Pieter Bruegel the Younger St. George’s Kermis with the Dance Around the Maypole 1634
RFK by Woody
The Bobby Kennedy video Meta doesn’t want you to see, narrated by Woody Harrelson. pic.twitter.com/oBieuglEYv
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 4, 2024
Title 18
Will foreigners be able to choose our next president? As it turns out, yes, maybe even legally. Catherine Engelbrecht has discovered a federal law you may not have heard of. pic.twitter.com/3DlGnkhjOC
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 7, 2024
Every day looks crazier than the one before. Does Jack Smith still have a job?
• Trump Classified Documents Trial Postponed Indefinitely (ZH)
One day after postponing a filing deadline in Donald Trump’s classified documents case, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has postponed the whole thing indefinitely. In a Tuesday decision, Cannon vacated (canceled) Trump’s May 20 trial date, and wrote that setting a new date given the enormous stack of pre-trial matters would be “imprudent.” On Monday, Cannon postponed a filing deadline for Trump’s team to provide a list of classified documents they want to present at trial – which was supposed to be filed by this Thursday. Cannon did not announce a new deadline, perhaps the first clue into today’s decision. The move also comes after special counsel Jack Smith’s team admitted that the classified files at the heart of the case had been tampered with, and they needed more time to assess that revelation.
Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained “in their original, intact form as seized,” when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an “inconsistent” record – in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022. “The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court,” the footnote reads, according to Just the News. The finding comes after Cannon ordered a review into whether the FBI may have seized legally privileged records in response to a request from Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787981231478505641
What would Trump have to win from this?
• RFK Jr. Challenges Trump To Debate (RT)
US independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has challenged former President Donald Trump to a debate at this month’s Libertarian National Convention. Trump insists that Kennedy is “not a serious candidate.” “I’d like to make you an offer. We’re both going to be speaking at the upcoming Libertarian convention on May 24 and 25,” Kennedy wrote in an X (formerly Twitter) post on Tuesday addressed to Trump. “It’s perfect neutral territory for you and me to have a debate where you can defend your record for your wavering supporters.” Asked last week whether he would debate Kennedy, Trump said that the former Democrat is “not a serious candidate” and would have to “get his numbers a lot higher before he’s credible.”
In his post on Tuesday, Kennedy claimed that a poll commissioned by his campaign showed that he would “crush” President Joe Biden in a two-way contest, and would defeat Trump “in a nail-biter” in a similar matchup. Polls published last month by CNN and Quinnipiac both showed Kennedy at 16% in a contest involving him, Trump, Biden, and other independents, a result that he argued puts him “above the 15% debate threshold.” “I’m also drawing a lot of voters from your former supporters. They are upset that you blew up the deficit, shut down their businesses during Covid, and filled your administration with swamp creatures,” Kennedy wrote. Known for his anti-vaccine activism, free-speech advocacy, and foreign policy pacifism, Kennedy entered the race for the White House as a Democrat last April, before announcing in October that he would run as an independent instead. His effect on this November’s election has proven difficult for pundits to predict, with polls showing him pulling support from both Biden and Trump.
“The Democrats are frightened that I’m gonna spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m gonna spoil it for President Trump,” Kennedy said last year. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.” Trump and Kennedy will both deliver headline speeches at the Libertarian Party’s convention in Washington DC later this month, despite the fact that the party also intends to field its own candidate for the presidency. In a statement last week, Trump encouraged Libertarian Party members to back his campaign. “If Libertarians join me and the Republican Party, where we have many Libertarian views, the election won’t even be close,” he said. “We cannot have another four years of death, destruction, and incompetence. WE WILL WORK TOGETHER AND WIN!”
Began Final Stage of Russia’s Purge of Malign Western Influence..
• Putin’s Inauguration – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
In his speech at his inauguration ceremony, President Putin paid special emphasis to his responsibility as head of state “to protect Russia and serve our people,” and expressed Russia’s readiness for dialogue with the West, so long as the latter drops its efforts to restrain Russia’s development and apply pressure on the country. “Dialogue is possible, including on issues of security and strategic stability. But not from a position of strength, without arrogance, conceit or personal exclusivity, but only on equal terms, respecting each other’s interests,” Putin said. In the meantime, the president said, Russia will continue to work with its partners toward Eurasian integration “other sovereign development centers” to speed the formation of “a multipolar world order and an equal and indivisible security system.”
