Salena takes on New York's Mayoralty race:
My latest—this time on New York's mayors race—and what New Yorkers are looking for to run a city in crisis.
By Salena Zito
Click here for the full story.
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My market commentary and new Rant:
From my perspective the plusses for the market are:
a) vaccine distribution which could lead to world wide economic recovery.
b) this could result in corporate earnings moving higher
c) Biden will spend like a drunken sailor to keep ship afloat in the hope his bad policy choices can be overcome by a flood of money.
d) Fed might prolong low rates
The minuses for the market:
a) valuations are rich
b) prospect of inflation rising and dollar declining are negative tandem factors. The former puts pressure on Fed to raise rates. The latter increase inflation for American imports
c) Prospect of war, Israel must stop Iran, Chia could choose to take Taiwan, N Korea could return to saber rattling and threatening.
d) Biden policy changes could be driven by radical party leftists that are anti- free market and capitalism.
e) what has risen for a sustained period eventually reverses course.
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Ross Rants:
The events of the past 10 days are stunning, upsetting, and will impact the country for many decades. I feel like I am witnessing a movie, or having a nightmare. Between the riots over the summer, and last week at the Capitol, it is as though someone pulled the cork on a volcano. I blame all sides. It began in Ferguson with Obama’s calls for racial protest. We had the riots in Wisconsin state capitol, the disgraceful behavior of Dems at the Kavanaugh hearings, followed by Schumer demanding they be impeached, and the press lying about anything Trump, and in effect saying regularly that anyone who supported Trump was a rural bumpkin, or just dumb.
There was a lot of peer pressure in some places to deny you even liked what Trump did, even things like the Abraham Accords. People felt their jobs were at risk in many cases. In some parts of the country it became the in thing to do to attack Trump. That just built up the animosity and anger of Trump supporters. Then we had the calls for impeachment day one, and the continuous attacks on Trump in the press. Maxine Waters calls for attacks on anyone that worked in the White House, or for the administration, and then those things happened. There was the Bernie supporter who shot Scalise. Pelosi ripped up the state of the union on worldwide TV. Then Hollywood chimed in with threats to blow up the White House by Madonna, and a picture of Trump’s head in blood appeared. Followed then by the fake Russia collusion conspiracy to try to remove him from office. What amounted to non-violent attack on the presidency.
The riots across America that were egged on and condoned by Dem mayors and governors, and Kamala raising money for bail for rioters. In NYC cops were attacked with bricks, bottles, fireworks and anything else the rioters could find. Many were injured. So now the NY State AG is suing the cops for being too aggressive with the rioters and looters, even though the real problem is the cops were restrained by DeBozzo from being able to fully respond. Topping it all off was the fake impeachment over the Ukraine call, which in the end proved to be a valid request, as we now know the Biden family is totally corrupt, and the press censored any effort to bring this to light. After four years of all of this, what did anyone think was going to happen if Trump lost, especially with him pushing the line that the election was stolen. The pent up anger on the far right exploded, just the same as the anger on the left exploded over Floyd. There really is no difference in the emotional explosion, and leaders feeding the frenzy on each side for their own benefits.
Trump’s ego could not accept the loss to a mentally challenged guy, and he created the situation that led to the attack on Congress with his claims that his voters had been robbed. Not really any different than Obama and Holder setting the situation for Ferguson and subsequent riots. However, all of the above that went before, and the riots and looting over the summer where almost nobody went to jail, just poured napalm on the ground. Trump may not have specifically said go attack Congress, but he did call for the “wild” massive protest on January 6, and he did intend for there to be a buildup of pressure on Congress and Pence to void the election. That was a clear violation of his moral obligation to the republic, and the office of president. His speeches and tweets about the election in GA, also led to the loss in GA which would have been a sure win otherwise.
