Week in Review

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Week in Review

10/02/2021

For the week 9/27-10/1

[Posted 9:00 PM ET]

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Edition 1,172

As I go to post, it has been another rough week for President Joe Biden, after the House delayed a vote on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan that has already cleared the Senate, with Democrats refusing to move forward with it until Congress signs off on a separate $3.5 trillion plan on welfare and climate change.

This is the whole Biden presidency.  House Dems must compromise with two key Senate Democrats or it’s sayonara, Joe. 

Centrists want to scale the $3.5 trillion plan back radically, while the $1 trillion public works bill, which would apply to routine transportation, broadband, water systems and other projects, and which enjoys widespread support, is being held hostage to the progressive wing’s more ambitious change bill.

The $3.5 trillion package, with few actual specifics, as in dollars spent on each item, would raise taxes on corporations and the rich, investing the revenue in a broad array of social programs, including early childhood education, universal preschool, government-funded two-year college education, paid family and medical leave, an expansion of government health insurance and environmental spending.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) laid down his marker saying he wouldn’t accept more than $1.5 of the $3.5 trillion. 

Then this afternoon, following the president’s brief visit to Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic congressional leaders, Biden said both packages need to be brought together and that “It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or in six weeks.”

But that’s not true.  Everyone knows Congress only acts when it faces a deadline, and now we have the debt ceiling deadline of Oct. 18, plus the Biden agenda hanging by a thread. 

Speaking of the debt ceiling, Senate Republicans have said Democrats, as the party in power, should raise the ceiling themselves. Democrats counter that lifting the debt ceiling is a shared responsibility of both parties and said votes to lift or suspend the debt ceiling during the Trump administration were bipartisan.

Congress can either raise the limit, which allows the Treasury to borrow up to a certain dollar amount, or suspend it, which allows the agency to borrow as much as is necessary until a certain date.

Congress did pass a temporary measure to keep the federal government funded until December 3rd, thus keeping federal museums, national parks and other programs open for now.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“House Democrats scrambled all day and failed Thursday to come up with the votes to pass the Senate infrastructure bill.  But the bigger news this week is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s declaration of what he won’t accept in the separate $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending bill.  Think of this as an intervention to save the Democratic Party, and the country, from the left.

“Progressives are furious with Mr. Manchin, and with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, for refusing to go along with the Bernie Sanders entitlement dreamscape.  As an act of retribution, they’ve threatened to scuttle the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that the two Democrats negotiated with Republicans….

“(Democrats) can’t afford to lose his vote, yet the left and the White House have behaved as if somehow the West Virginian would roll over in the end.

“Mr. Manchin has been sending signals for months that his support has limits.  First he refused to break the Senate filibuster. Then he said he couldn’t support $3.5 trillion because it’s inflationary and the economy no longer needs the help. Then in our pages he called for a ‘strategic pause’ on the spending bill to debate specific policies.  He might as well have been Ted Cruz for all that Democratic leaders paid attention.

“Then, in statements and remarks Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Manchin laid down markers that Democrats can no longer ignore.  He won’t support more than $1.5 trillion in new spending.  He says ‘social programs must be targeted to those in need, not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible.’  He’s willing to raise some taxes, but nothing like what’s in the $2.1 trillion House Ways and Means bill.

“ ‘What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders,’ Mr. Manchin said in a statement, ‘is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity.’  He’s right.

“Democrats may be angry, but as the days go by they may recognize that Mr. Manchin is doing them a favor. With President Biden abdicating to the left, the West Virginian is providing a reality check on progressive excess….

“(As for President Biden, he) ran explicitly against Mr. Sanders’ socialism in the primaries.  As the nominee he felt obliged to endorse a ‘unity’ agenda with Mr. Sanders.  But that should have gone by the wayside with the small majorities in Congress.  For reasons that are hard to understand, Mr. Biden came to believe he was FDR and could pass the Sanders agenda as his own.

“He has no mandate for the vast expansions of government he is proposing, and if Democrats somehow manage to pass even half of it, they’ll be crushed in 2022. This is the political message if you read between the lines of Mr. Manchin’s warnings. As he put it on Thursday, progressive Democrats can campaign in 2022 on what they don’t pass this year in Congress.  Then they might have a mandate for what they’re trying to jam through now without enough public support….

“These entitlements are the largest stakes as Democrats try to pass whatever they can without a voter mandate.  They would corrode the federal fisc and entrench government from cradle-to-grave.  Meantime, Mr. Manchin is trying to save Democrats from themselves.”

Finally, last week I wrote of the looming energy shortages in Europe and the UK, and as if on cue the gasoline (petrol) crisis in the UK exploded the next day with pumps quickly running dry.

But then China on Saturday started seeing unannounced power cuts in some northern provinces amid a tight coal supply, with China taking emergency measures by week’s end and telling miners to forget about annual quotas, just dig, baby.  Like I said, it’s going to be a long, long winter.

Biden Agenda, cont’d….

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Biden hopes the political fallout from his botched Afghanistan withdrawal will fade quickly, but Tuesday’s Senate hearing with the secretary of Defense and two top generals doesn’t cast his decisions in a better light.

“The hearing underscored that the President acted against the advice of the military in yanking the residual U.S. force from the country. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie both made clear in their testimony that they recommended that about 2,500 U.S. troops stay in Afghanistan to delay a Taliban takeover.

“That’s not what Mr. Biden said he was told.  Asked in an ABC News interview days after the August fall of Kabul if his military advisers urged him to maintain America’s small footprint in the country, Mr. Biden said, ‘No one said that to me that I can recall.’

“The scandal isn’t that the President ignored military advice – he’s the decision-maker.  It’s his refusal to own his decision.  Mr. Biden wants political credit for ending America’s involvement in Afghanistan, but he’s not willing to take the political risk of admitting he overruled the brass in the process.

“The generals also undercut Mr. Biden’s spin about their advice as the chaotic withdrawal was underway.  He said the generals unanimously supported his Aug. 31 deadline for the departure of U.S. troops.  But as Gen. Milley confirmed in questioning by Sen. Tom Cotton, that advice was given on Aug. 25 – 10 days after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.

“Waiting that long essentially presented the generals with a fait accompli, since the Taliban were already entrenched in Kabul.  It didn’t have to unfold that way.  Once it became clear Kabul was going to fall in mid-August, the U.S. could have told the Taliban that it was going to secure a wide perimeter around the Kabul airport and control the city until the withdrawal of Americans and Afghan allies was complete.

“That would have allowed a more orderly departure, and potentially less loss of life, even if it meant extending the Aug. 31 deadline. But Mr. Biden wanted out immediately, so he cast another rotten tactical decision as the result of military advice rather than his own willfulness.

“The Administration’s sunny assurances about the impact of the withdrawal on U.S. national security were also undercut by the brass. When Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona asked Gen. McKenzie, ‘Are you confident that we can deny organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS the ability to use Afghanistan as a launchpad for terrorist activity?’ the general said, ‘I would not say I am confident.’

“Gen. Milley similarly called the outcome in Afghanistan a ‘strategic failure’ as ‘the enemy is in charge in Kabul’ – a break in tone for an Administration that has been casting the Taliban as a potential partner.  He still insisted it was a ‘logistical success’ – a dubious designation of an operation that, despite an impressive number of flights from Kabul, saw 13 U.S. deaths and a mistaken drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children….

“The Afghan withdrawal is the greatest U.S. foreign-policy humiliation in decades.  The damage is made worse by the failure of accountability, starting with the Commander in Chief.”

On a different matter, Milley’s forceful defense of his talks with his Chinese counterpart was effective.

He emphasized that this was something that was cleared with the highest levels of the Defense Department, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and later with acting defense secretary Christopher Miller.  He said he also looped in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after the second call in January.  As in the message was, it wasn’t just him.

Milley said: “At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority or insert myself in the chain of command.”

Miller also sought to play down the idea that this was done out of fear of Trump’s potential actions.

“I know – I am certain – that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese, and it was my direct responsibility by the secretary to convey that intent to the Chinese,” Milley said.

Trump has said that Milley’s actions amounted to treason, a talking point picked up by Fox News and others, and it was far from it. 

--Editorial / New York Post

“It’s not just one debacle: Eight months in, Joe Biden’s presidency is collapsing on every front.

“Joblessness has been rising for weeks, inflation remains high, his own border chief is warning of a record-breaking migrant surge in October, and the president’s planned private-sector vaccine mandate is still MIA.

“Biden put all his (limited) energy into legislation to transform the nation into Bernie Sanders’ dream welfare state – and that scheme’s imploding too, as Democrats descent into infighting.

“Biden promised a return to normalcy; instead, the country’s in chaos – with little hope our clueless leader can turn anything around any time soon.

“Initial jobless claims have risen three straight weeks in a row, the feds announced Thursday… another surprise for economists, who’d expected much rosier news.

“When the feds announced the economy had added just 235,000 jobs last month, Biden claimed there’s ‘no question’ the Delta variant was responsible.  But now joblessness is rising as Covid cases are falling.  Experts estimate the fourth wave peaked Sept. 13; new daily cases fell 20 percent in the last week.

