Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has contributed $5,000 of his own money to a reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for vandalizing a World War I memorial.

The 107th United States Infantry monument, situated in Central Park on the Upper East Side, was vandalized during a protest on Monday. Social media footage shows anti-Israel protesters spray-painting the word “Gaza” on the base of the statue and burning an American flag.

#NOW 107th infantry War Soldier Memorial draped in Palestinian flag while American flag burns on the ground on 5th Ave in NYC during ‘DAY OF RAGE’ protest. pic.twitter.com/GAOyQoD130

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 7, 2024

Mr. Adams said on Tuesday that the state will offer a $15,000 reward, with $5,000 contributed by the mayor himself and another $10,000 by the New York Police Department (NYPD), for information leading to the arrest of the “cowards” who vandalized the memorial.

“We cannot remain silent when our symbols of freedom are desecrated by individuals who clearly hate our country and hate our way of life,” the mayor said during a press conference.

“We should not remain silent, because our silence gives the belief that everything is okay and it is not okay. Not only was this statue desecrated, but down the block, another statue was desecrated,” he added.

Mr. Adams, whose uncle died while serving in Vietnam at the age of 19, called the memorial vandalism a “painful” act and vowed to “treat this crime with the seriousness that it deserves.”

“I want to assure New Yorkers that our city will not tolerate chaos and disorder, even if those who are creating it claim to be doing so in the name of peace. We want [you] to bring your anger and passion to the protests, but don’t bring your hate, don’t bring your violence and don’t bring your disorder,” Mr. Adams said.

“We’re going to be swift with our response. We’re going to be swift with our actions, and we’re going to be swift to ensure those who attempt to bring disorder to the city would not accomplish their task,” he added.

Protestors also vandalized the monument honoring Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan. The mayor’s office stated that NYC Parks is working with the Central Park Conservancy to finish cleaning the memorials.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the nation’s largest war veterans organization, affirmed in a May 1 statement that it supports “the rule of law in our country and those working to uphold it.”

“While those staging protests on college campuses across the country have the right to free speech and to peaceful assembly, they do not have the right to violently act out against others,” VFW National Commander Duane Sarmiento stated.

Hundreds of protesters marched from Hunter College on Monday and made their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the Met Gala was taking place.

Crowd control police with anti-riot gear sent out warnings that protesters would be arrested if they kept blocking the middle of the street and didn’t move to the sidewalks.

By 8 p.m. there were still about 800 protesters present. They dispersed into smaller groups, the biggest group having about 200 people, and at about 9 p.m. the protest faded.

Police block entrances to the Met Gala in New York on May 6, 2024. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)

Protesters said they were upset with Israel’s bombing of Gaza and civilian casualties there.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told The Epoch Times that at least 25 individuals were arrested following the protest, including one person “who was throwing eggs out the window at the officers.”

The deputy commissioner said the pro-Palestinian group tried to force its way into the Met Gala but police had fortified the area and did not let anyone in who did not have permission.

Despite the Biden administration repeatedly warning Israeli leadership in public against a full-scale Rafah invasion, President Biden actually greenlighted the IDF’s takeover of the Rafah border crossing, Axios has revealed. The report comes amid questions over whether Netanyahu has crossed Biden’s “red line” on Rafah.

The report insists that Israel hasn’t crossed that line, so long as the scope of the operation remains limited and does not result in mass civilian displacement and humanitarian catastrophe. Speaking of the Biden-Netanyahu phone call on Monday, a senor Israeli official told Axios, “Biden didn’t pull the hand break on the capture of the Rafah crossing during the call.” So far the IDF has focused on airstrikes and limited ground incursions in the city’s east, after dropping thousands of leaflets telling civilians to exit the area.

US private security contractors, via Associated Press

However, the US administration has taken the unprecedented step of withholding ammo and bomb shipments to Israel in order to send a ‘message’. 

An Israeli Haaretz report issued Tuesday has further revealed that there was actually some level of cooperation and coordination with Washington on an IDF tank unit’s takeover of Rafah crossing. This was reportedly to ensure no weapons for Hamas can pass into the Strip via the large crossing.

