Week in Review

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Week in Review

04/15/2023

For the week 4/10-4/14

[Posted 5:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,252

Early in the week, I had a tough time wrapping my arms around the intelligence leaks story.  At week’s end we had some clarity.

From the start…as it went down…

The New York Times, who broke much of the initial news on the topic, reported “The evidence that this is a leak, and not a hack, appears strong.

“The material may be popping up Whac-a-Mole style on platforms like Twitter, 4chan and the Telegram messaging app – to say nothing of a Discord channel dedicated to the video game Minecraft – but what is being circulated are photographs of printed briefing reports.

“They look like hastily taken photographs of pieces of paper sitting atop what appears to be a hunting magazine.  Former officials who have reviewed the material say it appears that a classified briefing was folded up, placed in a pocket and then taken out of a secure area to be photographed.

“Some documents were specifically marked for U.S. eyes only, increasing the likelihood that an American official leaked the information.”

I get into some of the findings below but I can’t help but note one of the key topics revealed is the severe shortage Ukraine faces in air defense weaponry that the Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote “could cost it the war.”  I’ve written the past few months that it was a concern to me that Ukraine was no longer intercepting Russian missiles and drones at the nearly 100 percent rate it had earlier in the war and now that begins to make sense.

And as Ignatius concludes his recent op-ed:

“Finally, journalists have been hearing privately for many months from top U.S. officials that they believe this conflict is at a deadly impasse, with heavy casualties depleting both sides.  The documents provide a more explicit snapshot.  A Feb. 23 analysis described a ‘grinding campaign of attrition’ that ‘is likely heading toward a stalemate.’

“Ukraine is betting that a spring counteroffensive can reverse these trends.  The administration backs that gamble, too. ‘Much will depend on the fighting in the spring as to how much longer the war lasts,’ the administration official told me.

“ ‘In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,’ British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said in 1943.  But the Ukraine intelligence documents appear to be largely accurate, and they tell a chilling story.”

The Wall Street Journal also adds: “The disclosure of how much the U.S. knows about Russian military plans could be a death sentence for sources in Russia.”

And the Journal concludes: “Meanwhile, let’s hope the intelligence leak is a one-time episode.  If the leakers have stolen more documents, and this becomes a deluge, more than Ukraine will be in trouble.”

If there is any sort of good news in the trove, it is that the leaked assessments are dated, and don’t say anything about the rate at which Kyiv is taking delivery of new Western antiaircraft munitions.

Then Thursday, the New York Times revealed the name of the prime suspect, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

Teixeira “oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.”

Teixeira was taken into custody at his home in Massachusetts Thursday afternoon by the FBI.

The Washington Post had reported prior to Teixeira’s arrest that Thug Shaker Central was part of the Discord group, two dozen mostly male members, all of them “united by their mutual love of guns, military gear, and God.”  The Post interviewed members of Discord (an online platform popular with gamers) who described the leaker (who we would learn to be Teixeira) as “a young, charismatic gun enthusiast…searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.”  He was described as a “bossy” young man who “loved shooting guns and racing cars.”

The leaker also reportedly ranted about “government overreach,” sharing his disdain toward the U.S. response to the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho back in 1992, as well as the deadly Waco siege a year later, both of which are frequent touchstones for the American far-right militia movement.   As the Post writes: “It may perhaps, then, be little surprise to learn he also allegedly viewed law enforcement and the U.S. intelligence community ‘as a sinister force that sought [to] suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark.’  The teenager, too, shared many of those fears, describing how he’s afraid of what U.S. authorities might do to him when they learn his identity, including using ‘lethal force’ to harm him in some nonspecific way – almost as though he thinks we’re all living in a Jason Bourne movie.”

The Pentagon said Thursday that the leak of classified information was a “deliberate, criminal act.”

Teixeira appeared in federal court in Boston Friday.  At the hearing, Boston’s top federal national security prosecutor, Nadine Pellegrini, requested that Teixeira be detained pending trial, and a detention hearing was set for Wednesday.

Teixeira was charged with unlawfully copying and possessing classified defense records.  Each offense can carry up to 10 years in prison.  He was also charged with another offense which makes it a crime for an employee of the United States to knowingly remove classified records to an unauthorized location.

In a sworn statement, an FBI agent said that Teixeira had held a top secret security clearance since 2021, and that he also maintained sensitive compartmented access to other highly classified programs.

This case renews the debate on the topic of classified secrets and access all over again.  The clash between “need to know” vs. “need to share.”  And as noted further below, it goes back to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

“The idea that a 21-year-old airman has access to all of these (documents)…shows that in the post-9/11 emphasis on sharing information so that we can connect the dots, we’ve over-shared information,” said Michael Allen, a former senior National Security Council and congressional official.  “(The U.S. government) will overreact in this case. They will severely restrict the distribution of these types of documents and people who actually need them won’t have access to them anymore. I would urge them to do a more scalpel approach,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is going to have a hard time explaining how the biggest U.S. intelligence leak in a decade may have been committed by a 21-year-old airman whose role – “cyber transport systems journeyman” (i.e., IT Guy) – required a high-school degree, a driver’s license and up to 18 months of on-the-job training.

An Air Force job description for workers like Teixeira says they “keep our communications systems up and running and play an integral role in our continuing success.”

