The Bank of Japan shocked markets tonight.

After leaving policy rates unchanged, the ‘easiest’ bank in the world decided to dramatically modify its so-called Yield Curve Control framework and increase the quantity of government bonds it will buy each month (while the rest of the world is doing the opposite).

The increase in range is huge (from -0.5% to +0.5% in yields). Thus, realistically this is a tightening policy move allowing long-rates to rise from 25bps (the prior YCC limit) to 50bps (the current YCC limit)…

The YCC adjustment is being reported as a mechanism to encourage better functioning in the bond market (where barely a bond changes hands nowadays). The BOJ says it made the change as:

“the functioning of bond markets has deteriorated, particularly in terms of relative relationships among interest rates of bonds with different maturities and arbitrage relationships between spot and future markets… If these market conditions persists, this could have a negative impact on financial conditions.”

The BoJ also increased its bond purchases to JPY9 trillion per month for January through March.

Bear in mind that the share of Japanese government bonds held by the Bank of Japan has topped 50% on a market value basis for the first time, new data showed Monday.

As one might expect, Cash JGBs didn’t budge on the news.

Interestingly, despite the ‘easing’ implied by the JGB buying increase, the JPY strengthened against the dollar (because with a wider/higher band for the 10Y yield, theoretically the BoJ will have to buy fewer bonds to keep it within their limit). The JPY is now at its strongest since August.

Until, of course the next depressionary collapse.

So the bottom line is that The BoJ will allow 10Y to rise to 0.50% from 0.25% but in order to make the transition as painless as possible, it will increase bond purchases to Y9 Trillion from Y7.3 Trillion per month.

This will basically remove the YCC kink in the JGB yield curve…

And sure enough, 10Y JGB yields have instantly exploded higher to their highest since 2015…

JGB Futures trading has been halted on the Osaka Exchange.

Japanese bank stocks are soaring on the increased outlook for their NIMs…

*MUFG EXTENDS GAINS, RISING AS MUCH AS 9.6%, MOST SINCE NOV 2016

Who had Japanese banks as the best trade of December

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 20, 2022

Capital Economics offers some clarifications as traders comes to terms with WTF Kuroda just did…

There was nothing in the statement that would suggest that this decision heralds a wholesale tightening of monetary policy.

For one thing, the bank’s assessment of current economic conditions as well as its outlook over coming quarters was little changed from the October meeting.

If anything, the downgrade to the bank’s view on external demand suggests that it is getting increasingly worried about the strength of the recovery.

Most importantly, the bank reiterated that it expects short-term and long-term policy rates to remain at their present or lower levels.

Daisuke Karakama, chief market economist at Mizuho Bank, warned about taking these initial kneejerk moves as indicative of anything:

“FX markets seem to want to take it as BOJ’s pivot, which I do not think so.” 

The BoJ’s dramatic adjustment to its yield-curve control framework could reflect policymakers’ preference for a stronger yen, according to National Australia Bank.

“The widening of the band has been framed as a move to improve market functionality, but implicitly one could argue the bank now has a preference for a stronger yen (or at a minimum a distaste for further yen weakness),” Rodrigo Catril, the bank’s Sydney-based strategist says.

“On face value the YCC announcement reinforces the view that the BOJ willingness to wait for the right type of inflation does have limits.”

This action by The BoJ has sparked chaos in other markets with US Treasury yields spiking…

As Bloomberg’s Yuki Masujima said:

“The implications go far beyond Japan – with the BOJ – the last major holdout in a global monetary tightening shift (with the exception of China) — now letting the benchmark yield trade higher than before, the shock will echo across global financial markets.”

Bitcoin has spiked (likely on the rise in BOJ QE – which is actually offset by the BOJ ‘allowing’ rates to rise, thus tighten)…

Gold jumped back above $1800…

And US equity markets are tumbling…

…and just as liquidity evaporates for the Xmas break across global markets.

The governor had repeatedly stuck to a resolutely dovish stance by stressing the need for stimulus until stronger wage growth takes place, ruling out the possibility the BOJ will take action against the yen’s slump.

He had also characterized any widening of the movement band around the yield target as equivalent to a rate hike, a description that led most economists to believe such a move was still some time away.

