Week in Review

---

Week in Review

09/04/2021

For the week 8/30-9/3

[Posted 9:30 PM ET, Friday]

Note: StocksandNews has significant ongoing costs and your support is greatly appreciated.  Please click on the gofundme link or send a check to PO Box 990, New Providence, NJ 07974.

Edition 1,168…The War is Over…

It was a godawful week for both the country and Joe Biden.

The president ended the war in Afghanistan…on his terms, and in disastrous fashion, while giving an angry, defensive speech explaining his last actions that was filled with lies.

Meanwhile, the Delta variant began to have a real impact on an economy that had just fully reopened, forcing many to pull back a bit in their activity, as reflected in today’s putrid jobs report.

The president’s massive $3.5 trillion spending plan is now fully in the hands of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who at week’s end called for a “strategic pause” before spending $trillions more and further increasing the federal deficit.

Joe Biden’s poll numbers are plummeting, deservedly so, and Democrats are increasingly fearful the Biden presidency, which was supposed to be about competency, calm and renewed respect around the world, and has instead been anything but, will sink them in 2022.

On Afghanistan…there was a focus on protecting U.S. troops over evacuating American citizens and Afghan allies, and a lack of coordination with European allies, who feel betrayed.  Our credibility with NATO is not only shot, but our allies in Asia are rethinking their relationships with Washington as well.  All are duly raising questions as to the real meaning of Biden’s “America is back” rhetoric, while some are preparing for a new flood of migrants, fueling concerns about a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, when nearly a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond crossed to Greece from Turkey before traveling north to wealthier states.  This week, for its part, Turkey said it can take no more.

At the same time, our enemies are celebrating a massive propaganda victory.

Prior to Tuesday, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll had 84% of Americans saying U.S. troops should remain in the country until all Americans are evacuated, and 71% thought they should stay until all Afghans who helped the United States are evacuated as well.

Only 38% approved of the president’s handling of Afghanistan.

In a new Yahoo News/You Gov poll, just 33% of Americans say they approve of the way Biden has handled the war in Afghanistan, while 55% disapprove.

But at the same time, 47% support the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from the country, with only 29% wishing to keep troops there.  This is what the president is counting on.  That we’ll all forget the chaotic ending.

Meanwhile, a large and growing majority of Americans are now very or somewhat worried about “the consequences of Taliban taking control of Afghanistan” (68%, up 5 points from two weeks ago); about “terrorist attacks against the U.S. being launched from Afghanistan” (69%, up 5 points); and about “terrorist attacks against other countries being launched from Afghanistan” (69%, also up 5 points).

Appearing Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) summed it up regarding our involvement in Afghanistan.

“Leaving Americans behind and leaving our Afghan friends behind who’ve worked with us will put upon us a moral stain.

“And this is the result of every ineffective decision, terrible decisions made by the prior administration and by the current administration. This did not have to happen.  It was preventable.

“And let me note, that’s very different than the military.  Our military came in at the very last moment and has performed admirably, as far as I can tell, to move people out as quickly as possible.

“But we didn’t have to be in this rush-rush circumstance with terrorists breathing down our neck….

“Recognize that we’re in the position we’re in right now because of terrible decisions made by two administrations, one, the Trump administration negotiating directly with the Taliban, getting ready to invite them to Camp David, opening up a prison of 5,000 Taliban and probably ISIS-K individuals and letting them free….

“These were the decisions that led to what you’re seeing and the danger that exists at the airport. This should not have happened.  President Biden closing the Bagram Air Base, that’s what’s led to what’s happening.”

Jake Tapper: “How do you respond to people who say…that we have been there 20 years, the collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan military is just more evidence that the American people, American service members, no matter how brave, no matter how valorous, they were never going to be able to stabilize Afghanistan, and this shows that the U.S. is correct in leaving?”

Romney: “Well, Jake, there’s a political slogan, end endless wars.

“But that doesn’t translate into a serious policy decision. And the real policy is this.  You can’t, as one party, end a war.  It takes two parties to end a war.  The Taliban and the radical violent jihadists in the world, they haven’t stopped fighting.  They’re going to continue to fight us.

“The war is not over.  We’re just no longer at a place where the war had its apex, where the Taliban was able to allow al-Qaeda to grow and to attack us on 9/11.  We went to Afghanistan because we got attacked on 9/11 and lost thousands of American lives.

“Now America is more in danger. The reason we have a military is to protect America.  And by the decision to pull our military out of Afghanistan puts us in greater danger.

“We went to Afghanistan to down al-Qaeda.  But we stayed in Afghanistan to make sure they couldn’t reconstitute to attack us again.  So pulling out means we are less safe. And, also, recognize the war is not over.  We’re just in a weaker position.  We don’t have boots on the ground. We don’t have eyes on the ground.

“When they say, look, we have over-the-horizon capacity, that’s a fancy phrase. What does that mean?  It means we’re not there.  The nearest American air base is, what, 1,000 miles away?....

“(This) idea that somehow we’re still in control is not real….

“(We’re) certainly less safe than we were when we had a group of, let’s say, 5,000 service members in Afghanistan standing up as the backbone behind some 250,000 Afghan troops who are keeping at bay the Taliban and other terror groups.

“That made us a great deal safer. And, by the way, we have thousands of troops, tens of thousands of troops in Germany, in South Korea, in Japan.

“Why are they there? They’re there not as favors to those countries, but because we believe that keeps us and the world safer.  And the idea that we would keep several thousand troops in Afghanistan as long as necessary to keep us more safe is, of course, the appropriate policy to take….

“The idea that somehow we can pull out of a dangerous place where radical violent jihadists are organizing…and that’s going to stop them, well, that’s fantasy.”

But before I have more on this topic, just a note on the other catastrophe of the week, the impact of Hurricane Ida.  I closed my column last Friday night with the utmost concern over what was to come, and as it turned out for good reason when Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast on Sunday.

Consider this fact, pertaining to how quickly Ida exploded into a Cat 4 with 150-mph winds.  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, parts of the Gulf of Mexico are three to five degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average for the end of the 20th century.  And all of us know by now how this warm water, due largely to increased greenhouse gas emissions, has not only caused the ocean to warm faster in recent years than at any point since the end of the last ice age, but the warm water is to hurricanes what gasoline is to a car engine.

And so Ida, after destroying much of Louisiana’s power grid, made its way up into the Ohio Valley and then into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York (and later New England), unleashing historic rain like we’ve never seen before.

In my town of Summit, the rain on Wednesday night started right at 5 p.m., and immediately it was a torrential downpour, only this time, unlike a heavy 20-minute thunderstorm, the downpour lasted about six hours…nonstop heavy rain.  9 inches worth, after just ten days earlier, we had received similar amounts, though over 24 hours, from the remnants of Tropical Storm Henri.

You’ve all seen the numbers, but I have to repeat them for the record.  In New York’s Central Park, which has accurate weather records going back to 1880 (or before), the record for a one-hour rainfall was 1.94 inches, set ten days ago with Henri.  Ida produced a one-hour rainfall of 3.24 inches.  No wonder the City’s ancient sewer system, designed to handle something like 1.4 inches an hour, was overwhelmed, overflow gushing into the subway system and killing at least eight in basement apartments (illegal ones, it tragically turns out).

The two biggest one-hour rainfalls in Gotham’s history…in ten days!

Newark had a record six-hour rainfall of 7.88 inches.  The total there of 8.43 for the entire storm (like 6 ½ hours) was the highest single-day rainfall ever, exceeding a 1977 record of 6.73 inches.

We weren’t just setting records…we were obliterating them.

We all know the cause.  I’m increasingly in the camp it’s too late.  Certainly in my lifetime.

I’m preparing for a 50-inch snowfall this winter.

We lost at least 26 lives in New Jersey to Ida.  Despite the stories you might hear, the citizens were warned.  The National Weather Service did its job.

I knew when I saw the storm path for Ida after it hit Louisiana we were in deep trouble.  Too bad others were clueless.

---

Back to Afghanistan.

Opinion….

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“American Presidents must make hard decisions, and we’re inclined to support them when they do so overseas in the national interest.  But President Biden’s defiant, accusatory defense on Tuesday of his Afghanistan withdrawal and its execution was so dishonest, and so lacking in self-reflection or accountability, that it was unworthy of the sacrifices Americans have made in that conflict.

