Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former President Donald Trump said he is interviewing attorneys to appeal a jury’s ruling stipulating that he must pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million.

In a post on Truth Social, the former president wrote that he is in the process of “interviewing various law firms to represent me in an appeal” of the Carroll ruling, which he described as “one of the most ridiculous and unfair Witch Hunts our Country has ever seen.”

“Any lawyer who takes a TRUMP CASE is either ‘CRAZY,’ or a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT,” President Trump wrote on Jan. 30. “I will make my decision soon.”

He was represented during the trial by attorney Alina Habba, who represents him in the separate civil fraud trial in New York and other cases. After the verdict was issued in the Carroll case, Ms. Habba filed a letter to the court alleging that Judge Lewis Kaplan was biased.

She cited a New York Post report that he previously worked at the same firm as Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan.

“The underlying defamation case tried last year, and the damages trial completed last week, were both litigations in which there were many clashes between Your Honor and defense counsel,” Ms. Habba wrote.

“We believe, and will argue on appeal, that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff’s counsel.”

In a court filing of her own on Jan. 30, Roberta Kaplan denied allegations that she was mentored by the judge, as Ms. Habba had alleged. She said they never interacted and suggested that she could sanction Ms. Habba.

In response, the Trump lawyer responded by saying she was asking a question about whether there was any truth to the report.

“The length of our overlap at Paul, Weiss was less than two years,” Ms. Kaplan wrote in a response on Jan. 30, adding that “during that relatively brief period more than thirty years ago, I do remember the Paul, Weiss partners with whom I worked and none of them are Your Honor.”

Ms. Habba responded in a letter, saying: “The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship.”

This past week, a New York jury found that President Trump had damaged Ms. Carroll’s reputation in 2019 after she went public with her accusations. Jurors awarded her $18 million to compensate for the personal harm she experienced, then added $65 million more to punish President Trump.

A different jury concluded last May that President Trump assaulted Ms. Carroll in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1996. Those jurors awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million.

The former president said he did not know Ms. Carroll and vehemently denied her allegations.

What’s Next

Days after the ruling, Ms. Carroll appeared in an MSNBC interview this past week with host Rachel Maddow and suggested they go shopping.

“I have such great ideas for all the good I’m going to do with this money,” Ms. Carroll said on the show, referring to the money.

“First thing, Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping. We’re going to get completely new wardrobes, new shoes, a motorcycle for [attorney Shawn] Crowley, a new fishing rod for [attorney Roberta Kaplan].”

“Rachel, what do you want? A penthouse? It’s yours, Rachel,” she stated. “You want France? You want to go fishing in France?”

Rachel Maddow asks E. Jean Carroll what she’s going to do with “Trump’s money” to help “women’s rights.”

Carroll says she and Maddow will “go shopping, get completely new wardrobes, new shoes…Rachel, what do you want, penthouse?”

Her lawyer nervously says “that’s a joke”: pic.twitter.com/5LAx5xU5Uy

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) January 30, 2024

Her lawyer then interjected and said her comments were “a joke.”

Lawyers for the former president have said they will appeal both verdicts. “It will not deter us. We will keep fighting. And I assure you, we didn’t win today, but we will win,” Ms. Habba said in a recent statement.

Among other things, his team wants higher courts to rule that President Trump was within his rights to deny Ms. Carroll’s allegations forcefully and suggest that she had ulterior motives.

“Everyone has a right to defend themselves,” his lawyer said.

President Trump’s lawyers also are contesting Judge Kaplan’s ruling that the jury in the second trial did not need to revisit whether the former president was liable for sexual assault, and that the judge unfairly limited what the Trump legal team could say in front of the jury.

Appeals will go to a panel of judges in New York. The appeals eventually could reach the U.S. Supreme Court for the justices to consider.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democrats talk a big game about ‘Republican attacks on Social Security,’ but 75% of House Dems just voted against deporting migrants who commit Social Security fraud.

Introduced by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) in December, H.R. 6678 passed with 172 “yea” votes, and 155 “nay” votes – all Democrats, with 55 of them voting with the Republicans.

As former Trump adviser and head of the America First Legal Foundation Stephen Miller posted on X, “155 HOUSE DEMOCRATS — 75% OF THEIR CONFERENCE — JUST VOTED AGAINST DEPORTING CRIMINAL MIGRANTS WHO COMMIT SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD AND ROB OUR SENIORS.”

Biden’s Democrat Party is so ruthlessly, menacingly, staggeringly extreme on immigration they are not even willing to remove lawbreaking criminal aliens who steal identities and prey on seniors.

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 31, 2024

“They’d rather protect illegal aliens than our seniors,” said the House Judiciary Committee in a Thursday post on X.

🚨 155 House Democrats voted today against deporting criminal migrants who commit social security fraud.

They’d rather protect illegal aliens than our seniors.

RT if you think that’s insane!

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) February 1, 2024

Meanwhile, 150 Democrats also voted against legislation that would quickly deport illegal aliens who drive drunk.

“I am appalled to see a majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives voting to prevent illegal aliens who endanger the lives of American citizens by drunk driving from being deported. Americans deserve leaders who put their safety and prosperity first,” said Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX).