But, again, how does a low-level actor have access to such sensitive documents, and if so, who doesn’t?

While President Biden has attempted to downplay the severity of the leaks as he flits about Ireland, both he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin need to be grilled; Austin by Congress, Biden in a full press conference, that, indeed, risks exposing the president to all manner of embarrassing moments on various topics, including this one, which will definitively answer the question many Americans have, ‘Can this guy possibly run for reelection?’

The conclusion after will be, unequivocally, No! 

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This Week in Ukraine….

--Russia has been consolidating incremental gains in the destroyed city of Bakhmut. According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), “Geolocated footage posted on April 9 and 10 shows that Russian forces made marginal advances northwest of Khromove (2km west of Bakhmut), in southwest Bakhmut, and north of Sacco I Vanzetti (15km north of Bakhmut).”  The Wall Street Journal conveyed similar progress by the invading forces.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrski, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said of Bakhmut: “The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire.”

The head of the Moscow-controlled part of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said Russian forces now held 75% of the city.

--In a Sunday video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russian air strikes coinciding with the observance of Orthodox Palm Sunday*.

“This is how the terrorist state marks Palm Sunday,” Zelensky said.  “This is how Russia places itself in even greater isolation from the world.”

*The majority of Ukraine’s 41 million people are Orthodox Christians who celebrate Easter a week after other Christians do.

Pope Francis prayed for peace during Easter events in the Vatican: “Help the beloved Ukrainian people on their journey towards peace, and shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia.”

--Russia said it destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tons of fuel near the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the Russian defense ministry said on Sunday.  It also said Russian forces had destroyed Ukrainian army warehouses storing missiles, ammunition and other artillery weapons in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

Separately, a 50-year-old man and his 11-year-old daughter were killed after Russian forces struck a residential building in the city of Zaporizhzhia.

--Russia’s Wagner Group claimed to have beheaded a Ukrainian soldier and placed his head on a spike inside Bakhmut, ISW reported, citing social media postings.  Other “users recalled similar instances of skulls mounted on spikes in Popasna, Luhansk Oblast, where Wagner troops operated over spring-summer of 2022,” according to ISW.

Ukraine launched an investigation as video of the gruesome act spread, and the alleged atrocity was “not an accident,” President Zelensky said in a video released Wednesday.

“This video, the execution of a Ukrainian captive – the world must see it,” Zelensky said.  “This is not an accident.  This is not an episode.  This was the case earlier.  This was the case in Bucha,” the suburb outside Kyiv that was the scene of apparent rape, torture, and executions of Ukrainians by Russian forces a year ago.  “Don’t expect it to be forgotten.  That time will pass,” Zelensky said.  “We are not going to forget anything.  Neither are we going to forgive the murderers.”

Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, says it has launched an investigation.  “We will find these non-humans; we will get them wherever they are: from under the ground or from hell,” agency chief Vasyl Maliuk said in a statement.

--Ukraine says its tank crews have finished training on Britain’s Challenger 2 tanks, and those soldiers are now headed back to the battlefield from the UK.  In late March, Kyiv’s military received several of the promised 14 tanks from the Brits.

The Ukrainians will now “return to their homeland better equipped, but to no less danger,” British military chief Ben Wallace said after the training finished.  “We will continue to stand by them and do all we can to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he added.

--Ukraine said it has fully liberated the Sumy oblast, which borders Russia to the northeast, though it was unclear how many Russian forces were remaining in the region.

--But Friday, British military intelligence said in an update that Ukrainian troops have been forced to withdraw from some territory in Bakhmut as Russia mounts a renewed assault there with intense artillery fire over the past two days.

Britain claimed “forces of the Russian MoD (Ministry of Defense) and Wagner Group have improved cooperation.  Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede.”

--Russian forces have brought large amounts of provisions and water supplies to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which they captured last year, Kyiv’s state atomic agency said on Friday.  Energoatom said the move might indicate Russia is preparing to barricade employees inside because of an acute shortage of qualified staff at Europe’s largest nuclear plant and Ukraine’s much-expected counter-offensive.

“Given the intense shortage of nuclear specialists needed to operate the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP, and fearing a Ukrainian offensive, the (Russians) are preparing for the long-term holding of ZNPP employees as hostages,” Energoatom said. “The invaders have already brought a lot of provisions and water to the station,” it added in a statement.

--And this just in…as I go to post…Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, west of Bakhmut, killing at least eight people, 21 injured, though it seems the toll will go higher as, according to the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, seven Russian S-300 missiles were fired and “no fewer than seven spots hit.”

President Zelensky wrote in a post: “The evil state once again demonstrates its essence.  Just killing people in broad daylight.  Ruining, destroying all life.”

--Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang again said China is willing to play a constructive role in restarting talks between Russia and Ukraine, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart on Thursday.

“There is no panacea to resolve the Ukraine crisis and all parties should build mutual trust and create conditions for peace talks,” Qin told Sergey Lavrov.

“China is ready to work with the Russian side to promote high-level…bilateral relations, with the core task being to implement the consensus of the two heads of state [reached in March].”

But this remains a joke, as Qin talked about China’s previously released 12-point plan that doesn’t require Russia to give up any territory.

