Week in Review

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Week in Review

12/19/2020

For the week 12/14-12/18

[Posted 10:00 PM ET, Friday]

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Special thanks to longtime supporter Jim D.

Edition 1,131

***Tonight, Congress passed a two-day stopgap spending bill, averting a partial government shutdown and buying time for endless negotiations on an almost $1 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package.  We are told by Senate Majority Leader McConnell that a deal will be closed on Sunday.  It is already too late for millions of Americans suffering through no fault of their own.***

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It was a week of incredibly stark contrasts, historic ones at that.  The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine began going into arms in this country and just over an hour ago, the FDA approved Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use authorization, meaning it could be shipped this weekend for use as early as Monday.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.

But at the same time Covid cases continue to hit new highs, with the U.S. daily death toll hitting the 3,000 level three of the last four days.  Hospitalizations are hitting records daily, with health-care workers stressed to the max, many quitting, intensive care units in Southern California filled to capacity. 

And at this incredibly dangerous time of year, few getting to enjoy the holidays with family and friends, President Trump says nothing.  No words of compassion or empathy for the nurses and doctors on the front lines.  The president deserves credit for fronting the money to the pharmaceutical and biotech companies to help speed up the vaccine process, but he will forever go down in history for his massive failure in leadership on the very basics of this crisis.

Just since Election Day, Nov. 3rd, when he said the press would stop talking about “Covid, Covid, Covid…” over 82,000 have died in America in less than seven weeks.  Not a word from Trump on the topic in that time, and really in the months before, from a public health standpoint.

Instead, the president continues to do everything he can to delegitimize his duly elected successor, affirmed by the Electoral College on Monday, continues to seek to disenfranchise millions of voters, destroying norms that will take decades to restore, if ever, and even fomenting violence through his mindless, abhorrent tweets.

Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday, in finally acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory:

“The electoral college has spoken, so today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” before welcoming Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the first female vice president.

McConnell also reportedly advised GOP senators not to object to the counting of Biden’s electoral votes at a Jan. 6 congressional session, when lawmakers will gather to officially receive and tally the votes cast Monday, yet some Trump dead-enders in the House are pursuing a last-gasp strategy to block the vote, egged on by President Trump himself.

Distressingly, polls show that scores of Republican voters now reject Biden’s legitimacy, with Trump intensifying his campaign of lies.  “This Fake Election can no longer stand,” the president declared after a weekend of violence in D.C. and Washington state.  “Get moving Republicans,” he tweeted.

Sickeningly, many Republicans actually believe that their democracy no longer functions because leadership in Congress, including from the likes of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, sided with the president.  They know better, but they are intimidated by an old man and his base.

One Republican, among a handful of others like Senators Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse, stood firm, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who warned his party against excesses like the secession talk thrown about by some state officials.

“I want to be clear: the Supreme Court is not the deep state,” Kinzinger wrote in one tweet.  “The case had no merit and was dispatched 9-0.  There was no win here.  Complaining and bellyaching is not a manly trait, it’s actually sad. Real men accept a loss with grace.”

But the assault on democracy continues.

Lastly, we began to learn over the weekend of a global espionage campaign launched by Russian government hackers that by all indications has been ongoing since the spring.

We first got an inkling of the scope days before after the prominent cybersecurity firm FireEye said it had been breached in an attack, as I wrote last week, that the company, and outside experts, agreed bore the hallmarks of Russian tradecraft, specifically a private-sector security firm known as APT29 or Cozy Bear.

But as the week has gone on the scope of the attack continued to broaden and every American should be shuddering at the extent of a cyber crisis that could take years…years…to ameliorate, and who knows what could happen in the interim.

The identification of breached agencies, which started out with the State, Treasury and Commerce departments as well as the Department of Homeland Security, is only the first step. The harder part is determining what the hackers stole while they were roaming through the networks.

This morning, having apparently been briefed on the attacks yesterday, President Trump showed how little he thought of the topic when instead he tweeted:

“The Secretary of State and Governor of Georgia, both so-called ‘Republicans’, aren’t allowing Fulton County to go through the vital Voter Signature Verification process.  Also, they are not allowing Republican ‘watchers’ to be present and verify! @BrianKemp GA

“Governor @BrianKempGA of Georgia still has not called a Special Session. So easy to do, why is he not doing it? It will give us the State.  MUST ACT NOW!

“.@senatemajldr and Republican Senators have to get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore. We won the Presidential Election, by a lot.  FIGHT FOR IT.  Don’t let them take it away!”

The cybersecurity unit of the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that the hack “poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations.”

It was the most detailed comments yet from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency since the first reports emerged this weekend.

CISA also warned that it will be difficult to remove the malware inserted through network software.  The agency said that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations.

The scope of the attack rapidly became clear, with at least three state governments acknowledging they too were hacked, and the U.S. nuclear weapons agency. 

All the organizations were breached through a network management system called SolarWinds, a public company with 300,000 customers worldwide, including all five branches of the U.S. military, the Pentagon, the State Department, NASA, and the National Security Agency.  425 of the Fortune 500 use SolarWinds, with the 10 leading U.S. telecommunications companies and top five U.S. accounting firms among its customers.

Late Thursday, Microsoft said its systems were exposed and that it had identified more than 40 customers that the hackers had “targeted more precisely and compromised,” including “security and other technology firms,” think tanks and government contractors in addition to government agencies.  Of the victims, 80% are located in the U.S. while the others are in seven other countries: Canada, Mexico, the UK, Belgium, Spain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.  Microsoft said it expects the number and locations of victims to keep growing.

The U.S. Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration said they were victims, the latter maintaining the country’s nuclear stockpile, though the DoE said that the malware was isolated to business networks and didn’t affect national security functions.

But networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) were breached, so is this an effort to disrupt the U.S. electric grid at a time of Russia’s choosing?

Yet through this, President Trump has stayed silent, while some members of Congress issued chilling statements.

“We already know enough about the hack to know that it’s deeply damaging and dangerous,” Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday.

The president is also sitting on the National Defense Authorization Act which has sweeping new cybersecurity provisions that were designed to combat adversaries like Russia in this realm.

Thomas P. Bossert, former homeland security adviser to President Trump / New York Times

“At the worst possible time, when the United States is at its most vulnerable – during a presidential transition and a devastating public health crisis – the networks of the federal government and much of corporate America are compromised by a foreign nation.  We need to understand the scale and significance of what is happening.

“Last week, the cybersecurity firm FireEye said it had been hacked and that its clients, which include the United States government, had been placed at risk. This week, we learned that SolarWinds, a publicly traded company that provides software to tens of thousands of government and corporate customers, was also hacked.

“The attackers gained access to SolarWinds software before updates of that software were made available to its customers.  Unsuspecting customers then downloaded a corrupted version of the software, which included a hidden back door that gave hackers access to the victim’s network.

“This is what is called a supply-chain attack, meaning the pathway into the target network relies on access to a supplier. Supply-chain attacks require significant resources and sometimes years to execute.  They are almost always the product of a nation-state. Evidence in the SolarWinds attack points to the Russian intelligence service known as the S.V.R., whose tradecraft is among the most advanced in the world.

“According to SolarWinds S.E.C. filings, the malware was on the software from March to June. The number of organizations that downloaded the corrupted update could be as many as 18,000, which includes most federal government unclassified networks and more than 425 Fortune 500 companies.

“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate.

“The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months.  The Russian S.V.R. will surely have used its access to further exploit and gain administrative control over the networks it considered priority targets. For those targets, the hackers will have long ago moved past their entry point, covered their tracks and gained what experts call ‘persistent access,’ meaning the ability to infiltrate and control networks in a way that is hard to detect or remove.

“While the Russians did not have the time to gain complete control over every network they hacked, they most certainly did gain it over hundreds of them.  It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy.

“The logical conclusion is that we must act as if the Russian government has control of all the networks it has penetrated.  But it is unclear what the Russians intend to do next.  The access the Russians now enjoy could be used for far more than simply spying.

“The actual and perceived control of so many important networks could easily be used to undermine public and consumer trust in data, written communications and services.  In the networks that the Russians control, they have the power to destroy or alter data, and impersonate legitimate people. Domestic and geopolitical tensions could escalate quite easily if they use their access for malign influence and misinformation – both hallmarks of Russia behavior.”

Mr. Bossert explains that removing SolarWinds software, as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an emergency directive for, is insufficient “and woefully too late. The damage is already done and the computer networks are compromised.

“It also is impractical.  In 2017, the federal government was ordered to remove from its network software from a Russian company, Kaspersky Lab, that was deemed too risky.  It took over a year to get it off the networks.  Even if we double that pace with SolarWinds software, and even if it wasn’t already too late, the situation would remain dire for a long time.

“The remediation effort alone will be staggering.  It will require the segregated replacement of entire enclaves of computers, network hardware and servers across vast federal and corporate networks.  Somehow, the nation’s sensitive networks have to remain operational despite unknown levels of Russian access and control.  A ‘do over’ is mandatory and entire new networks need to be built – and isolated from compromised networks….

“While we must reserve our right to unilateral self-defense, allies must be rallied to the cause. The importance of coalitions will be especially important to punishing Russia and navigating this crisis without uncontrolled escalation. 

“President Trump is on the verge of leaving behind a federal government, and perhaps a large number of major industries, compromised by the Russian government.  He must use whatever leverage he can muster to protect the United States and severely punish the Russians. 

“President-elect Joe Biden must begin his planning to take charge of this crisis.  He has to assume that communications about this matter are being read by Russia, and assume that any government data or email could be falsified.

“At this moment, the two teams must find a way to cooperate.

