Tag: news

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has once again sparked outrage among Beijing leaders by expressly referring to Taiwan as “not” part of China. 

Pompeo said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that Washington’s perspective remains bipartisan and unanimous in understanding that Taiwan “has not been a part of China” for decades.

“That was recognized with the work that the Reagan administration did to lay out the policies that the United States has adhered to now for three-and-a-half decades,” he explained in the provocative comments.

Interestingly, Pompeo had specifically been asked about how the US might respond if China decided to take Taiwan by force, to which the secretary of state emphasized that both the Republican and Democratic parties have committed to defend Taiwan’s democracy.

This was predictably met with a swift response out of China, with its foreign ministry saying Friday it won’t hesitate to “strike back against any moves that undermine its core interests,” according to Reuters. Such “moves” have lately included unprecedented American weapons sales to the island, including drones and coastal defense missiles.

“We solemnly tell Pompeo and his ilk, that any behavior that undermines China’s core interests and interferes with China’s domestic affairs will be met with a resolute counterattack by China,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

He affirmed that Taiwan was “an inalienable part of China” and that Pompeo’s remarks are further spiraling Sino-US relations. However, despite the bellicose and jingoist rhetoric, it’s more likely Beijing is now just waiting out the clock on the Trump administration.

Meanwhile Taiwan’s foreign ministry issued a statement thanking Pompeo for his support, saying, “The Republic of China on Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country, and not part of the People’s Republic of China. This is a fact and the current situation.”

The day is getting worse for the Trump legal team as following dropped cases in Arizona, and losses in Pennsylvania, Bloomberg reports that a Michigan judge has rejected an attempt by two poll challengers to block certification of a Biden win in Detroit. Additionally, the judge also denied request for an audit of the election.

Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny ruled Friday that the suit failed to show why he should halt the certification or order an audit of the vote tally in Michigan’s largest city.

At a hearing before Kenny on Wednesday, a lawyer for the city of Detroit warned against any order that boosted Trump’s “unsubstantiated conspiratorial theories” of voter fraud.

“There’s nothing to support it,” attorney David Fink argued.

“But the outcome undermines the very bedrock of our democracy, the faith of the people in the democratic process.”

The Trump campaign has filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Michigan seeking to halt certification of the state’s results based on allegations of fraud, largely in Wayne County.

 

Update (1300ET): You know you are on to something when Senator Warren rage-tweets against you…

Supreme Court Justices aren’t supposed to be political hacks. This right-wing speech is nakedly partisan. My bill to #EndCorruptionNow restores some integrity to our Court by forcing Justices to follow the ethics rules other federal judges follow. https://t.co/VAjFAqGesN

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 13, 2020

*  *  *

As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber detailed earlier, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday said the COVID-19 pandemic has served “as a sort of constitutional stress test.”

Alito, 70, told a Federalist Society virtual convention that “we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”

“Think of all the live events that would otherwise be protected by the right to freedom of speech: live speeches, conferences, lectures, meetings. Think of worship services, churches closed on Easter Sunday, synagogues closed for Passover on Yom Kippur. Think about access to the courts, or the constitutional right to a speedy trial. Trials in federal courts have virtually disappeared in many places. Who could have imagined that?” he said.

“The COVID crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test. And in doing so it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck.”

One trend, according to the justice, is how executive actions have increasingly replaced legislation as a means to enact new laws.

“The vision of early 20th century progressives and the New Dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators to an elite group of appointed experts. In a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent,” Alito said.

“Every year, administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of authority churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarf the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic? Sweeping restrictions imposed, for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion.”

Alito referenced law from Nevada that gives the governor a broad mandate to “perform and exercise such functions, powers, and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population” in the event of a technological, natural, or manmade emergency or disaster of major proportions.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak speaks during a news conference on the state’s response to the CCP virus outbreak at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas, Nev., on March 17, 2020. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

“Laws giving an official so much discretion, can of course, be abused,” the justice said.

“And whatever one may think about the COVID restrictions, we surely don’t want them to become a recurring feature after the pandemic has passed. All sorts of things can be called an emergency or disaster of major proportions. Simply slapping on that label cannot provide the ground for abrogating our most fundamental rights. And whenever fundamental rights are restricted, the Supreme Court and other courts cannot close their eyes.”

When COVID-19-related restrictions have been challenged in court, defenders have often cited Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 Supreme Court decision that concerned an outbreak in smallpox. The court upheld an ordinance that required vaccinations to stop the disease from spreading.

That decision “did not involve sweeping restrictions imposed across the country for an extended period,” Alito said, adding:

“And it does not mean that whenever there is an emergency, executive officials have unlimited unreviewable discretion.”

Alito led with the caveat that he was not diminishing the seriousness of the pandemic or saying anything about the legality of COVID-19-fueled restrictions.

Alito has served on the court since 2006. He was nominated by President George W. Bush.

The rare public address by a justice drew criticism from some lawyers.

“This speech is like I woke up from a vampire dream,” Kim Wehle, a University of Baltimore law professor and former federal prosecutor, wrote on social media.