At home, Putin stressed, the foundations of Russian statehood include “interethnic harmony, the preservations of the traditions of all peoples living in Russia – a civilization unified by the Russian language and our multicultural culture.” The task of the state going forward will be to “ensure reliable continuity in the development of the country for decades to come, to raise and educate young generations who will strengthen and develop the country,” he said. Putin’s inauguration speech was very different from the televised address he gave when he first became acting president in 1999, but is nevertheless linked by one very important common theme, Scott Ritter told Sputnik. “In his inauguration speech, Vladimir Putin made it clear that the security of Russia and the Russian people are his top priority. Why would he have to say this? Because as we speak, Russia finds itself under attack from many nations around the world – nations that seek the existential extermination of Russia, if not through violence, then through economic strangulation,” Ritter said.
By contrast, in 1999, Russia faced a threat of a different sort, according to the commentator. “In 1999, Russia wasn’t facing attacks from without from foreign influence, but rather attacks from within,” Ritter said, pointing to the deep infiltration of Western economic and political interests, and Western values, both into Russia’s government, and among ordinary citizens. “This was a Russia that had lost touch with itself,” the observer said. Over Putin’s tenure, Russia has gradually “purged” itself of these attitudes, Ritter said, with the conflict in Ukraine serving as a catalyst accelerating Russia’s transformation, forcing elites and ordinary citizens alike to reconsider who they are and what defines them.
Going forward, Ritter expects Putin’s new term in office to “redefine Russia in the final stages of this transformation that it has been making continuously since 1999, a Russia that will for once and all purge the poison of Western malign influence out of its system, and create a pure Russian notion of what Russia is.” As for communication and potential cooperation with foreign power centers, it will be defined by Western readiness to respect Russian independence, the commentator said. “Vladimir Putin made it clear in his speech that he is seeking good relations with the West. Russia’s not seeking to dominate anybody. But Russia wants to live in peaceful coexistence with its Western neighbors as an equal, as a nation defined not by Western values, but by Russian values,” Ritter summed up.
Scott Ritter: Putin’s inauguration began final stage of Russia’s purge of malign Western influence
“This time, it was different,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term as Russia’s… pic.twitter.com/H0rTIBjkgT
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 7, 2024
“.. to bring about a fundamentally new quality of life for our people and a real, tangible increase in their prosperity.’”
• Putin Sent Message to West That Russia is ‘There to Stay’ as Major Power (Sp.)
Newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin has sent a clear message to the West that “Russia is there to stay as one of the world’s major powers,” strategic analyst Paolo Raffone told Sputnik. The director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels cited Putin’s remarks signaling Russia’s intent to “use political and diplomatic means to defend its lawful interests,” while remaining “open to negotiations and dialogue.” In his inauguration speech, Putin “rightly claims that after 2000, he, with the support of the Russian people, ‘stood firm against the attacks of international terrorism and saved the country from the very real threat of collapse,’” Raffone noted. The analyst singled out two cornerstone statements by the Russian president. First, that, “The main objective of the coming six years is now ‘to transform the potential we have built up into a new development energy and to use it to bring about a fundamentally new quality of life for our people and a real, tangible increase in their prosperity.’”
Second, that “Russia’s success and prosperity ‘cannot and should not depend on one single person or one political party, or political force alone. We need a broad base for developing democracy in our country and for continuing the transformations we have begun.’” “Putin underlines that he ‘serves’ the interests of Russia that has chosen him again as president. Putin acknowledges that the post-2000 recovery of Russia is still underway, and he summons the peoples of Russia to strengthen social cohesion to continue the path of ‘transformations’ and ‘develop democracy.’ Two statements and two goals that are a cornerstone of his new term in office,” Raffone said. As for the US-driven calls in the Western capitals and mainstream press to delegitimize the Russian presidential election process, “It is the continuation of the historic confrontation of Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia,” Raffone explained.