“President Trump must get past his grievances about the election and govern for the remainder of his term.  This moment requires unity, purpose and discipline.  An intrusion so brazen and of this size and scope cannot be tolerated by any sovereign nation.

“We are sick, distracted, and now under cyberattack.  Leadership is essential.”

President-elect Biden said the far-reaching cyber breach against the U.S. government was a matter of “great concern” and vowed swift action in response once he takes office next month.  Biden said his team will make the breach a top priority and would impose “substantial costs” on parties responsible for such cyberattacks.

“Our adversaries should know that, as President, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation,” he said in a statement.

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As noted, Congress convenes on Jan. 6 in a special joint session, where the electoral votes cast on Dec. 14, will then be counted.

While Congress is expected to certify the votes, some Republican allies of Trump are expected to contest some states’ election outcomes.  But nearly all states resolved election disputes before the so-called “safe harbor” deadline, guaranteeing their electors will be counted under federal law.

Stephen Miller, a Trump senior advisor, aka Rasputin, said Monday that Republicans in battleground states where Trump lost plan to meet to appoint their own slates of electors whose votes will be submitted to Congress.  Several did, with groups gathering in Michigan, Georgia, New Mexico and elsewhere.

“We have more than enough time to right the wrong from this fraudulent election result and certify Donald Trump as the winner of the election,” Miller said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

“As we speak today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we’re going to send those votes up to Congress. This will ensure all of our legal remedies will remain open.”

Oh brother.

At a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency until President Trump fired him last month because he said the election was secure, defended the election’s security, again.

In a statement, Krebs cited postelection claims about hackers, malicious algorithms that flipped votes and election equipment vendors’ foreign ties; calling them “wild and baseless” and technically inaccurate.  Krebs also told the committee that continuing to question the outcome of the election is “ultimately corrosive to the institutions that support elections.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) claimed that fraud happened anyway.  “The election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it will be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws,” he said.

Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, R., Ala., said this week, “You’ll see what’s coming.  You’ve been reading about it in the House.  We’re going to have to do it in the Senate.”

In the House, Rep. Mo Brooks (R., Ala.) is leading an effort to reject Biden’s Electoral College victory.  Brooks has said he wants to reject the electoral votes certified by states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania that had “flawed election systems.”

Any objections Jan. 6 would require support from one House member and one senator to be considered. The two chambers would meet separately to vote on any disputes.

Tuberville, the former head football coach at Auburn who I wrote of the other week, exposing him as an idiot, said in referring to Biden’s victory, “It’s impossible.  It is impossible what happened… I’m gonna tell you: Don’t give up on him,” referring to Trump.  “Don’t give up on him.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“There’s no predicting how Mr. Trump will behave.  He rarely takes our advice…and perhaps he will continue his ‘stolen’ election claims past Jan. 20.  Perhaps he can’t admit to himself that he lost.  Perhaps he hopes to nurture resentment to run again in 2024.

“But bitterness as a political strategy rarely wears well.  If Republicans lose the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, Mr. Trump will deserve much of the blame.  If election protests turn to violence in the streets, as they did on the weekend in Washington, he will be blamed whether he deserves it or not….

“There’s a time to fight, and a time to concede.  Mr. Trump has had his innumerable days in court and lost.  He would do far better now to tout his accomplishments in office, which are many, and accept his not so horrible fate as one of 45 former American Presidents.”

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There is understandable concern over the impact holiday travel is going to have on the pandemic, around the world, and whether the resultant surge will be even worse than Thanksgiving, which clearly had an impact.

But the TSA checkpoint travel numbers remain way down.  We’ll see what happens beginning next week, but for the last eight days, we have 34 percent of 2019’s # for yesterday, Thursday, then 29, 27, 33, 38, 35 and 33 percent of the prior year’s total.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…1,681,073
USA…320,845
Brazil…185,687
India…145,171
Mexico…117,249
Italy…67,894
UK…66,451
France…60,229
Iran…53,272
Russia…49,762
Spain…48,926
Argentina…41,672
Colombia…40,019
Peru…36,969
Germany…26,003
Poland…24,771
South Africa…24,285

Source: worldometers.info

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 1,379; Mon. 1,619; Tues. 3,001; Wed. 3,561; Thurs. 3,387; Fri. 2,794.

Covid Bytes

--Moderna Inc.’s vaccine is safe and effective for preventing Covid-19 in people ages 18 and older, the Food and Drug Administration’s staff said in a report on Tuesday, and that the experimental vaccine is 94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19, confirming earlier results released by the company.

Then Thursday, a meeting of agency advisers voted 20-0 with one abstention that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed its risks in people aged 18 and older, one week after the same panel backed a similar vaccine from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE, leading to an FDA emergency use authorization a day later.

Health and Huma Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday that 5.9 million doses have been allotted for states and large cities and were ready to ship nationwide.

As opposed to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Moderna’s does not require specialized ultra-cold freezers or vast quantities of dry ice, making it easier to supply rural and remote areas.

--French President Emmanuel Macron became the latest world leader to be infected, Macron testing positive Thursday after exhibiting symptoms of the illness.  The timing couldn’t be worse what with the final Brexit negotiations taking place.

--Germany’s daily cases surged past 30,000, record levels, as the country began a strict lockdown Wednesday after softer restrictions failed to curtail the spread.  A new daily high in deaths was also reported this week, in excess of 800, according to worldometers.info.

Schoolchildren will stay at home and non-essential shops will shut for at least four weeks, at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 governors brushed aside appeals from industry and retail leaders.

New Year’s Eve fireworks displays have been cancelled.

--Sweden’s King Gustaf criticized the country’s virus strategy, as infections threaten to spiral out of control.  “I think we have failed,” he told state broadcaster SVT.  Confidence in state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has slumped amid lax restrictions. Almost 8,000 Swedes have died (7,893), compared with fewer than 1,000 fatalities (992) in Denmark, about 500 (484) in Finland and 400 in Norway (404).

Almost all of Sweden’s regional hospitals are now struggling with a shortage of health-care staff, according to a report on Swedish Radio.

Stockholm’s health-care system almost caved under the pressure of a resurgence in cases as its intensive care capacity hit 99%, but local authorities enabled a forced redeployment of staff to address the emergency.

--Turkey’s death toll hit a record high of 243 on Thursday, with a record 27,500 new cases in the last 24 hours.  The government has imposed weekday curfews and full weekend lockdowns to curb the surge in infections.

--Brazil hit 1,000 daily deaths for the first time in three months this week, not a good sign.

--Mexico City is shutting down all nonessential activity through Jan. 10 amid its spike in cases and deaths.

--South Korea hit a record death count Thursday, 22, as cases have been at record highs.

--An ABC News/Ipsos survey of Americans found 40% saying they will get the vaccine as soon as it is available, particularly those over 65 years in age (57%).

Almost half (44%) say they will wait a bit, particularly minority respondents (52%).  Fewer than one in five (15%) say they will never get the vaccine, particularly Republicans (26%).

These numbers are improving as more and more gain confidence.

--A new variant of coronavirus has been identified in the UK that could be contributing to a rapid rise in infections in some parts of the country.

Researchers were urgently investigating whether the new strain was more transmissible than previous coronavirus variants, UK health secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons on Monday, even as he sought to reassure members of parliament over the risks posed by the mutation.

“There is currently nothing to suggest that this variant is more likely to cause serious disease, and the latest clinical advice is that it’s highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine,” Hancock said.

--As some of you know, rapper/actor Ice-T was an elementary school classmate of mine in Summit so I can’t help but note an article in the Star-Ledger talking about how he has been slamming Covid deniers after the coronavirus impacted his wife, Coco’s, family.

Ice-T shared a viral video of a woman refusing to wear a mask at a bank in Englewood, N.J.

“I am a scientist,” the woman said in the Black Friday encounter.  “There is no corona!”

“Oh sh-t,” Ice-T tweeted, sharing the video last week.  “This Karen is a Scientist. In her mind…”

“You crazy ice t,” @breadheadflow replied.  “Scientists and doctors have been saying truth and social media deleted (their) information, there is no virus, how dumb can you just base your info on one side.”

Ice-T was ready.

“I have 6 DEAD close friends from this Virus,” he replied.  “You need to shut the F--- up…”

“But what kind of underlying issues did they have?” tweeted @paqaboll1721, echoing another common refrain of Covid-19 deniers.

“YOUR underlying issue is being a Dumbf---,” Ice replied.  “That can get you dead too…”

He followed up those replies with another personal connection to the devastating effects of Covid.

“My father-in-law ‘Coco’s Dad’ was a serious No Masker,’” he tweeted.  “COVID hit him.  Pneumonia in both lungs…40 days in ICU close to death… Now he’s on Oxygen indefinitely.  Ohhh he’s a Believer now. #COVIDisNOTAGame.”

--One in every five state and federal prisoners in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population.  In some states, more than half of prisoners have been infected, according to data collected by the Associated Press and The Marshall Project.

At least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, with more than 1,700 dying of Covid.

--Editorial / The Economist

“Warren Harding built a campaign for the presidential election in 1920 around his new world ‘normalcy’. It was an appeal to Americans’ supposed urge to forget the horrors of the first world war and the Spanish flu and turn back to the certainties of the Golden Age.  And yet, instead of embracing Harding’s normalcy, the Roaring Twenties became a ferment of forward-looking, risk-taking social, industrial and artistic novelty.

“War had something to do with the Jazz Age’s lack of inhibition. So did the flu pandemic, which killed six times as many Americans and left survivors with an appetite to live the 1920s at speed.  That spirit will also animate the 2020s.  The sheer scale of the suffering from Covid-19, the injustices and dangers the pandemic has revealed, and the promise of innovation mean that it will be remembered as the year when everything changed.

