Month: March 2024

Victor Davis Hanson’s calm and reasoned response with Tucker Carlson to President Biden’s SOTU address is worth every second:

Victor Davis Hanson discusses with Tucker Carlson, Joe Biden’s SOTU address.
Never has he seen a more angry speech to our country.
Credit: these two awesome Americans. @TuckerCarlson @VDHanson pic.twitter.com/9xUKeuJ2cn

— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) March 8, 2024

But the professor put digital pen to paper in a post on X this afternoon, laying out all the details.

A demagogic fuming Biden gave another Phantom of the Opera speech blasting conservatives for all the destruction that he has caused and has resulted in his own historic unpopularity.

All too aware that he was confused and incoherent, his handlers felt that the antidote was to come out barking and bellowing at his imaginary enemies.

Any Never Trumper who would vote for such a screeching maniac is suicidal. The night’s nadir? Joe, of the Hunter-Biden family consortium, damned the money-grubbing “rich” who “don’t pay their fair share of taxes”—all of this when his own son is now facing multiple felony counts for not paying any income tax at all! And Joe himself has received lots of family money without paying tax on such “loan repayments”.

In truth, Biden gave the most livid state-of-the-union address in modern memory, a surreal teleprompted rant from a “get off my grass” old man. At points, he started howling at the seated opposition and even called out Supreme Court Justices. Determined not to reveal cognitive decline, Biden instead came late to the podium shouting nonstop, grimacing in reptilian style for over an hour.

If the planned Adderall-fueled screaming was to prove he was still alive, most would have preferred his drowsy incoherence.

But mostly the speech was one of abject lies as he either blamed all his disasters on others or claimed they were his greatest achievements.

Deficits? Why does he think we have high inflation and high interest rates after he took office? The debt was $28 trillion when he came in and now after just 3 years it is nearly $35—and is now growing by $1 trillion every 100 days. At the current rate a two-term Biden presidency would have in aggregate added $22 trillion more to national debt.

Ukraine? Biden started out with Ukraine, not inflation, not the border, not crime. Does he remember he suspended military aid to Ukraine upon taking office? Does he know that Putin did not invade a neighboring country in just one administration of the last four?  Does he know why? Does he recall his humiliation in Afghanistan that green lighted

Putin? There are now 700,000 combined casualties in Ukraine and so what is the plan to end our Verdun? Another 6-month-long “spring offensive” against fortified lines?

Abortion? Biden screamed that the Dobbs decision outlaws abortion and threatens women’s lives when it allows any state to let its own people determine their own laws. Is Trump’s plan to let the states decide and to favor a 16-week ban more sensible than Biden’s abortion on demand that would allow some 5,000-10,000 partial birth or post-21 weeks abortions?

The Border? Do we remember Mayorkas bragging in detail how Biden rescinded all of Trump executive orders (he listed them by name) to destroy the border and let in 8-10 million illegal aliens? Biden campaigned on just that, calling on illegal aliens  to “surge” the border.

Inflation? It is up 17% since he took office! Prices of the stuff of life have risen 30%—staple foods, fuel, appliances and care, shelter, mortgages. etc. January 6? In Bidenland a buffoonish afternoon riot now trumps Pearl Harbor—or the 120 days of looting, rioting, violence, death, and injury of summer 2020?

Gaza? Basically Hamas murders, rapes, tortures, and mutilates1,200 Jews, takes 250 hostages, rapes and murders untold numbers of them, is shielded by civilians beneath mosques, schools, and hospitals, and then the US blames Israel for retaliating. Biden cites bogus Hamas fatality figures, and promises to build a US port on the Gaza coast to pour in massive aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

This furious speech was a preview of the 2024 campaign. The Democratic nominee will run on abortion, January 6, and the ‘booming’ economy, hope leftwing prosecutors can bankrupt or incarcerate Trump, and ensure that in all the swing states 70 percent of the electorate do not vote in person on Election Day.

Part 1 – Billion dollar bungles

In February, The Sunday Times interviewed the CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Antonio Neri. The story highlights that HPE, once a Silicon Valley pioneer, is now a fallen giant, completely eclipsed by the likes of Google, Amazon and Meta.

Hewlett Packard was one of the very first Palo Alto companies. Indeed, the garage in which Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began working together in the late 1930s is dubbed “the birthplace of Silicon Valley”. The two electrical engineering graduates from Stanford University initially produced sound equipment for Walt Disney Studios.

Fast forward to the end of the 1990s, Hewlett Packard was a global company, known primarily for its personal computers and printers. It employed over 80,000 people, generating $48bn in net revenues, and had a market capitalization in excess of $17 billion.

Yet in the first decade of the 21st century, things began to go badly wrong for HP. It went through four CEOs from 2005 – 2011. Its reputation and its share price took a battering to the extent that it has never recovered its standing.

In his interview, Mr Neri acknowledges that the company lost its direction and failed to capitalize on trends like cloud, IoT and infrastructure. Mr Neri’s first big move was to acquire a company called Juniper Networks, described by The Sunday Times as “audacious”. HPE’s stock has fallen 15 per cent in the weeks since the deal was announced. “It’s a defining moment for the company and for me as a leader,” says Mr Neri, HPE’s biggest deal since the Compaq merger of 2002.

