As the 2024 U.S. election cycle kicks into gear, Citigroup ponders the potential fiscal implications under different election outcomes.

Perhaps most interesting is their prediction of a high likelihood of Republicans gaining control of the Senate, although falling short of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority​​. This, however, does not guarantee smooth sailing for the GOP. With the Democrats’ current grip on the Senate (51-49), Republicans would need to not only retain competitive seats but also snatch at least one from key states like Florida or Texas​​.

According to Citi, the Senate will flip republican: “Democrats currently control the Senate 51-49. But Senator Manchin’s decision not to compete for his seat in West Virginia means that state is very likely to go to Republicans.” pic.twitter.com/pgc19h4lGX

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 5, 2023

House Dynamics: Democrats’ Favorable Map

According to the report, Democrats are in a favorable position when it comes to regaining control of the House – needing to net just five seats. This contrasts with the 16 Republican districts classified as “toss-ups,” implying yet another shakeup which would cast all sorts of GOP investigations into disarray.

Presidential Race: Trump’s Lead and Third-Party Wildcards

Donald Trump’s enormous lead over the GOP field means he’s almost guaranteed the Republican nomination, absent​. That said, the presence of a third-party candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could throw a wrench in the works (theories on just who RFK Jr.’s run will most negatively affect vary). Although his current impact seems neutral, pulling votes from both Trump and Biden, his influence cannot be ignored​.

Trump is currently smoking the entire GOP lineup, and has recently overtaken President Biden in hypothetical match-ups.

Fiscal Policy: A Divided Government’s Dilemma

According to Citi, under two of the three most likely election outcomes, the U.S. would see a split legislature. This division would mean further gridlock, with bipartisan cooperation required to pass any fiscal legislation – a feat that has proven challenging in recent times​​. Potential areas of agreement could include defense and infrastructure spending, as well as industrial policy through legislated subsidies, similar to those in the bipartisan CHIPS Act​.

“Red Wave” Scenario: Tax Cuts and Deficit Concerns

Should a “red wave” occur, giving Republicans control of both the presidency and the legislature, Citi believes that the reconciliation process to brute-force policy could be a game-changer. It would allow the GOP to pass legislation on taxes, spending, and the debt limit with just a simple Senate majority.

Another likely outcome of a red wave would be the likely renewal of Trump-era individual tax cuts, which could significantly increase the deficit​.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, if Trump’s 2017 Tax Act provisions are extended, it would increase the deficit by $134 billion in 2026 and $346 billion in 2027.

Even in a divided government, some of the Trump tax cuts could be extended, which Congress did in 2011 in a bipartisan vote to extend Bush-era tax policies.

Fiscal Restraint Amid Growing Deficits

Citi’s analysis also emphasizes an increased focus on fiscal restraint due to growing deficits, which could be larger than anticipated in 2023. According to the report, “The 2024 deficit is boosted in part because of automatic stabilizers that would kick in during a recession.”

With deficits projected to remain elevated in 2024 and 2025, there will likely be a reduced appetite for additional fiscal stimulus, especially in an election year with ongoing concerns about inflation​

The key takeaway? Brace for uncertainty and keep a close eye on the evolving political landscape.

Authored by Aaron Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., expressed concern about the potential invasion of Taiwan by communist China, stating that Americans “should be worried.”

When asked about the possibility of such an invasion during an interview at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Dec. 2, Gen. Brown pointed to Hong Kong as an example, stating: “Just think about what happened in Hong Kong. … We all should be worried whether it’s going to happen or not. And part of the reason why deterrence is so important is so that conflict does not occur.”

Since Beijing enacted the national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, the city has seen a significant erosion of the freedoms promised by the Chinese communist regime when the former British territory was handed over to the mainland in 1997. Authorities have suppressed protests, imprisoned pro-democracy activists, and banned gatherings, including the annual Tiananmen Square massacre vigil.

Gen. Brown also said that Beijing is putting pressure on Taiwan and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region for “their own gain.”

His remarks align with the recent findings of the Reagan National Defense Survey that host Shannon Bream presented during the interview, in which 73 percent of respondents said they were somewhat concerned about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

The survey found that a growing number of Americans support Taiwan, with 46 percent in favor of sending U.S. forces to defend the self-ruled democratic island if invaded, up from 39 percent in 2019. To deter the possibility of Chinese invasion, 60 percent of Americans supported increasing the presence of U.S. troops near the island.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up pressure against Taiwan in recent years, consistently deploying military aircraft and vessels close to the island on an almost daily basis, aiming to erode Taipei’s defenses.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to achieve the “reunification” of Taiwan, which the CCP has never ruled. He has explicitly stated his willingness to use force to achieve this goal.

