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With the CPI report came in on top of expectations on 3 of the 4 closely watched metrics, with just headline CPI coming in at 0.3%, just shy of the 0.4% expected (with the retail sales print coming in far uglier and missing across the board), there has been some debate among the usual commenting suspects whether this inflation report was enough to tip the scales to an earlier rate cut or not, although the consensus seems to suggest that the print was enough to keep September, if not the July, FOMC meeting in play for a rate cut.

Below we quote some of the most active Wall Street economists and strategists who have already manged to sneak in a bullet point or two with their kneejerk response to the CPI print.

Neil Birrell, CIO at Premier Miton Investors:

“The usual excitement over US inflation ended up being a damp squib, as it came in exactly as expected. However, retail sales were weaker than expected and the core rate is back to levels not seen for quite some time, which might well see optimists calling for rate cuts and markets rallying.”

Capital Economics

"Core CPI was even better than it looked, particularly given that we already know the PPI components that feed into the Fed’s preferred PCE deflator measure came in, on balance, weaker than expected. We estimate that core PCE increased by around 0.20%m/m. All things considered, this is consistent with the Fed cutting interest rates in September."

David Russell, Global Head of Market Strategy at TradeStation

"Shelter didn’t ease as hoped, but there was improvement in transportation and healthcare. The number wasn’t perfect, but we’re staggering toward lower inflation. Weaker data on retail sales and the Empire Index also suggest growth is slowing, which keeps rate cuts on the table. It was a trifecta of dovish news."

Nick "Nikileaks" Timiraos, WSJ resident Fed leaker:

"One good print can't offset three unfavorable ones. It may take a couple more for officials to get over the PTSD of the Q1 inflation. It reduces the risk of any shift to a neutral bias (ie, open the door to hikes)."

Florian Lepo, Lombard Odier Asset Management

“With this in-line inflation print, rates are likely to break the [4.4%] level, dragged down by real rates. With that, the dollar should fall, supporting most assets labeled in it.”

Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics:

“Overall, price pressures remain elevated but are moving in the right direction. We think the data support the case for a patient approach on policy decisions from the Fed going forward although the base case remains one of lower rates this year.”

Gregory Faranello, head of US rates for AmeriVet Securities:

“Fed friendly data for the most part with both the CPI and retail sales. Both indicate a tempering which is what the Fed is looking for. These numbers support Chair Powell’s notion of ‘higher for longer’ to potentially lower.”

Ira Jersey, head of rates at Bloomberg

“The relief-rally knee-jerk reaction may be more about retail sales slowing meaningfully than the close-to-expected CPI. Sales have tended to lead goods CPI by a few months. The CPI report being pretty close to consensus underlines the continuing trend of lower-volatility core CPI sectors contributing nearly 4% on a year-on-year basis, while higher-volatility ones (right now generally goods sectors) contribute nothing. So although the data was broadly in line, inflation continues to run above the Fed’s comfort level, meaning near-term rate cuts aren’t likely.”

Source: Bloomberg

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

There are two classic propaganda narratives used by governments when it comes to keeping the public invested in any war campaign that does nothing to advance their national interests:

• First, there’s the “commitment” lie, which says that once you step in to support a war effort you then must stay exponentially committed, even if that war effort is exposed as pointless. Anytime the public pulls back from that war in a bid to reconsider what purpose it serves they are ridiculed for potentially “risking lives” and setting the stage for defeat. In other words, you must support the effort blindly. You’re not allowed to examine the conflict rationally, because who wants to be blamed for losing a war?

• Second, there’s the “domino effect” lie, which says that if you allow a particular “enemy” to win in one conflict, they will automatically be emboldened to invade other countries until they own the entire planet. It’s the same claim used to trick the American populace into supporting the war in Vietnam and it rarely turns out to be true. In fact, nations that engage in regional wars tend to be so weakened by the fighting that they don’t have the means to move on to another country even if they wanted to.

In the US we heard both of these narratives heading into the recent congressional vote for billions more in monetary and logistical aid to Ukraine. Neocons and Democrats worked together to force the bill through with a percentage of true conservatives fighting to stop it. Those conservatives were attacked relentlessly by the media for “helping the Russians”, but the reality that no one in the mainstream wants to talk about is that Ukraine has already lost the war.