Antifa was not involved in the Capitol attack, so said Kevin McCarthy, and the FBI, and others in law enforcement based on the arrests. It was a small number of crazies, but they were driven into a mindset of extreme anger and retribution by all that went before over four years, plus Trump’s refusal to accept defeat and claims of a stolen election. While it is true that there was a clear FBI and NYPD warning ahead of the rally, the sergeant -at-arms of the House was told, and refused to call in the National Guard before the riot because they were afraid of the optics after the riots in the summer where the National Guard was deployed. The DC police did nothing to prevent what happened even though they also were warned. It could have probably been prevented if the people in the Capitol had acted after being warned. The real question is what did Pelosi know. I blame everyone on both sides, but Trump bears clear responsibility for the attack on the Capitol which was an attack on our nation’s democracy and rule of law.
I cannot recall any time in my life when I was so upset over national events, and the national mood. Not even in 1968, which was awful. Back then the campuses were in turmoil, there were frequent major protests against LBJ, as well as the race riots which were deadly, but I always believed things would get better, and the seat of government was safe, with rational grownups in charge. Back then we had terrorists setting off bombs in NYC and elsewhere, but it was clear the FBI and cops would overcome the threat. Now many have lost confidence in the FBI and the government after the Russia dossier hoax, and the loss of any objectivity of the press. Pelosi has now topped her tear up of the State of the Union act by appointing Swalwell as an impeachment manger. What an outrage and disgrace.
Impeachment done as they have with no hearing, no time to make a defense, and no time to even discuss, will set a horrible precedent they will regret one day. What will they do when Biden becomes mentally unable to fully perform the job? Let’s assume it is 2023 and Republicans control both houses. Pelosi has no sense of history and has used impeachment as a political attack weapon, and that to me is a violation of all that the founders intended, and has shown her to be an irresponsible and dangerous leader. Schumer is just a weak puppet who she manipulates. That is why this time is different than 1968. There is almost nobody in DC with a true sense of history. It is all vindictiveness, and attack regardless of historic consequences.
And now we have Dems trying to get Republican Congressmen removed from office, because they made comments questioning the vote. Dorsey has said internally that barring Trump is just the start. University silencing has now reached extremely dangerous places and levels. The left seems to believe that anyone who questions their views needs to be silenced. That is what is behind the bartender’s proposal to form a commission to determine what is “disinformation”. If this is not stopped now by Biden announcing that freedom of speech is the bedrock of America, we will see much more of this, and Congressmen, people at work, and others will be at real risk, changing what America stands for. If you think this is overstating things, just look at what the situation is on campus with speech codes and the cancel culture.
Everyone forgets Schumer on the steps of the Supreme Court threatening Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Or Pelosi saying in 2016 the election was hijacked. Or Hilary and the FBI and Perkins Coie colluding to overthrow Trump with the dossier.. Or Gore launching lawsuits in 2000. Or Barbara Boxer challenging the electoral vote. As wrong as Trump was, he is not alone, just his actions created a situation that was beyond all limits. The language of Pelosi, Schumer, CNN, NBC and the actions and lies of Schiff are as bad as the irresponsible language and lies of Trump. The language of the left spurred riots and looting in the summer that also did terrible damage to the country with nil consequences to the rioters. We are in a very bad and dangerous place now, and there seems no cooler grownup heads bring calm. It surely is not Biden suggesting they spend half a day on impeachment and half on needed work in Congress. It is not CNN calling Republicans Nazis.
One of the main reasons for my upset is the attacks on free speech, and the racial animus that has permeated throughout all segments of society. I blame Obama and Holder for setting the spark, and the universities and press for fanning the flames into a raging fire. As I have warned numerous times, the universities have indoctrinated the kids to believe they are victims, and we are all white supremacists and racists. They never take a history class, so they have no idea what truth is about the history of racial equality in the US, and the huge progress that has been achieved. They know nothing . They seem to believe today is the start point of history, and that Trump is the leader of an evil mob of terrible people. Deplorables as Hilary described us. That one word set the tone of press reporting and campus mantra.
