Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A Mississippi law that allows ballots received up to five days after an election to be counted is lawful, a federal judge ruled on July 28.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. pointed, in part, to the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which governs ballots from citizens residing overseas.

“So if one federal statute implicitly allows post-election receipt of overseas ballots mailed by election day, that statute is presumed not to offend against the election-day statutes, from which one may infer that the similar Mississippi statute on post-election receipt is likewise inoffensive,” the judge wrote in a 24-page ruling.

The ruling dismissed cases brought against Mississippi officials by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi.

The Mississippi law requires officials to count absentee ballots postmarked on or before Election Day, provided that the ballots are received no more than five business days after the election.

The U.S. Constitution’s elections and electors clause gives Congress the power to set Election Day for determining electors for president and vice president, as well as the date for voters choosing members of Congress. Congress later established a single day for the selection of electors and voting for members of Congress.

The Mississippi law “contravenes those federal laws” because it “effectively extends Mississippi’s federal election past the Election Day established by Congress,” Republicans said in their complaint.

They argued that the law was forcing them to spend money to educate voters on the post-Election Day receipt deadline and urged the court to declare the law illegal and block its enforcement.

Mississippi officials said the law does not directly conflict with federal statutes because those statutes do not address whether ballots must be received on or by Election Day.

Although Republicans and the Libertarian Party did establish standing, Judge Guirola found that they did not show that the law is illegal or unconstitutional.

He cited previous rulings from courts, including a 2023 district court ruling that upheld an Illinois law that lets ballots postmarked on or before Election Day be counted if received up to 14 days after Election Day.

In that ruling, the judge referenced the UOCAVA and noted that the attorney general of the United States “often seeks court-ordered extensions of ballot receipt deadlines to ensure that military voters are not disenfranchised.”

“These longstanding efforts by Congress and the executive branch to ensure that ballots cast by Americans living overseas are counted, so long as they are cast by Election Day, strongly suggest that statutes like the one at issue here are compatible with the Elections Clause,” Judge Guirola said.

“In the absence of federal law regulating absentee mail-in ballot procedures, states retain the authority and the constitutional charge to establish their lawful time, place, and manner boundaries.”

Since the Mississippi law is legal, there are no violations of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, the judge said.

Does anyone else find it strange that Covid experts, such as epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, are back in the media, now sounding the alarm about bird flu as the next pandemic? They’re even scaremongering about raw milk, claiming it will contribute to the spread. Sound familiar? Must stop the spread (early Covid).

In April, we informed readers that corporate media was ramping up a propaganda campaign to spook Americans about the bird flu. We cited Covid experts who warned the bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse than Covid.’ And even noted this: “Gain-of-Function May Explain Bird Flu Jump To Cows And Humans.”

“This bird flu has arrived in US very fast and furious…definitely don’t drink raw milk… it’s 50% mortality among those who we detect it. If this truly jumps into humans and spreads human to human we’re in deep trouble,” Feigl-Ding recently said. 

Dr. Eric Feigl Ding: “This bird flu has arrived in US very fast and furious…definitely don’t drink raw milk…it’s 50% mortality among those who we detect it. If this truly jumps into humans and spreads human to human we’re in deep trouble.” pic.twitter.com/HITAzaN5jY

— Camus (@newstart_2024) July 28, 2024

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) called out Feigl-Ding for fearmongering:

“Feigl-Ding you’re flat out lying and fear mongering in this video. You just made up the 50% fatality number and didn’t explain it. You dont even know if pasteurization kills the bird flu virus. People are not contracting fatal bird flu from consuming raw milk.”

.@DrEricDing you’re flat out lying and fear mongering in this video. You just made up the 50% fatality number and didn’t explain it. You dont even know if pasteurization kills the bird flu virus. People are not contracting fatal bird flu from consuming raw milk. https://t.co/b7CzdOI9aF

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 28, 2024

In late 2022, Feigl-Ding bashed Twitter for abandoning its ‘Covid misinformation’ policy. The same non-sense policy that deplatformed users for even suggesting Covid came from a lab.

