Banks have been working on technology to “identify potential mass shooters” by tracking gun-related purchases and filing “Suspicious Activity Reports” with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

According to comments made by Amalgamated Bank Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Sims Brown at the New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday, the strategy would employ credit card companies to more closely track gun purchases, Bloomberg reports.

“We’re at the very early stages of this — this particular code just got approved in October, so those detection scenarios are still being brought together,” said Brown, adding “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”

The strategy would mirror ways banks try to identify and stop fraudsters from using customers’ funds. 

The International Organization for Standardization approved a new merchant category code earlier this year that banks will use when processing transactions for gun and ammunition stores after Amalgamated submitted an application on the matter. Gun-control advocates were quick to celebrate the move, arguing it would help banks flag suspicious activity at these retailers. -Bloomberg

Banks have come under pressure from Congressional Republicans over what they plan to do with the tracking codes, with conservative policymakers expressing concern that lenders will use the data to create unofficial lists of gun owners in the US.

“What I’m hearing from other banks is that they have been honoring this process and this system, filing Suspicious Activity Reports across a myriad of industries to stop a myriad of crimes — or at least alert authorizes of them,” said Brown. “And I have every confidence that banks are going to do the same thing here.”

After yesterday’s face-ripping, short-squeezing meltup after Powell’s “more dovish than expected” speech which saw the S&P close above the 200DMA for the first time since April, any commentators were quick to opine that Christmas came early for stocks. But did it, and did the ramp on the last day of November simply pull forward what is traditionally a much more gradual December meltup?

As TS Lombard’s Skylar Montgomery Koning explains in a lengthy note from Wednesday, “historically equities outperform into year-end.” In the chart on the bottom left, she shows average and median S&P changes on a monthly basis vs the 30y comparable – and, indeed, the S&P does tend to outperform in the last three months of the year on both an average and a median basis. As for the December performance specifically, the equity rally does tend to gain momentum in the two weeks before Christmas, which mark a turning point for the bottom 25th percentile (although the December 2018 crash is still vivid for so many traders). So, there is some historical evidence for the Santa rally hypothesis.

However, as Koning observes, “it is important to note, that an observable pattern is worthless unless there is a reasonable explanation.”

To be sure, there is some logic to seasonality and many touted explanations for the Santa rally exist. For one, risk assets tend to have an inverse relationship with volatility. In this cycle, there has been a tight inverse relationship between rates volatility and equity directionality (see chart on next page bottom left). Of course, since the market has essentially traded a one-factor model (Fed funds expectations) this year, this relationship could be expected; but it also makes sense long term: as Koning notes, “as an investor, I’m much happier allocating to risk assets when they aren’t making 2 standard deviation moves on a regular basis. As market participants go off on holiday, markets close and event risk is limited (i.e., there is less uncertainty), you would expect volatility to fall” which it usually does except in some very high profile cases… such as the unforgettable brief bear market of Dec 2018.

Moreover, over time the bias is for equities to go up: over the S&P’s history, its average return is 7% per annum. In quiet holiday markets without any impetus to the contrary, equities have a bias to revert to trend and grind up. Last week’s Thanksgiving holiday was a case in point: with little on the data front, the US market closed for a day and a half, limited data announcements and many on holiday, market trading was muted, equity volatility fell and equities ground higher. In fact, across DM equity markets, Japan and the United States (both of which have national Thanksgiving holidays) outperform significantly in November.

Volatility does indeed fall into year-end. According to an analysis from the TS Lombard strategists looking at equity vol on a change and level basis  historically volatility has fallen going into the summer and Christmas holidays. The net result is lower average vol in the summer and December (see charts below left). And, indeed, we have seen volatility decline across assets from the mid-October peak, although rates and FX vol are still historically elevated.

Psychology plays a role. With regard to the end of the year, it is also important to note that money managers are judged on annual calendar year performance. Because of the propensity for equities to rally as the end of the year approaches, investors who have lost money have an incentive to chase the rally upwards, while those who have made money are more likely to settle their books. Or, in a year like 2022, where they have made money by being short risk, with the market rallying, those who have made money buy upside exposure so as not to bleed P&L into year-end. Options data back this up: the CBOE put/call ratio drops significantly in December (i.e., investors want more upside vs downside exposure – see the chart below right).

