President-elect Donald Trump has picked Florida Rep. Mike Waltz to be his White House national security adviser, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the discussion.

Waltz, a Green Beret veteran who served in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa, won’t require Senate confirmation, and will step right in the middle of Trump’s vow to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

In September of 2023, Waltz said in a Fox News op-ed, “The era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress is over,” suggesting that future aid packages should have accountability and ensure strategic use of resources.

Waltz also pushed for US allies to pay their fair share.

We need this administration to bring our allies to meet their pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense now, today. Unfortunately, Biden’s diplomacy seems to be lagging. The largest European states consistently fail to meet that benchmark, pledged at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales shortly after Russia’s last Ukraine invasion.  

Germany, the largest economy in Europe and the most pivotal balancer to Russia, pulled back at the last minute from enshrining the two percent annual commitment into law. That needs to change – the administration cannot expect American taxpayers to pay for European security indefinitely.

He also recommended that the US match “the dollar value of any aid it gives to Ukraine with securing the southern border.”

Earlier this month, Waltz suggested that the Biden administration’s anti-carbon stance is “fueling the Russian war machine.”

“And the reality is, they are constraining our oil and gas and forcing the world to buy from the likes of Venezuela, from Iran, and from Russia.”

That said…

Please say this is not so @realDonaldTrump? It seems Waltz’s policy is almost exactly opposite of what you spoke of on the campaign trail? Have you checked with your advisors like @DonaldJTrumpJr @TuckerCarlson @JDVance? https://t.co/oRA9cRRMHS

— Scottie Nell Hughes (@scottienhughes) November 12, 2024

Meanwhile, former Rep. Lee Zeldin has been picked to head up the EPA. As Zachary Stieber of the Epoch Times notes; Zeldin (R-N.Y.) will join the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump announced on Nov. 11.

“Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies,” Trump told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet. He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”

“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin wrote on the social media platform X.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Multiple individuals served as the EPA’s administrator during Trump’s first term, including Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler. The current administrator is Michael Regan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and has been in office since March 21, 2021.

Zeldin’s appointment will need to be approved by the U.S. Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans starting in January 2025, before he becomes administrator.

Zeldin, 44, represented New York’s 1st Congressional District, which includes most of Long Island, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015 to 2023. Zeldin opted against running for another term and instead ran for governor of New York. He won the GOP primary but lost to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, by about 378,000 votes out of 5.9 million cast, including a majority of the vote outside New York City.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who now represents the district, said on X: “Lee Zeldin’s vision for the EPA focuses on economic growth while protecting our environment. His plan to restore energy dominance, create jobs, and protect clean air & water makes him an ideal choice to lead the EPA.”

More recently, Zeldin has chaired the China Policy Initiative and Pathway to 2025 at the America First Policy Institute.

Prior to his time in Congress, Zeldin was in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq. He then served in the state Senate before becoming a congressman.

Zeldin’s votes on climate proposals include, in addition to all other House Republicans, voting against the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included funding for improving the supply of water in western states.

Zeldin has a 14 percent score from the League of Conservation Voters, an advocacy group, due to his voting record. The group in the past criticized Trump’s first administration over its positions on the environment and climate, and poured $115 million into the effort to elect Vice President Kamala Harris.

Continue reading at the Epoch Times

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Mysteries Revealed

“People in the media are aware of how illegitimately they’ve done their jobs that they think they’re on the verge of being locked up”

– Scott Adams

You must admit, it’s a little spooky how quickly and rigorously Mr. Trump intends to deconstruct those parts of the government at war with the people:

• clean out “rogue bureaucrats,”

• firehose the malignant agencies,

• release and expose their document trails on spying, censorship, lawfare, and abuse-of-power.

The consequence would be the return of consequence in our national life.

It’s been absent for so long you can hardly imagine its power to get people’s minds right.

There are already reports of frenzy among the culpable DOJ lawyers, and FBI Director Wray is set to resign before Mr. Trump can fire him. Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone radio-silent for his own good since Election Day. Expect many abiding mysteries to get unraveled, such as exactly how many federal agents did work the crowd around the Capitol on J-6, 2021 — which Mr. Wray has pretended to not be able to discuss “due to ongoing investigations.” Expect to learn more about the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC HQ a few blocks away that same day. Prepare to be amazed at how deeply criminal these schemes were. You must wonder if the document-shredding party is already underway, despite calls to preserve all the emails, memos, and texts.

