The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is set to release its final rule on Braced firearms later this month.
In Analyzing the proposed rule, which was released June 2021, it appears that ATF has intentionally designed its Factoring Criteria for Rifled Barrel Weapons with Accessories Commonly Referred to as “Stabilizing Braces” to effect a complete ban of every pistol-braced firearm currently on the market.
Masquerading as a helpful rulemaking “to assist” gun owners and the firearms industry in complying with the law, in reality the proposed rule is designed with the obvious and specific intent to largely outlaw the use of stabilizing braces on firearms, threatening millions of current owners with imprisonment and putting a large segment of the gun industry out of business entirely.
To accomplish this goal, the proposed rule creates “Worksheet 4999,” which contains three sections of analysis, each more restrictive than the last, designed to ensure that virtually no stabilizing brace is eligible for use on a non-rifle firearm, and thereafter ensuring that most firearms do not qualify to even use an allowed stabilizing brace.
ICYMI: GOA has created a Pistol Point Calculator to help everyone understand the tyrannical Biden Pistol Ban.
Our team has taken the ATF Form 4999 from the Proposed Rule and made it so you can find out how many points your “illegal SBR” AKA legally purchased firearm will have. pic.twitter.com/BRTvRSynT2
Even if a firearm passes the checks listed in “Worksheet 4999” ATF reserves unto itself the unbridled discretion to override the results of the worksheet at any time and for any reason, creating a system where no person or company could possibly rely on anything the agency says.
ATF in their proposed rulemaking claims that the number of Stabilizing braces in circulation is around 7-9 million. Whereas the Congressional Research Service estimates that the actual number of braces in circulation is anywhere between 10 – 40 million.
If this proposed rule becomes law, millions of gun owners could find themselves in possession of illegal, unregistered short barreled rifles or shotguns overnight.
The anti-gunners never rest (or understand) exactly what they want to ban or regulate. Sometimes you just have to call, “Bull****.” 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/q2nhSaW5NV
ATF attempted once before to effectively ban pistol braces in 2020, during the Trump administration. Because of the massive grassroots response to the rule change, ATF abandoned their attempt and withdrew the rulemaking. But now that a new anti-gun regime has taken control of the White House, the ATF feels empowered to revive its war on pistol braces and essentially ban an extremely popular gun accessory.
The ATF’s Brace Rule is Incoming—Are you ready? 🧐
Watch the latest Minute Man Moment and learn all FORTY points of the pending unconstitutional rule. Then take action to fight the tyrannical ATF. https://t.co/PO4aHwBFqL
What is Gun Owners of America doing to combat this arbitrary and capricious regulation?
We’ve submitted comments to the Federal Register detailing our arguments against the proposed rule.
We’ve worked with 48 Senators to demand that the ATF withdraw its proposed rule.
In Congress, we’re targeting the core of the issue, the National Firearms Act. The outdated and unconstitutional NFA allows ATF to regulate these sorts of items in the first place. We’re working with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and Congressman Andrew Clyde of Georgia to pass the SHORT Act which would remove Short Barreled Rifles and Shotguns from the NFA.
Finally, if the rule does go into effect, we’re prepared to take the fight to the courts.
* * *
We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.
California Senator Accused Of Faking Anti-LGBTQ Threat
California state Senator Scott Weiner – who in June suggested “Offering Drag Queen 101 as part of the K-12 curriculum,” for which “Attending Drag Queen Story Time will satisfy the requirement,” has been accused of a hate crime hoax.
On Tuesday, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk made a Twitter thread pointing the finger at Weiner for contributing to the release of “thousands of pedophiles” in California “after just a few months in jail.”
Click the tweet below to read the entire thread:
Thousands of pedophiles in California are going free after just a few months in jail, thanks to the state’s radically reduced penalties for child molestation.
One reason so many of these predators are going free so early is California lawmaker Scott Wiener.🧵 pic.twitter.com/Z2X8wBhRA0
In response, Weiner tweeted what he claimed to be a hateful, anti-LGBTQ message he received in response to Kirk’s thread.
“Not even 24 hours after MAGA grifter Charlie Kirk tweeted homophobic lies about me, I received this thread repeating one of his lies.”
Except, there’s a cursor at the bottom of the message, and grammar suggestions are underlined – leading many to accuse the California lawmaker of faking the entire thing.
How long until Weiner says he copied the message into a text editor?
Yeah… that’s super doubtful. Rather than just taking a screenshot of the message and blacking out or cropping the identity, he copied the text, opened a text document, pasted the text in, and then took a screenshot.
No doubt that’s what he’ll claim after deleting it, though.