Or maybe that was Kuroda’s cunning plan after all – offer no hint at all of this and then drop it during one of the most illiquid times of day during one of the most illiquid weeks of the year, so the effect is immediate – like ripping off a band-aid.

Presumably, the smart chaps in the BOJ believe they can allow the yield to jump and traders will happily let it rest there at 50bps. Of course that won’t happen and Kuroda’s successor will be forced to buy ever increasing quantities of JGBs to maintain the 50bps yield upper band.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge said he will block a “tyrannical” provision in an incoming California gun law because it would have the “chilling effect” of discouraging people from challenging the statute in court.

Judge Roger Benitez said in a San Diego courtroom on Dec. 16 that he would soon issue an injunction halting part of a state law scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, according to The Associated Press. The offending provision would require those who fight the state’s gun laws to pay the government’s legal fees should they lose in court and was heavily promoted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with presidential ambitions.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, is Miller v. Bonta, court file 22-cv-1446. The lawsuit is one of many now pending in courts across the country after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this past June that individuals have a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

The so-called loser-pays requirement would produce a “chilling effect” that would hinder state residents from suing to vindicate their legal rights because they would fear having to pay potentially huge lawyers’ tabs, Benitez said, agreeing with Second Amendment advocates.

“I can’t think of anything more tyrannical,” said Benitez, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Benitez previously ruled against California laws targeting gun ownership. His defense of the Second Amendment has earned him the nickname “St. Benitez” among gun rights activists.

In June 2021, the judge found that California’s Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989, which prohibited so-called assault weapons such as the popular AR-15 rifle in the state, ran afoul of the Second Amendment. Weeks later the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit put his ruling on hold. And in March 2019, Benitez found that the state’s ban on large-capacity magazines included in Proposition 63 was unconstitutional.

In the case at hand, the judge said he would not prevent the rest of the statute from coming into force, leaving intact provisions that prohibit the sale of certain so-called assault weapons and a ban on guns lacking serial numbers.

The California gun law relies on a novel enforcement mechanism inspired by a Texas law enacted last year that crowdsourced abortion enforcement, giving individuals the right to sue over alleged violations of the state’s fetal-heartbeat abortion law. The law allows, for example, for someone who helped a woman obtain an unlawful abortion by driving her to a clinic to be sued.

Newsom argues the Texas abortion law is unconstitutional but says if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds it, then his state will rely on the same enforcement mechanism to target Second Amendment protections.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused a request to block the Texas law and on Dec. 10, 2021, issued a complex procedural ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, remanding the case to a lower court. Then in June of this year, the high court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that held abortion was a constitutional right, leading to a flurry of activity in state legislatures and legal challenges to abortion laws in courts across the nation.

In court on Dec. 16, Benitez chided lawyers for the state of California who said the state does not intend to enforce the legal fees rules unless the Texas law survives legal scrutiny.

“We’re not in a kindergarten sandbox. It’s not about, ‘Mommy he did this to me so I should be able to do this to him,’” Benitez reportedly said.

The Epoch Times reached out repeatedly to both sides for comment over the weekend.

Bradley Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay, attorneys for the California gun law challengers, and lawyers for the state, Elizabeth K. Watson and Thomas A. Willis, did not reply as of press time. The California Gun Rights Foundation, which is fighting the law, also did not reply to a request for comment.

But lawyer Joshua Dale, who represents a San Diego area gun club that is involved in the lawsuit, told Benitez the law would put undue pressure on would-be litigants.

“I’m terrified of this law,” Dale said in court, according to the AP.

“It would be absolutely devastating to pay the state’s attorney fees. I’ve got kids. I’ve got a mortgage. I could never pay $50,000 or $100,000 without emptying my 401(k) account.”

By Hideyuki Sano, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

Investors that want to bet on China’s economic reopening but are still concerned about the nation’s geopolitical risks and market volatility are finding better alternatives elsewhere in Asia.  

The idea is that if Asia-Pacific’s No. 1 economy rebounds, it will also benefit the region’s big exporters to China like South Korea and Taiwan, as well as major commodity producers such as Australia and Indonesia. And investors in those areas won’t have to worry much about China risks such as sudden regulatory crackdowns, the property market’s debt turmoil, and the possibility of escalating military tensions with neighbors.

