Month: September 2024

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

The Fed finally cut rates on Wednesday and 2-year yields finished the week higher, 10s didn’t have the decency to rally on Fed day, and according to the Bloomberg WIRP function, the market is pricing in 2.92% by the end of the September 2025 meeting, instead of the 2.84% it had on Monday. So, while the cycle is “new” in terms of actually cutting, with a “surprise” 50 bps, it is difficult to argue that the bond market hasn’t already been pricing this in, perhaps too aggressively!

Stocks were more interesting, as they rallied, faded, rallied, and then faded on Fed day. We then had one of the “crazier” Thursday’s I’ve seen in a while, but on Friday it seemed like we were back to some buying fatigue, though we did have one strong rally off the lows.

For those of you on Twitter, you might be familiar with Jim Cramer complaining about “pajama” traders. No one seemed to complain about the overnight session driving the show on Thursday as the entire gain for the day came during the overnight session. This chart might be off by a minute or two (not as granular as I would like), but it is clear what happened between 9:30am when the major U.S. exchanges “officially” opened (they all have some element of pre- and post-market trading), to when they closed. The market at best inched higher and probably closed moderately lower. Pretty unusual for an almost 2% up day! That is particularly true of late, when you would expect leveraged ETFs and 0DTE options to amplify the moves – but they didn’t. In a market that has been fraught with often multiple 1% intraday swings (see any number of recent T-Reports), we didn’t even get an intraday “trough to peak” move of 1%! All of that seems weird, and I’m told by some technical traders, that not only was that not constructive, but also the fact that Friday had little volatility and finished lower makes the market precarious, at least from a technical standpoint.

I do suspect that part of the market’s reaction Wednesday night was relief that the Yen didn’t rally (there was concern that a 50 bp move would cause dollar weakness and many still fear the Yen carry trade). Thursday night the Bank of Japan had the opportunity to be hawkish, but they chose not to be, which helped the dollar strengthen against the Yen, but didn’t seem to renew the enthusiasm for the carry trade.

All a bit weird, to say the least.

Torn on Our Own Analysis

We sent a lot of information out on the day of the Fed, including Fed Probabilities, where we had our top 2 probabilities as being a “Neutral 50 bp Cut” followed by a “Hawkish 50 bp Cut.” We actually felt that the Fed would try for the hawkish 50 (I think they did), but the market would interpret it as a neutral 50 (because as much as you jawbone, you did actually just cut 50). Our Conclusion Based on a Preponderance of Evidence was that it was somewhere between a neutral and hawkish 50 bps cut, leaving us with two choices on market reaction from our earlier report:

• Neutral 50. Some initial wavering in stocks and bonds, but then “rally mode.” We got the “initial wavering” but seemed to hit rally mode way faster than expected.
• Hawkish 50. Stocks and bonds sell off, maybe for a day or two, then we can start watching the data and earnings. While we were on edge for a hawkish 50, we certainly didn’t get two days of selling.

Based on our own pre-FOMC thinking, with a 50 bp cut, we should have been looking to buy the dip. We did not, as the bounce came faster and further than anything we expected (especially after Wednesday’s price action seemed to confirm our view that the market was already positioned too bullishly).

The fact that the rally on Thursday didn’t continue to scream higher is a minor miracle given that we seemed to miss our own takeaways, and Friday’s weakness encourages me to believe that we have yet to see the post-FOMC lows.

Going back to last weekend’s Great Debates, it is interesting to point out that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) finished the week only up 0.4%. AI will still be a driving force in this market, and it did not “catch on fire” like you might have felt it did (it certainly felt like it on Thursday after saying not to buy on Wednesday), but even with that, it wasn’t a particularly memorable week.

So what I think happened:

• On very low overnight volume, shorts got squeezed out. Traders who didn’t like the market’s initial response and shorted or kept shorts were stopped out. Anyone hoping for a Yen rally to help stocks got stopped out.
• Retail (presumably across the globe) which associates Fed cuts with lower yields (isn’t always the case, especially out the curve) and in turn sees that as a sign to buy (despite that historically it has often not worked out well) also helped push the buying (probably explains the initial post-opening rally) to the highs of the day.
• Then, as the day went on, many longs decided to take profits, rather than trying to ramp things higher into the close (which surprised me as that has been a reasonably consistent trend).
• Liquidity is abysmal in BOTH directions. The moves to the downside still tend to be more severe, but there is little true depth of liquidity in this market, largely due to market structure.

