Month: December 2023

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

Former President Donald Trump is not immune to lawsuits over the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, a federal appeals court ruled on Dec. 1.

President Trump has not proven that he has presidential immunity from suits regarding his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, the court said.

The ruling was largely based on the determination that President Trump’s campaign for another term was not an official presidential act, so did not fall under presidential immunity.

“In arguing that he is entitled to official-act immunity in the cases before us, President Trump does not dispute that he engaged in his alleged actions up to and on January 6 in his capacity as a candidate. But he thinks that does not matter. Rather, in his view, a president’s speech on matters of public concern is invariably an official function, and he was engaged in that function when he spoke at the January 6 rally and in the leadup to that day. We cannot accept that rationale,” U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, appointed under former President Barack Obama, wrote in the ruling.

“While presidents are often exercising official responsibilities when they speak on matters of public concern, that is not always the case. When a sitting president running for re-election speaks in a campaign ad or in accepting his political party’s nomination at the party convention, he typically speaks on matters of public concern. Yet he does so in an unofficial, private capacity as office-seeker, not an official capacity as office-holder. And actions taken in an unofficial capacity cannot qualify for official-act immunity,” Judge Srinivasan added.

Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed by President Trump, concurred, while Judge Judith Rogers, appointed under President Bill Clinton, concurred in part.

The panel ruled on an appeal lodged by President Trump after U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, appointed under President Obama, ruled in 2022 that President Trump was not protected by presidential immunity for his speech on Jan. 6.

“To deny a president immunity from civil damages is no small step,” Judge Mehta wrote at the time. “The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent, and the court believes that its decision is consistent with the purposes behind such immunity.”

The ruling is not final, Judge Srinivasan emphasized.

The rejection of President Trump’s appeal “is necessarily tied to the need to assume the truth of the plaintiffs’ factual allegations at this point in the proceedings,” he wrote. “President Trump has not had a chance to counter those allegations with facts of his own. When these cases move forward in the district court, he must be afforded the opportunity to develop his own facts on the immunity question if he desires to show that he took the actions alleged in the complaints in his official capacity as President rather than in his unofficial capacity as a candidate. At the appropriate time, he can move for summary judgment on his claim of official-act immunity.”

The Dec. 1 decision “is not necessarily even the final word on the issue of presidential immunity,” he added, so “we of course express no view on the ultimate merits of the claims against President Trump.”

Lawyers for President Trump and the other parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Positions

The decision came nearly a year after the parties argued in front of the appeals court panel. The appeals court normally issues decisions in about a third of the time.

The ruling came after President Trump was sued by Democrats and law enforcement officers over his actions on Jan. 6.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, for instance, accused President Trump of conspiring to prevent them from their duty in approving the 2020 electoral results because of his speech, in which the president called on supporters to march to the Capitol.

President Trump, who is the Republican frontrunner for 2024, has argued that the speech consisted of “political statements and discourse by a sitting president during his term of office” and should thus be covered by presidential immunity.

The immunity protects presidents from civil lawsuits over official acts, or acts taken with the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibilities, under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

“In the run-up to January 6th and on the day itself, President Trump was acting well within the scope of ordinary presidential action when he engaged in open discussion and debate about the integrity of the 2020 election,” lawyers for the former president wrote in one filing.

Lawyers for the other parties had told the appeals court that Judge Mehta ruled correctly.

President Trump “was acting far beyond the “outer perimeter” of his office when he conspired to use violence and intimidation to prevent members of Congress from carrying out their constitutional duty to count Electoral College votes and certify the results of the 2020 presidential election,” they said.

Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the Ford F-Series is no less than an American icon.

Ford’s immensely popular line of pickup trucks has been the best-selling truck for 46 consecutive years and the country’s best-selling vehicle for the last 41 years. And since it’s very hard to overtake an F-Series truck, both literally and figuratively, the F-Series will once again be America’s number 1 vehicle this year.