According to OA Online, “H.R. 6976, the Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act, introduced by Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), closes a gaping loophole in U.S. immigration law related to drunk driving. Because there is neither a ground of inadmissibility nor a ground of removability explicitly related to driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs, criminal aliens currently can escape accountability for their reckless actions and be free to re-offend and endanger communities. By creating a ground of inadmissibility and a ground of removability for aliens who have committed DUI offenses, this legislation provides long-awaited and much-needed reforms to safeguard American communities.“

According to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the bill would create a “separate but unequal” system of justice for immigrants.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

The United States has the distinction the world over for being a home to the First Amendment, which guarantees free expression. And yet a mere seven years after its ratification in 1791, Congress violated it in the most severe way with the “Alien and Sedition Acts” of 1798, which made it a crime to engage in “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against government officials. 

The Sedition Act mentioned Congress, the President (John Adams), government generally as protected, but was silent about the Vice President, who was Thomas Jefferson. Upon the election of Jefferson in 1800, it was repealed immediately. Indeed, the censorship was so controversial that Jefferson’s opposition contributed to his victory. 

The experience taught an important lesson. Governments have a tendency to want to control speech, meaning writing in those days, even if it means trampling on the rules that bind them. This is because they have an insatiable desire to manage the public mind, which is the story people carry around that can make the difference between stable rule and popular discontent. It has always been thus. 

We like to think that free speech is settled doctrine but that’s not true. Thirty-five years after Jefferson’s victory, in 1835, the U.S. Post Office banned the circulation of abolitionist materials in the South.

This went on for 14 years until the ban was lifted in 1849. 

Then 12 years later, President Abraham Lincoln revived censorship after 1860, imposing criminal penalties on newspaper editors that supported the Confederacy and opposed the draft. Once again, people who disagreed with regime priorities were considered seditious. 

Woodrow Wilson did the same during the Great War, targeting anti-war newspapers and pamphleteers again. 

A new book by David Beito is the first to document FDR’s censorship in the 1930s, muzzling opponents of his administration. Then in World War Two, the Office of Censorship got busy monitoring all mail and communications. The practice continued on after the war in the early years of the Cold War with the blacklists against alleged communists. 

There is a long history of government using every means to channel speech, especially when technology finds a way around the national orthodoxy. Government has usually adapted to the new problem with the same old solution. 

When radio came along in the early 1920s, radio stations exploded around the country. The federal government quickly responded with the Congress-created Radio Act of 1927, which made the Federal Radio Commission. When television seemed inevitable, that agency converted itself to become the Federal Communications Commission, which long kept a tight rein on what Americans heard and saw in their homes. 

In each of the above cases, the focus of government pressure and coercion was the distribution portals of information. It was always the editors of newspapers. Then it became the broadcasters. 

Sure, the people had free speech but what does it matter if no one hears the message? The point of controlling the broadcast source was to impose top-down messaging for purposes of managing what people generally think. 

When I was a kid, “news” consisted of a 20-minute broadcast on one of three channels that said the same thing. We believed that’s all there was. With such strict controls on information, one can never know what one is missing. 

In 1995, the web browser was invented and an entire world grew up around it that included news from many sources, and then eventually social media too. The ambition was summarized in the name “YouTube:” this was a television from which anyone could broadcast. Facebook, Twitter, and others came along to give every single person the power of an editor or broadcaster. 

Keeping with the long tradition of control, what was government to do? There had to be a way but getting hold of this giant machinery called the Internet was not going to be an easy task. 

There were several steps.

• The first was to impose high-cost regulations on admission so that only the most well-heeled companies could make it big and consolidate.

• The second was to rope these companies into the federal apparatus with various rewards and threats.

• The third was for government to winnow its way into the companies and subtly push them to curate information flows based on government priorities. 

This takes us to 2020, when this vast apparatus was deployed fully to manage messaging on the response to the pandemic. It was highly effective. For all the world, it seemed as if everyone responsible was fully in support of policies that have never before been attempted, such as stay-at-home orders and church cancellations and travel restrictions. Businesses nationwide were shut, with hardly a peep of protest that we could hear at the time. 

It seemed spooky but, over time, investigators came to discover a vast censorship industrial complex that was in heavy operation, to the point that Elon Musk declared that the Twitter he bought might as well have been a megaphone for military intelligence. Thousands of pages have been amassed in court filings that confirm all of this.

The case against the government here is that it cannot do through third parties such as social media platforms what it is forbidden from doing directly by virtue of the First Amendment. The case in question is popularly known as Missouri v. Biden, and there is much at stake with its results. 

If the Supreme Court decides that the government violated free speech with these measures, it will help secure the new technology as a tool of freedom. If it goes the other direction, censorship will be codified in law and it will give license to agencies to lord it over what we see and hear forever. 

You can see the technological challenge here for government. It’s one thing to threaten editors of paper newspapers or throttle communications on radio and television. But it is another matter to gain full control over the vast web of global communication architecture in the 21st century. China has had some measure of success and so has Europe generally. But in America, we have special institutions and special laws. That should not be possible here. 