The Juniper deal brings more than faint echoes of the ghosts of HP acquisitions past. A bullish leader keen to make a big strategic play coupled with investor skepticism has been a repeat story for the company.

HP’s track record in acquisitions over the last two decades makes for painful reading. From the early 2000s, the company’s history is pock-marked with bungled acquisitions. The purchases of Compaq, Electronic Data Systems, Palm and Autonomy completely failed, caused internal turmoil and provoked shareholder outrage.

It is worth revisiting these stories to show where HP went so badly wrong and to underline that Mr Neri would be wise not to gloss over the case history of his company’s failed M&A.

Let’s start with the Compaq deal in 2001.

At the time, Hewlett Packard under the leadership of Carly Fiorina, who had been in post since 1999. HP had entered a period of struggles, with stock in decline and failed attempts to grow its services business. In September 2001, it agreed to buy Compaq for US$24.2 billion. The aim was to create a giant capable of competing with IBM, Dell and Gateway.

The investment community did not react well, plainly unconvinced by Fiorina’s vision. In the two days after the announcement, HP’s share price dropped 21.5%. Analysts could not see the logic in a high-margin printer business purchasing a company that was barely eking out a profit in personal computers. The $24.2 billion price tag was thought to be far too high in any case.

Opposition spread to HP’s shareholders. Remarkably, the sons of the two founders personally fought against the deal. Walter Hewlett saw that personal computers were low-margin and posed a risk to HP. David W. Packard, meanwhile, voiced concern about the number of expected lay-offs – totalling 9,000. He thought such a move ran totally counter to HP’s long-established values and would have appalled his father and Bill Hewlett.

In the event, shareholders did agree to the deal, but only by a wafer-thin margin of 2.8%. Claims of vote-buying involving Deutsche Bank flew around immediately after the vote, which further sullied the Compaq purchase. The SEC later fined Deutsche Bank $750,000 for “failing to disclose a material conflict of interest in its voting of client proxies” during the deal.

The view in the aftermath was that HP did indeed pay far too much for Compaq. This article in the Inquirer from 2003 analyses the financial performance after the deal, summarising that the virtues of the deal that HP peddled had not, at that point, materialised in a meaningful way.

By 2005, a full three years after the deal, the promised profits and shareholder returns were still not there. HP’s stock was still lagging far behind IBM and Dell and so Carly Fiorina was ousted in February of that year. She herself admitted that “buying Compaq hasn’t paid off for HP’s investors. And there’s no easy way out.”

The acquisition of Palm in 2010 was another catastrophe.

HP’s then CEO, Mark Hurd, was hugely enthusiastic about the deal to buy Palm for $1.2 billion. At the time, Palm was already struggling to compete with emerging smartphone giants like Apple, which had released the iPhone in 2007.

HP’s press release about the deal stated it would make the company a player in a fast-growing segment “with Palm’s innovative webOS platform and family of smartphones”. Hurd saw it as a way to diversify from the printer business. However, CFO Cathie Lesjak didn’t share his view and HP never committed the amount of investment into Palm required to make its new products a success.

To make matters worse, in August 2010, mere months after the deal, Mark Hurd suddenly resigned amid misconduct allegations. Hurd was the primary advocate and driver for a thorough integration of Palm, in particular webOS, into the HP business. With him gone, the odds of the integration being carried out successfully were drastically cut.

The HP TouchPad – a tablet device that Hurd had wanted created with Palm’s technology – was released in 2011. It was a consumer flop of epic proportions. A review on The Verge said, “the stability and smoothness of the user experience is not up to par with the iPad… coupled with the minuscule number of quality apps available at launch make this a bit of a hard sell right now.”

It took only six weeks after the launch of the TouchPad for Hurd’s successor, Leo Apotheker, to kill it. The company discontinued the device and ripped up all plans for  similar consumer hardware products.  

In 2011, HP wrote down US$1.67bn following its decision to wind down the device business – $0.4bn more than it paid for Palm. As AllThingsDigital put it “that was $1.2 billion well spent…”

The story of the Electronic Data Systems (EDS) acquisition was primarily one of poor integration and bad management.

In May 2008, HP bought EDS for $13.9bn. The aim was to bolster HP’s IT services business.

HP’s major misstep was to lay off so many talented people who had worked at EDS. There was a culture clash, too. As one executive present during the integration told Computer Weekly years after the deal, “EDS had its problems… but their attitude was to deliver exceptional customer service. HP was of the attitude that ‘if we are big enough, we set the standard’.”

In the same piece, EDS’ former financial services division head said HP fixated on short-term revenues rather than building long-term customer relationships. The loss of EDS staff compounded this issue, as they held strong customer relationships built up over time. Another analyst told the FT that what happened to EDS was a “travesty”.

The conclusion of the EDS story was not a pretty one. In August 2012, HP announced it was taking an $8bn write-down of its services business, dominated by the former EDS. One analyst said: “the charge for EDS shows what a mess that acquisition was.”

EDS was a case of poor integration, but the acquisition of Autonomy was on another level. It highlights the violent lurches between hardware, software and services in HP’s strategy during the first few years of the 2000s. It underlines the weak position HP was in and the boardroom dramas that had become commonplace. And it proved to be the most controversial of all of HP’s ill-fated purchases, resulting in more than a decade of litigation.

*  *  *

In the next article in the series, we’ll look at the origin of the deal and how it unravelled, causing the downfall of Leo Apotheker.

