How The West Rebranded Al-Qaeda's Jolani

Authored by Alan Macleod via ConsortiumNews.com,

Corporate media is heralding the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the emergence of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as the new leader of Syria, despite his deep ties to both Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

“How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state,” runs the headline from an article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph that suggests that Jolani will construct a new Syria, respectful of minority rights. The same newspaper also labeled him a “moderate Jihadist.” The Washington Post described him as a pragmatic and charismatic leader, while CNN portrayed him as a “blazer-wearing revolutionary.”

Meanwhile, an in-depth portrait from Rolling Stone describes him as a “ruthlessly pragmatic, astute politician who has renounced ‘global jihad’” and intends to “unite Syria.” His “strategic acumen is apparent,” writes Rolling Stone, between paragraphs praising Jolani for leading a successful movement against a dictator.

CNN even scored an exclusive, sit-down interview with Jolani, even as his movement was storming Damascus. When asked by host Jomana Karadsheh about his past actions, he responded by saying, “I believe that everyone in life goes through phases and experiences … As you grow, you learn, and you continue to learn until the very last day of your life,” as if he were discussing embarrassing teenage mistakes, not establishing and leading the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.

This is a far cry from the first time CNN covered Jolani. In 2013, the network labeled him one of “the world’s 10 most dangerous terrorists,” known for abducting, torturing and slaughtering racial and religious minorities.

Still on the U.S. terrorist list today, the F.B.I. is offering a $10 million reward for information about his whereabouts. Washington and other Western governments consider Jolani’s new organization, Hay?at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as one and the same as Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra.

This poses a serious public relations dilemma for Western nations, who supported the HTS-led overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. And thus, Politico and others report there is a “huge scramble” in Washington to remove HTS and Jolani from the terrorist list as quickly as possible.

The Making of a Radical

Jolani has sought to distance himself from his past and present himself as a moderating force that can attempt to unite an intensely divided Syria. While he has, in recent years, displayed a willingness to compromise with other forces and factions, it is far from clear whether the tens of thousands of soldiers he commands — units made up primarily of former fighters from al-Qaeda/al-Nusra and ISIS — will be in a charitable mood once they cement their power.

“Syria is being purified,” he told a crowd in Damascus on Dec. 8. “This victory is born from the people who have languished in prison, and the fighters broke their chains,” he added.

Jolani — whose real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a — was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia to parents who fled the Golan Heights area of Syria after the 1967 Israeli invasion. In 2003, he went to Iraq to fight against American forces. After three years of war, he was captured by the U.S. military and spent over five years in prison, including a stint at the notorious Abu Ghraib torture center.

Mugshot of al-Julani in 2006, after his capture by U.S. forces in Iraq. (DoD, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

While in Iraq, Jolani fought with ISIS and was even a deputy to its founder. Immediately upon release in 2011, ISIS sent him to Syria with a rumored $1 billion to found the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda and participate in the armed protest movement against Assad that arose out of the Arab Spring.

Realizing the extremely poor reputation al-Qaeda had in the region and across the world, Jolani attempted to rebrand his forces, officially shuttering the al-Nusra Front in January 2017 and, on the same day, founding HTS. He claimed that HTS preaches a very different ideology and that it will respect Syrian diversity. Not everyone is convinced of this, least of all the British government, who immediately proscribed HTS, describing it as merely an alias of Al-Qaeda.

“Al-Qaeda/ISIS man didn’t ‘reinvent himself.’ He had the whole propaganda and intelligence apparatus of the ‘West,’ including the BBC, doing it for him,” remarked co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah.

New Government Likes Israel, Hates Hezbollah

The name “al-Jolani” translates to “From the Golan Heights.” And yet, the leader appears distinctly unconcerned with the Israeli invasion of his homeland. The IDF has taken much of southern Syria, including the strategic Mount Hermon, overlooking Damascus. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that this is part of a permanent operation. “The Golan Heights…will forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” he proclaimed.

Jolani has already said that he has no intention of confronting Israel. “Syria is not ready for war and does not intend to go into another war. The source of concern was the Iranian militias, and Hezbollah, and the danger has passed,” he said — a strange thing to say while Israel is carrying out the largest Air Force operation in its history, pounding military targets all over Syria. Other HTS spokespersons have also categorically refused to comment on Israel’s attack on the country, even when pressed by incredulous Western journalists.

Jolani’s comments, singling out two Shia forces rather than Israel as enemies of the state, will have many concerned that this could signal a return to the process of Shia slaughter ISIS waged over much of Syria and Iraq. In 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 383-0 to classify this process as a genocide.

Fortunately, the new government will likely be a coalition of disparate and moderating forces. However, these groups seem to share a common thread: they all appear to be pro-Israel. A commander of the secular Free Syrian Army, for example, recently gave an interview to The Times of Israel, where he looked forward to a new era of “friendship” and “harmony” with its neighbor to the south. “We will go for full peace with Israel… Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, we have never made any critical comments against Israel, unlike Hezbollah, who stated they aim to liberate Jerusalem and the Golan Heights,” he said.

The commander added that “Israel will plant a rose in the Syrian garden” and asked for the country’s financial support in forming a new government.

Israeli soldiers from the Shaldag Unit on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon earlier this month. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Other anti-Assad forces have gone even further, with one individual stating that Israel

“Isn’t hostile to those who are not hostile toward it. We don’t hate you, we love you very much…we were quite happy when you attacked Hezbollah, really happy, and we’re glad that you won.”

Statements like these might surprise a casual observer. But the reality is that Israel has been funding, training and arming much of the Syrian opposition since its inception. This includes Al-Qaeda, whose wounded fighters are treated by Israel.

And while radical Islamist forces appeared to be enemies with everyone, the one group they fastidiously avoided any confrontation with was Israel. Indeed, in 2016, ISIS fighters accidentally fired upon an Israeli position in the Golan Heights, thinking they were Syrian government forces, then quickly issued an apology for doing so.

From the Golan Heights, the year-long Israeli campaign against Hezbollah and Syrian Army positions also seriously weakened both forces, aiding the opposition in their victory.

Al-Qaeda & US — Complicated Relationship

While both journalists and politicians in the U.S. are scrambling to change their opinions on Jolani and HTS, the reality is that, for much of its existence, Washington has enjoyed a very close relationship with al-Qaeda.

Mujahideen in Kunar, Afghanistan, Jan. 1, 1987. (erwinlux, Flickr, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The organization was born in Afghanistan in the 1980s, thanks in no small part to the C.I.A. Between 1979 and 1992, the C.I.A. spent billions of dollars funding, arming, and training Afghan Mujahideen militiamen (like Osama bin Laden) in an attempt to bleed the Soviet occupation dry. It was from the ranks of the Mujahideen that bin Laden built his organization.

During the 1990s, bin Laden’s relationship with the U.S. soured, and it eventually became a principal target for al-Qaeda, culminating in the infamous Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

The Bush administration would use these attacks as a pretext to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, claiming that America could never be safe if al-Qaeda were not thoroughly destroyed. Bin Laden became perhaps the most notorious individual in the world, and American society was turned upside down in a self-described effort to rout Islamic extremism.

And yet, by the 2010s, even as the U.S. was ostensibly at war with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was secretly working with it in Syria on a plan to overthrow Assad. The C.I.A. spent around $1 billion per year training and arming a wide network of rebel groups to this end. As Jake Sullivan, now the U.S. national security adviser, told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked 2012 email, “AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

Jake Sullivan, second from left, as deputy chief of staff to the secretary of state, with his boss Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, November 2012. (White House, Pete Souza)

Thus, while many casual observers may be shocked to see the media and political class embrace the leader of al-Qaeda in Syria as a modern, progressive champion, the reality is that the U.S. relationship with the group is merely reverting to a position it has previously held. Consequently, it appears that the War on Terror will come to an end with the “terrorists” being redesignated as “moderate rebels” and “freedom fighters.”

Who Gets to Define ‘Terrorist?’

Of course, many have argued that the U.S. Terrorist List is entirely arbitrary to begin with and is merely a barometer of who is in Washington’s good books at any given time. In 2020, the Trump administration removed Sudan from its state sponsors of terror list in exchange for the country normalizing relations with Israel, proving how transactional the list was.

A few months later, it removed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (a Uyghur militia currently active in Syria) from its list because of its hardening attitude towards China, seeing ETIM as a useful pawn to play against Beijing.

Washington also continues to keep Cuba on its terror list despite there being no evidence of the island supporting terror groups.

And the U.S. refused to remove Nelson Mandela from its list of the world’s most notorious terrorists until 2008 — 14 years after he became President of South Africa. In comparison, Jolani’s redesignation might take fewer than 14 days.

