Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearPolitics,

President Biden is making gun control a central part of his reelection campaign. In a new ad, Biden says that Trump did “nothing” when children were “gunned down in classrooms,” innocent people “killed in church,” and others “massacred at a concert.”

The Biden campaign is referring to shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. In four years, there were 18 mass shootings that occurred in public places and that did not transpire during another crime such as robbery or selling drugs. (A “mass killing” is defined by criminologists as involving four or more fatalities, not counting the shooter.)

But 23 mass public shootings have occurred so far under Biden – a 50% higher annual rate than under Trump. The deadliest shooting resulted in 21 victims at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas – four more than were killed in Parkland.

Besides touting the establishment of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, Biden also points to his new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ regulations for background checks on the private transfer of guns. But these additional background checks wouldn’t have prevented any recent mass public shootings. For example, the Uvalde murderer didn’t obtain his gun through a private transfer, and he passed a federal background check. There isn’t one mass shooting in this century that universal background checks would have stopped. But almost no one seems to challenge the Biden campaign’s stance on this issue.

While Biden touts a regulation that won’t accomplish anything other than creating an obstacle to gun ownership and helping to complete a national gun registry, there is evidence that Trump’s proposed reforms could work.

After the Parkland shooting, Trump tweeted: “If schools are mandated to be gun free zones, violence and danger are given an open invitation to enter. Almost all school shootings are in gun free zones. Cowards will only go where there is no deterrent.” Ironically, the Gun-Free School Zones Act was introduced in Congress in 1990 by then-Sen. Joe Biden.

After a mass murder at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue, Trump made a similar point: “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. If they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn’t.”

The only slight inaccuracy in Trump’s tweet after Parkland is that all school shootings with deaths or injuries, without exception, have occurred in schools that ban teachers and staff from having guns. He needn’t have offered the qualifier “almost.”

These mass murderers want to commit suicide, and they want media coverage. They know that killing more people means greater media coverage, and they know that defenseless victims are easier targets.

Police are very important in fighting crime, but they have a limited ability to stop mass public shootings. “A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks,” noted Kurt Hoffman, a Sarasota County, Florida, sheriff. Hoffman said that mass shooters can “wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location.” And the problem with a visible police or security presence, he said, is that the officers may as well be holding up neon signs saying, “Shoot me first.” Concealed handgun permit holders, however, can’t be identified and therefore take away shooters’ tactical advantage.

California has the strictest gun control laws in the country – all the other regulations Biden would like to see enacted nationally. But its per capita annual rate of mass public shootings is significantly higher than in the rest of the country. For shootings since 2000, California’s rate stands at 0.33 per million whereas the overall U.S. rate is 0.25 per million. Looking at data since 2010, California’s rate is 0.28 per million versus 0.15 for the rest of the U.S. And from 2020 to now, it’s 0.13 for California and 0.05 for the rest of the U.S. California’s rate is also consistently higher than that of Texas, a state that gun control advocates often seek to demonize.

Biden claims credit for the drop in reported murder rates last year, pointing to his background checks and the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. This is a canard. The new rules are only going into effect this year. Also, while last year’s projected murder rate was indeed down from 2022, it’s still 7% above 2019 levels. 

Given Biden’s losing streak in the courts, his background checks may not exist long after taking effect later this year. The difference between Biden and Trump is clear. Biden wants credit for doing something even if it doesn’t help. Trump wants to do something that works.

John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.

Authored by Matthew van Wagenen and Arnel David via RealClearWireThe Epoch Times,

An axis of aggressors has embarked on a new strategy to defeat the West: relentless attacks with inexpensive weapons, produced at scale, to provoke a global response. Western militaries, which cling to outdated and excessively expensive weapon systems and platforms (that take too long to develop and replenish, and regularly exceed their budgets), are being systematically bled dry.

In simple financial terms, the West is on the wrong side of the cost curve. Imagine the defense industry as a normal business. In economics, a cost curve illustrates the relationship between production costs and quantity. Successful businesses achieve economies of scale, reducing costs through efficiency. But the West’s defense enterprise is operating on the wrong side of this curve. Production costs are high, and output is low, pushing Western nations into diseconomies of scale.