China’s ‘Internal Challenges’

Earlier this year, CIA Director William Burns said that U.S. intelligence was aware that Xi directed the Chinese military to be ready for an invasion by 2027. While the timeline may not represent an actual invasion, it shows Xi’s determination to achieve this goal. Last year, top Pentagon officials warned a possible war across the Taiwan Strait could happen by 2024.

However, China’s economic slowdown could make it difficult for the regime to launch an attack on Taiwan, and the timeline may be delayed further. In September, during a visit to Vietnam, President Joe Biden said that China’s “difficult economic problem” makes it unlikely for the regime “to invade Taiwan. And [as a] matter of fact, the opposite—it probably doesn’t have the same capacity that it had before.”

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen expressed the same views during an interview with The New York Times that was broadcast at the DealBook Summit on Nov. 29. “I think the Chinese leadership at this juncture is overwhelmed by its internal challenges,” she said. “And my thought is that perhaps this is not a time for them to consider a major invasion of Taiwan.”

In an interview with Bloomberg in September, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that due to the Russian economy being hit by sanctions from the West for its invasion of Ukraine, China’s timetable for a war with Taiwan might be pushed back. She said that before the Russia–Ukraine war, Xi had wanted to invade the island within two or three years.

In September, two senior officials from the Defense Department told Congress that the Chinese regime would likely fail if its military attempted to blockade Taiwan. Army Maj. Gen. Joseph McGee noted at the hearing that it would be “absolutely nothing easy” for the regime to invade Taiwan. He said that a frontal attack, a surprise attack, or a combined amphibious and air attack would all be very challenging for the Chinese military due to the long distance across the strait, the terrain of Taiwan, and the large numbers of troops needed to deploy for such a large-scale attack.

According to a wargame report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) earlier this year, China would be defeated in a conventional amphibious invasion of Taiwan. However, the victory would come at a cost to the U.S. Navy and Taiwan’s economy.

CSIS noted that the Chinese regime lost the hypothetical war heavily, which “might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule.”

Even in winning the battle, “the United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of service members. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years,” the report said.

CCP Could Be Preparing for War

In an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in July, Kyle Bass, a hedge fund manager and a China expert, warned that the Chinese regime is ramping up its preparation for an upcoming war.

Mr. Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, said he noticed many indicators are “headed in one direction,” indicating that Xi will likely invade Taiwan soon.

These indicators include Xi having made multiple key orders and speeches calling for war preparation and “struggle” against “hostile forces.”

Mr. Bass noted a series of financial measures made by Xi to prevent China’s economy from being hit by U.S. sanctions. These include ordering Chinese banks to assess the risk of “severe U.S. sanctions,” letting offshore dollar bond defaults, and increasing gold holdings while reducing U.S. treasuries, among others.

“U.S. capital markets are the deepest, most liquid markets in the world and also currently have the highest interest rates in the developed world. China would be expected to be buying U.S. Treasury bills and bonds with said surpluses,” Mr. Bass said. “Instead, they have been selling.”

Furthermore, he pointed out that China has accelerated its purchase of natural resources and energy, which has increased significantly. This has positioned China as the world’s leading importer of crude oil, accompanied by a substantial increase in grain stockpile reserves.

Mr. Bass said that the CCP is going to seize Taiwan because it believes China is “strong enough now to withstand U.S. sanctions.”

Harvard University has issued a statement on Wednesday in a furious attempt at damage control, after President Claudine Gay refused to condemn students calling for the genocide of Jews.

During Tuesday testimony in front of the US House Education and the Workforce Committee, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a Harvard grad, asked the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates their schools’ code of conduct or constitutes bullying or harassment, referring to calls for “intifada” chanted during several school protests.

🚨🚨🚨Presidents of @Harvard @MIT and @Penn REFUSE to say whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” is bullying and harassment according to their codes of conduct. Even going so far to say it needs to turn to “action” first. As in committing genocide.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND… pic.twitter.com/hUY3SgoOOi

— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) December 5, 2023

In response, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said that they would be “investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe,” while Penn’s Liz Magill said “it is a context-dependent decision” that could be considered harassment “if the speech becomes conduct.”