He weighed in on the fact that representatives of Western countries stayed away from the ceremony. While the UK, Canada, and most European Union nations opted to boycott the swearing-in, France, Hungary, and Slovakia sent their ambassadors, Raffone pointed out, noting that the “tune is set by the US that is faced with tremendous domestic and external challenges in the months ahead of the November elections.” “Despite the US/UK-imposed boycott, there is no united Western front against Russia… The reaction of Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia is a weak representation of the relativization of their global standing, a process with which their political elites have difficulty to come to terms. Despite their bellicose rhetoric, there is mounting sentiment that the relations with Russia cannot be eased without fresh diplomatic initiatives,” Raffone concluded.
Power has already shifted.
• Dialing Down Expectations On A US–Saudi Security Pact (Bhadrakumar)
A historic security pact may be in the making between the United States and Saudi Arabia that could open a pathway to the kingdom’s normalization with Israel. Both sides are eager to close a deal that will replace their famous ‘oil-for-security’ bargain struck in 1945. A caveat must be added, though. That 80-year-old agreement between president Franklin Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Al-Saud has been tested in recent years as the global balance of power shifted and eroded some of their mutual trust. With last decade’s Arab Uprisings, the once-reliable lines of communication between Riyadh and Washington became strained, and back channels diminished. Issues of reliability, due to trust deficit and waning US influence, began weighing down the once solid alliance. Three particular developments underscored that the pillars of the US–Saudi relationship had become shaky:
First, the creation of OPEC+, the brainwave of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), which launched an era of more independent production policy; second, Riyadh’s decision to join the multipolar BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); and third, the Saudi decision to normalize relations with Iran, a commitment formalized in a Chinese-brokered peace deal in March 2023. The raison d’être of a renewed US–Saudi partnership is not in doubt. The dramatic events of 7 October 2023 in the Gaza envelope shattered the Biden administration’s notion that the Palestinian problem was “resolving itself” and that all that was needed was a neat Saudi–Israeli normalization. Instead, the issue of Palestine roared back to the center stage of West Asian security, and there is no leeway left to hoodwink the region, dissimulate empathy for the Palestinian cause, or strut around as a Good Samaritan on the Arab street.
Equally, Iran played its cards efficiently to bring the Axis of Resistance to the forecourt, something that rattled the Gulf Arab regimes, which, in turn, also provided a window of opportunity for the Biden Administration to re-engage their old allies. The linkage between regional ceasefire demands, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and calls for the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas has enabled Washington to regain its footing as the key interlocutor on the diplomatic track. Nonetheless, it remains a slippery slope for the US to reinsert itself as the main influencer in the region. Too much has changed in West Asia and the world in the interim. The broad strategy pursued by the Biden team is to nurture the new ecosystem around the Abraham Accords that Donald Trump patented by envisaging an Israeli–Saudi deal as the linchpin of a broader political agreement.
The White House imagines this would pave the way for Gaza’s reconstruction and the establishment of a Palestinian state that would go a long way to integrate Israel into its Arab neighborhood while allowing Washington to turn its attention to the Asia–Pacific and Eurasia to impede China’s rise and erode Moscow’s capacity to provide strategic space for China on the global stage. Rather than a robust strategy, the above is a breathtakingly ambitious pipe dream given Washington’s growing list of existential challenges: an economy under the weight of the unprecedented debt burden; counterstrategies by the Russia–Iran–China axis; the threat of “de-dollarization” gaining traction in the world economy as more and more countries in the Global South are experimenting with alternative currencies in their international settlement.
“..over 20 years ago French soldiers tried to fight Sudan rebels and were reported to have fled the battlefield when they were actually fired upon with live rounds..”