User Beware – fundamentals dominate. The major point here is that dispersion within months is massive; historically the maximum return observed in October is +11%, while the minimum is -22%. Additionally as shown in the first chart up top, both average and median numbers illustrate that while seasonality can guide returns, a large fundamental force can more than negate it. And a case in point is October, where the average return is significantly below the median. This is because October has had two historical risk asset collapses: Black Monday in 1987, when US equities fell more than 20% in a day; and the Lehman collapse, which took place in mid-September 2008 but the bulk of the equity decline came in October 2008 (-17%). Moreover, there are three stumbling blocks to the Santa rally narrative.

• First: Equity performance already looks overdone. Equities have rallied 10% in the period October-November – the median rally over 4Q is 5.5% (and the average is 4.3%). Additionally, when the S&P rallies above its 50 & 100DMA, it looks technically vulnerable as it heads towards its 200DMA. Moreover, the rally in equities contrasts with the rates volatility rebound on the recent spate of Fed hawkish speak (see the chart on the previous page on the left).
• Second: There is a lot of event risk into year-end. This week alone we will have a key speech from Powell (speaking at the Brookings Institution ahead of the quiet period), US core PCE and a jobs report, followed by an OPEC meeting at the weekend. Then virtually every DM central bank will report over a two-week period. Plus there will be the US CPI one day before the final Fed meeting of the year (on 14 December), where we will get a new set of projections, dots and the markets pivot narrative will be put to the test.
• Third: Recession generally implies lower risk assets and higher volatility. As TS Lombard economists warn, the rates market and economists are telling us we are headed toward a recession – which has been our base case since the summer. We have covered the risk asset implications here. But it is also important to note that as the economy deteriorates into a recession, adverse sentiment kicks in and things tend to become non-linear, accelerating the slowdown. Correspondingly, volatility tends to rise from half a year before the recession begins, spiking at the start of the recession (see chart below).

More in the full note available to pro subs.

On Wednesday night, veteran journalist Matt Taibbi and bestselling UK author Douglas Murray mopped the floor in a Munk debate over why public trust in mainstream media has fallen to an all-time low. Their opponents, Canadian journalist Malcom Gladwell and the New York Times‘ Michelle Goldberg, were… shall we say, unpersuasive in their arguments that essentially boiled down to ‘so what if we get a ton of stuff wrong, when it comes to the big picture, we get it right!’

Prior to the debate, Taibbi and Douglas weren’t expected to win… however a post-debate poll gave the two a massive victory.

One point Taibbi made is that mainstream outlets have become a “Demographic hunting business” for which “ethical guardrails have been tossed out.”

“You feed the audience news you know they will like,” Taibbi said. 

We agree wholeheartedly – though ZeroHedge strives to call out bullshit on all sides of every aisle, while at the same time being extremely clear on where we stand. So, in our obvious bias towards Matt, who is awesome (and no offense to Douglas), you can watch his opening statement below. If you want to watch the rest of the debate, sign up for $9.99/month (Canadian) at Munk and check it out.

You can read Taibbi’s entire opener below…

Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

“Be it resolved: don’t trust mainstream media.” My name is Matt Taibbi, I’ve been a reporter for 30 years, and I argue for the resolution. You should not trust mainstream media.

I grew up in the press. My father was a reporter. My stepmother was a reporter. My godparents were reporters. Every adult I knew growing up seemed to be in media. I even used my father’s TV mic flag as a toy. I’d go in the backyard, stand with my back to the house, and play “live shot”:

Chet, I’m in Norwell, Massachusetts, where firefighters are battling a three-alarm blaze…

I love the news business. It’s in my bones. But I mourn for it. It’s destroyed itself.

My father had a saying: “The story’s the boss.” In the American context, if the facts tell you the Republicans were the primary villains in this or that disaster, you write that story. If the facts point more at Democrats, you go that way. If it turns out they’re both culpable, as was often the case for me across nearly ten years of investigating Wall Street and the causes of the 2008 crash for Rolling Stone, you write that. We’re not supposed to nudge facts one way or another. Our job is to call things as we see them and leave the rest up to you.