“And the border crisis is set to grow.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week asked his senior officials if they’re prepared for a possible 350,000 to 400,000 border crossers in October, two sources told NBC News.  That would be nearly double July’s two-decade high of 210,000 migrants.  So much for Biden’s claim months ago that the surge is just ‘seasonal.’

“Mayorkas fears the larger wave will come if courts insist on narrowing the use of Title 42, which allows blocking migrants due to the pandemic.  But the Bidenites already ignored it to let in thousands in a single September week after tens of thousands of Haitian migrants flooded Del Rio, Texas; it deported a very small minority.  And Panama’s foreign minister, Erika Mouynes, warns that up to 60,000 more migrants, many Haitian, are on their way through her country to ours.

“Meanwhile, the administration can’t even forward its own stated Covid policies.  Biden made a big show three weeks ago of saying he’d force companies with 100 or more employees to institute a vax mandate via an Occupational Safety and Health Administration order.  Business owners desperately want to know the details so they can plan.

“But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki still won’t offer any timeline for the order’s release, saying simply, ‘Hopefully, we’ll know more in the coming weeks.’  Did the White House only start the process after Biden announced it?

“The only challenge this administration seems able to handle is keeping the president from facing reporters’ questions.”

--Vice President Kamala Harris is in deep merde again.  During a discussion with students at George Mason University in Virginia, she did not challenge a comment by a student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide” and then defended her right to say it.

The student, who identified herself as part-Yemeni, part-Iranian and “not an American,” also expressed outrage at U.S. funding of the Iron Dome missile defense project.

She said America affects her life “every day” due to military funding it gives to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America,” she said.  “But I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine.  But then just a few days ago, there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

In response, Harris said she was “glad” the student spoke up.

“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard,” she said. 

Harris said democracy is strongest when everyone participates and is weakest when anyone is left out.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman expressed outrage at Harris’ statements, tweeting: “Shameful. There is truth and there are lies.  No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.”

Ms. Harris is simply not ready for prime time, let alone 2024.  Party insiders are panicking.

The Pandemic

We had big news Friday morning, as Merck & Co. said its experimental Covid-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the coronavirus and that it would soon ask health officials in the U.S. and around the world to authorize its use.

If cleared, Merck’s drug would be the first pill shown to treat Covid-19, a potentially major advance in efforts to fight the pandemic.  All Covid-19 therapies now authorized in the U.S. require an IV or injection.

Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said early results showed patients who received the drug, called molnupiravir, within five days of Covid-19 symptoms had about half the rate of hospitalization and death as patients who received a dummy pill.  The study tracked 775 adults with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 who were considered higher risk for severe disease due to health problems such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

Among patients taking molnupiravir, 7.3% were either hospitalized or died at the end of 30 days, compared with 14.1% of those getting the dummy pill.  There were no deaths in the drug group after that time period compared with eight deaths in the placebo group, according to Merck.  The results were released by the company and have not been peer reviewed.  Merck said it plans to present them at a future medical meeting.

An independent group of medical experts monitoring the trial recommended stopping it early because the interim results were so strong.  Company executives said they are in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration and plan to submit the data for review in coming days.

“It exceeded what I thought the drug might be able to do in this clinical trial,” said Dr. Dean Li, vice president of Merck research.  “When you see a 50% reduction in hospitalization or death that’s a substantial clinical impact.”

Side effects were reported by both groups in the trial, but the company did not specify the problems.

The U.S. has approved one antiviral drug, remdesivir, specifically for Covid-19, and allowed emergency use of three antibody therapies that help the immune system fight the virus.  But all the drugs have to be given by IV or injection at hospitals or medical clinics, and supplies have been stretched by the Delta variant.

Experts compare Merck’s pill to the decades-old flu medication Tamiflu, that helps fight influenza.

The U.S. government has committed to purchase 1.7 million doses of Merck’s pill if it is authorized by the FDA.  The company has contracts with governments worldwide.  It has not yet announced prices.

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Editorial / Wall Street Journal…on CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s decision last week to overrule the agency’s outside advisers and back a broad booster rollout.

“ ‘As CDC Director, it is my job to recognize where our actions can have the greatest impact.  At CDC, we are tasked with analyzing complex, often imperfect data to make concrete recommendations that optimize health,’ Dr. Walensky wrote in a statement.  ‘In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good.’

“She’s right.  The added protection against breakthrough infections will help the country get through what could be a rough winter. Experts predict that flu and other respiratory viruses will be more prevalent this year. Breakthrough infections could exacerbate the strain on the healthcare system and swell demand for monoclonal antibody therapies, which the Administration has been rationing.

“A booster shot costs the government $20 compared to $2,100 for a monoclonal antibody treatment.  A non-ICU Covid hospitalization costs $33,525.  Add the health and economic benefits of fewer infections, and the cost-benefit analysis seems clear.  The CDC has made many mistakes during the pandemic, but Dr. Walensky made the right call on boosters.”

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…4,805,032
USA…718,970
Brazil…597,292
India…448,605
Mexico…277,505
Russia…208,142
Peru…199,395
Indonesia…142,026
UK…136,789
Italy…130,973
Colombia…126,336
Iran…120,663
France…116,759
Argentina…115,225
Germany…94,253
South Africa…87,705
Spain…86,463
Poland…75,666
Turkey…64,264
Ukraine…56,446
Philippines…38,493
Chile…37,476
Romania…37,210
Ecuador…32,762
Czechia…30,475
Hungary…30,199
Canada…27,921
Pakistan…27,785
Bangladesh…27,531
Malaysia…26,456
Belgium…25,602
Tunisia…24,901
Iraq…22,302
Bulgaria…20,969

[Source: worldometers.info]

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 730; Mon. 689; Tues. 1,830; Wed. 2,199; Thurs. 1,812; Fri. 1,807.

Covid Bytes

--Regulatory clearance of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine for young children may not come until November, after the companies said they won’t ask for the green light for a few weeks.

The companies said Tuesday they provided U.S. health regulators with data from a recent study of their vaccine in children 5 to 11 years old.  They said they would file an application asking the Food and Drug Administration to authorize use in the coming weeks, though they had previously targeted submitting the application as early as the end of September.

That timeline for potential availability of the shots prompted parents, public health experts and vaccine experts to anticipate shots as early as October.

But with Pfizer not finishing its application until mid-October, the FDA may not make its decision until as late as Thanksgiving.

--New York hospitals prepared to fire thousands of healthcare workers for not complying with a Covid-19 vaccine mandate on Monday, Sept. 27, which meant some hospitals in the state had to curtail or suspend elective surgeries or will prohibit ICU patients from other hospitals amid the staffing shortage.  But there were some stories there was a rush among workers to get vaccinated, and at least 90% of them had been fully vaccinated by last Sunday.

New York City didn’t seem to have any serious issues in its hospitals, with the head of the NYC Health & Hospitals, Dr. Mitchell Katz, saying 95% of nurses were vaccinated and all of the group’s facilities were “open and fully functional.”

New York city has faced a similar situation with its teachers and it appears a crisis has been averted with a rush to vaccinate or risk losing their jobs.

--Romania’s two largest cities are gearing up for new restrictions, including a night-time curfew, after a surge of new Covid-19 cases across eastern Europe over the past two weeks.

With the infection rate exceeding six cases per 100,000 people in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca and reports of hospitals filling with coronavirus patients again, authorities are also preparing to tie access to restaurants to vaccination status and ban large events.

Eastern Europe is lagging their richer western neighbors in vaccinations.  Ukraine said Wednesday that new hospitalizations more than doubled in a day to the highest total since May.  Poland reported the biggest daily increase in infections in four months.

Romania has fully vaccinated just 27.5% of its 19 million people.

--Japan lifted its Covid-19 state of emergency, which covers 19 prefectures, in all of the regions at the end of September.

Even with the state of emergency lifted, authorities are likely to keep some curbs in place, fearing a spike in infections if the country opens up completely.

But after peaking at 26,000 cases a day in mid-August, right after the Tokyo Olympics, Japan has seen the number decline to about 2,000.

Wall Street and the Economy

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, at a European Central Bank forum, said resolving “tension” between high inflation and still elevated unemployment is the most urgent issue facing the Fed right now, acknowledging that the Fed’s two goals are in potential conflict.

“This is not the situation that we have faced for a very long time and it is one in which there is a tension between our two objectives…Inflation is high and well above target and yet there appears to be slack in the labor market.

“Managing through that over the next couple of years is the highest and most important priority and it is going to be very challenging,” with hope put for now in the “hypothesis” that inflation will ease on its own, he said.

Powell added, “It is also frustrating to see the bottlenecks and supply chain problems not getting better – in fact, at the margin, apparently getting a little bit worse.”

“We see that continuing into next year, probably, and holding inflation up longer than we had thought,” Powell said.

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said of the economic rebound, “We’re back from the brink, but not completely out of the woods.  We still have uncertainty.”

Lagarde said supply-chain disruptions were accelerating in some sectors, while energy price increases were an area to watch, along with potential new waves of the coronavirus pandemic that might be vaccine-resistant.

