Fed-Up San Fran Voters Set To Expand Police Power, Drug-Screen Welfare Recipients
Fed up with a city ravaged by crime and drug addiction and shedding theft-plagued businesses weekly, voters in ultra-liberal San Francisco are poised to approve a ballot measure that would require illegal-drug screening for recipients of city benefits, and another that would give police more power and less oversight.
That’s the finding of a San Francisco Chamber of Commerce poll, in which 61% of likely voters said they back both measures on the March 5 ballot. It’s a population that’s increasingly aware of its trajectory: 71% say the city is on the wrong track.
“The pendulum is swinging,” 41-year-old resident Malcolm Weitz tells the Wall Street Journal. “It’s coming hard-core back to the center.” He says he he’ll vote yes on both propositions, completing a major philosophical u-turn. Weitz voted for progressive district attorney Chesa Boudin in 2019, only to vote to kick him out in the successful 2022 recall drive.
MEANWHILE IN SAN FRANCISCO — A shoplifter hoards goods into a massive trash bag and BIKES out of a store in a video filmed by Lyanne Melendez, one incident among many that have become a pattern due to the city’s decriminalization of thefts under $950. pic.twitter.com/aWvii3JGHR
Now, he and other residents are ready to sic the cops on the criminals.Proposition E would remove several shackles from law enforcers, authorizing them to:
Engage in more high-speed chases
Use drones during pursuits
Install more cameras in public places and test electronic surveillance methods — with less oversight
File fewer reports about their use of force
Substitute body-camera footage for other types of documentation
Little of that would address the scourge of increasingly brazen shoplifters, which is encouraged by 2014’s Prop 47, which turned thefts valued under $950 into mere misdemeanors. In an eye-rollingly limp-wristed effort to impose more accountability, state legislators in January proposed making jail time mandatory after a THIRD theft conviction.
New normal. They exit with an entire clothing rack from a store in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It’s this type of situation that’s become a debate – should an employee intervene if they encounter a shoplifter or a robber? The employee in this case tells KRON4 she stepped in… pic.twitter.com/9VHYRVyqdc
Proposition F endeavors to cut off city handouts to people likely to take the money and shoot it into their veins. It doesn’t cover everyone, however, and the wording of the measure doesn’t imply it will precipitate universal drug-testing:
Shall the City require single adults age 65and under with no dependent children who receive City public assistance benefits and whom the City reasonably suspects are dependent on illegal drugs to participate in screening, evaluation and treatment for drug dependency for those adults to be eligible for most of those benefits?
People who decline the screening, evaluation and treatment would be terminated and, depending on whether they’re homeless, would receive a final 30 days of shelter access or rent paid direct to the landlord, according to San Francisco Public Press.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who’s under fire as the city collapses and is facing multiple primary challengers to her 2024 reelection bid, is backing both measures. Striking a decidedly un-progressive tone in September, Breed said of the drug-screening requirement, “No more handouts without accountability. People are not accepting help. Now, it’s time to make sure that we are cutting off resources that continue to allow this behavior.”
This week in undisguised class hatred: the New York Times and MSNBC slobber over a new book on the domestic threat
“Tom, I’ll start with you,” began Mika Brzezinski. “Why are rural white voters a threat to democracy at this point?”
Fastball delivered, University of Maryland professor and co-author of just-released White Rural Rage: The Threat To American Democracy Tom Schaller took a swing. He and Mika first complained rural voters should be supporting Joe Biden, given his roots — you’d have to be pretty high to call Scranton “rural,” but whatever — then Schaller read off small town America’s charge sheet: rural whites, he said, are the most “racist,” “xenophobic,” “anti-immigrant and anti-gay,” “conspiracist,” “anti-democratic,” they “don’t believe in an independent press or free speech,” and are “most likely to accept or excuse violence,” for starters.
White Rural Rage, which I made the mistake of reading,is a vicious manifesto in the anti-populist tradition nailed by Thomas Frank in The People, No. When rural voters in the late 1800s defied New York banking interests and demanded currency reform to allow farmers an escape from one of the original “rigged games” in finance, relentless propaganda ensued. Rural populists were depicted as dirty, bigoted, ignorant. They refused expert wisdom, represented a “frantic challenge against every feature of our civilization,” and waged a “shameful insurrection against law and national honesty.” A populist caricature in Judge magazine showed a violent, destructive idiot, a real-life Lennie from still-unwritten Of Mice and Men, standing over the defiled corpse of civilized America:
The theme is back, condescension multiplied. Despite a pandemic that just graphically demonstrated the social contributions of farmers, truckers, train operators, and other “essential workers,” the people working those jobs were demonized during the crisis as murderoushorse-paste eaters and insurrectionists. Their chief crimes: protesting lockdowns and school closures that disproportionately affected them, and being consumers of supposed foreign-inspired “misinformation” that led them to refuse appropriate political choices offered them.
