New Evidence May Finally Trigger A Trump Indictment

The Oath Keepers: What The Indictment Says (And Does Not Say) About 'Jan 6' Authored by Jonathan Turley, The indictment of eleven individuals associated with the “Oath Keepers” produced an immediate deluge of the postings that an insurrection had finally been established on the January 6th attack at the Capitol. The charges do not establish an insurrection. It does reveal how extremist groups show the protest as an opportunity and hoped that it might trigger greater unrest. However, the indictment does not offer the long-sought proof of an insurrection to fulfill the narrative of many commentators and politicians. While I would not be surprised by additional charges against other co-conspirators and more details could emerge, the indictment does not support the prior allegations of a coordination or collusion with the Trump campaign. Here is a first take on what the indictment says and does not say. Is this the Insurrection? Before addressing the details of the indictment, it is important to state the obvious about this indictment and how it is already being spun as proof of an insurrection. It is not.  These are charges of seditious conspiracy based on efforts to disrupt the proceedings. There was discussion among some of the defendants about the prospects of civil war, particularly after January 6th. However, the charge itself is much broader. The provision in 18 U.S.C. 2384 has long been controversial because it is so sweeping and includes any effort to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law”: If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. Most of us discussed the riot previously noted that there were people who clearly came to the Hill that day to commit violent acts and interrupt the legislative process. Indeed, most of us predicted that a small group of people would receive the more serious charges. I have never had much sympathy for those who rioted or those who recklessly fueled such anger. Saying that this was not an insurrection does not mean that this was not a desecration of our constitutional process and values. I publicly condemned Trump’s speech while it was being given and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the riots. The charges of a relatively small number of extremists in this large protest belies rather than supports the broader allegations of an actual insurrection. This remains a protest that became a riot — a view shared by the vast majority of the public. Over seven hundred people have been charged and most face relatively minor charges of trespass and unlawful entry. The fact that there were a small number of people intent on violence does not convert the intent or actions of the thousands in the protest into an insurrection. FBI sources previously told the media that, despite months of intense investigation, they could find “scant evidence” of any “organized plot” and instead found that virtually all of the cases are “one-offs.” One agent explained: ”Ninety to 95 percent of these are one-off cases. Then you have 5 percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.” This is clearly part of that five percent that the FBI and most of us have been discussing. Their views or intentions do not convert hundreds of defendants from trespassers into insurrectionists. The same is true for rioters in prior summers. We have seen groups anarchist and extremist groups like Antifa come to protests to fuel violence. This small number of individuals often discuss (as did these defendants) a desire to see an overthrow of the government. They tried to further such objectives by burning police stations and trying repeatedly to burn down a federal courthouse. However, their intentions did not convert the thousands of other protesters into rioters or insurrectionists. Even these extremist groups have not been called domestic terrorists or seditionists by the media or Democratic politicians. The Indictment and Likely Trial Issues The indictment itself details the same extremist rhetoric and calls that we have seen from extremist groups on both the left and right in past years. It is an unsettling part of this age of rage. The defendants adopted pseudo military jargon and beat their chests about the coming civil war. It is important not to dismiss the danger that such groups pose. They come across at points as clowns but this is why clowns can be so scary. They are clowns who openly discussed storing weapons and fostering a civil war. The indictment details evidence that most of these men entered the Capitol and encouraged the rioting. Most of the charges are similar to those in other cases in that respect and seem well-based. It is really the first charge that has drawn the most attention and is likely to draw the most litigation.  However, as discussed above, keep in mind that a conspiracy requires only two people to conspire to hinder the executive of any law. Nevertheless, the Justice Department works hard to reinforce the view of this group as launching a military attack, using their own military jargon. It divides the group into “stacks” that “marched” on the Capitol. Thus, Stack 2 (composed of just three people) is described as not walking but marching around the crowded grounds: “[Stack Two] breached the Capitol grounds, marching from the west side to the east side of the Capitol building and up the east stairs.” The defense is likely to question these characterizations in pre-trial motions. Each “stack” was composed of a handful of people. Stack 1 was composed of Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Jospeh Hasckett, and David Moerschel. Stack 2 was composed of just Joshua James and Robero Minuta. Then there is the ominous sounding “Quick Reaction Force,” which the indictment said was composed of only Thomas Caldwell and Edward Vallejo. The indictment is strong on detailing the alleged violent rhetoric and machinations of the defendants. It shows men who speak of civil war and actively acquire weapons in the anticipation that they might be used. However, as a criminal defense attorney, there are some gaps and disconnects that I expect could cause difficulties at trial on the sedition conspiracy charge. (The rest of the charges will be more difficult to contest on things like obstructing an official proceeding). These are eleven people who were not armed with guns and some apparently never entered the Capitol. While the Justice Department discussed plans for river landings and arsenals of weapons and forces held in reserve, the individuals in Stack 2 were equipped with: “battle apparel and gear, including hard-knuckle tactical gloves, tactical vests, ballistic goggles, radios, chemical sprays, a paracord attachment, fatigues, goggles, scissors, a large stick, and one of the Stack Two member’s 82-pound German Shepherd named ‘Warrior.’” That is undistinguishable (and in some cases less lethal) than material seized from Antifa, Proud Boys, and other rioters in prior summer.  Despite buying and storing weapons, they did not bring them to the Hill, did not use them, and left the Hill with many others. Only one, Joshua James, is charged with the broad offense of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers.” (Count 8). The rest are charged with the common crimes of trespass, obstruction, and unlawful entry. The indictment details discussions of a civil war after the riot. On January 12, 2021, James messages “after this, … if nothing happens, its war … Civil War 2.0.” There was no apparent follow through after January 6th with an actual attack or rebellion against the government. The indictment also does not allege the broader conspiracy often raised by politicians and pundits. The defendants themselves appeared to acknowledge that they were acting without coordination with the Administration or President Trump. Rhodes messages “All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the Patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough.” There may be more charges coming given the references to unnamed “co-conspirators.” For example, on page 18, Watkins is quoted in discussions with someone who is only referenced as a “co-conspirator.” It is not clear if that person is a cooperating witness or a soon-to-be-charged defendant. There are other glaring issues for defense counsel, including the possibility that  a couple of the defendants who did not even participate in the actual riot at the Capitol building. That does not mean that they cannot be guilty of a conspiracy but it contradicts earlier published accounts. The government, for example, previously held Caldwell as a key organizer of the attack and claimed that he entered the Capitol with this co-conspirators.  The indictment, however, omits that allegation and now lists Caldwell with the two-man “Quick Reaction Force.” A federal judge ultimately refused to continue to hold Caldwell over the objections of the Justice Department. Those issues will have to be hashed out in the forthcoming criminal indictments. After such charges are brought, defendants are under overwhelming pressure to cooperate and reach a plea deal. We will have to see if that proves the case here or with any additional indictments. Conversely, these defendants will be able to demand exculpatory evidence from the government. Indictments always look more ominous before they are subject to adversarial challenge. However, it will be difficult to rebut some of these charges on obstructing the process or damaging government property. It will be the seditious conspiracy count that will produce the greatest factual and legal challenges in the months to come. Here is the indictment: Rhodes et al indictment Tyler Durden Sat, 01/15/2022 - 13:30.....»»

Durham Probe Inches Closer To Hillary As Alfa Bank Hoax Plot Thickens Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com, A Hillary Clinton campaign operation to plant a false rumor about Donald Trump setting up a “secret hotline” to Moscow through a Russian bank was much broader than known and involved multiple U.S. agencies, according to declassified documents and sources briefed on an ongoing criminal investigation of the scheme. In addition to the FBI, the 2016 Clinton campaign tried to convince the Obama administration’s State Department, Justice Department and Central Intelligence Agency to look into the hoax, and continued pressing the issue even after Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.The goal was to trigger federal investigative activity targeting her Republican rival and leak the damaging information to the media. “The Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure from a number of angles until investigations of Trump were opened and reopened,” said one of the briefed sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive law enforcement matter. "The deception was wide-ranging." Michael Sussmann: The indicted former Clinton campaign attorney wasn't the only one feeding the bogus Alfa Bank story to the feds. perkinscoie.com Special Counsel John Durham outlined the FBI part of the scheme in a felony indictment of Michael Sussmann. The former Clinton campaign lawyer was charged last month with making a false statement to the former general counsel of the FBI when he claimed he was not working “for any client” in bringing to the FBI’s attention allegations of a secret channel of communication between computer servers in Trump Tower and the Alfa Bank in Russia. According to the indictment, Sussmann was in fact acting on behalf of clients including the Clinton campaign, and an unnamed tech executive who RCI has previously reported is Rodney L. Joffe, a regular adviser to the Biden White House on cybersecurity and infrastructure policies. Internal emails reveal the Clinton operatives knew the links they made between Trump and Russia were “weak,” even describing them as a “red herring,” but fed them to investigators anyway. The Sussmann indictment revealed the doubts of those developing the Alfa Bank story. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia After Sussmann’s meeting with the FBI in September 2016, the Clinton campaign approached the State Department the following month with the same lead, this time using paid Clinton campaign subcontractor Christopher Steele to feed the rumors. A former British intelligence officer, Steele was offered as a reliable source to help corroborate the rumors. On Oct. 11, 2016, Steele gave his contact at Foggy Bottom documents alleging that a supposed hidden server at Trump Tower was pinging Moscow. Christopher Steele: Author of the debunked dossier passed the Alfa Bank story to the State Department, which passed it along to FBI agent Peter Strzok. (Aaron Chown/PA FILE via AP) Two days later, a State official who previously worked under former secretary Clinton funneled the information to the FBI’s then-top Eurasia/Russia counterintelligence official, Stephen Laycock, according to recently declassified notes and testimony. Laycock, in turn, forwarded the information to Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who led the investigation of Trump and his campaign and had just weeks earlier texted a bureau lawyer, “We’ll stop [Trump from being elected].” "I informed Peter Strzok and another supervisor,” Laycock testified last year in a closed-door Senate hearing. Telephone: After Steele fed the Alfa Bank story to State, it was passed to the FBI’s then-top Eurasia/Russia counterintelligence official, Stephen Laycock (left), who in turn passed it on to lead FBI agent on Trump-Russia, Peter Strzok (right). Facebook/Twitter Steele, who later confessed he was “desperate” to defeat Trump, was the author of the debunked dossier claiming Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election. He even misspelled the name of the Russian bank as “Alpha.” Still, the FBI took his rumors seriously enough to interview tech vendors working for the Trump Organization and obtain warrants to search Trump Tower servers. Within days of receiving the State Department tip, Strzok also used Steele’s dossier to secure a wiretap on Trump adviser Carter Page. Clinton foreign policy adviser and current National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would put out a written statement trumpeting the Trump-Alfa Bank story, which was shared by then-candidate Clinton on Oct. 31, 2016, after Slate reported on it. Fusion GPS, the Washington opposition-research group that worked for the Clinton campaign as a paid agent, and helped gather dirt on Alfa Bank and draft the materials Sussmann would later submit to the FBI, reportedly pressed Slate to publish the story by the account of its author, journalist Franklin Foer. The Clinton campaign played up the Trump-Alfa Bank story on the eve of the 2016 election. Twitter/@HillaryClinton “This was a highly sophisticated operation using enablers in both the media and federal agencies,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told RealClearInvestigations. The Clinton campaign did not let up even after Trump won the election. In mid-November 2016, it enlisted top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr – whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS – to add credibility to the Alfa rumors. That month, Ohr advised the FBI that Steele had told him that the Alfa Bank server was a link to the Trump campaign. Then in early December, Ohr met with the FBI case supervisor who worked for Strzok at least twice. Declassified notes and other records show that during those meetings, Ohr provided him with thumb drives he had received from paid Clinton opposition researcher and Fusion GPS co-founder, Glenn Simpson, and Ohr’s wife and Simpson’s colleague, Nellie. Quoting his Clinton sources, Ohr insisted the alleged backdoor computer channel between Trump and Alfa was real. Bruce Ohr: The Justice Department official -- linked to Clinton opposition research firm Fusion GPS through his wife Nellie, a Fusion employee -- brought the firm's arguments and materials to the FBI. The Global Initiative The FBI spent months investigating the claim, eventually dismissing it as baseless. After the FBI closed the case, Sussmann turned to the nation’s top intelligence agency for assistance, as RCI first reported. In December 2016, Sussmann called then-CIA Director John Brennan’s general counsel – Caroline Krass – to set up a meeting to brief her about the same Alfa Bank rumors. Krass expressed interest in the tip. Then in early February 2017, officials from her office formally sat down with Sussmann for more than an hour to discuss the Trump-Russian bank rumors. Sussmann provided them updated versions of the materials he had handed off to the FBI. Caroline Krass: General counsel to then-CIA Director John Brennan welcomed Sussmann's pitch of the Alfa Bank story, which reportedly passed from the CIA to FBI. CIA/Wikipedia The CIA, in turn, referred the rumors to an FBI liaison for further investigation, according to the sources briefed on his case. Strzok was the lead FBI liaison to the CIA at the time. Among the documents Durham has obtained is a CIA memo memorializing the meeting with Sussmann, according to the sources. In his grand jury indictment, Durham accused Sussmann of also misleading the CIA, which he referred to only as “Agency-2.” The special counsel alleges that Sussmann, as he did when meeting with an FBI official, had also failed to inform contacts at Langley that he was representing a client – in the latter case specifically Joffe – tied to the Clinton campaign operation and who had been promised a high-level job in a Clinton administration. Billing the Democrat’s campaign for his work on the “confidential project," Sussmann recruited Joffe and a team of federal computer contractors to mine proprietary databases containing vast quantities of sensitive, nonpublic Internet data for possible dirt on Trump and his advisers. In a new court document filed last week, Durham revealed his team has obtained more than 80,000 pages of documents in response to grand jury subpoenas issued to more than 15 targets and witnesses, including the computer contractors. Among others receiving subpoenas: political organizations, private firms, tech companies and other entities, including a major university — Georgia Tech — which allegedly participated in the Clinton conspiracy as a Pentagon contractor. Some witnesses have been granted immunity and are cooperating with prosecutors, the sources close to the probe said. Jonathan Turley: "One would expect a CIA official to express reluctance in an investigation that would have a largely domestic focus," says the law professor. CNN “While Sussmann may have hidden his work for the Clinton campaign, this was obviously a useful attack on Trump,” Turley said. “One would expect a CIA official to express reluctance in an investigation that would have a largely domestic focus. But as with the FBI, the Clinton campaign found eager officials to move on any such allegation.” The CIA is largely barred from collecting information inside the United States or on American citizens.“The CIA has no business involving itself in a domestic political issue,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told RCI. “The evidence suggests the primary purpose of the meeting was political." Fitton said his watchdog group has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA demanding all records generated from the contacts Sussmann had with the agency in December 2016 and February 2017. The CIA did not return requests for comment.For good measure, old Clinton hands tried another pressure point. In early February 2017, Clinton's foreign policy adviser Sullivan huddled with Fusion GPS's Simpson and Daniel Jones, an FBI analyst-turned-Democrat-operative, to reboot the same smear campaign against Trump. (As RCI previously reported, Sullivan, who spearheaded the campaign's effort to promote the narrative of a disturbing Trump-Russia relationship via the Alfa Bank story, is under scrutiny for possibly lying to Congress about his role in the operation.) Jones, in turn, reached out to his former colleagues at the FBI, who reopened the investigation into the old allegations of a cyber-link between Trump and Alfa Bank. Jake Sullivan played a pivotal role in the Alfa Bank story as 2016 Clinton foreign policy adviser. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File The next month, acting on Jones’ recycled tip, FBI agents visited the offices of the Pennsylvania company that housed the Trump server, which was actually administered by a third-party hotel promotions firm – Cendyn, based in Florida. But their second investigation proved to be another dead end. The sinister communications Jones claimed were flowing between an alleged Trump server and Alfa Bank were found to be innocuous marketing emails. In other words, spam. Sources say it is odd that FBI headquarters continued to pursue the allegations, because internal FBI communications reveal that the bureau’s own cyber sleuths had pooh-poohed them within days of Sussmann’s briefing, RCI has learned. Strzok himself had been briefed on that assessment of the materials Sussman dropped off at headquarters on Sept. 19, 2016. In fact, in a Sept. 23, 2016, internal message to Strzok, an FBI official relayed his preliminary findings following an interview with Cendyn, the Florida marketing firm that managed the alleged Trump server.“Followed up this morning with Central Dynamics [Cendyn] who confirmed that the mail1.trump-email.com domain is an old domain that was set up in approximately 2009 when they were doing business with the Trump Organization that was never used,” according to the message. Reacting to the Durham indictment, Strzok recently tried to distance himself from the Alfa scandal, insisting in a Lawfare blog: “I had a minor role in the events in question, insofar as I transferred the material Sussman gave to Jim Baker, the FBI’s general counsel at the time, to the personnel who ultimately supervised and looked into the allegations.” Echoing other critics, Strzok complained that Durham – who originally was tapped to investigate the origins of the Russia “collusion” investigation by Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr – is conducting a partisan witch hunt on behalf of Trump. Strzok's claims notwithstanding, Barr's successor, the President Biden-nominated Attorney General Merrick Garland, testified last week that he has renewed funding and staffing for Durham’s far-reaching investigation for the next fiscal year. “[Y]ou can readily assume his budget has been approved,” Garland assured Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. Tyler Durden Sat, 10/30/2021 - 23:30.....»»