Welp—this tweet didn’t age well for COVID misinfo I guess https://t.co/eM8r29hHbN

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) November 29, 2022

So, given his lack of credibility, Feigl-Ding’s attack on raw milk is highly suspicious. This comes as bird flu spreads, and the government has ramped up oversight on farms, especially mom-and-pop ones.

The result of this bird flu scare and government action so far to increase ‘surveillance’ across farms, along with Feigl-Ding’s attempts to dissuade people from drinking raw milk, has been disastrous for at least one small-time farmer, Sarah Armstrong, who runs Nourish.

Armstrong was featured in a recent video uploaded on X that shows how her world was turned upside down when the bird flu spread gained momentum in April. She said the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development hit her farm with a cease and desist order.

Listen to Armstrong’s story about government overreach and the attack on small farms: 

Nourish Co-op was mandated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to destroy all of their raw dairy products after receiving a cease and desist order from the state. Listen to Ashley Armstrong explain why she believes this is another example of government… pic.twitter.com/EhyayF2fwJ

— Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) July 25, 2024

Here are several predictions about the great reset already underway in the food supply chain. 

This is why they attack raw milk

This is why they say cows hurt the environment

This is why they say seafood is dangerous

The aim has never been your health

It’s to demonize these natural foods we’ve relied on for THOUSANDS of years only to force a “better” solution they… pic.twitter.com/UB26llR0QI

— 𝗥𝗢𝗖𝗞𝗬 (@TheWarKitchen) July 20, 2024

It’s time for the people to take back local supply chains and support local farmers. Enough with mega-corporations controlling the food supply.

Authored by Carson Holloway via AmericanMind.org,

The stunning events of the last several weeks have highlighted the great weaknesses in the corporate media, an essential part of modern America’s political system. They have, as they constantly remind us, a vital role to play. But they betrayed that role by their open partisanship.

For one brief shining moment, it seemed as if the media would live up to the promise of Adolph Ochs, the founder of the modern New York Times: “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved.” In the month after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the media raised and vigorously pressed the questions about his fitness for office that had to be addressed for the good of the country.

Yet this spasm of critical curiosity about the fitness of our Democratic president turned out to be just an interlude. Everybody can remember that right before the debate the media (including the New York Times, which later called for Biden to leave the race) were saying that Biden was fine and questions about his decline were based on out-of-context video clips, labeled “cheap fakes” by the White House press office. But now that Biden has left the race, the media have reverted to their usual lack of interest in anything that sheds negative light on the national Democratic Party.

There is certainly no lack of material. In the wake of Biden’s withdrawal from campaigning, it would be no exaggeration to call this an administration mired in scandal. Besides the voter dissatisfaction over the failures of the last three and a half years, three new developments loom like shadows over the Biden-Harris White House.

Consider the mysterious way in which Biden was forced out of the race. Up to the day he dropped out he and his top aides were insisting that he was all in. Then he suddenly stepped aside without offering any reason, seemingly pushed aside, perhaps by powerful and shadowy figures with no public accountability.

There is also the scandal of the officials close to Biden—including the Democrats’ new presumptive nominee, Vice President Harris—evidently knowing about his decline and covering it up, or even directly misleading the public about it. Related to this is the Democrats’ rationally indefensible combination of choices: to drop Biden from the ticket amid widespread reports of his failing memory and flagging concentration, but to leave him in the office of the presidency for the next six months despite these signs of mental infirmity.

Finally, there is the scandalous failure of the Secret Service to provide adequate protection to a former president and the leading presidential candidate in the present election. Had it been successful, the assassination of Donald Trump would have been one of the worst attacks on American democracy in decades. It would have effectively disenfranchised the tens of millions of Americans who hope to vote for Trump. And the government’s as yet unexplained security lapses almost permitted this to happen.

Each of these scandals reflects very badly on the nation’s present governing party. Each is also a once in a century story. Yet the media seem very uninterested in getting to the bottom of any of them. They would rather fawn over Kamala Harris.

Taken together, the events of the last several weeks suggest that Biden’s rough coverage in July was not even really an interlude for the media. It was instead more of their standard operating procedure. Their scrutiny of Biden was not a return to professional standards of reporting. It was rather another case of the media making themselves part of a political operation to protect the Democratic Party—in this case by helping to push aside a president that they had concluded was an electoral liability.