A giant rebranding operation is taking place. Both corporate media and the U.S. government have attempted to transform the founder and head of an al-Qaeda affiliate organization into a woke, progressive actor. It remains to be seen how exactly Jolani will govern and whether he can maintain support from a wide range of Syrian groups. Given what we have seen so far, however, he can be confident of enjoying strong support from the Western press.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 20:55

The Danger Of White Knight Pardons: Biden Could Fundamentally Change Presidential Power

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the New York Post on the news reports that President Joe Biden is seriously considering preemptive pardons for political allies. In granting what I have called “White Knight pardons,” Biden would achieve more of a political than legal purpose. Democrats are worried about the collapsing narrative that President-elect Donald Trump will destroy democracy,  end future elections, and conduct sweeping arrests of everyone from journalists to homosexuals. That narrative, of course, ignores that we have a constitutional system of overlapping protections that has blocked such abuses for over two centuries. Ironically, preemptive pardons would do precisely what Biden suggests that he is deterring: create a dangerous immunity for presidents and their allies in committing criminal abuses.

Here is the column:

There are growing indications that President Joe Biden is about to fundamentally change the use of presidential pardons by granting “prospective” or “preemptive” pardons to political allies.

Despite repeated denials of President-elect Donald Trump that he is seeking retaliation against opponents and his statements that he wants “success [to be] my revenge,” Democratic politicians and pundits have called for up to thousands of such pardons.

While there is little threat of any viable prosecution of figures like the members of the January 6th Committee, the use of “White Knight pardons” offers obvious political benefits. After many liberals predicted the imminent collapse of democracy and that opponents would be rounded up in mass by the Trump Administration, they are now contemplating the nightmare that democracy might survive and that there will be no mass arrests.

The next best thing to a convenient collapse of democracy is a claim that Biden’s series of preemptive pardons averted it. It is enough to preserve the narrative in the face of a stable constitutional system . Indeed, Biden’s pardon list has replaced the usual Inauguration Ball lists as the “must-have” item this year. Pardon envy is sweeping over the Beltway as politicians and pundits push to be included on the list of presumptive Trump enemies.

The political stunt will come at a cost. Preemptive pardons could become the norm as presidents pardon whole categories of allies and even themselves to foreclose federal prosecutions. It can quickly become the norm in what I recently wrote about as our “age of rage.”

It will give presidents cover to wipe away any threat of prosecution for friends, donors, and associates. This can include self-pardons issued as implied condemnations of their political opponents. It could easily become the final act of every president to pardon himself and all of the members of his Administration. We would then have an effective immunity rule for outgoing parties in American politics.

Ironically, there is even less need for such preemptive pardons after the Supreme Court recognized that presidents are immune for many decisions made during their presidencies. Likewise, members have robust constitutional protections for their work under Article I, as do journalists and pundits under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

We have gone over two centuries without such blanket immunity. In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss our periods of violent political strife and widespread arrests. Thomas Jefferson referred to John Adams’s Federalist government as “the reign of the witches.” Yet, even presidents in those poisonous times did not do what Joe Biden is now contemplating.

Moreover, presidential pardons have a checkered history, including presidents pardoning family members or political donors. Bill Clinton did both. Not surprisingly, Clinton last week attempted to add his own wife’s name to the sought-after Biden pardon list. He added, however, “I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power…It’s a very personal thing.”

That is precisely the point. The power was not created to be used for “very personal things,” like pardoning your half-brother and a fugitive Democratic donor on your last day in office.

Yet, despite that history, no president has seen fit to go as far as where Biden appears to be heading.

We have a constitutional system that allows for overlapping protections of individuals from abusive prosecutions and convictions. It does not always work as fast as we would want, but it has sustained the oldest and most stable constitutional system in history.

These figures would prefer to fundamentally change the use of the pardon power to maintain an apocalyptic narrative that was clearly rejected by the public in this election. If you cannot prove the existence of the widely touted Trump enemies list, a Biden pardon list is the next best thing.

After years of lying to the American people about the influence-peddling scandal and promising not to consider a pardon for his son, Biden would end his legacy with the ultimate dishonesty: converting pardons into virtual party favors.

In doing so, he has ironically lowered the standard and expectations for his successors. Joe Biden has become the president that Richard Nixon only imagined. He would establish with utter clarity that this power is not presidential, but personal and political . . . and many in the Beltway are waiting to give him a standing ovation.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 20:05

Russia Says Ukraine Allies Are 'Accomplices' In Moscow Assassination Of A Top General

Update(1405): Russia has blasted the West for staying quiet after Ukraine openly boasted of assassinating a top Russian general earlier in the day, identified as Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was killed when a scooter bomb detonated remotely upon his leaving his apartment in the early morning hours:

Russia on Tuesday criticised Ukraine's allies over what it called insufficient reactions to the assassination in Moscow of the Russian army's chemical weapons chief, an attack claimed by Kyiv.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the West in a Telegram post of "approval for war crimes by fighters of the Kyiv regime" and said "all those who welcome terrorist attacks or deliberately hush them up are accomplices".

This also brings up questions of past reports exposing a CIA program to train and assist Ukraine's special forces and intelligence in sabotage and cross-border targeting...

Last year, The Washington Post had a whole big report about how Ukraine’s intelligence services were capable of carrying out assassinations inside Russia thanks to support they received from the CIA since 2014 https://t.co/XSXEaDqUfK pic.twitter.com/dNwBkVQYVR

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) December 17, 2024

American media consumers might have a short memory span, but the Russians sure don't. The Kremlin is now calling Ukraine's NATO backers 'accomplices' in a clear escalation of rhetoric.

President Putin had just this week warned that the West is going 'beyond' Russia's red line in its support to Ukraine, and said things are escalating at a dangerous pace. As for this latest 'scooter bomb' assassination, the Kremlin is likely to immediately suspect that CIA and Western intelligence services may have assisted.

The bomb which was detonated remotely had a large blast radius (see video below) and was clearly a very sophisticated device, given the smallness of what was a literal children's scooter apparently used in the plot.

* * *

In another scary escalation which will lead to unpredictable consequences, a top military general and head of the Russian military's chemical weapons forces was killed in Moscow in a targeted blast which Ukraine quickly owned up to. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov has been confirmed killed in an assassination bombing, and is the most senior Russian official killed since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022.

According to emerging details confirmed in state TASS news agency, citing Russia's emergency services, a bomb was hidden in an electric scooter parked outside Gen. Kirillov's apartment. As he and his assistant walked by, the explosive was remotely detonated. The assistant was also immediately killed. Footage showed a large blast outside the residential building.

Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, via TASS.

The 54-year old oversaw Russia's radiation, chemical and biological protection troops - and Kiev and Western sources have accused him of ordering deployment of chemical weapons in the conflict.

An official Kremlin statement reads: "On the morning of December 17, an explosive device planted in a scooter went off near a residential building entrance on Ryazansky Avenue in Moscow, the investigation showed. Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his aide were killed in the explosion."

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is openly boasting to being behind the killing and Ukrainian sources have acknowledged this to American media.

"Kirillov was a war criminal and an entirely legitimate target, as he issued orders to use prohibited chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops," an SBU source told ABC. "Such an inglorious end awaits all those who kill Ukrainians. Retribution for war crimes is inevitable."

"By order of Kirillov, more than 4,800 cases of the enemy's use of chemical munitions have been recorded since the beginning of the full-scale war," the SBU added, but only cited that grenades equipped with substances like CS and other riot control type irritants have been used.

Video of the bombing has also been released by the SBU. Clearly the hit was carefully planned an choreographed as the attack seems to have been filmed with a ground view from a nearby vehicle.

‼️ BREAKING: New video showing the moment General Kirillov and his assistant Polikarpov were blown up

The footage clearly shows that it was the scooter that exploded.

The explosion killed Igor Kirillov, head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the… pic.twitter.com/3i8P59uPW0

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) December 17, 2024

"The footage shows Gen. Kirillov and his aide exiting a building, with the infamous scooter standing nearby," an unnamed Ukrainian source has described. "The moment they enter the blast zone of the explosive device, the scooter is blown into the air, delivering a 'verdict' to the war criminal."

Moscow is vowing that Ukraine will pay dearly, with Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman and former president Dmitry Medvedev warning in a fresh statement in the aftermath of Kirillov's death, "Attempts to intimidate our nation, stop the Russian offensive or sow fear are doomed. Certain punishment awaits Banderite Nazis, including the top military and political leaders of a crumbling country."

Medvedev characterized the assassination it as done in desperation given that Kiev forces are steadily being beaten back on the Donbas. Indeed such cross-border acts have only gotten more brazen of late.

Russian Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense chief, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, was killed by an IED outside a residential building in Moscow, but who was he, and why was he a target for assassination? pic.twitter.com/EQp4vlchb3

— RT (@RT_com) December 17, 2024

Medvedev continued: "This terrorist attack demonstrates the agony of the Banderite regime, which is struggling to justify its shaky existence in the eyes of its Western patrons and prolong the deadly hostilities while delivering cowardly attacks on civilians in cities and towns."