The Great Credit Unwind & Powell's Hidden Pivot Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com, We are all now aware that the global banking system is extremely fragile. Driving bank failures is contracting credit, which in turn drives interest rates higher. Though it is not generally appreciated, central banks have failed to suppress them. Some regional banks have failed in the US and the run on Credit Suisse’s deposits has forced the Swiss authorities into forcing a reluctant rescue by UBS. Undoubtedly, as the great credit unwind plays out, there will be more rescues to come. In this, the earliest stages of a banking crisis, some questions are being answered. We can probably rule out bail-ins in favour of bail outs, and we can assume that nearly all banks will be rescued — they must be in order to prevent systemic contagion.  In this article I quantify the position of the global systemically important banks (the G-SIBs) and point out that the central banks which are meant to backstop them are themselves bankrupt — or rather they would be properly accounted for.  Because even a minor failure in the banking system could undermine the entire global banking system, the much heralded pivot is now here, but not in plain sight. Because central banks have lost control over interest rates, the focus on preserving the financial markets underpinning the banking system has shifted to supressing bond yields. This is why the Fed has introduced its Bank Term Funding Programme, likely to be copied in other jurisdictions.  It is Powell’s hidden pivot — his line in the sand. But it is the last desperate throw of the dice and depends entirely on inflation being transient and interest rates not rising much more.  The price of even a successful preservation of the banking system is the destruction of fiat currencies, because the bigger picture is still of the greatest credit bubble in history unwinding. And that process has only recently started... The great unwind accelerates  Now that everyone in finance knows that there is a banking crisis, cynicism prevails. When a central banker or treasury minister tries to reassure the public, it is disbelieved. The risk to an extremely fragile global banking system is that if disbelief in public statements spreads from financial sceptics to the wider public, the system is doomed. All credit is based on confidence and confidence alone. It is still too early to say that confidence has been irretrievably shaken. But last weekend, UBS was unwillingly forced by the Swiss authorities into taking over Credit Suisse on a share swap, which valued the latter’s shares at about 70 centimes. That put Credit Suisse’s shares on a discount to book value of 94%. Admittedly, this figure is unreliable when deposits are running out of the door and the full value of foreign exchange derivatives are not accounted for. But it does raise a question over the valuations of all the other global systemically important European banks. And why stop there — the G-SIBs have all taken in each other’s laundry, so if one fails so might all the rest. Perhaps they should all be similarly valued. Presumably, in their groupthink the central bankers represented by the three wise monkeys in the illustration above never thought it would come to this. After all, their regulators have frequently conducted stress tests and all major banks routinely pass them with flying colours. But as Kevin Dowd, Professor of Finance and Economics at Durham University put it in 2016 in one of his several critical reviews of bank regulation,  “The purpose of the stress testing programme should be to highlight the vulnerability of our banking system and the need to rebuild it. Instead, it has achieved the exact opposite, portraying a weak banking system as strong. This is like having a ship radar system that cannot detect an iceberg in plain view. “As the EU banking system goes into a renewed crisis, the UK banking system is in no fit state to withstand the storm. Once contagion spreads from Italy to Germany and then to the UK, we will have a new banking crisis but on a much grander scale than 2007-08. “The Bank of England is asleep at the wheel again, and we will be back to beleaguered banksters begging for bailouts – and the taxpayer will be ripped off yet again, but bigger this time." Unfortunately, it is Professor Dowd’s analysis and conclusion that have stood the test of time. And nothing, repeat nothing, has been done to alter this situation. Only last Monday, the President of the ECB proved this point by releasing the following official statement: “I welcome the swift action and the decisions taken by the Swiss authorities. They are instrumental for restoring orderly market conditions and ensuring financial stability. The euro area banking sector is resilient, with strong capital and liquidity positions. In any case, our policy toolkit is fully equipped to provide liquidity support to the euro area financial system if needed and to preserve the smooth transmission of monetary policy.” (italics are my emphasis)[ii]  The group-thinking on stress testing is based on commonly agreed parameters between central banks and regulators for constructing stress models, and their desire to be seen discharging their duties rather than the actuality. That being the case, what we have seen in Switzerland which led to Credit Suisse being valued at only 6% of its book value is an important message not just for European bank regulation, but elsewhere as well. Whatever their mollifying statements, the central bank groupthinkers must now be very worried. But they appear to lack coordination. The Swiss National Bank decided that as part of bailing out Credit Suisse, it would bail in higher ranking bond holders, writing off Sf17bn. That shareholders should get something while senior creditors get nothing is a travesty of company law. Following the market’s reaction, it has been swiftly denounced by regulators in Europe and London, only days after the ECB President issued the formal statement above, extoling the Swiss authorities for their actions. The consequences of the Swiss National Bank writing off senior creditors are likely not just to impose losses on other banks which are in a fragile state themselves and can ill afford their senior debt to be traduced in this way, but to make future bond financing of banks more difficult. Furthermore, banks, insurance companies, and pension funds will be reassessing their risk exposure to all Swiss franc denominated bonds, even to the extent of impacting UBS, Credit Suisse’s rescuer.  The legal wrangling and rating downgrades probably start here, and no one comes out of it without damage to their reputations. And as already noted above, credit depends entirely on confidence. One can only assume that this will get central banks and their regulators to drop the whole bail-in concept in their attempts to ensure the survival of their commercial banking systems. Perhaps the Swiss should backtrack on their decision to save a paltry Sf17bn. We can understand and accept that Swiss banks get into trouble. But the Swiss authorities’ clumsy handling of the Credit Suisse crisis is risking its national reputation for financial probity and stability. The broader problem is that confidence in banking is beginning to be publicly undermined. It is not just a matter of identifying the weakest links, but it is becoming a systemic problem of the widest proportions. The illusion of control by central banks is being shattered by the great credit unwind. Consequently, the policy priority is pivoting from the inflation mandate to pure survival. And as we have seen illustrated by the Swiss authorities, the scope for error is chasmic.  The G-SIB mess Bail-in legislation was not the only G-20 response to the Lehman crisis. The Basel Committee’s third iteration of its regulations, still not fully implemented, was the Bank for International Settlement’s contribution to post-Lehman banking reform. The designation of a new category of bank, the global systemically important bank, or G-SIB, was created. G-SIBs are required to have additional capital buffers to address the systemic risks they are exposed to from international counterparties, relative to domestic regional banks. Here are some relevant facts. At current exchange rates, total G-SIB balance sheet assets are recorded at $63,978 billion. But this is supported by only $4,444 billions of balance sheet equity, giving a ratio of assets to equity of 14.4 times. But this is not evenly spread, with the Eurozone’s seven G-SIBs averaging 19.7 times, and Japan’s three G-SIBs at 23 times. At the lower end of the scale, the US’s eight G-SIBs average 11.4 times and China’s four banks 12.0 times. All these ratios translate into unacceptable leverage when credit unwinds and interest rates increase, threatening to trigger rapidly rising levels of non-performing loans. This is at least partially recognised in stock markets, where G-SIB shares commonly stand at significant discounts to book value. Only four out of the twenty-nine listed G-SIBs have price to book ratios greater than one. Based on last Monday’s share prices, the average price to book for Eurozone G-SIBs is a discount of 56%, for Japan 47%, for China 54%, and for the US it is only 7% bolstered by JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley being the only two US banks trading at a reasonable premium to book value. There is considerable variance within these figures, but the message from the markets is clear: whatever the regulators and central banks say and despite their extra capital buffers, G-SIBs are still a risky investment. These statistics do not tell the whole story. As we saw with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, it was using widely adopted accounting methods to conceal losses on its bond investments. As of Dec. 31, 2022, SVB had about $120 billion in investments, primarily high quality bonds, such as US Treasuries and agency debt. According to its 10-K filed in February. the bank only had $74 billion of loans to borrowers. Therefore, its investments were significantly larger than its loans. Of the $120 billion in investments, $91 billion were classified as “held to maturity” investments and were not reported at fair value in each reporting period. Instead, they were reported at amortized cost, net of any reserves for credit losses in accordance with accounting convention. SVB originally bought its bonds when the yield curve was positive. That is to say, the cost of short-term funding was less than the yield on the longer maturities which SVB bought. But when the Fed increased its fund rate from the zero bound, the yield curve turned sharply negative with two consequences for SVB. First, its short-term funding costs began to rise, and secondly the capital value of the bonds began to fall. Its shareholders’ capital on the balance sheet was soon wiped out, and belated attempts to rectify the situation simply broadcast SVB’s problems, leading to its demise. It is a problem which is not confined to SVB. There will be other regional banks in the US and elsewhere which have fallen into the same trap. And it won’t be a problem restricted to regional banks. One can speculate that the incentive to buy longer maturity bonds than banks normally hold on their balance sheets was stronger in jurisdictions which imposed negative interest rates. A Eurozone or Japanese bank has had a zero or even slightly negative cost of short-term funding in their respective money markets, encouraging them to buy longer-dated government bonds. And like SVB, they will have been whipsawed by sharply rising short-term rates. This leads us to speculate about how much of similar losses may be hidden in the entire G-SIB system. Like SVB, have they been sufficient to wipe out the notional shareholders’ capital of all the G-SIBs, which we know to be $4.444 trillion? But this problem is not even the mother of all elephants in the room — that award goes to derivatives. The G-SIBs’ participation in regulated futures and over-the-counter derivatives is valued on their balance sheets at net mark-to-market values, which are very small fractions of their nominal values. Nevertheless, regulated futures are credit commitments for the full amounts, and should be valued as such. Options which have been sold are similarly commitments for their exercisable amounts, though bought options are not. The amounts of open interest involved at end-2022 are assessed by the Bank for International Settlements at $36,630bn for all regulated futures, and a further $43,182bn in options. These are just one side of open interest, the majority of which is bank exposure as market makers, traders, and banks acting as principals for their customers. In OTC derivatives, foreign exchange and commodity contracts are liabilities for their full amounts, while credit swaps are not.  At end-June 2022, foreign exchange contracts amounted to $109,587bn with a further $12,951bn in options. Commodity contracts add a further $2,341bn.[iii] We can exclude the large category of credit default swaps, because their gross values are purely notional. These exposures represent only one side of credit commitments, the other being distributed among non-bank financial institutions, hedgers, speculators, and other banks as well. From the G-SIBs’ collective balance sheet perspective, they should all be included at full value.  Last December, Claudio Borio, Head of the BIS’s Monetary and Economic Department even wrote a paper on this topic. Borio stated that “Foreign exchange swap positions point to over $80 trillion of hidden US dollar debt [part of the $109.587 trillion above], reported off-balance sheet”. And “The volume of daily foreign exchange turnover subject to settlement risk remains stubbornly high despite mechanisms to mitigate such risks”. In effect, Borio confirmed that for a true appreciation of global banking risk, gross OTC values for foreign exchange contracts should be recorded on both sides of bank balance sheets, and not just as net mark-to-market contract values. Between regulated and unregulated derivatives, we are therefore staring down the barrel of a further $210 trillion of balance sheet liabilities, to be added to the $64 trillion of officially recorded total G-SIB balance sheets, all supported by only $4.444 trillion of shareholder’s funds. And while the US G-SIBs appear to be less leveraged than their opposite numbers in the Eurozone and Japan, it should be noted that as Borio points out the large majority of OTC exposure is in dollar-denominated contracts, for which the US G-SIBs are the counterparties. If only one G-SIB fails, its counterparty risks could easily undermine all the others. As Borio pointed out, settlement risk remains stubbornly high. It explains why the Fed was ready to come up so swiftly with swap lines for the Swiss National Bank to aid it in its attempt to support Credit Suisse. And it allows us to draw a further conclusion: credit expansion at the central bank level to ensure the global financial system’s survival will place the greatest burden on the dollar, being the currency in which most of these derivative obligations are settled. Can central banks actually handle a credit crisis? Having invested in government and other bonds at the top of the market — a top created by them to be far higher than they would otherwise have been — central banks are now demonstrably bankrupt unless they recapitalise themselves. For all of them, excepting the ECB, it is theoretically easy to do but best done before commercial banks need their support.  The simplest way of recapitalising a central bank is by expanding its balance sheet assets in favour of equity instead of other liabilities. Delaying addressing the same problems faced by Silicon Valley Bank on the basis they need not doesn’t serve central banks well. The losses can be assumed to continue to accumulate as commercial bank credit continues to contract, because it is credit contraction which drives up the true level of interest rates. Already, the Bank of Japan has been accumulating financial assets at negative yields, so that even with a small rise on yields, its losses from last year are over four thousand times its balance sheet capital of only 100 million yen. Sooner or later, its credibility is bound to be questioned if it fails to address this issue. But of all the central banks, the ECB is probably the most difficult to recapitalise. The ECB’s shareholders are not a single state, but the national central banks of the twenty member nations (including Croatia which joined the euro system in January). Unfortunately, with few exceptions the NCBs in the euro system are also all in need of recapitalisation. Imagine the legislative hurdles. The Bundesbank, let’s say, presents a case to the Bundestag to pass enabling legislation to permit it to recapitalise itself and to subscribe to more capital in the ECB on the basis of its share of the ECB’s equity — the capital key — to restore it to solvency as well. One can imagine finance ministers being persuaded that there is no alternative to the proposal, but then it will be noticed by pedestrian politicians that the Bundesbank is owed over €1.1 trillion through the TARGET2 system. Surely, it will almost certainly be argued, if those liabilities were paid to the Bundesbank, there would be no need for it to recapitalise itself. If only it were so simple. But clearly, it is not in the Bundesbank’s interest to involve politicians in monetary affairs. The public debate would risk spiralling out of control, with possibly fatal consequences for the entire euro system. It would be a row at the worst possible time. And with twenty NCB shareholders facing similar hurdles, their contributions to refinancing the ECB requires unanimous consent for proportional subscriptions in accordance with their capital keys. Besides the confusion over bail-ins and bail outs which we can now hope has been settled, there still remains a huge question mark over whether the central banks have the wherewithal to discharge the potentially enormous burden of bail out commitments. In any event, it will need massive quantities of additional central bank credit in all relevant currencies to backstop the system. The destruction to balance sheets at both central and commercial bank levels reinforces the point, that central banks are likely to move their attention away from short-term interest rates over which they have lost control to bond yields which they can still influence. Different versions of the Fed’s Bank Term Funding Programme (more on which follows) are likely to be devised. It is becoming a hidden pivot. The hidden pivot In a classic banking crisis, bank balance sheets become overextended and bankers become cautious in their lending, restricting the expansion of credit. The credit shortage leads to higher interest rates for the few borrowers deemed creditworthy and able to pay them. Both producers and consumers are affected. The shortage of credit and higher borrowing costs result in businesses failing, and a slump in economic activity follows. This leads in turn to the problem identified by Irving Fisher, which he described as his debt-deflation theory.[iv] According to Fisher, when the cycle of bank lending turns down and higher interest rates and falling collateral values follow, it forces banks to call in loans, liquidating collateral and driving colateral values down further. The self-feeding nature of this phenomenon deepens the slump and leads to banking failures.  Fisher’s paper was published in the wake of record numbers of bank failures in America between 1930—1933. And it should also be noted that it has informed every state economist ever since. The fear of a slump exacerbated by collateral liquidation is in the back of every mainstream economist’s mind. But so far, there has been not much evidence of credit shortages undermining the non-financial economy. Presumably, the downturns in credit expansion reflected in broad money supply statistics have reflected banks withdrawing from financial activities, so the hit to non-financial activity is yet to come. But the issue of falling collateral values identified by Fisher has resurfaced in problems created by policy makers themselves, because the sudden rise in interest rates has had the same effect. This is why we are now witnessing central banks pivoting from control of inflation to the preservation of the global commercial banking system. The danger of systemic failure is more hardwired into central bankers’ DNA than that of inflation. And frankly, they have proved pretty clueless on interest rate management anyway. They are set to do “whatever it takes” to preserve both financial market values and the status quo. But things have moved on from Mario Draghi’s famous aphorism. No longer just a finger-wagging threat, whatever it takes is likely to end up undermining the purchasing power of currencies. Whatever it takes is now an open-ended commitment to whatever it costs. There can be no question that pivoting from fear of inflation to fear of a banking crisis undermines currencies. But central bankers appear to find it difficult to concede it publicly. The Fed’s solution is to offer to take in all US Treasuries, agency debt, mortgage-backed securities, and “other qualifying assets as collateral” at par with no haircut against cash liquidity for one year. Furthermore, with foreigners no longer net buyers of Treasuries, there is a funding problem to address. The Fed stated that its new bank term funding programme (BTFP)  “…will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors. This action will bolster the capacity of the banking system to safeguard deposits and ensure the ongoing provision of money and credit to the economy. The Federal Reserve is prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise.” It is a policy that might have been scripted by Irving Fisher’s ghost. The one-year term of the facility shows that the Fed regards this as a temporary problem to be reversed when the situation improves, and inflation returns towards its two per cent target. Yes, all the forecasts are still for inflation to be transient — only it is taking just a little longer than originally thought. The BTFP is QE by another name, injecting credit into the banks —admitted in the Fed’s statement above. But we have seen that the Fed’s few attempts to reverse QE have always threatened the credit bubble. As soon as bankers realise that because of the history of quantitative tightening, which is what the ending of the facility will amount to, the loan terms can be regarded by them as perpetual. Any bond standing at a discount can be collateralised with the Fed at final redemption value, notwithstanding its current market value at a discount. Already, this has driven the 10-year US Treasury yield below its major moving averages, indicating further falls in yield are to come. Clearly, this is a facility which is likely to lead to a massive and additional expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. But by putting a one-year loan term on this facility, the Fed will feel justified in disregarding the automatic loss the BTFP facility creates on the basis that the bonds bought will simply returned to the sellers who will repay the money borrowed. It will be treated like a long-term repurchase agreement. While we know that realistically this repo will turn out to be perpetual, purchases in the market by banks to benefit from the BTFP facility allows the Fed to reduce its losses on its existing bond holdings as their yields fall further. And importantly, the government’s deficit will continue to be funded. The banking crisis similarly exists in other jurisdictions, so it is likely that the other major central banks will introduce their own versions of the Fed’s BTFP. All that’s required is an unhealthy dose of group-thinking that the inflation monster will retreat into its cave, and that therefore the outlook for bond yields is for them to fall. Driving this hope is the benefit to central bank balance sheets, which if their assets were properly valued currently puts them all deeply into negative equity.[vi] If it works, the pressure will diminish on banks with bonds shown as held to maturity and the situation might become manageable. But there is still the ongoing problem of credit contraction, which is not going to go away. Can the Fed suppress bond yields by much when the real cost of borrowing, which is driven by credit contraction, continues to rise? The Fed’s BTFP looks like its final gamble. The refuge from this credit crisis is only real money — gold. This article attempts to explain the true state of global credit. Everything appeared to be fine, until the Fed realised it was losing control over interest rates and had to raise them from the zero bound. This was followed by other central banks, with the lone exception of the Bank of Japan. Consequently, the global credit bubble which had been inflating financial asset values over the last forty years, has now burst. Anyone who dispassionately analyses credit conditions must come to this conclusion. Furthermore, far from being an unexpected shock, we are seeing just the start of a great unwind — a great unwind which will continue to impose mounting strains on the global banking system. Even at the first hurdle, it has become clear that the world’s leading central banks in their dollar-based credit system will do whatever they can to preserve it. This is as expected, but the consequences are that the dollar’s credibility as credit will continue to be undermined as rescue after rescue proceeds.  First it was a banking crisis, and that is just the beginning of it. Now the Fed is acting to save financial asset values, likely to be followed by the other members of the central banking cabal. Then it will be the non-financial economy, as malinvestments and over-extended consumers are exposed, leading to further banking write-offs. And finally, it will be governments themselves, faced with soaring welfare costs and collapsing tax revenues, exacerbated by foreigners no longer buying Treasuries. There is only one probable outcome: being only credit, national currencies will eventually lose their credibility. The root of credit valuation woes is that one form of credit, being that in the hands of commercial bank creditors, depends for its value on another form of credit, being manifest in bank notes. But unbeknown to most people, a bank note is not money: it is a credit liability of a central bank. An incorporeal form of wealth is wholly dependent upon another. But as we have seen, the rottenness of the credit system is not confined to a few bad apples in the banking system. The entire contents of the credit basket are rotten, from the top down. For individuals, there is only one escape from the inevitable destruction of the value of credit. And that is to get out of the collapsing credit system altogether. The collapse may appear slow today, but at some indefinable stage in the future, it will become sudden.  It won’t be just the sceptics and cynics finding fault in the system, but the general public will lose faith in their currencies. And when they do, the point of no return has been passed. The corporeal, as opposed to incorporeal form of credit is gold. It is credit without any counterparty. It is credit only in the sense that it is the unspent product of labour and profit. This distinction allows us to define gold as the only stable medium of exchange, or true money. Gold has been money since the end of barter. In today’s monetary system, it has been legal money since Roman coin came into existence, which according to the Roman juror Gaius was at the time of the Duodecim Tabularum, the Twelve Tables ratified by the Centuriate Assembly in 449 BC. Credit comes and goes, but gold is there for ever. Tyler Durden Sat, 03/25/2023 - 08:10.....»»

The package was mailed to the Manhattan building where the Trump "hush money" grand jury sits, police told Insider. It was addressed to Alvin Bragg. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.AP Photo/Seth Wenig White powder was mailed Friday to the Manhattan building where the Trump 'hush money' grand jury sits. The grand jury was not in session and the powder was quickly determined to be non-hazardous. The powder was contained in an envelope addressed to DA Alvin Bragg, NBC reported. A package containing "suspicious white powder" was discovered at noon on Friday in the building where a grand jury has been hearing evidence in the Trump "hush-money" investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, officials told Insider.The package was delivered to the building's mail room, and was non-hazardous, police told Insider.NBC reported that the letter was addressed to Bragg and said "ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!"The letter was delivered by USPS, Fox News reported.The grand jury meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, sources have told Insider, and was not in session on Friday. No one was sickened or taken to the hospital; the package was determined to be non-hazardous within three hours, officials told Insider."The D.A. has informed the office that it was immediately contained and that the NYPD Emergency Service Unit and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection determined there was no dangerous substance," a DA spokesperson said.—Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) March 24, 2023 Police said the incident is under investigation. The apparent threat came as a grand jury is weighing evidence that could lead to an indictment of former President Donald Trump over his alleged role in hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Bragg in the past week, calling him a "WOKE TYRANT" and "SOROS BACKED ANIMAL" while encouraging his followers to "take our nation back" as an indictment looms.On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social a link to an article with a photo composite of him holding a baseball bat next to an image of Bragg's head. His Truth post has since been taken down.On Saturday, Bragg sent his employees an office-wide email promising that, "our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment."Experts on political violence have warned that Trump's words could trigger violence. Officers with the NYPD and the city Department of Environmental Protection were seen just before 3 p.m. carrying red, hazardous materials bags out of the lower Manhattan office building where Bragg and his team of prosecutors also have offices.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The guests sat in awkward silence until Trump's audio reconnected. He then said: "What happened was that the radical left was working on the phone." Michael Flynn, Donald Trump and Roger Stone.Dustin Franz/Getty Images, Alex Wong/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images Donald Trump claimed left-wing forces interrupted his prayer call with Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. Trump was abruptly cut off during the call. Guests sat in awkward silence until Trump reconnected.  When Trump got back on the call, he blamed being disconnected on the "radical left," without evidence. An online prayer session organized by a pro-trump Christian group ran into technical difficulties. Former President Donald Trump, who was the guest of honor on the call, immediately blamed it on the "radical left."The "Pastors For Trump National Prayer Call," held on Monday invited guests like Trump ally Roger Stone and retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a Trump-era national security adviser, and Trump himself. A recording of the call was uploaded to Youtube on Monday. Shortly after Trump joined the call, host Jackson Lahmeyer, who describes himself as a pastor and entrepreneur, asked him what specific prayer request Trump had for the pastors on the call.At that point, Trump's audio disconnected. The guests sat in awkward silence for a couple of minutes before Trump managed to reconnect to the call."Okay, I guess we have some phone miscommunication. And I think what happened was that the radical left was working on the phone. There is no question about it," Trump claimed, without providing further evidence.Speaking to The Daily Beast's Zachary Petrizzo, Lahmeyer blamed "trolls" for flooding the "backstage" of the prayer call."Everything froze on our end," Lahmeyer told The Daily Beast. "I think the system got overloaded with the number of viewers." Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesman, did not address Insider's query whether there was any proof of hackers messing with the call when reached for comment. The prayer call was held to pray for Trump as he faces a potential indictment in New York regarding hush money payments to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump claimed without evidence in a Saturday Truth Social post that he will be arrested on Tuesday, and called on his supporters to protest on his behalf.During the prayer call, Stone said that Trump was the victim of a "weaponized judicial process" in which a "routine campaign finance violation" was being used to unfairly target him.Stone has been a long-time Trump ally. He was present at Trump's 2024 re-election announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach in November, which was attended by very few congressmen. He was also sentenced to 40 months in prison for making false statements and tampering with evidence in an investigation into Trump, a sentence Trump commuted. Michael Flynn, who was briefly Trump's national security advisor, pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russia. He was pardoned in 2020 by Trump. Flynn is also known for his links to the QAnon conspiracy theory, and for pushing a wild, unsubstantiated theory that COVID-19 vaccines are being snuck into salad dressing. Flynn claimed during the prayer call on Monday that Trump is saving the country from going along a "godless path."Cheung said of the call: "Millions of Americans are praying for President Trump because he is the only one standing in the way of radical, liberal prosecutors abusing their power from targeting citizens they disagree with."Stone, Flynn, and Lahmeyer did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

New Evidence May Finally Trigger A Trump Indictment; Georgia DA Has Recording of Third Threatening Phone Call Fani Willis Obtains Recording Of Trump’s Third Call WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 17, 2023) – It has just been revealed that Fulton County DA Fani Willis has a third and previously undisclosed recording of a telephone call by Donald […] New Evidence May Finally Trigger A Trump Indictment; Georgia DA Has Recording of Third Threatening Phone Call Fani Willis Obtains Recording Of Trump’s Third Call WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 17, 2023) – It has just been revealed that Fulton County DA Fani Willis has a third and previously undisclosed recording of a telephone call by Donald Trump, and possibly also of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, seeking to pressure a government official to illegally alter the presidential vote in Georgia. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   The first recording was of a telephone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who was urged to somehow "find" new votes to make Trump the winner. In it Trump threatened Raffensperger with possible federal criminal sanctions if he refused. The second recorded call, also previously known to the public, was to investigator Frances Watson who was conducting an audit of absentee ballots in Cobb County. Trump asked her to somehow uncover unspecified "dishonesty" in the voting, and promised that "when the right answer comes out, you'll be praised." This new recorded telephone call, from Trump to now-deceased Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, asked the Republican to illegally convene a special session of the Legislature to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. It was played for the special grand jury investigating Trump and his allies, and makes the evidence that Trump violated the laws of Georgia even more overwhelming, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whose formal legal complaint that Trump violated criminal laws in the state triggered Willis' investigation, and subsequently the calling of the special grand jury. This new evidence further strengthens Willis' already very strong legal hand, and may help pressure her to promptly issue an unprecedented indictment of a former president, especially if she wants to beat the Manhattan District Attorney to be first. DA Alvin L. Bragg just offered Trump an opportunity to testify before his grand jury, which is usually a sign that an indictment is imminent, suggests Banzhaf. Also, the Manhattan prosecutors just met with the recipient of Trump's alleged bribe, Stormy Daniels, as well as took testimony from Trump's former attorney and "fixer," Michael Cohen, who actually paid the hush money. Several experts are suggesting that a Bragg indictment of Trump could come down as early as next week, although it might not then be made public for several more days. Prof Banzhaf notes that an ever growing number of legal experts have also concluded that Trump's gravest legal threat comes from the DA of Fulton County, Georgia; in part because Attorney General Merrick Garland may nix one or more proposed federal prosecutions for legal and/or political reasons, as well as because of the troubling "optics," says Banzhaf. Recently, civil rights attorney David Henderson said on MSNBC that "I think in terms of prosecutors, he has the most to fear down in Georgia because Fani Willis is not going to back off, and many of the arguments that we hear about prosecuting the former president are not going to be persuasive to her." Also, Willis wrote “target” letters to 10 more Republican electors, putting them on notice that they too could be indicted - a very clear indication that she is moving forward. It’s hard to see how electors in a scheme to affect the election could be prosecuted without also including the person behind and encouraging the entire scheme, argues Banzhaf. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, has written "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. And I think the charges will stick." The Most Significant Legal Threat Earlier, THE HILL reported that legal experts say "an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president." “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.”   As the two former prosecutors concluded, "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing. . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted [under RICO] — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." As the New York Times further explained: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct." For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’ jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." Prof Banzhaf and other legal experts have suggested that there is strong evidence that Trump and his allies also violated several additional Georgia criminal statutes. It also seems clear the Willis is planning to bring charges under Georgia's RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] Act which is more sweeping than its federal counterpart, says Banzhaf, whose legal memo led to a successful federal RICO prosecution of the major tobacco companies. There are many other indications that Willis may soon indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and for finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice......»»

A Manhattan grand jury may soon indict Donald Trump while the ex-president is in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Former U.S. President Donald Trump.James Devaney/GC Images) If Donald Trump is indicted in Manhattan and refuses to show up, he'll be extradited. Ron DeSantis can't stop extradition from Trump's home in Florida, but he could slow the process. Florida also has an extradition method that may allow New York prosecutors to sidestep the governor. The day may finally come.The Manhattan District Attorney's office offered former President Donald Trump the chance to testify before a grand jury, signaling it may soon bring a criminal indictment against him.The district attorney's office spent years investigating Trump's finances and is now poised to bring charges over falsified records related to his payments to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet ahead of the 2016 election about an affair she claims she had with him.Trump, for his part, does not seem happy about the whole situation. On Truth Social and in public statements, Trump has said the investigation is illegitimate and disparaged Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is Black, as a racist. Trump has denied that there was ever an affair with Daniels, and said this week he has done "absolutely nothing wrong."If an indictment is filed against Trump, the most likely scenario is that he would show up voluntarily for booking, legal experts told Insider.Lawyers for the Bragg's office would tell Trump's lawyers, and they'd mutually agree on a time and place — probably the district attorney's office at One Hogan Place in downtown Manhattan — to book him, take his fingerprints, and shoot his mugshot."They'll take him upstairs, they'll put him in a holding area, they'll process him internally, and then he'll be brought in front of the judge several hours later and he'll be released on his own recognizance," Michael Bachner, a New York-based lawyer and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, told Insider. "And that'll be that."But there is always the chance Trump won't comply.He's repeatedly attacked the Manhattan investigation over the years and was found in contempt of court for refusing to comply with subpoenas in a different case brought by the New York State Attorney General's office. It's easy to imagine him defying the legal process and remaining home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida."It would just be, in my opinion, like the epitome of stupid," Bachner said. "But I do agree that Trump has at times certainly exhibited conduct that many of us would characterize as stupid."If Trump doesn't show up voluntarily, he'll be extradited. While the nuances of extradition may slightly differ between states, there's no legal way to defy it entirely. Interstate extradition is required by Article 4, Section 2 of the US Constitution. Forcing an extradition process also means Trump could spend hours or days in jail as the process plays out."The indictment and the charges are not going to go away," Tamara Holder, a Florida-based attorney and legal commentator, told Insider. "This is an early stage of a criminal proceeding, and it's very important that you present yourself to the court early on as somebody who's going to fight the case and not fight the extradition."Florida law allows for two different forms of extradition. One path runs through Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely considered to be Trump's archrival for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.DeSantis can't stop Trump's extradition, but he could slow it downThe standard method of interstate extradition in Florida, according to Holder and Bachner, involves the governors of each state.In that scenario, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office would present the indictment to the legal affairs office of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. Hochul, in turn, would send a written extradition demand to DeSantis. Her letter would attach a copy of the indictment, proving that there's a warrant out for Trump's arrest in New York. DeSantis is then required to make sure the indictment is valid before ordering Trump's extradition from Florida.DeSantis's role has given rise to the theory, first floated by Politico in 2021, that the governor could refuse to sign off on the extradition and give Trump harbor in Florida.That simply isn't how it works, Holder and Bachner told Insider. The Florida extradition statute describes the governor's role as simply making sure the extradition demand meets all the legal requirements. That means all DeSantis has to do is make sure Hochul sends her a copy of the indictment and sufficient evidence that Trump's alleged crime took place in New York."The governor doesn't have the power to stop an extradition," Holder told Insider, adding: "The governor's only involvement is to look at the papers and make sure that the papers are proper to issue the warrant."Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis.REUTERS/Octavio JonesDave Aronberg, the top prosecutor in Palm Beach County, which includes Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, said as much in an interview with CNN in 2021.He pointed out that the governor's power in extraditions is merely administrative."The governor's power to stop an extradition is really nonexistent," Aronberg said. "He can try to delay it, he can send it to a committee and do research about it, but his role is really ministerial, and ultimately the state of New York can go to court and get an order to extradite the former president."DeSantis could, however, slow down the process. According to Bachner, he could ask his legal affairs office or a prosecutor to review Hochul's extradition demand and write a report on it before signing off on it. But if the extradition demand is legitimate, he'll have to sign it within 60 days, Bachner said. He could also delegate and let another member of the Florida executive branch sign off on Hochul's extradition demand, according to Bachner.It's unlikely that DeSantis will look too closely under the hood of the indictment if it's issued, Bachner told Insider."If there's a fully voted indictment, they're not gonna start investigating the underlying facts of the indictment to determine whether it was sufficient or not," Bachner said. "Once there's an indictment voted, it would be shocking that a judge would not order extradition. Trump knows that."That said, DeSantis may feel pressure from fellow Republicans in the state to protect Trump, according to Holder."This is a state where the Republicans really protect each other from these Democratic states like New York," she said. "And so I think it'll be really interesting legally to see what steps they're gonna take here in Florida to protect him outside of this statute if they can."Donald Trump and Melania Trump attend a dinner with his family at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty ImagesDeSantis's sign-off, however, could give a bipartisan valence to any indictment, undercutting Trump's argument that Bragg's investigation is politically motivated."If you have the governor in Florida sending him over, it's kind of just another reinforcement of the propriety of the indictment," Bachner said.Even if DeSantis approves Hochul's extradition demand and issues a warrant for Trump's arrest, the ex-president still has a chance to stay out of cuffs, according to Bachner. At that point, he has the option of hopping on a plane to New York to turn himself in, Bachner said.Trump could also contest the warrant in court, but would almost certainly fail to convince a judge the underlying grand jury indictment is invalid, Bachner said. Losing that battle also gives prosecutors the chance to request that Trump be held on bail before he goes to New York, according to Bachner, which would defeat Trump's goal of avoiding jail time.Florida also has an obscure process that could allow the Manhattan DA to bypass DeSantisThe second form of extradition in Florida is called warrantless pre-requisition arrest. It's more vaguely defined and is traditionally thought to be used for a citizen's arrest of fugitives, but New York prosecutors could likely use it to arrest Trump in Florida, according to Bachner and Holder.That extradition method only works for felony charges, according to Holder, which means it could apply to the charges Bragg is reportedly seeking.In that scenario, authorities would arrest Trump in Florida and take him in front of a judge for a probable cause hearing to prove he was criminally charged in New York with a felony. A judge would then order Trump's extradition. Trump's Secret Service detail would likely travel with him, as Insider previously reported, but are unlikely to be involved in any arrest process.Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced a third run for the presidency in 2024, hosts a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.REUTERS/Marco BelloIt's unclear, however, who does the arresting. The New York Police Department, which normally conducts arrests for charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, does not have jurisdiction in Florida."We're not really sure who goes and makes the arrest," Holder said.The most likely scenario in this case, according to Holder, is that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office would ask the Palm Beach sheriff's office to make the arrest since they have jurisdiction in the area. It would likely be up to Manhattan prosecutors, though, to make an argument for extradition in front of the Florida judge.Trump likely won't have to spend time in jailAfter Trump makes an initial appearance in New York court, he'll have a bail hearing, where the judge sets the conditions of his release ahead of trial.At that hearing, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office may ask to keep him in custody or set a high bail amount to ensure he comes back to New York for future court proceedings.Donald Trump leaving Trump Tower in Manhattan.James Devaney/GC ImagesFighting extradition might increase the chances that New York authorities would see him as a flight risk. But in all probability, there's a low risk he would flee, Holder pointed out. Trump is arguably the most famous person in the world and is running to be reelected as president of the United States. He would have a tough time as a fugitive from US law enforcement."He's not being charged with violent crime and he's not a flight risk," Holder said. "He's the former president. The bond would be something low because they can guarantee his return to court."The judge might also take away Trump's passport, which wouldn't mean much either, since Trump could just ask the judge for permission to fly overseas if he wanted to.In addition to potential charges from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Trump faces a litany of other legal risks ahead of the 2024 election, including criminal investigations in Georgia and from Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, not to mention a smattering of civil lawsuits.Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, in Atlanta, may also be close to making a charging decision against Trump. She's weighing whether to refer the findings of a special grand jury, which investigated Trump's interference in Georgia's 2020 elections, to an ordinary grand jury, which can bring criminal charges.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

