Harvard Study: J6 Rioters Were Motivated By Loyalty To Trump, Not QAnon-Belief Or Insurrection Against The Constitution

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

According to The Crimson, Harvard has completed what it calls the most comprehensive study of the motivations of those involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

Many will not be surprised to learn that most participated out of loyalty to former President Donald Trump.

However, the study also found that only eight percent harbored “a desire to start a civil war.”

That is inconsistent with the virtual mantra out of the J6 Committee and many in Congress that this was an insurrection rather than a riot.

Some of us (including many in the public) have previously questioned that characterization. Yet, it reflects the relatively small number of seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department.

The study found that a plurality of the 417 federally charged defendants were motivated by the “lies about election fraud and enthusiasm for his re-election.” It concluded that “[t]he documents show that Trump and his allies convinced an unquantifiable number of Americans that representative democracy in the United States was not only in decline, but in imminent, existential danger.”

The study also found that belief in QAnon “was one of the [defendants’] lesser motives.”

The study was hardly pro-Trump and one author even expressed surprise with the results since conspiracy theories “were so prominently displayed in much of the [riot’s] visual imagery.”

Once again, none of this exonerates or excuses those who rioted on January 6th or those who fueled the riot. However, the use of “insurrection” by the politicians, pundits, and the press is not an accurate characterization of the motivation of most of the people who went to the Capitol on that day. It was clear that this was a protest that became a riot.

There is no question that there were people who came prepared for such a riot, including some who are extremists who likely would have welcomed a civil war.

Yet, the vast majority of people on that day were clearly present to protest the certification and wanted Republicans to join those planning to challenge the election.

One of the key reasons for the resulting damage was the collapse of security at the Hill. The J6 Committee steadfastly refused to address the myriad of questions of why the Congress was not better prepared despite the obvious dangers of a riot (including warnings before January 6th).

The scenes of that day are seared in the memory of many of us. I publicly condemned Trump’s speech while it was being given and I called for a bipartisan vote of censure over his responsibility in the riots.

However, there has been an unrelenting effort to make “insurrection” a litmus test for anyone speaking about January 6th. If one does not use that term (and, worse yet, expresses doubts about its accuracy), you run the risk of immediate condemnation as someone excusing or supporting insurrection. This framing also reduces the need to address the question of how this riot was allowed to spiral out of control.

It is possible to express revulsion about what happened on Jan. 6th without claiming that this was an insurrection and attempt to overthrow the nation.

This was a collective tragedy for the entire nation, a desecration of our constitutional process.

The effort to mandate “insurrection” as the only acceptable description prevents the country from speaking with a unified voice. It clearly serves political purposes but only makes a national resolution more difficult as we approach a new presidential election.

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/31/2022 - 19:00
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Harvard Study: J6 Rioters Were Motivated By Loyalty To Trump, Not QAnon-Belief Or Insurrection Against The Constitution

All Eyes On 'Silent' Sinema After Dems Bag Manchin

Now that the Democrats have gotten Joe Manchin (D-WV) to bend the knee on a reconciliation package called the "Inflation Reduction Act" - which doesn't actually reduce inflation to any meaningful degree, all eyes are on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), whose vote will be crucial to passing the bill in the Senate.

Thus far, she's been silent regarding her position on the bill after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) kept her in the dark as he worked out a secret deal with Manchin in isolation, which according to Mish Talk, "was a purposeful gamble and perhaps a bad one."

On Sunday, Machin made the rounds on the political talk circuit where he defended the reconciliation package - claiming it would halt price increases, which Bloomberg notes, comes "despite a study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School showing it would have little impact or could increase inflation slightly in the near term."

Democrats are seeking to pass the bill this week in the Senate and in the House next week. Doing so would require all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to vote yes on the bill and defeat a slew of Republican attempts to amend it. It would also require all 50 to remain Covid-free and able to endure a long vote series. 

Sinema’s office has said the Arizona Democrat won’t make her position known until later in the week at the earliest, after the top Senate rules official has scrubbed the bill of any non-budgetary items. -Bloomberg

"I respectfully disagree with the people from Penn Wharton," Manchin said on CNN, claiming that the study doesn't properly credit the effects of $300 billion in lower budget deficits in the bill, the report continues.

Meanwhile, the West Virginia Senator said Sinema has nothing to complain about.

"She has so much in this legislation," Manchin told CNN regarding Sinema, adding that the tax changes in the bill don't amount to tax rate increases, which Sinema staunchly opposed during previous negotiations, citing the economy.

The bill would slap large corporations with a 15% minimum tax, as well as make changes to how carried interest is taxed - which will hit hedge fund managers at their individual rates. The bill will also beef up IRS tax audits by increasing the agency's head count.

"I agree with her 100% in that we are not going to raise taxes and we won’t," said Manchin.

All of that said, Sinema may want to change the Schumer-Manchin deal, according to Axios.

Sinema has leverage and she knows it. Any potential modification to the Democrat's climate and deficit reduction package — like knocking out the $14 billion provision on carried interest — could cause the fragile deal to collapse.

• Her posture is causing something between angst and fear in the Democratic caucus as senators wait for her to render a verdict on the secret deal announced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin last Thursday.

Sinema has given no assurances to colleagues that she’ll vote along party lines in the so-called “vote-a-rama” for the $740 billion bill next week, according to people familiar with the matter.

• The vote-a-rama process allows lawmakers to offer an unlimited number of amendments, as long as they are ruled germane by the Senate parliamentarian. Senators — and reporters — expect a late night.

The big picture: Schumer made a calculated decision to negotiate a package with Manchin in secrecy. He assumed that all of his other members, including Sinema, would fall into line and support the deal.

According to Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, the bill "may have some effect" in the long run.

"My guess is over the next couple of years, it’s not going to have much of an impact on inflation," he told CBS's "Face the Nation," adding that there's "an acute mismatch between demand and supply" that the Federal Reserve can resolve by reducing demand.

As Mish Talk notes further, there are four ways the bill could die.

• The Senate parliamentarian can rule against permit reform. That would likely kill everything right there. 
• The Republican poison pill kill method could work, but I suspect there are ways for that to backfire as well.
• Sinema can easily kill this bill herself, but I suspect she would rather have Manchin on board or hopes Manchin kills it himself after an adverse parliamentarian ruling.
• Poison pills aside, many specifics are still missing. How is this Medicare cost reduction idea going to work? Bickering over missing details could kill this.

