By John Cheng, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

Chinese shares’ outperformance in June has some Wall Street strategists turning sanguine. But if recent history is any guide, this may prove to be another short-lived rally unless fundamentals improve.

The MSCI China Index is up about 8% since plunging into a bear market last month, beating a broader gauge of Asian equities. Goldman Sachs says the tactical trading window for Chinese stocks is “open once again,” while Nomura sees market expectations of further property-sector stimulus as likely helping to stabilize shares.

Still, short-selling turnover for equities in Hong Kong has remained elevated in recent weeks, suggesting that gains may be driven by covering of bearish bets by fast-money investors as most long-only funds remain significantly underweight in China. Stocks slumped again on Tuesday as Chinese banks disappointed the market with a relatively modest reduction in lending rates, with potential catalysts including the Blinken-Xi meeting and China’s State Council meeting largely turning out to be non-events for investors.

“From our understanding, it’s mostly short covering for now,” said Tham Mun Hon, head of Greater China research at UOB Kay Hian (Hong Kong). “The recovery will be gradual, and consumer confidence should stay fragile in the near term” as the government is likely to refrain from massive stimulus, he said.

 
Every rally in Chinese stocks over the past two years has proven to be short-lived. The latest two major rebounds, driven by hopes of an economic revival and the Covid reopening, respectively, lasted for only about three months each.

A lot of pessimism over China’s recovery and US-China geopolitical fears, though, has been priced in. Valuations have fallen to compelling levels, with the MSCI China Index trading at just 10.6 times forward price-to-earnings ratio, suggesting there may be a chance for bottom-fishing.

Some regional and global funds may start to narrow their large underweights in China, JPMorgan chief Asia and China equity strategist Wendy Liu wrote in a note. But she expects stocks to be range-bound in the third quarter as “continued inventory de-stocking, weak demand, debt restructuring and estimate cuts may add downward pressure.”

Eventually, the sustainability of this rebound will depend on upcoming macro releases, and “whether policymakers can deliver on their promises in the coming months to boost growth and earnings expectations,” said Ben Luk, senior multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets.

Authored by David Sacks via Responsible Statecraft,

Pressure is mounting to make some sort of formal declaration over Ukraine’s membership at meetings in Vilnius next month…

An article in the New York Times on Wednesday claimed that pressure is building on Biden to announce a timetable for Ukrainian membership in NATO at its Vilnius Summit next month. 

Supposedly Biden is “isolated” among NATO allies in his reluctance to do so, even though that claim is contradicted by the story’s own last paragraph (the one that Noam Chomsky once quipped should be read first), which acknowledges that “others argue more quietly” that NATO membership “could give Mr. Putin more incentive to continue the war, or to escalate it.”

Indeed, since Moscow has already declared NATO membership for Ukraine to be completely unacceptable and an existential threat — the prevention of which is one of its chief war aims — a Vilnius Declaration that Ukraine will join NATO when the war ends will effectively ensure that the war goes on forever. It will also take off the table the West’s central bargaining chip to achieve peace, which is a neutral Ukraine. 

It’s clear that the “pressure” on Biden is coming from Zelensky and some of the eastern NATO countries, specifically Poland and the Baltic States. Zelensky said two weeks ago that Ukraine would not even attend the Vilnius Summit unless given a firm signal on its eventual membership. Former NATO secretary general Anders Rasmussen, now a consultant to Zelensky, even threatened that “if NATO cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action.” In particular, “the Poles would seriously consider going in,” triggering direct war between NATO and Russia. 

The NYT article implies that the current secretary general Jens Stoltenberg agrees with the hardliners on the need for a concrete timetable for Ukraine’s admission into NATO, but he made no such promises during his joint address with President Biden on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Stoltenberg and NATO were making it clear that no specific timeline for Ukraine’s NATO membership would be on the agenda in Vilnius. He reiterated comments from April that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” and said there would be agreement from member states on a “multi-year program” to help Ukraine “become fully interoperable with NATO,” but wouldn’t commit to anything more specific than that. 

Apparently, it’s Zelensky and his allies along the Russian border who are “isolated,” not President Biden.