Harvard’s Gay echoed Magill, saying that it depends on context, such as being “targeted at an individual.”

Major donors rage

In response to the comments, activist investor and Harvard alum Bill Ackman said “They must all resign in disgrace,” adding “if a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour.”

The presidents of @Harvard, @MIT, and @Penn were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?

The… pic.twitter.com/eVlPCHMcVZ

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 5, 2023

“There’s certain speech that is certainly permissible under the First Amendment,” Ackman later told The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV. “People can be critical of Israel, the Israeli government. But, sadly, there are kids who have been spat on or been roughed up, or have been harassed, or antisemitic statements have been put on Slack message boards on campus.”

Billionaire Dan Loeb also weighed in – saying in reply to Ackman: “The cowardly and unprincipled responses show them each to be unfit to lead.”

Meanwhile, Penn alumnus and founder of AQR Capital Management Clif Asness said “I wish I could quit giving twice,” in a post on X, adding “This is just insane. Insane.”

This is just insane. Insane. The presidents are flat out evil and deeply mediocre. They aren’t even good at hiding their evil. Maybe they just don’t care.

I wish I could quit giving twice. https://t.co/w68yTcS8S1

— Clifford Asness (@CliffordAsness) December 6, 2023

“Let me be clear”

In response to the outrage, Gay said that “There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” adding “Let me be clear (as if it’s our fault for understanding her galaxy brain statements on Tuesday): Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”

Statement from President Gay: There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic…

— Harvard University (@Harvard) December 6, 2023

Why not just say that during testimony, Gay?

We got a “let me completely clear” the other day which was a nice variation https://t.co/fTsfBtupUd

— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) December 6, 2023

As a professor who favors free speech on campus, I can sympathize with the “nuanced” answers given by U. presidents yesterday, about whether calls to attack or wipe out Israel violate campus speech policies.

What offends me is that since 2015, universities have been so quick to… https://t.co/ID6PlSeXDN

— Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt) December 6, 2023

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The House on Tuesday passed a resolution that says “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” the chamber’s latest piece of legislation conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The resolution, which is presented as a resolution condemning antisemitism, passed in a vote of 314-14-92. Only thirteen Democrats and one Republican voted against the legislation, while 92 Democrats voted “present” in protest of a line buried in the bill that explicitly claims anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

The Republican-drafted resolution declares that the House of Representatives “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the most senior Jewish member of the House, criticized the language of the bill ahead of the vote. “The resolution suggests that ALL anti-Zionism is antisemitism. That is either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong. And it unfairly implicates many of my orthodox former constituents in Brooklyn, many of whose families rose from the ashes of the Holocaust,” he said.

Nadler claimed that “most anti-Zionism is antisemitism” but added that if authors of the bill “were at all familiar with Jewish history and culture, should know about Jewish anti-Zionism that was, and is, expressly NOT antisemitic.”

“This resolution ignores the fact that even today, certain orthodox Hasidic Jewish communities—the Satmars in New York and others—as well as adherents of the pre-state Jewish labor movement have held views that are at odds with the modern Zionist conception,” he said.

“There are over 200 synagogues in our community that officially disavow Zionism”.

Greater Brooklyn boasts even more than that.

Guess what, we are all antisemites according to the ‘Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism’ resolution in Congress…

Tragicomedy pic.twitter.com/SEsP0ZMUCg

— Torah Jews (@TorahJews) December 5, 2023

While coming out strongly against the language, Nadler voted “present” instead of “no.” The thirteen Democrats who voted against the bill include Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), Jesús García (D-IL), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only Republican to vote against the bill. Last week, he was the lone member of Congress to vote against a resolution that claimed “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism.”

Massie and Schumer sparred on X in the aftermath…

If only you cared half as much about our border as you do my tweets. https://t.co/8lj2gheBRL

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 5, 2023

Schumer accused the rep. from Kentucky of posting an “antisemitic” meme and demanded that he remove it…

Rep. Massie, you’re a sitting Member of Congress.

This is antisemitic, disgusting, dangerous, and exactly the type of thing I was talking about in my Senate address.

Take this down. https://t.co/jVX0NMdISI

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) December 5, 2023

Explaining his opposition, Massie said the resolution also equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism, although not as explicitly as the bill passed on Tuesday.

Update (1810ET): Nope…

On Wednesday President Joe Biden suggested that if Congress doesn’t send Ukraine more money, now, it may ’embolden’ Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade a NATO ally, which would precipitate “American troops fighting Russian troops.”