Saga Continues

If the bill dies, the most likely way is via the Senate parliamentarian. Joe Manchin can then say he tried, and Sinema might escape without having to take an actual position. 

The saga continues. 

I will not be surprised by any outcome including an even bigger boondoggle that is currently on the table.

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All Eyes On 'Silent' Sinema After Dems Bag Manchin

Chinese Stocks Underperform S&P 500 Most Since 2016

By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and analyst

Three things we learned last week:

1. Optimism toward China’s growth recovery got a reality check last week, when the Politburo meeting made two things clear: the Covid Zero policy is here to stay and large stimulus is unlikely. On Sunday, a report showed China’s factory activity unexpectedly contracted in July. The benchmark CSI 300 index retreated for a fourth week and tumbled 7% in July, its biggest monthly loss since March. It trailed the S&P 500 by 16 percentage points, giving up all of its outperformance in June when reopening euphoria swept the markets. Foreign investors sold 21 billion yuan ($3 billion) worth of stocks via the stock connect programs during the month, the most since March.

In addition to the Covid policies, the real-estate market remains a source of tension. Reports of several rescue proposals -- including to seize undeveloped land from distressed real estate-companies and to provide loans to support stalled property projects -- have floated around. Details may differ, but the underlying theme for all these plans is the same: saving unfinished projects to protect homeowners, instead of developers. Struggling developers such as Evergrande are left hanging.

2. To be, or not to be (in Taiwan), that is the question. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left for her Asia trip on Friday. Whether she’ll land in Taipei remains a mystery, even as her itinerary skipped any mention of a possible stopover in Taiwan. The talk between President Xi and Biden centered on Taiwan, but neither side described the discussion as “constructive.” One thing is crystal clear: Taiwanese stocks rose on the week and month, handily beating peers in Hong Kong and China. Investors appear to have largely dismissed the simmering geopolitical tension.

3. While bad news is bad news for markets in China, it apparently is good news for US investors. The US economy contracted for a second quarter. Whether it’s truly a recession or not, growth clearly has lost momentum. The Fed signaled it could slow down the pace of tightening after it delivered another 75bp rate hike to put the benchmark rate at 2.5%. It’s hardly as pivotal as some market observers claimed, because the markets’ pricing of the Fed’s policy rates for the remaining of the year barely changed, and is in line with what’s prescribed on the Fed’s dot plot. With financial conditions easing, the risk now is that inflation doesn’t come down as quickly as markets expect.

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Chinese Stocks Underperform S&P 500 Most Since 2016

US Frack Growth Constrained In "Perfect Storm"

Last week, Halliburton Co.'s CEO Jeff Miller warned hydraulic fracturing equipment is in short supply and could hamper fracking growth. Another oil/gas executive echoed the same warning this week and said bottlenecks could persist through 2023. 

"Availability of frac fleets is one of main bottlenecks impeding oil and natural as production growth for the next 18 months," Robert Drummond, chief executive officer of fracking firm NexTier Oilfield Solutions, told Reuters. 

Besides supply chain snarls, Drummond warned that capital constraints would make adding equipment to fields challenging. He said this imbalance could take several years to correct, adding that NexTier has no plans to expand fracking capacity this year. 

This development is another setback for the Biden administration's efforts to increase US oil production to ease the worst inflation in forty years ahead of the midterm elections in November. 

US crude production is around 11.6 million barrels per day, below the pre-pandemic 12.3 million bpd in 2019, the latest data from the Energy Information Administration show. 

Matt Hagerty, a senior analyst at BTU Analytics, pointed out that "frac crew bottlenecks" are a "significant headwind for US producers headed into 2023." He said frac sand and labor shortages, elevated inflation, and limited frac fleets are a "perfect storm." 

Halliburton's Miller said oil companies didn't have enough fracking equipment for newly leased wells. He said diesel-powered and electric equipment are in short supply, "making it almost impossible to add incremental capacity this year." 

A similar message was conveyed by Exxon Mobil, whose CEO said that global oil markets might remain tight for three to five years primarily because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods said it'll take time for oil firms to "catch up" on the investments needed to ensure enough supply.

In response to shale's dismal ramp-up in production, the Biden administration has panic sold millions and millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been drained by 125 million barrels so far in 2022 -- all in hopes of lowering gasoline prices at the pump ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The good news is the recession, and high inflation appears to have sparked the weakest gasoline demand since 2013. 

The Shale patch has a structural bottleneck that won't be resolved this year. Blame years of divestment and decarbonization for the mess. 

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US Frack Growth Constrained In "Perfect Storm"

Rivian Laying Off Approximately 840 Employees

By John Gallagher of FreightWaves

Electric vehicle startup Rivian is laying off 6% of its 14,000-employee workforce, or roughly 840 positions, according to reports.

“This decision will help align our workforce to our key business priorities, including ramping up the consumer and commercial vehicle programs, accelerating the development of R2 and other future models, deploying our go-to-market programs and optimizing spend across the business,” according to news organizations citing a company statement.

“We’re deeply grateful for each departing team member’s contribution in helping build Rivian into what it is today. They will always be part of the Rivian story and community.”

Rivian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The cost-cutting move is aimed at ensuring the company can continue to grow its manufacturing operations without raising additional funds, according to Rivian CEO Robert Scaringe, in an email to the Wall Street Journal. It reported that the company’s sole manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois, will not be affected by the layoffs.

“Over the last six months, the world has dramatically changed with inflation reaching record highs, interest rates rapidly rising and commodity prices continuing to climb — all of which have contributed to the global capital markets tightening,” Scaringe wrote.

Rivian’s stock has steadily lost ground since its first day of trading in November. On Friday, Rivian closed at $34.30 a share, down more than 80% from its high on Nov. 16 of $179.47.

Amazon, Rivian’s largest customer and backer, lost $11.5 billion on its Rivian stock investment over the first six months of 2022. That includes $3.9 billion lost on the investment in the second quarter, recorded as a non-operating expense.

The cuts at Rivian follow reports of Xos Trucks cutting 8% of its workforce and layoffs at Canoo, as competition intensifies in the EV market amid signs of a looming recession.