Two of the classic works of late 19th century American political literature, representing precisely opposite views of how commerce in an industrialized democracy ought to work, are Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and the speeches of George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.
George was one of the great political economists of his day, and he ran and lost for mayor of New York City on an anti-monopoly and land reform ticket. George was interested in why we experienced tremendous inequality in the midst of great wealth, and traced it to the exploitation of land.
George was an international superstar, influencing both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, as well as environmentalists and the modern libertarian movement. (There’s an iconic statue of the greatest mayor in Cleveland history, Tom Johnson, with Johnson holding a copy of Progress and Poverty.) The modern academic profession of economics arose in part as a reaction to the popular success of George’s work. The game Monopoly comes directly from George, and in many ways, the national parks, as well as everything from spectrum allocation to offshore oil drilling, must wrestle with Georgeist thinking.
But by land, he meant far more than just the plots upon which we live. “The term land,” George wrote, “necessarily includes, not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished from the water and the air, but the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which his very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature.” Unlike Marx, who saw the exploitation of capital over labor, George thought that the root of social disorder was a result of the power of the landowner over both capital and labor.
By land, he meant all value drawn purely from nature or from collective human existence. He would, for instance, consider ‘network effects’ a form of land, and likely seek regulation or national control of search engines. George had his first run-in with monopoly in San Francisco, where a telegraph monopolist destroyed his newspaper by denying him wire service. But his key work, in 1879, was written before the rise of the giant trusts, just as railroads, which were really land kingdoms, were becoming dominant.
A much more cynical set of works are the speeches of Plunkitt. Plunkitt was a political boss in New York City, a proud machine politician in office at the same time in the same political arena as George. Both men were interested in modern industry and wealth, and in both cases, the key fulcrum around which power flowed was not capital, but land. But while George sought a better world, Plunkitt just wanted to get rich, and saw in the purchase of land one of the key ways to do that.
Plunkitt’s key moral guidepost was the practical wielding of political power to enrich oneself. He posited something called “Honest Graft,” which he distinguished from crime in a formulation that every important corporate lobbyist, knowingly or not, has since used. To Plunkitt, stealing would be taking something that doesn’t belong to you. But if you happened to know that the city would need a piece of land, and you got there first, well, that was simply smart. As Plunkitt put it:
“I could get nothin’ at a bargain but a big piece of swamp, but I took it fast enough and held on to it. What turned out was just what I counted on. They couldn’t make the park complete without Plunkitt’s swamp, and they had to pay a good price for it. Anything dishonest in that?”
George was part of the land reform anti-monopoly school of Anglo-American thought, from Frederick Douglass to Thaddeus Stevens. Plunkitt was a machine politician, and proud of it. The battle between these two elements of America, the desire to conserve the public weal versus the desire to cynically plunder it, is still fierce today. It will probably never end.
And that brings me to the political conflict over our national parks, and the strange situation whereby a large government contractor, Booz Allen, somehow found itself in a position to rent us back our own land.
Every day, visitors to Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Northern Arizona hike into an area named Coyote Buttes North to see one of the “most visually striking geologic sandstone formations in the world,” which is known as The Wave. On an ancient layer of sandstone, millions of years of water and wind erosion crafted 3,000-foot cliffs, weird red canyons that look like you are on the planet Mars, and giant formations that look like crashing waves made of rock. There are old carvings known as ‘petroglyphs’ on cliff walls, and even “dinosaur tracks embedded in the sediment.”
The Wave is unlike anywhere else on Earth. It is also part of a U.S. national park, and thus technically, it’s open to anyone. Yet, to preserve its natural beauty, the Bureau of Land Management lets just 64 people daily visit the area. Snagging one of these slots is an accomplishment, a ticket into The Wave is known as “The Hardest Permit to Get in the USA” by Outside and Backpacker Magazines.
To apply requires going to Recreation.gov, the site set up to manage national parks, public cultural landmarks, and public lands, and paying $9 for a “Lottery Application Fee.” If you win, you get a permit, and pay a recreation fee of $7. The success rate for the lottery is between 4-10%, and some people spend upwards of $500 before securing an actual permit.
But while the recreation fee of $7 goes to maintaining the park – which is what Henry George would appreciate – the money for the “Lottery Application Fee” is pure Plunkitt. That money goes to the giant D.C. consulting firm, Booz Allen and Company. In fact, since 2017, more and more of America’s public lands – over 4,200 facilities and 113,000 individual sites across the country at last count – have been added to the Recreation.gov database and website run by Booz Allen, which in turn captures various fees that Americans pay to visit their national heritage.