On the Great Debates:

• On the AI front we can ignore the Fed chatter and get back to earnings, growth, and new evolutions versus the simple question of whether the current cost/benefit ratio encourages companies to continue to spend or to ratchet back a little until costs come down or results advance.
• On the Election front, the status quo of projected gridlock seems to be the most important and seems to be a consensus view. Secondly, each candidate seems to be finding plenty of things to say that are the opposite of what they have done or said in the past, in an attempt to appeal to undecided voters, and the market likes the middle.
• That leaves us with the Fed path.

What if the Economy Isn’t so Slow?

I’ve been in the “bumpy” landing camp for months. For much of that time I felt I had to push back on the “soft landing” crowd and argue (against consensus) that some industries, sectors, regions of the country, etc., could hit rough patches, while others could do okay. I was arguing, often feeling as though it was pointless, that the job data we were getting out of the NFP Establishment Survey seemed misleadingly strong. However, now we even have Powell climbing on board that bandwagon and questioning the validity of the data in his press conference!

I am happy to present the “bear” case. And I think the economy is far from out of the woods, but I think there is a chance that the economy “muddles” along, causing the Fed to be slow to cut further, while markets are forced to meander along until it becomes clear which direction earnings and the economy are headed. I’m still in the bumpy camp, but I just feel obligated (as an angry contrarian) to point out a few positives (or at least things that aren’t as bad as believed but seem to be getting overlooked):

• Consumer Credit. Consumer credit is rising and is back above trend (though not as bad as it looks once you adjust “trend” for the wage inflation “shock” that we’ve had alongside the price inflation shock). We are tracking delinquencies, and they remain “mixed” versus 2018 and 2019, which is our “benchmark” and again, something that Powell seemed to discuss. He did focus more on jobs using the 2018/2019 framework, and we enjoyed seeing him opt to use our idea of ignoring, as much as possible, anything from 2020 until at least early 2023.
• Jobs. What if ADP is the most realistic methodology?

• While not “great” by any stretch of the imagination, we had some weakness last year as well and even in January (which at the time, was probably dwarfed by the initial NFP Establishment data). Maybe this argues that the Fed should have started cutting earlier (which I think they should have), but it also shows less deterioration than we might otherwise be led to believe and certainly not much out of the ordinary relative to last year. While people (apparently, including Powell) will question the validity of the next NFP report, let me finally say two positives on the data (that might make it more realistic).
  • The BLS may have many rules in place that force it to be slow to alter their methodology but given last month’s data (post the big revisions), they seem to have “nerfed” the birth/death model contribution. To me, the birth/death model was producing too great of a share of the total number of jobs and was likely missing shifts in EIN applications that were a function of the GIG economy and no longer translated at the same rate into job creation. If they are “nerfing” this number (making it smaller than it would have been based on the same inputs a year ago) then the data is more likely to be reflective of the real economy – suggesting smaller downward revisions.
  • I think the “seasonal” adjustments are off as they include the Covid close and re-opening and are somewhat influenced by weather patterns affecting building in the northeast (as a primary example) where they “boost” jobs in the winter, but then take away jobs in the summer. As the building is occurring in the south and southwest, that “boost” in the winter is too high and the subtraction in the summer is too high as well (even more so, when you consider that some construction gets shut down due to high heat in the summer). If I’m right on this seasonal adjustment, then we could see better data start to creep into the actual data, creating some potential for positive job surprises (still not roaring, but maybe stabilizing at a “replacement” type of level).
• Inflation. I stand by our simple “Covid bubbles” model and think that inflation is beaten (at least for now). If I had only one data point that I could use, I’d use the Manheim Used Auto Index and I’m comfortable with how it is behaving. With so many mortgages locked in at rates below 4%, this cut (or even the next few) will do little to create a wave of refinancing, meaning that it won’t help spending much. I’m not sure 50 bps on credit cards does much, but I do think 0.5% lower on the trillions in money market funds may slow spending in the coming weeks. Those who are taking the income and spending it will be quicker to change their behavior than those paying the interest.
• GDP. Atlanta Fed GDPNow. My understanding is that it has been better at predicting the official number (however accurate that number is) than the economist’s estimates. Driving back to 3% does not strike fear into anyone.

