Month: April 2024

Cocoa futures in New York crashed Monday in their biggest daily drawdown on record, driven mostly by improved weather forecasts and sliding liquidity. 

“Cocoa prices are melting down. New York and London cocoa futures are down ~15% today (that’s, by far, the largest one-day % drop in data going back nearly 65 years),” Bloomberg’s Javier Blas wrote on X. 

CHART OF THE DAY: Cocoa prices are melting down. New York and London cocoa futures are down ~15% today (that’s, by far, the largest one-day % drop in data going back nearly 65 years). #cocoa #chocflation https://t.co/hzcOgHkC2U pic.twitter.com/a3BxC9XjCw

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 29, 2024

Futures fell 15% to $8,931 a ton, having hit a record high of $11,722 on April 19. 

On April 9, during the surge from $9,000 to nearly $12,000, Blas warned: “Liquidity in cocoa markets is quickly evaporating.” 

Saxo Bank’s head of commodity strategy, Ole Hansen, explained to Dow Jones Newswires that today’s selloff was triggered by an improving weather forecast for rain in West Africa, the mecca of cocoa farming. This will only boost the bean outlook for mid-season crops. He also noted that the front contract showed strong signs of ‘buyer fatigue.’ 

“Liquidity in the market due to the intense volatility of cocoa’s prices has also disappeared, so any kind of news–good or bad–will trigger strong fluctuations in price,” Hansen said, adding that the latest commitment of traders report exhibited broad selling from commercial traders, with the long exposure sliding to a 14-month low as traders panic exit the chaotic market. 

Despite the cocoa plunge, London-based trading and agricultural consultant Paulo Torres told Bloomberg, “The shortage is not over” and “the elephant in the room is the fact that Ivory Coast and Ghana do not have cocoa, so there is no way prices can fall significantly.” 

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

With the state facing a record-high budget deficit, tax collections are failing to meet California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal projections, which could put further pressure on the state’s finances.

As of April 25, the state’s franchise tax board is showing personal income tax collections on track to approximately match estimates for the month.

However, corporate tax revenues of $4.16 billion equate to more than $500 million below forecasts for the month and are off by $1.4 billion for the fiscal year.

Some economists point to disruptions in the technology industry—with thousands of California jobs slashed across several companies in recent months—as a contributing factor in declining corporate and personal income taxes.

“The loss of tech jobs has also hurt California’s public finances, which have grown heavily dependent on Silicon Valley,” Joseph Politano, independent writer for online data and economy newsletter Apricitas Economics, posted April 14 on Substack. “It will mean less future potential revenue—forcing the state to raise tax rates or pare back spending on investment, social services, and more.”

Sales and use taxes are also driving the shortfall, missing estimates by $1 billion since November.

In March, such receipts came in $653 million below forecast, which the finance department said, “reflect ongoing weakness in taxable sales.”

Data analysts blamed inflation and high-interest rates, in part, for the lackluster sales tax collections, as cash-strapped consumers are managing their finances by reducing spending on some items.

“This decline reflects consumer challenges balancing higher prices and financing costs with essential household needs,” Andy Nickerson, president and CEO of HdL Companies—a data and consulting services provider for local governments—said in an April 16 tax report summary. “As the Federal Reserve considers a delay in softening rates, [we anticipate] consumer spending may continue to stagnate, delaying a return to normal historical growth trends in 2024.”

Cumulative March tax receipts came in $243 million below estimates and contributed to a $5.8 billion shortfall since November—representing a 4 percent miss—according to a recently released report from the state’s Department of Finance.

While personal income tax receipts exceeded expectations in March, estimated payments since November were down $4.7 billion, suggesting weakness in tax collections for the 2023 tax year, the finance department reported.

With the income tax due date of April 15, more details will be available in the first week of May once calculations are complete. Preliminary information from the state’s controller’s office suggests the governor’s estimate could be $6 billion or more higher than actual revenues collected.

While Mr. Newsom’s January proposal was based on forecasts, a revision due in May will be able to incorporate receipts received, which should provide more clarity.

“All of these results suggest that April revenues, in the aggregate, may come in several hundred million dollars below monthly estimates,” Jason Sisney, budget director for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, said in a Substack post April 25. “It is virtually certain that the May Revision will downgrade revenue projections from those the Governor released in January.”

Mr. Newsom is expected to provide the revision on or before the May 14 deadline.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office predicted earlier this year after weak tax collections in January that revenues would miss the governor’s estimates by about $16 billion for the 2023–2024 fiscal year and another $9 billion for 2024–2025.

But following personal income tax revenues in February and March that were closer to estimate, Mr. Sisney believes the shortfall will not be as large as the analyst’s office suggested.

