Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“We’ll certainly never forget the dark days of June 6... January 6th, excuse me.”

- President “Joe Biden”

The plum blossoms are ready to pop here. You can feel your blood rising. The evening sun lingers a little longer every day. Normally you’d celebrate, but not this year of roaring portents and evil juju. History doesn’t stop to catch its breath for a moment. The tiny glowing diode deep in “Joe Biden’s” brain dims a bit more each day (pause) while low men and women in high places trifle with the fate of the nation. Everyone dreads what’s coming.

Which, judging by events of the week just past, looks like a worse summer of civil chaos than 2020 was.

Some entity — say, the checkbook of George and Alex Soros, maybe? — has funded the spring mustering of student mobs in support of Hamas seeking to drive wicked Israel into the choppy Mediterranean.

What you’re seeing, though, is probably not what you think you are seeing in all that. The kids are mere digits in a cultural algorithm playing out as New Age dumbshow.

I doubt that three-quarters of them actually give a flying fugazy about the Palestinians, and even fewer could find Gaza on a map if you water-boarded them.

They affect to be intersectional victims of the universal oppressor, but in so far as many of the rioters are girls of the Ivy League, or comparable redoubts of privilege— little blue-eyed, blonde-haired muffins raised on pony club, Hermes, and artisan granola — there must be something else going on.

That something else is probably sex, which is so problematical now in any traditional frame of a man getting it on with a woman that the American birth-rate is going to zero.

How does a young woman get it on with so many collegiate men vying for gay brownie points these days, or going for the grand prize in transitioning?

Why, it’s a non-starter. So, instead, you go slumming among the savages, those hairy, dumb brutes on twerk-alert, dripping testosterone — illegal aliens, student third-worlders, BLM alumni, hardcore hoodlums. They don’t know nuthin ‘bout no pony club, but they will rut like Bilberry rams until the ladies fall away crosseyed. Affecting to be a lesbian only makes the game more piquant. And if you forgot your birth control, for some reason, there’s always the abortionist.

Any time there are brownie points at stake, you know the game is actually for status, and where status is the game, fashion is the currency.

Thus, the dress-up in Arab keffiyehs, the charming head-scarf denoting allyship with Hamas. Beats the heck out of those flitty N-95 masks from the 2020 Covid nights of roistering in the Seattle CHOP and trying to burn down the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland.

Rioting gives young men of the toxic persuasion opportunities to flaunt their moxie in acts of derring-do, brawling with the cops, dancing on top of cars, ripping down chain-link fences, flinging gasoline bombs.

So much the better for getting the ladies’ attention. Look what I can do! And the keffiyeh accessorizes well with black bloc riot garb. For the muffins, wearing it is great practice for the utopia-to-come when they must don burkas under submission to Sharia. Will Hermes put out a burka?

So far, the spring rioting has mostly been fun for the rioters. Unlike the J-6-21 “paraders,” locked up in the putrid DC jail for years pending trial, the Hamas frolickers are at near-zilch risk of any serious consequences.

Few will even be suspended from school.

They are doing exactly what the schools trained them up for: destroying Western Civ, one acanthus leaf at a time.

According to the shadowy stage-managers behind “Joe Biden,” this will save our democracy.

That and stuffing Donald Trump in jail for the rest of his natural life.

Alas, the lawfare cases cooked up toward that end appear defective to a spectacular degree. It really says something about the true authors of these beauties brought by Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith. I speak of the behind-the-scene blob lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, Matt Colangelo, and Mary McCord, who wrote the scripts for all four of this year’s big elephant trap cases against the former president. You have to wonder how that bunch made it through their law boards. The current extravaganza in Manhattan that centers on alleged book-keeping errors in furtherance of an unstated federal offense is due to go on a few more weeks. The howling errors of both the prosecution and Judge Juan Merchan are so extravagant that the proceeding looks like it was cribbed from the pages of Lewis Carroll.

Yet, there is near unanimous sentiment that the Trump-deranged New Yawk jury will convict, no matter how much more idiotic the case turns out to be. By then, we will be verging on summer. The college campuses will be shuttered and the youth-in-revolt action will necessarily move to the regular streets. Whichever way the verdict goes in the Alvin Bragg case, epic looting and rioting will commence.

Sometime this summer, I predict, the Mar-a-Lago documents case will get tossed on something like malicious prosecution. Jack Smith’s DC case, kneecapped by SCOTUS, won’t start before the November election (or maybe ever) and ditto the Fani Willis fiasco in Atlanta.

George and Alex Soros will pour millions into box lunches for the kids burning down what’s left of the cities and the demure gals of the Ivy League Left will find plenty of love in the ruins.

The two major party conventions in July (Republican) and August (Democrat) are sure to out-do the 1968 lollapalooza in Chicago (I was there) in mayhem and property damage. “Joe Biden” - really the blob behind him - will ache to declare a national emergency, perhaps even a second emergency after the recently unveiled “climate emergency” supposedly pending any day.

The USA will be in an historic horror movie you could call Emergency-O-Rama.

If you think the financial system, and the US economy that has become the tail on the finance dog, can survive all this, you will be disappointed.

The army may have to step in and put an end to these shenanigans. Don’t think it can’t happen.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

It's that time of year again and US bank deposits sure showed it...

While money-market funds' total assets fell over $100BN, on a non-seasonally-adjusted (NSA) basis, total bank deposits crashed by a stunning $258BN as Tax-Day cometh. That is considerably more than the $152BN decline last year but less than the $336BN plunge in 2022...

Source: Bloomberg

This makes some sense though as the Treasury Cash Balance rose by around the same amount as taxpayers did their duty and paid their 'fair share'...

Source: Bloomberg

However, on a seasonally-adjusted (SA) basis (i.e. adjusted by the PhDs for the fact that we get large deposit outflows at this time of year to pay taxes), total deposits dropped $133BN - the biggest weekly plunge (SA) since 9/11!

Source: Bloomberg

Excluding foreign deposits, domestic bank deposits plunged on both an SA (-$119BN: Large banks -$99BN, Small banks -$21BN) and NSA (-$241BN: Large banks -$188BN, Small banks -$53BN) basis...

Source: Bloomberg

For context, that is the largest weekly drop in SA deposits since 9/11 and the largest NSA deposit drop since April 2022 (Tax Day).

Interestingly, despite the deposit dump, loan volumes increased last week with large banks adding $5.8BN and small banks adding $2.5BN...

Source: Bloomberg

All of which pushed the un-bailed-out 'Small banks' back into 'crisis mode'  (red line below constraint absent the $126BN still in the BTFP pot at The Fed which is slowly being unwound)...

Source: Bloomberg

And so, with rate-cuts off the table - and tapering QT very much back on - we wonder just how much jockeying between Janet (Yellen) and Jerome (Powell) is going on ahead of next week's QRA and FOMC news...

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

As the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to pursue a criminal case against Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating dozens of airplane incidents since January, including one in which a Swiss Air jet almost collided with four other planes on the runway at JFK International Airport in New York City.

The FAA has more than 100 aviation accidents and incidents since the beginning of 2024. These include airplane and helicopter crashes, equipment and mechanical malfunctions, and communication breakdowns with air traffic controllers that almost caused runway collisions at several major U.S. airports.

These incidents come as public scrutiny of Boeing increases after multiple issues have been reported with their jets. After an Alaskan Airways flight experienced a mid-air blowout of a door plug on Jan. 5, the Justice Department is considering revoking a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the company and pursuing a criminal case.

There is also growing criticism of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and the FAA’s hiring practices after multiple near-collisions were reported, including at JFK Airport and Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

The JFK incident occurred on April 17. Pilots on a Swiss Air flight headed to Zurich, Switzerland, were forced to hit the brakes after the plane was cleared for takeoff because air traffic controllers simultaneously opened the runway for four other planes.

The next day, a similar incident played out at Reagan Washington National Airport, which services the Washington area. ATC cleared a JetBlue flight for takeoff as a Southwest Airlines flight was told to taxi across the same runway in front of it, according to ATC audio.

A runway controller cleared the JetBlue flight, while a taxiing controller cleared the Southwest Airlines flight. The two planes came within 400 feet of a collision before each controller ordered the planes to stop.

“JetBlue 1554 stop! 1554 stop!” said the tower controller, as the ground controller said “2937 stop!” to the Southwest Airlines plane.

Two airplanes—JetBlue and Southwest—nearly collided at DC’s Reagan National Airport on Thursday, avoiding each other by only 400 feet.

Air traffic control recordings show the moment controllers yelled at the JetBlue flight to “stop!” its takeoff.pic.twitter.com/Td1VTimVD0

— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) April 19, 2024

Since sudden runway stops can overheat airplane brakes, the JetBlue flight was inspected before it safely departed the airport.

The agency said it is investigating both incidents.

Juan Browne, a Boeing 777 first officer pilot for a major U.S. airline company, told The Epoch Times that while the number of airplane accidents has remained steady, ATC incidents are “on the rise.”

He said the “primary driver” of this phenomenon is the “huge turnover” in the industry, as controllers retired during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retired early, creating a “big shortage of people, pilots, and air traffic controllers,” and some, including pilots and others, retired due to vaccine mandates.

However, other factors leading to ATC communication breakdowns include diversity-focused hiring practices, a bottleneck in controller training, distractions, and pilot error.

Diversity Hiring Practices

Many, including aviation expert Kyle Bailey, have called out the FAA for prioritizing “diversity” in its hiring practices, alleging that hiring pilots or controllers based on their skin instead of their merit, can lead to safety issues.

“Diversity really has nothing to do with safe travel,” Mr. Bailey told Fox News Digital in January.

The aviation agency’s “Diversity and Inclusion webpage, last updated on March 23, 2022, says, ”Diversity is integral to achieving the FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”

In its  "Aviation Safety Workforce Plan, the agency explains this policy further.

“[Diversity] practices facilitate the organization in attracting and hiring talented applicants from diverse backgrounds and to meet future needs. A commitment to diversity and inclusion supports [aviation safety’s] strategic initiative to create a workforce with the leadership, technical, and functional skills necessary to ensure the U.S. has the world’s safest and most productive aviation sector.”

Later, the agency discusses how this can impact operations.

“The projected growth in demand and diversity from conventional customers, as well as new entrants in non-traditional areas will challenge the FAA’s ability to provide responsive and consistent service to our stakeholders, the report reads.

In February, a coalition of 11 Republican attorneys general, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, submitted a letter to the FAA alleging that diversity hiring practices could put passengers’ lives at risk.