• The Real Reason Macron Is Pushing The French Troops Narrative For Ukraine (Jay)
Emmanuel Macron is in the news again with his repeated suggestion that French troops could be sent to Ukraine to fight in the war there against Russian forces. This time it is in the supposedly prestigious British highbrow Economist, which is happy to repeat this empty mantra over and over again, largely, one supposes, as it supports a broader narrative of the EU which it is a servant of in Brussels. There is no relationship more unhealthy and repugnant than that of The Economist and the European Union with the former happy to play the role of free propagandist and PR enactor for the latter. How Macron can keep repeating this entirely empty threat, which even he himself has admitted to a French magazine won’t happen, is astounding. Did someone ask him to do this once again and arrange it in The Economist? Perhaps at a high level in Brussels? How else to explain this latest ejaculation of utter nonsense?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto condemned the latest remarks and has warned such a move could ultimately spark an all-out nuclear war. Speaking to French broadcaster LCI, Szijjarto strongly condemned the idea, saying that the French leader’s comments themselves have contributed to escalating the situation. “If a NATO member commits ground troops, it will be a direct NATO-Russia confrontation and it will then be World War Three,” Szijjarto told the broadcaster. Macron himself has moved on though since his original comments to the Parisienne magazine which kicked it all off a few weeks ago. The more recent interview with The Economist clearly shows that he has even reflected on his own rambling and looked deeper at how he could refine the narrative, presumably to get more attention on the issue. However, it’s an act of a desperate politician, which analysts interpret one of two ways; it is either a cry of help directed towards the Biden administration to do the very act themselves and send American troops there; or it is simply a PR stunt to keep him in the international press, a zone which is like a crack addiction.
Like Trump, Macron seems to want to do and say anything – no matter how absurd – to keep him on the front pages, so to speak. Of course, the reaction of Macron, desperate as it seems, is entirely logical when we consider the events on the ground. Russia is gaining territory so western elites have to prepare their media campaigns which deflect blame away from themselves which is partly what the cry from Macron and other EU leaders for expanding their militaries is all about. When Russia takes Kiev, they will all cry “we told you so” and keep on arguing for bigger military spending. The narrative really is one of a loser. It is what you would expect from the losing side preparing to retreat and to save their political careers. Macron and most western leaders do not wish western media to point the finger at a series of catastrophic errors since day one, which have collectively contributed towards the retreat.
And so now, in The Economist, we see Macron define what he laughably believes could be the criteria for sending French troops to Ukraine: Russian breaking through the lines. But even western media like The Economist knows that this is folly and the whole Macron game is really a pack of lies. And yet they keep the lies alive. Perhaps, arguably, Hungary’s recalcitrant foreign minister also helps Macron and his ramblings muster credibility simply by rising to the bait and adding media oxygen. Szijjarto talks about the possibility of an all-out war if the French leader would go ahead with such a preposterous idea and mentions the use of nuclear weapons. But is there something here that we’re all missing? A bluff which both Macron and Szijjarto are playing? You don’t have to look too far to see what it might be.
NATO is planning to put together a proposal for a 100bn dollar war chest of cash for Ukraine and the fearmongering from Macron might be aimed at scaring Hungary into not going ahead with its veto to such a package – or rather aimed at other countries who would directly lobby Hungary to sign it off. No one in NATO’s headquarters in Brussels believes for one moment that France is capable of sending troops to Ukraine who would actually fight Russian soldiers and The Economist knows this only too well which is why it is call centre journalism on their part to print such garbage, which may well have been paid for from NATO’s pocket or Macron’s. Some NATO buffs, counting down the days to retirement will remember how over 20 years ago French soldiers tried to fight Sudan rebels and were reported to have fled the battlefield when they were actually fired upon with live rounds. We are all still having a great laugh about that on the dinner party circuit in Brussels even to this day.
Aiming for the weak spots.
• There’s A Careful Plan Behind Xi’s European Tour (RT)
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a state visit to Europe. On what is his first trip to the EU since 2019, he has visited France and Hungary and concluded the tour in Serbia. The trip comes at a pivotal moment, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is attempting to flip the EU institution against China, having initiated dozens of probes on Chinese products in recent weeks. Likewise, the US has aggressively ramped up rhetoric accusing Beijing, accusing it of complicity in the Ukraine conflict, designed of course to undermine Xi’s credibility on his trip.
Despite von der Leyden’s blatant pro-US bias, it is quite obvious that the loyalty of EU nations has become the subject of a battle between Washington and Beijing for influence in the emerging geopolitical struggle. Although of course the EU is in theory aligned with the US, through its dominance of institutions such as NATO, China’s foreign policy for many years now has focused on attempting to exert all influence to prevent the EU from fully aligning itself with Washington’s goal of containing Beijing, instead seeking to preserve open economic ties with the continent. To this end China has devoted an extensive diplomatic effort to Europe, an effort it doesn’t feel worth making towards the US, or even the UK.