No serious person who has lived through these events can credibly deny the partisanship of the corporate media. This partisanship undermines our democracy. Democracy means self-government. It means that the people get to choose the direction of the country by electing their leaders. The media could play a vital role in this wonderful process (denied to most people throughout history) through impartial and thorough reporting on public issues.

Thus they would provide the voters with the information they need to choose freely and intelligently. Instead, the media do all they can to prop up the political party with which they sympathize—all the while professing an objectivity that they manifestly do not possess. To this extent their work is an ongoing fraud on the American public.

This partisanship also hurts the country itself in other ways.

By shielding the Democrats from criticism, the media permits them to govern incompetently and recklessly with near impunity. The result: foolish policies (inflationary spending, unregulated immigration, and unnecessary foreign wars) that hurt America and Americans.

Donald Trump, with his characteristic simplicity and harshness, once said that “the fake news is the enemy of the people.”

No doubt the media resent this judgment, but they are doing everything they can to demonstrate its accuracy.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that a law combining abortion restrictions with limits to gender-altering procedures for minors does not violate the state’s constitution, which requires bills to be confined to a single subject.

The state’s high court acknowledged in a split decision on July 26 that abortion and gender-altering care are “distinct types of medical care” but that the law, LB574, does not violate Nebraska’s single-subject rule because both abortion and transgender procedures fall under the subject of medical care.

The law, which imposes a ban on abortion beyond 12 weeks’ gestation and includes regulation of puberty blockers for minors and a ban on gender-altering surgeries for minors, was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) representing Planned Parenthood in Nebraska.

A district judge dismissed the lawsuit last August, and Planned Parenthood appealed, with the key premise being a violation of Article III Section 14 of the Nebraska Constitution, which requires single-subject bills.

Lawmakers in the Nebraska Legislature had originally proposed separate bills, one banning abortion at about six weeks of pregnancy and another restricting transgender procedures for minors. However, the GOP-dominated Legislature added the abortion ban bill to the existing gender-altering care bill when the abortion ban failed to defeat a filibuster.

In arguments before the Nebraska Supreme Court in March, an attorney for the state argued that both abortion and gender-altering measures fall under the subject of health care and so the law does not violate the constitutional single-subject restriction.

By contrast, an attorney for Planned Parenthood argued that the bills deal with distinct subjects in violation of the constitution and that even the Legislature recognized this by introducing the abortion and transgender bills separately.

The majority on the Nebraska Supreme Court disagreed with the arguments put forward by Planned Parenthood, finding that while abortion and gender-altering care are distinct types of medical care, they “certainly are encompassed within the regulation of permissible medical care.”

“After our review of the facts of this case and our historical legal precedent wherein we have rarely found violations of Neb. Const. art. III, § 14, we find no merit to Planned Parenthood’s argument that L.B. 574 contains more than one subject in violation” of the state constitution, the high court’s majority opinion states.

“Unlike our dissenting colleague, and particularly in the absence of a suggestion that the title given by the Legislature was misleading, we decline to reject the elected representatives’ articulation of a subject in the guise of a search for the perfect title.

“We find Planned Parenthood’s assignments of error to be without merit. We affirm the decision of the district court.”

Several justices dissented, with one arguing that the Legislature had the duty under the constitutional amendment to “compose legislation, including titling, which stated ‘one subject’; failure to so compose renders the bill unconstitutional. It is not the role of this court to rescue legislative bills.”

The amended title of the combined LB574 was the Adopt the Let Them Grow Act and the Preborn Child Protection Act, and it provides for discipline under the Uniform Credentialing Act, with part of the dissenting judge’s objection focusing on the complexity of the title.

Another line of dissent was that the bill contained “unrelated acts, i.e., abortion and gender-affirming care,” and that it included sections that don’t relate to the regulation of medical professionals, in violation of the single-subject constitutional constraint.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen issued a statement praising the ruling, saying he’s “grateful for the court’s thorough and well-reasoned opinion upholding these important protections for life and children in Nebraska.”

“There was a dark moment last year when many feared that a victory for unborn babies was impossible and that the pro-life coalition might break apart,” he said. “I was honored to partner with faithful allies and leaders across the state to combine the abortion ban with protections for kids against irreversible sex change surgeries.”

