Week in Review

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Week in Review

03/13/2021

For the week 3/8-3/12

[Posted 9:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,143

The U.S. hit a good milestone today…more than 100 million Covid-19 shots administered, with 66 million getting at least a first dose.  There is hope.

But in writing about the late Roger Mudd, the great CBS News reporter (obituary below), I had a flashback to a famous CBS Reports documentary, one of the best of all time, 1960’s Harvest of Shame.

Back in seventh grade (1970-71), I vividly remember watching this in class.  We only got one or two in-class movies in those days and it was a big deal when we did…and if I recall correctly, they were always CBS Reports films.

[I can’t help but interject that if you are having trouble remembering the CBS Reports series, a portion of the seventh movement of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring is used for the opening music…as stirring, and beautiful, a 20-second score as any created, next to Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, but I digress.]

This particular one obviously had an impact on me.  And last night I YouTubed it.  Edward R. Murrow…and the story of migrant farm workers who toil their way from Florida to New Jersey over the course of the season. A story of wrenching poverty.  It’s said that the documentary, shown after Thanksgiving in 1960, was the first time many Americans had seen real poverty. It was designed to shock the senses. It did.  No doubt it also played a part, perhaps just a small one, in fashioning some of the Great Society legislation of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency.

Much of what was in the Great Society program failed.  But much of it survives to this day, including Medicare and Medicaid.

So now we fast forward to 2021.  The pandemic threw millions of Americans essentially into poverty through no fault of their own.  President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which cleared the House, 220-211, after squeaking by in the Senate, and signed into law by the president on Thursday, is designed to help alleviate the situation these Americans face.

There are lots of complaints, especially among Republicans, and the mammoth package has $hundreds of billions in unwarranted, unnecessary programs, such as much of the aid to the cities and states, when tax revenues have been recovering far faster than projected last spring.

But on balance, while I’m one who has cried wolf on the budget deficit and ‘interest expense’ on the debt, I’ve also always been for the little guy. 

And the little guy couldn’t care less about interest rates and the impact on the deficit, as he or she just tries to take care of themselves and their families, but such issues do influence, in normal times, how much we are able to spend on programs that are designed to help those in dire straits.

But these aren’t normal times…they are extraordinary ones.  We have to be a society that helps their fellow man.  And the American Rescue Plan does do that.  It’s also hard to argue with the aspect of the program that may result in a significant reduction in childhood poverty.

So we’ll see.

President Biden gave his first prime-time address as president last night, on the first anniversary of lockdowns that paralyzed the economy. He offered a Fourth of July goal for the U.S. to begin returning to normal as “light in the darkness,” counting on a rapidly expanding supply of Covid vaccines to raise American hopes.

Biden told the states he wants all adults in the U.S. made eligible for vaccines by May 1, which is definitely in reach.  His remarks were heavy on empathy and encouragement for Americans to hang in there another few months, while continuing to take appropriate precautions.

“If we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by July 4 there’s a good chance you, your families and friends will be able to get together,” he said.

Addressing a weary public, where according to a new Associated Press poll, one in five Americans say they lost a relative or close friend to the coronavirus, Biden laid out his ambitious plans.

But America still faces a daunting logistical effort in putting shots in arms, while convincing skeptics to get their shots, and do both before new, more contagious variants potentially take hold.

“I need you,” Biden told his audience.  “I need every American to do their part.”

And he promised help was on the way in terms of stimulus.

So among the items in the rescue plan….

$1,400 payments to Americans making less than $75,000 a year, $150,000 for a couple, extended unemployment insurance benefits and aid to businesses and state and local governments.  Finding growth in the economy is not going to be an issue in 2021.  It’s a gusher of money, on top of earlier aid programs, and the concern is that all this stimulus will create a sharp spike in inflation, which would most hurt those the president is trying to help.

But it’s the portion of the bill that impacts low-income families with children that I’m alluding to above, and which could have the greatest impact.

The bill expands an existing tax credit for families with children, including nearly doubling the amount provided for less affluent families.  Further, the tax credit is “refundable” – meaning parents could receive the money even if they don’t pay any taxes – and payable in advance.

It’s a European-style child allowance, sent via direct deposit on a “periodic” basis.   

According to a study by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Poverty, the tax credit, along with other components of the aid bill, will cut child poverty in the U.S. – currently estimated to be around 15% - by half.

But this historic support for the poor could be temporary.  Because of budgetary limitations in the way the Covid relief bill was passed, the child credit expires in 2022.  Congress will have to re-authorize the new levels again next year if they are to become permanent.

I get why many Republicans oppose the credit because it’s not tied to employment.  Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said in a statement of opposition, “That is not tax relief for working parents; it is welfare assistance.”

So it’s potentially a topic for the mid-term elections, but Democrats may welcome the fight by then.

Because the Covid relief package is going to be popular with the people, assuming it is implemented in a timely fashion, and that is going to be a Herculean task by whomever Biden appoints for the job.  A recent Pew Research Center survey showed 70% of U.S. adults favored the legislation, versus only 28% who oppose it.

While congressional votes on the bill have been deeply divided along partisan lines, 41% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support the measure.  94% of Democrats and Democratic leaners do.

Only a third say the legislation spends too much money.

A Morning Consult poll pegs Democratic support for the bill at 90%, and 59% for Republicans.

A CNN Poll conducted by SSRS has 61% supporting the relief package.  A broad majority (85%) say they support policies in the bill that would provide larger tax credits for families and make them easier for low-income households to claim, including majorities across party lines (95% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans). 

A smaller majority, 59%, say they back providing $350 billion in aid to state and local governments. That policy sparks the sharpest partisan divide, with 88% of Democrats in favor vs. just 28% of Republicans.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Democrats on Wednesday passed their $1.9 trillion spending and welfare bill that would have been unimaginable even in the Obama years, and the big news is how easily they did it.  The party is united behind the most left-wing agenda in decades, while Republicans are divided and in intellectual disarray.  This is only the beginning of the progressive steamroller, and it’s worth understanding why.

“One lesson from the Covid non-fight is that there are no Democratic moderates in Congress. The party base has moved so sharply left that even swing-state Members are more liberal than many liberals in the Clinton years. Democrats lost not a single vote in the Senate and only one in the House. The fear of primary challenges from the left, which took out House war horses in 2018 and 2020, has concentrated incumbent minds.

“A second lesson is that President Biden is no moderating political force. Democrats in the House and Senate are setting the agenda, and Mr. Biden is along for the ride.  He’s the ideal political front-man for this agenda with his talk of ‘unity’ and anti-Trump persona, but he isn’t shaping legislation. He is signing on to whatever chief of staff Ron Klain tells him he needs to support.

“For now at least, there also isn’t much of an opposition. With a few exceptions, the media are marching in lockstep support of whatever Democrats want.  The substance of the Covid bill was barely covered outside of these pages.  Opposition to H.R. 1, the federal takeover of state election law, is literally reported as a revival of Jim Crow racism….

“Despite their sizable minorities, Republicans are a divided mess.  They stayed united on the Covid vote but they had no consistent strategy or message.  They’re focused on the culture war over Dr. Seuss, while Democrats are moving legislation with huge economic consequences….

“This is in part a legacy of the Trump years, and especially the post-election meltdown. The party is still preoccupied with Donald Trump, who is preoccupied with revenge against Republicans who don’t bow to the Mar-a-Lago throne.  Members are fighting each other rather than Democrats….

“All of this is giving Democrats growing confidence that they can drive their agenda into law despite historically narrow majorities.  They’ll pass huge tax increases on a party-line vote. They also still hope to peel off enough GOP Senators to raise the minimum wage, perhaps to $11 or $12 an hour, and for $2 trillion in green energy and public-works spending. Don’t be surprised if they succeed….

“(Democrats will) use the threat of breaking the filibuster as leverage to win GOP policy concessions even if they don’t formally rewrite the Senate rules.

“Politics is never static, and perhaps this momentum will ebb as Democrats lose the false cover of ‘Covid relief’ for their agenda.  But it’s no exaggeration to say the country is facing the most confident left-wing majority since 1965.  This isn’t what Joe Biden promised, but it is what we’re getting.”

Editorial / The Economist

“All the chips on red

“Mr. Biden’s stimulus is a big gamble. If it pays off, America will avoid the miserable low-inflation, low-rate trap in which Japan and Europe look stuck.  Other central banks may copy the Fed’s new target.  Massive fiscal stimulus may become the normal response to recessions.  The risk, however, is that America is left with rising debts, an inflation problem and a central bank facing a test of its credibility.

“This newspaper would have preferred a smaller stimulus.  Alas, America’s troubled politics do not permit fine-tuned policymaking and Democrats wanted all they could get.  Mr. Biden’s gamble is better than inaction.  But nobody should doubt the size of his bet.”

Biden Bits

--And then there’s the crisis on the border.  And it is indeed a full-blown crisis.

Just some stats:

100,000 illegal migrants have arrived at the border in the past month, the highest since 2016.  There has been a sharp rise in families with children.

As of about a week ago, more than 3,400 were unaccompanied children, generally over age 13.  It’s estimated 117,000 unaccompanied minors will arrive in 2021, way over 2019, which was a bad year in this regard.

The facilities are way overcrowded, inappropriate for children, beds are scarce, and border officials are now confronting 4-5,000 migrants a day.

President Biden has a migration challenge of his own making, and he’s handing his Republican adversaries a potent political weapon, which will also upend his efforts to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

Biden has proposed overhauling the nation’s decades-old immigration system by making it easier for asylum seekers and refugees, expanding legal pathways for foreign workers, increasing opportunities for family-based immigration and vastly reducing threats of mass deportation.