The recent aerial attack on Israel and the war in Ukraine expose this vulnerability. Iran’s 300-plus airborne weapons that targeted Israel amounted to less than $200 million while the Western response exceeds billions of dollars. In Ukraine, multimillion-dollar weapons platforms are destroyed by uncrewed aircraft systems that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and Russia’s prized Black Sea Fleet has been devastated by inexpensive maritime drones. Defense analysts estimate that the cost ratio is easily 100 to 1.

A Call to Action

A new revolution in military spending is underway. It’s a radical change in the way nations procure and integrate military capabilities. The innovation and changes in Ukraine have been described by Gen. Mark Milley as “the most significant fundamental change in the character of war ever recorded in history.” Consequently, this isn’t a military issue alone; it is a societal one. In democracies such as the United States, “We the People” are responsible for our common defense. We cannot afford to ignore this unsustainable cost mismatch. Every defense dollar matters when there are competing demands for resources to address aging populations, health care, migration challenges, and myriad other social services.

Traditional procurement models in the West, to include the United States and NATO, are no longer fit for purpose. They are failing. Decades-long development cycles are obsolete in a world of rapidly evolving threats and disruptive technological change. Let’s say an adversarial nation has a four-year cycle to produce a capability and, in the West, it takes 10 years. In this scenario, in 20 years’ time, the adversary-to-West ratio for innovation and capability development is 5 to 2. This all but guarantees that our adversaries will field a greater range of innovative capabilities, potentially leading to overmatch.

Rapid technological advancements are outpacing the military’s long-term development programs, rendering them obsolete as cheaper, more effective alternatives emerge. Program managers, those with the responsibility, authority, and personnel to deliver programs (e.g., ships, planes, software), lack both the incentive and the means to adapt to this fast-changing landscape. The ingrained culture of preserving existing programs stifles innovation and adaptability. It’s unlikely a program manager will kill their program for the greater good. Likewise, the political representatives of states where these programs sit will lobby heavily to keep these programs (i.e., jobs) alive, irrespective of any negative strategic impact.

To overcome this, the military and the broader defense enterprise must urgently rethink their approach. Early and aggressive testing, integration, and prototyping of innovative warfare concepts are essential to gain an edge in modern conflicts. SpaceX’s rapid trial and error prototyping to develop rockets and OpenAI’s early release and testing of ChatGPT are examples of this approach to developing capability faster. Waiting for “perfect” solutions, or clinging to lengthy development cycles, leads to unpreparedness on the ever-evolving battlefield. Keeping this approach is akin to relying on horse cavalry in the era of mechanized warfare.

A Glimmer of Hope

There’s movement in the right direction. Nations such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, and Finland are leading the way. Their “drone wall” initiative leverages affordable, networked sensors to safeguard their sovereignty. They will do this by keeping costs down to achieve economies of scale.

The U.S. Department of Defense is also taking steps in the right direction with its Replicator initiative. Thousands of drones have been delivered, demonstrating a shift toward rapid, warfighter-centric innovation. This could be the necessary spark to ignite essential change.

Other promising initiatives in NATO are the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic and the NATO Innovation Fund. Both complementary initiatives provide access to deep tech start-up communities, but the challenge for these programs will be transition. How do they transition capability into warfighters’ hands to be relevant going forward? As expressed above, it cannot take decades.

The Path Forward

To survive, the West must revolutionize its military procurement and production processes. We need a laser focus on swift prototyping and deployment of cutting-edge technologies. These systems must be affordable, easily updated, interoperable, and adaptable to new threats. The era of billion-dollar projects that risk obsolescence must end. A more diverse approach is not just needed, it’s compulsory if we want to win wars and preserve peace.

The conflict in Ukraine serves as a stark warning. Clinging to expensive, slow-moving defense systems will leave the West vulnerable. We must out-innovate, not outspend, our adversaries. Our Alliance, made up of free and democratic nations, must unleash the creative capital present within our societies to find cost-wise off-sets that can be immediately integrated into our collective defense system.

The future of warfare demands a fusion of accessible technology, rapid innovation, and scalable production. The West must adapt or face the consequences of falling behind an axis of aggressors who are united in their pursuit of strategic advantage and wish to see the West decline.

