Week in Review

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Week in Review

05/13/2023

For the week 5/8-5/12

[Posted 5:15 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,256

Even ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos was astonished when on Sunday’s “This Week,” he commented on the just-released Washington Post/ABC News poll that had President Biden sinking to his lowest approval rating ever for this survey – 36% (down from 42% in February).  And, further, Donald Trump defeats Biden, 49% to 42%, in a head-to-head.  At the same time, 18% of the majority of American voters who believe Trump should be held criminally accountable for attempting to overturn the 2020 election still said they would vote for Trump anyway.

“I’ve got to admit I have a hard time wrapping my head around that,” Stephanopoulos said.  “You’ve got one in five people who say they believe President Trump should face criminal charges, but they would still vote for him.”

Also, according to the poll, 58% of Democratic-leaning voters would prefer a candidate other than Biden.  When it comes to independents who lean Democrat, 77% want someone other than Biden.

Meanwhile, in the hours before the U.S. lifted a Covid-19 immigration restriction called Title 42 on Thursday, migrants gathered on both side of the U.S.-Mexico border – with some rushing to cross ahead of tough new asylum rules that will replace the order.  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has in recent days been holding up to 28,000 migrants at its facilities, far beyond its stated capacity and in what appeared to be a record, according to federal officials.

This week, the number of people caught crossing illegally surpassed 11,000 per day.  Because of the volume of people arriving, agents are releasing some migrants without a notice to appear in immigration court, where they can make an asylum claim, and are telling them to report to an immigration office later.

Under Title 42, in place since March 2020, which expired at midnight Thursday, hundreds of thousands of migrants have been quickly expelled to Mexico.  But because Mexico only accepted the return of certain nationalities – mostly their own citizens and Central Americans, and more recently Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans – migrants from other countries have largely been allowed in to pursue their immigration claims.  That is now changing, the new regulation denying asylum to almost all migrants who cross illegally.  The measure will bar anyone who has passed through another country without seeking refuge elsewhere or who failed to use legal pathways to enter the United States.

The policy has been a disaster all around, but not just for border cities like El Paso, but as far away as New York, which has Mayor Eric Adams overwhelmed.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas blamed Republicans for failing to fix immigration laws or provide adequate border funds. But both sides are to blame for decades over the inaction.

Since Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the country has seen a record 4.6 million arrests of migrants crossing illegally, although the tally includes many repeat crossers.

Daniel Henninger / Wall Street Journal

“If Donald Trump during his presidency had figured out a way to make dollars grow on trees in backyards, Joe Biden would have issued an executive order to cut down the trees.  For the past two years, ‘reverse Trump’ has been the short answer to most questions about the rationale for Democratic public policy.  Such as: ‘Why hasn’t Biden done something about what’s going on at the border?’  The answer is that while the Democrats would reverse Trump, they won’t reverse themselves on this or anything else.  Ever.

“Do nothing has been the Biden migration policy since the president named Vice President Kamala Harris as ‘border czar,’ recognized even then as proof certain that nothing serious was intended.

“So here we are, with a super-surge about to commence as Title 42’s deportation authority ends. Tens of thousands more migrants, from as far away as China, are prepared to cross from Mexico into the United States.

“And look who’s screaming the loudest – the American left.  Or at least that part of the left represented by the mayors of Chicago, New York and Washington.

“Our purpose is not to belabor the spectacle of these holier-than-thou ‘sanctuary cities’ falling short on sanctuary.  Listen more closely to the liberals’ lament about their migrant problem and you’ll hear something they say before getting out of bed every morning; ‘We need more resources.’

“When migrants began to get off buses at the Port Authority in New York, Mayor Eric Adams said, ‘New York City needs additional federal resources immediately.’  That was nearly a year ago….

“Resources is a euphemism for one thing – money.  Confronted with a new problem, these blue-city mayors want Joe Biden to do what Washington has done the past 50 years – send money to fix problems largely of their own making, which almost all their own policies have failed to solve….

“By grim coincidence, Mr. Biden met Tuesday with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and congressional leadership to discuss extending the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to avoid what Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the weekend called an ‘economic calamity.’  Again, of their own making….

“So far, Mayors Adams, Lightfoot and the others have gotten nothing from Mr. Biden to help with the migrant flow. And they never will, for two reasons. Any transfer of funds from Washington for migrants would be seen as a tacit admission that reverse-Trump on the border was a mistake.  But more relevant to these cities’ other multiple problems, it would require something that progressive Democrats don’t do; Change course. The progressives’ modern governance playbook is: Once in place, our policy prescriptions never change, no matter what.

“See San Francisco.  This former urban jewel is effectively collapsing as retailers like Nordstrom, Walgreens and Whole Foods flee its unmitigated crime and disorder.  The Biden administration opened the border hydrants and let millions pour into the U.S. mainland.  Pity the poor people in Africa, Asia and Europe who stupidly stood in the official immigration line for years to bring their talents and work ethic to America….

“(It’s unlikely) that a national electorate will let Mr. Biden or congressional Democrats off the hook in 2024 for their who-cares management of spending and the border.

“You’ll recall that Mr. Biden has announced he’s running.  Though doubtful last year about that prospect, the Democrats derived enough solace from the midterm election results to rally around a Biden candidacy.  That was then.  If an economic downturn follows the Biden border botch and public approval for the president flirts with 30%, a primary challenge more serious than RFK Jr. could appear.  By then, even New Yorkers and Chicagoans could be on board for reverse Biden.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Biden says he doesn’t interfere with the Justice Department’s prosecutorial decisions, but influence can take many forms.  One is to send a public signal in an interview that Attorney General Merrick Garland will hear.

“That’s what Mr. Biden did (last) Friday when asked in a rare interview about the probe into his son Hunter’s misadventures.  ‘My son has done nothing wrong,’ the President said on MSNBC.  ‘I trust him.  I have faith in him, and it impacts my Presidency by making me feel proud of him.’

“That’s a highly inappropriate message from a President.  He’s essentially telling prosecutors that they are wrong to bring an indictment because Hunter is innocent of any criminal behavior.  Some might think it’s only natural for a father to defend the son he loves, but the Justice Department is part of an executive branch that he runs.  Mr. Garland and his prosecutors work for the President.

“It’s true that other Presidents have crossed this line.  Donald Trump made numerous comments about the innocence of his political allies and, worse, the need to indict his enemies.  In July 2017, he attacked then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he ‘has taken a very weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes.’

“GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham criticized the comments.  ‘Prosecutorial decisions should be based on applying facts to the law without hint of political motivation,’ he said.  ‘To do otherwise is to run away from the long-standing American tradition of separating the law from politics regardless of party.’….

“Mr. Biden ran for the White House claiming he was better than Mr. Trump on these political norms.  Apparently not.  Yet Democrats and the media have also been mostly silent about Mr. Biden’s remarks about his son.  Double standard?....

“Mr. Biden’s claims about his son’s innocence complicate the job of federal prosecutors. Such a high-profile probe is always fraught with political implications, and many Americans will assume political influence if there is no indictment.  But Mr. Biden shouldn’t feed those suspicions with his public statements.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“President Biden hasn’t dropped the microphone; he appears to have lost it.  Mr. Biden is turning into a news media evader, and it’s harmful to his presidency and the nation.  In the past 100 years, only Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan averaged fewer news conferences than Mr. Biden.  (A news conference involves the president taking questions from multiple reporters; a one-on-one interview with a handpicked journalist doesn’t count.)

“So far in 2023, Mr. Biden has done zero solo news conferences.  He did conduct two ‘joint news conference’ in which the president and a visiting foreign leader faced the media together. It should not take a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for the American public to hear the president answering urgent questions from a free press….

“The president and his team promised transparency.  Instead, he is stonewalling the media….

“It is widely known that Mr. Biden is gaffe-prone and that news conferences are not his forte.  But as he runs for a second term, he should be eager to show he can handle all aspects of the job.”

Personally, I was outraged last Friday when Biden avoided questions from reporters by falsely announcing a “major press conference.”  ‘Really?’ I mused while finishing up this column.  Nothing had been preannounced.

And then we learned he did the one-on-one with MSNBC.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m doing a major press conference this afternoon,” Biden said at a White House meeting with cabinet secretaries.

“So I love you all, but I’d like to ask you to leave so we can get down to business.”

Confirming Biden’s confusion, his press aides declared a “lid” for pool reporters at 2:21 p.m., meaning there would no additional live events to cover.

He hasn’t held a solo White House news conference since November.  Meanwhile, congressional Republicans had just subpoenaed an FBI informant file said to contain an allegation that Biden accepted bribes while he was vice president.

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I cover Donald Trump’s town hall in New Hampshire with CNN on Wednesday further down below.

It was indeed a train wreck, within seconds the former president talking of a “rigged election,” and “millions of votes stolen,” and “people going to 28 voting places.”

Sickeningly, the audience, said to be screened, lapped it up, laughing, applauding each pathetic lie.  It was appalling.