The threat was not persuasive.

In response, Senate Republicans channeled Elon Musk (G…F…Y…), blocking Biden’s $111 emergency supplemental package that would also include aid for Israel, humanitarian aid for Gaza, and a smattering of border funding.

The Senate voted 49-51, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold required to allow the proposal to come up for consideration. Notably, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted against the measure, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) flipped his vote to ‘no’ to preserve the option of revisiting the bill at a later date.

rare Republican win pic.twitter.com/O6FhxEUetn

— Curt Mills (@CurtMills) December 6, 2023

*  *  *

President Joe Biden has raised the possibility of “American troops fighting Russian troops” in a speech urging Congress to put aside “petty, partisan, angry politics” which is holding up his multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine. He said that he’s willing to make “significant compromises” with Republicans but that it’s they who’ve been unwilling to back down from their “extreme” demands. 

“This cannot wait,” Biden stressed in the televised remarks from the White House. “Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. Simple as that. Frankly, I think it’s stunning that we’ve gotten to this point in the first place. Republicans in Congress are willing to give Putin the greatest gift he can hope for and abandon our global leadership.”

Breaking: Biden raises the possibility of World War 3 with “American troops fighting Russian troops”. To be clear a war between two nuclear powers is guaranteed to end with nuclear war. Didn’t the Democrats insist that Trump would start World War 3? pic.twitter.com/LNYVsdSmZI

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 6, 2023

“I’m willing to make significant compromises on the border. We need to fix the broken border system. It is broken. And thus far I’ve gotten no response,” Biden pleaded. He made the speech after speaking with G7 leaders, who are reportedly alarmed that US funding to Ukraine is set to run dry in a mere three weeks.

“If we walk away, how many of our European friends are going to continue to fund and at what rates are they going to continue to fund?” he posed.

And that’s when the fear-mongering really kicked into overdrive. He went so far as to say that if Ukraine’s defense isn’t funded, this will lead to the country being steamrolled by the Russian military machine, and an emboldened Putin will then seek to gobble up more territory. Here’s what the US president said, as reported in The New York Times: 

The president even raised the prospect that an emboldened Mr. Putin would pose a threat to NATO allies, requiring the United States to come to their assistance with troops on the group. “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s important to see the long run here. He’s going to keep going. He’s made their pretty clear.”

“If he keeps going and then he attacks a NATO ally” to which the United States is bound by treaty to help, “then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today — American troops fighting Russian troops,” Mr. Biden said.

“Make no mistake,” he added. “Today’s vote is going to be long remembered and history’s going to judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom’s cause. We can’t let Putin win. I’ll say it again, we can’t let Putin win.”

Of course, this shaky “logic” is the opposite of reality. It is the nearly two years of ‘blank check’ spending which has only served to ever-deepen American military involvement in the war, and this is what has gotten Washington into yet another foreign quagmire. 

The soon to emerge narrative will also inevitably be that these hold-out Republicans “lost” the Ukraine war, as Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has already been saying. The MSM will also help the administration float this as a key 2024 election talking point… wait for it to be on an endless CNN/NPR loop headed into next November.

It was no mere awkward fist bump, but instead Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reception in Riyadh Wednesday was clearly very warm and enthusiastic.

From the moment Putin walked out onto a royal purple carpet-bedecked airport tarmac to later being officially greeted by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), it was chummy handshakes, back slaps and smiles all the way around. 

“Nothing can prevent the development of our friendly relations,” Putin told MbS, and invited him to visit Moscow in return.

“It is very important for all of us to exchange information and assessments with you on what is happening in the region. Our meeting is certainly timely,” Putin said.

Below is the moment of Putin’s being received and welcomed by a glowing MbS, ironically at the very moment President Biden gave a White House speech bemoaning the inability of Congress to pass Ukraine defense funding, which runs out in three weeks…

#Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman meets with #Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin – they seem quite friendly pic.twitter.com/uYTlqDPit5

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) December 6, 2023

As Deutsche Welle reviews, the discussions likely centered on the planned OPEC+ output cuts and the Gaza War and regional crisis in the wake of the Oct.7 Hamas attack:

The Kremlin said talks in Saudi Arabia would involve discussions on energy cooperation, including as part of OPEC+, whose members pump more than 40% of the world’s oil.