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 19:55

Watch: Syrian 'Moderate Rebel' Removes ISIS Patch At Prompting Of American Journalist

Video footage has recently emerged taken by journalist James Longman advising 'rebels' in Syria that the ISIS logo on their uniforms will be misunderstood by Western audiences. Longman, who is ABC News' Chief International Correspondent, demonstrates a trend of American journalists going to war zones to essentially coach combatants on how to better present themselves to the outside world. Mainstream media has for many years pushed the myth of "moderate rebels" in Syria seeking to topple Assad, which they finally did this month.

One of the militants, who might be a member of the US-designated terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or possibly another hardline Islamist faction, attempts to claim to the US journalist that the emblem does not represent ISIS. Still, the man wearing the ISIS patch seems to take the hint and dutifully removes it for the camera. They swear to ABC's Longman that they are not Daesh (or ISIS), even while openly sporting its symbols.

Having examined the disturbing video, Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada - who speaks Arabic - has issued the following reaction: "I've seen this video circulating today, along with the claim that James Longman told the fighter to remove the ISIS patch. He does not do that in this video clip. But it's not much of a 'confrontation' either. And however Longman intended it, the fighters appear to interpret his comments as friendly advice on how to present themselves and in fact remove the patch. Understandable that this is reminding people of how Western media colluded in the rebranding of the Azov Battallion in Ukraine that they had been accurately describing as hardcore Nazis just months earlier." Watch:

9/ Confronting a rebel fighter when we notice an ISIS badge on his arm pic.twitter.com/UjzOk4lutI

— James Longman (@JamesAALongman) December 14, 2024

And below is a version of the video with English translation captions added:

Video footage shows journalist James Longman advising rebels in Damascus, Syria, about the ISIS logo on their uniforms.

One of the rebels attempts to explain that the emblem does not represent ISIS, while the man wearing it is seen quickly removing the symbol. pic.twitter.com/qhZpkJiozJ

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) December 16, 2024

Meanwhile, for a trip down memory lane in another raging conflict zone, a highly revealing and deeply ironic June 2023 NY Times story...

Nazi Symbols on Ukraine's Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 19:40

New Study Illustrates Coffee's Unique Influence On Your Gut

Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Coffee drinkers consistently harbor up to eight times more of a specific gut bacterium than nondrinkers, according to recent research.

Photo Smoothies/Shutterstock

The international study, which tracked the drinking habits of nearly 77,200 people across 25 countries, found that coffee consumption leaves a distinct microbial signature. Researchers can identify coffee drinkers with 95 percent accuracy by examining their gut bacteria alone.

How Your Brew Affects Gut Microbiome

A 2021 study established that coffee had the strongest correlation with microbiome composition among over 150 studied foods, notably affecting levels of Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus in approximately 1,000 people.

The latest study by researchers from the CIBIO Department at the University of Trento in Italy and Harvard University, published in Nature Microbiology in November, aimed to deepen understanding of how coffee affects gut health.

To achieve this, researchers analyzed diet and medical data from nearly 23,000 people in the United States and UK, along with publicly available data from almost 54,200 people worldwide. They compared stool samples from coffee drinkers and nondrinkers to identify differences in their gut bacteria composition.

The study found a strong association between coffee consumption and the levels of L. ​asaccharolyticus, with coffee drinkers exhibiting about five to eight times higher levels of this bacterium than nondrinkers.​

This trend was globally consistent, revealing that in coffee-consuming regions such as Luxembourg, Denmark, and Sweden, L. asaccharolyticus is prevalent. Contrastingly, it is nearly absent in countries like China, Argentina, and India.

The findings offer insights into how individual foods interact with our microbiomes and their potential effects on health.

The research team demonstrated that individual microbiome profiles could predict coffee consumption with 95 percent accuracy. A lab experiment confirmed that its growth rate increases when L. asaccharolyticus is grown in an in vitro environment with coffee. Further observations indicated that people who drank a lot of coffee exhibited a greater abundance of this bacterium.

Despite these findings, the role of L. asaccharolyticus in human health remains uncertain. Its presence in the gut microbiome correlates with increased levels of hippurate, a marker of metabolic and gut health produced by gut microbes that metabolize plant compounds called polyphenols found in coffee.

“We do not have conclusive evidence regarding Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus as a beneficial or detrimental bacterium,” Nicola Segata, professor of genetics and head of the Computational Metagenomics Laboratory at CIBIO, told The Epoch Times. He noted that the research team is conducting specific additional experiments to better address this question.

Future of Microbiome Testing

The research team aims to expand their inquiry into the effects of other foods on gut microbiota, although they recognize the challenges of accurately quantifying food intake.

These findings suggest a potential for using individual foods to increase the abundance or prevalence of specific gut microbes that are supposed to have beneficial effects, according to Segata. “To achieve this, we need to expand this work to many other foods and other microbes, and this is exactly what we are also working on right now,” he said.

The researchers envision a future where microbiome testing can enable personalized dietary recommendations tailored to the presence of specific bacteria associated with certain foods. This approach has the potential to help people optimize their diets for better health by considering the intricate relationships between our food intake and microbiome composition.

“When looking at a food like coffee that is easy to collect information for, and that it is consumed either very frequently or never, then these links are popping out as very strong and very clear,” Segata said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 19:15

World's Smallest Violin Plays As "Depressed" Biden Bureaucrats Can't Find New Jobs

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

This is a corker.

Politico is reporting that Biden Administration bureaucrats are depressed because they can’t find new jobs, and members of Biden’s “national security team” are “frantically” scrambling to find new careers before Trump dismantles the deep state.

“Our side is just battling depression while we update our resumes,” one White House official stated, while another staffer declared that “Everyone is willing to take a demotion because there aren’t enough jobs.”

Boo hoo. Cry harder.

While the higher ups are all abandoning ship for Defence contractors, think tanks and consulting firms, the lower level dogsbody bureaucrats are whinging that they face taking “unglamorous jobs” with pay cuts.

“There’s a lot of good career people here who went through the first Trump administration and are saying, ‘Can I really go through that again?’” said one Biden appointee at the State Department.

Oh my God, the hardship of having someone you don’t agree with running things.

“It’s going to be very saturated and crowded and so beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” said another Biden State Department appointee, adding “The crazy thing is none of these jobs we’re desperate to get are particularly glamorous, unless you want to go lobby for some autocratic foreign governments.”

The world’s tiniest violin is playing for them.

Politico notes that “Wherever they land, a wave of Democratic national security and foreign policy staffers will continue the tradition of patiently treading water for four years until, just maybe, a Democrat can win the presidency again in 2028.”

Yeah. Maybe learn to tread water a lot longer.

Or perhaps learn to code.

They could emigrate to the countries they funded and got a piece of the cut.
Go live the good life in Ukraine, Hamas territory, Lebanon, Iran, maybe in Syria too...
And there is more...you know where that is.

— Thoughtful Simplicity (@Thoughtful1948) December 17, 2024

Welcome to the real world, losers.

I've been struggling to find jobs my whole life. Given their set of circumstances (if that doesn't include criminality) they will be fine.

— Amy Thomas (@AmyThomas376828) December 16, 2024

Get to the back of the line.

And this is concerning to the average American who has been funding many Gov’t workers sucking off of our teets while we struggle to pay our bills. We’re depressed too!

— Melissa Merrill (@M2andCo) December 16, 2024

Trump is going to provide a lot of opportunities for you.

I have heard that things will be opening up in construction and lawn care ....

— plasmatorch (@plasmatorchmex) December 17, 2024

Maybe just don’t mention your last job on your resumé.

No one wants to employ crazy people who fight to destroy the country from within.

— Bubbly Bubba (@BubblyBubba28) December 17, 2024

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 18:25

Trump Team Begins Back-Channel Talks With Mexico, El Salvador On Deportation Plans

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has begun reaching out through back channels to the governments of Mexico and El Salvador to prepare for his mass deportation plan, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. The conversations, which involve Trump advisers and informal intermediaries, are part of an effort to lay the groundwork for returning millions of undocumented immigrants as soon as Trump takes office.

While Trump has addressed migration broadly with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, his team has held more detailed discussions through intermediaries, including businesspeople, to ensure deportation plans can proceed swiftly, the people said on condition of anonymity.

"We’re already talking," said Tom Homan, Trump’s designated "border czar," during a November visit to Texas alongside Governor Greg Abbott. "We’re already planning. We’re going to put a plan in place and secure this nation at the highest levels ever seen."

The Challenge of Deportations

Trump’s deportation push—aiming to target millions of undocumented immigrants, including over 1 million with final orders of removal—relies heavily on the cooperation of other countries. While Mexico and El Salvador have longstanding repatriation processes, Trump’s advisers acknowledge that reaching agreements with other governments, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and China, will be far more challenging.

“Unless they can strike a deal with the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua on deportations, it seems likely they will look for alternate destinations,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. “That’s a really hard ask. If the Trump administration arrives just with a stick and no carrot, it’s going to be a tough negotiation.”