I think the path to rate cuts will be slower than the market is currently pricing in.

The Neutral Rate

This is the rate that is neither too loose nor too tight in terms of monetary policy. That seems like a pretty important number to me. If I know the neutral rate is X% and the economy is chugging along a bit above trend growth (another important, but possibly mythical number), then the central bank can add 50 bps to X and should get the right amount of cooling. A red hot economy might need X + 1.5%. There are two major problems:

• No one knows what to add to X to get the appropriate response in a reasonable period of time (I suspect because that depends on so many variables, of which the Fed Funds rate is only 1).
• No one has a clue what the heck the Neutral Rate is.

Monetary policy boils down to adding/subtracting Y (a number they don’t really know) to/from X (the Neutral Rate) which they also don’t really know!

The purpose of that rant (aside from making me calm down a bit, as rants seem to be a good way to do that), is that I suspect the Fed will be discussing the neutral rate and the terminal rate much more in the coming months. I assume (probably incorrectly) that the terminal rate the Fed poses as the long-run target rate in their projections should probably be roughly the neutral rate (I think their goal would be neutral monetary policy). Which in turn is probably some guestimate of R* and long-run stable inflation estimates (more wild guesses, but I digress and am starting to hurt my own head).

But, we’ve been running at 5% or higher on Fed Funds since May 2023 and until this month, the Fed didn’t think the economy had slowed enough to dial back? It took the Fed over a year to get to 5%, so initially they didn’t think it was necessary to be that high (nor, I suspect, for that long). What if we didn’t get the slowing, because the neutral/terminal rate should be significantly higher than 2.875%? Maybe we’ve been adding the mythical Y to the wrong X?

The real neutral rate will likely get discussed more and more, since now that the official cutting has begun, we can all switch to debating the timing and size of future cuts, and where will it end.

Without a recession, I expect the neutral rate/terminal rate/R* and other important (but entirely guessed at) factors impacting monetary policy will get more attention.

Bottom Line

Moderately higher rates from 2 years on out as we price in a slower Fed, a smaller Fed, and an end point that is higher and takes longer to reach. I think at least 25 bps on 2s vs 10s and think that as we get some more debt ceiling debates, we see the 10-year get back to at least 3.9% with far more risk of moving 50 bps higher than 50 bps lower from here.

Equities. Let’s watch the great AI debate, the election, earnings, and the economy. While I’m nervous that the price action since late Thursday morning gives me confidence that we have an opportunity to buy this market cheaper, remaining small is important when volatility is so high. Adding to disruption, commercial real estate and small caps/value make sense, but again, I think we have to build smaller positions.

On Credit, I feel I’m spending more and more time defending private credit. I like credit as a whole here, as my equity concerns are still more about valuations than economic slowdowns. I continue to think that private credit, for now, is helpful to the overall credit picture and that the debt ceiling debate will once again push investors to be even more overweight credit products at the front end, relative to T-bills (if they can). If you are in the New York area, don’t forget to register here for the October 10th, 5:30 to 7:30pm, Geopolitical and Credit Roundtable led by General (ret.) Spider Marks at Bobby Van’s GCT location.

Lots to digest and I feel awkward pointing out some potential positives on the economy while remaining cautious on equities, but we seem to be in a “good news” is bad sort of environment and positioning is too aggressively long stocks (even with the alleged money on the sidelines, which I think is on the sidelines for a reason and will remain there).

While “officially” the rate cutting cycle has started, don’t get too excited, as it was well telegraphed and is still likely pricing in too much!

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Sunday unveiled a 90-day band-aid to avoid yet another government shutdown which fails to include the SAVE Act, which would have required proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration – despite Donald Trump calling on Congressional Republicans not to pass a spending plan without “every ounce” of the proposal.

So, instead of playing chicken over the key issue of election integrity, the new continuing resolution (CR) – negotiated by bother parties – would keep the government funded at current levels through Dec. 20, setting the stage for yet another funding fight before Christmas recess.

It includes an additional $231 million to help the Secret Service protect candidates during this election season and into next year after Donald Trump was almost assassinated twice.

“There’s no doubt they need additional resources, but additional funding and resources is not going to solve the problem between now and Election Day,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), the top Democrat on a bipartisan task force established to look into the first assassination attempt.

