Traditional and conservative Catholics worldwide are stunned and outraged in the wake of another ‘victory’ for the progressive wing of the church, which clearly more influence at the Vatican, a trend which has been very visible throughout Pope Francis’ liberalizing pontificate. 

The Vatican has on Monday issued official approval for Roman Catholic priests and bishops to administer a formal blessing for same-sex couples. 

While the new ruling approves of “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex” it stipulates that “this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them.”

The document further says that priests should do this on a case-by-case basis and “should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing.” Yet it still says that a couple asking for a blessing should not be denied full stop. 

Conservatives fear this just paves the way for eventual approval of rites for gay ‘civic unions’ and that the Vatican is now on a slippery slope, akin to the ultra progressive path taken by the Episcopal Church starting especially in the 1970s and after.

The New York Times in its commentary on the change has noted this does not mark an alteration of how marriage is understood in the Roman Catholic Church, but still points out it marks a big step in furthering the LGTBQ agenda:

Pope Francis has taken one of the most concrete steps in his efforts to make the Roman Catholic Church more welcoming to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics by allowing priests to bless couples in same-sex relationships, the Vatican announced on Monday.

Priests have long blessed a wide variety of people, offering a prayer asking for God’s help and presence. The Vatican had long said it could not bless same-sex couples because it would undermine church doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

The new rule was issued in a declaration by the church’s office on doctrine and introduced by its prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who said that the declaration did not amend “the traditional doctrine of the church about marriage,” because it allowed no liturgical rite that could be confused with the sacrament of marriage.

But confusion is precisely what’s coming, given that the world will very soon behold scenes of large-scale same-sex blessings – which will also likely take on the trappings and ceremonials of weddings (attempts at prohibitions contained in the Vatican document notwithstanding).

Pope Francis enjoys enraging conservative Catholics, it’s his favorite hobby, so be like me and expect nothing more from him and you won’t ever be unpleasantly disappointed

— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) December 18, 2023

As an early case in point, here’s a key quote in the NY Times from a well-known ‘activist priest’:

“This new declaration opens the door to nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples, something that had been previously off-limits for bishops, priests and deacons,” said the Rev. James Martin, a prominent advocate for L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics. “Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.”

German bishops have already long been doing such things, and this move is also being seen by some as an attempt to reign in their actions and find compromise. Controversy had already been raging for years due in large part to these liberal German Catholic bishops. They have bucked official Vatican teaching time and again.

One commentator on religious affairs recently observed of what’s really going on: “We have learned through secular experience that the first move is to allow for something but give it a different name, then give it parity, then define it as equally valid or the same thing, then finally make speaking against it illegal.” And in an similar vein, a prominent Catholic author and commentator Taylor Marshall has called it “weaponized ambiguity”.

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

If it seems to you that the economic headlines that we are being fed by the mainstream media are completely and utterly disconnected from reality, you are definitely not alone. 

They tell us that inflation is under control, but I was just at the grocery store today and I could hardly believe the prices.  They tell us that unemployment is “low”, but large companies are laying off workers in droves.  And they tell us that things are getting better for the middle class, but the truth is that by mid-2024 the vast majority of Americans will have less money than they did in 2019…

The majority of Americans have burned through their excess savings piled up during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the coming months, JPMorgan says it is likely that almost everyone will be worse off financially than they were in 2019.

In a Thursday note, the bank’s top stock strategist Marko Kolanovic said 80% of consumers, a group that accounts for nearly two-thirds of consumption, has already depleted any savings cushion they may have built during lockdowns.

“It is likely that only the top 1% of consumers by income will be better off than before the pandemic,” Kolanovic wrote, pointing to the growing signs of credit card and auto loan delinquencies, as well as Chapter 11 filings.

If almost all of us are getting poorer, how is that good news?

Of course the money that we still have in our bank accounts continues to lose even more value with each passing day.

An absolutely outstanding article that was just posted on Schiff Gold analyzes how much a basket of groceries that Kevin bought in the 1990 movie “Home Alone” would cost today…

Kevin bought a basket full of groceries including a half-gallon of milk, orange juice, Wonder Bread, a Stouffer’s frozen turkey dinner, toilet paper, Snuggle dryer sheets, Tide liquid laundry detergent, plastic wrap, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and a bag of army men. He paid a grand total of $19.83 with a $1 off coupon for the orange juice.

In 2022, that same basket of groceries would have cost around $44.40 based on a shopping trip by a West Virginia mother. That’s a 123.9% increase. (Keep in mind prices vary somewhat depending on the store and location.)

This year, Kevin would have to fork out a whopping $72.28 for his provisions at a Chicago store. That’s another 62.8% increase in just one year. Since 1990, the price of Kevin’s groceries has gone up over 264%.

So how in the world can they possibly claim that inflation is “low”?

It is almost as if we are living in Bizarro World.

At this point, it would cost the typical U.S. household 3.4 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime…

The “American Dream” costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia.

Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found.

Such figures underline the financial pressures that many families face trying to afford a middle-class life as expenses like child care, college tuition and buying a home continue to climb. The Investopedia analysis tallies the average cost of achieving other aspects traditionally associated with the American Dream, such as owning a house and raising two children to age 18.