*  *  *

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

The FBI raided the house of Oakland, California Mayor Sheng Thao Thursday morning for an unknown reason, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

That said, law enforcement sources told NBC Bay Area that the raid was one of four search warrants executed in Oakland as part of a larger operation involving Thao.

Other agencies involved include the IRS and the US Postal Service.

BREAKING: FBI agents raid the home of Oakland mayor Sheng Thao.

According to an FBI spokesperson, the agency was “conducting court authorized law enforcement activity on Maiden Lane.”

Local reporters say Thao was escorted out of the house. Agents were seen walking back… pic.twitter.com/YushmSxPN5

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 20, 2024

FBI NOW CLEAR FROM OAKLAND MAYOR SHENG THAO’S HOUSE. Good law-enforcement source tells me this is a public corruption investigation of Thao and her boyfriend. pic.twitter.com/LnQbrs3NPp

— Dan Noyes (@dannoyes) June 20, 2024

Here’s the scene outside Oakland mayor Sheng Thao’s home where the FBI appears to be executing a search warrant this morning. pic.twitter.com/ErnfD4ovGS

— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) June 20, 2024

Authored by Ron Paul,

Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting their stated goals.

To great fanfare, last December the Pentagon announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a joint US/UK military operation to halt the Yemeni Houthi disruption of Israel-linked commercial shipping through the Red Sea. The Houthis announced their policy in response to civilian deaths in Israel’s war on Gaza, but when the US and UK military became involved they announced they would target US and UK shipping as well.

The operation was supposed to be quick and easy. After all, the rag-tag Houthi militia was no match for the mighty US and UK navies. But it didn’t work out that way at all. Over the weekend the Wall Street Journal published a devastating article revealing that after spending more than one billion dollars on munitions alone, the operation had failed to deter the Houthis and failed to re-open commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The Journal reported that Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, recently told Congress that “the U.S.-led effort has been insufficient to deter the militant group’s targeting of ships and that the threat will ‘remain active for some time.’”

Meanwhile, the article informed us that a continued US effort to fight the Houthis over Red Sea shipping was “not sustainable.”

Perhaps the most revealing part of the article comes from a Washington military expert, Emily Harding of CSIS:

“Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long.”

It is reminiscent of a recollection by Col. Harry G. Summers of a discussion he had with North Vietnamese Col. Tu:

“You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said Summers.

Tu paused for a moment, then replied, “That may be so. But it is also irrelevant.”

Similarly, the US military spent a quarter of a billion dollars building a temporary floating pier to deliver aid to the starving Palestinians even though a land route already existed and would have been far cheaper to use. The project was doomed from the beginning, as days after opening stormy weather broke up the pier and washed part of it up on Israel’s shore. The US military managed to gather the pieces together again, but in total only a few aid trucks managed to use it before, over the weekend, the pier was again disassembled for fear of another weather-related break-up.

The only thing the pier was good for, it seems, was assisting the Israeli military in a Gaza raid on June 8th that killed 270 Palestinian civilians.

As neocons inside the Beltway continue to plot war with China over Taiwan, it seems someone should notice the trouble we have had dealing with Houthis and floating piers. For now, the growth in military spending seems unlimited, but increasing spending bringing diminishing results raises the question of just how much bang are we getting for our bucks?

We have the most expensive military on earth, they say. That may be true, but it is also irrelevant.

The company supplying software for managing sales and services to thousands of auto dealerships across the US reported yet another cyber disruption on Thursday, disrupting sales of new and used vehicles. 

X user Car Dealership Guy reports that CDK Global sent an email to auto dealers informing them of “an additional cyber incident late in the evening on June 19th.” 

“Out of continued caution and to protect our customers, we are once again proactively shutting down most of our systems,” the email read.

CDX told its clients, which includes almost 15,000 dealerships, “At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution, and therefore, our dealers’ systems will not be available at a minimum on Thursday, June 20th.”

I’m absolutely speechless.

ANOTHER automotive “cyber incident” occurred last night.

CDK again the victim.

Dealerships contribute 3-3.5% of GDP and CDK power over 50% of them.

All systems are shut down. Again.