Amazon has started deliveries with Rivian electric delivery vehicles (EDVs), a rollout that “is the start of what Amazon plans to be thousands of EDVs in more than 100 cities by the end of 2022 — and 100,000 EDVs across the U.S. by 2030,” Amazon stated in its second-quarter results.

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Rivian Laying Off Approximately 840 Employees

Teen Who Assaulted Cop In Harlem Subway Station Released Without Bail And Remanded To Family Court

It'll probably come as zero surprise at this point, but New York City's DA has decided to take it easy on a 16 year old that was caught on film last week attacking and assaulting a police officer.

The juvenile was stopped by the officer after he hopped a subway turnstile. The altercation then turned physical, with the youth engaging in a prolonged physical altercation with the officer before finally being controlled. 

And of course, New York City prosecutor Alvin Bragg is defending his office's decision to release the youth - who has three felony arrests in less than four months - and try his case in family court instead of Manhattan Criminal Court, according to Fox News.

In family court, the youth will face rehabilitation instead of jailtime - and the DA's office will no longer have any jurisdiction over the crime. 

As Fox notes, this is all despite the fact that the teen had just been arrested and released without bail for allegedly beating and robbing a stranger near Madison Avenue on June 21. 

"Our system must respond to children as children," a  representative from Bragg's office said. 

Photo:

Fox News

They continued: "Violence against our police officers is unacceptable, and given his age at the time of arrest, we consented to send the second case to family court as soon as possible, where he would receive the age-appropriate interventions and supports he needs while being held accountable."

And even better, the DA said they weren't aware of another arrest on April 12 for possessing a .40 caliber handgun and crossbow in Brooklyn that the teen faced. 

While 16-and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors and many nonviolent felonies are automatically remanded to family court under the city's "criminal justice reforms", the DA still has the option of exercising discretion and keeping a case in criminal court for any type of extraordinary circumstances.

Apparently, assaulting a cop is no longer "extraordinary" in New York - a sad commentary on the state of the city's criminal justice system, and its DA. 

"The DA clearly knew that they were prosecuting the same offender for a violent robbery," he said. "If that is not an extraordinary circumstance, what is?  If violence against police officers is unacceptable, why ignore the violent robbery arrest. This isn't accountability. This is lunacy," criminal defense lawyer Mark Bederow concluded. 

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Teen Who Assaulted Cop In Harlem Subway Station Released Without Bail And Remanded To Family Court

National Rankings Show San Francisco Falling Further Behind

Authored by Kerry Jackson via InsideSources.com,

What has happened to San Francisco, often thought of in the past as the most beautiful city in the country, if not the entire world? The transition from beloved by almost all to profoundly repellant to many is the sad story of a great city being toppled from within.

The “Paris of the West” has been tarnished by rampant homelessness, rough and dirty streets much like those of its Barbary Coast past, and crime as ugly as it appears on all those videos we’ve seen.

Of course, those are the more well-known sores. Though mostly unseen, there are others just as troublesome.

Once a city of opportunity, San Francisco has become a millstone that crushes entrepreneurs’ dreams. In a study of 20 large U.S. cities, the Institute for Justice found that the cost to start a restaurant in San Francisco, at $22,648, is higher than the cost in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston and Atlanta. In fact, no other city in the study came close to San Francisco’s cost. At $13,973, Minneapolis is the only other city where costs reached five digits.

San Francisco also “has the highest average cost to start up across all five business types” — restaurants, retail bookstore, food truck, barbershop, home-based tutoring — “at $10,474,” which turns out to be “much more expensive than the already-high $2,555 average for all cities studied,” the Institute for Justice report says.

One of the factors is not a local policy but a state law, the California Environmental Quality Act, which “can easily add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of starting up,” and often delays projects for years.

But the existence of CEQA does not mean that San Francisco deserves none of the blame. The city “has 212 business license categories — the highest number of all cities studied, forcing entrepreneurs there to navigate complex lists of licenses to figure out which apply to their business.” Zoning rules effectively bar home-based tutoring businesses, and the overall complexity of navigating the process is frequently overwhelming.

What else should be expected, though, from the second-worst run city in the country?

According to WalletHub, the government of Washington, D.C., is the only one of the 150 city governments studied that is operated worse than San Francisco. (Oakland, Calif., is the 143rd-worst run city — there must be something in the waters of the Bay.)

While city officials argue the point, WalletHub has the evidence: San Francisco’s outstanding per capita long-term debt is tied for the highest with Washington, the streets are poor (tied for last with the California cities of Oakland, San Jose and Fremont), and “safety” is rather middling.

At least the kids are apparently getting schooled. WalletHub ranks the city 11th in education.

But then, there aren’t many children in San Francisco to be educated. It might be the most childless city in the nation and continues to trend downward.

Could it be that it’s simply too expensive to raise kids in the city where it takes an average net worth of $5.1 million to be considered wealthy, $1.3 million more than in 2021, and to be “financially comfortable” requires a net worth of $1.7 million?

Yes, it could, and it probably is.

Each of these wounds results from the friendly fire of decades of poor public policy choices (and corruption), and while serious, they’re not deadly — at least not yet.

The optimistic view is that city officials have a chance to reverse the damaging policies before the stream of people leaving becomes a rushing river.

The reality-based view is that they don’t have long.

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National Rankings Show San Francisco Falling Further Behind

Nine Sri Lankan Navy Sailors Jump Ship In USA

Nine Sri Lankan Navy sailors who'd participated in a massive joint naval exercise in the Pacific Ocean have jumped ship in a bid to stay in the United States.

Sri Lanka has been gripped by an economic crisis that led then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and flee the country on July 13, after hordes of protestors stormed the official presidential residence. On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan parliament ratified a state of emergency declared by new President Ranil Wickremesinghe, as he seeks to quell demonstrations and unrest. 

According to Economy Next. the sailors left Sri Lanka on June 4 as part of a 50-person contingent that was taking part in the massive, 26-country Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) joint naval exercise between Hawaii and Southern California.  

Following the training, the sailors were slated to return to their country on a Sri Lankan ship that was a gift from the United States. The vessel -- which was previously the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Douglas Munro and for now is identified only as "P627" --  was officially transferred to the Sri Lankan Navy in October, but has been undergoing restoration in the United States. 