And Trump told host Kaitlyn Collins that he would settle the Ukraine war in one day if he were re-elected.  He said Vladimir Putin had made a “tremendous mistake” by invading Ukraine, and then he argued that Europe should pay more towards the defense of Ukraine.

But he refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win.

“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing, I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people.”

He also would not say whether he considered Putin a war criminal.

“If you say he’s a war criminal it is going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to get this thing stopped.”

When Collins persisted, “Do you want Ukraine to win this war?”, Trump failed to give a straight answer.

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal

“Well, that was a disaster, a politically historic one.  It situated Donald Trump as the central figure of the 2024 presidential cycle, certainly more compelling than the incumbent or the other competitors.  It will have an impact on the campaign’s trajectory.

“When it was over I thought, of CNN: Once again they’ve made Trump real…

“He steamrolled the moderator, talking over her, dismissing her, as they stood together, as nasty. He spoke with what seemed like conviction, backed down on nothing, made things up….

“That wasn’t Gov. Chris Sununu’s broad GOP.  It certainly wasn’t representative of New Hampshire in general or of New Hampshire on primary day, when undeclared voters can cast ballots for any presidential candidate in either party.  The Republicans in the audience seemed more like supporters of the Trump-endorsed candidates who went down in flames last year. They sounded to me like the constricting part of the party.  They chuckled when he talked about sexual assault…

‘If I were the president of CNN I’d feel like the Alec Guinness character at the end of ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai.’ Suddenly he realizes that all his work, his entire mission, only helped the bad people he meant to oppose. ‘What have I done?’….

“I now think Republicans should do the opposite of the Democrats and have a big, needed brawl – wake this thing up, talk about meaning, have the argument, brawl it out.

“It’s not all up to Mr. Trump and his fate.  Nothing is inevitable.  He is evitable.

“It is a party with a great history.  Maybe it’s dying, but if it is it shouldn’t be like this, without a last, hellacious fight.  What the heck. Everyone into the pool.”

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Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his country’s military needs more time to prepare an anticipated counteroffensive aimed at pushing back Russian occupying forces.

Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC that it would be “unacceptable” to launch the assault now because too many lives would be lost.

“With (what we have) we can go forward and be successful,” Zelensky said.  “But we’d lose a lot of people.  I think that’s unacceptable.  So we need to wait.  We still need a bit more time.”

The Kremlin’s forces are deeply entrenched in eastern parts of Ukraine with layered defensive lines reportedly up to 12 miles deep.  Kyiv’s counteroffensive would likely face minefields, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hoping to reduce the war to a so-called frozen conflict, Zelensky said.  He ruled out surrendering territory to Russia in return for a peace deal.

Putin is wagering the West’s costly support for Kyiv will begin to fray.

Some, noted below, believe Zelensky’s statement was a smokescreen…that the offensive has already begun and as noted below, there is some evidence of that.

This Week in Ukraine….

--Some sixty drones were launched against Ukraine after midnight Sunday, with Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, saying 36 drones had been destroyed over Kyiv, but five people were injured by falling debris, including civilians injured after drone debris hit a residential building in the central heart of the city.

Elsewhere, in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, a warehouse was set ablaze after eight missiles were fired at targets by Russian bombers, Ukrainian officials said.  Who owned the warehouse?  The Red Cross, which said it was storing humanitarian aid in it…now destroyed.  Ukraine later said the body of a security guard was pulled from the wreckage.  Waves of missiles also hit Kherson, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, the Ukrainian military said.

--President Zelensky moved on Monday to formalize the day that Ukraine marks the allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II as May 8, aligning with Western nations in a repudiation of the Soviet past quickly condemned by Moscow.

Speaking to Ukrainians on a hill overlooking Kyiv, Zelensky said “the old evil” had returned, this time waged by a “modern Russia” pursuing the same goal as the Nazis of “enslavement and destruction” – but that it would not succeed.

“Just as evil rushed into our towns and villages then, so it does now. As it killed our people then, so it does now,” Zelensky said.  “And all the old evil that modern Russia is bringing back will be defeated, just as Nazism was defeated.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the change: “There are veterans there too who took part in the Great Patriotic War, and their relatives, for whom this day is and will remain sacred.”  Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further: “What is worse than an enemy? A traitor.  That is Zelensky, the embodiment of Judas in the 21st century… An accomplice of the fascists 80 years later,” she said.

--On Russia’s Victory Day, Vladimir Putin warned that a “real war” was being waged against Russia amid muted celebrations, with many mass events canceled over security concerns after last week’s alleged drone attack on the Kremlin and the looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“Today civilization is once again at a decisive turning point.  A real war has been unleashed against our Motherland. Today, civilization is at a critical juncture,” Putin said at the ceremony marking the end of World War II.  “We want to see a future of peace, freedom and stability,” he added, more than a year after ordering what he calls “the special military operation” in Ukraine that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and total destruction in Ukraine’s cities and villages.

Putin, of course, blamed the war on “Western elites.”

“We believe that any ideology of superiority is inherently disgusting, criminal and deadly,” he said.  “However, Western globalists and elites still talk about their exclusivity, pit people and split society, provoke bloody conflicts and upheavals, sow hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism, and destroy traditional family values that make a person a person.” 

Putin concluded his speech, in welcoming soldiers fighting in Ukraine who were present at the parade: “To Russia!  To our brave armed forces! To Victory!”

Putin is absolutely nuts and capable of anything at this point.

Security was tight in Moscow, with special forces patrolling the center, stopping and inspecting commercial vans, while police were on standby in the side streets.

Russia is on edge. At least 20 cities across the country canceled Victory Day parades, with regional officials saying they didn’t want to “provoke the enemy with large amounts of equipment and miliary personnel” gathered in one place.

The drone incident has been used by Russian authorities to galvanize public support for the war and justify the drastically scaled-back events.

[The parade itself had Kremlin critics poking fun at the lone World War II-era tank that was seen rolling forlornly through Red Square.]

--Russia launched 25 cruise missiles across Ukraine on Tuesday, hours before the start of the Moscow parade, marking a second attack in as many days, with air defense systems shooting down 23, Ukrainian officials said.

About a dozen were shot down in the Kyiv region as air raid alerts blared across most of the country.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv Tuesday for talks with President Zelensky.  “Good to be back in Kyiv,” von der Leyen said on Twitter. “Where the values we hold dear are defended every day.”

--A Ukrainian general claimed about 100,000 Russian soldiers have died in the battle for Bakhmut, a spokesperson for the eastern group of the armed forces of Ukraine saying they were “rough calculations.”

Col. Serhiy Cherevatsy said: “I am sure that further verification will only show an increase in this number. This is natural as the enemy uses the so-called meat assaults as the main method of waging war.”

As for Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, I told you last time how he had said he was going to withdraw, but I added Ukrainian officials thought this was “a smokescreen.”

And sure enough it was.  Prigozhin said Sunday he had been promised supplies and that the goal was to take Bakhmut by Tuesday, as a prize for Putin on Victory Day.

But President Zelensky said Russian forces had failed to capture Bakhmut by Victory Day.

On Wednesday, Prigozhin and the Ukrainian military said that Kyiv’s forces had routed a Russian army unit near Bakhmut, in a significant advance for Ukraine.

Thursday, Prigozhin said that Ukrainian units had begun their counterattack, and were approaching Bakhmut from the flanks, while Russia’s defense ministry said its paratroopers were supporting an advance on the west of the city.

Prigozhin said that Ukrainian operations were proving to be “unfortunately, partially successful,” in an audio message posted on his Telegram channel.  He said Volodymyr Zelensky was “being deceptive” when he said Ukraine’s counteroffensive had been delayed as it waited for more aid from foreign countries.  Prigozhin said the counteroffensive was actually going ahead at full speed around Bakhmut.

Separately, the BBC reported last weekend that Russian forces appear to have been using phosphorous bombs, the use of which is considered a war crime in civilian areas.

--Russia has sparked a “mad panic” as it evacuates a town near the contested Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a Ukrainian official said.

Russia told people to leave 18 settlements in the region, including Enerhodar near the plant, ahead of Ukraine’s anticipated offensive.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi – director of the International Atomic Energy Agency – said the evacuation of residents near the nuclear facility indicated the possibility of heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces around the plant.

Although its reactors were not producing electricity they were still loaded with nuclear material, he said.

Grossi added that he had had to travel through a minefield when he visited the plant a few weeks ago.

“I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant,” he said.

The IAEA warned in a statement that the situation at the Zaporizhzhia facility was “becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous.”

Operating staff were still at the site but there was “deep concern about the increasingly tense, stressful, and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.”

“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequence for the population and the environment,” Grossi said.  “This major nuclear facility must be protected. I will continue to press for a commitment by all sides to achieve this vital objective.”

--The British have given Ukraine “Storm Shadow” cruise missiles with an approximate 155-mile range, Defense Minister Ben Wallace told lawmakers at the House of Commons on Thursday – confirming an earlier Washington Post report.  Ukraine has not previously had missiles that could hit Russian bases in occupied Crimea.