“The pandemic has been a once-in-a-century event.  Sars-Cov-2 has been found in over 70m people and possibly infected another 500m or more who were never diagnosed.  It has caused 1.6m recorded deaths; many hundreds of thousands have gone unrecorded.  Millions of survivors are living with the exhaustion and infirmities of ‘long Covid.’  World economic output is at least 7% lower than it would otherwise have been, the biggest slump since the second world war.  Out of the ashes of all that suffering will emerge the sense that life is not to be hoarded, but lived.

“Another reason to expect change – or, at least, to wish for it – is that Covid-19 has served as a warning. The 80bn animals slaughtered for food and fur each year are Petri dishes for the viruses and bacteria that evolve into a lethal human pathogen every decade or so. This year the bill came due and it was astronomical.  The clear blue skies that appeared as the economy went into lockdown were a powerful symbol of how Covid-19 is a fast-moving crisis within a slow-moving one that it in some ways resembles.  Like the pandemic, climate change is impervious to populist denials, global in the disruption it causes and will be far more costly to deal with in the future if it is neglected now.

“And a third reason to expect change is that the pandemic has highlighted injustices.  Children have fallen behind in their lessons – and too often gone hungry.  School leavers and graduates have once again seen their prospects recede.  People of all ages have endured loneliness or violence at home… A 40-year-old Hispanic-American is 12 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than a white American of the same age.  In Sao Paulo black Brazilians under 20 are twice as likely to die as whites.

“As the world has adapted some of these iniquities have gotten worse.  Studies suggest that about 60% of jobs in America paying over $100,000 can be done from home, compared with 10% of jobs paying under $40,000… (In) the worst case, the UN reckons, the pandemic could force over 200m people into extreme poverty.  Their plight will be exacerbated by authoritarians and would-be tyrants who have exploited the virus to tighten their stranglehold on power….

“The coronavirus has also revealed something profound about the way societies should treat knowledge… The new vaccines that resulted are just one stop in the light-speed progress that has elucidated where the virus came from, whom it affects, how it kills, and what might treat it.

“It is a remarkable demonstration of what science can achieve. At a time when conspiracies run wild, this research stands as a rebuke to the know-nothings and zealots in dictatorships and democracies who behave as if the evidence for a claim is as nothing next to the identity of the person asserting it….

“Many people under lockdown have asked themselves what matters most in life.  Governments should take that as their inspiration, focusing on policies that promote individual dignity, self-reliance and civic pride. They should recast welfare and education and take on concentrations of entrenched power so as to open up new thresholds for their citizens. Something good can come from the misery of the plague year.  It should include a new social contract fit for the 21st century.”

Trump World

--As rumored, Attorney General William Barr submitted his resignation to President Trump, effective Dec. 23, but in the letter he said he was “greatly honored that you called on me to serve your Administration and the American people once again as Attorney General.  I am proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people.  Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance.  Your 2016 victory speech in which you reached out to your opponents and called for working together for the benefit of the American people was immediately met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds.”

Barr goes on and on….as in when you look up the definition of “Obsequious” in the dictionary, there is a picture of Bill Barr, kissing the president’s ass.

Of course days earlier the president had ripped Barr for saying he found no systemic fraud in the presidential election.

After Barr’s touching letter, Trump tweeted:

“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!  As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family…

“…Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, an outstanding person, will become Acting Attorney General.  Highly respected Richard Donoghue will be taking over the duties of Deputy Attorney General.  Thank you to all!”

--The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday threw out a lawsuit seeking to block President Trump’s plan to exclude immigrants living in the United States illegally from the Census count used to allocate congressional districts to states.  The 6-3 ruling on ideological lines gives Trump a short-term victory as he pursues his hard-line policies toward immigration in the final weeks of his presidency.

However, the administration is racing the clock to follow through on the vaguely defined proposal before President-elect Biden takes office.  The justices left open the possibility of fresh litigation if Trump’s administration completes its plan.

The unsigned decision said that “judicial resolution of this dispute is premature” in part because it is not clear what the administration plans to do.  The ruling noted that the court was not weighing the merits of Trump’s plan.

Challengers led by New York state and the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump’s proposal would dilute the political clout of states with larger numbers of such immigrants, including heavily Democratic California, by undercounting state populations and depriving them of seats in the House of Representatives to the benefit of Republicans.

The administration needs to finalize a Census Bureau report to Trump containing the final population data, including the number of immigrants excluded, by Dec. 31.

--President Trump offered a new rationale for threatening to veto the annual defense policy bill that covers the military’s budget for equipment and pay raises for service members: China.  He did not outline his concerns.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers say the wide-ranging bill would be tough on China and must become law as soon as possible.

Both the House and Senate passed the measure by margins large enough to override a veto from the president, who has a history of failing to carry out actions he has threatened.

“The biggest winner of our defense bill is China!  I will veto!” Trump tweeted.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the bill would help deter Chinese aggression.  Other Republican backers such as Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Senate leader, have tweeted that the bill would counter threats from countries such as China.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s declaration that China is the biggest winner is false.

“President Trump clearly hasn’t read the bill, nor does he understand what’s in it,” Reed said.  “There are several bipartisan provisions in here that get tougher on China than the Trump Administration has ever been.”

--At the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., last Saturday that I worried about for weeks, after which there was some violence between the Proud Boys and far left groups that resulted in a number of stabbings, conservative gadfly Alex Jones appeared to threaten Joe Biden when he told the crowd that the former vice president “will be removed one way or another.”

Jones, the conspiracy theorist and radio host who is being sued by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting in a number of defamation suits, also referred to Biden as a globalist, an anti-Semitic dogwhistle popular with conservatives.

“We will never back down to the Satanic pedophile, globalist New World Order and their walking-dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden, and we will never recognize him,” Jones said, referencing the QAnon conspiracy theory, one of the many popular alt-right ideas the FBI has labeled as a domestic terrorism threat.

The MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, spoke at the rally, singling out Fox News Channel for being “in on” a major conspiracy to overthrow Trump because of their having called Arizona for Joe Biden.

“We cannot give up ever on this,” said Lindell to the crowd.  “This fraud is real.  It’s of epic proportions that this election was stolen.”

At the end of his speech, Lindell said we might already be in the Biblical “end times” just as the crowd was chanting “four more years.”

--Bret Stephens / New York Times

“(The) catastrophe of Trump’s presidency doesn’t mainly lie in the visible damage it has caused.  It’s in the invisible damage.  Trump was a corrosive.  What he mainly corroded was social trust – the most important element in any successful society.

“I was reminded of this again reading an extraordinary essay in the Washington Post by former Secretary of State George Shultz, who turned 100 on Sunday.  His central lesson after a life that spanned combat service in World War II, labor disputes in steel plants, the dismantling of segregation and making peace with the Soviets: ‘Trust is the coin of the realm.’

“ ‘When trust was in the room, whatever room that was – the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room – good things happened,’ Shultz wrote.  ‘When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.  Everything else is details.’

“What Shultz attests from personal experience is extensively documented in scholarly literature, too.  In high-trust societies – think of Canada or Sweden – people tend to flourish.  In low-trust societies – Lebanon or Brazil – they generally don’t.

“Trump’s presidency is hardly the sole cause of America’s declining trust in our institutions, which has been going on for a long time.  In some ways, his was the culmination of that decline.

“But it’s hard to think of any person in my lifetime who so perfectly epitomizes the politics of distrust, or one who so aggressively promotes it.  Trump has taught his opponents not to believe a word he says, his followers not to believe a word anyone else says, and much of the rest of the country to believe nobody and nothing at all.

“He has detonated a bomb under the epistemological foundations of a civilization that is increasingly unable to distinguish between facts and falsehoods, evidence and fantasy.  He has instructed tens of millions of people to accept the commandment, That which you can get away with, is true.

“Apologists for this president might rejoin that there are also examples of this form of politics on the other side of the aisle, notably in the person of Bill Clinton. That’s true.  But it only causes one to wonder why so many of the same conservatives who vehemently objected to Clinton on moral grounds vehemently support Trump on the absence of moral grounds.

“It may take Americans decades to figure out just what kind of damage Trump did in these last four years, and how to go about repairing it.  The good news: no global thermonuclear war.  The bad: a different kind of radioactivity that first destroys our trust in institutions, then in others, and finally in ourselves.  What the half-life is for that kind of isotope remains unmeasured.”

--Trump tweets:

“Why didn’t Bill Barr reveal the truth to the public, before the Election, about Hunter Biden.  Joe was lying on the debate stage that nothing was wrong, or going on – Press confirmed.  Big disadvantage for Republicans at the polls!”

“If the Wall Street Journal story is true and Attorney General Barr knew in the spring about the Biden investigation and kept it quiet – he should be fired by the end of business today.”

“Chris Krebs was totally excoriated and proven wrong at the Senate Hearing on the Fraudulent 2020 Election.  Massive FRAUD took place with machines, people voting from out of state, illegals, dead people, no signatures – and so much more!”

“Former United States Solicitor General Ken Starr: Pennsylvania ‘Flagrantly Violated’ Laws Ahead of Election.”

“Senate Hearings going on LIVE @OANN, as to the Fraudulent 2020 Election that just took place.  @SenRonJohnson doing an excellent job.  Nevada must be flipped based on testimony!”

“Perhaps the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020 is @FoxNews, despite the fact that I went from 63,000,000 Votes to 75,000,000 Votes, a record 12,000,000 Vote increase.  Obama went down 3,000,000 Votes, and won.  Rigged Election!!!”

“Can’t believe how badly @FoxNews is doing in the ratings.  They played right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats, & now are floating in limboland.  Hiring fired @donnabrazile, and far worse, allowing endless negative and unedited commercials.  @FoxNews is dead.  Really Sad!”