As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, according to Car and Driver, Ford sold 573,370 units of its heavyweight truck in the first nine months of 2023, including 12,260 electric F-150 Lightning trucks. In a testament to America’s love of pickup trucks, the F-Series is trailed by the Chevy Silverado and the Ram Pickup in second and third place, before the Toyota RAV4 is the first non-heavy-duty vehicle in this year’s ranking of best-selling cars and trucks.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The enduring love affair between Americans and pickup trucks is deeply ingrained in the nation’s automotive culture. Rooted in the early 20th century, when trucks were primarily tools of trade, their evolution over time saw them transition from workhorses to versatile, multipurpose vehicles catering to a diverse range of lifestyles. Capable of seamlessly transitioning from hauling heavy loads at a worksite to serving as a family vehicle for weekend adventures, the spacious cabins, towing capacity and off-road capabilities of modern pickup trucks cater to a wide spectrum of consumer needs.

Moreover, the ‘American Dream’ narrative has often been intertwined with these trucks. The very essence of the pickup truck embodies the spirit of the country itself – bold, ambitious and unyielding. In recent years, the market for pickup trucks has expanded beyond traditional demographics. Their appeal now extends to urban dwellers, outdoor enthusiasts and even environmentally conscious consumers with the introduction of electric pickup trucks.

Tesla’s Cybertruck is just the latest such example, and when looking at Tesla’s track record combined with America’s love of heavy-duty trucks, it looks like a surefire hit.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new “cutting-edge” textbook on transgenderism written with the help of activists will be used to train psychiatrists and could harm millions of children in the future, some experts have warned.

“Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care,” just released on Amazon at $58, is a textbook printed by American Psychiatric Association (APA) Publishing.

The textbook signals early on that it’s more subjective than objective, quoting a feminist studies professor saying, “Scientific neutrality is a fallacy.”

The content has prompted some critics to question the textbook’s reliance on a mix of transgender-identifying professionals writing about their experiences, limited scientific studies, and neo-Marxist critical theories.

“This is a huge issue; millions more kids will be harmed,” said Dr. Lauren Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Oklahoma speaking out against the rush to “transition” children.

The textbook’s introduction says the book is based on an “evidence-informed approach” instead of an evidence-based approach, which is more scientific, she told The Epoch Times.

The 26 chapters are written by 56 authors, 50 of whom are in the transgender community, according to the textbook’s foreword.

Chapters include affirming “two-spirit people,” a term used to refer to someone who believes he or she is both sexes, and one about “double queer” people—or people who identify as transgender and have a mental disability.

The book’s editors are listed as an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and investigator at the National LGBT Health Education Center; and a transgender-identifying psychiatry resident at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work is influenced by her background as a “non-binary/trans, queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill, Jewish person.”

Dr. Schwartz noted that the authors were chosen by “prioritizing lived experience, diversity of perspectives, and community impact of prior work over academic titles.”

‘Disturbing Gibberish’

The problem is the textbook will be perceived as authoritative because it was printed by the APA’s publishing arm, she said.

“Anyone wanting to practice gender-affirming care, any attorney wanting to defend it, and any legislator who wants to protect it, now they have a new peer-reviewed textbook, not just ‘evidence’ in a journal or a study,” she said.

Alan Hopewell, a prescribing neuropsychologist in Texas who saw transgender-identifying patients decades ago, called the textbook “disturbing.”

“This is nonsensical gibberish which has no foundation whatsoever in science,” he told The Epoch Times.

Hospitals could demand doctors go by the textbook because the APA put it out, or it could even be used to remove the license of doctors who don’t go along with it, he said.

“This reminds me of brain-damaged hippies free-associating at a commune,” Mr. Hopewell said.

The book foreword says that most of the contributing authors recognize they are “obscenely privileged” as English-speaking doctors with access to elite schools.

It asserts that the psychiatric field was built on “the work [and assumptions] of European, white, cisgender men, including their colonial, Anglo-centric, cis-heteropatriarchal worldview and pathologization of experiences that did not fit their own ‘norm.'”