The US, Israel, and Egypt have agreed that a private American security firm will take control of Rafah Crossing and oversee it. As of Wednesday, the IDF has announced it reopened the crossing, and it is retaining full control for now.

“The parties agreed that a private American security company will assume management of the crossing after the IDF concludes its operation. Israel has also pledged not to damage the crossing’s facilities to ensure its continuous operation,” wrote Haaretz. However, “State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that he is not aware of Israel agreeing to transfer control of the crossing.”

This is also to exert leverage in negotiations. “Israel believes that Hamas’ loss of control over the Rafah crossing would be a significant setback for the group,” Haaretz noted. “It will not be able to collect taxes imposed on trucks and goods and will no longer be able to bring in weapons and other items banned from entering Gaza.”

Haaretz revealed limited details on the US defense firm in question and has not named it. It employs elite former US military personnel such as ex-special forces operators: 

As part of Israel’s efforts to win agreement for a Rafah operation, negotiations have been underway with a private company in the U.S. that specializes in assisting armies and governments around the world engaged in military conflicts. The company has operated in several African and Middle Eastern countries, guarding strategic sites like oil fields, airports, army bases and sensitive border crossings. It employs veterans of elite U.S. Army units.

Under the understandings between the three countries, when Israel has completed its limited operation in the border crossing area, the U.S. company will take responsibility for operating the facility. That includes monitoring goods arriving in the Gaza Strip from Egypt and preventing Hamas from re-establishing control of the crossing. According to the agreement, Israel and the U.S. will assist the company as necessary.

It the report is accurate, it would mean American military contractors would be put in harm’s way, and that US elite veterans could eventually enter a firefight with Palestinian militants.

You know what this conflict was missing? Private U.S. military contractors with no legal oversight.https://t.co/WmH5bLwC2A

— Jenn Williams (@jenn_ruth) May 7, 2024

US contractors on the ground would certainly also be seen as a key target for Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups (such as PIJ). Hamas has long warned that any foreign troops or military entity that enters the Gaza Strip will find itself under attack.

But there has yet to be any official government confirmation of the US contractor plan for Rafah crossing from either Washington or Tel Aviv, and time will tell if such a controversial plan comes to fruition. If it happens, this means American military contractors would be active in two major hot conflicts: Ukraine and Gaza (not to mention in eastern Syria and Iraq as well).

Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg cross-asset strategist,

Treasury yields at the back end of the curve may stay higher for longer if Neel Kashkari is right about the short-run neutral rate.

Core PCE has averaged 2.9% so far this year, above the 2.6% the Fed estimated in its March dot plot, which itself marked an upward revision. While the April jobs data was softer than forecast, the average jobless rate this year is just 3.8% – well below levels that the Fed reckons will be needed to bring the labor market back into balance.

The policy committee “has more work to do” if inflation is going to settle around 3%, Kashkari commented in his latest essay posted on the Fed Minneapolis website. 

For good measure, he has also penciled in a higher short-run neutral rate.

The neutral rate, where an economy is at full employment and inflation steady, is still elevated at 1.12%, based on the latest update of the Laubach-Williams model:

That compares with the Fed’s implicit assumption of a 60-basis point real neutral rate, based on its March summary of economic projections.

If core PCE were to bob around 3%, as Kashkari fears, and assuming the Laubach-Williams model provides a more realistic reading of the real neutral rate, the implied nominal policy rate would be north of 4% – making the current rate less restrictive.

This is why Kashkari remarked that there is the prospect of interest rates having to go higher, although he added that it isn’t the most likely scenario (note also that he doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year).

However marginal that prospect may look now, market pricing must reflect the possibility of such a scenario.

And at around 4.47%, Treasury 10-year yields are doing just that.

With so many factors sapping sentiment, longer-dated Treasuries will find it hard to rally just yet.

