The Biden administration spied on nearly 20% of Republicans in Congress, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed in a Wednesday bombshell. 

Specifically, Grassley released 197 subpoenas that the Biden FBI reportedly used to gather testimony and information on over 400 Republican targets as part of the agency’s “Arctic Frost” probe. 

“197 subpoenas were issued by Jack Smith and his team. These subpoenas were issued to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, including financial institutions,” Grassley said, adding “Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition.” 

In ONE HOUR Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman @ChuckGrassley will hold a press conference and provide an update on the Committee’s ongoing oversight of Arctic Frost.

Tune in at 2:45 pm ET: https://t.co/0e8aDT3aJb

— Senate Judiciary Republicans (@SenJudiciaryGOP) October 29, 2025

According to Grassley, the subpoenas included “nonpublic, confidential grand jury material” that he obtained via whistleblower disclosures, as well as financial information from conservative organizations like TPUSA and the Republican Attorneys General Association. 

Biden’s jackboots also went after media organizations, including Fox News and Newsmax. 

No one was safe under the Biden FBI. The 430+ entities and individuals targeted as part of Arctic Frost included:

• @CBSNews @FoxNews @NEWSMAX
• @StephenM @DanScavino @jaredkushner @LaraLeaTrump
• Members of Congress
• GOP donors, fundraisers & campaign strategists

AND MORE pic.twitter.com/poSxe1izAw

— Senate Judiciary Republicans (@SenJudiciaryGOP) October 29, 2025

Sen Ted Cruz (R-FL) is pissed, writing on X: “This comes after learning that nearly 20% of Senate Republicans’ cellphones, including mine, were also subpoenaed,” adding “Arctic Frost is the Biden DOJ’s Watergate, and they need to be held accountable.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley just revealed that Jack Smith sent a subpoena to Verizon to tap my Senate office phone.

This comes after learning that nearly 20% of Senate Republicans’ cellphones, including mine, were also subpoenaed.

Arctic Frost is the Biden DOJ’s Watergate, and they… pic.twitter.com/qBR5lT9XIV

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) October 29, 2025

As Fox26 notes further, some of the records Smith subpoenaed from banks, individuals and businesses included:

•     Communications with media companies such as CBS, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, Sinclair and others
•     Communications with “any member, employee or agent of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government”
•     Communications with White House advisors, such as Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner, Lara Trump and others
•     Statistical data and analysis relating to donors and fundraising efforts
•     Broad financial data relating to conservative individuals and entities

“2day U can see 1700+ pgs of subpoena records shared w me by brave whistleblowers who want the public 2know how the Biden DOJ/FBI was weaponized,” Grassley wrote on X after the press conference.

On Tuesday, newly released documents showed over 160 Republicans, including those in the current Trump administration, who may have been investigated by former President Joe Biden’s FBI.

The House Judiciary Committee released the files on Tuesday, which detail the scope of the Biden Justice Department’s investigation into 2020 election interference allegations.

🚨 #BREAKING: New Arctic Frost documents reveal even further wide ranging investigation by Biden’s DOJ to take down President Trump and his supporters.

HIGHLIGHTS:

-Arctic Frost investigators utilized FBI field offices from across the country to conduct its investigation.…

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) October 28, 2025

The nearly 200 pages of documents released are heavily redacted, but show the investigators used FBI agents from several field offices around the country to conduct interviews and other tasks. Investigators also reportedly requested $16,600 to travel to conduct more than 40 interviews.

Some of the names mentioned in the documents as under potential investigation include White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Trade Advisor Peter Navarro and U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin. Other names include Steve Bannon, Scott Perry, Rudolph Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, and Mark Meadows.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News host Sean Hannity the investigation is “much broader, much more expansive, than we ever thought.”

This is why Jordan said the committee wants a deposition from Smith to ask about the potential political motive behind the operation.

While Smith has been asked to provide closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, he has demanded a public hearing to address the “many mischaracterizations” of his investigations into Trump.

President Donald Trump had already told reporters this month, “Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal.” -Fox26

Much like the Epstein list, we look forward to absolutely nothing being done to anyone about any of this. 

Authored by Michael Cantrell via PJMedia.com,

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pimp shield law, pushed by Democratic legislator Rep. Scott Weiner, has helped foster a disturbing new sex market on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, featuring prostitutes as young as 12 and 13 years old. For far too long, the “kiddie stroll,” as it’s known, has gone unreported because major media outlets refused to cover it, allowing it to flourish under the watch of Democratic politicians.