“For millennia, outside of European colonial influences, gender diversity has flourished to varying degrees among hundreds of indigenous communities around the world,” the foreword reads.

The idea that Western countries were colonizing land stolen from indigenous people is part of critical race theory (CRT), which critics say is rooted in neo-Marxism.

Straight White Bias

CRT and gender theories see white people and heterosexuals in Western civilization as “oppressors” of minority identity groups, who are viewed as victims.

Activists are encouraged to dismantle oppressive societies in order to right discrimination of the past, according to ideology architects such as Ibram X. Kendi, who wrote “How to Be an Antiracist.”

Proponents of CRT and gender theories contend that discrimination against identity groups such as white people and heterosexuals is needed to right the wrongs against racial and sexual minorities.

“The entire document is predicated on an uncritical acceptance of queer theory, which is more accurately queer Marxism,” conservative author James Lindsay told The Epoch Times.

Queer theory is a gender ideology advocating the destruction of traditional sexual norms; some queer theorists support sexual acts such as pedophilia and bestiality that aren’t accepted by society.

The textbook describes heterosexuals as cisgender people who are part of a “cultural and systemic marginalization” of LGBT people who don’t align with societal norms.

To prove the point, the authors object to the idea that only women can have babies.

“For example, naming an obstetrics and gynecology practice a women’s health center is cis-normative because it assumes the practice will only serve patients with one gender,” the foreword reads.

Mr. Lindsay, author of “The Marxification of Education,” said the idea of “treating” gender dysphoria with hormones or surgery is akin to performing lobotomies on the mentally ill decades ago.

History teaches that communist theories applied to the real world have deadly results, he said.

Mr. Lindsay pointed to the forced application of Trofim Lysenko’s Soviet agriculture program based on pseudo-science as an example of a communist idea gone bad.

The program caused millions of innocent people in the former Soviet Union to starve by forcing them to plant seeds close together in the belief that plants from the same class never compete with each other. The theory contributed to widespread famine.

Read the rest here…

If, and when, a recession ever occurs again in any of our lifetimes – certainly not in the golden age of Bidonomics, pain will be felt disproportionately as usual.

Sectors which fare better will typically exhibit;

• Less cyclical exposure
• Lower rate sensitivity
• Higher cash levels
• Lower capital expenditures

As such, Visual Capitalist‘s Dorothy Neufeld takes a look at the sectors most resilient to recession risk and rising costs, using data from Allianz Trade. 

Recession Risk, by Sector

As slower growth and rising rates put pressure on corporate margins and the cost of capital, we can see in the table below that this has impacted some sectors more than others in the last year:

Generally speaking, the retail sector has been shielded from recession risk and higher prices. In 2023, accelerated consumer spending and a strong labor market has supported retail sales, which have trended higher since 2021. Consumer spending makes up roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Sectors including chemicals and pharmaceuticals have traditionally been more resistant to market turbulence, but have fared worse than others more recently.

In theory, sectors including construction, metals, and automotives are often rate-sensitive and have high capital expenditures. Yet, what we have seen in the last year is that many of these sectors have been able to withstand margin pressures fairly well in spite of tightening credit conditions as seen in the table above.

What to Watch: Corporate Margins in Perspective

One salient feature of the current market environment is that corporate profit margins have approached historic highs.

As the above chart shows, after-tax profit margins for non-financial corporations hovered over 14% in 2022, the highest post-WWII. In fact, this trend has been increasing over the past two decades.

According to a recent paper, firms have used their market power to increase prices. As a result, this offset margin pressures, even as sales volume declined.

Overall, we can see that corporate profit margins are higher than pre-pandemic levels. Sectors focused on essential goods to the consumer were able to make price hikes as consumers purchased familiar brands and products.