Other items on the agenda include Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the situation in Syria and Yemen, and broader issues of stability in the Gulf, as well as the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

Prior to his arrival in Saudi Arabia, Putin’s visit to neighboring UAE also had much fanfare. This is a man still under a Hague-based ICC warrant — but you would never guess it based on the below impressive state reception…

CNN NARRATOR: Putin, leader of the isolated pariah state Russia, was received by the UAE with little fanfare. pic.twitter.com/Bmsih4KkCS

— Chebureki Man (@CheburekiMan) December 6, 2023

He had met with the President of the United Arab Emirates Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan—with the Israel-Hamas war high on the agenda. Of course, neither Gulf leaders have signed the founding ICC treaty, and their warm embrace of Putin is sure to greatly annoy Washington and European leaders.

Meanwhile, to make matters worse from the West’s perspective and its apparently failed and blunted sanctions on Moscow…

Moscow’s monthly income from oil exports is greater now than before the invasion of Ukraine. Will that force the US to tighten its restrictions on the trade? https://t.co/DtYz8OLbHK

— Bloomberg (@business) December 6, 2023

Was Wednesday’s very brief Middle East tour by Putin for the purpose of doing a victory lap? Biden might be able to console himself with the current state of cheaper oil markets for the time being, but one wonders how long that will last.

Following bombshell censorship revelations exposed over the last year, beginning with the Twitter Files, the state of Texas, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist have filed a lawsuit against the US State Department on Tuesday, alleging that the government agency funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets which have disfavored political opinions.  Read the 67-page complaint here.

According to the Daily Wire‘s Luke Rosiak;

The State Department is tasked with foreign relations and has no authority over domestic affairs, yet it took a government office designed for countering foreign terrorist propaganda, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and unleashed it against Americans engaged in what it claimed was “disinformation,” according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas on Tuesday night by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

It was “one of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights by the federal government in American history,” said the suit, which also names Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five other officials as defendants.

Of note, the GEC, founded in 2011 under a different name to combat foreign propaganda in a counterterrorism capacity. In establishing the entity, Congress made clear that “none of the funds authorized” for the program “shall be used for purposes other than countering foreign propaganda.”

They of course ignored all that, and turned its focus on Americans according to the complaint, using taxpayer funds to finance and promote censorship shops such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which target conservative outlets – ZeroHege included – with the stated goal of killing ad revenue.

“Through its Global Engagement Center, the State Department actively intervened in the news-media market to limit the reach and business viability of domestic news organizations by funding censorship technology and private censorship enterprises,” reads a Wednesday press release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Congress authorized creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation. Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.

— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) December 6, 2023

“The State Department’s mission to obliterate the First Amendment is completely un-American. This agency will not get away with their illegal campaign to silence citizens and publications they disagree with.”

As the lawsuit explains, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and other conservative news organizations were “branded ‘unreliable’ or ‘risky’ by the government-funded and government-promoted censorship enterprises… starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech—all as a direct result of [the State Department’s] unlawful censorship scheme.”

The outlets are being represented by The New Civil Liberties Alliance’s Mark Chenoweth, who said that “the federal government cannot do indirectly what the First Amendment forbids it from doing directly.“

As Rosiak notes in the Wire, GDI’s primary product is a “Dynamic Exclusion List” of media outlets that it warns presents a “high risk for disinformation.” For example:

‘Totally Inappropriate’: Government-Funded Entities Are Working to Drive Revenue Away from Disfavored Publications to the Ones They Favor

Michael Shellenberger: “NewsGuard and the Disinformation Index are both US government-funded entities who are working to drive advertiser… pic.twitter.com/UVfVXusR25

— Sayer Ji (@sayerjigmi) March 12, 2023

It then licenses that list to advertisers, who use it to avoid boycotts from the left.

That playbook was deployed last month against Elon Musk, when blue-chip advertisers were persuaded to stop advertising on the platform because the Left-wing Media Matters group claimed that big companies’ ads occasionally appeared near objectionable content.

GDI says it aims to destroy “the incentive to create [disinformation] for the purpose of garnering advertising revenues.”

GDI keeps its main blacklist secret, but publicly published its top 10 “riskiest” outlets, which was essentially a list of America’s most prominent and mainstream conservative media publications, including both The Daily Wire and The Federalist, as well as the New York Post, and Reason Magazine. -Daily Caller

According to the lawsuit, GDI “was funded and promoted by State Department Defendants,” which adds that the “State Department Defendants’ active intervention in the news media market to make disfavored media unprofitable thus had devastating consequences to Media Plaintiffs.”