Continental Europe is a mixed bag, and depending on the political status quo there are some states who are favourable to China, and some who are not (such as the Baltic states), and thus China sees it important to uphold the bastion of support where it can. As a result, Xi has dedicated his visit to three countries who are currently favourable towards Beijing: France and Hungary within the EU and Serbia outside the bloc. First, France is a Western-aligned state which has always been famous for its “maverick” foreign policy derived from its position as a former empire in its own right. Emmanuel Macron in particular has always been keen to go against the grain and has continued to engage with Beijing, even visiting China himself last year.
Traditionally, the most enthusiastic large EU country towards China is in fact Germany, and that is still visible, for example in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Beijing several weeks ago. However, German politics has become a domestic tug of war over China, as the foreign ministry is controlled by the neoconservative Green Annalena Baerbock, who has attempted to try and undermine ties with Beijing. This of course has been met with resistance from the German Industry lobby, while US-funded think tanks also try to undermine German ties with China to the best of their ability. As a result, it is not politically convenient for Xi to visit Germany, and thus he chose France, where opinions seem more comfortable with its “maverick” role.
His second destination, Hungary, under Viktor Orban has carved out a niche as being the most pro-Beijing state in the whole EU. Orban has an even more maverick foreign policy which also seeks healthy ties with Russia. However, its small size means it cannot steer the entire bloc’s agenda. Despite this, Budapest is a very important partner for Beijing because it serves as a gateway for Chinese investment and other projects to amplify themselves on the continent when doors are being shut elsewhere. Such as, building an overseas campus for Fudan University, or a Chinese electric car factory, which is critically important if the commission is wielding the threat of tariffs. But not only that, Hungary occupies a strategic position in central Europe above the Balkans which is the terminus of a Chinese economic corridor that starts with the port it owns in Piraeus, Greece. And between Greece and Hungary lies Serbia. Although Serbia is not part of the EU, it is a critically important nation in the Balkans which has stormy relations with the West owing to the massive bombing campaign NATO waged against it in the 1990s.
It is a nation which dislikes the West, but has no power to directly resist as it faces pressure to integrate into the EU, and a sovereignty issue over Kosovo. As a result, Serbia’s well being depends on its ability to court relationships with third-party powers such as Russia and China to secure geopolitical clout. For China, Serbia thus becomes another focus point, or safe-haven, to project influence into Europe. Since the Ukraine conflict began, China has taken the subtle position of opposing the expansion of US-led western institutions, recognising them as a tool of hegemony that will be used against it. As a result, strengthening ties with Belgrade has become part of Beijing’s effort to keep its foothold in the continent, both politically and economically – it has created as a commercial passage utilising its role as part of the Balkan corridor.
Hence, Xi is reportedly going to try and upgrade relations with Serbia. After all, it is a place where China can invest and thus, sell to Europe, without EU and NATO interference. It is also hoped Serbia will join BRICS eventually. Thus, while Xi’s visit to France, one of the EU’s leading states, is to ensure the bloc does not unite against Beijing, his visit to Serbia and Hungary is strategic by design in using them as projection points in ensuring China’s commercial ties with Europe can be upheld amidst resistance by powerful individuals such as Ursula von der Leyen.
“They are doomed. Perhaps a few will be kept in zoos as examples of racist evil.”
• White Genocide is in the Cards that Are Being Played (Paul Craig Roberts)
Three decades ago in my book, The New Color Line, I pointed out that Alfred W. Blumrosen, compliance chief of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, turned the statutory language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on its head and used the EEOC to create race-based legal privileges for blacks, thereby reducing white Americans to second-class citizenship. In place of equal employment opportunity Blumrosen and the liberals of the time used “affirmative action” to create and enforce privileges for blacks in university admissions, hiring and promotion. These privileges created in defiance of Congress by a regulatory authority were the opening wedge against our then merit-based system and created the acceptability of racial discrimination against white Americans.