The Sri Lankan ship in its previous life as the US Coast Guard cruiser Douglas Munro

“A big crew went to the USA to bring in a ship that was donated to the Sri Lanka Navy,” an official Sri Lankan source told Economy Next. “From that crew, nine people have gone missing.” 

While reporting does not indicate where they slipped away from their crewmates, earlier coverage of the transfer of the vessel said it was expected to depart for Sri Lanka from Seattle in May. The sailors represent a variety of ranks and ages between 27 and 36. 

“We understand that several sailors have absconded from the training, a matter that has been referred to U.S. law enforcement,” a U.S. embassy spokesman told Economy Next. “Individuals who break U.S. immigration laws can be subject to arrest, detention, and deportation, and those who accrue unlawful presence in the United States can be prevented from returning to the U.S. for up to 10 years.”

The sailors are among many Sri Lankans trying to start new lives somewhere else, with boats venturing not only to India but as far away as Australia, which is some 3,500 miles away. 

The Sri Lankan navy previously aided one particularly notable emigre...   

🇱🇰 BREAKING NEWS🇱🇰

Footage emerges said to be of President Rajapakse fleeing Sri Lanka aboard a Navy Vessel. pic.twitter.com/yvaYv5uGvB

— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) July 9, 2022

Sri Lankans storm Presidential Palace due to economic shutdown. And President Gotabaya has fled the country. The people raided the bedroom, swimming pool and kitchen. Sri Lanka has experienced months long of high inflation, shortage of drugs, fuel and high commodity prices 😳. pic.twitter.com/uOaw5tN2Aj

— Elijah Tembo (@elijah_23039) July 9, 2022

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Nine Sri Lankan Navy Sailors Jump Ship In USA

Deafening Silence On Dobbs Leak Undermines Supreme Court As An Institution

Authored by Benjamin Weingarten via The Epoch Times,

Chief Justice John Roberts is said to see defending the Supreme Court as an institution as pivotal to his role on it.

On its face then, the Court’s silence some two months after Justice Roberts announced an investigation into what he termed an “egregious breach”—the assault on the institution of the Court that was the leak of the draft Dobbs opinion that would prevail, returning the question of abortion to its rightful place within the states—is itself an egregious breach.

As the Associated Press recently reported, the Court is at present mum on whether it’s still even investigating the leak, as well as on a host of other basic questions about the probe.

There were already glaring outstanding questions regarding those few elements of the investigation to which we were privy.

For example, we do not know why the marshal of the Supreme Court was particularly well-equipped to lead it, nor the resources the marshal was bringing to bear.

We do not know what the probe entails, or entailed, beyond the fact perhaps that rankled staff at the Court leaked that it was asking of clerks that they provide cell phone records and sign affidavits in connection with it, and that reportedly the marshal obtained electronic devices “from some permanent employees who work closely with the justices.”

We do not know whether the Court will publicly announce the findings of its investigation in whole or part—starting with who the leaker was—nor the punishment the leaker will face, and the steps the Court will take to ensure such a leak never happens again.

Now the universe of people who could have obtained and leaked the opinion—the leaker described as “a person familiar with the court’s proceedings” in the Dobbs case—is small.

If the Court does not by now know who leaked the opinion, it would seem to constitute a breathtaking display of incompetence.

If the Court does know who leaked the opinion, yet for whatever reason is sitting on its findings, it would seem to constitute a breathtaking display of politics.

That’s because, on the merits, the silence is indefensible.

What could be of greater import to the institution’s integrity and credibility than to demonstrate that it will stop at nothing to, and with great haste, find and bring to justice an individual who would so grievously undermine the Court’s ability to do its most basic duty: deliberate, discreetly and insulated from political pressure and intimidation.

Silence on the leak probe only compounds the error of not ruling expeditiously in the wake of the leak, which fueled what else but a campaign of political pressure and intimidation up to and including threats to the life and limb of the judges.

Does the chief justice, so attuned to public opinion about the Court, think the probe can be cast as some kind of internal matter to be handled privately, and made to fade into the ether?

Do the findings implicate one or several justices, and as such, is the chief justice unsure how to proceed with the public?

The longer he remains silent, the greater the speculation will grow. Surely the chief justice does not think promoting such speculation is in the interest of the Court as an institution.

Or could it be that the Roberts Court’s silence is representative of the fact that the chief justice’s understanding of protecting the Supreme Court as an institution differs from ours?

Chief Justice Roberts’s past attempts to protect the Court as an institution can be seen in his: rewriting of Obamacare as a tax, lest President Barack Obama’s signature achievement be properly rendered unconstitutional; failed attempt to split the baby in issuing a similarly tortured Dobbs concurrence, while also failing to flip Justice Brett Kavanaugh towards his position and away from that of Justice Samuel Alito; and in the overarching “incrementalist” approach reflected in many of his rulings, whereby Chief Justice Roberts eschews hewing to the law if in his view the results would be too practically jarring, or not deferential enough to precedent, no matter how wrongheaded.

For the purported institutionalist, the chief justice’s continued silence on the Dobbs probe will perpetuate the damage of the “egregious breach” the longer it persists.

It strains credulity to think that after two months the Court would still be in a posture of neither confirming nor denying anything about an investigation that it already announced, and one of the utmost importance.

This is about more than meting out justice to an individual for a single act.

That act was, in Chief Justice Roberts’s own words, a “betrayal of the confidences of the Court” - a singular blow against this most hallowed of institutions.

When is the chief justice going to act like it?

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Deafening Silence On Dobbs Leak Undermines Supreme Court As An Institution

CDC Gave Big Tech Platforms Guidance On COVID Censorship

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave censorship 'suggestions' to social media companies and Google in order to censor users who expressed skepticism or criticism of COVID-19 vaccines, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which obtained a trove of internal communications obtained by America First Legal.

The emails, between the CDC, Google, Twitter and Meta staffers - some of whom (as Just the News notes) were former Hill and White House aides - were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and show extensive cooperation which included thinly veiled threats for failing to more aggressively remove content.

Over the course of at least six months, starting in December 2020, CDC officials regularly communicated with personnel at Twitter, Facebook, and Google over "vaccine misinformation." At various times, CDC officials would flag specific posts by users on social media platforms such as Twitter as "example posts."