Wallace also reminded parliamentarians that Russia’s invasion has displaced more people than at any time since World War II, creating nearly eight million refugees across Europe and another six million displaced somewhere inside Ukraine.

Russia’s military has attacked Ukrainian clinics and hospitals almost 800 times during its 442-day invasion, Wallace said.  Occupying forces have also “stolen or destroyed 4.04 million tons of grain and oilseeds, valued at $1.9 billion” across Ukrainian farms during and after last year’s harvest, he said before elaborating upon nearly a dozen other instances of Russian brutality, violence, and alleged war crimes stemming from Putin’s invasion.

“That is why the Prime Minister and I have now taken the decision to provide longer-range capabilities,” said Wallace. “It is my judgement as the Defense Secretary that this is a calibrated proportionate response to Russia’s escalations.”

“The UK stands for values of freedom, the rule of law, human rights, and the protection of civilians,” Wallace said. “We will stand side by side with Ukraine, we will continue to support them in defense of their sovereign country.”

--Last Saturday, Ukraine’s air force claimed to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using the newly acquired Patriot defense system, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.

Ukraine said the downing actually took place on May 4 in an overnight attack on the capital.  Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchunk said in a Telegram post the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory.

The Russian military says the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to about 1,250 miles and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.

--The Center for Strategic and International Studies, in noting the war has stretched for more than 14 months, says this makes “a yearslong protracted conflict more likely,” as reported by the New York Times.  “Once wars have gone on for more than a year, they tend to last for more than a decade on average, the CSIS studies found in an analysis that used data on conflicts since 1946.”

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--The FBI has sabotaged a suite of malicious software used by elite Russian spies, authorities said Tuesday, providing a glimpse of the digital tug-of-war between two of the world’s cyber superpowers.

Senior law enforcement officials said technical experts at the FBI had identified and disabled malware wielded by Russia’s FSB security service against an undisclosed number of American computers, something they hoped would deal a death blow to one of Russia’s leading cyber spying programs.

“We assess this as being their premier espionage tool,” a U.S. official told reporters ahead of the release.

--The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Poland’s decision to rename the Russian city of Kaliningrad in its official documents was a “hostile act,” as bilateral ties continue to go south.

Kaliningrad was known by the German name of Koenigsberg until after World War II, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union and renamed to honor Soviet politician Mikhail Kalinin.

Warsaw said on Wednesday that Kalinin’s connection to the 1940 Katyn massacre – when thousands of Polish military officers were executed by Soviet forces – had negative connotations and that the city should now be referred to as Krolewiec, its name when it was ruled by the Kingdom of Poland in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision “bordered on madness.”  “We know that throughout history Poland has slipped from time to time into this madness of hatred towards Russians,” he told a daily news briefing.

There are many times when you just want to tell Peskov, “[Blank] you.”  Go Poland!

Opinion….

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times

“Putin’s Plan B is to disguise that Putin’s Plan A has failed. If this military operation had an honest name, it would be called Operation Save My Face.

‘Which makes this one of the sickest, most senseless wars in modern times – a leader destroying another country’s civilian infrastructure until it gives him enough cover to hide the fact that he’s been a towering fool.

“You can see from Putin’s Victory Day speech in Moscow on Tuesday that he is now grasping for any rationale to justify a war he started out of his personal fantasy that Ukraine is not a real country but part of Russia.  He claimed his invasion was provoked by Western ‘globalists and elites’ who ‘talk about their exclusivity, pit people and split society, provoke bloody conflicts and upheavals, sow hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism and destroy traditional family values that make a person a person.’

“Wow.  Putin invaded Ukraine to preserve Russian family values. Who knew? That’s a leader struggling to explain to his people why he started a war with a puny neighbor that he says is not a real country.

“You might ask, why does a dictator like Putin feel he needs a disguise?  Can’t he make his people believe whatever he wants?...

“[Russian scholar Leon Aron] argues that this Ukraine conflict is far from over and could get a lot worse before it is.

“ ‘There are now two ways for Putin to end this war he cannot win and cannot walk away from,’ Aron said.  ‘One is to continue until Ukraine is bled dry and/or the Ukraine fatigue sets in in the West.’

“And the other, he argued, ‘is to somehow force a direct confrontation with the U.S. – bring us to the precipice of an all-out strategic nuclear exchange – and then step back and propose to a scared West an overall settlement, which would include a neutral, disarmed Ukraine and his holding on to the Crimea and Donbas.’

“It’s impossible to get into Putin’s head and predict his next move, but color me worried.  Because what we do know, from Putin’s actions, is that he knows his Plan A has failed. And he will do anything to produce a Plan B to justify the terrible losses that he has piled up in the name of a country where everybody talks and where defeated leaders don’t retire peacefully.”

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Wall Street and the Economy

On Tuesday, New York Federal Reserve President John Williams, a permanent voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, spoke on the recent Fed actions to raise interest rates and what he saw for future Fed policy at an event sponsored by the Economic Club of New York.

The labor force remains strong, with an increase in labor force participation allowing for more supply and demand balance, but it has been hard to achieve the proper balance on the inflation side, Williams said.

Supply chain issues have been improved since the pandemic and strong home price inflation has begun to slow, but core services excluding housing inflation remain hot, Williams noted, and it will likely take the longest to slow.

“Because of the lag between policy actions and their effects, it will take time for the FOMC’s actions to restore balance to the economy and return inflation to our 2% target,” Williams said.  “I expect inflation to decline to around 3.25% this year, before returning to our longer-run goal of 2% over the next two years.”

As previous policy actions take hold, Williams expected real GDP to rise only “modestly” this year before picking up next year and the unemployment rate to rise to 4% to 4.5% from the current 3.4%.

Williams did not indicate whether he believed further policy tightening will be needed at the next FOMC meeting, instead repeating the incoming data will be monitored as a guide.

“We haven’t said we are done raising rates” and officials have not yet decided what lies ahead with possible increases in borrowing costs.  “We’ve made incredible progress” in taking action to lower overly high levels of inflation, but “if additional policy firming is appropriate, we’ll do that,” he said.

“I am confident we are on the path to restoring price stability,” Williams said.  “As always, I’ll be monitoring the totality of the data and what it implies for the achievement of our goals.  To paraphrase the wise philosopher Yoda, ‘A little more knowledge lights our way.’”

But this was the key statement from Williams: “In my forecast I see a need to keep a restrictive stance of policy in place for quite some time to make sure we do really bring inflation down from 4 percent all the way to 2. I do not see in my baseline forecast any reason to cut interest rates this year.” [Emphasis mine.]

And so, we had some inflation numbers for the month of April this week, and both consumer and producer prices were in line with expectations, though the latter isn’t as important these days.

Consumer price inflation is, and the CPI was up 0.4%, ditto ex-food and energy.  Year-over-year, the headline number was 4.9%, marking a tenth consecutive decline from the 9.1% peak set last June 2022 (which was the highest since Nov. 1981).  But the key figure the Fed focuses on, core Y/Y was 5.5%, a tick below the prior month, yet obviously well over the Fed’s 2% target.  Core CPI is proving to be extremely sticky, and there is absolutely no way the Fed will be cutting its benchmark funds rate for months and months to come.

This remains the bottom line.  The market continues to act like the Fed is cutting rates.  But how many times do you need the likes of Chair Powell and Williams to say otherwise?

For the record, the figures for the PPI were 0.3%, ex-food and energy 0.2%; 2.3% and 3.2% Y/Y.

The Fed will be closely looking at the PCE, the personal consumption expenditures index, in two weeks, and then it will have another CPI reading the Tuesday it begins its next Open Market Committee meeting, June 13-14.

Yes, they could pause then, but if they do, they are staying at the current level through the rest of the year.  The real danger is that the Fed pauses and then they have to hike anew.

On other key indicators…the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for the second quarter is 2.7%, but it is very early as this goes.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at 6.35%, down from November’s peak of 7.08%.

On the debt-ceiling issue, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “legally questionable” whether the Biden administration could rely on the 14th Amendment to effectively ignore the debt limit, pouring cold water on a method favored by some Democrats to avoid a default.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that American debt authorized by law “shall not be questioned.”  President Biden said this week he was considering invoking the amendment as a way to keep paying the nation’s bills if Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit.  But he added the issue would be subject to litigation and may not be a solution in the current standoff.

Yellen, speaking at a Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers in Japan, said she doubted the 14th Amendment was an effective solution.

“What I would say, it’s legally questionable whether or not that’s a viable strategy,” Yellen said.

Earlier, President Biden sat down with House Speaker McCarthy, the key player, as well as Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. 

After roughly an hour of discussions there was no agreement; none expected at this point.

“I didn’t see any new movement,” McCarthy told reporters after, adding that he would meet again with the president on Friday.

But that was called off Thursday, both sides preferring that staff attempt to work on a potential solution.

Biden says Congress must first ensure that bills due for past spending decisions are paid before he’ll negotiate future budgets.