But as the New York Times reported:

“(Biden’s) approach – to broadly reopen the nation’s borders to vulnerable children with what he hopes will be a welcoming contrast to Mr. Trump’s erection of legal and physical barriers – is already at risk from the grim realities of migration patterns that have roiled the globe for years.  Sensing a change in tone and approach after Mr. Trump’s defeat, migrants are once again fleeing poverty, violence and the devastation left by hurricanes and heading north toward the United States.

“Hundreds of migrant families are also being released into the United States after being apprehended at the border, prompting predictable attacks by conservatives.

“Liberal politicians are denouncing the expansion of detention facilities and railing against the continued imposition of Trump-era rules intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus from immigrants.  And advocates for families separated at the border during Mr. Trump’s administration are pressuring the president to move faster to reunite them.”  [Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael D. Shear]

Yup, President Biden has a real s—show on his hands.  He has mere weeks to figure it out. 

--The Senate confirmed Merrick Garland to be the next attorney general by a 70-30 margin, placing the widely-respected, veteran judge in the post as President Biden has vowed to restore the Justice Department’s reputation for independence.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – who prevented Garland from becoming a Supreme Court Justice in 2016 when he blocked his nomination – said he was voting to confirm Garland because of “his long reputation as a straight shooter and a legal expert” and that his “left-of-center perspective” was still within the legal mainstream.

--And the Senate confirmed Michael S. Regan, the former top environmental regulator for North Carolina, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and drive some of the Biden administration’s biggest climate and regulatory policies.  His nomination was approved by a vote of 66-34, with all Democrats and 16 Republicans voting in favor.

--Editorial / Washington Post

“White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday [March 5] that President Biden would hold a news conference ‘before the end of the month.’  Last month would have been better, and this week would be better than next.  Avoiding news conferences must not become a regular habit for Mr. Biden.  He is the president, and Americans have every right to expect that he will regularly submit himself to substantial questioning.”

While Biden deserves credit for reinstating daily news briefings, which are informative, each of his 15 most recent predecessors held a full news conference within their first 33 days in office and Biden has now been in office 52.

The Pandemic

March 11, 2020…a day that is in the history books. In the span of about 12 hours, three events helped some of us understand what was about to unfold.  First, the World Health Organization declared the fast-moving coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.  Hours later, the NBA suspended its season after a Utah Jazz player, Rudy Gobert, tested positive.  And then we learned Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive, which put a recognizable face on the disease.

In New York City, the number of cases was 46 and we were hearing of clusters in Westchester County, the first case being that of a commuter into Gotham.  Efforts to disinfect the subway system were underway.  Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed “real concerns” about holding the St. Patrick’s Day Parade the following week and the event was canceled hours later.

Nationwide, however, the death toll was about 30 and came from just three states – California, Florida and Washington.  Around 1,000 nationwide were infected.

But there were 830 deaths in Italy by March 11, and we were beginning to see horror stories from there.

And within 24 hours, every major sports league in the U.S. was on pause, the PGA Tour canceling the Players Championship after one round had been completed.  This week, up to 20,000 are being allowed to watch the same event in person.

The evening of March 11, then-President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office.  He announced a travel ban on European countries and other steps to combat the virus – though his words failed to convey a sense of urgency or the scale of the massive crisis the country was facing.

“The vast majority of Americans: The risk is very, very low,” Trump told the nation that night.

“If we are vigilant – and we can reduce the chance of infection, which we will – we will significantly impede the transmission of the virus,” he said.  “The virus will not have a chance against us.  No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States.”

The day before, March 10, Trump said: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it.  And it will go away.  Just stay calm. It will go away.”

Well it did not go away. 

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“When a SARS-like virus was reported spreading in Wuhan in late 2019, most Americans never imagined their own government would soon close schools, churches and businesses, order people to stay home, and spend more than $5 trillion to offset the damage.  Yet a year later, here we are.

“The anniversary is a moment to consider what the pandemic has wrought and how well the U.S. has responded.  Healthcare workers have been courageous, drug companies ingenious, and average Americans resilient. The political class and health experts? Not so much.

“Start with China and the World Health Organization, which is supposed to patrol for global health threats. China lied and the WHO played along.  After censoring doctors, Beijing denied there was evidence of human-to-human transmission until shortly before it locked down Hubei province with 60 million people.  Many Chinese had already left the country for Lunar New Year.

“The delay cost the world vital weeks in preparing for the virus, yet the WHO praised China for its transparency.  We now know the virus by late January was spreading undetected in the U.S. and Europe….

“President Biden and Democrats blame Donald Trump for 530,000 American deaths, though any Administration would have been tested. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention botched development of a Covid test, and the Food and Drug Administration was slow to authorize private alternatives.  The U.S. was caught with a shortage of protective equipment and ventilators, though it mobilized fast on both.

“U.S. deaths adjusted for population are comparable to Western Europe’s.  Asian countries also experienced surges, though fewer deaths because of healthier populations.  Island nations Australia and New Zealand closed their borders.  Mr. Trump too often downplayed the virus, and his compulsion to make himself the center of the Covid story is a major reason he lost the Presidency. But most politicians and public-health officials also minimized the virus early on because they didn’t want to cause panic.

“Mr. Trump’s biggest mistake was putting too much faith in health experts and their lockdown models.  As hospitals in northern Italy burst with patients, epidemiologists predicted U.S. hospitals would soon be overwhelmed.  On March 16, Mr. Trump ordered a 15-day national lockdown to ‘slow the spread,’ which he later extended through April.

“Lockdowns were understandable a year ago in the Northeast given how little was known about Covid.  But as we warned at the time, ‘no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health.’  As state shutdowns continued, they compounded the virus damage.

“The tragedy is how poorly we’ve adapted as we’ve learned more about the risks….

“Lockdowns nonetheless became an ideological battle….

“Children have lost a year of learning, which many will never make up. The lockdown recession hurt low-income workers the most, while affluent Americans could work from home….

“There was an alternative. Tens of thousands of doctors signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which recommended that government minimize deaths and economic harm by protecting the vulnerable while letting most Americans return to normal life.  Individuals and businesses could adjust to the virus and socially distance as they saw fit.  The media and progressive elites dismissed these voices and refused to drop their lockdown dogmatism.

“The Covid pandemic has seen the greatest loss of American liberty outside wartime.  Politicians closed houses of worship without regard for the First Amendment. They ordered arbitrary shutdowns that favored some businesses but punished others.

“Politicians and governments have used the pandemic to justify an enormous expansion of state power.  Government had to act in March to avoid economic catastrophe from the lockdowns it ordered.  But the politicians keep amassing power even as vaccines are rolling out.

“Government spending and deficits have reached heights unseen since World War II as a share of the economy, and taxes are likely to follow.  The Federal Reserve has become a de facto arm of the Treasury to finance deficits, with unknown future consequences.

“The pandemic is now easing thanks largely to the ingenuity of American drug and biotech companies….

“The pandemic has been a testament to American grit and resilience – but an undeserved windfall for government. We will be paying for the lockdown excesses for generations.”

A CNN/SSRS survey has 77% of Americans now saying the worst of the outbreak is behind us, higher than at any point in the last year by 26 points.

The pandemic continues to top the list of important issues facing the country, but fewer call it the most important issue (30%) than those who said so in January (46%).  And a smaller share now say economic conditions in the country are worsening on account of coronavirus (30% now compared with 40% in October).

Most Americans say they have a lot (42%) or some (25%) confidence in President Biden’s leadership on Covid (30% have no confidence), and 63% say that the President has a clear plan to vaccinate a large enough share of the population to achieve herd immunity.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…2,650,899
USA…545,544
Brazil…275,276
Mexico…193,142
India…158,483
UK…125,343
Italy…101,564
Russia…91,220
France…90,146
Germany…73,790
Spain…72,258
Iran…61,069
Colombia…60,950
Argentina…53,578
South Africa…51,179
Peru…48,664
Poland…46,724
Indonesia…38,229
Turkey…29,356
Ukraine…27,915
Czechia…22,865
Canada…22,404
Belgium…22,370
Chile…21,451
Romania…21,360

Source: worldometers.info

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 716; Mon. 788; Tues. 1,704; Wed. 1,610; Thurs. 1,531; Fri. 1,505.

Covid Bytes

--Fully-vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.

Officials say a person is considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine.  About 10% of the U.S. population have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

--Brazil’s daily death toll exceeded 2,000 for the first time this week amid a growing second wave of coronavirus and as health systems collapse in several mid-size cities.

Less than 5 percent of Brazilians have been vaccinated, and President Jair Bolsonaro, who has long downplayed the risks of the virus, wore a mask for the first time in months during an event at the presidential palace in the capital of Brasilia.

Meanwhile, infections in central and eastern Europe continue to rise, and Italy is spiking all over again, threatening new restrictions.

It’s worrisome that a place like Turkey is also seeing a new spike in cases.

--Pfizer and BioNTech SE announced real-world evidence demonstrating dramatically lower incidence rates of Covid-19 disease in individuals fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, underscoring the observed substantial public health impact of Israel’s nationwide immunization program.

Previous Israel Ministry of Health data demonstrated the vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. Covid cases, hospitalizations, severe and critical hospitalizations, and deaths.  The latest analysis from the MoH proves that two weeks after the second vaccine dose protection is even stronger – vaccine effectiveness was at least 97% in preventing symptomatic disease, severe/critical disease and death.

Separately, another study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showed a high ability to neutralize coronavirus strains first detected in Brazil, the UK, and South Africa, according to research performed by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

--Novavax announced its Covid-19 vaccine was found to be 96% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus in a new UK trial. The shot from the Maryland-based company was also 86% effective against the more contagious variant first discovered in the UK and now spreading across the U.S.

In a smaller South Africa trial, the Novavax vaccine was only around 55% effective in preventing disease when tested against volunteers primarily exposed to the new variant first identified there.

But in both the UK and South Africa trials, the shot was 100% effective in preventing serious illness and death.

The company will use the findings to seek authorization for the vaccine’s use in various countries.