“The charitable interpretation is that this is what Mr. Biden really believes about Afghanistan in particular, war in general, and how to defend the U.S.  The uncharitable view is that he and his advisers have decided that the only way out of this debacle is to lie about it, blame everyone else, and claim that defeat is really a victory. Neither one is reassuring about Mr. Biden’s character, his judgment, or – most ominously – the long three-and-a-half years left in his Presidency.

“Start with the dishonesty, although we only have space to cover some of the falsehoods.   Mr. Biden again claimed he was hamstrung by Donald Trump’s bad deal with the Taliban.

“Mr. Trump’s deal was rotten, but as a new President he could have altered it as he has so much else that Mr. Trump did.  The Trump deal was based on the Taliban fulfilling conditions – such as negotiating a deal with the Afghan government – that they had already broken when Mr. Biden became President.  Yet Mr. Biden claims he was both a prisoner of that deal and courageous for fulfilling it.

“He also repeated that his only choices were total withdrawal or ‘escalation’ with thousands of troops. His own advisers offered him alternatives in between, as did the Afghanistan Study Group.  He was so bent on withdrawal, and so quickly, that he refused to adjust the military plan even as the Taliban made gains and the CIA warned that the Afghan government was likely to fall.

“Mr. Biden described the evacuation as if it were a triumph, and that his Administration had planned for such a contingency in case the Afghan military collapsed.  This is, literally, unbelievable.  Multiple media reports have revealed that the White House was caught by surprise and preparing for vacation en masse when Kabul fell.  The military had to scramble and stage a heroic effort to evacuate those who were able to get to the airport.  Mr. Biden wants to take credit for putting out the fire he started.

“The President even had the ill grace to blame Americans for not leaving Afghanistan sooner, and Afghans for not fighting.  But his own government clearly felt no urgency, as the U.S. Embassy had to frantically destroy documents in the final hours.  As for the Afghans, he demeans the sacrifice of the 66,000 who died fighting the Taliban, often next to Americans.  They collapsed when they lost air support as the U.S. contractors left and after the military abandoned Bagram Air Base in the dead of night.

“Most dishonest – and dangerous – was the President’s assertion that ‘the war in Afghanistan is over.’  No one in the jihadist movement believes that.  The Taliban have won a major victory in the long war that Islamic radicals are waging against the U.S.  They have secured Afghanistan for what is likely again to become a refuge for recruits for al-Qaeda, ISIS-K and the Haqqani network.

“Mr. Biden wants Americans to believe that the U.S. can counter this from ‘over the horizon,’ by which he means drones and satellites.  But now the U.S. has no military in the country, and no CIA listening post in Khost.  It has no friendly government or allies to locate and gather intelligence on terror camps. The U.S. has all of those assets to counter terrorists in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria.  Every expert we know says Mr. Biden’s claims of easy over-the-horizon capability are a fantasy.

“The President finished his remarks with a discourse on the horrors of war, which no one denies. But in laying out the costs, and the human tragedies, he also sends a signal to the world about his own resolve.  He is telling rogues and autocrats that he lacks the will to send American soldiers into harm’s way. He will conduct his counterterror war only from a distance, with unmanned drones.

“Those are useful and can save American lives.  But they are no substitute for soldiers on the ground who can capture or kill the likes of bin Laden, or rescue Americans held hostage.  The hard men in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and the terror dens of Helmand will test Mr. Biden’s war-weariness.

“Mr. Biden’s unapologetic speech also signals that the White House intends to close the books on Afghanistan and pivot to domestic affairs.  No one will lose their jobs.  They’ll all talk from the same script. Mr. Biden may never speak of it again. All the more reason for Congress and the press to explore the many bad decisions that led to this American security debacle.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“Seldom has an American commander in chief spoken with greater conviction than President Biden did when he addressed the nation Tuesday after U.S. troops completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Despite the chaotic and bloody scenes from Kabul over the last two weeks, including 13 American military fatalities, and despite the fact that a massive and courageous U.S. military airlift was not enough to rescue every U.S. citizen before the president’s Aug. 31 deadline, Mr. Biden evinced utter certitude that his decision to withdraw was ‘wise,’ and that his administration’s management of the pullout had gone as well as possible under the circumstances.  Suffice it to say, we disagree with the president on both points, having previously argued that to maintain a residual force in Afghanistan would have been the least costly of the admittedly bad options – and having forecast disaster should the United States leave this year.

“Still, we will grant the president this:  He has left no ambiguity as to his moral and political ownership of this searing episode, and its consequences.  Every American must hope that subsequent events do, indeed, vindicate his judgment.

“The pullout leaves Mr. Biden with an ambitious agenda for U.S. policy in Afghanistan.  At the top of it is to prove that leaving Afghanistan will, as he has often asserted, enhance U.S. national security. That objective, in turn, contains two parts: The first is to prevent and fight terrorism effectively from ‘over the horizon,’ via drone strikes and the like, without the benefit of on-the-ground intelligence and overt cooperation with the local government.  Events last week – including a horrific suicide bombing by a newly energized Islamic State offshoot in Afghanistan, followed by a U.S. aerial attack on an alleged car bomb that killed many civilians – foreshadow how difficult that may be.  Second, Mr. Biden must effectuate the pivot to great power competition with Russia and China that leaving Afghanistan is supposed to facilitate, beginning by restoring confidence among European and Asian allies who were shaken by his handling of the Afghan exit.

“Third, and by no means least, Mr. Biden must keep his promise not to abandon the people left behind in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, starting with what may be as many as 200 U.S. citizens but not stopping there: tens of thousands of people with ties to the United States, including Afghan translators and other aides, university students, journalists, judges – the list goes on.  ‘Freedom of travel’ for them and others will likely demand complex and lengthy U.S. diplomacy, if it proves possible at all. The Taliban has made commitments to allow its erstwhile enemies to go, but also has a track record of duplicity and revenge.

“Perhaps the United States, and the world, are dealing with a new and pragmatic Taliban, in which case Mr. Biden’s job will be easier.  Or perhaps the Taliban will revert to its repressive and violent past, split into warring factions – or both.  What’s certain is that, no matter how fervently Mr. Biden wishes America to be done with Afghanistan, Afghanistan is not done with America.”

Karl Rove / Wall Street Journal

“Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s surrender in Afghanistan and the chaotic, inept and shameful way he effected the capitulation have left an indelible stain on his presidency. The distortions he used Tuesday to justify his actions compounded his historical blunder.

“The president offered a false choice, saying he could either ‘follow the agreement of the previous administration …for people to get out or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.’  Set aside the fact that Mr. Biden has reversed many of his predecessor’s policies. The president’s statement ignored the reality that American airpower and support assistance kept the Taliban in check in recent years with minimal risk to U.S. military personnel.

“Mr. Biden bragged he had ‘ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan – the longest war in American history.’  The war hasn’t ended, just the U.S. role, and even that probably only temporarily.  Islamic jihadists are still waging the wider War on Terror. They’re celebrating our humiliation and making plans.

“Mr. Biden also declared the only ‘vital national interest’ the U.S. had was ‘to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland.’  That was, he claimed Tuesday, achieved when Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 leaving al-Qaeda ‘decimated.’

“Mr. Biden neglected to mention that he opposed the strike that killed bin Laden.  He also left out the finding by the Defense Department that a reconstituted al-Qaeda is working closely with the Taliban.  With America’s exit, Afghanistan can once again become a sanctuary from which terrorists launch attacks against the West.

“Mr. Biden also claimed Tuesday that ‘we were ready’ when the ‘assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate.’  Pretending that what we’ve witnessed resulted from careful preparation may have been his most absurd statement.  Plenty of reports have demonstrated how much the Biden administration was caught off guard, including believing it had the ‘luxury of time’ – 18 months or so – before the Afghan government might collapse.

“Then there was Mr. Biden’s neat rhetorical trick, identifying ‘ISIS-K terrorists’ as ‘sworn enemies of the Taliban’ while not identifying the Taliban as ‘sworn enemies of America,’ which they are.  Neither group may like each other but last week’s bombings should have reminded the president that doesn’t much matter when they have set their sights on us.