If you are like most Americans, you are never even going to come close to earning enough money to live a middle class lifestyle.

That is why so many people out there have given up.

In this economic environment, just hanging on to a decent job is an accomplishment.

This week, we learned that General Motors will be laying off approximately 900 employees…

General Motors’ Cruise on Thursday announced internally that it will lay off 900 employees, or 24% of its workforce, the company confirmed to CNBC.

The layoffs, which primarily affected commercial operations and related corporate functions, are the latest turmoil for the robotaxi startup and come one day after Cruise dismissed nine “key leaders” for the company’s response to an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise self-driving car after being struck by another vehicle.

Meanwhile, Ford is cutting production of the F-150 Lightning pickup in half…

Ford Motor will cut planned production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup roughly in half next year, marking a major reversal after the automaker significantly increased plant capacity for the electric vehicle in 2023.

The new production plans call for average volume of around 1,600 F-150 Lightnings a week at Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, starting in January, according to a source familiar with the decision. The automaker most recently planned to produce roughly 3,200 of the vehicles on average per week.

They want us to purchase electric vehicles, but what they don’t tell us is that maintenance and repairs are insanely expensive…

Lucas Turner was driving his 2014 Infiniti hybrid when its check engine light made its annoying appearance on the scene, according to KPHO-TV.

Not good, but with fewer than 70,000 miles on the vehicle, he was not expecting the bill would be a whopper.

Wrong.

“They called me and said, ‘Oh, I’ve got bad news, Mr. Turner. You need a new hybrid battery and it’s going to cost $18,000 for the battery and another $2,000 to have it installed.’

No thank you.

I could never see myself buying an electric vehicle, and there are tens of millions of other Americans that feel the exact same way.

Switching to another industry, Hasbro just announced that it will be laying off more than a thousand workers…

Toy giant Hasbro is laying off more than a thousand workers and closing its office in Providence, Rhode Island.

Why would a toy company be laying off so many workers just before Christmas? Shouldn’t this be a boom time for them? Some people suspect it is directly due to their partnership with Disney, a brand which has become toxic for many Americans in recent years.

People aren’t exactly lining up to buy toys linked to the last Indiana Jones movie or the latest offering of the Marvels, both of which were total duds at the box office.

When a major toy company is laying off workers even before the holiday season is over, that is a really bad sign for the economy.

Of course things in Europe are even worse.

At this point, it appears that Europeans are facing “a continent-wide recession”…

The latest GDP figures show that the eurozone contracted in the third quarter and looks like it will do the same in the last three months of the year falling into a continent-wide recession, Oxford Economics said in a note on December 8.

“Final figures confirmed eurozone GDP contracted 0.1% in the third quarter. What’s more, the detailed breakdown showed the European economy has no engines of growth at the moment. Although private consumption posted a small gain over the previous quarter, the near-term outlook still looks dire, and with both investment and exports unlikely to provide much momentum, the economy looks set to slide into recession in the fourth quarter,” Oxford Economics said.

And on the other side of the globe, we are being told that “China’s banking system is collapsing”…

China’s banking system is collapsing, and the real estate crisis in the country could end up wiping out $4 trillion from its financial system, according to veteran investor Kyle Bass.

In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC on Monday , the Hayman Capital Management CIO pointed to China’s property sector, which has been reeling in recent years as debts from major property owners sour and some firms default on their bonds. The real estate crisis has left enough empty homes in China to house 3 billion people, a former top Chinese official said, and the flood of unused supply will generation huge financial losses in the real estate sector.

So don’t believe the hype.

The mainstream media would like us to believe that 2024 will be a wonderful year for the economy.

But the truth is that economic conditions have already been deteriorating all around us, and I am extremely concerned about what is coming during the year ahead.  I would encourage you to check out my brand new book entitled “Chaos” for a detailed analysis of what is coming in 2024.

We have been propping up our standard of living for years by engaging in the greatest debt binge in the history of the world, but now that bubble has started to burst.

A tremendous amount of discomfort is ahead of us, but the mainstream media will continue to insist that every jolt of pain is simply a bump on the road to endless prosperity.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Don’t let anyone tell you being a guntuber is easy.  US Army veteran Adam Knowles experienced the danger first hand while testing a RPG-7 (Rocket Propelled Grenade) for his Ballistic High-Speed YouTube channel when the device exploded in his face, likely due to the propellant igniting too quickly.  The horrific accident was captured in slow motion video:

Adam from Ballistic High Speed was injured following a catastrophic RPG failure as seen here.

Injuries sustained:
Third degree burns on about 10% of his upper body broken jaw
fractured skull
face and chest lacerations
several pieces of shrapnel in his body
long term nerve… pic.twitter.com/ZiaYgTVJVo

— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) December 17, 2023

Knowles is alive, but sustained multiple injuries including third degree burns on around 10% of his upper body, a broken jaw, a fractured skull, face and chest lacerations, several pieces of shrapnel in his body long term and nerve damage in his face. After treatment he is recovering and has returned to YouTube to view the footage for the first time, recalling the experience of being blown up.

Walking back through the day of the misfire, the YouTubers explained how the shoot consisted of multiple launcher tests, and the RPG-7 happened to be the “final shot of the day.”