But now it’s time to shine a light in the darkness and expose the truth about what’s happening to these poor young girls and why nothing has been done to bring the harrowing evil to an end.

An article from the New York Times Magazine is finally covering this horrific scene in Los Angeles, though they’ve conveniently neglected to cover anything concerning the prostitution law Newsom’s administration passed.

“For the 77th Street Division, which covers the northern half of the Figueroa Corridor, prostitution had always been a problem. But in recent years, the officers had seen the magnitude of child sex trafficking explode,” wrote reporter Emily Baumgaertner Nunn.

“Gangs that had long sold drugs began to take advantage of Figueroa’s lucrative opportunity. With a dozen girls, one trafficker could easily make $12,000 a night. ‘Drugs are sold once and gone forever, but girls can be resold indefinitely,’ said [police sergeant Alvaro] Navarro, who had been in the division for two decades. Motel owners who noticed the parades of customers but feared the gangs’ retribution kept quiet,” Nunn continues. 

There’s little doubt that much of the silence and fear of gang retaliation for speaking out against this vile form of human trafficking stems from the lack of police presence on California streets, particularly in Los Angeles. Democrats in the state slashed funding for police and tied officers’ hands, making it harder to pull these girls — who are just children — out of sex trafficking.

In fact, Nunn points out that the sex-trafficking unit in the city was disbanded due to budget cuts, which means each division within the police department has fewer resources available to tackle the issue. There are supposed to be a total of six investigators looking into human trafficking. Now there’s only one. 

Children suffer abuse in ways too sick and twisted to imagine, and thanks to anti-cop policies from radical leftists trying to appease minorities for votes, leaders ignore it instead of acting. This is truly a miscarriage of justice. It’s immoral and evil.

“Their jobs grew even more challenging when California repealed the law allowing the police to arrest women who loitered with the intent to engage in prostitution. The repeal, known as SB 357, was intended to prevent profiling of Black, brown, and trans women based on how they dressed. But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them.

Now officers needed to be willing to swear they had reason to suspect each girl was underage — but with fake eyelashes and wigs, it was nearly impossible to tell. One girl told vice officers that her trafficker had explained things succinctly: ‘We run Figueroa now,’ he said,” Nunn writes in her article.

By the end of 2023, the city attorney started referring to Figueroa as the “Kiddie Stroll” because many of the girls working the street were under 13.

Newsom signed SB357 — the law that handcuffed police — in 2022 after a strong and sickening push by Wiener. However, Nunn left both Wiener and Newsom out of her report and failed to explain the pro-prostitution bill, which Wiener claims provides legal support for minorities, gays, and transgender individuals.

The ACLU backed the bill, saying, “California’s law that criminalizes loitering with intent to commit prostitution gives law enforcement a tool to harass and discriminate against Black and trans communities, particularly women of color. The Safer Streets for All Act will take away this outdated and subjective Penal Code section 653.22 which has for too long allowed law enforcement to criminalize and harass someone based on the color of their skin, their gender, or how they choose to make a living.”

The organization then claimed the stops are “deeply traumatic” and says they “have a lasting impact on those who are harassed or arrested.” Of course, it’s traumatic to be arrested for a serious crime like prostitution. It’s supposed to be. The goal is for these women to escape that life and become productive members of society. Believe it or not, police and the local community want to protect women, especially young girls, from being abused, addicted, and murdered — which happens more frequently than the ACLU admits.

Sex work is deplorable on every level. It’s not something that should be normalized, which is what leftists aim to do. It seems the left-wing strategy for lowering crime is to legalize everything. 

“As some of the most marginalized members of our community, sex workers deserve to maintain their livelihood without fear of violence or arrest. SB 357 will move California one step closer to acknowledging sex workers as deserving of full dignity and respect,” the ACLU continued.

And lest we let former President Joe Biden off the hook for his contribution to the trafficking of children, let’s not forget that this horrific crime spiked dramatically because his pro-illegal immigration policies opened the border to human traffickers.

Frank Lutz, a PR expert, said Newsom might improve his image by deploying California’s National Guard to help end child trafficking, especially after his administration cut police department budgets so deeply.