Then there are the poisoned realms of the intel blob located at CIA, DHS, State, DOD, and elsewhere being subject to inquiry and overhaul.

Think: John Brennan, James Clapper, Bill Barr, Michael Atkinson, Mayorkas, Judge Boasberg, Mary McCord, Col. Vindman, Senator Warner, Avril Haines, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, Gina Haspel, Marie Yovanovitch, Jen Easterly, all their deputies, and many more unknown to the public. Some of these names may yet seem obscure to you. They were all neck-deep in what looks a lot like sedition, treason, real conspiracies, not theories. Even state officials such as New York AG Letitia James, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, GA, DA Fani Willis, would be subject to federal charges under 18USC Section 242: willful deprivation of constitutional rights acting under color of law. That is exactly what the Trump lawfare cases amounted to.

And then, of course, there are the long-running rumors of pedophilia and human trafficking networks among the elite, the Jeffrey Epstein list and the P. Diddy list. If these things exist, and they are released, history would shudder.

Think: the Clinton Foundation.

These people are looking ahead 70 days with visions of shoes dropping and hammers falling. If the mysteries are revealed, it’s hard to imagine that criminal proceedings would not be far behind. You can also imagine that the motivation across a broad and powerful elite class runs white-hot to stop Mr. Trump from entering the Oval Office. So, these days ahead will be fraught with threats, schemes, plots, ploys, and deceptions. The paranoia must be out of this world among people who still have the resources and hold the levers-of-power needed to undertake nefarious deeds.

There is chatter about “a coup” being considered among as-yet-unnamed parties in the Pentagon to prevent Mr. Trump from rising back into power. It’s unclear how that would work among our high command of transsexual generals and admirals and their hapless DEI adjutants. The strata of colonels benath them might have different ideas. But it could be the starting gun for actual civil war. We would find out what the Second Amendment is all about. “Joe Biden” likes to say that the citizenry can’t go up against his F-16 war-planes, but he evidently does not understand how much mischief can be made with small arms — rifles, grenades, rockets, drones — despite examples of it all over the world lately. That is hypothetical for now, of course.

In short, these are dangerous times.

Mr. Trump would be advised to stay out of airplanes until inauguration day and to be extra-careful who he puts himself around, especially in public. You also must expect more lawfare of the most extreme sort going forward to January, every possible stone unturned to find procedural tricks to prevent certification of the election. Do you think Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Andrew Weissmann just laid back and watched football this weekend? They are probably quarterbacking efforts to finagle ballots for the remaining contested seats in Congress, in order to game-out Rep. Jamie Raskin’s well-publicized block-Trump play this coming Jan. 6.

These are the darkest and most explosive parts of Mr. Trump’s admirably deep to-do list for fixing the many things that have stopped working in American life. The simplest picture of our current predicament, and why people voted as they did, is of “things going in the wrong direction,” Well, what direction is that, exactly? The tyranny of giant forces over our little lives and communities. It’s a leviathan government seeking to invade and dominate everything — and to do it with maximum malice when resisted. It has left American men and women mentally disordered, demoralized, stolen their sense of purpose, deprived them of roles in society that provide meaning, alienated them from each other, and from their history. And it has left them, as Robert Kennedy points out, catastrophically unhealthy.

All of which is to say, we have more to clean up and reorganize than just our government. We’re going to get it done, you may be sure, even if the zeitgeist has to drag us kicking and screaming out of the malaise we’re stuck in. All of this points to some very different new arrangements to be made in our everyday life, beginning with the realization that the era of getting something-for-nothing is over.

*  *  *

Note to Readers: We are finally rebuilding the Kunstler.com website on Substack — which was taken-down a month ago on another host platform by nefarious parties

Despite the incoming Trump administration’s likely move to deregulate all things EV, that isn’t necessarily going to stop California from continuing down its ‘green’ agenda path.

And people wonder why there’s exodus from the state to places like Texas and Florida?

Last week, the California Air Resources Board voted to amend the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which requires fuel producers exceeding carbon targets to buy credits from low- or zero-carbon suppliers, according to Bloomberg. 

The updated rules accelerate target reductions, despite concerns over affordability as the state faces rising housing and energy costs. Governor Gavin Newsom is grappling with the economic strain on the nation’s largest state economy amidst this push for stricter climate measures.