“Based on revenue trends to date … it is difficult for me to see revenues dropping quite that much,” he said.

Disparities in estimates between the governor and the analyst’s office have existed since January regarding the severity of the budget deficit.

Mr. Newsom estimates a $38 billion shortfall, while analysts forecast a $73 billion gap in funding. Some of the differences lie in the governor’s calculation of solutions proposed, which the analyst’s office says accounts for about $20 billion of the discrepancy.

With the numbers in flux, lawmakers and policy experts are awaiting final totals so that budget proposals can be debated in earnest.

Mr. Newsom recently approved a “budget bill junior” crafted by Democratic lawmakers as an early action plan to address a portion of the deficit.

Approximately $17 billion to chip away at the deficit—including deferrals, delays, borrowing, and some $3.6 billion cuts—primarily to one-time funding—were enacted by his signing of Assembly Bill 106 on April 15.

Who could have seen this coming?

ICYMI from Nov 2023, when gold was still 1900

Behind The Mysterious Explosion In Gold Prices: China’s “Massive Accumulation Of Gold”https://t.co/6Yg2HPmMwf

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 28, 2024

In November 2023, with gold trading around $1900/oz, we highlighted the beginning of a precious metal buying-binge from China, noting that the prcie for physical gold had never been more expensive at the time (while western gold prices were still below their prior record highs).

Additionally we noted the total lack of demand for so-called ‘paper gold’ via ETFs as holdigs underlying these vehicles was declining, as investors rotated from paper to physical:

“The rising interest in gold bars and coins was primarily driven by investors’ safe-haven demand, supported by global geopolitical instability and weak performance of investment products denominated in Chinese yuan.”

Source: Bloomberg

Now, a few months later, we get confirmation as The South China Morning Post reports that consumers in China bought 308.9 tonnes (10.9 million ounces) of gold in the first quarter, representing a 5.9% increase compared to the same period in 2023.

Having burned out in Chinese gold ETFs, we recetly noted that, amid a notable pick up in capital flight that the Chinese had “grabbed gold by the throat.”

Sure enough, as SCMP points out, Chinese consumers are increasing their appetite for gold, seeking to protect their assets amid a volatile stock market, a depreciating yuan and property doldrums, which analysts said would continue to boost international gold prices coupled with geopolitical uncertainties.

Purchases of gold bars and coins, which largely reflect investment and hedging demand, surged by 26.8 per cent year on year to 106.3 tonnes, while gold jewellery sales declined by 3 per cent from a year earlier to 183.9 tonnes.

“Gold represents the only safe asset for [Chinese consumers] to protect their wealth against domestic inflation, asset price declines as well as against geopolitical risks,” said Chen Zhiwu, the chair professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong.

“I expect Chinese household demand for gold to rise more in the future. And the Chinese central bank will also continue to purchase more gold to prepare for more geopolitical turmoil ahead.”

China’s central bank bought 160,000 ounces of gold bullion in March, marking its 17th consecutive monthly purchase and bringing its total reserves to 2,262 tonnes (72.74 million ounces), as it aims to diversify holdings away from US bonds amid strained bilateral relations.

“The escalation in gold holdings by global central banks, coupled with heightened gold demand in the Chinese market, has emerged as significant drivers propelling recent gold prices beyond market expectations,” the Bank of China said on Friday.

“In the future, gold prices are expected to sustain their robust upwards trajectory, driven by ongoing global central bank efforts to de-dollarise, escalating geopolitical uncertainty, and shifts in the [US] Federal Reserve’s monetary policy,” the report said.

China eclipsed India as the largest purchaser of gold jewellery in 2023, with consumption totalling 630 tonnes last year, representing an annual increase of 10 per cent.

“The China story is one of the reasons supporting gold prices, but the global risk-off sentiment is also fuelling the demand,” said Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank, who expected China’s demand for gold to remain resilient in 2024.

“Beyond China, whether the US can take inflation is another determinant for future gold prices, which is probably the biggest uncertainty.”

However, as TD Securities’ Daniel Ghali points out another potential source of gold strength.

With little trace in exchange data, buying activity must be OTC. However, price action in basis, forwards, and BoE gold suggest the buying program is price insensitive, has a sense of urgency, and deep pockets. This mysterious bid may point to curiously aggressive OTC buying activity, which appears to be highly correlated with acute currency depreciation pressures.

Ongoing currency pressures could explain the sense of urgency behind this bid, with a high correlation with the CNY’s deviation from its fix inching towards its fixed band.

Historically, this has been associated with a significant outperformance as the exceptional buying activity underpins a squeeze from those using the traditional playbook.

Finally, US election dynamics are a positive for gold, according to TD Securities’ Bart Malek.

