American rapper Jay-Z, 55, denied sexual assault accusations on Dec. 8 after his name was added to a civil lawsuit alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs for allegedly drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl more than two decades ago.
The lawsuit, amended on Dec. 8 and viewed by The Epoch Times, lists Jay-Z by his legal name, Shawn Corey Carter, alongside Combs, who was criminally charged in September with racketeering, sex trafficking, and other offenses.
The case was first filed in October in the Southern District of New York, naming Combs as the only defendant.
According to the updated complaint, the plaintiff, identified only as “Jane Doe,” alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by both men at an after-party following an MTV Video Music Awards night in 2000.
Carter responded to the claims Sunday night, saying in a statement that the plaintiff’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, had sent him a letter demanding a settlement. The rapper accused Buzbee of trying to force him to settle given “the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny.”
The rapper said he would not pay anything and would “expose” what he said were fraudulent claims to the public in court.
“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” Carter said.
“These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”
Buzbee responded on the social media platform X on Sunday to Carter’s comments, saying that since he sent the letter on behalf of his client, Carter has “filed his frivolous case under a pseudonym” and “tried to bully and harass” him and the plaintiff.
Buzbee was sued in November by California-based law firm Quinn Emanuel for alleged extortion and threats of “publicizing false information for financial gain” that targeted “high profile individuals.”
Carter hasn’t publicly commented on his alleged lawsuit against Buzbee as of publication time, and it is unclear if Buzbee’s post regarding Carter was referring to the Quinn Emanuel suit.
Buzbee said that while Carter claims the lawsuit is after his money, the plaintiff hadn’t asked Carter for money in the settlement offer.
“What he fails to say in his recent statement is my firm sent his lawyer a demand letter on behalf of an alleged victim and that victim never demanded a penny from him. Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation,” the lawyer posted on X.
Buzbee said that Jay-Z’s response to the settlement has not intimidated his client but “had the opposite impact.”
“She is emboldened. I’m very proud of her resolve,” he wrote.
Buzbee said he would comment no further on the allegations and the case. “[W]e will let the filing speak for itself and will litigate the facts in court, not in the media,” he said.
Lawyers for Combs told media outlets that the multiple claims filed by Buzbee against their client in recent months are “designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them.”
“Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” they said in a statement. “In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor.”
Combs was arrested in September for the sex trafficking charges and has pleaded not guilty. He is currently being held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center without bail. His trial is scheduled for May 5.
The Epoch Times has contacted attorneys for Carter, Combs, and Doe for comment.
Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Challenge To Race-Based Admission Policy By Elite Boston Schools
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Dec. 9 that it won’t consider whether three Boston public schools violated the Constitution with a purported racial diversity policy that admitted students based on their zip codes.
As Matthew Vadum reports for The Epoch Times,the new decision was made after the court’s landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. Harvard struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at U.S. colleges. After that ruling, schools began using supposedly racial-neutral admission policies such as geography to attempt to make student bodies more diverse.
Two conservative justices – Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas – dissented from the court’s decision not to grant the petition in Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence v. The School Committee for the City of Boston.
Represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Boston Parent Coalition filed its petition on April 17.
The school committee changed its admission criteria for its competitive “exam schools” effective from the 2021–22 school year, replacing the usual standardized test with a quota based on applicants’ zip codes “that reserved seats for students with the highest [grade point average] in each Boston neighborhood.”
Although “the number of seats allocated to each neighborhood was based on the neighborhood’s population of school-aged children,” school officials “spoke openly of their intent to racially balance the Exam Schools at the expense of Asian American and white students,” the petition said.
A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit in 2021. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the ruling, finding that even though the zip code-based quota “was chosen precisely to alter racial demographics,” it did not violate students’ equal protection rights.
Alito said in his dissent, which was joined by Thomas, that the new ruling is the court’s second refusal “to correct a glaring constitutional error that threatens to perpetuate race-based affirmative action in defiance of [the] Students for Fair Admissions [decision].”