The challenge of censoring the Internet is vast but consider what they have achieved so far in the US. Everyone knows (we hope) that Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube are thoroughly compromised venues. Amazon’s servers have stepped up in service of federal priorities such as when the company shut down Parler on January 10, 2021. Even auspicious services like EventBrite serve their masters: Brownstone even had an event canceled by this company. At whose behest? 

Indeed, when you look at the lay of the land today, the reed on which free speech still stands is pretty thin. What if Peter Thiel had not invested in Rumble? What if Elon Musk had not bought Twitter? What if we didn’t have ProtonMail and other foreign providers? What if there were no truly private server companies? For that matter, what if we had only to rely on PayPal and conventional banks for sending money? Our freedoms that we know now would gradually come to an end.

These days, and thanks to technological advancements, speech has become deeply personal. As communication has become democratized, so have the censorship efforts. If everyone has a microphone, everyone has to be controlled. The efforts to do so affect the  tools and services everyone uses every day.. 

The outcome of Missouri v. Biden – the Biden administration has fought the case at every step – could make the difference as to whether the US will recapture its former distinction as the land of the free and home of the brave. It’s hard to imagine that the Supreme Court will decide any other way than to smack down the federal censors, but we cannot know for sure these days. 

Anything could happen. There is much at stake. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the pre-trial injunction against agency intervention in social media on March 13, 2024. This year will be the year of decision about our fundamental rights.

“We have a deal,” European Council President Charles Michel announced on X Thursday, declaring that all 27 European Union countries have finally agreed to the additional 50-billion-euro ($54bn) aid package for Ukraine, which was under threat of Hungarian veto.

The unanimous approval “locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine” and further demonstrates the “EU is taking leadership and responsibility in support for Ukraine; we know what is at stake,” Michel said.

Ukrainian President Zelensky too hailed the ‘victory’ – stressing that “It is very important that the decision was made by all 27 leaders, which once again proves strong EU unity.”

Zelensky added, “Continued EU financial support for Ukraine will strengthen long-term economic and financial stability, which is no less important than military assistance and sanctions pressure on Russia.”

The approval for the funding was reportedly achieved merely within an hour into the special summit of EU leaders which gathered in Brussels on Thursday.

Estonia’s leader Prime Minister Kaja Kallas also hailed the “important signal to Ukraine that the EU stands behind you long-term, until victory.”

There’s also been a lot of backslapping and self-congratulations in Brussels over EU diplomats getting lone holdout Viktor Orban to fold: 

The European leaders managed to win over Orbán with three additions, diplomats said. There will be an annual report by the European Commission on the implementation of the aid package, there will be a debate at leaders’ level on the implementation of the package and, if it is needed, in two years the European Council will ask the Commission propose a review of the new budget, according to the latest version of the draft European Council conclusions.

EU leaders added a line referring to earlier conclusions from December 2020 to guarantee that the way the rule of law in Hungary is evaluated by the European Commission is done in a fair and objective manner.

This is music to Orbán’s ears, as the 2020 text has implications for the €6.3 billion of EU cohesion funds that were frozen for Hungary over rule-of-law shortcomings.

Ron Paul Institute director Daniel McAdams, who worked as a journalist in Budapest throughout the 1990s said that the Orban government “caved” plane and simple…

Hungary caved. No other way to put it. They caved. As they continue to do. And the EU will continue to be emboldened to spit on Orban and all Hungarians. https://t.co/anFLBNEl0R

— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) February 1, 2024

But McAdams clarified that “I still have great admiration for Orban but this should have been handled differently. I know the exact kinds of internal discussions on this. But you can’t be both a bold maverick and a ‘team player.’ That scumbag Tusk likely tipped the balance.”

He added: “Hungary has no real allies in the EU at present, save for perhaps Fico. But even that for historic reasons is not the smoothest of sailing, particularly when suddenly karpatalja is being whispered about. So Orban probably figured this is not the time to go for broke.”

And a Rabobank note pointed out the following broader ironies: 

In Europe, we have disinflation; and deindustrialisation; and Macron, Scholz, and Rutte saying Europe must rearm to help Ukraine beat Russia’s war economy – this from a Chancellor who didn’t arm Ukrainians, and a PM who didn’t arm the Dutch.

At the start of the week, amid Hungary’s perceived intransigeance on the Ukraine funding issued, some EU diplomats have begun to complain Europe is “starting to look weak”. But Orban beginning on Tuesday began giving off signals that he was ready to soften his stance.

Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

On Wednesday, lawmakers in the state of California introduced a series of bills aimed at providing reparations for historical slavery, which would include giving out property and financial compensation for alleged descendants of slaves.

As Politico reports, the bills represent the first of their kind in the country, after a rising left-wing movement in favor of reparations first emerged shortly after the 2020 race riots. The California bills had been in the works for the last several years after Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) set up a reparations “task force” to make suggestions, which led to a 111-page report issued last year.

The 14 different bills introduced by the state’s Legislative Black Caucus focus on a wide variety of areas that are allegedly impacted by the legacy of slavery, including education, civil rights, and criminal justice.