McCarthy says Biden must agree to spending cuts before House Republicans will raise the limit on how much the government can borrow to avoid an unprecedented default.

Biden wants to reduce the budget deficit primarily through tax increases on corporations and higher-income earners.

Most of House Republicans’ proposed savings would come from unspecified cuts to the smaller portion of the federal budget that is not on autopilot, leaving it up to lawmakers to decide every year how to divide up a pie that is 17% smaller over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Personally, I’m in the camp of billionaire Hall of Fame investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who said the other day at a conference, “I am not predicting something worse than 2008.  It’s just naïve not to be open-minded to something really, really bad happening.”  He’s talking before July.

The Congressional Budget Office said today that the U.S. faces a “significant risk” of default within the first two weeks of June without a debt ceiling increase, though it held out hope for more negotiating time if needed, saying the Treasury can “probably” finance government operations through at least the end of July if available cash and extraordinary borrowing measures can last through June 15, when quarterly estimated tax payments are due.

Europe and Asia

After last week’s flood of data, nothing of note from the EU this week.

Britain: But the Bank of England hiked its benchmark interest rate anew, by a quarter-point to 4.5% on Thursday.  Governor Andrew Bailey said the central bank would “stay the course” as it seeks to curb the highest inflation of any major economy, still 10% in March.  The BoE now expects inflation to fall more slowly than it had hoped, mostly due to unexpected and persistent rises in food prices. It also saw stronger wage growth than it previously thought.

“We have to stay the course to make sure inflation falls all the way back to the 2% target,” Bailey said at a press conference, before stressing that the BoE was not sending any signals about its next moves, which would depend on the data.

Separately, the Office for National Statistics reported today that GDP fell 0.3% in March, when it was expected to be unchanged.  That left growth for the first quarter at 0.1%, the same as recorded in the final three months of last year.

Turning to Asia…China reported April exports rose 8.5% year-over-year, down from March’s 14.8% pace. Imports fell 7.9% Y/Y, way below expectations.

On the inflation front, consumer prices rose just 0.1% from a year ago in April, while producer prices declined 3.6% Y/Y.

Japan reported its April services PMI was a solid 55.4.

Household spending, a key metric here, fell 1.9% year-over-year in March.

Separately, the Bank of Japan maintained its key short-term interest rate at -0.1% and that of 10-year bond yields at around 0%.  In a quarterly outlook report, officials cut their 2022 GDP growth forecast to 1.2% from 1.9% in January amid weaker private consumption.  The CPI reading for FY 2022 remained around 3%.  That’s too high for the BOJ.

Street Bytes

--To give you a sense of the lack of volatility the last few weeks, here’s a stat you won’t find elsewhere, pulled from my voluminous personal files (for example, I have “Bull/Bear” readings going back to March 1990…handwritten), this week marked six straight where the Nasdaq has not been up or down 2%.  To find a similar streak you have to go back to fall of 2019, where we had eleven such weeks.  And then…Covid hit.

Not that something similar is about to happen, but actually I do believe it will.  Of the geopolitical variety.

For now, this week the Dow Jones lost 1.1% to 33300, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% and Nasdaq gained 0.4%.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 5.10%  2-yr. 3.99%  10-yr. 3.46%  30-yr. 3.78%

The lack of volatility was also evident in the Treasury market for another week, yields largely unchanged

Public confidence in Jerome Powell’s leadership of the Federal Reserve has dropped precipitously, according to a new Gallup survey, and is now at or below his predecessors’ as the central bank wages its war against inflation.

Only 36% of U.S. adults say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence that the Fed chair would do or recommend the right thing for the economy.

That’s lower than Janet Yellen’s 37% during her first year leading the Fed in 2014.  Former Chairman Ben Bernanke’s lowest point came in 2012, at 39%.

In April 2020, just a month after the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns, confidence in Powell was at 58% - the highest approval of any Fed chairman since Alan Greenspan in 2004.

--Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Aramco, posted a 19% drop in quarterly profit due to lower energy prices, but announced an additional dividend payout that underscores the kingdom’s dependence on oil revenues to run its economy.

Aramco made a net profit of nearly $31.9 billion in the first three months of the year, down from $39.47 billion in the same period last year, when it benefited from soaring oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Oil prices today, however, have been falling amid fears of a slowing global economy that would crimp demand, as well as a gusher of cheaper Russian crude supplies.

Previously, Exxon Mobil reported a quarterly profit of $11.4 billion and Chevron $6.6 billion.

Aramco reported a record annual profit of $161 billion in 2022, the largest ever by an energy firm.

Last year, Saudi Arabia rebuffed requests from the U.S. to pump more oil to help tame surging crude prices.  In April, the Saudis and their allies announced another oil-production cut as crude prices fell, demonstrating how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continues to pursue a nationalist energy policy aimed at funding an expensive makeover of his kingdom.

But while the production cut temporarily led to oil, as measured by West Texas Intermediate, hitting $82-$83, the price has fallen back to $70 on renewed demand fears.

--Boeing plans to sell up to 300 747 MAX jets to Ryanair, marking the biggest aircraft order ever placed by the Irish low-cost airline, the companies said Tuesday.

The deal includes a firm order for 150 of the 228-seat 737-10 aircraft and an option for 150 more, with deliveries expected between 2027 and 2033. Ryanair said the deal is valued at more than $40 billion at current list prices and offers the company a “very significant” revenue growth opportunity.

“These new, fuel-efficient, greener technology aircraft offer 21% more seats, burn 20% less fuel and are 50% quieter than our B737-NGs,” Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said.

“We are committed to delivering for Ryanair and helping Europe’s largest airline group achieve its goals by offering its customers the lowest fares in Europe,” Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said.

Ryanair said the deal is subject to shareholder approval at its Sept. 14 annual general meeting.  Boeing shares rose 2% on the news.

The phased delivery schedule will enable Ryanair to create more than 10,000 jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers, facilitating annual traffic growth of 80% by March 2034 from the year to March 2023.

Separately, Boeing data on its website showed it delivered 26 aircraft in April, down from 64 the prior month and 35 a year earlier.

--Southwest Airlines’ pilots union said Thursday that its members have authorized a strike after only a week and a half of voting.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association said that 98% of pilots participated in the vote that began on May 1 and 99% voted to authorize the strike.

Southwest said in a statement that its pilots are not on strike and that the outcome of the vote will have no impact on the carrier’s scheduled operations.

“We are staffed and prepared to welcome travelers for their summer travel plans.”

The company said a strike can take place only after multiple steps in the Railway Labor Act collective bargaining process have been exhausted.

Southwest said its negotiating team “remains focused on ongoing discussions and continuing to make progress toward a new agreement for our Pilots.”

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2019

5/11…99 percent of 2019 levels
5/10…96
5/9…95
5/8…98
5/7…107
5/6…103
5/5…96
5/4…98

--Shares of PacWest Bancorp plummeted over 22% on Thursday, dragging down other midsize banks, as the bank said in a securities filing that it lost 9.5% of its total deposits last week.

Last week started with the collapse of First Republic, which had some bank investors worried that the turmoil in regional banks will continue to spread.  But PacWest said that the majority of its deposit outflows came on May 4 and 5, after news reports that said PacWest was exploring a potential sale.

--Tesla shares rallied* after Elon Musk announced he had hired a new CEO for Twitter and its parent company X.  “She will be starting in – 6 weeks!” he tweeted.

And the mystery woman is NBCUniversal ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino.

Yaccarino is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, where she oversees 2,000 workers on a team that has generated more than $100 billion in ad sales, according to her profile on the company’s website.

Musk said he will still run the platform as executive chair and chief technology officer.

But Tesla shareholders were relieved that he could go back to devoting more time to the EV maker.

*The shares then fell back Friday afternoon and finished down 2% on the day.

Meanwhile, Tesla recalled virtually every car it’s sold in China due to a braking and acceleration defect that may increase crash and safety risks.

The automaker will deploy an over-the-air software fix to more than 1.1 million vehicles produced in Shanghai from January 2019 to April this year.

The defect relates to Tesla’s regenerative braking system, which makes use of energy created when drivers take their foot off the accelerator by sending power to the car’s battery.

--Shares in Alphabet Inc. rose Wednesday after the Google arm rolled out more artificial intelligence for its core search product, hoping to create some of the same consumer excitement generated by Microsoft’s relaunch of rival search engine Bing in recent months.

At its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, Google offered an updated version of its namesake engine. Called the Search Generative Experience, the new Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web. 

“We are reimagining all of our core products, including search,” CEO Sundar Pichai said.  Google is integrating generative AI into search and other products, including Gmail, where it can draft messages.  Google will go through a trial phase during which the company will monitor the quality, speed and cost of search results.

For years the top portal to the internet, Google has found its own perch in question since rivals began exploiting the technology as an alternative to presenting content from the Web.  At stake is Google’s slice of the gigantic online advertising pie that the research firm MAGNA estimated at $286 billion this year.

