was sustained by Credit Suisse (CS), which counted Archegos among its clients. The hit contributed to a string of scandals and compliance failures that have plagued the Swiss lender in recent years, eventually leading to an emergency takeover by rival UBS (UBS).
Where are the risks?
Some regulators are also concerned that certain corners of the sector are particularly exposed to an SVB-style run on its assets that could, in turn, create losses for traditional lenders.
Open-ended funds are especially risky, analysts told CNN. If scores of panicked investors redeem their holdings all at the same time, these funds may need to rapidly sell some of their assets to make the payments.
A firesale of, say, government bonds, by multiple funds would depress the value of those bonds, leading to losses for the bonds’ other holders, which may well include banks.
This is what happened last fall when UK pension funds using the so-called liability-driven investment approach had to sell UK government bonds, which were crashing on the back of then-Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous budget plans. That created “a vicious spiral” in the country’s bond market, in the words of the Bank of England, nearly toppling the UK financial system.
Direct and indirect links between banks and non-banks are not the only sources of system-wide risk. Confidence matters hugely in banking, and the mere perception that the banking sector might be connected to a struggling non-bank could spark a broader financial crisis.
“This form of contagion risk — via perceived proximity or reputational risk — should not be underestimated,” S&P Global Ratings said in its report.
Regulators are beginning to play a more active role. In March, the Bank of England said it would conduct a stress test of the UK financial system, which would cover non-banks, though it noted that the exercise would not amount to “a test of individual firms’ resilience.”
US and European financial watchdogs have also proposed to introduce “swing pricing,” a mechanism that would impose a cost on pulling cash from a money market fund — a type of open-ended fund — to avoid diluting the value of other investors’ holdings and to discourage runs on the fund’s assets.
In a report on non-banks released this week, the International Monetary Fund said it welcomed “stricter supervision” of the sector, which must include rules on their capital buffers and access to liquidity.
Remember this merger, notification was months ago. Hope that doesn't lose ToS, really like that app. Since Charles Schwab acquired TD Ameritrade, we've been working together to build something special for clients. Now that it's nearing the point where two great firms become one, we want you to know what you can expect from your upcoming Schwab experience. Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade made it official: The companies announced plans to merge on Monday, with Schwab buying TD in an all-stock transaction that values TD at $26 billion, confirming reports from last week. Charles Schwab’s acquisition of rival TD Ameritrade just cleared a major hurdle by securing the blessing of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, according to a news release Thursday morning.
TDA current
What you can continue to expect from TD Ameritrade
Until all TD Ameritrade clients are moved over to Schwab, we'll continue to provide an industry-leading experience for self-directed investors and traders. You'll enjoy the same award-winning trading technology, personalized education, and responsive service you've always relied on to help you pursue your financial goals.
Moving made easy
We're committed to making your move to Schwab as smooth and simple as possible. We'll let you know your transition date about three months before your account is scheduled to move. And you'll be kept informed every step of the way. While there won't be much you'll need to do, it will be clear when there's action you need to take. That way, you'll be all set to go on day one at Schwab.
Barron's 2019-20
TD shareholders would receive 1.0837 Schwab shares for each TD share, a 17% premium over the 30-day average price that the stocks traded at before news of the deal broke on November 20.
The planned merger, announced in November, would add to Schwab’s heft as a major discount brokerage, but it would also create a huge custodian to independent financial advisors. Custodians hold the assets of RIA firms’ clients, execute trades for them, and provide advisors with important technology.
Definitely due for one.
3.07 low as KOLD made 52wk high at 83.25. Sold too early it seems about 80 and change. Starting in BOIL around here, but might be dead trade, only a few hrs left.
Hit a 52wk low bell off that I forgot I had on there, no positions, reset it for the heck of it and it went off again today. Not bothering to reset, no interest, $2.39 at this time for new low. FCEL may spurt out some news or something to sell the new shares that usually get voted in due to that retail doesn't have enough power to overcome the controlling votes. Something got to pay the bills when income doesn't cover the expenses.
Also may be some short covering and less shorting due to the $2.50 rule at play. They either pump something up or the volume and pps will go down to oblivion. Come on split to get this up to maybe $10 and some action to short the darn thing down to $5 again.
As of the close of business on Tuesday, 4/4, we captured the Top 10 Highest Short Interest % stocks within the Industrials sector.
The average short interest for stocks within the Industrials sector stands at 2.37%. Therefore, the below stocks are showing a more pessimistic outlook than their peers within the respective sector.
Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ:PLUG) 26.06%
Virgin Galactic Hl (NYSE:SPCE) 25.09%
Ati Inc (NYSE:ATI) 17.62%
Fuelcell Energy (NASDAQ:FCEL) 16.97%
Chart Industries (NYSE:GTLS) 16.9%
Purecycle Technolo (NASDAQ:PCT) 16.52%
Hawaiian Holdings (NASDAQ:HA) 16.47%
Xometry Inc (NASDAQ:XMTR) 15.92%
Saia Inc (NASDAQ:SAIA) 15.72%
Verra Mobility Cor (NASDAQ:VRRM) 15.16%
Short Interest is the percentage of a stocks' outstanding shares being sold short, which is utilized as a gauge for stock price sentiment. When short interest increases, this is generally considered a negative "bear" market indicator, whereas when short interest decreases, this is generally considered a positive "bull" market indicator.
Disclaimer: The Short Interest Indicator is produced by Tidal Markets, in partnership with Benzinga Insights. The data represented is exclusive to short interest data amalgamated daily by Tidal Markets LLC and its underlying proprietary sources. The information contained herein should not be compared to, contrasted, or evaluated against other short interest data providers. ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN DOES NOT CONSTITUTE OR IMPLY INVESTMENT ADVICE
Yes, it seems to be early morning to get all the good worms. Good trades for both BOIL and KOLD.
Dark money groups push election denialism on US state officials
Groups have created incubator of policies that would restrict ballot access and amplify election fraud claims
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/05/heritage-foundation-election-voting-rights-republican-states
The fight for democracy is supported by
guardian.org
About this content
Ed Pilkington and Jamie Corey
Wed 5 Apr 2023 07.37 EDT
Three of the most prominent rightwing groups that spread election denial lies and advocate for restrictions on voting rights in the US have joined forces in a secret attempt to woo top election officials in Republican-controlled states.
Led by the Washington-based conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, the groups have created an incubator of policies that would restrict access to the ballot box and amplify false claims that fraud is rampant in American elections. The unstated yet implicit goal is to dampen Democratic turnout and help Republican candidates to victory.
Details of the two-day “secretaries of state conference” held in Washington in February were obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with the Guardian.
Officials from 13 Republican-controlled states, including 10 top election administrators, participated in the event. Attendees discussed controversial “election integrity” ideas of the sort weaponized by Donald Trump.
Among the participants were nine secretaries of state and Virginia’s election commissioner, all of whom preside over both statewide and federal elections in their states including next year’s presidential contest. A list of attendees namechecks the chief election officials of Indiana, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Documented also obtained the conference agenda which lists a number of Trump associates among the speakers. They include Ken Cuccinelli who, as acting deputy secretary for homeland security, played a key role in setting elections policy for the Trump administration.
Cuccinelli now runs the Election Transparency Initiative which is fighting Democratic efforts in Congress to shore up voting rights, and has been active in pushing state-level vote restriction measures.
Download original document
The keynote speech was given by Ken Blackwell, former secretary of state in Ohio. He was an early adopter of Trump’s lie about rigged elections, championing the idea in the 2016 presidential race which Trump won.
Blackwell now chairs the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute, a rightwing thinktank led by former Trump officials. The center has been touting election-related model legislation.
Heritage was careful to organize the conference amid tight secrecy. Among the records obtained by Documented is an email from Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer at the foundation who leads their election work.
Responding to a query about the event from a Texas official, Von Spakovsky said: “There is no livestream. This is not a public event. It is a private, confidential meeting of the secretaries. I would rather you not send out a press release about it.”
Von Spakovsky has long been at the forefront of efforts to undermine US elections by claiming falsely that fraud is endemic. He helped spearhead the attack on voting by mail during the pandemic, holding private briefings with Republican state election officials – a drive that became a core part of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Heritage and its political arm, Heritage Action for America, have spent tens of millions of dollars promoting their own model bills that impose strict restrictions on voting. They have targeted the investment on key battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan that could hold the balance of power in the 2024 presidential race.
Heritage began hosting annual gatherings of Republican secretaries of state at the start of the Trump presidency in 2017. February’s in-person conference was the first to be sponsored by three rightwing powerhouses of election denial and voter suppression – Heritage, together with the Public Interest Legal Foundation (Pilf), and the Honest Elections Project (HEP).
Pilf is a conservative legal group that sues election officials to force them to purge voter rolls, a process that has affected eligible US voters. The group is led by J Christian Adams, a former justice department lawyer who tried to use the Voting Rights Act to claim voting discrimination against white people.
Trump’s former lawyer Cleta Mitchell also sits on the Pilf board.
Cleta Mitchcell testifies in Washington DC in February 2014.