In one email to a CDC staffer, a Twitter employee said he is "looking forward to setting up regular chats" with the agency. Other emails show the scheduling of meetings with the CDC over how to best police alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. -Free Beacon

In one April 2021 email between a CDC staffer and Facebook, concern was raised after "algorithms that Facebook and other social media networks are apparently using to screen out posting by sources of vaccine misinformation are also apparently screening out valid public health messaging, including [Wyoming] Health communications."

Another email from March 2021 from a senior CDC staffer states: "we are working on [sic] project with Census to leverage their infrastructure to identify and monitor social media for vaccine misinformation."

What's more, one email chain reveals that a CDC official showed up at Google's 2020 "Trusted Media Summit" conference, which was held for "journalists, fact-checkers, educators, researchers and others who work in the area of fact-checking, verification, media literacy, and otherwise fighting misinformation."

When asked by an organizer if the senior CDC official would allow her remarks on YouTube, she declined, saying she was not authorized to speak publicly.

In the same email chain with a senior CDC official, a Google staffer offers to promote an initiative from the World Health Organization about "addressing the COVID-19 infodemic and strengthen community resilience against misinformation." That same Google staffer offers to introduce the CDC official to a Google colleague who is "working on programs to counter immunization misinfo." -Free Beacon

Meanwhile, Facebook gave the CDC $15 million in ad credits to use on the company's platforms in April, 2021.

"This gift will be used by CDC's COVID-19 response to support the agency's messages on Facebook, and extend the reach of COVID-19-related Facebook content, including messages on vaccines, social distancing, travel, and other priority communication messages," reads an internal memo.

As the Beacon notes, the level of coordination between government and big tech raises questions over what extent other private companies are working with the federal government in order to censor the public - including payment processors, Uber and other platforms which have banned the unwashed for wrongthink.

The revelations have also caused the New Civil Liberties Alliance to file a Thursday court document seeking to revive their lawsuit against the government on behalf of deplatformed users.

New Civil Liberties Alliance attorney Jenin Younes told Just the News it incorporated "the revelations about the CDC emails" into a filing Thursday seeking to reopen its case against the feds on behalf of deplatformed users.

A federal court dismissed that litigation a month before a whistleblower leaked documents suggesting the Department of Homeland Security's since-scrapped Disinformation Governance Board planned to "operationalize" its relationship with social media companies to remove content. NCLA cited those documents in its initial motion to reopen in June. -JTN

JTN further notes that the document dump is also likely to come into play in a lawsuit by Missouri and Louisiana AGs against the government for alleged collusion with Big Tech to censor content on the origins of COVID-19, as well as Hunter Biden's laptop and vote-by-mail election integrity.

The feds filed a motion to dismiss two weeks ago for lack of legal standing and failure to state a claim. The AGs' responses aren't due until next week.

AFL's documents show the CDC shared specific tweets and Facebook and Instagram posts as examples of content to remove, including an interview with a former Pfizer vice president, Michael Yeadon, who advised against taking "top up" vaccines, meaning boosters.

The agency inserted its own COVID recommendations into Google's code, received $15 million in Facebook ad credits to promote its messaging, and even notified Facebook that Wyoming's public health messages were getting throttled as misinformation. -JTN

Recall that just one day after top health officials had a conference call to discuss a Zero Hedge article which highlighted a now-withdrawn paper from researchers in India suggesting "HIV-like insertions" in COVID-19, Twitter banned our account for roughly two months - with the tech giant claiming we doxxed a Chinese scientist (with publicly available information) in another article.

Thanks to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Fauci's emails, we know that the National Institutes of Health was not only aware of the Indian report, but were actively discussing how to handle it.

A January 31, 2020 email from AFP's Issam Ahmed asks NIH immunologist Dr. Barney Graham for comment:

"I was told by a contact you may be willing to give an opinion of this paper that has just gone live. It suggests the new Coronavirus has four inserts similar to HIV-1 and this is not a coincidence," reads the email.

Graham immediately forwards the correspondence to the Office of Communications and Government Relations (OCGR), saying "This is one we don't want to answer without high-level input, but wanted you to know about the rising controversy."

Two days later, Jennifer Routh OCGR replies, telling Graham: "OCGR is going to send a note to the reporter to decline, noting that the paper is not peer-reviewed. Please let us know if you receive similar requests."

That same Sunday morning, Fauci is looped in - with Sir Jeremy Farrar forwarding Zero Hedge's article after mentioning how World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom and the organization's cabinet chief were in 'conclave' - ostensibly on how to manage the narrative - noting "If they do prevaricate [bullshit the public], I would appreciate a call with you later tonight or tomorrow to think how we might take forward."

"Do you have a minute for a quick call?" Fauci replies, after having called the Indian paper "really outlandish."

Wow! @zerohedge gets mentioned! @JeremyFarrar pic.twitter.com/OKvo5ekL8G

— Jess (@uacjess) June 1, 2021

Of course, the Indian paper was quickly withdrawn by its authors, and the notion that COVID-19 could have been man-made was rendered radioactive - for a while.

Is it any question how our Twitter (and Google) deplatformings happened, before both companies chose to reverse their decisions?

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CDC Gave Big Tech Platforms Guidance On COVID Censorship

Three Arrows Capital Is Sorry (Maybe): Recap Of The Biggest Crypto News In The Last Week Of July

By Donovan Choy of Bankless

Three Arrows Capital founders break silence

The founders of 3AC broke their silence this week in a widely publicized Bloomberg piece. The article doesn’t shed light on any new salient information, but is noteworthy because it’s the first we’re hearing from the co-captains that steered a gargantuan financial catastrophe. Here’s a summary of reasons Zhu and Davies gave for 3AC’s downfall in the interview:

1. They got too close to Do Kwon and overestimated LUNA’s potential
2. They traded Grayscale BTC successfully “at the right window” but because many crypto firms “copied us into that trade… then the trust went… to a far bigger discount than anyone thought possible.”
3. Bitcoin went from 30K to 20K and that was “extremely painful for us”
4. “We had different types of trades that we all thought were good, and other people also had these trades,” Zhu said. “And then they kind of all got super marked down, super fast.”