A Republican administration is likely to push lower taxes, with spending largely unchanged. The resulting higher deficit projections, from the already very high numbers, should help gold, as it suggests higher inflation, lower real rates and continued central bank buying. A likely even more adversarial stance toward China and Iran taken by a Republican administration would also contribute to gold’s good fortune and should see oil well supported.

Simply put, gold remains a good sanction-proof private- and central-bank-diversifier.

Authored by Roger Simon via The Epoch Times,

I am writing this column in the hopes you will pass it around.

To be honest, I write every column in the hopes it will be passed around, times being what they are. I’m arrogant enough to think what I have to say is at least somewhat needed. More humbly, G-d gave me a modicum of writing skill I have concluded for a reason and, more than ever in my life, I, at the age of 80, seem constrained to use it. I rarely stop, and when I do, all I seem to think about is what I’m going to write next, except when I’m playing tennis… And even then…

 

Today’s title is, of course, a knock-off of “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” written by Ed and Patsy Bruce, but made famous, as these things go, by others—the estimable Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. If you’ve been living under the proverbial rock and haven’t heard their fabulous recording—and even if you have; I listen to it all the time—it’s right here.

It begins: “Cowboys ain’t easy to love/And they’re harder to hold.” If you replace “Cowboys” with “Activists,” it still makes sense, maybe more. Trust me—I’ve been there myself, years and years ago. We were wrong then. They’re worse now.

This is all a long way around to what my theme is – the cause of the civilization-threatening unholy mess we are in with so many of our supposedly premier institutions of higher learning – indeed the world’s supposedly premier institutions of higher learning – Ivy League on down, turned into satanic campgrounds celebrating a group of bloodthirsty maniacs that make the Nazi Party seem like… well, let’s just leave it there.

Except that 1939 has come back. From Wikipedia:

“On February 20, 1939, a Nazi rally took place at Madison Square Garden, organized by the German American Bund. More than 20,000 people attended, and Fritz Julius Kuhn was a featured speaker. The Bund billed the event, which took place two days before George Washington’s Birthday, as a pro-‘Americanism’ rally; the stage at the event featured a huge Washington portrait with swastikas on each side.”

Déjà vu all over again? The proverbial canary in the coal mine come back for yet another bow?

Yes, but now it’s arguably worse. No more wrapping themselves in the flag. George Washington, no longer revered, is just another statue to be toppled. It’s “Death to America” all the way down at our leading universities and it’s spreading.

It’s Rashida Tlaib’s world. We just live in it.

Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be activists—see what I mean?

I’m not talking about the loyal readers of this site. I’d be astonished if they were the kind of parents or grandparents who would countenance that kind of thing. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they (you) know plenty who are.

Also, I know many fine people who have done their bests with their progeny only to find that years of critical race theory (flagrant or masked) and other assorted “woke” excrescences in the schools, not to mention the inability to concentrate brought on via the supposed gifts of Silicon Valley, have made it impossible anyway.

When looking for blame for what happened to this generation of college students, half or near of whom seem to prefer Hamas to Israel, most point at the educational system itself, so neo-Marxist “woke” from kindergarten up it’s hard to imagine how they could be more so, and to the media who cheer it along, amplify it, and excuse its excesses.

But it all starts in the home. In other words, someone was not home to give these young people guidance and rein in at least some of their excesses—the parents.

It’s not been just an abdication of responsibility. In more cases than we would like to know, the parents may also have cheered them on, seeing in their rebellious children the vindication of their own, much more tepid, rebellions years ago.

In yet other cases it’s more direct, and worse.

As illustration, recall how, back in 2020, former president Barack Obama proudly announced his daughters’ participation in protests led by Black Lives Matter, an organization that proved to be a financial rip-off not just of other blacks, but of all who contributed to their racialist con game. (That link, by the way, comes to you via the oh-so-chic folks at Harper’s Bazaar.)

Of the three causes mentioned, the parents may, in the end, be the most to blame, though needless to say a fourth element, our government, has its portion too, an amazingly large one, fomenting what Christopher Rufo sees as internal “color revolutions” via such amusements (for children yet) as “Drag Queens for Palestine.”

It’s impossible to know how many of these protestors come from single-parent homes, but it’s almost certain to be a high percentage. This is a national disaster in itself.

It’s hard to know in general how many of them there are or even who they are because they wear masks or keffiyehs covering their faces (for fear of COVID or, more likely, identification by future employers).

What we are seeing on our campuses is the product of a family environment imploding or, sadly, already imploded. Much of this is and has been intentional.

I apologize to all of you for being so “hobbyhorsical,” as Laurence Sterne termed it hundreds of years ago, on this topic, but the situation we are in is indeed civilizational. One can only praise the few governors—Texas, Florida—who have stood up to the onslaught and properly used the National Guard to return their universities to what was supposedly their real purpose—something called education.