In his podcast addressing the markets today, Louis Navellier offered the following commentary. Rolling Recession I mentioned on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday about just “how many industries does the Fed need to destroy,” since there are now growing problems with subprime loans and car loans in addition to housing woes. Q4 2022 […] In his podcast addressing the markets today, Louis Navellier offered the following commentary. Rolling Recession I mentioned on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday about just “how many industries does the Fed need to destroy,” since there are now growing problems with subprime loans and car loans in addition to housing woes. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Ed Yardeni likes to call the current economic environment a “rolling recession,” which I believe is an excellent description of the conundrum we are now in the midst of at the present time as the Fed continues to raise key interest rates. Suspicious Resignation I do not mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but I said on Fox Business that I did not trust the January payroll report and retail sales report due to “positive” seasonal adjustments. Furthermore, my comment that Labor Secretary Marty Walsh resigned after the January payroll report remains suspicious, so perhaps Maria Bartiromo can interview Marty Walsh now that he is no longer a member of the Biden Administration. Walmart's Earnings Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) announced better-than-expected sales and earnings, but it lowered its guidance, so worries that consumer spending may be sputtering persists, despite a spectacular January retail sales report that was apparently distorted by seasonal adjustments. Food and energy inflation persist in the latest inflation numbers, which will likely be re-confirmed in the Personal Consumption Export (PCE) update on Friday. Moderating Rent Speaking of the upcoming PCE report, my favorite economist, Ed Yardeni, on Tuesday issued a “QuickTakes” bulletin that illustrated that rent inflation is on the verge of moderating. Specifically, owners' equivalent rent has leveled off in the past five months thru January. Why this moderation in owners' equivalent rent has not shown up in the CPI yet is frustrating, but perhaps it will finally show up in the PCE on Friday. As soon as we have evidence of moderating rental and home prices, inflation will be cooling off fast, which will trigger a big stock market rally. Let’s hope and pray that the PCE report on Friday will signal that inflation is cooling off faster than the January CPI and PPI reports signaled. The National Association of Realtors on Tuesday announced that existing home sales declined 0.7% in January to a 4 million annual pace, which is the 12th straight monthly decline as well as the slowest annual pace since October 2010. Interestingly, economists were expecting existing home sales to rise 1.2% in January, so this was a major disappointment and prove that economists cannot hit the broadside of a barn. Compared to a year ago, existing home sales declined 36.9% as mortgage rates declined. One-Year Anniversary Of The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine I should add that Friday will be the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has turned into a proxy war with NATO. President Biden’s visit to Kyiv on Monday and his meeting with Poland are raising eyebrows on the escalation of the proxy war with Russia. Naturally, President Biden is promising more money, including funding some Ukrainian pensions. Wars are clearly expensive and it will be interesting how long Congress will continue to fund NATO’s proxy war via Ukraine. All this spending is helping to increase the federal budget deficit and is expected to put more upward pressure on Treasury yields. Naturally, the federal government’s deficit ceiling will have to be lifted, but since the Treasury Department is implementing extraordinary measures to avoid hitting the deficit ceiling, it will be interesting when Congress and the Biden Administration decide to debate the deficit ceiling and whether the Ukraine spending will be curtailed in any manner. One thing that I can tell you is that Vladimir Putin was not pleased with President Biden’s visit to Poland and Ukraine this week. On Tuesday, Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the New SMART treaty to control nuclear weapons. Due to this suspension, Russia can now resume testing its nuclear weapons to torment the West. Putin said regarding NATO and the U.S. that “They want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on us and try to get our nuclear facilities at the same time.” Ouch, clearly Putin is trying to torment the West with a nuclear threat. In conclusion, we are not in World War III yet, but we are getting dangerously close.   In the meantime, global energy production remains at a record level and Russia is anticipated to increasingly go offline as Western sanctions bite. Russia’s energy business is in chaos and its pipelines are now backing up, which is expected to cause Russia to shut down many of its wells. Already Russia’s crude oil production has been reduced by approximately 1.5 million barrels a day compared to a year ago. Due to wellheads and pipeline complications in the Artic, another 3 to 5 million barrels a day of Russian crude oil could disappear in the upcoming months. Not surprisingly, crude oil prices are firming up as the tension between Russia and the West escalates. Coffee Beans A Texas man who bought a second-hand CD from a small-town thrift shop made a surprising discovery inside the case -- a Polaroid photo of President John F. Kennedy on the day of his assassination. He hasn't yet decided whether to keep the photo or try to sell it to a collector. Around 97% of the Kennedy collection is now available to the public after the National Archives and Records Administration released nearly 13,000 documents in December 2022. Source: UPI. See the full story here......»»

Trump Grand Jury Release Disappointing, But Stay Tuned; First If Not Only Indictment of Former President Most Likely to Follow Disappointing Trump Grand Jury Release WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 16, 2023) – The release this morning of very brief excerpts from the report of the Georgia special grand jury investigating possible election-related crimes by former president […] Trump Grand Jury Release Disappointing, But Stay Tuned; First If Not Only Indictment of Former President Most Likely to Follow Disappointing Trump Grand Jury Release WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 16, 2023) – The release this morning of very brief excerpts from the report of the Georgia special grand jury investigating possible election-related crimes by former president Donald Trump and many of his associates may be disappointing to many who had hoped to at least receive hints about who might be indicted and for what. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   But those hoping to see Trump indicted by Fulton County DA Fani Willis should stay tuned, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whose formal legal complaint filed with Willis initially triggered the criminal investigation of Trump and his allies, and led to the rare appointment of this special grand jury. He suggests for many stated reasons that the first - if not the only - criminal charges against the former president will be filed by this county prosecutor rather than by the Department of Justice [DoJ]. An ever growing number of experts have also concluded that Trump's gravest legal threat comes not from the newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, but rather from the DA of Fulton County, Georgia; in part because Attorney General Merrick Garland may nix one or more proposed federal prosecutions for legal and political reasons, as well as the troubling "optics," says Banzhaf. Very recently, civil rights attorney David Henderson said on MSNBC that "I think in terms of prosecutors, he has the most to fear down in Georgia because Fani Willis is not going to back off, and many of the arguments that we hear about prosecuting the former president are not going to be persuasive to her." Also, Willis wrote “target” letters to 10 more Republican electors, putting them on notice that they too could be indicted - a very clear indication that she is moving forward. It’s hard to see how electors in a scheme to affect the election could be prosecuted without also including the person behind and encouraging the entire scheme, argues Banzhaf. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, has written "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. And I think the charges will stick." Earlier, THE HILL reported that legal experts say "an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president," notes Banzhaf, whose formal detailed complaint triggered the current Georgia criminal investigation of Donald Trump, including the issuance of subpoenas for many close to him by a special grand jury. “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” As the two former prosecutors concluded, "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.. . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." As the New York Times further explained: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [ GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." There are many other indications that Willis may be the first prosecutor to indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice. Willis's Investigation Professor Banzhaf has long suggested that the investigation by Willis is more likely to charge Trump than any federal prosecution to indict him for his role in allegedly inciting a riot on January 6th. Here are four reasons why. Some of the reasons also apply to possible federal prosecution for crimes related to the federal documents found in Mar-a-Lago. FIRST, he says, the evidence in Georgia is clear and uncomplicated, unlike the words of Trump's January speech which many see as ambiguous - words of incitement which are similar to those used by other public figures - and where prosecutors might have to argue from possible inferences. In the Georgia case the language of Trump's telephone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is very precise in its demands, the tone on the audio recording shows that Trump was not joking or speaking in generalities, others who listened to the call undoubtedly made notes and passed some of them to Trump, and there is ample supplemental evidence of Trump's criminal intent to affect the election results. The fact that Trump, in a position to direct the Department of Justice, specifically mentioned possible criminal penalties if his wishes were not granted, and had others in his camp place similar calls, provides overwhelming evidence of his criminal intent, concludes Banzhaf, who notes that many other criminal law experts, including several very familiar with Georgia law, have publicly announced that they have reached the same conclusion. SECOND, an indictment and trial in Georgia would not raise suspicion - and create very bad "optics" - of an incoming president seeking political retribution, and protection from competition in the 2024 presidential election, by trying to throw his opposition into prison, or at least to damage him with federal indictments and the trial itself. Incoming presidents jailing their predecessors is what we and others around the world associate with tin-horn dictators in third-world countries with corrupt governments, not the U.S., Banzhaf argues. Here it's even worse, because polls indicate that Trump, already a declared candidate, would be the strongest opponent of Joe Biden or of any other Democrat in the 2024 presidential race. So indicting him for federal crimes, much less putting him behind bars during this election, would be seen by many as a politically motivated prosecution. Also, for many, it would seem unfair to invoke the full resources of the United States government against one person, even a rich and powerful one such as Trump. A prosecution by a county DA would avoid all of these problems and perceptions, notes Banzhaf, so it might even have a greater chance of success, and of avoiding juror nullification at a trial. THIRD, there is no free speech problem, as there would be in a criminal prosecution based upon Trump's speech at the January 6th rally. Under the Supreme Court's Brandenburg ruling, the government may criminally punish someone for making a political speech only if it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” - in other words, it must create a clear and present danger. [emphasis added] But since considerable time elapsed between Trump's speech and the lawless actions of his followers - enough time, for example, for authorities to have taken preventive steps if they seemed at the time to be warranted - it's not clear that the lawless action was "imminent" in the same sense of a hypothetical crowd being urged to "hang him now." More importantly, can it be said - much less proven beyond a reasonable doubt - that the statements were "likely" to provoke lawless action?   For example, at the time of the speeches, why didn't various public and law enforcement officials issue clear warnings about possible lawlessness if his words were so clearly "likely to incite or produce violence"? If they didn't, which is apparently the case, this suggests that even professionals may not have believed that lawless action was "likely" - not just possible or conceivable. In this regard, hindsight may be questionable, suspect, and not very persuasive, argues Banzhaf. FINALLY, Willis plans to use Georgia's RICO - its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - in any prosecution of Trump. Banzhaf, who is familiar with the federal RICO statute since he produced the memo which led to the federal government's successful RICO prosecution against the major tobacco companies, points out that the Georgia RICO statute is even more powerful and far reaching than the federal one. Among other things, it defines racketeering more broadly than the federal law does, takes less to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and does not always require the existence of an "enterprise" - especially an illegal or criminal enterprise - to constitute racketeering. Indeed, Willis successfully used RICO to prosecute a teacher-cheating case. Also, notes Banzhaf, although RICO requires at least two independent illegal racketeering activities - "predicate acts" - to prove a pattern of corruption by Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, making false statements such as Trump and some of his allies are alleged to have made would more than satisfy Georgia's RICO law. Racketeering, which is a felony in Georgia, can carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, a hefty fine, and disgorgements of ill-gotten gains. Most felons in Georgia convicted of racketeering offenses do serve time in prison. So with many persons very close to and closely involved with Trump having been subpoenaed, everyone who feels that Trump must be prosecuted should keep a very sharp eye on DA Fani Willis in Georgia, counsels the law professor......»»

Trump Put on Notice of Indictment – AP; First – If Not Only – Criminal Charges Likely in Georgia Donald Trump Put On Notice WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2023) – The Associated Press has just reported that “Former President Donald Trump and his allies have been put on notice by . . . a Georgia […] Trump Put on Notice of Indictment – AP; First – If Not Only – Criminal Charges Likely in Georgia Donald Trump Put On Notice WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2023) – The Associated Press has just reported that “Former President Donald Trump and his allies have been put on notice by . . . a Georgia prosecutor who indicated she was likely to seek criminal charges soon in a two-year election subversion probe.” While noting that [Fani] “Willis, a Democrat, didn’t mention Trump by name,” nevertheless “her comments marked the first time a prosecutor in any of several current investigations tied to the Republican former president has hinted that charges could be forthcoming.” if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get Our Activist Investing Case Study! Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or print it out to read anywhere! Sign up below! (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Also according to the AP's newest report, Clark Cunningham, a Georgia State University law professor, predicted “I expect to see indictments in Fulton County before I see any federal indictments.” Law professor John Banzhaf, whose formal legal complaint filed with Willis initially triggered the criminal investigation of Trump and his allies, and led to the rare appointment of a special grand jury which just issued a still-sealed report, also suggests that the first - if not the only - criminal charges against the former president will be filed by a county prosecutor rather than by the Department of Justice [DoJ]. An ever growing number of experts have also concluded that Trump's gravest legal threat comes not from the newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, but rather from the DA of Fulton County, Georgia; in part because Attorney General Merrick Garland may nix one or more proposed federal prosecutions for legal and political reasons, as well as the troubling "optics," says Banzhaf. Very recently, civil rights attorney David Henderson said on MSNBC that "I think in terms of prosecutors, he has the most to fear down in Georgia because Fani Willis is not going to back off, and many of the arguments that we hear about prosecuting the former president are not going to be persuasive to her." Also, Willis wrote “target” letters to 10 more Republican electors, putting them on notice that they too could be indicted - a very clear indication that she is moving forward. It’s hard to see how electors in a scheme to affect the election could be prosecuted without also including the person behind and encouraging the entire scheme, argues Banzhaf. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, has written "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. And I think the charges will stick." Earlier, THE HILL reported that legal experts say "an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president," notes Banzhaf, whose formal detailed complaint triggered the current Georgia criminal investigation of Donald Trump, including the issuance of subpoenas for many close to him by a special grand jury. “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” As the two former prosecutors concluded, "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.. . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." As the New York Times further explained: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [ GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." There are many other indications that Willis may be the first prosecutor to indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice. Professor Banzhaf has long suggested that the investigation by Willis is more likely to charge Trump than any federal prosecution to indict him for his role in allegedly inciting a riot on January 6th. Here are four reasons why. Some of the reasons also apply to possible federal prosecution for crimes related to the federal documents found in Mar-a-Lago. January Speech FIRST, he says, the evidence in Georgia is clear and uncomplicated, unlike the words of Trump's January speech which many see as ambiguous - words of incitement which are similar to those used by other public figures - and where prosecutors might have to argue from possible inferences. In the Georgia case the language of Trump's telephone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is very precise in its demands, the tone on the audio recording shows that Trump was not joking or speaking in generalities, others who listened to the call undoubtedly made notes and passed some of them to Trump, and there is ample supplemental evidence of Trump's criminal intent to affect the election results. The fact that Trump, in a position to direct the Department of Justice, specifically mentioned possible criminal penalties if his wishes were not granted, and had others in his camp place similar calls, provides overwhelming evidence of his criminal intent, concludes Banzhaf, who notes that many other criminal law experts, including several very familiar with Georgia law, have publicly announced that they have reached the same conclusion. Raising Suspicion SECOND, an indictment and trial in Georgia would not raise suspicion - and create very bad "optics" - of an incoming president seeking political retribution, and protection from competition in the 2024 presidential election, by trying to throw his opposition into prison, or at least to damage him with federal indictments and the trial itself. Incoming presidents jailing their predecessors is what we and others around the world associate with tin-horn dictators in third-world countries with corrupt governments, not the U.S., Banzhaf argues. Here it's even worse, because polls indicate that Trump, already a declared candidate, would be the strongest opponent of Joe Biden or of any other Democrat in the 2024 presidential race. So indicting him for federal crimes, much less putting him behind bars during this election, would be seen by many as a politically motivated prosecution. Also, for many, it would seem unfair to invoke the full resources of the United States government against one person, even a rich and powerful one such as Trump. A prosecution by a county DA would avoid all of these problems and perceptions, notes Banzhaf, so it might even have a greater chance of success, and of avoiding juror nullification at a trial. THIRD, there is no free speech problem, as there would be in a criminal prosecution based upon Trump's speech at the January 6th rally. Under the Supreme Court's Brandenburg ruling, the government may criminally punish someone for making a political speech only if it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” - in other words, it must create a clear and present danger. [emphasis added] But since considerable time elapsed between Trump's speech and the lawless actions of his followers - enough time, for example, for authorities to have taken preventive steps if they seemed at the time to be warranted - it's not clear that the lawless action was "imminent" in the same sense of a hypothetical crowd being urged to "hang him now." More importantly, can it be said - much less proven beyond a reasonable doubt - that the statements were "likely" to provoke lawless action?   For example, at the time of the speeches, why didn't various public and law enforcement officials issue clear warnings about possible lawlessness if his words were so clearly "likely to incite or produce violence"? If they didn't, which is apparently the case, this suggests that even professionals may not have believed that lawless action was "likely" - not just possible or conceivable. In this regard, hindsight may be questionable, suspect, and not very persuasive, argues Banzhaf. Georgia's RICO FINALLY, Willis plans to use Georgia's RICO - its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - in any prosecution of Trump. Banzhaf, who is familiar with the federal RICO statute since he produced the memo which led to the federal government's successful RICO prosecution against the major tobacco companies, points out that the Georgia RICO statute is even more powerful and far reaching than the federal one. Among other things, it defines racketeering more broadly than the federal law does, takes less to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and does not always require the existence of an "enterprise" - especially an illegal or criminal enterprise - to constitute racketeering. Indeed, Willis successfully used RICO to prosecute a teacher-cheating case. Also, notes Banzhaf, although RICO requires at least two independent illegal racketeering activities - "predicate acts" - to prove a pattern of corruption by Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, making false statements such as Trump and some of his allies are alleged to have made would more than satisfy Georgia's RICO law. Racketeering, which is a felony in Georgia, can carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, a hefty fine, and disgorgements of ill-gotten gains. Most felons in Georgia convicted of racketeering offenses do serve time in prison. So with many persons very close to and closely involved with Trump having been subpoenaed, everyone who feels that Trump must be prosecuted should keep a very sharp eye on DA Fani Willis in Georgia, counsels the law professor......»»