No amount of additional funding or arms shipments are going to help them, and it has nothing to do with conservatives questioning the validity of war spending. Anyone who has a basic understanding of military strategy knows that the key to winning is ALWAYS manpower first, logistics second. Not superior technology or armaments, not superior cash and certainly not popular support from foreign interests.

This is especially true in a war of attrition, and attrition is in fact the method being used by Russia to systematically whittle down Ukraine’s forces. However, the western media refuses to discuss what’s really happening and has been acting as a hype machine for Ukraine instead.

In September of 2022 I noted that the Russian pullback to the Donbas was not the “retreat” the western media made it out to be. Many establishment talking heads claimed that this was the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin and that Ukrainian forces would be taking Crimea in the near future.

I argued that Russia was likely trying to consolidate its position as western artillery and tanks flooded into Ukraine. I also suggested that Russia wanted to avoid urban combat in major cities while tens-of-thousands of seasoned mercenaries were rushing to the front from the US and Europe. I predicted that the Russian pullback was in preparation for surgical strikes on western Ukraine’s resources and grid infrastructure.

With Ukraine’s grid heavily damaged, a large portion of the population would leave the cities and head for Europe until the war played out. Putin has specifically avoided major fighting within larger urban centers for a reason. Driving civilians out of metropolitan areas would make it easier for Russia to strike Ukraine in a secondary offensive without risking extensive collateral damage in the form of civilian casualties. This is exactly what has happened.

Almost 7 million Ukrainians left the country outright in the past 2 years, with another 6 million displaced (mostly from larger cities). Currently, Russia is moving to push civilians out of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, and they will probably be successful given their momentum and the destruction of water and power resources. With civilians out of the way a more aggressive attack can then be initiated.

Russia has been using an “artillery bubble” as a tool to protect ground forces as they push an advance. Meaning, troops will only attack as far as the artillery can reach. Artillery is vital to a large scale offensive. Coincidentally, Russia doubled its importation of explosive materials commonly used for artillery in the past several months. They are now reportedly producing triple the amount of artillery that NATO is providing to Ukraine.

Mainstream analysts claim the push towards Kharkiv move might be a feint, allowing Russia to increase the size of its buffer zone. They continue to assert that Russia doesn’t have the forces necessary for a major offensive. I would say it depends on how weak Ukraine’s defensive lines actually are. Russia has been consistently using large scale Pincer movements to envelop defensive positions and destroy them.

In the past two weeks alone Russia has gained considerable ground. Russian troops recently made confirmed advances northwest of Svatove (Luhansk Oblast), near Avdiivka (Donetsk Oblast), in Robotyne (Zaporizhzhya Oblast), and in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War reported on May 6th. The reason for this is relatively simple – Ukraine lacks the manpower to effectively establish defense in-depth. All the reports coming from the front support this theory.

That is to say, Ukraine’s defensive lines are a facade with no secondary positions or trenches to stall Russian breakthroughs. Once the Russians cut the main line there’s nothing much stopping them from gaining large stretches of ground. Some analysts have blamed this development on a lack of Ukrainian foresight or strategic preparedness, but I would argue that they just don’t have enough people to defend more than a single forward line.

My position is backed by numerous reports of the government’s desperate struggles with conscription. For the past six months the average age of Ukraine recruits is 43 years old. Meaning, youth recruitment is waning, either because younger people don’t want to fight and are avoiding the draft by leaving the country, or too many have died.

The conscription problem has been hidden by the western media for many months now, but even corporate news platforms are starting to admit that there is a severe lack of new recruits. Front line fighters have been complaining for months that they need to be cycled away from the trenches and given rest.

Another bad sign is the fact that Ukraine has been using Special Forces soldiers for trench duty. These units are trained specifically for asymmetric hit-and-run warfare, not sitting in mud holes waiting for artillery strikes to rain down on their fixed and exposed positions. It seems like pure stupidity, but it makes sense if Ukraine is actually running out of people to hold their only defensive line.

The cover-up of massive casualties is something I mentioned in past articles on the war and I think it bears repeating: Western warhawks continue to claim that it will be “cheaper” to use Ukrainian soldiers to fight Russia than to fight a larger war down the road with American and European lives.

The sociopathy behind this rationale is disturbing. The lack of manpower in Ukraine cannot be solved. It is a product of endless death paid for with our tax dollars. NATO has prolonged the fighting with funding and arms, but not to win, only to sacrifice more people in a bloody conflict Ukraine is destined to lose.