While none of the bills include a measure to provide direct payments to those who would qualify based on slave ancestry, there is a provision to provide financial relief to certain groups based on allegedly race-based “property takings.” Authored by State Senator Steven Bradford (D-Calif.), the bill would “restore property taken during raced-based uses of eminent domain to its original owners or provide another effective remedy where appropriate, such as restitution or compensation.”

Speaking on the lack of direct payouts, which many on the far-left have considered the ultimate end goal of reparations, Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Black Caucus, gave a statement saying that “while many only associate direct cash payments with reparations, the true meaning of the word, to repair, involves much more.”

“We need a comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of slavery and systemic racism,” Wilson added.

While the bills are all expected to easily pass due to the Democratic supermajority in both chambers, the laws will most likely face legal challenges after Newsom signs them into law.

As a result, some lawmakers are demanding that the California State Constitution be changed to allow for such provisions to be legal. Assemblyman Corey Jackson (D-Calif.), proposed a ballot referendum that would see the state’s voters approve such changes, so that the state could implement these programs with the intention of “increasing the life expectancy of, improving educational outcomes for, or lifting out of poverty specific groups based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, or marginalized genders, sexes, or sexual orientations.”

Such race-based initiatives are facing more widespread backlash from the American public in recent years, particularly with regards to corporate diversity enforcements in the form of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Last year, the Supreme Court issued a historic ruling overturning affirmative action – the practice of race-based preferences in the admission of college students, which overwhelmingly favors minorities over White applicants – ruling that such a practice was unconstitutional.

After Amazon and Facebook reported blowout earnings, sending their stocks up double digits after hours and soothing the bitter taste left from the recent disappointing earnings from MSFT, TSLA and GOGL, everyone was looking at the last Mag 7 of them all, the (formerly?) biggest company in the world, Apple which however left a bit to be desired, because while the iPhone maker reported both revenue and EPS which beat (iPhone sales actually beat this time while Mac, iPad and Wearables all missed), the company’s Greater China revenue disappointed, coming in below estimates, with Service revenues also disappointing.

Here is what the company reported for fiscal Q1:

• EPS $2.18 vs. $1.88 y/y, beating estimates of $2.11
• Revenue $119.58 billion, +2.1% y/y, beating estimates of $117.97 billion
  • Products revenue $96.46 billion vs. $96.39 billion y/y, beating estimates $95.14 billion
  • IPhone revenue $69.70 billion, +6% y/y, beating estimates of $68.55 billion
  • Mac revenue $7.78 billion, +0.6% y/y, missing estimates of $7.9 billion
  • IPad revenue $7.02 billion, -25% y/y, missing estimates of $7.06 billion
  • Wearables, home and accessories $11.95 billion, -11% y/y, missing estimates of $12.02 billion
  • Service revenue $23.12 billion, +11% y/y, missing estimates of $23.37 billion
  • Greater China rev. $20.82 billion, -13% y/y, missing estimates of $23.5 billion
• While Revenue of nearly $120BN finally grew from a year ago, ending a period of 4 quarters of decline, it was still down from two years prior.

• Gross margin $54.86 billion, +9% y/y, beating estimates $53.56 billion
• Cash and cash equivalents $40.76 billion, above estimates  $38.81 billion

While the numbers were mixed, the good news is that AAPL managed to avoid a 5th consecutive quarter of annual revenue declines (it would have been the first time since the company’s existential crisis in the 1990s).

Commenting on the quarter, CEO Tim Cook said that “today Apple is reporting revenue growth for the December quarter fueled by iPhone sales, and an all-time revenue record in Services. We are pleased to announce that our installed base of active devices has now surpassed 2.2 billion, reaching an all-time high across all products and geographic segments. And as customers begin to experience the incredible Apple Vision Pro tomorrow, we are committed as ever to the pursuit of groundbreaking innovation — in line with our values and on behalf of our customers.”

CFO Luca Maestri chimed in that “our December quarter top-line performance combined with margin expansion drove an all-time record EPS of $2.18, up 16 percent from last year. During the quarter, we generated nearly $40 billion of operating cash flow, and returned almost $27 billion to our shareholders. We are confident in our future, and continue to make significant investments across our business to support our long-term growth plans.”

Despite the optimistic rhetoric, the rumors about the company’s weakness in China turned out to be true, and revenues there missed estimates of $23.5BN badly, the company generating just $20.82BN in sales in what until recently was the biggest growth market, confirming action by Beijing to shun the western cell phone. Here is the geographic breakdown of Apple’s sales…

… and here is the YoY change. China’s 13% drop sticks out like a sore thumb.

This shouldn’t be a surprise: for months, Apple watchers have been beating the drum that the iPhone is underperforming in China, citing strong growth by rivals like Huawei, Xiaomi and others, combined with some government agencies banning the use of the device at work. Apple pushed back considerably on its last earnings call against that idea; but it turns out it was lying. Today, we learned that sales in China actually fell nearly $3 billion in the critical holiday quarter. That’s the lowest China 1Q revenue for Apple since 2020!