NewsGuard

The State Department also funded the for-profit entity NewsGuard, which says its goals is to “cut off revenues to fake news sites” via a whitelist that purports to promote only ‘legitimate’ news outlets. NewsGuard ranks The Federalist as “unreliable,” and the Daily Wire as “credible with significant exceptions.”

Last month, journalist Lee Fang uncovered that NewsGuard’s largest investor is a Pfizer partner.

As Fang writes;

Founded in 2018 by Crovitz and his co-CEO Steven Brill, a lawyer, journalist and entrepreneur, NewsGuard seeks to monetize the work of reshaping the Internet. The potential market for such speech policing, NewsGuard’s pitch to Twitter noted, was $1.74 billion, an industry it hoped to capture.

Instead of merely suggesting rebuttals to untrustworthy information, as many other existing anti-misinformation groups provide, NewsGuard has built a business model out of broad labels that classify entire news sites as safe or untrustworthy, using an individual grading system producing what it calls “nutrition labels.” The ratings – which appear next to a website’s name on the Microsoft Edge browser and other systems that deploy the plug-in – use a scale of zero to 100 based on what NewsGuard calls “nine apolitical criteria,” including “gathers and presents information responsibly” (worth 18 points), “avoids deceptive headlines” (10 points), and “does not repeatedly publish false or egregiously misleading content” (22 points), etc. 

Critics note that such ratings are entirely subjective – the New York Times, for example, which repeatedly carried false and partisan information from anonymous sources during the Russiagate hoax, gets a 100% rating. RealClearInvestigations, which took heat in 2019 for unmasking the “whistleblower” of the first Trump impeachment (while many other outlets including the Times still have not), has an 80% rating. (Verbatim: the NewsGuard-RCI exchange over the whistleblower.) Independent news outlets with an anti-establishment bent receive particularly low ratings from NewsGuard, such as the libertarian news site Antiwar.com, with a 49.5% rating, and conservative site The Federalist, with a 12.5% rating.

…

Publicis Groupe, NewsGuard’s largest investor and the biggest conglomerate of marketing agencies in the world, which has integrated NewsGuard’s technology into its fleet of subsidiaries that place online advertising. The question of conflicts arises because Publicis represents a range of corporate and government clients, including Pfizer – whose COVID vaccine has been questioned by some news outlets that have received low scores. Other investors include Bruce Mehlman, a D.C. lobbyist with a lengthy list of clients, including United Airlines and ByteDance, the parent company of much-criticized Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.

*  *  *

NewsGuard was sued in October by Consortium news.

Leftist “NewsGuard” is Microsoft partner. https://t.co/qfPwJNy69E

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 14, 2023

Read more here via the Daily Wire. We will be following this closely.

Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times,

Key White House and National Security Council and State Department officials were caught by surprise when they learned in January 2016 that then-Vice President Joe Biden had abruptly changed U.S. policy to require the firing of Ukrainian Special Prosecutor Viktor Shokin as a condition for receiving $1 billion in U.S.-backed International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) citing emails reviewed by The Epoch Times.

“There are State Department emails where they are, like, ‘Oh!’ surprised. There were people in the State Department saying, ‘Oh, Biden says they aren’t getting the money unless Shokin is fired,’ and they are surprised, saying, ‘Why did you do that, we didn’t talk about this; we didn’t plan that.’ So it was a total change from the consensus where the State Department was,” Mr. Jordan told reporters during a Monday question-and-answer session focused on the status of the House impeachment investigation of President Biden.

That probe is technically only an “inquiry,” but it is expected to be upgraded to an official House investigation with a vote next week in the lower chamber. Mr. Jordan told reporters Monday that he is confident the Republican majority will prevail in that vote despite having only a two-vote advantage over Democrats.

Whether the vice president was pushing for Mr. Shokin’s ouster to aid his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings is a focus of the impeachment inquiry. Hunter Biden sat on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, which was being investigated by Mr. Shokin.

Investigators with Mr. Jordan’s panel and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), and the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), are focused on President Biden’s alleged participation in and benefitting from his family’s receipt of millions of dollars of income throughout a period of several decades from individuals, as well as corporate and state entities, in Ukraine, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Romania during and after the senior Biden’s years as Vice-President under President Barack Obama.

Surprise From Officials

In one of the State Department emails to which Mr. Jordan referred, Eric Ciaramella, a White House National Security Council (NSC) deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, expressed shock to three colleagues on Jan. 21, 2016, saying, “Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them on Tuesday.”