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

A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia has issued an order allowing three Jan. 6 lawsuits to proceed against former President Donald Trump after a court rejected his assertion of presidential immunity.

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order on March 8, allowing the three consolidated appeals to be “removed from abeyance” and approving motions for summary affirmance, meaning removing a temporary hold on the cases and allowing them to proceed.

The lawsuits that are now allowed to proceed are Moore v. Trump, Kirkland v. Trump, and Tabron v. Trump.

In all three civil suits, law enforcement officers are seeking damages based on the premise that President Trump incited a mob to storm the Capitol, leading to a violent incident in which they sustained various injuries and suffered harm, including emotional distress.

President Trump has denied calling for violence on Jan. 6, pointing to remarks he made encouraging his supporters to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically.”

‘Matters of Public Concern’

The judges noted in their March 8 order that the merits of the three parties’ positions “are so clear as to warrant summary action,” and that the cases can proceed based on a Dec. 1 appeals court decision in Blassingame v. Trump that President Trump is not immune to lawsuits over the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

In Blassingame v. Trump, the former president’s attorneys had argued that he should be granted immunity because his alleged actions around Jan. 6 amounted to official speech on “matters of public concern.”

The judges’ reasoning in that case was that the former president’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 were part of his campaign for a second term in the White House and not an official presidential act.

“In arguing that he is entitled to official-act immunity in the cases before us, President Trump does not dispute that he engaged in his alleged actions up to and on January 6 in his capacity as a candidate. But he thinks that does not matter,” U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, appointed under President Barack Obama, wrote in the Dec. 1 ruling.

“Rather, in his view, a president’s speech on matters of public concern is invariably an official function, and he was engaged in that function when he spoke at the January 6 rally and in the leadup to that day. We cannot accept that rationale.”

Later, a similar order denying presidential immunity in Jan. 6 cases was issued on Dec. 29, in a lawsuit filed in 2021 by Capitol Police veteran Conrad Smith and seven of his colleagues.

“On appeal, the only question is whether President Trump has demonstrated his entitlement to official-act immunity,” reads the Dec. 29 order, which was signed by a three-judge panel consisting of Judge Srinivasan and Judges Judith Rogers and Gregory Katsas.

The judges in that case laid out a similar rationale for denying President Trump’s argument that he should be protected from liability because his statements and actions on Jan. 6 amounted to making statements that are of concern to the public.

“That argument fails” because President Trump’s commentary and actions around Jan. 6 bear “no inherent connection to the essential distinction between official and unofficial acts” because they were not part of his official duties to share “matters of public concern,” the judges wrote, concluding he’s ineligible for presidential immunity.

In the Dec. 29 ruling, the judges also cited the Blassingame v. Trump judgment and said the case brought by Mr. Smith and his colleagues is “indistinguishable” in all relevant aspects, so they issued what amounts to an identical determination that President Trump is not immune from civil lawsuits related to Jan. 6.

A request for comment on the Dec. 29 judgment sent to the Trump campaign was not returned before press time.

The former president is entitled to request a rehearing before a full panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the immunity case. He could also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

However, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear President Trump’s appeal in a separate federal criminal case alleging election interference, which was brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

President Trump’s appeal in this case also claims immunity, with the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments during the week of April 22.

A determination on presidential immunity by the Supreme Court could have implications for the lawsuits that the District of Columbia appeals court just allowed to proceed.

‘Peacefully and Patriotically’

Even though President Trump said in his Jan. 6 speech that protesters should “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” his critics have seized on a portion of his remarks where he said “we fight like hell” and “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Critics claim this was a call for violence.

The former president has, on numerous occasions, denied calling for violent protests while insisting he meant his remarks about fighting like hell metaphorically.

In one of the Jan. 6 cases against the former president, Smith v. Trump, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Smith and seven of his colleagues, arguing that President Trump deliberately incited violence against members of Congress and law enforcement officers whose duty was to protect them.

President Trump has rejected the claim that he in any way incited violence on Jan. 6, 2021, pointing to remarks he made that called for demonstrators to protest peacefully. In a bid to dismiss the lawsuit, his attorneys argued that the complaint should be tossed because he, as president, was eligible for immunity.

The court rejected President Trump’s bid to have the case dismissed, however, leading eventually to the Dec. 29 judgment that his remarks on Jan. 6 were not official acts as president, so the immunity shield doesn’t apply.

Maybe this is why Elizabeth Warren was so quick to protest the Capital One/Discover merger…

In an open letter out days ago Sen. Elizabeth Warren was quick to urge regulators to block the pending Capital One/Discover merger. In her letter, penned alongside other anti-corporate members of congress like AOC and Ro Khanna, she wrote that: “To protect consumers and financial stability, we urge you to block this merger and strengthen your proposed policy statement to prevent harmful deals in the future.” 

“This merger announcement comes less than a week after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a new report revealing the impact of credit card industry consolidation on consumers,” the lawmakers wrote. “According to the report, large banks charge higher interest rates than small credit card issuers, with ‘[n]early half of the largest credit card issuers’ — including Capital One — ‘offering cards with a maximum purchase APR over 30%,” her letter says. 