“It seems that the FAA has placed ‘diversity bean counting over safety and expertise, and we worry that such misordered priorities could be catastrophic for American travelers, Mr. Kobach wrote in the letter.

“Millions of Americans place their lives and the lives of their loved ones in the hands of your agency ... Unfortunately, the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue-signaling ‘diversity efforts over aviation expertise. And this calls into question the agency’s commitment to safety, he added.

The letter accused the Obama administration of seeking out applicants with “severe intellectual” and “psychiatric” disabilities, noting that the FAA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” webpage currently has the same language on it.

Mr. Browne, who has been a commercial pilot for 25 years, told The Epoch Times that there is a big drive towards on-the-job diversity in all U.S. industries, and aviation is no different.

“I can’t speak specifically to what those requirements are at the FAA ATC program, but we definitely need to ask ourselves: Are we hiring and training the correct people for the jobs?” he asked.

“How are we getting the most qualified applicants out there to fill these jobs?”

Retirements and Training ‘Bottleneck’

Another factor leading to issues with ATC is the sheer volume of retirements in the aviation industry during the pandemic, Mr. Browne said.

He explained that some pilots and air traffic controllers were close to retirement age when the pandemic started, with many deciding to retire early. This created a shortage of applicants and now a shortage of active workers, as both the FAA and ATC struggled to keep up when a waning pandemic caused airline travel demand to increase.

“So we got a lot of new folks out there on the job right now, a lot of on-the-job training going on right now. And a lot of mistakes being made up there as well,” he said.

Some also retired early because they declined to take the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine when it was briefly mandated by the FAA, Mr. Browne added.

With these early retirements came limited training opportunities and a “shortage of qualified controllers.”

“There was a big bottleneck in training throughout the aviation industry, whether it was for pilots or for air traffic controllers who have trained up in Oklahoma City, the home of the FAA,” Mr. Browne said.

“And so, now, the FAA is trying to do more with less.”

He explained that the agency is working its current and new controllers “much harder and longer hours than they have in the past” to “backfill” the demand after airlines quickly and unexpectedly recovered from the pandemic. This “exacerbated the shortage of both pilots and air traffic controllers,” Mr. Browne said.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the FAA disputed the claim that there were “excessive controller retirements during the pandemic.”

Distractions, Infrastructure, Budget Issues

As a Boeing 777 pilot, Mr. Browne mostly flies overseas. When he flies into cities like London or Sydney, he says the radio channels through ATC are “a lot less chaotic” and more “organized” compared to the United States.

“Here in the States, we’re pushing so much material, so many aircraft through such a tight system and dealing with weather constantly,” he explained.

“And yet, there seems to be a lot of miscommunications between different members of the staff, for example, ground controllers versus tower controllers.”

It was a miscommunication between ground and tower controllers that resulted in the near-collision at Reagan Washington National Airport on April 18.

Mr. Browne said he often hears a lot of background noise coming over the radio from within the control towers. Pilots are instructed to maintain a “sterile cockpit” whenever they’re below 10,000 feet, he explained. That means pilots must refrain from any conversation outside plane operations until they reach that altitude to “avoid distractions.”

“Is that not the case with the ATC?” Mr. Browne asked.

He explained that working in ATC can be a boring job, so it’s “human nature to get distracted, to do something else to break the monotony,” even if it’s critical to avoid this to prevent putting passengers’ lives at risk.

However, it’s not just distractions leading to issues with coordinating plane routes on runways. The infrastructure throughout the aviation industry struggles to keep pace with the growing demand for air travel.

Mr. Browne explained that ATC, airports, runways, plane parking access, and the number of gates were all designed for “a lot less traffic.”

“But in general, where we are, the demand is outstripping the capacity of the system. And that leads to, in the case of the FAA controllers, a lot of overtime and a lot of tired controllers on the job,” he added.

There are also budget concerns for ATC. Mr. Browne wonders if Congress is allocating enough funds to keep pace with air travel demands but said that question is up to congressional leaders to consider.

Lastly, pilots are sometimes at fault as well for aviation incidents, he explained.

Mr. Browne said there are multiple factors worth considering in addressing these problems. Not only could Congress increase the FAA’s budget, but ATC can be more transparent when there are incidents like the ones on April 17 and 18.

When pilots make significant mistakes, a full investigation commences immediately. But for air traffic controllers, it’s not always the same approach, Mr. Browne said.

However, the most significant factor is getting the best applicants for pilot and air traffic controller positions.

“Make sure we’re hiring the right people for the job, regardless of who they are or what they are. Make sure you’re hiring the most qualified people for these very demanding jobs,” Mr. Browne added.

“If we continue to perform at this level, [these incidents] will eventually lead to a disaster.”

The FAA told The Epoch Times that it is working to address some of these issues, but did not specifically comment on the “diversity hiring” allegations.

“Hiring highly qualified air traffic controllers is a top priority at the FAA. Every FAA-certified air traffic controller has gone through months of screening and training at the FAA Academy, and that is before another 18-24 months of training to learn specific regions and airspace.

“There is a well-known national shortage of air traffic controllers and the FAA has ramped up outreach to ensure no talent is left on the table. We are accelerating the pace of recruiting, training, and hiring to meet demand while maintaining the highest qualification standards,” the agency said in a statement.

The BOJ came, issued the shortest statement in the history of central banks...

... and left, leaving traders stunned and speechless at the sheer idiocy of the world's most clownish central bank, which has decided to invite currency collapse the same abandon as Zimbabwe, if it means pushing up domestic stonks a little bit more even as hyperinflation is unleashed among Japanese society. And now that the collapse in the yen is making banana republics like Turkey blush, and is making FX managers and traders who are still long the Japanese Dong Lira Yen to the imploding "developed" insolvent, everyone wants to know what happens next?

Below we share to views, one from Deutsche Bank's Geroge Saravelos, and one from SocGen's Kit Juckes.

We start with the DB FX strategist who frames the BOJ's wilful incompetence merely as "benign neglect", to wit:

On the collapse

The yen has again collapsed today to fresh record lows following the Bank of Japan meeting. We think this is warranted and that this finally marks the day where the market realizes that Japan is following a policy of benign neglect for the yen. We have long argued that FX intervention is not credible and the toning down of verbal jawboning from the finance minister overnight is on balance a positive from a credibility perspective. The possibility of intervention can't be ruled out if the market turns disorderly, but it is also notable that Governor Ueda played down the importance of the yen in his press conference today as well as signalling no urgency to hike rates. We would frame the ongoing yen collapse around the following points.

1. Yen weakness is simply not that bad for Japan. The tourism sector is booming, profit margins on the Nikkei are soaring and exporter competitiveness is increasing. True, the cost of imported items is going up. But growth is fine, the government is helping offset some of the cost via subsidies and core inflation is not accelerating. Most importantly, the Japanese are huge foreign asset owners via Japan's positive net international investment position. Yen weakness therefore leads to huge capital gains on foreign bonds and equities, most easily summarized in the observation that the government pension fund (GPIF) has roughly made more profits over the last two years than the last twenty years combined.
2. There simply isn't an inflation problem. Japan's core CPI is around 2% and has been decelerating in recent months. The Tokyo CPI overnight was 1.7% excluding one-off effects. To be sure, inflation may well accelerate again helped by FX weakness and high wage growth. But the starting point of inflation is entirely different to the post-COVID hiking cycles of the Fed and ECB. By extension, the inflation pain is far less and the urgency to hike far less too. No where is this more obvious than the fact that Japanese consumer confidence are close to their cycle highs.
3. Negative real rates are great. There is a huge attraction to running negative real rates for the consolidated government  balance sheet. As we demonstrated last year, it creates fiscal space via a $20 trillion carry trade while also generating asset gains for Japan's wealthy voting base. This encourages the persistent domestic capital outflows we have been highlighting as a key driver of yen weakness over the last year and that have pushed Japan's broad basic balance to being one of the weakest in the world. It is not speculators that are weakening the yen but the Japanese themselves.

The bottom line is that for the JPY to turn stronger the Japanese need to unwind their carry trade. But for this to make sense the Bank of Japan needs to engineer an expedited hiking cycle similar to the post-COVID experiences of other central banks. Time will tell if the BoJ is moving too slow and generating a policy mistake. A shift in BoJ inflation forecasts to well above 2% over their forecast horizon would be the clearest signal of a shift in reaction function. But this isn't happening now. The Japanese are enjoying the ride

(More in the full note available to pro subs.)

And next, here is the somewhat more actionable view from SocGen's FX strategist Kit Juckes:

The yen's decline is becoming disorderly, which points to a final, potentially sharp, decline before it finds a floor

The Bank of Japan, as was universally expected, made no changes to interest rates at today’s policy-setting meeting, though they did edge inflation forecasts higher. Forecasts for the 2025/26 fiscal year look for core inflation (ex-food and energy) at 2.1% and real GDP growth of 1%. In Japan, as in most countries, yields have tended to average more than nominal GDP growth over time, and on that basis the US/Japanese yield differential is set to narrow significantly in the coming quarters. However, for now US yields are rising and Japanese ones are still anchored by very low short-term rates. Those short-term rates give short yen trades their positive carry and have kept the leveraged trading community happy for months.

The chart shows the US-Japanese yield differential and USD/JPY over the last 20 years, with the yield chart extended using the OECD’s forecasts for yields. These are just forecasts but they frame the issue quiet well, particularly bearing in mind how undervalued the yen is now, on any fundamental long-term valuation. If PPP for USD/JPY is now in the mid-90s, fair value adjusted for US exceptionalism and Japanification is still around 110. As long as yield differentials are large and growing, upward pressure on USD/JPY persists and while eventual return to much lower levels is inevitable, the danger here is that unless Japan’s policymakers are much more aggressive (with intervention and monetary policy), this move higher in USD/JPY will end in a final excessive spike higher.  

Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times,

As protests escalate across college and university campuses in the United States, a New York Police Department (NYPD) official vowed that a “Seattle-style” occupation zone will not be tolerated on the streets of New York City.

Two New York Police Department (NYPD) officials spoke with Fox News’ “The Story” anchor Trace Gallagher on April 25. The conversation focused on growing concerns that the anti-Israel protests spreading across America’s college campuses might devolve into further violence.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry addressed growing speculation that the student anti-Israel encampments could evolve into something similar to the “autonomous zone” established in Seattle, in Washington state, in response to the death of George Floyd in May 2020, suggesting they might “linger and last all summer long and become bigger and more dangerous.”

It was a possibility immediately shut down by Chief of Patrol John Chell.