“If one assumes the Chinese economy will improve, you can get similar benefits by investing in countries that have close ties with China,” said Hiroshi Matsumoto, senior client portfolio manager at Pictet Asset Management. The Swiss asset manager sees Germany in addition to Asian countries as getting a special boost from China opening up again.

Goldman Sachs says emerging- market equities and commodities, especially copper, are among the largest beneficiaries from China reopening, adjusted for volatility.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index may rise to 1,080, a gain of about 13% from the current level, Goldman strategists Dominic Wilson and Vickie Chang estimated in a research note dated Dec. 2. That’s smaller than the potential gain of 17% in the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index but it’s more than the 7.6% upside seen for the US S&P 500.

A reopened China would require more commodity imports to power its massive economic engine, good news for resource-rich countries like Australia and Indonesia. “If China does reopen in a big way, without major headwinds, I think Indonesia and Australia become a lot more attractive,” said Charu Chanana, a senior strategist at Saxo Capital Markets.

Compared with the wild moves in Chinese shares, Asian equities elsewhere are much less volatile, meaning that investors get better risk-adjusted returns. Three-month implied volatilities for the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index stood at 30 while those for the Taiwanese, Korean and Australian benchmarks were 19, 17 and 14 respectively.

Meeting to set economic policy priorities for 2023, Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping said restoring and expanding consumption should “take precedence.” That suggests policy makers will take more steps to support the economy, which is facing near-term risks from the latest surges in Covid cases.

Hopes that China will open its international borders may help tourism-related shares in Asian countries from Japan to Thailand, where Chinese tourists made up for about a quarter to a third of international arrivals. If those travelers return to Thailand sooner than expected, that may help lift the baht by improving the country’s current-account balance, said Nuttachart Mekmasin, analyst at Trinity Securities in Bangkok.

Forecasters are warning that a potent Arctic airmass could plunge temperatures across Texas to single digits later this week. Temperatures in Texas’s Permian Basin could dip to 25 F by late Friday, risking the potential for freeze-offs that could curtail the flow of natural gas. The blast of cold air comes just 22 months after the early 2021 cold wave that collapsed Lone Star State’s power grid. 

One weather model via PivitolWeather forecasts single digits in a large swath of Texas on Friday. 

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), a commission responsible for assessing power risks, warned that cold could stress the electrical grid in Texas. 

“The effect it can have on generators — and the way demand can rise sharply in cold weather — can lead to load risk,” Mark Olson, a reliability manager at NERC, said, who was quoted by Bloomberg.  

According to Houston-based NatGas research firm Criterion Research, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — the state’s grid operator — expects power demand to rise to over 61 gigawatts on Friday, which would come close to summer loads and most prior winter showings. 

A massive cold stress test for ERCOT appears to be imminent. Here’s more from Criterion: 

ERCOT formally issued an “Operating Condition Notice (OCN)” ahead of this week’s winter weather that will run from December 22-26. The OCN goes into effect when temperatures fall below 25 degrees for the Austin/San Antonio and DFW areas. ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas cited that “As we monitor weather conditions, we want to assure Texans that the grid is resilient and reliable.”

 ERCOT’s latest load forecast is extreme, with the ISO expecting demand to rise to >61 GW on December 23, which rivals summer loads and most prior winter showings.

Regional load will push above 50 GW as the front moves in on Thursday, and the demand will be most intense on Friday.

Currently, wind is projected to reach a 12/22 level of 22 GW before dropping the following day (12/23) to 12 GW and then to 4.5 GW on 12/24.

If this forecast holds for wind & total load, ERCOT will need its fossil fuel assets to ramp to 45 GW during the peak cold.

ERCOT’s fossil fuel assets are certainly capable of 45-50 GW in demand, and the upcoming system is only bringing cold weather rather than the winter precipitation we saw during Winter Storm Uri.

Bitterly cold temperatures in the coming days will test ERCOT’s winterization upgrades since the grid collapse in 2021. 

Authored by Emily Miller via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Congress is trying to pass a bill to allow the federal government to pressure people to give up their Second Amendment rights in the name of suicide prevention. At the same time, newly released documents show multiple federal law enforcement agencies have effectively done this to people without congressional approval.

On Thursday, Gun Owners of America (GOA), put all its evidence online that shows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has permanently disarmed people. The gun rights group is lobbying on Capitol Hill to stop this practice from being codified.