It’s time for Democratic voters to wake up and look at the reality around them. Children suffer abuse for money at the hands of twisted perverts, and voters enable it by supporting politicians devoid of moral values. The blood of the innocent stains their hands as much as it stains Newsom’s.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

With the support of a handful of Republican senators led by outspoken constitutionalist Rand Paul, the Senate on Tuesday passed a measure to nullify the 50% tariffs that President Trump imposed on Brazil. The resolution does that by terminating Trump’s July 30 declaration of a national emergency — a declaration he used to supersede Congress’s tariff authority granted by the US Constitution. While it isn’t likely to clear the House, the measure spotlights growing bipartisan hostility to Trump’s worldwide tariff spree and its effects on US consumers and businesses.

The resolution passed by a 52 to 48 vote, with Republicans Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitch McConnell  (KY) and Thom Tillis (NC) joining Kentucky’s Paul in helping to push it over the top. Two more votes on similar resolutions are expected in the next week, aimed at negating tariffs on Canada and a global tariff that hits 100 countries.

Coffee prices have surged 22%.

We’re taxing the world’s best coffee exporters:
🇧🇷 Brazil — 50%
🇨🇴 Colombia — 10%
🇨🇭 Switzerland — 39%

Economics 101: Tariffs don’t punish producers — they punish consumers. pic.twitter.com/BFOoA8pwwf

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) October 21, 2025

Brazil is a notable case because the United States already had a trade surplus with the South American country — something that Tillis said figured heavily in his vote. “I’ve had a big concern with the Brazil one in particular, since we have a trade surplus with them. That’s the only one I’m considering,” he said. Trump imposed the sanctions after accusing Brazil of becoming “an international disgrace” over its prosecution of its former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, over an alleged conspiracy to undo the country’s 2022 election results (sound familar?). “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote in a letter to Brazilian President Lula da Silva a few weeks before imposing the sanctions. 

To unilaterally impose the tariffs without action by Congress, Trump is exploiting the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). That 1977 law delegates to the president various economic powers to address “any unusual and extraordinary threat” coming from a foreign power.  “The prosecution of a friend of the president — how is that an emergency that threatens the United States? It doesn’t,” Kaine said.

Striking a similar tone as he attacked Trump’s broader tariff blitz, Paul said: 

“Emergencies are like war, famine, tornado. Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power, and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

A lot of people in Washington know tariffs are bad policy. They grumble behind closed doors but stay silent in public. Meanwhile, the farm economy hangs by a thread and inflation keeps eating away at families’ paychecks.

Sooner or later, this ends in economic pain for… pic.twitter.com/xeWMVK5o1b

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) October 24, 2025

McConnell pointed to economic downsides. “Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive. The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule,” he said, while signaling his appetite to vote in favor of the similar resolutions making their way through the Senate pipeline. As with so many trade relationships, some imports of Brazilian products are raw materials and unfinished goods that US companies rely on for their own manufacturing.  

In 2024, the United States enjoyed a $7.4 billion trade surplus with Brazil, which is buffered from US tariffs to the extent that only 12% of Brazil’s exports go to the United States, vs 28% that are purchased by China. Exports represent about a fifth of Brazil’s GDP.  

President Donald Trump, who is currently in Asia, said on Wednesday he wouldn’t run for a third term, stating that it’s barred by the U.S. Constitution.

“If you read it, it’s pretty clear… I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to South Korea from Japan.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday there’s no way to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow Trump to run for a third presidential term because the nation’s founding document requires a lengthy ratification process.

Johnson said Trump, whose term ends in January 2029, has no plans of changing term limits, despite the president in the past teasing a 2028 run.

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, Johnson did say he had discussed the U.S. Constitution’s constraints with Trump during his trip in Asia, where he has been since Sunday.

He also said there were no plans to amend the 22nd Amendment before 2028.

The amendment aims to prevent future indefinite presidencies, following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four-term presidency.

“It’s been a great run,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “But I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution.”

Johnson stressed the amendment process inscribed in Article V of the Constitution, which needs approval by two-thirds of both the House and Senate, and then ratification by three-fourths of the states—or 38 states.

“I don’t see the path for that,” he said.

The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits presidents to serving two elected terms.