Trump addressed this difficulty Monday when asked about countries like Venezuela resisting deportation flights.

“They’ll take them back,” Trump said. “They’re all taking them back, yeah. And if they don’t, they’ll be met very harshly economically.”

Trump advisers involved in the outreach include incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, according to sources. Homan, while focused on domestic enforcement, has supported these efforts to build deportation infrastructure ahead of Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

Negotiations after Trump takes office are expected to be led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, and Christopher Landau, Trump’s former ambassador to Mexico who has been tapped as Rubio’s deputy.

The conversations with Mexico have included preparations for deporting Mexican nationals, but the Mexican government has been clear it won’t accept deportees from other countries. “Mexico’s Sheinbaum has said the nation is ready to welcome back its own citizens,” said a senior Mexican official, “but it won’t accept those from other countries.”

El Salvador presents a different dynamic. Trump’s family maintains a close relationship with President Nayib Bukele, whose administration has remained friendly with Trump allies. Donald Trump Jr. attended Bukele’s second inauguration in June, and Trump’s ambassador nominee for Mexico, Ronald Johnson, has kept in close contact with Bukele since serving as U.S. ambassador to El Salvador.

Focus on Immediate Enforcement

Trump’s deportation strategy will begin with targeting individuals already facing deportation orders. “The priority will be those with no legal basis to stay,” said a person familiar with the plans, pointing to undocumented immigrants who have either committed crimes or exhausted their appeals and asylum processes.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not responded to requests for updated figures, but Migration Policy Institute data shows that Mexico has received more than 1.7 million deportees over the past decade—more than the next nine countries combined.

Homan and Trump’s advisers argue that aggressive early action will set the tone for enforcement. “The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s transition spokeswoman, said in a statement. “When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that.”

While Trump’s relationships with Mexico and El Salvador remain relatively stable, cooperation from other nations remains uncertain. Trump’s transition team recognizes that countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, which are often the origin points for migrants, have fraught diplomatic relations with the U.S. These nations rarely accept deportation flights, posing a major obstacle to Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 18:00

US Conducts New Strikes In Syria & Yemen, Still With No Congressional Authorization

Congress has not authorized war, and yet the United States on Monday bombed two countries: Yemen and Syria. US Central Command (CENTCOM) earlier confirmed an airstrike on a military facility of the Houthis in northern Yemen.

A Houthi defense ministry building in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa was reportedly among those targets which came under attack by US warplanes. "On Dec. 16 Yemen time, US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted a precision airstrike against a key command and control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis within Houthi-controlled territory in Sana’a, Yemen," CENTCOM said in a fresh statement.

Via Reuters

Separately, CENTCOM said Monday that American forces bombed ISIS camps in Syria, killing at least 12 Islamic State fighters. 

The Pentagon said further that the strikes "were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, preventing the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek opportunities to reconstitute in central Syria."

So now it appears the Pentagon is in a renewed fight against both the 'Iran axis' in Yemen and hardline Sunni terrorists in the heart of Syria. 

Interestingly the Syria strikes were in areas previously understood as the Russian military's area of responsibility, as well as the now defunct Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. 

The US designated terror organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in its prior iteration was as an al-Qaeda offshoot, was once an open ally of ISIS, and is now in control of Damascus and major Syrian cities. 

Turkey and Israel have also been involved in bombing Syria, but Israel has focused its literally hundreds of strikes on degrading and destroying leftover Syrian Army missiles, planes, equipment, and bunkers.

At this moment, the Pentagon also has at least 900 troops occupying the northeast Syrian oil and gas fields, but the Syrian Kurds it supports have increasingly been clashing with Turkish-aligned forces, and directly with the Turkish army, which is still mustering forces along the northern Syrian border. 

Nobody should be surprised since Biden said back in January that the airstrikes weren't "working" but would continue anywaypic.twitter.com/2e5LUcBW1U https://t.co/DRMd4bcCvU

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) December 17, 2024

AntiWar.com's Dave DeCamp approached Biden administration officials to ask about the pesky question of Congressional authorization to bomb foreign militants in no less than two conflict theatres. 

The response was as follows: "Biden and Harris told me the US wasn't at war but today they bombed Syria and Yemen," DeCamp wrote on X.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 17:40

2025's Best (And Worst) US States For Sound Money

Authored by Jp Cortez via The Mises Institute,

The newly-released 2025 Sound Money Index has identified Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alaska as the states with the most favorable policies toward constitutional sound money, while Vermont, Maine, and California take the most hostile stances.

Released annually by the Sound Money Defense League and Money Metals Exchange, the Sound Money Index is a comprehensive scorecard evaluating how each US state promotes or impedes sound money policies. Ranked policies include sales, income, and gross revenue taxes connected with precious metals, state affirmation of gold and silver as money, strengthening protections of gold and silver clause contracts, and state precious metals depositories.

Additional criteria include issuing or investing in gold bonds, inclusion of physical gold or silver in state pension or reserve funds, state mechanisms to accept and remit taxes and other payments in gold and silver, and crippling regulatory burdens imposed on precious metals dealers and investors.

The 2025 Index saw several states improve their rankings dramatically after having enacted pro-sound money tax legislation in 2024. Nebraska’s elimination of capital gains taxes on precious metals propelled it from 22nd to 8th place, while Alabama leapt almost twenty spots from 28th to 9th place. Both of these states had already eliminated their state sales tax on purchases of gold and silver coins, bars, and rounds, so removing income taxes on sales was the next logical step. 

Louisiana jumped from 17th to 12th place after Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill reaffirming gold and silver as legal tender in the state. Wisconsin and New Jersey also saw major improvements from their previous year’s ranking after repealing sales taxes on precious metals. Wisconsin climbed from 44th to 26th place, and New Jersey moved from 49th to 39th.

“Money Metals has spent a full decade promoting state-level sound money reforms, and I’m proud to say these bills tend to be among the most popular proposals considered in recent legislative seasons,” said Stefan Gleason, CEO of Money Metals.

“For example, today there are 45 states that have partially or fully exempted sales taxes on precious metals.”

Only five states - Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, New Mexico, and Hawaii - continue to tax precious metals purchases, despite the impact on individuals, businesses, and families seeking a vehicle through which to preserve the purchasing power of their savings. However, not all precious metals sales tax exemptions are created equal.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed a full exemption on purchases of gold and silver from the state sales tax without any restrictions. The measure did not include an exemption for platinum and palladium. 

The New Jersey bill ultimately signed by the governor does not exempt purchases of “investment coin,” defined as,

…any numismatic coin manufactured of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or any other metal, including non-precious metals, and having a fair market value of not less than $1,000. ‘Investment coin’ shall not include jewelry or works of art made of coins, nor shall it include commemorative medallions.

Inclusion of these two limited exemptions earned New Jersey only 13 points out of a possible 18 in the sales tax categories of the 2025 Sound Money Index, while Wisconsin’s partial exemption earned the state only 14 points.

Several other states also considered capital gains exemptions on precious metals this year, setting the stage for more sound money reforms in the coming years.

“The Sound Money Index continues to hold states accountable for policies that impact Americans’ ability to protect themselves from inflation and financial instability,” said Jp Cortez, Executive Director of the Sound Money Defense League. Cortez continued, "as the Federal Reserve note’s purchasing power continues to fall, Americans need more options to protect their savings. The Sound Money Index tracks the sound money movement, calling attention to states that still shackle gold and silver with regulation and taxes, and highlights the forward-thinking states that enable the metals to function as savings and money."

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 15:05

Trump Might Reverse 'Very Stupid' Long-Range Strikes On Russia

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

President-elect Donald Trump suggested at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday that he could reverse President Biden’s decision to support long-range missile strikes on Russian territory.

Trump said it was a "big mistake" for the Biden administration to greenlight the escalation without asking him what he thought. When asked if he might reverse the decision, the president-elect said, "I might, yeah. I thought it was a very stupid thing to do."

The comments mark the second time in recent days that Trump expressed his concern over the long-range strikes that Ukraine has launched using US ATACMS missiles and British Storm Shadow missiles.

In an interview with Time Magazine that was published last week, Trump said that he "vehemently" disagreed with Biden’s decision. The Kremlin noted Trump’s comments and said Russia agreed with the president-elect.

"The statement in itself is fully in harmony with our position. That is, our visions of reasons behind the escalation coincide. And, of course, we like that," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Biden signed off on long-range strikes in Russia despite Moscow making it clear the escalation would risk nuclear war. In response to the step, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally changed Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

At his press conference, Trump also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be ready to make a deal with Russia to end the war. "He should be prepared to make a deal. That’s all. Too many people being killed," he said.

BREAKING: Biden just authorized the use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.

In September, Putin said this decision would mean that "all NATO countries are officially at war with Russia."