CFO Luca Maestri had this to say about the plunge in China: “There is a decline. We are not happy with the decline but we know China is the most competitive market in the world…We continue to see significant opportunity for us in China in the long term.”

Judging by the move in AAPL stock after hours, the market disagrees.

Turning to revenue by product category, iPhones beat and… that was it: all other categories disappointed:

• IPhone revenue $69.70 billion, +6% y/y, beating estimates of $68.55 billion
• Mac revenue $7.78 billion, +0.6% y/y, missing estimates of $7.9 billion
• IPad revenue $7.02 billion, -25% y/y, missing estimates of $7.06 billion
• Wearables, home and accessories $11.95 billion, -11% y/y, missing estimates of $12.02 billion

While it is notable that the iPhone 15 grew, the context is critical – the iPhone 14 Pro before it slumped considerably because of supply-chain hiccups in China (i.e. base effect). That issue wasn’t replicated this year, plus the iPhone 15 Pro was a much bigger update. Still, the pick up in iPhone revenues was at best modest as the chart below shows.

Mac revenue was the biggest product miss (revenue was -1.6% or so off of estimates). Computer sales have been challenged for over a year now as consumers were increasingly cost sensitive, and many had already bought new computers during the pandemic. Industry analyst IDC expects 2024 to bring long-awaited growth in computer sales.

Commenting on the disappointing results, Tim Cook said the decrease in Wearables, Home and Accessories was due to a difficult comparison to new products released in 2022. That included the first Apple Watch Ultra and a new Apple TV. The 2023 updates in the category were minor — and Apple dealt with a few days of halted sales in the US due to the patent fight with Masimo Corp.

And then there was service revenues, which despite rising to a new all time high of $23.1BN (up 11.3%) missed estimates of $23.4BN.

Still, according to CFO Luca Maestri, Apple has well over one billion paid subscriptions, more than double what it had four years ago, across its ecosystem (this includes first and third-party subscriptions).

Putting it all together, despite the solid iPhone results and profit beat, investors are disappointed by the China numbers, with the stock falling as much as around 4% so far after-hours, the loss accelerating during the call when the company said that during the March quarter it expected total and iPhone revenue to be similar to previous years when factoring in that 2Q revenue last year came in about $5 billion higher due to certain conditions (i.e., inventory replenishment). The company also expects gross margins between 46%-47% for Q2, as well as operating expenses of $14.3BN-$14.5BN, and expects service business the show double digit growth similar to the current quarter. Finally, CFO Maestri said services in the March quarter will be negatively impacted by foreign exchange rates and that comparisons for the March quarter are more challenging than in other quarters (translation: take last Q2 and slash $5BN due to “pent up” demand for iPhone in the March 2023 quarter which obviously won’t be here this time).

Not surprisingly, AAPL’s stock is doing the worst of all the megatechs reporting today, with both AMZN and META surging after their repective reports, and only AAPL sliding.

Trump special prosecutor Nathan Wade will avoid testifying about his alleged relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Wade notably filed for divorce from his stay-at-home wife of 20 years, Jocelyn Wade, on Nov. 2nd, 2021, the day after Fani hired him as a special prosecutor in the Trump case, from which he earned more than $650,000 in taxpayer dollars – which he used to take Fani on lavish vacations, according to claims from Trump co-defendant Michael Roman and corroborated by receipts revealed in the divorce case.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Henry Thompson signed a temporary settlement in the divorce case on Jan. 30, then canceled a hearing scheduled for Jan. 31 in which Wade was expected to testify about his relationship with Willis.

The two have been accused of being in an “improper” relationship, with Trump and other Republicans arguing that the case has been a politically-driven prosecution from the start, meant to derail the former president’s 2024 reelection bid.

Fani was also subpoenaed to testify on Jan. 31 after she was unsuccessful in quashing it. Judge Thompson rejected her attempt, however the settlement means that she will dodge testimony as well.

Meanwhile, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has ordered Willis to respond to allegations of having an “improper” relationship with Wade by Friday, and a hearing has been scheduled for mid-February.

As the Epoch Times reports further, an attorney representing Michael Roman, one of the co-defendants, filed a motion on Jan. 8 to dismiss the Fulton County election interference case, alleging misconduct on the part of Fulton County prosecutors.

Mr. Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged in the 100-plus page filing that Ms. Willis was engaged in an “improper, clandestine personal relationship” with Mr. Wade and of “profiting significantly” from the relationship at the expense of taxpayers.

Court documents show that Mr. Wade paid for Ms. Willis to fly with him to two different cities.

Ms. Merchant also accused Ms. Willis of using funds meant for clearing a pandemic-era backlog of cases in Fulton County to pay Mr. Wade a large sum of money.

Documents show Mr. Wade has been paid at a rate of $250 per hour for his involvement in the case, or around $650,000 in total.

Mr. Roman is seeking to disqualify Ms. Willis and her office from the election interference case, per his attorney’s Jan. 8 filing.

President Trump has also made similar demands, saying that both Ms. Willis and the case have been “totally compromised” and the case against him should be dismissed.

Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to Ms. Merchant’s motion, although they have said they intend to.

The Fulton County Audit Committee has also asked Ms. Willis to address the “improper” relationship allegations.

Bob Ellis, the Fulton County Commissioner, called on Ms. Willis in a Jan. 21 letter to provide explanations, including regarding payments to Mr. Wade, by Feb. 2.

Ms. Willis faces an investigation in the Georgia Legislature over alleged misconduct, while a Georgia lawmaker recently filed a resolution to impeach Ms. Willis, alleging various acts of “malfeasance, tyrannical partiality, and oppression.”

Accusing Ms. Willis of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” State Rep. Charlice Byrd, a Republican, alleged that Ms. Willis used her office not to pursue justice but for political gain.

Ms. Byrd said in a Jan. 26 statement that she has introduced H.R. 872, a resolution to vote on impeachment charges against Ms. Willis.

The resolution calls Ms. Willis’ indictment “the severest case of gross abuse of discretion” while alleging that the Fulton County DA “grossly violated” her oath of office, in which she swore to be impartial.

Ms. Byrd’s impeachment resolution also accuses Ms. Willis of engaging in an “inappropriate” and “unethical” relationship with Mr. Wade while alleging that she profited from the relationship.

There are a total of 22 articles of impeachment in the resolution, each an alleged violation of Georgia Code 16-10-1.

While the resolution doesn’t go into detail about the allegedly political nature of the prosecution, similar claims have been made by House investigators.

The Georgia Senate adopted a resolution in a Jan. 26 floor vote that establishes a committee to investigate the various misconduct allegations against Ms. Willis.

The alleged misconduct includes ongoing expenditure of “significant public funds for the purpose of hiring a special assistant district attorney with whom District Attorney Willis had, and may yet have an ongoing romantic relationship,” the Senate resolution reads.

If such a relationship were proven to exist, it would amount to a “clear conflict of interest and a fraud upon the taxpayers of Fulton County and the State of Georgia,” potentially leading to Ms. Willis’ recusal, delays in the trial against President Trump, the appointment of a special prosecutor, and disciplinary actions, per the resolution.

Ms. Willis’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

In prior remarks regarding the scandal, however, she suggested racism was the motivation behind the scrutiny.

Authored by Lee Taylor of Uncommon Sense via the Daily Sceptic (emphasis ours),

Are we in the final stages of mainstream media dominance? Over the last 15 years the market has certainly shifted – the mainstream’s sluggish adoption of nascent technology and that technology’s ever expanding reach has opened the door to new media. 

It takes a long time for a whale washed up on a beach to decay to just bones. Scavengers pick over the rotting carcass for years before it finally disappears. One could argue that since 2020 the decay of mainstream media has quickened in pace. The mainstream media’s bias and lack of integrity is unravelling. Whether it was the failure of the mainstream to interrogate the Covid narrative, the one-sided and often mistaken coverage of the BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd or the lack of interest and then cover up of a certain laptop, perception of impartiality is difficult to justify.

What has stopped mainstream media asking the most pertinent and relevant questions? Recent events highlight either a lack of journalistic integrity or, more concerning, ideological capture. The New York Times is no longer the paper of record, seemingly reporting Hamas press releases verbatim. The once great BBC seems to be more interested in teaching about white privilege, while the Associated Press is now the communications arm of the climate change lobby.

Dissenting opinions, alternative and independent views and traditional values are being deconstructed to an alarming degree. This has left many people feeling unseen and de-prioritised in the cultural conversation.

Reading, viewing and listening figures are all down across the mainstream. The public is departing the mainstream in droves. But the question is, where are they going? 

Figures show they are going to new media. Joe Rogan is now arguably the world’s most powerful journalist; his popularity is largely due to him offering long form content where viewers and listeners get a better understanding of the issues than they would from clickbait headlines or snippets. Matt Taibbi, an American author, journalist, podcaster and former Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone, broke the Twitter files on his Substack, and Dr. Carl Heneghan and Dr. Tom Jefferson, two medical researchers whose Covid advice was different from the Government’s, can review and respond to the U.K.’s Covid Inquiry on Substack.

Funding

Traditionally the mainstream was funded by advertisers. Brands would place ads for their products and services in the pages of publications and pay for the privilege. Potential customers would see the ads and buy the products or services. With the digitalisation of the news this moved to website ads and then led to the centralisation of ad inventory. This all worked out quite nicely for everyone. But then…

Independent news media represent a double threat to the established mainstream. Firstly, the mainstream is haemorrhaging readers, viewers and listeners to them; advertisers pay per impression in the digital world, thus less impressions mean less advertising revenue. Secondly and more dangerously, alt-media sites are subverting the mainstream media’s control of the narrative.