This feels like a bad dream. pic.twitter.com/y6SstS8D6H

— Car Dealership Guy (@GuyDealership) June 20, 2024

The auto industry is a powerhouse in the US economy, contributing 3-3.5% of the nation’s GDP. It employs over 1.7 million people at automakers, suppliers, and thousands of dealerships. 

Clarification:

The entire auto industry makes up 3-3.5% of GDP and CDK powers over 50% of dealerships.

— Car Dealership Guy (@GuyDealership) June 20, 2024

Here’s what X users are saying about the cyber incident:

This sucks. We had a showroom full of customers yesterday but couldn’t complete a car deal. I’m sure they all just went across the street bought.

— Alexander the NotsoGreat (@Alex51916166) June 20, 2024

Someone wants to make car prices go down, just saying 🙃

— cirquo (@cirquo) June 20, 2024

CDK sucks, used it for 10 years. Just switched to Tekion 2 weeks ago. No opinion on T yet. Haven’t used it long enough.

— Shawn Cronkrite (@Shawn_cron) June 19, 2024

Still not able to login in Canada 🤬

— 🏆 Kimberly 🇨🇦 (@VGKim81) June 19, 2024

People who aren’t in the car business have no idea how bad this is. Dealerships on cdk very literly cannot sell cars right now and I can’t imagine service would even be able to work. Cdk holds all their inventory, costs on inventory, generates their contracts, labor costs and ros https://t.co/W8o6HuLWDN

— kelsey r (@Kayybee83) June 20, 2024

Hmmm.

CDK was acquired in 2022 by Brookfield Business Partners, LP:https://t.co/f18f4bE0Io

Brookfield trades under symbol BBU, but the news about CDX isn’t being tied to them yet. Interesting… 🤔 https://t.co/aRFYXLMfQs

— Richard Vermillion, JM, MBA (@VermillionRich) June 20, 2024

*Developing… 

Authored by Douglas French via The Mises Institute,

Price discovery in commercial real estate, which had been frozen while sellers insisted on prices from the good ol’ ZIRP days, is starting to thaw. Real estate giant Related Companies has unloaded the property at 321 W. 44th St., New York City, for less than $50 million, reports Bloomberg.

Not only is that a 67 percent discount from the nearly $153 million that Related Fund Management paid for it in 2018, but also, the lenders, including Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, agreed to a “short sale.” For those who have forgotten 2008 or were too young, a “short sale” is when the lender agrees to a property sale for less than the outstanding amount on the mortgage. The owner loses everything, and the lender takes a large loss. In this case, the repayment to the lenders was more than cut in half as the property’s mortgage exceeded $100 million.

Another recent office building sale had Blackstone and its lender agreeing to sell 1740 Broadway for $186 million. Blackstone Inc. bought the building in 2014 for $605 million.

Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) expects more regional bank failures due to a “very high” concentration of troubled commercial real estate (CRE) loans on their books, Bloomberg reports.

John Murray, the head of Pimco’s global private commercial real estate team, told Bloomberg’s Laura Benitez that “the real wave of distress is just starting” for lenders to everything from malls to offices.

Ms. Benitez writes, “Contrary to some market expectations, larger banks have been disposing of some of their higher quality assets first to avoid deeper losses, according to Murray.”

That means banks are selling their best assets because they can receive prices at least equal to what they are carrying in loans on their balance sheets. There is no other reason to sell good loans but to generate liquidity.

“As stressed loans grow due to maturities, however, we expect that banks will start selling these more challenged loans to reduce their troubled loan exposures,” Mr. Murray said. Banks will take losses when these loans are unloaded, impairing capital and in some cases leading to bank failures.

Ms. Benitez writes, “The turmoil has been particularly felt among regional banks, which boosted their CRE exposure that in many cases is now worth only a fraction of their value at their peak.”

Not only are banks carrying a collective half a trillion dollars in unrealized losses on securities portfolios, but also, as Ms. Benitez explains, bank commercial real estate loan books are underwater as well.

“The combination of rising rates plus recessionary pressures creates real challenges for commercial real estate, from both a capital markets and fundamentals perspective,” Mr. Murray said.

Real challenges for the banks holding the paper as well.

In the latest shot fired in America’s intensifying culture wars, Louisiana will now require public schools to display a Ten Commandments poster in every classroom, after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law on Wednesday. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” said Landry at a bill-signing event. 