“We will not have any Seattle-type encampments on the streets of New York City. I can guarantee you that — that would end rather quickly,” he asserted.

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, also known by its acronym CHAZ and later CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest), became a scene of widespread vandalism and violence that spanned more than six blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

A shooting on June 20, 2020, claimed the life of a 19-year-old man and injured a 33-year-old man, as reported by The New York Times on July 1, 2020.  The next day, a 17-year-old man was injured in another shooting. A third shooting took the life of a 16-year-old and left a 14-year-old seriously injured.

“The fine line here is the street, the public property, which we'll deal with, and the college is the private property,” Mr. Chell explained.

“That’s why we got to strike this balance. Let me repeat, there will never be encampments on the streets of New York City while we’re in power, never going to happen.”

After the NYPD deployed counterterrorism units to the Columbia University campus, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took to social media platform X to condemn the move as a “horrific” decision, adding that NYPD officers had “some of the most violent reputations on the force.”

Mr. Chell responded the next day, defending the “units” and informing her that he was with them when they were deployed to the university.

“These ‘units’ removed students with great care and professionalism, not a single incident was reported,” he said.

“Maybe you should walk around Columbia and NYU and listen to their remarks of pure hatred,” he added. “I will ensure those ‘units’ will protect you as they do for all NYers 24/7/365.”

Mr. Daugherty added his thoughts saying, “There is nothing ‘horrific’ about protecting the safety of Columbia’s young students who are just trying to go to school.”

He also defended NYPD officers, describing them as “the best and most highly trained law enforcement professionals in the world.”

Mr. Daugherty invited Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to “visit Columbia” for a walk-through, promising to protect her and take a report if she feels threatened.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks to a crowd gathered for a march to defund the Minneapolis Police Department in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 6, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Request for Help

The presence of the NYPD at Columbia was by request.

Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, had personally reached out to the NYPD in a letter, requesting their assistance in clearing the encampment set up by more than 100 students on the south lawn of Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus on April 17.

Students had been repeatedly warned, both verbally and in writing, that they were in violation of university rules and policies and would have to disperse. Students staying in the encampment were also informed that they had been suspended.

“I have determined that the encampment and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University,” she wrote,“ adding that it was ”With great regret, we request the NYPD’s help to remove these individuals.”

A total of 108 students were arrested for trespassing.

Among them was Isra Hirsi, a student from Barnard, Columbia’s sister college. Ms. Hirsi is the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a frequent critic of Israel.

Following her daughter’s arrest, Rep. Omar praised her daughter on social media.

At an April 18 press conference, New York City Mayor Eric Adams explained that the arrests were made because the protesters had been camped out on Columbia’s south lawn for more than 30 hours, in violation of the university’s rules.

He confirmed that the NYPD was dispatched to the campus only after students received “numerous warnings” to disband and after Ms. Shafik reached out to the NYPD “in writing,” requesting support.

He stressed that “no violence or injuries” occurred during the incident.

While acknowledging that Columbia’s students have a right to free speech, he said they “do not have the right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus.”

Ms. Shafik issued a statement on April 22, expressing sadness over what is taking place on Columbia’s campus. She said the activities of the protesting students have “severely tested” community bonds and imposed a state of fear among students “across an array of communities.”

On April 21, Columbia’s chief operating officer, Cas Holloway, outlined the enhanced safety measures being imposed on the Morningside Heights campus, where the protesters were “causing considerable disruption and distress.”

The increased security measures include additional security personnel, enhanced security around the perimeter of the Morningside Heights campus, additional security at the Kraft Center, and increased identification checks to make sure that only Columbia University students are on campus.

Republicans Condemn Hatred

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Education Committee, sent a letter to university leaders on April 21, warning them of consequences if they do not gain control of “the encampment and related activities” which “have created a severe and pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students at Columbia.”

A total of 10 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Ms. Shafik on April 22, urging her to resign immediately.

House Speaker Mike Johnson held a press conference on the steps of the university’s Low library near the student’s “Liberty Zone” encampment on April 24, and called for her resignation if she could not gain control of her campus.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) holds a press conference at the Columbia campus to call for the resignation of university president Minouche Shafik, in New York City, on April 24, 2024. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)

“We just can’t allow this kind of hatred and anti-Semitism to flourish on our campuses, and it must be stopped in its tracks,” he said.

“Those who are perpetuating this violence should be arrested.”

His visit to the campus, which took place shortly after the university extended a deadline by 48 hours (until April 26) to reach an agreement on the removal of the encampment, was to show support for Jewish students, who have been intimidated, threatened, and assaulted by anti-Israeli protesters.

His presence was immediately met by boos and his comments were frequently interrupted with chants of, “We can’t hear you,” and “Free Palestine.”

The University of Southern California was forced to close its campus after campus police were overwhelmed during an effort to shut down an encampment. To clear the area, they had to enlist the help of the Los Angeles Police Department. As students surrendered peacefully, they were arrested.

Student protesters have also set up an encampment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Detroit Free Press reported on April  23.

Nine people were reportedly arrested by University of Minnesota police after pro-Palestinian students set up an encampment on the Northrop Mall. Ms. Omar made an appearance, telling the students through a loudspeaker that she was “moved” by their “courage and bravery” in taking a stand “to end the genocide,” Star Tribune reported.

More than 20 tents, festooned with pro-Palestinian signage and flags, have been erected in front of a chapel on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, as reported by CNN.

Dozens of student protesters were arrested at the University of Southern California on April 24 and the campus of California State Polytechnic, in Humboldt, was shut down as students barricaded themselves inside a building for a third day, the Associated Press reported on April 25.

At the University of Texas, 57 students were arrested by campus police during a protest organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee when students tried to “occupy” the South Lawn, Austin television station KXAN reported.

It was an ugly macro week...

Source: Bloomberg

...and worse still, 'growth' surprises disappointed significantly while 'inflation' surprises surprised to the upside significantly...

Source: Bloomberg

Soaring inflation expectations sent rate-cut expectations to new cycle lows...

Source: Bloomberg

...pushing yields higher across the board (led by the long-end)...

Source: Bloomberg

But, stocks didn't care about any of that because a handful of mega-cap tech stocks' earnings were awesome (except META) - and that's what matters (for now)...

Source: Bloomberg

Nasdaq outperformed, up 4% on the week (its best week since the start of Nov 2023). The Dow was the laggard on the week but all the majors had a decent week...

Not the best week for some observers...

Traders 1: Marko 0 https://t.co/T6PHjRSrMF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 26, 2024

This week saw the biggest short-squeeze since the first week of March...

Source: Bloomberg

And the basket of Magnificent 7 stocks soared over 5% this week, its best week since the first week of November (Fed Pivot) - but it was noisy as TSLA surged, META tumbled, and then GOOGL/MSFT lifted the lid...

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA pushed back above $500BN market cap this week and Alphabet soared above $2TN market cap for the first time ever...

Source: Bloomberg

Tech and Discretionary outperformed on the week with Energy and Materials lagging (but all sectors ended the week green)...

Source: Bloomberg

5.00% remains the Maginot Line for the 2Y Yield...

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, the dollar ended the week practically unchanged - despite a lot of noise...

Source: Bloomberg

...despite the seventh straight week of declines in the yen vs the dollar as it appears the BoJ and MoF have given up...

Source: Bloomberg

Gold was dumped this week - its worst week since the start of December 2023. Spot prices did find support at $2300 though...

Source: Bloomberg

After two down weeks, oil prices rallied this week, with WTI back above $83...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, intraday volatility has picked up dramatically in the last couple of weeks...

Source: Bloomberg

...as the distribution of possible rate outcomes has picked up significantly. Don't forget next week's QRA and FOMC as Yellen and Powell get 'back to work'.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Former President Donald Trump praised the first witness in his New York City “hush money” trial, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, as he is scheduled to deliver more testimony in the case on Friday.

“He’s been very nice. David’s been very nice. He’s a nice guy,” President Trump said on Thursday, responding to a question about Mr. Pecker’s testimony over the past week or so.

During cross-examinations Thursday, Mr. Pecker detailed how he obtained potentially damaging stories about the candidate and paid out tens of thousands of dollars to keep them from the public eye.

But when it came to the seamy claims by adult performer Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, the former National Enquirer publisher said he put his foot down.

“I am not paying for this story,” he told jurors Thursday at President Trump’s trial, recounting his version of a conversation with President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen about attempts to suppress allegations that prosecutors claim amounted to election interference in the 2016 campaign. Mr. Pecker said that he remembers saying he “didn’t want to be involved in this.”

President Trump has maintained he is not guilty of any of the charges, and says the stories that were bought and squelched were false.

“There is no case here. This is just a political witch hunt,” he said before court in brief comments to reporters on Thursday.

Ms. Daniels was eventually paid by Mr. Cohen to not speak about her claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with President Trump. The ex-president denies it happened, while his lawyers have said that she is using the claims to make money and bolster her fame.

Although he did not buy her story, Mr. Pecker told Mr. Cohen that someone should make a move to suppress the claims from going public.

“I said to Michael, ‘My suggestion to you is that you should buy the story, and you should take it off the market because if you don’t and it gets out, I believe the boss will be very angry with you,’” he said.

Later, Trump defense attorney Emil Bove opened his cross-examination by asking Mr. Pecker about his recollection of specific dates and meanings. He appeared to be laying further groundwork for the defense’s argument that any dealings President Trump had with the National Enquirer publisher were intended to protect himself, his reputation, and his family, not his campaign.

At one point on Thursday, Mr. Pecker said that when he spoke to President Trump about the former president reimbursing Mr. Cohen for paying Ms. Clifford, the former president told him that he had no idea what Mr. Pecker was referring to. He specifically testified that the former president “had no idea what [he] was talking about” when he asked about reimbursing Mr. Cohen.

He also said that he purchased the rights to former model Karen McDougal’s story as well but he stipulated that President Trump never told him to purchase that story—only that he and Mr. Cohen were concerned about the McDougal story from emerging.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen arrives at the district attorney's office to complete his testimony before a grand jury in New York City on March 15, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

A conviction by the jury would not preclude President Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. The charge is punishable by up to four years in prison, although it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars.

For the charges to be a felony, prosecutors have to prove their allegations that President Trump falsified business records in the furtherance of another crime. They have argued that the alleged falsification efforts were tantamount to election interference.

But the former president and his lawyers have said that they were simple legal expenses. They have also cast the credibility of Mr. Cohen into doubt, noting that he spent time in prison on fraud and other charges, and have noted that he has currently made a career out of criticizing President Trump in the media and on social media.

