Thursday, March 10, 2022


As Russia Wages War, US Army Trains Officers on Gender Identity

While Russia wages a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. Army is putting its soldiers through training on gender pronouns and coaching officers on when to offer soldiers gender transition surgery, according to an official military presentation on the subject obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The mandatory presentation, "Policy on the Military Service of Transgender Persons and Persons with Gender Dysphoria," was given to officers earlier this month along with instructions for them to train their subordinates on the material. Portions of the presentation were provided to the Free Beacon by a whistleblower who was ordered to undergo the training as a high-ranking officer in the Army Special Forces.

An Army spokesman confirmed to the Free Beacon that the slides in question are part of "mandatory training" and come from an official program "used to train Army personnel on the recent changes to the DoD and Army transgender service policy." All Army personnel, from soldiers to commanders and supervisors, are required to participate in the training by Sept. 30, 2022, according to the spokesman.

The transgender presentation follows on a June 2021 announcement by the Army altering its policies so that transgender soldiers can openly serve. The shift in policy is part of a larger push by the Biden administration to make the military more welcoming to transgender people. These efforts have prompted pushback from Republicans in Congress and some within the military who view the policy changes as an effort to promote "woke" propaganda within the service. As Russia's invasion of Ukraine threatens to spark a larger conflict, military experts and insiders say they are concerned America's fighting force is prioritizing woke culture over protecting the American people.

"The Army allows transgender soldiers to serve openly," states the presentation, which is tailored for Army commanders and leaders. "An otherwise qualified soldier shall not be involuntarily separated, discharged, or denied reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity."

The presentation offers several hypothetical scenarios for how soldiers should be treated if they are transgender or in some stage of transitioning to another gender.

In one situation, a "soldier who was assigned male at birth says he identifies as a female," "lives as a female in his off-duty hours," and "is not requesting to be treated as a female while on duty." In that case, the soldier should be treated with dignity and respect and no further action is required.

If the transgender soldier, however, "later requests to be identified as a female during duty hours and/or experiences increased distress relating to his gender identity," the officer in charge must "inform [the] soldier of the Army's transgender policy and recommend that he sees a military medical provider."

"Gender transition in the Army," the presentation states, "begins when a soldier receives a diagnosis from a military medical provider indicating that gender transition is medically necessary.

********************************************

Biden’s inflation is raging at 7.5 percent because we borrowed and printed more than $6 trillion fighting Covid, not because of the semiconductor shortage

“With all the bright spots in our economy, record job growth, higher wages, too many families are struggling to keep up with their bills. Inflation is robbing them of the gains they thought otherwise they would be able to feel. I get it… One third of all the inflation was because of automobile sales. There were not enough semiconductors to make all the cars people wanted to buy. Prices of automobiles went way up.”

That was President Joe Biden in his first State of the Union Address on March 1, attempting at least to deflect some of the blame for inflation away from the federal government’s unprecedented peacetime spending, borrowing and printing avalanche of more than $6 trillion in response to the Covid pandemic.

That included the $2.2 trillion CARES Act and $900 billion phase four legislation under former President Donald Trump, and the $1.9 trillion stimulus and $550 billion of new infrastructure spending under President Biden.

As a result, the national debt has increased by $6.8 trillion to $30 trillion, of which the Fed monetized half, or $3.4 trillion, by increasing its share of U.S. treasuries to a record $5.7 trillion.

Overall, the M2 money supply has increased by $6.3 trillion to $21.6 trillion, a whopping 29 percent increase. Almost every new dollar of debt was paid for by printing it.

What more is needed to explain the current bout of inflation?

As for the semiconductor shortage, that appears to have also been caused by Covid. According to research by McKinsey & Company for the World Economic Forum, published Feb. 9, 2022: “automakers cut their chip orders in early 2020 as vehicle sales plummeted. When demand recovered faster than anticipated in the second half of 2020, the semiconductor industry had already shifted production lines to meet demand for other applications.” Since then, semiconductor producers have been struggling to catch up to demand as Biden touted Intel’s new semiconductor plant being built in Ohio.

Similar glut was caused in the petroleum supply chain in 2020, when prices collapsed to zero briefly — causing oil production to slow down significantly — only to rebound two years later to more than $100 per barrel as the global economy continues reopening from Covid. Now, war in Europe threatens to send the price even higher, but it’s already very high.

Even here, Biden only offered to release barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve. Let them eat cake, indeed. Nowhere did he call for unlocking America’s energy stores by increasing drilling for oil and gas with the same zeal as the semiconductor pitch.

Increased oil and gas production would not only help bring part of the inflation down, and it would help to shore up supplies in Europe, which is currently dominated by Russian energy dependence.

Yes, Covid locked down the global economy, causing supply disruptions of all kinds, and governments all over the world intervened financially — by far the most spending in history — so that there would be businesses left to return to when the worst was over.

Now, of the more than 25 million jobs that were lost to Covid by April 2020 in the U.S., 23.8 million have been recovered. More than 16 million of those were recovered in 2020, before President Biden had even been sworn into office. The economy was already rapidly recovering.

And now thanks to the trillions of dollars of spending, borrowing and printing, a year later, the economy is unsurprisingly overheating. It is literally Milton Friedman’s “too much money chasing too few goods”.