And President Xi has yet to talk to President Zelensky, as he basically said he would do weeks ago.

--According to the Washington Post, Egypt allegedly planned to manufacture and supply up to 40,000 rockets for Russia and kept it secret “to avoid problems with the West,” the Post reported, citing leaked U.S. military documents dated February 17 and believed to have been posted online in early March.

--According to the same leaked documents, and also as reported by the Washington Post, the U.S. doesn’t yet believe a Ukrainian counteroffensive can win back all the territory occupied by Russia forces.  Such a feat would be incredibly impressive as Russian forces occupy nearly a fifth of Ukraine.

The U.S. military based its alleged assessment on “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” for Kyiv; that includes personnel, equipment, and ammunition shortages, which are certainly plausible after 14 months of fending off vicious Russian attacks, including endless missile strikes.

--Among the other alleged revelations in the leaked documents is that the UK is among a number of countries with military special forces operating inside Ukraine, confirming what has been the subject of quiet speculation for over a year.

According to the document, dated March 23, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow NATO states Latvia (17), France (15), the U.S. (14) and the Netherlands (1).

The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.

While the numbers are small, special forces are highly effective and Moscow will no doubt seize on the story, noting that it has argued it is not just confronting Ukraine, but NATO as well.

--Another leaked document, revealed by the Washington Post Friday, said the war had gutted Russia’s clandestine spetsnaz (commando) forces and it will take Moscow years to rebuild them.

According to the material leaked online, when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion last year, senior commanders eager to seize momentum and skeptical of their conventional fighters’ prowess deviated from the norm, ordering elite forces into direct combat, according to U.S. intelligence findings and independent analysts who have closely followed spetsnaz deployments.

--When President Putin announced a mobilization in the fall to commandeer reinforcements for the war against Ukraine, thousands of men fled the country or went into hiding.  But now Russia’s lower house of parliament approved new measures making it almost impossible for Russians to dodge conscription in the future.

The law provides for electronic military summonses with bans on draftees leaving the country, making it possible to quietly sweep up thousands more men to fight – though the Kremlin is denying it is planning for a controversial new mobilization.

The upper house approved the legislation Wednesday, sending it to Putin for his approval.

Under Russian law, conscripts cannot be sent to Ukraine, but stories have surfaced that they have been sent there and killed.

There are all kinds of tough penalties for those who do not respond to electronic summonses, including potential bans on driving, working as a self-employed individual, obtaining credit or loans, or buying property.

The new rules highlight Russia’s need for more military personnel, after its largely ineffective winter offensive that gained little ground despite high casualties.

Putin is anxious to avoid a repeat of the public protests triggered by last year’s mobilization, with many of the conscripts being drawn from Russia’s most impoverished regions.

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--Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday Russia’s detention of Evan Gershkovich and denial of consular access to the Wall Street Journal reporter sends a message that people around the world should “beware of even setting foot” in Russia.

On Monday, Blinken formally designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” and said U.S. consular officials had not had access to the journalist since his detention on March 29, in breach of its obligations under a consular convention Moscow signed with Washington.

Asked about the case at a news conference, Blinken said Moscow’s actions would “do even more damage to Russia’s standing around the world.”

“I think it sends a very strong message to people around the world to beware of even setting foot there lest they be arbitrarily detained,” Blinken said.

Russia’s FSB security service accused Gershkovich of gathering information about a Russian defense company that was a state secret.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Russia’s position that Gershkovich broke the law and that he had “been caught red-handed and violated the laws of the Russian Federation,” before adding: “This is what he’s suspected of, but of course, the court will make a decision.”  More than 99% of criminal cases in Russia end in conviction for the prosecution.

--Dozens of Russian journalists and rights activists on Monday called on the authorities to free a prominent opposition politician facing up to 25 years in jail for alleged treason and other charges which they said were politically motivated.  The victim is Vladimir Kara-Murza, 41, and the appeal for his release came ahead of a court hearing in Moscow, as his trial is likened to the political terror meted out by Josef Stalin in the 1930s.

Kara-Murza, an author and journalist who holds Russian and British passports, then delivered a final speech at Monday’s hearing.  He has spent years in opposition to Putin and has lobbied foreign governments and institutions to sanction Russia and individual Russians for purported human rights violations.

Prosecutors accuse him of discrediting the Russian military and treason among other charges after he criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine.  “Discrediting” the army can currently be punishable by up to five years in prison, while spreading deliberately false information about it can attract a 15-year jail sentence.  Those calling for Kara-Murza’s release said he was merely being punished for his opposition to the war.

“We demand that the Russian authorities, law enforcement officers and judges return to the path of justice. Prosecute murderers and criminals rather than honest and responsible citizens who dare to think and speak the truth,” the letter said.

Kara-Murza then told the court his trial recalled one of Stalin’s show trials and said he had done nothing wrong.  He struck a defiant tone, declining to ask the court to acquit him, and said he stood by and was proud of everything he had said. The current environment, he said, was not so much like the 1970s – a period when the state faced off against Soviet dissidents – as the 1930s, when Stalin conducted a series of show trials and purges of his opponents. 

“For me, as a historian, this is cause for reflection,” said Kara-Murza.  “Criminals are supposed to repent of what they have done.  I, on the other hand, am in prison for my political views….