The severe manpower crisis of Ukraine’s armed forces continues to be on display, particularly after the recent decision of the government to deny embassy and consular services for Ukrainian men of fighting age who live abroad but refuse to come back home.

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday just once again upped the controversy and advanced a dramatic change in law and national policy. It passed a bill enabling select prisoners to be released in order to fight in the armed forces.

Via Associated Press

“The parliament has voted ‘yes,'” MP Olena Shuliak, head of Zelensky’s party, announced in a social media post. “The draft law opens the possibility for certain categories of prisoners who expressed a desire to defend their country to join the Defense Forces,” she said.

Ironically Moscow has previously come under international condemnation and mockery for just such a policy.

AFP and other international outlets acknowledged this as follows: “Long-opposed to the measure and having criticized Moscow’s mobilization of prisoners to fill its ranks, Kyiv has recently U-turned amid fresh Russian advances on the battlefield,” a report said.

The legislation still has to be signed by parliament’s chairperson and President Zelensky in order to come into force as an active policy. The bill includes the following reported stipulations and parameters:

Prisoners must volunteer
Only those with three or more years left on their sentence can apply
Those convicted of violent sexual crimes are not eligible
Former high-ranking officials and those guilty of “serious corruption” are not eligible
Prisoners who killed two or people are not eligible

One glaring aspect is that it appears literal murderers can possibly still go free if they join the army, so long as they killed no more than one person, based on the AFP’s reporting

The following unexpected and bizarre line is in the AFP report detailing the new Ukrainian bill:

Among those not eligible to serve include those found guilty of sexual violence, killing two or more people, serious corruption and former high-ranking officials, Shuliak said.

However, some conflicting information has emerged. The below is via a Ukrainian news source:

Shuliak told Ukrainska Pravda that the following will not be eligible to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine: those who have committed premeditated murder, rapists and paedophiles, corrupt officials, those who have committed crimes against the foundations of Ukraine’s national security, and those who have held a particularly responsible position, including MPs and ministers.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians living abroad are said to be outraged at the government’s efforts to lure them back to Ukraine by the denial of consular services. One 19-year old man living abroad told Al Jazeera the following:

“I support individual battalions in Ukraine with donations every month – this is my duty,” said Anton, who works as a waiter.

“But I don’t want to fight, as I don’t trust our government. They don’t care about people. And they don’t care if there’s a war going on, they’re corrupt and keep stealing the money that we pay for the army. Why go to war for a state who only wants to steal?” he said bitterly.

Another 35-year old man currently in Poland (where many Ukrainian families fled once the war began) told Al Jazeera as follows: “If the army could guarantee that my work would be aligned with my skills and knowledge, I would go back. I could help with drones and other technology. But getting a rifle and shooting would not be the most efficient way of utilizing my skills.”

Ukraine forces continue losing ground along front line positions in the east. Not only are they outgunned, but the more experienced fighters who have been in it from nearly the beginning are exhausted, with commanders having few options in terms of rotating in fresh battalions from the back.

By Jennifer Kabbany, of The College Fix

Video that emerged over the weekend from the pro-Palestinian occupation encampment at George Washington University shows some students gleefully cheering for their campus leaders to be executed on guillotines.

The footage was captured by a citizen journalist named “Stu” who recorded the group’s so-called “People’s Tribunal” livestreamed on Instagram.

“At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a ‘People’s Tribunal’ where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial,” Stu posted on X on May 3.

“Is it normal for students to want to hang their provost and chop the heads off of the Board of Trustees,” Stu asked. “When will [George Washington University leaders] finally do something? If the students hurt any of these people in any way, the university will be completely at fault.”

At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a “People’s Tribunal” where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial.

Is it normal for students to want to… pic.twitter.com/M8F543q0MV

— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 3, 2024

The video is one of several extreme scenes that have been captured at the encampment on the Washington D.C. campus. Another includes the removal of the American flag and a Palestinian one hoisted in its place.

Now in its 11th day, “University President Ellen Granberg said GW is unequipped to manage the pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard and called on GW’s partners, including D.C. officials, for their ‘full support’ on Sunday,” the GW Hatchet student newspaper reported.