Nobel-winning columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times spent the last year telling “ignorant” Middle America its negative feelings about the economy are “demonstrably false,” because despite what their bank accounts or home evaluations might say, “Bidenomics is still working very well.” When White Rural Rage came out this week he rushed to review it, the intransigent refusal of yokels to accept his wisdom being his favored current hobby horse. “The Mystery of Rural White Rage” is remarkable on multiple levels, one being that after spending so much energy talking about the health of the economy, he pulls out an economic version of Sam Kinison’s classic “Move to the Food!” routine:
The decline of small-town manufacturing is a more complicated story, and imports play a role, but it’s also mainly about technological change that favors metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers. Technology, then, has made America as a whole richer, but it has reduced economic opportunities in rural areas. So why don’t rural workers go where the jobs are?
He answers his question: “Some cities have become unaffordable… and many workers are reluctant to leave their families and communities.”
To recap: globalization and technological change have devastated small towns and made the urban keyboard warriors richer, and rural voters can’t move to the cities because they can’t afford to. However, instead of being grateful for the “huge de facto transfers of money from rich, urban states like New Jersey to poor, relatively rural states like West Virginia” in the form of federal programs paid by the taxes of luckier citizens like Krugman, small town America is unaccountably hostile.
Schaller and White Rural Rage co-author Paul Waldman make the same point, that “cities produce far more of the nation’s wealth,” and rural citizens are increasingly “subsidized by the taxes paid by higher-income metropolitans.” What gives? Why won’t they shut the fuck up?
“For so long,” complained Waldman on Morning Joe, “Democrats have been told… that in order to get rural voters… you have to go there… you have to show them that you understand… You have to put on a Carhartt jacket and go down to somebody’s farm, right? Maybe milk a cow?”
“Yes!” exclaimed* Mika.
But it turns out, a sad Waldman pronounced, that you “don’t have to do any of that,” because Donald Trump didn’t. He just “gave [rural voters] a way to essentially give a big middle finger to Democrats, to people who live in cities and to the rest of the country.”
The Morning Joe set looked perplexed.
Why would that work better than wearing a Carhartt jacket and milking a cow? It didn’t make sense.
Educated America. We’re in good hands!
*The correct phrase is really “‘Yes,’ dipshitted Mika,” but I was afraid the usage would throw off some readers. For future reference, it may come up again
Health Officials Concerned Over Possible RSV Vaccine Link To Rare Neurological Condition
“Trust the science,” they told us…
At a time when the largest mRNA Covid vaccine peer-reviewed study recently revealed increases in neurological, blood, and heart-related conditions, along with the pharma-industrial complex unleashing a ‘blitzkrieg’ of vaccine commercials across corporate media outlets, a new report has found that vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus could be causing a rare nervous system disorder in older adults.
The New York Times has reported that new safety data for two RSV vaccines, presented at a meeting of scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, indicates that Guillain-Barre syndrome – a rare condition where the immune system attacks nerve cells, leading to muscle weakness and paralysis – may have occurred in adults over 60 who received the vaccines. Two vaccines, Pfizer’s Abrysvo and GSK’s Arexvy, are currently available on the market.
Officials said the rare disease that attacks the immune system was found in two cases per 100,000 vaccinated, and added more data is needed to understand the risks.
“At this point, due to the uncertainties and limitations, these early data cannot establish if there is an increased risk for GBS after vaccination in this age group,” Dr. Thomas Shimabukuro, director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said at the meeting on Thursday.
Dr. Shimabukuro continued: Increased surveillance “will be better able to determine if an increased risk for GBS after RSV vaccination is present, and if so the magnitude of the risk.”
NYTimes pointed out the new safety data was derived from multiple databases maintained by federal health agencies:
“Of 37 preliminary reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, officials verified 23 by medical record review, 15 with Abrysvo and eight after Arexvy, Dr. Shimabukuro said. There were nearly three additional cases of GBS per million doses of Abrysvo than would be expected in the population of older Americans.
“A separate database identified four cases of GBS linked to Arexvy, translating to an estimated 14 cases per million doses administered. That system did not pick up any cases after shots of Abrysvo. But the vaccine accounted for only about 10 percent of the total doses recorded in the database.” -NYTimes
“I will say that these rates are higher than rates that we’ve observed for high-dose influenza and for Shingrix,” Dr. Shimabukuro said.
NYTimes also noted, “Additional data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicated that the incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination with Abrysvo was roughly five times higher than would be expected. The incidence after vaccination with Arexvy was not statistically significant.”
A GSK spokeswoman told the media outlet, “There are limitations to all of these data, and further analysis by FDA, CDC and the vaccine manufacturers are needed to confirm and quantify any potential risk.”
One X user makes a good point.
When the @nytimes says an RSV “vaccine” may “slightly” increase risk of a horrible neurological condition – readers should interpret that to mean definitely will increase the risk. There has been no bigger a shill for Big Pharma’s “vaccines” than NYT – so know your source!$MRNApic.twitter.com/cERRIDT3eV
“Of course, they begin by saying it’s so “Rare” until it’s not,” another X user said.
Here we go again, this time with the RSV shots https://t.co/P5yaMQNALg “Officials said they were investigating more than 20 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an rare illness in which a person’s immune system damages nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and paralysis.”
Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority
Disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds
Disorderly conduct in a capitol building
Parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building
A Blaze Media journalist whose recent coverage exposed possible perjury by U.S. Capitol Police in a high-profile Jan. 6 trial, says an arrest warrant has been signed and he will surrender to the FBI in Dallas on March 1 to face four Jan. 6 misdemeanor charges.
Stephen Michael Baker, 63, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was sitting at a table at the Old Hickory restaurant at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Feb. 23 when he received a call from one of his defense attorneys, Bill Shipley.
“What? When did this happen?” he asked Mr. Shipley. After a brief conversation, Mr. Baker turned to a colleague at the table and said, “Well, it’s happening.”
Mr. Baker is slated to appear at 10 a.m. on March 1 before a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas.
“The prosecutor informed my attorney that I am to arrive at the FBI field office wearing ‘shorts and sandals,’” Mr. Baker wrote on X. “They didn’t have to go this route, as we’ve been told that my charges are non-violent misdemeanors.
“My attorneys have also been assured by the [government] that this will be an ‘in and out’ affair and that they have ‘no intention’ of detaining me,” he wrote. “But, rather than issuing a simple order to appear, they seem to feel the need to give me a dose of the personal humiliation treatment.”
Mr. Baker and the six attorneys who agreed to represent him in the case have said the U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing the prosecution as retribution for his coverage that they say embarrassed the DOJ, FBI, U.S. Capitol Police, and others.
That view was shared by others on Feb. 28.
‘Selective Prosecution’
“What the federal government is doing to Steve is unconscionable,” Matthew Peterson, editor-in-chief of Blaze Media, told The Epoch Times.
“Americans should not have unknown charges hanging over their heads for years on end, and the timeline here suggests that government is now retaliating against him for the stories he’s filed with us.”
Mr. Peterson said a simple review of the video shot by Mr. Baker at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 makes it clear that he was there as a journalist. On Jan. 6 Mr. Baker was not employed by Blaze Media yet, but captured video for his news-and-commentary blog, The Pragmatic Constitutionalist.
“Why have all the other journalists who entered the Capitol not been charged with misdemeanors?” Mr. Peterson asked. “The government appears to be engaged in selective prosecution.”
Mr. Baker becomes the latest in a string of right-of-center journalists prosecuted for their presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Stephen Ethan Horn, 25, of Youngsville, North Carolina, was found guilty by a jury on Sept. 18, 2023, on four Jan. 6 counts, including entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Mr. Horn was sentenced on Jan. 10 by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to 12 months of probation and fined $2,000.
Federal prosecutors—who asked Judge Kelly to jail Mr. Horn for 10 months—questioned his press credentials and claimed he was no different than hundreds of other “rioters” on the grounds that day.
Jesus Delamora Rivera Jr., 40, of Pensacola, Fla., was sentenced to eight months in jail after being found guilty in a June 2022 bench trial on the same four misdemeanor charges as Mr. Horn.
Mr. Rivera was a cinematographer who operated a political blog at the time of the Jan. 6 protests.
He filmed Jan. 6 action outside and entered into the Capitol to document the protests. He had just been offered a job as a cameraman for a local television news station. His conviction and sentence were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Other journalists prosecuted by the DOJ include William Pope, editor of Free State Kansas, Sam Montoya and Owen Shroyer of Infowars, and independent opinion journalist Shawn Bradley Witzemann of Tribune Media International.
Only Mr. Pope’s case is still in the pretrial stage.
The announcement of Mr. Baker’s pending prosecution drew a sharp response.
“The DOJ has no suspects in either the RNC/DNC pipe bomb nor gallows investigation, but they are targeting an independent journalist who simply documented what he witnessed on Jan. 6,” said U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight.
“There were dozens of journalists at the Capitol that day, so why target [Baker]?”
‘Our Country is Lost’
“The regime is arresting Steve for the crime of exposing the lies at the core of the J6 narrative,” Mike Howell of the Oversight Project at Heritage Foundation wrote on X.
“In a sane world, he’d be winning the Pulitzer Prize and [be] a national hero for telling the truth. Instead, they’re arresting this journalist.”
Filmmaker and actor Nick Searcy, who produced two Jan. 6 documentaries, likened Mr. Baker’s prosecution to communism.
“Our country is lost. We are no better than any communist country at this point,” Mr. Searcy wrote on X.
Just before a January press conference held in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Mr. Baker said he believes the prosecution is payback for his work as a journalist.
“After not having indicted me for three years, it is clear that any move to do so now will be in retaliation for my reporting,” Mr. Baker said in a statement. “I will not be intimidated. I will continue to report the findings of my investigation into the evidence being made available to me to review,” he said.
In October 2023 Mr. Baker published an investigation at Blaze Media alleging that two Capitol Police officials gave false testimony in the 2002 trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and four other men.