“I also know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate.  When black will be called black and white will be called white; when at the official level it will be recognized that two times two is still four; when a war will be called a war, and a usurper a usurper; and when those who kindled and unleashed this war, rather than those who tried to stop it, will be recognized as criminals.

“This day will come as inevitably as spring follows even the coldest winter.  And then our society will open its eyes and be horrified by what terrible crimes were committed on its behalf.  From this realization, from this reflection, the long, difficult but vital path toward the recovery and restoration of Russia, its return to the community of civilized countries, will begin.

“Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people.  I believe that we can walk this path.”

--Ukraine’s gross domestic product fell by 29.1% in 2022 as Russia’s full-scale invasion battered the economy, the state statistics office said on Wednesday.

Opinion….

Editorial / The Economist

“On February 26th officials from the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, came to a striking conclusion. Their own agents in Belarus had defied orders and attacked a Russian surveillance plane earlier that day.  American spies were listening in. They noted the morsel of intelligence in a highly classified slide on the war in Ukraine circulated by America’s joint staff on March 1st.  Within days that report, and 50 others, had been printed off and uploaded to the internet.  It appears to be America’s most serious intelligence leak in a decade.

“The leaked files, which include military assessments on the war in Ukraine and CIA reports on a range of global issues, came to widespread attention when some appeared on Telegram, a messaging app widely used in Russia.  Some had been published on Discord, a chat site popular with video-game enthusiasts, on March 1st and 2nd, according to Bellingcat, an investigative group. Some classified material had appeared as early as January.

“After the slides circulated on Telegram, at least one was crudely doctored to inflate Ukrainian casualty figures and understate Russian ones – but others showed no obvious signs of manipulation.  Several former American and European intelligence officials told The Economist that they thought the reports were probably authentic American documents.  The Pentagon all but confirmed this…. The timing could not be worse: Ukraine is preparing a counter-offensive that could start within weeks.  The leaked trove offers a remarkable window into the state of its armed forces.

“Several slides provide an eye-wateringly detailed accounting of Western plans to arm and train Ukraine’s army, including the status of each Ukrainian brigade, its inventory of armor and artillery and the precise number of shells and precision-guided rockets Ukraine is firing each day. If accurate, the data could allow Russian military intelligence to identify the specific brigades that have probably been tasked with breaching Russian defenses at the outset of the offensive.  That, in turn, could allow Russia to carefully monitor those units to assess the location of an offensive.  One slide indicates that Ukraine’s 10th Corps is likely to command the operation, which will now make its headquarters an obvious Russian target.

“Perhaps the most damaging documents lay out the state of Ukrainian air defenses. These are in dire shape, after parrying repeated Russian drone and missile strikes since October.  The country’s Buk missiles were reckoned to be likely to run out on March 31st based on prevailing rates of fire, though it is not clear whether this has actually occurred.  Its S-300 missiles will last only around until May 2nd.  Together the two types make up 90% of Ukraine’s medium-range air defense.  The remaining batteries, including Western air-defense systems, ‘are unable to match the Russian volume’ of fire, says the Pentagon, though on April 4th it announced it would send more interceptor missiles.  Ukraine’s ability to protect its front lines ‘will be completely reduced’ by May 23rd, it concludes.  A table sets out the date at which each type of missile will be exhausted; a map depicts the location of every battery.

“However, the leaked documents hardly paint a rosy view of Russia’s armed forces. Though it has devasted Bakhmut – the situation there was ‘catastrophic’ by February 28th, according to Ukraine’s military-intelligence chief, who is quoted in one report – its combat power is crippled.  America’s Defense Intelligence Agency reckons that 35,000 to 43,000 Russian troops have died, roughly twice as many as have died in Ukraine, with over 154,000 wounded, around 40 times the Ukrainian number (the agency acknowledges that these figures are ropey). Russia has also lost more than 2,000 tanks and now fields only 419 ‘in theatre.’  Another slide says that Russia’s ‘grinding campaign of attrition’ in the east is ‘heading towards a stalemate,’ and that the result is likely to be ‘a protracted war beyond 2023.’….

“The leak is also a reminder that American spies collect intelligence on their allies… The latest trove shows that American agencies are snooping not only on Ukrainian generals and spooks, but also on officials in Hungary, Israel, South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog.  One CIA report claims that the leaders of Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence agency, encouraged its officials, and Israeli citizens, to protest against controversial judicial reforms (these were later shelved). [Ed. more like “paused.”]

“More importantly, the leaks describe not only who America is spying on but also how it is doing it….

“The publication of these documents is probably one of the four most significant intelligence leaks in this century, says Thomas Rid of Johns Hopkins University, alongside the theft of files by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, in 2013, and the publication of NSA and CIA hacking tools in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The damage could be severe.  The leak confirms that American intelligence agencies have penetrated Russia to a remarkable degree.  But Russian spies and generals are now likely to take protective measures, such as changing their methods of communication.

“American allies may also hesitate before sharing secrets.  A vast number of Americans have access to classified information.  Around 1.3 million of them, including many contractors, like Mr. Snowden, have clearance for top secret files.  And after the Sept. 11th attacks, which occurred in part because intelligence was not shared quickly and widely enough between agencies, sensitive information was distributed far more widely.  The result was a leakier system.  Ukrainian generals were already wary of revealing their secrets for this reason.  Now they might clam up at a vital moment.  ‘If this kind of thing happened in the UK, or in Israel, or Germany, or Australia,’ says Mr. Rid, ‘the U.S. would have stopped sharing [intelligence] completely.”