Its a move that is projected to raise gas prices by nearly 50 cents per gallon.

Chair Liane Randolph commented: “We cannot afford to continue with the status quo. The health and economic impacts of these events are vastly underestimated.”

The Bloomberg report says that consumer advocates are concerned after a report last year suggested California’s gas prices could rise by 47 cents per gallon in 2025, driven partly by the state’s unique, eco-friendly fuel requirements and high taxes.

Currently, Californians pay an average of $4.29 per gallon—$1.22 above the national average, the report says. 

Though the air board’s staff later revised this estimate without providing a new figure, the urgency of climate action pushed board Chair Liane Randolph to proceed, despite political calls for a delay.

Meanwhile, Governor Newsom, clashing with the oil industry over soaring gas prices, recently signed a law mandating minimum fuel inventories to stabilize prices and established a watchdog to scrutinize potential price-gouging.

Next time a Democrat argues they are fighting inflation, remind them of this genius move. This is the opposite of fighting inflation.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The single most common principle of recovery programs is that the first step is to admit that you have a problem.

That first step continues to elude the politicians and pundits who unsuccessfully pushed lawfare and panic politics for years.

That includes prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James and politicians like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who affirmed this week that they will be redoubling, not reconsidering, their past positions.

For its part, The Washington Post quickly posted an editorial titled “The second resistance to Trump must start now.” They may, however, find the resistance more challenging both politically and legally this time around.

It is important to note at the outset that there is no reason Democratic activists should abandon their values just because they lost this election. Our system is strengthened by passionate and active advocacy.

Rather, it is the collective fury and delirium of the post-election protests that was so disconcerting. Pundits lashed out at the majority of voters, insisting that the election established that half of the nation is composed of racists, misogynists or domination addicts who long to submit to tyranny.

Others blamed free speech and the fact that social media allows “disinformation” to be read by ignorant voters. In other words, the problem could not possibly be themselves. It was, rather, the public, which refused to listen.

That does not bode well for the Democratic Party. As someone raised in a liberal politically active family in Chicago, I had hoped for greater introspection after this election blowout.

Ordinarily, recovery can begin with “a terrible experience” when someone hits rock bottom.

After a crushing electoral defeat and the loss of the White House and likely both houses of Congress, one would think that Democrats would be ready for that first step to recovery. However, those hoping for a new leaf on the left do not understand the true addictive hold of rage.

In my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore rage and our long history of rage politics. There is a certain release that comes with rage in allowing people to do and say things that you would never do or say. People rarely admit it, but they like it. It is the ultimate high produced by the lowest form of political discourse.

Over the course of the last eight years, the U.S. has become a nation of rage addicts.

For months, Democratic leaders denounced Donald Trump and his supporters as fascists and neo-Nazis. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others suggested that democracy itself was about to die unless Democrats were kept in power.

Just before the election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called those voting for Trump “anti-American.” By Hochul’s measure, over half of the American electorate is now “anti-American.”

James is the face of lawfare. She may have done more to reelect Trump than anyone other than the president himself. She ran on nailing Trump on something, anything. In New York, she was joined by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in this ill-conceived effort. They fulfilled the narrative of a weaponized legal system. Every new legal action seemed to produce another surge in polling for Trump.

Yet there James was, soon after the election, with another press conference promising again to unleash the powers of her office to stop Trump’s policies.

Then there was Pritzker, doing the community theater version of “The Avengers” and declaring, “You come for my people, you come through me.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) added that he too will “fight to the death” against Trump’s agenda.

Rather than lower the rhetoric, these rage-addicts ran out for another hit.

Our prior periods of rage politics were largely ended by the public in major election shifts like the one this month. Things, however, are different this time around both politically and legally. The problem for the resistance is the very democracy that they claimed to be saving.

Democrats lost after opposing policies supported by an astonishing share of the public at a time of deep political division. That effort included opposing voter ID laws favored by 84 percent of the public, among other things.

They are now committed to opposing policies central to this election blowout, including deportations of illegal immigrants, which is favored in some polls by two-thirds of Americans.

Likewise, Democrats have already doubled down on attacks on free speech, including blaming their loss on the absence of sufficient censorship. On MSNBC, host Mika Brzezinski blamed the loss in part on “massive disinformation.” Yet, according to some polls, free speech ranked as high as second among issues on Election Day.