You can do a lot at Recreation.gov. You can sign up for a pass to cut down a Christmas tree on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, get permits to fly-fishing, rifle hunting or target practice at thousands of sites, or even secure a tour at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. There are dozens of lotteries to enter for different parks and lands that are hard to access. And all of them come with service fees attached, fees that go directly to Booz Allen, which built Recreation.gov. The deeper you go, the more interesting the gatekeeping. As one angry writer found out after waiting on hold and being transferred multiple times, the answer is that Booz Allen “actually sets the Recreation.gov fees for themselves.”
Lately, hundreds of sites have begun requiring the use of the site. A typical example is Red Rock Canyon, which added “timed entry permit” in the past two years. Such parks, before adding these new processes, usually do a “trial” period followed by a public comment period, and then the fees are approved by a Resource Advisory Council, objects of derision composed of people appointed by the government bureaus. As one person involved in the process told me, these councils are sort of ridiculous. “Agencies fill it with people beholden to them,” he said. “so the council playing committee rubber stamps whatever they send their way, often even if it makes no sense.”
The entry permit almost always become permanent. This includes heavily visited lands like Acadia National Park (4 million annual visitors), Arches National Park (1.5 million), Glacier National Park (3 million), Rocky Mountain National Park (4.4 million), and Yosemite (3.3 million). There’s nothing wrong with charging a fee for the use of a national park, as long as that fee is necessary for the upkeep and is used to maintain the public resource.
That was in fact the point of the law passed in 2004 – the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act – to give permanent authority to government agencies to charge fees for the use of public lands. But what Booz Allen is doing is different. The incentives are creating the same dynamics for public lands that we see with junk fees across the economy. Just as airlines are charging for carry-on bags and hotels are forcing people to pay ‘resort fees,’ some national parks are now requiring reservations with fees attached. And as scalpers automatically grabbed Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster using high-speed automated programs, there are now bots booking campsites.
None of this is criminal, though the fee structure may not be lawful, but it is very George Washington Plunkitt. “I Seen My Opportunities,” he said, “and I Took ’Em.”
Honest Graft
The entry point for Booz Allen can be traced back to the Obama administration, and a giant failed IT project. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, pledging that by 2014, the government would have a website up in which uninsured Americans could buy health insurance with various subsidies. In perhaps one of the most embarrassing moments of the Obama administration, Healthcare.gov failed to launch the day the new health law came into force, and millions couldn’t sign up to take advantage of it.
It’s hard to overstate the shame of that moment. The government had spent $400 million over four years – more time than it took the U.S. to enter and win World War II – and yet, the dozens of contractors couldn’t set up a website to take sign-ups. The whole thing was an embarrassing disaster, a festival of incompetence and greed. (Despite the failure, the main IT contractor’s CEO became a billionaire. Honest graft indeed.)
President Obama hired Google’s Mike Dickerson to come in and fix the Healthcare.gov website, which Dickerson and his team did. This wasn’t some miracle, it’s not like websites were new technology. The government itself created the internet and most of the underpinnings of digital technology, and it had many functional and important systems. But the Google name at that point was magic, and so the U.S. Digital Service, designed to help the government use technology, was born. After Dickerson, the new head was Google’s Matt Cutts, and then health care monopolist Optum’s Mina Hsiang. The U.S. Digital Service, far from being particularly competent, is a branding exercise. It is full of people from Amazon and Google, and tends to push the government to outsource its technology to third party contractors.
Following the U.S. Digital Service’s playbook is what led the government to bid out and allow the creation of Recreation.gov, with its weird and corrupt fee structure. In 2017, Booz Allen got a 10-year $182 million contract to consolidate all booking for public lands and waters, with 13 separate agencies participating, from the Bureau of Land Management to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to the National Park Service to the Smithsonian Institution to the Tennessee Valley Authority to the US Forest Service.
The funding structure of the site is exactly what George Washington Plunkitt would design. Though there’s a ten year contract with significant financial outlays, Booz Allen says the project was built “at no cost to the federal government.”In the contractor’s words, “the unique contractual agreement is a transaction-based fee model that lets the government and Booz Allen share in risk, reward, results, and impact.” In other words, Booz Allen gets to keep the fees charged to users who want access to national parks. Part of the deal was that Booz Allen would get the right to negotiate fees to third party sites that want access to data on Federal lands.