“We can’t mass-produce Secret Service agents,” Crow added while speaking with ABC‘s “This Week,” noting that some agents are working 80 to 90 hours per week to cover various demands for protection.

According to the Treasury Department, the US has spent around $6.3 trillion in FY24, which ends Sept. 30.

Defending his missing spine, Johnson wrote in a Sunday letter: “While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” adding “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

“Since we fell a bit short of the goal line, an alternative plan is now required.“

On Friday, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that talks were going well.

“So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” he said. ““Most people don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”

Schumer snarks

“While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago,” said Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, adding “Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the MAGA way and wasted precious time.”

Johnson caved after a bipartisan majority of the House voted last week to reject his plan which included the SAVE Act. In the ensuing days, Johnson went limp over the issue and dropped his demands.

Taiwan-based independent journalist Tim Culpan revealed that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s plant in Arizona has produced the first batch of Apple A16 chips using the 4 nm process used to make the same chips at TSMC’s Taiwan factories. 

The volume of the new A16 chips, first introduced with iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, will “ramp up considerably when the second stage of the Phase 1 fab is completed and production is underway, putting the Arizona project on track to hit its target for production in the first half of 2025,” Culpan said, citing sources familiar with the situation. 

In our view, it is notable that Apple has enough confidence in TSMC’s new Arizona chip factory that it’s willing to bet on new advanced mobile processors being built in America for the first time rather than building less critical components. 

TSMC spokeswoman Nina Kao confirmed to Culpan, “The Arizona project is proceeding as planned with good progress.”

Kao did not comment on specifics about clients or chips at the US-based factory in the southwestern part of the US. 

It’s unclear what Apple devices the new Arizona-made A16 chips will be installed in. This could be the latest iPad model or the next-generation iPhone SE. 

“I can’t tell you which Apple device these A16 chips will go into. One possibility is that they’re slated for one of the upcoming iPads, though perhaps not the iPad Mini since Mark Gurman believes they’re to be launched around October. Another likelihood is the next iteration of the iPhone SE, which makes sense since it’s supposedly based on the iPhone 14 which uses the A16 processor and is expected next year,” Culpan said. 

He noted that the development is great news for made-in-America chips as the Biden administration plows tens of billions of taxpayer funds into CHIPs to rebuild the nation’s chip manufacturing industry.  

“This is a BFD. TSMC Arizona is the marquee project of the US government’s $39 billion CHIPS for America Fund under the CHIPS Act. Six months ago, I thought Apple might tap Arizona for a less-consequential chip like the H-series used in AirPods. I was surprised when I heard it was the A16. The fact that they went for the most-advanced chip they could manage on US soil, in terms of both technology and volume, shows Apple and TSMC want to start big,” he said.

After the chips are manufactured in Arizona, they’ll likely be sent to Foxconn factories in China or India, where low-cost labor will be used to assemble iPhones or iPads. 

The latest Tropical Outlook from the National Hurricane Center indicates a 70% probability of tropical cyclone formation in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea over the next seven days. Forecast models predict that a tropical storm could develop early next week, potentially making landfall along the Gulf Coast—the location of America’s top offshore oil/gas rigs and refineries on the mainland—by late next week. 

“Northwestern Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico: Disorganized showers and thunderstorms located over the western Caribbean Sea and portions of Central America are associated with a very broad area of low pressure. Environmental conditions appear favorable for gradual development of this system during the next several days. A tropical depression is likely to form while the system moves slowly northward across the northwestern Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico through the end of the week,” NHC wrote in an update on Sunday morning. 

Since Thursday, we have been monitoring potential tropical development via various weather models because this potential storm threatens US oil/gas infrastructure. 

• “Something Brewing In Gulf Of Mexico” As Confidence Grows In Cyclone Formation Next Week

The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore wrote on X, “One of the things to consider with this week’s pending tropical threat is where the “slingshot” sets up.  The slingshot is the upper low (blue) that could ventilate the system first and aid in intensification, then slingshot it into the coast.  The stronger it is at landfall the deeper inland  the more intense parts of it get.  Guidance has much to sort out with all the players coming together.  We should have an invest soon as NHC has issued a 10% area in 48hrs and marked a starting point.”