Powell later told a House Financial Services Committee hearing that a surge in prices this year “is a function of supply-side bottlenecks over which we have no control.”  Powell appeared alongside Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

As for the debt-ceiling, Yellen told Congress that the U.S. will run out of its flexibility to avoid breaching the limit on Oct. 18.  And then hours later, the first of various attempts to suspend the debt ceiling failed.

“It is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date,” Yellen wrote in the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, referring to Oct. 18.

To address the fact that the government spends far more than it brings in in tax revenue, the government borrows money by issuing debt and Congress sets the limit on same.

If Congress does not raise the limit, the Treasury Department will not have the capability to pay all of its bills.

Secretary Yellen has warned that failure to raise the debt ceiling could have catastrophic consequences.  She told lawmakers it could cause child tax credit payments to halt for 30 million families, delay Social Security payments for 50 million seniors and result in a spike in unemployment.

“We know from previous debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States for years to come,” she wrote in the letter. “Failure to act promptly could also result in substantial disruptions to financial markets, as heightened uncertainty can exacerbate volatility and erode investor confidence.”

On the economic data front, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index for July showed the 20-city index was up 19.7% year-on-year, the highest ever annual rate since the index began in 1987, and the fourth consecutive month of record price appreciation.

We had our first manufacturing PMI data for September, with the ISM national index at 61.1, better than expected (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction).  The Chicago ISM reading was a very robust 64.7.

August durable goods orders (big-ticket items) rose a higher-than-forecast 1.8%, 0.2% ex-transportation.

August personal income rose 0.2%, while consumption increased 0.8%, both basically in line with expectations, though July spending was revised significantly downward.

This report includes the Fed’s preferred inflation benchmark, the personal consumption expenditures index and it was up 0.3% on core, 3.6% vs. a year ago, far higher than the Fed wants to see, but unchanged from July.

As alluded to above, the weekly jobless claims figure was higher than the previous week, 362,000, up 11,000, and not exactly great.

And the final reading on second-quarter GDP came in at 6.7%, vs. 6.3% in the first, with consumption up a robust 12%.

But the third quarter isn’t going to be as rosy when the estimates start rolling in, the first reading on Q3 GDP end of October.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for Q3 now sits at just 2.3%.

Europe and Asia

We had PMI readings on manufacturing (services next week) for the eurozone in September, courtesy of IHS Markit.

The final EA19 manufacturing PMI for the month came in at 58.6, virtually unchanged from August’s 58.7.

Germany 58.4, France 55.0, Italy 59.7, Spain 58.1, Ireland 60.3, Netherlands 62.0.

UK 57.1, down from 60.3 in August, a seven-month low.

Chris Williamson / IHS Markit

“While Eurozone manufacturing expanded at a robust pace in September, growth has weakened markedly as producers report a growing toll from supply chain headwinds.

“Supply issues continue to wreak havoc across large swathes of European manufacturing, with delays and shortages being reported at rates not witnessed in almost a quarter of a century and showing no signs of any imminent improvement.

“Growing supply and transport issues are not only being cited as a major constraint on both production and demand, but also once again drove prices sharply higher in September.

“Factory jobs growth has meanwhile also slowed partly due to lower labor requirements amid the widespread component shortages.

“With costs rising and factories struggling to produce enough goods to meet customer demand, the average price of goods leaving the factory gate rose at an increased rate in September, accelerating to almost match the record price jumps seen earlier in the summer.

“The supply situation should start to improve now that Covid-19 cases are falling and vaccination rates are improving in many countries, notably in several key Asian economies from which many components are sourced, but it will inevitably be a slow process which could see the theme of supply issues and rising prices run well into 2022.”

Meanwhile, a flash reading on euro area annual inflation for September came in at 3.4%, up from 3.0% in August, according to Eurostat.  Ex-food and energy the figure is 1.9%, which is up from 0.5% a year earlier.

Germany’s annualized rate of 4.1% is its highest in 40 years. France 2.7%, Italy 3.0%, Spain 4.0%, Ireland 3.7%, Netherlands 2.9%.

Eurostat also reported that the unemployment rate for the eurozone in August was 7.5%, down from 7.6% in July 2021 and from 8.6% in August 2020.

Germany 3.6%, France 8.0%, Italy 9.3%, Spain 14.0%, Ireland 6.4%, Netherlands 3.2%.

Brexit: Britain’s trucker shortage grew more severe over the weekend, as those still on the road struggle to keep Britain’s supermarkets, gas stations and factories supplied.  The trucking industry says it needs another 100,000 drivers after Brexit forced many European workers to leave and the pandemic halted training and testing.

But many drivers say the problems are more fundamental than that, with 15-hour days and hostile conditions putting new recruits off.  Aside from having to deal with people smugglers, who steal fuel from trucks while the drivers sleep, there are disgusting conditions, with few toilets and even fewer showers for the drivers.  You see very few modern facilities like truckers have in the U.S. in Europe.

The British government has agreed to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers in the run-up to Christmas, and is trying to lure retired drivers back to the job.  But much more needs to be done, particularly to attract younger workers.  And the foreign truckers, mostly from eastern Europe, are concerned that they’ll be left in the lurch after their visa expires.

But the pandemic, and drivers spending more time with their families, forced many of them to reassess their career choice.

So with all the above at play, the British military is going to be put to use to deliver the goods, especially to petrol stations.  Last weekend, 50 to 90 percent of pumps were dry in some areas of Britain, with panic-buying exacerbating the situation.  As I go to post, many pumps are still dry, which is disrupting many sectors of the economy. 

Such as in 100,000 pigs are backed up on farms, though here it is mostly about a shortage of butchers and abattoir (slaughterhouse) workers that may force a cull of tens of thousands of pigs.  Here again, immigration rules, post-Brexit, are the prime culprit.

Separately, France will decide within two weeks on possible retaliation measures after Britain and the Channel Island of Jersey refused dozens of French fishing boats a license to operate in their territorial waters.

Paris accused London of playing politics with post-Brexit fishing rights and urged other European Union nations to take a similarly tough stand against what it called Britain’s disregards towards the new trading relationship.  The flare-up over fisheries comes as Paris fumes over Britain’s involvement in a new Indo-Pacific security pact with the United States and Australia that led to Canberra’s decision to ditch an agreement to buy French submarines.

Fishing and the control of British waters were a hot topic during Britain’s’ 2016 referendum to leave the EU.  But British fishermen have since accused the government of selling them out by allowing European boats to continue fishing in them.

Britain said it had granted licenses to almost 1,700 vessels to fish in the 12-200 nautical mile zone, and a further 105 licenses were issued for vessels to fish in the 6-12 nautical mile zone.

An aide to President Emmanuel Macron said, “the behavior of the British is not that of an ally.”

Rough stretch for the French, I think you’d agree.

Turning to Asia…China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported the official manufacturing PMI for September fell to 49.6 from 50.1 in August.  Non-manufacturing, on the other hand, rebounded solidly from August’s 47.5 to 53.2.

The Caixin private manufacturing reading for September was 50.0 vs. 49.2 in August.

In Japan, the manufacturing PMI came in at 51.5 for last month vs. 52.7 in the prior one.

August industrial production fell 3.2% month-on-month, but was up 9.3% year-over-year.

Retail sales for August were down 4.1% over July, and down 3.2% Y/Y.

South Korea’s Sept. manufacturing PMI was 52.4; Taiwan’s 54.7, a 13-month low amid severe supply-chain disruptions, as noted further below.

Street Bytes

--After an ugly ending Thursday to the third quarter, the S&P 500 down 4.8% in September (but up 0.2% for Q3), its worst month since March 2020, the Dow Jones down 4.3% and Nasdaq 5.3%, stocks got off to a better start in October, today, as travel and leisure stocks, such as airlines and cruise lines, soared on news of the new Merck antiviral Covid-19 therapy pill.  Merck shares surged 8% as well.

Earlier in the week, inflation and supply-chain fears predominated.

Friday’s rally cut the week’s losses, with the Dow down 1.4% to 34326, the S&P losing 2.2% and Nasdaq 3.2%.

Now it’s earnings season and it should be a most interesting one.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.04%  2-yr. 0.26%  10-yr. 1.46%  30-yr. 2.03%

Despite the sturm und drang in the bond market, with the yield on the 10-year hitting 1.56% at one point, in the end we basically finished where we started.

As former NBA star Derrick Coleman would have said, “Whoopty-damn-do.”

--Shockingly, at least to yours truly, a second term for Fed Chair Jerome Powell is highly uncertain.  Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Powell on his record on financial regulation during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, and said she wouldn’t support him for a second term.

“Your record gives me grave concern,” Warren said.  “You have acted to make our banking system less safe, and that makes you a dangerous man to head up the Fed and that is why I will oppose your renomination.”

Dangerous?  The use of such to describe Powell is outrageous.  But it seems that White House aides are considering recommending President Biden keep Powell, whose term expires in February, on the job. 

Powell has bipartisan support in the Senate, but Biden will weigh the political fallout of picking a Fed chair who is more popular with Republicans than Democrats, and on this, Warren has influence, sadly.

