After a Tuesday vote, Democrats on the House and Ways Committee have voted to release six years of President Trump’s tax returns, in what Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the top Republican on the Committee, called a ‘new political weapon.’

“This meeting actually sets a terrible precedent that unleashes a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president,” Brady told reporters on Tuesday. “I won’t speculate on what the next Congress and this committee will focus on related to tax returns, but I do know that a major focus will be on the IRS.”

The committee voted along party lines, 24-16, to make public the returns – which will span 2015 to 2020. While the returns could be released as soon as hours, per The Hill, Chairman Richard Neal said that ‘sensitive information’ would be redacted, which may take days.

Chairman Neal told reporters tonight that redactions of sensitive information will be made, and that’s probably why it’ll take a few days to release the full docs. https://t.co/4HKGOZUaEA

— bryan metzger (@metzgov) December 21, 2022

Progressives, meanwhile, cheered the decision.

“Chairman [Richard Neal (D-MA)] and the Ways and Means Democrats are to be congratulated for their dogged pursuit of this important information. Now they must share the fruit of their labors with the American people, the final arbiters of what is acceptable behavior by our elected leaders,” said Frank Clemente, director of the Americans for Tax Fairness nonprofit.

That said, some legal minds are saying that Democrats would be abusing the oversight process if they rush to make the tax returns public without substantially assessing the presidential audit program – the ostensible reason for obtaining Trump’s returns, The Hill reports.

“Any review of the presidential audit program that starts now and ends when the GOP takes control of the House in January would be slapdash and superficial,” said NYU Law professor Daniel Hemel in an article posted to Lawfare earlier this month.

“Neal and the House Ways and Means Committee would undermine their own credibility—and could be seen as hoodwinking the courts and the public—if they proceeded to release the returns outside the context of a comprehensive review of the presidential audit program,” he added.

Tax experts have expressed doubts about whether the documents obtained by the committee are enough to back up years of investigative reporting that also gained access to Trump’s financial records and painted a dismal picture of Trump as a businessman.

“It could be a case of too little too late,” Steve Rosenthal, an analyst with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in an interview. “I expect very little, without a fuller probe.” -The Hill

In 2017, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow released two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax returns, which revealed that he paid $38 million that year, and the rate he paid was higher than than Mitt Romney and several other top earners.

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

Independent Chinese refiners have seen their refining margins jump in recent weeks as they are able to negotiate steeper discounts for their preferred Russian crude grade, even if they buy it above the G7 price cap, trading and industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

The flow of cheaper Russian crude to China lifted the refining margins of the independent refiners, the so-called teapots, to above $115 (800 Chinese yuan) per ton last week, from less than $86 (600 yuan) at the beginning of December, according to a China-based oil analyst who spoke to Reuters.   

Many independent Chinese refiners based in the Shandong province have continued to buy Russian crude and are ignoring the price cap imposed by Western countries. The price cap on Russian crude imposed by the EU, the G7, and Australia came into effect on December 5, but China hasn’t joined the so-called Price Cap Coalition, which bans maritime transportation services for Russian crude oil unless the oil is sold at or below $60 per barrel.  

ESPO, the crude from Russia’s Far East which is preferred by China’s independent refiners, is being sold above the price cap and estimated at around $65-68 per barrel on a free-on-board basis by trading sources. 

Although it’s above the price cap, the price of ESPO being negotiated by Chinese refiners is still at a wide discount to ICE Brent futures for the month of delivery of the cargo, currently February and March.

While China hasn’t joined the Price Cap Coalition, the fact that a price cap now exists gives the world’s top crude oil importer, as well as other buyers of Russian crude such as India, more bargaining power to negotiate steep discounts for the Russian crude even outside the price cap mechanism, analysts say.

The trades with ESPO above the price cap suggest that, for now, Russia has the tankers and insurance firms to provide coverage and shipping for the ESPO grade, which can reach China from Russia’s Far East in less than a week.  