Their argument also assumes that Americans and Europeans are going to jump blindly into military service in a war against Russia. I don’t know about Europeans, but I do know for a fact that most Americans are not going to buy in and will refuse a draft. The majority of the US public doesn’t even want to send further aid to Ukraine; they certainly aren’t going to go die for Ukraine. The arrogance of the warhawks is mind boggling.

The bottom line is this: Ukraine is about to be overrun. They didn’t have the manpower to effectively launch a counteroffensive. They don’t have the manpower to establish defense in-depth. And, they are using their most seasoned soldiers as cannon fodder in the trenches.

This dynamic demands that diplomatic solutions be entertained, but no one seems to be talking about that. Why?

As I theorized in my article ‘World War III Is Now Inevitable – Here’s Why It Can’t Be Avoided’, the underlying plan may very well be to try to force Americans and Europeans to accept an expanding war with Russia. The western public has been bombarded with lies about Ukraine’s ability to win; when they lose people will be shocked and incensed by the outcome.

Maybe the elites hope that the populace will be so angry about the loss that they will rally around a larger war effort by NATO? The French government has already asserted that they are willing to send troops to Ukraine in direct confrontation with Russia, while Lithuania and Poland have said they will not rule out the possibility.

Now is the time for peace negotiations, BEFORE Ukraine is overrun. Will this happen? Probably not. But when diplomacy is removed from the table completely the only conclusion we can come to is that a greater war is desired. And when greater war is desired, we also have to conclude that our leadership has something substantial to gain by putting the world at risk.

You might be on the side of Ukraine, you might be on the side of Russia, you might not care about either side, but there’s no denying that this war is being escalated by special interests and we need to ask why?

*  *  *

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Authored by Jesse Coghlan via CoinTelegraph.com,

Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI’s for-profit arm who helped briefly oust CEO Sam Altman last year, is leaving the artificial intelligence firm.

“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI,” Sutskever wrote in a May 14 X post saying he was going to work on a “personally meaningful” project. He added he was confident the firm would build an artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is “safe and beneficial.”

Altman posted on X that Sutskever and OpenAI would “part ways” and the former chief scientist “has something personally meaningful he is going to go work on.”

Source: Ilya Sutskever

pic.twitter.com/qyPMIcvcsY

OpenAI announced Jakub Pachocki as its new chief scientist. Pachocki has been the firm’s director of research since 2017 and led the development of its GPT-4 large language model.

Sutskever was part of an effort that successfully saw OpenAI’s board briefly push out Altman as CEO in November last year before he was later re-hired to the role after backlash from employees.

The Information reported at the time that Sutskever — who was one of six board members for the nonprofit OpenAI, Inc. — told employees Altman’s ouster was the board doing its duty to ensure OpenAI “builds AGI that benefits all of humanity.”

Sutskever later wrote in a November X post:

“I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions.“

After Altman was rehired, Sutskever stepped down from OpenAI’s board and it’s been unclear what role he had at the firm which sparked the meme template “Where is Ilya?” that speculated what position he had at OpenAI.

Source: Elon Musk

AGI is a term for a hypothetical artificial intelligence that can perform the same as or better than humans on a range of tasks.

Altman said last month he doesn’t care how much it costs to make an AGI, even if he spends $50 billion a year.

Others, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have called for a measured approach to developing a possible intelligent AI saying it poses unknown risks.

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

A simple model projects April’s month-on-month CPI to come in at 0.4%. Problem is most other estimates are 0.4%, leaving markets particularly exposed to a miss in either direction. The long gamma position in stocks could get unwound pretty quickly if the inflation outturn is big enough.

The chart below shows a simple regression of month-on-month CPI and PPI final demand (from 2009 to 2022, and running out of sample since then). As we can see the model seems to persistently underestimate CPI. For April’s CPI based on today’s latest final demand PPI data, it projects 0.36%, i.e. 0.4% rounded.

It suggests a lot of people are perhaps looking at it similarly. If we use the estimate for PPI final demand (0.3%) or the actual outturn (0.5%), we get 0.3% or 0.4% for April CPI. Just like everyone else.