Over the past decade, more than a dozen Chinese agents recruited by the CIA have been killed or imprisoned. An alleged spy in the FBI may be to blame. The FBI building in Washington, DC.Celal Gunes/Getty Images The following is an excerpt from "SPYFAIL: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence" by James Bamford. An alleged spy within the FBI may be largely responsible for unraveling the CIA's Chinese spy network. The FBI's website carries a stark warning. "The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China," it says, "are a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States. Confronting this threat is the FBI's top counterintelligence priority." But far worse is the threat to the lives of scores of courageous Chinese agents who have volunteered to spy for the U.S. within their own country. Over the past decade, more than a dozen agents recruited by the CIA have been killed or imprisoned.And it now turns out that it was an alleged Chinese spy within the FBI's own counterintelligence division who may have been largely responsible. A spy whose activities went undetected for upwards of two decades, until his quiet arrest in 2020. Currently in a Hawaiian jail, his little-known case is wrapped in layers of secrecy as he awaits trail. Now in his new book, "SPYFAIL: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence," author James Bamford peels back many of those hidden layers.THE RENDEZVOUS"Spy Fail" by James Bamford.Twelve BooksIn the spring of 2001, Chinese intelligence was on a very big roll. On April 1, a Navy EP-3 electronic spy plane, operated by the National Security Agency and on patrol along the Chinese coast, was forced to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. After evacuating the crew, Chinese intelligence agents went to work extracting some of the agency's most secret espionage and cryptologic equipment, along with piles of documents classified above top secret.  An enormous windfall, the hardware, software, and documents gave Chinese intelligence critical insight into the NSA's targets in their country, and the methods used to spy on them.  And less than a week earlier, Chinese intelligence came upon another intelligence bonanza when two former CIA clandestine officers, one born in Shanghai and the other in Hong Kong, agreed to change sides.At the time, four years after the handover from Britain to China, much of Hong Kong remained a world of neon and noise. But now a great many of the tourists haggling over Rolex watches, checking into the Peninsula, and packing Lan Kwai Fong and other nightlife districts had a decidedly Mandarin accent. "Five years ago, everyone looked down on you if you spoke Mandarin," said a Beijing executive living in Hong Kong. "Now, they know we're the big bosses with the money."Despite predictions that the former colony would turn into a gray vista of hunched workers and nameless noodle shops, travelers from mainland China had become the principal source of visitors to Hong Kong. They were even spending more per capita than their American and Japanese counterparts. And March 2001 was an especially busy time. As soon as the Hong Kong Arts Festival ended, the Hong Kong International Film Festival began.Deep in the shadows, the city had also become a major crossroads for Eastern and Western spies. "Hong Kong is a place where foreign intelligence agencies conduct a lot of activity," admitted Li Gang, the deputy director of Beijing's Liaison Office in the city. As the arts crowd checked out of their rooms and the film fans checked in, two former American spies quietly slipped into another hotel for a discreet rendezvous with their Chinese counterparts. They were brothers who had both worked as clandestine CIA officers in China, and now they were about to switch sides.Alexander Yuk Ching Ma and his older brother David were both veterans of the CIA's clandestine operations division. David was born in Shanghai in 1935, a time of smoky jazz clubs, bustling casinos, and opium dens. The Pudong District, on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River, became the country's major financial hub, and decades later it would also become its high-tech eavesdropping hub.In 1961, at the age of twenty-six, David moved to Los Angeles, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and six years later joined the CIA in an entry-level capacity, possibly as a translator. But in the late 1960s the United States was in the middle of its desperate war with North Vietnam, which was aided by China. As a result, a throng of new recruits were continuously making their way to Camp Perry, known as "The Farm," the CIA's boot camp for spies, near Williamsburg, Virginia.The problem was, nearly all had the physical appearance of cheering fans at a Notre Dame football game. Few would blend into a crowd on a street in Asia. Also, very few spoke Chinese or Vietnamese, especially with any fluency. That was good for David, and in 1971 he was promoted to the officer ranks within the CIA's clandestine service. Entrusted with the identities of many of the agency's human sources in China and elsewhere, as well as its system of covert communications (known as "covcom"), he spent years in the Far East.People do Tai Chi exercises in Hong Kong's Happy Valley district in February 2001.Dustin Shum/South China Morning Post via Getty ImagesIn 1983, David resigned after it was determined that he was inappropriately using his government position to assist Chinese nationals in obtaining entry into the United States. But months before, as if taking his place, his thirty-year-old brother Alex had joined up and also became a clandestine officer. He was born in Hong Kong and, like David, lived for a time in Shanghai. Both also graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Following extensive training at The Farm, he was also provided with the identities of the agency's networks of spies, the various covcom details, and was sent to the Far East. Seven years later he left the agency, and around 1995 he moved to China, there oddly being no restrictions on former spies moving to their target nations. Therefore, little is known about his activities there.David, however, ran into serious legal and financial trouble. In 1998, while living in Los Angeles, he pled guilty to two counts of defrauding a lending institution. In December he began serving a five-month sentence at Taft Correctional Institution, a low-security federal prison near Bakersfield, California, followed by five years of probation and $145,623 in restitution — money he didn't have. Then in 2000, his brother Alex returned from China, telling Customs and Border Protection officers that he was an "importer and exporter" and was carrying $9,000 in U.S. currency. Not long after, both brothers turned up in Shanghai.For three days, beginning on March 24, 2001, Alex and David allegedly met secretly in a hotel room with at least five officials from China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) and passed on highly classified information. According to government charges, details included the covers used by CIA officers and CIA activities in China; cryptographic information used in classified and sensitive CIA communications and reports; information concerning CIA officer identities as well as those of CIA human assets in China; the CIA's use of operational tradecraft; and CIA secure communications practices — that is, covcom details. The brothers were then handed $50,000 in cash.Afterward, as laid out in the indictment, both Alex and David returned to California, but they kept in touch with their handlers. Alex eventually agreed to become a mole for China's intelligence service within the FBI, and on the day after Christmas 2002, he applied for the position of special agent. By then, however, he was about forty-nine years old and was informed that he was over the age limit.But in 2004 he was nevertheless hired as a Chinese translator since he spoke several Chinese dialects. In many ways, this was an even better position for a spy since he would have access to a very broad range of information, including intercepted Chinese conversations. The day before he started his new job, he called a suspected accomplice, possibly David, to give him the good news that he would now be working full-time for "the other side."By then the FBI was reeling from another extremely damaging, and extremely embarrassing, counterintelligence disaster involving China. In 2003 it was discovered that the bureau's key U.S.-based China asset, Katrina Leung, was, like Alex, a double agent working for China. Worse, she was simultaneously sleeping with two of the FBI's top China agents. Among them was her longtime handler, through whom she had been passing false information for more than a decade, information that often was quickly passed on to the White House.Assigned to the Honolulu FBI office, Alex and his wife moved into a $600,000 condominium on Hawaii Kai Drive, a short walk to the ocean on the southeastern corner of Oahu. Strongly built, with a broad natural grin, Alex wore squarish glasses above puffy cheeks that seemed to glow when he smiled, which was often. Over at least the next six years and possibly much longer, he took over the role of FBI mole where Robert Hanssen, who spied for Russia for more than two decades, left off, except for a different spymaster. It was as though no lessons had ever been learned by the bureau.The method was simple. Attracting no suspicion, Ma would gather up piles of highly secret materials and simply walk out the door with them, just as Hanssen had done for decades. Some he photographed with a digital camera, others he downloaded from his computer onto a flash drive, while still others he copied onto CD-ROM discs. Some dealt with guided missiles and weapon systems, and others revealed the identity of confidential sources, putting their lives at risk.FBI agents remove evidence from Robert Hanssen's home in Vienna, Virginia on February 20, 2001.Alex Wong/NewsmakersIn addition, Ma had extensive knowledge of the CIA's highly secret covcom techniques by which CIA officers communicated with their sources. Every few months, once he had accumulated a load of secrets, he would call his handlers. They would then book him a hotel room in Shanghai, pick him up at the airport, and take him into town, where he would hand over his secrets and be debriefed by agents of the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB).The SSSB was the regional office of the Ministry of State Security, China's equivalent of both the CIA and FBI. Headquartered in Beijing at Xiyuan (Western Garden), next to the vast ensemble of lakes, gardens, and palaces of the Summer Palace, its logo still displays the hammer and sickle of the Communist Party. At the time, it was run by Minister of State Security Xu Yongyue, a stern-faced senior party official from Zhenping County, the jade capital of China, in the province of Henan. And in charge of the SSSB was Cai Xumin, who received a very significant promotion to vice minister of the MSS in 2004, likely due to his recruitment of Ma.Following the rendezvous and document drops in Shanghai, Ma would simply fly back to Honolulu. At one point a curious U.S. customs official pulled him aside for a secondary search and discovered he was carrying $20,000 in cash and a shiny new set of golf clubs. But no questions were raised, no actions were taken, and later that day Ma sent an email to his SSSB handler with an attachment containing additional classified information. Other money paid to him by the MSS was regularly deposited in a bank account in Hong Kong.David Ma also secretly remained in the loop. Living in Arcadia, a wealthy Los Angeles bedroom community, he established himself as a consultant on immigration rights for the many Asian immigrants in the nearby communities, such as Alhambra and Monterey Park. Familiar with their needs and fluent in various Chinese dialects, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai, and Chaozhou, he opened several businesses. They included the Chinese American Civil Rights Organization and AsiAmerica Immigration & Consultancy, Inc.Ironically, in 2005 he was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article about Chinese espionage. As China's economy continued to boom, he said, he could understand the temptation of some Chinese Americans who wanted to do business there to help the government any way they could. "I'm not saying all of them are spies," he said. "But for some of them it is outright greed because they need to do business with [the Chinese government]. It's just like barter or exchange."Because of his businesses, David became very well known within the Chinese communities in Los Angeles, which was ideal for the SSSB and MSS. Critical for them was discovering community members who had become confidential informants on China for the CIA and FBI. In February 2006, Alex Ma, China's mole in the FBI, sent David photos he received from his handlers of five suspected human sources. Accompanying the pictures was a photo of five dogs sitting on a park bench, which was a coded way of asking him to supply the identity of the sources. Shortly thereafter, David sent Alex an email identifying two of the informants. And a memory card belonging to Alex had pictures of the five sources along with a list of five names.Shanghai's Pudong district in August 2006.Athanasios Gioumpasis/Getty ImagesA few months later, Alex arranged for his wife, Amy Ma, who was also born in Hong Kong, to fly to Shanghai to meet with his handlers and to deliver an encrypted laptop computer to them. An email message soon came back thanking him for sending his wife and delivering "the present." Over the years, without suspicion, Alex continued to fly back and forth to Shanghai every few months with stashes of secrets. And in June 2008, his handler phoned him to say that his "company" would have a lot of work orders in the coming year.In May 2010, a few months after another clandestine rendezvous to hand over documents to his handler, Alex received a phone call from an MSS officer apologizing for not seeing him during a recent visit to China and extending an invitation to meet in Shanghai in the future. He also asked Alex to get in touch with David and see if he would be willing to discuss their "business venture." About the same time, the MSS was also bringing on board another veteran CIA clandestine officer, one who had just reapplied to the agency, possibly to become a mole. Known as Zhen Cheng Li in China, he was Jerry Chun Shing Lee to his colleagues at Langley.Born in Hong Kong like Alex, Lee grew up in Hawaii and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. At seventeen, in 1982, he joined the U.S. Army, serving for four years but remaining in the reserves. A few years later he enrolled at Hawaii Pacific University, graduating in 1992 with a degree in international business management. A year later he earned a master's degree in human resource management and shortly thereafter joined the CIA as a case officer in the clandestine service. Over the following fourteen years, he was dispatched on numerous overseas assignments, including to China, where he, like Alex and David Ma, had access to the agency's clandestine networks, both human and covcom.By July 2007, Lee had become frustrated by his lack of advancement at the CIA. "He was quite critical about the organization and his time there; the fact that he didn't get credit, he didn't get promoted, he didn't get the assignments he deserved," said one of his associates. As a result, Lee resigned and moved to Hong Kong, taking a job with Japan Tobacco International ( JTI). Employing about forty thousand people around the world, the company sells 120 brands of cigarettes, including both Camel and Winston outside the United States.But a key problem for the company was tobacco smugglers and counterfeiters. Asian crime syndicates were exporting tons of counterfeit cigarettes out of China with the help of corrupt officials. To combat the syndicates, the company had established a Brand Integrity Unit under a veteran CIA officer, David Reynolds, who had worked at the agency from 1988 to 2002. Afterward he was assigned as a U.S. consular officer in Guangzhou for two years. Lee claimed that his last job at the CIA was the agency's official liaison in Beijing to Chinese intelligence, the MSS, and he was hired by Reynolds.Now, with an office on the forty-second floor of Tower 1 in Times Square, the city's flashy, upscale shopping and restaurant complex at Causeway Bay, Lee could see all of Hong Kong spread out below him. But adjusting to private industry was difficult and he soon ran into problems. Company officials began to suspect that he was alerting corrupt Chinese officials about the firm's investigations and the pending raids and arrests by law enforcement. "Several of the shipments of counterfeits purchased as part of the investiga-tions were seized by the Chinese authorities or simply disappeared, and one of our contract investigators was arrested and imprisoned in China," said a manager.All evidence pointed toward Lee, and as a result, executives at JTI alerted the FBI, but apparently no action was ever taken. Lee was finally fired in mid- 2009, and soon afterward a Chinese official warned the company that he was not only continuing to share information with MSS officers, but was also actively working with them. And once again JTI officials passed the information to the FBI. "I certainly reported it to the appropriate authorities," said a company supervisor. It was good information, but once again it seemed to go nowhere within the bureau. At about the same time, Lee hooked up with a potential business partner, Barry Cheung Kam-lun, a former Hong Kong police officer who, Lee knew, had close ties to the MSS. And on April 26 the two traveled across the Hong Kong border to neighboring Shenzhen for a private dinner with MSS officers.Shenzhen, China.Liao Xun/Getty ImagesIt was time for the official pitch. After excusing Barry, the intelligence officers and Lee reached an agreement that he would begin passing secrets to them and act as their spy. In exchange, they handed him a briefcase full of cash, $100,000, along with an agreement to take care of him "for life." It would be the first of hundreds of thousands of dollars he would receive, and within a few weeks he began receiving his taskings, key among them apparently becoming a mole in the CIA, as Alex Ma had done in the FBI. That same month, he applied for reemployment with the CIA. But given his less than illustrious career and departure from the agency, it went nowhere.Instead, possibly as a cover, Lee and Barry Cheung Kam-lun established their own company, FTM International, to enter the "Big Tobacco" wars and conduct their own brand integrity investigations. After investing nearly $400,000, they set up shop in the down-market Wan Chai area, renting space in Dannies House. Unlike JTI's soaring skyscraper in Times Square, Lee's new office was in a tired thirteen-story orange high-rise with battered air-conditioning units stuck out the windows like giant steel bird feeders.But two years later, fed up with Hong Kong and having run out of secrets to sell, Lee decided to move his family back to Virginia, where he had been offered a potential job by the CIA. It had been secretly created to lure him back to the United States, and in August 2012, during a three-day stopover in Hawaii, agents conducted a black bag job on his hotel room. What they found was damning. Inside a small, clear plastic travel pack was a forty-nine-page datebook and a twenty-one-page address book, both of which contained top secret handwritten operational notes from his CIA days. Most critically, they included the true names of secret human sources as well as the dates and operational locations of the meetings. Another clandestine search was conducted on his hotel room in Fairfax, Virginia, soon after he arrived, and the information remained in his possession.But inexplicably, rather than Lee being arrested, the decision was made to simply question him repeatedly over the following year. Finally, after the fifth interview in June 2013, with the questions becoming more and more revealing of what the bureau knew, Lee fled with his family back to China-controlled Hong Kong. Once more he was out of reach, and once more the FBI had bungled it.Over the next few years, Lee did security work for the cosmetics company Estée Lauder and the auction house Christie's. Then in January 2018, apparently believing the danger had blown over, he boarded a Cathay Pacific flight to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was a serious mistake. His name had been flagged on the airline's manifest and he was arrested as soon as he landed. After first vowing to fight the espionage charges, in May 2019 he agreed to plead guilty and was sentenced to nineteen years in prison.Around the same time, the FBI finally discovered the Chinese mole who had bored his way into the organization sixteen years earlier. In August 2020, an agent posing as an MSS officer approached Alex Ma in Honolulu and snared him in a sting operation. To convince Ma of his bona fides, he showed him a video of the meeting between him, David, and the SSSB agents at the time they signed on as spies in 2001. The pretend MSS officer then offered Ma $2,000 in cash as a "small token" of appreciation for Ma's assistance to China. Ma offered to continue working for the MSS and stated that he wanted "the motherland" to succeed. Shortly afterward he was arrested on charges of espionage and is currently awaiting trial. With regard to David, then eighty-five years old, the decision was made not to arrest him due to his advanced stage of Alzheimer's disease.James Bamford, winner of the National Magazine Award for Reporting, is the bestselling author of "The Puzzle Palace," "Body of Secrets," and other books on intelligence. His most recent book, from which this excerpt was taken, is "SPYFAIL: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence," which will be released on January 17.Excerpted from "SPYFAIL: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence." ©2022 James Bamford and reprinted by permission from Twelve Books/Hachette Book Group.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The EvidenceGrand Jury Reports on Possible Trump Indictment; Most Likely of All Investigations to Bring Him to Trial Grand Jury Concludes The Criminal Investigation Of Donald Trump WASHINGWASHTON, D.C. (January 9, 2023) – The special grand jury which conducted a criminal investigation of Donald Trump has concluded its work and issued a report with its […] The EvidenceGrand Jury Reports on Possible Trump Indictment; Most Likely of All Investigations to Bring Him to Trial Grand Jury Concludes The Criminal Investigation Of Donald Trump WASHINGWASHTON, D.C. (January 9, 2023) – The special grand jury which conducted a criminal investigation of Donald Trump has concluded its work and issued a report with its recommendations – which may say that Trump should be indicted – notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who filed the formal criminal complaint which led to the proceeding in Fulton County, Georgia. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Banzhaf suggests, for the following reasons, that an indictment in Georgia is the most likely one to be brought against Donald Trump. An ever growing number of experts have concluded that former president Donald Trump's gravest legal threat comes not from the newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, but rather from the DA of Fulton County, Georgia; in part because Attorney General Merrick Garland may nix one or more proposed federal prosecutions for legal and political reasons, as well as the troubling "optics," says public interest law professor John Banzhaf. On Sunday, civil rights attorney David Henderson said on MSNBC that "I think in terms of prosecutors, he has the most to fear down in Georgia because Fani Willis is not going to back off, and many of the arguments that we hear about prosecuting the former president are not going to be persuasive to her." Also, just last week Willis wrote “target” letters to 10 more Republican electors, putting them on notice that they too could be indicted - a very clear indication that she is moving forward. It’s hard to see how electors in a scheme to affect the election could be prosecuted without also including the person behind and encouraging the entire scheme, argues Banzhaf. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, has written "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. And I think the charges will stick." Earlier, THE HILL reported that legal experts say "an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president," notes Banzhaf, whose formal detailed complaint triggered the current Georgia criminal investigation of Donald Trump, including the issuance of subpoenas for many close to him by a special grand jury. “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” As the two former prosecutors concluded, "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.. . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." Georgia's Criminal Law As the New York Times further explained: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [ GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." There are many other indications that Willis may be the first prosecutor to indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice. Professor Banzhaf has long suggested that the investigation by Willis is more likely to charge Donald Trump than any federal prosecution to indict him for his role in allegedly inciting a riot on January 6th. Here are four reasons why. Some of the reasons also apply to possible federal prosecution for crimes related to the federal documents found in Mar-a-Lago. The Evidence FIRST, he says, the evidence in Georgia is clear and uncomplicated, unlike the words of Trump's January speech which many see as ambiguous - words of incitement which are similar to those used by other public figures - and where prosecutors might have to argue from possible inferences. In the Georgia case the language of Trump's telephone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is very precise in its demands, the tone on the audio recording shows that Trump was not joking or speaking in generalities, others who listened to the call undoubtedly made notes and passed some of them to Trump, and there is ample supplemental evidence of Trump's criminal intent to affect the election results. The fact that Trump, in a position to direct the Department of Justice, specifically mentioned possible criminal penalties if his wishes were not granted, and had others in his camp place similar calls, provides overwhelming evidence of his criminal intent, concludes Banzhaf, who notes that many other criminal law experts, including several very familiar with Georgia law, have publicly announced that they have reached the same conclusion. An Indictment And Trial In Georgia  SECOND, an indictment and trial in Georgia would not raise suspicion - and create very bad "optics" - of an incoming president seeking political retribution, and protection from competition in the 2024 presidential election, by trying to throw his opposition into prison, or at least to damage him with federal indictments and the trial itself. Incoming presidents jailing their predecessors is what we and others around the world associate with tin-horn dictators in third-world countries with corrupt governments, not the U.S., Banzhaf argues. Here it's even worse, because polls indicate that Donald Trump, already a declared candidate, would be the strongest opponent of Joe Biden or of any other Democrat in the 2024 presidential race. So indicting him for federal crimes, much less putting him behind bars during this election, would be seen by many as a politically motivated prosecution. Also, for many, it would seem unfair to invoke the full resources of the United States government against one person, even a rich and powerful one such as Trump. A prosecution by a county DA would avoid all of these problems and perceptions, notes Banzhaf, so it might even have a greater chance of success, and of avoiding juror nullification at a trial. Free Speech THIRD, there is no free speech problem, as there would be in a criminal prosecution based upon Trump's speech at the January 6th rally. Under the Supreme Court's Brandenburg ruling, the government may criminally punish someone for making a political speech only if it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” - in other words, it must create a clear and present danger. [emphasis added] But since considerable time elapsed between Trump's speech and the lawless actions of his followers - enough time, for example, for authorities to have taken preventive steps if they seemed at the time to be warranted - it's not clear that the lawless action was "imminent" in the same sense of a hypothetical crowd being urged to "hang him now." More importantly, can it be said - much less proven beyond a reasonable doubt - that the statements were "likely" to provoke lawless action? For example, at the time of the speeches, why didn't various public and law enforcement officials issue clear warnings about possible lawlessness if his words were so clearly "likely to incite or produce violence"? If they didn't, which is apparently the case, this suggests that even professionals may not have believed that lawless action was "likely" - not just possible or conceivable. In this regard, hindsight may be questionable, suspect, and not very persuasive, argues Banzhaf. Georgia's RICO FINALLY, Willis plans to use Georgia's RICO - its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - in any prosecution of Donald Trump. Banzhaf, who is familiar with the federal RICO statute since he produced the memo which led to the federal government's successful RICO prosecution against the major tobacco companies, points out that the Georgia RICO statute is even more powerful and far reaching than the federal one. Among other things, it defines racketeering more broadly than the federal law does, takes less to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and does not always require the existence of an "enterprise" - especially an illegal or criminal enterprise - to constitute racketeering. Indeed, Willis successfully used RICO to prosecute a teacher-cheating case. Also, notes Banzhaf, although RICO requires at least two independent illegal racketeering activities - "predicate acts" - to prove a pattern of corruption by Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, making false statements such as Trump and some of his allies are alleged to have made would more than satisfy Georgia's RICO law. Racketeering, which is a felony in Georgia, can carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, a hefty fine, and disgorgements of ill-gotten gains. Most felons in Georgia convicted of racketeering offenses do serve time in prison. So with many persons very close to and closely involved with Trump having been subpoenaed, everyone who feels that Trump must be prosecuted should keep a very sharp eye on DA Fani Willis in Georgia, counsels the law professor......»»

CDC Finally Releases VAERS Safety Monitoring Analyses For COVID Vaccines Authored by Professor Josh Guetzkow via Jackanapes Junction (some emphasis ours), SUMMARY CDC’s VAERS safety signal analysis based on reports from Dec. 14, 2020 – July 29, 2022 for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines shows clear safety signals for death and a range of highly concerning thrombo-embolic, cardiac, neurological, hemorrhagic, hematological, immune-system and menstrual adverse events (AEs) among U.S. adults. There were 770 different types of adverse events that showed safety signals in ages 18+, of which over 500 (or 2/3) had a larger safety signal than myocarditis/pericarditis. The CDC analysis shows that the number of serious adverse events reported in less than two years for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines is 5.5 times larger than all serious reports for vaccines given to adults in the US since 2009 (~73,000 vs. ~13,000). Twice as many mRNA COVID-19 vaccine reports were classified as serious compared to all other vaccines given to adults (11% vs. 5.5%). This meets the CDC definition of a safety signal. There are 96 safety signals for 12-17 year-olds, which include: myocarditis, pericarditis, Bell’s Palsy, genital ulcerations, high blood pressure and heartrate, menstrual irregularities, cardiac valve incompetencies, pulmonary embolism, cardiac arrhythmias, thromboses, pericardial and pleural effusion, appendicitis and perforated appendix, immune thrombocytopenia, chest pain, increased troponin levels, being in intensive care, and having anticoagulant therapy. There are 66 safety signals for 5-11 year-olds, which include: myocarditis, pericarditis, ventricular dysfunction and cardiac valve incompetencies, pericardial and pleural effusion, chest pain, appendicitis & appendectomies, Kawasaki’s disease, menstrual irregularities, vitiligo, and vaccine breakthrough infection. The safety signals cannot be dismissed as due to “stimulated,” exaggerated, fraudulent or otherwise artificially inflated reporting, nor can they be dismissed due to the huge number of COVID vaccines administered. There are several reasons why, but the simplest one is this: the safety signal analysis does not depend on the number of reports, but whether or not some AEs are reported at a higher rate for these vaccines than for other non-COVID vaccines. Other reasons are discussed in the full post below. In August, 2022, the CDC told the Epoch Times that the results of their safety signal analysis “were generally consistent with EB [Empirical Bayesian] data mining [conducted by the FDA], revealing no additional unexpected safety signals.” So either the FDA’s data mining was consistent with the CDC’s method—meaning they "generally" found the same large number of highly alarming safety signals—or the signals they did find were expected. Or they were lying. We may never know because the FDA has refused to release their data mining results. INTRODUCTION Finally! Zachary Stieber at the Epoch Times managed to get the CDC to release the results of its VAERS safety signal monitoring for COVID-19 vaccines, and they paint a very alarming picture (see his reporting and the data files here, or if that is behind a paywall then here). The analyses cover VAERS reports for mRNA COVID vaccines from the period from the vaccine rollout on December 14, 2020 through to the end of July, 2022. The CDC admitted to only having started its safety signal analysis on March 25, 2022 (coincidentally 3 days after a lawyer at Children’s Health Defense wrote to them reminding them about our FOIA request for it). [UPDATE: T Coddington left a link in comments to a website where he made the data in the Excel files more accessible.] Like me, you might be wondering why the CDC waited over 15 months before doing its first safety signal analysis of VAERS, despite having said in a document posted to its website that it would begin in early 2021—especially since VAERS is touted as our early warning vaccine safety system. You might also wonder how they could insist all the while that the COVID-19 vaccines are being subjected to the most rigorous safety monitoring the world has ever known. I’ll come back to that later. First I’m going to give a little background information on the analysis they did (which you can skip if you’re up to speed) and then describe what they found. BACKGROUND ON SAFETY SIGNAL ANALYSIS Back in June 2022, the CDC replied to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the safety signal monitoring of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS)—the one it had said it was going to do weekly beginning in early 2021. Their response was: we never did it. Then a little later they said they had been doing it from early on. But by August, 2022, they had finally gotten their story straight, saying that they actually did do it, but only from March 25, 2022 through end of July. You can get up to speed on that here. The analysis they were supposed to do uses what’s called proportional reporting ratios (PRRs). This is a type of disproportionality analysis commonly used in pharmacovigilance (meaning the monitoring of adverse events after drugs/vaccines go to market). The basic idea of disproportionality analysis is to take a new drug and compare it to one or more existing drugs generally considered safe. We look for disproportionality in the number of adverse events (AEs) reported for a specific AE out of the total number of AEs reported (since we generally don't know how many people take a given drug). We then compare to existing drugs considered safe to see if there is a higher proportion of particular adverse events reported for the new drug compared to existing ones. (In this case they are looking at vaccines, but they still use PRR even though they generally have a much better sense of how many vaccines were administered.) There are many ways to do disproportionality analysis. The PRR is one of the oldest. Empirical Bayesian data mining, which was supposed to be done on VAERS by the FDA, is another. The PRR is calculated by taking the number of reports for a given adverse event divided by the total number of events reported for the new vaccine or the total number of reports. It then divides that by the same ratio for one or more existing drugs/vaccines considered safe. Here is a simple formula: So for example, if half of all adverse events reported for COVID-19 vaccines and the comparator vaccine(s) are for myocarditis, then the PRR is 0.5/0.5 = 1. If one quarter of all AEs for the comparator vaccine are for myocarditis, then the PRR is 0.5/0.25 = 2. Traditionally, for a PRR to count as a safety signal, the PRR has to be 2 or greater, have a Chi-square value of 4 or greater (meaning it is statistically significant) and there has to be at least 3 events reported for a given AE. (This also means that if there are tons of different AEs reported for COVID vaccines that have never been reported for any other vaccine, it will not count as a safety signal. I found over 6,000 of those in my safety signal analysis from 2021. Of course a safety signal does not necessarily mean there is a problem or that the vaccine caused the adverse event. But it is supposed to set off alarm bells to prompt closer inspection, as in this CDC pamphlet: Ah yes, shared with the public — after first refusing to share the results and months of foot-dragging following repeated FOIA requests! We will see that the CDC has not done a more focused study on almost any of adverse events with “new patterns” (AKA safety signals). SO WHAT DID THE CDC ACTUALLY DO? The Epoch Times obtained 3 weeks of safety signal analyses from the CDC for VAERS data updated on July 15, 22 and 29, 2022. Here I will focus on the last one, since there is very little difference between them and it is more complete. The safety signal analysis compares adverse events1 reported to VAERS for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Dec. 14, 2020 through July 29, 2022 to reports for all non-COVID vaccines from Jan 1, 2009 through July 29, 2022. PRRs are calculated separately for 5-11 year-olds, 12-15 year-olds and 18+ separately. For each age group, there are separate tables for AEs from all reports, AEs from reports marked serious and AEs from reports not marked as serious.2 Recall that a serious report is one that involves death, a life-threatening event, new or prolonged hospitalization, disability or permanent damage, or a congenital anomaly. I will focus on the reports for all AE’s. They also have a table that calculates PRRs by comparing reports for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to reports for the Moderna vaccine and vice versa, again for all reports, serious reports only and non-serious reports. There were no remarkable findings in those tables, so I will not discuss them. [Edit: I forgot what Norman Fenton noted in his analysis: the overall proportion of reports with serious adverse events is 9.6% for Modern compared to 12.6% for Pfizer.] This isn’t that surprising since both vaccines are very similar and so should present relatively similar adverse events when compared to each other, and any differences are likely not large enough to be picked up by a PRR analysis. [Though the difference in the overall rate of serious adverse events, which are not specific to a particular type of event only how serious it is, was significant.] The CDC seems to have calculated PRRs for every different type of adverse event reported for all the COVID vaccines examined - though it’s possible they only analyzed a subset. What seems clear is that, among the AEs they examined, the only ones included in the tables satisfy at least one of two conditions: a PRR value of at least 2 and a Chi-square value of at least 4 (Chi is the Greek letter χ and is pronounced like ‘kai’). When both conditions were met, they highlighted the adverse event in yellow, which appears to indicate a safety signal. There were no COVID vaccine AEs listed with fewer than 3 reported events, though for non-COVID vaccines there were many AEs listed that had only 1 or 2 reported since 2009. The CDC tables still include these and highlight them in yellow when the PRR is greater than 2 and the Chi-square value is great than 4, indicating these events are counted as safety signals. WHAT SAFETY SIGNALS DID THE CDC FIND? I’m going to divide this up by age groups and the Pfizer v. Moderna comparison. Let’s start with the 18+ group. There are 772 AEs that appear on the list. Of these, 770 are marked in yellow and have PRR and Chi-square values that qualify them as safety signals. Some of these are new COVID-19 related codes, and we would expect those to trigger a signal since they didn’t exist in prior years to be reported by other vaccines. So if we take those off, we are left with 758 different types of non-COVID adverse events that showed safety signals. I grouped these 758 safety signals into different categories. The figure below shows the total number of AEs reported for each of the major categories of safety signals: Let’s dig into some of these categories to look at what types of AEs generated the most number of reports:3 Let’s dig into some of these categories to look at what types of AEs generated the most number of reports:3 You can peruse the adverse events using the Excel tables provided by the CDC, which were posted by The Epoch Times and Children’s Health Defense at the links at the top of this post. What about The Children? If there is anything that looks remotely like a bright spot in all of this is that the list of safety signals for 12-17 and 5-11 year-olds is much shorter than for 18+. There are 96 AEs that qualify as a safety signal for the 12-17 group and 67 for the 5-11. When we take out the new COVID-era AEs, there are 92 safety signals for 12-17 year-olds and 65 for 5-11 year-olds. Here are the most alarming ones: I don’t know why the list of AE’s is so much shorter for these age groups. It could be that the list of AE’s for other vaccines for these age groups is much shorter, so in a case where AEs have been reported for the mRNA COVID vaccines but not for other vaccines, it will not be counted as a safety signal by definition. COMPARISONS TO MYOCARDITIS & PERICARDITIS We are told that the existence of a safety signal doesn’t necessarily mean the AE is caused by the vaccine, and I accept that premise. But the current practice seems to be to ignore safety signals, dismiss them as noise without any evidence, and stall any investigation into them as long as possible. The precautionary principle, however, dictates we should presume that a safety signal indicates causality, until proven otherwise. Since, it has been acknowledged that the mRNA COVID vaccines can cause myocarditis and pericarditis (often referred to as myo-pericarditis), we can take those AEs as a kind of benchmark, and propose that, at minimum, any AE with a signal of equal or greater size should be considered potentially causal and investigated more thoroughly.4 After dropping the new COVID-era AEs, there are 503 AEs with PRRs larger than myocarditis (PRR=3.09) and 552 with PRRs larger than pericarditis (PRR=2.82).5 This means that 66.4% of the AEs had a bigger safety signal than myocarditis and 77.3% were larger than pericarditis. You can see what those were by use this Excel file provided by the CDC and sorting the 18+ tab by the 12/14-07/29 PRR column (Column E). Then just look at which AEs have PRRs larger than the ones for pericarditis and myocarditis. For 12-17 year-olds, there is 1 safety signal larger than myocarditis (it’s ‘troponin increased’) and 14 safety signals larger than pericarditis (excluding myocarditis), which include: mitral valve incompetence, bell’s palsy, heavy menstrual bleeding, genital ulceration, vaccine breakthrough infection, and a range of indicators of cardiac abnormalities. For 5-11 year-olds, the comparison to myo/pericarditis is less germane, as they seem to suffer less from this side effect. But we can still make the comparison: there are 7 safety signals larger than pericarditis, including bell’s palsy, left ventricular dysfunction, mitral valve incompetence, and ‘drug ineffective’ (presumably meaning they still got COVID). There are 16 safety signals larger than myocarditis (excluding pericarditis), which in addition to those listed above also include: pericardial effusion, diastolic blood pressure increase, tricuspid valve incompetence, and vitiligo. Sinus tachycardia (high heart rate), appendicitis, and menstrual disorder come in just below myocarditis. Now if we think of a safety signal as having both strength and clarity, then the PRR can be thought of as an indicator of how strong the signal is, while the Chi-square is a measure of how clear or unambiguous the signal is, because it gives us a sense of how likely the signal is due to chance alone: the larger the Chi-square value, the less likely the signal is due to chance. A Chi-square of 4 means there is only a 5% chance the observed signal is due to chance. A Chi-square of 8 means there is only a 0.5% chance of it being due to chance.6 For the 18+ group, there are 57 AEs with a Chi-square larger than myocarditis (Chi-square=303.8) and 68 with a Chi-square larger than pericarditis (Chi-square=229.5). Again, you can see what these are by going the Excel file linked above and sorting on Column D. For the 12-17 group, there are 4 AEs with a larger Chi-square than myocarditis (Chi-square=681.5) and 6 larger than pericarditis (Chi-square=175.4). For the 5-11 group, there are 22 AEs with a Chi-square larger than myocarditis (Chi-square=30.42) and 34 AEs with a Chi-square larger than pericarditis (Chi-square=18.86). RESPONDING TO OBJECTIONS Let’s dispense with some of the criticisms used to dismiss VAERS data, which will undoubtedly be raised if you try to bring the CDC’s analysis to people’s attention. Objection: Anybody can report to VAERS. The reports are unreliable. Anti-vaxxers made lots of fraudulent reports. Nobody was aware of VAERS in the past, but now they are. So many people were afraid of the vaccine so they blamed all their health problems on it. Health workers were required by law to report certain adverse events, like deaths and anaphylaxis. Etc. Etc. All of these objections ultimately rely on the notion that VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines have been artificially inflated over previous years for one reason or another. The thing of it is, though, that the CDC has a method for distinguishing between artificial inflation and real signal. The idea is simple: if adverse events are artificially inflated, they should be artificially inflated to the same degree. Meaning, the PRRs for all of these safety signals should be about the same. But even a casual glance at the PRRs in the Excel file show they vary widely, from as low at 2 to as high as 105 for vaccine breakthrough infection or 74 for cerebral thrombosis. This method does not on the number of reports, but the rate of reporting for certain events out of all events reported. If anything, this method would tend to hide safety signals in a situation where a new vaccine generates a very large number of reports. The CDC has even done us the favor of calculating upper and lower confidence intervals, meaning that we can be at least 95% confident that two PRRs are truly different if their confidence intervals don’t overlap. So for example the lower confidence interval for pulmonary thrombosis is 19.7, which is higher than the upper confidence interval for 543 other signals. Artificially inflated reporting cannot explain why so many different adverse events have large PRRs that are statistically distinct from one another. Objection: The safety signals are due to the huge number of COVID vaccines given out. Never before have we given out so many vaccine doses. By the end of July, the US had administered something like 600 million vaccine doses to people aged 18+. But the CDC analysis compares VAERS reports for these doses to all doses for all other vaccines for this age group since Jan. 1, 2009. But from 2015-2020 there were over 100 million flu doses administered annually to this age group alone. In previous work, I estimated 538 million doses of flu given to people 18+ from July 2015-June 2020. The number of flu and other non-COVID vaccines for this age group administered from Jan 1., 2009 through July 29, 2022 must be well over double this number, meaning VAERS reports for COVID vaccines are being compared to reports for at least double the number of doses for other vaccines. In addition to this, as already noted, the PRR methodology does not depend, strictly speaking, on the number of doses, but rather the rate of reporting of a specific AE out of all AEs for that vaccine. Objection: the vaccines are mainly being given to older people who tend to have health problems, whereas other vaccines are given to younger people. This objection is dealt with, since the analyses are stratified by age groups. It might be still be somewhat valid for the 18+ group, except that in the safety signal analysis I did in the fall of 2021, I stratified by smaller age bands and still found safety signals. In any case, this objection is not enough to dismiss the safety signal analysis out of hand, but rather calls for better and more refined research. Objection: The VAERS data is not verified and cannot be trusted. I’ll be the first person to agree that VAERS is not high quality data, but if it is completely untrustworthy, then how is it that the CDC uses these data to publish in the best medical journals such as JAMA and The Lancet? If the data were worthless, then these journals shouldn’t accept these papers. In that JAMA paper, they reported that 80% of the myocarditis reports met their definition of myocarditis and were included in the analysis. Many other reports simply needed more details for validation. Furthermore, the CDC has the ability and budget to follow-up on every report VAERS receives to get more details and even medical records to verify the report. So if myocarditis shows a clear signal in the CDC’s analysis, and 80% of those reports were apparently high quality enough to be included in a paper published in one of the world’s top medical journals, how is it possible that all the rest of the reports are junk? That all of the other safety signals are meaningless? Answer: it isn’t. And since we’re on the topic of safety signals that turned out to be real, it’s instructive to find appendicitis turn up as a safety signal in all 3 age groups, since a study published in NEJM based on medical records of over a million adult Israelis found an increased risk of appendicitis in the 42 days following Pfizer vaccination (but not following a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test). That study also found an increase in lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes) after vaccination, but not after positive COVID test. Lymphadenopathy was another safety signal. And that brings us to our last objection to be dispensed with: all of these AEs were due to COVID. There was an epidemic and so people were falling ill due to COVID and having all of these problems that were then blamed on the vaccine. Well to begin with, as we just saw, at least two of them (appendicitis and lymphadenopathy) do not appear to have increased risk ratios following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test, and we know that the mRNA vaccines increase risk of myo/pericarditis independent of infections. So how can we assume the rest of these are and dismiss them with the wave of a hand? We can’t. At minimum, they need further investigation. Furthermore, in the safety signal analysis I did in 2021, I dropped all VAERS reports where any sign of a SARS-CoV-2 exposure or infection was indicated on the report, and I still found large, significant safety signals. PUTTING IT ALL INTO PERSPECTIVE The Epoch Times article quotes my esteemed colleague and friend, Norman Fenton, Professor of Risk Management and an world renowned expert in Bayesian statistical analysis: “from a Bayesian perspective, the probability that the true rate of the AE of the COVID-19 vaccines is not higher than that of the non-COVID-19 vaccines is essentially zero…. The onus is on the regulators to come up with some other causal explanation for this difference if they wish to claim that the probability a COVID vaccine AE results in death is not significantly higher than that of other vaccines.” (See his post on the CDC analysis here.) The same is true for all the safety signals they found. The CDC’s VAERS SOP analysis document lists 18 Adverse Events of Special Interest says they are going to pay close attention to. In their 2021 JAMA paper (and similar presentations to ACIP), the researchers responsible for analyzing the millions of medical records in the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) using the ‘Rapid Cycle Analysis’ only studied 23 outcomes. A Similar analysis in NEJM from Israeli researchers focused on only 25 outcomes. Compare this to over 700 safety signals found by the CDC when they finally decided to look—and that’s not even counting all the adverse events that have never been reported for other vaccines so cannot ever show a safety signal by definition. How can the CDC say that these safety signals are meaningless if almost none of them have been studied any further? And yet we are assured that these vaccines have undergone the most intensive safety monitoring effort in history. It’s complete and utter hogwash! *  *  * Josh Guetzkow is a senior lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Subscribe to his Substack here. 1) To be precise, the 'adverse events' are for 'preferred terms' (PTs) which is a type/level of classification used in the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA), which is the classification system used by VAERS and in other pharmacovigilance systems and clinical research for coding reported adverse events. Not all preferred terms are a symptom or adverse event per se. Some refer to a specific diagnostic test that was done or a treatment that was given. 2) It's not entirely clear how they divided these up, since there are clearly AEs that should be considered serious that don't show up in the serious Excel table — though maybe they don’t come up simply because they are looking within serious reports. I believe that they just filtered the reports to include only serious reports or non-serious reports, then did the safety signal analysis on all the AE's coded in those reports. The reason I think this is that I used the MedAlerts Wayback Machine, selected just the serious COVID-19 vaccine reports, and the numbers of total reports was very close to the one in the table provided by the CDC (MedAlerts actually had a bit less). The files obtained by the Epoch Times do not include much in the way of a description as to how the analyses were done, so I had to infer some details, which might be incorrect. I will try to note when I am drawing an inference about how the analysis was done. 3) Generally speaking, these figures show the top ten AEs in each category. In some cases I combined AEs that indicated the same thing, such as combining ‘heart rate irregular’ with ‘arrythmia.’ [UPDATE: Note that the charts of all categories, cardiac and thrombo-embolic events were updated on Jan 7, 2023. The reason is that I had previously categorized acute myocardial infarction as a cardiac issue and myocardial infarction as thrombo-embolic. To be consistent, I have now combined myocardial infarction and acute myocardial infarction into one AE category in the thrombo-embolic events (which made the total AEs reported for that category larger than for pulmonary ones) and then added a different cardiac AE to the cardiovascular AE category, ventricular extrasystoles, AKA premature ventricular contraction (PVC), which dependent on frequency and the presence of other cardiomyopathies is associated with sudden cardiac arrest.] 4) Note that using the myo-pericarditis signal as a yardstick doesn’t mean that these are the only signals that matter. To give one example, anaphylactic reactions don’t even show up in the list of safety signals, even though that was one of the very first risk of the vaccine that became apparent from day one of the vaccine rollout. One potential objection to this benchmark is that it is too low of a bar, since myo-pericarditis appears to disproportionately affect younger men and so a proper safety signal should be stratified by age and gender then compared with myocarditis similarly stratified. I agree, and it is the CDC’s job to do that. But the fact is that any adverse reaction might disproportionately affect some subgroup of people, in which case the safety signal for that group would be similarly faint or diluted when we look at everyone together. So objection overruled. 5) In their Standard Operation Procedures document, the CDC said they would combine these and related codes together to assess a safety signal, but never mind – at least they finally got around to doing something. 6) In this context, the Chi-square is largely driven by the sheer number of adverse events: the more adverse events reported, including for the comparator vaccine, the larger the Chi-square. For example, the PRR for pericarditis and subdural haematoma is the same (2.82), but there were 1,701 incidents of pericarditis reported for mRNA COVID vaccines versus 221for the comparator vaccines, with Chi-square of 229.5. For subdural haematoma, these numbers are 162 verus 21, for a Chi-square of 21.2. Tyler Durden Mon, 01/09/2023 - 05:00.....»»