So let’s end with some good news. It was long overdue, but the Ivy League and similar institutions are finally losing their luster. It is being widely reported that many students and their families—not just Jewish ones—are deciding to go elsewhere, to the Midwest and South, for their studies that might be more even-handed.

Others are deciding that college isn’t such a great thing after all and are going to trade schools. Good on them. (I wonder how many of those trade schools are having pro-Hamas demonstrations. Not many, I’d wager.)

Finally, a word about a word—“activists.” It is used as well to characterize adherents of what we often think of as good causes. I say—bag it. Let’s leave that term to the Left. That way you don’t have to let your babies grow up to be “activists,” because, chances are, they’re not going to be the kind you want.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

OnlyFans creator and TikTok star Farha Khalidi says that the Biden administration paid her to push “full on political propaganda,” and asked her not to disclose that she was advertising for them.

Speaking with commentator Richard Hanania, Khalidi said she’d been asked to boast about Ketanji Brown Jackson after Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Biden.

“I was doing full-on political propaganda,” she said, adding “The funny thing is they’re like, do not disclose this is an ad because technically it’s not a product so you don’t have to disclose it’s an ad. Because I think they just wanted, like, some edgy girl of color to just tell people — like when they nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, they’re, like, ‘Can you say “as a person of color,” you know, that you feel “reflected”?’”

Watch:

NEW: OnlyFans creator Farha Khalidi says she was paid by the Biden Administration to spread “political propaganda” & was told to not disclose her videos were ads.

Everything about Biden is fake.

Khalidi says the Biden admin reached out to her because they wanted someone with… pic.twitter.com/CQ40K5IHID

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 28, 2024

Khalidi has 1.8 million TikTok followers.

Speaking of propaganda, and we’ll save you the eye bleach by not posting his picture… director Steven Spielberg is also helping the Biden campaign with reelection, NBC News reported on Friday.

The filmmaker will help to “convey the president’s successes and his vision for the country” to delegates and viewers of the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to take place August 19-22 in Chicago. Spielberg has been meeting event organizers, who expect more than 5,000 delegates from across the country to officially select Biden as the presidential nominee.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Do not believe the White House/mainstream media-concocted narrative that the four criminal court cases – prosecuted by Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Jack Smith, and Fani Willis – were not in part coordinated, synchronized, and timed to reach their courtroom psychodramatic finales right during the 2024 campaign season.

These local, state, and federal Lilliputian agendas were designed to tie down, gag, confine, bankrupt, and destroy Trump psychologically and physically. They are the final lawfare denouement to years of extra-legal efforts to emasculate him.

Indeed, the nation is by now worn out by these serial assaults on constitutional norms: the Hillary-funded Steele dossier subterfuge; the pre-election Russian laptop disinformation campaign; the two impeachments without special counsel reports; the impeachment Senate trial of a private citizen; the effort to remove Trump’s name from state ballots; the ongoing attempt to emasculate the Electoral College; or the radical opportune changes in state election laws to ensure massive mail-in balloting.

Recently, Andrew McCarthy has reviewed in depth this coordination between White House personnel and prosecutors, long known and long denied by the left.

Biden, for example, had complained to aides about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s tardiness in getting special federal prosecutor Smith appointed – and thus apparently ensuring Trump was convicted before the election.

Nathan Wade, Fani Willis’s now-fired paramour prosecutor, visited and consulted with the White House counsel’s office when he was acting supposedly as a purely local county prosecutor. The January 6th left-wing-dominated congressional committee consulted with the Biden administration in sending forth its criminal referrals about Trump’s purported role in the protests. And to handle his pseudo-indictment against Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hired Biden Justice Department official Vincent Colangeio.

Two, the prosecutors’ delayed criminal indictments and E. Jean Carroll’s civil suit were predicated only on Donald Trump running for reelection. After his 2020 defeat, the loss of the two Republican senate seats in Georgia, and the January 6 demonstrations/riot, Trump was written off by pundits as politically toxic.

Then his historic comeback in the subsequent year terrified the left. The reboot prompted the subsequent indictments and suits years after the purported crimes. It was left unsaid that had Trump not been a conservative Republican and leading presidential candidate, he would have never been indicted.

Three, most of the indictments either had no prior precedent in criminal law or will likely never be used again, at least against anyone left-wing. Moreover, many of the writs relied on manipulation of statutes of limitations.

Neither Bragg nor any other local prosecutor had previously transformed a supposedly local affidavit misdemeanor into a supposed federal campaign finance violation, a gambit so preposterous that it had been passed on by federal attorneys.