The kids are coddled, and taught that there are no consequences for preventing a speaker, or for demanding the firing of a professor if he does not adhere to their doctrines. We now see corporations fire people who dare to speak up in places unrelated to work. The ultimate event was the destruction of Parler, and the vast effort by the few Silicon Valley leaders to make sure nobody else helps them get back into business. If this is not collusive and anti-competitive, illegal behavior, then what is? To me, the shutdown of Parler is as dangerous and anti- democratic as what Trump did, only with more long lasting impact. Who in their right mind now will go up against the big tech companies other than maybe Musk and Peter Theil. You thought the robber barons had ended, but we now have the new speech barons who control what you see, hear, and say. The Rant does not depend on Amazon or Apple or Google, so I will be here no matter what. The Lincoln Project has created a blacklist to try to stop Trump public service employees from getting jobs. Harvard students are trying to have the school cancel diplomas.
Angela Merkle has condemned the censoring of the president. She is German. She understands what the left in America seems not to have studied, and she is warning of where this goes if not stopped. As we see ordinary people now afraid to say what they think at work or in class, or even at cocktail parties, is this any different than Germans afraid to speak against Hitler in 1936. Trump is not the Nazi. It is the left, BLM, universities, and Pelosi. The whole question of what to do about the censorship by Silicon Valley, and now corporations, is very complex.
The press has been censoring and lying about Trump for four years. The Dems have been colluding and lying about him since before he was elected, and they tried to stage a coup thru the Hilary, Perkins Coie dossier. Is this any better than what happened at the Capitol. No. When Durham finally reports, it will make Trump’s actions look like what goes on in DC now. What we will learn is the whole bunch on both sides in DC are power mad, and totally corrupt. The republic is now in grave danger as a result of all of this, and the Republicans have almost no press or social media outlet to make their position known. If it were not for Fox there would be no major TV outlet.
The coverup of the Hunter Biden scandal being the prime example. Now we have the bartender from the Bronx saying Congress needs to pass laws to outlaw “disinformation” being disseminated. She would have been right at home with the brownshirts and Gestapo. Don Lemon was equally outrageous in his attacks on Republican voters. A lawyer at PBS said they should round up the children of Republicans who support Trump and put them in reeducation camps. And don’t forget the faculty at Dalton. This is how it happens, and we all need to work to stop it, or our nation is going to explode. Trump is not the risk we need to fear. It is Silicon Valley, the press, university presidents, and BLM
Eliminating 230 does not solve anything on its own. That will just likely lead to more censorship since the sites will not risk any lawsuits. In my view the fact pattern is very different now than it was when that law was passed in 1996 before there was Twitter and Facebook and the others, so a whole new thought analysis is required. My view is social media is now the same as telephone was when Bell was broken up. They control communication. Almost everyone now communicates by text, email or on a social media site. I am not on Twitter nor Facebook because I don’t need the privacy problems, and with the Rant, Twitter would likely censor me and I would have to waste my time dealing with the nuts who would be attacking me regularly.
As it is, I have had more emails of all types in the past 10 days than at any other time in the 13 years of the Rant. Some cancelled and a very large number of new subscribers signed up. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. Following my analogy to Bell Tel, I think it may be better to force the divestment of the social platforms into FCC regulated new entities owned by the same shareholders in a spinoff, but not by the current management of the companies. They would get bought out. Then the platforms would operate under the same rules as the telephone companies.
I realize a telephone call is one to one, or to a small number of people, and social media is to the entire world at once, but that is simply the modern version of communication. There could be rules as there are now against child porn, violence instigation, and similar things that would be considered illegal, but otherwise there would be free speech similar to Parler. There are a lot of things to be thought thru and maybe my idea is wrong or impractical, but we cannot have a couple of Silicon Valley oligarchs controlling thought and speech, and surely not the ability to put a competitor out of business at the flip of a switch on servers.
Dorsey’s latest mea culpa was pure BS. He still thinks he has the right to censor who he does not like. It changes nothing. He probably was trying to convince the stock market and others Twitter is going to be OK. And now there are leaked comments from Dorsey saying this is just the start.
Biden just selected a known anti-Semite and black racist as head of the civil rights division at DOJ. She was the choice of BLM, and Joe has now hired her, but she is the exact opposite of a civil rights head. If Trump had hired a white guy who was as racist as she, they would have gone berserk. Companies and schools and other institutions and Jews are in for a lot of problems now. Go to Powerline, January 12 edition
If you think BLM is just a racial equality group, they are not. They are pushing for the end of the nuclear family, the foundation of our whole culture as a western civilization. They seek to have the state be the foundation of your life. Straight out of Marxist ideology.