Capitol Hill Supports FBI Disarming Program

The bipartisan bill called the “Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act” passed the Judiciary Committee last week. It says the FBI would create a new database for people who volunteer to be blocked from buying or possessing a gun. The “delay” in the bill title refers to the period from which the person put themselves into the database and potentially subsequently took themselves out of it.

The FBI program, which claims it ended in 2019, and the House bill both use a “self-submission” program to make people prohibited who could not be blocked from having a gun under current law. The Brady Law of 1993 created the NICS system of background checks to help enforce the nine prohibited categories of people (from the Gun Control Act of 1968 ) from buying guns.

The House bill would upend federal background check gun law by making it arbitrary who loses the right to own or buy a gun. Under current law, a person is prohibited from buying or owning a firearm for mental health reasons only due to being adjudicated as mentally defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution. The House bill makes it so people in this new FBI database who have not experienced these situations would still be committing a federal crime by possessing a gun.

The Opposition

“I’d like to make sure this bill in Congress doesn’t become law—lest it be weaponized against the American people,” Aidan Johnston, GOA’s director of federal affairs told The Epoch Times.

“The very existence of a bill to codify what the FBI was already doing proves the FBI had no authorization from Congress to carry out this program,” said Johnston. The GOA’s released records showing the FBI has forced 23 people to permanently sign away their rights to own a gun, and the agency has still withheld documents in the ongoing Freedom of Information lawsuit.

“Congress should be punishing those bureaucrats who abused it instead of codifying the program and the unconstitutional behavior,” said Johnston.

Bipartisan Bill Speeds Through

The legislation has two Democrat cosponsors—Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.)—and two Republicans. One of the two GOP cosponsors, Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), is not on the Judiciary Committee.

The other Republican, Ken Buck (R-Colo.), said after a lengthy debate about the problems that he hoped to work with Jaypal to fix the issues in the bill before the vote or in the days following. Since Democrats did not change anything, Buck voted against his own bill. The final vote was 20 to 16 on party lines.

However, Buck said in the hearing that he will work with Jayapal to rewrite the bill and reintroduce it in the next Congress. A spokesman for Buck declined to comment on the timing of the next steps.

Constitutional Issues With the Bill

During the committee markup, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), spoke out about the multiple problems with the bill. Massie pointed out that the major flaw in this proposed law is it wouldn’t just affect the person who opts to lose the right to have a firearm. The bill makes it illegal to give or sell a gun to someone on the FBI’s new “Voluntary Purchase Delay Database.”

“If my father added his name to this list ten years ago, and he says, ‘Hey Thomas, loan me a gun, I want to go hunting.’”said Massie. “And he seems of sound mind to me. And I loan him a shotgun. Then he goes out in the woods and kills himself, am I now guilty of a federal crime?”

The Democrats on the committee responded that is “not the intent of the bill.” Massie replied, “What we are marking up is not intent. It’s U.S. code and it’s very precise. People will be convicted based on the language that comes out of here today.”

Getting Rights Back

Unlike the FBI program which is permanent, Congress would allow people to remove themselves from the database by requesting it from the Attorney General, which would process after 21 days. Buck said this should be rewritten to be 21 days after the request is submitted instead of when the Department of Justice acknowledged receipt.

The other way to get out of the system is to petition the Attorney General with a declaration from a mental health professional that the individual does not present a substantial risk of harm to self. That would take effect in 24 hours. Buck said that part had to be rewritten. “I beg anyone on this committee to tell me when the federal government has done anything in 24 hours.”

Jayapal said she didn’t have a problem fixing the multiple changes Buck suggested. This indicates the bill will be able to move quickly to the Rules Committee and possibly the floor during the next Congress. It is unlikely there will be a vote by the full House in the remaining days of the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Secret Service and ICE Disarming

The move on Capitol Hill came at the same time as the FBI released more documents to the GOA, as first reported by The Washington Examiner, Emails show the U.S. Secret Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent signed forms to the FBI in which people who allegedly have mental health problems signed away their right to have a gun for the rest of their lives.

“Awesome!” one ICE agent wrote to the FBI once a citizen’s form was added to the database.