Despite running all the usual safety checks and being as cautious as possible, something went wrong during this last fire and in the blink of an eye, Knowles was “on the ground.”

The event has not deterred Knowles from continuing his work at Ballistic High-Speed.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Although the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank’s message regarding interest rate cuts seems clear, reiterating their commitment to reducing inflation, the market is expecting between five and six interest rate cuts, between 125 and 150 basis points, in the next twelve months.

This shows us the bubble bias of many investors. We live in a world where two generations of market participants have only seen rate cuts and massive liquidity injections. Central banks have created huge perverse incentives in markets that should have been prevented if they truly followed their mandate of stable prices. On top of it, the ECB faces another risk. It must avoid following the siren calls of interventionists if it wants the euro project to survive.

The euro is the biggest monetary success of the last 100 years, and the ECB’s excessively loose policy may destroy its position as a world reserve currency. The interventionist hordes of European socialism want the central bank to become an instrument in the hands of governments to nationalize the economy and destroy the currency’s purchasing power.

Don’t be mistaken; for those who come up with soft words demanding “expansive-looking monetary policy,” what they are looking for is exactly what they have supported in Argentina, Venezuela, and Cuba: the expropriation of wealth through the dissolution of the purchasing power of the currency.

It would be completely irresponsible to implement massive rate cuts for several reasons.

Central banks are placing all the focus on the price and not the quantity of money. Ignoring monetary aggregates is very dangerous, and centering decisions only on rates may create a larger problem: a market bubble and a real economy contraction.

By ignoring monetary aggregates, central banks may cut rates with no real effect on the productive economy and solve nothing. There may be a significant contraction in economic activity even if rates decline, as credit availability worsens even with declining rates, but markets keep inflating the financial bubble.

Inflation has not declined persistently. Since the consumer price index is a year-on-year calculation from a very high figure, the base effect accounts for up to 85% of the decline in inflation. The same base effect could adversely affect inflation in the coming months if the annual path of price rises remains.

The greatest economic aberration of our time, negative interest rates, actually made the structural weakness in the economy worse, causing it to slow down.

The economy has been accumulating poor and indebted growth data for years in which misguided so-called “expansive” monetary policies have been implemented. Negative rates and extreme liquidity injection have not generated greater or better growth but have left states with enormous imbalances.

Consumers are still suffering from the monetary disaster created in 2020. We are talking about a cumulative inflation rate of more than 22% since 2018 and a price rise that continues to be worrying, particularly in non-replaceable goods.

Monetary aggregates show that there is a private sector recession disguised by accumulated debt. Between January 2020 and July 2022, the money supply (M2) soared by an insane $6.3 trillion, according to FRED. It has declined almost a trillion dollars from its peak. The impact of this decline in money supply on the availability of credit and the broad economy will not be evident until 2024, when it coincides with an enormous wall of debt maturities. Central banks went from excess money to overlooking the money slump. Both are equally negative. One created the inflation burst, and the second is driving a private sector recession disguised by debt.

Inflation is a monetary effect. What some call cost inflation, commodity inflation, or supply shock is nothing more than more units of issued currency than real economic growth going to relatively scarce assets. Unit prices may rise for exogenous reasons, but they do not generate a sustained and cumulative rise in aggregate prices, which is what measures inflation. If a price soars due to an exogenous factor, the rest of the price does not rise at once if the currency issued remains constant relative to economic growth.

Of course, the system creates a whole series of experts who blame inflation on everything and anyone except for the only thing that can make aggregate prices rise at once, consolidate that annual burst, and continue to rise: the decrease in the purchasing power of the currency.

Those who understand money predict inflation and warn of the current risk. From Steve Hanke’s articles and the Inflation Dashboard that accurately predicted the inflation eruption of 2021–22, Richard Burdekin, “The U.S. Money Explosion of 2020: Monetarism and Inflation” (2020), to Claudio Borio, “Does money growth help explain the recent inflation surge?” (2023), or Juan Castañeda and Tim Congdon, “Inflation, The Next Threat?” (2020), dozens of studies warned of the arrival of inflation by excess monetary and explained the empirically monetary cause. Some argue that in 2009–2019 there was no inflation and money was also printed massively, but they do not understand the quantitative theory of money and ignore that the monetary expansion of 2020–22 was up to five times greater than that of the previous period of stimulus plans, as well as fully dedicated to government spending programs.

If we look at the contraction of monetary aggregates, inflation should have dropped faster, and the economy would be in a recession. However, the accumulated effect of massive money growth added to an unstoppable debt-fueled government deficit makes the impact of the 2020–21 liquidity explosion disguise the risks.

Inflation was created by the wrong monetary policy, and incorrect central bank measures may have lasting negative impacts on the economy. The first effect is evident: governments continue to crowd out the real economy, and families and businesses suffer the entire burden of rate hikes. Maybe the objective was always to increase the size of the public sector at any cost and implement a gradual nationalization of the economy.

Market participants should stop encouraging bubble-generating policies, and central banks should focus on monetary aggregates to avoid boom and bust cycles. The negative effects of the current money slump may arrive at once with the wall of maturities. Even if we avoid a recession, it will likely be a false way out with a debt-bloated government consumption figure, weak productivity, and private sector growth.