The US has sent a B-52H strategic bomber as well as F-22 stealth fighter jets to participate in joint military drills over South Korea on Tuesday, in what Pyongyang is sure to take as a significant provocation. It comes after the north has test-fired a record number of missiles, including ICMBs, this year – also amid live military exercises.

“South Korea, US conducted combined air drills involving US B-52H strategic bomber, F-22 stealth fighters,” South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, also confirming it is utilizing its own F-35A stealth jets and F-15K fighters for the aerial maneuvers with the US.

Yonhap News described based on the ministry statement, “The deployment of the B-52H and F-22 fighters this time is part of an effort to reinforce the credibility of the U.S.’ extended deterrence.”

The deployment comes a mere days after North Korea’s weekend launch of a pair of ballistic missiles fired toward Japan, which set off emergency notifications across the large island-nation. Officially pacifist Japan has meanwhile announced its largest defense budget since WWII, having unveiled a $320 billion plan, which will involve development of long-range offensive missiles.

The Tuesday Korea-U.S. air drill near Jeju, the country’s largest island off the southern tip of the peninsula.

“The purpose of joint South Korea-U.S. stealth fighter training is to strengthen the ability to respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats,” a Korean government source told regional media. “The training involves practicing strikes on North Korean high-value targets.”

The Pentagon described the mission as part of “extended deterrence” over the South Korean capital.

The US flew nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and F-22 stealth fighter jets near South Korea today during joint air drills with Seoul — a demonstration of US “extended deterrence,” said Seoul.

Video via @ROK_MND: pic.twitter.com/90Lf6B6hVC

— William Gallo (@GalloVOA) December 20, 2022

Likely Pyongyang will respond with more military muscle-flexing, including possibly with more drills near the border. It has already launched over 60 ballistic missiles so far this year. This reportedly included an ICBM launch on November 18. According to The New York Times‘ count, the country has “launched at least 90 ballistic and other missiles this year, more than in any previous year” – despite a UN ban.

Kim Jong Un’s influential sister responded Tuesday, warning the US and South Korea to “behave carefully and think twice”…

Earlier Tuesday, Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, used a slew of derisive terms — such as “malicious disparaging,” “rubbish” and “dog barking” — when she dismissed the outside assessments that cast doubt on North Korea’s spy satellite development and long-range missiles.

South Korean intelligence has for months been warning that the north is preparing its first nuclear test in over half a decade, but despite predictions which have been on since the summer, this has yet to materialize. 

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Do you know any adults that still live at home with their parents?  If you are like most Americans, you probably know lots of them.  Sadly, that is because the percentage of young adults that are living with at least one parent has been trending upwards for decades.  Of course the cost of housing is one factor that is driving this phenomenon.  At one point in 2022, housing was more unaffordable than it had ever been in the entire history of our country.  So the truth is that many of the multi-generational households that exist today have formed due to economic necessity. 

But in other cases, “kidults” that simply refuse to grow up have moved back home with Mom and Dad because it is easier than trying to live independently.

Thanks to the “kidult” trend, approximately half of all U.S. adults in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket are currently living with at least one parent…

In July 2022, half of adults ages 18 to 29 were living with one or both of their parents. This was down from a recent peak of 52% in June 2020 but still significantly higher than the share who were living with their parents in 2010 (44% on average that year) or 2000 (38% on average).

So what do parents think about all of this?

Well, some like it, but even more don’t like it…

The share of adult children who live with their parents has ticked up in recent years. This just in: The parents don’t like it.

A recent Pew survey found two-fifths of dads believe parents hosting adult children is bad for society, while only 12 percent think it’s a good thing. Moms agree, albeit to a lesser degree.

Overall, the Pew survey discovered that Americans have very mixed feelings about this phenomenon…

Over a third of Americans (36%) say that more young adults living with their parents is bad for society, while 16% say it is good for society. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say it doesn’t make a difference.

Of course every story is different.

Some adults are living at home because they just cannot afford homes of their own.

These days, millions of young people graduate from college with massive amounts of debt, and when all of that debt forces them to go back to living with their parents they are referred to as “boomerang kids”.