“Unscrupulously biased, political, and even angry. I can’t imagine why Alito did this publicly. Totally inappropriate and damaging to the Supreme Court.”

Just hours after Trump’s law firm, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, withdrew from a Pennsylvania case (under pressure from The Lincoln Project’s cancel culture), and a just a day after the Trump campaign won a minor victory in the multifaceted post-election litigation ongoing in Pennsylvania (that illegally cast ballots must be thrown out), the PA Superior Court has denied a Republican lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot receipt deadline.

The 3rd Circuit upheld a lower court order rejecting a constitutional challenge to PA’s extended, post-Election Day deadline for absentee ballots.

“…we do so with commitment to a proposition indisputable in our democratic process: that the lawfully cast vote of every citizen must count.”

The 3rd Circuit agreed with the district judge that the voters who brought the case lacked standing, and also held that the district judge was right to deny last-minute injunctive relief right before the election on the grounds it would upend the status quo for voters.

IV. CONCLUSION

We do not decide today whether the Deadline Extension or the Presumption of Timeliness are proper exercises of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s lawmaking authority, delegated by the U.S. Constitution, to regulate federal elections. Nor do we evaluate the policy wisdom of those two features of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling. We hold only that when voters cast their ballots under a state’s facially lawful election rule and in accordance with instructions from the state’s election officials, private citizens lack Article III standing to enjoin the counting of those ballots on the grounds that the source of the rule was the wrong state organ or that doing so dilutes their votes or constitutes differential treatment of voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Further, and independent of our holding on standing, we hold that the District Court did not err in denying Plaintiffs’ motion for injunctive relief out of concern for the settled expectations of voters and election officials. We will affirm the District Court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ emergency motion for a TRO or preliminary injunction.

However, a separate challenge remains pending before SCOTUS, though, so the fate of those ballots remains unsettled.

Full Opinion below:

As President Trump’s Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters earlier today, the president still expects to serve a second term. However, the campaign’s strategy of filing lawsuits to point out inconsistencies and highlight suspicious incidents reported by pollwatchers suffered another setback Friday when the campaign dropped its lawsuit

“Since the close of yesterday’s hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors,” the Trump campaign wrote in a filing. However, the campaign still wants a ruling on requests to reiew two down-ballot races.

The Arizona lawsuit was initially filed Saturday. It alleged some voters had been confused on Election Day, and that some ballots in Republican-leaning parts of the state had been misreported by the counting machines.

The campaign lasered in on these so-called “overvotes” (a mislabel applied by the machine). But while some were found, the number hasn’t risen to the level where it’s close to the margin between the two candidates. During a 6-hour hearing yesterday, a lawyer for the Trump campaign walked back its request and said it would only file a complaint if the votes exceeded the margin of victory, since Trump can’t win more than 100% of the overvotes.

Lawyers for Maricopa County and the Secretary of State said 191 ballots were flagged by the machines as ‘overvotes’.

Fox News infamously enraged President Trump when it projected Arizona for Joe Biden on election night, and the president has continued to hurl bombs at Fox, even managing to undercut the company’s share price. The secretary of state for Arizona on Friday affirmed that the margin remains just over 10,000 votes.

It was reported this week that billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman had placed another massive bearish bet in credit markets as the resurgence of COVID-19 cases risks another nationwide lockdown, especially if Joe Biden is in the White house. 

Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management recently bought credit protection on various global investment grade and high yield credit indices to hedge against another downturn. 

Earlier this year, Ackman pocketed $2.6 billion in profits on a (credit) hedge amid stock market complacency ahead of its March collapse.

With Ackman expecting markets to crash again, it makes sense why the billionaire would be buying credit-default swaps, as he must protect some of his gains this year. Pershing is up 44% year-to-date. 

Ackman’s dabbling in CDS markets comes as contracts linked to 19 borrowers have been settled this year – the highest since 2009 – and with looming lockdowns and the reimposition of strict social distancing measures – more companies are expected to stumble into bankruptcy or restructuring. 

Bloomberg notes U.K. restaurant chain PizzaExpress and U.S. retailer J.C. Penney Co. paid out approximately 100% of the value insured this year. Data via Bloomberg showed protection buyers had recovered at least $6 billion globally this year, more than three times the total for all of 2019.

“If you own CDS, you are really getting paid,” said Sean George, chief investment officer at hedge fund manager Strukturinvest in Stockholm. “In times of stress, it’s a go-to product, and we’ve seen a lot of stress this year.”

Jochen Felsenheimer, managing director at XAIA Investment in Munich, said trading activity in CDS markets is surging this year. He said central banks are buying securities to stabilize markets, making it easier to trade swaps than bonds.

“Central bank purchases are sapping liquidity out of the bond market, so credit swaps have become the place to be,” he said. “CDS is having a very active year.”

While the cost of credit protection is dramatically cheaper than equity protection – Ackman and other savvy investors – are placing their bets that the virus pandemic could rupture credit markets once more.  

Meanwhile, this year’s high rate of defaults and soaring payouts have been stressful for fund’s selling swaps on investment-grade and high-yield bonds as the virus pandemic risks unleashing the next massive default wave.