According to CNN, Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, the best among Black voters in 48 years, and the best among Hispanic voters in more than 50 years.

Harris actually lost a bit of support with women, and Trump won handily among some groups of women.

None of that seems to matter this time. We have an alliance of political media and academic interests wholly untethered to the views of most of the public. Yet, with both houses of Congress under Republican control, the investigations and impeachment efforts that hounded Trump throughout his first term will be less of a threat in his second term.

For that reason, the center of gravity of the “second resistance” will shift to Democratic prosecutors like James, Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was just reelected.

Various Democratic governors are also pledging to thwart Trump’s policies despite the results of the election.

The “second resistance” will try to use state power to oppose the very issues and policies that led to this historic political shift. That means that there will be a legal shift in the focus of litigation to inherent federal powers versus state powers. That battle will favor the Trump administration.

In fairness to these Democratic politicians, they are certainly free to go to the courts, as Republicans did under Biden to argue for limitations on federal powers. But the promise of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “Trump-proof” the state is easier to make rhetorically than it will be to keep legally.

Indeed, Trump will be able to cite a curious ally in this fight: Barack Obama. It was Obama who successfully swatted down state efforts to pursue their own policies and programs on immigration enforcement. Obama insisted that state laws were preempted in the area and the Supreme Court largely agreed in its 2012 decision in Arizona v. U.S.

Congress may even seek to tie the receipt of federal funds to states cooperating with federal mandates. For this reason, Democrats, who campaigned on the promise to end the filibuster for the good of democracy, suddenly became firm believers in that Senate rule right around 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.

As the majority of the country walks away from the party shaking their heads, many activists are left only with their rage. Instead of reappraising the years of far-left orthodoxy and intolerance, some are calling to tear down the system or take drastic individual actions, including for women to break up with their boyfriends and husbands or to cut off their hair.

They will actually keep their rage and dump their relationships. Now that really is an addiction.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” 

Working-poor households are still under pressure in a weak demand environment because of persistent inflation and high interest rates. Goldman’s latest note on the consumer shows a continued mixed picture, with the holiday shopping season of Black Friday just weeks away. 

Goldman’s Michelle Cheng and Xinyu Ruan pointed out the continued weak consumer demand environment:

US: recent data points to a weak demand backdrop. US October TRE (The Weekly Chain Store Sales Index) was -0.9% vs -0.6% in Sep; same-store ShopperTrak traffic was -5.0% in the last week of Oct.

Our US colleagues find a mixed picture of consumer credit health, with household balance sheets remaining largely unlevered but personal savings rates declining well below long-term averages, credit delinquency rates rising yoy across cards, personal loans and auto loans, credit origination volumes at historically depressed levels and average FICO scores ticking lower for the first time in years – with pressure concentrated among subprime consumers. Softer consumer credit trends among subprime consumers are also translating into reduced spending activity among lower-income cohorts.

Similar to past quarters, consumers have remained careful in their spending decisions, as discretionary spend has continued to be soft. Below data points show recent sentiment for the lowest income consumer continues to be under pressure, with both purchase intent and consumer confidence below historical levels. That said, consumer confidence trends have recently improved across income demographics, which could potentially be reflective of a change in consumer sentiment and expectations.

The trend shows that working-poor households have been dialing back spending—or have hit a proverbial brick wall since the spring, as many financially drown in Biden-Harris’ inflation storm. 

 Not a great combo here…

In recent weeks, we have noted:

• US Working Poor Hit By “Weaker Credit Metrics & Mixed Confidence” As Black Friday Nears

• Goldman Finds “Trade-Down Phenomenon” Strikes Rich & Poor Consumers

One of the biggest drivers for voters backing Trump was inflation. AP found that high prices were the number one concern for about half of all Trump voters.

Meanwhile, Democrats were trying to make the election theme all about women’s rights. Now comes the hard part for Trump in solving the nightmare inflation storm sparked by far-left liberals.

Authored by Jim Gash via RealClearPolitics,

After what has felt like years of non-stop campaigning, news coverage, polling, analysis, and predictions, our nation finally elected its 47th president. Sadly, the sharp, sometimes heated disagreement and discord of the campaign season didn’t end on Election Day. 

We had hoped matters would be settled and the pace and temperature of the conversation might abate, but alas, here we are. Yet, even in the wake of a raucous election, we cannot overlook our nation’s annual celebration of the brave men and women who fought for our freedom – including the right to vote.