Accidents like Chornobyl and Fukushima have damaged the public perception of nuclear power, leading to decreased investment and development.
Nuclear power is a low-carbon energy source with a proven track record of safety and reliability.
Despite past challenges, there is a growing global interest in nuclear power as a key component of a sustainable energy future.
Three major nuclear events throughout the history of nuclear power production have tainted the image of the clean energy source, according to recent reports and years of public opinion polls. The events at Chornobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island swayed public opinion against nuclear power in many areas of the world for several decades, encouraging governments worldwide to move away from the clean energy source in favor of continued fossil fuel use.
Today’s energy mix could look extremely different if these events had not occurred, or greater efforts had been taken to raise public awareness over nuclear safety.
According to a recent report published by a think tank from the ex-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair – Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the nuclear power industry could have had a significant impact on global carbon emissions had it continued to grow at the same pace as before the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
It predicted that carbon emissions would be around 6 percent lower today if a different narrative of nuclear energy had been established following the Chornobyl disaster, rather than one that spurred “unfounded public concern”.
The Chornobyl nuclear power station was located in Pryp’yat, 10 miles northwest of the city of Chornobyl and 65 miles north of Kyiv. It consisted of four reactors, each with a 1 GW capacity. The disaster happened on April 25–26, 1986, when workers shut down the reactor’s power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems and withdrew most of the control rods from its core while it ran at 7 percent power. A combination of human errors led to several explosions triggering a large fireball that blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor, which resulted in a partial meltdown of the core. This led large quantities of radioactive material to go into the atmosphere and spread for miles around.
Around 30,000 inhabitants were evacuated from Pryp’yat and a cover-up took place by the Soviet Union. However, Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity, which led authorities to admit there had been an accident. The attempted cover-up and delayed information about the event led to an international outcry over the dangers of radioactive waste. The heat and the radioactivity leaking from the reactor core started to be contained in May, and the highly radioactive reactor core was later enclosed in a concrete-and-steel sarcophagus. Reports on the number of deaths associated with both the disaster and the lingering radioactivity in the region vary widely.
The TBI report found that over 400 reactors commenced operations in the three decades before Chornobyl, but fewer than 200 had been commissioned in the almost three decades since. The report stated, “The result is that nuclear energy has never become the ubiquitous power source many had projected, with countries instead turning towards alternatives such as coal and gas.” It suggests that two other major nuclear incidents – Fukushima and Three Mile Island – also harmed the public perception of nuclear power.
Nevertheless, the TBI predicts the world will see a “new nuclear age” in the coming years, as environmentalists and governments worldwide double down on their commitment to nuclear power as part of a green energy transition. Nuclear energy has been providing abundant clean power to countries worldwide for around 70 years. Unlike most renewable energy sources, nuclear energy can be produced 24 hours a day, rain or shine, providing a stable flow of clean power to the grid. Some new-generation power plants are now capable of operating for up to 80 years, which is far longer than gas- or coal-fired power stations, as well as many renewable installations.
In addition, a multitude of studies over several decades show that fossil fuels are overwhelmingly more harmful to health and the environment than nuclear power. Experts think that air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for around 7 million deaths a year, while nuclear energy carries a similar level of risk to wind power, which is around 350 times safer than coal. Per terawatt-hour of energy production, coal is thought to cause 24.6 deaths, oil 18.4 deaths, natural gas 2.8 deaths and nuclear energy 0.07 deaths.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says that nuclear power plants are among “the safest and most secure facilities in the world.” They must adhere to strict international safety standards and both training and best practices have become stricter and more internationally standardized in recent decades. Further, nuclear waste storage facilities are highly protected against earthquakes, tornadoes, and other potential disasters.
The lead author of the report Tone Langengen stated, “A new nuclear age is beginning. But whether it continues will depend entirely on whether leaders are willing to move past false alarm and ideology, making judgment based upon fact-based assessment of risk.”