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” reads the official text from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Trump, 79, has sold “Trump 2028” merchandise at his rallies, though Johnson has said that was for “trolling Democrats.” Trump would be 82 in 2028, and if he won, he would take President Joe Biden’s spot as the oldest to hold office.

The president has noted that potential 2028 Republican candidates are great people.

A 2023 Congressional Research Service report highlights that of 33 amendments proposed by Congress since 1789, 27 were ratified. It took an average of two years to create an amendment. The 27th Amendment on congressional pay took more than 200 years.

The report notes that controversial changes, such as altering term limits, are more difficult to pass because they require state approval.

It’s not the AI economy; it’s the debt, stupid!

That was the (somewhat less snarky) message from a detailed breakdown we did three weeks ago highlighting the fact that “AI Is Now A Debt Bubble Too, Quietly Surpassing All Banks To Become The Largest Sector In The Market” discussing the current generation’s (because every generation has one, just ask Global Crossing) “infinite money” circle jerk circular deals which have become the de jour staple of the AI bubble and which, simplified, look something like this…

… or, using a slightly more sophisticated variation from Bloomberg, like this…

… which JPM’s Michael Cembalest described laconically as follows…

Oracle’s stock jumped by 25% after being promised $60 billion a year from OpenAI, an amount of money OpenAI doesn’t earn yet, to provide cloud computing facilities that Oracle hasn’t built yet, and which will require 4.5 GW of power (the equivalent of 2.25 Hoover Dams or four nuclear plants), as well as increased borrowing by Oracle whose debt to equity ratio is already 500% compared to 50% for Amazon, 30% for Microsoft and even less at Meta and Google. 

There is no way for Oracle to pay for this with cash flow. They must raise equity or debt to fund their ambitions. Until now, the AI infrastructure boom has been almost entirely self-funded by the cash flows of a select few hyperscalers. Oracle has broken the pattern. It is willing to leverage up to hundreds of billions to seize a share. The stable oligopoly is cracking…The implications are profound. Amazon, Microsoft and Google can no longer treat AI infrastructure as a discretionary investment. They must defend their turf. What had been a disciplined, cash-flow-funded race may now turn into a debt-fueled arms race. 

And judging by the surge in credit risk perceptions, this is a chart that AI-driven equity bulls don’t want the market to be aware of.

The dissonance between ORCL equity dreamers and credit realists is dramatic to say the least.

The cost to insure against default on the company debt over the next five years is hovering near its highest since Oct. 2023, while equity prices (and valuations) near record highs.

“Near-term credit deterioration and uncertainty may drive further bondholder and lender hedging,” Morgan Stanley analysts Lindsay Tyler and David Hamburger wrote in a note Monday.

As JPMorgan’s Cembalest noted, Oracle’s debt to equity ratio is already 500% compared to 50% for Amazon, 30% for Microsoft and even less at Meta and Google.

In other words, the tech capital cycle may be about to change..

Amid this indisputable debt bubble euphoria, we were pleasantly surprised that at least some are aware of what’s going on. Earlier today, BBG reported that the Bank of England is reviewing lending to data centers that are a one way bet on the future of artificial intelligence.

The BOE has already called out the market risk from a surge in the valuations of firms in the industry, warning of the dangers of a sharp correction if “expectations around the impact of AI become less optimistic.” 

Now, the central bank’s attention is moving to the links between AI companies and the financial sector, having perhaps finally read our report from July in which we warned of precisely this thing. While lending at the moment is modest, with much of the early construction works funded by equity, it’s expected to grow significantly. 

One person said the BOE was looking into the area after growing concerned as the nascent sector’s spending migrated from hiring staff to spending billions of dollars on building and financing data centers with limited other uses. 

“If the projected scale of debt-financed AI and associated energy infrastructure investment materializes over this decade, financial stability risks are likely to grow,” Bank of England staff wrote in a blog post on Friday.

“Banks would be exposed to this directly through their credit exposures to AI companies, as well as indirectly through their provision of loans and credit facilities to private credit funds and other financial institutions.”

Three weeks ago, in “The Stunning Math Behind The AI Vendor Financing “Circle Jerk” (which in turn referenced our analysis from late July when seemingly nobody cared who will fund this tidal wave of looming datacenter spending), we explained how even an optimistic outlook on the AI industry and its gargantuan capex needs, reveals that there is an $800 billion funding need by the end of the decade.