This year, we cannot forget Veterans Day.

A Day to Remember 

On November 11, 1918, the Allied forces agreed to an armistice with Germany. This was seven months before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles that formally ended World War I, but in some ways November 11 was the more significant day.

On that day, 106 years ago, the fighting finally came to an end. Peace had triumphed and good had conquered evil. But at a dear and devastating cost. During the course of the war, an estimated 8.5 million combatants and 13 million civilians were killed, making it by far the bloodiest war in history at the time. 

And after over four years of fighting, it came to an end on that Monday in November, which is why we still celebrate Veterans Day on November 11.

A Legacy of Bravery

On Veterans Day, we not only honor those who bravely served this country in WWI. We also remember all the veterans who have sacrificed for our freedom and those who continue to ensure we can enjoy that freedom today. 

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2023 that there were 16.2 million veterans living in the United States. That’s over 6% of the nation’s population. Since 1775, however, when the Continental Army was created, over 41 million men and women have served in some capacity.

Whenever needs on foreign or domestic soil have developed, Americans have risen to the occasion and served with courage. It is their legacy that we remember and honor on Veterans Day. It is their lives and sacrifice that deserve our reverence.

But this year, their legacy is in danger of being forgotten and overlooked.

Lest We Forget

This year, Veterans Day is just six days after the presidential election. And if the months leading up to Nov. 5 are anything to go by, the election and its aftermath will continue to dominate headlines and capture the attention of the nation. 

While understandable, the dominance of such political commentary has tremendous potential to overshadow the heroes we celebrate on Veterans Day. 

Simply put, that cannot be allowed to happen. We owe our veterans a day of honor and remembrance. They have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so much so that we can enjoy the freedoms that characterize America. They are the reason we have a democracy. They are the reason we can vote.

Pepperdine’s university theme this year is freedom – and the freedom we experience at the societal level could not exist without the sacrifices of veterans. G.K. Chesterton said that “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” 

We would do well to remember – and honor – all that our veterans have given up so we can live in freedom. 

Breaking the Cycle

Mere remembrance, in and of itself, will never be enough. Action is needed, and this Veterans Day, it is our turn to give back to those who have sacrificed so much for us. The truth is, veterans need our support. We as citizens must take steps to assist and uplift veterans who are all too often overlooked by society. 

This is a heartbreaking reality, and the president-elect would do well to lead the way in breaking the destructive cycle in which veterans often find themselves. Initiatives in the areas of stable housing, career development, mental health, and transitioning to civilian life can and will make a difference. And each is another way we can show that we see and honor their sacrifice. 

The Way Forward

The United States was founded on the principles of freedom, and no one knows that better than the courageous men and women we honor on Veterans Day. But the adage is true: Freedom is not free. Freedom requires sacrifice. 

On this Veterans Day, we say thank you to all veterans and their families who have given up more than we can understand so the citizens of this nation can continue to enjoy the freedoms we hold so dear. 

Jim Gash is president of Pepperdine University.

A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 commercial jet was peppered with automatic gunfire while on approach to land in Haiti Monday morning, with at least one fight attendant wounded. 

Miami Herald reports Spirit Airlines flight 951 departed from Fort Lauderdale early Monday. The commercial jet was on approach to Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince when small arms fire ripped through the cabin. 

Flight data via Flightradar24 shows pilots were on a straight-in final approach when they abruptly pulled back on the yoke and went to full power just before touching down. This was likely the moment when the bullets penetrated the cabin. The incident likely occurred around 700 feet altitude. 

Here’s more from the Miami Herald: 

No passenger was injured, but a flight attendant received minor injuries, a Spirit Airlines spokesperson confirmed to the Herald. The spokesperson said that flight 951 from Fort Lauderdale to Port-au-Prince was diverted and landed safely in Santiago. 

Flight data shows the jet was diverted to an airport in the Dominican Republic. 

Footage from inside the cabin. 

🚨#BREAKING: A Spirit Airlines flight has been forced to abort a landing at Port-au-Prince airport after being struck by gunfire

📌#Haiti | #Caribbean

Earlier this afternoon, Spirit Airlines flight N966NK was struck by several rounds of gunfire while attempting to land in… pic.twitter.com/5oiDPe3KYP

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 11, 2024

“American Airlines and JetBlue has just announced that they are suspending flights to Haiti after Spirit Airlines struck by gunfire This is the second recent incident of gunfire in Port-au-Prince airspace. Last month, a United Nations helicopter was also hit by gang gunfire and had to return to the airport, though no one was injured in that case,” X user Raw Alerts said. 