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Wall Street and the Economy

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said on Wednesday that while U.S. economic strength, labor market tightness, and too-high inflation suggest there is “more work to do” on Fed rate hikes, other factors including tighter credit conditions could argue for a pause.

“Looking ahead, there are good reasons to think that policy may have to tighten more to bring inflation down,” she said in remarks to the Salt Lake Chamber in Salt Lake City.  “But there are also good reasons to think that the economy may continue to slow, even without additional policy adjustments.”

Daly added: “While the full impact of this policy tightening is still making its way through the system, the strength of the economy and the elevated readings on inflation suggest that there is more work to do.  How much more depends on several factors, all with considerable uncertainty attached to their evolution.”

Silicon Valley Bank failed after examiners at Daly’s regional Fed bank had repeatedly raised red flags over liquidity risks and bank management in confidential citations to its board of directors and executives.  The Fed Board in Washington oversees supervision of large regional banks like SVB, and Fed Vice Chair Michael Barr’s review of what went wrong is to be published May 9.

The Fed’s minutes from its March 21-22 meeting, released Wednesday, revealed several officials considered pausing interest rate increases until it was clear the failure of two regional banks would not cause wider financial stress, but even they ultimately concluded high inflation remained the priority.

“Participants observed that inflation remained much too high and that the labor market remained too tight; as a result they anticipated that some additional policy firming may be appropriate,” the minutes said.  Indeed “some participants noted…they would have considered a 50-basis-point increase…in the absence of the recent developments in the banking sector.”

Policymakers agreed that the recent banking developments would factor into monetary policy decisions to the extent “these developments affect the outlook for employment and inflation and the risks surrounding the outlook.”

The Fed’s staff economists revealed in the minutes that they forecast “a mild recession” later this year.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the central bank should proceed cautiously with any additional rate rises as it assesses after-effects of the bank failures during a speech Tuesday.  “At moments like this of financial stress, the right monetary approach calls for prudence and patience,” he said.

New York Fed President John Williams said he wasn’t concerned about a potential disconnect between officials at the central bank and investors in financial markets over the outlook for interest rates later this year.

Addressing an audience at New York University, Williams said, “I don’t worry too much about market expectations well off in the future.”  He said investors might have a different outlook from the central bank because of heightened uncertainty over the economic forecast, with investors anticipating a much sharper slowdown than Fed officials.  “Time will tell,” Williams said.

And Christopher Waller, a permanent voting member of the Fed’s governing board, said Friday that there has been little progress on inflation for more than a year and that more interest rate hikes are needed to get prices under control.

Waller did not specify how many more increases he supports but said in written remarks that inflation “is still much too high and so my job is not done.”

He also said that, like most of his colleagues, he is closely watching whether the collapse of two large banks last month will lead to a broad cutback in lending by the banking system, which could slow the economy.

As for the next meeting, May 2-3, the Fed will hike rates another 25 basis points…at least that’s the market forecast today, which I concur with.

This week we had some good, and not so good, inflation data.  The good news was on the producer price front, -0.5% for the month of March, way below expectations, and -0.1% ex-food and energy.  For the 12 months, headline was at 2.7% and core at 3.4%. This is versus 4.6% and 4.4% the prior month, so super.

But consumer prices for the month, while better than expected on the monthly comparisons, 0.1% and 0.4% ex-food and energy, were still up 5.0% (headline), albeit lowest since May 2021,  and 5.6% (core) year-over-year, and it’s that 5.6%, a tick above February’s pace, that the Fed focuses on, as well as core PCE (personal consumption expenditures index), which next comes out April 28, ahead of the FOMC gathering.

Also, today we had a reading on March retail sales, and it was down more than expected, 1.0%, and -0.8% ex-autos.

March industrial production was up 0.4%.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast for first-quarter growth is back up to 2.5%, after falling to 1.8% last week.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage stands at 6.27%, down a tick from last week, and well off the November high of 7.08%.

--The U.S. Treasury posted a $378.08 billion budget deficit in March compared with the $314 billion deficit expected in a survey compiled by Bloomberg and much larger than the $192.63 billion budget deficit a year earlier due to timing issues related to the first day of the month.

In 2023, April 1 falls on a Saturday, pushing transfer payments like Social Security into March.  In 2022, April 1 was on a Friday, so there was no impact on outlays a year ago.

Through the first six months of the fiscal year, the 2023 deficit totaled $1.102 trillion, up sharply from $668.22 billion in the same period a year earlier due to lower receipts and higher outlays.

Like net interest on the public debt jumped 41%, thanks to normal interest rates.

Europe and Asia

Two bits of economic data from the eurozone….

February retail sales declined 0.8% over January; and were down 3.0% year-over-year.

February industrial production rose 1.5% over January for the euro area, and up 2.0% Y/Y.

France: Union activists (read anarchists) barged into the Paris headquarters of luxury goods company LVMH on Thursday, saying the French government should shelve plans to make people work longer for their pension and tax the rich more instead.