It’s a bit hard to tell how much Booz Allen was paid to set up the site. Documents suggest the firm received a lot of money to do so, but it’s also possible that total amount was the anticipated financial return. I wrote to Recreation.gov team leader Julie McPherson at Booz Allen to find out what they were paid to build the site, and I haven’t heard back. Regardless, there’s a lot of money involved. For instance, as one camper noted, in just one lottery to hike Mount Whitney, more than 16,000 people applied, and only a third got in. Yet everyone paid the $6 registration fee, which means the gross income for that single location is over $100,000. There’s nothing criminal about this scheme, but it is a form of Honest Graft, or of handing a Ticketmaster-like firm control of our national parks.
Judgment Day
In 2020, an avid hiker named Thomas Kotab sued the Bureau of Land Management over the $2 “processing fee it charges to access the mandatory online reservation system to visit the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area.” He claimed, among other things, that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act mandated that this fee was unlawful, because it had not gone through the notice-and-comment period required by the act. Kotab, an electrical engineer by training, is one of those ass-kickers in America, who just goes after a grift because, well, it’s just wrong.
A few years later, a judge named Jennifer A. Dorsey, appointed by Obama in 2013, agreed with him. She looked at the statute and found that Congress authorized the charging of recreation fees for the purpose of taking care and using Federal lands, not administrative fees that compensated third parties. As such, Booz Allen’s ability to set its own prices was inconsistent with the law mandating the public’s right to comment on what we are charged for using our own land.
The BLM sought to appeal, but then dropped it in July. Rather than a bitter procedural argument about classifying fees, the government and Booz Allen have decided they’ll just go through the annoying process of having the public comment on Booz Allen’s compensation, and then ignore us using their phony advisory council process. Here, for instance, is the Mojave-Southern Great Basin Resource Advisory Council Meeting in August simply proposing to substitute new standard amenity fees “equal to the associated Recreation.gov reservation service fee.”
One notable part of this saga is that technically, the BLM and Booz Allen owe refunds to everyone who went through Red Rock Canyon’s timed entry system from 2020-2022, but they’ll probably ignore that and steal the money. That verges into actual graft from the ‘honest’ type, but I suspect Plunkitt did that as well from time to time.
And yet, it’s not over. The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act authorization runs out in October of 2023, which means that Congress has to renew it. Hopefully, an interested member of Congress who loves Federal lands could actually tighten the definitions here, and find a way to stop Booz Allen and these 13 government agencies from engaging in this minor theft via junk fees. It wouldn’t be hard, and it would be fun to force a bunch of government agencies to actually do their job and either take over the site themselves or pay Booz Allen a fee for its service. (Another path would be Joe Biden, through his anti-junk fee initiative, simply asserting through the White House Competition Council to the 13 different agencies that they end Booz Allen’s practice of charging these kinds of fees.)
It’s easy enough to see scams everywhere, and here is certainly one of them. But let’s not lose sight of the broader point. Henry George, at least in this fight, has won. Yes, Booz Allen gets to steal some pennies, but we have a remarkable system of public lands and waters that are broadly available for all of us to use on a relatively equal basis. And we can still see the power of George-ism in the advocacy of hikers and in the intense view that members of Congress had when they passed the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act in 2004, which strictly regulated fees that Americans would have to pay to access our Federal lands. Indeed, the anger and revulsion I felt at the fees Booz Allen puts forward comes from George, even if I didn’t necessarily trace it there at first.
We are in a moment of institutional corruption, but these moments are transitory as institutions change. George Washington Plunkitt, and his political descendants at Booz Allen, might have gotten rich, but Henry George imparted instincts to Americans that are far more permanent.
The House and Senate have agreed to increase the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by $45 billion more than President Biden requested, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.
The $45 billion increase was agreed on by the House and Senate Armed Service committees, but other details of the NDAA are still being finalized. The increase the two panels agreed on brings the bill to $847 billion.
Including programs outside of the jurisdiction of House and Senate Armed Service committees, the NDAA will reach $858 billion.
Once finalized, it will be the second year in a row that Congress significantly increases President Biden’s requested budget. Last year, the president asked for $753 billion but was granted an NDAA worth about $778 billion.
The Politico report said that the chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have largely agreed on the bill and have handed it off to congressional leadership.
Congress is looking to get the NDAA on the House floor for a vote as early as next week. Once approved by the House it will go to the Senate and then would head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
Over the past few months, lawmakers have been trying to tack on amendments to the spending bill that would give Taiwan unprecedented military aid, but the contents and amendments included in the NDAA aren’t yet clear.
One plan reported by The Washington Postwould give Taiwan $3 billion annually for at least five years. If the Taiwan aid isn’t included in the NDAA, the White House could ask Congress to authorize the Taiwan aid as emergency funds, which is what has been done for Ukraine.
The Lebanese parliament on Thursday failed for the eighth consecutive time to elect a new president, as a majority of lawmakers continue to oppose the options laid on the table.