… one which will most likely be filled by credit, and especially private credit once public markets balk, the same private credit which is suddenly under the microscope as a result of the Tricolor and First Brands bankruptcies.

And the canary in the coalmine is the surge in credit spreads that is evident in Oracle as we remind readers that both of these measures are directly linked to asset valuations and volatilities of the underlying business… meaning one of them is ‘wrong’.

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Two newly released congressional letters confirm years-long reporting that the anti-Trump Jan. 6 committee had quietly colluded with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump. 

The letters, from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and disgraced former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., reveal the lawmakers’ rush to hand over evidence before Republicans took control of Congress in 2023. 

In those exchanges, they produced at least 16 interviews, deposition transcripts, exhibits, phone numbers and spreadsheets as part of their investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021. 

One letter, dated Dec. 5, 2022, shows Thompson and Cheney informing Smith that while the body was concluding its work, they wanted to make the evidence they gathered “available to the Department of Justice.” 

In that letter, the anti-Trump politicians told Smith he would receive “16 transcripts of interviews and depositions taken by” the committee, including “exhibits associated with those transcripts.” They even promised to facilitate “additional evidence as soon as possible.” 

Just four days later, Thompson and Cheney wrote again to Smith, announcing the production of documents obtained from John Eastman and text messages from Mark Meadows, then Trump’s White House chief of staff. 

“Along with the latter, we are producing a staff-created spreadsheet of the Meadows texts that contain additional information from privilege logs that Mr. Meadows provided to the Select Committee,” they added. 

Even after those documents, they vowed to produce more materials to Smith “on a rolling basis.” 

Now, the never-before-seen letters confirm what many suspected: the controversial committee worked “hand-in-hand” with Smith, the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday. 

Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to target Trump after the 2020 election. Smith later used those materials to indict Trump, first over a document dispute between Trump and the Biden-led National Archives, and later over his objections to the certification of the 2020 election results. 

The origins of that collusion trace back to the Jan. 6 committee itself, which was created in 2022 by then–Speaker Nancy Pelosi and excluded pro-Trump lawmakers. 

A new panel led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., is investigating the 2022 committee’s actions, including allegedly criminal behavior, after accusations it deleted files, engaged in partisan activity and covered up misconduct. 

Tellingly, both Cheney and Thompson received preemptive pardons from President Joe Biden for any wrongdoing committed during the congressional investigation. 

Read the 2022 letters below:

🚨 MORE BREAKING NEWS:

New documents prove BENNIE THOMPSON and LIZ CHENEY were working hand-in-hand with JACK SMITH.

The partisan J6 Committee provided transcripts, documents, and text messages, all to take down President Trump and his associates. pic.twitter.com/jBizVCAwkv

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) October 28, 2025

Amid an absence of data to sway their minds one way (or another), it was hardly a surprise that Fed Chair Powell and his pals proceeded down the dovish/easing path once again today, following the market (and President Trump’s) lead.

So what will Powell say?

As a reminder, in its preview, Goldman wrote that while the bank does not expect any formal guidance about the December meeting, if Chair Powell is asked, he will likely be comfortable referencing the September dots, which imply a third cut in December; although will likely make reference to the fact they are flying somewhat blind in the absence of macro data… It’s hard to be data-dependent when there’s no data.

There will also be questions about the end of QT, while Powell will likely address by referencing the recent jump in SOFR rates indicated money market liquidity is turning “scarce” although Powell will hardly use that word. If he does: watch out.

One question that has emerged is whether Schmid’s hawkish dissent will embolden Powell to be more hawkish than the market expects and rugpull the market’s December rate cut expectations. 

Watch the live press conference here (due to start at 1430ET):

In our preview we said that the Fed would cut 25bps and end QT… and that’s precisely what happened.