“In the message to community members at about 2:30 p.m., Granberg said all of the University’s efforts to end the encampment or deter protesters from escalation have failed, including discussions with students, the assistance of local police and administrative consequences. She said the encampment is ‘potentially dangerous’ and no longer qualifies as a student demonstration,” the Hatchet reported.

Granberg’s memo stated in part that “when protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police Officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful or productive. All of these things have happened at GW in the last five days.”

Daily Reminder that the American flag is not being flown at George Washington University pic.twitter.com/KpCoYkWleQ

— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 5, 2024

As for the guillotine video, the Post Millennial reported that “a woman leads the activists in chants to chop the heads off the Board of Trustees, GWU President Ellen Grandberg, and Provost Christopher Bracey,” adding:

In the mock tribunal, the woman asks “How do the people find you?”

The crowd shouts, “Guilty!” then “Guillotine! Guillotine! Guillotine!”

“Bracey, Bracey, we see you! You assault students too. Off to the motherf*cking gallows with you,” the woman chants, along with the gleeful activists.

Moving on to the Board of Trustees, she states “On the charges of having a vested interest in the genocide of Palestinian people as they profit off Zionist weapons and purchases that you refuse to divest the apartheid as they line their pockets. The people find you.”

“Guilty!” The crowd screams with a mix of mob rage and joy.

“To the Guillotine!” the girl yells. “Board of Trustees, we charge you with genocide. I hope all that money is gonna save you when you’re rotting in jail.”

The crowd calls out President Grandberg, as well. “On the charges of using our tuition dollars to fund genocide, and selling out students to Zionist interest, the people find you?”

“Guilty!” The crowd yells.

“As you already know where I am sending her,” she adds, referring to the guillotine. “Her and her f*ck *ss bob.”

Writing on PJ Media, Grayson Bakich argued the tribunal takes crazy to a whole new level.

“Stu Stu Studios also posted a longer version, but the fact that these kids are openly and publicly calling for the deaths of specific people who can very likely hear them just underscores how insane these ‘protests’ really are,” Bakich wrote.

“After all, these are the same students who vandalized the statue of George Washington on campus with a keffiyeh, Palestinian flags, and anti-Israel stickers, as my friend Catherine Salgado wrote about earlier this week.”

Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI and the man who’s name has basically become synonymous with AI, has won investor approval for his latest project, nuclear company Oklo, which is set to list on the NYSE Friday via a SPAC .

The company, which trades as ALCC until then will debut under the symbol OKLO at the end of the week. Altman is chairman of the company, which will design and deploying advanced fission power plants to provide the clean and affordable energy needed to power the flood of data centers popping up around the nation as part of the AI revolution.

The company will finalize its deal with AltC Acquisition Corporation today. The merger with AltC, a SPAC backed by Altman and Michael Klein, valued Oklo at $850 million when announced in July. As was announced in a press release yesterday: 

AltC stockholders voted to approve the business combination between AltC and Oklo Inc. (“Oklo”), a fast fission clean power technology and nuclear fuel recycling company. Almost 100% of the votes cast at the meeting, representing approximately 72.7% of AltC’s outstanding shares, voted to approve the business combination (the “Transaction”).

The company’s mission is “to provide clean, reliable, affordable energy on a global scale through the design and deployment of next-generation fast reactor technology”, the release says. 

As Bloomberg noted this week, Oklo – which aims to deploy its first commercial advanced reactor in the U.S. before the decade’s end – signed a non-binding letter of intent with Diamondback Energy last month to collaborate on a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The idea here is similar to that discussed last month, when we warned that the shortage of power is delaying new data centers by two to six years, and is also driving Big Tech companies into the energy business: Amazon recently struck a $650 million deal to buy a data center in Pennsylvania powered by an on-site 2.5 gigawatt nuclear plant.

Susquehanna nuclear plant in Salem Township, Penn., along with the data center recently purchased by Amazon. (Photo: Talen Energy).