The Dems want WWIII before Trump is sworn in. pic.twitter.com/bkGcL6C5tu

— Cillian (@CilComLFC) November 17, 2024

Trump campaigned on ending the proxy war but hasn’t articulated how he will do that. When asked if he would pressure Ukraine to cede territory, Trump wouldn’t give a direct answer.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 14:45

Some Honesty About Inflation

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Inflation numbers came out last week. For once, we got some honesty from the mainstream media.

“Growing inflation poses challenges for the Fed,” said the WSJ.

“Progress on inflation stalled, complicating Republicans’ plans,” said the NYT.

That’s a major change in the tune from “it’s just transitory.”

That was Janet Yellen, four years ago!

It was a grim number, an annualized increase of 2.7 percent, which is still far over the target rate.

Those of us who watch real-time numbers knew it was coming. We’ve seen a heating up for three months. Right now, those numbers are showing a 3 percent rate of annualized inflation.

It’s been a four-year trend now toward ever higher prices, resulting in a dramatic loss of purchasing power in terms of goods and services. In this time, the dollar has lost a minimum of 25 cents of value or as much as double and triple that depending on the purchase. The result has been a loss of real income, hitting the working class and poor the hardest.

At last we are getting some honesty, probably now that it is a problem that Trump will inherit. Plenty of people out there are happy about this and have hopes that the problem with vex him as it did Biden.

We did not hear this on the campaign trail but there is not much a president can do about inflation in the short term. The usual lag between cause and effect on inflation is 12 to 18 months.

Unplugging the money-printing machine is a fix down the line. But in the short term, it has a potentially deleterious effect on macroeconomic stability that can result in obvious recession. And right now, we see all the signs of a reacceleration taking place.

The money stock as measured by M2 bottomed out in October 2023 but has since increased by $1.9 trillion. That’s a dramatic turn that only adds fuel to the inflationary fire. It’s not just the deliberate policy to loosen up via interest rate cuts but also a change in velocity combined with more bank lending. None of it looks good for stabilizing the dollar in terms of domestic purchases.

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

The sticky price index has never shown much in the way of victory over the worst inflation in nearly half a century. Certainly there has never been a reason to relax, much less change posture from a restrictive policy to a more liberal one. It currently stands at 3.9 percent, which is nearly double the target rate. That’s an incredibly bad rate of inflation to start a new presidential term.

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

That the central bank is primarily responsible for inflation is not unknown. The trouble with putting an end to it—which would actually be very easy—is mainly a political one. Every president wants lower interest rates in order to drive national output. They don’t like a central bank policy that is restrained with higher rates. So they typically push for lower rates.

Lower rates create conditions for more credit expansion and that adds to the money stock and fuels inflationary pressure for which the president is held responsible. However, he is also held responsible for recessions. That creates a terrible dilemma for an incoming administration that had made two grand promises: to boost economic growth and end inflation.

Absent huge structural changes in regulation and spending, it is not likely both can happen at once.

When this dilemma confronted Ronald Reagan upon taking office in 1981, the answer was to endure a recession for 18-24 months to create the conditions for future economic growth. But it was a true war against the clock, with a huge scramble to boost growth while stopping inflation. They didn’t quite make it in time and lost substantially in the midterm elections of 1982. The recovery finally arrived in time for Reagan to win a second term.

In those days, officials were much more honest with the public. It was frankly admitted that a recession was a necessary condition for renewed growth. But it has been 40 years since anyone in a position of official influence has said anything remotely like that.

We have an added problem now that full recovery from the economic calamity of 2020 has never really happened. Job openings soared after reopening but those days are over, and we’ve been on a two-year slide. Moreover, the Philadelphia Fed is dropping some truth about jobs numbers from earlier this year. To summarize: they were fake.

Looking back at output numbers with a realistic estimate of inflation reduces GDP growth in real terms to recessionary levels, though it has not been widely admitted.

Where does that put the incoming Trump administration in relation to Fed policy? It’s a genuine dilemma. Despite all the pretenses from the top that the Fed is using informed science and access to granulated data to guide its decision-making, the reality is that Fed chairman Jerome Powell has no idea what to do now. He can continue the rate-cutting and reignite inflation or freeze rates now and risk the ire of the incoming administration.

Regional presidents of Federal Reserve banks around the country are divided on what should happen. It’s a balancing act because the labor market is weak and getting worse even as inflation is worsening too. Typically, the old models on which they used to rely posited that labor markets operate in an inverse relationship with price pressure. That pattern is not part of the present reality.

One possibility is that dramatic spending cuts of the federal budget could dampen inflationary pressure. That is because a reduced rate of debt creation takes pressure off the Federal Reserve to enter the bond market to support dollar-denominated debt. Part of the job of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is not an official agency, is to create public support for dramatic spending cuts.

Maybe that works but will it be enough? Cutting $2 trillion out of the federal budget might sound easy but nothing like this has happened in a century of government policy. Is the public sufficiently alarmed about a fiscal crisis that it can endure extreme cuts in public services?

There is no way that cuts on that level will not be felt. The Washington bureaucracies backed by the press will scream about impending disaster, starving widows and orphans, slowed down passports, cuts in staff at monuments and federal parks, and all the other usual tropes. DOGE will need to be prepared to call out all the propaganda as nothing but flimflam designed to preserve the status quo.

What we really need is a return to honesty in economics, along with an admission that we cannot defeat the inflation we despise without a period of pain. I’m aware that no one likes to speak this way and that the political culture is hyper-intolerant toward long-term solutions. The expectations for the incoming Trump administration is that it will deploy some magic cure to lower real incomes, deep indebtedness, and a failing job market. Nothing like that exists.

Economics is about wealth creation but it is also about accounting. Optimism and political exuberance are wonderful but they cannot substitute for hard choices. And that includes some measure of pain before we can get on track toward renewed economic growth. That is a lesson that the incoming Trump administration can learn from Reagan’s experience in 1981.

*  *  *

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 14:25

"Final Big Market Cap Event Of Year": All Eyes On Novo's CagriSema GLP-1 Results

The next big market cap event for Novo Nordisk is the top-line efficacy results for its experimental obesity drug, CagriSema, with data from a late-stage trial expected by the end of the year. 

Novo previously stated that CagriSema could potentially lead to 25% weight loss, compared with Wegovy's 15% weight loss.

In early November, Martin Holst Lange, Novo Nordisk's head of development, told Reuters that data from its Phase 3 trial of CagriSema is expected to reflect higher weight loss: "There has been no change in our confidence level." 

Goldman's Jack McFerran told clients Tuesday about the incoming data from Novo and told them to expect big moves in stock price.

McFerran cited Goldman's James Quigley, who is the "most bullish on the street, 27-28% weight loss." 

More from McFerran:

James Quigley is the most bullish on the street, 27-28% weight loss. The key chart to understand his view is ex9: it shows the Phase 1, the red solid line with red dots, the important analysis is that this study was not optimised for (1) male / female (2) BMIs and (3) life style modifications. The impact was more men, lower BMI starting points. He expects P3 to have higher BMi starting, more women, more follow ups. This is important when contextualised with Ex9.

The bottom dotted line.. extrapolates Ph1 using the solid orange line ie for the rest of the trial same as placebo.. conservative and the line above is how do we get from Ph1 to mgts 25% guide.. i.e. this would have to be one of the worst Ph3s. Street are at 25% (with mgt) we are 27-28%. 

The debate beyond the what digit this week debate, is will the consumer care about 25%, 26%, 28%, i.e. is this differentiated enough vs what is already in the mkt, to be super product. 

McFerran cited weight-loss outlooks and expected stock moves from Goldman's Seth James:

• Weight Loss: 23% and below – disaster, stock down 10-15%.

• Weight Loss: 24%down 5-10% but will get bought.

• Weight Loss: 25% - relief – stock up 5-10%

• Weight Loss: 26% - Up 10%

• Weight Loss: 27% - Up 15%

• Weight Loss: 28% - Up 20%

More from McFerran: 

The press release will likely be this week and only disclose the headline weight loss numbers for CagriSema and maybe Cagrilinitide monotherapy and make qualitative comments on the tolerability profile. Weight loss and tolerability for CagriSema arm is the only thing we will care about, on weight loss.

From Redditors...

Goldman recommends Novo as a "Buy" based on the expectation of "positive Phase 3 data for CagriSema as an important mechanism to attenuate the impact of the semaglutide EU/US patent expiries in 2031/32."

The analysts have a $148 12 month price target, which is about a 36% premium to the upside as of early Tuesday cash. 

Meanwhile, Jefferies analysts recently noted that consensus sales surrounding CagriSema are "overly optimistic" and don't factor in any potential revenue slide for Ozempic and Wegovy.

All eye on CagriSema's results ahead of the holidays. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 13:40

GOP Report: Liz Cheney Should Be Investigated By FBI Over Jan. 6 Investigation

Authored by Casey Harper via The Center Square,

A new Republican oversight report accuses former Congresswoman Liz Cheney of colluding with witnesses in the Jan. 6 Select Committee investigation that she oversaw.