“Mr. Biden also sketched ‘the threats of 2021 and tomorrow’ that he worries about, namely Islamic terrorists in Syria, Iraq, the Arabian peninsula and ‘across Africa and Asia.’  But there’s little sign he knows what to do or will commit the necessary resources.  The president has explicitly said he’ll withdraw from Iraq this year. And, of course, a terrorist attack from al-Shabaab won’t make an assault from al-Qaeda any more welcome.

“Adding yet another classless touch, Mr. Biden blamed American citizens trapped in Afghanistan for ignoring ‘multiple warnings and offers to help them leave.’  At least he’s rhetorically consistent, always claiming the buck stops with him as he blames everybody but himself for what’s gone wrong. This is petty and defensive.

“The president finished his Tuesday address by promising a future that’s ‘safer’ and ‘more secure.’  We’ll see, but given his record over the past few weeks, Mr. Biden is probably among the least credible people on the planet to offer such assurances….

“Mr. Biden’s shaky and listless performance has demolished the idea that he’ll be a credible contender in 2024.  Also wrecked is any sense that Vice President Kamala Harris is an acceptable heir.  The president’s failures and shortcomings are hers as well, while she’s failed to produce success in virtually every responsibility she has been given to handle.

“But who could emerge to replace them?  Both the White House and the aging apparatchiks of the Democratic Congressional leadership will discourage new faces from making their ambitions known.  And Mr. Biden’s actions and Tuesday’s speech diminished what little good will he has among swing voters, which will also hurt Democrats if Republicans make 2022 about checks-and-balances. It ain’t a pretty picture.”

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal

“August changed things; it wasn’t just a bad month.  It left a lingering, still head-shaking sense of ‘This isn’t how we do things.’

“We don’t make up withdrawal dates that will have symbolism for photo-ops with the flinty, determined president looking flinty and determined on the 20th anniversary of 9/11; we don’t time epic strategic decisions around showbiz exigencies.  We wait for the summer fighting season to pass; we withdraw in the winter when Taliban warriors are shivering in their caves.  We don’t leave our major air base in the middle of the night – in the middle of the night – without even telling the Afghan military.  We don’t leave our weapons behind so 20-year-old enemies can don them for military playacting and drive up and down with the guns and helmets.  We don’t fail to tell our allies exactly what we’re doing and how we’re doing it – they followed us there and paid a price for it.  We don’t see signs of an overwhelming enemy advance and treat it merely as a perception problem, as opposed to a reality problem.  You don’t get the U.S. military out before the U.S. citizens and our friends.  Who will protect them if you do that?

“The president’s people think this will all just go away and are understandably trying to change the subject. But the essence of the story will linger.  Its reverberations will play out for years.  There are Americans and American friends behind Taliban lines. The stories will roll out in infuriating, sometimes heartbreaking ways.  The damage to the president is different and deeper than his people think, because it hit at his reputational core, at how people understand him.  His supporters have long seen him as soft-natured, moderate – a sentimental man famous for feeling and showing empathy. But nothing about this fiasco suggested kindliness or an interest in the feelings of others.  It feels less like a blunder than the exposure of a seamy side. Does he listen to anyone?  Does he have any people of independent weight and stature around him, or are they merely staffers who approach him with gratitude and deference?

“What happened with U.S. military leadership?  There’s been a stature shift there, too.  Did they warn the president not to leave Bagram Air Base?  Did they warn that the whole exit strategy was flawed, unrealistic?  If the president was warned and rejected the advice why didn’t a general care enough to step down – either in advance to stop the debacle, or afterward to protest it?

“Did they just go with the flow?  Did they think the president’s mind couldn’t be changed so what the heck, implement the plan on schedule and hope for the best?  President Biden’s relations with the Pentagon have been cool at best for a long time; maybe some generals were thinking: I can improve future relations by giving the president more than he asks for.  He wants out by 9/11, I’ll give him out by the Fourth of July. It is important to find out what dynamics were in play.  Because it’s pretty obvious something went wrong there.

“The enlisted men and women of the U.S. military are the most respected professionals in America. They can break your heart with their greatness, as they did at Hamid Karzai International Airport when 13 of them gave their lives to help desperate people escape.  But the top brass?  Something’s wrong there, something that August revealed.  They are all so media-savvy, so smooth and sound-bitey after a generation at war, and in some new way they too seem obsessed with perceptions and how things play, as opposed to reality and how things are….

“Afghanistan was emotional for (Biden), for personal reasons.  This would be connected to his son’s service in Iraq, and the worry a parent feels and the questions a parent asks. And maybe the things Beau Biden told him about his tour.

“And I suspect there was plenty of ego in it, of sheer vanity. A longtime friend of his once told me Mr. Biden’s weakness is that he always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.  I asked if the rooms are usually small, and the friend didn’t bristle, he laughed.  I suspect Mr. Biden was thinking he was going to be the guy who finally cut through, who stopped the nonsense, admitted reality, who wasn’t like the others driven by fear of looking weak or incompetent.  He was going to look with eyes made cool by experience and do what needed doing – cut this cord, end this thing, not another American dead. 

“History would see what he’d done.  It would be his legacy. And for once he’d get his due – he’s not some ice-cream-eating mediocrity, not a mere palate-cleanser after the heavy meal of Trump, not a placeholder while America got its act together.  He would finally be seen as what he is – a serious man.  Un homme serieux, as diplomats used to say.

“And then, when it turned so bad so quick, his pride and anger shifted in, and the defiant, defensive, self-referential speeches. Do they not see my wisdom?

“When you want it bad you get it bad.

“This won’t happen, but it would be better for his White House not to scramble away from the subject – Let’s go to the hurricane! – but to inhabit it fully.  Concentrate on the new reality of the new Afghanistan, the immediate and larger diplomatic demands, the security needs. Get the Americans out, our friends out, figure out – plan – what you would do and say if, say, next November there is a terror event on U.S. soil, and a group calling itself al-Qaeda 2.0 claims responsibility, and within a few days it turns out they launched their adventure from a haven in Afghanistan.

“Don’t fix on ‘perception.’  Focus on that ignored thing, reality.”

Rich Lowry / New York Post

“The Biden administration wants credit for the Afghanistan evacuation as measured by the sheer number of people it flew out amid a security and humanitarian crisis of its own making.

“This is akin to the neighborhood arsonist bragging about how many fires he has put out.

“Those with memories that stretch past a couple of weeks ago will recall the halcyon days when a mass evacuation at a civilian airport exposed to Islamic State suicide bombers and other attackers wasn’t, according to Joe Biden, even conceivable.

“The president contributed to the collapse of the Afghan military by denying it air cover, gave away Bagram Air Base for no good reason, pulled out U.S. troops before our diplomats and civilians and local allies, drastically underestimated the gathering Taliban offensive, and then, caught unawares by the fall of Kabul, scrambled to jerry-rig a desperate rescue that shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place….

“Biden’s supporters have resorted to the defense that almost all of this was inevitable.  Yet for years, the Afghan army fought and bled after we had stepped back into a support role, suggesting an unsatisfactory stalemate was achievable at a relatively low cost.  Biden rejected that option.  Instead he chose defeat and disgrace. All the exertions to rescue people from the wreckage over the last two weeks can’t change that.”

John Podhoretz / New York Post

“Biden claimed the choice ‘was between leaving and escalating.’ That claim does not hold water.  In point of fact, we were providing support and air cover for Afghan forces and could have continued to do so.

“He ended the war because he wanted to, not because he had to.  He wanted to claim a moral victory over warfare itself, to be known as the bringer of peace.  Hubris is every leader’s greatest temptation and his worst foe.

“Biden’s hubris is a bet.  He is betting on the Taliban being something other than what they are, and betting that the American people will watch what happens now without feeling he has made us all complicit in the results.

“Every military casualty is a tragedy.  As the president said, ‘There’s nothing low grade, low cost, or low risk for any war.’  But every member of the U.S. military is a volunteer, and that is doubly why they deserve to be celebrated for the choices they’ve made to serve their country by putting themselves in harm’s way.

“That is not how Biden spoke of them yesterday.

“In defending his own act of negating their efforts in Afghanistan by choosing to surrender the country to the Taliban, he actually seemed to pathologize their service – portraying veterans as uncommonly prone to suicide.

“The shameful cultural portrayal of the Vietnam vet from the 1970s as a delusional psychopath (see movies like ‘Rolling Thunder’) has now given way to a portrait of the Afghan vet as a trauma victim carrying psychic scars that will never heal – a portrait drawn by the president of the United States.