Adding to stronger margins were demand shocks that stemmed from supply chain disruptions. The auto sector, for example, saw companies raise prices without the fear of diminishing market share. All of these factors have likely built up a buffer to help reduce future recession risk.

Sector Fundamentals Looking Ahead

How are corporate metrics looking in 2023?

In the first quarter of 2023, S&P 500 earnings fell almost 4%. It was the second consecutive quarter of declining earnings for the index. Despite slower growth, the S&P 500 is up roughly 15% from lows seen in October.

Yet according to an April survey from the Bank of America, global fund managers are overwhelmingly bearish, highlighting contradictions in the market.

For health care and utilities sectors, the vast majority of companies in the index are beating revenue estimates in 2023. Over the last 30 years, these defensive sectors have also tended to outperform other sectors during a downturn, along with consumer staples. Investors seek them out due to their strong balance sheets and profitability during market stress.

Cyclical sectors, such as financials and industrials tend to perform worse. We can see this today with turmoil in the banking system, as bank stocks remain sensitive to interest rate hikes. Making matters worse, the spillover from rising rates may still take time to materialize.

Defensive sectors like health care, staples, and utilities could be less vulnerable to recession risk. Lower correlation to economic cycles, lower rate-sensitivity, higher cash buffers, and lower capital expenditures are all key factors that support their resilience.

Via The Cradle,

On Thursday the US House of Representatives in a 307-119 vote passed a bill that would force the White House to permanently freeze $6 billion in Iranian funds released back in September as part of a successful prisoner exchange deal.

“Giving Iran access to these funds for any purpose frees up money for its malign activities, including its support to proxies, like we saw on 7 October, like Hamas,” Representative Michael McCaul – who introduced the bill – told reporters.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) speaks in support of the “No Funding For Iranian Terror Act” on the House floor on Nov. 30, 2023. Credit: YouTube/House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans.

The US Senate has introduced similar legislation to freeze the Iranian funds but has yet to pass it out of committee.

Despite the accusations from western officials, Iranian authorities maintain they had no previous knowledge of the plans by Hamas to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and have repeatedly stressed Tehran has no interest in seeing the hostilities expand into a regional war.

In September, Tehran and Washington completed a landmark prisoner exchange deal brokered by Qatar that also saw the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds seized by South Korea due to US sanctions.

The billions were transferred by Seoul to the Qatari accounts of several Iranian banks using the SWIFT system, thanks to a sanctions waiver provided by Washington.

Despite US officials claiming in the wake of the deal that they would police the use of the funds, Iranian authorities stressed these would be used to acquire “whatever the Iranian people need.”

At the time, Washington-based think tanks considered the deal a softball maneuver by the White House to publicly kickstart the easing of tensions with Tehran. This move was seen as a way to navigate around the resistance of congressional representatives and pressure from Israeli hawks against reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

The Neocon wing of the Republicans have long sought to block the Biden move to free up the $6BN, but Thursday’s vote had bipartisan support…

“We gave $6 billion in ransom to the Iranian regime to get 5 Americans home and there are now more than 5 Americans held by the Iranians today.”@mikepompeo warns that the Biden administration’s appeasement of Iran emboldens Hamas. pic.twitter.com/lN90JAacc8

— Hudson Institute (@HudsonInstitute) November 30, 2023

Nonetheless, days after the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October, the White House announced Iran “would not be getting the money for the time being.” At the time, State Secretary Anthony Blinken said Tehran had not “touched the money yet.”

Even though most Western and many other countries around the world observe Christmas as a public or religious holiday, the traditions differ wildly not only from region to region but also from country to country.

Statista’s Florian Zandt reports that their Consumer Insights Christmas Special shows that when it comes to Christmas markets, a long-held tradition in Western Europe, attitudes are divided by an ocean in the markets analyzed – literally and figuratively.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While 58 percent of German survey respondents say that Christmas markets are essential and almost half of those looking forward to the holiday season are excited about mulled wine and gathering around wooden huts in festive cheer, not as many participants in the United Kingdom share these sentiments.