On Monday, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) halted freight train activity on two railway bridges connecting Texas and Mexico. Smuggling organizations have rounded up tens of thousands of migrants, if not more, like cattle and packed them on train cars in Mexico as the best mode of transportation to the US southern border. 

Fox News first reported CBP officials suspended operations at the international railway crossing bridges in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas, at 0800 local time Monday. 

“CBP is continuing to surge all available resources to safely process migrants in response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals. After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities.

“Beginning December 18, 2023 at 8:00 AM local time, CBP’s Office of Field Operations will temporarily suspend operations at the international railway crossing bridges in Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody. CBP will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to this evolving situation.

“We continue to adjust our operational plans to maximize enforcement efforts against those noncitizens who do not use lawful pathways or processes such as CBP One™ and those without a legal basis to remain in the United States.

“Over the past several weeks, CBP has made a number of operational adjustments in order to maximize our ability to respond, process, and enforce consequences. In Eagle Pass, vehicular processing remains suspended at Eagle Pass International Bridge 1. In San Diego, California, San Ysidro’s Pedestrian West operations remain suspended. In Lukeville, Arizona, the Lukeville Port of Entry remains closed. Members of the traveling public can check operational status, including Port of Entry wait times here.” -CBP

Readers are all too familiar with pictures and videos on X showing migrants packed on freight trains like cattle. 

Griff Jenkins reports “tens of thousands of migrants” in Mexico 3 hours south of the Piedras Negras border crossing of Texas.

Many migrants are on the train or waiting for the next one.

Most of these people will soon enter the US illegally.pic.twitter.com/ZApFArTj0H

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) December 13, 2023

“After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains …” in broad daylight https://t.co/pfp9Nv5DMe

— Donnie (@OhhDonnie) December 18, 2023

Guanajuato: Another train full of migrants without any background check or processing in Mexico departed this morning. One major route leads to Juarez/El Paso Texas , how do I know they don’t process everyone in Mexico ? 2022 I hired 30 immigrants from Haiti in Mexico None of… pic.twitter.com/sXxPzDPwVC

— A.H.E🇺🇸✝️🧾 (@MAGAglobal) December 18, 2023

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, responded to CBP’s closure of the two railway crossings:

“The crisis at our border is seriously affecting legitimate trade. This year alone, vehicle and rail operations have been suspended at multiple ports of entry due to an overwhelming number of migrants, worsening delays for truck drivers transporting goods and costing our economy millions.”

Cuellar joins a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle, who are absolutely fed up with the Biden administration’s disastrous open southern border policies that have led to an invasion of illegal migrants by the millions. 

Even though Biden officials have promised they’re doing more to secure the border, within the last few weeks, there have been reports of 12,000 migrant encounters in a single day, breaking daily records.

Thousands of single adult men — from Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, and Egypt, along with countries in the Middle East and Asia — are illegally crossing the southern border every single day.

This is the reality of Biden’s border crisis. pic.twitter.com/R4OWaTESCO

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 5, 2023

Credit must be given to Elon Musk for his purchase of X and turning it ‘free’ because if he did not, then three-letter government agencies and leftist purple-hair censorship staff would’ve covered up the border crisis ahead of the election cycle. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Former President Trump’s Georgia attorneys submitted a court filing on Dec. 18 arguing that the former president’s comments were political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

“Every single alleged overt act listed and count charged against President Trump seeks to criminalize content-based, core political speech and expressive conduct,” President Trump’s team wrote.

The former president and more than a dozen other people were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, by District Attorney Fani Willis, who accused them of conspiring to overturn the election in the state.

Several defendants in the case have pleaded guilty in exchange for more lenient punishment, although President Trump and the remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.

On Dec. 18, the former president’s lawyers said that even if the facts that the prosecutors have alleged are true, a judge should dismiss the indictment as a violation of his core First Amendment rights.

“This Court should hold that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, when applied to the core political speech and expressive conduct alleged in the indictment against a President of the United States, demands a pretrial remedy and that remedy is dismissal of the indictment,” the lawyers said.

But Ms. Willis’ case “does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech,” they said. “Instead, it directly targets core protected political speech and activity. For this reason, it is categorically invalid under the First Amendment.”

Ms. Willis has said she is seeking an August trial date for President Trump and the remaining co-defendants, a time frame that would put the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in court defending himself in the months, weeks, and even days leading up to the November general election.

Trump lawyer Steve Sadow has said that if the former president is the nominee, this would be “the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”

Ms. Willis’s team has also said they want to have a single trial for the rest of the defendants. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, has expressed skepticism about the idea of trying too many people at once.

He said earlier this month that even 12 people at once could be a stretch.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have been exchanging evidence. Pretrial motions for most of the defendants are due early next month.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ms. Willis said she believes more of the co-defendants will take plea deals, although she did not elaborate.

Attorney Sidney Powell, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, and bail bondsman Scott Hall have taken plea deals in exchange for guilty pleas.

Last week, Ms. Powell issued a 13-word apology, which was part of the plea agreement. “I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” she wrote.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference at the Fulton County Government Center in Atlanta, Ga. on August 14, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The case is one of four criminal prosecutions brought against President Trump this year, and it has significant overlap with the indictment brought in Washington by Mr. Smith.