The bombshell report released Tuesday said Cheney should be investigated by the FBI for possible criminal activity for her role in the first committee, which was led by Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the conflict at the Capitol after now President-elect Donald Trump left office in 2021.

The Committee on House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., released the report, his second major report on the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.

From the report:

Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge. This secret communication with a witness is improper and likely violates 18 U.S.C. 1512. Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation must also investigate Representative Cheney for violating 18 U.S.C. 1622, which prohibits any person from procuring another person to commit perjury. Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, Hutchinson committed perjury when she lied under oath to the Select Committee. Additionally, Hutchinson was interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation into President Trump. This Subcommittee sought a copy of the FBI report 302, documenting this interview and Hutchinson’s statements, but the FBI has refused to produce this vital document. The FBI must immediately review the testimony given by Hutchinson in this interview to determine if she also lied in her FBI interview, and, if so, the role former Representative Cheney played in instigating Hutchinson to radically change her testimony.

Cheney has yet to publicly responded to the report.

Trump recently suggested some committee members should face jail time. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told media outlets this week that President Joe Biden should issue preemptive pardons for those members, something he is reportedly considering.

In a statement first reported by The Hill responding to Trump's jail threat, Cheney focused on Trump's role in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, not her own defense.

The report raised a litany of concerns and questions about how the Jan. 6 investigation was carried out, how witnesses may have been pressured or influenced, and how records, files and other evidence was handled.

“Over the past twenty-four months of this investigation, my subcommittee staff have faced incredible obstacles in pursuit of the truth; missing and deleted documents, hidden evidence, unaccounted for video footage, and uncooperative bureaucrats,” the report said.

Loudermilk’s first report examined the security lapses at the Capitol.

After Loudermilk and his team examining thousands of hours of video and millions of pages of documents, interviewing dozens of witnesses and multiple hearings, the report found the Jan. 6 event was a result of security lapses and bad decision-making at several levels of government.

“This report reveals that there was not just one single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6; but it was a series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities,” the report said. “Even amid multiple failures, there were two common elements that significantly contributed to the security issues: an excessive amount of political influence on critical decisions, and a greater concern over the optics than for protecting life and property.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 12:40

Asking Rents Fall 0.7% To Lowest Level Since March 2022

By Mark Worley of Redfin

The median U.S. asking rent fell 0.7% year over year in November to $1,595, the lowest level since March 2022. Rents were down 1.1% on a month-over-month basis.

The median rent is now 6.2% lower than when it hit an all-time high of $1,700 in August 2022.

Highlighting improved rental affordability, November marked the 19th consecutive month where the median asking rent price per square foot (PPSF) fell year over year, down 2.2% to $1.79. That’s the first time the median PPSF has been below $1.80 since November 2021. 

While the rental market has remained essentially flat over the past two years, rents have started to tick down slightly in recent months, thanks in part to the record number of new apartments that have been completed this year. 

Nationally, apartment completions rose 22.6% year over year to the highest level in over 12 years in the second quarter. As a result, the vacancy rate for buildings with five or more units rose to 8% in the third quarter, the highest level since early 2021.

“Renters in areas where construction has boomed are in a sweet spot right now. Affordability is improving as rents fall and wages rise, and there is increased choice with more and more new apartment buildings opening,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. “As construction starts to slow, rents will eventually tick back up, but 2025 is shaping up as a renter’s market with potential for the affordability gap between buying and renting to widen.”

Rents for 0-1 bedroom apartments fall to three-year low

With a major boost in supply, November marked the fifth consecutive month that asking rents fell across all bedroom counts.

Median asking rents for 0-1 bedroom apartments fell 1.7% year over year to $1,450 a month, the lowest level since November 2021. Rents for 2 bedroom apartments fell 1.1% (to $1,671) and 3+ bedroom apartments fell 2.3% (to $1,955).

On a price per square foot basis, the decline was more apparent, with 0-1 bedroom apartments falling the most (-2.5%), followed by 3+ bedroom apartments (-2.4%) and 2 bedroom apartments (-1.2%).

Austin rents drop 12%, leading a number of Sun Belt metros seeing significant declines

As has been the case for most of 2024, of the 44 major metros Redfin analyzes, Sun Belt metros saw the most significant declines in median rents, led by Austin, TX (-12.4%), Tampa, FL (-11.3%), Raleigh, NC (-8.4%), Jacksonville, FL (-7.5%) and Nashville, TN (-7%). 

Major Metros With Highest Rent Decreases

Rents rose the most in Midwest and on the East Coast metros, where there has been less new construction compared to the Sun Belt. 

Cleveland posted the biggest increase (10.6%), followed by Louisville, KY (10.2%), Baltimore (9.4%), Washington D.C. (9.4%), and Providence, RI (9.3%).

Major Metros With Highest Rent Increases

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 12:25

Turley To Debate Karpf On ZeroHedge: Free Speech, Musk, And X

https://t.co/kikIXu9FdY

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 17, 2024

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in late 2022 caused a media shit storm with calls for imminent bankruptcy, the infamous ADL shakedown, and disinformation alarm bells in the beltway think tank community.

Duking it out two years after the acquisition will be George Washington Professors Jonathan Turley and David Karpf. Each will join moderator Gene Epstein, director of The SoHo Forum, for a 90-minute debate broadcast live to the ZeroHedge homepage.

On the docket will be free speech, censorship, disinformation, and the government’s proper role in all this. The resolution: Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was a net positive for society. 

Turley for the affirmative will be making the free speech absolutist’s case in favor of Musk’s management style. The professor has lauded Musk as “the most consequential figure in free speech of our generation”:

Jonathan Turley on Elon Musk's firm stance for free speech:

“Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is, without question, the most consequential figure in free speech of our generation. I think he has done more for free speech than any living person today.

In some ways, he actually… pic.twitter.com/Fz9OFa5yzl

— ELON FACTS (@ElonFactsX) December 5, 2024

A long-time 1A bull, Turley recently authored The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.

The Anti-Elon case:

Karpf — no longer on X — posted to “Substack Notes” that Musk had broken election law and committed “glaring violations” of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consent law. Karpf referred to him as a “ketamine-addled chump” and predicted in March of 2023 that X/Twitter would be bankrupt within 6 months.

“Musk offered to buy Twitter on a (drug-addled) lark… Zombie Twitter will stumble along at a financial loss until Elon can find a villain to hang its failure on. “

FTC head Lina Khan was accused by Rep. Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee of “blatant political harassment of Musk and Twitter” when Khan’s agency appeared to fast-track a probe into the billionaire and his new company immediately following his acquisition.

In this evening’s debate, Karpf will be arguing that Musk’s purchase and management style of Twitter has been a net negative for society.

Tune in live on the top of the ZeroHedge homepage and our X, YouTube, and Rumble accounts tonight at 7pm ET.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 12:05

"We're Almost There": Congress Scrambles To Pass Stopgap Funding Bill Before Friday

With less than four days to avoid a government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-LA), and congressional leaders are working to finalize a bipartisan short-term funding bill, though delays and mounting frustrations within the House Republican caucus are complicating the effort.

Johnson, who initially expected to release the text of the bill over the weekend, then on Monday, said Tuesday that it would be unveiled by the end of the day.

"We’re almost there," Johnson told reporters Tuesday following a press conference. “We do expect text today.”

The proposed legislation would keep the government funded through March 14 while addressing specific priorities, including disaster relief and $10 billion in assistance to farmers. Johnson emphasized that he intends to honor the House’s 72-hour rule, which requires time for lawmakers to review the bill before a vote. However, this would push the process close to the Friday midnight deadline for avoiding a shutdown.

Johnson said he remains focused on securing broad Republican support for the measure - which we're sure will contain more pork than a barbecue pit.

Senate Leaders Echo Urgency

In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), struck a cautiously optimistic tone but stressed the need to finalize the agreement quickly.

"There continues to be good progress, but appropriators are still working on finalizing an agreement," Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor. "Obviously, we’re getting closer to the December 20 deadline, so time is of the essence for Republicans to reach an agreement with us that we can act on quickly."

Both chambers of Congress are facing pressure to wrap up funding negotiations before they adjourn for the Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year holidays.

Frustration Grows Among House Conservatives

While negotiations continue, conservative House Republicans are growing increasingly critical of Johnson’s handling of the bill and its timeline.

"This is not the way to do things," Rep. Chip Roy, (R-TX), said in a post on X.

1) We (members of Congress) haven’t seen the text yet… 2) it’s not clear it’s intended effect would work - I’ve heard many in Pharma CHEERING they’ll make MORE money… 3) PBM’s are part of the problem, not the whole problem… 4) This is not the way to do things. https://t.co/TBSM3L225a

— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) December 15, 2024

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., delivered a scathing critique, calling the emerging legislation “a total dumpster fire” and expressing deep disappointment in Johnson’s leadership.

"I think it’s garbage," Burlison told reporters. "This is why I ran for Congress, to try to stop this. And sadly, this is happening again... I’m disappointed. I think that he can do better. He can communicate better. The fact that we haven’t seen the language today and we’re supposed to vote on it this week is unacceptable.”