Mobile Dominates America’s Favorite Gaming Platforms
People engage in gaming through a variety of formats, from consoles to mobile devices, driven by factors like convenience, cost, and immersive experiences.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the share of U.S. consumers that reported gaming on a specific device within the past month, using data from a Circana online survey of 5,100 active U.S. gamers conducted in May through June 2024.
The categories of gaming devices are as follows:
Mobile: iPhone, Android smartphone, iPad, and other smartphone or tablet devices
Computer: Desktop, laptop, Steam Deck, or other portable PC devices
Console: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Xbox One X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Wii
Below, we show the share of U.S. consumers ages two and up that played on a qualifying device within the previous month of Circana’s survey.
About 71% of U.S. consumers played some form of video game in the month prior to Circana’s survey, with mobile gaming being the largest platform with 65% of U.S. consumers gaming on a mobile device in 2024.
Over half of gamers’ weekly playtime takes place on their phones, according to Circana. The main draw is convenience, as players already have their devices with them, along with the low cost and easy accessibility of mobile games.
PC and console gaming are almost evenly tied, with 36% and 35% of respondents gaming on these platforms respectively.
When looking these formats’ market shares, console gaming held a slight lead over PC gaming with 57% of the 2023 market share, or $53.1 billion revenue compared to PC’s $40.4 billion.
The “Other” gaming category grew by 2% since 2022 due to increased adoption of virtual reality (VR) gaming. VR usage and ownership among U.S. teens is on the rise, with weekly VR use increasing from 10% to 13% and headset ownership growing from 31% to 33% over the past six months, according to a survey by Piper.
Gaming preferences are also dependent on generation. Younger generations like Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and Millennials tend to play on PCs or console more often than older generations, according to Newzoo.
In terms of gaming genres, older generations like Gen X and Boomers tend to gravitate towards puzzle games, usually played on mobile devices.
To learn more about the video game industry, check out this graphic that visualizes console launch prices, adjusted for inflation.
When now President-Elect Donald Trump was convicted, the thrill-kill atmosphere around the courthouse and the country was explosive, but no one was more ecstatic than liberal columnist and former prosecutor Harry Litman.
The then L.A. Times columnist told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was a “majestic day” and “a day to celebrate.”
A lawfare advocate, Litman excitedly laid out how Trump could be barred from office, declaring that the raid in Mar-a-Lago was the “whole enchilada” in ending Trump’s political career.
Now, Litman has resigned from the L.A. Times because the owner wants more diversity of opinion in the newspaper.
Litman went on MSNBC to declare that “this is not a time for balance.”
Those seven words sum up much of what has destroyed American media with millions turning away from the echo chamber created by the Washington Post, L.A. Times, and other publications.
Litman is not alone. Many liberals are dispensing with the pretense of declaring opposing views “disinformation” and are now openly fighting to preserve ideological echo chambers and media silos.
In my new book, The Indispensable Right, I write about the decline of newspapers as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement. Opinion pages became little more than screeds for the left, including legal commentators who have been consistently wrong and misleading on merits of challenges or cases.
Last year, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Litman has been one of the most unabashed lawfare warriors.
Even when the Justice Department was seeking to dismiss the Flynn case, Lipman wrote an L.A. Times column advising Judge Emmet Sullivan how to “make trouble” for the administration.
Litman admitted there is “very little leeway to reject the government’s decisions to dismiss charges” but encouraged Sullivan to “accomplish what Congress, multiple inspectors general, and a majority of the electorate have not been able to do — hold the president and his allies accountable for their contemptuous disregard for the rule of law.”
On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Litman declared to Nicolle Wallace that Trump’s victory is “an absolute five-alarm fire.”
He called the effort to restore a diversity of viewpoints as little more than an attempt “to curry favor with Trump.” He then added:
“And I just think this is not a time for balance when you have someone who’s not telling the truth on the other side. And it’s a deep responsibility. And instead, I think they cowered and are worried about their personal holdings and just being threatened by Trump. And that’s a really shameful capitulation, I think. So, I just felt I couldn’t be a part of it and had to resign.”