Mr. Ciaramella, who did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, was reacting to an email sent earlier in the day from Elisabeth Zentos, an NSC colleague that was also addressed to Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016, and Anna Makanju, who was then a Special Adviser to Mr. Biden for Europe and Eurasia. Mr. Ciaramella is now a Senior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mr. Pyatt, who is presently the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources, could not be reached for comment, according to a State Department spokesman, because he is in Dubai attending the COP28 Climate Change International Conference. Ms. Makanju, who is now Vice President for Global Affairs at San Francisco-based OpenAI, did not respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.

Mr. Pyatt responded to the Zentos email, saying, “Buckle in,” and adding, “We also need to readdress all the LG [loan guarantee] anti-corruption conditions … and at this stage, there’s only one that really matters.” Ms. Makanju did not respond in the email thread reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Mr. Jordan said State Department officials were surprised to learn of Mr. Biden’s ultimatum to Mr. Poroshenko because it was previously settled U.S. policy to pressure Ukraine to root out official corruption that had plagued the country since it declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

But until Mr. Biden did so, the U.S. had not made Ukraine’s receipt of the IMF loan guarantees conditional upon Mr. Shokin’s removal. Briefing materials reviewed by the vice president during his December 2015 flight to Ukraine included planning for him to sign the U.S. agreement to back the IMF loans, with no reference to firing Mr. Shokin.

The judiciary chairman contends Mr. Biden’s abrupt reversal followed from the fact his son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was being actively investigated by Mr. Shokin regarding allegations of corruption.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks to the press after coming out of the Hunter Biden special counsel David Weiss’s closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington on Nov. 7, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

‘Called An Audible’

Mr. Jordan noted that during a Dec. 4, 2015, meeting in Dubai between Burisma executives Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharsky and Hunter Biden and Devon Archer, one of his business partners, the Ukrainians pleaded with the Americans to do something to relieve the “government pressure” they were receiving from the Shokin investigation of corruptions allegations against Mr. Zlochevsky.

Mr. Archer told the oversight committee during a closed-door transcribed interview that in response to those pleas, Hunter Biden “called DC,” referring to his father, the vice president. Three days later, the vice president, according to the Washington Post, “called an audible”—changed his plans—to reverse U.S. policy and demand Mr. Shokin’s firing.

In a summary timeline of the events, the oversight committee observed that “Devon Archer joined the Burisma board of directors in the spring of 2014 and was joined by Hunter Biden shortly thereafter. Hunter Biden joined the company as counsel, but after a meeting with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky in Lake Como, Italy, was elevated to the board of directors in the spring of 2014.

“Both Biden and Archer were each paid $1 million per year for their positions on the board of directors. In December 2015, after a Burisma board of directors meeting, Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden ‘called DC’ in the wake of mounting pressures the company was facing. Zlochevsky was later charged with bribing Ukrainian officials with $6 million in an attempt to delay or drop the investigation into his company.”

The oversight panel has to date documented $6.5 million in income to the Biden family and their associates from their Ukrainian activities.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the State Department and National Security Council for comment.

Amid an avalanche of not-at-all-coordinated hit-pieces all focused on the word “Dictator”, former President Trump appeared to play right into the hands of the narrative-writers with his comments overnight – albeit completely removed from context (just like “good people on both sides”… except the nazis!)

Dark scenarios about what could happen if Trump wins in 2024 have appeared in the space of a few days in major US media outlets that include The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Atlantic.

Grim predictions also came from no lesser Trump-hater than Liz Cheney, who said that the country is “sleepwalking into dictatorship” and that she is weighing a third-party presidential run of her own to try to stop him.

Are you afraid yet?

Trump’s campaign responded by pointing out that “this is nothing more than another version of the media’s failed and false Russia collusion hoax,” referring to The Atlantic’s project to devote their January/February issue to analyzing what a second Trump term would mean for immigration, civil rights, the Justice Department, climate and more.

And then, during an interview with Sean Hannity Tuesday, Donald Trump himself told the crowd that if he wins another term as President he will not use his powers for retribution against political enemies, but added the caveat “except for day one”.

As Modenerny.news’ Steve Watson details, Hannity asked Trump “To be clear, do you in any way have any plans whatsoever if reelected president to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people?”

“You mean like they’re using right now?” Trump responded.