During the first round of voting on Thursday, 111 votes were cast in the 128-seat parliament, with 52 lawmakers casting blank votes, while 37 voted in support of Michel Moawad, the son of the late president René Moawad.
The 37 votes cast for Moawad are a drop from last week’s session, when 42 lawmakers voted for the candidate who is backed by the anti-Hezbollah bloc made up of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the Kataeb party, and a few ‘independent’ lawmakers.
Some lawmakers even wrote in mock choices on their ballots, with one vote cast for Brazil’s socialist president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Following the voting session, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced that a ninth attempt to elect a president will take place next week.
The Lebanese presidency, which has been reserved for the country’s Christian Maronite sect since the National Pact of 1943, has remained empty since the end of Michel Aoun’s term in September after six years in power.
Hezbollah’s ‘Loyalty to the Resistance’ party, along with its allies in the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) all oppose Moawad’s candidacy. Hezbollah’s lawmakers, specifically, have maintained that their preferred candidate for the presidency is the leader of the Marada Movement, Suleiman Frangieh.
The pro-resistance bloc has also been calling for dialogue to elect a “consensual president” among all political sides. However, US and Saudi-backed parties like the LF have opposed this. Christian political leader Samir Geagea said earlier this week that “dialogue with [Hezbollah and its allies] is a waste of time.”
In response to this divisive stance, PSP leader Walid Jumblat called Geagea’s remarks “absurd” and said that “talking to all parties is necessary to elect a new president.”
According to Article 49 of the Lebanese constitution, a presidential candidate is elected either by winning a two-thirds majority of parliament on the first ballot – 86 members, the same number required for a legal quorum – or by a simple majority of 65 votes in subsequent rounds.
So far, no candidate has been able to secure the support of enough lawmakers, in either the first or subsequent rounds of voting. Former president Aoun’s own election in 2016 came after a more than two-year vacancy at the presidential palace, as lawmakers made 45 failed attempts before reaching a consensus on his candidacy.
Further muddying the waters, the US, France, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have all expressed their desire to see the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander, Joseph Aoun, be named as Lebanon’s new president. Since 2019, the Levantine nation has been shouldering what the World Bank describes as the world’s worst economic crisis in the past 150 years, caused by rampant corruption in the financial sector.
There was recently a similar hold-up at a Lebanese bank by someone demanding their own money. And as Lebanon sinks deeper into financial turmoil, we will likely see more of these. https://t.co/93901KOT6W
A prolonged power vacuum would only exacerbate the situation, as Beirut is currently unable to enact sweeping reforms demanded by international lenders as a condition for releasing billions of dollars in loans.
At a forum organized on 4 November at the Wilson Center, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, warned that the current situation in Lebanon could lead to a “complete disintegration of the state and the collapse of its security forces.”
Leaf added that, as the crisis becomes more unbearable, she expects Lebanese lawmakers to pack their bags and leave for Europe, abandoning the country as “unsalvageable.” “We are putting pressure on political leaders to do their job, but nothing is as effective as popular pressure. Sooner or later, people will rise again,” Leaf pointed out.
She added that collapse will enable Lebanon “somehow to be rebuilt from the ashes, freed from the curse of Hezbollah.” The US official concluded that the US and Saudi Arabia share the same vision for Lebanon, and are cooperating to achieve it.
The U.S. Senate on Dec. 1 approved legislation aimed at heading off a nationwide rail strike, a day after the House passed the measure.
Senators voted 80–15 to pass the bill, which would impose a tentative agreement on rail workers and prohibit a potentially costly strike. Congress is allowed to take such action under the Railway Labor Act; it last took action to prevent a shutdown in 1994.
President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill.
A dozen unions representing more than 100,000 workers hammered out the agreement in the fall, but four of the unions later voted against ratifying it.
Workers had been preparing to strike on Dec. 9 absent the legislation or a new deal being reached.
Operators have warned that lost economic output resulting from a shutdown could reach or even eclipse $2 billion a day, while business groups have said a strike would disrupt the transport of crucial items, including food and chemicals.
“A rail shutdown would’ve killed our supply chain, hurt workers and small businesses, and sent consumer prices through the roof. Passing legislation to avoid one was the right move to protect American jobs and keep our economy moving,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said after the vote.
The Senate is split 50–50. To pass the filibuster, a measure needs at least 60 votes. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was among the Republicans pledging to vote against the bill, which would impose a tentative agreement on rail workers.
The House of Representatives on Nov. 30 passed the bill in a 290–137 bipartisan vote, and separately approved seven days of paid sick leave, which wasn’t part of the original agreement.