It was a telling moment. Litman appeared on a network that has lost half of its viewership and is fighting for its existence in an effort by NBCUniversal to unload it.
Readers are fleeing to new media after papers like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post literally wrote off half of the country.
Yet, these figures would rather lose their jobs and media platforms than their bias.
“There is nothing more fake than when the libs pretend to have an emotional outpouring over some dead loser they didn’t give a f**k about while they were living.”
– Aimee Terese
Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.
Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins.
Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us.
It has been a long game of pretend.
At the center of it is the race hustle – a hustle being the attempt to get something for nothing – in this sense, seeking respect and approbation for people engaged in uncivilized behavior.
It kicked off in 2012 when one Trayvon Martin, 17, got shot while bashing the head of a neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman, against the pavement in Sanford, Florida. The news media dishonestly portrayed Martin as a skittle-munching child when police reported him as six-feet-tall. Zimmerman, five-foot-eight, was eventually acquitted of all charges on grounds of self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was born.
Next up in 2014 was Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Missouri. After robbing a convenience store, Brown was stopped on the street by Police Officer Darren Wilson. According to Wilson’s account, Brown reached into his patrol car trying to seize his gun. Brown’s DNA was later found on Wilson’s gun, and Brown’s blood was detected on the car’s door, suggesting a struggle. Following the incident, riots, arson, and looting broke out in Ferguson for days after. A local grand jury declined to indict Officer Wilson, and he was eventually exonerated of civil rights violations when investigated by the US Department of Justice. The case amplified the Black Lives Matter (movement.
Other incidents followed in 2014: one Eric Garner, 43, was stopped in Staten Island for selling individual cigarettes on the street. Garner resisted arrest and was put in a choke hold. He repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” before dying of an asthma attack. In November, same year, Tamir Rice, 12, was brandishing a toy gun that looked like a real firearm in a Cleveland, Ohio, park, when police trainee Timothy Loehmann responded to a 911 call and shot the boy. A Cuyahoga County grand jury declined to indict Loehmann. The city of Cleveland settled $6-million with the Rice family in a wrongful death suit.
In May, 2020, George Floyd, 46, a released felon, resisted arrest after trying to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in Minneapolis. Officer Derek Chauvin eventually subdued Floyd with a restraint, knee-on-back, recommended by the city police department’s training guide. Floyd died at the scene with 11 ng/mL of fentanyl, 19 ng/mL of methamphetamine, and cannabinoids detected in his blood at autopsy, plus heart disease and hypertension. Officer Chauvin was convicted on several counts of murder and manslaughter and three other officers at the scene also went to jail on lesser charges. Riots, arson, looting, and murder ensued in Minneapolis and many other American cities. Statues of George Floyd were erected around the country and the city of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death suit for $27-million with the Floyd family.
There were other incidents around the country in this period involving black suspects killed by police and a narrative spread — with help from the news media — that innocent black citizens were being exterminated in great numbers by police.
The truth was a statistically tiny number of black men killed by police, and always either in commission of a crime or violently resisting arrest. The hustle is that they should be excused for all that, even venerated and celebrated with statues, tributes, and payouts. Why everybody else goes along with it has been an abiding cultural mystery of our time. It probably just boils down to cowardice. In fact, cowardice doubled because we are too cowardly to even admit that we are cowards.
One signal result of all this has been the increasing reluctance of police to stop criminal behavior, which, of course, leads to ever more bad behavior.
Add to that new modes of law enforcement that make it difficult to hold violent criminals in custody — no cash bail, down-charging, catch-and-release. This has been the mode in New York under state AG Letitia James and Manhattan DA Bragg.
It was the decision out of Bragg’s office to keep Jordan Neely on the street despite the danger he posed to the public, as denoted in his arrest record. Daniel Penny stepped in where law enforcement failed. Jordan Neely was not dehumanized by the system. He dehumanized himself and his death was the result of his own recklessness. He wasn’t anyone else’s victim. He doesn’t deserve a statue. The father who abandoned him does not deserve a multi-million-dollar payout from New York taxpayers.