Ms. Willis would not say whether her office had been in contact with Mr. Smith, but she seemed to indicate that she had no reason to seek help from him.

“A woman in Georgia is able to get evidence, look at the evidence, and make charging decisions, and we can actually do it all here in the state of Georgia,” said Ms. Willis, a Democrat up for reelection next year.

Trial During Campaign?

During a hearing earlier this month, Mr. Sadow questioned holding a Fulton County trial during the middle of the 2024 campaign.

“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is, in some form or fashion, in a courtroom defending himself?” Mr. Sadow said at the hearing.

He later added, “That would be the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”

Prosecutor Nathan Wade rejected his arguments during the hearing. “This trial does not constitute election interference,” he said, later adding, “This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County.

“I don’t think that it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign or whatever he needs to do in order to seek office.”

Asked by the judge whether President Trump could be tried in 2025 if he were to be elected president next November, Mr. Sadow said he believes that the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause and presidential duties would mean that he could not be tried until he was out of office.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in The Hill on the bizarre scene last week in front of the Capitol when Rep. Eric Swalwell drove up with Hunter Biden and facilitated a flagrant act of contempt of Congress, a federal crime.

Swalwell used his office and presumably his staff to assist in the defiance of a valid subpoena for Hunter to appear before a House committee.

The House will now presumably hold Hunter in contempt and refer the matter for prosecution. The question is what to do with Eric Swalwell.

Here is the column:

This week, millions of people were glued to their televisions as Hunter Biden defied a House subpoena in a press conference with the Capitol building in the background. It was an act of legal self-immolation as the president’s son engaged in flagrant contempt of Congress, a federal crime.

Stranger still was that behind Hunter was standing his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who watched as his client effectively begged to be criminally charged.

But it was a familiar figure behind Lowell that was the most incongruous: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

At first, one had to wonder whether Swalwell had simply wandered by the presser on the way to his office. But the Biden team set up the conference on the Senate side — out of the reach of the House sergeant at arms, who might not have reacted well to an act of open contempt of Congress on his side of the Capitol.

We later learned that Swalwell was not there simply as a pedestrian, but as a participant. It was Swalwell who helped orchestrate the defiance of his own House and facilitated an alleged federal crime.

As first reported by the Washington Examiner, Swalwell used his official position to reserve the space for the press conference and lent his assistance to Hunter in refusing to appear before the House committees investigating his father, President Biden. It was a curious role for a former House impeachment manager to play in assisting in the obstruction of an impeachment inquiry of three House committees.

Of course, Swalwell has argued for the rounding up of anyone who aided and abetted the unlawful conduct during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Indeed, in 2021 Swalwell sponsored a resolution exploring whether dozens of Republican colleagues could be expelled under the 14th Amendment for aiding and abetting an insurrection by “making unsubstantiated claims of systematic election and voter fraud.”

Now, Swalwell was standing in front of the same building aiding and abetting both a potential crime and the obstruction of congressional proceedings.

Hunter was not just committing contempt of Congress; he was parading his contempt with Swalwell as the drum major.

What followed him was contempt on steroids. All Hunter had to do was walk into the building behind him to appear in the deposition and plead the 5th Amendment to refuse to testify, as others have done. The only option he did not have was to refuse to appear.

Swalwell insisted that it was the fault of the House for insisting on a closed-door deposition, which he portrayed as outrageous. It was another hypocritical moment since the Democrats insisted on the same process for witnesses, including those who appeared before the Jan. 6th committee.

It was also how Swalwell and his colleagues handled the investigation of the Ukrainian telephone call by Trump. Indeed, Swalwell participated in closed depositions and then gave interviews after they were held in private.

There are various reasons for closed deposition preceding public hearings.

First, these depositions allow professional staff to conduct questioning in a methodical and professional manner.

In a public hearing, questioning is conducted by members who are often ill-equipped for substantive inquiries.

Second, Hunter must be asked about an array of financial documents and communications involving names and privacy protected information.

In a public hearing, the use of such documents would trigger redactions and interruptions in their use.

Third, these depositions allow for in-depth questioning on transactions and communications.

In a public hearing, members are confined to a five-minute rule that guarantees questioning cannot achieve much, if any, depth. Both Hunter and Swalwell likely knew that, and that is precisely why they wanted a public hearing. Notably, after saying that he wanted to answer all questions in public, Hunter then refused to answer any questions in public put forward by the press.

The fourth and most important reason for the deposition is that the House wants it this way. Witnesses, even a president’s son, do not get to choose how or when they appear.

Two Trump associates – Steven Bannon and Peter Navarro – refused to appear in the House and were quickly held in contempt by a majority of the House, including Swalwell.

Indeed, President Biden himself has maintained that defying subpoenas cannot be tolerated. When subpoenas were issued to Republicans during the House’s Jan. 6 investigation, Biden declared: “I hope that the committee goes after them and holds them accountable criminally.”

The Justice Department clearly agreed. Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, Bannon went from a failure to appear to an actual indictment in just two months.

It also does not matter that the House formally approved the impeachment inquiry only after Hunter’s press conference. As I testified in the first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing, there is no requirement of a formal vote. Indeed, the Democrats did not initially hold a formal vote in their own impeachment of Trump. Hunter’s subpoena was issued by two committees with inherent subpoena authority under three different House rules, including the authority given to the House Oversight Committee.