Even if analysts aren’t using PPI to estimate CPI, there’s a remarkable lack of variance in these forecasts. A print lower than 0.3% or more than 0.4% could move markets quite significantly in either direction (revisions notwithstanding).

Perhaps taking a cue from our CPI commentary last week in which we explained why today's inflation print will likely come in on the dovish side after beating estimates for 5 months in a row...

... moments ago 10Y yields plumbed fresh multi-week lows, sliding to just above 4.40% (from a high of 4.65% two weeks ago), ironically the lowest lowest since the last CPI release five weeks ago....

... as traders of Treasury options are positioning for a sharp bond rally in the aftermath of crucial inflation data on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg's Ed Bolingbroke (European bonds posted even stronger gains, with benchmark German and UK rates both falling as much as seven basis points).

According to the Bloomberg strategist, heavy option buying over the past week has centered on options that would stand to benefit from US 10-year yields dropping to roughly 4.3%, the lowest in more than a month. One high-risk trade stood out: it stood to make $15 million windfall by risking just $150,000 should the 10-year benchmark fall even further to 4.25% by May 24.

Open interest, or the amount of new positioning, surged recently in options tied to the so-called 110.00 call strike, which pairs with a roughly 4.3% 10-year yield level, according to CME data. Buying was concentrated in the June tenor expiring May 24, capturing this week’s big economic news including the reports on producer and consumer prices.

"There’s been a lot of positioning both ways, but most recently there’s been a lot more leaning toward the possibility of easing, and conceivably the chance of aggressive easing,” said Alex Manzara, a derivatives broker at R.J. O’Brien & Associates. “The market is clearly concerned about something going bad that could lead to rapid easing.”

But it's not just the expectation that something will break: “There seems to be an expectation that the data will cool from last month and the market does seem to be somewhat set up that way,” said Samuel Zief, head of global FX strategy at JPMorgan Chase Bank.

Indeed, a majority now agrees with our recent take: a survey conducted by 22V Research showed 49% of investors expect the market reaction to the CPI report to be “risk-on” — while only 27% said “risk-off.”

Meanwhile, asset managers continued to add to long bets in futures, adding to bullish positions for a fourth week in a row, data from the CFTC shows.

Agreeing with the general setup, Bloomberg commentator Ven Ram writes that "the recent bullish mood in Treasuries is likely to extend if today’s inflation and retail-sales data for April prove to be soft" and he points out that on Tuesday, 10-year bonds made the most of higher-than-forecast PPI numbers. With Chair Jerome Powell describing the data as “mixed,” the markets ran ahead with the idea that components from the data that feed into the Fed’s own PCE gauge weren’t all pointing northward.

To Ram, that mindset suggests that barring a shock, above-forecast inflation readings today, Treasuries will more likely extend their nascent rally, however tenuous that may be. A reading that matches the median expectation for 0.4% on month will spur the markets to move in the direction of pricing 50 basis points of interest rate cuts for the year (current pricing is about 44 basis points). Based on correlations that we have seen this year, that would suggest a 10-year yield at 4.3592%.

A double whammy of soft inflation and weak retail sales would kindle the markets’ imagination afresh, spurring traders to fully price in a first cut in September and more than 50 basis points of policy reduction by the end of the year. That would send the two-year yield toward 4.6809% in the coming days and the 10-year toward 4.30%.

His conclusion is that "whether or not the rally has endurance is a different matter, but the market’s mood seems to be decidedly one of a bullish tactical bias heading into the all-important data sets today."

Finally, it's not just bonds that will rip higher (in price, not yield) if CPI comes in soft: “An in-line-with-consensus US core CPI read is discounted and in the price, but that may be enough to promote relief buyers and see the index push higher,” said Perpperstone's head of research Chris Weston.

“A core CPI read below 0.25% month-on-month and I certainly wouldn’t want to be short.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A vial of AstraZeneca vaccine is seen at a mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Calgary, Alta., on April 22, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh)

An American woman who suffered an injury from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine sued the company on May 13, alleging the company breached a contract by not paying for the medical care she requires to deal with the injury.

“They left us no choice,” Brianne Dressen, a preschool teacher in Utah, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Ms. Dressen has paid tens of thousands of dollars to drugs to treat the nervous system disorder and other issues she’s experiencing, according to the complaint, filed in federal court in her home state.