Letitia James was the first New York Attorney General to indict a state resident for the supposed crime of overvaluing real estate to obtain a loan, which was paid back timely and in full, to the profit of lending institutions. No bank, after auditing Trump’s assets and viability to pay back loans, was unhappy to loan to him. But all were quite happy to profit from the hefty interest—and would likely be happy to loan to him again.

James sought to make Trump a criminal without ever finding a crime, much less a victim. Nor, until the checkered and unethical career of Fani Willis, had any local prosecutor ever indicted an ex-president for a supposedly improper phone call questioning whether all the state’s votes had been fully counted.

Alvin Bragg’s case was nonexistent given the statute of limitations on supposed misdemeanors committed over six years prior—until Bragg transmogrified the accusations of minor crimes into felonies and, with them, extensions granted supposedly due to the COVID lockdowns.

In Carroll’s case, her unsubstantiated accusations of a sexual assault were also well past the statute of limitations until a left-wing New York legislator and unapologetic Trump hater passed a special law—a veritable bill of attainder aimed at Trump—waiving the statute of limitations for a year in cases of accusations of long-past sexual assault in the state of New York.

Four, all the indictments and suits took place in either blue cities, counties, or states. And most of the jury pools in or near New York, Atlanta, or Miami were or will be heavily Democrat. So far, the New York judges who have overseen Trump’s civil and criminal trials—Justices Engoron, Kaplan, and Merchan—were all liberals, appointed by Democrat or liberal politicians, and some have donated to Democrat causes. They were not shy about expressing disdain for defendant Trump. No changes in venues were ever allowed.

Five, all the prosecutors, Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis, are likewise either Democrats or associated with liberal causes. In the case of Bragg, James, and Willis, all three ran for office and raised money on promises and boasts of getting Donald Trump. And all three have now set the precedent that local and state prosecutors can warp the law and use it to go after an ex-president and leading presidential candidate of the opposite party for naked political purposes.

Six, all these cases were equally applicable to high-profile Democrat politicos. E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit was the most laughable of all the court dramas, but its outline and protocols just as easily could have applied to Tara Reade. She came forward to accuse candidate Biden of having sexually assaulted her years earlier—roughly about the same period’s as Carroll’s fluid timelines. Her story is about as believable or unbelievable as Carroll’s. But the difference was that whereas the media canonized the delusional and self-contradictory Carroll as a useful anti-Trump tool, it demonized Reade as a crazy loon and liar—and a potential impediment to Biden’s 2019-20 primary campaign.

Bragg had to torture the law to fabricate a federal campaign finance indictment against Trump. But Hillary Clinton clearly violated federal campaign statutes—and was variously fined—when she tried to hide her “opposition research” payments to Christopher Steele as “legal expenses.” In truth, Steele was hired and paid to concoct a fake anti-Trump dossier and likely should have been barred from working for a presidential campaign given he was not a U.S. citizen.

In the case of Smith, simultaneously with his case against Trump, his twin special prosecutor, Robert Hur, found that Joe Biden had unlawfully removed classified files for much longer than Trump (30 years plus), in a much less secure location (his rickety garage), and without a president’s authority to declassify his documents. Moreover, he had disclosed their contents to his ghostwriter, who destroyed evidence under subpoena by Hur. Yet unlike Trump, Biden was not charged, given that Hur claimed that Biden, in his opinion, was so old and amnesiac that he might win sympathy rather than a conviction from a jury.

Willis indicted Trump for supposedly trying to pressure officials to “find” missing Trump ballots, thus supposedly violating “racketeering” statutes, as he oversaw an attempt to find troves of ballots he thought had been cast for him. Of course, in the same state, Stacy Abrams, after losing the gubernatorial race of 2018, claimed she had actually won, despite losing by over 50,000 votes. She sued to overturn the election and then made a celebrity-political career touring the nation, falsely claiming she was the real governor and her victorious opponent was an illegitimate governor.

For that matter, in 2016, left-wing organizations, celebrities, and thousands of political operatives sought to overturn the Trump victory by appealing to the electors to renounce their states’ popular vote tallies and thus become “faithless electors.” In sum, there was a true conspiracy, or, better, a “racketeering” scheme, to use Willis’s parlance, to coordinate various groups to overturn the constitutional duties of electors to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. Clinton, along with the likes of ex-president Jimmy Carter and soon-to-be House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries, would continue to deny that Trump was the legitimately elected president.

In sum, the number of suits against and indictments against Trump grew in correlation to his political fortunes. They were designed in the election year 2024 to do what Democrat voters likely cannot. They are ridiculous and sui generis, and will never be used against anyone other than Trump. They have done more damage to democracy, the rule of law, and equal justice to the law than all of the antics that Trump is accused of.