ACLU of Nebraska issued a statement calling the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the lower court ruling “devastating” and vowing to continue fighting for its position on the matter.

“This is devastating news for impacted Nebraskans, but it won’t be the final word on abortion access or the rights of trans youth and their families in Nebraska. We’ll continue doing all we can to ensure that these decisions rest with Nebraskans, not the government,” it said.

At least 25 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-altering procedures for transgender minors, with most of them facing lawsuits.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and handed the matter of regulating abortion access over to the states to determine, most Republican-controlled states have advanced legislation that restricts abortion or started enforcing existing laws that had been blocked.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says that Kamala Harris ‘will work with Congress’ to provide a ‘pathway to citizenship’ for tens of millions of illegal migrants.

“I believe we need to create a pathway to citizenship,” Warren told CNN‘s Jake Tapper on State of the Union on Sunday. “All of that is part of what we need to do for comprehensive immigration reform. Kamala Harris will work with Congress and get that done.”

Elizabeth Warren:

“I believe we need to create a pathway to citizenship [for the 10 million+ illegal aliens let in by the Biden-Harris administration]. Kamala Harris will work with Congress and get that done.” pic.twitter.com/wfO9qzgO7w

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 29, 2024

When Tapper pressed her to defend the disastrous Biden-Harris administration border policies, Warren blamed Congress!

“I don’t need to tell you voters overwhelmingly disapprove of how the Biden-Harris administration has handled the border,” said Tapper. “By giving the nomination to one of the leaders of the border effort, aren’t Democrats doubling down on one of your party’s biggest vulnerabilities?”

To which Warren replied: “Border crossings now are lower than they were in the last year of the Trump administration. But recognize – and I know that Kamala Harris knows – this is a problem that ultimately has to be solved by Congress.“

“We need the tools in order to have more resources at the border, to have more resources in the states and cities that are supporting migrants,” she continued.

During a Saturday campaign rally in Minnesota, Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-PA), Harris is trying to artificially swell Democrat voter rolls.

“She wants to hand over control of our country to people who shouldn’t be here in the first place. And we cannot let her. And I have a message, a very simple message to the millions of illegal aliens who are in this country and shouldn’t be. If you are here, start packing your bags right now because Donald J. Trump is coming back into office,” he said.

As I was saying, they’re importing voters https://t.co/zokSXYn78x

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former President Donald Trump will sit for a voluntary interview with the FBI regarding the probe into the assassination attempt against him at a campaign rally earlier this month, according to a special agent on July 29.

“We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said in a call with reporters on Monday.

While the agency said it has not yet determined the motive of the would-be Trump assassin, his actions showed extensive planning ahead of the July 13 rally, Mr. Rojek told reporters.

Mr. Rojek said interviews with victims are common practice during investigations.

Several new details were revealed during the call, including that the 20-year-old suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks had made “significant efforts” to conceal his actions, according to CNN.

Mr. Robek said that Mr. Crooks had conducted extensive online research, which showed that he had an interest in mass shootings, power plants, improvised explosive devices, and the attempted assassination of Slovakia’s prime minister earlier this year.

The suspect was a reclusive individual primarily connected to his family, Mr. Rojek said. His parents have cooperated fully with the investigation, maintaining they were unaware of his plans.

Mr. Rojek revealed in the call that Mr. Crooks used aliases and foreign-based encrypted email accounts to evade detection during the purchase of firearms and chemical precursors for explosive devices, according to CNN.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Short seller Andrew Left surrendered in Los Angeles this afternoon, CNBC reported. 

James Spertus, the lawyer representing Left who was previously a prosecutor in the L.A. U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Monday prosecutors had ordered Left to turn himself in that day. Initially, the U.S. Attorney’s Office planned to request a $10 million cash deposit for his bail.

“Then they wanted several million dollars,” Spertus said. “It doesn’t make any sense. This should be Mr. Left released on his own recognizance. There’s no reason for any bond in this case.”

Spertus argued Left isn’t a flight risk, or a danger to the community – and that there are no victims in the case. “There can’t be” a plea deal, he said, since it would require Left to tell a judge that what he did was unlawful, which he says it wasn’t. 