Backed by investors like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Peter Thiel, the who’s who of the AI revolution, nuclear fusion startups are gaining traction. Sam Altman, who invested in Oklo in 2015, believes the company is “best positioned to commercialize advanced fission energy solutions,” per a July press release.

The completion of the Oklo merger will mark ex Citi veteran dealmaker Michael Klein’s fifth successful de-SPAC after closing two blank-check firms last year. Last week, he returned to the SPAC market with Churchill Capital Corp. IX, raising $287.5 million. While SPACs fell out of favor after the 2020-2021 boom, there’s been a modest revival with serial sponsors like Klein, Nabors Industries, Mistral Capital, and Eric Rosenfeld raising millions for new deals.

Last month, we published a lengthy report discussing why even as the AI trade may be fizzling, the “electrification” trade, aka the “Power-Up America” trade – so urgently needed to run all those electricity-gobbling data centers needed to run AI – is just getting started and has in fact outperformed substantially both the broader AI and Data-Center Equipment baskets over the past two months…

… and Altman – who teamed up with another power company, Exowatt, earlier this year to focus on clean energy for AI power -agrees: “Fundamentally today in the world, the two limiting commodities you see everywhere are intelligence, which we’re trying to work on with AI, and energy,” Altman told CNBC in 2021. 

For those who missed it, in “The Next AI Trade,” we outlined various investment opportunities for powering up America, most of which have dramatically outperformed the market. In the next iteration, we will likely add Oklo to the list of beneficiaries certainly ahead of the inevitable cascade of Buy ratings sure flood the name over the next month.

By Michael Every of Rabobank

F is for Fed; Biden; Trump; and the 1980s

In a sea of lurid, stupid headlines today, it was billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller who arguably dropped the biggest F bombs via a TV interview.

First: “Bidenomics, If I was a professor, I’d give him an ‘F’. Basically, they misdiagnosed Covid and thought [the economy] was going into a depression… Treasury is still acting like we’re in a depression. They’ve spent and spent and spent, and my new fear now is that spending and the resulting interest rates on the debt that’s been created are going to crowd out some of the innovation that otherwise would have taken place…. Everybody seems to get it but Yellen, who just keeps spending and spending. I think it’s dumb politically because it’s causing inflation and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the average American is getting hurt by the inflation.”

Investor Stanley Druckenmiller on Bidenomics: “If I were a professor, I’d give them an ‘F’.” pic.twitter.com/WfsU4ecO6y

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 7, 2024

As an aside, one of the reasons the White House is able to get away with this fiscal splurge is not just that ‘the US is the US’, which is true, but rather that 24/7 markets don’t have an easy spoon-fed monthly number for the US fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP on a Bloomberg screen like CPI or GDP. What is the US fiscal deficit now and compared to cycles where unemployment was below 4%? If you know off the top of your head, I’m impressed: and you’re depressed (ZH: here is the answer).

Fiscal stimulus is off the charts: 6.5% budget deficit implies 8% unemployment (instead of 3.8%). Very soon this fiscal turbo boost will be handed over to monetary stimulus pic.twitter.com/U5TRyijf1K

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 24, 2024

Looking ahead to the post-2024 landscape, Druckenmiller stated:

“With Biden, I’m more worried about stagflation, with all the government spending, with all the tricks that Yellen has been using to manipulate yield curve, with the way the Fed seems to have reignited financial conditions. I think the inflationary outcome could be there. But I also fear regulation and everything else preventing productivity.”

However, he didn’t have much nice to say about Trump either and noted that inflation was likely to be even higher under his presidency, particularly if he interferes with the Fed’s independence and raises tariffs, as pledged. (Perhaps Stanley reads the work of our own Philip Marey, who has been arguing the same? It’s a small world, after all.) So that’s a pre-emptive F for Trump as well.