“They made America safer, and the world safer.  Joe Biden has likely made America less safe, and the world less safe.  At least their honor is secure.  The angry old man who spent 20 minutes yesterday yelling at the country is secure in nothing.”

Biden’s Agenda

--Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is demanding a “strategic pause” in action on President Biden’s economic agenda, potentially torpedoing the $3.5 trillion tax and spending package that Democratic leaders are planning to push through Congress this fall.

But Manchin has long been a linchpin vote in the evenly divided Senate, and at an event in his home state on Wednesday, and then in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, he said that rising inflation and a soaring national debt necessitate a go-slow approach and a “significantly” smaller plan than the one his party’s leadership and the White House have endorsed.

Sen. Manchin / Wall Street Journal:

“The nation faces an unprecedented array of challenges and will inevitably encounter additional crises in the future.  Yet some in Congress have a strange belief there is an infinite supply of money to deal with any current or future crisis, and that spending trillions upon trillions will have no negative consequence for the future.  I disagree.

“An overheating economy has imposed a costly ‘inflation tax’ on every middle- and working-class American.  At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels.  Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic.  Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises.  Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.

“Those who believe such concerns are overstated should ask themselves: What do we do if the pandemic gets worse under the next viral mutation?  What do we do if there is a financial crisis like the one that led to the Great Recession?  What if we face a terrorist attack or major international conflict?  How will America respond to such crises if we needlessly spend trillions of dollars today?

“Instead of rushing to spend trillions on new government programs and additional stimulus funding, Congress should hit a strategic pause on the budget-reconciliation legislation.  A pause is warranted because it will provide more clarity on the trajectory of the pandemic, and it will allow us to determine whether inflation is transitory or not.  While some have suggested this reconciliation legislation must be passed now, I believe that making budgetary decisions under artificial political deadlines never leads to good policy or sound decisions.  I have always said if I can’t explain it, I can’t vote for it, and I can’t explain why my Democratic colleagues are rushing to spend $3.5 trillion.

“Another reason to pause: We must allow for a complete reporting and analysis of the implications a multitrillion-dollar bill will have for this generation and the next.  Such a strategic pause will allow every member of Congress to use the transparent committee process to debate: What should we fund, and what can we simply not afford?

“I, for one, won’t support a $3.5 trillion bill, or anywhere near that level of additional spending, without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.  This is even more important now as the Social Security and Medicare Trustees have sounded the alarm that these life-saving programs will be insolvent and benefits could start to be reduced as soon as 2026 for Medicare and 2033, a year earlier than previously projected, for Social Security.

“Establishing an artificial $3.5 trillion spending number and then reverse-engineering the partisan social priorities that should be funded isn’t how you make good policy.  Undoubtedly some will argue that bold social-policy action must be taken now.  While I share the belief that we should help those who need it the most, we must also be honest about the present economic reality.

“Inflation continues to rise and is bleeding the value of Americans’ wages and income.  More than 10.1 million jobs remain open.  Our economy, as the Biden administration has correctly pointed out, has reached record levels of quarterly growth.  This positive economic reality makes clear that the purpose of the proposed $3.5 trillion in new spending isn’t to solve urgent problems, but to re-envision America’s social policies.  While my fellow Democrats will disagree, I believe that spending trillions more dollars not only ignores present economic reality, but makes it certain that America will be fiscally weakened when it faces a future recession or national emergency….

“For those who will dismiss my unwillingness to support a $3.5 trillion bill as political posturing, I hope they heed the powerful words of Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who called debt the biggest threat to national security. His comments echoed the fear and concern I’ve heard from many economic experts I’ve personally met with.

“At a time of intense political and policy divisions, it would serve us well to remember that members of Congress swear allegiance to this nation and fidelity to its Constitution, not to a political party.  By placing a strategic pause on this budgetary proposal, by significantly reducing the size of any possible reconciliation bill to only what America can afford and needs to spend, we can and will build a better and stronger nation for all our families.”

The Pandemic

--Two top federal health officials reportedly warned the Biden administration Thursday they might not rubber-stamp Covid vaccine booster shots for the general public, as expected later this month.

Instead, they might only recommend certain recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be added to the list of people approved for third shots, the New York Times first reported.

President Biden previously announced a plan that would ask all fully vaccinated Americans to get a booster shot eight months after they received their second shot of either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines, pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Biden said the booster program was expected to begin Sept. 20

But in a meeting on Thursday, Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who heads the CDC, warned the White House that their agencies might only have a more curtailed recommendation to start, the Times reported.

Some experts, such as Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Times, “There is no compelling reason to get a third dose.”

Biden administration officials expected the FDA and CDC to go along with their promoted timeline, but they don’t operate that way.

“Bypassing and marginalizing those agencies led veterans who you need in this pandemic to leave the FDA,” Dr. Offit said, referring to the departures of Dr. Marion Gruber, who heads the FDA’s vaccines office, and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause.

Gruber and Krause reportedly said they wanted to see more data before encouraging third booster shots for the general population starting this month.

Another unforced error by the administration, which is forced to explain itself next week.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…4,566,187
USA…664,935
Brazil…582,753
India…440,256
Mexico…261,496
Peru…198,364
Russia…185,611
Indonesia…134,930
UK…133,041
Italy…129,410
Colombia…125,158
France…114,773
Argentina…112,356
Iran…109,549
Germany…92,829
Spain…84,795
South Africa…83,161
Poland…75,372
Turkey…57,559
Ukraine…53,922
Chile…37,041
Romania…34,650
Philippines…33,873
Ecuador…32,296
Czechia…30,405
Hungary…30,061
Canada…27,006
Bangladesh…26,432
Pakistan…26,035
Belgium…25,392
Tunisia…23,710
Iraq…20,994

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 284; Mon. 620; Tues. 1,232; Wed. 1,480; Thurs. 1,565; Fri. 1,512.

Covid Bytes

--A third shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine provides added protection against the coronavirus during a Delta outbreak, according to early data from Israel, where boosters began rolling out in mid-July.

People who received the supplemental dose had a 48% to 68% lower risk of infection a week to 13 days later, compared to those who got the standard two-dose regimen, a preliminary analysis of data from Maccabi Healthcare Services found.  The protection increased with time, with a 70% to 84% reduced risk of testing positive two weeks to 20 days after getting a third shot.

The Biden administration was forming its own policy over Israel’s findings, except their data wasn’t supplied as yet to the FDA!

--The European Commission said on Tuesday that 70% of the European Union’s adult population had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, hitting a target it set at the beginning of the year.  Back on Jan. 1, the goal was 70% “by summer 2021,” which was taken to mean by September.  So good on them.

But there are exceptions.  Bulgaria has only vaccinated 20% of its adult population, and Romania just 30%.

--Meanwhile, the EU (European Council) removed the U.S. from a safe list of countries for nonessential travel, reversing advice that it gave in June, when the bloc recommended lifting restrictions on U.S. travelers before the summer tourism season.  The guidance is nonbinding, however, and U.S. travelers should expect a mishmash of travel rules across the continent.

The United States has yet to reopen its own borders to EU tourists, despite calls from the bloc for the Biden administration to lift its ban.

--The World Health Organization is closely monitoring the emergence of a new variant of the novel coronavirus, the Mu variant, which has already been spreading through South America and has shown signs of possible vaccine resistance.

First identified in January 2021 in Colombia, the Mu variant has seen sporadic cases emerge throughout South America and Europe.  While globally, the variant only accounts for less than 0.1% of all cases, the WHO has noted that it has become considerably more prevalent in Colombia and Ecuador, where it accounts for approximately 39% and 13% of respective cases.

Further research is needed to accurately verify if this new variant could be resistant to vaccines.

--An example of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated, from the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal:

“According to data for the first eight months of 2021, since Jan. 1 there have been 31,151 Covid cases in South Dakota. Only 1,303 – or 4.2% - of those had been vaccinated before their illness occurred. That means 29,848 – or 95.8% - of the new cases were people who had not been vaccinated.

“Of the 1,303 breakthrough cases, only 103 were hospitalized, which is 7.9% of all hospitalizations this year.  Only 13 vaccinated people have died.  That means 94.5% - or 225 of 238 – of the deaths reported in South Dakota were people who had not received a Covid-19 vaccine.”

As expected, South Dakota, and its neighbors, have seen a big spike in Covid cases due to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in early August.