The Secret Service and ICE agents, both under the Department of Homeland Security, emailed multiple times with officials at the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in a coordinated, federal program to take guns away from people who were mostly on the feds’ radar for online chat rooms.

The internal document sent between the agencies is called the “NICS index self-submission form.” By signing the form, the person agrees to “denial of my right to purchase, to possess and to use any firearm.” It also says the signature means that once the person is in the so-called NICS index, he or she “may not be permitted to withdraw my name or information.”

FBI Hiding Information

Along with the emails from the other agencies, the FBI released eight more completed forms which all checked the box to agree they had a mental health condition that caused them to be a danger to themselves or others. The FBI will not say how many people have been put into the background check system without violating any federal laws.

Read more here…

Even with the Supreme Court temporarily extending a Trump-era policy that bars asylum applicants from entering the U.S. to protect the American population from Covid-19, the Federal Government has offered no viable solutions and little to no help to southern border states to stop a growing wave of illegal immigrants.  White House officials continue to deny that there is a legitimate problem while also claiming they have been “doing the work since day one” to secure the border.  States and border towns are now left to deal with the threat on their own.

Title 42 is a law established in 2020 by Donald Trump which coincided with the governments covid pandemic response.  It requires Border Patrol and law enforcement to immediately transfer apprehended illegal immigrants back across the border instead of allowing them to stay within the US while awaiting courts to rule on their citizenship status.  Using the guise of “asylum seeker,” millions of migrants are crossing the border in an attempt to remain in the country with access to welfare benefits and amenities.

As we have seen in places like El Paso, there is also the ongoing problem of Democrat controlled “sanctuary cities” that have refused to cooperate with an overall state run response.  This past week the Mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, finally admitted that the region is facing an emergency, which means he will be begging for relief funds but still will not do anything to stop migrants from flooding in.  According to public data, more than 80,000 migrants have invaded El Paso in the last four months.

Leeser warned that after Title 42 ends on December 21st the number of migrants released onto city streets will be “incredible” – Up to 6000 per day or more.  El Paso has requested additional personnel for feeding and housing operations, additional busing operations and state law enforcement. 

Border towns with no prevention operations and those that act as sanctuaries will undoubtedly be overrun in a matter of days once Title 42 expires.  In some cases (like El Paso) they are already being overrun.  Some towns in Texas are starting to realize the gravity of the situation and they are taking action along with state officials, with local news reporting efforts to quickly build make-shift border walls with shipping containers and razor wire:

NEW: The state of Texas is continuing to prepare for the drop of Title 42 next week by placing more shipping containers as a makeshift wall at a popular illegal crossing area in Eagle Pass. Razor wire is in front of them. Also setting up floodlights pointed towards the river. pic.twitter.com/8Sgfi3o6pJ

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) December 17, 2022

While this is better than nothing, the effects of the end of Title 42 are not being properly conveyed to the general public by the government or the media and it is likely that the border crisis will erupt to new levels over the course of the next few months going into Spring 2023.  The conditions for a humanitarian disaster are stacked like dominoes; a perfect storm that the American public will be hearing about on the news daily next year, but only after the damage has already been done. 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Wednesday upheld a newly enacted state law banning the possession of large-capacity magazines that carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The decision came following a request by a Chepachet gun store and several Rhode Island gun owners for a preliminary injunction blocking the law, which they argue violates their constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, among other things.

However, U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. on Wednesday said that the plaintiffs, Big Bear Hunting and Fishing Supply; three Rhode Island residents named in the lawsuit as Mary Brimer, James Grundy, and Jonathan Hirons; and a Newport homeowner who lives in Florida, Jeffrey Goyette, had failed to persuade the court that the law is unconstitutional and that they would suffer irreparable harm if it was allowed to take effect.

The judge also said that allowing the law to be enforced was in the public’s interest.

Gov. Dan McKee, a Democrat, signed the high-capacity magazine ban into law in June, noting at the time that Rhode Island was one of the few states to introduce or bolster gun safety legislation aimed at reducing and preventing gun violence in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.

The law, which went into effect on Dec. 18, makes it a felony to possess or own large-capacity magazines that contain more than 10 rounds of ammunition, which the governor said have “enabled numerous mass shootings” across the country.