Moreover, they will set in motion a dangerous tit-for-tat cycle of weaponization that threatens the very constitutional order of the United States.

If Trump is elected to restore the rule of equal justice, will a Republican special counsel revisit Robert Hur’s work and find ex-President Biden quite capable of standing trial for the crimes Hur has already investigated and confirmed?

Will then a new Republican-appointed FBI director order a SWAT-like raid, with Fox News forewarned and Newsmax reporters on the scene, to descend into the Biden beach house?

Will county and state prosecutors in Utah, Montana, and Oklahoma feel that to stop this cycle of illegality, they must charge the Biden family members by bootstrapping local indictments onto federal crimes?

Will conservative women in the future come forward in Arkansas, Idaho, and Alabama to claim that in their past, they now suddenly remember that decades ago a prominent Democrat candidate harassed them? Will their right-wing lawyers cherry-pick the proper red-state judge?

Will conservative district attorneys find ways to indict Joe Biden on the various imaginative bookkeeping and “loan repayments” used to disguise the fact his corrupt family received well over $20 million from illiberal foreign interests, much if not all of it camouflaged to avoid income taxes?

Will some South Carolina legislator get a bill of attainder passed in the legislature, ending the statute of limitations for a year for all those in 2016 who sought to undermine the electors and flip them to Hillary Clinton?

In August or September, will a right-wing state prosecutor and a conservative judge find that Joe Biden’s creative bookkeeping warrants a $450 million fine, payable before appeal?

And will Republican officials and judges in purple states move to get Biden’s name off the ballot?

Such scenarios are endless and, given the current precedents, could all be justified as desperate deterrent measures to shock the left into ceasing their efforts to sabotage our constitutional system and rule of law.

A final note.

There is a divine order of balance in the world, one known variously by particular civilizations as kismet, nemesis, karma, or what goes around, comes around payback. We’ve already seen such forces at work: Sen. Schumer at the head of a mob at the doors of the Supreme Court, calling out threats to justices by name, only now finding pro-Hamas thugs circling his own home. Or Democrats during the Trump years straining to find ways to invoke the 25th Amendment, now humiliated into claiming a non-compos-mentis Joe Biden is “sharp as a knife.”

Tragically for the country, to stop this left-wing madness, the Trump travesties may not be the end, but the beginning of precisely what the Founders feared.

Israeli officials have reportedly given Hamas an ultimatum, saying the group has “one last chance” to reach a deal, according to Axios. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, “If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation” – in reference to the planned Rafah ground offensive.

He added that “The release of the hostages is a deep priority for us.” Following Oct.7 and the first hostage/prisoner swap which took place on November 22, the number of Israeli hostages (and dual nationals) which remain in Hamas captivity stand at 129. However, Israeli leaders have long acknowledged the likelihood that many of these are already deceased.

Hamas is still pressing for a full and permanent cessation of all hostilities, along with full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, while Tel Aviv is just pushing for a temporary pause in fighting.

According to Al Jazeera, this is ultimately unlikely to sway Hamas negotiators:

Israel wants to “have its cake and eat it too. They want to get their captives back out of Gaza and into Israel. But then they want to be able to continue the war on Gaza after a brief pause,” Mohamad Elmasry, media studies professor and political analyst at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Saudi Arabia on Monday, his first stop in a broader Middle East tour focused primarily in Gaza, but he’s pushing Saudi-Israel normalization.

Blinken has called on Hamas to accept Israel’s latest and “extraordinarily generous” proposal for a Gaza truce. “Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel,” the US top diplomat said.

“The only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas. They have to decide and they have to decide quickly,” Blinken said from Riyadh. “I’m hopeful that they will make the right decision.”

This is where things stand via Reuters:

A source briefed on the talks said Israel’s proposal entailed a deal to accept the release of fewer than 40 of the roughly 130 hostages believed to be still held in exchange for freeing Palestinians jailed in Israel, and a second phase of a truce consisting of a “period of sustained calm” – Israel’s compromise response to a Hamas demand for permanent ceasefire.

Among these 40 would be any remaining children, women, sick and elderly hostages. Both sides have been this close before, but never with Washington applying this much pressure to see a deal through to the finish line.

Blinken has sought to assure Arab states and Palestinian leaders that the US cannot support an attack against Rafah “in the absence of an (Israeli) plan to ensure that civilians will not be harmed.” 

⚡️Leaked Video: Several casualties among the Israeli army were transferred from the Gaza Strip to several hospitals via helicopters. pic.twitter.com/vjRrk9mvhS

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 28, 2024

Blinken and the Biden administration are still hoping to secure a broader deal involving Saudi Arabia, which he says is “potentially very close to completion.” It hinges on Saudi-Israeli diplomatic recognition, and in return the basis for recognition of a Palestinian state by Israel.