More recently, Mr. Baker reported that a plainclothes Capitol Police officer, not a passerby, discovered the pipe bomb at the Democratic National Committee offices on Jan. 6. He also wrote that a Capitol Police security camera was turned away from the DNC in the middle of police response to the bomb.
The Epoch Times confirmed Mr. Baker’s reports and disclosed that a second and third USCP security camera was deliberately panned away from the scene during bomb-squad operations.
Mr. Baker was first threatened with prosecution in the fall of 2021 after he voluntarily met with two FBI special agents in North Carolina.
He was later told that the DOJ was considering an interstate racketeering charge because he received money to license his Jan. 6 video to HBO, The New York Times, and other media outlets.
‘Tell Him to Be Careful’
There was no update after that until March 2023, when Mr. Baker was warned by a well-connected journalist that his online commentaries about the Oath Keepers case, Capitol Police, and other issues were chafing important people at the DOJ.
“I got a call from another journalist who has a friendly source inside the Department of Justice there in D.C.,” Baker told The Epoch Times.
“He called me up and said—this is a paraphrase, but he said—‘Your friend in Raleigh, tell him to be careful. He has awakened a couple of people’s attention to his work, and they’re not happy about it at all.’”
He had a front-row view of some intense scenes, including the initial bombardment of munitions aimed by police at the huge crowd on the Capitol’s west front.
His video work appeared in Jan. 6 films by HBO, The New York Times, and The Epoch Times. It has been syndicated worldwide on Storyful.
Mr. Baker filmed the debut of a Metropolitan Police Department “hard squad” and the violence that broke out as the riot-gear-clad officers rolled and rumbled through the dense crowd just after 1 p.m.
In August 2023, Mr. Baker received a subpoena for his Jan. 6 video, which he said was ironic since he offered the footage to the FBI in 2021. He traveled to Washington on the subpoena deadline date to turn in the video. But no one at the DOJ knew anything about it, he said at the time.
In December 2023, Mr. Baker was warned by federal authorities to expect imminent charges. His surrender to the FBI, initially set before Christmas, was delayed. There was no further word until January, prompting the Dallas press conference.
Trump Will Remain On Illinois Ballot Pending Appeal, Virtue-Signaling Judge Clarifies In New Order
Update (1400ET): Less than 24 hours after she ordered Donald Trump removed from Illinois’ primary ballot (because ‘meh, insurrection’), Cook County Circuit Court Judge Tracie Porter clarified the duration of a stay she placed on her removal order on Wednesday when she ruled President Trump “disqualified” and that any votes for him would be void if the order went into effect.
As The Epoch Times’ Caden Pearsen reports,Judge Porter had initially stayed that original removal order until March 1, anticipating an appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, or the Illinois Supreme Court, and/or pending a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case from Colorado.
However, the language in the stay was deemed vague, prompting President Trump’s attorneys to seek clarification on Thursday, and request a ruling by 12 p.m., or they would file an emergency motion in the appeals court to stay the ruling.
In response to the notice of appeal filed by President Trump’s attorneys, Judge Porter modified her original stay on Thursday.
The removal order was modified to state that it is stayed until the appeal is “finally resolved by the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, the Illinois Supreme Court, and/or the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Furthermore, the new order directed that “the Illinois State Board of Elections shall continue to include Candidate Donald J. Trump on the ballot for the March 19, 2024, General Primary Election” until the appeal is resolved.
President Trump’s legal team had requested the emergency stay, arguing that the uncertainty surrounding the stay’s duration—originally until March 1—could lead to logistical difficulties for election officials and voter confusion. The March 19 primary in Illinois is fast approaching, with ballots already printed featuring President Trump’s name and mail-in ballots sent to voters.
So, was it all a giant virtue-signal for a potential run for higher office in the future? “See, I battled for democracy, but The Supremes over-ruled me”?
* * *
Wirepoints founder, Mark Glennon, detailed earlier, a Cook County judge ruled Wednesday to eliminate Illinoisans’ right to vote in November for the presidential candidate most Americans currently favor — Donald Trump.
That’s a different but correct way to state what the judge did. On its face, the ruling said Trump lost his right to be on the ballot because he participated in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., but the plain fact is that the public’s right to vote for Trump was also denied by the ruling.
Despite the gravity of that antidemocratic result, the court did none of its own fact-finding or legal analysis to make its decision. It simply parroted a similar December decision by the Colorado Supreme Court — a decision that set no precedent binding on an Illinois court. The Illinois court merely did a “cut-and-paste” job with the Colorado decision, law professor Jonathan Turley rightly said. That’s indeed about all the Illinois 39-page ruling by Cook County Judge Tracie Porter is — a cut-and-paste job.
Nor did the court address any of the criticisms leveled against the Colorado decision in dissenting opinions and commentary. Most importantly, Judge Porter did not address, and showed no concern over, the harsh questioning of the Colorado decision leveled by U.S. Supreme Court justices during oral arguments in the appeal over it
It’s in that appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of the Colorado case that sanity will be restored and the grandstanding of Judge Porter will be exposed.