--President Biden said on Wednesday the U.S. government will first give Americans Covid vaccines, but any surplus would be shared with the world, after earlier announcing plans to procure an additional 100 million doses, thanks to a partnership between Johnson & Johnson and Merck.

Biden said it was clear that the pandemic would not be over until it was ended everywhere.  “We’re not going to be ultimately safe, until the world is safe.”

--Max Boot / Washington Post

“South Dakota has the second-most Covid cases per 1 million people (behind North Dakota) and the eight-most deaths per 1 million people – yet its governor, Kristi L. Noem, is a Republican rock star who brags about not mandating lockdowns or masks.  Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida also has become a Republican presidential contender by boasting of his handling of Covid-19, even though Florida has more cases and a higher positivity rate than New York.  DeSantis has also been accused of favoring campaign donors with early vaccine access and stopping the release of Covid statistics before the election. (He denies both charges.)”

I’ve gotten a kick out of the praise DeSantis is receiving, and how he likes to tout his success vs. that of New York and New Jersey, who were indeed crushed early.

According to the governor, the lesson of Covid’s success story is: “We’ve shown people that you can have a good time, you can be safe, and you can make the decision that’s best for you.”

So using worldometers.info, I have picked two arbitrary dates…June 27, 2020 and March 5, 2021.

June 27, 2020 (Deaths and cases)

New Jersey…14,995…188,586
New York…32,048…416,192
Florida…3,392…31,523

March 5, 2021

New Jersey…23,521…806,370
New York…48,140…1,717,567
Florida…31,523…1,936,207

[New Jersey has a population of 8.888 million, New York 19.45 million, Florida 21.477 million.  Yes, NJ and NY have higher deaths per capita rates than Florida, but our case rates are all essentially the same.]

My point is, back in June, DeSantis was crowing like a peacock, with ‘only’ 3,392 deaths vs. the dreadful situation in New York and New Jersey.  And just look at the numbers since.  Everyone will have their own conclusions, and I have mine.  We took it seriously up here, especially as New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country.  But, yes, there were tradeoffs and that will be debated forever. 

Wall Street and the Economy

With $1,400 payments to many Americans, extended unemployment insurance benefits and aid to businesses and state and local governments, the relief bill is set to unleash a gusher of money across the U.S.  Combined with expanded rollout of the vaccines, the U.S. is poised for a post-pandemic rebound that will see the economy grow at its highest levels since 1984.

A survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal has a consensus forecast of 6% growth for 2021, but some are forecasting 7% to 8%.  This week the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based research body, said it now sees the U.S. economy expanding by 6.5%, with global output increasing by 5.6%, having declined by 3.4% in 2020.  The OECD said the U.S. will be the driver of global growth this year.

OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone said of the approval of the $1.9 trillion relief bill: “Fiscal policy has been hugely supportive, but you also need to push the accelerator on vaccinations, because if not, the additional stimulus will go on saving rather than on consumption.”

So will this lead to inflation?  This week’s data was tame, for the most part, with February consumer prices up 0.4%, 0.1% ex-food and energy; while for the 12 months, the CPI was up 1.7%, but only 1.3% on core.  Producer prices for the month, however, while in line with expectations, were elevated…0.5%, 0.2% ex-food and energy; 2.8% Y/Y, 2.5% Y/Y on core.

The weekly jobless claims figure was the best since November, 712,000 vs. a prior revised 754,000.  At least it’s improving.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for the first quarter stands at 8.4%.

The Treasury Department released the federal budget deficit data for February, $310.9 billion, up from $236.3bn in Feb. 2020, the month before the pandemic hit with force.

From October through February, government revenue is up 5.1% to $1.44 trillion while outlays are up 24.7% to $2.48 trillion, ergo, a $1 trillion budget gap for the first five months of the fiscal year.  The gap for the first five months during the same period a year earlier was $624 billion.

For the 12 months that ended in February, the deficit totaled $3.5 trillion, or 16.5% as a share of economic output (GDP).

The budget gap will now widen further after enactment of the $1.9 trillion aid package.

The deficit has been moving up because of all the Covid-related spending measures approved by Congress, including $900 billion approved in December that extended emergency unemployment benefits that had expired.

Europe and Asia

Thursday, the European Central Bank said it was ready to accelerate money-printing to keep a lid on eurozone borrowing costs, signaling to skeptical markets it was determined to lay the foundation for a solid economic recovery.

Concerned that a rise in bond yields could derail a recovery across the 19 countries that share the euro, the ECB said it would use its 1.85 trillion Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) more generously over the coming months to stop any unwarranted rise in debt financing costs, and, indeed, Thursday yields fell across the EA19, with the lesser credits (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) seeing the biggest rallies.

Eurozone growth is currently weaker than forecast as a new wave of the pandemic and a painfully slow vaccine rollout are requiring longer lockdowns, challenging expectations for a strong rebound in the spring.

But ECB staff forecasts are still calling for 4% growth for 2021 as a whole and the inflation forecast was raised to 1.5% from 1%.  Germany, however, cut its growth forecast this week from 4.4% to 3.7%, citing the risk of a third wave.

Meanwhile, Eurostat released a report on fourth quarter GDP in the euro area, down by 0.7% compared with the previous quarter.  This follows a strong rebound in the third quarter of 2020, +12.5%, and the sharpest decreases since the time series started in 1995, as observed in the second quarter of 2020, -11.6%.

For 2020 as a whole, GDP fell by 6.6% in the euro area (-4.9% for Q4 2020 compared with Q4 2019).

Germany saw Q4 over Q3 growth of +0.3%, France -1.4%, Italy -1.9%, Spain +0.4%, and Ireland -5.1%.

For Q4 2020 vs. Q4 2019….

Germany -3.6%, France -4.9%, Italy -6.6%, Spain -9.1%, Ireland -0.2%.

One more data point…industrial production in the eurozone for January over Dec. 2020 was up by 0.8%, but just 0.1% vs. January 2020.

Brexit: Trade between the UK and the European Union was hammered in the first month of their new post-Brexit relations, with record declines in British exports and imports of goods as Covid-19 restrictions continued on both sides.

British goods exports to the EU slumped by 40.7% in January compared to December, the Office for National Statistics said today.  Imports fell by 28.8% - another record.

Britain on Thursday delayed the introduction of a range of post-Brexit import checks on goods from the EU by around six months, saying businesses needed more time to prepare because of the impact of the pandemic.

As for the taught relationship between London and Brussels, there were efforts this week to “reset” the relationship.  But with the EU poised to launch legal action against Britain over its moves to smooth trade with Northern Ireland and London smarting over the bloc’s accusations it was blocking vaccines, many diplomats see a struggle ahead to restore trust.

Last Sunday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government would iron out what he described as “technical issues” with the EU over post-Brexit trade.

“I think this is one of those issues we were always bound to have in the early stages of our new relationship with our friends in the EU and the various technical issues that we are going to iron out.  I am full of optimism about the future and the partnership that we are building.”

Turning to Asia…China reports its trade data for January and February, combined, due to the Lunar New Year’s holiday falling at different times during the two months in different years.  And Customs data revealed that exports in Jan./Feb. soared 60.6% vs. a year ago, owing to last year’s lockdown that paralyzed the nation’s economy.  Nonetheless, this was a far greater pace than expected.  Imports also rose a robust 22.2% for the first two months over a year ago.

Exports to the U.S. rose 87.3% in January and February, with imports rising 66.4%.

Separately, China’s producer (factory gate) prices in February rose 1.7%, year over year, the fastest pace since Nov. 2018, per the National Bureau of Statistics, as manufacturers raced to fill export orders, raising expectations for robust growth in 2021.

We have key data on industrial production and retail sales this weekend for the Jan.-Feb. period.

In Japan…a final reading on fourth-quarter GDP showed growth of 2.8% over Q3, 11.7% annualized, after a 22.8% annualized growth rate in Q3 following the emergence from lockdown.  Q2 2020 GDP in Japan was down an annualized 29.3%.  Like in the U.S. and much of the world, just amazing volatility last year due to the pandemic.

The growth outlook for the first quarter is not good, and household spending in January, a key metric here, was down 7.3% over December, and -6.1% year-over-year.

As for the Tokyo Olympics, it’s coming up sooner than you think, July 23 to Aug. 8.  At this point it’s definitely ‘game on.’  The Chinese Olympic Committee has offered vaccine doses to be used for participants at both the Tokyo Games and the Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday.

Thomas Bach, IOC president, told the Olympic body’s virtual session this week that the Chinese Olympic Committee is ready to make doses available, which would mean for more than 10,000 athletes and tens of thousands of others involved as coaching staff, media, volunteers and officials.

It is highly unlikely there will be international visitors, as Tokyo officials have shut down the idea, and have yet to comment on China’s vaccine offer.

Most Japanese do not want international visitors amid fears that a large influx could spark a resurgence.

Street Bytes

--The Dow Jones hit three straight all-time closing highs to finish the week, up 4.1% to 32778, its best week since November.  The S&P 500 also closed at a new high, up 2.6%, and Nasdaq finished up 3.1% (breaking a three-week losing streak), with a 6% up move between Tuesday and Thursday, and down days Monday and Friday.

The rally came as investors become increasingly optimistic as restrictions continue to ease, and the huge stimulus that will be hitting the economy, while fear over rising yields lessened, as least for one week, as inflation data was within expectations.

But rising bond yields have buffeted Nasdaq some because they dull the appeal of high-growth tech shares.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.04%  2-yr. 0.15%  10-yr. 1.62%  30-yr. 2.38%

The bond market stabilized this week, until today when yields on the long end hit their highest levels in 13 and 14 months (on the 10- and 30-year), while talk of “yield curve control” (pegging bond yields) by the Federal Reserve was off the table for the time being.  But we did just add $1.9 trillion in fiscal stimulus (though much of this is parceled out over time).