Whatever Stoltenberg’s personal views may be, he knows NATO is divided on the question of admitting Ukraine in the near future. Even the NYT name-checks three countries – Germany, Hungary, and Turkey – whose leaders would definitely oppose membership at a specific future date. Many more leaders have privately expressed concern, and Biden, to his credit, appears to be one of them.

While his overall conduct and rhetoric has been hawkish (and I continue to maintain he could have avoided this war altogether with better diplomacy in the months leading up to it), Biden has been admirably consistent in his desire not to plunge America into direct war with Russia. The threats from Rasmussen underscore how easily a proxy war can turn into a real one in an alliance where all members are pledged to come to the military defense of any one member. The American people may begin to question the wisdom of making new Article 5 guarantees if foreigners like Rassmussen can use existing ones to blackmail the United States into reckless action.

Polish or Ukrainian tails should not wag American dogs into World War III. 

Short of giving Ukraine the security guarantees that NATO membership provides, some in Biden’s foreign policy circle, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have been pushing a different idea, which is to give “Israel status” to Ukraine. This consists of long-term security guarantees (which run for ten-year intervals in Israel’s case) including weapons, ammunition, and money “not subject to the fate of the current counteroffensive or the electoral calendar.” In other words, America won’t reassess support even if the counteroffensive fails. Indeed, support won’t cease even if those pesky voters change their minds. Biden’s War for Democracy is too important to be subject to elections. 

However, some observers may see here a classic bait and switch. Last year, after Ukraine retook land around Kharkiv and Kherson, the American people were assured that the Ukrainians would complete the job in the spring and summer of 2023. This new Ukrainian counteroffensive would roll back Russian territorial gains, perhaps even threaten the Russian hold on Crimea, and thereby drive Moscow to the negotiating table and end the war. Many Americans supported the $100+ billion in appropriations for Ukraine on this basis. The implicit promise was that this was a one-time expense, not the baseline for an annual appropriation in a new Forever War. 

Now a difficult start to the counteroffensive coupled with a proposed multi-year deal at Vilnius makes clear that this was a lie or a pipe dream. But isn’t this what always happens? Administrations ease us into war with promises of quick and easy victory, and then once involved, tell us we can’t back out no matter the cost because American credibility is at stake. It’s Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq all over again, except this time with a nuclear-armed adversary creating the heightened risk that the war could escalate into WWIII at any point.

Perhaps the most pointless aspect of the current debate among NATO members is that with or without a timetable, a Vilnius Declaration that Ukraine will join NATO is a promise that cannot be implemented, absent a major reversal in Ukrainian fortunes on the battlefield. Such a declaration cannot guarantee Ukraine’s NATO admission any more than its forerunner at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 did. It can only guarantee that the Russians remain implacably resolved to stopping it by perpetuating the war as long as they have to.

So our insistence that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO “someday,” combined with our (sensible) desire not to be drawn into World War III, means that “someday” will never arrive. This begs the question: why continue to make a promise when there is no realistic path to achieving it? Why fight over a principle (NATO’s “open door”) that’s largely theoretical anyway because Ukraine can’t actually join the alliance without triggering the continent-wide conflagration NATO was established to avoid in the first place? 

The leaders meeting at Vilnius may not be asking that question, but future historians judging them surely will. 

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has gotten ahead of a hit piece in Soros-funded ProPublica, which emailed Alito a list of questions about recusals and allegedly unreported gifts (which, as Alito explains, were not actually gifts).

“ProPublica has leveled two charges against me: first, that I should have recused in matters in which an entity connected with Paul Singer was a party and, second, that I was obligated to list certain items as gifts on my 2008 Financial Disclose Report. Neither charge is valid,” Alito writes in the Wall Street Journal‘s Opinion page, the latter referring to a private flight he took to Alaska on Singer’s private jet 15 years ago.

Alito claims he had “no obligation to recuse” in any of the cases cited by ProPublica.

First, even if I had been aware of Mr. Singer’s connection to the entities involved in those cases, recusal would not have been required or appropriate. ProPublica suggests that my failure to recuse in these cases created an appearance of impropriety, but that is incorrect.

…

No such person would think that my relationship with Mr. Singer meets that standard. My recollection is that I have spoken to Mr. Singer on no more than a handful of occasions, all of which (with the exception of small talk during a fishing trip 15 years ago) consisted of brief and casual comments at events attended by large groups. On no occasion have we discussed the activities of his businesses, and we have never talked about any case or issue before the Court. On two occasions, he introduced me before I gave a speech—as have dozens of other people. -Samuel Alito

Alito also says he reviewed the cases in question to determine whether recusal was appropriate, and says he had no idea that Singer was involved.

As far as reporting gifts, Alito says that the instructions for Justices on their Financial Disclosure Report, up until a few months ago, indicated that “[p]ersonal hospitality need not be reported,” and that “hospitality” was defined to include “hospitality extended for a non-business purpose by one, not a corporation or organization, . . . on property or facilities owned by [a] person . . .”

As Alito further explains, the term “facilities” was not defined, but that it can include means of transportation. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, “facilities” may mean “everything necessary for the convenience of passengers.”

When I joined the Court and until the recent amendment of the filing instructions, justices commonly interpreted this discussion of “hospitality” to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts. The flight to Alaska was the only occasion when I have accepted transportation for a purely social event, and in doing so I followed what I understood to be standard practice.

For these reasons, I did not include on my Financial Disclosure Report for 2008 either the accommodations provided by the owner of the King Salmon Lodge, who, to my knowledge, has never been involved in any matter before the Court, or the seat on the flight to Alaska. -Samuel Alito

Alito notes that during the trip 15 years ago, he stayed for three nights in a ‘modest one-room unit at the King Salmon Lodge,’ which he described as a ‘comfortable but rustic facility’ with ‘homestyle’ meals.

“I cannot recall whether the group at the lodge, about 20 people, was served wine, but if there was wine it was certainly not wine that costs $1,000. Since my visit 15 years ago, the lodge has been sold and, I believe, renovated, but an examination of the photos and information on the lodge’s website shows that ProPublica’s portrayal is misleading,” Alito continued.

In closing the Justice writes that “as for the flight,” Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska, while Alito was invited “shortly before the event,” and offered a seat on Singer’s plane that would have “otherwise been vacant.” Alito argues that this “would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer,” vs. a commercial flight, which would have imposed a “substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.”

Is it any coincidence that ProPublica‘s top donors also bankroll activist groups which target conservative Justice Clarence Thomas?

Not weird at all. ProPublica are hacktivists so better to prebutt in a widely circulated publication than have to constantly respond to their breathless nothingburgers.

— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) June 20, 2023

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Attorney General Bill Barr says he’d be willing to testify against former President Donald Trump in the ongoing case related to Trump’s handling of classified documents as president.

Trump is accused of mishandling an array of classified documents, including documents classified as “top secret,” the highest level of classification. Trump has dismissed the investigation, led by President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, as “partisan” and a “witch hunt.”

Now Barr, who has already been critical of his former boss, said he’d be willing to testify against Trump if asked by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the federal action against Trump.

“If they called me in as a witness, of course I would testify,” Barr said during a June 18 appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that he doesn’t expect to be called in for any such testimony.

Barr, a former Trump ally who served as his attorney general, has increasingly sought to distance himself from Trump since the end of the 2020 election. The former attorney general now says he’s “adamantly against” another Trump presidency.

Barr rejected Trump’s claims that widespread voter fraud had tainted the election result in several key swing states, as he testified to the now-defunct House Select Committee on Jan. 6. Barr has said that Trump was “responsible in the broad sense” for the Capitol breach.

Barr also rejected Trump’s position during his appearance on CBS, criticizing his former commander in chief of having brought it on himself.

“This is this is not a circumstance where [Trump is] the victim or this was government overreach,” Barr said. “He provoked this whole problem himself. Yes, he’s been the victim of unfair witch hunts in the past, but that doesn’t obviate the fact that he’s also a fundamentally flawed person who engages in reckless conduct.

“And that leads to calamitous situations like this, which are very disruptive and hurt any political causes he’s associated with.

“This was a case entirely of his own making,” Barr added.

Barr said that Trump had “no legal right” to the documents, and applauded the government for its efforts to get the documents back “quietly and with respect,” which Barr said was “essential” to the case.

Trump has argued that his conduct was protected under the Presidential Records Act, a bill governing presidential management of documents taken from the White House upon leaving office. However, rather than the Presidential Records Act, Special Counsel Smith is seeking charges under the Espionage Act; World War 1 legislation that has been substantially amended and expanded over the years.

Barr argued against Trump’s position that the president outlined on CBS.

“The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information, as his personal papers is absurd,” Barr said.

“The whole purpose of the statute … was to stop presidents from taking official documents out of the White House—it was passed after Watergate. … It restricted what a President can take,” Barr said, citing the law’s standard of “purely private” papers, meaning  papers “that had nothing to do with the deliberations of government policy.

“Obviously, these documents are not purely private,” he said. “They’re not even arguing that it’s purely private. What they’re saying is the President just has sweeping discretion to say they are [purely private] even though they squarely don’t fall within the definition. It’s an absurd argument.”

Read more here…

The undercover chaps and lasses at James O’Keefe’s new undercover media venture have done it again – this time tricking a BlackRock recruiter into making several damning admissions.

In a series of covertly-recorded meetings, recruiter Serge Varlay describes how BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager – is able to “run the world,” and that it’s easier to pull off shenanigans when “people aren’t thinking about it.”

According to Varlay, US Senators can be ‘bought’ for as little as $10k.

“The senators…are f***ing cheap – you got 10 grand, you can buy a senator,” he remarked.

You can take this big f*** ton of money and buy people, I work for a company called BlackRock…It’s not who is the president it’s who is controlling the wallet of the president. You could buy your candidates. First, there is the senators these guys are fuckin cheap. Got 10 grand you can buy a senator I’ll give you 500k right now It doesn’t matter who wins they’re in my pocket. –OMG

Blackrock is also apparently loving the war in Ukraine, which Varley described as “real fuckin’ good for business.”

Ukraine is good for business, you know that right? Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos and the price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is the wheat market. The price of bread goes up, this is fantastic if you’re trading.  Volatility creates opportunity for profit…

According to Varley, it’s “exciting when shit goes wrong.” 

“So what are you gonna do if you’re a trading firm? The moment that news hits, within a millisecond, you’re going to pump trades into whoever the wheat suppliers are. Into their stocks. Within an hour or two that stick goes f*cking up and then you sell and you just make, I don’t know, however many mil,” he continued. “The Ukrainian economy is tied very largely to the wheat market, global wheat market, prices of bread, you know, literally everything goes up and down. This is fantastic if you’re trading.

“Volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real fucking good for business.”

Watch:

BREAKING: @BlackRock Recruiter Who “Decides People’s Fate” Spills Info on Company’s World Impact

“It’s not who the president is- it’s who’s controlling the wallet of the president”

“You got $10K? You can buy a senator”

“War is real f***ing good for business” #BlackRockExposed pic.twitter.com/DZIy1DuZKF

— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) June 20, 2023

As the Post Millennial notes, Varley also described himself as a person who “decide[s] people’s fates.”

“Every f*cking day, I literally decide how somebody’s life is going to be shaped,” he said. “I’m not actually a finance guy, I just know what happens because I’m recruiting people who do these things.”

More via the PM:

Varlay said these banks run the world because “you acquire stuff. You diversify, you acquire, you keep acquiring. You spend whatever you make in acquiring more. And at a certain point, your risk level is super low. Imagine you’ve invested in 10 different industries, from food to drinks to technology. If one of them fails it doesn’t matter, you have nine others to back you up.”

Varlay said that once “you own a little bit of everything… you can take this big f*ck-ton of money and then you can start to buy people.”

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The New York Times reported Monday that the US and its Western allies have shipped weapons to Ukraine that were broken and needed repair or were only useful for spare parts.

The report also said that Ukraine has not received weapons from contractors that it has paid for. As of the end of 2022, the Ukrainian government paid over $800 million for arms contracts that were completely or partly unfulfilled.

Sources told the Times that some of the unfulfilled weapons had been delivered or refunds were issued but said hundreds of millions of dollars were paid for weapons that never materialized. The report said the most valuable undelivered contracts were between the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and state-owned Ukrainian arms companies.

Ukraine has also had issues with contractors in other countries. According to Ukrainian government documents, Kyiv paid $19.8 million to the Ultra Defense Corporation, an American arms dealer based in Tampa, to repair 33 damaged howitzers provided by the Italian government.

The documents said that 13 of the howitzers were shipped to Ukraine but arrived not suitable for combat missions, although the CEO of Ultra Defense Corporation claimed each howitzer worked when they were delivered and blamed the Ukrainians for not maintaining them. Kyiv complained about the issue to the Pentagon’s inspector general, who is investigating the matter.

There are also multiple examples of military equipment being pulled from US military stockpiles that were not in good condition. A US Army unit based in Kuwait was ordered to send 29 Humvees to Ukraine, and the unit’s leader claimed all but one of the Humvees was ready for combat. But a Pentagon report said 26 were in need of repair.

After the Humvees were repaired, they were sent to Poland to be staged for Ukraine. But in Poland, it was discovered that 25 of the Humvees needed new tires. A Pentagon report said that finding replacement tires “delayed the shipment of other equipment to Ukraine and required significant labor and time.”

Besides the issues with damaged equipment, a recent Pentagon inspector general report found that US military personnel were not properly tracking arms arriving in Poland to be shipped to Ukraine.

Thanks to a flood of Northeasterners and conservatives fleeing blue states, home ownership in Florida has become prohibitively expensive for many prospective newcomers to the Sunshine State.

According to Bloomberg, a combination of supercharged demand pushing home prices sky high, and soaring interest rates and insurance premiums, have resulted in single-family home prices flattening for the first time since 2011 after jumping nearly 50% over the past three years. What’s more, inbound moves are slowing.

“The fact that Florida is getting more expensive is making it less attractive to homebuyers,” said Redfin chief economist, Daryl Fairweather. “It becomes a concern for people trying to fix their monthly housing expenses.”

The pullback in Florida, while still moderate compared with downturns in once-hot Sun Belt areas like Phoenix and Austin, shows the limits of a pandemic boom that has priced out locals and inflated the cost of entry for newcomers. One top destination for New Yorkers heading South — Miami — is now the most-unaffordable metro area in the US, according to May data from RealtyHop on homeownership expenses relative to incomes. -Bloomberg

Last month, billionaire VC Peter Thiel said he would be reluctant to shift operations from Silicon Valley to Florida due to the jump in prices.

Florida resident Jessica Cameron was caught off guard after she moved back to Florida following a five-year stint in Georgia while her husband completed his chiropractic degree. After returning at the end of 2022 to a four-bedroom house in Land O’ Lakes for $589,000, all the other costs of life – from car insurance to utilities – came as a shock after paying a third less in Georgia for things like the water bill.

“Once I took a tally of the expense of everything, it blew my mind,” said Cameron, adding “What’s happening here breaks my heart, to be honest.”

According to Tampa realtor Vanessa Charles, the flood of new (liberal) arrivals during the pandemic are also having second thoughts due to the state’s conservative politics.

“People are looking at Florida differently now,” said Charles. “A lot of families who moved here called and said. ‘We have to leave.’”

Year-to-date, 56% more people moved into Florida than moved out according to data from United Van Lines – down from 58% in 2022 and 62% in 2021, the peak of the pandemic migration.

Making things more difficult for prospective buyers is that the state’s housing market has remained robust vs. other parts of the country.

Florida has some cushions, such as a strong job market fed by Wall Street and tech company relocations, year-round sunshine that continues to attract telecommuters and rich Latin American buyers fleeing turmoil in their home countries.

The state also remains popular with affluent retirees, who aren’t worried about high mortgage rates because they’re paying cash, according to Brad O’Connor, chief economist for the Florida Realtors trade group. -Bloomberg

“It’s still a very active housing market,” said O’Connor. “We still have an influx of out-of-state buyers and it’s still a good deal compared to high-cost states.”

Yet in April, single-family home prices went sideways vs. 2022 prices, according to Florida Realtors, noting that it was a turning point for the market after steady increases.

The pullback is of course very regional, with Tampa prices falling 3.9% over the four week period ending June 11, while Jacksonville prices saw a 2% drop from a year earlier, according to Redfin, which for some reason used vastly different time scales to make that comparison. While Miami saw some slowdown, prices are still up 8.9% vs. last year.

Where to go?

Locked-out buyers have begun setting their sights elsewhere, including Alabama and other less expensive states.

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClear Wire,

Here’s why we should doubt the widespread claim that Donald Trump was hoarding the nation’s most sensitive nuclear and military secrets in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom: If he had, that highly classified material would have been leaked by now.

The New York Times and Washington Post would be quoting highly placed current and former officials familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the investigation – but who were eager to show the danger Trump presents by revealing the secrets he held.

I suspect we have only the vague, yet frightening descriptions of the seized documents from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 37-count indictment, because a more detailed accounting might show they are more innocuous than apocalyptic. I could be wrong about that, but this much we know: Since Trump burst on the scene in 2015 the leaking of classified information has been the weapon of choice for his opponents at the highest reaches of government.

The Russiagate conspiracy hoax was fueled by leaks, especially from House Intelligence Committee Democrats and highly placed FBI officials; the Department of Justice’s inspector general referred former FBI Director James B. Comey for criminal investigation over leaks connected to the probe.

Trump is not the only target. One leaker gave ProPublica the confidential tax information of thousands of wealthy Americans – a gross violation of the privacy of ordinary citizens. Another gave Politico a highly confidential, though technically not classified, draft of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, prompting the incessant, illegal harassment of conservative justices, and a plan to murder Justice Bret Kavanaugh.

One of the more duplicitous performances in the theater of D.C. politics is given each time current FBI Director Christopher Wray and his minions gravely tell Congress they cannot answer questions because they involve “ongoing investigations.” The truth is that they much prefer leaking cherry-picked pieces of information, behind the cloak of anonymity, to advance their narrative.

Unlike Trump, leakers do not just possess secret material, they helped spread it far and wide. And, unlike the former president, they are almost never brought to justice. The Intercept reported that the Trump administration referred at least 344 allegations involving the leaking of classified information to the Department of Justice but that “very few referrals typically end up identifying suspects.”

None of this exonerates the former president. The special counsel appears to make a strong case that he violated the law. But the guns-blazing effort to hold him accountable cannot be separated from the fact that the rule of law in America is increasingly becoming a situational tool, invoked only at the convenience of the powers that be.

Consider the argument regarding classified documents, now widely embraced by mainstream news outlets that want to get Trump but give a pass to President Joe Biden. For decades, the possession of such information outside the area authorized for individuals to view it – a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF – was considered a crime. We don’t know how Biden ended up with such material from his days as a senator and vice president, but it was illegally removed. We also don’t know whether Biden reviewed these documents, though it is hard to believe he never saw them and even more unlikely that as they were moved and dispersed to several locations in the years since that nobody saw the classified markings and asked “the big guy” about them.

Biden’s supporters, however, are arguing that there’s “no there there” even if he took, viewed, and intentionally held the documents. All of that is now fine and dandy because he returned them when they were discovered. During a recent interview with GOP presidential hopeful Francis Suarez, ABC News presenter George Stephanopoulos, for example, declared that “there’s a very big difference between those two cases. President Biden turned them over himself. Had Donald Trump turned over all those documents, he wouldn’t have been charged.”

One wonders how this new standard might be applied to other crimes. Will bank robbers go free if they agree to return the money? I guess we’ll find out when Hunter Biden is (or is not) charged for income tax evasion: He apparently has paid back taxes.

This is not the only example of how Biden’s supporters are moving the goalposts to protect him. It is now beyond dispute that the president’s son and his brother Jim were running a multi-million-dollar influence peddling scheme, which hinged on the potential favors Biden could provide their business partners who just happened to be in countries, including Ukraine, China, and Romania, where Biden was deeply involved in policymaking while serving as vice president.

Despite the president’s insistent denials, evidence shows that he was not only aware of but met with people involved in these deals – the payments of which were often channeled through a series of shell companies and funneled, in some cases, to at least nine of his family members including his young grandchildren. It remains unclear to this day what services the Bidens were providing these entities other than access to Joe.

This is textbook political corruption. But now, his defenders insist, this is a problem for Biden only if it can be proved that he directly received money from the deals or that he specifically changed a policy in a quid pro quo for the payments to his family members.

Even if we accept that Biden never took any action in exchange for the money – that his famous boast that he forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating the corrupt gas company paying his son $83,000 a month was not a signal that he had delivered on a promise but that he was carrying out official policy – there is no doubt that his family was offering the promise of influence.

Donald Trump may get what he deserves, but America cannot endure as a great nation if the rule of law does not apply to all. To all. Fairness to all. Justice to all. That is the hallmark of our great democracy, which is built on the people’s trust in our institutions. That trust is eroding as our leaders brazenly weaponize our legal system. Benjamin Franklin warned that our founders had given us “A republic, if you can keep it.” We are losing it day by day.

J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party is urging 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy to cancel his speaking engagement at a national libertarian gathering, smearing the host Free State Project as an “extremist organization.” 

On Friday, state chairman Raymond Buckley sent Kennedy a melodramatic letter expressing the party’s “serious disappointment and grave concerns” over RFK Jr’s planned Thursday appearance at the 20th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, better known by its informal name, “Porcfest.” 

On its Facebook page, the Free State Project called the letter the “best endorsement yet! Thanks, Chairman.” Kennedy flatly rejected the plea within two hours of it being posted to Twitter by the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

Referring to the national party’s announcement that it has no intention to hold primary debates, Kennedy tweeted, “The Democratic Party Bosses who promote censorship, who have stripped New Hampshire of its rightful First in the Nation primary status, who have shut down debate, who refuse to campaign in New Hampshire, are in no position to tell me who to talk to.”

The Democratic Party Bosses who promote censorship, who have stripped New Hampshire of its rightful First in the Nation primary status, who have shut down debate, who refuse to campaign in New Hampshire, are in no position to tell me who to talk to. I’m going to speak at Porcfest…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 16, 2023

The Free State Project describes itself as “a mass migration of more than 20,000 people who have pledged to move to New Hampshire for liberty. By concentrating our numbers in a single state, we are maximizing our impact as activists, entrepreneurs, community builders, and thought leaders.”

Chairman Buckley says the Free State Project’s libertarians are trying to “seize control of government on the state and local level and impose a dystopian lifestyle on the people.” We can’t help but reflect on the alternative, dry-witted description of libertarianism — as a plot to take over the world and leave everyone alone. 

As supposed indicators of the Free State Project’s extremism, Buckley points with alarm the group’s support of school-choice vouchers, opposition to “common sense gun control,” and advocacy of legislative steps toward secession. 

Speaking in McCarthyist tones, Buckley describes Free Staters as having “infiltrated and in many cases taken control of the New Hampshire Republican Party at all levels.” Such language once again reinforces that, to Democrats, Our Democracy™ is only considered healthy when leftism prevails. 

“I’m going to speak at Porcfest because I believe in freedom, unity, healing the divide, and truth,” tweeted Kennedy. While libertarians object to many of Kennedy’s policy stances, a great many welcome his full-throated opposition to US militarism, his resistance of Big Pharma-public health tyranny, and his grasp of the link between deficit spending and inflation, recognizing inflation as the stealth tax that it is: 

Robert Kennedy Jr:

“We spent $16 trillion on the lockdowns. We got nothing for it. $8 trillion on the Ukraine war. That’s $24 trillion that they had to print to pay for nothing.” pic.twitter.com/v0H2HJZI8v

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) June 18, 2023

Facing a Democratic Party bent on fixing the nominating contest for Biden in concert with major media, Kennedy has been aggressively scheduling appearances across alternative media, to include recent appearances on Joe Rogan’s podcast and Glenn Greenwald’s Rumble webcast, System Update. 

The New Hampshire Dem freakout comes on the heels of Axios reporting that there’s a significant chance that RFK could win the state’s primary. New Hampshire law requires the secretary of state to set the date at least seven days before any other state. If New Hampshire sticks to that in defiance of the Democratic Party’s announced change to put South Carolina first, Biden won’t appear on the ballot in the Granite State. The same scenario could play out in Iowa, setting up Biden and the Democratic Party for embarrassment. 

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The American Medical Association (AMA) has warned against using the Body Mass Index (BMI) as the sole metric to determine whether an individual is overweight or not—citing “historical harm” from the measurement.

BMI is measured by dividing an individual’s weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. It does not measure body fat directly. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 among adults aged 20 and above is seen as “healthy.” BMI between 25 and 29.9 is seen as “overweight” while a value of 30 and above is classified as “obese.” In a June 14 press release, the AMA said that BMI as a measurement tool was “racist” as it has largely relied on data collected from generations of non-Hispanic white populations.

The organization said that the relative body shape and composition of human beings differ across racial and ethnic groups, genders, sexes, and ages. These factors are “essential” when applying BMI. The AMA warned that BMI must not be used as a “sole criterion” to deny any appropriate insurance reimbursement.

Though BMI is “significantly correlated” with the amount of fat mass in the general populace, it loses predictability when applied to an individual, the group stated.

The AMA is now suggesting that BMI be used in conjunction with other factors like measurements of visceral fat, body adiposity index, body composition, relative fat mass, waist circumference, and genetic or metabolic factors.

“There are numerous concerns with the way BMI has been used to measure body fat and diagnose obesity, yet some physicians find it to be a helpful measure in certain scenarios,” said AMA Immediate Past President Dr. Jack Resneck.

“It is important for physicians to understand the benefits and limitations of using BMI in clinical settings to determine the best care for their patients.”

Normalizing Fatness

The AMA’s BMI  announcement comes as there has been a growing attempt to disregard the issue of body weight. Terms like “weight bias” have sprouted up as a form of discrimination, with doctors feeling pressured to avoid mentioning weight.

There are also “don’t weigh me” cards that patients can hand over to doctors during an office visit stating, “If you really need my weight, please tell me why so I can give you my informed consent.”

In a May 2021 commentary, Martha Rosenberg, an author whose work has been cited by the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, warned that recent movements like “fat acceptance,” which seeks to normalize obese and overweight bodies, is a “dangerous idea,” citing the negative health consequences resulting from excess weight.

Research has found that as BMI readings climb, an individual’s chances of contracting chronic conditions like heart disease and high cholesterol also rise.

Many experts see BMI as a helpful tool to predict health risks. “The best way to think about BMI is as a risk-prediction tool,” Brad Dieter, an exercise physiologist, told Health.

“Think about it like age. Regardless of what else is going on, the older you are, the more likely you are to have a chronic health condition… The same is true with BMI. The higher your BMI, the more at risk you are for a poor health outcome,” he said.

AMA’s attempt to disregard BMI is happening while similar attempts are being made in gender as well. Johns Hopkins University recently courted controversy for describing a woman as a “non-man.” The university was eventually forced to take down the glossary.

Meanwhile, transgender health issues, which used to be categorized as mental and behavioral disorders by the World Health Organization (WHO), were no longer classified as such by the organization beginning in 2019. And in 2021, the American Psychological Association also did away with such classifications.

Dangers of Excess Weight

Judging accurately whether an individual is obese or overweight is critical as excess weight is often associated with numerous health issues.

For one, around eight in 10 people suffering from type 2 diabetes are estimated to be overweight or obese. Individuals suffering from type 2 diabetes who are overweight are often advised to lose weight to keep the condition in check.

Obese and overweight individuals are at increased risk of various diseases and health conditions like high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, coronary heart disease, gallbladder disease, stroke, breathing issues, osteoarthritis, body pain, and mental illnesses like anxiety and clinical depression.

A 2019 meta-analysis of 17 studies that looked into 204,507 individuals found that “there is a significant positive association between depression and obesity in the general population, which appeared to be more marked among women.”

Obesity in the US

According to data from the CDC, the prevalence of obesity in the United States from 2017 to March 2020 was 41.9 percent—a big jump from 30.5 percent over the 1999–2000 period.

During this period, the prevalence of severe obesity rose from 4.7 percent to 9.2 percent. The agency estimated the medical costs for obese adults to be $1,861 higher than individuals with a healthy weight.

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