It continues: “Additionally, Capital One and Discover have concerning track records of mistreating customers and compliance failures. The lawmakers noted that in 2012, the CFPB ordered Capital One to refund $140 million to 2 million consumers with low credit scores and low credit limits who were misled into paying for costly add-on products. In 2023, Discover was required by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to address ‘violations of, and consumer harm related to’ various consumer financial laws.”

And now, speaking of compliance failures, PYMNTS and FT have reported that JP Morgan was actually the first bank to try and make a deal for Discover. 

J.P. Morgan Chase considered acquiring Discover Financial before Capital One finalized a $35 billion deal for the company, the report says. The bank explored the acquisition for about a year to expand beyond traditional card networks but abandoned the plan due to challenges, including convincing Discover and facing regulatory hurdles.

“This would’ve been a truly company-changing deal,” a source told FT. 

Sources told FT that Dimon’s firm started looking at its bid for the company in the middle of 2021, but a year later has abandoned plans, as it was unable to convince Discover of the plan. 

Capital One’s acquisition of Discover, announced last month, aims to create a global payments network. This move could significantly impact the banking sector, especially in catering to Americans living paycheck to paycheck, a demographic that represents a large portion of the population across various income levels. The deal’s approval by regulators remains uncertain, with concerns about market concentration in the card issuing and payment networks sectors.

And call us curious, but we can’t help but wonder what Sen. Warren’s take would have been if her crypto loathing pal Jamie Dimon had been first to make a play at Discover…

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

By the time you are done reading this article, you may be tempted to tear your hair out.  A substantial portion of the U.S. population is deeply struggling in our current economic environment, but instead of focusing on helping Americans that are hurting, homeless and hungry, our leaders are going to great lengths to make things better for those that have no legal right to be in this country.  Our priorities are way out of whack, and U.S. voters are fed up.  Immigration has become the hottest political issue during this campaign season, but many of our politicians still don’t seem to understand why so many of us are so frustrated with what has been going on.

Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.

It is being reported that more than half of all Americans over the age of 65 “are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year”…

And, for some, the retirement crisis is already here. Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The largest share — just under 23% — have incomes between $10,000 and $19,999.

Millions of elderly Americans are barely surviving at this point.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been flying hundreds of thousands of migrants that have no legal right to be here directly into the country…

It means that while record numbers of migrants were flowing over the southern border last year, the Biden White House was also directly transporting them into the country.

Use of a cell phone app has allowed for the near undetected arrival by air of 320,000 aliens with no legal rights to enter the United States.

It comes after a controversy over a 2022 transportation program in which the administration used taxpayers money to move migrants throughout the country on overnight flights.

You have got to be kidding me.

Let me give you another example.

Since 2020, the income needed “to comfortably afford a home in the US” has gone up by 80 percent…

According to Zillow, the income needed to comfortably afford a home in the US has leapt 80% since 2020, far exceeding what the BLS reports has been a 23% increase in median household income over the same period.

The real estate website found home buyers today need to make more than $106,000 a year, up $47,000 from 2020, a change driven largely by higher prices and borrowing costs.

“Housing costs have soared over the past four years as drastic hikes in home prices, mortgage rates and rent growth far outpaced wage gains,” said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.

But instead of doing something about that, politicians in California actually want to provide interest-free home loans with no down payment required to newly arrived migrants…

Assembly Bill 1840 would change existing law to allow illegal immigrants to be eligible for the California Dream for All Fund, which provides interest-free loans for a down payment on a home for first-time buyers.

The bill was introduced by California Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, a Democrat, who last month told GV Wire, a Fresno-based news outlet, that he “wanted to ensure that qualified first-time homebuyers include undocumented applicants.”

You have got to be kidding me.

Don’t stop reading now, because there is more.

On Thursday, we learned that the number of layoffs in the U.S. last month was the highest total that we have seen during February since 2009…

The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in February, a sign the labor market is starting to deteriorate in the face of ongoing inflation and high interest rates.

That is according to a new report published Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 84,638 job cuts in February, a 3% increase from the previous month and a 9% jump from the same time last year.

It marked the highest layoff total for the month of February in data going back to 2009.

That is terrible news.

But instead of finding jobs for American workers, New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to “prioritize” hiring newly arrived migrants for state jobs…

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing a plan to prioritize hiring illegal aliens for state jobs by eliminating certain requirements like the civil service exam and high school diploma.

The aim is to expedite the process for illegal immigrants to secure state jobs once they have work permits.

You have got to be kidding me.

Last but not least, let’s talk about what is going on in Washington right now.

In preparation for the State of the Union address, a “large steel fence” was being put up around the U.S. Capitol…

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address this evening – what concerns do the political elites on Capitol Hill have that require security crews to erect a large steel fence around the immediate perimeter of the Capitol Complex?

In several posts on X, FOX News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram said the steel, grated 12-foot fence around the Capitol Complex was erected on Wednesday night on the orders of the Secret Service.

Apparently our leaders in Washington have no problem with being protected by walls.

Unfortunately, our southern border has been left wide open and it is being estimated that approximately 10 million migrants have come pouring into this nation since Joe Biden entered the White House…

The number of illegal immigrants in the country has roughly doubled under President Biden. The United States had some 10.2 million illegal immigrants in 2020, and another 10 million have entered during Biden’s presidency. If the 20 million illegal immigrants were all in one state, it would be tied with New York for the fourth most populated state.