“This case is going to fail for six independent reasons,” Spertus said. “You have no duty to the market to disclose your private trading intentions.”

He said he thinks the DOJ “is trying to deter the activist short sellers, and they want to stop it.”

Spertus told CNBC that, irrespective of Left’s conviction or acquittal, the case will deter short sellers from publicly sharing their research on companies they believe to be overvalued or whose stock prices are based on false information.

“People will stop sharing their research with the market,” Spertus said. “It’s really bad for the financial markets to have a prosecution like this when the government agrees that the public statements were truthful.”

As we wrote days ago, Federal prosecutors charged short seller Andrew Left with fraud last Friday, accusing him of making misleading statements about stocks to profit from price moves triggered by his reports, according to an exclusive by the Wall Street Journal. 

Known for his firm Citron Research, which targets market “lemons,” Left gained fame for betting against Valeant Pharmaceuticals and for betting against GameStop during the meme stock craze, but he has seen less success in recent years.

The DOJ wrote in a press release out Friday morning:

According to the indictment, Andrew Left, 54, formerly of Beverly Hills, California, and now a resident of Boca Raton, Florida, was a securities analyst, trader, and frequent guest commentator on cable news channels such as CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg Television. Left conducted business under the name “Citron Research” (Citron), an online moniker he created as a vehicle for publishing investment recommendations. Citron’s online presence included a website and a social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

His media presence amplified his impact, leading followers to mimic his trades, prosecutors said:

As alleged in the indictment, Left commented on publicly traded companies, asserting that the market incorrectly valued a company’s stock and advocating that the current price was too high or too low. Left’s recommendations often included an explicit or implicit representation about Citron’s trading position—which created the false pretense that Left’s economic incentives aligned with his public recommendation—and a “target price,” which Left represented as his valuation of the company’s stock. Sometimes, the commentary represented Left’s own work. Other times, Left disseminated the commentary of third parties as his own. The commentary routinely included sensationalized headlines and exaggerated language to maximize the reaction it would get from the stock market. As alleged, Left knowingly exploited his ability to move stock prices by targeting stocks popular with retail investors and posting recommendations on social media to manipulate the market and make fast, easy money.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Left faces charges of securities fraud and lying to federal investigators, with accusations of manipulating at least 15 stocks to earn $16 million over five years. Prosecutors claim he exaggerated potential stock price declines, sometimes closing positions after minimal price drops.

The press release continued: 

As further alleged in the indictment, in the leadup to publication of Citron’s commentary, Left established long or short positions in the public company on which he was commenting in his trading accounts and prepared to quickly close those positions post-publication and take profits on the short-term price movement caused by his commentary. Left allegedly used his advance knowledge and control over the timing of a market-moving event to build his positions using inexpensive, short-dated options contracts that expired from the same day that he published his commentary to within five days. Left also allegedly submitted limit orders, often prior to publication of his commentary, to close his positions as soon as the company’s shares reached a certain price and at prices vastly different from the target prices that Left recommended to the public. While Left made false representations to the public to bolster his credibility, behind the scenes, Left allegedly took contrary trading positions to reap quick profits off the stocks he either promoted or pilloried through Citron.

Left’s indictment concludes a three-year investigation into short sellers’ tactics. Prosecutors also allege Left concealed ties to hedge funds that traded on his early research, sharing profits with him. He denied these allegations to investigators in January 2021.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Roman Catholic diocese is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a New York appeals court ruling that requires religious charities to provide abortion coverage in their employee health insurance packages.

Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, confirmed during an online news conference on July 25 that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, is preparing a petition for certiorari, or review, to be filed in coming weeks with the nation’s highest court. The Becket organization is part of the diocese’s legal team.

The case is Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Harris. Adrienne A. Harris is Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, the agency that issued the health care insurance regulation that’s in dispute.

The deadline for filing the petition for certiorari, or review, was originally Aug. 19, but on July 26, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor extended the deadline to Sept. 18.

The case has been working its way through the judicial system for years.

In 2017, the New York Department of Financial Services issued a regulation requiring that employers fund abortions through their employee health insurance plans. The regulation exempted religious entities whose “purpose” is to inculcate religious values and who “employ” and “serve” primarily coreligionists. At the same time, the regulation forced religious organizations to cover abortions if they have a broader religious mission, such as serving the poor, or if they hire or serve people regardless of their faith.