Starting in January, each public classroom in the Pelican State must have a display of the 10 Commandments measuring at least 11 by 14 inches and using “large, easily readable font.” The display must include a four-paragraph “context statement” on how the commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”

Louisiana the first state requiring that the 10 commandments be displayed in every school. The lefts reaction….pic.twitter.com/jMO41ATDrL

— Ava- I Love My USA! 🇺🇸 (@WEdwarda) June 19, 2024

Notably, the requirement covers not only K-12 schools but public universities too. The law says it doesn’t seek to create an “unfunded mandate,” but anticipates schools will use displays donated by private parties. 

For now, Louisiana is the only state with such a requirement — and legal challenges are already in the works. A consortium of organizations comprising the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a statement after Landry signed the bill into law, saying the measure goes against a 1980 precedent set in Stone v Graham, in which the Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law. The group added: 

“We are preparing a lawsuit to challenge H.B. 71. The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional. The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

The law’s language was clearly drafted with legal challenges in mind. It notes that “including the Ten Commandments in the education of our children is part of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.” It also specifies that the text of the commandments to be used in Louisiana classrooms is the same as what was upheld in the 2005 Supreme Court case, Van Orden v Perry.

In that 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution’s establishment clause did render a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas capitol building illegal. “Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause,” the majority wrote. 

“It is the Legislature’s intent to apply the decision set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Van Orden v. Perry…to continue the rich tradition and ensure that the students in our public schools may understand and appreciate the foundational documents of our state and national government,” the Louisiana law declares.  

Given Louisiana has the second-highest murder rate of any American state, a little more “thou shalt not kill” can’t hurt.  

Authored by Selena Zito via The Epoch Times,

Most of the great filmmakers in American cinema will candidly admit some of the most enduring and memorable moments in their films were scenes or lines that were never in the script.

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” was never in the “Casablanca” script; it was a Humphrey Bogart ad-lib. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli,” from Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” was a riff from the actor. On a lighter note, the iconic scene in “Pretty Woman” when Richard Gere snaps a jewelry box on Julia Roberts’s fingers was originally a practical joke.

It is spontaneity that Mike Rowe, podcaster, author, television host and champion of the everyman, says he now understands after finishing his first movie, during which he placed in at the last minute something that becomes one of the most riveting parts of his history-themed documentary “Something to Stand For.”

Rowe said his impromptu interview (a conversation, really) with Andy Michael, a 91-year-old Korean War veteran at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., was never in the script, and it wasn’t even in the treatment for the film that dives into some of the most extraordinary events that took place behind the scenes in our country—from the American Revolution, Civil War, World War II and the civil rights movement to today.

The film is full of larger-than-life stories that remind us that greatness begins with the least of us and that patriotism, even in our most flawed moments in history, is worth standing for. These are stories you have likely never heard. They are stories that make you see these men and women who shaped who we are today quite differently.

Rowe said he was standing in the World War II Memorial trying to collect his thoughts for a very specific, scripted standup he needed to do for the film when he noticed the veteran.

“The director had very thoughtfully put a nice X on the ground where I could hit my mark perfectly, the light was just so, and I was going to walk in, and I was going to say whatever I say, and we were going to check that box and move on to the next setup,” he said.

Rowe says it was at that moment when something caught his eye 30 feet from where he was supposed to do his stand. He stopped the production, grabbed the director and said they needed to stop what they were doing and go talk to a man Rowe saw sitting in a wheelchair staring at the memorial with tears running down his face.

“Happily, because my name’s in the title, they have to do that, but that’s not what you do when you’re making a movie. It doesn’t make any sense. It takes up time that you don’t have. But within seconds, everybody realized this is the heart of the movie,” Rowe explained.

Rowe’s first foray into filmmaking, “Something to Stand For” intentionally, from beginning to end, inspires the patriotism that used to be cherished by all of us no matter what our political party was. This feeling has diminished over the past two decades in the wake of two long wars, an education system that has stopped celebrating patriotism, and professional athletes taking a knee when the national anthem is played.

Spoiler—the last vignette of “Something to Stand For” digs into the complicated roots of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and should make those who applauded athletes kneeling blush with shame about their ignorance to the story undergirding that anthem.