Mr. Cohen on Thursday wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he would stop commenting on the Trump trial.

“Despite not being the gagged defendant ... I will cease posting anything about Donald on my X account or on the Mea Culpa Podcast until after my trial testimony. See you all in a month (or more),” he wrote.

On Friday morning, President Trump did not speak to the media before he entered the courtroom. However, he wrote a Truth Social post at around 9:20 a.m. criticizing the level of security at the Manhattan court.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” he wrote.

Earlier this week, he called on his supporters to peacefully protest the trial against him.

On Friday Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, which brought to a close the US top diplomat's three day visit to China. 

Blinken warned the Chinese leader of another potential "downward spiral" in relations and the two sides agreed this should be avoided, however, there were plenty of not so subtle barbs, warnings and threats exchanged.

President Xi in comments underscored that Beijing and Washington "should be partners rather than adversaries" - a familiar theme of top Chinese officials of late. "The world is big enough to accommodate the simultaneous development and prosperity of both China and the United States," he said according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry readout.

But he added the caveat that US-China relations will only stabilize once the US takes "a positive and constructive view of China’s development." 

"I proposed three major principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. They are not only a summary of past experience, but also a guide to the future," the Chinese leader was quoted as saying.

Blinken responded in a statement to reporters by emphasizing "We want China’s economy to grow" but it remains that "the way China grows matters."

"That means fostering a healthy economic relationship where American workers and firms are treated equally and fairly," he continued, highlighting the Biden admin talking point of China's unfair trade practices and the potential for certain US sectors being overrun with Chinese products.

During this second trip to China in less than a year by Blinken, the Secretary of State also called out China related to Russia's war in Ukraine.

"Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support," Blinken claimed provocatively, while also asserting China is the "top supplier" of Russia's defense industrial base - albeit not in terms of lethal aid (but instead "dual use" technologies).

Blinken threatened punitive against on China if it continues to give support to Russia amid the Ukraine onslaught...

🇺🇸 Footage of Blinken threatening action against China if it continues to support Russia. pic.twitter.com/spt9AxMHFb

— S p r i n t e r F a c t o r y (@Sprinterfactory) April 26, 2024

This alleged support to Russia's defense industry additionally constitutes a "medium to long-term threat that many Europeans feel viscerally that Russia poses to them," Blinken continued.

He warned that the Biden administration is ready to introduce more sanctions against China if dual-use goods and technologies continue to be sent to Russia, including things previously listed such as: semiconductors, machine tools, chemical precursors, ball bearings, and optical systems.

As expected, China's foreign ministry hit back at the commentary and accusations, saying Blinken is "unreasonably criticizing the normal trade and economic relations between Russia and China" - at a moment it's pouring billions into one side of the war: Ukraine... while refusing to press for peace negotiations. "This is a very hypocritical and irresponsible approach," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbing told reporters later in the day Friday.

The so-called 'party of science' has decided to abandon its plan to save millions of lives (of mostly African American youth) by choosing not to ban Menthol cigarettes after all...

In October 2023, the FDA said it was looking to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars due to concerns these tobacco products are harming American youth.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars due to concerns these tobacco products are harming American youth.

The agency estimated there were 18.5 million menthol cigarette smokers aged 12 and above in the United States in 2018, with “particularly high rates of use by youth, young adults, and African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups.”

Them in December 2023, after what some called a 'blacklash', White House officials were reportedly taking more time to review their sweeping ban plan, despite the science's awful warnings:

"The federal agency estimates a ban on the flavor additive could prevent 300,000 to 650,000 smoking deaths over several decades.

They claim most of the preventable deaths would be among minority groups and Americans of African descent, who disproportionately smoke menthol cigarettes."

And now, April 2024 (around six months before the election and with Biden's poll numbers in the proverbial toilet), The Wall Street Journal reports that the Biden administration is reversing course on its plan to ban menthol cigarettes, after the White House weighed the potential public-health benefits of banning minty smokes against the political risk of angering Black voters in an election year.

Some Black community leaders had fought the measure, saying a ban would expand the illicit market for cigarettes and lead police to racially profile Black smokers.

The American Civil Liberties Union and some members of the Congressional Black Caucus expressed similar concerns.

The administration is expected to announce its decision as soon as Friday afternoon, according to people familiar with the matter.

So, to sum up: The White House is willing to ignore the potential (science-driven data) death of 650,000 mostly African American voters to improve its chances in November?

This couldn't possibly have anything to so with the fact that minorities in America are starting to look for alternatives to the Democrats they have been indoctrinated to vote for all their lives... or the fact that swing-state polls shows black voters abandoning Biden in favor of Trump is huge numbers...

Gotcha, "science" indeed!

Officials at the Port of Baltimore opened a fourth, 35-foot deep, temporary channel through the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, allowing cargo ships trapped at the port to exit. 

According to Bloomberg's ship tracking data, four of seven ships trapped at the port navigated the new temporary channel and are sailing down the Chesapeake Bay. 

On Thursday, the Balsa 94, a bulk carrier sailing under a Panama flag, transited the temporary channel for Saint John, Canada. Three other ships, including the Saimaagracht cargo vessel, the Carmen vehicle carrier, and the Phatra Naree bulk carrier, were also able to exit. 

The general cargo ship Balsa 94 becomes the first ship to use the @portofbalt's 35-foot-deep Limited Access Channel promised by the @USACEHQ by the end of April. The ship had been stuck in the harbor since the March 26 collapse of the Key Bridge.

Updated story here:… pic.twitter.com/LZeE9o5rne

— gCaptain (@gCaptain) April 25, 2024

The new 35-foot depth channel is a massive increase compared to smaller channels opened several weeks after the Dali container ship slammed into the bridge one month ago, toppling the bridge and paralyzing the port. 

"While this is a significant achievement, we have a long way to go, and Unified Command is committed to fully opening the channel by the end of May," US Coast Guard Cmdr. Baxter Smoak told reporters. 

Next week, salvage crews expect to refloat Dali, which will then be pushed back to port by tugboats for inspection. Once Dali and all debris are removed, the main shipping channel could reopen next month. 

However, Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, told AP News that a new bridge could take five to seven years to be rebuilt. 

"The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?" Schafer said. 

He continued: "So it's like you're telling me they're going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn't feel right to me."

Let's remember that the bridge was critical for the port and a critical feeder to the Interstate 95 highway network up and down the mid-Atlantic area. Local supply chain snarls will persist for years. 

Via Middle East Eye

The Arabic language spokesperson of the US State Department has resigned over Washington's Gaza war policy, in the third senior level resignation from the department since the war began.

Hala Rharrit, a Palestinian-American, posted her resignation on the LinkedIn social media site, stating: "I resigned April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States' Gaza policy."

Rharrit, who joined the State Department as a political and human rights officer, was also the department's Dubai regional media hub deputy director.

When asked about the resignation, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the department has channels for its staff to share views when they disagree with government policies.

In late March, Annelle Sheline, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department's human rights bureau, stepped down in protest over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, saying it had made her job promoting human rights "almost impossible". 

Earlier, veteran State Department official Josh Paul, a former director overseeing US arms transfers, resigned over Biden’s "destructive, unjust" supply of arms to Israel just days after the war on Gaza began.

In January, a senior Palestinian-American official in the US Education Department, Tariq Habash, resigned from his post, saying he could no longer "stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives."

Despite mounting international criticism of Israel’s offensive that has reportedly killed more than 34,300 people and flattened swathes of Gaza, the Biden administration has continued to provide its ally with a steady stream of weapons. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was eyeing an additional $1bn weapons deal with Israel.

On Wednesday, the US Senate joined the House of Representatives in passing an aid bill that will provide $26bn in aid for Israel and Palestine, with $4bn set to replenish Israel's missile defense system and roughly $9bn slated for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.

There have been reports of internal dissent within the Biden administration as the death toll in Gaza continues to mount. In November, more than 1,000 officials at USAID, the State Department's international aid organisation, signed an open letter calling for an immediate ceasefire. Cables criticizing the administration's policy have also been filed with the State Department's internal "dissent channel".

The war has also sparked widespread anti-war demonstrations across the United States, with protests in recent weeks escalating across US universities. Student-led protests have seen encampments set up on major campuses demanding divestment from companies involved in Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and "genocide" in Gaza. 

Egypt is attempting a last ditch effort to reach a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel at a moment IDF shelling of Rafah has intensified, in what are seen as 'softening' operations ahead of an imminent ground offensive, despite international calls to cancel the operation.

The Egyptian government on Friday dispatched a high level delegation to Israel led by top intelligence official Abbas Kamel. The Associated Press reported he is presenting a "new vision" for prolonged ceasefire.

But key to a breakthrough is agreement on the remaining Israeli hostages being released, and the two sides seem no closer to achieving that. The Wall Street Journal cites that "Egyptian officials familiar with the negotiations say the talks toward a hostage deal have little chance of success, but hope to use the meetings to buy time for the U.S. and regional powers to pressure Israel to pause its plans to attack Rafah."

While things heat up in the south of the Strip, the IDF has reportedly allowed many displaced Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza "with minimum restrictions".

According to more via WSJ: "The main stumbling block in the negotiations now is Hamas’s demand that any deal include a credible path to a permanent cease-fire, rather than a temporary pause in the fighting, according to Egyptian and other officials familiar with the negotiations."

As for Egypt, it is bracing for a likely massive refugee influx across its border and into Sinai should an all-out Rafah assault be unleashed. Both Egypt and Israel have been establishing camps; however, these would likely reach and overflow in capacity within 24 hours of a Rafah ground operation.

One top Hamas official told international media correspondents that Hamas is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel. But Hamas has stuck by its key demand of a full Israeli military withdrawal from the Strip. At the same time Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to see through his vow of eradicating Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists.

Hamas has also said it is willing to lay down its weapons if Israel vows to uphold a two-state solution. Some European countries have also called for this, and have pushed for Palestine to become a full-fledged member of the United Nations.

On Friday at least five more Palestinians have been reported killed by the intensified shelling in Rafah. Currently, more than half of the total Gaza Strip population of 2.3 million are believe to be packed into the southern city. Humanitarian aid organizations are warning of an impending disaster if there is a full military ground offensive. The past weeks have seen dozens killed in similar shelling attacks.

A large segment of the Israeli population believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu is launching into a Rafah operation full-steam for the sake of his political survival. One fresh Haaretz headline, for example reads: "Fearing the End of His Coalition, Netanyahu Edges Toward Rafah Operation Over Hostage Deal".

