EU Walks Back Hard Line On Kaliningrad Standoff As Russia Places New Missiles On Baltic Coast Following Moscow threatening to retaliate and escalate, it seems the European Union is seeking to rapidly defuse tensions after earlier in June giving Lithuania the go-ahead to block all rail and road transit of Russian goods going to Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad. Some one million Russian citizens of Kaliningrad Oblast have been cut off from normal and vital reception of goods through neighboring EU-NATO member Lithuania since June 17 due to enforcement of EU sanctions against Moscow. But Reuters is reporting Wednesday that Brussels is ready to climb down quickly from its hard line sanctions enforcement stance, after last week the Kremlin warned Lithuania that “Russia will certainly respond to … [Read More...]

FTC And Antitrust Lawyers Targeting America’s Business Sector Commentary authored by Bob Barr via RealClear Politics, From dialysis to chickens, the U.S. Department of Justice and its regulatory compatriot, the Federal Trade Commission, are flexing Uncle Sam’s antitrust muscles, notwithstanding strong headwinds from skeptical judges and juries. As the United States Chamber of Commerce recently warned in a brief filed with the courts, “Allowing [DOJ] to retroactively criminalize behavior strikes at the heart of the ordered liberty guaranteed to all Americans.” The work of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division receives far less public attention than its bigger brother, the Criminal Division, and the 93 U.S. attorneys who prosecute the vast majority of cases brought each year against individual and corporate defendants. Still, the broad reach … [Read More...]

Scotland Set to Hold 2nd Independence Referendum As Sturgeon Prepares To Fight Johnson Veto Scotland is set to hold its second independence referendum, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced Tuesday, while at the same time proposing a future date of October 19, 2023 for her country to hold a new vote on a potential break from the United Kingdom. Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party campaigns on a platform for Scotland to declare independence from the UK, and she’s been pushing for another referendum on the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” In 2014, the 32 council areas of Scotland voted “no” – with the “No” side winning at 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for “Yes”. Via The Herald Sturgeon said this week, “??What I am not willing to do, what I will never do, … [Read More...]

G7: Russia Engaged In “Geopolitically Motivated Attack” On Global Food Security G7 industrialized nations issued their final communique at the close of the summit in Bavaria which condemned Russia’s “attack” on global food security and pledged an additional $4.5 billion to combat food insecurity. The statement demands that Russia “end its blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, destruction of key port and transport infrastructure, grain silos and terminals, illegal appropriation by Russia of agricultural commodities and equipment in Ukraine.” It said the Ukraine invasion “can only be assessed as a geopolitically motivated attack on global food security.” AFP via Getty Images The statement additionally warns against countries engaging in “excessive stockpiling of food,” saying: “We call on those partners with large food stockpiles, as … [Read More...]

Why Government Anti-Inflation Plans Fail Authored by Daniel Lacalle, Governments love inflation. It is a hidden tax on everyone and a transfer of wealth from bank deposits and real wages to indebted governments that collect more receipts via higher indirect taxes and devalue their debts. That is why we cannot expect governments to take decisive action on inflation. To curb inflation effectively, interest rates must rise to a neutral level relative to inflation, to reduce the excessive increase in credit and new money from negative real rates. Additionally, central banks must end the repurchase of bonds, exchange traded funds and mortgage-backed securities as this would immediately reduce the quantity of currency in circulation. Finally, and most important of all, governments need to cut deficit spending … [Read More...]

EU Says Africa Should Stop Buying Russian Fertilizer — But Can’t Make It Themselves In an attempt to encourage African nations to stop buying Russian fertilizer, the European Union developed a working plan that would help then develop their own fertilizer plants. The draft, dated June 15 and prepared by aides of European Council President Charles Michel, was to be presented at a summit of EU leaders last week, however the EU Commission then “explicitly opposed the text,” warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations was incompatible with their ‘green’ initiatives. EU to Africa: “Don’t buy fertilizer from Russia” Africa: “Ok then we’ll make fertilizer ourselves” EU: “No you won’t, that clashes with our ‘green goals'” Source: https://t.co/ZhcN0JWfN2 pic.twitter.com/NSlpmqWsha — … [Read More...]