And here’s even worse news. If Biden wins a second term in office and there is no serious reform of U.S. immigration and asylum laws — both of which are very real possibilities — we can expect a continuing increase in the rate of immigrants crossing the border illegally.

You have got to be kidding me.

We already have tens of millions of people that are deeply suffering in this country.

To allow millions more to come marching in doesn’t make any sense at all.

We can’t even afford to take care of the people that we already have.  We are completely broke, and we have been adding another trillion dollars to the national debt about every 100 days.

We are literally committing national suicide, but most of our politicians don’t seem alarmed by this at all.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Last night, Joe Biden gave an extremely dark, threatening, angry State of the Union address – in which he insisted that the American economy is doing better than ever, blamed inflation on ‘corporate greed,’ and warned that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to the republic.

But in between the angry rhetoric, he also laid out his 2024 election platform – for which additional details will be released on March 11, when the White House sends its proposed budget to Congress.

To that end, Goldman Sachs’ Alec Phillips and Tim Krupa have summarized the key points:

Taxes

While railing against billionaires (nothing new there), Biden repeated the claim that anyone making under $400,000 per year won’t see an increase in their taxes.  He also proposed a 21% corporate minimum tax, up from 15% on book income outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as well as raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% (which would promptly be passed along to consumers in the form of more inflation). Goldman notes that “Congress is unlikely to consider any of these proposals this year, they would only come into play in a second Biden term, if Democrats also won House and Senate majorities.”

Biden once again tells the complete lie that “nobody earning less than $400,000/year will pay additional penny in federal taxes.”

FACT: Biden has *already* raised the tax burden on Americans making as little as $20,000 per year. pic.twitter.com/VrZ1m0rzG3

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 8, 2024

Biden also called on Congress to restore the pandemic-era child tax credit.

Immigration

Instead of simply passing a slew of border security Executive Orders like the Trump ones he shredded on day one, Biden repeated the lie that Congress ‘needs to act’ before he can (translation: send money to Ukraine or the US border will continue to be a sieve).

As immigration comes into even greater focus heading into the election, we continue to expect the Administration to tighten policy (e.g., immigration has surged 20pp the last 7 months to first place with 28% in Gallup’s “most important problem” survey). As such, we estimate the foreign-born contribution to monthly labor force growth will moderate from 110k/month in 2023 to around 70-90k/month in 2024. -GS

SEE IT: Biden gets boo-ed while talking about his immigration bill. WATCH pic.twitter.com/O5FmkYx3xM

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) March 8, 2024

Ukraine

Biden, with House Speaker Mike Johnson doing his best impression of a bobble-head, urged Congress to pass additional assistance for Ukraine based entirely on the premise that Russia ‘won’t stop’ there (and would what, trigger article 5 and WW3 no matter what?), despite the fact that Putin explicitly told Tucker Carlson he has no further ambitions, and in fact seeks a settlement.

‼️ Breaking: Putin wants a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

In a surprising turn of events, Tucker Carlson could be the key to peace, potentially playing a crucial role in ending the current conflict🕊️ pic.twitter.com/IKN8ajlEUX

— Ed (@EdMagari) February 9, 2024

As Goldman estimates, “While there is still a clear chance that such a deal could come together, for now there is no clear path forward for Ukraine aid in Congress.”

China

Biden, forgetting about all the aggressive tariffs, suggested that Trump had been soft on China, and that he will stand up “against China’s unfair economic practices” and “for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

SOTU FACT CHECK:

Biden claims we’re in a strong position to take on China.

No president in our lifetime has been WEAKER on China than Biden. pic.twitter.com/Y73JsIzmM3

— Wesley Hunt (@WesleyHuntTX) March 8, 2024

Healthcare

Lastly, Biden proposed to expand drug price negotiations to 50 additional drugs each year (an increase from 20 outlined in the IRA), which Goldman said would likely require bipartisan support “even if Democrats controlled Congress and the White House,” as such policies would likely be ineligible for the budget “reconciliation” process which has been used in previous years to pass the IRA and other major fiscal party when Congressional margins are just too thin.

So there you have it. With no actual accomplishments to speak of, Biden can only attack Trump, lie, and make empty promises.

Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Special counsel Jack Smith has argued the case he is prosecuting against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified information is “starkly different” from the case the Department of Justice declined to bring against President Joe Biden over retention of classified documents.

Prosecutors, in responding to a motion President Trump filed to dismiss the case based on selective and vindictive prosecution, said on Thursday this is not the case of “two men ‘commit[ting] the same basic crime in substantially the same manner.”

They argue the similarities are only “superficial,” and that there are two main differences: that President Trump allegedly “engaged in extensive and repeated efforts to obstruct justice and thwart the return of documents” and the “evidence concerning the two men’s intent.”

Special counsel Robert Hur’s report found that there was evidence that President Biden “willfully” retained classified Afghanistan documents, but that evidence “fell short” of concluding guilt of willful retention beyond reasonable doubt.

Prosecutors argue the “strength of the evidence” is a crucial element showing these cases are not “similarly situated.”

“Trump may dispute the Hur Report’s conclusions but he should not be allowed to misrepresent them,” prosecutors wrote, arguing that the defense’s argument to dismiss the case fell short of legal standards.