IMPORTANT — It could take 14 years to clear debris in #Gaza

An estimated 37 million tonnes of debris has been left by #Israel’s war on Gaza’s widely urbanised, densely populated territory.

Source — Pehr Lodhammar, senior officer at the United Nations Mine Action Service… pic.twitter.com/VwpKyPmE8u

— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) April 26, 2024

Below are some fresh Associated Press headlines detailing the latest developments Friday...

• Ship comes under attack off coast of Yemen as Houthi rebel campaign appears to gain new speed
• Satellite photos show new port construction in Gaza Strip for US-led aid operation
• Some campuses call in police to break up pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while others wait it out
• Chef José Andrés says aid workers killed by Israeli airstrikes represented the ‘best of humanity’
• UN report says 282 million people faced acute hunger in 2023, with the worst famine in Gaza
• EU military officer says a frigate has destroyed a drone launched from Yemen’s Houthi-held areas
• North Gaza still headed toward famine, UN food agency says
• Israel masses military vehicles along Gaza border

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the New York Post on yesterday’s oral arguments on presidential immunity. As expected, with the exception of the three liberal justices, the Court appears to be struggling to find a more nuanced approach that would avoid the extreme positions of both parties. Rather than take a header off either cliff, the justices seem interested in a controlled descent into the depths of Article II.

Here is the column:

Writer Ray Bradbury once said, “Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.”

In Thursday’s case before the Supreme Court on the immunity of former President Donald Trump, nine justices appear to be feverishly working with feathers and glue on a plunge into a constitutional abyss.

It has been almost 50 years since the high court ruled presidents have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits in Nixon v. Fitzgerald.

The court held ex-President Richard Nixon had such immunity for acts taken “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

Yet in 1974’s United States v. Nixon, the court ruled a president is not immune from a criminal subpoena. Nixon was forced to comply with a subpoena for his White House tapes in the Watergate scandal from special counsel Leon Jaworski.

Since then, the court has avoided any significant ruling on the extension of immunity to a criminal case — until now.

There are cliffs on both sides of this case.

If the court were to embrace special counsel Jack Smith’s arguments, a president would have no immunity from criminal charges, even for official acts taken in his presidency.

It would leave a president without protection from endless charges from politically motivated prosecutors.

If the court were to embrace Trump counsel’s arguments, a president would have complete immunity.

It would leave a president largely unaccountable under the criminal code for any criminal acts.

The first cliff is made obvious by the lower-court opinion. While the media have largely focused on extreme examples of president-ordered assassinations and coups, the justices are clearly as concerned with the sweeping implications of the DC Circuit opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted the DC Circuit failed to make any “focused” analysis of the underlying acts, instead offering little more than a judicial shrug.

Roberts read its statement that “a former president can be prosecuted for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former president has acted in defiance of the laws” and noted it sounds like “a former president can be prosecuted because he is being prosecuted.”

The other cliff is more than obvious from the other proceedings occuring as these arguments were made. Trump’s best attorney proved to be Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

If the justices want insight into the implications of denying any immunity, they just need to look north to New York City.

The ongoing prosecution of Trump is legally absurd but has resulted in the leading presidential candidate not only being gagged but prevented from campaigning.

Alvin Bragg is the very personification of the danger immunity is meant to avoid.

With cliffs to the left and the right, the justices are looking at a free-fall dive into the scope of constitutional and criminal law as they apply to presidential conduct.

They may be looking not for a foothold as much as a shorter drop.

Some of the justices are likely to be seeking a third option where a president has some immunity under a more limited and less tautological standard than the one the DC Circuit offered.

The problem for the court is presidential privilege and immunity decisions are meant to give presidents breathing room by laying out bright lines within which they can operate.

Ambiguity defeats the purpose of such immunity. So does a test that turns on the motivation of an official act.

The special counsel insists, for example, Trump was acting for his personal interest in challenging certification and raising electoral fraud since he was the other candidate.

But what if he wasn’t on the ballot — would it have been an official function to raise such concerns for other candidates?

When pressed on the line between official and nonofficial conduct, the special counsel just dismissed such concerns and said Trump was clearly acting as an office-seeker not an officeholder.

Likewise, the special counsel argued the protection for presidents must rest with the good motivations and judgment of prosecutors.

It was effectively a “Trust us, we’re the government” assurance. Justice Samuel Alito and others questioned whether such reliance is well placed after decades of prosecutors’ proven abuses.

Finally, if there is no immunity, could President Barack Obama be prosecuted for ordering the killing of a citizen by drone attack and then killing his son in a second drone attack?

The government insisted there is an exception for such acts from the murder statute.

In the end, neither party offers a particularly inviting path. No immunity or complete immunity each holds obvious dangers.

I have long opposed sweeping arguments of immunity from criminal charges for presidents. The devil is in the details, and many justices are struggling with how to define official versus nonofficial conduct.

The line-drawing proved maddening for the justices in the oral argument. The most they could say is similar to the story of the man who jumped off a building. As he passes an office window halfway down, another man calls out to ask how he’s doing. The jumper responds, “So far so good.”

As the justices work on a new set of legal wings, anything is possible as the nation waits for the court to hit ground zero in the middle of the 2024 presidential election.

There have been emerging reports Friday that Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir has been hospitalized after a serious car accident.

Regional media outlet The Cradle writes that "Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir has been hospitalized after his car overturned in Ramla while leaving the scene of a stabbing attack."

Video of the flipped car of Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, circulating on Israeli telegram channels pic.twitter.com/SjPV1muqgE

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) April 26, 2024

Axios correspondent Barak Ravid also confirms that the cabinet minister was in a government car which was in an accident and flipped over.

Ben Gvir has reportedly been injured, and images and footage from the scene shows what appears to be a very serious accident. Unconfirmed reports say that "According to Israeli media, his car had run a red light before the accident."

The incident comes as the country is deeply divided over the Netanyahu government's Gaza policy. Ben Gvir is considered among the most 'extreme' ministers in the governing coalition, also having ties with internationally sanctioned settler movements which engage in attempts to cleanse West Bank areas of any Palestinian presence.

Israeli media is already spotlighting controversial elements surrounding Ben Gvir and the Friday car crash, with Haaretz reporting the national security minister's driving habits have been flagged as dangerous. According to machine translation of the Hebrew report:

The Shin Bet contacted the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of National Security following several cases in which Minister Itamar Ben Gabir's car was driven in violation of traffic laws, Haaretz learned.

According to security sources, the minister's security guards complained to their superiors in the ministry that the minister was ordering his drivers to commit offenses. Traffic, including passing a red light at traffic lights, driving at excessive speed and driving on the side of the road.

Images from the scene show that Ben Gvir's injuries might be quite serious (though some reports suggest only minor injuries)...

Earlier this month Ben Gvir stirred more controversy when he deeply criticized Netanyahu's 'limited' retaliatory attack on Iran, calling it 'lame' and implying that the response was weak and should have been much bigger and stronger.

Currently there is a lot of reported infighting even among the top decision-makers on Gaza wartime policy. The Wall Street Journal recently featured a headline that underscored Israel's war leaders don't trust one another. This comes as they are dealing simultaneously with the operation in Gaza, repelling Hezbollah daily drone and missile attacks in the north, and of course the new tit-for-tat crisis with Iran.

Pro-Palestine pundits took to social media and immediately began speculating over the apparent serious car accident...

The Americans tried to off Ben Gvir today 😂 https://t.co/6zHNcsvexw

— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) April 26, 2024

"Long-simmering grudges and arguments over how best to fight Hamas have soured relations between Israel’s wartime decision makers—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the former head of the Israeli military, Benny Gantz," the publication wrote. 

Amid contrasting reports, public broadcaster Kann news says the minister was "lightly injured" in the accident.

#BREAKING: Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir was injured in a car accident, he was taken to hospital after he was lightly injured pic.twitter.com/99FmEwQbKF

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) April 26, 2024

"The three men are at odds over the biggest decisions they need to make: how to launch a decisive military push, free Israel’s hostages and govern the postwar strip."

⚡️The moment Ben Gvir got into the accident pic.twitter.com/uxF3OVgzhn

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) April 26, 2024

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Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Conservative states across the country—Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Oklahoma—are taking border security matters into their own hands, proposing or passing legislation targeting illegal immigration.

The Oklahoma legislature just passed a bill designed to prohibit illegal immigrants from entering or living in the state.

HB 4156 states: “A person commits an impermissible occupation if the person is an alien and willfully and without permission enters and remains in the State of Oklahoma without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.”

The bill passed the state House and Senate by wide margins and Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, is expected to sign it into law.

The legislature declared the issue a crisis in the state and stated in the bill: “Throughout the state, law enforcement comes into daily and increasingly frequent contact with foreign nationals who entered the country illegally or who remain here illegally.

“Often, these persons are involved with organized crime such as drug cartels, they have no regard for Oklahoma’s laws or public safety, and they produce or are involved with fentanyl distribution, sex trafficking, and labor trafficking.”

Under the new law, a conviction related to “impermissible occupation” would be considered a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in a county jail, a fine of up to $500, or both.

Subsequent offenses are felonies, punishable by up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.

Illegal immigrants who are barred from the country or have been issued a removal order by an immigration judge, and then enter Oklahoma will face a felony charge carrying a possible sentence of up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.

In all instances, those found guilty must leave Oklahoma within 72 hours of being convicted or released from custody.

The law requires police to collect fingerprints, photographs, and biometric data, which will be cross-checked with Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation databases.

“The failure of the federal government to address this issue … has turned every state into a border state,” said bill sponsor state Rep. Charles Mr. McCall said in a statement.

“Those who want to work through the process of coming to our country legally are more than welcome to come to Oklahoma; we would love to have them here. We will not reward [illegal immigration] in Oklahoma, and we will protect our state borders.”

U.S. border authorities have apprehended more than 9 million illegal immigrants nationwide under President Joe Biden, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Under the administration’s catch-and-release policy, many have been released into the United States and have taken up residence all over the country.

Texas’ law, Senate Bill 4, makes it a state crime to enter Texas outside legal ports of entry.

The new law was set to go into effect in March, but has been blocked and is currently tied up in the courts.

New Iowa, Tennessee, and Georgia Laws

Earlier this month, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 2340 into law.

The new law, which goes into effect July 1, makes it a misdemeanor to be in the state or attempt to enter the state after being deported, denied admission to the United States, or if an individual has an outstanding deportation order.

Being in the state illegally becomes a felony under certain circumstances such as the accused having two or more misdemeanor convictions involving drugs or crimes against a person.