The agreement includes a 24 percent pay increase over five years and five $1,000 payments.
Reaction
The Association of American Railroads, which includes major operators, hailed the Senate vote.
“The Senate acted with leadership and urgency with today’s vote to avert an economically devastating rail work stoppage,” Ian Jefferies, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
“As we close out this long, challenging process, none of the parties achieved everything they advocated for. The product of these agreements is a compromise by nature, but the result is one of substantial gains for rail employees. More broadly, all rail stakeholders and the economy writ large now have certainty about the path forward,” he added.
The industry thanked the Biden administration for pressuring Congress to act, even as many unions had urged Congress not to intervene.
Some spoke out against the Dec. 1 vote.
“What took place in the United States Senate today is a symptom, and further illustration, of a larger issue in our country. Almost every elected member of Congress campaigns on being ‘for the working class’; the actions of many today demonstrated they are for the corporate class,” the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen said in a statement.
“The dereliction of duty and inability to hold corporations accountable for a lack of good faith to their employees will not be forgotten. Those who spoke against us provided no basis and resorted to their only skill set: passing blame and avoiding the issues.”
Amendments
Before taking up the bill itself, the Senate voted on amendments.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) offered an amendment that would have implemented a 60-day “cooling-off period” during which a strike couldn’t be initiated.
“My amendment would certainly avoid a strike. We all agree on that,” Sullivan said on the floor. “It will give negotiators more time to get to an agreement, and it will not make Congress the entity of last resort in these kinds of negotiations where the knowledge of the issues that are very complicated have not been thoroughly studied and have not received the due diligence that I believe every American, every union member wants us to have.”
The proposal was defeated 26–69.
Another amendment, offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), would have added seven days of paid sick leave to the agreement, as the House did. It was rejected in a 52–43 vote—it needed 60—despite support from some Republicans, including Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) voted against the amendment.
“I am proud that the House of Representatives passed legislation to guarantee seven days of paid sick leave for all rail workers. While I’m disappointed that we were unable to get the 60 votes we needed in the Senate, we did receive the votes of every Senate Democrat, but one, as well as six Republicans,” Sanders said in a statement after the vote.
He said that he would do everything he could “to make sure that rail workers in America are treated with dignity and respect.
US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces
As if the Pentagon and US intelligence hadn’t already escalated its presence enough inside Ukraine, given there are already literally a small contingent of “boots on the ground” – as we detailed last month, CNN is now reporting that the Biden administration is considering “dramatically” increasing its training of Ukrainian forces.
The proposal would involve US advisers training “much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics” at American installations in Germany, and perhaps other locations in Europe, according to the new report.
CNN begins by reporting that “The Biden administration is considering a dramatic expansion in the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany, according to multiple US officials.”
“If adopted, the proposal would mark a significant increase not just in the number of Ukrainians the US trains but also in the type of training they receive,” the report continues, also noting that this far “only a few thousand” Ukrainian soldiers have been trained on specific US-provided weapons systems.
Under the new program, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry maneuvers with artillery support – “much more intense and comprehensive” training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal.
This is a significant statement given the ongoing British program at multiple UK bases is large in size. However what’s being mulled by the Pentagon would see some 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the United States every six months. Multiple US officials have meanwhile projected they expect the war could take years before there’s a final ceasefire and resolution.
The UK’s own infantry training program for Ukraine forces has a stated goal of training at least 10,000 Ukrainian troops.
The Kremlin for its part has warned repeatedly of such deepening Western involvement which clearly is now going far beyond just weapons shipments. Russia this week walked away from New START nuclear arms reduction treaty negotiations with the US while citing its growing involvement in backing Kiev as a major reason for halting resumption of talks.
Earlier in the conflict, Russia’s military vowed to attack any inbound foreign weapons shipments or training grounds inside Ukraine…
Two months ago, I wrote a thread about U.S. forces training Ukrainians at the de facto NATO base in Yavoriv.
Prior to Russia’s February invasion, the Pentagon as well as US intelligence had been deeply involved in advisory training for Ukraine forces. US advisors however withdrew (in an official capacity at least) just prior to the Feb.24 assault.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Nov. 30 issued a warning about a “heightened threat environment” ahead of the holiday season in the United States.
“Our homeland continues to face a heightened threat environment—as we have seen, tragically, in recent acts of targeted violence—and is driven by violent extremists seeking to further a political or social goal or act on a grievance,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
Faith-based institutions, government buildings, U.S. infrastructure, schools, and public gatherings could be targeted by groups of people or lone actors who might have “a range of ideological beliefs” and “personal grievances” in the coming weeks and months, the DHS’s National Terrorism Advisory System stated in a Nov. 30 bulletin.