In short, we made risky trades that went south but it’s not all on us, because, well, everyone else did them too, and we couldn’t have foreseen that Bitcoin crash, so we got caught with our pants down by systemic risk. Well, okay. It’s true that no one can see the future. That’s exactly why an entire industry exists around risk management. They’re called hedging and diversification and every modern financial institution uses them except for 3AC which utterly failed to take them seriously.

And then something that sounded… nothing like an apology:

“People may call us stupid. They may call us stupid or delusional. And, I’ll accept that. Maybe,” Zhu said. “But they’re gonna, you know, say that I absconded funds during the last period, where I actually put more of my personal money back in. That’s not true.”

“The whole situation is regrettable,” Davies said. “Many people lost a lot of money.” “We believed in everything to the fullest,” added Davies. “We had all of our, almost all of our assets in there. And then in the good times we did the best. And then in the bad times we lost the most.”

And then there’s this attempt at signaling humility:

The [$50 million yacht] “was bought over a year ago and commissioned to be built and to be used in Europe,” Zhu said, adding the yacht “has a full money trail.” He rejected the perception that he enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle, noting that he biked to work and back every day and that his family “only has two homes in Singapore.” “We were never seen in any clubs spending lots of money. We were never seen, you know, kind of driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis around,” Zhu said.

By the way, I live in Singapore. The average cost of a car is ~150K USD which explains why the mass majority of Singaporeans commute to work by public transportation. If you’re biking to work, you probably live in the wealthiest estates of the city-state, and we already know that one of Zhu’s home was a 31,000-square-foot home worth $35M. So whatever two humble abodes Zhu was hopping in between, they were more like palaces relative to the average person.

Common y'all. Su ain't flashy, he rides his bike to work and to the marina where his superyacht is moored.

ONLY 2 homes, brah you straight slumming it in the Kampong aka Tanglin. pic.twitter.com/hFhEs8jyBV

— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) July 22, 2022

Coinbase insider trading

The big story this week revolves around Coinbase. Here are the quick facts:

1. Between June 2021-April 2022, former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi who worked on the assets listing team tipped off two others - his brother and a friend - about 25 to-be listed coins and collectively raked in profits of up to $1.5M.
2. Some early signs emerged in mid-April when Cobie tweeted about a wallet that scooped up 100K+ worth of tokens 24 hours before it was published on the Coinbase Asset listing post.
3. The US DOJ is charging the trio with “wire fraud conspiracy… in connection with a scheme to commit insider trading in cryptocurrency assets by using confidential Coinbase information”, and calling it "the first ever insider trading case involving cryptocurrency markets."

Story so far: TradFi insiders making money from insider deals. Nothing out of the ordinary yet, we know that TradFi bad, blockchain good. 

But that’s not quite the drama at hand here. The SEC continued to separately file charges of “securities fraud” against the insider traders, alleging that nine of the traded assets listed by Coinbase were unregistered securities (AMP, DDX, DFX, KROM, LCX, POWR, RGT, RLY, XYO). As a result, Coinbase is taking a hit as its stocks are down 21% and Cathie Wood of Ark Invest is reportedly dumping 1.41M Coinbase shares.

To no one’s surprise, Coinbase and the broader crypto community isn’t happy. CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham is calling this a “striking example of regulation by enforcement” or what is sometimes referred to as “rule by law”, a pejorative term to label state authoritarianism.

The crux of the matter is this: The SEC’s charges contain a loaded premise, namely that these handful of Coinbase-listed tokens are indeed securities. Should the insider traders be convicted, it indirectly puts Coinbase and those token-issuers on trial for violating U.S. securities law.

But even if the charges get dropped eventually, the accusation in itself is damning. It kicks up a fog of regulatory uncertainty for dozens of crypto exchanges that are listing the same tokens, as well as token-issuers broadly. This happened when the SEC brought an enforcement action against Ripple (XRP) back in 2020, and it’s happening again now.

Ironically, Coinbase is most conservative in its token listings relative to its main competitors Binance and FTX. (If CZ or SBF reads this humble newsletter, please don’t let any insider traders screw this up.)

But look, Coinbase is a regulated public company operating obediently within the confines of the official rulebook. If regulators have problems with Coinbase who plays nice and is rule-observing, decentralized exchanges that allow any token listing should be quaking in their boots.

Asides from that, crypto being pigeonholed as a tradable security under U.S. securities law would mean being tangled up in the same TradFi regulatory apparatus. That means fines, regulatory burdens, and heightened entry barriers for new players. That’s bad for crypto innovation and goes against the fundamental permissionless ethos of the Web3 project.

More interesting but hard to settle is the normative question of whether digital assets should be considered securities. The U.S. traditionally determines whether something is a “security” based on the Howey test, where the criteria is an investment contract that includes an “investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others”. Asides from a profit motive, regulators also look to the extent of its centralization i.e., whether the token has an active managerial team behind it.

Which tokens would fit both those criteria? Does that exclude L1/L2 tokens like ETH or OP that function as a commodity (gas) to power an ecosystem? How about tokens like DYDX after they migrate to their own Cosmos chain - would that turn the DYDX token into a non-security? What about “reserve currency” tokens like OHM - are they a “store-of-value” asset like gold/Bitcoin, making them a non-security? Let’s not forget NFTs. Most buyers mint them with an expectation of a profit, but does that make it a security? 

It’s all very fuzzy. I’ve written in a previous newsletter about why this debate amounts to a lot of arbitrary semantics. 

Stop trying to solve everything w/ regulated crypto banks.

That’s what the Genslers want.

The answer to listing front running is Uniswap where anyone can list.

The way we prevent another Celsius is by using Aave where loans are onchain.

We have the solution it’s called DeFi.

— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS - rsa.eth 🦇🔊 (@RyanSAdams) July 22, 2022

Web3 News Roundup

Uniswap

Uniswap fees are through the roof this week, with a higher 7 day average than the Ethereum, BNB Chain and Bitcoin networks put together.

🤯 pic.twitter.com/qsiiI9W3rr

— hayden.eth 🦄 (@haydenzadams) July 25, 2022

At present, Uniswap the DAO does not make any profits as all revenues go to liquidity providers (for more on which DeFi protocols are profitable, see Ben’s article this week). This is part of Uniswap's strategy to maintain a competitive advantage, until it turns on the so-called “fee-switch” that would let the DAO earn by redirecting fees from liquidity providers.