Wiser men have written about the censorship industrial complex, a phrase coined by Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger; it is a growing, international, multi-billion dollar sector. The establishment has a number of tactics to censor and thwart independent publishers. Some are easy to spot, while others are more covert. YouTubers and podcasters can simply be taken off the platforms: Jordan Peterson has had a number of episodes taken off YouTube and Dr. Robert W. Malone has been banned completely. It is a little more difficult to impede independent news publishers. One way is for the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and other NGOs like NewsGuard and Graphika to deem alt-news websites to be ‘unsafe’ because they publish ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ – often relying on ‘fact-checkers’ funded by these websites’ mainstream rivals – thus removing their ability to sell advertising space. Media Matters monitors media outlets for “conservative misinformation” then notifies activist journalists so they can take “direct action against offending media institutions”. They sometimes do this in nefarious ways – as revealed in the recent Musk lawsuit. 

The big social media platforms offer a new way to connect with users. But with the exception of X, they do not tolerate free speech. Calling a man dressed up as a woman a man will get you banned on Facebook and Instagram quicker than you can say “XY”. YouTube has what it is calling a ‘hate speech’ policy that is applied so arbitrarily that it is near impossible to guess what content it will tolerate and what will be removed because it’s ‘hate speech’. 

Twitter 1.0 said it was not shadow-banning but the Twitter Files revealed that was clearly a lie. Twitter 2.0 is better than Twitter 1.0, but it still shadow-bans some content under a policy described as “freedom of speech, not reach” and we know Google tweaks its algorithms to promote content it approves of and suppress content it doesn’t.

The mainstream media and their backers are doing all they can to suppress and demonetise independent media creators. 

Independent media funding 

Yet against all odds, independent media channels are thriving, attracting millions of page views, viewers and listeners.

Without access to advertisers and with the sword of Damocles hanging over them, independent content creators are forced to rely on donations from supporters and fans or premium content subscription models. 

Independent media are what they say, independent, and so trying to get them all in one place is a bit like herding cats. However, there is now a way to seamlessly advertise across all independent publishers. Through my agency’s new advertising platform, you can simultaneously reach the readers of the Daily Sceptic or Spiked, access viewers of Triggernometry or Real America’s Voice, or sponsor the Zero Hedge Debates. 

Uncommon Ad Space, a new advertising platform my agency has created, represents a unique opportunity to promote your brand to a largely untapped audience of millions of fiercely loyal, independent thinkers and heavy purchasers. The mission is to bring independent media outlets together in one place so brands and advertisers who want to reach this market can do so easily. Not only can brands get access to a rapidly growing audience, but they can also help support independent content creators and circumvent efforts by the censorship-industrial complex to demonetise them. 

As the utopian globalist ideologues abandon everything of value, beauty, truth, justice and genuine merit, they create huge opportunities for independent websites and content creators. New media are the future. Old media sites are rapidly piling up in the dustbin of history. 

 Lee Taylor is the Managing Director of marketing agency Uncommon Sense. You can contact him on email here. Find Uncommon Ad Space on X. The Uncommon Ad Space website can be found here.

After a near record stretch of euphoria, in which the S&P rose in 12 of the past 13 weeks during what Goldman called one of the “most powerful short-cycle rallies we’ve ever seen“, the market’s relentless ascent is now in jeopardy and as of today, the current week is set for a modest drop (sparked thanks to Powell’s unabashedly hawkish presser yesterday), although that may well change depending on what AAPL, AMZN, and META report after the close.

However, one group of investors isn’t sticking around to find out which way the after-hours wind blows, and has quietly taken advantage of the relentless meltup to cash out: in the last week of January, institutional investors pulled out of US stocks at a record-breaking pace, signaling the top may be in for the market for the near future.

According to the latest BofA Securities and Equity Client Flow Trends report (available to pro subs in the usual place), institutional clients, which include mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and banks, had their second-largest selling outflow in data history (since ‘08) and the largest since 2015. The cohort concentrated its selling in tech and consumer discretionary names ahead of this week’s slew of Big Tech earnings reports, which have so far been quite lackluster.

Not everyone was downbeat however: at the same time as institutions were dumping, BofA’s private clients (i.e., high net worth individuals) and hedge funds were buyers.

That said, the bears dominated, and adding across the three groups reveals that BofA clients were net sellers of US equities (-$0.7B) for the first time in three weeks. Clients sold single stocks for the first time in eight weeks vs. bought equity ETFs for the first time in four weeks.

Also, despite last week’s big outflows, institutional clients’ outflows from stocks for the month of January were in-line with what BofA’s desk has seen on average over the last five years.

Elsewhere, while corporate buybacks decelerated they are still tracking above typical levels at this time for an eleventh week in a row. YTD, buybacks as a percentage of S&P 500 market cap (0.29%) are above ’23 highs (0.26%) at this time,

According to BofA’s Jill Carey Hall, while it’s too soon to tell whether the outflow indicates a more cautious stance toward stocks, it does hint that sentiment on equities is cooling after the S&P 500’s recent advances.

Other indicators suggest some investors may be taking a breather after the US benchmark advanced 1.6% last month and hit an all-time high. BofA’s most recent sell side indicator posted a strongly neutral reading — signaling somewhat tepid attitudes toward equities.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg flags, the AAII bull-bear spread dropped to its lowest in two months, with individual investors increasingly noting that they are ‘neutral’ as opposed to bullish on the stock market’s prospects.

More in the full report available to pro subs.