🚨#UPDATE: American Airlines and JetBlue has just announced that they are suspending flights to Haiti after Spirit Airlines struck by gunfire

This is the second recent incident of gunfire in Port-au-Prince airspace. Last month, a United Nations helicopter was also hit by gang…

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 11, 2024

One user on X asked: “Is our Government suspending the flights FROM Haiti carrying illegals to the US?” 

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan shut down a failed gotcha question during a Sunday CNN interview. 

Jordan appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with host Dana Bash, who asked him about Republicans claiming “voter fraud” and “election integrity” only when they lose. 

After a brief back and forth, Jordan turned the tables on Bash, asking her about the 10 million missing votes Joe Biden allegedly received in the 2020 presidential election. 

Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris currently claiming little over 71 million votes, far lower than the 81 million declared for Joe Biden in 2020. 

“The Big Lie”…

As seen in a video shared by journalist Kyle Becker, Bash asked, “Last time around … there were false claims about election fraud when Donald Trump lost. This time, Donald Trump won and you think the election was free and fair. Do you see there’s a little of a…” 

Jordan replied, “No, I think the Democrats got to ask: ‘Why did we go from getting 81 million to getting 70 million? What happened to those 10 million people?’” 

Later, Bash asked Jordan if he believed the 2020 election was “free and fair.” Jordan replied affirmatively, explaining the unpreceded use of mail-in and absentee ballots. 

“There were concerns about 2020 with all the mail-in voting,” he said. “Pennsylvania had like 2.5-something million mail-in ballots come in without any signature verification which was required under Pennsylvania statute. So, there were all types of concerns with how the 2020 election was played out.” 

Seconds later, Jordan added, “The biggest question is what happened to the 10 Million voters that Joe Biden got but didn’t come up for Kamala Harris? President Trump’s numbers were right up where they were in 2020 but the Democrats were much lower.” 

Enjoy:

House @JudiciaryGOP Chair @Jim_Jordan sets CNN host Dana Bash straight on why Americans have major concerns about the 2020 election results.

BASH: “It seems to me that Republicans claim voting fraud and election integrity when you lose and not when you win.”

JORDAN: “No. This… pic.twitter.com/pZ52OKXRZv

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 10, 2024

It was almost one year ago, when we first reported that in the third quarter of 2023, China’s foreign direct investment had turned negative for the first time on record. Fast forward to today, when capital flight from China has become relentless as foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth.

China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped $8.1 billion in the third quarter, according to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released late Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment in China, was down almost $13 billion for the first nine months of the year.

As we have been reporting, foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions, pessimism about the world’s second-largest economy and stronger competition from Chinese domestic firms in industries such as cars. Should the decline continue for the rest of the year, it would be the first annual net outflow in FDI since at least 1990, when comparable data begins.

According to Bloomberg, companies that have pulled back some China operations this year include automakers Nissan Motor and Volkswagen, along with others like Konica Minolta; Nippon Steel said in July it was exiting a joint venture in China, while IBM is shutting down a hardware research team in the country, a decision affecting about 1,000 employees.

The prospect of an expanded trade war and deteriorating relations with Beijing during US President-elect Donald Trump’s second term may further weigh on investment. “Geopolitical tension” is the topmost concern for members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, according to the group’s chair, Allan Gabor.

“It makes it difficult to plan big investments, but on the contrary, we see a lot of members making small and medium-sized investments,” Gabor said in an interview with Bloomberg TV last week during the China International Import Expo. “It’s a much more surgical investment environment.”

Still, government efforts in late September to stimulate the economy has already benefited one group of foreign investors, with the value of stocks held by foreigners jumping more than 26% from August, according to separate data from the central bank. The Chinese benchmark stock index gained almost 21% in September after the start of a coordinated stimulus effort, although it has since given up some of those gains.  

By contrast, outbound investment from China has been rising sharply. In the third quarter, Chinese firms increased their overseas assets by about $34 billion, according to the preliminary data from SAFE. That took outflows so far this year to $143 billion, the third-highest total on record for the period.