In a 12th day of nationwide protests since mid-January, striking workers also disrupted garbage collection in Paris and blocked river traffic on part of the Rhine River in eastern France.

The LVMH headquarters filled with red smoke and then the protesters left peacefully.

Trade unions urged a show of force on the streets a day before the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the legality of the bill that will raise the state pension age by two years to 64.  If the Council gives its approval, possibly with some caveats, the government will be entitled to promulgate the law, and will hope this will eventually put an end to protests, which have at times turned violent, and coalesced widespread anger against President Emmanuel Macron. [The Council is comprised of three women and six men aged between 64 and 77, and is headed by former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, but most members are centrists and conservatives.]

But protesters said they would keep up the fight if the Council gave a green light, adding that they wanted a referendum on the bill or for it to go back to parliament.

The protests have thinned, though, in past weeks compared with the initial 1 million+ strong numbers seen earlier in the movement.

And then tonight, the pension reform received the green light from the Constitutional Court and the plan can be promulgated in the coming days.  The Council also rejected a proposal by the opposition to organize a citizens’ referendum on the reform.

Now we wait to see what the response is in the streets.

Britain: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has had a good early run, despite immense challenges, but tonight he faces a new setback as he thought he had stopped a string of damaging strikes.

Today, UK nurses rejected the government’s latest pay offer and announced more walkouts that will further undermine the country’s struggling National Health Service.

Nurses will strike for 48 hours from 8 p.m. on April 30.

Turning to Asia…China’s March inflation data was tame, which had some saying this wasn’t encouraging, China seeking growth.  Consumer prices in the month rose just 0.7% year-over-year, while producer prices fell 2.5% Y/Y.

But then the March trade figures were released and exports soared 14.8% year-over-year when a decline of 7% was the consensus.  Imports fell 1.4% Y/Y, but this was also far better than expected.

The 14.8% surge snapped five straight months of declines.  Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, told Reuters: “The wave of Covid outbreaks in December and January (upon reopening) likely depleted factories’ inventories.  Now that factories are running at full capacity, they caught up with the accumulated orders from the past.”

But he added: “The strong export growth is unlikely to be sustained given the weak global macro outlook.”

Exports actually fell to the United States (-7.7%), Japan (-4.8%), and Taiwan (-27.6%).  But they soared by 35.43% to ASEAN, to Russia (136.4%) and the EU (3.4%).  [General Administration of Customs]

Lastly, auto sales in China increased by 9.7% from a year earlier to 2.45 million units in March, after a 13.5% jump in the previous month, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.  For the first quarter, total car sales dropped by 6.7% to 6.08 million units.

Japan reported producer prices for March rose 7.2% year-over-year, but this was down from 8.3% prior and double digits earlier.

Street Bytes

--Stocks finished higher on the week, largely on the PPI data that showed inflation was cooling, but this is not the case if you look at core CPI. The Dow Jones rose 1.2% to 33886, the S&P 500 gained 0.8% and Nasdaq 0.3%.

Earnings season really kicks into gear next week, but it’s the following week with the tech giants that will be even more critical.

Frankly, I’ll be shocked if two weeks from now the market is not down at least 2% from today’s levels.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 4.97%  2-yr. 4.09%  10-yr. 3.51%  30-yr. 3.73%

Treasury yields spiked at the end of the day on the above-mentioned hawkish comments of Fed Governor Waller.

Yields across the pond jumped the most in a week since December as fears of a banking crisis faded and investors’ focus shifted to the European Central Bank’s monetary tightening path. ECB President Christine Lagarde said today that eurozone underlying price pressures, boosted by rapid nominal wage growth, will remain high for some time and only ease slowly

Germany’s 10-year Bund saw the yield jump from 2.18% last Friday to 2.43% today. Italy’s 10-year went from 4.02% to 4.29% over the course of the week.

--Earnings from some of the big banks were reported on Friday, with the biggest, JPMorgan Chase, saying profit climbed in the first quarter as higher interest rates boosted its consumer business and the lender remained resilient through the banking crisis in March.

JPM’s solid performance in the quarter underscores how big banks – with diversified businesses and trillions of dollars in assets – have withstood the crisis in part because they were required by regulators to hold more capital after the 2008 mortgage crisis.

JPMorgan shares rose over 7% after reporting a 52% increase in profits to $12.62 billion, or $4.10 per share, well above expectations in the three months ended March 31.  CEO Jamie Dimon said the U.S. consumer and economy remains healthy but cautioned that the banking crisis could turn lenders more conservative and may impact consumer spending.

“The storm clouds that we have been monitoring for the past year remain on the horizon, and the banking industry turmoil adds to these risks.”

Revenue at the lender’s consumer and community banking unit jumped 80% to $5.2 billion on the back of higher interest rates.  JPM’s net interest income, a measure of how much it earns from lending, surged 49% to $20.8 billion.  However, its investment banking business remained a sore point, with revenue down 24%, weighed down by a tepid market for mergers, acquisitions and stock sales.  Equity trading slid 12%. Fixed income trading revenue was flat.  Overall revenue jumped 25% jump to $38.3 billion.

JPM set aside a provision for credit losses of $2.28 billion for the quarter, compared with $1.46 billion a year ago.  The lender said it has set aside the reserve build in anticipation of a deteriorating macroeconomic outlook, reflecting an increased likelihood of a moderate recession.