Despite the S&P hitting multiple all-time highs toward the end of the month, January was a mixed month as far as markets were concerned, because as DB’s Henry Allen writes, financial assets saw a fairly divergent performance. On the one hand, economic data kept surprising on the upside for the most part, which meant equities continued their gains from late 2023, and the S&P 500 reached a new all-time high. However, geopolitical concerns have persisted, particularly given attacks from the Houthi rebels on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And sovereign bonds also lost ground as investors dialled back the prospect of rate cuts in Q1, with Fed Chair Powell suggesting that a cut by March was unlikely.

Month in Review – The high-level macro overview

January saw several developments for markets, but an important one was that hopes for a soft landing continued, which meant risk assets kept up their momentum from November and December. For instance, US data surprised on the upside once again, with Q4 growth at annualised rate of +3.3%, whilst the unemployment rate remained at 3.7% in December. That was echoed in various surveys as well, with the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rising to a two-and-a-half year high in January. Likewise in the Euro Area, although growth has been weaker, the single currency area unexpectedly avoided a technical recession in Q4, as GDP was unchanged, rather than contracting by -0.1% as the consensus expected.

That positive momentum helped global equities to advance for the most part, with both the S&P 500 (+1.7%) and Europe’s STOXX 600 (+1.5%) posting a third consecutive monthly gain. However, another continued theme from 2023 was how narrow the equity rally was, since the equal-weighted S&P 500 was actually down -0.8% over the month, continuing to lag the overall index. Moreover, regional bank stocks lost ground after NY Community Bancorp reported a loss on January 31 after raising their expected loan losses on commercial real estate. That meant the KBW Regional Bank Index was down -6.8%, mainly thanks to a -6.0% loss on the final day of the month. In addition, Chinese equities didn’t share in the broader gains amidst concerns about the economic outlook there, with the CSI 300 (-6.3%) losing ground for a 6th consecutive month and closing at a 5-year low.

Another important story was geopolitics, as the strikes from the Houthi rebels on commercial shipping in the Red Sea led to significant supply-chain disruption. And in turn, the US and the UK responded with air strikes against the Houthi rebels. Against that backdrop, oil prices rose again in January after three monthly declines, with Brent Crude up +6.1% to $81.71/bbl. Most notably, freight costs have soared, with Drewry’s World Container Index up to $3,964 per 40ft container as of 25 January. That’s almost triple its levels from late-October, when costs were at a post-pandemic low. Towards the end of the month, a drone attack also killed three US troops in Jordan, which has continued to raise fears about a wider escalation in the region.

In the meantime, sovereign bonds also struggled as central bank officials pushed back on the prospect of Q1 rate cuts. For instance, a rate cut from the Fed by March was fully priced in at the end of 2023, but was down to a 35% likelihood by the end of the month. In part, that followed Fed Chair Powell’s remarks after the January meeting, where he suggested a March cut was unlikely. Likewise at the ECB, the likelihood of a cut by March fell from 65% to 23% over the course of January. So investors are still expecting rate cuts to happen fairly soon, but the confidence about cuts as soon as Q1 has been dialled back. In turn, US Treasuries were down -0.2% by the end of the month, and Euro sovereign bonds were down -0.6%.

January’s Biggest Winners

• DM Equities : Over January as a whole, the S&P 500 (+1.7%) and the STOXX 600 (+1.1%) both advanced in total return terms. However, the advance continued to be a narrow one, with the equal-weighted S&P 500 down -0.8%.
• Oil : The geopolitical backdrop meant that oil prices rose after three consecutive monthly declines, with Brent Crude (+6.1%) and WTI (+5.9%) both posting gains.
• US Dollar : After losing ground in November and December, the Dollar Index strengthened by +1.9% in January, and the US Dollar strengthened against every other G10 currency.

January’s Biggest Losers

• Sovereign Bonds : As investors grew less confident that central banks would cut rates in Q1, sovereign bonds lost ground. US Treasuries ended the month -0.2% lower, and Euro sovereign bonds were down -0.6%.
• EM Assets : It was a difficult month for EM assets, with the MSCI EM index down -4.6%, whilst EM bonds were down -1.2%.

Finally, as DB’s Jim Reid recaps, across the board there were more losers than gainers in January in USD terms, with Brent crude oil (+6.1%) topping the list and the Hang Seng (-9.2% in USD terms) the largest decliner. The S&P 500 (+1.7%) and Nasdaq (+1.0%) eked out gains but the Russell 2000 (-3.9%) was lower. Indeed, most global equity and bond markets were slightly lower in USD terms on the month due to a stronger dollar. Returns in many European markets were slightly positive in local currency terms.

On the last day of the month yesterday, we saw a notable risk-off tone. That was because of a slightly hawkish FOMC versus market expectations (see our econ recap here), as well as the news that New York Community Bancorp (-37.67%) had reported a loss as they raised their expected loan losses on commercial real estate. That meant the KBW Regional Banking Index (-6.00%) saw its largest decline since the regional banking turmoil last March. In addition, Aozora Bank (-21.49%) in Japan reported losses overnight that were also because of US commercial property.