We don’t do that now. The story is no longer the boss. Instead, we sell narrative, as part of a new business model that’s increasingly indifferent to fact.

When there were only a few channels, the commercial strategy of news companies was to aim for the whole audience. A TV news broadcast aired at dinnertime and was designed to be consumed by the whole family, from your crazy right-wing uncle to the sulking lefty teenager. This system had its flaws. However, making an effort to talk to everybody had benefits, too. For one, it inspired more trust. Gallup polls twice showed Walter Cronkite of CBS to be the most trusted person in America. That would never happen today.

After the Internet arrived and flooded the market with new voices, some outlets found that instead of going after the whole audience, it made more financial sense to pick one demographic and dominate it. How? That’s easy. You feed the audience news you know they will like. When Fox had success targeting suburban and rural, mostly white, mostly older conservatives – the late Fox News chief Roger Ailes infamously described his audience as “55 to dead” – other companies soon followed suit.

Now everyone does it. Whether it’s Fox, or MSNBC, or CNN, or the Washington Post, nearly all Western media outlets are in the demographic-hunting business. This may be less true in Canada, where there’s a stronger public media tradition, but in the U.S., it’s standard.

Call it the “audience-optimization” model: instead of starting with a story and following the facts, you start with what pleases your audience, and work backward to the story. In this system, the overwhelming majority of national media organizations cater to one “side” or the other. For instance, according to a Pew Center survey from a few years ago, 93% of Fox’s audience votes Republican, while in an exactly mirroring phenomenon, MSNBC’s audience is 95% Democratic.

Our colleagues on the other side tonight represent two once-great media organizations. Michelle, the Pew survey says the audience for your New York Times is now 91% comprised of Democrats. Malcolm, the last numbers I could find for the New Yorker were back in 2012, and even then, only 9% of the magazine’s readers were Republicans. I imagine that number is smaller now.

This bifurcated system is fundamentally untrustworthy. When you decide in advance to forego half of your potential audience, to fulfill the aim of catering to the other half, you’re choosing in advance which facts to emphasize and which to downplay. You’re also choosing which stories to cover, and which ones to avoid, based on considerations other than truth or newsworthiness.

This is not journalism. It’s political entertainment, and therefore unreliable.

With editors now more concerned with retaining audience than getting things right, the defining characteristic across the business — from right to left — is inaccuracy. We just get a lot of stuff wrong now. It’s now less important for reporters to be accurate than “directionally” correct, which in center-left “mainstream” media mostly comes down to having the right views, like opposing Donald Trump, or anti-vaxxers, or election-deniers, or protesting Canadian truckers, or any other people deemed wrongthinkers.

In the zeal to “hold Trump accountable,” or oppose figures like Vladimir Putin, ethical guardrails have been tossed out. Silent edits have become common. Serious accusations are made without calling people for comment. Reporters get too cozy with politicians, and as a result report information either without attribution at all or sourced to unnamed officials or “people familiar with the matter.” Like scientists, journalists should be able to reproduce each other’s work in the lab. With too many anonymous sources, this becomes impossible.

We had an incident a few weeks ago where the lede of a wire service story read, “A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland.” That’s the kind of story where if you get it wrong, you can start a war, but they still put all their chips on one unnamed source. That’s very risky practice even if you’re right.

That story turned out to be wrong, which sadly is no longer uncommon. In the Trump years an extraordinary number of “bombshells” went sideways. From the “pee tape” to the Alfa Server story to speculation that Trump was a Russian spy (recruited before disco) to false reports of Russians hacking a Vermont utility to an evidence-free story about Trump’s campaign manager somehow sneaking undetected to meet the most watched human on earth, Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, we’ve accumulated piles of wrong stories.

I’m no fan of Donald Trump. I wrote a book about the man called Insane Clown President. But I’ve compiled a list of over 100 of these “bombshells” that went belly up, from “Bountygate” to MSNBC saying Russian oligarchs co-signed a loan for Trump to countless others, because these stories offend me. A good journalist should always be ashamed of error. It bothers me to see so many of my colleagues so unashamed.