One of the things to consider with this week’s pending tropical threat is where the “slingshot” sets up. The slingshot is the upper low (blue) that could ventilate the system first and aid in intensification, then slingshot it into the coast. The stronger it is at landfall the… pic.twitter.com/QCdYVtRAuX

— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) September 22, 2024

Washington Post’s Matthew Cappucci wrote on X that a hurricane will likely form in the Gulf of Mexico…  

A hurricane is likely in the Gulf of Mexico. Stay tuned in in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana!

I’ll have an update in the @MyRadarWX app in the morning. Be sure to follow me on TikTok as well (trying to get better at verticals for the youth). pic.twitter.com/8zlIhVzTK8

— Matthew Cappucci (@MatthewCappucci) September 22, 2024

“Mike’s Weather PageOvernight GFS/EURO ensembles on http://weathernerds.org. Huge consistency. EURO catching up to the GFS. Timing here Friday. Many already make landfall by then. Getting real Florida IMO,” Mike’s Weather Page wrote on X. 

Overnight GFS/EURO ensembles on https://t.co/j6cXc9FWby. Huge consistency. EURO catching up to the GFS. Timing here Friday. Many already make landfall by then. Getting real Florida IMO. https://t.co/Hk3pbO84Yf pic.twitter.com/j652aq388q

— Mike’s Weather Page (@tropicalupdate) September 22, 2024

Landfall in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and or Louisiana? 

While uncertainty remains, there is a focusing of tropical tracks in the eastern Gulf late in the week.

Ensemble “orb” guidance is leaning toward a faster emergence into the Gulf, with states like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana on watch…

Old run ➡️ new run pic.twitter.com/vRiQnbGXKn

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 22, 2024

About 15% of the nation’s total crude production capacity via offshore rigs is in the cone uncertainty. Also, about 45% of the US refining capacity resides at major refineries in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Via Bloomberg data…

There’s a high probability the forecast could can change in the next five days. 

Authored by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,

In a joint statement issued on September 18, 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) revealed that Iranian hackers had stolen materials from the Trump campaign and passed some of them on to the Biden-Harris campaign:

“Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.”

This, of course, sounds eerily similar to the story we heard eight years ago, specifically from Hillary Clinton’s campaign director, Robbie Mook, who appeared on CNN on July 24, 2016, to assert:

“What’s disturbing to us is that we — experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these e-mails. And other experts are now saying that the Russians are releasing these e-mails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump.”

However, there is a significant difference. In one instance, the revelation originates from the ODNI, the FBI, and the CISA. In the other instance, the revelation was fabricated by the Clinton campaign as a dirty trick to tarnish Donald Trump’s reputation by portraying him as a Russian agent. 

But let us set that aside for a moment. Instead, let us assume that the FBI was unaware that the Russia collusion narrative was a scheme orchestrated by Hillary Clinton and that there was credible information justifying an investigation into Trump and his campaign. What was that credible information?

(For the avoidance of doubt, it should be noted that the FBI had known since at least July 28, 2016, that Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to fabricate a scandal by linking Trump to Putin. (see Figure 1)

The supposedly actionable information that the FBI allegedly relied on to initiate its extensive “enterprise” investigation into Trump, a number of his advisors, and the campaign itself, was a single tip from an Australian diplomat. Contrary to some widely shared narratives, the FBI did not officially depend on the infamous Steele dossier or any other source when opening its Crossfire Hurricane investigation. It was the Australian tip, and it alone. 

So, what did the tip entail? Fortunately, the tip was reproduced several years ago, allowing us to examine it for ourselves (see Figure 2). In essence, the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer claimed that a Trump advisor, George Papadopoulos, had made a suggestion of a suggestion that Russia might assist Trump by releasing information about Hillary Clinton. Notably, Judge Andrew Napolitano made a very similar claim on Fox News the day before Papadopoulos allegedly informed Downer about it. Even more significantly, Downer’s tip made clear that the information the Russians might release could have originated from publicly available sources. In other words, the tip was not about stolen emails, as the media often falsely asserts, but rather about generic information that may have been accessible to the public regardless.

Let us compile the purportedly incriminating information from the Downer tip and compare it to the data released by the ODNI, the FBI, and CISA regarding Iran and the Biden-Harris campaign.