As with the Texas law, it gives judges the discretion to drop the charges if the illegal immigrant agrees to return to the country from which he or she entered the United States.

“Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them,” Ms. Reynolds stated in a news release.

“This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a new law this month that requires law enforcement agencies to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people are in the country illegally, requiring in most cases cooperation in the process of identifying, catching, detaining, and deporting them.

The law takes effect July 1.

“When there is an interaction with law enforcement, it’s important that the appropriate authorities are notified of the status of that individual,” Mr. Lee, a Republican, told reporters after signing the bill into law. “I think that makes sense. So, I’m in support of that legislation.”

Members of the Tennessee House blamed President Biden’s lack of border enforcement for the necessity of the law.

“President Biden’s administration has delivered this pain to our doorsteps,” Tennessee state Rep. Chris Todd said on the House floor.

In Georgia, lawmakers passed House Bill 1105 that would require jailers to check the immigration status of inmates.

The bill is part of an ongoing political response to the February slaying of nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus, allegedly by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.

The man, Jose Antonio Ibarra, was arrested in February on murder and assault charges in the death of the 22-year-old.

Immigration officials say Mr. Ibarra, 26, crossed into the United States illegally in 2022. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Sen. Lindsey Graham(R-S.C.)  that Mr. Ibarra was paroled into the country illegally due to “capacity problems” at border detention facilities

The Georgia bill was sent to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk on April 3 and awaits his signature, at which time most measures would take effect immediately.

Louisiana, Arizona, New Hampshire

Texas’ neighbor, Louisiana, is considering the passage of SB 388, a GOP-led bill that would allow state police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants within the state.

The law passed the chamber on April 8 along party lines and headed to the House, also controlled by Republicans.

“Louisiana is one step closer to securing our border and addressing our illegal immigration crisis,” Republican state Sen. Valarie Hodges, the bill’s sponsor, posted on X.

The battleground state of Arizona passed a law similar to Texas’ HB 4, but its Democratic Gov. Katy Hobbs vetoed it.

That inspired the Legislature to draft a ballot measure to be put to voters in November that would require businesses to use E-verify. E-verify is a voluntary federal online service for employers to check an employee’s eligibility to work in the United States against Department of Homeland Security and Social Security records.

New Hampshire, which is Republican-led, passed SB 504 allowing police to bring criminal trespassing charges against people suspected of illegally entering the United States from Canada. The measure must be approved by the House to advance.

Cities and Counties

Cities and counties in red and blue states are also pushing back in creative ways to stop illegal immigrants from coming into their jurisdictions.

“They’re basically dumped on their doorstep,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a “pro-immigrant, low-immigration” think tank.

In June 2023, New York City under Democratic Mayor Eric Adams sued more than 30 New York local governments alleging they issued unlawful executive orders prohibiting temporary housing for illegal immigrants in their jurisdictions.

Counties such as Orange and Rockland in upstate New York were successful in using local zoning laws to stop the mayor from busing illegal immigrants to live in their hotels.

The state Supreme Court granted Rockland a temporary restraining order against the mayor’s plan after the county argued that local zoning laws bar hotels from operating as shelters.

Orange County was granted a similar ruling.

Likewise, zoning was used by the city of Taunton, Massachusetts, to stop illegal immigrants from living in hotels, Ms. Vaughan said.

In May 2023, the state was paying millions of dollars to house some 120 homeless and migrant families at a local hotel long-term.

Taunton city leaders filed a lawsuit against the hotel, claiming it violated its occupancy limit for nearly four months. The city aims to collect $114,600 in fines.

Residents in these small communities often struggle with housing and obtaining services that illegal immigrants get for free, Ms. Vaughan noted.

“Now paying taxes, essentially, to support these illegal migrants in their town. The schools have to accommodate them. And that’s a huge cost on the local taxpayers,” she said.

In Colorado’s Mesa County, commissioners passed a resolution in February declaring the county a “non-sanctuary county,” and denying shelter and services to illegal aliens sent there by the state or federal government, she said.

Commissioners also passed a resolution to send a letter to Denver Mayor Mike Johnston informing him the county doesn’t plan to help the city deal with its illegal immigrant surge.

Ms. Vaughan said that she believes other states are waiting to see what happens with some of Texas’ laws, such as SB 4, which are aimed at deterring illegal immigration.

“I think the feeling among most state and local officials that I’ve talked to about it is that they are watching and waiting and hoping that the court will draw some boundaries for them on what they can and cannot do,” she said.

Florida’s Laws

When it comes to making life more difficult for illegal immigrants through legislation, Florida has proven as aggressive as Texas.

Besides beefing up law enforcement to help the U.S. Coast Guard spot migrants and sending the Florida National Guard to Texas, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved laws to deter illegal aliens from staying in the Sunshine State.

The Republican governor signed SB 1718 in 2023, which was criticized by the left as one of the most anti-illegal immigrant pieces of legislation in the country.

Read more here...

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Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One in five samples of milk from grocery store shelves tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced late April 25.

In a brief 237-word update, the FDA said that initial results from a national commercial milk sampling study “show about 1 in 5 of the retail samples tested are quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-positive for HPAI viral fragments, with a greater proportion of positive results coming from milk in areas with infected herds.”

The FDA has refused to disclose how many samples it tested and from which stores the samples came, and a Freedom of Information Act request for the information has not yet yielded results.

Thirty-three cattle herds across eight states—Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas—have tested positive for avian influenza, commonly known as the bird flu, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Poultry in Minnesota and a person in Texas have also become infected with the same genotype of the H5N1 avian influenza strain found in cattle.

Authorities have stressed that positive results from qPCR testing do not mean the pasteurized milk contains intact virus, because the testing can return positive based on fragments of residual virus.

“Additional testing is required to determine whether intact pathogen is still present and if it remains infectious, which would help inform a determination of whether there is any risk of illness associated with consuming the product,” the FDA said.

Testing includes injecting eggs with samples that tested positive and seeing whether any active virus replicates.

In another round of testing, conducted by a team from Ohio State University, 58 of 150 milk samples gathered from grocery stores across six states tested positive for bird flu.

“We’ve screened them for the presence of influenza genetic material, so the viral RNA. Those that have tested positive, we have been forwarded to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where they are conducting studies to see if there’s a viable virus in there. To date, none of them have been viable, but certainly they give the indication that there is viral genetic material in the region,” Dr. Andrew Bowman, an associate professor at Ohio State University, told the Bovine Veterinarian magazine.

“The fact that you can go into a supermarket and 30 percent to 40 percent of those samples test positive, that suggests there’s more of the virus around than is currently being recognized,” Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude’s, told STAT News.

The FDA has said it will release more details about the testing in the future. Raw milk from farms with affected cows has also tested positive for bird flu.

Authorities initially said that pasteurized milk was definitely safe but have since acknowledged that they’re not sure whether milk in grocery stores contains live bird flu virus. The FDA announced Tuesday that some samples tested positive for the influenza.

Officials say it’s still safe to drink milk but some outside experts, including former U.S. government official Rick Bright, have said they’re going to hold off until more information is made public about the outbreak.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture only required testing dairy cows showing symptoms of the flu but, starting Monday will require lactating cows to test negative before being moved across state lines.

The flu originated in birds but has since moved to other animals, including cattle and goats.

The person in Texas, and an individual in Colorado who became sick in 2022, are the only humans with confirmed cases of the H5N1 version in the United States.

Monitoring of people who have come into contact with animals has only covered 44 people so far, Sonja Olsen, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told an Association of State and Territorial Health Officials webinar this week. Twenty-three people who showed symptoms were tested. The person in Texas, a farm worker, has been the only person to test positive so far.

With oil prices enjoying a powerful renaissance in recent months amid mounting supply concerns, declining inventory and the growing possibility that China's economy may finally kickstart, energy giants such as Exxon and Chevron had enjoyed a similar rebound in their stock price, and in fact XOM hit a record high as recently as 2 weeks ago. Which is why many were looking to today's earnings reports by the largest US energy company to see if the numbers would validate the rebound in sentiment and, of course, price.

So here is what Exxon reported today for the first quarter:

• EPS of $2.06, down from 2.83 a year ago, and missing consensus estimates of $2.19, as a result of delayed bump in commodity prices (which however will lift results in Q2) and a spike in non-cash charges

The Net Income number was $8.22 billion, down from $11.618 billion a year ago, with weakness in Upstream and Energy products hitting the bottom line number, coupled with an increases in expenses.  The biggest factor behind the drop in earnings was a $2.6 billion hit to price/margin due to lower energy prices in Q1. However, with Brent now well above year ago levels and rising, what XOM lost in Q1 it will more than make up in Q2 absent a collapse in the energy market.

A breakdown by the various operating segments, reveals that price and margin were indeed the biggest culprits for declining earnings.

Taking a closer look at the company's two main divisions, Upstream and Energy products, the company provided the following detail for the somewhat disappointing earnings here, starting with Upstream:

• Lower gas realizations due to high industry inventory
• Advantaged assets volume improved due to continued growth in Guyana
  • >600 Kbd of Guyana quarterly gross production
  • Payara ramped up to 220 Kbd capacity well ahead of schedule
• Base volume lower due to unfavorable sales timing and entitlement impacts
• Timing effects had a negative $120 million impact on the quarter compared to a negative $160 million impact last quarter

Energy products, where we saw the bulk of the earnings delta (some $1.7BN in earnings reductions between Q4 and Q1), was more interesting as Exxon attributed the slide to three primary drivers:

• Volumes and expenses reflect higher scheduled maintenance activity
• Non-cash charges which reflected the absence of favorable year-end inventory impacts, and unfavorable tax adjustments
• Finally, timing effects which had a negative $460 million impact on the quarter, consistent with rising price environment compared to a positive $600 million impact last quarter (this is derivative trades which are completely separate from the core business)

“Any given quarter we’ll have a number of non-cash, just a bit more unusual expenses that kind of ebb and flow,” CFO Kathy Mikells told BBG in an interview. “This quarter we had a number of small ones that added up together to be more significant and that’s difficult for analysts to model.”

“We continue to bring projects in more quickly and under budget so we’ve just had great execution in Guyana,” Mikells said, noting that gross daily production is now more than 600,000 barrels, up from 440,000 in the final three months of 2023.

Exxon’s accounting charges were non-cash items associated with tax and inventory balance sheet adjustments, Mikells said. The company also had higher expenses from scheduled maintenance at its facilities.