I’ll be surprised if the jury returns with a guilty verdict against Daniel Penny on the secondary charge of negligent homicide. That charge is just as unreasonable and dishonest as the primary charge was, and, anyway, a conviction will likely get thrown out on appeal due to the procedural mistakes of Judge Wiley.
A mysterious illness in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been dubbed “Disease X.” There have been over 400 cases and up to 143 deaths linked to the illness since late October, according to Bloomberg.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization provided an update on Disease X, indicating the illness has been reported in the Kwango Province, in the southwest part of the Central African country.
“Panzi health zone in Kwango Province of Democratic Republic of the Congo recorded 406 cases of an undiagnosed disease with symptoms of fever, headache, cough, runny nose and body ache,” the WHO wrote in the disease outbreak report.
The report continued:
“Rapid response teams have been deployed to identify the cause of the outbreak and strengthen the response. The teams are collecting samples for laboratory testing, providing a more detailed clinical characterization of the detected cases, investigating the transmission dynamics, and actively searching for additional cases, both within health facilities and at the community level.”
“Malaria is a common disease in this area, and it may be causing or contributing to the cases. Laboratory tests are underway to determine the exact cause. At this stage, it is also possible that more than one disease is contributing to the cases and deaths.”
According to Bloomberg data, the total number of headlines in corporate media featuring “Disease X” last week topped 69, the highest since February, when it was about 127. Notice over the years, including early 2020, when Disease X headlines spiked.
Data from X also shows a surge in “Disease X”-related posts in recent days.
The cause of Disease X remains unknown and comes just as President-elect Trump is set to re-enter the White House next year.
Well, that certainly escalated quickly. Just a few days ago, I wrote about how Syrian rebels had taken Aleppo and were on the way to the central city of Hama. Now Damascus has fallen, the Assad regime has been toppled, and it is a new day for Syria. But will it be a better day?
The Assad regime was horrible, but the radicals that are taking over are not exactly George Washington and the boys.
The truth is that they are hardcore Sunni jihadists that have much in common with ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Assad pretty much allowed Christians and other minorities in Syria to do their own thing, but now many fear that these jihadists will soon impose a brutal form of sharia law that will make life extremely difficult.
As armed rebels have advanced at lightning speed in recent days from the north of Syria toward the capital, Damascus, footage online showed statues of the Assad dynasty — which has kept the country in its authoritarian grip for over 50 years — crashing to the ground.
Needless to say, the rebels would have loved to get their hands on Assad.
But apparently he was able to escape.
Originally, there were reports that Assad was on an Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane that “disappeared from flight tracking” and that was thought to have been destroyed…
An Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane operated by Syrian Air has disappeared from flight tracking amid uncertainty over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Assad, who has served as the president since July 2000, has reportedly fled Damascus, after a lightning advance by rebel fighters reached the outskirts of the capital city early on Sunday morning.
But now it is being reported that Assad has arrived safely in Russia where he has been granted asylum…
Russia has granted Syria’s ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad and his family asylum on “humanitarian grounds”, according to Russian state media.
“Assad and members of his family have arrived in Moscow,” a source told the TASS news agency. “Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” he added.
Obviously, Russia is one of the big losers in this saga.
Syria was Russia’s closest ally in the Middle East. Now the Russians have been forced to pull all of their forces out of the country and will be losing their sole naval base on the Mediterranean Sea…
Russia is evacuating its ships and transporting leftover weapons by air from its bases in Syria as the regime of Bashar al-Assad falls, according to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU).
The rapid collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has led to the Russian contingent fleeing the country.
“After losing control of Damascus and amid the ongoing offensive by opposition forces in the provinces of Latakia, Hama, and Tartus, the Russian military withdrew its warships from the Tartus naval base, which Assad had previously handed over to Moscow in exchange for security,” intelligence officials stated.