Microsoft has said every percentage point of share it gains in search advertising could draw another $2 billion in revenue.  While Bing has commanded no more than one-tenth of the search market, according to estimates, Google has practically the rest of that to defend.  This means any hit to the reliability of its search engine could carry a big consequence.

Generative AI programs have been found to create false or misleading results absent grounding in reliable answers.

--Separately, Microsoft has decided to freeze pay for all full-time workers this year to help navigate macroeconomic uncertainty, becoming the latest tech company to tighten its belt.

CEO Satya Nadella explained in an internal memo the move was necessary to generate “enough yield” to invest in the major platform shift toward artificial intelligence.  The company will, however, consider raising rates for hourly workers while maintaining a bonus and stock award program without “overfunding” it, Nadella said without elaborating.

--Billionaire investor Warren Buffett expressed his concern over the rise of artificial intelligence Saturday, comparing the rise of the technology to the creation of the atom bomb.

Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger, discussed their outlooks on tech and AI during a wide-ranging discussion at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

Although Buffett said he was impressed by AI’s vast capabilities, including checking all legal opinions “since the beginning of time,” he said he is a bit apprehensive about the technology.

“When something can do all kinds of things, I get a little bit worried,” the 92-year-old said.  “Because I know we won’t be able to un-invent it, and, you know, we did invent, for very, very good reason, the atom bomb in World War II.”

“It was enormously important that we did so,” Buffett continued.  “But is it good for the next 200 years of the world that the ability to do so has been unleashed?”

--Walt Disney Co. reduced streaming losses by $400 million from the prior quarter but also shed subscribers, the company reported on Wednesday as earnings landed in line with Wall Street expectations.  The shares fell more than 5%.

A price increase and reduced marketing expenses helped improve the performance of the streaming unit, which ended the January-through-March quarter with an operating loss of $659 million.  In the prior quarter, the division lost $1.1 billion.

Overall earnings came in at 93 cents, meeting consensus.  Revenue hit $21.82 billion, slightly above projections of $21.79 billion.

The company’s theme parks kept humming with visitors, with growth at its Shanghai Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland Resort helping lift operating income at the unit by 23% from a year earlier to $2.2 billion.

“We’re pleased with our accomplishments this quarter, including the improved financial performance of our streaming business, which reflect the improved financial performance of our streaming business, which reflect the strategic changes we’ve been making throughout the company to realign Disney for sustained growth and success,” CEO Bob Iger said in a statement.

Total subscribers to the flagship Disney+ service dropped by 4 million from the previous quarter to 157.8 million.  Disney shed 300,000 customers in the U.S. and Canada, where it raised prices last December.

Iger did announce that the company will create a “one app experience” for domestic customers by adding Hulu content to Disney+. The company hopes this option will be attractive to advertisers and subscribers.

Hulu is the streaming home of Disney’s movies and TV shows that don’t fall neatly into Disney’s well-known brands, such as Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel.

“It’s clear that a combination of the content that is on Disney+ with general entertainment is…a very strong combination,” Iger said.

On the war between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney, Iger pointed out that Disney paid $1.1 billion in state and local Florida taxes last year.

“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people and pay more taxes, or not?” Iger asked rhetorically.

--According to JD Power’s monthly report, in March, 21% of new-vehicle shoppers said they were “very unlikely” to consider an electric vehicle, up from 18.9% in February and 17.8% in January.  In contrast, the percentage of car shoppers who say they are “very likely” to consider an EV was 26.9% in March, largely flat this year.

Persistent worries about charging infrastructure and vehicle pricing’s dampening enthusiasm, the report said.  EV’s market share of all new-vehicle sales dropped to 7.3% in March, down from a record high of 8.5% in February but up from 2.6% in February 2020.

--Last week I wrote of the unease in China as foreign businesses were seeing their consultancies raided by police amid a sweeping security probe.

This week, overseas business lobbies in China said they were unnerved by the crackdown that is damaging investor confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.  The EU’s ambassador to China also raised concern about what state media described as “intensifying” law enforcement aimed at protecting national security, and a broadening of legislation that criminalizes the transfer of information and data.

The crackdowns “send a worrying signal and heighten the uncertainty felt by foreign companies operating in China,” the EU’s Chamber of Commerce in China said in a statement.  “The developments are not conducive to restoring business confidence and attracting foreign investment.”

Eric Zheng, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, also expressed concern, calling on authorities to “more clearly delineate” which areas of due diligence were permissible.  “Without proper due diligence, foreign companies will be unable to invest in new projects in China,” he said.

China says it welcomes foreign investment as long as firms abide by its laws.  State media says the crackdown is aimed at stopping the theft of state secrets including defense and technology, the latest step in a years-long campaign to tighten control of information.

One expert, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing, told Reuters: “It is a concrete action taken by the Chinese government to step up counteraction against U.S. technology containment.”

--Goldman Sachs will pay $215 million to settle a gender discrimination case involving about 2,800 female employees, the law firms representing the plaintiffs said late Monday.

The plaintiffs are in the bank’s investment banking, investment management and securities divisions.

Goldman will also tap an independent consultant for three years to analyze performance evaluations and promotions from vice president roles to managing director, conduct additional pay equity studies, and enhance select communications to vice presidents regarding career development and promotion criteria, a statement from the bank read.

The case, first filed in 2010, was reportedly set to go to trial next month.

--Tysons Foods Inc. posted a surprise second-quarter loss and cut its full-year revenue forecast on Monday as prices for its beef and pork have declined, sending the U.S. meatpacker’s shares tumbling 16% on Monday.  The weaker-than-expected results indicate cash-strapped consumers are cutting back on meat spending in a high-inflation environment while a shrinking cattle herd forces Tyson to pay more for livestock, eroding margins.

CEO Donnie King, who is seeking to cut costs, said meat markets are challenging and Tyson is focused on improving profit margins.  The company lowered its forecast for fiscal 2023 sales to $53 billion to $54 billion from $55bn to $57bn.

Average sales prices of beef and pork fell 5.4% and 10.3%, respectively, in the quarter ending April 1. Sales volumes in Tyson’s beef segment also fell 3%, leaving the unit’s overall sales down 8.3% at $4.62 billion.

Meatpackers increased prices of their products last year to offset spiraling costs of animal feed, labor, freight and commodity prices, aggravated by a lingering U.S. drought and supply chain issues.  The drought and cost of livestock feed have driven cattle producers to send animals to slaughter instead of keeping them for breeding.

--Fox Corp. bested estimates for fiscal third-quarter revenue and adjusted profit due to a huge boost from the Super Bowl and advertising-supported streaming service Tubi, the company said Tuesday.

Revenue rose 18%, to $4.08 billion, compared with a year ago as February’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVII reeled in approximately $650 million in gross ad revenue.  The game was the most watched program in U.S. TV history with 115 million viewers, helping to juice 31% revenue growth for the quarter at Tubi.

Fox’s ad revenue surged 43% to $1.88 billion, well past expectations.

DEO Lachlan Murdoch also affirmed the company’s prime-time programming strategy following its recent $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and the dismissal of Tucker Carlson.  [More on Tucker below.]

The company noted that profit swung to a quarterly net loss of $54 million, compared with a profit of $283 million in the same period last year, after being weighed down by legal costs related to the defamation lawsuit.

--CNN’s town hall with former president Trump drew 3.3 million viewers on Wednesday, the largest for CNN since the network’s coverage of the July hearings over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

But this was the size of a typical audience for Tucker Carlson on Fox before he was fired.

--LinkedIn said on Monday it will pare down its operations in China, capping a multiyear pullback that exemplified the challenges of running a foreign business in China.

The company, owned by Microsoft, said it will lay off 716 employees worldwide, including teams dedicated to engineering and marketing in China, because of slumping demand.

--Shares of Topgolf Callaway Brands tanked on Wednesday, after the company disclosed that its corporate business is softening.

Besides equipment and apparel, the company’s businesses include its Topgolf entertainment centers.  These high-tech driving ranges have a sports bar feel and allow customers to track the distance, height, and speed of their golf shots.

A concern was that the company lowered its 2023 guidance slightly for same-venue sales at its Topgolf entertainment locations, citing the demand equation.

--Anheuser-Busch InBev’s issue with Bud Light appears to be spreading to other brands owned by the spirits giant.

Bud Light and Budweiser saw sales plummet the last few weeks, though the former still dwarfs the competition by sales even with declines of 20%+ in recent weeks.  Bud Light commands north of 30% of the U.S. beer market.  North America as a whole accounts for only about a quarter of AB InBev’s business.

But at the same time, sales of Michelob Ultra, Busch Light and Natural Light were down marginally, though the pace was also accelerating.

--Peloton is recalling more than two million exercise bikes over concerns that the seat assembly could break during use and injure customers.

Owners have been advised to immediately stop using the bikes and contact Peloton for a free repair.

The company has received numerous reports of injuries including “a fractured wrist and lacerations” after the bike’s seat detached during use.

The recall applies to bikes sold in the U.S. from January 2018 through May 2023.