Trump-Russia:
• Suggestion of a suggestion
• Information may have originated from the public domain
• No evidence that any information was provided to anyone

Biden-Iran:
• Not a suggestion but a fact
• Information was stolen and not public
• Information was provided to the Biden-Harris campaign

The two situations could not be more different. However, in Trump’s case, he was subjected to years of fraudulent investigations, while in Biden’s and Harris’s case, the entire situation has already been swept under the rug, despite the underlying facts being significantly more incriminating.

The key issue here is not whether the Biden-Harris campaign colluded with Iran; we do not have definitive evidence to support that claim. The point is that there never will be an investigation of whether the Biden-Harris campaign colluded with Iran. Instead, the announcement by the ODNI, the FBI, and CISA was directed against Iran. They let the cat out of the bag by asserting, apparently without evidence, and certainly without investigating, that the Biden-Harris campaign’s receipt of the stolen materials was “unsolicited.”

What we are left with is the significant disparity in how federal law enforcement has treated the two situations, which reveals much—if not everything—about the Russia collusion narrative. If the Russia collusion investigation had ever been serious or anything more than a concerted campaign of legal warfare by federal agencies against an unfavored presidential candidate, and later president, there would now be a comprehensive investigation into the Harris campaign. It is the absence of such an investigation that unequivocally proves that the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry was nothing short of treason. 

The perpetrators of this treason remain not only unpunished but also continue to disseminate their falsehoods every single night. This includes, first and foremost, Hillary Clinton, who once again propagandized her Russia collusion lies on MSNBC just two nights ago.

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Back in May, Israel’s Knesset voted unanimously to ban the Al Jazeera broadcast network. The Israeli order effectively shut down all Al Jazeera broadcasts in Israel.

Authorities soon after raided its offices and confiscated equipment at the channel’s Jerusalem HQ inside the Ambassador Hotel. The Qatar-based news network has said it was unfairly targeted for the ‘crime’ of mere journalism, as it tends to given in-depth coverage to the plight of Palestinians. But West Bank offices remained open, until this weekend.

Israeli officials have long accused the channel of showing sympathies with and support for Hamas and Palestinian militants. Al Jazeera correspondents have remained among the few in the world to continue reporting from on the ground in war-ravaged Gaza, despite the extreme dangers. And some have been killed during their live coverage.

The Israel vs. Al Jazeera rivalry has continued as on Sunday the network confirmed that Israeli soldiers (IDF) raided its offices in the central West Bank city of Ramallah. 

The bureau chief Walid Omary and other staff members were reportedly briefly detained while live on air while a military court order was presented to them. The IDF action appears to be part of the ongoing enforcement of the Al Jazeera ban by Israel which began in May.

CNN writes, “During the video broadcast by Al Jazeera, a soldier can be heard informing Omar of a military order to close Al Jazeera’s office for 45 days.”

“Reading the military order given to him on air, Omary said staff members had only ten minutes to take their personal belongings and cameras and vacate the office,” the report continues.

The Ramallah office has been in operation for decades, and had since the spring become a focal point of Al Jazeera’s regional operations and coverage following the May closure of its Jerusalem HQ. Much equipment had also been moved there.

Al Jazeera has long had offices in the West Bank and Gaza, and has provided 24-hour news coverage in English and Arabic of the Gaza war going back to Oct.7. The network’s website also carries frequent, round-the-clock updates of regional developments. Its camera crews have also been capturing Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip in real time, sometimes with buildings coming down in the very moments live shots are rolling.

Watch the moment Israeli soldiers enter AJ’s Ramallah newsroom while live on the air…

This is the moment when Israeli soldiers invaded Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah, stealing our equipment and attempting to silence the truth. But our brave colleagues stood firm in the face of this aggression, defending the right to report. Journalism is not a crime! pic.twitter.com/NIBd8OUHgU

— Mohamed Moawad (@moawady) September 22, 2024

Almost two years ago, in May of 2022, a popular senior Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot dead while reporting on the scene of an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. As a Palestinian Christian, she was given a church burial attended by thousands, but the procession with the coffin was later attacked by Israeli police, in an incident that garnered international media attention.

Abu Akleh also held American citizenship, and so her killing resulted in strong statements of condemnation from the White House. From there, tensions between Al Jazeera and the Israeli government have only gotten worse.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Friday that some Secret Service agents who were involved in securing the July 13 rally site where former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt face discipline.