“To move forward with normalization, two things will be required: calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” Blinken said in fresh remarks.

However, Hamas is believed to have several intact battalions inside Rafah, and the Netanyahu government has vowed to see through its operation until it has accomplished the total eradication of Hamas. To do this, Israel believes it must got into Rafah with full ground and air might, but it will result in humanitarian catastrophe for the over one million civilians currently taking refuge there.

Uranium stocks moved higher late in the US cash session after a report from Bloomberg, citing “people familiar with the matter,” revealed that the Biden administration is considering an executive order to ban Russian imports of enriched uranium after congressional efforts stall. 

Officials from the White House National Security Council, the Department of Energy, and other top-level officials have discussed reducing reliance on Russian uranium imports. The people said the potential ban could include waivers similar to legislation that quickly passed the House last year. 

“Because of procedural rules, the next best potential legislative vehicle to attach the uranium ban in the Senate to is must-pass legislation needed to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, which is slated for the Senate floor this week,” Bloomberg said. 

Certainly, final decisions have yet to be reached on the matter. According to sources, the administration and the nuclear industry favor Congress enacting the ban. However, if push come to shove, executive authority could be used, they said. 

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Washington imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported. 

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti shows how much America’s nuclear power plants rely on Russian uranium. 

According to the Energy Information Administration, Russia supplied about a quarter of all enriched uranium used in more than 90 commercial reactors. 

Bloomberg estimated that America’s power plants spend at least $1 billion a year on Russian-enriched uranium. The White House has warned that dependence on Russian sources of uranium “creates risk to the US economy.” 

“At the same time, replacing that supply could be a challenge and is poised to raise the costs of enriched uranium by as much as 20%,” the media pointed out. 

In markets, the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company, Cameco Corporation, caught a slight bid after the Bloomberg story was released. Miner Uranium Energy Corp and Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) also rose. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a ban on Russian uranium imports could raise nuclear fuel costs by at least 13%, if not more. 

Late last month, Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a nuclear industry research firm, told Bloomberg that uranium prices have likely “reached a bottom.” 

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereignMan.com,

It’s barely been a year since the 2023 bank crisis in which several large banks, including Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, failed.

At the time, I wrote that the bank failures weren’t over, and that there would be more.

But it’s been quiet for most of the last year; the banking system has been pretty calm thanks in large part to an emergency program that the Federal Reserve created to bail out other troubled banks.

They called it the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), and it essentially expired a few weeks ago. In other words, no more emergency lending to troubled banks.

Barely a month later, we have already witnessed our first casualty: Pennsylvania-based Republic First (not to be confused with First Republic, which failed last year) was shut down by regulators on Friday afternoon.

Republic First had the same issues as the others that failed last year — too many ‘unrealized bond losses’ on their balance sheet.

Just like Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, etc. last year, Republic First had used their customers’ deposits to buy US Treasury bonds in 2021 and 2022, back when bond prices were at all-time highs.

By early 2023, the situation had reversed. Bond prices had plummeted; even supposedly ‘safe’ and ‘stable’ US Treasury bonds had fallen substantially in price, and banks were sitting on huge losses.

Remember that bond prices fall when interest rates rise. So when the Fed jacked up interest rates from 0% to 5% in an attempt to control inflation, they were simultaneously creating huge losses in the bond market… which also meant huge losses for banks.

Silicon Valley Bank was just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty of other banks (including Bank of America) had racked up enormous bond losses. In fact the total unrealized losses in the banking sector last year amounted to a whopping $620 billion.

The Fed knew they had an enormous problem on their hands. So they created this Bank Term Funding Program, which was basically a giant game of ‘make believe’.

Through the BTFP, banks were allowed to borrow money from the Fed using their cratering bond portfolios as collateral. But instead of valuing the bonds at the actual market price, everyone simply pretended that the bonds were still worth 100 cents on the dollar.

In other words, the banks just made up prices for their assets, and the Fed allowed them to do it.

(It’s ironic that a certain former President is on trial in New York City for inflating the value of his assets, even though banks were inflating the value of their bonds through the BTFP.)

The Fed managed to prevent any further embarrassing bank failures last year by sprinkling this magical fairy dust across the banking system.

But now that the BTFP has expired, it has become obvious that problems in the banking system haven’t gone away. Republic First’s failure a few days ago is just one symptom.

Think about it: Bond prices are still down (because interest rates remain much higher than they were in 2021-2022). Banks are still sitting on massive unrealized losses.

And now that the Fed has stopped playing ‘make believe’, the bank failures have started up again.

It’s not to say that ALL banks are in terrible shape; some banks wisely used the last twelve months to get their financial houses in order.