“ ‘Study: Dominion Machines shifted 2-3% of Trump Votes to Biden. Far more votes than needed to sway election.’  Florida, Ohio, Texas and many other states were won by even greater margins than projected. Did just as well with Swing States, but bad things happened. @OANN”

“Trump’s allies slam Mitch McConnell for congratulating Biden via @MailOnline. Mitch, 75,000,000 VOTES, a record for a sitting President (by a lot).  Too soon to give up. Republican Party must finally learn to fight.  People are angry!”

“Poll: 92% of Republican Voters think the election was rigged!”

“Just released data shows many thousands of noncitizens voted in Nevada. They are totally ineligible to vote!”

“I will Veto the Defense Bill, which will make China very unhappy. They love it.  Must have Section 230 termination, protect our National Monuments and allow for removal of military from far away, and very unappreciative, lands. Thank you!”

“Democrats would never put up with a Presidential Election stolen by the Republicans!”

“All-time Stock Market high.  The Vaccine and the Vaccine rollout are getting the best of reviews.  Moving along really well.  Get those ‘shots’ everyone!  Also, stimulus talks looking very good.”

“I have NOTHING to do with the potential prosecution of Hunter Biden, or the Biden family.  It is just more Fake News.  Actually, I find it very sad to watch!”

“Swing States that have found massive VOTER FRAUD, which is all of them, CANNOT LEGALLY CERTIFY these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime. Everybody knows that dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners,….

“….and many others voted illegally. Also, machine ‘glitches’ (another word for FRAUD), ballot harvesting, non-resident voters, fake ballots, ‘stuffing the ballot box’, votes for pay, roughed up Republican Poll Watchers, and sometimes even more votes than people voting, took….

“…place in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere.  In all Swing State cases, there are far more votes than are necessary to win the State, and the Election itself. Therefore, VOTES CANNOT BE CERTIFIED.  THIS ELECTION IS UNDER PROTEST!”

“I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE, but remember, I only think in terms of legal votes, not all of the fake voters and fraud that miraculously floated in from everywhere!  What a disgrace!”

“ ‘Justices Alito and Thomas say they would have allowed Texas to proceed with its election lawsuit.’ @seanhannity  This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice.  The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!”

“I am very disappointed in the United States Supreme Court, and so is our great country!”

“The Supreme Court had ZERO interest in the merits of the greatest voter fraud ever perpetrated on the United States of America. All they were interested in is ‘standing’, which makes it very difficult for the President to present a case on the merits.  75,000,000 votes!”

[Ed. on the other hand, Sen. Ben Sasse tweeted: “Every American who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the Supreme Court – including all three of President Trump’s picks – closed the book on the nonsense.”]

“WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!”

The Biden Administration

--President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 general election was confirmed Monday after members of the Electoral College cast their votes, Biden winning 306-232, just as the final polls showed.

“In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed,” Biden said after the vote.  He continued that the record turnout of voters is something that “should be celebrated not attack,” especially during a pandemic, and slammed the baseless claims of fraud, and “unconscionable” attacks against election workers.

He also said legal challenges put forth by Trump, his legal team, and allies “were heard by more than 80 judges across this country and in every case no cause or evidence was found to reverse or question or dispute the results.”

He noted the Supreme Court “immediately and completely rejected” the efforts by Trump and some allies in trying to overturn the results of the election.

“The Court sent a clear signal to President Trump that they would be no part of an unprecedented assault on our democracy,” Biden said.

--Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal

“As Monday’s Electoral College meetings in state capitals conclusively settled the race for the White House, Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20. The outcome has been apparent for weeks, as one Trump campaign lawsuit after another flamed out.  Now even prominent Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are acknowledging Mr. Biden will be America’s 46th president.

“As one person moves into the Oval Office, another moves out – and so Donald Trump will exit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, presumably to refinance his business, deal with investigations by the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general and keep his options open for 2024.

“During this process, Mr. Biden has mostly struck grace notes.  Despite provocations, he’s resisted inflammatory rhetoric and endeavored to turn down the temperature of our politics. Until Monday. The president-elect’s tone that night was a mistake.

“In his televised remarks accepting the Electoral College results, Mr. Biden angrily denounced Mr. Trump’s efforts to flip the election.  He called them ‘extreme’ and ‘unprecedented’ and accused Mr. Trump of having ‘refused to respect…the rule of law’ or to ‘honor our Constitution.’  He lectured Mr. Trump about ‘respecting the will of the people’ even if he found those results ‘hard to accept.’

“These points have some validity. The efforts of the Trump legal team were often indefensible.  Team Trump’s rhetoric was frequently over the top and backed with scant evidence.  But this wasn’t the time to make that point. The inevitable result is that the attacks drew the headlines, not Mr. Biden’s declaration that ‘we can work together for the good of the nation,’ not his call for the country ‘to unite, to heal,’ and not his promise to ‘be a president for all Americans.’

“Monday night was a moment the president-elect could have focused on binding up the nation’s political wounds… Instead, Mr. Biden surrendered to his feelings of anger – righteous perhaps, but anger nonetheless. That served to alienate and antagonize nearly half the country and heighten the tribal instincts that are poisoning American politics.

“This leads to a larger point, which is that there is an unappealing, unnecessary pugnaciousness to Middle Class Joe that was on display Monday night.  Mr. Biden often deploys the same aggressive tone to manage press coverage, especially when the issue involves his family, such as his son Hunter trading on his father’s name and position to get a lucrative board seat at Burisma or a sweetheart financial deal in China.

“In those cases, Mr. Biden isn’t content simply to claim that Hunter did nothing wrong.  The president-elect also becomes aggressive, often personally attacking reporters who raise legitimate questions….

“Whatever calculation Mr. Biden made in ratcheting up his attacks against President Trump this week, it’s a flawed one.  Yes, the president-elect’s defenders will cheer every assault Mr. Biden makes on Donald Trump. But the rest of America will tire of that quickly. Mr. Trump couldn’t unite the country during his presidency with frequent attacks on political rivals and neither can Mr. Biden.

“It is now the president-elect’s responsibility to find ways to heal our country. He should put his rhetorical sword in his scabbard and resist the temptation to pull it out and use it just because it feels good. We’ll soon find out if Joe Biden can do that.”

--Biden introduced Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary and managed to mangle the former mayor’s husband’s name, Biden noting his fondness for “Kirsten” during a speech.

“And by the way, Jill and I have always enjoyed seeing Pete and Kirsten – Chasten, I should say – together on the trail. Chasten has become a close friend of Jill’s and mine.”

Biden also snubbed Ric Grenell, whom President Trump celebrated this year as the first gay cabinet member when he worked three months as acting director of national intelligence, the president-elect calling Buttigieg the “first” gay cabinet nominee.

Biden named former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm to be secretary of energy, Granholm a strong proponent of developing alternative energy technologies.

And in a highly significant move Biden nominated a Native American, Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D., N.M.) to serve as interior secretary, leading the agency governing public lands.  To have an indigenous person (she’s a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe) lead such a department is big.

--Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday congratulated Joe Biden on his victory, after Biden won the Electoral College vote.  The Kremlin had said it would wait for the official results of the election before commenting on its outcome.

“For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you,” the Kremlin cited Putin as saying in a statement.

Wall Street and the Economy

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee held its final policy meeting of the year and Chair Jerome Powell and Co. are more optimistic about job and GDP growth than at any point in the pandemic, yet critical holes in the recovery remain and they emphasized the need for a stimulus deal and the rollout of the vaccines.

Powell said the central bank was not out of tools to support the recovery, but for sectors that are far from healed – like restaurants and hotels – “those are not being held back by financial conditions, but rather by the spread of the virus,” Powell said at a press conference.

Powell reiterated his calls for more help from Congress, saying “the case for fiscal policy right now is very, very strong.”

In their latest round of economic projections since September, Fed leaders raised their 2021 growth target to 4.2 percent from 4.0 percent, while the unemployment rate, currently 6.7 percent, will fall to 5% by end of next year, and 4.2% by the end of 2022.

But for now the recovery is slowing, and, disconcertingly, weekly jobless claims rose again to 885,000 from a revised 862,000 the week before…after falling consistently to 711,000 the week of November 6. 

Retail sales fell in November, -1.1%, more than expected, -0.9% ex-autos, and millions of Americans are behind on rent and utility bills.  Nearly 8 million have fallen into poverty since the summer.

“The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus,” the Fed said in a statement.  “The ongoing public health crisis will continue to weigh on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term.”

Separately, November industrial production came in as expected, up 0.4%, while November housing starts were at a strong 1.547 million annual rate, with permits also way up.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for the fourth quarter remains elevated at 11.1%.

Europe and Asia

We had flash December PMI readings for the eurozone, courtesy of IHS Markit, with the composite at 49.8 (50 representing the dividing line between growth and contraction) vs. 45.7 in November.  Manufacturing was 55.5 vs. 53.8, a 31-month high, services at 47.3 vs. 41.7

Germany: Manufacturing 58.6, a 34-month high; services at 47.7.

France: Manufacturing 51.1; services 49.2.

Non-euro UK: Manufacturing 57.3, 37-mo. high; services 49.9.

Chris Williamson / IHS Markit

“The eurozone economy is faring better than expected in December, the flash composite coming in at 49.8, ahead of consensus expectations of 45.8.  The data hint at the economy close to stabilizing after having plunged back into a severe decline in November amid renewed Covid-19 lockdown measures.  The fourth quarter downturn consequently looks far less steep than the hit from the pandemic seen earlier in the year, though the picture is very mixed by sector.

“Companies have also become increasingly optimistic about the year ahead, with vaccine rollouts expected to help restore businesses to more normal trading conditions as 2021 progresses.