--Finally, I missed as I went to post last Friday that Jenny Craig, the weight-loss brand that once touted celebrity endorsements from stars like Queen Latifah, Kirstie Alley, Monica Lewinsky and Mariah Carey, announced it was shutting down after four decades in business.

Jenny Craig was a victim of the weight-loss drug craze – Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro – that have shaken up the weight-loss industry.

But in reading a story in the Wall Street Journal, I never knew the story of entrepreneur Jenny Craig, who during the mid-1990s suffered an accident that left her unable to speak temporarily.

“In an interview with Larry King in 2001, Ms. Craig said she fell asleep on her couch with her mouth open and was startled awake, causing her lower jaw to snap shut over her upper teeth.

“The accident stripped the muscles in her face, leaving her unable to talk properly for years, she said.  She had to have surgery and physical therapy to teach herself how to speak again, she said.”  [Joseph De Avila / WSJ]

I may never sleep a wink again.

Actually, I have a current sleep issue.  You know how robins start to sing around 5:00 a.m.?  Since I’m up, or close to getting up at the time, it’s never bothered me.  But this spring, a rogue robin has come into the neighborhood who f’n starts singing at 11:00 p.m. and won’t freakin’ shut up until after 3:00 a.m.!  And the asshole is super loud, though he or she does have quite a songbook.  So if I seem crankier these days, that’s my excuse.

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held “candid” talks on Taiwan and the war in Ukraine with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for two days this week, the highest-level U.S.-China engagement since Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met last year.

In Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday and Thursday, “The two sides had candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on key issue in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, global and regional security issues, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-strait issues, among other topics,” the White House announced.

“The two sides agreed to maintain this important strategic channel of communication to advance these objectives, building on the engagement between [Biden and Xi] in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.”

Coincidentally, Thursday in Washington, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers during a budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that China remains America’s “number one long-term geostrategic security challenge.”  And the $842 billion “budget request shows it, including requests for the Department’s largest procurement and R&D budgets ever - $170 billion and $145 billion respectively,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

“Using economic and military hard power, the PRC’s goal is to revise the global international order by midcentury, and it intends to be the regional hegemon in Asia within the next 10 years,” Milley said.  “Its intention is to exceed the United States’ military capability within the Western Pacific in the next decade and to exceed the United States’ global military capability by 2049.”

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has warned that the real “risk” Europe faces comes from “a certain country” that is waging a “new cold war,” imposing unilateral sanctions and exporting its own financial problems to others.

Qin did not mention the United States by name, but accused the country in question of fomenting ideological confrontation and engaging in camp confrontation, when asked about the EU’s “de-risking” strategy in Berlin on Tuesday

The unnamed nation had abused the monopoly status of its currency and transferred its domestic inflationary and fiscal crisis, with serious spillover effects, Qin said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

“These are the real risks that need to be taken seriously.  If the ‘new cold war’ is fought, it does not only damage China’s interests, Europe’s interests will also be sacrificed… That’s the real risk to be concerned about,” said Qin.

And then there is China’s spat with Canada.  Beijing asked one of Canada’s envoys in Shanghai to leave the country by Saturday, in retaliation for Ottawa’s expulsion of a Chinese diplomat accused of aiding China’s intelligence agency to target a Canadian lawmaker and his family with sanctions.

Toronto-based Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei was expelled following a Globe and Mail report last week claiming that he was involved in a Chinese Ministry of State Security effort to get information on Conservative lawmaker Michael Chong and his family in Hong Kong.  The same stuff that our FBI recently exposed in the United States.

South Korea/Japan: Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told South Koreans last Sunday his “heart hurts” when he thinks of suffering and pain during Japanese colonial rule, in a nod to historical disputes that have soured relations between the two U.S. allies.

Kishida was in Seoul for his first visit to the South Korean capital by a Japanese leader in 12 years, returning the trip South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made to Tokyo in March where they sought to close a chapter on the historical disputes that have dominated Japan-South Korea relations for decades.

Speaking to reporters after his summit with Yoon, Kishida stopped short of offering a new official apology for wrongs committed during the 1910-1945 occupation, but said his government inherits the stance of earlier administrations, some of which have issued apologies.

Yoon said unresolved historical issues should not mean that no forward steps can be taken to deepen ties.  “Cooperation and coordination between South Korea and Japan are essential not only for the common interests of the two countries, but also for world peace and prosperity,” Yoon said in opening remarks.

Yet South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party criticized Yoon for being submissive, “oblivious to history,” and engaging in “humiliation diplomacy.”

Israel: Tuesday, Israel killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders of its armed wing, with a Palestinian health official saying six women and four children were among the dead.

Israel said it launched an operation targeting militants who posed an imminent threat to its citizens.

Islamic Jihad vowed revenge and Gaza-based militants fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Thursday, Israel killed two more senior Islamic Jihad commanders in Gaza strikes, pressing the operation that has now cost at least 28 lives including women and children, and been met with hundreds of rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave.

Egypt hosted a senior Islamic Jihad official in Cairo, part of truce talks to end a flare-up that was in its third day.

Israel said it had hit 158 targets in Gaza.  Of 523 rockets fired from Gaza, 380 crossed into Israel, where 96% were shot down by Iron Dome and David’s Sling interceptors.

Since January, the escalating violence has killed more than 140 Palestinians and at least 19 Israelis and foreigners.

Syria: The government of butcher Bashar al-Assad is set to return this month in Saudi Arabia at the Arab League’s next summit.  The 22-member league in November 2011, months after its Arab Spring uprising began, moved to eject Syria, a move viewed as condemnation of a government that had bombed, gassed and tortured protesters and others in a conflict that metastasized into a long civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

But, while the United States has urged the Arab League to continue to isolate Syria and Assad, the region is convinced that Arab countries are gaining little from doing so, and refusing to deal with the country ignores the reality that Assad’s government has all but won the war, proponents of engagement argue.

“Today, Arab states have put their own cynical realpolitik and diplomatic agendas above basic humanity,” said Laila Kiki, the executive director of the Syria Campaign, a nonprofit organization that supports Syrian civil society groups.

“By choosing to restore the Syrian regime’s membership of the Arab League, member states have cruelly betrayed tens of thousands of victims of the regime’s war crimes and granted Assad a green light to continue committing horrific crimes with impunity.”

Turkey: We have a huge election here on Sunday, with President Erdogan seeking re-election, as his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance has done well in the polls.

The choice will have broad consequences for geopolitics, not just Turkey’s 85 million people.

U.S. and European leaders are hoping Erdogan will help bolster the coalition backing Ukraine, and are eager to see Turkey return to its alignment with the West.  But when Erdogan resurfaced after an illness, it was via video link to a ceremony on the Mediterranean coast, where Russia is building the country’s first nuclear plant.  Also attending, via a separate stream from the Kremlin, was Vladimir Putin.

Turkey’s opposition has long complained that the country’s elections are played out on an unlevel playing field, claims backed by international observers.

For example, some 90% of Turkey’s media is in the hands of the government or its backers, according to Reporters Without Borders, ensuring overwhelming airtime for the president.

Separately, Russia denied Kilicdaroglu’s allegations that the Kremlin was spreading disinformation on social media.  [Of course it is.]

Sudan: Warring factions early on Friday committed to protect civilians and the movement of humanitarian aid, but did not agree to a ceasefire and remain far apart, U.S. officials said.

After a week of talks in the Saudi port of Jeddah, Sudan’s army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) signed a declaration that they would work towards a short-term ceasefire in further talks, they said.  The U.S. says the “two sides are quite far apart,” noting it will be a long process to get from a short-term ceasefire to a permanent cessation of hostilities.

The World Health Organization has said more than 600 people have been killed and more than 5,000 injured in the fighting.  More than 700,000 have been displaced inside the country, with 150,000 seeking refuge in neighboring states, according to UN figures.

Pakistan: The top court ordered Imran Khan, the former prime minister, released from custody, saying his arrest was unlawful.  The ruling was a victory for Khan, whose arrest has led to violent (deadly) protests by his supporters across the country.

The decision by the Supreme Court is likely to escalate tensions, setting up a direct clash between the Supreme Court and Pakistan’s military, which is widely considered to be the driving force behind Khan’s arrest during a court hearing on a land fraud case this week in Islamabad.

The chaos comes as the nuclear-armed country of 220 million deals with a severe economic crisis and a delay to an International Monetary Fund bailout since November.  [Foreign exchange reserves are barely enough to cover a month’s imports.]

The powerful military, which has long feuded with Khan, has ruled the nation directly for close to half its 75-year history through three coups.  Despite its major influence it recently said it was no longer interfering in politics.

Today, the court ordered Khan to be released on bail for two weeks.  Khan departed the court premises and headed towards his hometown of Lahore, amidst high security.  He welcomed the court’s order and said the judiciary was Pakistan’s only protection against the “law of the jungle.”  He added only one man has the power in the country and that is the army chief.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 37% approve of Biden’s job performance, 59% disapprove; 31% of independents approve (Apr. 3-25).