When looking at the United States, most respondents could probably do entirely without Christmas markets, with only 13 percent each seeing it as an important tradition and looking forward to it.

For U.S. survey participants, having a Christmas tree (55 percent) listening to Christmas music, and watching Christmas movies (50 percent each) are the top 3 essentials for the holiday season.

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

The new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Nov. 30 defended COVID-era policies like vaccine mandates in her first appearance before Congress.

“I’m very proud of the work we did in North Carolina,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, the new director, told Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) after he asked if she regretted any of the policies put into place in North Carolina, such as school closures, when she was the state’s health secretary.

“I feel like we did that in a way that was very inclusive,” she added.

When Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) noted that Dr. Cohen supported harsh measures as health secretary, including vaccine mandates, Dr. Cohen said it was time to “look forward” and start a “new chapter.”

“You have to remember, at different moments in time, we needed different solutions,” she said in response to how Americans would know whether the new director will support the same measures at the federal level.

“The good news is that we’re in a different place than we were before. We both have different tools and have different mechanisms to respond,” she said to another question, about whether she’d shut down schools if a pandemic happened again. “I can’t really address a hypothetical but I think we’ve learned a lot about how to approach things.”

Did closing schools harm students?

“We always knew in-person instruction was incredibly beneficial,” Dr. Cohen said.

“You’d be great in the sales department,” Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) said, prompting a rare smile from the new director.

Dr. Cohen replaced Dr. Rochelle Walensky, President Joe Biden’s first CDC director, over the summer. Dr. Walensky was an advocate for COVID-19 vaccines, masks, and school closures.

Dr. Cohen also indicated she supports mask mandates, saying all masks, including cloth masks, worked as a “barrier” and protected against COVID-19. The CDC recommends wearing “well-fitting” masks for protection.

Dr. Cohen’s answers sparked frustration from lawmakers of both parties.

“My neighbor would say, should I wear a cloth mask? I don’t know from your answer what I should tell them,” Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) said.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said that Dr. Cohen was in the perfect place to help the CDC reestablish credibility.

“If the CDC wants its credibility back, you’ve got to have a mea culpa moment. You’re in the perfect position to do it, because you had nothing to do with their decisions at the time. So there’s no reason to defend it,” he said.

“It’s ok to say ‘it didn’t make any sense to shut down schools.’ The data shows that now. ‘It didn’t make sense to do major lockdowns.’ The data shows that now. ‘It doesn’t make sense to mask kids.’ The data shows that now. It’s okay to say it. And the public will reward you for it,” he added later.

But Dr. Cohen refused to say authorities in North Carolina or at the CDC did anything wrong, repeatedly steering the discussion back to the future, not the past.

Dr. Cohen said that the CDC was in touch with counterparts in China, where the agency has an office, and that the surge in respiratory infections in China was not, based on current information, from “a new or novel pathogen.”

The World Health Organization and Chinese officials have also said the illnesses are from existing illnesses such as influenza.

“The Chinese officials have shared with us that there are no novel pathogens, and we were able to corroborate that information across other sources from our European Union partners and others to make sure that we’re getting a complete picture,” Dr. Cohen said.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said the situation in China “brings us back, sadly, to the early days of COVID-19” when there was a “lack of reliable information coming out of China.”

“We are hoping that you can put some pressure in an attempt to try to get China to not mislead the world as they did with COVID-19,” Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said.

Some lawmakers pressed Dr. Cohen on a laboratory in China that was operating without permission, after a House report said the CDC refused to speak for months to local officials who raised the alarm.

Dr. Cohen said the CDC investigated quickly and found no indications the lab was experimenting with Ebola or other select agents.

She echoed an earlier CDC statement that said the report “includes numerous inaccuracies, including both the charge that CDC did not respond to local requests for aid and the false implication that CDC had the authority to unilaterally investigate or seize samples from” the lab. The agency said it was actively engaged in the investigation into the facility.