The Fed holds an Open Market Committee meeting next week so we may get a further indication on its thinking at that time.

All are essentially in agreement that a jump in the 10-year to 2% would be most troublesome for stocks.

--U.S. households ended 2020 with a record $130.2 trillion in wealth, the Federal Reserve said in a report on Thursday, as rock-bottom interest rates and a massive fiscal rescue stemmed the financial fallout from the pandemic.  Rising equity markets added $4.9 trillion to household assets in the fourth quarter and rising real estate values added around $900 billion, the report showed.

--General Electric is winding down GE Capital, its once-sprawling lender, and shedding debts that have hung over the industrial giant since the 2008 financial crisis.

On Wednesday, GE agreed to combine its jet-leasing unit, GE Capital Aviation Services, with rival AerCap Holdings of Ireland in a deal worth more than $30 billion.  It will create a leasing giant with more than 2,000 aircraft at a time when the industry is hobbled due to Covid.

GE will receive about $24 billion in cash and 46% ownership in a new merged company, a stake it valued at about $6 billion.  It will transfer about $34 billion in net assets to AerCap along with more than 400 workers.

CEO Larry Culp said GE will use the proceeds to pay down debts and fold the rest of GE Capital into the company’s corporate operations.  It will then cease to report GE Capital as a stand-alone business segment.

“This really does mark the transformation of GE into a more focused, simpler, stronger company,” Culp said in an interview.  GE will essentially return to being a manufacturer of power turbines, jet engines, wind turbines and hospital equipment.

The jet-leasing Gecas unit was the biggest remaining piece of GE Capital, accounting for more than half of the unit’s $7.25 billion of revenue in 2020.  The remainder is a legacy insurance business that has been an albatross for the company and a small equipment-leasing operation that helps finance purchases of GE power and wind turbines.

But the rating agencies were mixed on the AerCap deal and the unwinding of GE Capital and the shares fell hard on the news, after a nice rally from $7 in October to $14, finishing the week at $12.55.

GE also said its board has recommended a reverse 1-for-8 stock split, which would shrink the number of shares outstanding.

GE Capital was once one of the largest lenders in the country, generating more than half of GE’s profits.  But then the financial crisis turned the division into a major liability that required a bailout.

--Boeing Co. is close to a deal to sell dozens of its 737 MAX 7 jets to Southwest Airlines Co., in potentially the company’s largest 737 MAX order since the aircraft’s safety ban was lifted.  The proposed deal, as reported by Reuters, could potentially involve 130 firm orders plus roughly 170 options.  Boeing would be winning out over rival Airbus and its A220.  But none of these numbers are firm as yet.

If confirmed, though, Boeing would be heading off a partial defection to Airbus by one of Boeing’s largest customers and provide Boeing much-needed support after nearly a two-year grounding of the MAX family.  An order for 130 of the jets would be worth $13 billion at list prices, though such contracts are usually for less than half of their official values with typical discounts.

In December, Alaska Airlines agreed to buy 23 737 MAX 9 jets following a lifeline order from European budget airline Ryanair for 75 of the narrow bodies.

And today, Boeing received an order for 24 more MAX jets, this one from investment firm 777 Partners, which has a stake in Canadian ultra-low-cost carrier Flair Airlines.  The firm said it plans to lease the planes to other affiliated carriers.

Back in November, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the company wanted to make a decision soon about refreshing its aging 737-700 jets with 143 seats, and was debating between the 737 MAX-7 and the A220, which would mean a shift away from its all-Boeing fleet for the first time.

Separately, Boeing said on Tuesday it delivered 22 aircraft in February, up from 17 a year earlier, and that its net orders had turned positive for the first time in 14 months as Covid-19 vaccine rollouts boosted the confidence of its airline customers.

Boeing said it booked 82 new orders in February, taking its gross total for the year so far to 86 planes.  Customers also converted or cancelled around 50 orders last month, but the company’s orders net of cancellations still came to 31 jets last month, back in positive territory for the first time since November 2019.

--TSA daily checkpoint numbers vs. 2019

3/11…59 percent of 2019 levels…1,284,271…second-highest since the bottom last April (Jan. 3…1,327,289)
3/10…45
3/9…35
3/8…45
3/7…59
3/6…39
3/5…49
3/4…52

--Shares in Oracle traded down sharply Thursday after the software maker’s cloud division reported quarterly revenue that missed analysts’ estimates, on increased competition from Amazon.com and Microsoft for cloud services due to remote working.  Oracle said it expects fiscal fourth-quarter revenue to increase between 1% and 3% on a constant currency basis, the midpoint of which implies revenue of $10.65 billion, below the $10.84bn forecast, according to data from Refinitiv.

With the shift to remote work, many businesses were pushed to shift operations to the cloud resulting in an increase in demand for offerings by Oracle, Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon Web Services.  Revenue from Oracle’s cloud services and licenses support unit, its largest by revenue, rose 5% to $7.25 billion in the reported quarter, compared with analysts’ estimates of $7.27 billion.

“We are opening new regions as fast as we can to support our rapidly growing multi-billion dollar infrastructure business,” Oracle chairman Larry Ellison said.

Overall, Oracle’s revenue rose 3% to $10.09 billion for the third quarter ending Feb. 28.

--Speaking of Microsoft, the company’s widely used business email software was subjected to a hack attack that is morphing into a global cybersecurity crisis, as hackers race to infect as many victims as possible before companies can secure their computer systems.

The attack, which Microsoft has said started with a Chinese government-backed hacking group, has claimed at least 60,000 known victims globally, according to a former senior U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation, as reported by Bloomberg.  Many of them appear to be small or medium-size businesses caught in a wide net the attackers cast as Microsoft worked to shut down the hack.

The European Banking Authority became one of the latest victims as it said Sunday that access to personal data through emails held on the Microsoft server may have been compromised.

The Chinese hacking group, which Microsoft calls Hafnium, appears to have been breaking into private and government computer networks through the company’s popular Exchange email software for a number of months, initially targeting only a small number of victims.

So this comes on the heels of the cybersecurity crisis by suspected Russian hackers that breached nine federal agencies and at least 100 companies through tampered updates from IT management software maker SolarWinds.

In the case of Microsoft, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman denied the accusation.

--The world’s largest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, has put a number on the damage the Covid-19 pandemic has done to its business.  AMC lost $4.59 billion in 2020, according to the company’s full-year earnings report released Wednesday.  That compares to a loss of $149 million in 2019.  Full-year revenue fell 77% to $1.24 billion versus a year earlier.

While AMC painted a bleak picture of the state of the theatrical film business during a brutal year, CEO Adam Aron was nonetheless optimistic on a call with analysts, extolling the company’s ability to raise money to stay alive, while touting the pace of vaccinations and the upcoming schedule of Hollywood films.

“I am optimistic and confident about AMC’s ability to weather this Covid-19 storm,” he said. “Our focus is no longer on survival.”

Theaters are hoping for new blockbusters to play in the coming weeks as cinemas reopen; pictures like “Black Widow,” “F9,” and a “Peter Rabbit” sequel.

AMC avoided bankruptcy multiple times during the pandemic by raising money from Wall Street.  The company now has $1 billion in cash on hand.  The theater chain also permanently closed 60 lower-performing theaters – 48 domestic and 12 international.

--Campbell Soup said it expects slower sales this year as consumers emerge from lockdowns and head back to restaurants with the ebbing of the coronavirus crisis.

Shares of the company fell initially but closed a bit higher on the earnings news, Wednesday, as sales for the fiscal quarter ended Jan. 1 rose 5 percent to $2.3 billion as consumers continued to load up on prepared foods.

But looking ahead, the company said it expects a net sales decrease of 2.5 to 3.5 percent.

The maker of V-8 juice, Prego pasta and sauces, Kettle Brand potato chips, Snyder and Lance pretzels and crackers is still bullish on prepared foods, CEO Mark Clouse said.

“No matter where you stand on the retention of new households gained during the pandemic, it is indisputable that Campbell’s business…is coming out of this period more advantaged and with renewed relevance,” Clouse said in a statement.

Earlier in the pandemic packaged foods companies could barely keep up with demand for their products.  About 70 percent of people who bought the company’s products once during the pandemic have continued to purchase its foods, Clouse added.

But a slowdown has begun.  While the company’s sales increased by 21 percent in the quarter ended Nov. 1, that was less than half the increase of the three prior months in 2020.

Personally, my place is packed with soup and canned veggies.   As in I don’t have to shop for either for like five months. 

--Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. reported fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.43, up from $1.32 a year ago and ahead of expectations.

Driven by a Q4 increase of 19.3% in same-store sales, with e-commerce sales soaring 57%, net revenue for the quarter ended Jan. 30 came in at $3.13 billion, up from $2.61bn a year ago.

But looking ahead, the company expects fiscal full-year 2021 adjusted EPS to be between $4.40 and $5.20, versus the $5.99 Street forecast, with revenue between $9.54bn and $9.94bn, ahead of the $9.52bn current consensus.

So the shares fell, as Dick’s estimated same-store sales growth for 2021 of between a decline of 2% to an increase of 2%, compared with growth of 9.9% for the year ended Jan. 30, 2021.

--According to a report from IHS Market, global output of cars running on internal combustion engines (ICEs) may shrink by up to 700,000 vehicles in the first quarter, or 4 percent of worldwide production, amid the ongoing shortages in semiconductor chips, with car makers from Ford Motor to Volkswagen forced to scale back production. Ford slashed its first-quarter roll-out of its bestselling F-150 truck by 20 percent, while General Motors said extended down time in Kansas, Canada and Mexico until mid-March will erode its 2021 bottom line by between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Amid the crisis, electric car makers can profit because of their smaller production volumes and reliance on higher-end chips like AI processors, used for complex data processing tasks, while traditional car makers consume high volumes of microcontrollers for engine control, currently in short supply despite being much cheaper.  China, for one, is looking to capitalize with its myriad of EV makers.