If you are a young person that has been financially crippled by student loan debt, I certainly don’t blame you for trying to save money so that you can turn your life around.

Ultimately, trying to get out of debt is a really good thing.

But of course there are millions of other young adults that simply refuse to grow up.

In fact, they have become so numerous that the toy industry has created a special term for them.  They are called “kidults”, and these days they are spending billions of dollars on toys…

There are two things keeping the toy industry afloat right now: inflation and a consumer group known as “kidults.”

These kids at heart are responsible for one-fourth of all toy sales annually, around $9 billion worth, and are the biggest driver of growth throughout the industry, according to data from the NPD Group.

Have you ever met an adult that has a special room for all of his Star Wars collectibles?

If so, then you probably have a really good idea of the type of person that I am talking about.

“Kidults” are shelling out so much money for toys that toy companies have actually begun to create “product lines just for these consumers”…

Kidults, who tend to spend more on toys, have a great fondness for cartoons, superheroes and collectibles that remind them of their childhood. They buy merchandise such as action figures, Lego sets and dolls that might typically be considered “for kids.” However, in recent years, toy makers have created product lines just for these consumers, realizing that demand is high for this generation of adults who still want to have fun.

I am all for having fun.

But this is getting ridiculous.

Sadly, men are much more likely to be “kidults” than women are.

Needless to say, this is one of the reasons why many women find it so difficult to find someone suitable to marry.

The labor force participation rate for men has been trending down for decades, and meanwhile the labor force participation rate for women has been trending up for decades.

Of course the systematic emasculation of the male population is another reason why this has been happening, but that is a topic for another article.

Once upon a time, it was extremely unusual for an able-bodied male to be doing nothing if he was capable of working.

But now we have millions upon millions of men that have simply dropped out of the labor force completely.

Some of those men are now living with their parents, and that isn’t good for our society.

Unfortunately, as economic conditions deteriorate, even more young adults will move back home with Mom and Dad.  According to a Wall Street Journal poll that was just released, approximately two-thirds of Americans believe that “the nation’s economic trajectory is headed in the wrong direction”…

A majority of voters think the economy will be in worse shape in 2023 than it is now and roughly two-thirds say the nation’s economic trajectory is headed in the wrong direction, the latest Wall Street Journal poll shows.

The survey, conducted Dec. 3-7, suggests a recent burst of positive economic news—moderating gas prices and a slowing pace of inflation—haven’t altered the way many feel about the risk of a recession, something many economists have forecast as likely.

The coming year is definitely going to be quite rough, and the outlook for beyond that is even worse.

As the economy crumbles and global events spiral out of control, we are going to need men to be men.

But a lot of the “kidults” out there simply don’t want to be men, and that is extremely unfortunate.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

The body positivity movement, at least in the case of women, has been highly promoted by every area of the entertainment media and among social justice activists based on a singular claim:  You can be healthy at any size (HAES).  

The claim has inspired numerous efforts to normalize obesity in American society as not only socially acceptable but also medically acceptable.  While political activism in science is nothing new and has been present in everything from climate change rhetoric to pandemic response, fat positivity disinformation in scientific observation is perhaps the most egregious and widespread.  It attempts to ignore or dismiss decades of studies on the negative effects of obesity and asserts that being grossly overweight has minimal or no health consequences.  

This argument is often debunked by the very people that tend to promote it and encourage it, as they die incredibly young and from health problems that are usually reserved for the elderly.  

Jamie Lopez, star of the body positivity-based television show ‘Super Sized Salon’, was an advocate of a “beauty at any size’ philosophy, more so than a health at any weight size.  However, social justice proponents often held up her example as justification for the HAES lifestyle.  She is now dead, suffering from heart failure at age 37.

To be fair to Lopez, she did attempt to lose weight, dropping over 400 pounds in a year. 

But, going from 800 pounds to 400 pounds is still not enough to prevent the myriad of health problems associated with obesity.  Undoubtedly, body positivity proponents will try to gloss over her cause of death, but the fact remains that health and weight are indelibly intertwined. 

While “beauty” might be treated as socially subjective by some people (studies show beauty concepts are actually biologically ingrained), health standards are not subjective. 

Gluttony has long been a despised habit within almost all cultures for a reason – It is a sign of a lack of discipline as well as a precursor to societal decline, and, it is a sure trigger for an early demise.

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former film producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was found guilty by a jury of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault at a trial in Los Angeles on Monday.

This marks the second criminal trial for Weinstein, 70, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence after he was convicted in February 2020 of rape and sexual assault in New York.

The jury of eight men and four women at the Los Angeles trial reached the verdict on Monday after they deliberated for nine days spanning more than two weeks.

Weinstein faced seven counts of rape and sexual assault from four women for incidents between 2004 and 2013. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in July 2021. Weinstein asserted that all of his sexual encounters were consensual.

The allegations against Weinstein in the trial lacked any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts, and relied heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women involved.

The jury found Weinstein guilty of rape, forcible oral copulation, and sexual penetration by foreign object involving a woman known as Jane Doe 1.

They acquitted Weinstein of a sexual battery charge made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010.

The jury was unable to reach a decision on two allegations, including rape, involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who is the wife of California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. She was known as Jane Doe 4 in the trial. She had testified of being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005.

The jury was also unable to reach a verdict on the charge involving another woman, Lauren Young. Young was the only accuser who testified at both of Weinstein’s criminal trials. She said she was a model aspiring to be an actor and screenwriter, and was meeting with Weinstein in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her, and masturbated in front of her.

Jurors informed Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench that they were 10-2 in favor of conviction on the count involving Young, and 8-4 in favor of conviction on the two counts involving Siebel Newsom.

Lench declared a mistrial on the counts where the jury could not reach a verdict.

Elizabeth Fegan, Siebel Newsom’s attorney, said in a statement: “My client, Jane Doe 4, shared her story not with an expectation to testify but to support all the survivors who bravely came forward.”

“While we are heartened that the jury found Weinstein guilty on some of the counts, we are disappointed that the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on Jane Doe 4,” Fegan added. “She will continue to fight for all women and all survivors of abuse against a system that permits the victim to be shamed and re-traumatized in the name of justice.”

Four other women who were not part of the charges offered testimonies that Weinstein had sexually assaulted or raped them. They were brought to testify to support the prosecution’s arguments that Weinstein routinely abused his position to prey on women.

The women shared that Weinstein had promised to help them with securing deals such as for an audition or for a book, and then arranged meetings where staff left them alone with him.

Defense lawyers noted that none of the four women reported their sexual assaults or rape until after the #MeToo movement that put a spotlight on Weinstein. The defense also accused two of the women of having completely fabricated about their encounters with Weinstein, while accusing the other two women of having “100 percent consensual” sexual interactions.

Read more here…

“Harvey Weinstein is a wonderful human being and a good friend ” pic.twitter.com/wEdthXpt3Q

— MStever (@MStever6) December 15, 2022

After a chaotic 24 hours of on-again, off-again headlines surrounding the disgraced Democrat donor, ABC reports that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has now signed extradition papers in the Bahamas.

After apparent disagreements between his US and local lawyers yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to a person familiar with the matter, the FTX founder has agreed to be extradited, and plans were being fleshed out by his legal team after the day’s court proceedings.

Jerone Roberts, who represents Mr. Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas, reportedly agreed to draft the necessary documents after having a conference call with the former chief executive and his U.S. lawyers.

The disgraced former crypto exchange CEO has now signed the papers to waive an extradition hearing from the Bahamas.

Bankman-Fried is now due back in court Wednesday and, with extradition papers signed, should be clear for transfer to New York  to face prosecution, according to acting Commissioner of Corrections Doan Cleare.

Extradition will pave the way for a protracted legal showdown in the U.S. Last week, the Southern District of New York of the Justice Department unsealed a 13-page criminal indictment.

Bitcoinist reports, that, according to defense attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, Bankman-Fried would likely be detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn upon arriving in the U.S., although some defendants are being kept at jails just outside of New York City owing to congestion at the facility.