The top Court, legal analysts agree, will almost certainly overrule the Colorado decision, which would also void the Illinois decision. The Supreme Court ruling may even be unanimous because it was the liberal judges who leveled the toughest questions during oral arguments.
Justice Elena Kagan, for example, asked why one state should be able to disqualify a candidate from the ballot and, thereby effectively determine who becomes the president of the United States? Rather than sounding like an issue for an individual state to decide, she said, that “sounds awfully national to me.”
It’s also because of that appeal that there’s no need to rehash the specific matters at issue in the case, many of which are complex or novel. Countless news pieces and opinion articles on that are easily found.
What’s important is that the Supreme Court will resolve those issues predisposed toward a democratic result, as it should, and as it clearly indicated it would during oral arguments. That’s the key, overriding principle. Judge Porter’s ruling, however, shows no remorse over democracy lost.
But there’s one thing I haven’t seen discussed that merits special attention. For the facts that allegedly prove Trump’s participation in the insurrection, Judge Porter, as mentioned, relied on the Colorado court’s findings, which were made by a trial court there.
And guess who that trial court relied on for some of its fact-finding?
The U.S. House Select Committee on January 6th.
“[T]he Court holds that the January 6th Report is reliable and trustworthy and thereby admissible,” says the trial court’s order, and that committee’s work was frequently cited in its ruling and on appeal.
That should go in the “you’ve gotta be kidding” file.
The January 6 Committee was a made-for-TV, Soviet-style show trial that denied any semblance of due process. No defense or counter explanations and statements were allowed. The committee hired a former ABC news boss to produce its prime time TV special covering its hearing. The only two Republicans on the committee were Trump haters Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. For more than two years, the surveillance film of the Capitol riot, to which the committee had full access, was hidden from the public and defendants.
A new house committee is trying to recover 117 encrypted files that the now-disbanded Jan. 6 Committee deleted before Republicans took the majority last year.
Former committee staffers lashed out at Liz Cheney and the committee for withholding key findings in its report.
“We all came from prestigious jobs, dropping what we were doing because we were told this would be an important fact-finding investigation that would inform the public,” said one former committee staffer.
“But when [the committee] became a Cheney 2024 campaign, many of us became discouraged.”
From start to finish the committee was a farce that the public saw through.
Opinion polls about Trump and his alleged participation in the riot change little because of the committee.
Yet it’s that committee’s finding on which Judge Porter indirectly relied, in significant part, to void any vote for Trump.
Decide what you want about Trump and whether he participated in an insurrection, but remember who would deny you the right to vote based on what you decide.
Today Is A Good Day To DEI: In Huge Win For DeSantis, University Of Florida Fires All ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’ Staff
Following a mandate by the Florida Board of Governors, the University of Florida has fired all DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) staff, effective immediately.
“To comply with the Florida Board of Governor’s regulation 9.016 on prohibited expenditures, the University of Florida has closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors,” reads a statement from Provost J. Scott Angle.
“Under the direction of UF Human Resources, university employees whose positions were eliminated will receive UF’s standard twelve weeks of pay.
Approximately $5 million in funds previously allocated to DEI initiatives will be reallocated into a faculty recruitment fund.
BREAKING: UF fired all staff in positions related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/D5qMSmBKWN
“The University of Florida is – and will always be – unwavering in our commitment to universal human dignity. As we educate students by thoughtfully engaging a wide range of ideas and views, we will continue to foster a community of trust and respect for every member of the Gator Nation. The University of Florida is an elite institution because of our incredible faculty who are committed to teaching, discovering, and serving,” the memo continues.
In January, Florida’s Board of Governors voted to ban state funding on DEI programs across all public universities in the state – affecting the University of Florida, Florida State University and Florida International University.
The vote brought public universities in line with legislation signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in May 2023 to defund DEI programs at state universities and colleges – which stipulates that a state university can’t use any state or federal funds to promote, support or maintain any programs or campus activities that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “promote or engage in political or social activism.”
Florida is one of a dozen state legislatures that have introduced or passed bills to limit or eliminate DEI programs in state colleges or universities.
Apollo: 10 Reasons Why The Fed Won’t Cut Rates In 2024
Two weeks ago, with inflation reversing higher, oil surging, home price gains just unstoppable, oh and of course stonks trading at all time high thanks to a new tech bubble which has pushed bitcoin back to record highs, we asked if the Fed’s next move won’t be a rate hike (even if that means that more banks will blow up, forcing the Fed to both hike and QE at the same time, in keeping with the Reverse Twist idea just floated by Waller this morning).
Fast forward to today when Apollo’s chief economist and resident permabear Torsten Slok (who won’t rest until you have sold all your assets to private equity giant Apollo which will be very happy to buy everything yo uhave to sell), published ten reasons why the Fed won’t cut at all in 2024 (and thus, why a hike is much more likely).
The market came into 2023 expecting a recession. The market went into 2024 expecting six Fed cuts.
The reality is that the US economy is simply not slowing down, and the Fed pivot has provided a strong tailwind to growth since December.
As a result, the Fed will not cut rates this year, and rates are going to stay higher for longer.