“However, while vaccines mean there’s light at the end of the tunnel, the near-term still looks very challenging for many consumer-facing companies. Although manufacturing is reporting strong growth, fueled by rising exports and a booming performance from Germany in particular, the service sector remains in decline amid ongoing social distancing restrictions.  Many of these containment measures look likely to remain in place for some time to come, constraining the economy as we head into the new year.”

Separately, October industrial production in the EA19 rose by 2.1% compared with September, but down 3.8% vs. a year ago.

Brexit: On Wednesday, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she could not say if there would be a trade accord with Britain but there had been progress and that the next few days would be critical.

“As things stand, I cannot tell you whether there will be a deal or not. But I can tell you that there is a path to an agreement now.  The path may be very narrow but it is there.”

“We have found a way forward on most issues but two issues still remain outstanding: the level playing field and fisheries.  I am glad to report that issues linked to governance now have largely been resolved. The next days are going to be decisive,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Brussels.

As for the fish issue, von der Leyen conceded there may not be a deal.  Britain has insisted on taking control of its waters while the EU wants access to the fishing waters.

Thursday, senior British minister Michael Gove put the chances of securing a trade deal with the European Union at less than 50%, striking a pessimistic tone.  His downbeat prediction contrasted sharply with remarks by the EU’s chief negotiator suggesting there had been good progress.  Michel Barnier tweeted: “Good progress, but last stumbling blocks remain.  We will only sign a deal protecting EU interests and principles.”

Disagreements over fisheries remained.

Thursday evening, Boris Johnson held a phone call with von der Leyen.  Johnson’s office said talks were in a “serious situation” and that no agreement would be reached unless the bloc changed its position substantially.  During the call, Johnson said “time was very short and it now looked very likely that agreement would not be reached unless the EU position changed substantially,” his office said.  “The prime minister repeated that little time was left.  He said that, if no agreement could be reached, the UK and the EU would part as friends, with the UK trading with the EU on Australian-style terms.”

For her part, EC president von der Leyen said “big differences remain” and “bridging them will be very challenging.”

But she also said “substantial progress” had been made on many issues.

Today, Michel Barnier said negotiations are in the “last crucial hours” as a final effort is made to break the impasse over fish.

“It’s the moment of truth. We have very little time remaining, just a few hours… If we want this agreement to enter into force on the 1st of January,” Barnier said.  “There is a chance of getting an agreement but the path to such an agreement is very narrow.”

One of the “main hurdles” in the talks is over whether the EU could retaliate if after an expected period of adjustment, Britain cut the access of EU fishing boats to UK waters in the future. The EU wants the deal to set out that it can react by introducing new barriers to some trade from the UK, particularly in fish products, if that were to happen.

Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen will speak again Saturday or Sunday.  There is a chance, some suppose, that the Brits and EU could just punt on the fishing issue and let things stand as they exist today for, say, two years, after which the two sides would try to work out quotas.  It is, after all, just a very small part of each party’s overall economy.

Friday, the 27 member states got an update, though a decision on a deal could come on Saturday.  Or, the European Parliament has said it could hold an emergency plenary in late December should a deal come together by Monday.  If it came later, however, EU diplomats said the bloc might still put it in place from Jan. 1 without lawmakers’ consent.

So I’ve told you of the looming chaos at the border and an executive at Europe’s largest truck owner, Girteka Logistics, said the other day that he expects queues at the border that could stretch 50 kilometers (31 miles).  Kristian Kaas Mortensen said such hold-ups could force his firm, which owns 7,500 trucks, as well as its rivals to limit bookings to the UK, he said in an interview with Bloomberg.

And what does that mean, boys and girls?  Food shortages at Britain’s supermarkets.  And potentially sharply higher prices.

The Road Haulage Association, an industry lobby group, says a number of EU haulers aren’t taking bookings for deliveries to the UK in January. The cost of keeping trucks and their drivers waiting in line for 24 hours is prohibitive.

And then you have Irish lorries, which normally go to England and then from the Kent ports of Dover and Folkestone to Calais in France.  If it’s seafood, it must be there the next day.

Galway-based O’Toole Transport, which transports produce to and from a major seafood distribution hub in Boulogne-sur-mer in northern France, said that his supply model relies on the UK “landbridge” route to mainland Europe.  Taking direct ferries from Ireland to France would add a day to the supply, reducing the value of the produce.  Traffic delays won’t work.

And there is this anecdote from Irish logistics company Baku GLS, which said the company was losing a day of delivery time for every driver as a result of the delays.

“Drivers have been stuck on the side of the road for between nine and 10 hours with no toilet facilities and no food facilities,” a company spokesman said.  “It has a knock-on effect.  If we are not getting the in-bound loads from mainland Europe, that means we cannot fulfill our out-bound loads.”  [Irish Times]

Turning to Asia…China reported November industrial production rose 7% year-over-year, while retail sales increased 5% from a year ago.  Fixed asset investment was up 2.6% for the period January thru November.  All just very solid, befitting the ongoing recovery in the country from the issues of the first half of the year.

In Japan, we had big data on exports and they fell a record 24th straight month (records going back to 1979), -4.2% year-over-year, suggesting a slower pace of recovery here.  Imports fell 11.1% yoy.

Exports to China rose 38%, but were down 2.6% to the European Union and 2.5% to the United States.

October industrial production was up 4% over September, but down 3% year-on-year.

As for the December flash PMI readings, manufacturing came in at 49.5, services 47.2, still contraction mode.

Street Bytes

--Stocks regained their mojo with the three major indexes hitting new all-time highs at one point or another during the week, including all three on Thursday before uncertainty over the status of the stimulus package led to a slight down day today.  With vaccines going into arms this week, that overcame the ongoing surge in cases and deaths in much of the country.

For the week the Dow Jones rose 0.4% to 30179, while the S&P 500 added 1.3% and Nasdaq 3.1%.

Monday it’s all about Tesla entering the S&P 500.  Since the announcement of its addition was made about four weeks ago, the stock has soared another 66%.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.09%  2-yr. 0.12%  10-yr. 0.94%  30-yr. 1.69%

--The Energy Information Administration reported there was a drawdown in crude stockpiles this week of 3.1 million barrels, after a huge increase of 15m the week before, and oil rallied on the news, closing the week at $49.06, the highest level since February, before the crash.  Hopes for a stimulus package and better economic data from Europe lent a more positive tone to things.

Meanwhile, however, the International Energy Agency said it will be several months before coronavirus vaccinations start to boost global oil demand, with the recovery in some of the world’s wealthy countries “going backwards” this quarter. 

“Demand is clearly going to be lower for longer than expected” when the virus emerged in the spring, the agency said in a report, trimming forecasts for world fuel consumption following a new wave of lockdowns.

In its monthly oil-market report, the IEA cut its forecast recovery in demand for 2021 by 170,000 barrels a day to 5.7 million bpd.

The agency also lowered its demand forecast for the final quarter of 2020. Demand has somewhat recovered in the second half of the year from its historic 16% drop in the second quarter, but that resurgence “is almost entirely due to China’s fast rebound from lockdown,” the IEA said.

Global consumption will average 96.9 million barrels a day in 2021.

Separately, Iran has circumvented U.S. sanctions and exported more oil to China and other countries in recent months, providing a lifeline for its struggling economy and undermining the Trump administration’s co-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.

Several firms that monitor the global oil trade say that while the scale of Iran’s petroleum sales is difficult to gauge, shipments from Iran have roughly doubled from the low levels seen earlier this year.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last year the U.S. was aiming for zero oil exports from Iran, having previously sought to drive them below 1 million barrels a day, down from their 2018 pre-sanctions levels of 2.5 million barrels a day.

One firm, on the high end, TankerTrackers.com, says Iran could be exporting as much as 1.2 million barrels a day, up from 481,000 in February.

Venezuela and Syria have also resumed Iranian oil imports this year.

--Boeing Co. is hiring up to 160 pilots to be embedded at airlines in its latest bid to ensure its 737 MAX has a smooth comeback after a 20-month safety ban, according to documents seen by Reuters and people familiar with the move.  The new “Global Engagement Pilots” will act as instructors or cockpit observers on 35-day assignments at an equivalent annual salary that could reach $200,000, for a total potential cost of $32,000, a source said.

The strategy also includes 24/7 surveillance of 737 MAX flights globally and talking points for flight attendants to reassure passengers who express concern.  “Duties include: consulting activities and assist in customer support, including flying opportunities,” Reuters notes.

Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have said the plane is among the world’s safest after improvements to cockpit software and pilot training.  But a smooth return to service is critical for Boeing, which faces costs of $20 billion over the grounding.

The aircraft manufacturer has set up a 24/7 war room at its Seal Beach, California facility where staff using massive LCD screens will handle “real-time fleet monitoring” for “rapid issue resolution” if emergencies arise.

Separately, Boeing has expanded inspections of newly produced 787 Dreamliners after finding a previously disclosed manufacturing defect in sections of the jet where it hadn’t been initially detected, according to industry and government officials.

We are told by Boeing engineers and U.S. air-safety regulators the newly discovered problem doesn’t pose an imminent safety hazard; as in the fuselage isn’t as smooth as it should be in parts, which can lead to premature structural fatigue…an issue I’m facing these days, but I digress.

--United Airlines is telling some flight attendants whose colleagues test positive for Covid-19 to keep flying and monitor for symptoms, three employees told Reuters, raising concerns among staff about the policy.  American Airlines, by contrast, removes all crew from service when they have worked with an infected person.

The FAA has issued Covid policy recommendations but there are no government mandates on the topic.

The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents crews at 17 airlines including United, said that it has received complaints from members about United not isolating all crew who have worked an infected colleague.