Rasmussen: 44% approve, 54% disapprove (May 12).

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Biden’s approval rating at 40% in recent days, close to the lowest level of his presidency, with Americans unhappy about his handling of immigration and inflation.  The three-day poll, which ended last Sunday, showed a marginal increase from last month’s 39%.

The poll also found 54% of respondents – including 77% of Republicans and 34% of Democrats – were against raising the number of immigrants allowed into the country every year.  Only 26% said they approved of Biden’s handling of immigration.  Sixty-six percent of respondents support sending active duty U.S. soldiers to the border to support Border Patrol agents.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said they were opposed to raising the debt ceiling, including 59% of respondents who don’t have a college degree.  Among those with a degree, 44% were opposed to raising the borrowing limit.

Back to the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Biden’s approval rating stands at just 26% among Americans under age 30, 42% among non-White adults.

In the poll, by 54% to 36%, Americans say Trump did a better job handling the economy when he was president than Biden has done during his presidency thus far.

On the age issue, 63% say Biden does not have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, up from 43% in 2020 and 54% a year ago.  A similar 62% say Biden is not in good enough physical health to be effective.

But in contrast to Biden, 54% of Americans say Trump is sufficiently sharp mentally to serve as president and 64% say he is physically fit enough to serve.

Just 33% say Donald Trump is honest and trustworthy while 63% say he is not.  In comparison, 41% say Biden is honest and trustworthy while 54% say he is not.

What’s funny (well, not so much, actually) is that Trump’s numbers on honesty and trustworthiness have varied only marginally since he first became a candidate in 2015.  He has never reached even 40% positive in Post/ABC polls on this question. Biden, however, has seen perceptions of his honesty deteriorate. Three years ago, 48% said he was honest compared with 45% who said he was not.

Lastly, when Republican-leaning adults were given a broad choice on who they would like to see get the nomination for president, Trump received 51%, Ron DeSantis 25%, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence 6% each, Tim Scott 4% and Asa Hutchinson 1%.

--An unrepentant Donald Trump held firm to past grievances at the first televised town hall of the 2024 U.S. presidential election on Wednesday, making clear from the moment he took the stage that he has no intention of mounting anything more than what he has in the past…lies and chaos.

The 70-minute broadcast was moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who Trump called a “nasty person.”

Responding to questions from Collins and members of the audience at Saint Anselm College, Trump made no effort to offer more moderate positions on issues, which is the only way he can broaden his appeal to a wider swath of Republicans.  Asked by Collins whether he would acknowledge that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump reasserted unfounded claims that the election was rigged against him, brushing aside her attempts to correct the record.  “That was a rigged election,” Trump said, adding that anyone who thought otherwise was “Stupid.”

Trump declined to express regret for the violence at the Capitol, and he repeated his plan to pardon individuals involved if voters return him to the White House.  “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” Trump said.

Trump constantly lied on details behind Jan. 6, claiming he offered to provide 10,000 troops for security, even as his former defense secretary Chris Miller gave evidence that there was no direct order from the president.

Trump called E. Jean Carroll a “wack job,” a day after a federal jury found Trump sexually abused her, Carroll awarded $5 million in compensation.

The former president also suggested Congress should default on the country’s debt if Republicans could not secure cuts in spending.

Asked if he would commit to accepting the result of the 2024 election regardless of the outcome, he said he would if it was “honest.”

Shortly after the town hall, President Biden wrote on Twitter: “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that?”

--A Manhattan jury took just three hours to find former President Trump liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of the magazine writer E. Jean Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages in a civil trial.

The jury unanimously found that the “preponderance of the evidence” – a lower threshold than that in criminal cases – supported Carroll’s accusation that Trump attacked her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s.

It also held the former president liable for defaming Carroll, when he called her case “a Hoax and a lie.”  But the fury did not find that Carroll had proved that Trump had raped her, as she has long claimed.

Carroll is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, but hers is the first case to be successfully argued before a jury.  As this is civil court, Trump has not been convicted of a crime and faces no prison time.

What kind of dent this puts in Trump’s support remains to be seen.  But the response from more than a few Republican senators highlights the risks to his 2024 bid to regain the White House.

“The fact is, I do not think he could win the presidency,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Regardless of what you think about him as an individual, to me, electability is…the sole criterion.”

Asked whether he could support someone who has been found liable for sexual abuse as a candidate for president, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota told reporters, “I would have a difficult time doing so.”

“You never liked to hear that a former president has been found – in a civil court – guilty of those types of actions,” Rounds said.  “It focuses a lot of us on what we’ve been saying for some time now, which is we are looking for an individual to lead this party forward in a united method and we’re looking forward to those individuals coming forward.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said the verdict is clearly concerning.

“He’s been found to be civilly liable.  How could it do anything else but create concern?” Cassidy said.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota suggested that the verdict would most likely be part of “an ongoing drumbeat” throughout Trump’s candidacy.

He said that while many voters appear to have adopted the view that prosecutors “are out to get” Trump, “People are gonna have to decide whether…they want to deal with all the drama that’s going to surround him.”

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said a jury of Trump’s “peers found him guilty of sexual assault and awarded $5 million to the person who was damaged.”

“I hope the jury of the American people reached the same conclusion about Donald Trump…he is not suited to be President of the United States.”

For his part, Donald Trump raged on Truth Social that he has no clue who E. Jean Carroll even is.

“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” he posted shortly after the verdict was announced Tuesday afternoon.  “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”

“VERY UNFAIR TRIAL!” he later said.

About two hours later, Trump continued his all-caps rant, slamming senior New York Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the case.

“WHAT ELSE CAN YOU EXPECT FROM A TRUMP HATING, CLINTON APPOINTED JUDGE, WHO WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO MAKE SURE THAT THE RESULT WAS AS NEGATIVE AS IT COULD POSSIBLY BE, SPEAKING TO, AND IN CONTROL OF, A JURY FROM AN ANTI-TRUMP AREA WHICH IS PROBABLY THE WORST PLACE IN THE U.S. FOR ME TO GET A FAIR ‘TRIAL’,” he posted.

Editorial Wall Street Journal

“Does it matter politically now that a jury has found Donald Trump liable for battery and defamation against a woman who said he assaulted her sometime in the 1990s?  In a better world it would matter, but in the debased and polarized American politics of 2023, it may not….

“Yet it’s no small matter that the jury sorted the testimony and found against Mr. Trump on the preponderance of evidence standard that applies in civil litigation… The jury rejected Ms. Carroll’s claim that Mr. Trump raped her.  But they found it more likely than not that he sexually assaulted her and lied about it.  The jury awarded her a more than token civil penalty of $5 million.

“As is so often the case, Mr. Trump didn’t help himself with his videotaped deposition.  Nearby we excerpt part of Mr. Trump’s exchange with a lawyer for Ms. Carroll in which Mr. Trump claims that Ms. Carroll had somehow said on CNN that she found rape to be ‘sexy.’  He also reinforced the attitude he expressed in his ‘Access Hollywood’ tape that emerged in October 2016 that as a famous man he could get away with grabbing and kissing women.

“Question: ‘And you say – and again this has become very famous – in this video, ‘I just start kissing them.  It’s like a magnet.  Just kiss. I don’t even wait.  And when you’re a star, they let you do it.  You can do anything.  Grab them by the pussy.  You can do anything.’  That’s what you said.  Correct?’

“Mr. Trump: ‘Well, historically, that’s true with stars.’

“Q: ‘It’s true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy?’

“Mr. Trump; ‘Well, that’s what, if you look over the last million years I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.’

“Question: ‘And you consider yourself to be a star?’

“Mr. Trump: ‘I think you can say that, yeah.’

“A modicum of restraint, or twinge of regret about the accusation against him, might have put some doubt in the jury’s mind.  Yet even when it’s in his legal interest, Mr. Trump can’t stop from justifying his crude behavior.  This is the Donald Trump whose words and actions so often subverted his own Presidency.

“Yet if most Republicans dismiss the verdict as one more political assault, Mr. Trump’s opponents and the press have themselves to blame.  They also show no restraint… Voters don’t like being told that a man they elected should be disqualified by members of the opposite party or the press.

“Character matters in a President, however, and Republicans will want their presidential nominee to win in 2024 and then to govern successfully.  The Carroll lawsuit, compounded by the liability judgment, is the kind of tempest that is Mr. Trump’s constant companion.

“There may be more judicial challenges to come for Mr. Trump.  GOP voters will have to decide if sticking it to Mr. Trump’s enemies is worth putting the country through that kind of Oval Office tumult for four more years.”

Perhaps the most indicting element of Trump’s video deposition showed him mixing up former wife Marla Maples with E. Jean Carroll – clutching a photo of her and asserting, “That’s Marla, yeah…That’s my wife.”

Trump lawyer Alina Habba interjected, “No, that’s Carroll.”

“It’s very blurry,” Trump responded.  You’ve all seen the photo…it isn’t blurry.