He therefore bewailed, “I’m basically a guy without a candidate. I’m an old-style Reagan, free markets, pro-immigration, and anti-tariff Republican.” Which would explain why he’s so unhappy. Because as I had argued before it started happening, that “The 1980s called, they want their economic policy back” recipe is being repeatedly given an F by both realpolitik and voters. That fact was just underlined by the latest US restrictions on chip sales to Huawei, TikTok’s decision to fight divest-or-close legislation in court, and any dozen other headlines from around the world.  

Druckenmiller was equally acerbic about the Fed’s December pivot, where markets were suddenly led to believe that rates were going to fall rapidly again, and we were heading back to the New Normal, as if the world had not changed: as I have put it before, the Pavlov’s dogs on Wall Street started to surf a wave of their own saliva. He argued, “It seemed to me the Fed was in a perfect position. Inflation was coming down, financial conditions were tightening. To some extent, I feel like they fumbled on the five-yard line.” And this is coming from someone who is a self-proclaimed “major beneficiary” of this alleged policy error.

So, what we have now is stagflationary.

What we may have next is inflationary.

And the time-machine policy some want to see is delusionary.

Oil prices are rebounding off overnight lows – once again testing the technical support of the 100-day moving average – after sliding following API’s report of across the board inventory builds last night.

Oil has been on a downtrend since early April, posting losses in three of the past four weeks, with weakness not just in timespreads but in processing margins too.

That decline has come as much of the geopolitical premium from tensions in the Middle East has unwound, bringing traders’ focus back to a cooling market.

OPEC is due to meet next month to assess supply policy after implementing production cuts over the first half of the year to support prices. Most traders expect that the curbs will be extended, possibly to the year-end

For now, the next leg will be decided by the official supply/demand data…

API

Crude +509k (-1.40mm exp)

Cushing +1.339mm

Gasoline +1.46mm

Distillates +1.713mm

DOE

Crude -1.36mm (-1.40mm exp)

Cushing +1.88mm

Gasoline +915k

Distillates +560k

After last week’s large crude build (and the API report overnight), expectations remained for a small draw… and the official data confirmed exactly that (opposing what API reported). Stocks at the Cushing Hub rose considerably and products also saw builds…

Source: Bloomberg

The Biden admin added 947k barrels to the SPR – the most since Dec 2023

Source: Bloomberg

US Crude production was flat near record highs at 13.1mm b/d…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was trading around $78 ahead of the official data, just below its 100DMA…

…and WTI extended gains after the ‘surprise’ draw…

Overall, “oil is lower because a renewed battle between Israel and Hamas, in isolation, does not really affect oil-producing nations,” Stewart Glickman, energy equity analyst at CFRA Research, told MarketWatch.

If Iran is “subsequently encouraged to do more direct attacks on Israel, it may be different,” he said, but the market is “discounting this possibility.”

Finally, President Biden will use crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve should the need arise, energy adviser Amos Hochstein has said, noting there was enough oil in the reserve.

“We have been replenishing into the SPR for the last several months. I think we have sufficient supply in the SPR to address any kind of concern in the economy if we need it,” Hochstein said, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, as quoted by Reuters.

One day after former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial was postponed indefinitely after we learned that the DOJ mishandled evidence in the case (with Judge Aileen M. Cannon citing a mountain of ‘outstanding’ pre-trial matters that would make a May 20 trial ‘imprudent’), another Trump case appears to have no chance of going to trial before the 2024 election.

On Wednesday, a Georgia appeals court agreed to review a lower court ruling which allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the Trump RICO prosecution despite being highly conflicted.

To review, Atlanta Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court, who donated to Fani Willis when she was running for office, ruled in March that the Fani simply had to kick her lover, Nathan Wade, off the case after she paid him more than $600,000. The two notoriously took several lavish vacations together on Wade’s dime (which Fani swears she repaid in cash).

According to McAfee, while he found the “appearance of impropriety,” no “disqualification of a constitutional officer necessary when a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available,” adding “that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options.”

And now, the Atlanta Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal from the defendants over whether McAfee erred in his decision.

The Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal from defendants over whether the judge erred when he ruled that Fani Willis could remain on the Trump RICO prosecution in Fulton County. This pushes that trial further off, likely beyond the election. pic.twitter.com/F1gXIfwI5E

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) May 8, 2024

Willis indicted Trump and 18 other defendants last August, accusing them of a wide-ranging scheme to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. All of the defendants were charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law. Trump and most of the other defendants have pleaded not guilty.

In their appeal application, Trump and other defendants argued that McAfee was wrong not to remove both WIllis and Wade, writing that “providing DA Willis with the option to simply remove Wade confounds logic and is contrary to Georgia law.“

Most recently, Willis has defiantly refused to appear before a Georgia Senate Investigative Committee, telling reporters earlier this week (via RedState):

REPORTER: Would you appear before a Georgia Senate committee without a subpoena?

WILLIS: Well first of all I don’t even think they have the authority to subpoena me, but they didn’t learn the law. 

REPORTER: Will you appear, yes or no?

WILLIS: I will not appear to anything that is unlawful. I have not broken the law in any way. I’ve said it, you know, I’ll say it amongst these leaders—I’m sorry folks get p***ed off that everybody gets treated even. 

FAITH LEADER STANDING NEXT TO HER: I think she answered that very well. 

The Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal from defendants over whether the judge erred when he ruled that Fani Willis could remain on the Trump RICO prosecution in Fulton County. This pushes that trial further off, likely beyond the election. pic.twitter.com/F1gXIfwI5E

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) May 8, 2024

Another one bites the dust?

Every Trump trial is melting down in front of the weaponized DOJ’s eyes. https://t.co/FjikKJDrPF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 7, 2024

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Stanley Druckenmiller says the Fed should get rid of forward guidance and just do their job.

I totally endorse a view by Stan Druckenmiller, the Fed Should Stop Forward Guidance.

Partial Video Transcript

Squawk Box:

I’ve been perplexed about the unwavering focus the Fed has had on cuts for a six month period. … Did cuts make sense the whole time?

Druckenmiller:

I was perplexed with the December pivot. …

To some extent it seems they fumbled on the 5-yard line with the game on the line. I remember saying to some of my partners, that’s the speech I thought we might hear in March.

… Instead they set financial conditions on fire. …

And once financial conditions took off, it became very clear this thing could go either way. More curiously, why they and others continued to talk about, well, it’s not going to be six cuts it’s only going to be three cuts or four cuts.

I’m going, why are we even talking about cuts?

Because inflation, if you remember, we did trillions of dollars of QE because it was 1.7 percent instead of 2! But somehow now that we are at 3 vs 2 we’ve got to start cutting rates to bring in a smooth landing. Huge mistake. It goes back to Kevin Warsh, when he was in the running for the Fed job, used to talk about reforming the Fed.

And I go Kevin, what is the major reform that we do? He says we’ve got to get rid of forward guidance.

When you put forward guidance out, unlike me when I am wrong, I tend to change my mind very rapidly, they get trapped in the forward guidance, stuck in it. … Bizarrely, at the last press conference, the Fed seems to still be hanging on to this asymmetric directive of we are not going to hike and we expect to cut but we are going to wait for the data.

… I don’t know where inflation is going to be in a year, Powell doesn’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.

Squawk Box:

You think a hike is off the table? Definitely?

Druckenmiller:

No, because there’s not a zero percent chance inflation has bottomed. I don’t know. What I would do is just say nothing, and do what a Fed chair used to do: When you need to raise rates, raise them; when you need to cut rates, cut them.

Don’t go on 60 Minutes.

You are not a rock star. You’re the Fed chair.

You are supposed to be running monetary policy.

Bernanke did a lot of things I don’t feel good about. One of the worst was forward guidance.

You have a bunch of academics talking about sending a message to the markets.

I would rather they get rid of forward guidance and just do their job.

The Fed is Uncertain About Uncertainty, So Why the Forward Guidance?

On September 22, 2023, shortly before the Fed’s pivot, I asked The Fed is Uncertain About Uncertainty, So Why the Forward Guidance?