This by the way isn’t a wholly new phenomenon. After the WMD fiasco American news media didn’t do a self-audit. Instead we promoted the people who got it wrong and fired the ones who didn’t.

The excuse, “At least we’re not Breitbart,” doesn’t even hold. Think about another of these bombshells, the one in which Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen supposedly went to Prague to meet with Russian hackers. This story came from the now-disgraced dossier of former British spy Christopher Steele. It’s been refuted multiple times, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who flatly declared Cohen “never traveled to Prague.” Yet the tale will not die.

From MSNBC to CNN to McClatchy we’ve had leading media outlets continue to take seriously the idea that Donald Trump’s lawyer traveled to Prague to scheme with “Kremlin Representatives” over how to fix the election using Romanian hackers, who according to Steele would afterward retreat to Bulgaria, and use that country as a “bolt hole” to “lie low.” If that’s not a conspiracy theory, I don’t know what is.

This story is every bit as nuts as the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. I would venture to say it’s crazier. It’s at least more creative. No serious journalist would go near a story like this without a lot of evidence. Yet our leading media people believed it with none. Because they’re not doing journalism. They’re selling narrative, and this was good narrative.

News media shouldn’t have a “side.” The press has to be seen as separate from politics, not just because this is a crucial component of trustworthiness, but also because the media derives all its power from the perception of its independence. If a news organ is seen as too connected to one or another party, it loses its ability to serve as a check on power. How can you “hold Trump accountable” without credibility?

Getting things right is hard enough. The minute we try to do anything else in this job, the wheels come off. Until we get back to the basics, we don’t deserve to be trusted. And we won’t be.

After a month in a half since Parlement Technologies announced it had entered into an agreement in principle to sell Parler to Kanye “Ye” West, the social media site tweeted it had terminated the deal. 

Late Monday afternoon, around 1500 ET, Parler tweeted:

“In response to numerous media inquiries, Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November.”

In response to numerous media inquiries, Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler. This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November.

— Parler (@parler_app) December 1, 2022

As Variety noted, “the announcement of the termination of West’s deal to buy Parler came shortly after West appeared on Alex Jones’ Infowars — where, among other things, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.” 

Parler and West in mid-October announced the deal to buy the popular social media platform, a favorite among American conservatives. Both parties were expected to close on the deal in the fourth quarter of 2022

Axios noted Ye’s crumbling financial empire, including the loss of his Adidas deal, played a crucial role in the termination. 

“Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community,” the company said Thursday.

Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.

— Parler (@parler_app) December 1, 2022

It’s no secret that the Mainstream Media is in steep decline – what with the flagrant peddling of establishment narratives and occasional propaganda that almost launches WWIII.

A few recent examples:

• NBC Journalist Laments: “People Don’t Trust Us, They Don’t Believe Us”
• New Reuters Survey Finds That Trust In Mainstream News Is Rapidly Declining
• Dear Liberals, How Many Of These MSM Hoaxes Did You Fall For?
• Journalism Tops List Of ‘Most Regretted’ College Majors
• Washington Post Columnist Calls For The End Of Impartiality And Balance In Journalism

And so, it comes as no surprise that MSM outlets are in financial trouble.

To wit, on Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter noted CNN has started layoffs as as “part of continued cost-cutting by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.”

“It will be a difficult time for everyone,” said CEO Chris Licht in a Wednesday memo, who noted that paid contributors will learn their fate on Wednesday, while full-time employees would be informed of their status on Thursday.

“Our people are the heart and soul of this organization,” Licht added. “It is incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many. I recently described this process as a gut punch, because I know that is how it feels for all of us.”

The cuts are not a surprise, with Licht warning employees in late October that the news division would be undergoing a restructuring, citing “widespread concern over the global economic outlook.”

But they do come amid decreasing morale at CNN, which has already seen significant turnover this year since the Discovery merger. One of the first moves made after the merger closed was to shut down the CNN+ streaming service, laying off a couple hundred employees in the process. -Hollywood Reporter

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is also trimming fat – announcing that it will cease publication of its Sunday magazine, and will eliminate a number of editorial positions related to the product.