CNN’s Navarro Cites Own Autistic & Special Needs Family Members In Making Case For Abortion In recent commentary reacting to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, prominent CNN pundit and co-host of The View Ana Navarro “shocked” by bluntly suggesting live on air that some of her own special needs family members, her brother included, should have been… well, we’ll let her say it: “I am not anybody to tell you what you need to do with your life or with your uterus.” She then mentioned special needs people in her family, saying, “I have a family with a lot of special needs kids. I have a brother who’s 57 and has the mental and motor skills of a one-year-old. And I … [Read More...]

The Return Of Industrial Warfare Authored by Alex Vershinin via the Royal United Services Institute, Can the West still provide the arsenal of democracy? The war in Ukraine has proven that the age of industrial warfare is still here. The massive consumption of equipment, vehicles and ammunition requires a large-scale industrial base for resupply – quantity still has a quality of its own. The mass scale combat has pitted 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers, together with 450,000 recently mobilised citizen soldiers against about 200,000 Russian and separatist troops. The effort to arm, feed and supply these armies is a monumental task. Ammunition resupply is particularly onerous. For Ukraine, compounding this task are Russian deep fires capabilities, which target Ukrainian military industry and transportation networks throughout the depth of the country. The … [Read More...]

Gallup: Confidence In Supreme Court Hits ‘Historic Low’ With the US Supreme Court handing Democrats their biggest defeat in recent memory; repealing both Roe v. Wade and New York’s prohibition on conceal and carry, Gallup is out with a new poll suggesting that confidence in the highest court in the land has hit a ‘historic low.’ According to the report, 25% of US adults have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the US Supreme Court, a drop from 36% a a year ago, and 5% below the previous low in 2014. And of course, Keith Olbermann has called for the court’s dissolution… More from Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones (emphasis ours), These results are based on a June 1-20 Gallup poll that included Gallup’s annual update … [Read More...]

New 6-Nation Pacific Pact Proposed To Beat Back Beijing’s Unrestricted Warfare Authored by Daniel Teng via The Epoch Times, Democratic countries are proposing a new Pacific-wide pact to strengthen cooperation and development efforts in the region to combat Beijing’s influence building and hybrid warfare operations. The “Partners in the Blue Pacific” would involve the United States, Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to provide “closer, more purposeful, and more ambitious cooperation.” “Too often, our efforts have been uncoordinated, creating duplication in some cases and gaps on the others,” according to a concept note about the pact. The partnership was earmarked by U.S. Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell at a Center for Strategic and International Studies meeting on June 23. The program … [Read More...]

Oracle’s Larry Ellison Revealed As Buyer Of $173 Million Mansion, Setting Florida Record Last week, billionaire internet entrepreneur (Netscape co-founder) Jim Clark broke the news to the WSJ that he sold his oceanfront estate near Palm Beach, Florida, for $173mln. At the time, Clark wouldn’t reveal who the mystery buyer was.  Bloomberg reports the buyer of the most expensive property ever sold in Florida is no other than billionaire Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison.  Ellison’s new estate includes a 62,000-square feet Mediterranean-style mansion and several other buildings on the property with more than 30 bedrooms. It was noted by Bloomberg  The real estate transaction was off-market. Clark bought the estate in early 2021 for $94 million. Despite soaring interest rates and a souring economic … [Read More...]

Russia Warns Of ‘Non-Diplomatic’ Response Over Kaliningrad Blockade Russia’s Foreign Ministry has threatened that their response to transit restrictions on Kaliningrad by Lithuania will be “practical” and “not diplomatic,” the Jerusalem Post reports. Over the past week, Lithuania has implemented a ban on various rail transit goods going to Russia’s far-western exclave of Kaliningrad to comply with EU sanctions on items such as coal, advanced technology, metals and construction materials. “As for response measures, now possible measures are being worked out in an interdepartmental format,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told state-owned TASS. “Both Lithuania and the EU, through their diplomatic missions in Moscow, were told that such actions are inadmissible and that the steps taken must be changed and the situation … [Read More...]

“It’s Not A Turndown…It’s A Takedown” – Austin Fitts Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com, Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), contends this is what the so-called “reset” looks like. High food and fuel prices along with crushing interest rates are no accident. CAF explains, “To me, this is part of the ‘going direct reset.’ …” “There is an official narrative, and the official narrative is they’ve got to stop inflation… Let’s look very simply at what happened. They voted on the direct reset. Then they injected $5 trillion into the economy that went to the insiders. Then they used Covid to shut down the economy run by the outsiders. Now, the outsiders want … [Read More...]