Various Roman Catholic dioceses, along with Anglican nuns and Lutheran and Baptist churches, sued.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York ruled in favor of the state in July 2020.

But in November 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily vacated that decision.

The nation’s highest court sent the case back to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York for further consideration in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2021 ruling in Fulton v. Philadelphia.

In the Fulton ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a Roman Catholic charity in Pennsylvania may refuse on First Amendment religious freedom grounds to place children with same-sex couples.

Writing for the court in that case, Chief Justice John Roberts said that Philadelphia had violated the other side’s First Amendment rights.

The religious views of the diocese-affiliated Catholic Social Services “inform its work in this system,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. The charity believes that “marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.”

“Because the agency understands the certification of prospective foster families to be an endorsement of their relationships, it will not certify unmarried couples—regardless of their sexual orientation—or same-sex married couples.”

However, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York reconsidered the case in June 2022, it ruled in favor of the state, finding that the Fulton ruling didn’t apply to the case and that the abortion insurance mandate did not violate the First Amendment.

On May 21 of this year, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling of the Appellate Division.

“Under Fulton, both the regulation itself and the criteria delineating a ‘religious employer’ for the purposes of the exemption are generally applicable and do not violate the Free Exercise Clause,” the court held.

Ms. Windham said in recent years the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of employers “every single time” in three cases when they have objected to having to provide coverage for contraception or abortion medication for their employees.

Despite that, New York decided to impose an abortion coverage mandate and “go all the way in the face of these three Supreme Court decisions.” First, the state enacted the insurance regulation and then the New York State Legislature decided to codify the regulation in state law, she said.

The exemption from the mandate is narrow, Ms. Windham said.

“If you primarily serve people of your own faith, then you can have an exception, but if you open your doors to all … [to] care for anyone regardless of your faith, if you’re out there offering a cup of soup to anyone who’s hungry, regardless of what their faith background is, then you lose your religious freedom protections, you lose your exemption under the statute, and you must also pay for abortions.”

This means that a “religious test” is being imposed on religious groups that provide social services, she said.

“All of these different groups are stuck with this abortion mandate, and all of them because of the work they do, and because of the good that they try to do within their communities, are being hit by this,” Ms. Windham said.

The New York Department of Financial Services didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Ahead of today’s big event – the Treasury borrowing estimates publication – we said not to expect any fireworks and also that unlike recent spikes, the most likely range of calendar Q3 and Q4 borrowing estimates is $750BN for the July-September quarter and $450BN for the October-December quarter (which assumes a year-end cash balance of $650 billion).

And at exactly 3:00pm the Treasury published the anticipated numbers, which came close to our estimates for Q3, but well above our forecast for Q4, specifically:

• Q3 funding needs were revised lower to $740 billion (just below our forecast of $750 billion) from $847 billion projected last quarter.  According to the Treasury, the borrowing estimate was “is $106 billion lower than announced in April 2024, largely due to lower Federal Reserve System Open Market Account (SOMA) redemptions and a higher beginning-of-quarter cash balance.” In other words, the QT taper is primarily responsible for the lower funding needs. As a reminder, the Fed’s plan hadn’t been in place when the Treasury released its previous borrowing estimate. The Treasury also kept its quarter-end cash balance estimate unchanged at $850 billion.
• Q4 funding needs (released for the first time) are estimated at $565 billion, $115 billion above our estimate of $450 billion, which is quite a bit higher obviously than expected, but which is also due in part to the higher TGA estimate of $700 billion vs our assumption of $650 billion.
• In summary, the Treasury expects to borrow just over $1.3 trillion by year-end (although this number will end up being much higher if Trump becomes president and the US “unexpectedly” collapses into recession in the first days of the new presidency).

The Treasury’s cash balance at the end of June, at about $778 billion, was also above the $750 billion level Treasury had targeted at the end of April. The holdings of the Treasury General Account stood at about $768 billion as of last Thursday.