--According to data from the UK, people are twice as likely to need hospital care if they are sick with the Delta variant, rather than the Alpha variant that was once prevalent in the UK.

Experts say the big study, published in The Lancet, reinforces why it is important that people get fully jabbed.

Delta accounts for almost all UK cases currently.

--Last week I noted that Japan suspended the use of 1.63 million Moderna Covid-19 vaccine shots following the discovery of contaminants and said there did not appear to be any adverse health impact.

Well, days later we learned two people died, both men in their 30s, after receiving their second Moderna doses from the lots that had been suspended.  It does not mean the deaths were caused by the Moderna vaccine, and the government said there were no safety or efficacy issues identified with the contaminated batches that were suspended.

But, just wanted to be accurate.

Wall Street and the Economy

We had a slew of data this week, topped off by today’s employment report for August and it was a bit of a shocker, just 235,000 nonfarm jobs created, vs. an expectation of 720-740,000.  The unemployment rate did, however, fall as expected to 5.2% from July’s 5.4%.

The July jobs figure was upwardly revised from 943,000 to 1,053,000.

Average hourly earnings rose a strong 0.6% in August, 4.3% year-over-year, and that’s good news.

U6, the underemployment rate, fell to 8.8%, a post-pandemic low, though still above the 7.0% level of Feb. 2020.

One of the reasons for the poor jobs figure is the impact of the Delta variant and surging Covid case numbers across the country, which have begun to limit activity, including, as witnessed by the airline industry; stagnating and falling TSA checkpoint figures (see below).

The leisure and hospitality sector, which had been aggressively adding jobs with the lifting of Covid restrictions, suddenly ground to a halt in August, unchanged in terms of added jobs.  The sector is still down 1.7 million jobs from its Feb. 2020 levels.

Elsewhere, the Chicago PMI for manufacturing in August was a strong 66.8 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), but this was down from a record 73.4 in July.

The national ISM figure on manufacturing last month was 59.9, and 61.7 for the service sector (down from a record 64.1 the prior month), befitting still robust activity in the U.S. economy.

A few others….July factory orders increased 0.4%, while on the real estate front, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index for June showed prices rising for the 20-ciy index an average of 18.6% year-over-year, a record, and up from May’s 16.8% annual rate.

Weekly jobless claims came in at a post-pandemic low of 340,000.

Finally, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for third-quarter growth is down to 3.7%.

The bottom line is the economy is being hit by the Delta variant.  Back in June, with the revival of restaurants, air travel and crowds at baseball games, Labor Day had been targeted as the moment when the economy would finally transition out of the pandemic slump, with private sector jobs and wages replacing unemployment benefits.

But now you have health experts issuing rather dire fall forecasts for Covid deaths, while some employers are holding off on their rehiring plans, especially small business.

Looking at today’s jobs report for August, Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson wrote in a note: “September likely will be weak too, and we’re becoming nervous about the prospects for a decent revival in October, given that behavior lags cases, and cases are yet to peak.”

When it comes to the Federal Reserve, however, and prospects it will finally begin to taper its bond-buying program, with the weak jobs report, that’s off the board for September and maybe not until December.  Ian Shepherdson says, “the FOMC could easily be forced to wait until January.”

Europe and Asia

It was PMI week for the eurozone, data courtesy of IHS Markit, with a composite reading of 59.0 vs. 60.2 in July.  Manufacturing was down from 62.8 to 61.4.  Service sector activity registered 59.0 vs. July’s 59.8.

So despite the slight declines, still robust.

Germany: 62.6 manufacturing, 60.8 services
France: 57.5 mfg., 56.3 services
Italy: 60.9 mfg., 58.0 services
Spain: 59.5 mfg., 60.1 services
Ireland: 62.8 mfg., 63.7 services
Netherlands: 65.8 mfg.
Greece: 59.3 mfg. (256-month high)

UK: 60.3 mfg., 55.0 services

Joe Hayes, IHS/Markit

“It was another solid result for euro area businesses in August, according to the PMI numbers, which still point to rapid rates of expansion in output and demand. The labor market is also performing well and will further encourage this domestic-driven growth spurt.

“The benefit of looser lockdown restrictions has fueled two of the best expansions since mid-2006 in July and August, but a step down since the preliminary ‘flash’ number tells us that this growth momentum is fading.

“While growth will naturally lose some impetus as the post-lockdown boom peters out, there are a number of other downside factors at play. The Delta variant has taken hold in Europe, while further material shortages and transport bottlenecks continue to restrain business activity.  Rampant cost increases also persist, but slightly weaker rates of input and output price inflation provided some respite to both businesses and consumers alike, however.

“Regardless, another strong quarter-on-quarter rise in GDP is in the cards for the third quarter, and we’re certainly on track for the eurozone economy to be back at pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, if not sooner.”

Separately, July retail trade in the euro area fell 2.3% compared with June, according to Eurostat, but increased by 3.1% from a year ago.

An August flash estimate on inflation for the eurozone came in at 3.0%, up from 2.2% in July, but owing in large part to rising energy prices. [Eurostat]

And July industrial prices rose by 2.3% in the euro area, compared with June.  Year-over-year, producer prices increased by 12.1%, not good. [Eurostat]

Lastly, the EA19 unemployment rate was 7.6%, down from 7.8% in June and 8.4% in July 2020. [Eurostat]

Germany 3.6%, France 7.9%, Italy 9.3%, Spain 14.3%, Netherlands 3.1%, Ireland 6.5%.

Turning to Asia…China’s official government PMI data for August came in at 50.1 manufacturing, 47.5 non-manufacturing, the latter down sharply from 53.3 in July.  [National Bureau of Statistics]

Covid curbs with new infections in some regions have weighed on both manufacturing and the service sector.

Caixin’s private readings for August came in at 49.2 manufacturing (50.3 in July), and only 46.7 for services (vs. 54.9 the prior month).

Further confirmation of a steep decline in activity.  Rising Covid case numbers abroad aren’t helping either.

Next week, we’ll receive key data on exports for the month of August.

In Japan, the manufacturing PMI for last month was 52.7, but for non-manufacturing it was a putrid 42.9.  Japan has seen a big spike in Covid cases and deaths, including after the Tokyo Olympics.

Separately, retail sales for July were up 1.1% over June, and 2.4% from a year ago.

July industrial production declined 1.5%, largely due to reduced car production.

South Korea’s manufacturing PMI for August was 51.2, Taiwan’s 58.5.

But back to Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga won’t run for the leadership of the governing party, indicating he is stepping down as Japanese leader at the end of this month.

Suga told executives of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday that he will not run in the leadership race set for Sept. 29.

LDP has the majority in Parliament, meaning the new government leader likely will be whoever is elected the party’s leader.

The move is largely so the LDP can have a fresh leader heading into national elections later this year.  Elections for the new parliament must be held by late November.

Suga has faced criticism and plunging approval ratings over slow coronavirus measures and holding the Olympics despite the public’s health concerns.  He’s only been in office one year, since his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, resigned due to a health problem.

Street Bytes

--Stocks finished mixed, though the S&P 500 hit new records, including Thursday, up 0.6% for the week.  Nasdaq also finished today at a new high, gaining 1.5%.  But the Dow Jones lost 0.2% to 35369.

For August, the S&P was up a seventh straight month, 2.9%.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.05%  2-yr. 0.21%  10-yr. 1.32%  30-yr. 1.94%

Another week of little movement.  And now we know the Fed isn’t going to announce a tapering in September.

--Refineries in the path of Hurricane Ida could take weeks to resume operations because of all the power outages in the region.

Valero, Marathon Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and other oil refiners along the banks of the Mississippi River near New Orleans have no clear word when they’ll be back online.

Entergy Corp. has warned that it will take days to assess widespread damage across 2,000 miles of electric-transmission lines knocked offline by the storm and weeks to fully repair problems.

The refineries need power, so it looks to be awhile.

But gasoline inventories are ample ahead of Labor Day weekend, which marks the start of a seasonal drop in fuel demand.  And the East Coast is expecting larger deliveries from Europe in coming weeks.

Louisiana, though, will have issues for a while.  As of Tuesday, 30% to 35% of the gas stations in Baton Rouge and New Orleans had run out of fuel.

--Days after Ida passed, more than 650,000 customers in Louisiana lacked water.