In a Wednesday email to staffers, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said that the move is part of the company’s “global and digital transformation.”

Buzbee said in an email to almost a dozen magazine staffers that the cuts were “no reflection on the quality of your work,” but rather due to “economic headwinds.”

Maybe stop being establishment hacks?

The most important video of the year was filmed in 1983. pic.twitter.com/uITMW1tGvk

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 7, 2022

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The Biden White House says it “isn’t taking a side” on the cause of anti-lockdown protests in China, a ‘walking on eggshells’ remark seemingly designed to protect the administration from charges of hypocrisy.

Over the past week, multiple major cities across China have seen massive protests against lockdowns, with the normally compliant Chinese exploding into rage in response to their government’s ‘zero COVID’ policy.

Much of the unrest blew up in response to an incident in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, where at least 10 people, some say up to 40, were killed during an apartment fire because lockdown rules stopped residents from fleeing the burning building.

Most of the city’s residents have been prevented from leaving their homes for over 100 days as a result of the draconian rules, which are still in place nearly three years after the pandemic began.

While Chinese citizens are now clearly being subjected to human rights abuses in the name of maintaining a brutal lockdown, the White House could only respond with a mealy-mouthed statement.

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby was asked if the Biden administration agreed with protesters that COVID restrictions should be lifted and whether President Xi Jinping should stand down.

Kirby prevaricated by saying the White House was “on the side of peaceful protest,” but that the administration was not “taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about.”

WATCH:

“I would not say at all that we would agree with criticism that we’ve been less than firm or consistent. In fact, Brian, we’ve been very, consistent about the right of peaceful protest and we’ve been very vocal about it in China just over the last few days,” said Kirby.

“We believe that these individuals should be able to peacefully protest and assemble and to make their minds known to their government there in China just like we’ve said the same in Iran and around the world. And we stand up for peaceful protest, and again, we’ve been very consistent about that,” he added.

Co-host Steve Doocy then asked, “Absolutely, the White House is always for peaceful protests, but, John, you know what the protesters are saying, they’re saying, hey, Xi Jinping’s got to go or loosen the COVID restrictions that are keeping people stuck in their houses for months. So, between he’s got to go or loosen restrictions, which side is the White House on when it comes to supporting the protestors?”

Kirby responded, “Steve, we’re on the side of peaceful protest. We’re on the side of individuals being able to freely assemble and to express their views, whatever those views are. We’re not taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about. Largely though, Steve, you know that these protesters are really out there about the lockdown. Their main concern, what drove them to the streets was the very severe, very stringent COVID policies by Xi’s administration, and that’s what’s really been driving all this public protest.”

The spokesman then asserted, “we don’t believe, here in the United States, that lockdowns are the answer.”

This doesn’t correlate with what Biden himself has said on many occasions.

Back in August 2020, the president said he wouldn’t hesitate to lockdown the entire United States if it was necessary to stop COVID.

“I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists,” said Biden at the time.

In comparison, two months previously in June, President Trump told Fox News, “We won’t be closing the country again. We won’t have to do that.”

Indeed, if the presidential election had taken place a year earlier, there’s almost no doubt that Biden would have lobbied for for more draconian lockdowns that those that were imposed by states during the final 10 months of the Trump administration.

As we highlighted yesterday, Anthony Fauci once again defended brutal Chinese lockdowns, admitting that the Communist government is forcefully locking people inside buildings but adding that if it means people get vaccinated then he is “okay” with it.

*  *  *

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It looks as though the boom is officially over…and what better indicator could there be than banks starting to cut back on bonuses during the holiday season.

That’s exactly what’s happening at Jefferies, according to a new report by Bloomberg. The firm has warned its staff that 2022 is going to be a “difficult compensation season” as dealmaking slows down.

Jefferies chief executive Rich Handler and president Brian Friedman penned a memo that went out to employees this week, claiming that due to the bank’s aggressive hiring over the last 3 years, in combination with slumping deals, that bonuses would come in lighter than normal.

The letter says: “As always, we will do the right thing for the long-term success of everyone at Jefferies and to continuously invest in our people and our firm, so we can continue to build and prosper. Let’s just spell it out here: ‘This is going to be a more difficult compensation season at Jefferies, just like it will be for every firm in our industry.'”