The CDC defines close contact as being within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over 24 hours starting from two days before the onset of illness until isolation.  “If a flight attendant or pilot meets the criteria, we ask them to quarantine. If not, they are instructed to self-monitor,” a United spokesman told Reuters.

But as flight attendants say, they work closely even if they are assigned to different galleys and share several legs of a domestic shift and layovers.  Airlines have also been resuming food and beverage service.

--FedEx said quarterly profit almost doubled after rate hikes and spiking volume helped lower the cost of delivering pandemic-fueled e-commerce purchases to residential addresses.

Fiscal second quarter adjusted net income jumped to $1.30 billion, from $660 million a year earlier.  Revenue grew 19% to $20.6 billion, both above expectations.

FedEx Ground, which counts Walmart among its marquee e-commerce customers, jumped 29% to 12.3 million during the quarter ended Nov. 30.  Revenue per package increased 7% to $9.42.

FedEx and rival UPS have added a variety of surcharges and raised prices to shelter profits as they grapple with unprecedented volumes from the pandemic, and lately, the traditional holiday shipping peak.

“While the overall environment remains uncertain, we expect earnings growth in the second half of fiscal 2021 driven by the anticipated heightened demand for our services,” said CEO Michael Len in a statement.

But investors didn’t like the ‘uncertainty’ in the report and failure to give an earnings forecast for 2021, so they took the shares down nearly 6% in response.

--Nike Inc. gained in late trading tonight after the company kind of mysteriously announced its fiscal second-quarter earnings report after the close today, with revenue and profit topping the Street’s expectations.

Sales rose 8.9% to $11.2 billion in the quarter ended Nov. 30, while earnings beat handily as well.

After the virus shuttered stores around the world last spring, it led to a pileup in inventory that the company has been working through since as locations reopened.  Over 90% of Nike-owned stores are open today.

CEO John Donahoe said in a statement: “Our strategy is working, and we are excited for what’s ahead.”

With China further ahead in its recovery than other regions, sales there soared 24%, but were little changed in North America, as the resurgent coronavirus challenged retailers all over again.

Digital sales for the Nike brand did especially well, rising 84%.

--Marriott International Inc. is permanently laying off 850 employees from its hotel in Times Square, another sign that the hotel industry in New York City remains significantly hobbled by the pandemic.

Marriott recently told the workers that they will be let go March 12, nearly a year after more than 1,200 employees at the New York Marriott Marquis were furloughed as rising Covid infections prompted the closure of nonessential businesses and tourist spots.

Gotham’s hotel industry has suffered more than others around the country as demand from corporate and leisure travelers has plummeted.

--Facebook Inc. and Alphabet’s Google, the two biggest players in online advertising, used a series of deals to consolidate their market power illegally, Texas and nine other states alleged in a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday.  Google and Facebook compete heavily in internet and sales, together capturing over half of the market globally.

The two players agreed in a publicized deal in 2018 to start giving Facebook’s advertiser clients the option to place ads within Google’s network of publishing partners, the complaint alleged.  For example, a sneaker blog that uses software from Google to sell ads could end up generating revenue from a footwear retailer that bought ads on Facebook.  This and similar partnership were internally codenamed Project Jedi.  But Google did not announce publicly it gave Facebook preferential treatment, the complaint alleged.  Facebook agreed to back down from supporting competing software, which publishers had developed to dent Google’s market power.

The complaint reads in part: “Facebook decided to dangle the threat of competition in Google’s face and then cut a deal to manipulate the auction,” citing internal communications.

The complaint also alleged that Google and Facebook engaged in fixing prices of ads and have continued to cooperate.

--Oracle Corp., a longtime Silicon Valley stalwart, is moving its headquarters to Texas, becoming the latest tech company to leave its home state in the face of California’s higher taxes, steeper cost of living and a broader shift to remote work.

The move to Austin from Redwood City “means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time,” Oracle said last weekend in a regulatory filing.  The company will continue to support its former headquarters and other U.S. offices.

Oracle began building out an Austin campus in 2018, featuring an on-site apartment building for employees, in an effort to recruit a younger and less costly workforce.  Eventually, the campus could host 10,000 staffers, Oracle said at the time.

--Robinhood, the fast-growing financial app that has attracted millions of young customers in recent year by making it free to trade stocks, as well as riskier investments like options and Bitcoin, agreed to pay a fine of $65 million to settle a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On Thursday, the agency said Robinhood misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades and that the start-up had made money at the expense of its customers.

At the heart of the SEC’s scrutiny of Robinhood was a business practice known as payment-for-order-flow.  Under this practice, retail brokers allow Wall Street firms to trade against their customers in exchange for a fee.  That payment is Robinhood’s primary source of revenue.  The SEC said that the company had misled customers by not telling them it was making money in this way.

--Coca-Cola Co. said it is cutting 2,200 jobs globally, including 1,200 in the U.S., as the pandemic accelerates the company’s restructuring efforts.

The reductions amount to roughly 12% of the company’s U.S. workforce, and will include 500 jobs in the Atlanta metro area, where the company is based.

Coke this year said it would slash its 430 master brands by about half, to 200, narrowing its beverage portfolio to products that are growing and can achieve a large scale.  It previously said it is retiring Tab soda and Zico coconut water brands.

--So I’ve been writing about the stresses in the steel industry and then the Wall Street Journal had a piece this week that started out, “Steelmakers are straining to keep up with resurgent orders from U.S. manufacturers, just months after preparing for a long, pandemic-driven slump in steel demand.

“Steelmakers idled about one-third of domestic production capacity for flat-rolled steel this spring when their customers canceled orders and closed plants to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.  Since many factories reopened a month or two later, steel demand for cars, appliances and machinery has rebounded, thanks in part to rising purchases from homebound consumers.”

According to S&P Global Platts, the benchmark price for hot-rolled sheet steel has doubled since early August to a two-year high of $900 a ton.

Yup, Brad K., you were all over this, Brad dealing with the issue personally in his business.

--The Southern California median home price rose by double digits for the fourth consecutive month, underscoring strong demand for housing during the pandemic.

The six-county region’s median price was $603,000 in November, a 10.8% increase from a year earlier, according to data released by DQNews.

Sales rose 18.9% from November 2019.

The upswing continues to be driven by two dynamics…still-record low mortgage rates and the desire for additional space as people spend more time at home.

In Los Angeles County, the median sales price rose 12.2% from a year earlier to $700,000, while sales climbed 13.1%.

In Orange County, the median sales price rose 8.2% to $799,500, while sales climbed 19.4%.

--Bitcoin breached $23,000 for the first time in history Wednesday, and then closed the week at that level, as more Wall Street names piled into the world’s largest digital currency, up 220% this year.

Proponents argue the cryptocurrency is muscling in on gold as a portfolio diversifier.  Others see the move as inevitably leading to bust, which has been its history.

But there are signs longer-term investors like asset managers are playing more of a role this time around.  One well-known bull, Scott Minerd, the chief investment officer at Guggenheim Investments, said the digital token should eventually climb to $400,000.  [Bloomberg News]

--Denmark’s coronavirus-driven mink cull has put the fur business in a spin, with industry officials expecting fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi to snap up fox and chinchilla to fill the gap.

The global fur trade, which I had no idea is worth more than $22 billion a year, is reeling from Denmark’s decision to kill 17 million farmed mink after Covid-19 outbreaks at hundreds of farms led to the discovery of a new strain of coronavirus in the mammals.  Worries of a sudden shortage of slinky mink pelts, of which Denmark was the top exporter, have lifted prices as much as 30% in Asia, the International Fur Federation says.

Animal activists hope the Denmark debacle will finish off the fur industry.  In the meantime, if you know any foxes or chinchillas, tell them to run for their lives.

[Among the nations, and states, that have banned fur farms or fur products are Britain, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Israel and California.]

--CNN is riding a ratings high in the aftermath of the election.  The network has averaged more total-day viewers than Fox News since Election Day through Dec. 8, a 35-day span, the first time it has won such a long stretch in that category in 19 years.  CNN also bested the competition over that period among viewers ages 25 to 54, a demographic advertisers target on news channels.  Fox News has retained the No. 1 spot in total prime-time ratings.

Since the election through Dec. 8, CNN averaged about 1.7 million viewers for the total day, compared with roughly 1.56 million for Fox News.  CNN was also first in prime-time among viewers 25 to 54, but Fox News was tops in total prime-time viewers.

Fox News has been facing stepped-up competition from pro-Trump networks Newsmax and One America News Network, which are winning over viewers loyal to the president by playing up his election fraud claims.

CNN President Jeff Zucker’s contract is expiring soon and he has signaled he’s not sure if he wants to stay on.  There have been rumors the network has become a target of takeover interest in the private-equity world.

Foreign Affairs

Iran: The regime executed a dissident journalist on Saturday, Ruhollah Zam.  Zam was hanged after being convicted on charges of “corruption on earth,” a term the regime applies to spying and treason.

Zam had covered the popular protests that erupted in Iran during 2017.  He had been living in France since 2011, the French known to provide extensive security protection to him, but he was lured to Iraq in October 2019 and abducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.  Once in detention, he was forced to appear on television and confess to his supposed crimes.

Editorial / Washington Post

“(Zam) was hanged just two days before the scheduled start of the Europe-Iran Business Forum, a three-day virtual conference funded by the European Union.

“Predictably, the meeting was canceled amid blistering statements from France and Germany, whose ambassadors had been due to speak at the forum; the French government called the execution a ‘barbarous and unacceptable act.’  The government of President Hassan Rouhani, which is often portrayed as a moderate counterbalance to the Revolutionary Guard, responded by stridently defending the journalist’s abduction and killing.  Rouhani described it as lawful, while Mohammad Javad Zarif’s foreign ministry summoned the French and German ambassadors to chastise them for interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs.