But after Hurricane Katrina, 16 years earlier to the day, a $14.5 billion flood-protection-system – including flood walls, levees, canals and barriers constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – has helped bolster storm defenses around New Orleans, and with Ida, the system passed a big test.

As for the damage estimates, Wells Fargo and Fitch Ratings analysts both have estimated the damages could total $15 billion to $20 billion.  In comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused a record $65 billion in insured losses.

HOWEVER, the above was before the remnants of Ida hit the Northeast!  No one can give an estimate, but it’s going to be ginormous.  [Actually, I did see an initial estimate today…$60 billion.]

--Ford’s retail sales increased 6.5% in August over July, but were down 33.1% year over year.

Ford’s electrified vehicles set a new August sales record, up 67.3% over last year for a total of 8,756 vehicles.

--But in another sign of the impact the global shortage of computer chips is having on the auto industry, General Motors announced Thursday that it would pause production at seven North American plants during the next two weeks, including two that make the company’s top-selling Chevy Silverado pickup.

Ford said it will stop making pickups at its Kansas City Assembly Plant for the next two weeks.  Shifts will be cut at two other truck plants in Michigan and Kentucky.

“These most recent scheduling adjustments are being driven by the continued parts shortages caused by semiconductor supply constraints from international markets experiencing Covid-19-related restrictions,” GM said in a statement.

As I’ve noted for weeks, the Delta variant is impacting production in Southeast Asia’s chip factories, forcing some to close; further worsening the global shortage.

--Google is pushing back its return-to-office date by three months, to Jan. 10, owing to the spread of the Delta variant.

If Google employees return to the office in January, it will be nearly two years since the company asked its staff to work from home in the early days of the pandemic.

--A Bloomberg survey of 45 large businesses in the U.S., Europe and Asia shows that 84% plan to spend less on travel post-pandemic.  Pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions could see the vice on travel spending squeeze further over coming years.

According to the Global Business Travel Association, spending on corporate trips could slide to as low as $1.24 trillion by 2024 from a pre-pandemic peak in 2019 of $1.43 trillion.  Pre-Covid crisis, business travelers accounted for only 12% of the seats, but because they buy premium-class or more-expensive refundable tickets, they represented three-quarters of airlines’ profits.

A global example of changes being made is Michelin, which is using sophisticated technologies like drones for executives sitting in France to monitor the company’s plant in Brazil.

--TSA checkpoint travel numbers vs. 2019

9/2…90 percent of 2019 level…but under 2 million
9/1…78
8/31…66
8/30…72
8/29…101...true, an anomaly
8/28…77
8/27…70
8/26…71

*8/1 remains top day post-pandemic with 2,238,462 travelers.

**There still have been no days with 2 million travelers since 8/15.

--Walmart Inc. is hiring 20,000 workers for its supply-chain operations ahead of the holidays, highlighting the growing role of distribution and delivery as the retailer competes with Amazon.com.

The new hires will be permanent positions aimed at supporting Walmart through the holiday surge and beyond, the retailer said Wednesday.  The full- and part-time jobs range from order pickers, freight handlers and forklift operators to technician and management roles at more than 250 Walmart and Sam’s Club distribution and fulfillment centers and transportation offices.

Walmart said the average wage for its supply-chain workers is $20.37 an hour.  The company also is offering its field-based workers, including those in supply-chain operations, a $150 cash bonus for getting the Covid-19 vaccination.  Walmart warehouse jobs pay at least $15 an hour, although pay rates vary depending on the role and the region.

Thursday, the company said it would increase the hourly wages for more than 565,000 workers by at least $1 to $16.40 on average.  Front-end store workers and those in the food and consumable and general merchandise departments will receive the pay bump starting Sept. 25.

Earlier this year, Amazon said it was raising pay for hourly employees by between 50 cents and $3 an hour. Amazon’s starting wage for warehouse workers is at least $15 an hour.

So then Amazon said the same day as Walmart that it was seeking to hire about 55,000 globally among its corporate and technology ranks during a recruiting event set for Sept. 15, as its hiring spree continues.

The Seattle-based company is aiming to fill roles in cloud-computing unit Amazon Web Services, as well as in divisions such as Amazon Studios, advertising and its broadband satellite Project Kuiper.  The open positions include more than 40,000 roles in the U.S. across 220 locations, including in New York City; Bellevue, Washington; and Arlington, Va., where the company is opening a large corporate office.

Amazon employs about 950,000 people in the U.S. and has made more than 450,000 hires throughout the country since the pandemic began.

--Fidelity Investments plans to hire another 9,000 employees this year to help its businesses keep pace with the surge in demand for stock-trading and other personal-investing services, bringing the total to over 60,000, with 16,000 hires this year overall.  79 percent will be for client-facing roles.

Drawn to the market’s rally, individual investors have changed the fortunes of the brokerage industry.  The no-commission stock trades and low-fee investment funds now offered by many firms have brought in plenty of new clients.  But this has cut money managers’ profit margins and forced them to compete on price.

Fidelity ended the second quarter with $11.1 trillion in assets under management, what investors held in brokerage and retirement accounts on the firm’s platforms, and in its funds.  The firm added 1.7 million new retail accounts in the 12-month period ended in June, including 697,000 opened by clients 35 years old or younger.  Fidelity processed 2.6 million trades a day in the second quarter, up from 2.3 million in the same period a year earlier.

--Current and former executives of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC will personally pay as much as $7 billion in taxes, interest and penalties to settle a long-running dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, the firm said, which could be the largest tax settlement in history.

James Simons – the quantitative-investing pioneer who started Renaissance before retiring as the firm’s chairman on Jan. 1 – will make an additional “settlement payment” of $670 million, according to the firm.

The dispute relates to moves the firm’s key Medallion fund took between 2005 and 2015 to convert short-term trading gains into long-term profits.

Renaissance’s leaders are among the largest political donors in the U.S., Simons being a major supporter of Democratic candidates, while Robert Mercer, another Renaissance executive, has backed Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

A former math professor and code breaker, Simons built Renaissance into one of the most successful investment firms in history by identifying short-term patterns in the market that others missed. But short-term trades also mean higher taxes.

--OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP won court approval of a $4.5 billion bankruptcy settlement that shields its owners, members of the Sackler family, from lawsuits accusing them of contributing to the nation’s opioid epidemic in exchange for providing funding to combat the crisis.

The ruling can be appealed by the handful of federal and state authorities that opposed Purdue’s bankruptcy-exit plan and argued at trial that the settlement structure is unconstitutional and the Sacklers aren’t contributing enough of their wealth.  Purdue’s family owners collected more than $10 billion from the company between 2008 and 2017, about half of which went to taxes or was reinvested in the business.

The bankruptcy plan’s approval means those family members can put behind them numerous lawsuits and investigations from state regulators and private litigants over their stewardship of Purdue.

Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., did say he wished the Sacklers had contributed more to settle civil lawsuits filed by governments and opioid victims but he couldn’t force any particular outcome.

Opioids caused nearly 500,000 overdose deaths between 1999 and 2019, according to federal data.  Other drug companies in July struck a $26 billion settlement with states to resolve thousands of opioid lawsuits.

--Campbell Soup’s fiscal fourth-quarter results beat consensus estimates even as demand for the packaged food maker’s products faltered, while the company flagged “a very challenging environment” ahead.

Net sales dropped 11% annually to $1.87 billion, but came in higher than expectations for $1.81 billion.

“The fourth quarter was a positive finish to a solid year during which we successfully navigated a difficult environment, made significant progress advancing our strategic plan and addressed the executional pressures we experienced in the third quarter,” Campbell CEO Mark Clouse said.

The company logged a 5% fall in volume and mix compared to last year when demand for at-home food consumption was elevated amid the Covid-19 pandemic.  Meals and beverage sales declined 16% to $851 million while the snacks segment reported a 6% drop to $1.02 billion.

Campbell Soup said the first quarter of fiscal 2022 is expected to be “the most challenging” as it overlaps high sales from a year ago.  Rising inflation will likely have “a more pronounced impact” on second-half margins, which would partially dent the second-half recovery, according to the company.

--Zoom Video Communications Inc. shares tumbled nearly 17% on Tuesday, after the video conferencing company signaled a faster-than-expected drop in demand and analysts questioned its future plans as people return to office.  Zoom and other video conferencing services such as Cisco, Microsoft’s Teams and Salesforce’s Slack raked in million of new users during the pandemic.