Donald Trump’s Gravest Threat is in Georgia; An Indictment is Likely – AG Garland May Have to Back Off for Legal, Political, Optics Reasons Donald Trump’s Gravest Threat WASHINGTON D.C. (January 3, 2023) – An ever growing number of experts have concluded that former president Donald Trump’s gravest legal threat comes not from the newly […] Donald Trump’s Gravest Threat is in Georgia; An Indictment is Likely – AG Garland May Have to Back Off for Legal, Political, Optics Reasons Donald Trump’s Gravest Threat WASHINGTON D.C. (January 3, 2023) – An ever growing number of experts have concluded that former president Donald Trump’s gravest legal threat comes not from the newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q3 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   But rather from the DA of Fulton County, Georgia; in part because Attorney General Merrick Garland may nix one or more proposed federal prosecutions for legal and political reasons, as well as the troubling "optics," says public interest law professor John Banzhaf. On Sunday, civil rights attorney David Henderson said on MSNBC that "I think in terms of prosecutors, he has the most to fear down in Georgia because Fani Willis is not going to back off, and many of the arguments that we hear about prosecuting the former president are not going to be persuasive to her." Also, just last week Willis wrote “target” letters to 10 more Republican electors, putting them on notice that they too could be indicted - a very clear indication that she is moving forward. It’s hard to see how electors in a scheme to affect the election could be prosecuted without also including the person behind and encouraging the entire scheme, argues Banzhaf. Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, has written "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. And I think the charges will stick." Earlier, THE HILL reported that legal experts say "an Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president," notes Banzhaf, whose formal detailed complaint triggered the current Georgia criminal investigation of Donald Trump, including the issuance of subpoenas for many close to him by a special grand jury. “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” As the two former prosecutors concluded, "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.. . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." Georgia's Criminal Law As the New York Times further explained: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [ GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." There are many other indications that Willis may be the first prosecutor to indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice. Professor Banzhaf has long suggested that the investigation by Willis is more likely to charge Trump than any federal prosecution to indict him for his role in allegedly inciting a riot on January 6th. Here are four reasons why. Some of the reasons also apply to possible federal prosecution for crimes related to the federal documents found in Mar-a-Lago. FIRST, he says, the evidence in Georgia is clear and uncomplicated, unlike the words of Trump's January speech which many see as ambiguous - words of incitement which are similar to those used by other public figures - and where prosecutors might have to argue from possible inferences. In the Georgia case the language of Trump's telephone call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is very precise in its demands, the tone on the audio recording shows that Trump was not joking or speaking in generalities, others who listened to the call undoubtedly made notes and passed some of them to Trump, and there is ample supplemental evidence of Trump's criminal intent to affect the election results. The fact that Trump, in a position to direct the Department of Justice, specifically mentioned possible criminal penalties if his wishes were not granted, and had others in his camp place similar calls, provides overwhelming evidence of his criminal intent, concludes Banzhaf, who notes that many other criminal law experts, including several very familiar with Georgia law, have publicly announced that they have reached the same conclusion. SECOND, an indictment and trial in Georgia would not raise suspicion - and create very bad "optics" - of an incoming president seeking political retribution, and protection from competition in the 2024 presidential election, by trying to throw his opposition into prison, or at least to damage him with federal indictments and the trial itself. Incoming presidents jailing their predecessors is what we and others around the world associate with tin-horn dictators in third-world countries with corrupt governments, not the U.S., Banzhaf argues. Here it's even worse, because polls indicate that Trump, already a declared candidate, would be the strongest opponent of Joe Biden or of any other Democrat in the 2024 presidential race. So indicting him for federal crimes, much less putting him behind bars during this election, would be seen by many as a politically motivated prosecution. Also, for many, it would seem unfair to invoke the full resources of the United States government against one person, even a rich and powerful one such as Trump. A prosecution by a county DA would avoid all of these problems and perceptions, notes Banzhaf, so it might even have a greater chance of success, and of avoiding juror nullification at a trial. THIRD, there is no free speech problem, as there would be in a criminal prosecution based upon Trump's speech at the January 6th rally. Under the Supreme Court's Brandenburg ruling, the government may criminally punish someone for making a political speech only if it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” - in other words, it must create a clear and present danger. [emphasis added] But since considerable time elapsed between Trump's speech and the lawless actions of his followers - enough time, for example, for authorities to have taken preventive steps if they seemed at the time to be warranted - it's not clear that the lawless action was "imminent" in the same sense of a hypothetical crowd being urged to "hang him now." More importantly, can it be said - much less proven beyond a reasonable doubt - that the statements were "likely" to provoke lawless action? For example, at the time of the speeches, why didn't various public and law enforcement officials issue clear warnings about possible lawlessness if his words were so clearly "likely to incite or produce violence"? If they didn't, which is apparently the case, this suggests that even professionals may not have believed that lawless action was "likely" - not just possible or conceivable. In this regard, hindsight may be questionable, suspect, and not very persuasive, argues Banzhaf. FINALLY, Willis plans to use Georgia's RICO - its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - in any prosecution of Trump. Banzhaf, who is familiar with the federal RICO statute since he produced the memo which led to the federal government's successful RICO prosecution against the major tobacco companies, points out that the Georgia RICO statute is even more powerful and far reaching than the federal one. Among other things, it defines racketeering more broadly than the federal law does, takes less to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and does not always require the existence of an "enterprise" - especially an illegal or criminal enterprise - to constitute racketeering. Indeed, Willis successfully used RICO to prosecute a teacher-cheating case. Also, notes Banzhaf, although RICO requires at least two independent illegal racketeering activities - "predicate acts" - to prove a pattern of corruption by Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, making false statements such as Trump and some of his allies are alleged to have made would more than satisfy Georgia's RICO law. Racketeering, which is a felony in Georgia, can carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, a hefty fine, and disgorgements of ill-gotten gains. Most felons in Georgia convicted of racketeering offenses do serve time in prison. So with many persons very close to and closely involved with Trump having been subpoenaed, everyone who feels that Trump must be prosecuted should keep a very sharp eye on DA Fani Willis in Georgia, counsels the law professor......»»