--U.S. agricultural exports to China in 2020 rose to 55.5 million tons and comprised one-quarter of all farm shipments, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.  China is now buying more farm goods than it did before the trade war, and U.S. officials expect Chinese demand to grow further.

Many U.S. farmers are now showing a profit for the first time in five or six years.  In 2018, for example, the year the trade conflict began, U.S. soybean exports to China fell 74% by volume, prices tumbling as well, and the Trump administration launched a relief program that ultimately would dole out more than $23 billion in aid to struggling farmers.

Then in January 2020, the U.S. and China signed a deal, with Beijing pledging to boost U.S. agricultural imports.  It helped U.S. farmers that China needed to rebuild the country’s hog herd following a deadly swine disease, which has fueled the appetite for soybeans, helping to drive a 53% jump in U.S. exports of same to the country last year compared with 2019; the second-highest volume on record and more than half of all soybean shipments.  Corn exports soared more than 20-fold to a new high.

But now U.S. farmers are heavily reliant on a single customer, and as part of one of China’s recently announced five-year plans, I did see there was a major emphasis on becoming more self-sufficient when it comes to growing crops.  It will be interesting to see where U.S. farm exports are in another three years or so.

--Shares of South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. rose 41% Thursday in the largest trading debut by dollars raised and valuation so far this year.

The Seoul company, called the Amazon of South Korea, saw its shares offered at $35, began trading at $59.60, and closed at $49.25, valuing the company at roughly $88 billion.

Coupang’s debut was the biggest for a foreign company since Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s 2014 debut.

Backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., Coupang has become one of the three largest private-sector employers in South Korea.  It has also successfully fended off Amazon.com and Alibaba.

Coupang posted a loss of $567.6 million for 2020, narrower than the prior year, while net revenue nearly doubled to $11.97 billion.

--Carnival Princess Cruises said Tuesday that it extended its pause of cruise vacations sailing the Caribbean, California Coast, Mexico and Mediterranean through June 30 as the cruise line and tour company works with government and port authorities to finalize its return to cruising.

--In a bit of good news, an overhaul of California’s Covid-19 safety regulations will allow Disneyland, Universal Studios, Six Flags Magic Mountain and other theme parks to reopen as soon as April 1 if they’re in counties where coronavirus transmission is low enough.  But in most of the state, parks will have to keep attendance at 15% of capacity – a rate too low for the parks to turn a profit.

But at least it would be a transition to fully reopening.

--GameStop shares had traded as low as $40 on Feb. 23, but Thursday, March 10, hit $348.50 intraday, before closing at $265, as the mother of all meme stocks went on another rollercoaster as amusement parks reopen.  Today it closed at $266.

--We learned last weekend that billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, one of the richest women in the world who was previously wed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had quietly remarried.

The lucky guy?  Seattle teacher Dan Jewett, who most recently taught science at a prestigious private school in Seattle attended by Scott’s children.  It’s unclear if Jewett is still employed at the school, as his name does not appear in the faculty directory, according to a story in the Washington Post.

What is clear is that efforts to have my people talk to MacKenzie’s people failed miserably.

Foreign Affairs

Iraq and Pope Francis: The Pope ended his historic visit to Iraq, visiting the city of Mosul last Saturday, where Muslim and Christian residents told Francis of their lives under brutal Islamic State rule as the pontiff blessed their vow to rise up from ashes and told them that “fraternity is more durable than fratricide.”

Much of the old city was destroyed in 2017 during the bloody battle by Iraqi forces and an international military coalition to drive out ISIS.

“How cruel it is that this country, the cradle of civilization, should have been afflicted by so barbarous a blow, with ancient places of worship destroyed and many thousands of people – Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and others – forcibly displaced or killed,” he said.  “Today, however, we reaffirm our conviction that fraternity is more durable than fratricide, that hope is more powerful than hatred, that peace is more powerful than war.”

Also Saturday, in a highly symbolic meeting with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, the Pope called for an end to violence and extremism and said that Iraq’s dwindling Christian community should have a more prominent role as citizens with full rights, freedoms and responsibilities.

The Pope and Sistani were together for 50 minutes, which observers deemed significant as the reclusive 90-year-old spiritual leader of millions of Shia Muslims seldom holds an audience.

Sistani’s edicts over the years have sent Iraqis to free polls for the first time in 2005, rallied hundreds of thousands of men to fight against Islamic State in 2014 and toppled an Iraqi government under pressure from mass demonstrations in 2019.

Iraq’s Christian community has seen its numbers plummet over the last two decades from 1.4 million to about 250,000, less than 1% of the country’s population.  Most live in the Kurdistan region.

Pope Francis’ trip was a gutty and potentially hugely significant one.  It was also a big shot in the arm for the Iraqi government.

Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was all set to travel to Abu Dhabi, where he was expected to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as it being the Israeli leader’s first trip to the UAE since the two established diplomatic relations in August.

But Jordan would not allow the Netanyahu’s plane to enter its airspace after a diplomatic crisis.

Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah (King Abdullah’s son) had planned to visit the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount on Wednesday, following coordination with Israel on his security.

But when the prince arrived at the Israeli border with more armed guards than had been agreed on, the additional guards were not permitted to enter Israel, and Hussein canceled his visit.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz, running against Netanyahu in Israel’s election in less than two weeks, said that Netanyahu’s poor relationship with Jordanian King Abdullah is “the failure of the Netanyahu government in all of its 15 years.”

[Netanyahu’s wife was also hospitalized with appendicitis, so that was another excuse for the prime minister not to go to the UAE.]

Afghanistan: Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a 90-day reduction in violence in Afghanistan and a new United Nations-led peace effort as he warned the United States could withdraw all forces after May 1. Blinken warned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that a U.S. departure remains under active consideration and could lead to “rapid territorial gains” by the Taliban.

“I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone,” Blinken wrote in a three-page letter to Ghani.

The issue is, staying could lead to political difficulties at home for President Biden and renewed Taliban attacks on U.S. forces.  Leaving could undermine any achievements made in the past two decades and lead to a Taliban takeover.

There are roughly 2,500 U.S. forces remaining in Afghanistan of 9,000 total, and NATO allies have told the U.S. their military footprint hinges on U.S. plans.

In a statement earlier this month, the Taliban said if the existing deal “is abrogated, it would lead to a major war, the responsibility of which shall fall squarely on the shoulders of America.”

David Ignatius / Washington Post

“President Donald Trump was so eager to pull the plug in Afghanistan that in mid-November, shortly after the election, he impulsively signed an order to withdraw U.S. forces by year’s end.  Pentagon officials tell me the unpublicized order was quickly reversed, after strenuous protests from Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders.  They argued that there hadn’t been sufficient debate about the consequences of dropping to zero by the end of December.

“The order underscores the chaotic nature of national security policymaking in Trump’s administration.  It was drafted by retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a longtime critic of the Afghanistan mission, who was then serving as a special advisor to acting defense secretary Christopher Miller.  Asked about the order this week, Macgregor responded in an email: ‘I cannot comment at this time.’

“But Trump’s ill-considered move also illustrates the problem bedeviling President Biden as he confronts a May 1 deadline to withdraw completely from Afghanistan negotiated by his predecessor.  Trump had a troop-withdrawal plan for the United States’ longest war, but not a peace plan.

“Biden is now rushing to fill the diplomatic vacuum, guided by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Zalmay Khalilzad, who is continuing in the role of special envoy that he held under Trump. They have crafted an ambitious plan to work with the United Nations, Russia and Turkey to shape a power-sharing interim government and a cease-fire before the May 1 deadline, if possible.

“For all the window dressing of the February 2020 agreement with the Taliban, Trump’s aim in Afghanistan could be summed up in two words: Get out.  Officials tell me Trump had demanded back in December 2018 that U.S. troops quit Afghanistan, as well as Syria.  Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest; the Pentagon delayed implementing both orders, fearing significant damage to U.S. security interests….

“The Biden team is rehabilitating a diplomatic process that, despite Khalilzad’s efforts, never had much support from Trump. Biden’s dilemma, simply put, is that if he meets Trump’s withdrawal deadline, the Kabul government is likely to collapse into a chaotic civil war. What’s needed is an additional agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government for sharing power and a cease-fire….

“Blinken decided to embrace a much broader cast of peacemakers, rather than continue the United States’ solo diplomacy. Major powers like Russia and China might not want the United States to win in Afghanistan, but they didn’t want it to lose, either.  Blinken decided to give them a piece of the action.

“What’s ahead is a three-step process to get regional and international buy-in. First, the United States is expected to convene a quick meeting of foreign ministers – probably from the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran. This group would give its blessing to cease-fire negotiations and political transition talks between the Afghan parties.

“Next would be a round of talks in Moscow, starting March 18, organized by Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan.  He would convene what the Russians call the ‘enlarged troika’ group, which includes Russia, China, the United States, Pakistan and Iran.

“The last round envisaged by Blinken would be meetings in Turkey, perhaps beginning in early April, between Taliban and Kabul government representatives. The goal, Blinken said in his letter, would be to ‘finalize a peace agreement.’ If that transitional framework and cease-fire could be achieved, the United States might begin a slow walk toward the exit.

“Afghanistan would still remain the problem from hell.  Political turmoil, a renewed threat of terrorism and human-rights issues lie ahead, no matter what happens over the next several months.

“Still, to end its longest war, the Biden administration is willing to take the calculated risk of including some of its most problematic adversaries – Russia, China and Iran – and to let the mercurial regime in Turkey organize the wedding festival.  Its canny approach recalls an old saw: ‘If you can’t solve a problem, expand it.’”

China/Hong Kong: Secretary of State Blinken will hold talks with top Chinese officials next week in Anchorage, Alaska, a meeting that doesn’t necessarily herald further high-level talks unless it yields “tangible outcomes.”

Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan plan to discuss “a range of issues” with Yang Jiechi, China’s most senior foreign policy official, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The meeting, slated for Thursday, takes place after President Biden took part today in a summit with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia, which together with the U.S. form an alliance known as the Quad.

Blinken and Sullivan will use the meeting with Yang and Wang to address a range of issues, including those where the two sides have “deep disagreements,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.  “We’ll be frank in explaining…our concerns about challenges they pose to the security and values of the United States and our allies and partners.

Prior to Anchorage, Blinken will be stopping in Seoul and Tokyo next week, a trip he will take with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to strengthening our alliances and to highlight cooperation that promotes peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world,” the State Department said.  North Korea will be high on the list of topics, as the Biden administration undergoes a deep dive into a review of its policy towards Kim Jong-un.  Kim, no doubt, is getting antsy, with no U.S. outreach of any kind as yet.  A confidential UN report obtained by Reuters recently said the North developed its nuclear and ballistic missile programs throughout 2020.

On Sunday, at China’s closely watched “two sessions,” or annual parliamentary meetings in Beijing, Foreign Minister Wang Yi commented on all manner of issues.

China drew a line in the sand on its relations with the United States, saying there is no room for compromise on Hong Kong and Taiwan, but Wang said there is potential for common ground on climate change and the pandemic.

He stressed that ties have to be founded on non-interference in domestic affairs and respect for sovereignty.

“The Chinese government has no room for compromise on the issue of Taiwan, and also no room for concession,” Wang said.

“We urge the new U.S. administration to be fully aware of the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue…and completely change the previous government’s dangerous practices of ‘crossing the line’ and ‘playing with fire.’”

On the issue of Xinjiang, Wang said the accusation China is committing genocide there was a fabrication based on political manipulation.

“This only shows they have little concern for the truth and would rather indulge themselves in political maneuvering and fabricating issues on Xinjiang to undermine regional security and stability and obstruct China’s development progress.”

He also blamed the U.S. for creating turbulence in the disputed South China Sea.

But Wang did say: “As two nations with different social systems, it is inevitable that China and the U.S. have differences.  The key is that both should manage the differences through frank communication, avoiding strategic misjudgment and confrontation.

“As the world’s top two economies, it’s not surprising that China and the United States are competing against each other.  The key is to compete on a fair and just basis, which pushes each one to make advances and help the other, rather than attacking each other in a zero-sum game.”

China’s parliament approved on Thursday a draft decision to change Hong Kong’s electoral system, further reducing democratic representation in the city’s institutions and introducing a mechanism to vet politicians’ loyalty to Beijing.

The measures are part of Beijing’s efforts to consolidate its increasingly authoritarian grip over the global financial hub following the imposition of a national security law in June, which critics see as a tool to crush dissent.

Beijing is responding to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, which it saw as a threat to China’s national security.  Since then, most high-profile democratic politicians and activists have been sent to jail or are in self-exile.

“The central authorities have good intentions,” the Liaison Office, Beijing’s representative body in Hong Kong, said in a statement.

“We expect all sectors of the community and the general public to take ownership of the work to amend the law and offer suggestions, so that a strong positive energy can be gathered under the banner of patriotism and love for Hong Kong.”

Oh brother.  This is so sickening.  The vote in parliament to approve the legislation was 2,895 to 0, with one abstention. 

The changes virtually eliminate any possibility of the opposition affecting the outcome of elections in the former British colony, whose return to Chinese rule in 1997 came with a promise of a high degree of autonomy.

The blanket requirement for “patriotism” raises the risk that politicians will start competing over who is more loyal to Beijing, rather than who has the better ideas for how the city should be governed, analysts say.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Thursday that the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system would further undermine international trust in China.

“This is the latest step by Beijing to hollow out the space for democratic debate in Hong Kong,” Raab said.

Lastly, Beijing blasted the Biden administration for imposing new restrictions on national tech champion Huawei Technologies Co., saying the U.S. “isn’t a reliable country that is to be trusted.”

The U.S. informed some Huawei suppliers of tighter conditions on previously approved export licenses, prohibiting items for use in or with 5G devices, the ban effective as of this week.

The measure would hurt both the U.S. and China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday.

“It will severely disrupt the technological exchanges and trade exchanges of the two countries and the world at large, it will undermine the global industrial chains and supply chains,” Zhao said.  “The U.S. should stop the suppression on Chinese companies immediately and treat Chinese companies in a fair, just and nondiscriminatory manner.”

The U.S. rules create a more explicit prohibition on the export of components like semiconductors, antennas and batteries for Huawei 5G devices. Some companies had previously received licenses that allowed them to keep shipping components to Huawei.

Russia: Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been moved from a detention facility in Russia’s Vladimir region where he was incarcerated last month to an unknown location, one of his lawyers said on Friday.

Navalny was moved from jail in Moscow last month to serve out the sentence of around two-and-a-half years after a court ruling the West condemned as politically-motivated.  He was initially held at a jail in a region northeast of Moscow, and it was thought at the time he was eventually going to be moved to a penal colony, also in the Vladimir region.  One of Navalny’s attorneys wasn’t able to meet him today because he was told Navalny had been moved, without saying where.

Separately, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken said on Wednesday the administration was concerned about a Russian role in Venezuela and a resurgence of its activity in Cuba.

Myanmar:  The protests continue, as does the bloodshed, with more than 60 protesters killed thus far and some 2,000 detained, as of Thursday.  At least two officials from deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy have died in custody.  The cause of death in both is not clear.

At least 35 journalists have been arrested, though some were released.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings…

A CNN/SSRS poll has Joe Biden with a 51% approval rating, 41% disapprove.  Better than Donald Trump’s March 2017 approval rating of 45%, but well below that of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton after their first six weeks.

Rasmussen: 51% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 47% disapprove (March 12).

--Another blow for Republicans looking to take back the Senate in 2022.  Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt announced he will not run for reelection next year, making him the fifth Republican to opt for retirement, Blunt 71. The others are Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Richard Shelby of Alabama.

Blunt was reelected in 2016 with 49.2% of the vote against Democrat Jason Kander’s 46.4%.  Candidates with smaller parties took the rest.

--Gerald F. Seib / Wall Street Journal

“Two months after the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol, ugly fencing still surrounds the area, and Capitol Police have asked National Guard troops to remain on patrol for two more months.  In Minneapolis, authorities are erecting their own barbed-wire fences in anticipation of trouble around the trial of the former police officer accused of killing George Floyd.

“Asian-Americans are the targets of an escalating series of physical assaults.  Four women at a Bath and Body Works store in Arizona got into a wild brawl Saturday over social distancing, the video of which immediately went viral.

“As all that suggests, the national mood seems to be one of outrage. There are legitimate reasons to be angry, yet something else also is at work here: the emergence of a kind of perpetual outrage machine, made up of people and institutions with a vested interest in stoking political anger.  Political consultants and the candidates who hire them, online advertising firms, social-media companies, cable-television hosts – all profit one way or the other from stoking anger.

“ ‘What is it that causes people to want to be in a state of perennial outrage?’ asks Pete Wehner, who was a political adviser to former President George W. Bush.  ‘They are eager to be offended.’”

Mr. Seib then talks about political advertising, and the huge sums made by consultants and media firms, who have a vested interest in inundating the public with ideologically charged appeals to raise millions.

“Some voters are especially inclined to jump into the fray not because of policy debates but cultural fears: They believe their identity or way of life is under threat.

“The outrage makes it harder for lawmakers to compromise, because they know the ferocity of the attacks they’ll face if they do so.  That leaves a lot of the playing field to activists, whose positions in turn only anger their ideological foes all the more….

“The Wesleyan Media Project found that more than 4.9 million television ads aired in House, Senate and presidential races in the 2020 political cycle, more than twice the volume of ads in the 2012 and 2016 cycles.

“Those television ads now are supplemented by a flood of online ads, which are especially effective at stoking anger because they convey messages targeted at individual voters with known profiles suggesting their own, personal hot buttons.  Figures from Kantar Media indicate that spending on digital political ads ballooned to $1.7 billion in the 2020 cycle, well more than double the level four years earlier….

“Meantime, outrage has become virtually the business mode of some cable television shows….

“Former President Donald Trump was, of course, a master at stirring outrage, and he rode the resulting wave all the way into the White House….

“On the other hand, President Biden won the presidency by promising to push back against this tide of outrage, perhaps offering hope of breaking the cycle.  Yet he contributed to the heat last week by accusing governors lifting coronavirus mask mandates of engaging in ‘Neanderthal’ thinking.  Meanwhile, Republicans are outraged that, despite talk of unity and bipartisanship, Democrats have pushed through his $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill on entirely party-line votes in Congress….

“(The) fever runs high. What’s needed are some examples of political figures who succeed without the outrage.”

--Harry and Meghan

To start out, I was long a supporter of Prince Harry, until I wasn’t.  I was never a fan of Meghan. 

So in a titanic two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey Sunday night, Harry and Meghan said they encountered racist attitudes and a lack of support that drove the duchess to thoughts of suicide.

Meghan told Winfrey that at one point, “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”  She said she sought help through the palace’s human resources department but was told there was nothing it could do.

Meghan, 39, admitted that she was naïve at the start of her relationship with Harry, which is amazing, and unprepared for the strictures of royal life.

And Meghan said when she was pregnant with son, Archie, there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

“Whaaat?” said Oprah, mouth agape.  “Hold on.  There are several conversations with you about…how dark your baby is going to be?”

Harry confirmed the conversation, saying: “I was a bit shocked.”  He said he would not reveal who made the comment, though Winfrey said he told her it was not either of his grandparents, Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, Prince Philip.

Harry and Meghan announced they were quitting royal duties last year, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media, and moved to North America.  That split became official this year, and the interview was widely seen as their first opportunity to explain their decision.