There’s more, because while the Treasury projects $850BN cash balance at end of Q3, this number then drops to $700BN at end of Q4 (which is above our estimate of $650 billion) and since the streetwide estimate for Q3 end of quarter cash was ~$650BN, this suggests that the real funding needs (on an apples to apples basis) is actually $515BN, which is modestly above the median Wall Street estimate. For context, JPMorgan expected a Q4 marketable debt borrowing need of $496BN, while Wrightson was on the high end at $670 billion. Of note, Societe Generale had forecast a year-end cash buffer of $550 billion, $150 billion below the Treasury’s own forecast. On the other end, TD Securities predicted the Treasury would project a far more generous year-end cash balance of $850 billion (perhaps anticipating the prefunding of a much more drawn out debt ceiling battle).

“Treasury’s year-end cash balance was around the middle of the expected range and indicates a moderate decline relative to an elevated level of cash expected at the end of the third quarter,” said Zachary Griffiths, a senior fixed-income strategist at CreditSights.

Keep a close eye on the $700BN year-end cash balance, as it has potential implications for the next debt-limit battle: that cash stockpile would be rapidly drawn down after the debt ceiling by law kicks back in at the start of next year — unless Congress passes an increase or new suspension, which is unlikely if Congress is once again split.

The law doesn’t dictate a precise amount of cash that the Treasury is allowed to have on hand when the debt limit kicks in. Some dealers – such as DB – had anticipated the department would provide a smaller estimate for its cash balance target for the end of December, just before the debt limit’s reinstatement in January. But that view wasn’t universal. A smaller cash pile would imply slightly less bill issuance at the end of the year, and therefore a higher Reverse Repo balance.

The targeted end-of-December cash balance level “is also its assumed cash balance upon the expiration of the debt limit suspension on January 1, 2025,” according to a footnote in the Treasury statement. “This assumption is based on expected cash flows under Treasury’s cash management policies and is consistent with its authorities and obligations, including those under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.”

Bottom line: contrary to its activist tactics to boost the market and to front-load debt needs, this quarter the Treasury reported numbers that came in line with expectations for Q3, and slightly above blended estimates for Q4.

Then again, the real question should be not what the Treasury projects for Q3 and Q4, but Q1 which is when as we now know Biden will finally leave the White House forever, and be replaced by either Trump or Kamala (or Big Mike) and when all the lipstick on this pig will finally wash off.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Recently, I wrote a Hill column criticizing NewsGuard, a rating operation being used to warn users, advertisers, educators and funders away from media outlets based on how it views the outlets’ “credibility and transparency.”

Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door. My blog, Res Ipsa (jonathanturley.org), is now being reviewed and the questions sent by NewsGuard were alarming, but not surprising.

I do not know whether the sudden interest in my site was prompted by my column. I have previously criticized NewsGuard as one of the most sophisticated operations being used to “white list” and “black list” sites.

My new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” details how such sites fit into a massive censorship system that one federal court called “Orwellian.”

For any site criticizing the media or the Biden administration, the most chilling words today are “I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you.”

Conservatives have long accused the company of targeting conservative and libertarian sites and carrying out the agenda of its co-founder Steven Brill. Conversely, many media outlets have heralded his efforts to identify disinformation sites for advertisers and agencies.

Brill and his co-founder, L. Gordon Crovitz, want their company to be the media version of the Standard & Poor’s rating for financial institutions. However, unlike the S&P, which looks at financial reports, NewsGuard rates highly subjective judgments like “credibility” based on whether they publish “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading” information. They even offer a “Nutrition Label” for consumers of information.

Of course, what Brill considers nutritious may not be the preferred diet of many in the country. But they might not get a choice since the goal is to allow other companies and carriers to use the ratings to disfavor or censor non-nutritious sites.

The rating of sites is arguably the most effective way of silencing or marginalizing opposing views. I previously wrote about other sites supported by the Biden administration that performed a similar function, including the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

GDI then released a list of the 10 most dangerous sites, all of which are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. GDI warned advertisers that they were accepting “reputational and brand risk” by “financially supporting disinformation online.” The blacklisted sites included Reason, a respected libertarian-oriented source of news and commentary about the government. However, HuffPost, a far left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.

When NewsGuard came looking for Res Ipsa, the questions sounded like they came directly from CGI.