What the universities and the press call white privilege is actually achievement by people who happen to be white. Most rich people I know earned every penny they have through hard work, sacrifice, and brains. Those who did not achieve success, or are young and think they are victims who do not need strive to achieve success, which they think they are owed, call us white privileged because they did not do the things you need to do that earn a lot of money and success, or they are unwilling to do the hard work and sacrifice it takes because they are coddled. We had no privilege, we had opportunity, and we took the risk, and grabbed the brass ring, and now we have what we have because we earned it.
While you were not paying attention, the ten year has risen 40 BP since November, and is continuing to rise. The market has suddenly woken up to the prospect of inflation as the vaccine rolls out and the world reopens. Soybeans are up 30% as is corn, key food ingredients, copper is up 50%, a key industrial input. We are not facing major inflation, but more than 2% as the year moves ahead is surely possible if Congress passes much of the Biden spending program. He is now going to propose a $2 Trillion new stimulus program which is $2 Trillion too much. And that does not include infrastructure for another $2 trillion, plus more spending on top of that.
His economic team still believes in massive fiscal stimulus and Keynesian economics which is how we got into this fiscal mess in the first place. I have previously pointed out how much cash is sitting at banks in deposits and with the Fed that will be loaned out as the economy improves. There will be a flood of cash coming as the vaccine is applied. JPM is sitting on $500 billion of loanable funds as one example. When rates rise, and the banks have huge deposits to loan out on which they pay almost nothing, they make big profits. Bank stocks will be big winners this year. They will earn good spreads and trading profits will be good as will investment banking fees. As for stocks, there is a growing risk that as rates rise, PE ratios will come under pressure, and as rates rise NOI will suffer for highly levered companies. A lot of the stock market rise in 2019 and 2020 was due to PE expansion, and that is due to the Fed keeping rates too low.
Stock market values are all about the Fed. If we get an increase in inflation, and an increase in the ten year, then stocks will come under pressure as the year goes on, as concern will increase the Fed will act much sooner than 2023. When we reach that time the market will tank. For now I remain invested in equities to ride the belief that the economy will boom this year with the vaccines and the massive fiscal spending, but I remain very concerned about the longer term, and that long term might be by year end. Pay attention to the ten year, and oil prices, and you will know when things are starting to get risky. Meantime big retailers like WMT, TGT, and others will likely have a great 2021 as all of those savings start to be spent. If you are in REITs for the income keep in mind that as the ten year rose 100 BP, REITs rose 3% on average and the SPX rose 16% over the past 9 cycles. I will trade price growth for minimal dividend yield all day.
Wall St is always late in recognizing when underlying market issues are weakening and the end is near. They seem to always act surprised. I recall from 2007-8 that many knew the mortgage market was out of its mind, but nobody wanted to get off the gravy train until it crashed, and then it was too late for most. The same thing happened in the dotcom crash. That is why I keep saying keep an eye on rates, inflation and the action of bonds. The bond market is a god predictor.
If you think the massive stimulus and spending by Biden will juice the economy and the market, consider this. Biden is replaying the Obama Biden economic program. Massive deficits, higher taxes and a lot more regulation. What did that get us last time. The slowest recovery in decades. If you raise wages to $15 you create job loss and inflation. If you materially increase regulation, you minimize investment and innovation. If you raise taxes you minimize venture investment and innovation, and stock prices.
Powell said he sees nothing that could blow up this expansion, and that there will be near zero rates for a long time. That has me recall Greenspan saying in 2009 that only 5 people saw the crash coming. I knew first hand at least 20 of those 5, and they were all friends of mine. In fact, I was having lunch with five of them on May 9, 2007, when we all discussed how and when the crash was coming, and it was as clear as day. Don’t ever believe the Fed is omnipotent. There are now plenty of people in the financial community who are concerned over the next year or two. The difference this time is we just do not know yet when the axe will drop. Meantime, the party is on as the train rushes to the cliff.