It was a valid subpoena.

The question is not whether Hunter Biden can be held in contempt; of course he can. The question is what to do with Eric Swalwell.

Swalwell has long courted controversy. Republicans tossed him off the House Intelligence Committee due to his purported affair with an alleged Chinese spy named Fang Fang.

This is different. Swalwell was not charged in the Chinese affair, including by the House Ethics Committee. This was a criminal act directed against the House itself.

Recently, the House censored Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) for pulling a fire alarm before a major vote. Here Swalwell played a key role in obstructing a major House investigation. Where Bowman’s offense was treated as a misdemeanor, Hunter’s offense is a felony.

Swalwell did not simply facilitate a crime, he went out of his way to associate himself with it.

Swalwell surely knew that he was helping Hunter in defying a subpoena and obstructing the investigation into Joe Biden. He not only helped set up the press conference but made sure that he was in the camera frame behind Hunter for every network audience. He presumably utilized congressional staff to assist in this effort.

In taking these actions, Swalwell encouraged and facilitated the contempt of Congress. While his conduct may not warrant a criminal charge, it certainly warrants action from the House.

The issue is whether the House has a right to demand answers in this investigation. One member was particularly passionate in 2018 in calling for contempt sanctions against Steve Bannon: “If they don’t force him to answer legitimate questions, they will be ceding Congress’ authority, and we’ll be setting a very, very dangerous precedent that people can just tell Congress what they will and will not answer, and will show no resolve to use our subpoena power to get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

That was Eric Swalwell.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is the latest high-ranking US official to visit Israel on Monday, where he’ll get a closer assessment from Israeli counterparts on how Gaza operations are going – but importantly he’s expected to convey a message of restraint as global pressure on both Tel Aviv and Washington intensifies.

Earlier this month he was among the first most visible officials in the Biden administration to issue rare, surprising criticism of Israel, which has long been America’s closest ally in the Middle East. “You know, I learned a thing or two about urban warfare from my time fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign to defeat ISIS,” he said in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. “The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians.” He raised eyebrows by then saying Israel faces a “strategic defeat” if it doesn’t reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. 

“The center of gravity is the civilian population and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said. “We will continue to press Israel to protect civilians and to ensure the robust flow of humanitarian aid.”

Some Republican hawks had seized on the comments, suggesting they show that President Biden’s support and commitment to Israel is weak. Soon after the speech Senator Lindsey Graham blasted Austin’s words as “naïve” and said “I’ve just lost all confidence in this guy.”

Another indicator of what Austin’s messaging is expected to be was seen last week when national security advisor Jake Sullivan while in Israel said the IDF needs to wrap of the current “high intensity” phase of its offensive “within weeks”. 

Sullivan reportedly went so far as to express that the US desires for this phase to stop by year’s end, which is only two weeks away. “A second Israeli official says the US has pushed for the current phase to wrap up by the end of 2023,” according to the Times of Israel. The US wants a “major roll back” in fighting within that period, an Israeli source was cited as saying.

The US and Israel continue to remain publicly at odds over the “day after” Hamas in Gaza. Both agree that Hamas needs to be eradicated and should never return to rule the Gaza Strip again, but the Biden administration has vocalized it wants to see a future Palestinian Authority (PA) administration in the Strip, while Netanyahu has rejected this.

Meanwhile, following the ‘friendly fire’ incident where Israeli ground forces shot and killed three Israeli hostages who were trying to escape, attempts to jump-start negotiations again are in full swing.

“Mossad chief David Barnea was expected to meet with CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Warsaw to discuss efforts to reach a new hostage deal with Hamas, according to multiple reports in the Hebrew press Monday,” according to regional media.

The “latest satellite analysis finds that almost 43,000 buildings in Gaza (16% of the total) have been damaged and that at least 450,000 people (20% of the population) are now homeless.” https://t.co/8lnog2PDs6

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) December 17, 2023

Efforts at reviving negotiations with an aim toward freeing more hostages is also being driven by domestic pressure in Israel, with relatives of captives demanding that more be done. Al Jazeera comments as follows: 

The reported meeting between the CIA chief, Qatar’s prime minister and the head of the Mossad comes due to “a lot of the Israeli public pressure as well as American pressure”, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says.

“The United States would want to see a movement on the aspect of the captives, maybe before Christmas,” he said, adding that CIA Director Bill Burns’s involvement added “new weight” to the situation.

“The Americans don’t want to leave it to the Israelis because they apparently don’t trust the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government with changing direction,” Bishara said.

Indeed this seems the consistent message coming from the Biden White House over the course of the past week, also as the death toll in Gaza soars. Palestinian sources have said over 19,000 mostly civilians have been killed.

“Close to 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 70% of them women and children, according to the territory’s health officials,” writes NBC. “The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half face starvation, according to human rights advocates and aid groups.”

Via SchiffGold.com,

After the Federal Reserve effectively surrendered to inflation at its December meeting, projecting three rate cuts next year, New York Fed President John Williams tried to walk the surrender back. In his podcast, Peter Schiff analyzed Williams’ more hawkish comments and compared them to Powell’s dovish stance after the FOMC meeting.