At the time the liberals admitted that it amounted to privileged treatment of a race, but said it was to be temporary in order to give blacks a leg up. It has now been 60 years, a time period that is not temporary. As I pointed out, once privilege is set in law, it becomes a property right of the privileged supported by the passage of time and precedent after precedent. Even though the racial privilege is unconstitutional, those privileged by it have squatters’ rights in the privilege. My book was favorably reviewed by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, by Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest, by Judge Robert H. Bork, by the New York Times Book Review, by The Wall Street Journal, by the Washington Post, by California Governor Pete Wilson, and many others. Henry Regnery said that my book was the most important work his firm had ever published. Yet my book had zero effect.
Three decades after its publication American corporations, universities, and the US military have institutionalized racial discrimination against white Americans. 60 years too late Tucker Carlson has raised this issue with Jeremy Carl who has just published The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism is Tearing America Apart. As a large percentage of the white population has been indoctrinated into seeing themselves as guilty and undeserving, the white majority is incapable of rectifying its second-class legal status. As the white American majority is rapidly disappearing under the Democrats’ policy of open borders and recruitment of immigrant-invaders into the United States, within a few years time not even the theoretical possibility of restoring American whites to equality under the law will be possible.
Ep. 98 There is systemic racism in the United States, against whites. Everyone knows it. Nobody says it. How come? pic.twitter.com/hSrU9BPVb4
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 24, 2024
If you want to see your future, read Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints. The Camp of the Saints is an accurate description of the fate of the Western World. We are experiencing that fate now. If you dare to know your future and that of your children and grandchildren, you can read this novel that correctly predicted our future in 1973. The book was a best seller, but the rot had already set in. Today the book is suppressed. You can read it here: https://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDFs/Camp_of_the_Saints.pdf As racial denigration of white ethnicities is institutionalized in every Western government, all white ethnicities can expect the same fate. The fate of white ethnicities is sealed. They have lost their countries and are reviled by their own white governments, universities, and media. They are doomed. Perhaps a few will be kept in zoos as examples of racist evil.
It used to have an excellent reputation. Gone in just a few years.
• Boeing Investigated Over Falsified Plane Records (RT)
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced it has launched a probe against Boeing to ascertain whether one of its factories may have omitted mandatory inspections and whether employees may have falsified records. The inquiry was begun after the company itself informed the FAA about what it called “misconduct” at its factory in South Carolina. The issue revolved around the beleaguered 787 program, according to media reports. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a two-aisle plane used mostly for long-haul flights. “The company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes,” the FAA said in a statement. According to the agency, “Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.”
No planes were taken out of service following the discovery, according to AP. The company only ordered additional checks at its final assembly plant in North Charleston, delaying the aircraft delivery, the news agency said. The company’s shares dropped by 1.5% late on Monday following the news. Following inquiries by the media, the aircraft manufacturer released an internal email written by the head of the 787 program, Scott Stocker, who said that a worker at the South Carolina factory noticed an “irregularity” in the required wing-to-body joint tests and reported the issue to his manager. “After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed,” Stocker admitted, adding that the company was taking “swift and serious corrective action” as a result.
The development is the latest in a series of issues confronting the company. Last week, it reported that the lack of a key component was delaying production of the Dreamliner. It blamed the issue on sanctions against Russia, adding that the required parts were produced by a joint US-Russian venture. The company also recently told investors that it would not be able to deliver as many Dreamliner jets as had been planned this year due to shortages of heat exchangers and cabin seating. Monthly production of the Boeing 737 MAX has also fallen to single digits as the company is still dealing with manufacturing issues in the wake of an incident that saw a door plug blow out mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines plane in January. The 737 MAX has been plagued by mishaps, including two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that resulted in more than 340 deaths.
“Mature fast casual dining and chip companies selling for 70x earnings are fantasy-land nonsense and yet both are the case right here, right now.”
=I travel quite a bit. Like most people I have my habits — places I like, things I go to do and if I enjoy them I’ll go back and do them again. This means I see patterns and, unlike many, I tend to notice them immediately. Perhaps its a blessing — or perhaps a curse. I just got back after one such trip; one I’ve made before and Sarah and her boyfriend both came as well (her boyfriend has not been on this trip before, but she certainly has.) They traveled separately but we met up and had a good time. If you’re in the market you ought to be making up a big fat list of things to be short — or at least be out of the things you’ve had and are long of, particularly when you can get a 5%+ risk free return in the short end (the 13 week bill, for example) of the Treasury market. I was stunned at the deterioration I saw in consumer behavior from just a month or so ago on my prior trip, and gob-smacked at the change over three months or so back when Sarah and I were out at Wolf Creek, also a place I like to go on a repetitive basis (for skiing, of course.)