The bulletin is the seventh of its kind since January 2021 after President Joe Biden took over, and it’s set to run through May 24, 2023.
The bulletin made reference to the Nov. 19 mass shooting targeting a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Officials haven’t established a motive in the shooting, and the suspect, 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich, later identified himself as “nonbinary” and used “they/them pronouns,” according to lawyers.
“Perceptions of government overreach continue to drive individuals to attempt to commit violence targeting government officials and law enforcement officers. Some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances based on perceptions that the government is overstepping its Constitutional authorities or failing to perform its duties,” the DHS added.
Other Alleged Threats
Other threats, the DHS stated, could be linked to Islamist terrorism. ISIS leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was recently killed in a battle in Syria, the terrorist group reportedly confirmed, marking the second ISIS leader to die in 2022.
“Recent incidents have highlighted the enduring threat to faith-based communities, including the Jewish community. In early November 2022, an individual in New Jersey was arrested for sharing a manifesto online that threatened attacks on synagogues,” the DHS bulletin stated. “The individual admitted to writing the document, in which he claimed to be motivated by … (ISIS) and hatred towards Jewish people.”
A view of the home of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband, Paul Pelosi, was violently assaulted after a break-in at their house, according to a statement from her office, in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2022. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
The bulletin also noted the alleged attack targeting outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband, Paul, in late October. Court papers filed by local and federal prosecutors say the suspect, David DePape, 42, broke into their San Francisco home, made threatening statements, and later attacked Pelosi with a hammer.
“While violence surrounding the November midterm elections was isolated, we remain vigilant that heightened political tensions in the country could contribute to individuals mobilizing to violence based on personalized grievances. Over the past few months we observed general calls for violence targeting elected officials, candidates, and ballot drop box locations,” the DHS stated.
“In October 2022 in San Francisco, California, an individual allegedly broke into the home of a Member of Congress and attacked their spouse with a hammer.”
DePape, according to DHS, was “allegedly inspired by partisan grievances and conspiracy theories.” However, people who know DePape have called the incident into question, said that he previously held progressive viewpoints, and said he wasn’t violent.
NBC News also retracted a report on Nov. 4 in which journalist Miguel Almaguer cited sources who gave conflicting information about the attack. No explanation was given by the network, and NBC hasn’t responded to several requests for comment.
In the retracted report, Almaguer wrote that Paul Pelosi had opened the door when police arrived, and he then went back toward DePape. Court papers state that when police arrived, they saw Pelosi and DePape struggling over a hammer before DePape struck the elderly man in the head.
“Potential changes in border security enforcement policy, an increase in noncitizens attempting to enter the U.S., or other immigration-related developments may heighten these calls for violence,” the DHS stated, likely referring to the agency’s move to drop the Title 42 border enforcement policy.
DHS is the agency that oversees Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Banks Developing Technology To Track Gun Purchases Under Guise Of Flagging Potential Mass Shooters
Banks have been working on technology to “identify potential mass shooters” by tracking gun-related purchases and filing “Suspicious Activity Reports” with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
According to comments made by Amalgamated Bank Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Sims Brown at the New York Times DealBook conference on Wednesday, the strategy would employ credit card companies to more closely track gun purchases, Bloomberg reports.
“We’re at the very early stages of this — this particular code just got approved in October, so those detection scenarios are still being brought together,” said Brown, adding “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”
The strategy would mirror ways banks try to identify and stop fraudsters from using customers’ funds.
The International Organization for Standardization approved a new merchant category code earlier this year that banks will use when processing transactions for gun and ammunition stores after Amalgamated submitted an application on the matter. Gun-control advocates were quick to celebrate the move, arguing it would help banks flag suspicious activity at these retailers. -Bloomberg
Banks have come under pressure from Congressional Republicans over what they plan to do with the tracking codes, with conservative policymakers expressing concern that lenders will use the data to create unofficial lists of gun owners in the US.
“What I’m hearing from other banks is that they have been honoring this process and this system, filing Suspicious Activity Reports across a myriad of industries to stop a myriad of crimes — or at least alert authorizes of them,” said Brown. “And I have every confidence that banks are going to do the same thing here.”
After yesterday’s face-ripping, short-squeezing meltup after Powell’s “more dovish than expected” speech which saw the S&P close above the 200DMA for the first time since April, any commentators were quick to opine that Christmas came early for stocks. But did it, and did the ramp on the last day of November simply pull forward what is traditionally a much more gradual December meltup?