In a Friday news conference in Washington, Rowe did not go into details about the staff or possible punishments that could be meted out. He said, however, that he hasn’t “asked for anybody to retire,” adding that reports saying otherwise “are false.”

The “disciplinary process” will “be handled in accordance” with the Secret Service’s “table of penalties” and headed by its internal office of integrity, Rowe said, adding that he cannot comment publicly on specific details.

Rowe’s statements followed the Secret Service’s release of a report on Friday that details a series of “communications deficiencies” before the shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper after firing eight rounds in Trump’s direction from the roof of a building less than 150 yards from where Trump was speaking.

A breakdown in security at the rally site was especially problematic for Trump’s protective detail, “who were not apprised of how focused state and local law enforcement were in the minutes leading up to the attack on locating the suspicious subject,” the report said. Had they known, the report says, they could have made the decision to relocate Trump while the search was in process.

The report makes clear that the Secret Service knew even before the shooting that the rally site posed a security challenge, Rowe said.

“While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols,” he said.

“[It’s] important that we hold ourselves accountable for the failures of July 13th, and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this again,” Rowe said, calling it a “mission failure.”

In the midst of the July 13 shooting and an alleged assassination attempt targeting Trump earlier this week, the “threat environment” is elevated and “is not going to evaporate anytime soon,” Rowe said.

“We’re in the risk mitigation business,“ he said. “We are not in the risk elimination business. And so we have to be able to have the personnel, the assets, and be able to spread those out for an indefinite period of time” in case a similar situation emerges, he said.

The Secret Service’s own investigation is one of numerous inquiries, including by Congress and a watchdog probe by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office.

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in July after she faced criticism over the incident and an hours-long session in front of a congressional panel.

Rowe has said the July shooting and Sunday’s episode, in which 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after Secret Service agents detected a rifle poking through shrubbery lining the West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course where Trump was playing, underscore the need for a paradigm shift in how the agency protects public officials.

The protective agency has started to increase its security around Trump, Rowe said on Friday, noting on multiple occasions that the former president is receiving the highest levels of Secret Service protection. Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have called for more Secret Service resources.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In a surprise to no one, 741 ‘high-ranking national security officials’ have endorsed Kamala Harris’ bid for the White House – with some suggesting that former President Trump has a “scary authoritarian streak.’

“Vice President Harris has all the leadership qualities needed to be a strong commander in chief. She’s prepared. She’s strategic. She’s understands all sides of an issue,” Navy Rear Admiral Michael Smith told The Hill. “We saw as much during the debate.”

“As we’ve seen for nearly a decade, however, former President Trump has none of those qualities, and he has a scary authoritarian streak,” Smith continued.

741 former high-ranking national security officials (233 general and flag officers) signed letter endorsing Kamala Harris for president. 15 four-star generals, 10 former cabinet secretaries, 10 service secretaries, and Repub leaders who served under Trump. https://t.co/I0clmLZOAL

— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 22, 2024

The Deep Staters join the likes of Dick Cheney and, more recently, an IRS-affilliated union in their support of the VP. They’re also in alighment with Iran – which offered ‘stolen, non-public’ Trump material to the (then) Biden-Harris campaign. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently joked that he’s thrown his support behind her as well.

“We do not agree on everything, but we all adhere to two fundamental principles,” reads the letter from the NatSec officials. “First, we believe America’s national security requires a serious and capable Commander-in-Chief. Second, we believe American democracy is invaluable.”

“Each generation has a responsibility to defend it,” the letter continues. “That is why we, the undersigned, proudly endorse Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States.”

The signatories praise Harris for her contrast to Trump, who they call “impulsive and ill-informed,” citing his relations with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un.

“Our endorsement of Vice President Harris is an endorsement of freedom and an act of patriotism. It is an endorsement of democratic ideals, of competence, and of relentless optimism in America’s future,” the letter concludes.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Sept. 20 that it plans to pursue sanctions against Elon Musk for not attending court-ordered testimony in connection with the agency’s investigation into his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

The SEC stated in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, that it plans to file a motion seeking an order requiring Musk to explain why he should not be held in civil contempt for failing to comply with a May 31, 2024, court order requiring him to testify on Sept. 10 at the SEC’s Los Angeles office.