Ms. Dressen chose to participate in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial in 2020 because she wanted to help the company develop its COVID-19 vaccine. The consent form she signed stated in part that AstraZeneca would “cover the costs of research injuries” and “pay the costs of medical treatment.”

“With these reassurances should something go wrong, Bri signed the form, rolled up her sleeve, and let the drug company inject the experimental product into her arm. Her mind was at peace, as Bri believed she was doing the right thing for her country, her students, and her family,” the suit states.

Ms. Dressen soon started experiencing problems, including blurred vision, tinnitus, and vomiting. She later became extremely sensitive to light and suffered spikes in her heart rate.

Ms. Dressen went to see numerous doctors as she attempted to figure out what was wrong with her, and seek treatment.

In 2021, U.S. National Institutes of Health doctors diagnosed Ms. Dressen as having “post-vaccine neuropathy,” according to records reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Bills for the doctors’ visits and drugs they prescribed began piling up quickly. The immunoglobulin recommended by government doctors alone costs $9,909.82 a month.

Ms. Dressen and her husband, a chemist with the U.S. Army, kept AstraZeneca and Velocity, which ran the trial for the company, apprised of the accumulating costs, according to the suit.

The family messaged Velocity on Jan. 15, 2021, with the first set of payment records for treatment but received no response, according to the suit. “Checking on updates for this. . . . When may we expect payment?” Brian Dressen, Ms. Dressen’s husband, wrote several weeks later.

“I am sorry you have not heard anything as of yet. Hopefully I get an answers [sic] soon. I will reach out again today,” a Velocity official responded.

No funds came to the family, forcing them to refinance their home.

“I’d like to know when we can expect the first payment on Brianne Dressen’s medical bills? Two months since submitting...“ Mr. Dressen wrote on March 18, 2021. The Velocity official said that she was ”forwarding on” the payment records.

“Hey this is Brianne Dressen. Can you advocate a bit for us here help us get a timeline for payment? I am still not doing well, we have had to hire for after school childcare. We really need this money,“ Ms. Dressen wrote on March 24, 2021. The official said the following day she would be escalating the issue and did not understand ”why it is taking so long.”

The back-and-forth continued for months with no reimbursement paid to Ms. Dressen.

Brianne Dressen in New York on Jan. 6, 2023. (Jack Wang/The Epoch Times)

After a local television station reported on Ms. Dressen’s case on July 13, 2021, Velocity contacted the Dressens and said a payment of $590.20 was forthcoming.

The company issued the payment and said it was in touch with AstraZeneca regarding the approval of additional funds.

In December 2021, the official sent a statement for Ms. Dressen to sign that said in part that Ms. Dressen would accept $1,243 in exchange for dropping any additional claims to payment.

The Dressens declined the offer, describing it as insulting.

In March 2022, AstraZeneca representatives began directly contacting the Dressens, requesting billing and medical records.

One representative wrote on Aug. 12, 2022, that the company was waiting on medical records from providers to assess the claims. The representative said on Sept. 26, 2022, that all of the medical records had been received.

AstraZeneca and Velocity never contacted the Dressens again, according to the suit.

“I did everything they asked of me. I honored my obligations to them. They have not honored any. When they needed me, I was there, I cooperated. When I needed them, they were nowhere to be found,” Ms. Dressen said in a statement.

The suit acknowledges that COVID-19 vaccines are and were covered by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, which gives manufacturers immunity to liability in most cases. The suit accuses the companies of breach of contract and breach of duty. It asks for damages for medical expenses, emotional fallout, loss of income, and other expenses, as well as attorney fees and prejudgment interest.

Ms. Dressen is seeking a jury trial.

Velocity did not respond to a request for comment. AstraZeneca did not return an inquiry.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine was never cleared for use outside clinical trials in the United States.

The UK-based company announced earlier this month it is withdrawing the vaccine, citing limited demand. The announcement came several months after it acknowledged the shot can cause blood clots and low levels of platelets, a combination known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Johnson & Johnson’s shot, which was cleared in the United States and also causes the syndrome, was pulled from the market in 2023.

Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,

Americans can be forgiven for suffering from whiplash regarding law and order. 

In recent weeks the Biden administration and many news outlets, including USA Today and The Hill, have touted declines in violent crime statistics to argue that America is becoming a safer place. 