Cleta Mitchcell testifies in Washington DC in February 2014. Photograph: Pablo Martínez Monsiváis/AP
HEP is a conservative dark-money group closely tied to the Republican operative Leonard Leo who was instrumental in engineering the current conservative supermajority on the US supreme court. Reporting by ProPublica and the New York Times last year revealed that Leo has received control of a staggering $1.6bn to advance rightwing causes.
Concern about the potential of top election officials to subvert democracy intensified during the 2022 midterm elections when a number of individuals committed to Trump’s stolen election lie also ran for office. They formed the “America First Secretary of State Coalition” which became a conduit of far-right conspiracy theories linked to QAnon.
Most of those candidates failed in their bid to take over the reins of election administration in their states. But the Heritage conference suggests that the desire to deploy Republican secretaries of state as channels of voter suppression and election misinformation remains very much alive.
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Though chief election officials are tasked with ensuring that ballots are fair and impartial, the Heritage conference was attended only by Republican secretaries of state.
The Guardian asked Heritage to explain why its conference was held in secret and with only Republican attendees. The group did not answer those questions.
Von Spakovsky said that the event was an “educational summit intended to provide information on current issues in elections and ensure that our election process protects the right to vote for American citizens by making it easy to vote and hard to cheat”.
He disputed the argument that security measures at the ballot box such as voter ID suppressed turnout. “The claim that secure elections somehow promote greater restrictions is outrageous and has been clearly disproven,” he said.
Hans von Spakovsky swears in before a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC in June 2007.
Hans von Spakovsky swears in before a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC in June 2007. Photograph: UPI
Von Spakovsky also pointed to Heritage’s election fraud database, which he said sampled “proven instances of election fraud from across the country”. The database records 1,422 “proven instances of voter fraud” stretching back to 1982 – a 41-year period during which billions of votes have been cast in the US.
Several of the participants at the conference have election denial and voter suppression track records. They include Florida’s secretary of state, Cord Byrd, who, soon after being appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis last spring, refused to say whether Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election.
Byrd runs Florida’s “election integrity unit” that was set up by DeSantis last year to investigate election crimes, even though there is scant evidence of substantial voter fraud. More than a dozen citizens accused of illegally voting have been arrested at gunpoint under DeSantis’s crackdown on supposed voter fraud.
Another attendee – Jay Ashcroft, secretary of state of Missouri – has been a leading proponent of that state’s new restrictive voting law. His office has been named in numerous lawsuits in the last year for imposing extreme constraints on voter registration, including a recent lawsuit accusing Ashcroft of illegally blocking a ballot measure.
Tennessee’s secretary of state, Tre Hargett, another listed participant, has been accused by Democratic leaders in Tennessee of purging thousands of voters from the official rolls.
Panel discussions laid out in the agenda were held on several of the core talking points of the current Republican party. The opening discussion, moderated by Von Spakovsky, was on “Auditing Expertise”.
The main speaker was Paul Bettencourt, a state senator in Texas who has sponsored several bills making it harder to vote including a measure that would deploy armed “election marshals” to oversee polling stations.
Before the conference-goers attended a cocktail reception and dinner held at an upscale restaurant in downtown Washington, day one ended with a session entitled: “Realistic Eric Fixes and Reforms”. Eric – the Electronic Registration Information Center – is a non-profit group run collectively by 28 states which is used to finesse the accuracy of state voter rolls.
In recent months it has become the target of rightwing conspiracy theories fueled by Trump who claimed falsely that it was rigged to benefit Democrats.
Ashcroft, the Missouri secretary of state, was one of the speakers in that session. Earlier this month he announced that he was pulling Missouri out of Eric, making it one of the first Republican-controlled states to quit the organization along with Alabama, Florida and West Virginia.
This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. Jamie Corey is a senior researcher with Documented
Katrine Wallace, PhD Retweeted
Joseph Ladapo and the Florida Department of Health published a study to back their decision not to vaccinate young people. @DrKatEpi and I received a FOIA of the early drafts of this study that demonstrates the study was edited to support an anti-vax policy. See thread. https://t.co/rABCz2Jy3h
— Jonathan Laxton MD, FRCPC 🐈🐱🐈⬛ (@dr_jon_l) April 5, 2023
Psychological projection
In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage.[2] A bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target, or a person who is confused may project feelings of confusion and inadequacy onto other people. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[3] Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.[4]
Trump warned of “Constitutional crisis” if Hillary were elected; said she would be under investigation for years. Watch via @mmurraypolitics pic.twitter.com/kzFwMK0p9O
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 15, 2017