They point to volume as another distinction: President Biden had 88 classified documents and President Trump had 337. Prosecutors also argued that while President Biden’s Delaware garage “was plainly an unsecured location … whatever risks are posed by storing documents in a private garage” were “dwarfed” by President Trump storing documents at an “active social club” with 150 staff members and hundreds of visitors.

Defense attorneys had also cited a New York Times report where President Biden was reported to have held the view that President Trump should be prosecuted, expressing concern about his retention of documents at Mar-a-lago.

Prosecutors argued that this case was not “foisted” upon the special counsel, who had not been appointed at the time of these comments.

“Trump appears to contend that it was President Biden who actually made the decision to seek the charges in this case; that Biden did so solely for unconstitutional reasons,” the filing reads. “He presents no evidence whatsoever to show that Biden’s comments about him had any bearing on the Special Counsel’s decision to seek charges, much less that the Special Counsel is a ’stalking horse.’”

8 Other Cases

President Trump has argued he is being subjected to selective and vindictive prosecution, warranting dismissal of the case, but prosecutors argue that the defense has not “identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar battery of criminal conduct and not been prosecuted as a result.”

In addition to President Biden, defense attorneys offered eight other examples.

Former Vice President Mike Pence had, after 2023 reports about President Biden retaining classified documents surfaced, retained legal counsel to search his home for classified documents. Some documents were found, and he sent them to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Prosecutors say this was different from President Trump’s situation, as Vice President Pence returned the documents out of his own initiative and had fewer than 15 classified documents.

Former President Bill Clinton had retained a historian to put together “The Clinton Tapes” project, and it was later reported that NARA did not have those tapes years after his presidency. A court had ruled it could not compel NARA to try to recover the records, and NARA had defined the tapes as personal records.

Prosecutors argue those were tape diaries and the situation was “far different” from President Trump’s.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had “used private email servers … to conduct official State Department business,” the DOJ found, and the FBI opened a criminal investigation.

Prosecutors argued this was a different situation where the secretary’s emails showed no “classified” markings and the deletion of more than 31,000 emails was done by an employee and not the secretary.

Former FBI Director James Comey had retained four memos “believing that they contained no classified information.” These memos were part of seven he authored addressing interactions he had with President Trump.

Prosecutors argued there was no obstructive behavior here.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus kept bound notebooks that contained classified and unclassified notes, which he allowed a biographer to review. The FBI later seized the notebooks and Mr. Petraeus took a guilty plea.

Prosecutors argued there was prosecution in Mr. Petraeus’s case, and so President Trump’s case is not selective.

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed five copies of a classified document and kept them at his personal office, later shredding three of the copies. When confronted by NARA, he returned the remaining two copies and took a guilty plea.

Former CIA director John Deutch kept a journal with classified information on an unclassified computer, and also took a guilty plea.

Prosecutors argued both Mr. Berger and Mr. Deutch’s behavior was “vastly less egregious than Trump’s” and they had been prosecuted.

Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx had possession of classified materials according to documents retrieved by NARA.

Prosecutors argued that there was no indication she knew she had classified information or “attempted to obstruct justice.”

In the latest indication that rank-and-file Republicans are ready to move on from an era of senseless and unconstitutional militarism, a whopping 84% of Texas GOP voters on Tuesday backed a resolution demanding that the Lone Star State reject any deployment of National Guard troops to a combat zone without a congressional declaration of war.    

The proposition, one of 13 non-binding questions put to Republican voters in Tuesday’s primary election, said, “The Texas Legislature should prohibit the deployment of the Texas National Guard to a foreign conflict unless Congress first formally declares war.“

The proposition’s presence on the Texas ballot is a testament to the growing momentum of the nationwide “Defend the Guard” movement, which is led by Bring Our Troops Home, a group of Global War on Terror veterans and like-minded civilians seeking an end to “endless wars.”

“To paraphrase that great frontiersman, Davy Crockett, the military-industrial complex can go to hell, and I’ll go to Texas,” said Dan McKnight, founder and chairman of Bring Our Troops Home and a veteran of an 18-month deployment to Afghanistan.  

With the help of allies like the libertarian 10th Amendment Center, Bring Our Troops Home is pushing state legislators to advance model legislation that would prevent governors from releasing National Guard soldiers into active federal duty in combat zones without proper congressional authorization.   

“‘Defend the Guard’ legislation does not nullify federal law. It only obligates the federal government to follow what is already federal law — Congress’ duty to declare war — as outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.” — Defend The Guard

While no state has yet enacted such a law, the concept is gaining traction. Last week, the Idaho Senate passed the Defend the Guard Act in a lopsided 27-8 vote. The measure now advances to the Idaho House of Representatives for consideration.

“This is the third legislative body to pass Defend the Guard this year, following New Hampshire and Arizona,” wrote Bring Our Troops Home on the social media platform previously called Twitter. Our bill sponsor, [Ben Adams], a U.S. Marine who served two tours in Afghanistan, was present at our organization’s founding in 2019. It’s taken four years of labor to reach this point.” 

HUGE wins in Texas & Idaho for the Defend The Guard Act—a state level bill that will restore the Constitution and common sense to our foreign policy

Congrats to the @TroopsHomeUS Team! @DanMcKnight30

Florida needs to pass this NOW! https://t.co/s90UItbWI6 pic.twitter.com/tffAqM1FY9

— Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) March 6, 2024

The Texas proposition’s overwhelming victory and the Idaho Senate’s passage of a Defend the Guard bill come weeks after three members of the Georgia National Guard were killed in a drone strike on their base in Jordan. According to a US Air Force airman the facility is a base for American drones used to conduct reconnaissance and targeting operations in Syria and Iraq. 