The chair seat is just one of four positions the Biden administration could fill.  Vice Chair Richard Clarida’s term as a governor expires in January, and Randal Quarles term as vice chair of supervision expires next month.  In addition, there is a vacant seat.

What’s more, Robert Kaplan and Eric Rosengren, presidents of the Dallas and Boston Fed banks, have resigned in the wake of scrutiny over their stock trading in 2020, possibly throwing two new forecasts into the equation when Fed officials meet in December.

Rosengren cited health issues for his resignation.  He was facing mandatory retirement next June when he turns 65.  Kaplan admitted his stock trading distracted from the Fed’s work.

Neither was forced to resign by Chair Powell.  But it’s unfortunate.  Both were good civil servants with tremendous expertise that will be missed.  No one has said their stock trading was malicious, or illegal.

Editorial / Washington Post

“Few looking at the mild-mannered Jerome H. Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, would imagine that he is a ‘dangerous man.’ But that is the conclusion Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) drew on Tuesday, as Mr. Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee….

“Mr. Powell’s current term expires in February.  President Biden should ignore Ms. Warren and renominate an accomplished civil servant who has seen the nation’s monetary policy through extremely challenging times….

“(Ms. Warren) warned that ‘renominating you means gambling…for the next five years’ on a Republican majority of the Federal Reserve with a Republican chair.  It could just as easily be argued that a Republican chair is a plus.  As Mr. Powell has responded ably to the Covid-19 crisis, the chair has overseen a sea change in monetary policy that many Democrats have long demanded, emphasizing the full employment half of the Fed’s dual mandate, rather than strict inflation control.  The significance of this shift is hard to overstate.  Yet Mr. Powell has pulled it off without substantial partisan controversy.  That Mr. Powell has tamped down on inflation concerns enables Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats to pursue large Covid-19 rescue plans and social spending legislation – with cover from a senior Trump appointee.

“Renominating Mr. Powell would also send an essential message. The Fed must remain as independent and insulated from partisanship as possible.  President Donald Trump broke with tradition with he refused to renominate Janet L. Yellen for another term leading the central bank.  Mr. Biden should reinstitute the norm that Fed chairs do not change with every new administration, but receive space and deference that other major appointees do not.”

--Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit $80 on Tuesday, with West Texas Intermediate (that which I quote in these columns) trading over $76, before prices slipped on Wednesday after U.S. crude inventories rose by more than anticipated, even as OPEC plans to maintain its deliberate approach to adding supply to the market.  U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 4.6 million barrels last week, exceeding expectations, boosted by a rebound in output as offshore facilities shut in by two Gulf hurricanes resumed activity.

Oil has been charging higher as economies recover from pandemic lockdowns and fuel demand picks up, while some producing countries have seen supply disruptions.

U.S. oil output has risen to levels we were hitting before Hurricane Ida hit about a month ago, 11.1 million barrels per day.  But production has failed to recapture the levels seen at the end of 2019, when output rose to almost 13 million bpd.

Demand is forecast to rise strongly in the next few years, and OPEC warned on Tuesday that the world needs to keep investing in production to avert a crunch even as it transitions to less polluting forms of energy.

OPEC+ is likely to stick to an existing deal to add 400,000 barrels per day to its output for November when it meets next week, despite oil hitting a three-year high and pressure from consumers for more supply.

OPEC and allies led by Russia agreed in July to increase production by 400,000 bpd each month to phase out 5.8 million bpd in cuts.  It also agreed to assess the deal in December.

Meanwhile, European natural-gas prices have more than quadrupled this year and the rally is unlikely to relent soon.  Weather forecasts point to a chilly November and December in Europe, which would bolster gas demand.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Europe’s climate follies have created fuel shortages and price spikes that are rippling through global energy markets. Demand for liquefied natural gas in Europe has soared due to waning wind production, the shutdown of coal and nuclear plants, and lower Russian gas deliveries.  But there’s not enough LNG to supply Europe and the world.  Asia and Europe are having to burn more coal to keep their lights on. But coal is also in short supply, and factories in China are shutting down as local governments ration power. Gas-powered generators in Asia are switching to burning oil, which is also pushing up crude prices….

“White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday assured Americans that the Administration is speaking ‘to international partners, including OPEC’ about ‘doing more to support the recovery.’  How about encouraging more U.S. production?

“OPEC and Russia are gradually ramping up supply, but U.S. oil production remains 15% below pre-pandemic levels….

“On Monday energy companies scrapped a 116-mile pipeline to deliver gas from Pennsylvania to New Jersey due to regulatory obstructions.  Pipeline blockades by Democratic states in the Northeast have depressed gas prices and investment in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.  One ironic result is that, with gas in short supply, New York and New Jersey may wind up burning more oil for electricity this winter.

“Meantime, permits issued by the Interior Department for drilling on federal land declined to 171 in August from 671 in April. Democrats’ $3.5 trillion-plus spending bill includes royalty and fee increases that would make U.S. oil and gas producers globally uncompetitive.  Less U.S. production will make global oil and gas prices higher for longer than necessary….

“OPEC estimates that global oil demand will increase 28% over the next two decades from pre-pandemic levels as low-income countries industrialize. Even as the West pushes renewables and electric cars, oil and gas are forecast to make up roughly the same share of global energy in 2045 as they do today.  Nigerians and Guatemalans won’t be driving Teslas.

“OPEC predicts the Middle East will make up 57% of crude exports by 2045, up from 48% in 2019.  Liberals will dismiss the OPEC report as self-serving, but today’s energy shortages and price spikes are a blaring reminder that the world needs more, not less, oil and natural gas.”

--As for China and power issues that developed over the weekend in some of its northern provinces, several key Apple and Tesla suppliers were among those that said they had halted production on Sunday at some of their Chinese facilities to comply with the country’s tighter energy consumption policy.

The suppliers noted they expected the shutdowns to be “temporary,” but the stops in production puts the supply-chain at even further risk during a peak season for electronics goods including the latest iPhones.

China’s power crunch, caused by tight coal supplies and toughening emissions standards, has triggered a contraction in heavy industry across several regions and is dragging on the counry’s economic growth rate.

--A Chinese state-owned enterprise struck a deal to buy most of China Evergrande Group’s 5.00% stake in a commercial bank for $1.5 billion, the latest sign that the country’s authorities are trying to help the property giant resolve some of its financial troubles.

Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, has struggled in recent months to raise cash and meet its financial obligations after borrowing heavily from large and small investors, banks, suppliers and home buyers who paid in advance for apartments that the company promised to build.  It reported the equivalent of $304 billion in liabilities at the end of June, including $88.5 billion in interest-bearing debt.

Last week, the company missed a coupon payment on its U.S. dollar bonds, and missed another interest payment this week.

Construction of many of Evergrande’s developments has ground to a halt and the company has been paying some suppliers and contractors with unfinished apartment units.

--China’s HNA Group, once one of the country’s most acquisitive conglomerates, said on Saturday that the day before its chairman and its chief executive had been taken away by police due to suspected criminal offenses.

HNA’s flagship business is Hainan Airlines, but the holding company used a $50 billion global acquisition spree, mainly fueled by debt, to build an empire with stakes in businesses from Deutsche Bank to Hilton Worldwide. 

The spending drew scrutiny from the Chinese government and overseas regulators.  As concerns grew over its mounting debts, it sold assets such as airport services company Swissport and electronics distributors Ingram Micro to focus on its airline and tourism businesses.  After the pandemic paralyzed travel demand, the Hainan government sent in a work group to HNA to help resolve its liquidity problems.

--United Airlines said it would terminate about 600 employees for refusing to comply with its vaccination requirement, putting the company at the forefront of the battle over vaccine mandates.

The airline also said that 99 percent of its U.S. work force of 67,000 had been vaccinated, a great sign that mandates can be an effective tool for companies to prod their employees to get shots.

In August, United Airlines became the first U.S. carrier and one of the first large corporations to mandate a vaccine for Covid-19.

--TSA checkpoint travel numbers vs. 2019…

9/30…79 percent of 2019 level
9/29…70
9/28…67
9/27…78
9/26…86
9/25…77
9/24…79
9/23…76

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

--Ford announced a major investment in electric vehicle (EV) production in the U.S., promising to build its biggest ever factory in Tennessee, and two battery parks in Kentucky.

Under the $11.4 billion plan, the automaker said it will build zero-emission cars and pickups “at scale” for American consumers, and create 11,000 jobs in the process.

Like rivals GM and Stellantis, Ford hopes that by 2030, half of the cars it sells will be zero emission.

“This is our moment – our biggest investment ever – to help build a better future for America,” said CEO Jim Farley in a statement.  “We are moving now to deliver breakthrough electric vehicles for the many rather than the few.”

Ford has already ramped up investment in EV production at its Texas and Michigan plants.  It said it would be making the new investments in partnership with SK Innovation, a South Korean battery maker.

EV sales in the U.S. accounted for just 2% of new EVs globally last year.

But Ford and the others still need major government investment, such as in building new charging stations and consumer incentives before EV sales could take off.  But the cash is tied up in the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

--Meanwhile, General Motors and Ford said Thursday they will cut additional production because of the nagging semiconductor shortage that has hit global auto production. 