The two parties had originally agreed that Musk would appear for the testimony on Sept. 19, but in July, Musk’s counsel requested to move the date due to a scheduling conflict. The SEC accommodated the request, rescheduling the testimony to Sept. 10. However, on the morning of Sept. 10, Musk’s legal team sent a letter to the SEC stating that his obligations as SpaceX’s chief technology office required urgent travel to the East Coast for a “high-risk” Polaris Dawn launch.

Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, argued in the filing that his client’s absence on Sept. 10 was due to an unavoidable emergency regarding the Polaris Dawn launch, requiring his presence in Cape Canaveral.

Musk, as SpaceX’s chief technical officer, “had to be present at the Cape Canaveral launch site for the Polaris Dawn launch, and the timing of the launch was unpredictable due to weather,” Spiro wrote, adding that it was impossible to predict more than a few hours in advance when the launch would take place.

Spiro argued that sanctions are unnecessary since the rescheduling was due to an emergency, and Musk has already agreed to a new testimony date in October. He added that Musk has fully cooperated with the SEC in multiple investigations.

But an SEC attorney said in the filing that, given Musk’s role at SpaceX, he was surely aware of the planned launch and that his excuse of an emergency rings hollow.

“Musk’s excuse itself smacks of gamesmanship,” SEC lawyer Robin Andrews wrote in the filing. “The court must make clear that Musk’s gamesmanship and delay tactics must cease.”

Andrews argued that Musk’s last-minute cancellation resulted in unnecessary costs, as SEC attorneys from San Francisco and Washington had already traveled to Los Angeles for the testimony.

Besides planning to file a motion for an order requiring Musk to explain why he should not be held in civil contempt for failing to appear at the scheduled testimony, the SEC is also requesting to recoup travel costs associated with the canceled deposition.

The SEC’s investigation is part of an ongoing probe into whether Musk violated securities laws in connection with his 2022 purchase of Twitter, which he has since renamed to X.

Specifically, the regulator is examining whether Musk made required filings in a timely manner when he initially bought a stake in the social media company.

A court hearing on the matter is expected later this month.

The United Nations is warning of ‘catastrophe’ in Lebanon while Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing Israel of dragging the whole Middle East region into war. He has frequently laid sole blame on Israel for everything that’s happened since Oct.7.

United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said on X, “With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer.”

President Erdogan appeared to agree, but took his assessment a big step further, laying blame fully on Israel. He blasted Israel as a “terrorist organization” – which isn’t the first time he’s denounced the country in fiery remarks.

“I have been saying all along that Israel targets not only the Gaza Strip. The recent attacks on Lebanon have confirmed our suspicion that the Israeli leadership’s plan is to spread the war to the entire region,” Erdogan said.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his gang have been staging all kinds of provocations to implement their radical Zionist ideology,” he added. The pressure on Israel must be intensified further to prevent the region from being dragged into an even greater disaster.”

He made the remarks Saturday just before traveling to the United States to attend a UN General Assembly meeting.

“Once again, unfortunately, we see that Israel is carrying out attacks not as a state but as a terrorist organization. This is state terrorism. The latest digital attacks [the explosions of communication devices in Lebanon] are a very clear confirmation of this,” he described in reference to last Tuesday and Wednesday’s pager explosion attacks which left scores dead in Lebanon and hundreds wounded and injured.

“With this attack Israel clearly demonstrated that it does not care about civilians and will try to achieve its mean aims goals at any cost,” Erdogan said. Israel and its supporters have asserted that it was a highly ‘precision’ operation which took out Hezbollah members. The Lebanese government has said that children and other bystanders were killed and wounded also in the attack.

On Saturday Israel very clearly intensified its airstrikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah retaliated with dozens of rockets in the early Sunday morning hours targeting Israel’s Ramat David Airbase, east of Haifa.

The White House has basically given up trying to steer events in the Middle East and is betting the farm on the hope that Israel’s government, which turned its Gaza war into a strategic disaster, will somehow prove to be a strategic genius in Lebanon. https://t.co/jvdDbPbM6G

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) September 22, 2024

Israel has been forced to close all schools and ban public gathers across broad swathes of the north. Its military said in total over 100 projectiles were launched from Lebanon Sunday morning.

The stated objective of Israel’s military leadership at this point is to make the north safe enough for people to permanently return to their homes, but that’s still looking far away at this point.