Recent Uniswap governance discussions show the Uniswap community taking its first steps towards flipping on the fee-switch on pools with deep liquidity, relatively high volume and least potential of impermanent loss.

Goerli testnet

The Goerli testnet, the final testnet before the Merge has been announced by Ethereum developers on August 6-12th.

BREAKING:

Ethereum developers announce merge date for Goerli testnet: Aug 6th-12th

This is the LAST STEP before The Merge

Bullish🚀

— bankless.eth (@BanklessHQ) July 28, 2022

Other news:

The WNBA is using POAPs; Solana has physical stores; Mirror is launching Web3 subscriptions, which lets users subscribe to publications with their wallets; WalletConnect introduces a DM feature connecting users on any chain; Rainbow rolled out support for L2 NFTs; Optimism launches a Get Started onboarding quest.

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Three Arrows Capital Is Sorry (Maybe): Recap Of The Biggest Crypto News In The Last Week Of July

Kremlin Expresses "Solidarity" With China, Calls Pelosi Taiwan Visit A "Provocation" 

On Friday the Kremlin issued a statement expressing "solidarity" with China amid soaring tensions with the US over Taiwan, especially at a moment Nancy Pelosi is ready to become the first US House Speaker to visit the democratic-run island in 25 years.

Coming just after Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping spoke by phone Thursday, wherein the Chinese leader warned the US not to "play with fire" over the self-ruled island, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said to reporters, "Certainly we are in solidarity" with China.

"We respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and believe that no country in the world should have the right to question this or take any inflammatory or other steps," Peskov asserted.

"We are convinced that such behavior on the international arena can only cause additional tension," he added in reference to the potential Pelosi trip next week, and US policy toward the island in general.

Russian Foreign Minister too, in separate comments on the same day, blasted Washington policy on Taiwan, underscoring that the US administration's rhetoric on upholding the One China policy is not being matched in practice, according to TASS:

"Our position of having only one China remains unchanged, the same position in words is periodically confirmed by the United States, but in practice, as you yourself understand, actions do not always match their words. We have no problem with defending the principle of China's sovereignty, and we assume that no irritants, no provocations that could aggravate this situation will be undertaken," Lavrov said in reply to a question about the situation around Taiwan and possible plans of Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to pay a visit to Taiwan.

So clearly Moscow is joining Beijing in framing the possible Pelosi visit as a "provocation" - coming after months of China resisting Western pressure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Instead, China's Foreign Ministry has at every turn appeared to back the Kremlin's argument that NATO expansion is enough of a threat to Russia's national security that it had to act against Ukraine.

Pelosi's scheduled Asia tour has kicked off Friday - to include Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore over the coming days. On the same day, The Washington Post's Josh Rogin reported that a Taiwan stopover is "expected to happen" during the "early part" of the trip, based on diplomatic sources.

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Kremlin Expresses "Solidarity" With China, Calls Pelosi Taiwan Visit A "Provocation" 

Daily Briefing: Why the "Inflation Is Over" Rally Will Fall

We’re witnessing the greatest stock market rally in the aftermath of a Federal Reserve rate hike since the 1970s, as investors seem to be celebrating inflation’s end. That’s despite the fact that the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, surged to 6.8% in June, the highest reading since June 1982. Jerome Powell said this week’s 75-basis-point move gets the fed funds target range back to “neutral.” According to Jim Bianco, “That only works if you still believe in transitory and inflation is going back to 2%.” Bianco, the founder of Bianco Research, joins Real Vision’s Andreas Steno Larsen to talk about why inflation is not “over,” what the Fed will do with “incoming data,” and when the recession will become “official.” We also hear from David Rosenberg about when and why the market will bottom.

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Daily Briefing: Why the "Inflation Is Over" Rally Will Fall

Biden Admin To Complete More Of Trump’s Border Wall Project, Closing 4 Gaps

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Biden administration is set to close four wide gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area of southern Arizona near Yuma, to “address operational impacts” and “immediate life and safety risks.”

Illegal immigrants near a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border barrier, awaiting processing by the U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona, on May 20, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The four gaps are within an incomplete border barrier project—the former Yuma 6 project area near the Morelos Dam, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

The area has become one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.

The border barrier project, which was operational under the Trump administration, was left incomplete after President Joe Biden in 2021 sent back $2.2 billion in border wall funds to the Department of Defense to be used for overseas defense construction projects. The funds had previously been diverted by President Donald Trump to build the border wall, which at one time was going up at the pace of one mile a day. Completing the border wall was among Trump’s top campaign promises.

“Due to the proximity to the Morelos Dam and the swift moving Colorado River, this area presents safety and life hazard risks for migrants attempting to cross into the United States where there is a risk of drownings and injuries from falls,” the DHS stated on July 28. “This area also poses a life and safety risk to first responders and agents responding to incidents in this area.”

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agent patrols after sunset along a gap in the border wall at the Morelos Dam between the U.S. and Mexico in Yuma, Arizona, on May 31, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas authorized the project’s completion, which will be paid for out of the DHS’s fiscal year 2021 budget.

“Prior to construction, DHS will engage in standard environmental planning and conduct stakeholder outreach and consultation. DHS will move as expeditiously as possible, while still maintaining environmental stewardship,” the statement continued. “This project supports CBP’s and DHS’s priority to deploy modern, effective border measures and also improving safety and security along the Southwest Border.”

Illegal immigrants wait in line to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing through a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border barrier in Yuma, Ariz., on May 21, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The U.S. Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector has quickly emerged as the third busiest of nine sectors along the border, with much of the traffic funneling through the Morelos Dam. Illegal immigrants arrive in the small town of Algodones and walk unencumbered across a concrete ledge on the dam to the United States, where they wait for U.S. Border Patrol agents to take them into custody.

In the Yuma sector alone, U.S. border agents stopped illegal immigrants 160,482 times from January through June, a figure nearly four times that of the same period in 2021, according to CBP data. The only other sectors with more traffic were Del Rio and Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.

Read more here...