--Separately, GM said today that its U.S. vehicle sales declined in the third quarter due to the semiconductor shortages and record low inventories.

The automaker delivered 446,997 units during the quarter, a decrease of 218,195 from the same period a year ago.

GM did show year-over-year improvements in key segments, including a 2-percentage-point rise on the company’s retail share of the full-size pickup segment, with the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra achieving a combined 38% share, according to J.D. Power.  Deliveries of the Cadillac Escalade, a luxury SUV, also surged by 123%.

GM did say today that semiconductor supply disruptions are improving.

--Toyota Motor North America on Friday reported U.S. sales of 152,916 vehicles in September, down 22.4% from a year earlier. 

For the third quarter, sales were 566,005 vehicles, up 1.4% over a year ago.

Year-to-date, Toyota sales in the U.S. were up 29.1% on a volume basis to 1,857,884.

--On the semiconductor shortage front, Taiwan’s Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said this week that resolving the global shortage of auto semiconductors needs Malaysia’s help, especially when it comes to packaging.  Taiwan, as a major chip producer, has been front and center of efforts to resolve the shortage, which had idled auto plants around the world.

Wang said Taiwan alone could not sort out the problem because the supply chain is so complex.  “The bottleneck in fact is in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, because for a while the factories were all shut down.

The problem was especially acute with auto chip packaging, with companies in Malaysia providing services not offered by Taiwanese firms.

Malaysia is apparently back to 80% of capacity.  The country accounts for 13% of global chip packaging and testing, and 7% of the world’s semiconductor trade passes through Malaysia.

--In nine years, Rolls-Royce will stop selling vehicles that run on gasoline, the company announced Wednesday.  The first of the company’s planned all-electric portfolio, the Spectre sedan, will arrive by the fourth quarter of 2023.

By the way, the automaker had its start in 1904 when Charles Rolls and Henry Royce agreed to build cars together.

--Walmart Inc. said it aims to hire 150,000 workers ahead of the busy holiday shopping season, another sign that retailers are rushing to staff stores and warehouses in a tight U.S. labor market.

Most of the positions will be offered as long-term store jobs, not seasonal jobs.  Earlier in September the retailer said it aimed to hire 20,000 warehouse staff to keep products flowing to stores and shoppers’ homes.  It has also raised pay for most roles, increasing its minimum wage to $12 an hour.  The company said its average U.S. hourly wage is $16.40.

Earlier this month, Amazon said it aims to hire 125,000 more workers after hiring hundreds of thousands of employees during the pandemic. Target Corp. aims to hire 100,000 seasonal workers and around 30,000 warehouse employees.

--Shares in Bed Bath & Beyond on Thursday fell 22% after the company reported fiscal second quarter earnings that were abysmal, $0.04 per share, compared with $0.50 per share a year earlier.  The consensus called for $0.52.

Revenue for the quarter ended Aug. 28 was $1.99 billion, compared with $2.69 billion a year earlier.  The retailer (one of my personal favorites) also gave dismal guidance for the current quarter and full year, blaming supply chain hurdles and rising cases of the Delta variant.

Retailers have been battling port congestions and escalating transportation costs due to global supply chain disruptions in recent months as rising coronavirus cases dampened hopes of a swift economic recovery and a strong holiday season. 

--Wells Fargo & Co., the U.S. bank with the most employees, delayed its return-to-office date to early next year.  The lender will now begin bringing back employees who have been working remotely starting Jan. 10, according to an internal memo Tuesday from Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell.  It had previously planned on beginning the process Nov. 1.

This is the fourth time Wells has pushed back its return-to-office date in recent weeks.  The firm originally laid out a plan to begin bringing workers back Sept. 7, but that was derailed by the Delta variant.

The bank has been encouraging, but not requiring, workers to get vaccinated.

--Facebook Inc. said it would suspend plans for a version of its Instagram app tailored to children, a concession after lawmakers and others voiced concerns about the photo-sharing platform’s effects on young people’s mental health.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said Monday that the social-media service is pausing its work so that it can listen to parents’ concerns.

Facebook’s move follows an article this month in the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series showing that the company’s internal research found Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of young users, particularly teenage girls with body-image concerns.

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from a 2019 internal presentation, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.

--Ozy Media, the digital media company that came under scrutiny for its business practices in recent days following a New York Times expose, announced today that it was shutting down.

The implosion came five days after the Times published an article that raised questions about the company, including detailing an episode in which a top executive at Ozy appeared to have impersonated a YouTube executive during a conference call with Goldman Sachs bankers while the company was trying to raise $40 million.

Marc Lasry, the hedge fund manager and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, resigned as the chairman of the Ozy board yesterday.  The company was led by former MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson, with former BBC anchor Katty Kay having joined Ozy this year, then resigning Tuesday after the Times’ piece, saying the allegations in it “caught me by surprise, are serious and deeply troubling.”

--Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. shares jumped 12% after the space-tourism company announced the Federal Aviation Administration finished an inquiry into the company’s test flight with founder Richard Branson on board, which flew out of its protected airspace.  The company said that the FAA had requested that it designate a larger protected airspace for future flights and introduce new procedures to provide real-time information on flights to air-traffic control.

So Virgin Galactic’s flights, grounded since Aug. 11 as a result of the inquiry, are now cleared to proceed, though that may not be until next year.

--As a regular Dollar Tree customer (some items just make too much sense not to purchase them there), it will be interesting to see how they implement their new Dollar “Plus” strategy in some stores, selling items for up to $5 because of rising costs.

--Three weeks into the 2021 season, overall viewing of the NFL is up 9% over the comparable period last year according to Nielsen and the league’s partners, with an average of 16.9 million viewers on TV and digital platforms.  It’s the best start for the league since 2016, which analysts attribute in part to the easing of the pandemic and other factors.

The ratings rise is occurring as the overall usage of TV declined by 9% over the same period.

Foreign Affairs

Iran: The United States said Iran must grant the UN nuclear watchdog access to a workshop at the TESA Karaj complex as agreed to two weeks ago or face diplomatic retaliation at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors within days.

The workshop makes parts for centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium, and was targeted by apparent sabotage in June in which one of four IAEA cameras there was destroyed and another badly damaged, after which Iran removed them.

TESA Karaj was one of several sites to which Iran agreed to grant IAEA inspectors access to service IAEA monitoring equipment and replace memory cards just as they were due to fill up with data such as camera footage.

The Sept. 12 accord helped avoid a diplomatic escalation between Iran and the West.

“We are deeply troubled by Iran’s refusal to provide the IAEA with the needed access to service its monitoring equipment, as was agreed to in the September 12 Joint Statement between the IAEA and Iran,” a U.S. statement to the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors on Monday said.

Afghanistan:  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the House Armed Services Committee during a rancorous hearing that the war in Afghanistan was lost through pivotal decisions spanning four previous administrations.

“It wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months.  There’s a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back,” Milley said.  He cited multiple examples, including the United States’ decision to shift focus and resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, and never “effectively dealing with Pakistan,” where throughout the war key U.S. adversaries found a haven.

“Whenever you get some phenomenon like a war that is lost – and it has been, in the sense of we accomplished our strategic task of protecting America against al-Qaeda, but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted,” Milley said.  “So whenever a phenomenon like that happens, there’s an awful lot of casual factors.  And we’re going to have to figure that out.  A lot of lessons learned here.”

The day before, Milley and another key figure in the American exit from Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, told a Senate panel that the war had been a “strategic failure” but Biden was within his right to dismiss their counsel that a complete military withdrawal would hasten the Taliban’s takeover.

Both in the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats sparred over the question of whether U.S. leaders – particularly Biden – were honest with the public about their projections for Afghanistan.

“While we’re ripping apart these three gentlemen here I want to remind everybody that the decision the president made was to stop fighting a war that after 20 years it was proven we could not win. There was no easy way to do that,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), told his colleagues, accusing them of “partisan political opportunism.”

Rep. Mike D. Rogers (Ala.), the committee’s top Republican, accused the White House of allowing the State Department to determine the U.S. military posture in Afghanistan.

“We have to admit this was the State Department and the White House that caused this catastrophe, not the Defense Department,” Rogers argued, claiming the withdrawal “will go down in history as one of the greatest failures of American leadership.”

Milley, McKenzie and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin all agreed that the Afghan government’s collapse – and that of the Afghan security forces – occurred much faster than the Pentagon had predicted.  “I did not see it coming as fast as it did,” McKenzie said.  “I thought it would be a matter of into the fall or into the winter.  I did not see it happening in 11 days in August.”

Lawmakers repeatedly referenced an August interview Biden gave to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, in which the president said his military advisers were “split” over whether to retain troops in Afghanistan – and then said no military advisers told him that he could “just keep 2,500 troops” there.

The military leaders refused to detail their conversations with the president.  But Biden clearly did lie.

Meanwhile, Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said last weekend.

Lavrov said the interim government announced by the Taliban does not reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society – ethno-religious and political forces – so we are engaging in contacts.  They are ongoing.”

Lavrov added that international recognition of the Taliban was not currently under consideration.