Inflation, Recession, & Declining US Hegemony Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com, In the distant future, we might look back on 2022 and 2023 as pivotal years. So far, we have seen the conflict between America and the two Asian hegemons emerge into the open, leading to a self-inflicted energy crisis on the western alliance. The forty-year trend of declining interest rates has ended, replaced by a new rising trend the full consequences and duration of which are as yet unknown. The western alliance enters the New Year with increasing fears of recession. Monetary policy makers face an acute dilemma: do they prioritise inflation of prices by raising interest rates, or do they lean towards yet more monetary stimulation to ensure that financial markets stabilise, their economies do not suffer recession, and government finances are not driven into crisis? This is the conundrum that will play out in 2023 for the US, UK, EU, Japan, and others in the alliance camp. But economic conditions are starkly different in continental Asia. China is showing the early stages of making an economic comeback. Russia’s economy has not been badly damaged by sanctions, as the western media would have us believe. All members of Asian trade organisations are enjoying the benefits of cheap oil and gas while the western alliance turns its back on fossil fuels. The message sent to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and even to OPEC+ is that their future markets are with the Asian hegemons. Predictably, they are all gravitating into this camp. They are abandoning the American-led sphere of influence. 2023 will see the consequences of Saudi Arabia ending the petrodollar. Energy exporters are feeling their way towards new commercial arrangements in a bid to replace yesterday’s dollar. There’s talk of a new Asian trade settlement currency. But we can expect oil exports to be offset by inward investment, particularly between Saudi Arabia, the GCC, and China. The most obvious surplus emerging in 2023 is of internationally held dollars, whose use-value is set to drop away leaving it as an empty shell. It amounts to a perfect storm for the dollar, and all those who sail with it. Those of us who live long enough to look back on these years are likely to find them to have been pivotal for both currencies and global alliances. They will likely mark the end of western supremacy and the emergence of a new, Asian economic domination. The interest rate threat to the west’s currencies It is a mark of how bad the condition of Western economies has become, when interest rate rises of only a few cent are enough to threaten to precipitate an economic crisis. The blame can be laid entirely at the door of post-classical macroeconomics. And like a dog with a bone, their high priests refuse to let go. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they would now have you believe that inflation is transient after all, though they have conceded the possibility of inflation targets being raised slightly. But the wider concern is that even though interest rates have yet to properly reflect the extent of currency debasement, they have risen enough to tip the world into recession.  In their way of thinking, it is either inflation or recession, not both. A recession is falling demand and falling demand leads to falling prices, according to macroeconomic opinions. When both inflation and a recession are present, they cannot explain it and it does not accord with their computer models. Therefore, government economists insist that consumer price rises will return to the 2% target or thereabouts, because rising interest rates will trigger a recession and demand will fall. It will just take a little longer than they originally thought. They now saying that the danger is no longer just inflation. Instead, a balance must be struck. Interest rate policy must take the growing evidence of recession into account, which means that bond yields should stop rising and after their earlier falls equity markets should stabilise. For them, this is the path to salvation. In pursuing this line, the authorities and a group thinking establishment have had success in tamping down inflation expectations, aided by weakening energy prices.  Since March, West Texas intermediate crude has retraced 50% of its rise from March 2020 to March 2022. Natural gas has fallen forty per cent from its August high. If the western media is to be believed, Russia is continually on the brink of failure, the suggestion being that price normality will return soon. And the inflationary pressures from rising energy and food prices will disappear. What is really happening is that bank credit is now beginning to contract. Bank credit represents over 90% of currency and credit in circulation and its contraction is a serious matter. It is a change in bankers’ mass psychology, where greed for profits from lending satisfied by balance sheet expansion is replaced by caution and fear of losses, leading to balance sheet contraction. This was the point behind Jamie Dimon’s speech at a banking conference in New York last June, when he modified his description of the economic outlook from stormy to hurricane force. Coming from the most influential commercial banker in the world, it was the clearest indication we can possibly have of where we were in the cycle of bank credit: the world is on the edge of a major credit downturn. Even though their analysis is flawed, macroeconomists are right to be very worried. Over nine-tenths of US currency and bank deposits now face a meaningful contraction. This is a particular problem earlier exacerbated by covid lockdowns and for businesses affected by supply chain issues. It gives commercial banks a huge problem: if they begin to whip the credit rug out from under non-financial businesses, they will simply create an economic collapse which would threaten their entire loan book. It is far easier for a banker to call in loans financing positions in financial assets. And it is also a simple matter to call in and liquidate financial asset collateral when any loan begins to sour. This is why the financial sector and relevant assets have been in the firing line so far. Central banks see these evolving conditions as their worst nightmare. They are what led to the collapse of thousands of American banks following the Wall Street crash of 1929-1932. In blaming the private sector for the 1930s slump which followed and was directly identified with the collapse in bank credit, central bankers and Keynesian economists have vowed that it must never happen again. But because this tin-can has been kicked down the road for far too long, we are not just staring at the end of a ten-year cycle of bank credit, but potentially at a multi-decade super-cyclical event, rivalling the 1930s. And given the greater elemental forces today, potentially even worse than that. We can easily appreciate that unless the Fed and other central banks lighten up on their restrictive monetary policies, a stock market crash is bound to ensue. And this is what we saw when the interest rate trend began a new rising trajectory last January. For the Fed, preventing a stock market crash is almost certainly a more immediate priority than protecting the currency. It is not that the Fed doesn’t care, it’s because they cannot do both. Their mandate incorporates unemployment, and their ingrained neo-Keynesian philosophies are also at stake. Consequently, while we can see the dangers from contracting bank credit, we can also see that the Fed and other major central banks have prioritised financial market stability over increasing interest rates to properly reflect their currencies’ loss of purchasing power. The pause in energy price rises together with media claims that Russia will be defeated have helped to give markets a welcome but temporary period of stability. The policy of threatening continually higher interest rates must be temporary as well. In effect, monetary policy makers have no practical alternative to prioritising the prevention of bank credit deflation over supporting their currencies. Realistically, they have no option but to fight recession with yet more inflation of central bank currency funding increased government budget deficits, and through further expansion of commercial bank reserves on its own balance sheet, the counterpart of quantitative easing.  Besides central bank initiatives to keep bond yields as low as practicably possible, runaway government budget deficits due to falling tax income and extra spending to counteract the decline in economic activity will need to be funded. And given that the world is on a dollar standard, in the early stages of a recession the Fed will probably assume that the consequences for foreign exchange rates of a new round of currency debasement can be ignored. While currency debasement can then be expected to accelerate for the dollar, all the other major central banks can be expected to cooperate. The point about global economic cooperation is that no central bank is permitted to follow an independent line. The private sector establishment errs in thinking that the choice is between inflation or recession. It is no longer a choice, but a question of systemic survival. A contraction in commercial bank credit and an offsetting expansion of central bank credit will almost certainly take place. The former leads to a slump in economic activity and the latter is a commitment too large for an inflating currency to bear. It is not stagflation, a condition which according to neo-Keynesian beliefs should not occur, but a doppelgänger rerun of what did for John Law and France’s economy in 1720. The inconvenient truth is that policies of monetary stimulation invariably end with the impoverishment of everyone. The role of credit and the final solution To clarify how events are likely to unfold in 2023, we must revisit the basics of monetary theory, and the difference between money and credit. It is the persistent debasement of the latter which has been the problem and is likely to condition the plans for any nation seeking to escape from the monetary consequences of a shift in hegemonic power from the western alliance to the Russian Chinese partnership. It is probably too late for any practical solution to the policy dilemma faced by monetary policy committees in western central banks today. When commercial bankers collectively awaken to the lending risks created in large part by their earlier optimism, survival instincts kick in and they will reduce their exposure to risk wherever possible. A credit cycle of boom and bust is the consequence. Inevitably in the bust phase, not only are malinvestments weeded out, but over-leveraged banks fail as well. While the intention is to smooth out the cyclical effects on the economy, the response of the state and its central bank invariably makes things worse, with monetary policy undermining the currency. It is important to appreciate that with a sound currency system, which is a currency that only changes in its quantity at the behest of its users, excessive credit expansion must be discouraged. The opposite is encouraged by central banks. Extreme leverage of asset to equity ratios for systemically important banks of well over twenty times in Japan and the Eurozone are entirely due to central bank policies of suppressing interest rates. It is only by extreme leverage that commercial banks, which are no more than dealers in credit, can make profits from the slimmest of credit margins when zero and negative deposit rates are forced upon them. Since bank credit is reflected in customer deposits, a cycle of excessive bank credit expansion and contraction becomes economically destructive. The solution advocated by many economists of the Austrian school is to ban bank credit entirely, replacing mutuum deposits, whereby the money or currency becomes the bank’s property and the depositor a creditor, with commodatum deposits where ownership remains with the depositor. Separately, under these arrangements banks act as arrangers of finance for savers wishing to make their savings available to borrowers for a return. The problem with this remedy is that of the chicken and the egg. Production requires an advance of capital to provide products at a profit in due course. The real world of free markets therefore requires credit to function. And savings for capital reinvestment are also initially funded out of credit. So, whether the neo-Austrians like it or not we are stuck with mutuum deposits and banks which function as dealers in credit.  That is as far as we can go with commercial banks and bank credit. The other form of credit in public circulation is the liability of the issuer of banknotes. To stabilise their value, the issuer must be prepared to exchange them for gold coin, which is and always has been legal money. And once the issuer has established sufficient gold reserves, the issue of any additional banknotes must be covered by additional gold coin backing. But much more must be done. Government budget deficits must not be permitted except strictly on a temporary basis, and total government spending (including state, regional, and local governments) reduced to the smallest possible segment of the economy. It means pursuing a deliberate policy of rescinding legal obligations for government agencies to provide services and welfare for the people, retaining only a bare minimum for government to function in providing laws, national defence and for the protection of the interests of everyone without favour. All else can only be the responsibility of individuals arranging and paying for services themselves. It means that most bureaucrats employed unproductively in government must be released and made available to be redeployed in the private sector productively. A work ethic perforce will return to replace an expectation that personal idleness will always be subsidised. Given political realities, this cannot happen except as a considered response following a major credit, currency, and economic meltdown. It is a case of crisis first, solution second. Therefore, there is no practical alternative to the continual debasement of currencies until their users reject them entirely as worthless. Money is only gold, and all the rest is credit For a lack of any alternative outcome, the eventual collapse of unbacked currencies is all but guaranteed. To appreciate the dynamics behind such an outcome, we must distinguish between money and credit. Currency in circulation is not legal money, being only a form of credit issued as banknotes by a central bank. It has the same standing as credit in the form of deposits held in favour of the commercial banks. The distinction between money and credit, with money wrongly being assumed to be banknotes is denied by the macroeconomic establishment today. Officially and legally, money is only gold coin. It is also silver coin, though silver’s official monetary role fell into disuse in nineteenth century Europe and America.  Gold and silver coin as money were codified under the Roman Emperor Justinian in the sixth century and is still the case legally in Europe today. In English law, the unification of the Court of Chancery and common law in 1875 formally recognised the Roman position, and gold sovereigns, which were the monetary standard from 1820, became unquestionably recognised as money in common law from then on. Attempts by governments to restrict or ban ownership of gold as money must not be confused with the legal position. FDR’s executive order in 1933 banning American citizens from owning gold did not change the status of money. Nor did similar government moves elsewhere. And the neo-Keynesian denigration of a gold standard doesn’t alter its status either. Nor do the claims from cryptocurrency enthusiasts that their schemes are a modern replacement for gold’s monetary role. As John Pierpont Morgan stated in his testimony before Congress in 1912, “Gold is money. Everything else is credit”. He was not expressing an opinion but stating a legal fact. That gold does not commonly circulate as a medium of exchange is explained by Gresham’s law, which states that bad money drives out the good. Originally describing the difference between clipped coins and their wholly intact counterparts, Gresham’s law also applies to gold’s relationship with currency. Worldwide, unrelated societies hoard gold coin, spending currency banknotes and bank deposits first, which are universally recognised as lower forms of media of exchange. Even central banks hoard gold. And as they have progressively distanced themselves from their roles as servants of the public, they refuse to allow the public access to their gold reserves in exchange for their banknotes. The importance of gold as a store of value, that is as sound money, appears to be difficult to understand for people not accustomed to regarding it as such. Instead, they regard it is a speculative investment, which can be held in securitised or derivative form while it is profitable to do so. When it comes to hedging a declining currency’s purchasing power, the preference today is for assets that outperform the cost of borrowing. As an example of this, Figure 1 shows London’s residential housing priced in fiat sterling and gold. Housing is the most common form of public investment in the UK, further benefiting from tax exemptions for owner-occupiers. According to government data, since 1968 when house price statistics began median house prices in London have risen on average by 115 times. But priced in gold, they have risen only 29% in 54 years. With prices having generally risen by less outside London and its commuter belt, some areas might have seen falls in prices measured in gold. It is virtually impossible to get people to understand the implications. They correctly point out the utility of having somewhere to live, which is not reflected in prices. They might also point out that property held by landlords produces a rental income. Furthermore, most buyers leverage their investment returns by having a mortgage. In investing terms, these arguments are entirely valid. But they only prove that the purpose of owning an asset is to obtain a return or utility from it, with which we can all agree. The purpose of money or currency is different: it is a medium for purchasing an asset which will give you a benefit. What is not understood is that far from giving property owners a capital return which exceeds the debasement of the currency, they have just about kept pace with it. And if you had bought property elsewhere in the UK, your capital values might even have fallen, measured in real legal money, which is gold. Since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement, the consequences of currency debasement for asset prices such as residential property have hardly mattered. The debasement of currencies has never been violent enough to undermine assumptions that residential property will always retain its value in the long run. Other assets, such as a portfolio of financial equities are seen to offer similar benefits of apparent protection against currency debasement. But we now appear to be on the cusp of a major currency upheaval. The global banking system is more highly leveraged on balance sheet to equity measures than ever before, and bank credit is beginning to contract. All the major central banks have undeclared loses which wipe out their nominal equity, affecting their own credibility as backstops to their commercial banking systems. Systemic risks are escalating, even though market participants have yet to realise it. And as economic activity turns down, government budget deficits are going to rapidly escalate. A practical remedy for the situation cannot be entertained, so the debasement of currencies is bound to accelerate. Mortgage borrowing costs are already rising, undermining affordability of residential property in fiat money terms. The relationship between currency and real money, which is gold coin, will almost certainly break down. Measured in gold, a banking and currency crisis will have the effect of driving residential property prices significantly lower, while they could be maintained or even move somewhat higher measured in more rapidly depreciating fiat currencies. The transition from financialised fiat currencies to… what? There is an overriding issue which we must consider now that the long-term decline of interest rates appears to have come to an end, and that is how the dollar will fare in future. While the dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power since the ending of Bretton Woods, it has generally been gradual enough not to undermine its role as the world’s international medium of exchange and for the determination of commodity prices. It has retained sufficient value to act as the world’s reserve currency and is the principal weapon by which America has exercised her hegemony. It is in its role as the weapon for waging financial wars which may finally lead to the dollar’s undoing, as well as undermining the purchasing powers of the currencies aligned with it. By cutting Russia off from the SWIFT settlement system, thereby rendering her fiat currency reserves valueless, the western alliance hoped that together with sanctions Russia would be brought to her knees. The policy has failed, as sanctions usually do, while the message sent to all non-aligned nations was that America and its western alliance could render national currency reserves valueless without notice. Consequently, there has been a worldwide rethink over the dangers of relying on dollars, and for that matter the other major currencies issued by member nations of the western alliance. At this time of transition away from a weaponised dollar, there is a general uncertainty in nations aligned with the Russian Chinese axis over how to respond, other than to sell fiat currencies to buy more gold bullion. But the sheer quantities of fiat currency relative to the available bullion suggests that at current values the bullion is not available in sufficient quantities to credibly turn fiat currencies into gold substitutes. Nevertheless, it would be logical for the gold-rich Russian Chinese axis and nations in their sphere of influence to protect their own currencies from a rapidly developing fiat currency catastrophe. So far, none of them appear to be prepared to do so by introducing gold standards for the benefit of their citizens. Only Russia, under pressure from currency and trade sanctions has loosely tied its rouble to energy and commodity exports. In the vaguest of terms, it might be regarded as a synthetic equivalent of linking the rouble to gold. Why this is so is illustrated in Figure 2. Measured in fiat currencies, the oil price is exceedingly volatile, while in true money, gold, it is relatively stable. Measured in gold, the oil price today is about 20% lower than it was in 1950. Since then, the maximum oil price in gold has been a doubling and the minimum a fall of 85%. That compares with a rise in US dollars of 5,350% and no fall at all. Undoubtedly, if gold had traded free from statist intervention and speculation in currency and commodity markets and from the effects of fiat-induced economic booms and busts, the price of oil in gold would most likely have been even steadier. By insisting that those dubbed by Putin as the unfriendly nations must buy roubles to pay for Russian oil, demand for roubles on the foreign exchanges became linked to demand for Russian oil, which in turn is linked more closely to gold than the unfriendlies’ currencies. But it seems that in official minds, making this link between the rouble, oil, and gold is a step too far. When it comes to replacing the dollar with a new trade currency for the Asian powers, their initial discussions have suggested a more broadly based solution. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), consisting mainly of a central Asian subset of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) earlier this year announced that plans for a trade settlement currency were being considered, backed by a mixture of commodities and the currencies of member states.  So far, members of the SCO have restricted their discussion to ways of replacing the dollar for the purpose of transactions between them, a long-term project driven not so much by change in Asia but by US trade aggression and American hegemonic dollar policies over time. Following Russian sanctions imposed by the West, it is likely that the dangers of an immediate dollar crisis are now being more urgently addressed by governments and central banks throughout Asia.  With the West plunging into a combined systemic and currency crisis, no national government outside the dollar-based system appears to know what to do. Only Russia has been forced into action. But even the Russians are feeling their way, with vague reports that they are looking at a gold standard solution, and others that they are considering Sergey Glazyev’s EAEU trade currency project. As well as heading a committee set up to advise on a new trade settlement currency, Glazyev is a senior economic advisor to Vladimir Putin. From the little information made available, it appears that Glazyev’s EAEU monetary committee is ruling out a gold standard for the new trade currency. Instead, it has been considering alternative structures without achieving any agreement so far. But for the project to go ahead, proposals reported to include national currencies in its valuation basket must be abandoned. Not only is this an area where Glazyev is unlikely to obtain a consensus easily from member states, but to include a range of fiat currencies is unsound and will not satisfy the ultimate objective, which is to find a credible replacement for the US dollar for cross-border trade settlements. For confidence in the new currency to be maintained, the structure must be both simple and transparent. Since the currency committee’s press release earlier this year, there have been further developments likely to influence it construction. Led by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council is turning its back on the dollar as payment for oil and gas. Again, this development is attributable to climate change policies of the US-led western alliance. Not only has the alliance demonstrated that foreign reserves held in its fiat currencies can be rendered valueless overnight, but climate change policies send a clear message that for the GCC the future of their trade is not with the western alliance. For long-term stable trade relationships, they must turn to the Russian Chinese axis. It is happening before our eyes. China has signed a 27-year supply agreement with Qatar for its gas. President Biden attempted to secure a agreement with Saudi Arabia for additional oil output. He left with nothing. President Xi visited earlier this month and secured a long-term energy and investment agreement, whereby Saudi’s currency exposure to the yuan is minimised through Chinese capital investment programmes in the kingdom Already, an increase in China’s money supply is an early indication that propelled by cheap energy and infrastructure investment programmes, her economy is in the early stages of a new growth phase, while the western alliance faces a potentially deep recession. The currency effect is likely to be supportive of the yuan/dollar cross rate, which the Saudis are likely to have factored into their calculations. But they will almost certainly need more than that. They will want to influence settlement currencies for the balance of their trade. Their options are to minimise balances on the back of inward investment flows, as mentioned above. They can seek to influence the construction of the proposed EAEU trade settlement currency. Or they can build their gold reserves, to the extent they might wish to hedge currencies accumulating in their reserves. For the western alliance, the death knell for the petrodollar means that 2023 will see a substantial reduction of dollar holdings in the official reserves of all nations in the Russian Chinese axis and those friendly to it. The accumulation of dollars in foreign reserves since the end of the Bretton Woods regime is considerable, and its reversal is bound to create additional difficulties for the US authorities. Foreign owned US Treasuries are starting to be sold, and the $32 trillion mountain of financial assets and bank deposits are set to be substantially reduced. The potential for a run on the dollar, driving up commodity input prices in dollars, is likely to become a considerable problem for both the US and the entire western alliance in 2023. Conclusion We have noted the deteriorating systemic and monetary prospects for fiat currencies, predominantly those of the dollar-based Western currency system. Both sound economic and Marxist theory indicates that a final crisis leading to the end of these fiat currencies was going to happen anyway, and the financial war against Russia has become an additional factor accelerating their collapse.  After suppressing interest rates to zero and below, rising interest rates are finally being forced upon the monetary authorities by markets. With good reason, it has become fashionable to describe developments as an evolution from a currency environment driven by and dependent on financial assets into one driven by commodities — in the words of Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar, Bretton Woods II is ending, and Bretton Woods III is upon us. For this reason, there is growing interest in how a new world of currencies based somehow on commodities or commodity-based economies will evolve. This year, Russia successfully protected its rouble by linking it to energy and commodity exports and in the process undermined Western currencies. While it is always a mistake to predict timing, the fact that no one in the financial establishment is debating how to use gold reserves to protect their currencies clearly indicates that we are still early in the evolution of the developing fiat currency crisis. Officially at least, the forward thinkers planning a new pan-Asian trade settlement currency alternative to the dollar are looking at backing it with commodities and not a gold standard. Since Sergei Glazyev announced an enquiry into the matter, the Middle Eastern pivot away from the petrodollar to Asian currencies not only injects a new urgency into his committee’s deliberations but is bound to have a significant bearing on its outcome.  The implications for the western alliance play no part in current monetary policies. Their central banks act as if there’s no danger to their own currencies from these developments. But any doubt that fiat currencies will be replaced by currencies linked to tangible commodities, whether represented by gold or not, is fading in the light of developments. With neither the economic establishment nor the public having a basic understanding of what is money and why it is not currency, it is hardly surprising that current financial and economic developments are so poorly understood, and the correct remedies for our current monetary and economic conditions are so readily dismissed. These errors and omissions are set to be addressed in 2023. Tyler Durden Fri, 12/23/2022 - 21:25.....»»

Futures Rise For A Second Day As Volumes Plummet US stocks were set to rise for a second straight day on Wednesday with risk appetite staging a modest comeback amid dismal trading volumes as investors digested the hawkish turn from major central banks over the past week. S&P 500 futures were up 0.5% at 7:30 am ET, while Nasdaq futures gained 0.2%. The dollar reversed earlier losses, while global bonds steadied from the previous day’s selloff as some of the shock following the Bank of Japan’s unexpected increase in its yield trading band ebbed; the US 10Y yield held steady around 3.67%. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 index snapped a four-day losing streak although the Nasdaq 100 fell for a fifth day in its longest stretch of declines since October, as higher-for-longer interest rates continued to weigh on sentiment. Major US tech and internet stocks are modestly higher on Wednesday, as global bonds steadied from the previous day’s selloff. Bank stocks are also higher in thin premarket trading putting them on track to gain for a second straight day after snapping a four-day losing streak. In corporate news, Core Scientific became the latest crypto company to file for bankruptcy as the industry reckons with a plunge in digital asset prices. Here are the biggest premarket movers: Nike shares jump 13% as analysts hiked their price targets after its quarterly sales beat estimates. They said the robust update demonstrated the brand’s strength despite a tough macroeconomic backdrop. Tesla shares gain as much as 2.1% after Elon Musk confirmed that he will resign as CEO of social-media firm Twitter when a successor is found and focus on engineering teams, amid worries that the billionaire is spreading himself thin between the companies. Cathie Wood ramped up purchases of Tesla shares in the fourth quarter, despite rising concerns over Musk’s ability to manage businesses FedEx shares climb 4.2% after its second-quarter earnings beat analysts’ estimates as price increases and cost cuts offset weakening demand trends. Alphabet shares rise as much as 0.9% along with other big tech stocks, with Evercore analysts saying that, while they still see the Google parent as “highly attractive” for long-term investors, they are lowering their estimates and price target amid ongoing weakness in demand for online advertising and cloud computing. Starbucks stock declines 0.8% after it was downgraded to hold at Jefferies. The brokerage overall maintains a positive view on the US restaurant and foodservice distribution sector, but turns more selective to reflect greater chance of a recession in 2023, also downgrading Brinker and Red Robin to hold and upgrading Chefs’ Warehouse to buy. Adaptive Biotechnologies shares jump 8.2% after the disease-testing instruments maker is upgraded to overweight from neutral at Piper Sandler on broker’s optimism about the company’s minimal residual disease business and potential catalysts in immune medicine in 2023. Morgan Stanley analysts led by Vikram Purohit assumed coverage of Halozyme Therapeutics with a recommendation of overweight, citing attractive “defensive properties.” Dust started to settle on Japan’s shock decision to raise the upper limit of its 10-year bond yield, though the move has set in motion wagers the BOJ will join its peers next year in raising interest rates. Already, surging yields have shrunk the worldwide stock of negative-yielding debt to about $686 billion, from a $18.4 trillion peak reached two years ago. This number is likely to drop further as Japanese two-year yields rose above zero for the first time since 2015 and the 10-year benchmark approached the new upper yield limit, forcing the BOJ to step in with a bond-buying operation. Treasury yields were flat after surging 20 basis points this week. For Japanese investors, however, the latest policy move may change their calculus for the better. With the yields they can earn on domestic bonds suddenly more attractive, they may look to repatriate some of $3 trillion that Bloomberg data shows is held in foreign equities and debt. “Japanese buyers are already overweight dollar cash and other currencies. They will use it to buy yen and Japanese government bonds as domestic yields rise,” Deutsche Bank strategist George Saravelos told clients, predicting currency markets to see the biggest impact. In key US news, Ukraine chief comedian and president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visits DC today and Joe Biden will unveil almost $2 billion in Ukraine aid. Zelenskiy's first trip abroad since the invasion will include a prime-time address to Congress. His plea for more advanced weapons is set to be answered with a Patriot missile battery, a significant boost in US support. Elon Musk confirmed he'll step down as CEO after he finds a successor, though he plans to retain control over the engineering teams. Musk said Twitter was on course to have negative cash flow of $3 billion before recent cost-cutting measures. It's now poised to post revenue of $3 billion, next year, he said, and should reach cash flow breakeven too.   Sam Bankman-Fried will be flown to the US from the Bahamas today to face criminal charges linked to the FTX implosion. He'll be escorted by FBI agents on a private plane, a person familiar said. His legal team is in talks with prosecutors about a possible bail deal, which could include home detention or electronic monitoring, the NYT reported. While December is traditionally a good month for stock performance, with the S&P 500 index gaining 1.2% on average over the past 30 years and declining just 14 times over the past 50 years, this December is proving to be an exception, and is set to be one of the worst final months of the year for the US benchmark since 1957, as pressure from hawkish central banks and recession risks weigh on the gauge. The S&P 500 has dropped about 6% this month — on par with the losses it sustained in December 2002; only December 2018’s 9% decline was bigger. “When we look at the equity market response to these incremental monetary policy moves, it always strains belief that we should see future repricing of equity market on the back of what are relatively small central bank moves — even the ECB move,  said Wouter Sturkenboom, Northern Trust Asset Management chief investment strategist for EMEA & APAC. “We were a little surprised the US equity market responded as strongly as it did.” Global bond yields surged this week after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly increased its yield trading band. The moved followed a surprisingly hawkish tone from the European Central Bank last week. With the 2Y JGB yield rising above 0%, the stock of negative yielding debt is about to drop to zero. “Even if questions remain about where the Federal Reserve will finally drive borrowing rates, a lot of the 2022 bearish leverages have been already priced-in and we expect stock markets to stabilise following this year’s sell-off,” said Pierre Veyret, technical analyst at ActivTrades. “That said, investors will need further evidence of Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s economic “soft landing” to drive equities to new highs.” European stocks followed US futures and rebounded from a six-week low with all sectors rising as low average volumes show holiday trading pattern is materializing. In Europe, retailers, real estate and energy are the strongest performing sectors. Euro Stoxx 50 rises 0.9%. S&P futures and Nasdaq contracts rise 0.5% each. Here are some of the biggest European movers today: Tremor International shares rise as much as 11% after a Sky News report that the digital-ad company is exploring a sale and is working with Goldman Sachs bankers to solicit interest. Interparfums shares rise as much as 8% to their highest since March after the French perfume maker announced a deal to develop and market all perfume and cosmetics lines under the Lacoste brand. Philips shares rise as much as 5.5% after the Dutch maker of medical devices provided an encouraging update on tests to assess the safety of its DreamStation sleep-therapy devices. Adidas and Puma shares gain more than 9% after Nike’s robust quarterly sales update that beat expectations in all regions except for China. Avio plunges as much as 11% after the Italian space company said an anomaly occurred on the VV22 satellite-launch flight, leading to the loss of the mission. Billerud falls as much as 5.4%, extending losses into a third day, after DNB cut its recommendation to hold from buy, seeing “tailwinds turning into headwinds” with higher cost inflation and “evidence of softer prices.” Earlier in the session, Asian stocks headed for a fifth session of declines, as traders assessed adjustments to monetary policy in Japan and a jump in Covid cases in China. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was little changed after moving between a gain of 0.4% and a loss of 0.3%. While industrial and tech shares weighed on the gauge, Australian miners provided support on higher gold prices. Japanese banks gained after the Bank of Japan doubled its yield cap on Tuesday, although benchmarks fell. Moves across the region were driven by thin trading into year-end, with benchmarks in China and Hong Kong inching back from a two-day fall. In addition, a surge in Covid infections in China has affected trading desks. India stocks led losses in the region. Looking ahead, traders will keep an eye on US consumption data out Thursday. “With the recent Federal Reserve meeting bringing about an upward revision in US core PCE forecasts in 2023, the data will be looked upon to reflect the pace at which pricing pressures moderate,” Jun Rong Yeap, market strategist at IG Asia, wrote in a note Japanese stocks fell for a fifth day after the Bank of Japan doubled its cap on 10-year yields, sparking a jump in the yen. The Topix fell 0.6% to close at 1,893.32, while the Nikkei declined 0.7% to 26,387.72. The yen retreated slightly against the dollar after surging almost 4% Tuesday. Toyota Motor Corp. contributed the most to the Topix decline, decreasing 2%. Out of 2,163 stocks in the index, 452 rose and 1,631 fell, while 80 were unchanged.  Prospects of higher yields pushed the Topix Banks Index up 2.6%, adding to the gauge’s jump of more than 5% on Tuesday. The measure was the biggest gainer among the benchmark’s industry groups while automakers, real estate and tech extended declines. “The effects of the BOJ’s surprise move are still lingering,” said Shogo Maekawa, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. “While banking and insurance stocks continue to rise, sectors like real estate that are negatively impacted by rising interest rates, and stocks exposed to the strong yen are falling.” India stocks fell to a one-month low, erasing early gains, as risk-off mood weighed on the domestic market. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 1% to 61,067.24, the lowest since Nov. 10, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index declined by a similar measure.  Investor sentiment is worsening due to global concerns, including Bank of Japan’s surprise hawkish tilt, and rising Covid cases in China, said Jayesh Bhanushali, assistant vice president at IIFL Securities. Foreign investors have been adding fresh short positions in index futures and “there is panic in the market as global economic outlook is bleak,” he said. India’s health minister held a review meeting to look into the country’s covid situation, and has asked officials to stay alert. Of the BSE Ltd.’s 19 sectoral gauges, all but 2 fell, with an index of healthcare-related stocks rising 2.3%. Reliance Industries Ltd. contributed the most to the index’s decline, decreasing 1.4%.  In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot reversed earlier losses and gain  modestly as most Group-of-10 peers were steady against the greenback, with the exception of the pound and the New Zealand dollar. NZD and GBP are the weakest performers in G-10 FX, NOK and AUD outperform. Yen trades around 131.80 per dollar. The pound underperformed most of its G-10 peers as data released Wednesday showed UK government borrowing surged in November. The budget deficit stood at £22 billion ($26.8 billion) –- the highest monthly total in records stretching back to 1993 and almost triple the £8.1 billion reading a year ago. UK business confidence rose at the fastest rate in 20 months as labor market pressures showed signs of easing, the festive trading period exceeded expectations and businesses became more optimistic about the outlook for the economy Japan’s longer-dated benchmark bond yields extended yesterday’s surge and the 10-year yield climbed toward the central bank’s new 0.5% cap as speculation deepened that the BOJ will push forward with policy normalization. The yen steadied near the strongest level in more than four months against the dollar In rates, treasuries are slightly richer across the curve with gains led by front-end, extending steepening momentum of 2s10s, 5s30s spreads which trade through Tuesday highs. The 2-year Treasury yield shed 3bps while longer segment of the curve was steady, making the 2-10-year segment the steepest in five weeks. 10-year yields were around 3.68%, flat vs. Tuesday's close and outperforming gilts by 2.5bp — bunds trade broadly inline; front-end outperformance steepens 2s10s, 5s30s spreads by 1.8bp and 2.8bp on the day with 5s30s topping through -2bp and widest since Dec. 1. Bund yields steadied after the jump in longer dated global yields yesterday following the BOJ’s surprise tweak to its yield curve control. The Italian curve bull-steepened as yields fell 6-8bps. Gilts underperformed USTs and bunds at the 10-year mark. Peripheral spreads tighten to Germany with 10y BTP/Bund narrowing 6.1bps to 210.6bps. In commodities, WTI drifts 1.1% higher to trade near $77, rising for a third session. Spot gold falls roughly $5 to trade near $1,813/oz. Iron ore rose for a second day as China’s abrupt Covid Zero reversal and a steady stream of supportive policies improved the likelihood of a recovery in the housing sector. Amyris is among the most active resources stocks in premarket trading, gaining 2%.  To the day ahead now, and data releases include the US Conference Board’s consumer confidence reading for December, as well as November’s existing home sales and the Canadian CPI reading for November. A 20-year bond auction is scheduled for 1pm New York. Finally, we get the latest earnings from Micron Technology. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures up 0.4% to 3,865.00 STOXX Europe 600 up 0.9% to 427.80 MXAP little changed at 155.41 MXAPJ up 0.2% to 502.40 Nikkei down 0.7% to 26,387.72 Topix down 0.6% to 1,893.32 Hang Seng Index up 0.3% to 19,160.49 Shanghai Composite down 0.2% to 3,068.41 Sensex down 1.0% to 61,089.36 Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 1.3% to 7,115.09 Kospi down 0.2% to 2,328.95 German 10Y yield little changed at 2.29% Euro little changed at $1.0626 Brent Futures up 1.1% to $80.84/bbl Gold spot down 0.1% to $1,815.26 U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 103.98 Top Overnight News from Bloomberg In a span of 18 hours last week, years of rigid intransigence from the European Union’s two most rebellious nations started to break. First Hungary and then Poland agreed to fix their democracies’ shortcomings in exchange for gaining access to billions of euros of the bloc’s funds. If they make good on those promises, it will also be a testament to the new-found powers of the bond market The Russian exodus triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has put the currencies of former Soviet republics at the top of global rankings this year. Georgia and Armenia in the Caucasus mountains, as well as Tajikistan in Central Asia, are among the best performers against the US dollar after tens of thousands of Russian citizens settled there since February, bringing the equivalent of billions of dollars in savings with them The BOJ’s shock decision to tweak its yield-curve control ceiling has boosted policy-normalization bets, fueled expectations for higher and more volatile yields and may also damp demand for US Treasuries Japan’s investors are fleeing Treasuries at an unprecedented pace, and central bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s policy shift may reinforce the trend which is bringing a global era of negative yields closer to an end BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is facing mounting criticism over his latest shock policy decision, with several prominent economists calling it a blow to BOJ credibility and traders rushing to test the central bank’s new red line on bond yields The BOJ’s policy adjustments could be the first step toward an exit from its decade-long aggressive monetary easing, according to Takatoshi Ito, a contender to succeed Governor Haruhiko Kuroda China’s broad budget deficit hit a record so far this year, showing how damaging the now abandoned Covid Zero policy and the ongoing housing slump have been to the economy and to the government’s finances A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk Asia-Pac stocks traded mixed following a mostly positive lead from Wall Street and with news flow on the quieter side. ASX 200 outperformed and was lifted by gains across gold miners after the yellow metal topped USD 1,800/oz. Nikkei 225 remained pressured by the recent JPY strengthening, whilst the region overlooked reports that Japan maintained its overall economic view in December. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp gave up earlier gains but remained within tight parameters Top Asian News China reported zero new COVID deaths in the mainland on Dec 20th vs five a day earlier; reported 3,101 new COVID cases in the mainland on Dec 20th vs 2,722 a day earlier. "China will no longer take measures to isolate people from overseas and go to isolation facilities from January 3, 2023" according to HKSTV; "The policy optimized to 0+3 also means that China will fully open up from 2023 in the new year." China's Foreign Ministry says, on their plan to improve quarantine for overseas travellers, they will provide more convenience when appropriate. PBoC injected CNY 19bln via 7-day reverse repos with the rate maintained at 2.00%; injects CNY 141bln via 14-day reverse repos with the rate maintained at 2.15%; daily net injection CNY 158bln. China State Planner is holding a meeting to study measures to deal with excessive hog price decline, according to Reuters. Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi is to delay his trip to China to late-January or later, according to TV Asahi. Japan maintained its overall economic view in December; the economy is recovering moderately, said Japan needs to pay close attention to China's COVID situation, via Reuters. Japanese Economy Minister Goto acknowledged that the BoJ's Tuesday decision was not meant to be a tweak or exit from monetary policy, according to Reuters. IMF said the BoJ's YCC tweak is "a sensible step", according to Reuters. Japanese government to set assumed interest rate at a record low of 1.1% for compilation of FY23/24 budget, according to Reuters sources. South Korean Finance Minister sees 2023 GDP growth at 1.6% (vs 2022 estimate of 2.5%) and 2023 CPI growth at 3.5% (vs 2022 estimate of 5.1%), according to Reuters. European bourses have eked out a marginal extension of their initial upside, Euro Stoxx 50 +0.9%, with both newsflow and the schedule ahead sparse. Sectors are firmer across the board, with outperformance in Retail post-Nike and in Real Estate after recent pronounced pressure. Stateside, futures are similarly bid, ES +0.6%, with specific ex-corporate updates focused on gov't funding & Ukraine. FedEx (FDX) Q2 23 (USD): Adj. EPS 3.18 (exp. 2.80), Revenue 22.8bln (exp. 23.7bln). FY23 capex view cut by 400mln to 5.9bln. Cost reduction initiatives accelerated, identifies additional 1bln above Sept. forecast. Weak profit guidance. Nike Inc (NKE) Q3 2022 (USD): EPS 0.85 (exp. 0.65), Revenue 13.32bln (exp. 12.57bln). North America 5.83bln (exp. 5.35bln). Greater China 1.79bln (1.81bln). Executive expects FY revenue to grow in the low teens in constant currency (prev. low double-digit growth); expects around 700bps of FX headwinds. Executive says North American Black Friday and Cyber Week performance set highs for demand and traffic; in Greater China, demand grew mid-teens outpacing the sports industry. Top European News Interparfums Jumps to March Highs After Lacoste License Deal Tremor International Jumps After Sky Report It’s Exploring Sale Shell Says Exports Resume at Prelude LNG Plant in Australia Greece’s Gas Grid Eyes Links to New LNG Facilities, CEO Says Russia and Iran Are Building a Trade Route That Defies Sanctions Geopolitics Naval exercises of Russia and China with practical rocket and artillery firing will start in the East China Sea on Wednesday, according to Interfax. IAEA Chief Grossi is to visit Russia on Thursday, according to a Russian diplomat. FX DXY has managed to attain an incremental foothold at 104.00, with peers generally contained in tight ranges given the limited newsflow. However, NZD is the stand-out laggard and below 0.63 after poor domestic data. JPY has finally run out of impetus and USD/JPY has paused for breath towards the lower-end of 131.51-132.36 parameters. EUR, CHF and CAD all reside in sub 50-pip ranges at present. While GBP is marginally softer after the ONS reported the highest borrowing requirement for November on record. PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.9650 vs exp. 6.9644 (prev. 6.9861) Fixed Income An early recovery bounce has seemingly run out of steam ahead of US 20yr supply, with Bunds and Gilts fading from respective 136.00+ and 101.50+ peaks. Stateside, USTs are directionally in-fitting and similarly contained pre-supply, the curve is steepening slightly but with yields mixed. BoJ unscheduled operation: offered to buy JPY 100bln in 3-5yr JGBs and JPY 100bln in 5-10yr JGBs, according to Reuters. Commodities A contained session for the crude complex, with the benchmarks within sub-USD 2/bbl parameters in limited newsflow. A modest extension to fresh peaks occurred in proximity to commentary from the Russian Defence Ministry that oil tanks were destroyed in Kharvic, Ukraine. US Private Inventories (bbls): Crude -3.1mln (exp. -1.7mln), Cushing +0.84mln, Gasoline +4.5mln (exp. +2.1mln). Distillate +0.828mln (exp. +0.3mln). Indonesia is to ban the export of bauxite from June 2023; a move to encourage the development of onshore bauxite processing, according to the Indonesian President, according to Reuters. Russia decreased oil exports by 11% M/M between Dec 1-20th, according to Kommersant. India has imposed anti-dumping duty on stainless steel tubes and pipe imports from China for five years, according to a government notification. Spot gold is little changed overall but has experienced some very modest pressure as the DXY continues to scramble for a foothold at 104.00 and broader equity/crude upside advances somewhat from initial levels. US Event Calendar 07:00: Dec. MBA Mortgage Applications, prior 3.2% 08:30: 3Q Current Account Balance, est. -$222b, prior -$251.1b 10:00: Dec. Conf. Board Consumer Confidence, est. 101.0, prior 100.2 Expectations, prior 75.4 Present Situation, prior 137.4 10:00: Nov. Existing Home Sales MoM, est. -5.2%, prior -5.9% DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap If there's anyone still out there, hopefully your hearts will be slightly warmed by the Christmas miracle we've had at home. My 7-year-old daughter Maisie, who has been battling a very rare hip disease called Perthes for over 2 years, went for her 4-monthly scan and check up on Monday. The X-ray showed that her hip ball was now in the process of regrowing and after 14 months of being in a wheelchair, and after a major operation, is now allowed to start walking and running again. My wife was in tears as she rung me from the hospital, and I must admit I did shed at least one tear too. She is still not allowed to jump until the regrowth stage develops further but that's academic relative to the main news. We'll have to wait and see how close to normal she'll be as she goes through her childhood. The best case is probably a relatively normal life until she needs hip replacement at some point as an adult. Given I need two new knees that's not the end of the world. Despite 14 months in a wheelchair, she's so far outperforming the average of kids with this condition, and we can only think her love of swimming has helped as this is the only activity she could do. She's been going 3-4 times a week for a year now. If she hated swimming we would probably be in a far worse position now. So a lovely Christmas present for all the family. The only drawback is that arguments in the car over the last 14 months have been reduced as having accessible parking rights have allowed us to park in big easy-to-get-in spaces. Now we'll have to go back to tight spaces again and a lot of shouting at each other as opinions differ as to whether the other person is parking well or not. Just as we were driving home for Christmas, the BoJ news that Henry brought you yesterday has continued to reverberate around financial markets over the last 24 hours. The biggest move was that the Japanese Yen saw its largest daily gain of the 21st century so far against the US Dollar, with a +3.93% move higher that’s unrivalled since 1998. The yen is now trading at 132.22 per dollar, which is somewhat off its peak of 130.58 yesterday afternoon, but still a very large gain having been above 137 prior to the BoJ’s announcement. Japanese equities are also continuing to struggle, with the Nikkei underperforming other indices in Asia this morning with a -0.68% decline, whilst yields have climbed further overnight, with the 10yr Japanese government bond yield up +7.1bps to 0.48%. As a reminder, the big surprise was the change in the yield curve control policy, which has a target for the 10yr JGB yield to remain around zero. Previously, the BoJ committed to keeping that yield within a band of 0.25 percentage points either side of zero, and would conduct purchases as necessary to keep it in that range. But yesterday that band was doubled to 0.5 percentage points either side, removing the effective cap on yields that had kept them from moving above the 0.25% mark. Adrian Cox, Henry Allen and our chief Japan economist Kentaro Koyama have this morning put out the latest in our "101 series", aimed at explaining specialist topics to generalists, on the yield curve control move. See it here. The BoJ’s announcement served as the catalyst for a fresh selloff globally, with sovereign bonds slumping across the world. That’s because the BoJ’s decision has several broader implications. For instance, if it does mark the start of a move away from ultra-loose monetary policy in Japan, then that could see Japanese investors shed their foreign bond-holdings in favour of domestic ones that now attract a higher yield. Indeed, yesterday’s decision prompted growing speculation that we could see a BoJ rate hike at some point in 2023. And if the prospect of that still seems absurd, just remember it was only last December that ECB President Lagarde said “it is very unlikely that we will raise interest rates in the year 2022”, and they’ve since done 250bps worth of hikes. We’ve also seen a big reduction in the quantity of global debt with a negative yield following the BoJ’s move, with Bloomberg’s index down to $686bn yesterday, which is down from $14tn only a year ago, and a peak above $18tn in late-2020. In terms of what happens now, our chief Japan economist Kentaro is of the view (link here) that the uptrend in underlying inflation and the upcoming change of leadership at the BoJ (Governor Kuroda’s term ends early next year) mean that there’s certainly the possibility of another policy revision. A key factor will be the shunto wage talks in the spring, where a wage hike of over 3% could trigger a further move towards policy normalisation. Our main scenario at present looks for a withdrawal of YCC in Q3 2023 on the assumption of high wage growth. In the meantime, our rates strategists have written about the implications for their views (link here). Yields spiked across the globe after the move with those on 10yr Treasuries up +9.8bps to 3.68%, and this morning they’ve risen a further +2.6bps to +3.71% as we go to print. The rise in yields was most pronounced at the long-end of the curve, meaning that the 2s10s steepened +9.8bps yesterday to -57.7bps, which is the first time in over a month it’s closed above -60bps. Meanwhile in Europe, it was the 5th day running that sovereign bonds lost ground, with yields on 10yr bunds (+10.1bps), OATs (+12.1bps) and BTPs (+9.4bps) all seeing sizeable increases once again. French bonds have been a favourite of Japanese investors so that might explain the relative weakness. For equities there was a less consistent pattern, with a number of the major indices swinging between gains and losses throughout the day. By the close the S&P 500 (+0.10%) was up for the first time in the last 5 sessions. Energy (+1.52%) was the best performing industry yesterday, with Media (+0.83%) and Materials (+0.65%) also performing. The NASDAQ was marginally better than unchanged (+0.01%), breaking a 4-day slide of its own, whilst the VIX volatility index fell -1.0pt on the day to 21.5 as the entire volatility curve fell back. Meanwhile in Asia overnight, Japanese equities are underperforming as mentioned at the top, but elsewhere we’ve seen a similar pattern to the US of modest gains and losses, including for the CSI 300 (+0.05%), the Hang Seng (+0.23%), the Shanghai Comp (-0.19%) and the Kospi (-0.18%). In Europe the performance was more negative however, with the US afternoon rally coming after Europe had closed, and leaving the STOXX 600 down -0.40%. There were two major off-cycle earnings announcements after the US close with FedEx (+4.8% in after-mkt trading) beating analysts’ estimates, as price increases and cost savings counteracted declines in package volumes. The company projected lower costs, but also lower demand over the next fiscal year. At the same time, Nike (+12.8% in after-mkt trading) rose sharply as high quarterly sales and gross margins overcame another quarter of inventory buildup. While margins have been compressed by inventories, they have not been less than initially feared. As we look toward next year, the build of inventories is a key area of concerns for retailers as demand slows. Helped by those earnings, US equities futures are extending their gains with contracts on the S&P 500 up +0.47% this morning. Looking at yesterday’s data, there was a bit of respite on the inflation side, with German PPI in November falling to +28.2% year-on-year (vs. +31.1% expected), which is its lowest level since February. Over in the US, data on housing starts showed a modest decline in November to an annualised rate of 1.427m (vs. 1.4m expected), with building permits seeing a much sharper decline to an annualised 1.342m (vs. 1.48m expected). There was weakness in both single family and multi-family housing permits but excluding the pandemic period, single family permits were at their weakest levels since 2016. To the day ahead now, and data releases include the US Conference Board’s consumer confidence reading for December, as well as November’s existing home sales and the Canadian CPI reading for November. Finally, earnings releases include Micron Technology. Tyler Durden Wed, 12/21/2022 - 08:07.....»»