Chinese companies such as BYD Co. have been rapidly increasing their overseas footprint to secure raw materials and build up production capacity in foreign markets. That trend is likely to continue and expand, as more countries put tariffs on some Chinese exports such as steel and the US threatens to impose punitive tariffs on all Chinese goods.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The unfortunate answer may be another two weeks.

Image courtesy of the Washington Post, annotations by Mish.

Arizona Central addresses the issue Why does it take Arizona so long to count votes? This problem is fixable

While the rest of the country is moving on, we in Arizona are stuck in an election night time warp. Waiting to see whether we sent Ruben Gallego or Kari Lake to Washington.

Maricopa County elections officials have said it’ll take 10 to 13 days to finish counting votes.

It’s embarrassing. It’s frustrating. It’s ridiculous. And worst of all, it gets the conspiracy crowd all riled up, certain that there’s a plot afoot to steal Arizona’s vote.

Don’t blame (Republican run) Maricopa County. From what I’ve seen, the board of supervisors ran a remarkably smooth election.

it’s just not realistic that nearly a quarter of a million people can drop off early ballots on Election Day, then expect to know who won a close race on election night.

Unexpected Problems Counting Ballots

VoteBeat explains Arizona election results delayed as counties experience unexpected problems counting ballots

Update, Nov. 9: American Civil Liberties Union and the Campaign Legal Center filed an emergency petition to the Arizona Supreme Court on Saturday morning, asking the court to extend the deadline for voters to respond to problems with their mail ballot signatures. The original deadline is 5 p.m. Sunday. Because of the delays in counting ballots and notifying voters of problems, the organizations want voters to be given an additional two to four days to respond to notices, depending on how officials notify voters there is a problem.

An updated statewide number of uncounted ballots wasn’t available Friday morning, but as of Thursday night, four of 15 counties — Cochise, Pima, Yavapai, and Yuma — still had more than 25% of their ballots left to count.

Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, still had about 20% uncounted as of Thursday night, including 274,000 mail ballots that had not yet gone through even the first step of verifying the voter signature on the outside of the envelope.

Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, still had about 20% uncounted as of Thursday night, including 274,000 mail ballots that had not yet gone through even the first step of verifying the voter signature on the outside of the envelope.

The long, two-page ballot that many counties had in this election was to blame for delays in at least some instances. For example, in Maricopa County and Pima County, it’s taking longer to remove mail ballots from their envelopes and unfold and inspect them.

In other counties, the problems vary. Cochise County is experiencing a mechanical problem with its tabulators that’s causing them to operate slowly, and still had 57% of its ballots to count as of Thursday night. The county was able to count only a few ballots at a time over the last day, though the tabulator is still counting correctly, according to JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office. A technician from the tabulator company arrived Thursday night to help, and the company may need to send a new machine, Martin said.

In both Yavapai and Pinal counties, tabulating polling place results from Election Day took much longer than expected because of unclear voter marks that had to be sorted out before results from the polling place could be reported. Pinal took 24 hours to count just the polling place ballots, and Yavapai took until Friday morning.

Four Key Things

• Arizona allows “early” votes to be dropped off on election day.

• Then the first step is a manual signature verification.

• If the signature verification fails, voters get a chance to verify it.

• And now it’s possible, if not likely, the Arizona Supreme Court will extend the cure figure.

Every one of those will fuel conspiracy theories by the losing party.

My Math

I crunched the numbers. There are four key counties in play.

Tiny Cochise county may deliver 9,000 more votes for Kari Lake because so many votes are outstanding.

But even if we assume reasonably good totals for Lake in Maricopa County (Phoenix), say even instead -3.6 percent, it looks like Pima County (Tucson) will carry the day for Gallego if the turnout is close to what we have seen.

Lake can win if she dramatically outperforms in the rest of the Maricopa County vote.

But from where I sit, it looks like Kari Lake loses by about 1.0 to 1.6 percent.

Regardless, Arizona seriously needs to rethink how it runs elections.

Trump Will Have a Second Chance to put a Gold Advocate on the Fed, Go For It!

In case you missed it, please see Trump Will Have a Second Chance to put a Gold Advocate on the Fed, Go For It!

Judy Shelton in back in play for a Fed nominee. Please do it President Trump.

Also see Why Trump Won the Election in One Clear Picture

There is massive Democrat soul searching today. Hardly anyone will get it right. This is despite huge evidence all year long.