Hannity elaborated “the media has been focused on this and attacking you under no circumstances,” adding “You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”

“Except for day one,” Trump replied, adding “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

“That is not retribution,” Hannity interjected before Trump jumped back in stating ” I’m going to be — I love this guy. You are not going to be a dictator, are you? I said no, no other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. Other than that, I’m not a dictator.”

Trump said he’s going to ‘dictate’ closing the wide open border on day one of his second term and leftists screamed into the ether about him admitting to being a dictator. The Biden/Harris campaign even fired off a press release claiming that is the case. https://t.co/qnyeDYbQ05 pic.twitter.com/x0DxvF5lor

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) December 6, 2023

Of course, the left’s media operatives were ready to rewrite those words to match their narrative as the Biden/Harris campaign immediately send out a press release stating that Trump has promised to be a dictator on day one:

*  *  *

Which followed comments by President Biden, echoing his views from 2016, saying at a Boston campaign event that he wasn’t sure if he’d be running for a second term if Donald Trump weren’t in the race.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser.

“But we cannot let him win,” Biden added.

During his speech, he also highlighted President Trump’s continued calls to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

President Biden’s visit to Boston was part of a weeklong fundraising tour in multiple states aimed at bolstering his campaign finances before the year’s end.

In Boston, the president centered his message on the high stakes of the upcoming election, pointing out that President Trump has been transparent about his intentions if he were to win again. –Epoch Times

“Trump’s not even hiding the ball anymore. He’s telling us what he’s going to do. He’s making no bones about it,” he said, citing Trump’s previous statements about seeking “retribution” and his promise to root out the “vermin” in the country.

“He didn’t even show up at my inauguration. I can’t say I was disappointed, but he didn’t even show up,” Biden said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

With a year to go, this is just getting started!

Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg cross-asset strategist,

Extreme Bond-Market Positioning Heralds Pain Trade

Disappointments are the deepest when just about everyone in the markets is positioned for the same outcome.

With the disinflationary narrative in the US evolving in line with the Fed’s estimates, traders are bracing for that definitive inflection point in the economy that will send Treasuries soaring. 

In fact, traders are clamoring for bonds relative to stocks at a pace close to the fastest in two decades, possibly setting a low bar for disappointment – and potentially making it the markets’ next big pain trade.

Options on longer-maturity Treasuries show that outstanding open positions that will benefit from a rally are almost 2.5 times as much as those that offer downside protection, hovering around a peak set in September.

In contrast, positions that will gain from a slump in equities are twice as much as those that seek upside, a sign that traders are braced for a correction after this year’s melt-up in stock valuations.

The lopsided positioning means that bond bullishness relative to stocks is near the highest in data going back to 2005, a reflection of conviction that an inflection point in the US economy is around the corner.

The extreme optimism toward bonds relative to stocks isn’t completely without merit.

Headline inflation that was running at 6.5% at the end of last year has since halved. Core PCE, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, is now at 3.5% — less than the Fed’s year-end estimate of 3.7%.

That progress in the battle against inflation has spurred bets that the Fed will slash its benchmark rate by as much as 125 basis points by the end of 2024, which isn’t an implausible scenario.

While Chair Jerome Powell pushed back on suggestions of a premature policy easing last week, current rates may seem too restrictive should the disinflationary process become more deeply embedded in the economy.

That is as good as it gets for the current bond-market positioning.

Arguing against such bets are the US economy’s relative resilience and several credible estimates that the neutral rate may have reset higher in the aftermath of the pandemic.

It’s no secret that the economy has fared far better than policymakers estimated. The Fed, which forecast economic growth of just 0.5% for 2023 around this time last year, has since revised up its estimate to 2.1%. For next year, it projects growth of 1.5%, which would be below its own estimate of long-term trend growth of 1.8%. It also reckons that the jobless rate needs to climb from 3.9% now to 4.1% to bring the labor market into balance.

Prospects of a higher neutral rate will also deter the Fed from loosening policy too quickly. The Fed’s own researchers reckon that the rate — a nirvana policy setting doesn’t boost inflation while keeping the labor market going — has shifted higher.

Against this backdrop, the rally in Treasuries that has sent 10-year yields plunging by some 75 basis points from a cyclical peak of 5.02% looks to have gone too quick and too far.

The overwhelmingly skewed positioning in the markets read against a backdrop of a still-resilient economy suggests that traders’ high conviction has the potential to become the next big pain trade for the markets.