*  *  *

First, a quick preview of how we got here: 

Since the last FOMC meeting (on Sept 17th), Gold has dramatically outperformed across asset-classes (even with its recent plunge) followed by US equities. Oil prices have tumbled the most while the dollar and bonds have risen in value. Bitcoin is basically unchanged since the last FOMC meeting, having collapsed after reaching record highs intramonth…

The market has grown more dovish since the last Fed meeting, now fully pricing in a 25bps cut today (and is almost certain that December will see another 25bps cut)…

More notably, rate-cut expectations have barely changed since the last FOMC with 46bps of cuts priced in for 2025 and 69bps more priced in for 2026…

Finally, before we get to the meat and potatoes of today’s statement, we note that Goldman Sachs models show monetary policy at its most dovish in years…

And bear in mind that financial conditions have never been ‘easier’…

So as we detailed in the FOMC preview, the two main questions for traders today is:

1) will the statement/presser provide support for the market’s current dovish future take (given the market’s anticipation of a 25bps cut, Goldman notes that it would likely be a high bar for the FOMC to change its plan on the basis of alternative data, and in any case the data have not given them any reason to), and,

2) will Powell officially announce the end of QT, as we discussed extensively in recent weeks (here and here), as a result of deteriorating conditions in money markets, the Fed is expected to announce changes to its balance sheet program. Fed Chair Powell suggested that the level of reserves will likely hit an ample level within a couple of months, although as we highlighted, the combination of reserves and reverse repos is now the lowest it has been since 2020 resulting in a creeping increase in the SOFR rate.

Meanwhile, usage of the Fedʼs repo facility has picked up, suggesting that some participants may be growing tighter on cash.

With that in mind, here are the key headlines from the FOMC Statement:

• The FOMC cut the federal funds rate target range by 25 bps to 3.75%-4.00%, as expected.
   
• The vote was 10-2, with two opposing dissenters (see below).
   
• The Fed announced that QT (aka the run-off of Treasury securities from the Fed’s balance sheet currently capped at $5 billion per month) would conclude on December 1, as also became consensus in recent days as a result of turmoil in funding markets.
   
• There were twp dissenting votes, one from Fed Governor Stephen Miran in favor of a 50-bps cut, and one from Jeffrey Schmid, who voted for no rate cut.

• The Fed statement maintains description of the labor market, noting that “job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remained low through August,” adding “more recent indicators are consistent with these developments” and “downside risks to employment rose in recent months”

Here is a statement redline…

… where the key highlights are the following:

• Replacing that economic activity has “moderated” with “expanding at a moderate pace”, which is actually a bullish revision.
• Noting that while job gains have slowed “this year“, the unemployment rate has edged up but “remained” low and added that “through August, more recent indicators are consistent with these developments.”
• On inflation, the Fed added that inflation has moved up “since earlier this year” and remains somewhat elevated.
• On QT, the Fed said that the Committee “decided to conclude the reduction of its aggregate securities holdings on December 1“, which is a bit later than some had expected, as November had emerged as the target month for QT ending.

In its implementation note, the Fed clarified the details of how QT will end:

“Effective October 30, 2025, the Federal Open Market Committee directs the Desk to:

• Undertake open market operations as necessary to maintain the federal funds rate in a target range of 3-3/4 to 4 percent.
• Conduct standing overnight repurchase agreement operations with a minimum bid rate of 4.0 percent and with an aggregate operation limit of $500 billion.
• Conduct standing overnight reverse repurchase agreement operations at an offering rate of 3.75 percent and with a per-counterparty limit of $160 billion per day.
• Roll over at auction the amount of principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities maturing in October and November that exceeds a cap of $5 billion per month. Redeem Treasury coupon securities up to this monthly cap and Treasury bills to the extent that coupon principal payments are less than the monthly cap. Beginning on December 1, roll over at auction all principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities.
• Reinvest the amount of principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) received in October and November that exceeds a cap of $35 billion per month into Treasury securities to roughly match the maturity composition of Treasury securities outstanding. Beginning on December 1, reinvest all principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of agency securities into Treasury bills.
• Allow modest deviations from stated amounts for reinvestments, if needed for operational reasons.”

Commenting on the statement, BBG rates strategist Ira Jersey was surprised by the “hawkish” dissent and adds that it “may change our opinion about the pace of cuts going forward, but there’s still little in the data to make us shift our opinion about the shape of the yield curve. There’s little in the statement or with the end of QT that’s likely to change the shape of the yield curve.”

Jersey continues: “The timing of the decision was a coin flip, and the committee erred on the side of caution. Runoff will continue in November, before the Fed enters ‘net neutral’ on December 1. MBS runoff will continue at current pace and be used to fund T-bill purchases, while Coupon Treasury runoff will be reinvested in full at auction.”