“Right now, with 2023 figures and early 2024, the trends are all pointing down, in a positive direction,” Jeff Asher, whose New Orleans-based AH Datalytics is developing his own “Real-Time Crime Index,” told RealClearInvestigations. 

Conservative outlets, including City Journal and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, assert that minor declines in headline grabbers like homicides fail to capture what is really happening in the U.S. 

From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. had an average of 16,641 homicides a year. In 2021 and 2022, however, the country saw considerably more bloodshed, with an average of more than 22,000 annual homicides. Even if the 2023 number drops slightly, it will still represent a large increase over the recent past, before the pandemic and racial upheaval set in motion in 2020.

Many criminologists say this illlustrates one of the problems with the official numbers that are at the center of public debate: They give a distorted impression of true levels of crime. They note that crime stats have become notoriously incomplete in recent years. In some years many big cities did not report their numbers to the FBI, and there are such wide discrepancies in these tallies that the picture they provide has more blur than clarity.

Declining arrest rates and slowing police response times to 911 calls also help explain why polls show Americans believe crime is rising. The experts say the numbers only give some sense of lawbreaking, while most Americans – the vast majority of whom are not crime victims in a given year – are influenced by their largely media-driven perception of whether society feels orderly. 

“There are social media videos of people walking into a CVS and walking out with a shopping cart full and there seems to be no consequences – that’s part of the problem,” said Jay Town, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. “And then you have people arrested a dozen times and they’re out with no bail. There are no consequences, and thus there are more criminals in the street.”

Americans may fall back on such perceptions in part because the official reports are incomplete and rife with error. “I don’t think with any crime statistics we can ever be precise,” said Asher.

For decades, the traditional gold standard for criminologists was the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, annual compilations by the Bureau of stats provided to it by state and local law enforcement agencies. The FBI’s data, which currently show declines in several criminal categories, especially homicide, provide the basis for many of the stories arguing that, in terms of crime, the U.S. situation is improving.

But the FBI statistics aren't what they used to be, according to several criminologists who pointed to gaps in coverage and apparent errors. The problem began in 1988 when the bureau began to move toward a complex new system of reporting – the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). It promised to provide more comprehensive detail and enable authorities to pinpoint high-crime areas, criminals, and victims more accurately.

But the transition proved to be a herculean task, so much so that the FBI allowed departments to delay their full adherence to the program even after the feds doled out $120 million to agencies to assist with compliance. Still, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, either all or some of the biggest police forces in the U.S. -- New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles -- did not provide data.

There have also been problems with the data that was submitted, including the news in 2022 of major problems with the St. Louis Police Department data, and more recent revelations that figures for sexual crimes provided by the New Orleans Police Department were wrong.

In Baltimore, the Police Department and various news reports put the total for 2022 homicides between 332 and 336, but the FBI’s dataset puts the number at 272. Baltimore police officials did not reply to RCI’s inquiries about the wide spread in the reported numbers, and if anyone in the city’s police department had brought the matter to the FBI’s attention.

The Baltimore department acknowledges its numbers may not be the same as those it submits to the FBI, but states on its website that “any comparisons are strictly prohibited.” 

Similarly, the police departments in Milwaukee and Nashville did not respond to questions about divergences between their stats on robberies and those from the federal bureau. Milwaukee police reported a 7 percent increase in robberies in 2023, but the FBI recorded a 13 percent decline. 

An FBI spokesperson told RCI, “It is the responsibility of each state UCR [Uniform Crime Reports] program or contributing law enforcement agency to submit accurate statistics and correct existing data that are in error.”

Criminologists cite other discrepancies in the official measurements they use to assess the situation. While FBI stats show declines in violent categories, the Department of Justice’s survey reports more people saying they have been victims of such crimes. The Centers for Disease Control figures for homicides, which have long moved in the same direction as the FBI’s, started exceeding the FBI’s in 2020 and the gap has widened since then.

“I wouldn’t say the FBI is cooking the books, but that the data they are putting out is half-baked,” said Sean Kennedy, the executive director of the Coalition for Law, Order and Security, which has pushed back against recent media reports that crime is falling noticeably in the U.S. 

“So it’s not a conspiracy but a rush job, and it’s giving people a false picture,” he told RCI. “They infer something is true, and then because it’s politically expedient they don’t bother correcting it.”