It continues: “2019 was a decent year for Jefferies and our industry. Despite Covid, 2020 was a very good year and we all know 2021 was the type of year that comes along very rarely in a finance professional’s career.”

“The firm has made major investments across the board that have allowed us to gain credible market positions that make us more excited about our strategic direction than ever,” the letter says, before delivering the news no one wants to hear during the holiday season. 

“But the trade-off for the enhanced research, supercharged technology investment, critical hires for future growth, and expanded global footprint, is that there are many more of us driving our growth, success, and sustainability than we had back in 2019,” the letter adds.

It concludes: “It is also clear that if we are all committed to being together as much as possible in the office, we should also have the ability to selectively and appropriately work from home and have the life flexibility that so many of us need and deserve.” 

As we wrote about and covered extensively last year, bonuses in investment banking reached levels only attained prior to the 2008 financial crisis in 2021.

And it doesn’t look like Jefferies is going to be alone this year – Bloomberg noted that analysis by Johnson Associates concluded that “dealmakers working in equity and debt capital markets units are set for a 45% decline in bonuses”. 

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

The extent of the yield curve inversion is historically consistent with almost 500 bps of Fed cuts if the US goes into a recession.

Powell’s speech on Wednesday caused a lot of consternation. He reiterated his message that, yes, the pace of rate hikes was likely to slow, but that the Fed will need restrictive policy for “some time” – aka “higher for longer”.

Even though the message has not changed, the market over the last month has moved the peak rate higher, but brought it closer, and priced in a much steeper subsequent pivot – “higher for shorter”, almost the diametric opposite of Powell’s sentiments.

The flattening of the back-end of the fed funds curve is highly correlated with the flattening we have seen in the yield curve. 2s10s is now as inverted as it has been since the early 1980s, but when it comes to recessions, the more imminent sign is when the curve begins to re-steepen.

The big question is, though, if we do get a recession (which looks highly likely but not imminent), when and by how much will the Fed cut rates?

The market sees the first full 25 bps cut by November next year – I would hazard it will come sooner, based on leading indicators that are consistent with a potentially deep recession.

But the size of the yield-curve inversion suggests the depth of Fed cuts could be enough to take rates back towards the zero bound.

There is a strong relationship between the maximum inversion of 2s10 before a recession, and the total sum of Fed cuts that come after.

The current inversion in 2s10s is historically significant with almost 500 bps of Fed cuts, which, based on where the Fed rate is expected to peak, would mean a reversal of virtually all of the Fed’s hikes.

The Fed may live up to its own hype and keep rates very restrictive. But talk is cheap, and the truth of the matter is the Fed has not yet had to face the pressure from keeping rates high, continuing with QT, while unemployment is beginning to materially rise. In the 1974 recession, the Fed cut rates almost 800 bps in a period where inflation was above 9%.

The market currently anticipates about 150 bps of cuts. The high likelihood of a recession and the depth of the yield curve’s inversion suggest this is on the low side.

Recently-returned Disney CEO Bob Iger says he’s “sorry” to see the company getting dragged into an ideological battle with Florida lawmakers over a ban on the discussion of sex and gender in early elementary classrooms.

The Florida law, which progressive critics described as the “Don’t say gay” bill, was passed in response to complaints from parents that children as young as five-years-old are being taught about transgenderism, homosexuality, and other sexual and gender topics – and prohibits teachers from discussing said topics with students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade.

While Disney didn’t immediately going other major corporations in condemning the bill, which was passed in March, however a group of activist employees lashed out at the company for not taking a public position – after with both Iger and his successor, Bob Chapek, spoke out.

“To me, it wasn’t politics. It was what is right and what is wrong, and that just seemed wrong. It seemed potentially harmful to kids,” said Iger in a March 31 CNN interview, adding that he thought it was the responsibility of a CEO to “weigh in on issues, even if voicing an opinion on those issues potentially puts some of your business in danger.”

Now, Iger has expressed regret for the company’s involvement, as documented by journalist Christopher Rufo.