Feds Had Informants In Proud Boys And Oath Keepers For J6 Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness, If Republicans eke out a win in the House of Representatives—which now seems likely—GOP leaders have promised to investigate numerous government scandals, including the irredeemably corrupt Federal Bureau of Investigation. One path of inquiry is how the bureau manufactures data to promote the phony narrative that “domestic violent extremists,” i.e., supporters of Donald Trump, pose a security threat to the country. Whistleblowers recently disclosed how the FBI is “misrepresenting the scale of domestic violent extremism nationwide by categorizing January 6th-related investigations as organic cases stemming from local field offices, instead of all related to one single incident,” according to a report by GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee.  Shortly after the Capitol protest, FBI Director Christopher Wray designated the four-hour disturbance as an act of “domestic terror”; federal prosecutors routinely compare January 6 defendants to terrorists, enabling the government to seek—and receive—extended jail time for misdemeanors convictions and justify indefinite pretrial detention for nonviolent offenders. During his Senate testimony in March 2021, Wray described members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, two groups involved in the events of January 6, as “militia violent extremists.” When Senator Lindsey Graham (RINO-S.C.) asked Wray whether he considered either group a domestic terror organization, the director refused to answer directly, instead insisting “individuals” associated with both groups are “domestic terrorists.” Those comments alone should be fireable offenses. Set aside Wray’s excuse-making for leftist rioters—in 2020, Wray laughably refused to apply the same label to Antifa, calling it a “movement or an ideology,” not a terror organization—no evidence exists to support Wray’s accusations that the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys mimic terror cells comparable to al Qaeda. Of the nearly two dozen members of both groups now facing charges tied to January 6, only one is accused of using a weapon (a riot shield) and it is alleged he used it to break a window, not harm a person, that afternoon.  Members of the Oath Keepers who drove to Washington to attend the president’s speech left their legally transported weapons at a Virginia hotel rather than violate the city’s strict gun control laws. Worst “militia” ever. And no one in either group carried a firearm into the building or on Capitol grounds. But Wray, conveniently, left off another vital detail about these “militias”: the number of FBI confidential human sources embedded within them both before and during the Capitol protest. Prior to the September start of the seditious conspiracy trial against members of the Oath Keepers, prosecutors finally disclosed that at least five FBI informants were embedded in the groups weeks and months before January 6. Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia handling over 900 January 6 cases, sought to prevent the jury from hearing about the informants’ “activities or involvement in past investigations.” None testified as a witness for the government. But the defense wanted to call to the stand the vice president of the Oath Keepers, a man who worked directly with Stewart Rhodes, the founder and head of the group. Greg McWhirter is a former sheriff’s deputy and current owner of a tactical shooting range and gun shop in Montana. McWhirter also is an FBI informant. According to a bombshell piece in the New York Times, McWhirter was “secretly reporting to the F.B.I. about the group’s activities in the weeks and months leading up to the Capitol attack.” Reporter Alan Feuer further revealed that McWhirter had suffered a medical emergency boarding a plane to Washington to testify and required hospitalization. (Prosecutors asked the presiding judge to find out who leaked the information about McWhirter’s role, under court-ordered protective seal, to Feuer. Defense dropped him as a witness.) Not only did McWhirter work for the FBI, he lured Oath Keepers to his remote business by offering discounts to buy guns and ammunition before the 2020 election—presumably, at the behest of the FBI to produce evidence of a self-styled “militia” even though no crime was committed. All of it reeks of the FBI-engineered plot to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, an entrapment scheme underway at the very same time the FBI utilized informants in the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers before January 6. In the Whitmer fednapping hoax, Dan Chappel, the lead informant, acted as the “commanding officer” of an imaginary militia—revealed during trial as a fabrication of the FBI—to lure the FBI’s targets into the trap. Further, another Oath Keeper turned informant called the FBI tip line in November 2020 over fears the group planned to go “to war with the United States government” but investigators didn’t contact him until March 2021. But unlike the Whitmer fednapping plot where the FBI arrested their targets before any attempted “kidnapping” could occur, the FBI did not use any foreknowledge about possible violence on January 6 to prevent what happened that day despite connections to several informants. The question is—why not? The FBI also ran informants in the Proud Boys before January 6. Last year, Feuer revealed that the FBI embedded one informant in the group in July 2020; the informant was involved in the first breach of the restricted area. “As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march,” Feuer reported in September 2021. “The recipient was his F.B.I. handler.” Another FBI informant was associated with a separate chapter of the Proud Boys that also participated in the events of January 6. Now it appears that the FBI had multiple assets dispersed among the Proud Boys. A last-minute discovery dump last week by prosecutors includes at least 500 pages of possibly exculpatory evidence related to the FBI’s confidential human source operation within the Proud Boys. (Jury selection for the first trial is scheduled to start December 12.) The Times reported late Monday night that at least eight FBI informants were placed in the Proud Boys.  According to one defense motion, the Justice Department held this material for more than a year only to release heavily redacted versions of the pages one month before trial; one defense lawyer noted that even page numbers had been redacted. Defense attorneys have now asked U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly to take action. Counsel for Zachary Rehl, a Proud Boy from Pennsylvania, asked Kelly to “dismiss the indictment in this case and impose such other sanctions as are just and proper on the grounds that the government has violated Mr. Rehl’s rights to a fair trial and to the due process of law by failing to produce until this past week information ‘favorable to’ Mr. Rehl that is ‘material either to guilt or to punishment’ under Brady v. Maryland.” Even more outrageous is that Rehl and three of his co-defendants have been behind bars under pre-trial detention orders since early 2021; Kelly, a Trump appointee, has consented to their indefinite incarceration as the Justice Department plays last-minute games to either force plea agreements or delay trial once again. Gamesmanship aside, it’s now evident the FBI infiltrated these two “militia” groups well in advance of January 6. So, only one of two explanations is possible: either the FBI hired lousy informants, all of whom failed to tell their handling agents that the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys planned to overthrow the government that day or, more likely, the FBI replicated the Whitmer fednapping—informants worked with supervising agents and FBI hierarchy to concoct another “domestic terror” attack to bolster Wray’s unsubstantiated warnings about domestic violent extremists for political reasons. In other words, they wanted to sabotage Donald Trump. In either case, where is the outrage among January 6 propagandists that the FBI, contrary to Wray’s public assertions, had plenty of resources devoted to collecting intelligence about the Capitol protest? Why did Wray’s surveillance operation fail so spectacularly? Who are the handling agents responsible for such widespread failure? Why haven’t heads rolled? Where is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling for Wray’s resignation? That these questions remain unanswered—and, more importantly, unasked—is a telling sign. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/16/2022 - 10:25.....»»