But with easing pandemic curbs, Zoom will need to find new avenues for growth.  Analysts said it would take a few quarters for Zoom to return to its true underlying growth rate.

Zoom forecast current-quarter revenue between $1.015 billion and $1.02 billion, indicating a rise of about 31%, compared with multiple-fold growth rates in 2020.

--Shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. dropped on Tuesday, after China announced new rules forbidding under-18-year-olds from playing video games for more than three hours a week.  Beijing said the move was necessary to stop growing addiction to what it once described as “spiritual opium.”

The new rule stipulates one hour a day, and only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Personally, I’ve never played a video game (a modern one) in my life. 

--Shares of Robinhood Markets Inc., a popular gateway for trading meme stocks, tumbled nearly 7% on Monday on news that PayPal Holdings Inc. may start an online brokerage and a report saying regulators were looking at a possible ban on a practice that accounts for the bulk of the company’s revenues.

CNBC reported that PayPal was exploring ways to let U.S. customers trade individual stocks on its platform.  And then Robinhood shares fell further after Gary Gensler, chair of the SEC,. told Barron’s in an interview that payment for order flow (PFOF) has “an inherent conflict of interest.”

Retail brokers such as Robinhood send their customers’ orders to wholesale brokers rather than exchanges in the controversial practice.  Gensler said that in addition to making a small spread on each trade, wholesalers or market makers also get data, the first look at a trade and the ability to match buyers and sellers from the order flow they pay retail brokers.

--The Federal Aviation Administration is reviewing why Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo flew outside the area in which it was cleared by the agency during the trip to space that carried company founder Richard Branson.  Until the investigation is complete, the FAA won’t permit Virgin to fly the space plane.

The company said it is working with the FAA to address the flight deviation, which didn’t endanger the passengers or the public.

--“Jeopardy!” executive producer Mike Richards was ousted.  Sony Pictures Television’s decision to remove him from his leadership role comes less than two weeks after he stepped down as the show’s host amid a furor over his past offensive comments on a now-defunct podcast called “The Randumb Show” and alleged mistreatment of models on “The Price Is Right.”

The studio had selected Richards on Aug. 11 as the successor to Alex Trebek, who died last November, but the handover was messy, to say the least.

Longtime game show producer Michael Davies (“Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”) takes over “on an interim basis until further notice.”

Richards taped five episodes as host for the upcoming season of “Jeopardy!” before he and Sony executives decided it was best for him to step down as the face of the show. Those episodes are scheduled to run the week of Sept. 13.

Foreign Affairs

Afghanistan, part II: Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will lead a new Afghan government set to be announced soon, per various reports.  The Taliban is fighting forces loyal to the vanquished republic in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.

But the new government’s most immediate priority may be to avert the collapse of an economy grappling with drought and the ravages of a 20-year conflict that killed around 240,000 Afghans before U.S. forces pulled out.

Baradar, who heads the Taliban’s political office, will be joined by Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of late Taliban co-founder Mullah Omar.

Western powers have said they are prepared to engage with the Taliban and send humanitarian aid, but that formal recognition of the government and broader economic assistance will depend on action – not just promises – to safeguard human rights.

The Taliban has tried to present a more conciliatory face to the world, promising to protect human rights and refrain from vendettas, but it has yet to explain what social rules it will enforce.  With good reason, Afghan women now fear for their security, and the loss of the significant gains they made in education and the workforce over the past two decades.

Consider this.  There are 250 female judges in Afghanistan (some of whom have now successfully fled the country), who sentenced men to prison who have now been freed by the Taliban.  They are hunting down the judges.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s neighbors have closed their land borders to people trying to flee, trapping tens of thousands of people who are eligible to resettle in the U.S. and other countries but were unable to enter the airport in Kabul before the international airlift ended.

None of Afghanistan’s airports are currently open, though Qatar has begun efforts to restore flight operations in Kabul.  This means that the few at-risk Afghans who managed to leave overland were trafficked out or used fake documents.

Lastly, many Afghans were struggling to feed their families amid severe drought well before the Taliban seized power and millions may now face starvation with the country isolated and the economy in shambles.

China: China’s government banned effeminate men on TV and told broadcasters Thursday to promote “revolutionary culture,” broadening a campaign to tighten control over business and society and enforce official morality.

President Xi has called for a “national rejuvenation,” with tighter Communist Party control of business, education, culture and religion. Companies and the public are under increasing pressure to align with its vision for a more powerful China and healthier society.

As noted above, the party has reduced children’s access to online games and is trying to discourage what it sees as unhealthy attention to celebrities.

Broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,” the National Radio and TV Administration said, using an insulting slang term for effeminate men – “niang pao.”

That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, fashionable look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough.

North Korea: A UN watchdog report that North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor reflects an urgent need for dialogue and the United States is seeking to address the issue with Pyongyang, a senior administration official said on Monday.  “We continue to seek dialogue with the DPRK so we can address this reported activity and the full range of issues related to denuclearization.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in its annual report, said the North appears to have restarted operations at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang.  The reactor produces plutonium, one of the two key ingredients used to build nuclear weapons along with highly enriched uranium.

“(North Korea’s) nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern. Furthermore, the new indications of the operation of the 5-megawatt reactor and the radiochemical laboratory are deeply troubling,” the IAEA said.

The IAEA has not had access to Yongbyon or other locations in North Korea since the country kicked out IAEA inspectors in 2009. The agency said it uses satellite imagery and open source information to monitor developments in North Korea’s nuclear program.

In early 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to dismantle the entire complex if he won extensive sanctions relief during a summit with then-President Donald Trump. But the Americans rejected Kim’s offer because it would only be a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

North Korea is believed to be running multiple other covet uranium enrichment facilities.  According to a South Korean estimate in 2018, North Korea might already have manufactured 20-60 nuclear weapons as well.

Russia: The Kremlin may treat Apple or Google’s refusal to remove Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s app from their stores as meddling in its parliamentary election this month, Interfax news agency cited the communications regulator as saying on Thursday.

Allies of Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, plan to use the app to organize a tactical voting campaign to deal a blow to the pro-Kremlin United Russia ruling party that dominates the political landscape.

The jailed politician’s tactical voting plan is one of the last levers he and his allies have after a crackdown this summer outlawed his movement as “extremist.”

Navalny’s allies are banned from taking part in the Sept. 17-19 election, and United Russia, which supports Putin, is expected to win despite a slump in its popularity.

Poland: A spokesman for President Andrzej Duda told a news conference that he has imposed a state of emergency in parts of two regions bordering Belarus, an unprecedented move in the country’s post-communist history that follows a surge in illegal migration. The European Union has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using migrants from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a “hybrid war” designed to put pressure on the bloc over sanctions it has imposed.

Poland has been trying to improve security on its border by building a fence and sending troops.

NGOs have sharply criticized Warsaw for not providing more humanitarian aid to migrants stranded on the border.

Brazil: President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday offered multiple eyebrow-raising predictions for his future – including death or prison.

“I have three alternatives for my future: being arrested, killed or victory,” Bolsonaro, who is running for reelection in 2022, said in a meeting with a group of evangelical leaders.

The far-right president later added another comment that seemingly disqualified the first two options.

“No man on Earth will threaten me,” he said.

Bolsonaro, who trails former leftist President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in most polls, has been critical of Brazil’s electronic voting system, claiming it’s susceptible to fraud.

Playing his Trump card, Bolsonaro wants the country to switch to printed receipts for voting, while threatening to not accept the results of the upcoming election.

The head of Brail’s electoral court last week called the discussion to adopt printed ballots “a waste of focus” and defended the electronic voting system.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 49% approve of Biden’s job performance, 48% disapprove, 43% of independents approve (Aug. 2-17).

Rasmussen: 44% approve, 54% disapprove of Biden’s performance (Sept. 3).

The aforementioned Yahoo News/YouGov poll had President Biden at a 44% approval rating, 49% disapproving.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey has Biden at 43% approval, 51% disapproval, down from a 49-44 split in August.

--According to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, California Governor Gavin Newsom will probably survive his recall election.

With about ten days to go before it all concludes on Sept. 14, the survey holds good news for the Democrat trying to prevail in the second gubernatorial recall in the state’s history.  Just 39% of likely voters say they back his removal from office, and 53% approve of the first-term governor’s performance.