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClear Wire,

Oil prices rose modestly on a low volume, low liquidity day helped by the tumble in the dollar that The BoJ enabled.

Ongoing hopes for China demand (post Zero-COVID policies) helped prices and continued supply disruptions in the US are also supporting oil. TC Energy pushed back its targeted restart for the Keystone pipeline by a week and is now aiming for December 28 or 29.

API

• Crude -3.069mm (-167k exp)

• Cushing +840k

• Gasoline +4.510mm

• Distillates +830k

After last week’s huge crude build (and builds across the board), all eyes are on this week’s data for any signs that it was a one-off, or that a sudden demand drop has hit the US economy. API reported a 3.069mm barrel Crude draw (bigger than the expected small draw) but builds at Cushing and in products…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was hovering around $76 ahead of the API print and extended gains modestly after…

“After an extended bout of long liquidation, and with positioning much more balanced, bullish sentiment is creeping back into oil traders’ purview, primarily based on China’s reversal of its zero-COVID policy,” said Stephen Innes, managing director of SPI Asset Management, in emailed comments.

“And despite all the economic fear and recession hype, oil continues to find buyers on dips, proving itself as one of the most needful commodities in the world.”

Crude is also finding underlying support from the Biden administration’s plan, announced Friday, to buy 3 million barrels of crude in February to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Supreme Court of Delaware has formally struck down state laws allowing universal mail-in voting and same-day voter registration, finding the statutes violate the state’s constitution.

The court unanimously ruled against the laws in October—preventing no excuse required mail-in voting and same-day voter registration from being used in the Nov. 8 general elections—but didn’t make public a full opinion explaining its reasons until Dec. 16.

Before that, on Sept. 14, the Court of Chancery of Delaware found that the state’s mail-in voting practices violate the Delaware Constitution, The Epoch Times reported.

Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), who brought the lawsuit, hailed the decision in a statement to The Epoch Times.

Christian Adams is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. (Courtesy of  Christian Adams)

“This was a monumental victory in the election integrity space,” said Adams, a former U.S. Department of Justice civil rights attorney.

“This is the first time a state Supreme Court has invalidated an election statute,” he said.

“This law violated the plain text of the Delaware Constitution. Today’s opinion is a victory for the rule of law in elections.”

Ken Blackwell, a PILF board member and former Republican secretary of state for Ohio, added that “election integrity should be an issue all Americans can support.”

“The fact that this might be the first time a state supreme court has struck down a state election law highlights the perilous times we are in, where partisan politicians are willing to cross lines that have never been crossed, willing to seize and keep power at all costs,” Blackwell said in the statement.

PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity.”

The nonprofit organization “exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity, and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

The Democratic-controlled Delaware General Assembly hurriedly passed the voting-by-mail law this past June after failing to secure enough Republican support to amend the state constitution to enshrine the policy.

Lawmakers previously approved a separate voting-by-mail law during the pandemic in 2020, invoking emergency powers that allowed the statute to escape the usual constitutional scrutiny.

Republicans across the country, including then-President Donald Trump, were critical of mail-in voting measures enacted at the height of the pandemic and accused election officials of ignoring federal and state constitutions by allowing it.

They claim this departure from the usual election procedures allowed Democrats to allegedly cheat.

But in this case, Delaware lawmakers didn’t reference any emergency-based justification when passing the new laws, which gave state courts greater leeway to rule they were unconstitutional.

In the new decision, Justice Gary Traynor, a Republican, recounted that Gov. John Carney Jr., a Democrat, signed laws on July 22 changing the registration deadline from the fourth Saturday before the date of the election to the actual day of the election, and allowing all state voters to cast their ballots by mail whether or not they are able to appear at a polling place.

“[N]either of the newly enacted laws passes muster under the Delaware Constitution,” Traynor wrote in the new 72-page opinion.

The case is Albence v. Higgin (case number 342-2022).

The Epoch Times has reached out to State Election Commissioner Anthony Albence, who was a defendant in the legal proceeding, and to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, a Democrat who defended the law in court, for comment.