Unfortunately most didn’t… which is why there’s still more more than HALF A TRILLION dollars in unrealized losses in the US banking system. This means that Republic First probably won’t be the only failure, unless the Fed steps in with its magical fairy dust again.

Also bear in mind that losses from their US Treasury portfolios aren’t the only problem in the banking system; for example, plenty of banks are sitting on huge potential losses from loans they made on office properties.

I don’t think the scope of this problem is anywhere near the 2008 financial crisis, which brought down some of the world’s largest banks. Not even close.

But the reality is that there are still a lot of banks with a lot of unrealized losses. And the biggest one of all happens to be the Federal Reserve.

According to its own financial statements, just released last month, the Fed’s total unrealized losses are almost $1 TRILLION — $948.4 BILLION to be more precise. And the vast majority of those unrealized losses come from US Treasuries.

So just like Silicon Valley Bank, Signature, First Republic, and now Republic First, the Federal Reserve has rendered itself completely insolvent.

In fact, total Federal Reserve capital is just $51 billion… versus $948 billion in losses. This means the Fed is insolvent 19 times over.

Think about that: the largest, most important central bank in the world… the steward of the global reserve currency… is completely insolvent on a mark-to-market basis.

You’d think that would be front page news. But no one ever talks about it. No one even wants to talk about it.

Of course plenty of people will insist that it doesn’t matter, just like they insist that the national debt doesn’t matter.

But this is yet more absurd fantasy; just look at the facts:

• The FDIC’s published reports show more than $500 billion in unrealized losses in the US banking sector.

• The Federal Reserve, which in theory would bail out the banking sector, is itself insolvent by $900 billion.

• The US government, which would bail out the Fed, is insolvent by more than $50 trillion.

It’s just debt on top of debt on top of debt. Losses on top of losses on top of losses.

Just like the BTFP, everyone wants to play a giant game of ‘make believe’ and pretend that the Fed’s solvency is not a problem, that the US government’s enormous debt is not a problem.

On the contrary, they’re huge challenges. And the ultimate consequence is going to be the loss of the US dollar as the global reserve currency.

The Biden administration is reportedly in the midst of a diplomatic full court press in efforts to prevent the International Criminal Court (ICC) from issuing arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The ICC is also expected to issue warrants for Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi, in connection with alleged large-scale human rights abuses related to the war in Gaza.

Axios reports Monday that the Israeli government is growing “increasingly concerned” over the possible action, while Walla news has written that Netanyahu is “under unusual stress” over what will be a largely symbolic, albeit still deeply embarrassing reputational black eye for his government at a moment he’s facing immense domestic pressure at home to bring back the hostages.

The Israeli leader has personally asked President Biden to intervene. Axios details of the call: “The officials said Netanyahu expressed his concern to Biden in a phone call on Sunday, where the two leaders also discussed hostage negotiations, Israel’s defense against Iran’s missile attack, and the need to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to a White House readout.”

The White House has issued a fresh statement Monday stressing that the United States “does not support” the ongoing ICC investigation into Israeli war crimes.

The ICC’s investigation actually goes all the way back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. But also following Oct.7 and Israel’s invasion of Gaza, South Africa brought a fresh war crimes case – which has gained the support of countries like Turkey, but especially a number of countries of the Global South.

The Hague-based court in March 2023 issued an arrested warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war, so this means that ironically Netanyahu could soon be a “wanted” man right alongside Putin.

On Friday Netanyahu defiantly said, “We will never stop defending ourselves. Whereas decisions of the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they would be a dangerous precedent threatening the soldiers and officials of any democracy fighting criminal terrorism and aggression,” in a message on X.

Israel is now warning that an ICC warrant could blow up a hostage deal being mediated by Egypt and Qatar:

If the International Criminal Court does issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, continues the official, it will lead to “a wave of antisemitism around the world” that could blow up a potential hostage deal. This is not an Israeli threat to walk away from talks in the case of an ICC decision, explains the official, but reflects Israel’s belief that international pressure on Israel will remove pressure on Hamas to make compromises necessary for a deal.

Reacting to the US State Department report that found five IDF units guilty of “gross human rights violations,” the official says that Jerusalem “categorically rejects any attempts to harm the IDF and Israel’s right to defend itself.”

In January, the ICC issued an interim ruling which stated that South Africa’s case has legal merit and can proceed while ordering Israel to take all measures capable to prevent acts of Genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 

Ultimately the ICC has no enforcement power on its own, but can call on member states to arrest leaders on its blacklist if they ever travel through their territories. Putin back in August canceled an in-person trip to South Africa for a BRICS summit precisely to avoid a potential embarrassing situation at a moment Pretoria was being pressured to act.