The key words at the FOMC press conference is “uncertain” for good reason. The Fed doesn’t know what it’s doing.

Here is the image I posted then.

Image from the Fed FOMC projection materials.

Hoot of the Day

Actually, it’s good that the Fed is uncertain because their expectations have not been close to the mark for a decade.

The above chart is particularly amusing. The Fed has only a 70 percent confidence level that interest rates three years from now will be in the range of of 0 to 5.5 percent.

That means the Fed expects that 30 percent of the time, rates will be outside that range.

From 2012 to 2019 the Fed kept producing interest rate charts showing hikes that never happened.

Then the Fed decided it was necessary to make up for lack of inflation.

Need to Make Up For Lack of Inflation

Seeing a lot of inflation-related tweets…

Don’t forget to thank the folks at the @federalreserve who’ve been trying for years to spike your cost of living. pic.twitter.com/W67bBgr8Wq

— Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator. (@RudyHavenstein) July 24, 2021

I’ve been discussing this for going on two decades.

Fed Uncertainty Principle

Flashback April 3, 2008 before the collapse of Lehman and Bear Stearns, to one of my all time favorite posts: Fed Uncertainty Principle

Most think the Fed follows market expectations.

However, this creates what would appear at first glance to be a major paradox: If the Fed is simply following market expectations, can the Fed be to blame for the consequences? More pointedly, why isn’t the market to blame if the Fed is simply following market expectations?

This is a very interesting theoretical question. While it’s true the Fed typically only does what is expected, those expectations become distorted over time by observations of Fed actions.

For example: If market participants are expecting the Fed to cut on weakness and the Fed does, market participants get into a psychology of expecting more cuts on more weakness. Here is another example: If market participants expect the Fed to cut rates when economic stress occurs, they will take positions based on those expectations. These expectation cycles can be self-reinforcing.

The Observer Affects The Observed

The Fed, in conjunction with all the players watching the Fed, distorts the economic picture. I liken this to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle where observation of a subatomic particle changes the ability to measure it accurately.

The Fed, by its very existence, alters the economic horizon. Compounding the problem are all the eyes on the Fed attempting to game the system.

Fed Uncertainty Principle Recap

Fed Uncertainty Basis Principle:
The fed, by its very existence, has completely distorted the market via self-reinforcing observer/participant feedback loops. Thus, it is fatally flawed logic to suggest the Fed is simply following the market, therefore the market is to blame for the Fed’s actions. There would not be a Fed in a free market, and by implication, there would not be observer/participant feedback loops either.

Corollary Number One:
The Fed has no idea where interest rates should be. Only a free market does. The Fed will be disingenuous about what it knows (nothing of use) and doesn’t know (much more than it wants to admit), particularly in times of economic stress.

Corollary Number Two: The government/quasi-government body most responsible for creating this mess (the Fed), will attempt a big power grab, purportedly to fix whatever problems it creates. The bigger the mess it creates, the more power it will attempt to grab. Over time this leads to dangerously concentrated power into the hands of those who have already proven they do not know what they are doing.

Corollary Number Three:
Don’t expect the Fed to learn from past mistakes. Instead, expect the Fed to repeat them with bigger and bigger doses of exactly what created the initial problem.

Corollary Number Four:
The Fed simply does not care whether its actions are illegal or not. The Fed is operating under the principle that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. And forgiveness is just another means to the desired power grab it is seeking.

And so here we are. Still discussing the same things, with the Fed making the same mistakes.

The Fed’s Big Problem

On average, the economy looks OK. But averages are misleading. Several large groups of people are struggling. They all have one thing in common.

Case-Shiller home price index, CPI rent index, and the index of hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers.

The Fed is now trapped in a box of its own making. Everyone who is priced out of a home is very unhappy with soaring rent, soaring home prices.

If the Fed cuts rates prematurely, what does that do to housing prices?

For discussion, please see The Fed’s Big Problem, There Are Two Economies But Only One Interest Rate

Meanwhile, Powell sounds like a wizard reading chicken bones because that’s really all he is.