The Taliban promised an inclusive government, a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 including respecting women’s rights, providing stability after 20 years of war, fighting terrorism and extremism and stopping militants from using their territory to launch attacks.  But recent moves suggest they may be returning to more repressive policies, particularly toward women and girls.

China: The Beijing Winter Olympics will be held in February as scheduled, but tickets for spectators will only be sold to those from mainland China, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday. 

The Tokyo Games in July were held with empty stadiums due to Covid-19 precautions, so Beijing will be an improvement in that regard.

All participants are to be fully vaccinated (with few exceptions) and would enter what is called a “closed-loop management system” immediately upon their arrival, within which they will move freely.  This will cover all Games-related areas and stadiums as well as accommodation, catering and the opening and closing ceremonies, served by a dedicated transport system.  All domestic and international participants as well as the workforce in the system will be tested daily, the IOC said.  Participants who are not fully vaccinated must spend 21 days in quarantine when arriving in Beijing.

Separately, the U.S. and Chinese militaries concluded two days of high-level talks this week, with both sides stressing the need to maintain communication.

The U.S. Defense Department said on Thursday that the meeting was part of the Biden administration’s efforts to “responsibly manage the competition” between the two countries by “maintaining open lines of communication” with China.

“During the talks, the two sides held a frank, in-depth and open discussion on a range of issues affecting the U.S.-[China] defense relationship,” the department said.  “Both sides reaffirmed consensus to keep communication channels open.”

The talks were held by video conference on Tuesday and Wednesday, and involved Michael Chase, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, and Huang Xueping, deputy director for the Chinese military’s Office for International Military Cooperation.

Lastly, late Friday, after I had posted, China released two Canadians who had been in detention since being arrested in 2018, after it was announced that Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Huawei Technologies, was released from her house arrest in Canada as part of a plea agreement. Meng then flew home to a hero’s welcome.

And one more…literally as I was going to post, I saw word that Taiwan reported the largest-ever incursion by the Chinese air force into its air defense zone…38 fighters and bombers in two waves, as Beijing marked the founding of the People’s Republic of China.  A rather disconcerting development.

Editorial / Washington Post

“There was never much subtlety in China’s arrest in 2018 of a pair of low-profile Canadians, a straight-out act of state-sponsored hostage-taking masquerading as criminal prosecutions.  Now, shamelessly, China has dropped any pretense that its actions were anything more than international thuggery, and in so doing also served notice to the rest of the world of its contempt for the norms of conventional diplomacy.

“The Canadians were freed from Beijing’s harsh detention Friday, more than 1,000 days after they were arrested on cooked-up charges. Their arrest came nine days after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou…detained by Canada at Washington’s request on charges of lying to evade compliance with U.S. sanctions on Iran.  The two Canadians, Michael Spavor, a business consultant, and Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, were allowed to fly home shortly after the U.S. Justice Department dropped its attempt to extradite and prosecute Ms. Weng.  She was permitted to fly back to China at the same time.

“China is too big and powerful to be dismissed as a rogue nation, but its thuggery in what Canadians called the case of ‘the two Michaels’ suggests an indifference to established international practices.  In retaliating for the legitimate arrest of one of its citizens – and exceptionally well-connected one – by making hostages of two blameless Canadians, Beijing signaled its disdain for justice, an attitude in line with its scorn for human rights (vis-à-vis the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group) and democracy (in Hong Kong and elsewhere)….

“Nor did it escape the world’s attention that while the two Canadians suffered harsh conditions in what amounted to solitary confinement – they were held in cramped cells in separate prisons in a remote area, with meager food rations and little contact with the outside world – Ms. Meng lived in a luxurious home in Vancouver, free to go on shopping sprees and receive massage treatments with no impediments beyond an ankle bracelet to track her movements.

“The episode should serve as a warning to Western companies and individuals living and doing business in China: that their security and even liberty may be at risk for no good reason and at any time, subject to the whims of a regime that believes itself too mighty to play by the rest of the world’s rules.  Hostage-taking has traditionally been the province of terrorist groups and beyond-the-pale regimes such as Iran’s under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which held dozens of U.S. diplomats as prisoners for 444 days starting in 1979….

“(China’s behavior needs to be recognized) as further justification for Western defensive alliances to counter its aggression.”

North Korea: Pyongyang said Friday it had test-fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile in the fourth round of weapons firings in recent weeks, even as it pushes to reopen communications channels with South Korea in a small reconciliation step.

In September, North Korea resumed its first missile tests in six months but still offered conditional talks with Seoul in what some experts say is an attempt to extract concessions in its nuclear diplomacy with the U.S.  Earlier this week, Kim Jong Un expressed his willingness to restore communication hotlines with South Korea to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The Korean Central News Agency said the anti-aircraft missile test is “of very practical significance in studying and developing various prospective anti-aircraft missile systems.”

But South Korea, Japan and the United States indicated Thursday’s test may not have been a major weapons test.

Kim has shrugged off U.S. offers for dialogue as a “cunning” concealment of its hostility against the North.  He also reiterated the North’s demands that South Korea abandon a “double-dealing attitude” over the North’s missile tests if Seoul wants to see the resumption of talks and major cooperation steps.

The cross-border phone and fax lines have been largely dormant for more than a year.

Some say the North wants South Korea to persuade the United States to ease punishing economic international sanctions on it.  Or North Korea just wants to pressure South Korea not to criticize its ballistic missile tests, which are banned by UN Security Council resolutions, as part of its quest to be recognized internationally as a nuclear power.

North Korea also recently has test-fired a new hypersonic missile, a newly developed cruise missile and a ballistic missile launched from a train.  South Korea’s military assessed the hypersonic missile to be at an early stage of development, but the other tests displayed the North’s ability to attack targets in South Korea and Japan.

North Korea hasn’t tested a long-range missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland for about four years, a sign Pyongyang wants to keep alive its chances for diplomacy.

Russia: Authorities opened a criminal case against imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his closest allies, accusing them Tuesday of forming an extremist group and involvement in one.  It’s just the latest step in a wide-scale crackdown on the Kremlin’s most ardent foe and his followers, particularly the leadership team.

Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov are being investigated for creating and leading an extremist group – a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.  Other associates are also under investigation.  One of them, Lyubov Sobol, told the Associated Press in an interview:

“Many in Russian opposition circles had a hope that the steamroller of political repressions would stop after the election of the State Duma, but it was obvious to me that it would go on right up until 2024, when Vladimir Putin would want to get reelected,” Sobol said.

Putin’s current presidential term expires in 2024, and he is expected to either run for reelection thanks to a constitutional reform measure the Kremlin pushed through last year, or choose some other strategy to stay in power.

Separately, the Kremlin warned on Monday that any expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross one of Putin’s “red lines,” and Belarus said it had agreed to take action with Moscow to counter growing NATO activity.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Moscow ally, accused the United States of setting up training centers in Ukraine that amounted to military bases.

Germany:  The Social Democrats said on Monday they would start the process of trying to forge a three-way alliance and lead a government for the first time since 2005 after they narrowly won Sunday’s national election.

The Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said he aimed to build a coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), saying Germans had voted to send Angela Merkel’s conservatives into opposition after 16 years in power.

“What you see here is a very happy SPD,” Scholz, 63, told supporters at party headquarters in Berlin.

“The voters have very clearly spoken… They strengthened three parties – the Social Democrats, Greens and FDP – and therefore that is the clear mandate the citizens of this country have given – these three should form the next government.”

The center-left Social Democrats finished with 25.7 percent of the vote, 1.6 points ahead of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).  Without Merkel at the helm, the CDU suffered a historic loss, nine points less than the last election.  No winning party in a German national election had previously taken less than 31% of the vote.

The Green Party secured its best-ever result at 14.8 percent, while the liberal Free Democratic Party made modest gains to claim 11.5 percent.

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) came in at 10.3 percent.  The hard left Linke only polled 4.9 percent and will have no parliamentary party as it fell below the five percent hurdle, though it will have three direct MPs in the new Bundestag.

Just understand, forming a final coalition and doling out the top positions in the government could take months. Consider that the Greens are seeking tax hikes for the well-off, which is the FDP’s core voter vase.

The CDU and its leader Armin Laschet insist he can still be chancellor in a “future alliance” with the FDP and Greens.

Japan: Former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida won the governing party leadership election on  Wednesday and is set to become the next prime minister.  Kishida replaces outgoing party leader Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is stepping down after serving only one year since taking office last September.

Little change is expected in key diplomatic and security policies under the new leader.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings…

Gallup: 43% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 53% disapprove; only 37% of independents approve (Sept. 1-17).

Rasmussen: 42% approve of Biden’s performance, 56% disapprove (Oct. 1, unchanged from last week).

--A Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters in Texas found that Gov. Greg Abbott’s approval rating is underwater for the first time since 2018; 44% approve of Abbott’s work as governor while 47% disapprove.

51% say he does not deserve reelection; 42% say he does.

On the situation at the Mexican border: 43% approve, 46% disapprove.

Response to the coronavirus: 46% approve, 50% disapprove.

Abortion: 37% approve, 53% disapprove.