Aside from the steep toll that unconstitutional deployments take on service-members and their families, they also deprive states of National Guard resources during crises at home. As noted in a Defend the Guard deep-dive at Stark Realities:

“When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, thousands of the states’ National Guard soldiers were deployed to Iraq. Mississippi’s 223rd Engineer Battalion returned to repair hurricane damage—but was ordered to leave its equipment in Iraq for use by other units.

In 2020, as Oregon endured some of its worst wildfires ever, half the state’s National Guard helicopters were in Afghanistan, including all its CH-47 Chinooks—dual-rotor choppers capable of carrying 26,000-pound payloads and ideal for use in firefighting. The Oregon Guard did what it could with Blackhawk helicopters that have one tenth the lifting power.”

The Defend the Guard movement is led by conservative and libertarian vets. “Every one of us raised our hands and swore an oath to the Constitution…and when it says Congress shall be the only body to declare war, we take that to heart,” said McKnight.  “And when Congress doesn’t do it, we understand bad things can happen: long, endless foreign misadventures.”

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

One of my favorite false narratives floating around corporate media platforms has been the argument that the American people “just don’t seem to understand how good the economy really is right now.” If only they would look at the stats, they would realize that we are in the middle of a financial renaissance, right? It must be that people have been brainwashed by negative press from conservative sources…

I have to laugh at this notion because it’s a very common one throughout history – it’s an assertion made by almost every single political regime right before a major collapse. These people always say the same things, and when you study economics as long as I have you can’t help but throw up your hands and marvel at their dedication to the propaganda.

One example that comes to mind immediately is the delusional optimism of the “roaring” 1920s and the lead up to the Great Depression. At the time around 60% of the U.S. population was living in poverty conditions (according to the metrics of the decade) earning less than $2000 a year. However, in the years after WWI ravaged Europe, America’s economic power was considered unrivaled.

The 1920s was an era of mass production and rampant consumerism but it was all fueled by easy access to debt, a condition which had not really existed before in America. It was this illusion of prosperity created by the unchecked application of credit that eventually led to the massive stock market bubble and the crash of 1929. This implosion, along with the Federal Reserve’s policy of raising interest rates into economic weakness, created a black hole in the U.S. financial system for over a decade.

There are two primary tools that various failing regimes will often use to distort the true conditions of the economy: Debt and inflation. In the case of America today, we are experiencing BOTH problems simultaneously and this has made certain economic indicators appear healthy when they are, in fact, highly unstable. The average American knows this is the case because they see the effects everyday. They see the damage to their wallets, to their buying power, in the jobs market and in their quality of life. This is why public faith in the economy has been stuck in the dregs since 2021.

The establishment can flash out-of-context stats in people’s faces, but they can’t force the populace to see a recovery that simply does not exist. Let’s go through a short list of the most faulty indicators and the real reasons why the fiscal picture is not a rosy as the media would like us to believe…

The “miracle” labor market recovery

In the case of the U.S. labor market, we have a clear example of distortion through inflation. The $8 trillion+ dropped on the economy in the first 18 months of the pandemic response sent the system over the edge into stagflation land. Helicopter money has a habit of doing two things very well: Blowing up a bubble in stock markets and blowing up a bubble in retail. Hence, the massive rush by Americans to go out and buy, followed by the sudden labor shortage and the race to hire (mostly for low wage part-time jobs).

The problem with this “miracle” is that inflation leads to price explosions, which we have already experienced. The average American is spending around 30% more for goods, services and housing compared to what they were spending in 2020. This is what happens when you have too much money chasing too few goods and limited production.

The jobs market looks great on paper, but the majority of jobs generated in the past few years are jobs that returned after the covid lockdowns ended. The rest are jobs created through monetary stimulus and the artificial retail rush. Part time low wage service sector jobs are not going to keep the country rolling for very long in a stagflation environment. The question is, what happens now that the stimulus punch bowl has been removed?

Just as we witnessed in the 1920s, Americans have turned to debt to make up for higher prices and stagnant wages by maxing out their credit cards. With the central bank keeping interest rates high, the credit safety net will soon falter. This condition also goes for businesses; the same businesses that will jump headlong into mass layoffs when they realize the party is over. It happened during the Great Depression and it will happen again today.

Cracks in the foundation

We saw cracks in the narrative of the financial structure in 2023 with the banking crisis, and without the Federal Reserve backstop policy many more small and medium banks would have dropped dead. The weakness of U.S. banks is offset by the relative strength of the U.S. dollar, which lures in foreign investors hoping to protect their wealth using dollar denominated assets.

But something is amiss. Gold and bitcoin have rocketed higher along with economically sensitive assets and the dollar. This is the opposite of what’s supposed to happen. Gold and BTC are supposed to be hedges against a weak dollar and a weak economy, right? If global faith in the dollar and in the U.S. economy is so high, why are investors diving into protective assets like gold?

Again, as noted above, inflation distorts everything.