A Sharp Decline in Arrests

Some criminologists say there is another, hidden dynamic within the crime statistics that helps explain why most Americans think crime is on the rise – the dramatic decline in arrests. Scouring FBI data, John Lott, the founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center, found that arrests for reported violent crimes in major cities fell 20 percent in 2022, from 42.5 percent in 2019 – the year before the COVID pandemic and BLM protests in response to George Floyd’s death while in police custody. 

The percentage of murder and rapes cleared by arrests fell to 40.6 percent from 67.3 percent in those years; for rapes from 33.8 percent to 17.4 percent, and arrests for reported property crimes in major cities dropped to 4.5 percent in 2022 from 11.6 percent in 2019.

It is not clear how much of this decline is due to reductions in the size of many departments – New Orleans, for example, reportedly lost 20% of its force between 2020 and 2022.

“There are lots of issues here, and I’m in disbelief about some of them,” said Lott. “It’s mind-boggling to me – we already know many crimes have always been underreported and now it seems to be, ‘Why bother reporting a property crime’ to the police? The bottom line is our law enforcement system seems in some ways to be falling apart, especially in the big cities.”

Calling the Cops ... and Then Waiting  

The plummeting arrest rates contribute to the general sense of lawlessness, a feeling compounded by surging increases in response times to calls. Comparing data for 15 law enforcement agencies from 2019-2022, Asher found only one city – Cincinnati – that reduced its response time, and that by 0.7 minutes. In New Orleans, the average response time nearly doubled, from 50.8 to 145.8 minutes, while Nashville saw a rise from 44.2 minutes to 73.8 minutes and New York City a 33-minute increase.

Some cities are even worse.

“If it’s not a shooting or a stabbing we’re up to about two hours for responding to property calls,” Jared Wilson, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, told RCI. “As a result, we’ve seen a significant problem with reporting of crime right now.”

Wilson said auto thefts better capture the state of crime and perceptions of it: As thefts of essential registered property, they tend to be reported. In San Diego, Wilson said, those have risen year-to-year, with a whopping 27% jump in 2021, all of which contribute to people’s perception of increased criminal activity.

Betsy Branter Smith, a retired cop and spokeswoman for the National Police Association, said such issues contribute to a deteriorating relationship between citizens and the police. That unraveling, along with increasing hostility between police departments and district attorneys in some big cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles, has made some cops less pro-active on the job.

 “It’s not so much hostility’’ toward cops, but frustration and resignation,” she said. “It’s time-consuming to be a crime victim, and if prosecutors aren’t going to do anything, why report it?”

Smith said many police officers, in turn, are frustrated by bail reform and other efforts that put many alleged lawbreakers back on the streets quickly. Yes, she said , many officers have almost certainly become less pro-active. “We know it, we see it. It’s a sad state of affairs for law enforcement. Cops represent the government, basically, and we’re losing faith in the government we’re supposed to represent.”

Then there is media coverage. Although “if it bleeds, it leads” journalism is not new, the steady flow of stories in traditional and social media of mass shootings, smash-and-grab crime sprees, cops beaten on the streets of Manhattan and young women punched in the face for no apparent reason spawn a sense of disorder. So too do migrants pouring across the southern border, students taking over campus quads, squatters commandeering other people’s homes, the rise of homeless encampments and open-air drug use in several major cities. 

“There is this tension there - this reality of visible signs of lawlessness and disorder that generate a feeling of unease,” said Rafael Mangual, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute of Policy Research.

Asher agreed: “People are inundated by pictures of lawlessness and there’s no doubt that contributes to a lack of a full awareness among Americans about what might actually be happening.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

The head of a German rail union warns that the country’s train system is turning into a “battleground” thanks to a wave of violence and intimidation being unleashed by male asylum seekers against female staff.

In an interview with Focus Online, Steffi Recknagel, the head of the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) in Thuringia, says that the average day is “sometimes life-threatening” for employees due to the sheer amount of abuse being dished out by migrants.

“I have an average of three employees sitting in my Erfurt office every week for legal advice. They were attacked, spat on, insulted, threatened or pushed,” said Recknagel, adding that female employees are being slapped, kicked, spat at and threatened with being stabbed by the ‘refugees’.

“The worst case was that a train attendant was threatened with a knife,” said Recknagel, adding that another was physically attacked from behind and “the air was knocked out of her.”