“Mr. Zarif has been saying that Iran will return to the terms of the nuclear deal if the Biden administration also does so. That would mean the scrapping of an expanding Iranian stockpile of enriched uranium and the lifting of U.S. sanctions imposed since 2018 by President Trump.  Mr. Biden and his incoming national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, have said they would like to restore the accord as a prelude to further negotiations.  However, the abduction and killing of Mr. Zam are a clear sign that the regime is not prepared to moderate its behavior either at home or abroad.  Its fear of domestic unrest clearly outweighs any interest in improved relations with Europe or the United States.

“Mr. Sullivan evidently gets that.  Mr. Zam’s execution, he tweeted, ‘is another horrifying human rights violation by the Iranian regime.’  He added: ‘We will join our partners in calling out and standing up to Iran’s abuses.’  It will be challenging but essential to do so even while restoring the accord that limits Iran’s nuclear activities.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said on Monday that a fuel transport ship anchored at a Jeddah terminal was hit by an explosive-laden boat in what it called a terrorist attack.  A Saudi energy ministry spokesman, in a statement carried on state media, did not mention the name of the vessel or identify who was behind the attack.  Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement is a natural suspect.

Israel: Editorial / Washington Post

“The accord announced last week between Israel and Morocco has a notably lopsided character.  Like several other Mideast deals negotiated by the Trump administration, it entails Arab diplomatic recognition of Israel – and major concessions by the United States on unrelated issues.  In the case of Morocco, President Trump offered U.S. recognition of the kingdom’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara, something Morocco has been seeking for decades.  It also agreed to sell Morocco $1 billion in weapons, including advanced drones.

“In exchange, the regime of King Mohammed VI agreed to reopen the liaison offices it first established with Israel in 1994 and later closed.  It also offered a vague commitment to ‘resume diplomatic relations as soon as possible.’ That was a win for Israel – albeit a modest one – and it prompted President Trump to claim another ‘massive breakthrough’ for his Middle East brokering.

“But if there was a gain for the United States in the bargain, it wasn’t readily apparent.  On the contrary, the recognition of Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara isolated Washington from its European allies, other UN Security Council members and dozens of African nations, which have supported UN resolutions calling for a referendum on the future of the former Spanish colony.  It made more likely the re-eruption of war between Moroccan forces and the Polisario Front, which represents the indigenous Sahrawi people.  And it risked further instability in a North Africa region that is already struggling to contain Islamist terrorism.

“Mr. Trump brushed aside these considerations in his zeal to build on a strategy of normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab world.  That’s a worthy cause, though its benefits will inevitably be limited as long as Israel fails to settle with its immediate neighbors, the Palestinians.  Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu see the diplomatic accords as a substitute for such a settlement; they are not.  As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, Israel’s future as a state that is both Jewish and democratic will be at risk.

“In the meantime, the bribes Mr. Trump has had the United States pay for the upgrading of Israel’s relations are troubling.  In exchange for a partial normalization with Israel, the administration removed Sudan, a onetime base of Osama bin Laden, from the State Department’s list of terrorism sponsors.  Now, its government is threatening to withdraw from the deal if Congress does not grant it immunity from lawsuits stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks….

“Mr. Trump’s reckless dispensation of these favors will leave President-elect Joe Biden with some difficult choices.  He will want to preserve Israel’s diplomatic gains. But those enhanced ties are also in the interest of Arab states.  They should not require quid pro quos by the United States on other issues – especially when, as in the case of the Western Sahara, they are bad policy of their own merits.”

James A. Baker III / Washington Post

“President Trump’s recent proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara was an astounding retreat from the principles of international law and diplomacy that the United States has espoused and respected for many years. This rash move disguised as diplomacy will contribute to the existing deadlock in resolving the longstanding conflict between Morocco and the people of Western Sahara over the status of that territory. Further, it threatens to complicate our relations with Algeria, an important strategic partner, and has negative consequences on the overall situation in North Africa….

“(Any success with the Abraham Accords) should never come at the price of abandoning the United States’ commitment to self-determination, the bedrock principle on which our country was founded and to which it should remain faithful.  We should not simply turn our backs on the people of Western Sahara as we try to promote better relations between Israel and her Arab neighbors.  Sadly, this cynical decision to recognize Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for Morocco’s pledge to establish formal relations with Israel did just that.

“Ever since 1975, when Morocco took control of Western Sahara by force following Spain’s withdrawal, the United States and most of the international community have refused to recognize this claim as legitimate. This began to change more than a year ago, when Israel and the Trump administration first approached Morocco to propose a tradeoff of Moroccan resumption of formal relations with Israel in exchange for U.S. recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara.  At that time, Morocco refused, wisely calculating that bilateral recognition of its sovereignty, even by the United States, would not bring it any closer to its desired goal of international legitimacy.  Nothing has changed since then….

“Mixing the Abraham Accords with the Western Sahara conflict, clearly and unequivocally an issue of self-determination, will not strengthen or expand the accords.

“The proponents of this move may not have thought through the possible repercussions of their reversal of that policy. But they could be very serious and far-reaching.

“They could have an effect on future negotiations, questioning our commitment to a solution that provides for some form of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, as stated in United Nations resolutions that we have supported.

“There’s also the risk of sending a message to the rest of the world that the non-acquisition of territory by force and the right of self-determination are pick-and-choose principles for the United States….

“Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other groups could exploit the growing tensions in the region.  And the all-but-certain deterioration of our relations with Algeria, the principal supporter of Western Sahara’s right to self-determination, could also result in damage to the growth of our commercial relations, our anti-terrorist cooperation and our efforts to deepen military relations.

“The United States has unwisely abandoned its principles for something that will make no difference to the position of the international community and to the resolution of the conflict.  Many U.S. allies and others have already made statements to that effect.  The upcoming Biden administration would do well to rescind this rash and cynical action.  Doing so will not undermine the Abraham Accords.”

Afghanistan: Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met for about two hours with Taliban negotiators in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday and flew Wednesday to Kabul to discuss the peace process with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Milley’s meetings came amid a new drawdown of U.S. troops, although under current U.S. policy a complete pullout hinges on the Taliban reducing attacks nationwide.

“The most important part of the discussions that I had with both the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan was the need for an immediate reduction in violence,” Milley told reporters accompanying him to Qatar and Afghanistan.  “Everything else hinges on that.”

It turns out Milley met with the Taliban’s negotiating team in June as well, also in Doha, which was just reported this week.

Milley reported no breakthrough but it was an important milestone.

That said, Army Gen. Scott Miller, the top commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, said in an interview on Wednesday that the Taliban have stepped up attacks on Afghan forces, particularly in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, and against roadways and other infrastructure.

“My assessment is, it puts the peace process at risk – the higher the violence, the higher the risk,” Miller said.

Miller added he was saddened by what he called the Taliban’s deliberate campaign to damage roadways, bridges and other infrastructure as part of the militants’ effort to limit the Afghan government’s ability to reinforce its troops.

Miller said he is executing Trump’s order to reduce U.S. forces from 4,500 to 2,500 by Jan. 15.

China: Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

“(President-elect Joe) Biden should keep key aspects of Trump’s China policy.

“Washington’s posture toward Beijing shifted in much-needed ways in the past four years.  Trump overturned decades-old bipartisan consensus that economic cooperation with China would push the Chinese Communist Party in a more peaceful direction.  A new bipartisan consensus is rising against that flawed thinking.

“Communist China is the most serious global threat the United States faces.  It is a strategic competitor with hostile intentions of overtaking us economically and militarily.  This truth explains why Trump pursued a military buildup, punished Chinese companies for stealing U.S. trade secrets, sanctioned Chinese leaders and firms for their horrific human rights abuses, and strengthened coordination with U.S. allies and partners to hold China accountable. Biden would endanger U.S. interests if he reversed course.

“China feeds on American openness like a parasite, using it to strengthen itself.  The right course is to further limit Chinese access to our companies, telecommunications and universities, as the United States did with the Soviet Union, while building additional military, economic and diplomatic strength.”

At the same time, as former national security adviser John Bolton writes in his memoirs, President Trump told Xi Jinping that he “should go ahead” with building concentration camps for Uighurs, “which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”  According to Bolton, Trump also asked Xi to help him win reelection by purchasing lots of U.S. farm goods.

Max Boot / Washington Post

“While Trump increased defense spending, the U.S. military continues to lose ground to Beijing, which has invested heavily in ‘asymmetric’ technologies such as ‘carrier-killer’ missiles and cyberweapons.  Recent war games show the United States losing a war with China.

“Now, China is feeling stronger than ever after having essentially stopped Covid-19 while the United States continues to be ravaged by a pandemic that Trump mismanaged.  A retired Chinese military officer recently crowed: ‘We’re a victor power, while the United States is still mired and, I think, may well become a defeated power.’

“Such Chinese triumphalism is premature, but Trump has nothing to boast of either.  His China policy was a fiasco. Far from building on the foundations that Trump laid, the Biden administration will have to start from scratch to develop a balanced strategy that avoids the extremes of racist hysteria and abject sycophancy that have been the hallmarks of the Trump approach.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. military on Wednesday slammed China for failing to appear at virtual, senior-level meetings slated for this week, with the top U.S. admiral for the Asia-Pacific saying it was “another example that China does not honor its agreements.”

“This should serve as a reminder to all nations as they pursue agreements with China going forward,” Admiral Phil Davidson, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in a statement.

China had been expected to participate in Dec. 14-16 meetings related to the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, which were focused on maritime safety, the command said.