Some more highlights from the report:

• Exxon started output at Payara, its third Guyanese development, ahead of schedule late last year, adding 220,000 barrels of daily supplies that earn profits even if crude plunges to the $35 mark.
• Achieved quarterly gross production of more than 600,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day in Guyana and reached a final investment decision on the sixth major development.
• Net production was 47,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day lower than the same quarter last year with the growth in advantaged Guyana volumes more than offsetting the earnings impact from lower base volumes due to divestments, government-mandated curtailments and unfavorable entitlement effects.
• Excluding the impacts from divestments, entitlements, and government-mandated curtailments, net production grew 77,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day driven by the start-up of the Payara development in Guyana.

What is remarkable is that even though earnings missed mostly on the timing effect of commodity price increases and one-time charges, which has sent the stock tumbling this morning, the company still managed to blow away expectations for cash generation: in Q1, cash from operations jumped to $14.7 billion, $1 billion higher than Q4 2023 and also $1 billion higher than forecasts, boosted by the more than 35% uplift in Guyanese crude production.

This in turn led to a $1.8 billion increase in the company's cash balance despite $6.8 billion in shareholders distributions including $3.8 billion in dividends.

Exxon’s capital spending was $5.8 billion in the first quarter, a third lower than the previous three month period when the company incurred some added Guyana costs. If that level of spending is repeated for the rest of the year, annual capital expenditure would come in at the low end of the company’s $23 billion to $25 billion guidance, and in a market where capital efficiency is extremely rewarded, it likely means that new all time highs are just weeks if not days away.

More importantly, XOM says that it is on pace to increase buybacks to $20 billion following the close of the Pioneer acquisition, some time in Q2.

Exxon’s stellar performance in Guyana explains why arch-rival Chevron wants to get into the project via a $53 billion takeover of Hess, which has a 30% stake. Exxon claims it has a right-of-first refusal over Hess’s stake while Chevron says that doesn’t apply because its deal is a corporate merger.

Arbitration is still in its “very early days,” Mikells said. Each side has chosen one arbitrator who will sit on a panel of three, she said. Hess this week extended the closing date of its deal with Chevron by six months to October.

Finally looking ahead, the company forecast that it is on track to more than double upstream profits by 2027...

... and with cost-savings expected to save another $5BN in spending by 2027 (a total of $15BN vs 2019), this translates into a stellar 10% CAGR in bottom line earnings, and about $10BN in incremental earnings potential by 2027.

Commenting on the results, Goldman said that relative to its forecasts, US E&P and International R&M drove the miss. Worldwide production came in at 3,784 MBOE/d vs GS at 3,776 MBOE/d and FactSet consensus at 3,808 MBOE/d, with stronger US and International liquids partially offset by weaker US and International gas production.

More importantly, the Goldman analyst writes that, as noted above, timing effects from unsettled derivative mark-to-market impacts and other primarily non-cash impacts from tax and inventory adjustments contributed to the miss vs GS estimates. Additionally, the company reiterated Structural Cost Savings target of $15bn by 2027, with total savings reported at $10.1 bn vs 2019 levels.

So in its infinite wisdom, when faced with a company that is generating more cash than 99% of companies - and is not reliant on hype and chatbots to keep growing but good, old-fashioned energy which may be boring but is what keeps the world turning - this morning the algos decided to dump their Exxon shares sending the stock some 4% lower, and allowing anyone who pays attention to load up on the dip.

The XOM Q1 investor presentation is below (pdf link)

Citing safety concerns amid nationwide campus protests against Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza, the University of Southern California on Thursday announced that its 2024 graduating class will not have the traditional main commencement ceremony that brings all graduates together:

"With the new safety measures in place this year, the time needed to process the large number of guests coming to campus will increase substantially. As a result, we will not be able to host the main stage ceremony that traditionally brings 65,000 students, families, and friends to our campus all at the same time and during a short window from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m."

This news comes on the heels of the university's controversial declaration that it wouldn't allow its Muslim valedictorian to deliver a speech to her classmates -- a decision that inflamed tensions and prompted an outcry against what was seen by many as an act of censorship and excessive deference to pro-Israel groups. 

More immediately, the cancellation also comes on the heels of mass arrests on USC's campus on Wednesday. More than 90 people were carted off as police cleared protesters from their "occupation" of Alumni Park. As at Columbia University and elsewhere, the protesters are demanding that USC divest from Israel, much as an earlier generation of activists sought similar divestments from apartheid South Africa. 

Cops arrest protestors at USC pic.twitter.com/KH7kbKmlEv

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 24, 2024

On a statement to the campus on Wednesday, USC Provost Andrew Guzman noted that protesters -- many of the whom "do not appear to be affiliated with USC"-- failed to comply with direction to remove tents from the property. He also said protesters “actions have escalated to include acts of vandalism, defacing campus buildings and structures, as well as physical confrontation."

Earlier this month, USC announced that its 2024 valedictorian is Asna Tabassum, a self-described first-generation South Asian-American Muslim who is a biomedical engineering major and resistance-to-genocide minor (details on that discipline here). Her selection sparked an immediate uproar from Zionist groups, including Trojans for Israel, which "advocates for the vitality of the US-Israel relationship," and We Are Tov, which also promotes support for Israel. 

Tabassum's detractors pointed to her social media history, with Trojans for Israel accusing her of "openly traffic[king] antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.” 

Her supposedly disqualifying expressions included:

• Sharing a link to a slideshow on "what's happening in Palestine and how to help." The presentation called for "one Palestinian state" and "the complete abolishment of the state of Israel," according to the Times of Israel. 

• Linking to a site that characterizes Zionism as a "racist settler-colonial ideology." 

USC promptly caved to pro-Israel outcry: On April 16, it announced it had canceled Tabassum's speech because "discussion related to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor" and that "the intensity of feelings...has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks.” At the same time, USC also cancelled appearances by speakers and honorees that included Billie Jean King and "Crazy Rich Asians" director Jon Chu. 

After the USC decision, Tabassum issued a statement noting that, via her resistance to genocide minor -- which emphasizes the Holocaust -- "[I] have learned that ordinary people are capable of unspeakable acts of violence when they are taught hate fueled by fear. And due to widespread fear, I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire my classmates with a message of hope. By canceling my speech, USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred."

As for the commencement cancellation, USC's shut-it-all-down move echoes the excessive caution displayed by the American education system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those echoes are all too loud for USC seniors -- four years ago, many of them were denied high school graduation ceremonies in the name of "safety."

Now, their college commencement ceremony has been similarly vaporized, only by a different set of quivering academics. 

"It is both enabling and irresponsible. Rather than protect students and their families at this important and well-earned event in their lives, the university is yielding to the mob. It is a feckless and feeble response to what should have been an easy decision for any administrator," said Jonathan Turley.

After hearing the news, one of those seniors, who goes by @gracieflynn12, took to TikTok to vent: 

"The seniors that are graduating college right now are the seniors that graduated in 2020, where we didn't have a high school graduation. A lot of us had drive-through fake graduations or no graduation at all. And now we are seniors getting ready for our first real graduation and it just got cancelled...

...I just had my last class ever, and just right after, should be celebrating. But we just got the new that we have no graduation, so now all my roommates are depressed, and we were all literally just sitting in the living room in tears."

Here, a USC senior who was robbed of a high school graduation by the COVID Panic reacts to USC cancelling her college commencement because of an anti-Israel valedictorian and fear of protests…

This is the world that liberals want and are creating for her and her generation.😡🥲 pic.twitter.com/QhbTAfBBcp

— John Ziegler (@Zigmanfreud) April 26, 2024

...but at least one especially admirable voice against the Covid regime is being consistent: 

It was wrong for public health tyrants to cancel high school graduation for the senior class of 2020.

It is wrong for USC to cancel the big graduation ceremony for their undergraduate class of 2024.

Let the kids (ok, young adults) celebrate graduation for once! pic.twitter.com/FA6qR2mGQ0

— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) April 26, 2024

Jonathan Turley summed up the situation succinctly: "The problem of violent protests and threats on campus is not solved by removing the potential victims. To yield this ground is to surrender control over not just the campus but the academic operations of the school. Higher education has to aspire to be more than a mere mobocracy where threats not logic prevail. "

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The latest retail sales data suggests a robust consumer, leading economists to become even more optimistic about more robust economic growth this year. To wit:

“It has been two years since forecasters felt this good about the economic outlook. In the latest quarterly survey by The Wall Street Journal, business and academic economists lowered the chances of a recession within the next year to 29% from 39% in the January survey. That was the lowest probability since April 2022, when the chances of a recession were set at 28%.

Economists don’t think the economy will get even close to a recession. In January, they, on average, forecast sub-1% growth in each of the first three quarters of this year. Now, they expect growth to bottom out this year at an inflation-adjusted 1.4% in the third quarter.” – WSJ

According to the March retail sales data, consumer spending added “fuel” to economists’ exuberance about this year.

Rising inflation in March didn’t deter consumers, who continued shopping at a more rapid pace than anticipated, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Retail sales increased 0.7% for the month, considerably faster than the Dow Jones consensus forecast for a 0.3% rise though below the upwardly revised 0.9% in February, according to Census Bureau data that is adjusted for seasonality but not for inflation.” – CNBC

The chart below shows the monthly change in the retail sales data over the last two years.

While mainstream economists trumpeted the strength of the consumer, the March retail sales data had some interesting points worth noting.

First, retail sales data was extraordinarily weak from October to January, the traditionally strongest shopping months of the year. That period included Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and NYear’sr’s. So, to some degree, the strength of spending over the last two months is unsurprising as, eventually, consumers need to buy goods or services previously postponed.

Secondly, while the March retail sales data was strong, it was weaker than February. However, March contained two significant spending periods, Spring Break and Easter, which generally don’t occur. Since Spring Break and Easter are considerable travel and shopping periods, it is unsurprising that the retail sales data increased with oil prices rising. As shown below, there is a very high correlation between nominal retail sales and oil prices.

Paying More For The Same Amount

Economists often overlook another important point about the retail sales data. As noted above, the March retail sales report was NOT adjusted for inflation. Furthermore, the report is in nominal “dollar volume” and not the amount of goods or services sold. Oil and gasoline prices are an excellent example of the issue with the retail sales data.

Let’s assume you own a car with 18-gallon fuel tank. Your daily activities are mostly going to work, going to the grocery store, eating out, having entertainment, etc. As such, you consume one tank of gas each week. Here is the math:

Week 1: 18-gallons of gas @ $3/gallon = $54.

That week, the store adds $54 to the monthly retail sales total for selling 18 gallons of gasoline. However, the price will increase to $4 per gallon next week.

Week 2: 18-gallons of gas @ $4/gallon = $72.