There is a new claim that Trump deficits exceeded Obama. Not really true. If we remove the pandemic stimulus then Trump’s deficit would have been $3.5 trillion according to CBO, vs Obama $5.1 Trillion over the same period. Trump total deficit with pandemic spending was $5.1 T vs Obama $7.3 T. Over 8 years. If we compare the last three years of Obama to the first three years of Trump then it is up $1.5T for Obama, and $2.4T for Trump due to tax cuts. My point is be careful as always with stats that are put out by the press. You need to examine the numbers and see what is being compared to what, and whose numbers they are, and what are the accompanying circumstances-like a pandemic.
One of the real risks for banks is that Sherrod Brown is now chair of banking. He is a far left Senator who thinks banks still are not regulated enough, and he says bank stress tests do not convince him that the banks are really in good shape as to capital. Look out for potential of major new harassment of lenders and new regulation. They will ramp up the CPFB which means smaller lenders will get buried in new regs and law suits. Who suffers-low income borrowers who will not get loans. Racial quotas will be front and center for all lenders, and that just again raises loan risk over time.
Health tip. As we age our knees and lower back wage war on our wanting to be active. I have solved my knee problem completely with Capsaicin and going to a PT professional who determined that my kneecap had moved slightly out of center which was fixed with very simple exercises. My lower back was solved with some easy stretching and Capsaicin. I am back playing aggressive tennis six days a week, 1 ½ hours each day, with no problems. Knee is no pain at all now. Back problems gone. One very good stat. Cancer deaths have declined 31% since 1991, and are continuing to decline at increasing rates.
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Biden's bad choices keep on coming:
Biden’s Civil Rights Pick Promoted
Racism
Share 0 Tweet 0 EmailBiden’s pick to be his civil rights chief reportedly promoted racism and anti-semitism.
According to The Washington Free Beacon:
Clarke and a coauthor outlined “the genetic differences between Blacks and whites” in a 1994 letter to the editors of Harvard’s student newspaper, which criticized the political scientist Charles Murray’s book The Bell Curve. The genetic difference they identify, varying levels of melanin between whites and blacks, accounts for disparate cognitive abilities, physical power, and even spirituality, the pair said. The so-called melanin theory has no basis in science.
“Melanin
endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities—something
which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards,” they wrote.
Clarke’s remarks will ignite a white-hot confirmation battle in
the Senate at a time of heightened racial tension. Though the incendiary statements
are more than 25 years old, several of President Donald Trump’s judicial
nominees were grilled over comparatively tamer items they wrote as college
students, prompting public apologies and even a withdrawal. If confirmed,
Clarke would shape federal litigation strategies and lead enforcement of the
nation’s civil-rights statutes. Tucker
Carlson Tonight was the first to report on her writings.
Clarke also came in for criticism from
Jewish students after she invited the anti-Semitic academic Tony Martin to
campus in her capacity as president of the Black Students
Association. Martin, then a professor of Africana studies at Wellesley
College, promoted false theories implicating a Jewish cabal in the global slave
trade and self-published a book called The Jewish Onslaught just one year
before visiting Harvard at Clarke’s request.A majority of Martin’s faculty
colleagues condemned the book as anti-Semitic, according to a 2001 column in
the Boston Globe.
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Hypocrisy is what validates why Trump supporters remain committed. This was sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader:
Remember in 2018 during the Kavanaugh hearings when a mob of Democrats stormed the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, and pounded their fists in rage on the door. We were told, "It's understandable."
Remember this summer's riots in major cities across the country when groups of Democrats marched in the streets, set buildings on fire, looted businesses, assaulted and even killed bystanders and police? We were told, "These are mostly peaceful protests."
Remember when Democrats seized several blocks of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in downtown Seattle, declaring it an autonomous zone? Remember the guns ad deaths and utter destruction? We were told, "It's a block party atmosphere."
Remember when a crazed mob gathered after the Republican National Convention and attacked Rand Paul, a sitting U.S. Senator? We were told, "No justice, no peace."
Remember how police were told to stand down, governors refused to call in the national guard, and Democrats paid bail for violent protesters who were arrested? We were told, "This is the only way oppressed people can be heard."