In a clip released Monday that was not broadcast the night before, Harry reiterated that racism was “a large part” of the reason the couple left Britain – and he blamed the “toxic” British tabloid press.

“The U.K. is not bigoted,” he said.  “The U.K. press is bigoted, specifically the tabloids.”

The interview drew comparisons with Martin Bashir’s interview with Harry’s mother Diana which rocked the royal family in 1995.  But as Denis Staunton of the Irish Times notes, “Harry and Meghan’s interview is more dangerous to the monarchy than Diana’s, on account of its content and its timing.

“Parts of Meghan’s story echoed Diana’s, as she spoke about the palace’s failure to protect her from hostile media and to help her when she felt suicidal.  But the couple’s allegations of racism within the royal family are much more damaging because they strike at the legitimacy of the monarchy in a multiracial, multicultural Britain.

“Although Meghan had the more compelling story to tell, it was Harry who drove the knife in, volunteering that Prince Charles stopped taking his calls and suggesting that his father and brother remained ‘trapped’ in the institution. He said there was an ‘invisible contract’ between the tabloid press and the royals, who lived in fear of the media.

“There are no good options for Buckingham Palace because if they fail to investigate the allegations of racism the questions will remain open and if they do investigate there is a danger that the answers will be unwelcome. And any spotlight scanning the royal family is bound to settle at some stage on Prince Andrew, the queen’s favorite son who has disappeared from view amid allegations about sexual exploits in the company of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“A snap YouGov poll found that 47 percent of Britons (few of whom had watched the interview by then) thought it was inappropriate, compared to 21 percent who thought it was appropriate.  But the age divide was striking, with 18-24-year-olds saying it was appropriate by a margin of 49 percent to 12 percent.  Among the over-65s, just 9 percent said it was appropriate, compared to 68 percent who said it was not….

“Queen Elizabeth remains popular across the generations but at 95 [Ed. come April 21] she is probably within the last decade of her reign.  Charles’ succession was always likely to raise questions about the future of the monarchy, partly because neither he nor his wife Camilla are especially popular.

“There have been calls to skip a generation so that Prince William would succeed the queen. William and his wife Catherine are popular and they currently enjoy a cordial relationship with the press.

“But upsetting the order of succession is risky because it begs the question that, if Britain does not need the next king in line, does it need any?”

17.1 million watched the interview, the most-watched, non-Super Bowl event on a Sunday in prime time in over a year, CBS said (the Oscars telecast in Feb. 2020, which was watched by 23.6 million viewers).  The Wall Street Journal reported CBS bought the rights for somewhere between $7 million and $9 million from Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, and can also license the interview in international markets. It was aired in Britain Monday and half the potential television viewing audience was tuned in there.  CBS on Sunday was charging $325,000 for every 30 seconds of commercial time.

Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth and her family said they were saddened to learn of the experiences of Prince Harry and Meghan, saying they would address issues around race that were raised by the couple in the interview.

“The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. Whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.  Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members.”

British journalist and top TV host Piers Morgan left broadcaster ITV Tuesday following long-running criticism of Meghan that reached a crescendo after the interview.  He stormed off the set after he was criticized by colleague Alex Beresford, and after ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall said that, unlike Morgan, she did believe the duchess.

“I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle. You’ve made it so clear a number of times on this program, and I understand that you had a personal relationship with Meghan Markle and she cut you off,” Beresford said.

“Has she said anything about you after she cut you off?  She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to.  And yet you continue to trash her.”

Morgan then walked out.

“Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain,” ITV said in a statement.  “ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.”

Morgan said the couple had damaged the royal family and sought publicity on their own terms without accepting the responsibility and scrutiny that come with the job.  Britain’s media regulator launched a probe into Monday’s episode of “Good Morning Britain” after receiving 41,015 complaints about comments made by presenter Morgan.  When his co-presenter noted that Meghan had said she’d been driven to the verge of taking her own life, Morgan replied: “She says that, yes.” He said on Tuesday: “I still have serious concerns about the veracity of a lot of what she said, but let me just state for the record about my position on mental illness and on suicide. They should be taken extremely seriously and if someone is feeling that way they should get the treatment and help that they need every time, and if they belong to an institution like the royal family and they go and seek that help they should absolutely be given it,” he said.

Wednesday, Morgan said he stood by his criticism of the Duchess of Sussex.  It was reported Meghan complained to ITV about Morgan’s remarks.  In a tweet, as Wednesday’s program was beginning, Morgan said: “On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview.  I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. If you did, OK.”

Speaking outside his London home later, Morgan explained: “I believe in freedom of speech, I believe in the right to be allowed to have an opinion.  If people want to believe Meghan Markle, that’s entirely their right.

“I don’t believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth and I think the damage she’s done to the British monarchy and to the Queen at a time when Prince Philip is lying in hospital is enormous and frankly contemptible.

“If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly held opinion about Meghan Markle and that diatribe of bilge that she came out with in that interview, so be it.”

Thursday, Prince William, during a visit to an east London school, defended the royal family against accusations of racism, saying the royals are “very much not a racist family.”

Williams said he hadn’t yet spoken to Harry in the aftermath of the interview, “but I will do.”

He was answering reporters shouted questions.

Kathleen Parker / Washington Post

“When I married into a family much better than I deserved, I said to my new mother-in-law: ‘If I ever complain, just slap me.’

“Wisely, I never gave her reason. Complaining was programmed out of me long ago.  Besides, all a mother-in-law really wants from an ‘outlaw,’ as we refer to ourselves, is that he or she love her children and grandchildren – and behave accordingly.

“And all we commoners want from our princes and princesses – or, the occasional duke and duchess – is that they be handsome and pretty and play their uber-privileged roles without undue scandal or, for Pete’s sake, whining.

“Well. Somebody didn’t read her rule book closely.

“Meghan Markle’s claim during Sunday night’s couple interview with Oprah Winfrey not to have known what she was getting into when she married Harry – you have to curtsy to his grandmother the Queen?! – was absurd. Does this Hollywood-raised actress not watch movies?

“The two-hour interview, which I watched, has been thoroughly dissected.  Suffice it to say that the most interesting aspect of the friendly chat was the fact that so many people – 17.1 million in the United States alone – tuned in.  We say we don’t care about the royals, but it is clear that we do.

“We say the monarchy is outdated – a grand taxpayer heist of bizarre mutual consent – but we follow the royals as though they might produce some noble fables we could live by, when all we get are adulterous affairs….

“The big reveal, now a headline ricocheting around the globe, is that the House of Windsor is racist because some unnamed family member or members had wondered aloud what color the couple’s first baby might be.  In case you did not know, Meghan is biracial, and the Windsors are the whitest family on Earth. 

“Since Harry refused to name who in his family had uttered this, we’re left to guess and assume the worst of everyone.  If racism tainted the newlyweds’ hoped-for utopia, some of the blame surely belongs to the tabloids, which have been particularly vicious to the duchess.  Harry’s concern that his wife might suffer a fate similar to his mother’s at the hands of paparazzi led him to do what any decent man would do – he whisked her away, first to Canada and then to the former colony that long ago defeated and then liberated itself from the very same monarchy.

“For all of Harry’s chivalry, a better man might not have told Meghan about the mystery relative’s remark, knowing she would suffer the greater pain.  And then to tell the most famous broadcaster in the world?  Why even mention it?  Well, that’s obvious in part: The no-longer-royal couple had to cough up some little hairball for the roughly $8 million that CBS paid to Winfrey’s production company for the interview.

“Meghan struck me both as self-indulgent and the victim of a family still living in the 1850s.  Renegades are welcome here, but not if they’re going to complain about the accommodations. Whatever the toils of living rich and royal, Meghan might have assumed that a $45 million wedding would come at some personal cost.   Everyone who marries has to decide what sort of compromises to make for a spouse’s family’s ingrained habits and histories.  The price the Windsors exact from their progeny must have felt medieval to a modern star like Meghan.

“One can feel pity – or schadenfreude, if you prefer – for those who live royally. But it’s hard to feel sorry for the duke and duchess, especially if you happened to watch ’60 Minutes’ on CBS in the hour just before the interview.  The lead story was about Americans living in tents and cars, barely surviving, after losing jobs as a result of the pandemic. Covid-19 continues to hit low-income workers hardest, making CBS’ indulgence of two spoiled royals a slap in the face – to all the wrong people.”

Editorial / USA TODAY

“(Harry and Meghan’s) description of a Buckingham Palace sullied by racial intolerance and mental health insensitivity – if true – suggests irreparable damage to the Windsor ‘institution’ going forward.  And this was clearly a missed opportunity for the palace to embrace Britain’s growing diversity. Thousands took part in racial justice protests in London last summer after the police killing of George Floyd, with protesters invoking the names of local victims of police violence or racial injustice.

“Moreover, millions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere might benefit from a royal family willing to address emotional despair and embrace those, even within their own family, who suffer from mental health crises. That was another missed chance for Buckingham Palace to lead, rather than slip into denial over something deemed to be uncomfortable or unseemly for the institution.

“The queen’s popularity is so unassailable, she might weather the crisis.  Her grandson and his wife spoke warmly of her during the interview.  But when she’s gone, valid questions may persist about whether the monarchy remains tragically impervious to change and truly relevant to future generations of Britons.”

--New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced a new allegation Wednesday, perhaps the most serious one yet, of inappropriately touching a female aide after a report said he summoned her to the governor’s mansion and “aggressively groped her.”

The unnamed aide said Cuomo asked her to the Executive Mansion near the state Capitol late last year and then allegedly reached under her blouse and began to fondle her, according to the report in the Times Union of Albany.

The aide is the sixth woman to come forward to claim sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct by the Democratic governor, but this one could rise to the level of a criminal investigation.

In a statement, Cuomo denied the claim.