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Biden Admin To Complete More Of Trump’s Border Wall Project, Closing 4 Gaps

'Powell-Pivot' Hope Sends Stocks To Best Month Since April 2020, Crypto & Credit Soar

The 'most hated' rally ever was sparked by a belief in 'peak inflation', and desperate faith that Powell will 'pivot' from his hawkish course sooner rather than later - reigniting a 'bad news is great news' trading mantra once again. Powell and his pals went full 'Leeroy Jenkins' on global macro traders having been browbeaten by the Biden admin into easing up (or appearing to)...

July saw The Fed's rate-hike trajectory curtailed and the market priced in a dramatic rate-cutting cycle starting in Q1 2023...

Source: Bloomberg

This sent stocks, bonds, and crypto (and financial conditions) all soaring on the month.

The rally in everything has 'eased' financial conditions again - almost exactly the same amplitude of easing we have seen 4 other times during this tightening cycle. We have pointed this cyclical shift before with lower highs (tighter peaks to each easing sub-cycle) and lower lows (tighter tights)...suggesting perhaps The Fed is well aware that tightenig aggressively in one big batch will crush the market (and the economy), so perhaps a 'gently does it' approach is more palatable... and judging by the emplitude of this 'easing sub-cycle', we could be facing another tightening leg down...

Source: Bloomberg

As Nomura's Charlie McElligott notes:

"The trick here is this next few weeks window, where the resumption of Fed-speak could begin to lean back into the market’s impulse EASING of FCI following the Fed meeting and Powell’s comments."

Nasdaq was the biggest gainer (longest duration) in the US Majors, with its best monthly gain since April 2020 (S&P's best month since Nov 2020)...

On the week, stocks dumped and pumped early in the week and then exploded higher after the FOMC statement and Powell's presser. Nasdaq is up almost 5% from right before the FOMC statement...

The rip in stocks should not be a total shock, as we noted right after Powell's presser:

"it is quite likely that we will now see unprecedented chasing by funds and even L/Os into a ramping market, at least until such time as Powell realizes what he has done and trapdoors stocks again, sending the S&P to new 2022 lows next time, at which point the real "ugly bear" recession can begin, and setting the Fed on course to not just rate cuts but negative rates and trillions more in QE."

Goldman's Chris Hussey sees three potential ways investors may be looking at markets and the data today - and any of these three have the potential to be sustained beyond July.

1. Recovery now. The economy may be eroding but markets just seem to be pricing in the future sooner and faster than ever before. Perhaps stocks are already looking through the economic downturn ahead of us and pricing in the recovery to come -- a recovery that might be aided by an eventual Fed funds cutting cycle as soon as 2023.

2. Behind us. We learned this week that real 2Q22 GDP growth declined by almost 1%. This comes on the back of a 1.5% decline in GDP growth in 1Q22. Traditionally, a recession has been defined by (or at least taken place alongside) consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth. So by that precedent, the recession may have already occurred. Some may consider it to be silly to fear something you already went through. Time to move on and buy stocks.

3. Never happened. If the first half of 2022 was a recession, then I have no idea what I was so worried about. Alongside this 'recession' we also experienced one of the lowest unemployment rates in US history and EPS for the S&P 500 is on pace to have grown ~10%. Full employment and double digit EPS growth should make for a better environment for stocks than the 20% ytd decline we experienced going into July.

And on the 'things-can't-get-any-worse' front, after a period that included 2 Covid spikes, a Russia-Ukraine conflict, and a notable growth slowdown alongside a spike in inflation, the fundamental outlook from here may indeed be on pace to only get better.

But - he adds - to be sure, a couple of bad days of trading and a few words from the Fed may reverse the gains we've seen in July and shift market sentiment on a dime -- as we've seen at times earlier this year.

But for now, you also can't fault the market for trying to look beyond the 'here & now' to a better future.

Thanks to last night's earnings-driven surge, Amazon was up a stunning 27% in July - its best month since Oct 2009 (note that it merely filled the gap from Q1 earnings)

Credit markets soared in July, with HYG (US HY Bond ETF) having its best month since Oct 2011. Notably HYG found support near the 2020 crash lows before The Fed stepped in...

Source: Bloomberg

Credit spreads compressed dramatically in July

Source: Bloomberg

However, Goldman's Lofti Karoui warns spreads have come "too far too soon" - fade the rally and recommend using it as opportunity to cut risk and rotate further up in quality.

Treasuries were aggressively bid this month with the belly the massive outperformer (7Y -40bps)...

Source: Bloomberg

For context, July saw the 2nd best combined US bond and stock monthly return since March 2000 (April 2020 was the best). Globally, bond and stock market value has risen a stunning $7 trillion in the last two weeks.

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos exploded higher after mid-month dovish narrative shift with Ethereum soaring over 70% and Bitcoin up around 28% in July - its best month since Jan 2021...

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum is back at around $1700, notably outperforming Bitcoin in this latest ramp (which managed to get back to $24,000)....

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended only marginally higher on the month after early gains were erased on the dovish hopes...

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities - broadly speaking - rollercoastered on the month like everything else. Weakness in the first half amid global growth fears were swamped by a rally in the second on - you guessed it - global growth scares... the difference was the narrative that recessions (yep we said the r word) are a buying opportunity because The Fed will cut rates sooner and unleash more QE etc. Silver actually made it back to unchanged on the month while copper and crude lagged (but were well off their mid-month lows)...

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices have rebounded notably with WTI back above $100 today...

Gold traded (briefly) below $1700 during the month but has since rallied back above $1780...

One commodity was dramatically higher in July - US NatGas exploded higher to 14 year highs...

Which is not good news for President Biden (or anyone who drives a non-EV) as gas prices are about turn back up...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we hate to steal the jam out of the market's donut but we have seen this pattern twice before in this rate-hiking cycle as 'peak inflation' or 'Fed pivot' hype sparked a short-squeeze decoupling between stocks (higher) and the market-implied expectations of The Fed...

Source: Bloomberg

The trouble for 'bad news is good news' dip-buyers is simple - it's path-dependent! You have to cross the tightening cycle rubicon into recession before The Fed will step back in and save the world. How many of these dip-buyers have the stones to face that path?

Oh and one more thing, if everything's so awesome in the labor market (as the Biden admin likes to keep reminding us when faced with any call about a recession), why are record numbers buying lottery tickets to escape the ugliness...

Is this the new American Dream?

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'Powell-Pivot' Hope Sends Stocks To Best Month Since April 2020, Crypto & Credit Soar