When asked if the situation makes him hesitant to support Johnson in the upcoming January 3rd vote for House speaker, Burlison deflected, saying, "That I won’t say."

Johnson, however, brushed aside concerns about his leadership.

"I’m not worried about the speaker vote," Johnson told reporters. "We’re governing. Everybody knows we have difficult circumstances. We’re doing the very best we can under those circumstances."

Leadership Focused on Farmers, Disaster Relief

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, (R-LA), offered support for Johnson’s efforts, underscoring the bill’s priorities while projecting optimism about the path forward.

"We plan to pass a bill to get the government funded," Scalise said, "and ensure that we take care of disasters and our farmers here in America."

Looking ahead, Scalise emphasized the urgency of finishing the week’s work while expressing hopes for a smoother 2024.

"We have a lot to do the rest of this week, but we all look forward to getting back home to our families and enjoying a great Christmas as we get ready for what will be a very busy and productive New Year," Scalise said, standing alongside Johnson.

Stay tuned for updates...

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 11:45

Trump's Return To The World Stage Is Already Claiming Numerous Victims

By Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank

Trump’s return to the world stage – even though his official inauguration is on January 20 – is already claiming numerous victims. Arguably, even the fall of both the French and German government in recent months have been given some impetus by the political events in the US. But one of the clearest victims appears to be Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who resigned yesterday, citing differences with PM Trudeau’s Cabinet over how to prepare for a looming trade war with its big neighbour. Observers say her comments in her resignation letter on “eschewing political gimmicks” likely refer to the temporary tax cuts and pay-checks planned by the government to support consumption. She sees handing out money as fiscally imprudent. Given that she announced her decision just hours before she was due to speak in Parliament on the fiscal and economic outlook, markets reacted with a fall in the Canadian dollar (depreciating some 0.4% vis-à-vis the US dollar) and rising bond yields (some 7bp on the 10y note).

Meanwhile, data this morning showed that UK regular wages increased by 5.2% annually in the three months to October, up from 4.9% previously and surpassing the consensus forecast of 5%. Regular pay growth in the private sector, which is more sensitive to the business cycle and therefore tracked more closely by the Bank of England, even rose to 5.4% during that same period. This significant wage inflation underscores the Bank of England's dilemma, as economic growth is slowing, as indicated by Friday's production figures and yesterday’s PMI. Job growth remains weak as well. Vacancies have declined to pre-pandemic levels, while payroll employment stagnant. We remain cautious about the official employment and unemployment data, as even the ONS acknowledges that its current estimates are essentially random. Our base scenario is that the central bank will continue easing in quarterly steps. We expect rates to remain unchanged at Thursday's meeting and to decrease by 100 basis points over the course of 2025.

Turning back to Europe then, where - to no one’s surprise - German Chancellor Scholz lost yesterday’s confidence vote, putting the country on track for snap elections on February 23. The debate in the run-up to the vote was heated and was first and foremost about the dire state of the economy and the threats from the East (and arguably from the ‘West’ as well). Of course the debate was largely a show for parties to set out their key campaign themes. Scholz said “It’s high time to invest forcefully into our country. […] we must turn the switch and this means now.” Yet one may wonder whether Scholz’ call for more public spending and investment resonated with lawmakers and voters, given that his Cabinet largely failed to do exactly just that under his reign. Indeed, CDU’s Merz responded: “Were you on another planet?” Yet, here too (as well as in France) the core of the issue is whether fiscal policy can and should play a role to support sustainable growth and, if so, how?

As long as this debate is not settled, Europe is likely to remain a playball of the markets, as it has been of late; negative sentiment has driven an wedge between US and European equity prices and has driven Eurodollar near its lowest level since late 2022, when the currency union was still reeling from the energy shock. Indeed, European industry is in a difficult position. Energy-intensive and/or low-added value industries are either closing or moving location to other parts of the world. A renewed decline in the German manufacturing PMI to 42.5 and an eyewatering 41.6 (a fresh cyclical low) in France for December once again drove home that message. The overall Eurozone index stayed put at 45.2, a level normally associated with (mild) recession. 

The manufacturing sector again produced less than a month earlier, and the decline in activity was even the largest so far this year. Production is clearly being scaled back due to declining demand, which is reflected in the subpar inflow of new orders. Especially new export orders continued to decline, and this does not seem to be entirely a Trump effect. Although the fear of import tariffs may make American companies more cautious about placing international orders, the contraction in new orders was less severe than in previous months. The empty order books thus seem more a reflection of the poor competitive position of European industry in the global market. The lower demand and emptying order books are now also forcing more companies to shrink their workforce. According to the purchasing managers' survey, the number of layoffs has not been this high in the past four years as this month, particularly in Germany and France. However, that sounds worse than it is: the number of job losses is still quite limited. As far as companies were still “hoarding” staff after the earlier experience with staff shortages around the Covid pandemic, some of these layoffs will be a 'rationalization' of the number of employees. After all, keeping more employees than necessary is not cheap.

Moreover, structural and cyclical issues are often mixed up and it seems fair to say that US industry isn’t in a great state either. For example, the US manufacturing PMI for December also fell decisively below the boom-bust mark of 50. At 48.4 it is more or less the same level as the November-reading for the much longer-running ISM manufacturing index. In statistical terms the European and US manufacturing indices are actually not very different right now, the normalized difference  is currently less than 0.5 standard-deviations (to the disadvantage of the Eurozone). 

Meanwhile, the Eurozone Services PMI data seemed to confirm what we have been saying for some time, namely that these indices tend to paint too-negative picture of economic activity in the autumn, only to paint too-positive a picture during the spring. This is a ‘seasonal pattern’ where the services sector PMI peaks around mid-year and then weakens between July and November/December appears to have slipped in since 2021 (when the world was slowly recovering from the pandemic). In any case, the December readings were better than the consensus estimate, and this compensated for the weakness in industry, even though the overall picture remains one of (very) moderate growth of activity.

Despite the sluggish activity, respondents of the PMI survey report higher costs and selling prices once again. Prices are no longer rising as sharply as in 2022, but companies have increased their selling prices for the third consecutive month. This price pressure remains particularly problematic in the services sector, suggesting that costs are largely related to salaries.

This underscores the challenge for the European Central Bank once again. Just last week, President Lagarde stated that domestically-driven inflation remains high. This measure of inflation, which tries to exclude the effects of imports, was still 4.2% in October. This inflation is closely related to services inflation and labor costs, which are also decreasing very slowly. The ECB still assumes that the high wage increases and high services inflation are the result of the high inflation in recent years, leading to higher collective labor agreements now. The ECB expects this to decrease next year. The PMI survey did not provide reassurance in this regard yesterday.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 11:25

After Pardoning Hunter's Weapons Charges, Biden Renews Demands For More Gun Control After Wisconsin Shooting

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, immediately prompted renewed calls for gun control from President Joe Biden and others.

As I have previously written, these calls often appear entirely disconnected from the actual crime or the constitutional protections afforded gun owners, including President Biden demanding a ban on assault weapons after a shooting with a handgun.

President Biden’s call for greater background checks and enforcement was a bit incongruous after he pardoned his own son on gun charges. More importantly, the Wisconsin case only highlighted why these standard demands for gun control would not have impacted that case.

This was a juvenile who is believed to have used a 9mm handgun in the attack. Natalie Rupnow, 15, was not supposed to have a gun and would not have gone through background checks. While both Biden and Kamala Harris have raised limiting or banning the popular 9mm, Harris admits that she is one of millions with the weapon and it would not be subject to any of these proposals.

The president once again denounced the availability of what he collectively calls “assault weapons,” a common reference to such popular models as the AR-15. Efforts to ban this model have already failed in the courts on constitutional grounds, though litigation is continuing on that issue.

In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing the Second Amendment as encompassing an individual right to bear arms. The Supreme Court further strengthened the right in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.

The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America and the number is continuing to rise rapidly, with one AR-15 purchased in every five new firearms sales. These AR-15s clearly are not being purchased for armored deer. Many are purchased for personal and home protection; it also is popular for target shooting and hunting. Many gun owners like the AR-15 because it is modular; depending on the model, you can swap out barrels, bolts and high-capacity magazines, or add a variety of accessories. While it does more damage than a typical handgun, it is not the most powerful gun sold in terms of caliber; many guns have equal or greater calibre.

That is why laws to ban or curtail sales of the AR-15 run into constitutional barriers. Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a California ban on adults under 21 purchasing semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15.

After past tragedies, some of us have cautioned that there is a limited range of options for gun bans, given constitutional protections. There also are practical barriers, with an estimated 393 million guns in the United States and an estimated 72 million gun owners; three out of ten Americans say they have guns. Indeed, gun ownership rose during the pandemic. When former Texas congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke declared, “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15,” he was widely celebrated on the left. However, even seizing that one type of gun would require confiscation of as many as 15 million weapons.