The good news for Abbott, facing reelection in 2022, is that 50% do not think Beto O’Rourke would make a good governor.  49% said they did not think actor Matthew McConaughey would make a good governor either.  McConaughey has said he is “measuring” a run, despite having no party affiliation or stated platform.

In a separate Quinnipiac University poll of Texas voters, weeks after the state enacted one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country that makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, registered voters say 77-16 percent that abortion should be legal when a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest.

That view is shared across party lines. Democrats say 92-5 percent, independents say 80-14 percent, and Republicans say 66-29 percent that abortion should be legal when a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest.

By a 72-21 margin, voters say it’s a bad idea to enforce the new abortion law by allowing private citizens to sue anyone they suspect may have helped an abortion take place after a fetal heartbeat is detectable.

On the issue of making abortion illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detectable, 45 percent of Texas voters say abortion should be illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detectable, 43 percent say it should be legal at that point, while 12 percent did not offer an opinion.

At the same time, though, voters say 60-31 percent that they agree with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion.

On the pandemic, more than 6 in 10 Texans (64-26 percent) think that the recent rise in Covid-19 deaths in Texas was preventable.  A majority of Texans say 60-35 percent that they support requiring students, teachers, and staff to wear masks in schools.

--Here in New Jersey and the November gubernatorial race, according to a Stockton University poll that was released Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy leads Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli by nine points, 50-41.  Last week I told you a different survey had Ciattarelli down by 13.  The Stockton poll was conducted before the candidates’ first debate Tuesday night, in which Ciattarelli, by all accounts, performed well.

Wednesday, I placed my absentee mail-in ballot in the County drop box (located next to my church, ironically), the ‘oval’ filled in for Ciattarelli and other Republicans down ballot.

I have not voted in person ever since they stopped doing bake sales around elections years ago, which really pissed me off.

--Former President Donald Trump held a rally Saturday in Perry, Georgia, in which he said some of the following:

“Each and every one of us here tonight must do everything we can to save America….We made (America) great and now we’ve got to make it great again.  That begins with an earth-shattering win in November 2022.  And by the way, we never forget 2020… We’re not forgetting 2020.  The most corrupt election in the history of our country.  Most corrupt election in the history of most countries, to be followed by an even more glorious victory in November of 2024….

“They attacked and cheated on our elections, and they did it right here in Georgia also… Now the people of Georgia must replace the RINOs and weak Republicans who made it all possible.  In particular, your incompetent and strange… There’s something wrong with this guy.  Your secretary of state. Raffensperger.  I’ll tell you, I think there’s something wrong with him…. Your terrible lieutenant governor who’s no longer running because he knew that he wasn’t doing the job.  He was going to lose.  And your RINO governor, Brian Kemp, who’s been a complete disaster on election integrity, a complete and total… And I’m not looking to say that. …He’s been a complete and total disaster on election integrity.”

Trump then proceeded to rip Kemp for over five minutes.  [I read the full transcript of the rally.]

“You have another bad one, Ducey in Arizona.  He’s another beauty, but not as bad as what you have here…. They ignored monumental evidence of rampant fraud. We’ve all seen the video of ballots being pulled out from under the tables after kicking out all of the observers. Remember that?  Based on a made-up story of ‘Sir, there’s a major water main break clean out.’….

“Now you have to remember that Georgia was decided by only 11,779 votes, so I only needed one more vote than that to win the election. But we have many, many more votes than we needed to win the election.  I recently sent the Georgia Secretary of State a letter outlining the glaring issue, and I’ve never gotten a response. Somebody said, ‘They’re looking at me for questioning the election.’  That’ll be an interesting one.  Let’s go after Trump, because he’s questioning the election.  If I won or lost, all I want is a fair election. That’s all you want.  But I have no doubt that we won, and we won big.”

Trump just goes on and on and on and on about the Georgia vote.  Total bulls---.  And then….

“They say I’m being aggressive, but you have to be aggressive to weed out this horrible election corruption.  You have to be aggressive.  In truth, they’re not after me, they’re after you.  I just happened to be in the way.  That’s what really happening.  Yesterday, we also got the results of the Arizona audit, which were so disgracefully reported by those people back there.  And the headlines claiming that Biden won…. Our fake news at a very big lie…. I mean, we got piles and piles of information, affidavits by the thousands and thousands.   It’s a disgrace.  We won on the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn’t believe….

“(They) all had headlines that Biden wins in Arizona when they know it’s not true.  He didn’t win in Arizona.  He lost in Arizona based on the forensic audit. And some people say, and I understand this and I have great, great friends that really want what’s best for us, they say, ‘Sir, you’re leading in every poll by numbers like nobody’s ever seen before. Think to the future, not to the past.’

“And I say, ‘If we don’t think about the past, you’ll never win again in the future, because it’s all rigged.’  It’s all rigged.  I understand what they’re saying, but it’s all rigged. And it’s a massive disinformation campaign by the corrupt and very fake media.”

Trump then goes on and on and on and on about how he really won Arizona. And it’s one lie after another, after another, after another.  His own fake audit concluded in the end, ah, gee, looks like Donald Trump lost after all. In fact Joe Biden actually gained votes.

--“60 Minutes” interviewed Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney last Sunday.  The interview was conducted days before Trump’s Perry, Ga., rally.

Leslie Stahl: When we spoke to Congresswoman Cheney at the Capitol on Wednesday, we asked about a call she got from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Cheney: She called me. And asked me to be a member of the (House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol).  And I accepted…

Lesley Stahl: Right away?

Cheney: Right away.

Lesley Stahl: No hesitation?

Cheney: None, because it’s so important….

Lesley Stahl: But most Republicans in the House see what you’re doing as a betrayal…..

Cheney: I think that millions of people around the country have been betrayed and misled, and deceived by Donald Trump. He has said that the election was stolen.  He continues to say that.  He continues to say things that aren’t true, and continues to raise money off of those claims. And so to me, there’s just not a question….

Lesley Stahl: Republicans in Congress feel that by joining this January 6 panel, you are helping to keep the focus on Trump instead of on the shortcomings of the Biden administration.

Cheney: Those who think that by ignoring Trump, he will go away, have been proven wrong.  And in my view, the American people, they deserve better than having to choose between what I think are the really disastrous policies of Joe Biden – in a whole range of ideas, really bad for our economy. From a national security perspective, what’s happened, what he’s done in Afghanistan: very dangerous policies for the country. But the alternative cannot be a man who doesn’t believe in the rule of law, and who violated his oath of office.

Lesley Stahl: Do you think a vote against you (in the Wyoming congressional primary next year) is a vote against the Constitution?

Cheney: A vote against me in this race, a vote for whomever Donald Trump has endorsed is a  vote for somebody who’s willing to perpetuate the big lie, somebody who’s willing to put allegiance to Trump above allegiance to the Constitution, absolutely….

The argument that…you often hear is that if you do something that is perceived as against Trump that, you know, you’ll put yourself in political peril. And that’s a self-fulfilling prophesy because if Republican leaders don’t stand up and condemn what happened then, the voices in the party that are so dangerous will only get louder and stronger.

Lesley Stahl: Polls say that 78% of Republicans do not think that Joe Biden was legitimately elected. And I wonder how do you fight an untruth?  How do you stand up to the anti-vaxxers?  How do you stand up to QAnon? How do you stand up to a president who says the election – falsely – that the election was rigged?

Cheney: When you look at the spread of these mistruths and the spread of the disinformation, you know, silence enables it.  Silence enables the liar. And silence helps it to spread. So the first thing you have to do is say, ‘No.  I’m not going to accept that we’re gonna live in a post-truth world.  It’s a toxin, Lesley, in our political bloodstream. Because when we allow that to continue to go on in the face of rulings of the courts, in the face of recounts, in the face of everything that’s gone on to demonstrate that there was not fraud that would have changed the outcome, then we all – if we do that, we are contributing to the undermining of our system. And it’s a really serious and dangerous moment because of that.

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Former President Trump claims Arizona’s ballot audit found ‘massive fraud,’ yet the new recount says he actually lost the state by 360 more votes than originally reported. He is now demanding an audit of the 2020 election in…Texas, which he won by nearly six points. When are Republicans going to quit playing this game?

“Arizona’s official results say President Biden won by 10,457 votes.  Mr. Trump never accepted the loss, so the GOP state Senate launched an ‘audit’ by hiring Cyber Ninjas, a company without experience reviewing elections.  After repeated delays and various pratfalls, here’s the result: A hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots says that Mr. Biden won the state by 10,817 votes….

“True to his nature, Mr. Trump is claiming vindication based on the audit’s analysis of voter files.  As the biggest example, he says Arizona’s results include ‘23,344 mail-in ballots, despite the person no longer livening at that address.  Phantom voters!’  No. Did he read the report? This figure comes from comparing voter records to a commercial database on change-of-address filings, but look at the caveats.

“Cyber Ninjas says errors are normal when using commercial data.  Most of these voters barely moved: 15,035 stayed in Maricopa county, and another 1,718 went somewhere else in Arizona.  Only 40% were Democrats and 33% Republicans. The audit also admits there are ‘ways that a voter could receive their ballot which in some cases would not violate the law.’