Williams said, “We aren’t really talking about rate cuts right now,” and that it’s premature to expect rates to fall in the opening months of 2024.

We’re very focused on the question in front of us, which as chair Powell said… is, have we gotten monetary policy to sufficiently restrictive stance in order to ensure the inflation comes back down to 2%? That’s the question in front of us.”

Williams tried to pivot back to the “data-dependent” mantra.

It is looking like we are at or near that in terms of sufficiently restrictive, but things can change. One thing we’ve learned even over the past year is that the data can move and in surprising ways, we need to be ready to move to tighten the policy further, if the progress of inflation were to stall or reverse.”

Gold had rallied to close to $2,050 before Williams’ open-mouth operations. After his comment, gold dropped, closing around $2,019 on Friday.

Peter said Williams’ comments were “kind of a shock.”

Two days after Powell talked so much about rate cuts, to have another FOMC member saying we’re not even talking about rate cuts. Well, what the hell just happened during the press conference?”

In effect, Williams tried to put rate cuts on the back burner.

Powell moved them to the front of the stove on Wednesday. So, he’s now pushing them back, saying, ‘No, No! We’re still focused on inflation and whether or not we’ve whipped its butt, and if our policy is still tight enough or if we have to tighten some more.’ This caught a lot of people off guard.”

Peter said investors who started second-guessing positions they took after the Fed meeting likely drove the drop in the price of gold. But he said he doesn’t read a lot of significance into Williams’ comments. Peter said he didn’t think Williams was trying to do “damage control,” but was just trying to temper the optimism.

I think maybe after Powell really saw the reaction in the markets to his statement, he thought maybe we ought to backtrack a little and maybe send out a bad cop, because, you know, Powell is the good cop giving the markets what they want – rate cuts. And now we have this bad cop that can say, ‘Maybe not so fast. Maybe we’re not going to have those rate cuts,’ trying to restrain the enthusiasm and the try to slow down the markets front-running those rate cuts.”

Peter said he doesn’t think any of the Fed officials go out and talk completely off the cuff.

So, I think he was sent out there to kind of push back a little bit, but I don’t think that indicates that what Powell said on Wednesday has been negated. No, no, no. I think a lot of thought went into those FOMC minutes, and the press conference and the Q&A.”

And regardless of what Williams said, Peter said he thinks “it’s clear” the Fed is done hiking interest rates.

Now, they want to pretend they’re still data-dependent on inflation. But if they really were data-dependent, the data doesn’t support cuts that they’re talking about. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the data still argues for more hikes. So, they’re not really data-dependent, but they can’t let that cat out of the bag. They still have to get the markets thinking that they’re vigilant and they’re on the job, and that if they do see some inflation, why, they’re willing and ready to hike rates. But they’ve indicated they’re not going to do that.”

The dot plots support Peter’s contention. If the FOMC wasn’t planning for rate cuts, the dot plots wouldn’t show falling interest rates.

The Fed funds rate doesn’t just arbitrarily move around. The only way the Fed funds rate will be as low as the FOMC members believe it will be a year from now, two years from now, is if they in fact vote to reduce the rate.”

Nevertheless, Peter said he isn’t certain the Fed will be able to deliver cuts as deep as projected because of dollar weakness.

If the markets start marking down the dollar in advance of the first rate cut, that actually makes it harder for the Fed to cut. … If the Fed cuts rates into a weakening dollar, it will just accelerate that weakness.”

Regardless, Peter said he thinks Powell’s comments after the FOMC meeting were far more significant than what John Williams said on Friday.

Amid further attacks and reroutings…

Suez update: 46 container ships now have diverted around the Cape of Good Hope rather than transiting the Red Sea. pic.twitter.com/4zaTXn3LO1

— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) December 18, 2023

…we look at the true scale of the Houthi attacks on MidEast tankers.

Oil prices are rising…

And given the extreme positioning in managed money…

And CTAs swinging short…

We suspect the market is underestimating the impact that S&P Global’s Jennifer Gnana, Kelly Norways, and Mohammed Al-ansare detail below,

• Cape transport option adds 40% to voyage distance

• Houthis targeting tankers, container, cargo shipping

• Container rates rise to 2023 high

Major shipping companies paused transiting the Middle East’s critical Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint for seaborne trade Dec. 15 after repeated attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants threatened to upend global trade flows.

Danish shipping giant A.P Moller-Maersk — which accounts for 15% of the global container freight market — suspended voyages passing through the Bab al-Mandeb until further notice. Hapag-Lloyd — which controls 7% of the container market — also paused traffic through the Red Sea until at least Dec. 18 after one of its ships was attacked by Houthis.

Hapag-Lloyd’s Liberia-flagged Al Jasrah containership caught fire in the Red Sea on Dec. 15 after being hit by a missile from Houthi rebels in Yemen. The attack came a day after the Houthis attacked the Maersk ship Gibraltar on Dec 14 in a near-miss by a cruise missile.

The suspensions are the latest sign major ship charterers who in recent weeks have deployed armed guards to safeguard transit through Bab al-Mandeb are beginning to reconsider using the narrow strait through which 10% of global seaborne oil flows.