Rowe said frustration at the state of our country led him to make the movie.

“I’ve just been increasingly bothered by this idea that patriotism and politics have become so intertwined,” he explained. “So I thought it would be fun to be able to say, ‘Look, while the country’s trying to figure out what to stand for and what not to stand for, I’ll tell you a few things that I think we can all still agree on, at least I hope we can.’”

Rowe said the first thing everyone will see is that it is not a Hollywood endeavor by any stretch.

“Every actor in that thing, 300 of them, they’re all from Oklahoma. The entire crew is from Oklahoma,” he said.

Rowe said the thought was that if you want to tell the story from the heart, you might as well go to the heartland. How it happened is just classic “Forrest Gump.”

He started writing these sort of Paul Harvey-esque “and now you know the rest of the story” stories about seven years ago for his highly popular “The Way I Heard It” podcast. A few years later, 30 of them went into a book he penned, then a television series.

“Just a few months ago, these guys at Fathom Theater Group called and said they were fans,” he said. “We toyed with doing a Christmas special, but honestly there are so many patriotic stories in this library of work I’ve done that it seemed like Independence Day would be a better occasion to at least weigh in on.”

Rowe said it came together fast after that.

“We picked nine stories that all kind of rhymed in a way with that idea and then stitched them together with this trip to D.C.,” he said.

Rowe said he doesn’t know if he can call it a documentary because of its nontraditional nature.

“I certainly can’t call it a traditional cinematic theatrical release, but it’s its own thing. And my hope is it’ll resonate on Independence Day,” he said.

The movie packs a powerful punch with Rowe at the center. Whether deliberate or not, he is set in the center of an empty theater doing what he does best, leaving the audience spellbound with his gift of old-fashioned American storytelling.

As he spins the tales, actors depict powerful characters and moments in our history. Scenes feature Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, a radio announcer who narrates a baseball game that never happened and eventually goes on to become president, and the extraction of a bull’s testicles.

Each one is a tribute to American exceptionalism, our enduring grit and the individualism that comes with sacrifice and hard work. It celebrates the heroes who helped shape our country in a way we rarely do anymore, which makes it all the more essential to see.

“Something to Stand For” will open on June 27 and run through the Fourth of July.

“Who knows after that,” Rowe said. “It is my hope this resonates. If it does, maybe it will run longer.”

Jobless claims not good, housing data bad, Philly Fed ugly… and that meant the US macro surprise index plunged to early-2019 lows… near the lowest level since 2016…

Source: Bloomberg

But that ‘bad news’ had no (good news) influence on rate-cut expectations (which worsened marginally)….

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields ended the day marginally higher after recovering from the spike early on after claims data…

Source: Bloomberg

That ‘bad news’ was also bad news for the momo names too as The Dow dramatically outperformed the rest of the majors today (the only index positive) with Nasdaq the biggest loser from Tuesday’s cash close…

This was the second best day for The Dow relative to Nasdaq year-to-date with The Dow trading below 2x Nasdaq (below the peak dotcom bubble lows)…

Source: Bloomberg

Much of that big rebound was Energy’s dramatic outperformance of Mag7 stocks in the last two days…

Source: Bloomberg

Goldman’s equity trading desk noted that their activity levels are up 20% vs. the trailing 2 weeks with overall market volumes +10%.

Our floor is 3% better for sale, with both HFs and LOs moving the same direction.

• HFs are 4% better for sale with the largest sell skews in Info tech and Consumer.

• LOs are also better for sale at -11% overall, with supply in Info Tech and Consumer, while buying Fins and Materials.

The dollar rebounded from Tuesday’s tumble…

Source: Bloomberg

And despite the dollar strength, spot gold rallied back up to $2060, erasing most of the CPI plunge…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin pumped and dumped to end the day unchanged around $65,000…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices extended gains with front-month WTI (Aug ’24) up to its highest since April…

Source: Bloomberg

…which is bad news for Biden and Powell as pump-prices are about to reignite…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, NVDA had a bad day – its worst day in two months – after hitting a new record high early in the day…

Arguably, it could be a tad overbought here? Blow-off-toppy?

Source: Bloomberg

Was today, the start of the end? We doubt it – but July 17th might be.