I have condemned violent protests and lawlessness every single time they've been reported. I condemn the actions of those who stormed the Capitol yesterday. But I refuse to condemn hundreds of thousands of peaceful protestors because a handful (52 arrested) chose to be lawless and to defy everything the vast majority of the crowd stood for. Conservatives are defenders of the Constitution, the police, and the rule of law. Because a relative few people decided to do something stupid doesn't nullify the concerns of the many.
The real culprit here? The mainstream media has been telling us for years that violence is the only way people who feel oppressed can be heard, it's the only way to get justice, and this is what democracy looks like. Apparently, a few who were in the crowd on Wednesday listened to them.
The inflammatory rhetoric of the Left caused this, and it's about time Democrats and the mainstream media took responsibility for dividing Americans and attempting to humiliate those who support the President or any conservative ideals. They have pushed people to the brink, even while claiming, "It's time for unity." It's time for careful reflection and change on all sides. God help us!
I didn't write this but I like what it says.
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Pelosi allowed her to have a stage and she has big boobs and is a bigger one but she is also dangerous and defines what Democrats have come to be - radicals. She is the female equivalent of Obama.
AOC, other progressives have a new goal: Silence the press
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a wellspring of truly terrible ideas for years, but her new one might be her worst on yet: A Ministry of Truth.
During a live stream on her Instagram page, Ocasio-Cortez was asked by a viewer if, to help with national healing, there were congressional plans to institute any “truth and reconciliation or media literacy initiatives.”
The socialist congresswoman replied that, yes, indeed, she and some of her colleagues have been exploring media literacy initiatives to help “rein in” the press and combat misinformation after last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s one thing to have differentiating opinions but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “So that’s something that we’re looking into.”
Oh, are they?
Now, perhaps in the political systems favored by AOC citizens are impelled to look to government for ultimate truth, but that’s not the case in the United States. At least, not yet. Here, the Constitution “reins in” Congress from intruding on the speech of citizens, journalists, or any private institutions, not the other way around.
As a practical matter, we can already envision from “lived experienced” — as a progressive might say — how sanctioning the state to adjudicate the veracity of journalism can be abused.
We need only point to our media “factcheckers,” journalists with political and ideological biases who have regularly, and arbitrarily, labeled completely debatable contentions as falsehoods, while either ignoring or justifying scores of other unsettled contentions. Are these the arbiters of facts who will be manning the government commission appointed by those storied truthtellers in congress?
Only this fall, the traditional news media teamed up with Big Tech platforms to censor inconvenient reporting by The New York Post, which had uncovered the shady business dealings of the president-elect’s son, Hunter Biden. The pretext for this concerted and blatant attack on open discourse and journalism was the alleged need to uphold accuracy and standards.
As some of us suspected, and we all soon learned, the entire act was put on to shield the preferred candidate of elites. The Post’s reporting was accurate, which is not something anyone can say about the four years of endless conspiracy theorizing by major media outlets regarding Trump’s alleged criminal collusion and Russia’s alleged theft of American democracy.
Has anyone ever proposed a truth commission to heal the nation from those wounds?
This kind of state intrusion into discourse — on whatever level AOC envisions it — would, like all other facets of society lorded over by Congress, inevitably lead to giant rent-seeking corporations like CNN, ABC, NBC, Washington Post, The New York Times, gaining favor with government and consolidating power. The less powerful would either be left to contour their speech to please the state’s factcheckers or be branded liars. The press should challenging those in power, not obsequiously trying to earn gold stars from unelected bureaucrats on a state-run committee.
For those unaware, the “truth and reconciliation commission” the AOC fan asked about was most famously used in South Africa after the fall of apartheid as means of “restorative justice.” The insinuation by those who use this phrase is that 74 million Americans who voted for the Republican presidential candidate are racist thugs in need for similar programs. It’s a disgusting smear, and speaks to the dangerous and illiberal inclination of progressives.
As for AOC’s ideas: It’s just creepy, not to mention wholly un-American, for an elected official to advocate the state as adjudicator of veracity of our political speech.
It’s also crassly hypocritical. If anyone could use a truth commission, it’s Congress
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