The union boss said that one stretch of the network was particularly bad, specifically the one frequented by Syrian, Afghan, and Turkish migrants from the local asylum center.

“I drive the Erfurt-Suhl route every day,” said Recknagel.

“And unfortunately, I have to say it like this: It is mostly young men from the initial reception center who misbehave completely on our trains. They always travel in groups and feel strong together.”

Instead of intervening when the migrants engage in violent or threatening behavior towards other passengers, train staff look the other way or even run and hide in locked compartments to avoid becoming the next victim.

“Our people are afraid, very afraid. We have employees who say: If these groups are on the train, then I won’t check tickets. Then, they say they’ll stay at the front with the train driver or lock themselves in their cabin until they get to a safe station and they get out,” said Recknagel.

She noted that nothing ever happens to the migrants who behave in such a manner, with the police largely powerless to step in.

A four page letter sent to Thuringia Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) complains that female workers have been subjected to “sexist insults and spit on in a disgusting manner,” which includes migrants flashing their genitals.

The letter notes that the chaos is almost entirely the responsibility of “people with a migration background,” including one incident where rival migrants fought a running battle, leaving an entire train compartment covered in blood.

“Our colleague had to continue the journey to the Suhl train station in fear of death and with a railcar that was heavily contaminated with human blood,” states the letter. “We don’t need to talk at this point about the psychological consequences for our still very young colleague and the passengers, given the scenes that could have come from a civil war zone!”

The letter goes on to vent fury about how Germans are being told to embrace “tolerance towards migrants” while being violently attacked by migrants.

“How can you expect citizens of this country to be open to the refugee policy that is being practiced when it happens — practically every day, and not just on public transport! — that we have to witness such violence, brutalization and absolute contempt for our laws and society?”

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s leading anti-mass migration party which the establishment is trying to ban, responded to the story by asserting, “The railway and transport union in Thuringia is sounding the alarm: Train attendants and railway employees are regularly attacked, spat on, insulted, threatened or beaten.”

As we recently highlighted, foreign migrant suspects are responsible for nearly 6 in 10 violent crimes in Germany according to new figures released by the federal government.

Despite comprising roughly 14.6 per cent of the population, foreign migrants were responsible for 58.5 per cent of all violent crimes.

*  *  *

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Via The Libertarian Institute

The Swedish Prime Minister has said his country would be willing to host nuclear weapons during a war. The North Atlantic Alliance has a nuclear sharing program that has US nuclear weapons deployed in five countries. The Polish leader recently said he hopes Warsaw can one day join the program. 

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Swedish public radio that Stockholm would be willing to do this only during wartime. "In a war situation it’s a completely different matter. It would depend entirely on what would happen," he explained "In the absolute worst-case scenario, the democratic countries in our part of the world must ultimately be able to defend themselves against countries that could threaten us with nuclear weapons."

Kristersson’s remarks came as Sweden hosted the leaders of Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland to discuss deepening military ties.

"For decades, we have lived very peacefully and without very big threats to Europe. Personally, I think these times are over," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during the summit. "With all that we see from the Russian side, we are at the beginning of a new era. It would be wrong if we, as a government, said that you don’t have to deal with this in your everyday life."

Sweden is the newest member of NATO. When Stockholm first requested NATO membership, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would not object to the move unless more weapons were deployed to Swedish territory. 

"We do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland, which, unfortunately, we have with Ukraine. We have no territorial issues… no disputes… we have nothing that could bother us from the point of view of Finland’s or Sweden’s membership in NATO." Putin continued, "Only they should plainly and clearly realize that there were no threats before, now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in a mirror manner and create the same threats to the territories from which threats are created to us."

The alliance has three nuclear weapon states, and the US stores weapons in five additional countries, including Italy, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. President Andrzej Duda expressed his willingness to make Poland the sixth country to host nuclear weapons.

"I must admit that when asked about [hosting nuclear weapons], I declared our readiness. Recently, [Russia] has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus," he said. "If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear-sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it."

You will find more infographics at Statista

At the time, a Russian government spokesman said the Kremlin would respond if NATO moved forward with Duda’s proposal. "The military will, of course, analyze the situation if such plans are implemented, and in any case will do everything necessary, [will take] all the necessary retaliatory steps to guarantee our safety," Dmitry Peskov explained.