Iran is another big loser.
Syria was an extremely close ally of Iran, but now it will be a very bitter enemy under the new Sunni regime.
In addition, the Iranians had been able to funnel countless shipments of arms through Syria to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, but now that will no longer be possible.
We are being told that “all pro-Iranian forces” have left Syria, and this represents the biggest strategic defeat for Iran in decades…
All pro-Iranian forces have reportedly withdrawn from the country in a humiliating blow to the Ayatollah.
Iran has lost a key ally in its Shia axis across proxies and allies in the Middle East.
So who are the winners?
The western elite that have been trying to take the Assad regime down for more than a decade have got to be thrilled by these developments.
What is happening these days in the Middle East cannot be found even in the most optimistic scenarios heard 14 months after the surprise attack of October 7. The Shiite axis designed to strangle Israel is collapsing before our eyes.
Qassem Soleimani’s “ring of fire” vision, designed to allow Iran to advance its nuclear program and endanger Israel’s existence, is being buried like its mastermind. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, first lost the gifted commander of the Revolutionary Guards, then his favorite ally Hassan Nasrallah, and now the Assad regime has fallen.
Interestingly, the IDF has already moved into Syrian territory a bit in order to set up a “buffer zone” in case the Syrian rebels decide to launch attacks in their direction. It turns out that the peak of Mount Hermon falls within that “buffer zone”…
Israel’s Army Radio reported Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had seized the peak of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in the region, as a precaution against the advance of Syrian rebels as the Assad regime collapsed.
The mountain, covered in snow during the winter months, is the highest in the region, and a key strategic point. Israel has a military base on the mountainside, but Syria has long had a military base on the peak of the mountain itself.
The move marks the first time Israeli troops have been on the peak of the mountain since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
In the end, I think that Turkey is actually the biggest winner.
More than anyone else, Turkey was responsible for arming and supporting the rebels that overthrew the Assad regime.
Now Turkey will have a very strong Sunni ally directly to the south, and this will also provide Turkey with a land corridor if it ever decides to physically invade the land of Israel.
The Turks are really starting to flex their muscles in the region, and I think that this success may embolden them even more.
Syria’s armed opposition ultimately plans to form a government defined by institutions and a “council chosen by the people,” Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the militant figure driving the latest rebel swing, told CNN. He heads the dominant group in the coalition, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a former Al Qaeda affiliate.
Jolani declared victory for the “entire Islamic nation” on Sunday, in his first public remarks since the rebel-led coup, which he said “marks a new chapter in the history of the region.”
We shall see what happens.
The Taliban promised that there would be reforms when it reconquered Afghanistan, and we all see how that turned out.
Ultimately, I believe that what just took place in Syria is setting the stage for the sort of history-changing events in the Middle East that I have been writing about for a long time.
Now that the Assad regime is out of the way and Hezbollah is severely wounded, the Iranians are in deep trouble.
Let’s watch and see what the Iranians choose to do next, because a cornered predator can be extremely dangerous.
Iran Appears To Be Doubling Down On A Nuclear Route In Response To Events In Syria
By Michael Every of Rabobank
Over the weekend, the half-century-long Assad dynasty in Syria fell. Islamists now hold Damascus. Syria can no longer be assumed to hold together as an entity. Dangerous military equipment and even chemical weapons are waiting to be seized by different sides.
As the arbitrary lines imposed by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of a century ago collapse, along with U.K. and European geopolitical influence, what new state/statelets could arise in the roiling Middle East? Backed by whom? Or will it just be chaos and civil war that destabilises the region further, perhaps even flooding Europe with millions more refugees that this time it won’t be saying “Wir schaffen das!” about?
In the bigger picture, Iran has lost another key proxy, and Hezbollah a key supply route for rearming. Russia may have permanently lost its key airbase and warm water port there, following on from its loss of control of the Black Sea, weakening it in the Middle East and Africa. In short, this is a larger setback for the ‘Axis of Resistance’ than the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan – and with the West having done as little in most respects.