These calls for greater gun controls remain either factually ambiguous or legally dubious.

For example, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe declared after the Wisconsin shooting that it is time to “change the context of gun ownership.”

While admitting that he did not know all of the facts, McCabe said:

We’re [going] nowhere because it keeps happening. We know it’s going to happen again. It’s happening today. It’s going to happen again in the near future. I can guarantee you that and every time it happens, we do just about nothing. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can’t do. We could do things. We could — we could support and enact legislation that changes the — the — the context of gun ownership in this country and emphasizes gun safety and responsibility with the firearms that you own and keeping them out of the hands of children and doing — and really vigorous, consistent background checks across the country. We could stop selling people — stop — you — eliminate the ability to purchase guns without a background check.

It is unclear what “changing the context” means, particularly when the context is first and foremost constitutional.

Likewise, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) called for his House colleagues to “stand up to gun manufacturers” but stopped short of explaining what that would actually mean:

Thoughts and prayers without action means more school shootings, more dead kids.

More ACTION is needed by our elected officials.

And more BACKBONE to stand up to gun manufacturers.

This is uniquely a United States problem that doesn't have to happen.

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@RepMarkPocan) December 16, 2024

Pocan has previously called for “common sense” laws without tackling the more difficult question of how to produce the sweeping changes given the narrow scope of constitutional limits for an individual right.

Wisconsin has robust gun control laws that did not prevent this shooting because Rupnow was not subject to the background checks and other regulations. She was not supposed to have the weapon and 9mm is not one of the guns that Democrats are calling to ban.

None of this means that people of good faith should not work on new initiatives and measures to combat gun violence. However, politicians like President Biden have misled the public for years about the narrow range of constitutional options for gun control legislation. The suggestion is that “this did not have to happen” despite the fact that none of these proposals would have stopped this from happening.

In a tragedy of this magnitude, our leaders have a duty, first and foremost, of honesty in speaking with the public.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 10:45

Boeing's Failed Plea Deal: What Happens Next

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) offered Boeing a plea deal to avoid criminal fraud charges, a U.S. judge threw a curveball in the case, rejecting the deal after taking issue with a “diversity and inclusion” provision in selecting a monitor to supervise the company’s safety practices, along with how the court would participate in that process.

The Boeing logo is displayed at the company's factory in Renton, Wash., on Sept. 24, 2024. Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo

The United States charged Boeing with fraud on Jan. 7, 2021, following the 2018 and 2019 737 MAX 8 crashes, which killed all 346 people onboard both flights. The DOJ accused the aerospace company of deliberately hiding its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System software, which caused both planes to stall midair and fall to the ground, from Federal Aviation Administration regulators.

To avoid criminal charges, the DOJ offered Boeing a deferred prosecution agreement: a criminal settlement that required the plane manufacturer to pay a total of $2.5 billion in damages, including a $243.6 million penalty and a $500 million fund to compensate families of the 737 Max crash victims.

Boeing had to remain in compliance for three years after the agreement was signed—which ended on Jan. 7. But, two days prior, a door panel ripped off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 flight midair, changing the company’s fortunes overnight and thrusting its safety practices back into public scrutiny.

After the DOJ wrote in a May 14 court filing that Boeing had violated the criminal settlement, which the company denied, Boeing then pleaded guilty to defrauding the United States over the 737 MAX 8 crashes. The plea deal would have required Boeing to pay an additional $243.6 million fine, invest $455 million into safety and compliance programs, and submit to three years of independent monitoring over its safety and quality control.

Now that U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor has rejected the deal, the aerospace giant faces several possible outcomes, aside from appealing the ruling, aviation and legal experts told The Epoch Times.

“[The DOJ] can sit down with Boeing and rework the plea deal so that the monitor selection process is more acceptable to the court. Or they can take Boeing to trial on the conspiracy charge,” Erin Applebaum, a partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, which represents 34 families who lost loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, told The Epoch Times.

“I have no doubt that the first option is what will happen. I fully expect that DOJ and Boeing will rewrite the plea so that its terms are more favorable to the court.”

Judge Objects to ‘Diversity’ Provision

O’Connor wrote in a Dec. 5 order that he had concerns about a diversity and inclusion provision in Boeing’s plea deal with the DOJ. He targeted a single sentence in the plea agreement that referenced the DOJ’s diversity policy in selecting an independent monitor to monitor Boeing’s safety compliance practices.

“In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency,” O'Connor wrote. “The parties’ DEI efforts only serve to undermine this confidence in the Government and Boeing’s ethics and anti-fraud efforts.”

Shawn Pruchnicki, aviation safety expert and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Center for Aviation Studies, said the monitor had an “amazingly important task” of supervising the company’s safety compliance practices.

“I stand fully behind [diversity], but I think many of us in aerospace and certainly in aviation, just like we do on the flight deck ... we want someone who is qualified, that can meet the same requirements that we get,” Pruchnicki told The Epoch Times.

Applebaum said she and the victims’ families are very appreciative of the court’s mandating that the DOJ and Boeing improve the monitor selection process.

“Though there is still much work to be done, the imposition of a highly qualified monitor who will hold Boeing’s feet to the fire is a good first step towards strengthening aviation safety and ensuring that there are no more Boeing crashes,” she said.

Other Plea Deal Objections

In rejecting the deal, O’Connor also criticized how the DOJ positioned the court in the monitor selection process.

“At this point, the public interest requires the Court to step in,” he wrote in his order.

“Marginalizing the Court in the selection and monitoring of the independent monitor as the plea agreement does undermines public confidence in Boeing’s probation, fails to promote respect for the law, and is therefore not in the public interest.”

He also noted that the families of the 737 MAX 8 crash victims took issue with the government’s role in the plea deal.

“They argue, in essence, that the Government has monitored Boeing since the case was filed and yet failed to ensure Boeing’s compliance,” O'Connor wrote. “Because of this failure, they contend the monitor should be selected by and report to the Court to guarantee compliance.”

Michael Stumo, who lost his daughter in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, told The Epoch Times earlier this year that he strongly objected to the deal the DOJ had offered Boeing.

“It’s a weak slap on the wrist for one of the biggest corporate death cases in U.S. history,” Stumo said.

In a Dec. 5 post on social media platform X, he said he was “very glad” the judge had rejected the deal.

“DOJ’s ‘coddling corporate criminals’ policy just got ... nailed,” he wrote.

Boeing and the DOJ now have 30 days to respond to the court on how they plan to proceed with the case, O’Connor said.

What Happens Next

Vikramaditya Khanna, a corporate law professor at the University of Michigan, told The Epoch Times that Boeing and the DOJ may go back to the negotiating table but that an appeal could be difficult given the trial court’s discretion in approving a settlement.

“I’m not sure if this affects Boeing’s government contracts—I presume they will be likely to renegotiate the plea, and that will likely include things on government contracts,” he said.

“If there is no plea, then there are several questions about government contracts if Boeing were to be found liable for fraud at some point.”

Applebaum said that Boeing’s sentence could change if the DOJ decides to take the company to trial on the conspiracy charge and convict it. Otherwise, the manufacturer would face the same charges after losing the plea deal.

“In a perfect world, the families would see Boeing executives put on trial and held accountable for the deaths of their loved ones. But we have accepted the reality that this outcome is unrealistic,” she said.

“The families want Boeing to significantly improve its safety and compliance culture. A weak plea deal will do nothing to effectuate major change within the company, which is why the families pushed so hard for DOJ to include stringent and punitive terms as part of the plea agreement.”

Pruchnicki, who testified before the U.S. Senate in April about the issues with Boeing’s safety culture, said individuals at the company should still be held accountable and there should not be a plea deal.

“This is what it comes down to at the end of the day; the DPA, the deferred prosecution agreement, they clearly, without a doubt, [violated it],” he told The Epoch Times.

“They need to be held accountable for that. It was an absolute joke with what they came up with, completely insulting to the American public and completely insulting to the courts.”

Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 09:35

US Industrial Production Tumbled For The 3rd Straight Month As Capacity Utilization Craters

US Industrial Production tumbled for the third straight month in November (and 4th of the last 5). The 0.1% MoM decline (vs +0.3% exp) - following a downwardly revised 0.4% drop the month prior - dragged production down 0.9% YoY (the worst drop since January)...

Source: Bloomberg

Factory Orders rose 0.2% MoM - after a downwardly revised 0.7% slide a month earlier - (considerably weaker than the +0.5% MoM expected)...

Source: Bloomberg

Ex-Transportation, the picture was a little more rosy with core factory orders up a modest 0.13% MoM rise lifting YoY production by 1.13%...

Source: Bloomberg

Output at utilities fell by the most in four months, while mining posted the largest decline since May.

Finally, capacity utilization fell to 76.8% (the lowest since April 2021) and well below expectations...

Source: Bloomberg

...but, but, but it's not a recession!

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/17/2024 - 09:27