Ergo, Ms. Carroll, heretofore called by Trump “not his type,” was his wife, clearly his type.

--Former Attorney General William Barr, in an appearance before the City Club of Cleveland last weekend, mused about Donald Trump and his supporters.

“If you believe in his policies, what he’s advertising as his policies, he’s the last person who could actually execute them and achieve them,” Barr said.

“He does not have the discipline.  He does not have the ability for strategic thinking and linear thinking, or setting priorities or how to get things done in the system,” Barr continued.  “It’s a horror show, you know, when he’s left to his own devices.

“And so you may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver Trump policies. He will deliver chaos, and if anything lead to a backlash that will set his policies much further back than they otherwise would be.”

The Wall Street Journal then editorialized:

“The rebuttal from the Trump establishment will be to cite his first term, but that record supports Mr. Barr’s point. We also agree with many of Mr. Trump’s policies, and we backed them during his Presidency. But his most important policy victories were conventional GOP priorities delivered by people he now denounces as ‘RINOs.’

“The Federalist Society delivered his list of judges that then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell guided to Senate confirmation.  Paul Ryan and House Republicans spent years building policy and political capital for tax reform.  Vice President Mike Pence supplied some of Mr. Trump’s best policy advisers.  While Mr. Trump deserves credit for embracing these people and policies, his second term would be filled by much lesser lights.

“The record on Mr. Trump’s signature ideas isn’t as successful.  He failed to build the border wall, and even with a GOP majority in Congress in his first two years he never passed an immigration bill that reformed the ‘credible fear’ standard of persecution for migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.  All the dysfunctions of U.S. immigration law were there for Mr. Biden to exploit.

“Mr. Trump’s trade agenda also achieved little other than higher costs for Americans.  China’s behavior hasn’t improved, while the U.S. is out of the successor deal to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Mr. Trump walked away from.  He failed to negotiate a new bilateral deal with the United Kingdom….

“The worst example of the chaos Mr. Barr cites is Mr. Trump’s management of Covid.  Mr. Trump conceded to destructive lockdowns recommended by Anthony Fauci, and he never adopted a consistent message. He daily took the bait of White House reporters and engaged in distracting feuds over Covid treatments and so much else….

“A fuller account of Mr. Trump’s Presidency can wait for other days, but Mr. Barr’s warning is one that GOP voters deserve to hear.  Democrats and most of the media want Mr. Trump to be the GOP nominee because they believe he is the easiest candidate to defeat.

“Republican voters are rightly appalled by the behavior of Democratic prosecutors, and they’ve rallied to Mr. Trump’s defense.  [Ed. this editorial was written days before the E. Jean Carroll verdict.]  But they have to decide if they want to let Democrats make their nominating choice for them, while ignoring Mr. Barr’s warning about the policy risks of a second Trump term.”

--Back on March 4, 2023, I wrote in this column of Rep. George Santos (R-NY):

“I still say the FBI will be hauling him away in cuffs, sooner than later, and that he is a danger to the public, let alone his fellow House members.  He’s a sicko.”

And so about two months later, Wednesday, Santos was charged with a host of financial crimes in court papers unsealed, including defrauding his donors, using their money for his personal benefit and wrongfully claiming unemployment benefits.

The freshman congressman, who announced his reelection bid last month, was arraigned in Central Islip, Long Island, before a magistrate judge, and told to relinquish his passport and ordered released on $500,000 bond.

Santos is allowed to travel only between New York and Washington.

Appearing afterwards outside the courthouse, Santos repeated his vow not to resign and said, “I will prove myself innocent,” which will be impossible.  He also channeled Donald Trump in calling the investigation a “witch hunt.”

“I am going to fight my battle, I am going to deliver,” Santos said. “I am going to take care of clearing my name, and I look forward to doing that.”

Santos faces seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of lying to Congress on financial forms.

Several New York Republicans joined Democrats in calling for Santo to leave Congress.  But House GOP leaders signaled they would take no immediate action.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy did say he won’t support Santos’ reelection bid.

But with a narrow 222-213 margin in the House, it’s obvious why McCarthy et al want Santos to stay in the House for now.  The big debt ceiling vote was 217-215, for example, Santos siding with McCarthy.

[Thursday, Santos signed a deal with Brazilian prosecutors in which he confessed to theft and agreed to pay restitution and fines if prosecutors agreed to drop the criminal case against him.]

--California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to Washington on Wednesday and said she is ready to resume her duties but with a lighter schedule, after missing nearly three months due to a bout of shingles.  Feinstein, 89, whose return to the Senate restores Democrats’ 51-49 majority, said in a statement she is still experiencing some side effects from the shingles virus, including vision and balance impairments, but added that she is “hopeful those issues will subside as I continue to recover.”

Her absence has made it impossible to pass some of President Biden’s judicial nominees, as Republicans both refused to support them and declined to allow Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to appoint a temporary replacement for Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee, as she had requested.

--Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson plans to launch a “new version” of his show on Twitter.

Carlson announced the news in a three-minute video posted on the social media platform on Tuesday.

“Speech is the fundamental prerequisite for democracy. That’s why it’s enshrined in the first of our Constitutional amendments,” Carlson says in the video.  “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech.  The last big one remaining in the world – the only one – is Twitter, where we are now.”

“Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops,” Carlson continues.  “Twitter is not a partisan site, everybody’s allowed here, and we think that’s a good thing. And yet, for the most part, the news that you see analyzed on Twitter comes from media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised as propaganda outlets. …The result may feel like a debate but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge.”

--California Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to throw his support behind cash payments of up to $1.2 million for black residents recommended by his reparations task force, according to a report.

The Democratic governor told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that reparations – meant to take responsibility for the country’s history of slavery and systemic racism – “is about much more than cash payments.”

While praising the task force’s work, he declined to endorse any specific recommendations.

--Two-thirds of Americans say the abortion drug mifepristone, used in the majority of abortions in the United States, should remain on the market, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, while 24% say it should be taken off the market.

The drug is at the center of an escalating legal dispute.  The Supreme Court preserved full access to mifepristone in April, putting on hold a lower court’s ruling that the Food and Drug Administration erred in making the drug more broadly available.  But the battle in the courts continues and it will no doubt end up back with the Supremes.

Nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion, including 54 percent who oppose it “strongly.”  Strong opposition also extends to majorities of moderates (62 percent), women (61 percent) and independents (55 percent).

About 8 in 10 Americans say the decision on whether to have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor (78 percent), while about 2 in 10 (18 percent) say abortion should be regulated by law.

--Advisers for the FDA voted unanimously on Wednesday in support of making the birth-control pill Opill available over-the-counter, saying the benefits outweigh the risks.

Two FDA advisory panels agreed that people would use the Opill safely and effectively and said groups – including adolescents and those with limited literacy – would be able to take the pill at the same time every day without help from a health care worker. 

The vote on whether people were likely to use the tablet properly was 17-0.

The FDA is expected to make a decision on whether to approve the pill this summer.

--Regarding the ongoing mass gun violence in America, a recent Fox News poll had most voters favoring the following proposals:

Requiring criminal background checks on all gun buyers (87%)
Raising the legal age to buy a gun to 21 (81%)
Improving enforcement of existing gun laws (81%)
Requiring mental health checks on gun buyers (80%)
Allowing police to take guns from those considered a danger to themselves or others (80%)
Requiring a 30-day waiting period for all gun purchases (77%)

The shooter in the Allen, Texas, mall massacre, thankfully taken out by an officer who just happened to be in the area on an unrelated matter, had purchased eight firearms, all legally.  He was also a Nazi sympathizer.

--Before SpaceX can try again to send its massive Starship rocket into orbit, the company needs to repair and renovate its badly damaged launch site in southern Texas.

It’s unclear whether the design changes that SpaceX is planning will be sufficient.  The launch attempt April 20 destroyed the structure below the launchpad, sending chunks of sand, concrete and steel thousands of feet into the sky and setting fire to a nearby park.

I wrote about the debris hitting the nearby beach, but I didn’t know it had sparked a fire.

To ensure this doesn’t happen again, SpaceX said it is adding a pair of massive steel plates with pressurized water to help dampen the effects of as many as 33 Raptor engines igniting during takeoff.

--The National Hurricane Center has posted a list of names for the 2023 storm season in the Atlantic.  “Katia” is bound to be destructive…just sayin’.

---

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

Pray for Ukraine.

God bless America, even as sometimes it’s hard to do so.

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Gold $2016
Oil $70.13

Regular Gas: $3.54; Diesel: $4.03 [$4.41 / $5.55 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 5/8-5/12

Dow Jones  -1.1%  [33300]
S&P 500  -0.3%  [4124]
S&P MidCap  -1.2%
Russell 2000  -1.1%
Nasdaq  +0.4%  [12284]

Returns for the period 1/1/23-5/12/23

Dow Jones  +0.5%
S&P 500  +7.4%
S&P MidCap  +0.1%
Russell 2000  -1.2%
Nasdaq  +17.4%

Bulls 44.6
Bears 24.3

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

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