--Wells Fargo & Co. on Friday beat profit expectations for the first quarter as, like JPM, it earned more from higher interest rates following Fed’s tighter monetary policy.  The bank did set aside $1.21 billion to cover potential loan losses, compared to a release of $787 million a year earlier.  The provision included a $643 million rise in the allowance for credit losses reflecting an increase for commercial real estate loans, primarily office loans, as well as an increase for credit card and auto loans.

Wells Fargo said outstanding commercial real estate (CRE) loans were $154.7 billion, or 16% of total loans.

As in the case of JPMorgan, Wells is building up its rainy day fund as fears of an economic slowdown mount from the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tame inflation, as well as the recent turmoil in the banking sector.

Deposits at Wells fell 2% to $1.36 trillion at the end of March.  Net-interest income surged 45% to $13.34 billion.

The bank earned $1.23 per share, ex-items, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.13.

Unlike JPM, however, the shares were flat today.

--Citigroup Inc.’s first-quarter profit beat the Street’s expectations today as it also earned more from borrowers paying higher interest on loans.  Net interest income rose 23% to $13.3 billion, while Citi set aside $241 million to cover potential loan losses, from $138 million a year earlier.

Citi earned $1.86 per share in Q1, beating consensus of $1.67.  Net income rose 7% to $4.6 billion.  Revenue advanced 12% to $21.45 billion, also ahead of forecasts.

CEO Jane Fraser said in an earnings call: “We believe it’s now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession later this year. That could be exacerbated in depth and duration in a more severe credit crunch.”

Citi shares rose 5%.

--Shares in BlackRock Inc. rose 3% after the world’s largest asset manager reported an 18% drop in first-quarter profit today but it beat analysts’ estimates as investors continued to pour money into its funds, cushioning the hit to fee income from a global banking rout that rocked financial markets.  The market rout hit BlackRock, which makes most of its money from fees on investment advisory and administration services.

Still, net inflows for the first quarter were at $110 billion, compared with $86 billion a year earlier.

“Recent market volatility and stress in the regional banking sector are the consequences of prolonged periods of aggressive fiscal and monetary policy coming to an end,” Larry Fink, chairman and CEO said during a conference call.  “I look at the issues that we are seeing today, the market dislocations, as enormous opportunities for BlackRock.”

The New York-based firm ended the first quarter with $9.1 trillion in assets under management, down from $9.57 trillion a year earlier, but up from $8.59 trillion in the fourth quarter.  Remember, 2022 was a rather lousy year.

--Dow component UnitedHealth on Friday reported first-quarter results that topped Wall Street’s estimates as the health insurer served more clients year on year, while it raised its full-year profit outlook.

Adjusted earnings rose to $6.26 from $5.49 a year earlier, higher than consensus, while revenue increased 15% to $91.93 billion, above the Street’s view as well.

UnitedHealthcare revenue grew 13% to $70.47 billion as the segment that provides health care benefits to people including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries served nearly 2 million more clients year on year.

But the company issued rather tepid guidance for 2023 vs. expectations…nothing awful but not great and the shares fell a bit.

--The Biden administration proposed the nation’s most ambitious climate regulations to date, two plans designed to ensure two-thirds of new passenger cars and a quarter of new heavy trucks sold in the United States are all-electric by 2032.

If the two rules are enacted as proposed, they would put the world’s largest economy on track to slash its planet-warming emissions at the pace that scientists say is required of all nations in order to avert the most devastating impacts of climate change.

The new rules would require nothing short of a revolution in the U.S. auto industry.  Last year, all-electric vehicles were just 5.8 percent of new car sales in the United States and fewer than 2 percent of new heavy trucks sold.

And many Americans aren’t yet sold on going electric for their next cars, a new poll shows, with high prices and too few charging stations the main deterrents. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults are at least somewhat likely to switch, but the history-making shift from the country’s century-plus love affair with gas-driven vehicles still has a ways to travel.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago shows that the administration’s plans to dramatically raise U.S. EV sales could run into resistance from consumers. Only 8% say they or someone in their household owns or leases an electric vehicle, and just 8% say their household has a plug-in hybrid vehicle.

Even with tax credits of up to $7,500 to buy a new EV, it could be difficult to persuade drivers to ditch their gas-burning cars and trucks for vehicles without tailpipe emissions.

Only 19% of adults say it’s “very” or “extremely” likely they would purchase an electric vehicle  the next time they buy a car, according to the poll, and 22% say it’s somewhat likely.  About half – 47% - say it’s not likely they would go electric.

Six in 10 said the high cost is a major reason they wouldn’t and about a quarter cited it as a minor reason.

New electric vehicles now cost an average of more than $58,000, according to Kelly Blue Book, a price that’s beyond the reach of many U.S. households. (The average vehicle sold in the U.S. costs just under $46,000.)

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The U.S. auto industry is nominally still privately owned, but it is slowly becoming a de facto state-directed utility.  That’s the meaning of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new vehicle-emissions standards Wednesday that will force-feed the production of electric vehicles, whether or not consumers want them.