Schmid’s dissent prompted more questions, including this one from Renaissance macro’s Neil Dutta: “I don’t think it really matters. In a divided Fed the best you can do is string a bunch of 25s out. But, Schmid’s dissent looks more perplexing than Miran’s in my view. After all, Schmid supported a 25bper in September and since then, we have seen inflation come in weaker than expected.“

All we can say is Schmid better not have any outstanding mortgages. 

Tradestation strategy head David Russell points to the lack of data as a catalyst, but points out the growing dovish sentiment within the Fed which will only get stronger once Trump replaces Powell: “The Fed is grasping in the dark because of the shutdown, but the rate-cutting trend remains in place. Miran’s aggressive dissent is a reminder that change is coming at the Fed and the new chairman is likely to be more dovish.  The shutdown threatens to weigh on both jobs and consumption, so the bias toward easier policy may increase going forward.”

KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk told BBG TV that “we are going to see a lot of tension going forward because this is a really difficult time. One, we’re flying blind. Two, we’ve got inflation is up and unemployment is edging up as well, and the labor market is slowing. You add all of that together and you get this sort of stagflation width, which is what makes this Fed likely to have more dissents that go in both directions going forward.”

Meanwhile, former Fed vice-chair who currently works at Pimco Richard Clarida, noted that he expects “to see more of this in the remainder of Powell’s term for sure. If you just looked at the dots, you have a pretty divided committee in terms of the case for preemptive cuts from here, with inflation at 3%.”

Peter Boockvar at the Boock report goes one further and writes that while there was no real surprise, “the Schmid dissent makes me more confident that Jay Powell is going to push back on a December cut being the lay up the markets think it is.”

And while Schmid dissent was a bit of a surprise, the bulk of the statement was largely in line with expectations, and as a result stocks have barely budged…

.. while 10Y yields and the dollar are fractionally higher ahead of Powell’s presser which begins at 2:30pm.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

An aggressive monkey infected with COVID-19 and other diseases was on the loose in Jasper County, Mississippi, on Tuesday after a semi-truck carrying 21 primates overturned while transporting them from Tulane University to an out-of-state testing facility.

All 20 of the other infected rhesus monkeys were destroyed after the accident, according to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.

“We are continuing to look for the one monkey that is still on the loose,” the sheriff’s department reported on Facebook. “We have been in contact with an animal disposal company to help handle the situation.”

The monkeys weighed about 40 pounds each. They also carried hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID, but are not infectious, according to authorities.

The accident occurred at about 2 p.m. local time on Interstate 59 near mile marker 117, about 86 miles east of Jackson, Mississippi, near Heidelberg. The truck was headed to Florida, according to officials.

The sheriff’s department warned residents living around the area of the accident to not approach the monkeys.

“They do pose potential health threats and are aggressive,” the department posted.

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks was on site with local law enforcement.

Tulane University was notified by authorities.

The university released a statement Tuesday night, saying the monkeys were not infectious.

“Non-human primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery,” Tulane University said in a statement. “The primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious.”

The sheriff’s office said the truck driver told authorities the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans.

“We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys,” the sheriff’s office said Tuesday night. “He also stated that you had to wear [personal protective equipment] to handle the monkeys.”

In 2020, the university received an anonymous $1 million gift to establish a fund for emerging research in infectious diseases. The money was meant to be used to support the institution’s research and provide immediate impact in the race to find a vaccine for COVID, according to the university’s school of medicine.

This is the second time research monkeys have escaped in the past year in the United States.

Late January saw the recapture of 43 monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility. Residents were warned to secure their doors and windows until the monkeys were captured.

The animals broke loose from Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, South Carolina. The last of them was recovered in January after living in the woods for two months. Rescuers tempted them back into captivity with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, according to authorities.

The research facility—known locally as “the monkey farm”—breeds monkeys for medical research.

A sudden spike in internet disruptions has been reported across major websites and services, according to Downdetector. 

Users are reporting outages at Google, Amazon.com, AWS, Microsoft (Azure, 365, Store, Teams, Entra), the XBOX network, Comcast’s xfinity, Starbucks, and Alaska Airlines, to name a few. 

Microsoft announced they are investigating reports of issues with 365 services. 

According to reports there are ongoing outages at AWS’ US-East-1 region, and is possibly related to an Oct. 20 outage. Further confirmation is needed. 

Developing…