“When you tell stories, there’s a delicate balance,” Iger told an audience at a town hall meeting, where he reiterated that the company still pushes pro-LGBT “inclusion” messaging.

Iger expressed regret that Disney engaged in the high-profile fight against Gov. DeSantis, which resulted in the state legislature stripping the company of its special administrative status. “I was sorry to see us dragged into that battle.” pic.twitter.com/889toYW5ye

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 29, 2022

As the Epoch Times notes;

Another question concerned Florida government’s move to strip Disney of its self-governance status, a privilege the company has enjoyed since the time of Walt Disney. Losing such privilege means that Disney may no longer control its own zoning, infrastructure, and policing within its special tax district in Orlando.

“I have to get up to speed on that completely. Obviously, I followed the news. That development occurred after I left the company. I was sorry to see us dragged into that battle,” Iger replied.

“I have no idea what the ramifications are in terms of the business itself. What I can say is the state of Florida has been important to us for a long time, and we have been very important to the state of Florida.”

Iger served as Disney’s CEO for 15 years, from 2005 to 2020, before he stepped down and was succeeded by Bob Chapek, who oversaw the company during the COVID-19 pandemic that triggered worldwide shutdowns of theme parks, resorts, movie theaters, and live sports events. Chapek’s 11-month tenure is also marked by a deteriorated relationship with Florida government, although the state allowed Walt Disney World to reopen as early as July 2020, while California’s Disneyland stayed closed because of lockdown policies.

“We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney over his long career, including navigating the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic,” Disney said in a Nov. 20 message announcing the leadership change. “The board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the company through this pivotal period.”

Iger will remain in the CEO post for the next two years.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden’s administration has handed over years of former President Donald Trump’s federal tax returns to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Treasury has complied with last week’s court decision,” a spokesperson for the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 30.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected a request from the former president to block the IRS from transmitting the returns, lifting a stay that Chief Justice John Roberts had temporarily imposed.

The lifting of the stay meant an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came back into effect. That order had directed the IRS to transmit the materials to the House.

Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has been seeking six years of Trump tax returns since 2019.

A spokesperson for the panel declined to immediately comment on the Treasury’s statement.

“Since the Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different,” Neal said in a statement after the Supreme Court decision. “This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”

Trump and his lawyers had argued that the bid to get the records was politically motivated and designed to publicly release sensitive information, pointing to statements to that effect by leading Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). But several courts said Neal had put forth a legitimate legislative purpose.

Purpose

Neal, who hasn’t sought records from any other president, says the materials are needed to examine the way the IRS audits presidents.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2019 said that Neal’s stated reason for requesting the records was “implausible.”

“The objective mismatch between the Committee’s stated purpose, on the one hand, and the particular information that the Committee demanded, on the other, provided strong evidence of pretext,” the office said at the time. “In addition, the nature of the request, the long series of events that preceded it, and Chairman Neal’s pointed failure to renounce his oft-proclaimed purpose of publicly releasing the President’s tax returns all confirm that the Committee’s purpose was the constitutionally impermissible one of forcing the public disclosure of the President’s tax returns.”

After Biden became president, Neal sent a new request that he described as having more detail, with Neal saying the materials would help not only oversee the audit program but also the way the IRS enforces federal tax laws against presidents. He said there were “serious concerns” that the audit program wasn’t functioning as intended because it allegedly wasn’t designed with an individual like Trump, who has numerous businesses, in mind, and that the program “does not provide explicit safeguards in the event a President interferes with or questions the appropriateness” of an audit.

Neal also changed the files sought to tax years 2015–2020 from 2013–2018.

The Office of Legal Counsel then reversed itself, finding that the previous legal opinion it released “failed to give due weight to Congress’s status as a co-equal branch of government” and saying that Neal’s request “would further the Committee’s principal stated objective of assessing the IRS’s presidential audit program—a plainly legitimate area for congressional inquiry and possible legislation.”

“Even if some individual members of Congress hope to see information from the former President’s tax returns disclosed on the public record merely ‘for the sake of exposure,’ that would not invalidate the legitimate objectives that the Committee’s receipt of the information in question could serve,” the opinion also said.

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