How do we come to this conclusion?
1) The economy is not slowing down, it is reaccelerating. Growth expectations for 2024 saw a big jump following the Fed pivot in December and the associated easing in financial conditions. Growth expectations for the US continue to be revised higher.
2) Underlying measures of trend inflation are moving higher.
3) Supercore inflation, a measure of inflation preferred by Fed Chair Powell, is trending higher.
4) Following the Fed pivot in December, the labor market remains tight, jobless claims are very low, and wage inflation is sticky between 4% and 5%.
5) Surveys of small businesses show that more small businesses are planning to raise selling prices.
6) Manufacturing surveys show a higher trend in prices paid, another leading indicator of inflation.
7) ISM services prices paid is also trending higher.
8) Surveys of small businesses show that more small businesses are planning to raise worker compensation.
9) Asking rents are rising, and more cities are seeing rising rents, and home prices are rising, see the ninth, tenth, and eleventh charts.
10) Financial conditions continue to ease following the Fed pivot in December with record-high IG issuance, high HY issuance, IPO activity rising, M&A activity rising, and tight credit spreads and the stock market reaching new all-time highs. With financial conditions easing significantly, it is not surprising that we saw strong nonfarm payrolls and inflation in January, and we should expect the strength to continue.
As Slok concludes, “the bottom line is that the Fed will spend most of 2024 fighting inflation. As a result, yield levels in fixed income will stay high.”
Witness testimony has concluded, but attorneys still have much to argue in the motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the high profile racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and 14 alleged co-conspirators for challenging the 2020 elections.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee scheduled an afternoon hearing where evidence concerning prosecutors’ cell phone records and whether the district attorney’s prejudicial behavior warrants disqualification will be argued.
On Jan. 8, Ashleigh Merchant, legal counsel for defendant Michael Roman, filed a motion to disqualify—exposing a romantic relationship Ms. Willis had with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she appointed to lead the election case. Ms. Merchant alleged that Ms. Willis hired him after beginning a personal relationship and then benefitted financially from the appointment as he took her on several “lavish” vacations.
This led to half the defendants joining the motion to disqualify, adding to it new arguments and evidence.
Judge McAfee held an evidentiary hearing on Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 and later continued it on Feb. 27 to hear from Atlanta-area Attorney Terrence Bradley, billed as Ms. Merchant’s “star witness.”
The March 1 hearing will not include witness testimony, but attorneys were instructed to bring case law and legal arguments for the remaining issues.
Relationship Timeline and Cell Phone Records
In ordering the evidentiary hearing, Judge McAfee said it was “clear” that disqualification could occur if a conflict of interest is shown.
“The state has admitted a relationship existed, and so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit—again, if there even was one,” he said.
During contentious testimonies on Feb. 15, Ms. Willis accused Ms. Merchant of lying about her and digging into personal matters. The parties have presented conflicting timelines of the relationship, which could weigh in the judge’s determination of whether there was a conflict of interest and the credibility of the prosecutors.
The relationship was previously unknown to counsel and even Ms. Willis’s staff. Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade both testified they had not kept it a secret, saying that they did not announce their relationship because they are both private people.
Ms. Merchant alleged, based on what appeared to be long conversations with a former associate of Mr. Wade, that the relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade began before he was hired by the district attorney, and the lavish spending came after the appointment on the high-profile election case.
Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade both testified this was not the case. They said the romantic relationship began in early 2022 and ended in the summer of 2023, right before the Trump indictment.
Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade also both testified that they were close friends prior to beginning a romantic relationship in early 2022, but the trips only occurred during the period of their romantic relationship. They also both maintained that Ms. Willis paid her half of the expenses, giving Mr. Wade large sums of cash around four times.
Evidence is scarce on both sides. Pressed by defense attorneys for a record of these reimbursements, both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade said there was none. And, as it appeared few people knew about the relationship, witness testimony produced little to allow Ms. Merchant to show that the relationship might have begun earlier than Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade say it did.
Ms. Merchant had two witnesses she intended to give testimony on the relationship timeline.
One was Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Ms. Willis. They met in college and, after reconnecting years later, maintained a friendship until Ms. Yeartie resigned from the district attorney’s office a few years ago. Ms. Yeartie had a lease on a condo she vacated and sublet to Ms. Willis in 2021.
Ms. Yeartie testified that Ms. Willis told her she met Mr. Wade in 2019 at a judicial conference. She said she had “no doubt” that a romantic relationship between the two started “shortly” after, as she saw them together “hugging, kissing” and otherwise showing affection.
Mr. Wade testified that he never spoke to Ms. Yeartie about the relationship. Ms. Willis said it was a “lie” that she began a relationship with Mr. Wade shortly after meeting him in 2019.
The second witness was Terrence Bradley, a former law partner of Mr. Wade, who also represented him during parts of Mr. Wade’s divorce proceedings. On Feb. 15 and Feb. 16, Mr. Bradley took the stand but declined to answer questions saying it would violate attorney-client privilege.