Tens of trillions of extra dollars printed by the Fed are floating around and it’s no surprise that much of that cash is flooding into the economy which simply pushes higher right along with prices on the shelf. But, gold and bitcoin are telling us a more honest story about what’s really happening.

Right now, the U.S. government is adding around $600 billion per month to the national debt as the Fed holds rates higher to fight inflation. This debt is going to crush America’s financial standing for global investors who will eventually ask HOW the U.S. is going to handle that growing millstone? As I predicted years ago, the Fed has created a perfect Catch-22 scenario in which the U.S. must either return to rampant inflation, or, face a debt crisis. In either case, U.S. dollar-denominated assets will lose their appeal and their prices will plummet.

“Healthy” GDP is a complete farce

GDP is the most common out-of-context stat used by governments to convince the citizenry that all is well. It is yet another stat that is entirely manipulated by inflation. It is also manipulated by the way in which modern governments define “economic activity.”

GDP is primarily driven by spending. Meaning, the higher inflation goes, the higher prices go, and the higher GDP climbs (to a point). Eventually prices go too high, credit cards tap out and spending ceases. But, for a short time inflation makes GDP (as well as retail sales) look good.

Another factor that creates a bubble is the fact that government spending is actually included in the calculation of GDP. That’s right, every dollar of your tax money that the government wastes helps the establishment by propping up GDP numbers. This is why government spending increases will never stop – It’s too valuable for them to spend as a way to make the economy appear healthier than it is.

The REAL economy is eclipsing the fake economy

The bottom line is that Americans used to be able to ignore the warning signs because their bank accounts were not being directly affected. This is over. Now, every person in the country is dealing with a massive decline in buying power and higher prices across the board on everything – from food and fuel to housing and financial assets alike. Even the wealthy are seeing a compression to their profit and many are struggling to keep their businesses in the black.

The unfortunate truth is that the elections of 2024 will probably be the turning point at which the whole edifice comes tumbling down. Even if the public votes for change, the system is already broken and cannot be repaired without a complete overhaul.

We have consistently avoided taking our medicine and our disease has gotten worse and worse.

People have lost faith in the economy because they have not faced this kind of uncertainty since the 1930s. Even the stagflation crisis of the 1970s will likely pale in comparison to what is about to happen. On the bright side, at least a large number of Americans are aware of the threat, as opposed to the 1920s when the vast majority of people were utterly conned by the government, the banks and the media into thinking all was well. Knowing is the first step to preparing.

The second step is securing your own financial future – that’s where physical precious metals can play a role. Diversifying your savings with inflation-resistant, uninflatable assets whose intrinsic value doesn’t rely on a counterparty’s promise to pay adds resilience to your savings. That’s the main reason physical gold and silver have been the safe haven store-of-value assets of choice for centuries (among both the elite and the everyday citizen).

*  *  *

As the world moves away from dollars and toward Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), is your 401(k) or IRA really safe? A smart and conservative move is to diversify into a physical gold IRA. That way your savings will be in something solid and enduring. Get your FREE info kit on Gold IRAs from Birch Gold Group. No strings attached, just peace of mind. Click here to secure your future today.

With the imminent expiration of The Fed’s bank bailout facility (reminder they were 12-month collateralized term loans), and the ongoiong liquidity suck from The Fed’s reverse repo facility, the last two weeks’ excitement over at NYCB again is sure to have seen some depositors questioning their decisions (but we won’t know about that for a couple of weeks as The Fed needs time to ‘manage’ the data).

It turns out no… as The Fed claims that – on a seasonally-adjusted basis – total deposits rose by $16BN last week…

Source: Bloomberg

And while we question what a “seasonally-adjusted deposit” actually is, un-adjusted deposits rose by an even more impressive $86BN last week to the highest in six weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

But, things get a little more complicated when we remove foreign bank deposits, as while non-seasonally-adjusted deposits rose $61BN (large banks +$35BN, small banks +$26BN), seasonally-adjusted domestic bank deposits fell $5.6BN (large banks -$7.4BN, small banks +1.8BN)…

Source: Bloomberg

On an SA basis, it’s not been a good run for domestic banks (or it has been a good ‘run’)…

Source: Bloomberg

On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes re-accelerated last week, with large bank loan volumes rising $10.7BN and small bank loan volumes up $3.1BN…

Source: Bloomberg

US equity market cap remains dramatically decoupled from bank reserves at The Fed (which ticked up last week). The last time it was this decoupled did not end well for stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, as if you needed a reminder after this week’s NYCB debacle – despite the rebound off the lows again this week in regional bank shares, which must mean everything is awesome, right? – the regional bank crisis is still very much alive as evidenced by the red line below (without The Fed’s imminently expiring BTFP facility)…

Source: Bloomberg

…what else are big banks (green line) going to do with all that cash burning a hole in their pockets (although we do note a big cash drop at large banks – which includes NYCB).

As one veteran Fed watcher remarked “this is such a clusterfuck… deposits should be $500BN lower”

Source: Bloomberg

The bottom line is – this looks a lot like a ‘Small Bank’ crisis. The last time this happened, the crisis sparked a sudden $300BN ‘run’ in small bank deposits (this time it’s bigger!).

Is The Fed ‘hoping’ for a controlled bank-run this time – so as many small bank deposits are drained voluntarily, before they are drained all at once in a panic (and the Reverse Repo facility is empty, unable to provide any cushion)?