Mapping Europe’s Incarcerated Russia and Turkey had the highest incarceration rates of the Council of Europe in 2021, according to the organization’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations. As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, their latest figures show that Russia had 328 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021, while Turkey followed close behind with 325 out of 100,000. You will find more infographics at Statista Scotland, England and Wales also had fairly high rates of incarceration, coming out well above the 102 median average of European countries, with 135 and 132, respectively. Liechtenstein and Monaco represented the least incarcerated countries per 100,000 population, with 31 and 33, respectively. According to the Council of Europe, Europe saw its prison population fall between 2020 and 2021. This has been attributed to delays and the slowing down of the judicial systems through the pandemic, … [Read More...]

Oil Giants Warn Of Much Higher Prices For The Next 3-5 Years Amid Lack Of Supply It wasn’t just the epic confusion unleashed by the Biden admin in the past few days over how to lower record gas prices (suggesting that Biden really has no idea what the 79-year-old president is doing), that sparked today’s jump in crude oil and surge in energy names. Monday: gas-tax holiday under consideration Tuesday: Russian oil price-caps https://t.co/uoaN73gSkJ — zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 21, 2022 Providing some bullish support for the oil cash, in his latest weekly note, Bank of America’s energy analyst Fernando Blanch writes that even if the world goes into recession, Brent oil could average more than $75/bbl next year. Here is some more … [Read More...]

European Power Prices Spike As Heat Dome Strains Grid  European day-ahead power prices continue to soar for the third day due to an early-season heat wave driving up cooling demand, lack of renewable energy generation, declining nuclear power, and soaring natural gas costs.  Large swaths of Europe over the weekend experienced temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius). The hottest temperatures were from Spain to Germany to France.  (7) European Heat Wave:Yesterday 19 June 3 more monthly records were beaten in France, while the real exceptional event had moved west to central Europe. They are: Langres 35.3C Challes-les-Eaux 37.5C Chambery 36.7C pic.twitter.com/chrDNh9Owk — Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) June 20, 2022 Bloomberg notes power grids were under stress as wind generation … [Read More...]

Drought-Stricken Lake Mead Less Than 150 Feet From “Dead Pool” The surface of Lake Mead, North America’s largest artificial reservoir, now stands at 1044 feet above sea level and is dropping fast. If Lake Mead’s water level falls another 149 feet, a dangerous level known as a “dead pool” could wreak havoc across Southwestern US.  Since the beginning of March, Lake Mead has dropped about 23 feet, and compared with the 5-year trend, the reservoir’s water levels are well below average, at the lowest point since the lake was filled nearly a century ago.  A graph might not do justice to visualizing just how fast the water level has fallen. So here are three pictures of a sunken speedboat in the lake and the corresponding date. Just in May, the … [Read More...]

UK Drivers Brace For “Big Traffic Increases” Amid “Largest Rail Strike In Modern History”  Britain is on the cusp of a massive strike that begins Tuesday and will paralyze at least half of the country’s railway network, resulting in what could be a surge in traffic as train passengers switch to road transportation. The Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers union (RMT) will strike tomorrow, Thursday, and Sunday in what union bosses call the “biggest rail strike in modern history.” The Independent reports last-ditch talks between the rail union and Network Rail, and 13 train operators failed to resolve pay, jobs, and conditions disputes. As many as 40,000 unionized rail workers will participate in the walkout.  Chief Treasury Secretary Simon Clarke told Sky News on Monday that travelers … [Read More...]

Saudi Arabia Bans Rainbow Toys, Clothing With ‘Homosexual Colors’ Weeks Before Biden Visit Weeks ahead of President Biden’s much anticipated and controversial trip to Saudi Arabia, where he’ll meet with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom is cracking down on any items, including toys, with a rainbow on them. The commerce ministry put clothing and toy stores on notice over “rainbow colors” in the capital of Riyadh – saying such items will now be banned as they “contradict the Islamic faith and public morals and promote homosexual colors targeting the younger generation.” The commerce ministry is currently reviewing and putting together a list of banned items.  An official statement said, “We are giving a tour of the items that contradict the Islamic faith and public morals … [Read More...]