Indeed, what we just saw was the mere ripple effect of Russia being tied down in Ukraine and Israel striking back vs Iran and its proxies. Those Middle East countries thinking of anyone but a US/Abraham Accords defense umbrella as protection are left with bad options and none.
As a result, reports also have it that Iran appears to be doubling down on a nuclear route in response; are Russia, North Korea, and China are prepared to help there? If so, what will the West do about it?
Syria may seem far removed from normal business and markets, but again this represents a staggering geopolitical chess move; one that opens up what was flagged as The Great Game of Global Trade as far back as 2017 to new offensive strategy even before the U.S. gets serious about economic statecraft and realpolitik again – which it will. (As one speaker at the Reagan National Defence Forum just put it, US enemies “should go to bed afraid and wake up afraid.”)
Indeed, as the U.S. psyches itself up for Trump 2.0, anyone peeking at the fall of Assad should be saying “Oh!” Especially if they are bearish the U.S. and the dollar.
On a more immediate note for markets, US stocks hit fresh all-time highs on Friday as the November non-farm payrolls report set the scene for another 25bp cut from the Fed next week. The S&P500 gained 0.25% to 6,090 and the NASDAQ added 0.81%. The Dow closed down 0.28%, dragged down by Chevron and United Health Care, whose CEO was recently murdered in New York.
US 10y Treasury yields fell 2.3bps to 4.15% on Friday, while 2-year yields fell by 4bps to result in a small bull-flattening of the Treasury curve. Brent crude was down by 1.4% following the agreement struck between OPEC+ producers to extend production cuts through to September next year.
Employment grew by 227,000 in November according the establishment survey. That was broadly in-line with expectations, and a net upward revision of 56,000 over September and October added some extra stodge for traders to digest.
The household survey painted a less rosy picture. There, the unemployment rate lifted to 4.2% (despite a two tick fall in participation) and the employment change was negative 355,000. According to the household survey, employment growth has been averaging -3,800/month in 2024 while growth in the labor force has averaged +75k/month over the same period.
Obviously, this raises further questions about which report to believe. Other labor market indicators released over the course of last week didn’t provide a definitive signal. The JOLTS survey showed a healthy lift in job ads, but the ADP employment survey showed employment growth slowing to 146,000 in November. That’s a touch below the 155,000 monthly average this year.
Weekly initial jobless claims printed 9,000 higher than expected, Challenger job cuts ticked a little higher in November and the employment sub-index of the ISM manufacturing report lifted 3.7pts to 48.1 while the equivalent services employment index fell from 53 to 51.5.
The overall impression seems to be a labor market that is continuing to soften, but hasn’t fallen off a cliff. Given the lagged nature of labor market indicators, and the cracks that are showing in the household survey, it makes sense that the FOMC would seek to take their policy rate closer to neutral sooner rather than later to maximise optionality. Perhaps this is especially the case given rich valuations evident in equity markets, the uncertainties surrounding fiscal policy next year and the looming wave of debt refinancing that is due to hit in 2025 & 2026.
Consequently, market implied probability of a Fed rate cut next week has risen from ~70% to ~85%, despite recent signs of stickiness in inflation that we will get an update on later this week, and the consensus view that the Trump platform is going to be inflationary inside the United States.
Household Expectations For Improving Financial Conditions Surge To Five Year High After Trump Election
Two days ahead of the last remaining marketmoving macro event of 2024, the November CPI report, moments ago the NY Fed published its latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, which showed that inflation expectations increased by 0.1% point across all three time horizons studied in the survey, even as the Trump effect was in full force and US households now view their finances as the brightest since 2020, when Trump was also president.
Here are the details from the NY Fed’s survey (which is an internet-based survey of a rotating panel of approximately 1,300 household heads. Respondents participate in the panel for up to 12 months, with a roughly equal number rotating in and out of the panel each month).