“College students move often, but they could easily pick up ballots that were inadvertently sent home or to old roommates. What about people serving in the military, taking extended vacations, or working remotely?  Address changes were probably noisier than usual last year, given how the pandemic scrambled life.  The report offers no evidence that any of these people voted illegally….

“On Friday, Mr. Trump set to Defcon 1, saying the audit found ‘incomprehensible Fraud at an Election Changing level,’ and demanding that Arizona ‘immediately decertify their 2020 Presidential Election Results.’  Is anyone surprised?  This is what Mr. Trump does, regardless of the facts.  Remember in 2016, when he said the results of the Iowa Caucus should be ‘nullified’ based on ‘the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz’?

“The GOP should quit chasing him down rabbit holes.  Mr. Trump lost last year by 74 electoral votes, so even flipping Arizona would have left him two states short. He can’t admit to his fans that he lost, since it would undermine his rally attendance, fundraising and teasers about 2024.  Perhaps Mr. Trump can’t even admit to himself that he lost, and in his final days he’ll be raging on the heath about ‘ballot dumps.’

“But Democrats this coming week are going to try to pass $2.1 trillion in new taxes and $5 trillion in spending, the greatest expansion of government entitlements since LBJ, or maybe FDR. Where’s a Republican leader who wants to pick up the party’s mantle and talk about that?”

--A former senior Department of Homeland Security official who once accused the Trump administration of politicizing intelligence said Sunday that a return of President Trump to the White House in 2024 “would be a disaster” for the U.S. intelligence community.

“(Former President Trump) has denigrated the intelligence community, he puts out disinformation – and that’s an existential threat to democracy and he is one of the best at putting it out and hurting this country,” Brian Murphy, who once led the DHS intelligence branch, said Sunday in an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.

Murphy, a long-time federal law enforcement official, made headlines last year after filing a whistleblower complaint accusing Trump-appointed leaders of politicizing intelligence by withholding or downplaying threats that ran counter to former President Trump’s political messages.

The 24-page complaint, filed in September 2020, named former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former acting Secretary Chad Wolf as trying to ‘censor or manipulate’ intelligence bulletins related to Russian meddling in the presidential election and the threat of domestic white supremacist groups.

“There was intense pressure to try to take intelligence and fit a political narrative,” Murphy said Sunday.  “When I got to DHS, it was all about politics.”

Murphy said “there was a push-on across government at the senior levels – cabinet officials – to do everything possible to stifle anything” about Russia’s interference.

“They did not want the American public to know that the Russians were supporting Trump and denigrating what would soon be President Biden,” Murphy added.

Murphy also claimed Sunday that discussing white supremacy as a national security threat became a “third-rail issue” within the department after the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

A DHS spokesperson said last year that the agency “flatly denies that there is any truth to the merits of Mr. Murphy’s claim.”

--In a forthcoming tell-all book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House," one of Donald Trump’s former press secretaries, Stephanie Grisham, who was also a former chief of staff to Melania Trump, writes about Trump’s mysterious trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 2019.  The reason, she said: Trump had a colonoscopy, but did not want to disclose it publicly because it would have subjected him to jokes by television comedians.

Grisham famously never conducted a public news briefing during her nine months on the job.

According to an account of the book in the New York Times, Grisham offers an explanation for not holding a briefing: “I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic.”

In a statement, Trump attacked Grisham personally.  He referred to the “break up” of a relationship with an administration official, claiming that made her “very angry and bitter.”

“Stephanie didn’t have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning,” Trump said.

In his statement attacking Grisham, Trump also suggested, again, that he will seek the presidency in 2024: “Someday in the not too distant future we will have our voice back and be treated fairly by the press.”

--Patti Davis / Washington Post

“Over the years, I have written other columns about John Hinckley, pretty much every time he has lobbied for – and gotten – more freedom.

“Every time I have weighed in my mind the value of informing people that this man who shot four people on a chilly March day in 1981 – shooting three of them out of the way so he could try to kill my father – shouldn’t be granted more liberty. I have weighed that against the reality that by writing I was giving Hinckley, a diagnosed narcissist, the attention he craved.

“It’s a devil’s bargain, and even though I believe I’ve been right in speaking out, I have never felt good about it.

“Now, Hinckley’s last restrictions have been lifted. He can now, if he wants, contact me, my siblings and the actress Jodie Foster, whom, as is well known, he was trying to impress by carrying out his ambush.  His lawyer, Barry Levine, said Monday that Hinckley wanted to express ‘profound regret’ to the families of his victims, Foster and the American people.

“I was going to stay silent this time. But again I bargained with the devil, and again I decided that silence wasn’t an option.

“I think I always knew this day would come.  Levine has been relentless on Hinckley’s behalf; he wasn’t going to stop until he secured complete freedom for his client.  People’s memories have faded.  That burst of gunfire outside the Washington Hilton was a long time ago.  I have friends who weren’t even born then.

“But for me, for my family, for Foster, the memory of that day will never fade.  In my mind’s eye, I will always picture Hinckley’s cold eyes as he blew open White House press secretary Jim Brady’s head, as he wounded Secret Service Special Agent Tim McCarthy and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Thomas Delahanty.  I will always picture my father being shoved into the limousine after a shot struck his lung and nearly grazed his heart.

“Recently, a decision to recommend parole for Sirhan Sirhan divided the Kennedy family, as well as much of the public. A half-century has passed since 1968, one of the arguments for his release went.  But the family members who objected know this: When someone you love is gunned down, time doesn’t move on from that day, that hour, that moment.  That event is your prison, and there is no release from it.  I understand struggling for forgiveness, but it’s like peering out from between the prison bars. I don’t believe that John Hinckley feels remorse.  Narcissists rarely do.  I don’t believe that the man who wrote letters to Charles Manson and Ted Bundy while he was in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital regrets what he did.  He and his attorney have worked the system from the beginning and finding a judge who was sympathetic to them, made this day inevitable.

“In my new book, ‘Floating in the Deep End,’ which is about Alzheimer’s, I wrote about the fear that my father would die from the bullet that Hinckley shot into him, and in a strange way it was less frightening to lose him to Alzheimer’s – at least I had some understanding of who the thief was that was going to end his life.

“And now there is another fear – that the man who wielded that gun and almost got his wish of assassinating the president could decide to contact me.  There is no manual for how to deal with something like this.  You can’t Google it or look for reference material.  You just have to live with the fear, and the anger, and the darkness that one person keeps bringing into your life.”

Personally, it is absolutely a disgrace that all restrictions have been lifted on John Hinckley.  I understand he was largely free under the existing order, but this is indeed different.

I feel for Ms. Davis and will pray for her safety.  John Hinckley never should have never seen more than a courtyard’s worth of light the rest of his days.

--USA TODAY reported that suicide among U.S. troops increased 15% in 2020 from the previous year, according to figures confirmed by the paper by congressional and Defense Department sources.  The Pentagon then released the data later in the week.

In 2018, there were 543 suicide deaths among troops, which then fell to 504 in 2019, before jumping to 580 in 2020, according to the Defense Department.

Most of the troops who have died by suicide are young enlisted men.  The Army has seen a spike in suicide among its soldiers in Alaska, including six suspected suicides in the first five months of 2021. The Army has spent more than $200 million in recent years to improve the quality of life and prevent suicide on its bases in the state.

The Pentagon noted in last year’s report that military suicide rates are comparable with the U.S. adult population for active-duty troops and lower for the National Guard and Reserve. But then you had the spike in 2020.

--The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed this week to take 23 animals and plants off the endangered species list – because none can be found in the wild – an example of what scientists say is an accelerating rate of extinction worldwide.  A million plants and animals are in danger of disappearing, many within decades.  The newly extinct species are the casualties of climate change and habitat destruction, dying out sooner than any new protections can save them.

Nine of the species are birds, including the “Lord God Bird,” or the ivory-billed woodpecker, a ghostly bird whose long-rumored survival in the bottomland swamps of the South has haunted seekers for generations.  Now it’s declared extinct.  The bird earned its nickname because it was so big and beautiful that those who spotted it blurted out the Lord’s name.

In 2004, there were a number of sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker in a cypress swamp in Arkansas, but the footage was grainy and some concluded it could have been a related species, the pileated woodpecker.

I’ll never forget a moment, back in the 1960s at the family home, when the four of us were having breakfast in a room overlooking the back yard and there on one of the many trees was a pileated woodpecker.  The most wondrous thing I’ve ever seen, at least in my general area.  Never saw another one again.

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

God bless America.

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Gold $1761
Oil $75.75

Returns for the week 9/27-10/1

Dow Jones  -1.4%  [34326]
S&P 500  -2.2%  [4357]
S&P MidCap  -0.6%
Russell 2000  -0.3%
Nasdaq  -3.2%  [14566]

Returns for the period 1/1/21-10/1/21

Dow Jones  +12.2%
S&P 500  +16.0%
S&P MidCap  +16.4%
Russell 2000  +13.5%
Nasdaq  +13.0%

Bulls 46.5
Bears 22.1

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

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