New Law Could Cause Firearm Business ‘Irreparable Harm’

A string of other measures were also signed into law, including raising the legal age to purchase firearms or ammunition in Rhode Island from 18 to 21, with exceptions for police and other law enforcement personnel, and prohibiting the open carrying of any loaded rifle or shotgun in public.

However, the high-capacity magazine ban soon prompted a lawsuit from the plaintiffs, who claimed that they were now being “forced to dispose of their privately owned, and legally acquired Standard Capacity Magazines by December 18, 2022, without receiving any compensation, or rights with or without conditions of continued ownership to keep their lawfully acquired property.”

“Should the Citizen Plaintiffs not comply with this requirement, each can now be convicted of a felony, and potentially face five (5) years of incarceration. Further, certain firearms, due to the expiration of their production, and for other reasons, cannot be modified for use with a smaller capacity magazine,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Elsewhere, Big Bear Hunting and Fishing Supply, the firearms dealer listed in the lawsuit, argued that the business would suffer irreparable harm as a result of the law, noting that large-capacity magazines make up a substantial amount of their inventory.

Despite their assertions, Judge McConnell Jr. said on Wednesday that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the magazines represented “arms” as stated in the Second Amendment, or presented credible evidence establishing the magazines as a weapon of self-defense, according to The Boston Globe.

The judge also wrote that large-capacity magazines easily be used to convert handguns into semi-automatic weapons capable of rapid fire.

Additionally, McConnell noted that victims of mass shootings are not “chosen randomly” but “because of what they represented to a particular person with a gun and a lot of ammunition.”

‘Victims Have Not Been Chosen Randomly’

“True, they are random in that their identities are usually not known to the shooter, and it appears to matter not to the shooter whether the next one killed is a particular person or the woman standing next to him. But in actuality, victims have not been chosen randomly.

“They have been chosen because they are attending a synagogue in Pittsburgh or church in Sutherland Spring. Or because they are sitting in a school classroom in Newtown or a high school classroom in Parkland. Or because they were at a concert in Las Vegas or a nightclub in Orlando,” McConnell said.

Read more here…

With Title 42 – the Trump-er border policy, set to expire on Wednesday, and numerous border towns panicking ahead of what is expected to be an even greater influx of immigrants at the southern border than is already being experienced, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked the scheduled ending while the US Supreme Court considers a bid by Republican state officials to keep the rules in place during a legal fight.

Title 42, a pandemic-related public-health measure allowing migrants to be quickly expelled back to Mexico after crossing the border illegally, is believed to have acted as a deterrent for some migrants seeking asylum because they could be turned back even if they asked for protection.

As JustTheNews reports, an estimated 2.5 million migrants have been removed under the order since its implementation.

Meanwhile, border officials have had to combat already record-high migration numbers, with 2.4 million migrants crossing in fiscal year 2022 alone and roughly 4 million doing so since President Joe Biden took office in January of 2021. Those figures are expected to rise further should the Title 42 border enforcement mechanic render authorities unable to swiftly remove border crossers.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, Chief Justice Roberts, who oversees emergency matters from the District of Columbia, gave the Biden administration until 5 p.m. Tuesday to file its legal response.

The temporary order is to remain in effect until the court decides the emergency request, led by the Republican attorneys general of Arizona and Louisiana.

The order doesn’t indicate the court’s view of the legal issues, but the court’s conservative majority has in other cases issued emergency orders that blocked Biden administration priorities.

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

As we learn more and more from the “Twitter Files,” it is becoming all too obvious that Federal agencies such as the FBI viewed the First Amendment of our Constitution as an annoyance and an impediment. In Friday’s release from the pre-Musk era, journalist Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.

The FBI, we now know, was obsessed with Twitter. We learned that agents sent Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth some 150 emails between 2020 and 2022. Those emails regularly featured demands from US government officials for the “private” social media company to censor comments and ban commenters they did not like.

The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a US government entity that included the FBI as well as other US intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from domestic activities, numbered 80 agents engaged regularly in telling Twitter which Tweets to censor and which accounts to ban. The Department of Homeland Security brought in outside government contractors and (government-funded) non-governmental organizations to separately pressure Twitter to suppress speech the US government did not like.

US Federal government agencies literally handed Twitter lists of Americans it wanted to see silenced, and Twitter complied. Let that sink in.