The Houthis have threatened to attack any ships with Israeli ownership or bound for one of the country’s ports. As a result, all commercial ships have come under attack, from car carriers to tankers and dry bulkers, including many with no obvious connection to Israeli trade.

“The pattern I see [in the] last few days is more attacks on all these container line big boys like MSC, Maersk, NYK Line, Hapag-Lloyd. If you scare them, then you stop hundreds of their ships,” Luv Menghani, a shipbroker with Dubai-based BluePeak Commodities and Shipping, said.

Maersk’s instruction to its ships to avoid the Red Sea “suggests an escalation in the response to the Houthi attacks,” Gregory Brew, an analyst with Eurasia Group, said.

“Yesterday’s attacks suggest the Houthis are broadening their attacks are becoming more indiscriminate, rather than focusing just on ships owned by Israeli companies or bound for Israeli ports,” he added.

Trade Flows

The 20-mile-wide Bab al-Mandeb — which lies between the Horn of Africa and Gulf peninsula — connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. It accounted for 8.8 million b/d of total oil flows in the first half of 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration. LNG shipments through the strait were 4.1 billion cf/d during the same period, EIA data showed.

The suspension of the Red Sea route by the two shipping companies followed a notice to their fleets on Dec. 14 to use the longer Cape of Good Hope as an option, a move that adds 40% to the voyage distance.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East had already caused some carriers in the past few weeks to avoid the Suez Canal in the interest of security, with the accumulation of attacks from Yemeni rebels leading liner companies to re-route ships via the Cape of Good Hope (CGH) to avoid hostilities impacting container ship traffic in the Red Sea.

According to live AIS data tracking from S&P Global Commodities at Sea, Eastbound vessels MSC Diana and Zenith Lumos have traveled via the Cape of Good Hope as of Dec. 12, having trans-shipped in Tangier and Algeciras respectively.

On Westbound trade, the Maersk Camden, Maersk Campton and MSC Virgo have all diverted via the CGH, despite recent historical vessel tracking showing previous movements have been through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

With the Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announcement, other carriers could be primed to follow suit in making public their stance against further Red Sea shipments whilst the situation is still volatile.

“Despite the complications it would cause with our shippers in terms of delivery and transit times, what is most important is the dialogue we have with our crew in our ships,” a carrier source told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

War risk

Freight forwarders are also increasing rates on shipments. For example, a container bound for the Middle East will now attract a war risk surcharge of $100/teu on dry and reefer cargo, according to a document seen by S&P Global.

Several carriers have begun to accrue war risk surcharges on passages through the Red Sea. Zim Integrated Shipping Services (Zim) — an Israeli carrier based in Haifa — has increased freight rates on its Asia-Mediterranean service to cover the rising costs of securing its vessels.

Container rates for key shipping lanes from North Asia westbound will likely be given increased support should more carriers follow suit. An estimated additional 10-15 days for delivery times could be seen in the market, stripping out already weak supply due to carriers pursuing aggressive blank sailing strategies in the build-up to the Lunar New Year period where demand increases.

Container rates for shipments from North Asia to the UK — a route which uses the Red Sea and Suez Canal — have hit record highs for 2023, according to assessments by S&P Global Platts.

The recent surge in attacks on the oil product tanker and container vessels moved the needle on oil prices. Platts-assessed Dated Brent up at $77.085/b on Dec. 15, up just under 1% on week.

Vandana Hari, founder of Singapore-based Vanda Insights said “shipping will often be the canary in the coalmine” with geopolitical tensions set to remain center-stage for 2024.

LPG flows

The threat to shipping has also impacted charterers bound on shorter routes for Yemen.

Sources told S&P Global that ship charterers contracted to deliver liquefied petroleum gas to Yemen — which has increased shipments of the fuel — are reluctant to set sail due to fear of attack.

For example, an LPG vessel carrying a 44,000-ton cargo bound for Yemen and chartered by a Dubai-based company recently refused to set sail amid safety concerns from the crew, said the sources.

The crew’s refusal to sail to Yemen comes amid an uptick in LPG buying by the war-torn country. Yemen received 46,000 tons of LPG in December, entirely from Iran, according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea. The LPG import is nearly double the volume of the last shipment Yemen received in July, shipping data showed.

With the latest escalation, tanker rates for Yemen are also rising, a shipbroking source said.

“One vessel below 15,000-ton dead weight, old built, transporting gasoline from the UAE to Hodeidah in Yemen used to charge $12,000-$13,000 per day. Now they charge $16,000-$17,000 per day,” said the source.

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[ZH: How long before Zoltan Poszar’s prediction of central-bank-analogized ‘military protection’ becomes a reality]

Protection is a conceptual counterpart to par. When you decide to take money out of a sight deposit, you expect the same amount back that you put in (par).

When you sail foreign cargo from port A to port B, you expect to unload the same amount of cargo that you onloaded.

Banks can deliver par on deposits most of the time. When not, central banks step in to help.

Commodity traders can deliver foreign cargo from port A to port B most of the time, but when not, the state intervenes again: not the monetary arm, but the military arm of the state.

What central banks are to the protection of par promises, the military branch is to the protection of shipments: foreign cargo needs to sail on sea routes and through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz, and “par” in this context means being able to sail from here to there freely, safely, and without undue delays…

Read more here…