“As I said yesterday, I have never done anything like this,” he said Wednesday.  “The details of this report are gut-wrenching. I am not going to speak to the specifics of this or any other allegation given the ongoing review, but I am confident in the result of the Attorney General’s report.”

Cuomo has vowed he would not resign and has urged lawmakers to withhold judgment until Attorney General Letitia James completes an investigation into the multiple allegations.

The Times Union reported the latest allegation came to light earlier this month as the woman listened to Cuomo’s explanation that he never touched anyone inappropriately after the first claim was made public last month by former aide Lindsey Boylan.

Soon after, she told her supervisor of “what she said had been inappropriate encounters with Cuomo,” the report said.

Prior to the latest allegation, a Quinnipiac University poll of New York state registered voters conducted March 2-3 had a majority saying Cuomo should not resign, 55-40.  Democrats say 74-21 he should not resign, while Republicans say 70-23 and independents say 52-44 percent he should resign.

Voters gave Cuomo a split 45-46 percent job approval rating.  At the height of the pandemic in New York, in May of 2020, voters approved 72-24 percent of the job Cuomo was doing, which was close to an all-time high.  In March of 2019, New York voters gave him an approval rating of 50-41 percent.

75 percent believe Cuomo did something wrong when it comes to his handling of the way nursing home deaths during the pandemic were reported.

But Thursday night, New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he authorized its Judiciary Committee to start an “impeachment investigation” into sexual misconduct allegations the six women have made against the governor.  The panel’s investigation will run parallel to one being led by the state Attorney General.

And then today, New York Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jerry Nadler and several other New York political leaders joined calls for Cuomo to resign; 14 representatives in all.

In a call with reporters, Cuomo doubled down on his denial and said politicians’ calls for him to resign before they have all the facts were “reckless and dangerous.”

“Women have a right to come forward and be heard, and I encourage that fully.  But I also want to be clear: there is still a question of the truth. I did not do what has been alleged, period,” he said.

But tonight, New York Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, two staunch and longtime allies of the governor, are also now calling for his resignation.

--Leaders of the ongoing effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom have amassed enough signatures to trigger a special election this year, they announced Sunday, 1.95 million signatures (now over 2 million) with just under two weeks left before the March 17 deadline.  They only needed to collect 1,495,709 to spark a statewide vote, which would take place later this year.  But the signatures must be verified.

--For the fourth time in the last two weeks, Georgia freshman Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a motion to adjourn the House on Wednesday morning.  The move has no practical effect except to make every member of the House come to the floor to vote on…whether the House should adjourn!

As the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reported, three are some Republicans who are becoming increasingly irritated with Greene and her time-wasters.  If this is her way of trying to stay relevant after being stripped of committee assignments by the House last month following revelations about a number of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments she’d made before coming to Congress, it’s rather foolish.

But Greene explained to CNN earlier:

“Unfortunately there are some Republicans that are unhappy with these type of floor procedures because it messes up their schedule.  But Republican voters really don’t like that type of Republican mentality up here.  They really want Republicans to stand up and stop these radical crazy policies.”

What?  A motion to adjourn has nothing to do with the legislative process and stopping policies.

Well, Greene is getting her moments in the media spotlight and she raises money off them.

--U.S. District Court Judge Zia Faruqui said former State Department official “Freddie” Klein, a Trump appointee, must remain in jail while he awaits trial on charges that he took part in the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol and assaulted police officers.  The judge said Klein’s status as a government employee at the time of the Jan. 6 attack was troubling and suggested he would pose a danger to the public if released.

Faruqui said Klein “swore an oath to protect America” but instead “switched sides” and joined forces with domestic enemies during the attack on the Capitol, which left five people dead.  “How could someone sworn to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, then participate in an attempt to stop the administration of the Constitution?”

Federal prosecutors allege Klein assaulted police officers with a riot shield and jammed it into doors at the Capitol.  Klein ignored commands to back down and encouraged others to clash with the police, according to prosecutors.  “We need fresh people, we need fresh people!” Klein shouted repeatedly, according to the criminal complaint against him.

--Pentagon officials and senior uniformed leaders are hotly denying disparaging claims made by talk show host Tucker Carlson about women in American military service.

On Wednesday, the Fox host offered what Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called a “monologue” in which he criticized recent policy changes that benefit female services members, such as more flexible hair regulations and uniforms that better fit women – including pregnant ones.

“So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits,” Carlson said.  “Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military.”

“Women lead our most lethal units with character,” Sgt. Maj. Of the Army Michael Grinston tweeted Wednesday evening.  “They will dominate ANY future battlefield we’re called to fight on. @TuckerCarlson’s words are divisive, don’t reflect our values. We have THE MOST professional, educated, agile, and strongest NCO Corps. In the world.”

“I’ll remind everyone that his opinion, which he has a right to, is based off of actually zero days in the armed forces,” Master Gunnery Sgt. Scott H. Stalker, Command Senior Enlisted Leader of United States Space Command said in a tweeted video.  “My opinion is based off of 28 years of actual service in the military…the bottom line is that we value women in our armed forces.”

--Former President Donald Trump requested a mail-in ballot for Palm Beach’s municipal election.  It was the third time he had done so in his Palm Beach County voter history.  Melania Trump voted in person for the election.

The request was made nearly a week after the deadline to have a ballot to be sent by mail.

Palm Beach County elections chief said that as of last Friday, her office issued 126,136 mail ballots, more than one-third of the 349,099 residents who are eligible to vote in the municipal elections.

Just a tad ironic all around, you should agree.

--Speaking of the former president, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. said he would not run for a fourth term today.  The announcement, which was expected, comes just weeks after Vance claimed victory in a bitter court fight over access to Trump’s taxes that made it to the Supreme Court, with the Court in a unanimous ruling authorizing Vance to immediately retrieve the tax documents and show them to a Manhattan grand jury as part of his ongoing criminal probe into Trump’s finances.

In February, Vance hired Mark Pomerantz to assist in the investigation, a veteran white-collar prosecutor who took down former Gambino crime family boss John “Junior” Gotti. 

It’s not clear, however, that Vance’s successor will continue to pursue the case against Trump.

--According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a research office at Cal State San Bernardino, a survey of police departments in 16 major cities found a total of 122 anti-Asian hate crimes last year – a 149% increase from the 49 in 2019.

The totals climbed in 15 of the 16 cities, with New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and San Jose experiencing the most significant increases and their highest tallies in at least five years.

The rise in anti-Asian crimes occurred as total hate crimes against all minority groups dropped 7% - from 1,845 to 1,717.

Brian Levin, director of the Cal State center, described the growth in hatred as one of “historic significance for our nation and the Asian American community.”

The rise is clearly related to the pandemic, and the rhetoric coming out of leaders such as President Trump, who berated critics who worried that he was stirring anti-Asian sentiment as “politically correct.”

In New York where the number of anti-Asian hate crimes jumped from three to 28, all but four were related to the coronavirus.

--We note the passing of longtime CBS News political correspondent Roger Mudd.  He was 93.

Mudd was terrific, spending almost 20 years covering Capitol Hill, political campaigns and corruption scandals for CBS News.  He did special reports on the Watergate scandal and its fallout, including the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

His 1979 interview of Ted Kennedy was credited with crushing the senator’s presidential ambitions just as he was preparing to challenge President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination.

Kennedy awkwardly offered incomplete, rambling answers to basic questions about his family and personal life and was stopped cold when Mudd asked him directly: “Why do you want to be president?”

There was a long, awkward pause before Kennedy could say a word.  When Mudd asked what distinguished him from Carter, Kennedy did not provide substantive answers to fundamental questions, giving viewers the impression that the senator was ill-prepared for the job of commander in chief.

The interview remains one of the most devastating in political history.  Kennedy lost his bid for the nomination and never mounted a run for the presidency again.

Mudd had long been considered the heir apparent at CBS to the venerable Walter Cronkite, but when CBS announced Cronkite’s retirement in 1980, Mudd’s onetime Washington-bureau colleague Dan Rather received the nod.  Mudd quit the network for NBC, where he shared the anchor desk for a year with Tom Brokaw before being pushed aside in 1983.

Mudd, by his own admission, was better suited for reporting than in the anchor chair and he was long known as the best reporter of his generation.

In 1968, Mudd covered the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy and was present at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Kennedy was assassinated on June 5 that year.

After the shooting, he saw Kennedy’s wife, Ethel, standing by herself. He put his arm around her waist and elbowed his way through the milling crowd, guiding her to her husband.

“She hugged me as if I were an oak tree – just something to cling to,” Mudd wrote in his 2008 memoir, “The Place to Be.” “I recall forcing some screaming, bellowing men to give way so that Ethel could reach the side of her dying husband.”

After Roger Mudd received a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he began working at the Richmond News Leader newspaper and later at a radio station owned by the paper, WRNL.

His broadcasting career got off to an inauspicious start when he was reading a bulletin on the medical condition of Pope Pius XII.

“To my horror,” Mudd recounted in his memoir, “I heard myself saying, ‘The condition of Pipe Poeus has grown steadily worse and they have summoned to the Vatican bedside the Pipe’s doctor and two Swish spesulists.’”

---

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Thank you to the first responders and healthcare workers.

God bless America.

---

Gold $1723
Oil $65.58

Returns for the week 3/8-3/12

Dow Jones  +4.1%  [32778]
S&P 500  +2.6%  [3943]
S&P MidCap  +5.3%
Russell 2000  +7.3%
Nasdaq  +3.1%  [13319]

Returns for the period 1/1/21-3/12/21

Dow Jones  +7.1%
S&P 500  +5.0%
S&P MidCap  +14.7%
Russell 2000  +19.1%
Nasdaq  +3.4%

Bull 51.0
Bear 20.6…the prior three splits, finally revealed, were 53.9/18.6 (last week’s), 56.3/18.5, and 59.1/18.1

Hang in there…Mask up where appropriate, wash your hands…we can beat it down.

Brian Trumbore

 

 

 

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