Newsom has faced major challenges in the campaign, from defending his handling of the pandemic amid the spreading Delta-variant to confronting wildfires that have forced the evacuation of South Lake Tahoe and closed national forests in the state.

Among those seeking to replace Newsom, 26% of likely voters chose conservative talk radio host Larry Elder.

--A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law outlawing most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, letting a measure that went into effect Wednesday remain in force as the strictest restriction in the nation.

Voting 5-4, Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the three liberals on the court, the justices turned away calls from abortion providers to put the law on hold while the legal fight goes forward.  The challengers say the measure will ban abortion for at least 85% of patients in the state and force many clinics to close.

The rejection marks a watershed moment, allowing a law at odds with Supreme Court precedents that protect abortion rights until much later in pregnancy.  The order raises new questions about the durability of those precedents, including the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which opponents are attempting to overturn in an upcoming case the court will consider in a few months.

The majority said the challengers had “raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law” but hadn’t shown they could overcome a number of procedural obstacles stemming from the law’s unusual delegation of enforcement powers to private parties.

“In light of such issues, we cannot say the applicants have met their burden to prevail in an injunction or stay application,” the court said in its one-paragraph explanation.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the order “stunning” in an opinion joined by fellow liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

“Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand,” Sotomayor wrote.

She called the law a “breathtaking act of defiance – of the Constitution, of this court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas.”

Justice Kagan said the court “rewards Texas’ scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the state’s behalf.”

Roberts was more measured, saying he would have blocked the law to “preserve the status quo ante – before the law went into effect.”  Unlike the other dissenters, he didn’t say the Texas law was unconstitutional.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett formed the majority.  All are Republican appointees, the last three selected by former President Trump.

The Texas law, known as Senate Bill 8, bars abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected and puts clinics at risk of being shut down if they are found to be in violation.

One of the provisions of the law awards anyone who successfully sues a doctor or accomplice $10,000, which critics claim will flood the courts with opportunistic legal cases.

The wide-ranging provision allows suits against patients, nurses, counselors, or even someone who drove a patient to an appointment.

More than a dozen other states, largely in or near the Bible Belt, have passed similar laws, but most of them have been blocked by federal courts.

The Texas law, and its vigilante provision, will backfire big time on Republicans in 2022.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“America is back fighting its endless legal war over abortion.  A new front opened late Wednesday when five Justices issued an unsigned opinion declining to block a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks.  Cue the hysterics about the end of abortion rights.  But this law is a misfire even if you oppose abortion, and neither side should be confident the law will be upheld….

“Most laws delegate enforcement to public officials.  This one delegates exclusive enforcement to private citizens, who are authorized to sue anyone who ‘aids or abets’ an abortion after six weeks.  Citizens who prevail in their civil lawsuits are entitled to at least $10,000 per abortion along with legal costs.

“The law sets an awful precedent that conservatives should hate.  Could California allow private citizens to sue individuals for hate speech?  Or New York deputize private lawsuits against gun owners?....

“(Texas Republicans) have handed Democrats a political grenade to hurt the anti-abortion cause.  Pro-life groups have spent nearly 50 years arguing that abortion is a political question to be settled in the states by public debate.  Yet now in Texas they want to use the courts via civil litigation to limit abortion.”

--North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn, speaking at a GOP county event, said the following:

“If our election systems continue to be rigged, continue to be stolen, then it’s gonna lead to one place and that’s bloodshed.  And I will tell you: as much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there’s nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.  And the way that we can have recourse against that is if we all passionately demand that we have election security in all 50 states.”

What a little POS.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted: “This is insane. Based on a total lie. This must stop.”

--Speaking of dirtballs, a New Jersey woman, who went by “AntiVaxMomma” online, was accused Tuesday of selling about 250 fake Covid-19 vaccination cards using Instagram while healthcare workers who bought the bogus cards were also charged, New York prosecutors said.

Jasmine Clifford, of Lyndhurst, peddled the fake cards using her self-described anti-vaccine social media account for about $200.  A co-conspirator employed at a New York clinic, Nadayza Barkley, would add the buyers to New York’s immunization database for an added $250 fee, prosecutors said.

--According to a new Pew Research Center analysis, the number of Republicans who say they have “a lot” or “some” trust in national news organizations has been sliced in half over the last five years.

In 2016, 70% of self-identified Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations.  That number is now 35%.

And in 2020, trust in the national news media fell off a cliff.  Almost half (49%) said they had a lot or some trust in the mainstream media in late 2019.  Which means that dropped 14 points in less than two years.

Back in 2018, President Donald Trump telegraphed what he was up to, saying at a VFW gathering: “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news.  What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Trump, instead, sought to be the sole disseminator of news, adding Minister of Disinformation to his portfolio, you might say.  It almost worked, but the damage he left behind is everlasting…enjoy.

--Last week I wrote of much of America being “brain dead.”   

Two days later, Lance Morrow wrote some of the following in the Wall Street Journal:

“ ‘Stupidity,’ Jean Cocteau remarked, ‘is always amazing, no matter how used to it you become.’

“We live in a golden age of stupidity.  It is everywhere.  President Biden’s conduct of the withdrawal from Afghanistan will be remembered as a defining stupidity of our time – one of many. The refusal of tens of millions of people to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus will be analyzed as a textbook case of stupidity en masse.  Stupid is as stupid does, or, in the case of vaccination, as it doesn’t do. Stupidity and irresponsibility are evil twins.

“The slow-motion zombies’ assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a fittingly stupid finale to the Trump years, which offered dueling stupidities: Buy one, get one free.  The political parties became locked in a four-year drama of hysteria and mutually demeaning abuse.  Every buffoonery of the president and his people was answered by an idiocy from the other side, which in its own style was just as sinister and just as clownish.

“Cable news provided the Greek chorus. American government and politics became cartoons.  The Democrats, all unknowing, played Wile E. Coyote to Mr. Trump’s Road Runner.  Twice, the Democrats’ Acme Impeachment Committee rigged up the big bomb (heh heh), lit the fuse and held its ears.  Both times, the Road Runner sped away.  Beep beep!...

“Stupidity has been in the air for quite some time. And alas, Mr. Trump isn’t going away soon; neither are Jerrold Nadler, Adam Schiff or Mazie Hirono – each a paragon of the phenomenon….

“Stupidity is entitled to no moral standing whatever, and yet it sits in a place of honor at the tables of the mighty; it blows in their ears and whispers promises….

“The subversion of manners and authority (two great casualties of the 1960s) prepared the way for the death of privacy, which would eventually be ensured by the stupendously intrusive capabilities of Big Tech in the 21st century.  Manners (and in a different way, authority) depend on respect for the privacy of others, as well as one’s own.  Manners depend on reticence, even mystery. When those ingrained regulations, those protections of the individual mind, are gone, then you may open the floodgates to (among many other things) pornography, which is a massively lucrative assault on individual dignity and collective decorum – an assault on the manners of a society and, if you will forgive my saying so, on the divinity of the individual.

“The death of manners and privacy, I argue, are profoundly political facts that, combined with other facts, lead, eventually, to an entire civilization of stupidity.  It’s a short ride from stupidity to madness. Some people aren’t quite people anymore; they are cartoons and categories. And ‘identities.’  The media grow feral. Genitals became weirdly public issues; the sexes subdivide into 100 genders.  Ideologues extract sunbeams from cucumbers. They engage in what amounts to an Oedipal rebellion against reality itself.

“At the Tower of Babel, the Lord – whatever his reasons – confounded the languages of the peoples of the world.  I suspect he has found he can achieve the same effect by making everyone stupid.”

---

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

We thank our heroic first responders and healthcare workers.

God bless America.

---

Gold $1830
Oil $69.10

Returns for the week 8/30-9/3

Dow Jones  -0.2%  [35369]
S&P 500  +0.6%  [4535]
S&P MidCap  -0.2%
Russell 2000  +0.6%
Nasdaq  +1.5%  [15363]

Returns for the period 1/1/21-9/3/21

Dow Jones  +15.6%
S&P 500  +20.8%
S&P MidCap  +19.7%
Russell 2000  +16.1%
Nasdaq  +19.2%

Bulls 50.0
Bears 18.5…no update this week

Hang in there.  Happy Labor Day.

Thoughts on 9/11 next week.

Brian Trumbore

---