This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration. Indeed, Congress would be gearing up for Impeachment 3.0 if Trump-allied officials had engaged in such egregious behavior. But since these US government employees were by-and-large acting to suppress pro-Trump sentiment, all we hear are crickets.

What is interesting about these Twitter revelations is how obsessed the FBI and its government partners were with satire and humor. Even minor Twitter accounts with small numbers of followers were constantly flagged by the Feds for censorship and deletion. But knowledge of history helps us understand this obsession: in Soviet times the population was always engaged in joking about the ineptitude, corruption, and idiocy of the political class. Underground publications known as samizdat were rich with satire, humor, and ridicule.

Tyrants hate humor and cannot withstand satire. That is clearly why the FBI (and CIA) was determined to see a heavy hand raised against any American poking fun at the deep state.

There is good news in all of this, however. As Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote over the weekend, a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that even though the mainstream media has ignored the “Twitter files,” Americans have not. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believe that Twitter was involved in politically-motivated censorship in advance of the 2020 election. Some 70 percent of those polled believe Congress must take action against this corporate/state censorship.

As Professor Turley points out, although the First Amendment only applies to the US government, “it does apply to agents or surrogates of the government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between its former officials and the government.”

So now we have proof that the FBI (along with US intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security) have been acting through “private” social media companies to manipulate what Americans are allowed to say when they communicate with each other.

Is there anything more un-American than that? Personally, I find it sickening.

We do not need the FBI and CIA and other federal agencies viewing us as the enemy and attacking our Constitution. End the Fed…and End the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

Quebec, Canada last week approved the used of psilocybin – the primary psychoactive in “magic mushrooms,” as a valid therapy under the state’s medical system.

Advocates hope the move will set a precedent for other Canadian provinces to take similar action, Forbes reports.

“This decision is a huge step forward for the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy as a legitimate medical treatment,” wrote TheraPsil, a nonprofit group that advocates for the advancement of psilocybin therapies, in a Dec. 15 statement. “It not only provides greater access to this potentially life-changing treatment for patients in Quebec, but it also sets a precedent for other provinces to follow suit.”

Clinical research and other studies into psychedelics such as psilocybin have shown that the drugs have potential therapeutic benefits, particularly for serious mental health conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety. Research published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry in 2020 found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was an effective and quick-acting treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorder. A separate study published in 2016 determined that psilocybin treatment produced substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer. -Forbes

As we noted in April, psychedelic mushrooms are becoming increasingly popular in the US as a possible treatment for psychiatric disorders, with their main active ingredient, psilocybin, moving from the fringes of medicine, to become increasingly mainstream. It appears that Canada, however, is actually making moves to bring the benefits to actual patients.

And while the benefits of psilocybin have been evident for some time, access to the compound – and related therapy, has been extremely limited in Canada. In some cases, terminally ill patients suffering from palliative depression have been made to wait more than a year for a response from Health Canada – the national health regulator – to gain permission to use magic mushrooms legally. What’s more, even when patients obtained a legal exemption to use the drug, healthcare practitioners were unable to bill for it due to a lack of codes to properly process charges.

That all changed after two doctors, Dr. Houman Farzin and Dr. Jean-François Stephan, successfully billed Quebec after treating a patient with psilocybin which was legally allowed by Health Canada.

After the treatment, Dr. Stephan compiled evidence and submitted a letter, cosigned by 15 colleagues, outlining the medical safety and efficacy of psilocybin. He argued that both doctors participating in the treatment should be covered, noting that existing codes would not allow two doctors to bill for the same patient at the same time. He also explained that scientific evidence demonstrates that patients who have legal access to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy have a medical indication. -Forbes

“I think it’s amazing news that patients have covered access to such an important treatment option and it’s an encouraging sign for psychedelic medicine. Quebec has chosen to align with the science in regards to psychedelic medicine and recognize it as a medically indicated service in specific circumstances. They didn’t delay this unnecessarily,” said Dr. Stephan, who partnered with the governing body for general practitioners in Quebec, the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ), which negotiated with the government to amend the codes.

“It’s encouraging to see them recognize the evidence available, and make the necessary adjustments to support the financial aspects of treatment so that it’s not an obstacle for patient access. I’m pleased this happened in Quebec, and I hope other provinces follow in their footsteps.”