On the first day, he seemed to imply that he had never contacted Ms. Merchant, that it was she who had reached out to him through a third party, and that he had not shared details about the Wade-Willis relationship.
On Feb. 27, Ms. Merchant read aloud several texts exchanged between Ms. Merchant and Mr. Bradley, revealing discussions about various trips taken and rendezvous between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis, as well as Mr. Bradley claiming that the relationship started shortly after they met in 2019.
However, Mr. Bradley testified that he had been “speculating,” that he had “no personal knowledge” about the relationship, and that everything he did know would have come from conversations with Mr. Wade. He added that there was only one conversation he had with Mr. Wade that concerned Ms. Willis, but later seemed to backtrack under questioning.
The texts indicated that Mr. Bradley’s speculation came in direct response to Ms. Merchant asking him to confirm allegations about the relationship as she was preparing to file her motion to disqualify, leading other defense attorneys to ask whether Mr. Bradley intentionally lied to Ms. Merchant in an effort to mislead her.
After three sessions on the witness stand, defense attorneys were able to pull few answers from Mr. Bradley.
Prior to his last testimony, however, Trump attorneys filed an affidavit from a private investigator who revealed that cell phone records for Mr. Wade indicate he likely spent two nights at Ms. Willis’s condo in 2021—before they claim the relationship began. He also said he found they had 2,000 calls and exchanged 12,000 text messages in 2021.
Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis did not dispute communicating in 2019, 2020, and 2021, and both said they were close friends in 2021 and communicated frequently. Ms. Willis had testified that Mr. Wade never spent the night and in a court filing, argued that the phone records only show he was in the vicinity based on the pinging off the cell towers.
Defense attorneys are expected to argue that the prosecutors may not have been truthful throughout the process, while the state has argued that the private investigator’s findings should not be entered into evidence.
Several defendants have also argued that the district attorney engaged in prejudicial behavior, but the judge has not given any indication that this will factor into his decision on the motion.
The ruling may depend on whether Judge McAfee determines an appearance of impropriety is enough to warrant disqualification, as he mentioned in a previous hearing, or whether defendants have to show proof of conflict of interest, as the state argued.
“This Judge Should Be Impeached”: Journalist Catherine Herridge Fined $800 Per Day Until She Gives Up Confidential Source
In a case with chilling implications for 1st Amendment press protections, a DC Judge has fined acclaimed Journalist Catherine Herridge $800 per day until she reveals a source used in articles written about American scientist Yanping Chen, who is suing the federal government for leaking information collected on Chen during a FBI investigation into her ties to China.
Judge Christopher Cooper, and Obama appointee, stayed his own ruling for 30 days while Herridge appeals the ruling that she violated his Aug. 1 order demanding she reveal how she learned about the federal probe into Chen, who operated a graduate program in Virginia.
Chen was never charged in connection with the investigation, which sought to determine whether she lied about her military service – or whether her school’s student database could be accessed from China. Following leaks to Herridge, Chen sued the federal government alleging that her privacy had been violated.
In September, Herridge sat for a deposition but would not reveal how she obtained the information, citing her First Amendment rights, and telling Chen’s lawyer, “I must now disobey the order.”
“The Court does not reach this result lightly,” wrote Cooper. “It recognizes the paramount importance of a free press in our society and the critical role that confidential sources play in the work of investigative journalists like Herridge. Yet the Court also has its own role to play in upholding the law and safeguarding judicial authority.”
Herridge’s lawyer, Patrick Philbin, said that he and his client “disagree” and will appeal the decision.
“Holding a journalist in contempt for protecting a confidential source has a deeply chilling effect on journalism,” Fox News said in a statement. “Fox News Media remains committed to protecting the rights of a free press and freedom of speech and believes this decision should be appealed.”
Of note, Cooper is the same judge blocked special counsel John Durham from entering evidence against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussman which would have detailed their plot to leak Trump-Russia hoax information to the media, according to the Washington Free Beacon‘s Chuck Ross.
Cooper’s wife notably represented anti-Trump FBI agent Lisa Page.
The judge, Christopher Cooper, is married to Dem lawyer Amy Jeffress, who represented Lisa Page.
“This judge should be impeached,” said journalist Eli Lake in response to the decision. “A former PLA colonel’s alleged privacy rights is apparently more important than a journalist’s right to protect her confidential sources.”
This judge should be impeached. A former PLA colonel’s alleged privacy rights is apparently more important than a journalist’s right to protect her confidential sources. An outrage. https://t.co/5bwo8lo2ab
And as journalist Glenn Greenwald notes, “journalists are supposed to support any journalist who refuses to give up their source. It’s considered not only heroic but obligatory to defy court orders to protect one’s source…”
One of the most disgraceful things many journalists did in their Russiagate hysteria was *cheer* a deranged, FBI-loving blogger who not only ratted our her source to the FBI, but did so *voluntarily*, without anyone asking.
The source this Russiagate-obsessed blogger ratted out was an old dying man. He played almost no role in the Mueller report (which found it couldn’t prove the conspiracy).