I was first asked for information on the financial or revenue sources used to support my blog, on which I republish my opinion pieces from various newspapers and publish original blog columns.

Given NewsGuard’s reputation, the email would ordinarily trigger panic on many sites. But I pay not to have advertising, and the closest I come to financial support would be my wife, since we live in a community property state. If NewsGuard wants to blacklist me with my wife, it is a bit late. Trust me, she knows.

NewsGuard also claimed that it could not find a single correction on my site. In fact, there is a location for readers marked “corrections” to register objections and corrections to postings on the site. I also occasionally post corrections, changes and clarifications.

NewsGuard also made bizarre inquiries, including about why I called my blog “Res Ipsa Liquitur [sic] – the thing itself speaks. Could you explain the reason to this non-lawyer?” Res ipsa loquitur is defined in the header as “The thing itself speaks,” which I think speaks for itself.

But one concern was particularly illuminating:

“I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”

I have historically been criticized as a liberal, conservative or a libertarian depending on the particular op-eds. I certainly admit to libertarian viewpoints, though I hold many traditional liberal views.

For example, I have been outspoken for decades in favor same-sex marriage, environmental protection, free speech and other individual rights. I am a registered Democrat who has defended reporters, activists and academics on the left for years in both courts and columns.

The blog has thousands of postings that cut across the ideological spectrum. What I have not done is suspend my legal judgment when cases touch on the interests of conservatives or Donald Trump. While I have criticized Trump in the past, I have also objected to some of the efforts to impeach or convict him on dubious legal theories.

Yet, NewsGuard appears to believe that I should label myself as conservative or libertarian as a warning or notice to any innocent strays who may wander on to my blog. It does not appear that NewsGuard makes the same objection to HuffPost or the New Republic, which run overwhelmingly liberal posts. Yet, alleged conservative or libertarian sites are expected to post a warning as if they were porn sites.

NewsGuard is not alone in employing this technique. Mainstream media outlets often label me as a “conservative professor” in reporting my viewpoints. They do not ordinarily label professors with pronounced liberal views or anti-Trump writings as “liberal.”

Studies show that the vast majority of law professors run from the left to the far left. A study found that only 9 percent of law school professors at the top 50 law schools identify as conservative. A 2017 study found only 15 percent of faculties overall were conservative.

It is rare for the media to identify those professors as “liberal,” including many professors on the far left who regularly denounce conservatives or Republicans. It is simply treated as not worth mentioning. Yet, anyone libertarian or right of center gets the moniker as a warning that their viewpoint should considered in weighing their conclusions.

Yet, NewsGuard is in the business of labeling people . . . and warning advertisers. It considers my writings to be conservative or libertarian and wants to know “Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”

It does not matter that my views cut across the ideological spectrum or that I do not agree with NewsGuard’s label. Indeed, while I clearly hold libertarian views, libertarians run a spectrum from liberal to conservative. The common article of faith is the maximization of individual rights, while there is considerable disagreement on many policies. Steven Brill is considered a diehard liberal. Would it be fair to add a notice or qualifier of “liberal” to any of his columns or opinions?

It does not matter. Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others.

It is a system that includes what Elon Musk correctly called “the advertising boycott racket.” Musk was responding to another such group pushing a rating system as an euphemism for blacklisting. For targeted sites, NewsGuard is now the leading racketeer in that system. It makes millions of dollars by rating sites — a new and profitable enterprise with dozens of other academic and for-profit groups.

They have commoditized free speech in blacklisting and potentially silencing others. If you are the Standard & Poor’s of political discourse, you can rate sites out of existence by making them a type of junk bond blog.

Yet, the fact that I have no advertisers or sponsors to scare off does not mean that NewsGuard cannot undermine the site.

The company has reportedly received federal contracts, which some in Congress have sought to block. It is also allied with organizations like Turnitin to control what teachers and students will read or use in schools.

The powerful American Federation of Teachers, which has been criticized for its far left political alliances with Democratic candidates, has also pushed NewsGuard for schools.

This is why my book calls for a number of reforms, including barring federal funds for groups engaged in censoring, rating or blacklisting sites.

NewsGuard shows that such legislation cannot come soon enough.