Futures Flat As War Threat Fades US equity futures were flat, having traded in a narrow range on either side of unchanged, as investors braced for the latest retail sales data, assessed the easing path of inflation and remained calm in the face of rising geopolitical concerns resulting from a NATO attempt to paint rocket a Ukraine strike on a Polish village as Russian, in hopes of dramatically escalating the war. Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defense that fell on the Polish theory. Which is not true. No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages. This lesson should have been long learnt since the downing of #MH17. — Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) November 15, 2022 Luckily, video evidence refuted the false flag, and overnight NATO was forced to admit that the ":Explosion in Poland was Likely Due to Ukraine Air Defense" Even so, the Western pro-war alliance still blamed Russia with  NATO's Secretary General saying the blast in Poland was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile but that Russia was ultimately responsible because it started the war. "They are responsible for the war that has caused this situation.” Propaganda aside, fears of an immediate spillover from the conflict were soothed, knocking the yen and dollar lower, as demand for safe-haven assets gradually faded.   “It’s a reminder that the risk of escalation is in the background. It’s something we need to watch for, because any escalation of military action and additional impact on energy supply could seriously disrupt markets,” said Kiran Ganesh, managing director at UBS Global Wealth Management. Failed Gulf of Tonkin 2.0 aside, contracts on the Nasdaq 100 were down 0.1% and the S&P 500 was flat as of 7:30 a.m. in New York, erasing modest earlier losses and gains; the dollar dropped and the euro and the Polish zloty recouped earlier knee-jerk losses. 10Y yields traded near session lows at 3.758%.  In premarket trading, stocks linked to Donald Trump, including blank check company Digital World Acquisition Corp., surged after the former president officially entered the 2024 presidential race. Meanwhile, suppliers to Apple could be active, following a report about the iPhone maker preparing to begin sourcing chips for its devices from a plant under construction in Arizona. Here are the other notable premarket movers: Carnival (CCL US) shares fall 13% after a private offering of $1 billion of convertible senior notes. Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA US) shares dropped as much as 7.5% after the cell-programming platform provider launched a share sale, with the company planning to use the net proceeds to offset the cash used to finance the acquisition of assets and liabilities of Bayer CropScience, and for other general corporate purposes. Tattooed Chef (TTCF US) slides as much as 15% after the plant-based food company said it intends to raise additional debt or equity capital in the “near future.” Advance Auto (AAP US) shares dive as much as 14% set for its biggest drop since March 2020, with analysts saying that the car parts retailer’s results were underwhelming and a surprise with earnings per share missing estimates and the firm nudging down its guidance. Analysts also flagged a negative impact from currency and higher expenses. Lulu’s Fashion Lounge (LVLU US) fell 26% after its revenue forecast for 2022 fell short of the average analyst estimate. The company also said Chief Financial Officer Crystal Landsem will succeed David McCreight as chief executive officer, effective March 6. US stocks rose Tuesday as fresh data added to evidence that inflation may have peaked, strengthening the case for the Federal Reserve to moderate the pace of interest-rate hikes. “Investors’ euphoria is understandable given the first small signs of easing on the inflation front, but we wonder whether it isn’t also a bit overdone,” said Marko Behring, head of asset management at Fuerst Fugger Privatbank. “The current recovery moves, which are overshooting a bit, could trigger exactly what many market participants no longer have on their radar: a US central bank that might have to act more aggressively again, precisely because of the burgeoning euphoria.” Colin Asher, senior economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. sees the moves as overdone, and predicted more volatility ahead. US retail sales and housing market data due later on Wednesday may offer more clues on the state of the US economy. “I am more in the dollar-plateau versus the dollar-peak camp,” he said. “Inflation may have peaked but that doesn’t mean it’s coming down rapidly. We have probably seen the peak for the dollar but it wouldn’t surprise me if we go back into a period of softer equities.” In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped as geopolitical developments weigh on sentiment; risk was dragged down by real estate, autos and retail. Energy outperformed. The FTSE 100 outperforms, adding 0.2%, IBEX lags, dropping 0.9%. There were signs of overheating in the region after a 19% rally since Sept. 29 for euro-area blue chips, which reached their most overbought level in nearly 23 years. UK inflation data for October was higher than expected, increasing pressure on the Bank of England to keep raising interest rates. Here are the biggest European movers: Siemens Energy rises as much as 7.8% to its highest since Aug. 31 after the energy development company reported a “solid finish” to FY22 with the growth and margin outlook looking strong, according to Jefferies. Sage Group jumps as much as 7.1%, with analysts saying the software maker’s annualized recurring revenue growth of 12% and FY23 outlook are bright spots of its full-year results. Alstom climbs as much as 6.3% after the French rail equipment maker reported first-half results, with orders beating expectations. Prosus gains as much as 4.8% after Chinese online giant Tencent reported better-than-expected profit and said it will distribute the majority of its shares in food delivery firm Meituan to investors. Swedish landlord Balder falls as much as 8.1% on reports it may face a credit downgrade by S&P, pulling local peers lower. Mercedes-Benz falls as much as 6.2%, the most intraday since Sept. 5 and the worst performer in the Stoxx 600 Automobiles & Parts Index; the German carmaker cut prices on two EV models in China, with Oddo saying the move is “new evidence of tough competition” in the country. Evotec falls as much as 6.2% after Deutsche Bank downgrades to hold from buy, with the broker seeing risks to the German pharma firm’s 2022 guidance and saying its ability to meet 2023 consensus estimates is “ambitious.” SGS shares drop as much as 5.9%, the most since March 2020, after an unscheduled trading update from the Swiss industrial that Morgan Stanley said could drive downgrades in the mid single-digits. Asian stocks fell as traders weighed rising geopolitical tensions and surging Covid cases in China. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 1.1% before paring to 0.4%. Key gauges in China and Hong Kong led declines, with most national benchmarks in the red. Risk-off sentiment returned after a Russian-made missile struck Poland, though US President Joe Biden said it was unlikely to have been fired from Russia. A jump in China’s daily virus tally further fueled investor caution, casting doubt over a potential exit from its Covid Zero policy. Signs that the Federal Reserve is slowing its pace of monetary tightening have lifted markets this month, with a slew of Fed speakers indicating a readiness to moderate the size of their rates hikes. The Asian stock benchmark is up 13% so far in November, poised for its best monthly performance since 1998. “The Fed has garnered more catalysts to slow its pace of hikes, which also provides further support to the equity market rally,” said Jessica Amir, market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets. The next important data sets the Fed will be watching are due early next month, including US jobs and CPI, she added. Japanese stocks closed mixed as US President Joe Biden and key European leaders urged caution after a rocket struck a Polish village just over the border from Ukraine. The Topix closed little changed at 1,963.29, while the Nikkei advanced 0.1% to 28,028.30. The yen weakened against the dollar, erasing earlier gains. Out of 2,165 stocks in the index, 1,076 rose and 966 fell, while 123 were unchanged. “There is a bit of a risk-off mood after news that a Russian missile landed in Poland,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management. “In an extreme case, if NATO were to move, the market would become more risk averse in general.” In FX, the Bloomberg dollar spot index falls 0.2%. JPY and GBP are the weakest performers in G-10 FX, EUR and DKK outperform. The euro led G-10 gains and rose for a second day versus the dollar, but remained within yesterday’s range. The common currency’s volatility skew shifted lower this week, urging caution to those long the euro in the spot market. The pound held its ground against a broadly weaker dollar, but underperformed most major currencies after data showed UK inflation rose; UK CPI rose to 11.1% from a year ago in October, the highest in 41-years. That was more than the central bank’s peak forecast for 10.9% and the 10.7% median that economists had expected. Focus turns to Bank of England officials’ testimony to lawmakers later and then the fiscal statement Thursday. Gilt yields were 1bp lower to 2bps higher. The Aussie trades near its strongest level in more than two months as the nation’s relationship with China appears to be stabilizing and on the back of a weaker greenback from easing concerns over geopolitical tensions in eastern Europe. The nation’s wages climbed 1% in the three months through September from the prior quarter, the fastest pace since early 2012, for an annual gain of 3.1% In rates, Treasuries were narrowly mixed after paring losses, with 2s10s curve flatter; bunds and gilts outperformed during London morning. 20-year new-issue auction is a focal point of US session, along with retail sales and three scheduled Fed speakers. 10-year TSY yields dropped to 3.76% vs day’s high 3.84%, lagging bunds and gilts in the sector by ~3bp; front-end underperformance flattens 2s10s by ~1bp to -59bp, within 3bp of cycle low reached Nov. 4. There is a $15 billion 20-year TSY bond auction at 1pm which has a WI yield ~4.160%, around 23.5bp richer than October’s result, a 2.5bp tail. In Europe, Bunds were steady, while Italian bonds advanced, led by the long end, and outperforming euro-area peers. In commodities, crude benchmarks began the session a touch softer, with participants digesting the multiple updates around the Poland missile incident and the Druzhba pipeline. However, the complex then spiked on the below reports of an oil tanker being attacked near Oman; sending WTI and Brent to USD 87.51/bbl and USD 94.79/bbl peaks. Defense Official says that an oil tanker has been struck in an exploding drone attack off Oman, amid heightened tensions with Iran, via AP's Miller. The attack happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, according to the official. Spot gold is modestly firmer given the aforementioned geopolitical concerns and as the DXY languishes below 106.00; albeit, the yellow metal is yet to surpass Tuesday's USD 1786/oz peak. To the day ahead now, and data releases include UK and Canadian CPI for October, as well as US retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation for October, and the NAHB housing market index for November. Central bank speakers include BoE Governor Bailey, ECB President Lagarde, the ECB’s Muller, Centeno, Villeroy and Panetta, and the Fed’s Williams, Barr and Waller. Finally, earnings releases include Nvidia, Cisco Systems, Lowe’s, TJX Companies and Target. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 4,006.50 STOXX Europe 600 down 0.7% to 431.49 German 10Y yield up 0.3% to 2.11% Euro up 0.6% to $1.0411 MXAP down 0.4% to 154.12 MXAPJ down 0.4% to 500.16 Nikkei up 0.1% to 28,028.30 Topix little changed at 1,963.29 Hang Seng Index down 0.5% to 18,256.48 Shanghai Composite down 0.4% to 3,119.98 Sensex up 0.2% to 62,005.19 Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.3% to 7,122.24 Kospi down 0.1% to 2,477.45 Brent Futures up 0.8% to $94.57/bbl Gold spot up 0.1% to $1,780.53 U.S. Dollar Index down 0.23% to 106.16 Top Overnight News from Bloomberg US President Joe Biden said a rocket that struck a village in Poland near the Ukraine border was unlikely to have been fired from Russia, comments that may limit the risk of a major escalation in tensions over the incident. The cost-of-living squeeze is hurting people’s ability to service debts, while Europe’s worsening growth prospects threaten corporate profits, the ECB said Wednesday in its Financial Stability Review Things are finally looking up for China’s economy, and with that traders are ditching government bonds for riskier bets. Yields on benchmark 10-year debt jumped as much as four basis points to 2.85% on Wednesday, the highest since December A world-beating rally across Asian markets is starting to look precarious as some analysts caution China reopening euphoria will give way to the sober reality of a looming global recession A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk APAC stocks traded lower throughout the session but climbed off session lows as markets juggled the US PPI data with the latest geopolitical development. ASX 200 was pressured by its heavyweight Financials sector, with losses also seen across gold miners. Nikkei 225 briefly fell back under the 28k mark but losses were cushioned by the weaker JPY, whilst machinery names were after the Japanese government cutting its machinery orders assessment. KOSPI conformed to the downbeat tone across the region with the heaviest losses seen across the electronics and construction sectors. Top Asian News China's state planner said growth stabilisation policies will take effect in Q4, will actively expand effective investment and speed up consumption recovery in key sectors, via Reuters. China reported 1,623 (prev. 1,661) new coronavirus cases in the mainland for Nov 15 China's Beijing reported 197 new local symptomatic cases (vs 303 the prior day) Shanghai Disney said parts of the resort will resume operations on Nov 17th; Disneyland Park will remain closed until further notice, via Reuters. Xinjiang's Yining announced on Tue life & production will return to normal, after successfully curbing the latest COVID 19 spread, according to Global Times. PBoC injected CNY 71bln via 7-day reverse repos at a maintained rate of 2.00% for a CNY 63bln net injection. PBoC Governor Yi said talks with US Treasury Secretary Yellen were candid and constructive, via Bloomberg.    US Treasury Secretary Yellen and PBoC Governor Yi discussed macroeconomic and financial developments, high and volatile commodity prices, the sides exchanged macroeconomic views outlooks of US and China. Yellen noted that she looks forward to future engagements with the Chinese side, according to the Treasury Department. European bourses have spent much of the morning fairly contained but with a gradually increasing negative bias, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.5%, as the recent rally pauses amid numerous geopolitical developments. US futures are marginally firmer, ES +0.1%, but similarly contained as the ES clings onto the 4k mark ahead of numerous metrics and more Fed speak. Amazon's (AMZN) retail business is reportedly bracing for a tough holiday season by "sellers for lump sums of cash and limiting inventory", according to Business Insider. Lowe's Companies Inc (LOW) Q3 2023 (USD): Adj. EPS 3.27 (exp. 3.10), Revenue 23.5bln (exp. 23.13bln); raises FY22 outlook Top European News UK Inflation Hits 41-Year High on Soaring Energy Prices Carnival Drops After $1b Convertible Senior Notes Offering Air France-KLM Falls on Convertible Bond Offer, Strike Plans Inflation Is Peaking ‘Right Now,’ World’s Top Cement Maker Says Druzhba Pipe May Resume Soon as Market on Edge: Energy Latest UK Braces for ‘Austerity on Steroids’ With Little Left to Cut Central Banks Fed's George (voter) says Fed should continue raising rates, but Fed should slow pace of hikes, WSJ reports. Bringing inflation down without a recession might not be feasible. Inflation is at risk of growing entrenched in the economy due to an overheated job market, and that will make it increasingly difficult for the Federal Reserve to bring inflation down without a recession. ECB's Muller says both 50bps and 75bps rate hikes are 'substantial', adding that he favours a 'substantial' rate hike in December. ECB's Visco says price growth could return to target by the end of 2024; ECB needs to continue with restrictive policy. ECB's de Guindos says it is difficult to have financial stability without price stability. ECB Euro Zone Financial Stability Review: Risks are increasing and banks may need to build up provisions. FX DXY once again on the backfoot and sub-106.00 to the modest benefit of peers, ex-JPY. EUR/USD is the current outperformer given the soft USD with specific developments limited aside from numerous ECB speakers though largely on financial stability; currently, holding above 1.04. Cable briefly spiked on the hot UK CPI release, to a 1.1942 high; however, this proved shortlived given the overarching headwind of a bleak domestic outlook. As mentioned, JPY is the G10 laggard, with USD/JPY briefly rising as high as 140.29 though it has since managed to move back below 140.00. PBoC sets USD/CNY mid-point at 7.0363 vs exp. 7.0409 (prev. 7.0421) Commodities Crude benchmarks began the session a touch softer, with participants digesting the multiple updates around the Poland missile incident and the Druzhba pipeline. However, the complex then spiked on the below reports of an oil tanker being attacked near Oman; sending WTI and Brent to USD 87.51/bbl and USD 94.79/bbl peaks. Defense Official says that an oil tanker has been struck in an exploding drone attack off Oman, amid heightened tensions with Iran, via AP's Miller. The attack happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, according to the official. US Private Energy Inventories (bbls): Crude -5.8mln (exp. -0.4mln), Cushing -0.8mln, Gasoline +1.69mln (exp. +0.3mln), and Distillate +0.9mln (exp. -0.5mln). Russian Kremlin says hard work continues on reviving the grain deal, if necessary President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan will coordinate within hours; Russian Finance Minister says supported an extension of the grain deal at the G20 summit, via Reuters. Spot gold is modestly firmer given the aforementioned geopolitical concerns and as the DXY languishes below 106.00; albeit, the yellow metal is yet to surpass Tuesday's USD 1786/oz peak. Central Banks Fed's George (voter) says Fed should continue raising rates, but Fed should slow pace of hikes, WSJ reports. Bringing inflation down without a recession might not be feasible. Inflation is at risk of growing entrenched in the economy due to an overheated job market, and that will make it increasingly difficult for the Federal Reserve to bring inflation down without a recession. ECB's Muller says both 50bps and 75bps rate hikes are 'substantial', adding that he favours a 'substantial' rate hike in December. ECB's Visco says price growth could return to target by the end of 2024; ECB needs to continue with restrictive policy. ECB's de Guindos says it is difficult to have financial stability without price stability. ECB Euro Zone Financial Stability Review: Risks are increasing and banks may need to build up provisions. Geopolitics Polish Foreign Ministry said a "Russian-made" rocket landed in a Polish village at 15:40 local time; Poland has summoned the Russian ambassador, via Reuters. US officials said initial findings suggest the missile that hit Poland was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile, according to AP US President Biden said the missile that hit a Polish village near the border with Ukraine was probably not launched from Russian territory, citing information on the rocket's trajectory, via dpa. US President Biden said leaders will determine the next steps after finding out what happened in Poland, and added that Russia continues to escalate its attacks in Ukraine. Polish President said there is no definitive evidence of who fired the rocket that fell onto the village, and added that what happened was a one-off incident and there are no indications that it will happen again, via Reuters. Local Polish media reports citing sources said what hit Przewowo is most likely the remains of a rocket shot down by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, via Radio Zet. Polish PM said they are working to establish the cause of the explosion in the village near the border with Ukraine, and decided to increase monitoring of air space, according to Reuters. Kremlin spokesperson said he has no information on the incident in Poland, via Reuters. Ukraine's President Zelenskiy said Russian missiles have struck Poland; strikes on NATO territory a significant escalation and action is required, via Reuters. Polish President said it is very likely that Poland will activate Article 4 of the NATO Treaty on Wednesday at the NATO meeting, via Reuters. Subsequently, reports via local press indicate that Poland will not request the Article 4 activation. A view the Polish PM has since intimated as well. NATO ambassadors to meet on Wednesday at Poland's request on the alliance's Article 4, according to European diplomats cited by Reuters. NATO SecGen to brief at 11:30GMT/06:30ET. US President Biden told the G7/NATO that the Poland blast was caused by Ukrainian air defence missile, via Reuters citing a NATO source. US Event Calendar   DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap The good news for markets has continued over the last 24 hours, despite headlines after Europe closed of Russian rockets landing in Poland injecting a fresh bout of uncertainty and intraday volatility. This dented sentiment but we recovered around half of the earlier gains by the US close as the general conclusion was that it was more likely to be accidental than an enormous escalation. As we go to press an AP reporter has suggested that US officials’ initial investigations suggest it was in fact a Ukrainian rocket fired at incoming Russian missles. This follows Biden's earlier overnight remarks that it was unlikely the rocket was fired from Russia. More on that later, but all told, bonds and equities managed to hold onto their post-data surge after US producer price inflation eased by more than expected. That follows on the heels of last Thursday’s downside surprise in consumer price inflation, and added to the narrative that we’re past the worst on inflation and that the Fed will soon be able to slow down its rate hikes. The S&P 500 (+0.87%) just about erased the previous day’s losses even though they came off their +1.80% highs earlier in the session. The index did briefly go negative on the Poland headlines. The S&P’s gains over the last 4 sessions now stand at +6.49%, just shy of the largest 4-day gain for the index in over two years. In terms of the details of that PPI release, monthly headline inflation surprised to the downside with a +0.2% reading (vs. +0.4% expected). And as with the CPI reading, core PPI also came in beneath expectations with an unchanged reading (vs. +0.3% expected), thus cementing the idea that this downshift could prove more durable. In turn, those weaker-than-expected inflation readings took the year-on-year numbers to their lowest in some time, with headline PPI down to +8.0% (vs. +8.3% expected), which is the lowest since July 2021. The big test now will be whether these very positive numbers from October can be sustained, or whether it’s a repeat of July’s downside surprise that was then followed by more negative prints once again. More on the Poland story now and the spike down in risk occurred as reports indicated Russian rockets landed in Poland, a NATO member, and killing two people. The initial reaction was understandable given that any deliberate strike on a NATO member would mark an enormous escalatory step. It soon became apparent that this was highly unlikely to be a direct attack, and the overnight comments mentioned at the top suggest a rapid deescation. As such markets can go back to focusing on the positives, which was given further momentum by some decent corporate news from Walmart (+6.66%). The company raised their full-year outlook, and now see adjusted EPS declining by 6-7% rather than 9-11% as previously suggested, and also approved a new $20bn share buyback plan. This collection of good news meant that there was a very broad-based advance for equities, with every sector group bar two rising on the day, and even those two sectors just missed, with health care down -0.07% and materials -0.11% lower. Tech stocks saw a particular outperformance, with the NASDAQ up +1.45%, which brings its own 4-day rally to an even bigger +9.71%. This strength was echoed among sovereign bonds, with 10yr Treasury yields down -8.4bps yesterday to a new one-month low of 3.77%. However, the declines were smaller at the front end of the curve, which led the 2s10s curve to flatten another -3.3bps to -57.5bps, making it the most inverted the curve has been since 1982, which is alarming when you consider its record as a recessionary indicator, having inverted prior to all of the last 10 US recessions. The 3m10yr curve also moved even deeper into inversion, falling another -15.7bps to -45.5bps, which is something we haven’t seen since September 2019. While the Fed’s preferred yield curve measure (18m3m – 3m) fell deeper into inflationary territory, falling -8.7bps to -11.4bps. Meanwhile, this morning in Asia, yields on 10yr USTs (+5bps) have pushed back up, trading at 3.82% as we go to press. 2yr yields are +3bps. Watch out for UK CPI just after we hit your email boxes. Over in Europe, sovereign bonds also rallied yesterday with trading done before the stray rocket news, with yields on 10yr bunds (-3.8bps), OATs (-5.7bps) and BTPs (-12.2bps) all moving lower. And that came in spite of a further uptick in natural gas prices yesterday, which gained +6.9% to €122 per megawatt-hour. Meanwhile, equities similarly rallied in line with their US counterparts, with the STOXX 600 (+0.37%) advancing for the 7th time in the last 8 sessions, taking it to its highest level in nearly 3 months. This morning equity markets in Asia are mixed but with China risk weaker again after a very strong run. Across the region, the Hang Seng (-1.4%) is leading losses, with the Shanghai Composite (-0.47%) also lower. Elsewhere the KOSPI (-0.2%) is also lower but the Nikkei 225 (+0.14%) is trading up, reversing its opening losses. Markets have got a small spike since the AP report mentioned in the first paragraph. US stock futures are flat but European futures are still down around half a percent. Early morning data showed that Japan’s core machine orders in September unexpectedly slid -4.6% m/m (v/s +0.7% expected) following the -5.8% contraction in August. Moving to China, Covid cases continue to climb with cases surging to almost 20,000 yesterday, the highest level since late-April when Shanghai (the country’s financial hub) was in the middle of a two-month lockdown. The outbreaks are a major test for authorities after the country’s leaders relaxed some of its strict Covid Zero measures. Overnight we also heard from former US President Donald Trump, who has confirmed he’s running in the 2024 presidential election. So far he’s the only major contender from either party to announce his candidacy, with the election still almost two years away. His hope will be that this effectively clears the Republican primary field and the party coalesces behind him over the months ahead. If he succeeds, he would become just the second president to serve non-consecutive terms in the White House, after Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. In other news yesterday, the Republicans remain just one seat away from winning control of the House of Representative. The latest count from the Associated Press gives the Republicans 217 seats, with the Democrats on 205. So it would require the Democrats to sweep every outstanding seat now in order to keep the House, including a number in which they’re behind in the current vote count. Here in the UK, attention is turning towards tomorrow’s Autumn Statement from the government, but ahead of that we had a mixed set of data releases on the labour market. On the one hand there was some positive news, with the number of payrolled employees up by +74k in October (vs. +44k expected), with positive revisions to the previous month as well. However, the unemployment rate in the three months to September unexpectedly picked up a tenth to 3.6%, and the economic inactivity rate among the working-age population also rose by two-tenths to 21.6% over the same period. All eyes will be on the October CPI release this morning, where our economist is expecting it to rise to a fresh 40-year high of +10.9%. In the meantime though, sterling (+0.93%) strengthened to $1.187 yesterday, marking its strongest level since mid-August. The dollar index rebounded from its morning lows when it appeared that the pivot was gaining steam following the rocket news. It ultimately finished just -0.24% lower. Looking at yesterday’s other data, there were some positive developments in the German ZEW survey for November, where the expectations component rose to -36.7 (vs. -51.0 expected), and the current situation reading rose to -64.5 (vs. -69.3 expected). Otherwise, the US Empire State manufacturing survey rose to 4.5 in November (vs. -6.0 expected), which is its highest level since July. To the day ahead now, and data releases include UK and Canadian CPI for October, as well as US retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilisation for October, and the NAHB housing market index for November. Central bank speakers include BoE Governor Bailey, ECB President Lagarde, the ECB’s Muller, Centeno, Villeroy and Panetta, and the Fed’s Williams, Barr and Waller. Finally, earnings releases include Nvidia, Cisco Systems, Lowe’s, TJX Companies and Target. Tyler Durden Wed, 11/16/2022 - 08:05.....»»

Trump About to be Indicted – Report; Two Possible U.S. Charges, But Georgia May Join Donald Trump About to be Indicted WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 31, 2022) – “GOP Bracing For Trump Indictment Soon After Election Day,” says THE HILL. It reports that “Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an […] Trump About to be Indicted – Report; Two Possible U.S. Charges, But Georgia May Join Donald Trump About to be Indicted WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 31, 2022) – “GOP Bracing For Trump Indictment Soon After Election Day,” says THE HILL. It reports that “Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once the 2024 presidential campaign gains momentum… if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get Our Activist Investing Case Study! Get the entire 10-part series on our in-depth study on activist investing in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or print it out to read anywhere! Sign up below! (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q3 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Find A Qualified Financial Advisor Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you're ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now. A couple of weeks after the election, I assume that Garland will indict Trump,” said one veteran Republican aide, expressing a sentiment shared by several other GOP aides and strategists." As THE HILL notes, "There are actually two different investigatory probes that could lead to indictments of Trump. One is related to the documents taken from the White House and found at Mar-a-Lago, while the other concerns the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol." But, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, the same pressures to indict, and the same pressures to wait until after the coming elections, also apply to Fulton County DA Fani Willis, So it is possible, if not likely, that she will be the first to indict the former president, predicts Banzhaf, whose formal legal complaint led to the current criminal investigation of Trump in Georgia. It's also possible, he notes, that indictments from both will occur at about the same time - providing double the trouble for Trump, and undercutting the arguments that the President is simply going after his most likely challenger. "An Atlanta-area prosecutor’s investigation into former President Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia poses the most significant legal threat to the former president, legal experts say," THE HILL reported earlier. “The steps her office has taken, including empaneling a special grand jury and subpoenaing high-profile witnesses, are very likely not steps she would have taken if she did not feel there was at least a significant possibility that she will move forward with charges,” said one expert. He added that “the stakes in holding Trump accountable for an attack on our democratic system of government couldn’t be higher, and the evidence is extremely compelling.” Professor Banzhaf has also cited many additional reasons, including the predictions of many experts that Fulton County DC Fani Willis will be the first to indict Donald Trump. As the law professor previously noted, the special grand jury investigating Trump and others regarding criminal interference in the 2020 elections has persuaded a judge to issue subpoenas to compel the testimony under oath of many close collaborators in the alleged criminal schemes, indicating that prosecutors are getting closer to Trump and to his own criminal involvement. This is still another indication that Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis may be the first prosecutor to indict Trump, suggests Banzhaf, whose criminal complaint triggered her investigation, and who also played a role in obtaining special prosecutors for former president Richard Nixon, and finally bringing former Vice President Spiro Agnew to justice. Willis's Promise Banzhaf notes that Willis has already officially reported that evidence gathered earlier, including that filed with her office by the law professor, indicated "a reasonable probability that the State of Georgia’s administration of elections in 2020, including the State’s election of the President of the United States, was subject to possible criminal disruptions." Previously Willis had promised that "anyone who violates the law will be prosecuted, no matter what their social status is. No matter what their economics are, no matter what their race or gender is. We are not going to treat anyone differently." She has also announced that the grant jury plans to issue additional subpoenas to people in Trump's "inner circle," and that she hasn't ruled out even issuing one to Trump. Banzhaf recently filed additional evidence and analysis with Willis which might help strengthen what appears to be an already strong criminal case against Trump. Others agree. For example, Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus of constitutional law at Harvard University, wrote "It wouldn't surprise me for Georgia to become the first jurisdiction to indict a former president on felony charges. , , , And I think the charges will stick." "The most serious prospect of prosecution" that Trump faces is in Fulton County, Georgia, reported the New York Times recently in an Op-Ed by two experienced prosecutors (one Democrat and one Republican); a conclusion reinforcing an earlier 100-page analysis by seven legal experts who concluded that the former president faces a “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” As the two former prosecutors concluded, DA Fani "Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing. . . . She has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal. And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in Georgia is compelling." The piece also noted that, important as congressional investigations are, Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Trump and his enablers are facing. After all, she has a statute at her disposal seemingly meant for this very purpose and fitting these very facts. As the New York Times piece explains: "What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute [ GA Code § 21-2-604], a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally 'solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause' another person to engage in election fraud." Banzhaf's complaint to Willis also charged Trump with violating two additional criminal statutes: GA Code § 21-2-603 - Conspiracy to Commit Election Fraud, and also GA Code § 21-2-597 - Intentional Interference With Performance of Election Duties. In addition, Willis plans to use Georgia's RICO - its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - in any prosecution of Trump. Banzhaf, who is familiar with the federal RICO statute since he produced the memo which led to the federal government's successful RICO prosecution against the major tobacco companies, points out that the Georgia RICO statute is even more powerful and far reaching than the federal one. Among other things, it defines racketeering more broadly than the federal law does, takes less to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and does not always require the existence of an "enterprise" - especially an illegal or criminal enterprise - to constitute racketeering. Indeed, Willis successfully used RICO to prosecute a teacher-cheating case at a school. Also, notes Banzhaf, although RICO requires at least two independent illegal racketeering activities - "predicate acts" - to prove a pattern of corruption by Trump and his alleged co-conspirators, making false statements such as Trump and some of his allies are alleged to have made would more than satisfy Georgia's RICO law. Racketeering, which is a felony in Georgia, can carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, a hefty fine, and disgorgements of ill-gotten gains. Most felons in Georgia convicted of racketeering offenses do serve time in prison......»»

The Golden Rule And The Hunter Biden Scandal: Turley Authored by Johnathan Turley via jonathanturley.org, President Biden’s hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-stricken Florida — in which he muttered that “No one f–ks with a Biden” — left many people confused. His Sopranos-like warning might not deter developing hurricanes but it has succeeded for years in Washington as a kind of “Biden Golden Rule.” Neither prosecutors nor the press have seemed interested in pursuing allegations of criminal or corrupt practices by some members of the Biden family. Now, after years of investigation, reports indicate that FBI agents are convinced ample evidence exists to charge the president’s son Hunter Biden on gun- and tax-related charges. Those charges (and a possible plea) may be the best-case scenario for the Bidens — and many others in Washington. Indeed, the reported narrow scope of a possible indictment is strikingly similar to what I previously described as the ideal “controlled demolition” of the Hunter Biden scandal. Three questions immediately arise from this Justice Department leak, and the concern is that all three may be answered by the Biden Golden Rule: For the Bidens, justice delayed is justice The first question is why, in an investigation that began in 2018, the Justice Department only now believes it could charge over false statements on a gun registration form and on tax evasion. Both crimes were well established years ago. The gun charge is based on the fact that Hunter Biden reportedly answered “no” to a standard question about whether he was an “unlawful user of, or addicted to” a narcotic drug or any other controlled substance. He wrote a book detailing his raging drug and alcohol addictions during this period (ironically, even as his father called for stricter enforcement of gun laws). The FBI has long had the gun registration form, the book and other self-incriminating statements, not to mention President Biden’s repeated references to his son being an addict. Hunter Biden also apparently did not pay taxes on millions garnered from his foreign business dealings or alleged influence-peddling schemes, and a Hollywood lawyer reportedly paid off as much as $2 million in delinquent taxes on his behalf recently. The FBI has had Hunter Biden’s infamous abandoned laptop since 2019, detailing payments from foreign sources and gifts or benefits, including a diamond. Yet the long investigation has worked to the advantage of the Bidens as well as the Democrats in pushing any indictment beyond 2020 and, most likely, after the 2022 midterm elections. Indeed, Hunter Biden’s lawyer insisted after the leak of possible charges that prosecutors “should not be pressured, rushed, or criticized” to act. It is often said that “justice delayed is justice denied” — but in politics, justice delayed is simply justice. Is this all there is? A second question concerns what were not referenced as likely charges against Hunter Biden. For years, some of us have said an obvious, overwhelming argument existed to appoint a special counsel in this case. Yet Attorney General Merrick Garland has refused to do so. Hunter Biden’s laptop reportedly contained detailed emails about business deals spanning the globe and millions of dollars from foreign sources, including some tied to foreign intelligence operatives. Some of his accounts reportedly were used to pay some of the bills for President Biden. Even if the Justice Department is set to decline charges linked to foreign money transfers or influence-peddling, there is the obvious omission of charges under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). The Justice Department has used FARA aggressively in past prosecutions such as that of Trump associate Paul Manafort. The omission of a charge under FARA would be glaring and troubling in light of those past prosecutions. And with the refusal to appoint a special counsel, that omission would likely avoid a public airing of any influence-peddling allegations tied to the Biden family. A telling leak The third question is why this leak occurred in the first place. Hunter Biden’s lawyer is justified in objecting to this leak and noting that it likely would constitute a federal crime. So why would sources at the FBI take the risk of a leak at this time? Much like the Supreme Court leaking of the Dobbs decision, this one appears intended to trigger a response. The most obvious motivation would be to lock in the Justice Department if agents feared the department’s leaders might be resisting or delaying any charges. It could also be an effort to alert the public about the narrow scope of charges being discussed with Hunter Biden’s defense team as a possible plea deal. There may also be concern that a plea deal might be reached before any Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. GOP leaders have pledged to investigate the influence-peddling allegations, but a plea could be used to say the matter is now considered closed by the Justice Department. The focus on the gun charge is likely to highlight the absence of charges related to the reported foreign payments and alleged influence peddling. While the standard registration form warns of a potential 10-year sentence for false statements, it is rare to see significant prison time emerge from such cases. Indeed, prosecutors often choose not to charge on such violations. As a first-time offender, Hunter Biden could avoid prison entirely or plead to a short period of incarceration. For those concerned about alleged influence-peddling, such a charge may seem like arresting a bank robber solely for double-parking his getaway car. While the reported charges could result collectively in a few years in jail, the absence of far more serious charges is likely to raise questions about the scope of the investigation. The videos and emails reportedly uncovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop show a wide array of alleged criminal acts — a target-rich environment for any prosecutor. Indeed, it would take an amazing marksman to hit the gun charge and a few tax violations while missing other potential crimes. While any eventual indictment might contain other charges, the leak (if accurate) suggests a strikingly narrow focus as a basis for a possible plea. The U.S. attorney in charge of this investigation, David C. Weiss, is a respected prosecutor. Even so, many Americans may wonder why Hunter Biden’s case suddenly was downgraded from a Category 5 hurricane to a tropical storm. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/10/2022 - 19:00.....»»