But journalists’ applause showed how, in the Trump era, they renounced every journalistic principle. pic.twitter.com/hiupVIQYzo
“This Is A Good As It Gets For Biden”: One Bank Says A Trump Victory Is Now A Base Case
By Elwin de Groot, Head of Macro Strategy at Rabobank
Gramscical world
Rate cuts soon! Rate cuts delayed! A rate hike instead of a cut? As we have been arguing in this Global Daily, we are still in this Gramscical world, where the old is dying, but the new is having difficulties with birth. And this is not just from a geopolitical or geoeconomic perspective.
Illustrative of this was the reaction to US PCE inflation data. Although core PCE inflation was broadly in line with consensus estimates, Bloomberg ran two stories. One read “Bonds Climb After ‘No New Bad News’ on Inflation”. The other, “Fed’s Preferred Inflation Metric Increases by Most in a Year”, underscored that the core PCE data, on a six-month annualized basis, rebounded to 2.5% in January after staying below it in the previous two months. Bear in mind, also, that this figure came after a confusing email by the BLS to a group of ‘super users’ that it later tried to retract. In that message the BLS argued that a surge in the measure of rental inflation – which unexpectedly rose sharply in the January CPI – had been due to a “shift in underlying calculations”, which could either imply that this change was a structural shift in prices/inflation or in fact an error which could be corrected at a later stage.
So the underlying – or should we say most consistent – narrative that fits the latest string of data is that whilst we are still making some progress on the disinflation path when seen from ‘outta space’, things on the ground are getting a bit more wobbly. European inflation data for February pretty much underscored that message. The underlying trend of gradual disinflation, going by the recent data from Spain, Belgium, Germany and France, remains intact, but these reports did not ease concerns over stickiness in core components (see also the day ahead section for more detail).
Not yet knowing whether they’ll become parent to a boy or girl, central banks best hold off on painting the nursery for a little longer. The adverse impact of moving too early is still bigger than the cost of cutting somewhat too late: credibility would take another hit if a resurgence of inflationary pressures forces policymakers to backtrack after a couple of cuts. That’s not just our concern. The European Parliament, who hold the ECB accountable, this week expressed their unease about inflation and the institutions’ credibility.
The ECB has, however, started to furnish the room. Reuters reported that the Governing Council has made some decisions regarding its future operational framework. According to their sources, the ECB intends to operate a ‘demand-driven floor’. In such a framework, the central bank provides as much liquidity as banks ask for, while using the deposit facility rate to steer money markets by setting the lowest rate at which banks are willing to lend to each other. The efficiency of such a framework relies on banks’ willingness to borrow from the ECB. That’s related to the costs of borrowing reserves. So the ECB can improve efficiency by narrowing the spread between the refinancing rate and the deposit rate.
Reuters’ sources suggested that this could “be announced as early as the ECB’s non-policy meeting on March 13.” Yet, the ECB’s own calendar lists no such meeting. We do note that next week’s interest rate decision comes into effect on that date. Could the ECB announce an asynchronous cut to the refinancing rate next Thursday? Given the ample liquidity in the system, this should not meaningfully impact money market rates. Yet, it would pose a huge communication challenge, particularly to a broader audience that does not distinguish between the different policy rates.
China’s manufacturing data this morning were Gramscical as well. Manufacturing activity slipped again in February (official PMI 0.1 point down to 49.1 in February) but services activity picked up somewhat (up 0.7 to 51.4). Are the governments’ interventions in equity markets helping engineer a turnaround in consumer sentiment and spending? Unlikely. The pickup in services was probably driven by lunar holiday travel spending rather than a signal of a broad-based recovery. If manufacturing stays weak while services activity picks up, the bigger risk is perhaps that the policy response will be one that boosts production (and overcapacity) rather than consumption.
This brings us to the last, but certainly not least important topic. Yesterday, the White House issued a statement by President Biden on the national security risks to the US auto industry. “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.”, Biden said. The key concern here is the connectedness and collection of sensitive data by new vehicles and so the Biden administration is launching an investigation into these risks. This is actually a step closer to outright bans on Chinese cars, not tariffs, as suggested by Donald Trump. But the outcome may well be the same.
It also shows that the current White House is acutely aware of the pressure it is under with the elections approaching and the subdued approval ratings for Biden in the polls. Biden may want to take wind out of Trump sails by sounding and acting tough on China. Is he trying to push out a Trump child with Democratic genes?
Our US strategist Philip Marey even thinks that, looking at the growth and employment outlook for the remainder of this year, the current situation for Biden may be as good as it gets. This also implies that – looking at the current polls – one is almost forced to take a Trump victory as base case, even though there is still so much uncertainty.
Given Trump’s first term in office and his recent remarks on trade policy, we should expect a broad rise in import tariffs under a Trump presidency, Philip argues. This could lead to a rebound in inflation, especially in 2025, complicating the Fed’s mission to get inflation back to its 2% target in a sustainable manner. Ceteris paribus, this could reduce the amount of rate cuts that the Fed has in mind for 2025.
No need to argue that this could also have serious global ramifications…