There was evidence of it then on our travels which were over a large part of the same path we took back in September for our trip out to the Grand Canyon. That which was jammed full was not, and yet there wasn’t a serious price delta between those two trips; that is, while there had been lots of inflation over the previous couple of years (and it was obvious) there wasn’t anything that was a sort-of “trigger moment” associated with the change, and being winter .vs. late summer, ok, maybe it was seasonal and frankly, the delta was small. This time it wasn’t small and in addition there were serious price hikes that were attempted — and appear to have had an instant impact. I’m talking about sit-down fast-casual places I like when traveling and lots of others do too in that they’re always slammed to the point that if you want to eat there during the dinner hours I hope you like their “get a sort of reservation on their app” thing or sit at the bar if its just one of you — because if not you might be waiting an hour.
Well, that was gone. And not a little gone either. The place had plenty of tables with no wait and the parking lot had lots of spaces too. But it wasn’t one place — on the way home I stopped at another I’ve been in a dozen times over the last five or so years, again, at dinner time, and a third of the tables were empty. But what else was shocking? A roughly 40% total price increase over a couple of years ago and of that 10+% that just got tacked on with all the menus having just been reprinted in the last couple of weeks. It appears that last grab for cash finally hit people’s pain points and they stopped showing up. I also saw “fast food” style places co-located with fueling stations on the highway shuttered and boarded up — and that’s entirely new, and of other chains I pay some attention to during the same times in the afternoon and evening their parking lots are half-full or less.
Yes, this is “shoulder season” — or is it? Not really. Its graduation season and a lot of people are in fact traveling for precisely that reason; in another few weeks it will be the start of “traditional summer” with Memorial Day. Folks, there are no rate cuts coming because there can’t be into this government spending level without an explosion in inflation. Without taking on the place in the federal spending game where all the money is going (that’s health care) there is no fix. Attempting to work around it with more offshoring, more robots, more data centers (and “ai” in them) and similar won’t work either because you can’t print money — you can only print credit and to obtain money someone has to do something of value for someone else in excess of its costs.
When costs ramp that excess closes and eventually goes negative — and at the point it does that activity becomes uneconomic. If you continue to do it through various machinations such as the government playing handout games you run the risk of an exponential runaway and collapse. But what you should keep in mind is that never in reasonably-modern history do markets let you get to that endpoint. They didn’t in 2000 or in 2008 either. All the hollering about “subprime being contained” proved to be nonsense; the underlying bubble that “supported” the charade was seen through before the endpoint and the market imposed its own view of things whether policy makers liked it or not. Mature fast casual dining and chip companies selling for 70x earnings are fantasy-land nonsense and yet both are the case right here, right now.
I get it that nobody likes the implications of prices having to collapse by a third to come roughly into line with incomes, but its fact. Further its at least double that in the capital markets because common stock always has an element of leverage in it (otherwise why would it sell at a “multiple” of earnings at all — and yet it always does, does it not?) The believe that The Fed “must” or “will” step in and prevent such a reversion to the mean is absurdly common — after all, they have stepped in through the last two decades (or even more) but in doing so each time they’ve made the imbalance worse and now the exponential nature of such deficit spending and debt load are here rather than a future problem. For those who believe that it will “never fail” or worse, that you’ll get plenty of warning before something serious breaks I have three words for you: SOLD TO YOU.
Bird dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787924335732113456
Elk
Weighing in at up to 320 kg, elks stand as one of the biggest deer species on earth.
But don't think that just because an elk is large that it's slow. A mature bull can run as fast as 70 km/h and jump almost 3 meters high.pic.twitter.com/Tl83VK4Cry
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 7, 2024
Explain
Can you explain what this is?
pic.twitter.com/62P92MKWWQ— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 7, 2024
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