As TS Lombard’s Skylar Montgomery Koning explains in a lengthy note from Wednesday, “historically equities outperform into year-end.” In the chart on the bottom left, she shows average and median S&P changes on a monthly basis vs the 30y comparable – and, indeed, the S&P does tend to outperform in the last three months of the year on both an average and a median basis. As for the December performance specifically, the equity rally does tend to gain momentum in the two weeks before Christmas, which mark a turning point for the bottom 25th percentile (although the December 2018 crash is still vivid for so many traders). So, there is some historical evidence for the Santa rally hypothesis.
However, as Koning observes, “it is important to note, that an observable pattern is worthless unless there is a reasonable explanation.”
To be sure, there is some logic to seasonality and many touted explanations for the Santa rally exist. For one, risk assets tend to have an inverse relationship with volatility. In this cycle, there has been a tight inverse relationship between rates volatility and equity directionality (see chart on next page bottom left). Of course, since the market has essentially traded a one-factor model (Fed funds expectations) this year, this relationship could be expected; but it also makes sense long term: as Koning notes, “as an investor, I’m much happier allocating to risk assets when they aren’t making 2 standard deviation moves on a regular basis. As market participants go off on holiday, markets close and event risk is limited (i.e., there is less uncertainty), you would expect volatility to fall” which it usually does except in some very high profile cases… such as the unforgettable brief bear market of Dec 2018.
Moreover, over time the bias is for equities to go up: over the S&P’s history, its average return is 7% per annum. In quiet holiday markets without any impetus to the contrary, equities have a bias to revert to trend and grind up. Last week’s Thanksgiving holiday was a case in point: with little on the data front, the US market closed for a day and a half, limited data announcements and many on holiday, market trading was muted, equity volatility fell and equities ground higher. In fact, across DM equity markets, Japan and the United States (both of which have national Thanksgiving holidays) outperform significantly in November.
Volatility does indeed fall into year-end. According to an analysis from the TS Lombard strategists looking at equity vol on a change and level basis historically volatility has fallen going into the summer and Christmas holidays. The net result is lower average vol in the summer and December (see charts below left). And, indeed, we have seen volatility decline across assets from the mid-October peak, although rates and FX vol are still historically elevated.
Psychology plays a role. With regard to the end of the year, it is also important to note that money managers are judged on annual calendar year performance. Because of the propensity for equities to rally as the end of the year approaches, investors who have lost money have an incentive to chase the rally upwards, while those who have made money are more likely to settle their books. Or, in a year like 2022, where they have made money by being short risk, with the market rallying, those who have made money buy upside exposure so as not to bleed P&L into year-end. Options data back this up: the CBOE put/call ratio drops significantly in December (i.e., investors want more upside vs downside exposure – see the chart below right).
User Beware – fundamentals dominate. The major point here is that dispersion within months is massive; historically the maximum return observed in October is +11%, while the minimum is -22%. Additionally as shown in the first chart up top, both average and median numbers illustrate that while seasonality can guide returns, a large fundamental force can more than negate it. And a case in point is October, where the average return is significantly below the median. This is because October has had two historical risk asset collapses: Black Monday in 1987, when US equities fell more than 20% in a day; and the Lehman collapse, which took place in mid-September 2008 but the bulk of the equity decline came in October 2008 (-17%). Moreover, there are three stumbling blocks to the Santa rally narrative.
First: Equity performance already looks overdone. Equities have rallied 10% in the period October-November – the median rally over 4Q is 5.5% (and the average is 4.3%). Additionally, when the S&P rallies above its 50 & 100DMA, it looks technically vulnerable as it heads towards its 200DMA. Moreover, the rally in equities contrasts with the rates volatility rebound on the recent spate of Fed hawkish speak (see the chart on the previous page on the left).
Second: There is a lot of event risk into year-end. This week alone we will have a key speech from Powell (speaking at the Brookings Institution ahead of the quiet period), US core PCE and a jobs report, followed by an OPEC meeting at the weekend. Then virtually every DM central bank will report over a two-week period. Plus there will be the US CPI one day before the final Fed meeting of the year (on 14 December), where we will get a new set of projections, dots and the markets pivot narrative will be put to the test.
Third: Recession generally implies lower risk assets and higher volatility. As TS Lombard economists warn, the rates market and economists are telling us we are headed toward a recession – which has been our base case since the summer. We have covered the risk asset implications here. But it is also important to note that as the economy deteriorates into a recession, adverse sentiment kicks in and things tend to become non-linear, accelerating the slowdown. Correspondingly, volatility tends to rise from half a year before the recession begins, spiking at the start of the recession (see chart below).