Here is the question.

While the retail sales data increased by $18 in week two, did the consumer purchase more gasoline? In other words, if the economy’s strength is ultimately measured by how much we produce (gross domestic product), then does spending more for the same amount of goods or services equate to a stronger economy?

The picture is quite different if we adjust the nominal retail sales data for inflation. Again, it is unsurprising that even on an inflation-adjusted basis, retail sales rose in February after declining for four months previously. However, with March containing Spring Break and Easter, the data suggests a weaker consumer that headlines tout.

It is worth noting that retail sales data is not very useful in determining whether the economy is nearing a recession. As shown below, an annual growth rate of 2% has been a good marker for economic growth. As such, retail sales should grow at roughly 2% annually as well, given that personal consumption expenditures comprise approximately 70% of the economic equation. However, other than 2007, retail sales did not clarify economic strength.

In other words, spending more for the same amount of goods and services is not a sign of economic strength.

Economic Forecasts Tend To Be Erroneous

Furthermore, while the recent nominal sales data was robust, it is crucial to remember the economic data has a significant lag. Each of the dates below shows the economy’s growth rate immediately before the onset of a recession. You will note in the table that in 7 of the last 10 recessions, real GDP growth was running at 2% or above. In other words, according to the media, there was NO indication of a recession. But the next month, one began.

Crucially, I am not saying a recession is starting next month. However, I suggest that relying heavily on one month’s retail sales data to claim the economy avoided a recession is not likely ideal. Let’s revisit that chart of the WSJ economic forecast. I have added two notations: the start and end of recessions and when the NBER officially dated that period. As shown in both previous recessions, WSJ economists had a very low probability of the economy entering a recession just before it occurred.

The reality is that on an inflation-adjusted basis, the retail sales data suggests the consumer remains weak. While spending more to buy the same amount of goods or services may look good on paper, the average household has less money to spend elsewhere. As shown, the annual rate of change in real retail sales is near some of the lowest levels outside of a recession.

Lastly, consumer credit supporting retail sales will become more problematic with rising interest rates. Higher interest rates tend to reduce the average growth rate of retail sales data.

Our advice is to remain cautious about economic exuberance. Those forecasts are often disappointing.

Having already lost more than 10% of its value versus the US dollar this year, the yen plunged further overnight after Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda indicated monetary policy will stay easy as he kept rates unchanged and showed little to no support for the embattled currency during the press conference.

While investors had not expected the BoJ to change its policy this week, there was an expectations that Ueda would strike a hawkish tone regarding future rate rises to slow the yen’s decline.

Instead, Ueda said at a news conference on Friday that the central bank’s board members judged there was “no major impact” from the weaker yen on underlying inflation for now.

“Currency rates is not a target of monetary policy to directly control,” he said.

“But currency volatility could be an important factor in impacting the economy and prices. If the impact on underlying inflation becomes too big to ignore, it may be a reason to adjust monetary policy.”

And that sent the currency reeling (amid chaotic swings) back above 157/USD...

Source: Bloomberg

“There is no intention by the BoJ to stop the yen’s decline, at least looking at its statement and its outlook report,” said UBS economist Masamichi Adachi.

“The finance ministry will have to act [to stem the yen weakness]... It would have been more effective if both the government and the BoJ faced the same direction,” he added.

Blowing further below the 'interventionist' levels seen previously to a fresh 34-year low...

Source: Bloomberg

“Markets remain on high alert for any indication of whether the yen’s current weakness will be interpreted as a lasting inflationary signal,” said Naomi Fink, global strategist at Nikko Asset Management.

“The BoJ however is likelier to find any knock-on impact from yen weakness upon inflation as more concerning than short-term currency moves.”

Driving the depreciation is the yawning gap between the interest rates in the US - which are at highest in decades after the Fed’s aggressive tightening cycle last year - and those in Japan, where borrowing costs remain stubbornly low near zero.

“Intervention is possible at anytime, but it could have been just someone selling a large lot, which stoked intervention speculation and spurred follow-through moves,” said Koji Fukaya, a fellow at Market Risk Advisory Co. in Tokyo.

“It does not look like intervention, but the only way to confirm is to check data that will be released later by the Ministry of Finance.”

Policymakers have repeatedly warned that depreciation won’t be tolerated if it goes too far too fast.

Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki reiterated after the BoJ meeting that the government will respond appropriately to foreign exchange moves.

Potential triggers for interventions are public holidays in Japan on Monday and Friday next week, which bring the risk of volatility amid thin trading.

“Should the yen fall further from here, like after the BOJ decision in September 2022, the possibility of intervention will increase,” said Hirofumi Suzuki, chief currency strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

“It is not the level but it’s the speed that will trigger the action.”

But so far, nothing! And so the market continues to call Ueda and Suzuki's bluff, knowing full well that a sudden intervention will perhaps briefly support the currency but will pancake the current gains in Japanese stocks.

However, not everyone is convinced intervention is imminent.

In a note this morning, Deutsche Bank says the currency's decline is warranted and finally marks the day where the market realizes that Japan is following a policy of benign neglect for the yen.

We have long argued that FX intervention is not credible and the toning down of verbal jawboning from the finance minister overnight is on balance a positive from a credibility perspective. The possibility of intervention can't be ruled out if the market turns disorderly, but it is also notable that Governor Ueda played down the importance of the yen in his press conference today as well as signalling no urgency to hike rates. We would frame the ongoing yen collapse around the following points.

1. Yen weakness is simply not that bad for Japan. The tourism sector is booming, profit margins on the Nikkei are soaring and exporter competitiveness is increasing. True, the cost of imported items is going up. But growth is fine, the government is helping offset some of the cost via subsidies and core inflation is not accelerating. Most importantly, the Japanese are huge foreign asset owners via Japan’s positive net international investment position. Yen weakness therefore leads to huge capital gains on foreign bonds and equities, most easily summarized in the observation that the government pension fund (GPIF) has roughly made more profits over the last two years than the last twenty years combined.

2. There simply isn't an inflation problem. Japan's core CPI is around 2% and has been decelerating in recent months. The Tokyo CPI overnight was 1.7% excluding one-off effects. To be sure, inflation may well accelerate again helped by FX weakness and high wage growth. But the starting point of inflation is entirely different to the post-COVID hiking cycles of the Fed and ECB. By extension, the inflation pain is far less and the urgency to hike far less too. No where is this more obvious than the fact that Japanese consumer confidence are close to their cycle highs.

3. Negative real rates are great. There is a huge attraction to running negative real rates for the consolidated government balance sheet. As we demonstrated last year, it creates fiscal space via a $20 trillion carry trade while also generating asset gains for Japan's wealthy voting base. This encourages the persistent domestic capital outflows we have been highlighting as a key driver of yen weakness over the last year and that have pushed Japan's broad basic balance to being one of the weakest in the world. It is not speculators that are weakening the yen but the Japanese themselves.

The bottom line, Deutscxhe concludes, is that for the JPY to turn stronger the Japanese need to unwind their carry trade. But for this to make sense the Bank of Japan needs to engineer an expedited hiking cycle similar to the post-COVID experiences of other central banks. Time will tell if the BoJ is moving too slow and generating a policy mistake. A shift in BoJ inflation forecasts to well above 2% over their forecast horizon would be the clearest signal of a shift in reaction function. But this isn’t happening now.

The Japanese are enjoying the ride.

But there is potential for yen upside as Bloomberg's Simon White notes that profit taking on foreign asset positions might soon prompt some yen repatriation and pressure USD/JPY lower.

If it is perceived that the yen won’t get much cheaper due to intervention risk, domestic investors might choose to start switching some of their US equity positions back to the domestic market, repatriating yen and pressuring USD/JPY lower in the process.

The chart below shows that on the year, the Nasdaq in yen terms and the Nikkei are both up by the same 13%-14% on the year. A stronger yen would present an ongoing headwind to the US position.

Equity positions are typically less FX hedged than bond positions, meaning that the repatriation of the currency is not neutered by the unwind of the hedge.

The dynamics of spot trading, options barriers and potential intervention as well as US PCE data released later today will dominate the currency’s short-term gyrations, but the slightly longer-term considerations of profit taking on foreign positions will start to drive the medium-term outlook.

Once that trend establishes itself, longer-term drivers of the yen will come into focus. Japan is the world’s largest net creditor, and there is a significant structural short in the yen.

The country’s net international investment position is $3.3 trillion, but its net position in portfolio assets, i.e. so-called hot flows that could be liquidated quickly, is $4.4 trillion.

Only a fraction of that being repatriated has significant potential to drive the yen considerably higher.

The question is, how much pain is China willing to take from its regional neighbor's 'devaluation'?

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

Gold trading in China has exploded and stocks of copper have risen sharply prompting speculation that policymakers are on the brink of a yuan devaluation. Even though it’s still a tail-risk, it’s one requiring greater vigilance as the economy becomes increasingly deflationary, redoubling capital outflow pressures.

The yuan has been steadily falling versus the dollar this year. So far the decline has been measured, but activity in commodities has prompted conjecture that China is about to orchestrate a significant one-off yuan devaluation. Futures gold trading in China has moved sharply higher, and the net long position has been rising.

Also, there has been a sharp rise in China’s copper stocks. Copper as well as other commodities is used as a source of collateral in China.

USD/CNY has been bumping up against the upper band of the PBOC’s fix for the currency pair.

China has a nominally closed capital account, but it is de facto leaky. Capital outflow is rising, and this puts further pressure on the economy as it has a geared negative effect on domestic liquidity.

Allowing the yuan to depreciate against the dollar (it is appreciating against most other currencies) takes some of the pressure off.

China, though, has been unofficially intervening, via the state banks, to stabilize the yuan’s fall.

Nonetheless, it is still less likely than not they will countenance a significant devaluation of the yuan versus the dollar.

• First, it would compromise the financial stability that China has sought to obtain.

• Second, it risks a tariff backlash from the US.

• Third it may be counter-productive if it looks panicky and prompts even more capital outflow.

The stockpiling could well be for other reasons.

• Rising global inflation risks (there is more to come, and even China will likely soon face consumer inflation);

• reserve diversification in a more multi-polar world;

• and raw materials for solar (AI needs a lot of energy) and EVs, and so on.

• China planning for an invasion of Taiwan is another tail-risk that can’t be completely discounted.

Falling bond yields, though, show China is nearing a crunch point (read why here) and will need to do something soon to avert a debt deflation.

Even though a full-scale devaluation is less likely, it’s a non-negligible risk that can’t be ignored.