Russia: Vladimir Putin denied on Thursday that he was behind the near-deadly poisoning of his most prominent political opponent, Alexei Navalny, after an extraordinary CNN / Bellingcat, a research group, investigative report this week showed the extent to which Navalny was being followed in his travels, including by agents from a bioweapons lab.

Putin told journalists with a laugh that if Russian agents had wanted to kill Navalny, “they would have probably finished the job.”

But Putin made a startling admission: He confirmed that Russian intelligence agents had been tracking Navalny’s movements across the country.

Navalny fell ill on a commercial flight from Siberia to Moscow and he only survived thanks to the pilot’s emergency landing and the ambulance crew that met him on the airport tarmac.

Putin insisted that American intelligence was behind the uproar over the attempted poisoning, while Vlad refused to use Navalny’s name.

“The intelligence agencies of course need to keep an eye on him. But that does not mean that he needs to be poisoned – who needs him?  If they had really wanted to, they would have probably finished the job.”

“The proof is so ironclad that it’s impossible to argue with them,” Navalny said in a post on Facebook about Putin’s comments. “We are now in a zone of a confession.”

Back to the SolarWinds hack attack….

Editorial / Washington Post

“Why did the multibillion-dollar detection tool, called Einstein, fail to catch the perpetrators in the act – even after a 2018 Government Accountability Office report suggested that the technology needed to evolve to catch novel malware?  Why, despite this administration’s touting of its intention to ‘defend forward’ through a newly unified Cyber Command, were the Russians able to carry out so massive a strike? The answer may be that plain old defending deserves greater attention, a problem that could be mitigated by investing more heavily in self-protection, elevating information security experts and reducing reliance on commercial software used by hundreds of thousands of others.

“We don’t know what the hackers are planning to do with whatever information they’ve gained.  We may not know for years to come.  This could be a matter of traditional espionage: extracting secrets to aid the Kremlin in understanding the upper echelons of U.S. power. Or it could be something more, with capabilities crippled or data manipulated in a manner that could harm even civilians.  The message to our adversaries must be that there are lines the United States won’t permit them to cross – and that now we are watching.”

Lastly, Russia flexed its military muscles last Saturday, test-firing four intercontinental ballistic missiles from an underwater position in the Sea of Okhotsk, the country’s defense ministry said.

The Bulava missiles, which were equipped with dummy warheads, were fired from a submarine and hit their targets in the Arkhangelsk area of northwester Russia, more than 3,400 miles away.

Nagorno-Karabakh:  Ethnic Armenian authorities in the region accused Azeri forces on Wednesday of capturing several dozen of their troops, putting further strain on a ceasefire deal that brought an end to bloody fighting in the region last month.  The Russian-brokered deal halted a six-week conflict between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces over the region and its surrounding areas, locking in territorial gains for Azerbaijan.

Moscow has deployed peacekeepers to police the ceasefire, but skirmishes broke out on Sunday that the two sides blamed on each other.  Four Azeri troops were reported killed in the fighting.

Hungary: From Benjamin Novak / New York Times:

“The Hungarian Parliament passed a raft of sweeping measures on Tuesday that curtail the rights of gay citizens and make it more difficult for opposition parties to challenge Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his party in future elections.

“The new laws also relax oversight of the spending of public funds, which critics say will allow the government to use state money to benefit loyalists.

“The legislation includes a constitutional amendment that critics say lowers the legal threshold for the government to declare a state of emergency, while also removing meaningful oversight of its actions while such a decree is in place.

“The same amendment would also effectively bar gay couples from adopting children in Hungary by defining a family as including a man as the father and a woman as the mother….

“Agnes Kovacs, a legal expert with the Eotvos Karoly Policy Institute, said of Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party and the latest moves that it was cause for ‘grave concern’ in a nation where Orban has already torn at the fabric of democratic institutions over more than a decade in power.”

The United States needs to take note…at least those who seek to uphold democracy as the Framers desired.  Orban’s playbook is being studied in the White House.

Random Musings

--Sixty-eight percent of Republicans believe the election was stolen from President Trump, according to the latest Fox News national survey of registered voters.  Among Trump voters, 77 percent think he actually won.  And, so do 26 percent of independents and even 10 percent of Democrats.

Overall, 36 percent of voters say the election was stolen from Trump, while 58 percent disagree.

And, by a 56-36 percent margin, voters think Trump is weakening rather than strengthening American democracy by contesting state vote counts.

Most Republicans (66 percent) say the president’s actions, which include filing lawsuits against some states that voted for Biden, are helping American democracy, while majorities of Democrats (84 percent) and independents (56 percent) think he is harming it.

Nearly four in 10 voters, 37 percent, would like Trump to run for president again in 2024. That includes 79 percent of Trump voters and 71 percent of Republicans, as well as 27 percent of independents and 10 percent of Democrats.

At the same time, 55 percent of voters in the poll said they believe the U.S. is worse off now than it was four years ago, while nearly a third – 32 percent – said it was better off and 11 percent said it was the same.

Trump’s job approval was 47 percent, with 52 percent disapproving.

Asked how history will judge Trump, 42 percent said he will be viewed as one of the worst presidents in history, 22 percent said he will be remembered as one of the greatest and 26 percent said he was average or above average.

--MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated more than $4 billion to food banks and emergency relief funds in four months.

In a blog post, Ms. Scott said she wanted to help Americans who were struggling because of the pandemic.  She is the world’s 18th-richest person, having seen her wealth climb $23.6bn this year to $60.7bn.

Much of her fortune comes from her divorce from Mr. Bezos who is the world’s richest man.

In her blog post Tuesday, Ms. Scott added that she had picked more than 380 charities to donate to having considered almost 6,500 organizations.

Separately, on Tuesday, Morgan State University (Baltimore, Md.) announced it had received $40 million from Ms. Scott.  Morgan President David Wilson said the state’s largest historically Black university with an enrollment of more than 7,700 – received this “transformative” gift around two months ago and has had the difficult task of keeping it under wraps since then.

Scott’s donation more than doubled Morgan’s endowment, which Wilson said was $18 million when he arrived at the school about a decade ago.  Scott told Wilson she was impressed with the university’s efforts to promote racial justice and produce graduates who are the kinds of leaders the country needs.

--Wall Street Journal opinion writer Joseph Epstein needlessly attacked Jill Biden the other day in a column.

“Madame First Lady – Mrs. Biden – Jill – kiddo: a bit of advice on what might seem like a small but I think is not an unimportant matter,” he began.  “Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name? ‘Dr. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels a touch fraudulent, not to mention comical.”

His reasoning: Jill Biden is not a medical doctor. In her 50s, she acquired an EdD from the University of Delaware and has worked as a community college professor.  Epstein wrote that using the title of “Dr.” is misleading, as “no one should call himself Dr. unless he has delivered a child.”

Jill Biden took the high road, writing on Twitter: “Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished.”

In an interview with Stephen Colbert yesterday, Jill Biden said: “One of the things I’m most proud of is my doctorate.  I’ve worked so hard for it.”

Epstein is an “emeritus lecturer of English” at Northwestern University, the school distancing itself from his views and removing him from their website.  It doesn’t seem as if he has taught courses there for years, Epstein now 83.

As supporting evidence for his reasoning, Epstein cites his own refusal to be called “Dr.” when he taught courses at Northwestern, though his highest degree is a bachelor’s.  He has an honorary doctorate from Adelphi University.

--Ludwig van Beethoven was born 250 years ago this week, Dec. 17, 1770.

From Andrew Lennon / Wall Street Journal

“Beethoven was remarkably productive: His complete works fill 80 compact discs.  The maximum disc playback length is 74 minutes, just long enough to accommodate the Ninth Symphony.

“You and I have heard the Ninth; Beethoven never did.  He began to lose his hearing soon after he published his First Symphony, and by his mid-40s he was completely deaf. Yet he kept composing.

“The Ninth was the first major symphony to combine a chorus and orchestra. Beethoven ‘conducted’ the work at its premiere in 1824, but because he couldn’t hear, the musicians were told to ignore him and follow the lead of the other conductor, Michael Umlauf.

“ ‘Beethoven was several bars off from the actual music by the time the piece concluded,’ according to an account on the History Channel’s website.  He couldn’t hear the applause, so singer Caroline Unger, 20, ‘had to turn him to face the audience as they hailed him with five standing ovations, raising their hats and handkerchiefs in the air.’”

--We had our biggest snowstorm in the New York area in about two years Wednesday night, with 10 inches in Central Park, and I think about 7 inches where I live.  This was far tamer than the 12-18 predicted for both as a ton of dry air injected itself into the action, mused the amateur meteorologist, glued to the radar the whole night.  However, the Binghamton, New York area had 40 inches!

The issue for every community, though, was whether to call a ‘snow day’ or go virtual for Thursday, if they weren’t already doing so, and whereas my town of Summit gave kids a snow day, New York City did not.  Geezuz, it’s been a tough enough year as it is for the kids.  Let them go out and play.

---

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

We pray for our health-care workers, doing the Lord’s work under amazing stress. 

God bless America.

---

Gold $1843
Oil $46.56

Returns for the week 12/14-12/18

Dow Jones  +0.4%  [30179]
S&P 500  +1.3%  [3709]
S&P MidCap  +2.1%
Russell 2000  +3.1%
Nasdaq  +3.1%  [12755]

Returns for the period 1/1/20-12/18/20

Dow Jones  +5.8%
S&P 500  +14.8%
S&P MidCap  +10.9%
Russell 2000  +18.1%
Nasdaq  +42.2%

Bulls 63.6
Bears 17.2

Hang in there.  Mask up…wash your hands.

*I will be posting a column Christmas Day/Night.  It’s not like I’m hosting a big dinner, as I normally do for the family, or that I’m traveling.

But Merry Christmas in advance!

Brian Trumbore

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