In November, US household anticipated 3.0% price growth in one year (up from 2.9%), 2.6% in three years (up from 2.5%) and 2.9% in five years (up from 2.8%), the highest since June. Respondents’ uncertainty about those figures also increased, as the measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) increased at all three horizons. The overall increase in one- and three-year ahead inflation expectations masks a decline among those without a college degree and an increase among those with a college degree.
Median home price growth expectations were unchanged at 3.0% in November. This series has been moving in a narrow range between 3.0% and 3.3% since August 2023.
Year-ahead commodity price expectations declined by 0.5 percentage point for gas to 2.7%, 0.5 percentage point for food to 3.8%, and 0.2 percentage point for rent to 5.7%. The expected change in the cost of medical care increased by 0.2 percentage point to 6.0% and the expected change in the cost of a college education increased by 1.0 percentage point to 6.7%.
While inflation expectations were largely unchanged, what was perhaps more notable is that the share of US households expecting their financial situations to improve over the next year climbed in November to the highest level since early 2020.
Nearly 38% of consumers foresee being somewhat or much better off, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The percentage of people who anticipate a worse financial situation, meanwhile, dropped to the lowest level since May 2021. About 42% of Americans expect conditions to remain roughly the same.
“Perceptions about households’ current financial situations compared to a year ago were mostly unchanged but year-ahead expectations about households’ financial situations improved considerably in November. The share of households expecting a better financial situation in one year from now rising rose to its highest levels since February 2020, while the share expecting a worse financial situation fell to its lowest level since May 2021″ the New York Fed wrote in a statement.
The shift in sentiment is a direct result of the collapse of the Biden regime, the most unpopular in history, and follow the election of Donald Trump in November. Many voters cited the economy and concerns about inflation as top issues.
The survey also showed that consumers have a brighter outlook for equities. The average perceived odds that US stock prices will be higher in a year increased by 1.3 percentage points to 40.4%. Expected income growth also edged higher.
Some more highlights from the latest monthly survey, starting with the labor market:
Median one-year-ahead earnings growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 3.0% in November. The series has been moving within a narrow range between 2.7% and 3.0% since January 2024. The increase was driven by those without a college degree.
Mean unemployment expectations—or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now—ticked up by 0.5 percentage point to 35.0% in November, remaining well below its trailing 12-month average of 37.0%.
The mean perceived probability of losing one’s job in the next 12 months increased by 0.5 percentage point to 13.5%. The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months decreased by 0.3 percentage point to 20.2%.
The mean perceived probability of finding a job (if one’s current job was lost) decreased by 1.9 percentage points to 54.1%. The decrease was broad-based across age and education groups.
And this is how household finance sentiment changed in the month Trump was elected:
Perceptions about households’ current financial situations compared to a year ago were mostly unchanged but year-ahead expectations about households’ financial situations improved considerably in November. The share of households expecting a better financial situation in one year from now rising rose to its highest levels since February 2020, while the share expecting a worse financial situation fell to its lowest level since May 2021.
The average perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months decreased by 0.7 percentage point to 13.2%, the lowest reading since June 2024.
The median expected growth in household income increased by 0.1 percentage point to 3.1% in November. The series has been moving in a narrow band between 2.9% and 3.3% since January 2023.
Median household spending growth expectations declined by 0.2 percentage point to 4.7%, the lowest reading since April 2021, but above pre-pandemic levels.
Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago showed a larger share of households reporting no change and a smaller share reporting it is harder or easier. Expectations for future credit availability improved somewhat in November, with a smaller share of respondents expecting it will be harder to obtain credit in the year-ahead.
The median expectation regarding a year-ahead change in taxes (at current income level) declined by 0.6 percentage point to 3.4%.
Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt decreased sharply by 2.3 percentage points to 6.2%, the lowest reading since February 2020.
The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 2.1 percentage points to 26.7%.
Summary: Trump hasn’t been inaugurated yet and the economy is already winning.