In just the past two months, nearly 1 million jobs have been created in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ establishment survey in Dec. and Jan. 2022 combined — and at 4 percent unemployment, labor markets are at or near peak employment.

2021 came in at 5.7 percent Gross Domestic Product growth in 2021, and that was with adjusting for inflation. Without adjusting for inflation, nominally, it grew at a little more than 10 percent. That is the greatest adjustment for inflation in the GDP since 1982, which was one of the most massive recessions in modern American history.

Almost on cue, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow is currently projecting 0 percent economic growth in the first quarter of 2022. Elsewhere, the spread between 10-year treasuries and 2-year treasuries is nearly inverted, a key recession predictor. Suffice to say, the warning lights for the economy are flashing red.

Finally, speaking to Americans’ pocket books, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Feb. 10, real average hourly earnings decreased 1.7 percent from Jan. 2021 to Jan. 2022.

But Biden doesn’t get it. Covid lockdowns caused the supply crisis by crushing demand and slowing production in 2020. Covid caused governments to respond with the torrent of spending, borrowing and money printing to offset the drop in output. Now, even after Covid, Biden still wants parts of his $3 trillion Build Back Better spending bill passed by Congress.

Biden’s State of the Union was an opportunity to level with the American people. If he had explained the situation honestly, and promised to slow down spending and increase American energy production, it could have been an historic pivot that might have saved his Congressional majorities in November.

Biden is right when says inflation is robbing the American people blind. And in 2022, they’re going to have something to say about it.

*******************************************

BP set for $35b hit as it exits Russia’s oil giant Rosneft over Ukraine invasion

BP said it plans to abandon its 19.75 per cent stake in oil giant Rosneft in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, marking an abrupt and costly end to its at times fraught 30 years operating in the oil-rich country.

The British oil and gas giant did not say how it planned to exit its stake, which it said would result in charges of up to $US25 billion ($35 billion) at the end of the first quarter. Rosneft accounts for around half of BP’s oil and gas reserves and a third of its production.

“I have been deeply shocked and saddened by the situation unfolding in Ukraine and my heart goes out to everyone affected. It has caused us to fundamentally rethink BP’s position with Rosneft,” BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney said.

The move represents the boldest step yet by a Western oil company with exposure to Russia amid an escalating crisis between the West and Moscow.

BP said the move and financial hit will not impact its short and long term financial targets as part of its strategy to shift away from oil and gas to low-carbon fuels and renewables energy.

Looney and his predecessor as CEO Bob Dudley will both step down from the board of Rosneft, which BP acquired a shareholding in as part of its $US12.5 billion TNK-BP stake sale in 2013.

British Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who on Friday expressed “concern” over BP’s stake in Rosneft in a call with Looney, said on Twitter that he welcomed the decision.

“Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine must be a wake up call for British businesses with commercial interests in (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia,” he said.

As a stake, BP received revenue from Rosneft in the form of dividends which totalled around $US640 million in 2021, roughly 3 per cent of BP’s cash flow from operations.

****************************************************

South Korea Elects Yoon as New President in Hawkish Turn

Former top prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol won election as South Korea’s president, returning the conservative opposition to power after five years and signaling a hawkish turn in the country’s relations with China and North Korea.

Yoon, 61, who had never before sought elected office, defeated former Gyeonggi Governor Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party in one of the closest presidential races in the country’s history. Yoon will succeed Moon Jae-in, who had been Yoon’s boss until they had a falling out over investigations into close associates of the president.

“The race is over and now we need to be united as one for the sake of the people and the country,” Yoon told supporters and party officials Thursday morning. He planned to have a formal speech later in the day, his People Power Party said.

Lee earlier conceded defeat and congratulated Yoon on his win. “All responsibility rests solely with me” on the loss, Lee said.

Yoon had 48.6% of the votes, compared with Lee’s 47.8% with 99% of the votes counted. The new leader will take office May 10. He’ll face a parliament where Moon’s party retains a supermajority, virtually ensuring gridlock on many domestic issues.

Yoon is a former prosecutor general and a familiar face in South Korea politics, but a foreign-policy novice. He was handpicked by Moon in 2019 with a mandate to make good on the president’s pledges to go after the most powerful. But ties soured after Yoon’s probes included members of the current government and led to the resignations of two of Moon’s justice ministers.

Yoon’s win would return an advocate of a stronger defense to the presidential Blue House, likely leading to a closer embrace of South Korea’s military alliance with the U.S. and support for the Biden administration’s push to bring in allies to build supply chains for crucial materials such as semiconductors that aren’t dependent on China.

It could also mean a chill for relations with neighbors North Korea and China after Yoon said he backed the option of a preemptive strike if Pyongyang posed an immediate threat and called for a new deployment of a U.S.-made missile interceptor system known as THAAD. China banned sales of group tour packages and appearances of Korean celebrities on television shows in retaliation for Seoul’s deployment of the U.S.-led missile shield system about six years ago, despite Beijing’s objection.

With a conservative president, “the expectation is that we will see South Korea be more unequivocal toward the alliance,” said Soo Kim, a policy analyst at Rand Corp. who previously worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. “I don’t think this resetting of South Korean foreign policy is going to happen overnight,” she told Bloomberg Television.

*******************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

*****************************************

No comments: