Remember when Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he ‘only had dinner’ with Jeffrey Epstein?

FLASHBACK: Bill Gates is asked if his ex-wife Melinda was warning him about Jeffrey Epstein sexually compromising him:

Bill responded “No — I had dinner with him, and that’s all.” pic.twitter.com/xaVincPcAA

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 21, 2023

Turns out (ok, we’ve known for a while) that’s a total lie – as the two also had a Russian bridge player in common, Mila Antonova.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Gates met Antonova in 2010 at a bridge competition, leading to an affair. Three years later, after Gates associate Boris Nikolic referred her to Jeffrey Epstein to help raise $500K for an online bridge business which failed to pan out, Epstein paid for her to attend coding classes.

In 2014, Antonova “stayed briefly at an apartment in New York City provided by Epstein” but claims not to have met with the guy who paid for her education.

Then in 2017, the pedophile financier allegedly blackmailed Gates over the affair – demanding in an email that the Microsoft co-founder to reimburse him for Antonova’s education. Given the de minimis amount involved for both men, Gates interpreted this 2017 email as threat to expose his 2010 affair.

So, poor boner-killer Bill was actually an Epstein victim all along, you see, and everyone interviewed for the report says they knew nothing about Epstein’s pedophile sex-trafficking operation and was ‘disgusted with what he did,’ etc.

But in March of 2013, long before the two had thrown out their BFF bracelets, they were hanging out at the house of Thorbjørn Jagland, then chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee where the pair allegedly discussed ” the security situation in Afghanistan as part of Mr. Gates’ work on polio eradication,” according to a spokeswoman for the billionaire. We’re sure.

While he was working on the charitable fund, Epstein met in 2013 with Gates and Norwegian officials who were visitors to Epstein’s townhouse. Epstein told one former Gates Foundation employee that he knew the Norwegians, and could help Gates win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to eradicate polio.

Here’s what else is contained in the report (some known, some unknown).

• “Starting in 2011, Gates had more than a half dozen meetings scheduled with Epstein, including dinners at Epstein’s New York townhouse, documents show. “
• Gates flew on Epstein’s ‘lolita express’ plane from New Jersey to Florida in March, 2013. “That same month the two men met in France with an official on the Nobel Peace Prize committee.” (that official being its chair, Thorbjørn Jagland)

While he was working on the charitable fund, Epstein met in 2013 with Gates and Norwegian officials who were visitors to Epstein’s townhouse. Epstein told one former Gates Foundation employee that he knew the Norwegians, and could help Gates win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to eradicate polio.

• In 2012, Epstein pitched Gates on a failed investment in a multibillion-dollar, JPMorgan-run charitable fund with a minimum contribution of $100 million.

The deal went sideways. In messages to Jes Staley and Mary Erdoes, Epstein essentially coached the JPMorgan execs on how to pitch the fund to Gates’ team.

“In essence this [fund] will allow Bill to have access to higher quality people , investment , allocation , governance without upsetting either his marriage or the sensitvites of the current foundation employees,” Epstein wrote on Aug. 16, 2011.

The next day, Epstein wrote: “Bill is terribly frustrated. He woud! like to boost some of the things that are working without taking away from thoses that are not.”

Six weeks later on Oct. 2, Epstein sent another email to Staley and Erdoes criticizing a JPMorgan presentation. “the presentation , is not tailored to bill.. He is the only person , the only one, that counts.”

The charitable fund never got off the ground. “The firm didn’t need him as a client,” a JPMorgan spokesman said of Epstein. “The firm didn’t need him for introductions. Knowing what we know today, we wish we had never done business with him.” A spokesman for the bank said Erdoes declined to comment. A lawyer for Staley, who is no longer at JPMorgan, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Staley has previously said he regrets his friendship with Epstein. -WSJ

But – given that this deal fell through in 2012 or so, and the two were hobnobbing at the Nobel Peace Price Committee Chairman’s house in 2013, it’s obvious that the two mended fences and moved on.

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

Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voiced support on May 18 for Pfizer’s maternal RSV vaccine even after several expressed concerns over premature births.

Outside experts on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee unanimously said data from two trials run by Pfizer were sufficient to support the vaccine being effective at preventing RSV disease in infants. They also voted 10–4 in the affirmative when asked if the data from the trials were sufficient to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine.

The votes set up FDA clearance for what would be the first maternal vaccine for the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

Pfizer’s vaccine, a recombinant protein subunit shot, targets the RSV A and RSV B subgroups in a 120 microgram dose that would be given to pregnant women in the second or third trimester. The goal would be to relay antibodies against RSV to fetuses, conferring protection that is supposed to last through the first year of life.

The vaccine was 81.8 percent efficacious through 90 days after birth against severe lower respiratory tract illness due to RSV. The efficacy dropped to 69.4 percent after another 90 days.

For any RSV-positive medically attended lower respiratory tract illness, the vaccine started at 57.1 percent efficacy and dropped to 51.3 percent over the same timeframe, according to data from a phase 3 trial that included about 3,500 vaccinated pregnant women.

The efficacy for medically attended lower respiratory tract illness from any cause was just 2.5 percent at 180 days and 5.1 percent at 360 days.

FDA staffers said in a briefing document that the trial showed “successful vaccine efficacy,” and the advisers seconded that view with their unanimous vote.

But multiple experts expressed concerns about the risk of the vaccine causing premature births, a risk found in a similar product made by GlaxoSmithKline that prompted the company to halt testing in 2022.

In Pfizer’s trial, there were more premature deliveries in the vaccinated arm than the placebo arm—5.7 percent in the former versus 4.7 percent in the latter.

“That is hanging over this program,” Dr. Paul Offit, one of the FDA’s advisers, said during Thursday’s meeting.

The FDA declined to comment on the issue during the meeting, though staffers wrote in a brief that there was “potential uncertainty” regarding premature births.

Pfizer executives said Pfizer’s vaccine has important differences from the GlaxoSmithKline one, including the way they’re stabilized. They also acknowledged that there was “an overall significant difference in preterm births” between the arms but said the difference was not statistically significant and was driven primarily by data from sites in South Africa.

“I think we need to place all of this in context. As you’ve already heard, the overall results show no statistically significant difference. The results are driven by the upper- and middle-income countries with the high-income countries not showing this difference,” Dr. William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president for vaccine clinical research and panelists, told panelists. “And as you’ve heard from us, as well as the FDA, there’s the real opportunity, then, to look at this during the period of pharmacovigilance, when we have larger numbers of women being vaccinated, to determine whether or not there is, in fact, any sort of a signal.”

“But the evidence to this point provides no real support when we take the totality of it based on the Pfizer vaccine for an increased risk of prematurity, and we can investigate that, again, post-approval,” he added later.

The quote drew criticism from Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a doctor who criticized a similar comment made about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“Most drugs carry side effects. When considering maternal vaccinations, significant complications such as severe premature births or even pre-term and neonatal deaths may be present. The notion of vaccinating populations to determine whether or not there will be any side effects leads to a mistrust in the FDA, public health, and the medical community,” Murphy told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

Dr. Iona Munjal, a Pfizer senior director for vaccines, noted during the meeting that there were more deaths in the placebo group. “When you look at poor outcomes like death or poor neonatal outcomes in our study, we don’t see those poor outcomes,” she said. “And this is probably due to the fact that most of the infants are born very near term and not proximally related to the vaccine.”

RSV

RSV peaks in the United States during the winter, with very low levels during the summer and fall. It primarily affects children under the age of 1, though it also impacts older children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 100 to 300 children die each year from RSV, though a death certificate review for the 12 years ending in 2016 identified just 478 in that population, including 315 younger than age 1.

Approximately 68 percent of infants are infected before they turn 1, panel members heard, and U.S. officials say the vaccine would help curb a major reason for hospitalization.

The vaccine and others like it are “designed to overcome the shortcomings of previous efforts … [and] represent structural immunology and molecular engineering over empiric vaccinology against a respiratory virus that exacts its heaviest disease burden in the youngest and older adults,” Dr. David Kaslow, the director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, told the panel.

The Pfizer vaccine efficacy for hospitalizations due to RSV was 67.7 percent at 90 days but dropped to just 33.3 percent at 360 days, according to the trial data.

Only one RSV vaccine is currently available in the United States. It is only for adults aged 60 and older.

Votes

Many panelists said they were convinced by the high efficacy data, despite concerns about the premature births.

“If the vaccine actually lives up to the data that we’ve seen today, I can guarantee that many infants and their parents will breathe easier in the coming years,” Dr. Jay Portnoy, one of the members, said.

Some said there’s a need for a vaccine.

“If there’s anything real there, we want to make sure we are aware of this. But this really does address a real, real strong need; there isn’t another option here for prevention,” Adam Berger, one of the panelists, said. “And it really could save a lot of lives. So I do think a lot of this is going to lie on the postmarketing requirements.”

The FDA lists required studies for drug and vaccine manufacturers to carry out in letters of authorization and approval.

Others echoed Pfizer in asserting that observational data, or looking at outcomes in women who receive the vaccine after it is cleared, would clear up whether premature birth is a side effect.

“Observational studies, as we go forward will fairly quickly give us an answer. If there is a problem there,” Dr. Arnold Monto, another member, said. “We learned how to bite the bullet and get things out during the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine approvals.”

Dr. Henry Bernstein, another member, said he had reservations due to not wanting another situation like the quick removal of a rotavirus vaccine following a spike in cases of intussusception, a life-threatening condition. Intussusception following vaccination “was not statistically significant until it was more widely used,” he said.

While all members said the efficacy data support licensure, Offit, Bernstein, Holly Janes, and Dr. Hana El Sahly said the safety data were not sufficient.

“If you’re in any sense risking premature births with this vaccine, I think there’ll be a big price to pay. And so I just don’t feel we have enough data to be reassuring,” Offit said.

“There was too much uncertainty,” Janes added. “And I’m uncomfortable with the notion of kicking the can down the road … toward post-marketing surveillance studies. I think it’s a bit different to rely on surveillance studies to sort of confirm what appears to be a safe product whereas here, I think the signals are such that the post-marketing surveillance data would be asked to refute what is sort of a potential hypothesis here, and I think that’s a higher bar.”

President Joe Biden taunted Russia while speaking with reporters Sunday at the G-7 summit in Japan. The big decision which has been a main talking point at the meeting was the White House telling European allies that the US will allow them to export F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine if they desire. 

This has led to questions over whether this escalation in policy could bring NATO and Russia into direct clash. Here’s how a particular exchange went as the G7 wrapped up:

Journalist asks Biden about Russia saying that giving Ukraine F-16s is a “colossal risk” .

Biden: It is, FOR THEM.

U.S. President Biden while at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan was asked what his Response was to Russia who stated yesterday if F-16 Multirole Fighter Aircraft are provided to Ukraine it will be a “Colossal Risk to the West” with Biden stating, “It is for them”. pic.twitter.com/sKjJnN2d9g

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 21, 2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also presented a stance of ‘toughness’ and optimism concerning the war. In a speech marking the end of the G-7 he  urged the Western allies to ensure that Russia is the “last aggressor”.

He called Ukraine’s own 10-point peace plan the world’s “salvation from war,” and emphasized that “We will paralyze other potential aggressors.” 

“When everyone who wants war sees how determined the world is when it wants peace, there will be no point to start a war,” he said. 

His words came on the heels of Biden unveiling another $375million military aid package featuring more ammo, vehicles, and weapons. But news of the fall of Bakhmut clearly put a damper on the G7 proceedings for those officials gathered in Hiroshima. Zelensky appeared to offer some degree of confirmation that Ukraine no longer holds the city, following the Saturday announcement from Wagner: 

The reports that Zelensky supposedly confirmed loss of Bakhmut city are from what I can tell inaccurate. Here he clearly says “I think no” in answer to “the Russians say they’ve taken Bakhmut” before saying that the city is no longer, only in hearts. pic.twitter.com/ThBcDL1oNo

— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) May 21, 2023

As for Biden, he attempted to present the loss of Bakhmut as in the end more devastating for the Russian side, claiming that it suffered a huge number of casualties: 

“There is a discussion about Bakhmut – whether or not it’s been lost or whatever,” he said.

“Well, the truth of the matter is the Russians have suffered over 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut. That’s hard to make up. So whether or not there are troops in Bakhmut occupying, there are not many buildings left standing in Bakhmut. It’s a pretty devastated city. But they have been able to move in a direction that they’ve been able to lock down an awful lot of the Russian forces, including the Wagner Group.”

Biden made this statement in the context of the upcoming counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the possible transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. According to the U.S. president, F-16s “would not have helped (the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut).”

It’s unclear where the US president got these numbers, but they have been echoed before by some Pentagon and intelligence officials. It seems Washington’s new narrative will be to consider Bakhmut only an extremely costly Pyrrhic victory for the Russian side.

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

This Year’s Emmy for Outstanding Reality Series Goes to…

The Debt Ceiling.

Voters were just amazed at how much was made from such a flimsy topic. Others commented that the debt ceiling had become tired, worn, and too predictable, but this year’s cast of characters brought out some new energy. While highly unusual to be given an award for a series that hasn’t been finished, it just stood out as being deserving of the recognition. Critics claimed that it was manufactured, unbelievable, and with one-dimensional characters constrained by an unbelievable script, but the audience is always right!

How can this move markets when 95% of people believe that a default cannot happen? Even those who think that it could happen don’t believe that it is likely. Yet, markets moved on a series of headlines, including the ever popular “the meeting ended abruptly in disagreement” followed by “they are heading back to the table”.

Who out there wasn’t gripped by the tale? The “behind the scenes” end of season reveal should be exciting. Just imagine senior political officials huddled in an office, apparently discussing the fate of the nation’s debt, but in reality are all logged into their trading accounts to make sure that they buy or sell ahead of the news. Ok, I’m sure that the last part didn’t happen, but it is kind of funny (in a sad way) to think about, as insider trading isn’t prohibited in any way on the hill and the headlines, especially late in the week, seemed to be perfect for triggering buy programs and later a sell program or two.

In any case, the debt ceiling continues to take up a lot of focus for markets. Probably far too much focus as default seems unlikely, and despite the “world is ending” arguments, I don’t see a default (that is cured within a few days or a week) as being devastating. Longer-term maybe, but I’d likely buy any “default dip”.

In the meantime, the S&P (up 1.7%) and Nasdaq (up 3.0%) posted strong weeks even as rates rose rather significantly. I didn’t believe that we would see much of a “debt ceiling resolved” bounce since I don’t think that many have been shorting against the debt ceiling specifically.

Next Week

Last week, Academy was a lead manager on Bank of NY’s 3NC2 bonds. Always exciting for Academy when we get selected for such a senior role. I spent much of the week away from the screens, as we travelled from Peoria to Kiawah and then on to DC and Virginia. I got to spend time with several of our generals and admirals and look forward to doing a more geopolitical slanted macro piece early next week. China was front and center, as was the dollar, but more on that on Tuesday.

On Tuesday we get NVDA earnings. The stock is up over 110% year-to-date and is a focal point for the AI theme. When looking at markets for the past month (S&P up 1.4% and Nasdaq up 4.9%), I’m pretty sure that if you pull the “AI themed stocks” out of the S&P 500 it would have been negative.

AI is the growth story and undoubtedly is changing the world. Everyone is examining AI and thinking about not just how to use it, but how to keep their jobs relevant in an AI driven world. I’m fully on board with that, but have valuations gotten ahead of themselves? Is AI really big enough (and soon enough) to prop up the entire market? However, I can see the rationale and could be convinced that there is a lot more to come. On the other hand, I’m old enough to remember the “metaverse” (and that rally) and a time when companies that were changing their names to include “blockchain” saw significant pops. Everything about the AI story seems much bigger than either of those examples, but the market seems to have a habit of getting ahead of itself. In a market where there has been so little to like (I keep seeing stats complaining about the lack of breadth), it is easy to gravitate to the one story that has legs. The NVDA earnings (and call) could be the biggest market driver of any release this earnings season, which is an accomplishment in its own right!

In between flights, checking in and out of hotel rooms, discussing geopolitics, digesting debt ceiling headlines, and getting smarter about the AI revolution, I did think a bit about the economy. We saw some “mixed” data last week, but nothing that changes my view that the best is behind us. Rather than haphazardly pulling together some charts, I will go back to an old favorite – the Citi Economic Surprise Index.

A few weeks ago we postulated that we would see a downturn in the “surprise” index. The “surprise” index is interesting because it is “relative”. Just because it is declining doesn’t mean that the data is bad. It could just be that expectations got so strong that even “good” data created a negative surprise. This time around, the data has gotten weaker, since I’m finding very few positive economists (which, as a contrarian, scares me as I’m definitely part of the consensus).

As the data deteriorates, forecasts will be lowered. I do think that once we make it through the debt ceiling (which really seems like just a bad idea for a reality TV series) and the AI earnings, we will see some economic bears get some airtime. As data disappoints, those that were looking for a downturn in the data (and expecting a recession) will get some more attention, which should act as a headwind for risk.

By the middle of next week, we will be back to focusing on the economy and what that means for markets (and that won’t be supportive).

In the meantime, I just want to thank all of Academy’s customers, not just for the business and opportunities that you provide us with, but for all of the discussions and information sharing which makes us smarter and better able to serve you!

Thanks again! And if I sound too harsh on DC and the time spent on the debt ceiling, I actually toned down my comments and I am pretty sure that my editors will do the same!

In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court ruled last week that it’s legal for the IRS to secretly obtain the bank records of third parties who are not under investigation, when seeking a summons for banking records believed to be relevant to the tax delinquency of another person.

The new ruling gives the IRS “startlingly broad authority to pry into the financial records of people who may be only remotely connected to a delinquent taxpayer,” according to one lawyer briefed on the decision, the Epoch Times reports.

The ruling, a victory for the Biden administration, came after the administration’s attempts to strengthen IRS enforcement efforts became an issue in the midterm congressional elections. The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022, allocated almost $80 billion to the IRS to hire an extra 87,000 agents. Democrats say the IRS has long been underfunded, but Republicans say the extra money will be used to harass taxpayers.

At oral arguments on March 29 the justices had seemed sympathetic to the claim of the wife of a man who owed substantial taxes that the IRS went too far in pursuing her bank records without prior notice. At the same time, they acknowledged the agency needs effective tools to attempt to collect delinquent accounts. -Epoch Times

In the court’s May 18 opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Polselli v. IRS (court file 21-1599) sided with the Biden administration, which argued that the IRS does not need to provide notice to third parties, and that having to do so would give delinquent taxpayers “a head start in hiding assets.”

The administration also argued that people involved in the process have access to the courts to combat alleged abuses.

In an earlier decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit split from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit over the matter, requiring the Supreme Court to decide the matter. In their decision, Roberts wrote that the Court disagreed with Polselli – affirming the 6th Circuit’s ruling.

“Congress has given the IRS considerable power to go after unpaid taxes,” wrote Roberts.

“One tool at the Service’s disposal is the authority to summon people with information concerning a delinquent taxpayer. But to safeguard privacy, the IRS is generally required to provide notice to anyone named in a summons, who can then sue to quash it. Today’s case concerns an exception to that general rule.”

The IRS can now request the production of “books, papers, records, or other data” from “any person” who may possess information regarding a delinquent taxpayer, Roberts wrote.

“Given the breadth of this power, Congress has imposed certain safeguards” and will typically have to give notice of the summons to anyone identified in it, who is then entitled to bring a motion to quash said summons (at considerable personal legal expense, of course). If the summons is issued in aid of the collection of an assessment made or judgement rendered, however, the notice does not have to be provided.

“In other words, the IRS may issue summonses both to determine whether a taxpayer owes money and later to collect any outstanding liability. When the IRS conducts an investigation for the purpose of ‘determining the liability’ of a taxpayer … it must provide notice … But once the Service has reached the stage of ‘collecting any such liability,’ … —which is a distinct activity—notice may not be required.”

In a separate opinion which Roberts concurred with, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that Congress has “recognized that there might be situations, particularly in the collection context, where providing notice could frustrate the IRS’s ability to effectively administer the tax laws.”

“For instance, upon receiving notice that the IRS has served a summons, interested persons might move or hide collectable assets, making the agency’s collection efforts substantially harder.”

According to Paul Sherman, counsel for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, “The Supreme Court’s ruling grants the IRS startlingly broad authority to pry into the financial records of people who may be only remotely connected to a delinquent taxpayer.”

“That ruling raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns. Thankfully, the Court stressed that its ruling was narrowly focused on the statutory question before it. In a future case, the Court should address the constitutional limits on the government’s power to demand access to people’s most sensitive financial information.”

Already impaired by widely-reported mental decline, Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to the Senate two weeks ago after a nearly three-month absence as she battled shingles. Last week, in a Capitol Hill encounter with reporters, Feinstein appeared to be unaware that she’d been gone from the Senate, declaring, “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting.” 

Writing about the spectacle, we observed that a long-overdue Feinstein resignation “would go against the interests of her handlers who’d surely like to keep their Senate jobs as long as possible.”

While that’s certainly one reason to keep pushing a wheelchair-bound, mentally failing and physically frail Feinstein around Capitol Hill to push voting buttons, a more complex conspiracy has emerged: Rep. Adam Schiff wants her seat and desperately wants Feinstein to hang on through the 2024 election. 

Why is that so crucial to him? If Feinstein resigns, California Gov. Gavin Newsom would appoint a senator to fill the seat until 2024. Newsom has already promised to appoint a black woman in that event, and one of Schiff’s declared opponents is California Rep. Barbara Lee. If appointed, she’d enter the 2024 race with the power of incumbency. 

The plot gets thicker: Nancy Pelosi has endorsed Schiff in the Senate race and — upon her return to Washington — Feinstein has been frequently accompanied by a mystery woman, whom Politico has now identified as Pelosi’s eldest daughter, Nancy Corinne Prowda. 

It seems Pelosi is using every resource at her disposal to keep Feinstein in office. Consistent with that, amid perfectly reasonable demands by Democrats for Feinstein to resign, Pelosi has been one of the 89-year-old senator’s most vocal defenders. In April, she played the misogyny card, saying, “I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way.” 

An unnamed “Pelosi family confidant” has essentially confirmed the scheme, telling Politico that “if DiFi resigns right now, there is an enormous probability that Barbara Lee gets appointed — thus, it makes it harder for Schiff…The political thinking is that if DiFi stays as long as possible, it helps Schiff as well.”

The confidant also said the relationship between Feinstein and Pelosi’s daughter was “being kept under wraps and very, very closely held.” Well, not anymore…some family confidant that is. 

Maybe it’s a confidant with a conscience: For all of Democrats’ railing about saving Our Democracy®, the propping up of Feinstein makes her chief of staff — the obscure James Sauls — a de facto, unelected shadow senator. 

Or perhaps the confidant empathizes with Feinstein, as the scheme to keep her installed has crossed the line into elder abuse — even if Feinstein herself is insisting she can keep going.

For the good of her health, her dignity, the Senate, the Democratic Party and our democracy, it’s past time now for Senator Feinstein’s family and caretakers to convene and immediately end this ghastly, degrading spectacle that borders on elder abuse.pic.twitter.com/d0ABJvbVX4

— Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) May 18, 2023

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that Feinstein’s shingles complications were more serious than her handlers had previously disclosed. In addition to vision and balance problems and facial paralysis, the virus also caused encephalitis — swelling of Feinstein’s brain that can cause enduring memory failures, confusion and mood disorders, among many other symptoms. 

Even before her battle with shingles, Feinstein’s mental decline had been chronicled by the most liberal newspapers. Last year, the Times and San Francisco Chronicle published insider accounts of Feinstein being unable to remember names, meetings and phone conversations. The Times described her as sometimes “walk[ing] around in a state of befuddlement.” 

Upon Feinstein’s return to Washington this month, The Times described her as appearing “shockingly diminished” and offered this vignette:  

“Using a wheelchair, with the left side of her face frozen and one eye nearly shut, she seemed disoriented as an aide steered her through the marble corridors of the Senate, complaining audibly that something was stuck in her eye.”

People close to Feinstein say they find her attempt to function in the Senate in her condition as “frightening.” A running joke in that crowd goes that, after her death, maybe then she’ll entertain resigning.

The joke’s on us.  

Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClearInvestigations.com,

Our ruling class will use any means necessary—no matter how lawless, vicious, or brazen—to preserve its power and privilege. And it will seemingly never pay a price for its corruption and criminality. That is the ultimate lesson conveyed in the more than three hundred pages of gory details about the republic-eroding scandal that is Russiagate, comprising Special Counsel John Durham’s final report.

Russiagate’s aim from the jump was to delegitimize, destabilize, and destroy Donald Trump‘s presidency. Hatched by the Hillary Clinton campaign, this would be her revenge for losing to Trump—an attempt to make his victory a Pyrrhic one. This would be the deep state’s way to sabotage and subvert a commander in chief who threatened to upend its agenda, and that of the entire political establishment.

Neither fidelity to the law and truth, nor any sense of shame, nor any fear of consequences could temper the zealous would-be vanquishers of the “bad orange man.” We know this because, as Durham’s report spells out, and as even casual observers have long been aware, the story of Trump-Russia collusion was a farce from the very beginning and in virtually every respect.

It was born of hearsay, ludicrous innuendo, and laughable inferences. Its sources were biased, unscrupulous, and shady. The investigators acted corruptly, lawlessly, and violated basic practices and time-honored norms in pursuing a probe of the highest stakes. They could not corroborate the key pillars on which they “built” their “case” and covered their eyes and ears in the face of exculpatory evidence at every turn. The lack of due diligence and carelessness is staggering—if you were to assume the FBI and Justice Department were operating in good faith. Despite the glaring deficiencies in their case and the blatant violation of the rights of innocent Americans, including among them true patriots, nothing would slow them down.

It did not have to be this way.

Were American journalists at our nation’s most storied publications adversaries of the ruling class rather than its stenographers—had they even a modicum of skepticism, curiosity, or intellectual honesty, they could have stepped in to defend our republic.

They could have exposed one of the greatest scandals in American history: that our national security and law enforcement apparatus effectively sought to halt the transfer of power to a president they feared and loathed by pursuing him as a traitor, based on crackpot conspiracy theories borne of his political opponent’s research.

Consider Gen. Michael Flynn‘s purported Logan Act violations; George Papadopoulos‘ comments to an Australian diplomat; Carter Page’s supposed Russian ties; the contents of the Steele dossier; Sergei Millian’s significance; the secret Alfa Bank back channel to Russia. The list of shoddy stories pertaining to purported Russian collusion is virtually endless, and as the Durham Report shows—as did reporting from independent, contrarian journalists at the time—such stories would fall apart under the slightest scrutiny.

Instead, the press served as a willing co-conspirator in this information and lawfare operation. It credulously ran with the lines the Clinton camp, and then the national security and law enforcement apparatus, fed to it.

More than one Pulitzer prize was handed out for fraudulent Russia collusion stories. The Washington Post would eventually retract and remove portions of certain Pulitzer-winning stories. But many glaring errors remain uncorrected, and never apologized for.

As Tom Kuntz, a former longtime New York Times editor who helped edit the Gray Lady’s Pulitzer submissions in several years (and my editor at RealClearInvestigations) detailed back in 2019 amid the release of the Robert Mueller special counsel report showing no Trump-Russia collusion, the award-winning Russiagate “journalism” suffered from major deficiencies.

For one, as he noted, much of the award-winning work, in a parallel to the FBI and DOJ’s efforts, relied on anonymous sources “with insufficient skepticism and a lack of caveats in the service of a credulous and disingenuous journalism of innuendo.”

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 17: Special Counsel John Durham, who then-United States Attorney General William Barr appointed in 2019 after the release of the Mueller report to probe the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, arrives for his trial at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on May 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.RON SACHS/CONSOLIDATED NEWS PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

As Kuntz wrote, these stories did little to establish the credibility and objectivity of their anonymous sources:

Rereading the stories, I searched mostly in vain for answers to these questions: Which government departments did the sources work for? What were their motivations? Were any of them seeking to deflect attention from their own failure to prevent Russian meddling in the 2016 election? How many were current and how many former (i.e. Obama administration) officials? Were any of them connected to former high-ranking officials who publicly—and profitably—turned against Trump?… For that matter, were those high-profile men also serving as anonymous sources? And—a problem little discussed in journalism—could the same people have been sources for multiple stories, creating a distorted, snowballing impression of major wrongdoing?

Just as important, apart from White House denials of allegations, I usually searched in vain for voices both inside and outside the government who dissented from the dark interpretations that were offered.

Former New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth, in an expansive Columbia Journalism Review exposè in large part focused on the media’s coverage of Trump-Russia collusion, points out that Russian collusion-mongering publications failed to print countervailing facts, seek comment from those being scrutinized, and often cited as “government officials” or other purportedly neutral authorities partisan congressional leakers.

Dozens of journalists also refused Gerth’s requests for an interview.

Gerth concluded that “journalism’s primary missions, informing the public and holding powerful interests accountable, have been undermined by the erosion of journalistic norms and the media’s own lack of transparency about its work.”

The parallels between the deep state and its media co-conspirators in foisting Trump-Russian collusion on America are striking.

Both failed at their missions to expose the truth in defense of our republic, but self-evidently defined success differently.

Both wanted to get Trump. With the deep state doing the “investigating” and corporate media serving as its communications arm, they got millions of Americans to believe the president was working with Russia, cast a pall over the entire presidency, and undermined it.

While the deep state has brushed off its corruption as “missteps” and made reforms largely around the edges to “address” it, the media has continued to downplay its own errors or even double down on its work.

Durham’s report stands as a direct indictment of the FBI and Justice Department, and an indirect indictment of the media that carried the agencies’ water. But as with the former, the latter will not face indictments. No one responsible for printing stories filled with gaping errors in major publications has been disciplined, let alone fired.

The deep state and media remain unchastened.

The very agencies we can least afford to be hyper-politicized and weaponized remain hopelessly so, and the institution of journalism that might help expose and hold them to account remains co-opted by them.

We the people suffer it.

Negotiations in Washington DC over the debt ceiling have taken a big step back over the weekend, as the White House and House Republicans continue to point fingers at each other.

“It seems as though he wants default more than he wants a deal,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Fox News on Sunday. “We have got 11 days to go,” McCarthy continued, urging Biden and the Democrats to be “sensible about this.”

Republicans have been pushing for substantial, longer-term spending reductions, arguing that Congress needs to roll the nation’s deficit spending back to 2022 levels, while restricting the growth of government spending. The White House, on the other hand, wants to achieve policy goals via taxation.

McCarthy said there’s some talk of extending the debt ceiling until 2025, but he said he’s demanding cuts to federal spending in exchange for GOP votes to do so. Biden, he said, is resisting.

“The president keeps changing positions every time Bernie Sanders has a press conference,” he said.

McCarthy said Biden is demanding tax increases after earlier agreeing to keep them off the table. He also said Republicans have made compromises but didn’t specify them. –Bloomberg

Meanwhile, Biden – speaking at a press conference held after the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Hiroshima, said that he would speak with McCarthy shortly, though he added that the Republican plan was unacceptable.

“The speaker and I’ll be talking later on the plane as we head back,” said Biden. “And our teams are going to continue working.”

“Much of what they already proposed is simply, quite frankly unacceptable.”

Pres. Biden addresses the debt ceiling negotiations with House Speaker McCarthy after negotiations were put on pause while Biden is abroad. pic.twitter.com/Lotumo4OKM

— ABC News (@ABC) May 21, 2023

“I’m willing to cut spending, and I proposed cuts in spending of over a trillion dollars,” he continued. “But I believe we have to also look at the tax revenues,” adding that the Republican proposal to cut $2 trillion in taxes would hurt the economy.

“Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme positions, because much of what they’ve already proposed is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable,” Biden told reporters. “And it’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely on their partisan terms.”

He also rambled a lot.

In all seriousness — what is Biden talking about? pic.twitter.com/YtfhVFxNHE

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 21, 2023

Biden’s comments came after McCarthy on Saturday accused the White House of backtracking during negotiations, and told reporters that there would be no progress made until Biden returns from the trip.

“The White House is moving backward in negotiations,” McCarthy tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Unfortunately, the socialist wing of the Democrat Party appears to be in control—especially with President Biden out of the country.”

The White House is moving backward in negotiations.

Unfortunately, the socialist wing of the Democrat Party appears to be in control—especially with President Biden out of the country.

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 20, 2023

“President Biden doesn’t think there is a single dollar of savings to be found in the federal government’s budget,” McCarthy tweeted in the evening. “He’d rather be the first president in history to default on the debt than to risk upsetting the radical socialists who are calling the shots for Democrats right now.”

President Biden doesn’t think there is a single dollar of savings to be found in the federal government’s budget.

He’d rather be the first president in history to default on the debt than to risk upsetting the radical socialists who are calling the shots for Democrats right now.

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 21, 2023

One of McCarthy’s top deputies, House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) on Sunday said he’s ‘pessimistic’ about the current state of negotiations, and that there is no plans for DC-based negotiations to continue at this time.

In response to McCarthy’s comments, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement from Hiroshima, reiterating Biden’s c all for a “reasonable bipartisan budget agreement.”

“Last night in D.C., the Speaker’s team put on the table an offer that was a big step back and contained a set of extreme partisan demands that could never pass both Houses of Congress,” she said.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen underscored the urgency of the situation, telling NBC that the likelihood the US would be able to pay its bills by mid-June is “quite low.”

“Well, there’s always uncertainty about tax receipts and spending,” Yellen told “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And so it’s hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15 while being able to pay all of our bills is quite low.”

CHUCK TODD: So there will be some bills unpaid if the debt ceiling is not raised?

YELLEN: Yes pic.twitter.com/tHWiqiea5Q

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2023

“Deficits can be addressed both through changes in spending and also through changes in revenue — and Republicans have taken that off the table,” Yellen continued.

Janet Yellen: “Deficits can be addressed both through changes in spending and also through changes in revenue — and Republicans have taken that off the table.” pic.twitter.com/Mqgtbixque

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 21, 2023

In short, drama right up to the finish line. Did you expect anything less?

Head of the Russian private military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has announced Saturday that after months of grinding warfare and heavy casualties, Russia has now taken full control of the strategic city of Bakhmut. 

Prigozhin is announcing final victory and that Bakhmut has finally fallen. “The operation to capture Bakhmut lasted 224 days” he said in a video posted to Wagner’s Telegram channel. “Today at noon, Bakhmut was fully captured,” he declared.

Russian state media is also declaring “The key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, known as Bakhmut in Ukraine, has been fully liberated by the Russian forces…”. 

Prigozhin described that full capture of the city finally came when an area containing high-rise buildings where the final Ukrainian defensive holdout had a presence was conquered. 

Western media reports have said they can’t verify the claims, but headlines in Reuters and the Associated Press are widely reporting the Wagner chief’s declaration of victory: 

In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke flanked by about half a dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance.

But the mainstream media reports are also highlighting Ukraine’s rejection of claims that the city has finally fallen. Yet, as the AP underscores, Ukrainian officials have lately admitted the situation was already dire for their forces: 

However, after the video appeared, Ukrainian deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar said heavy fighting was continuing.

“The situation is critical,” she said. “As of now, our defenders, control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in this area.”

Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern command, told The Associated Press that Prigozhin’s claim “is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut.”

BREAKING: Russian forces have taken complete control of Artyomovsk-Bakhmut, Donetsk Republic, according to Wagner PMC Chief Prigozhin.

He says Wagner forces will begin leaving the city on May 25, transferring control to the Russian Military. pic.twitter.com/j32FXiKqFs

— Rachel Blevins (@RachBlevins) May 20, 2023

Starting weeks ago the Russian side said it held at least 90-95% of the city, and that gains were being made a couple hundred meters at a time. Prigozhin said Saturday that by the end of the month Wagner will hand over its captured positions to regular Russian forces.

Interestingly, The New York Times issued the following story at the very moment that Wagner declared victory – a headline that looks to have immediately become obsolete: 

As Russia rotated troops outside Bakhmut, Ukraine seized the moment, gaining ground on the city’s flanks. Here’s how it shifted the momentum in the fiercest battle of the war. https://t.co/6UpFLk5xw3

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 20, 2023

Western media has been hyping Ukrainian “gains” of late in Bakhmut, but that doesn’t look to have ultimately been the case. Likely as verification comes of Russia’s control of the key city in Donetsk, there will be a lot of downplaying of the significance by US and Western officials. 

It could also make Zelensky’s G7 trip in Japan more awkward. He’s expected to meet with President Biden and other G7 leaders on Saturday. Top on the agenda for Zelensky will be requests to expedite fighter jets to Kiev, and it looks like the Western allies are slowly moving in that direction. But the elephant in the room will be growing doubts even among the most ardent of Kiev’s supporters of whether Ukraine can in fact ‘win’… no matter how much military equipment they are given by Western backers.

Authored by Doug French via The Mises Institute,

The talking heads on financial TV ask everyday where we are in the banking crisis.

Is it over yet?

After scooping up First Republic, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon said, “This part of the crisis is over.”

After he said that, however, the shares of regional banks such as PacWest, Zions, and Western Alliance were cut in half.

The market doesn’t believe Mr. Dimon.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

‎On Twitter, describing the typical timeline for a banking crisis, Real Vision’s Raoul Pal posted:

It’s one bad apple,

Well maybe it’s just a few

“Banks remain strong”

It’s the evil short sellers (we are considering a ban)

Ok, now we are banning shorts

Oh, seems that didn’t work

Cut rates

That didn’t work

Panic

Change . . .

Kübler-Ross’s denial stage would include Pal’s “one bad apple,” “just a few,” and “Banks remain strong.”

The anger stage would be “evil short sellers,” “banning shorts,” and it “seems that didn’t work.”

The bargaining stage would be “Cut rates” and “That didn’t work.”

Depression would be “Panic,”

with “Change” being the acceptance stage.

We clearly appear to be only in the anger stage. Kimberly Adams writes for Marketplace:

The American Bankers Association is laying some of the blame for that at the feet of short sellers trying to scare people into thinking banks are about to go under so that the stock price falls and they can profit. On Thursday, the ABA sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the agency to look into the issue. . . .

“We’ve been in constant communication with our members, and they’ve shared with us their concerns, including engagement that they’ve seen on social media,” said Naomi Camper, chief policy officer at the ABA.

“And many believe that their shares have been manipulated by short sellers. They’re seeing trading in their shares that defy the underlying fundamentals, and they’re worried about it.”

During the Q and A at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting televised by CNBC, Warren Buffett mentioned a bank stock short-selling ban. 

Reuters reports that Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a law firm that has represented large companies, said in a letter to clients that “the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should regulate what it defined as ‘coordinated short attacks’ by imposing a 15-trading day prohibition on short sales of financial institutions.”

Taking the other side of the argument is longtime bank analyst Dick Bove. Bloomberg reports:

“‘The funds and others who are shorting bank stocks are doing the American public a meaningful service,’ analyst Bove said in a note.

‘They are winnowing the banking industry and forcing these companies to stabilize their financial statements.’”

Bove is right.

The average depositor can’t make heads or tails of their bank’s financial statements.

[ZH: Despite the bounce in regional bank stocks this week, small bank deposits continue to flood out of the system…]

At least short sellers give John and Jane Q. Public a heads-up about their banks.

Bank regulators are like the fire department, the hook and ladder doesn’t arrive until a house is fully inflamed.

If it plays out the way Mr. Pal believes, a couple more banks will fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission will impose a short-selling ban, and then a few more banks will fail. Then, it will be time for a Federal Reserve rate cut.

Reuters reports that the Fed futures market is factoring in a more than 70 percent chance of a rate cut at the Fed’s September meeting.

This summer may be an interesting one.