“The EPA is using its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate tailpipe pollutants.  But make no mistake this isn’t about clean air. This is about forcing auto makers to produce more EVs that consumers will have no choice but to buy since there will be a few gas-powered vehicles left….

“The auto companies might deserve sympathy if their executives hadn’t become political supplicants. In addition to lobbying for subsidies, they intervened to defend the Administration’s recent emissions standards against a legal challenge by GOP state attorneys general.  They sold themselves out to the government for subsidies, and now they are pleading for more subsidies to meet its mandates.

“Democrats and auto makers say EVs are the future, but then why does the government have to subsidize and mandate them? The government didn’t have to force Henry Ford to make his Model T, nor consumers to buy Apple’s iPhone.  The left’s problem is that current EV technology and costs limit their appeal.

“The Administration’s coercive EV transition is being done in the name of reducing CO2 emissions, but it will have almost no effect on the climate.  Climate has become the political cudgel to remake entire industries and coerce Americans to do what progressives want.  They don’t believe Americans are enlightened enough to make their own choices.”

--Tesla shares continued to struggle as the EV maker cut prices on its entire U.S. electric vehicle model lineup for the third time this year in an apparent effort to attract more buyers amid rising interest rates.

The largest of the cuts that appeared last Friday on Tesla’s website were $5,000 per vehicle for the company’s slower-selling, more expensive models, the S large sedan and the X big SUV.

While the stock is up big for the year, it is still down about 50% from its 52-week high.

--American Airlines Group on Wednesday updated its first-quarter profit outlook and provided a revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, sending the shares down over 9%.

The company expects adjusted earnings between $0.01 and $0.05 per share for the quarter, compared with its previous outlook of about breakeven.  Consensus was at $0.06.  American expects revenue of $12.19 billion, below the Street’s $12.21 billion view.

The airline industry has been leaning on soaring consumer demand to mitigate higher labor and fuel costs with higher fares.

--Delta Airlines then reported on Thursday that it had swung to a profit in Q1 and posted revenue above market expectations, and the carrier issued an upbeat short-term outlook suggesting robust travel demand.

Adjusted earnings came in at $0.25 a share for the March quarter, compared with a loss of $1.23 a year earlier, missing consensus of $0.29.  Operating revenue climbed 36% to $12.76 billion, topping the Street’s view for $12.25 billion.

Total passenger revenue surged 51% to $10.41 billion, with domestic business growing 37% to $7.59 billion.

For the current three-month period ending June, Delta expects adjusted EPS to be in a range of $2 to $2.25, while the Street is looking for $1.66. Revenue is expected to be up 15% to 17% from last year.

All good but the shares fell slightly.

--Boeing said Tuesday it delivered 130 airplanes in Q1, compared with 95 a year earlier.

For the month of March, the company delivered 64 aircraft, up from 41 delivered in March 2022.

Q1 deliveries included 113 of 737 MAX airplanes, Boeing said.

The company received 60 orders for the month ended March 31, with the largest order coming from Japan Airlines which ordered 21 Boeing 737 jets.

But then late Thursday, once again Boeing surprised us, announcing it was halting deliveries of some 737 MAXs as it grapples with a new supplier quality problem by Spirit AeroSystems that could stretch back to 2019.

The issue will likely affect a “significant” number of undelivered 737 MAX airplanes both in production and in storage, and could result in lowered 737 MAX deliveries in the near term, the company said.

Boeing shares fell 6% in response and shares of Spirit AeroSystems fell nearly 12% in after hours trade.

Boeing said the problem is not a safety of flight issue and in-service planes can continue to operate.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2019

4/13…93 percent of 2019 levels
4/12…93
4/11…96
4/10…101
4/9…97
4/8…102
4/7…96
4/6…101

Let’s see where these figures are in another 3-4 weeks as a way of gauging whether the economic slowdown is impacting travel plans.

--Global PC sales plunged 29% in the first quarter, amid a combination of weak demand, excess inventory, and a declining macro environment, new data from International Data Corp. show.

Overall shipments in the quarter dropped to 56.9 million units. That’s below the pandemic surge, and all under the prepandemic era. Shipments in the first quarter of 2019 were 59.2 million units, and shipments in the first quarter of 2018 were 60.6 million units.

IDC said that sales-channel inventory is still well above normal, and that elevated inventory is likely to persist into the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter.

IDC’s data show substantial year-over-year first-quarter declines from all major PC makers.  Lenovo remained the market share leader at 12.7 million units, but that was down 30.3% from the year ago period.  HP sales were 12 million, down 24.2%, Dell Technologies’ unit sales dropped 31% to 9.5 million, and Apple shipped just 4.1 million Macs in the quarter, down 40.6% from a year ago.

--Amazon.com Inc. is facing “short-term headwinds” in its cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services, as companies continue to look for ways to cut costs, CEO Andy Jassy said in an investor letter Thursday.

“One of the many advantages of AWS and cloud computing is that when your business grows, you can seamlessly scale up,” Mr. Jassy said.  “Conversely, if your business contracts, you can choose to give us back that capacity and cease paying for it.”

Some companies have said they haven’t saved money by switching to the cloud, and some have seen their costs go up.

--Barron’s interviewed Meta Platforms chief AI scientist Yann LeCun about the current state of AI, the rise of ChatGPT, and his views on why asking for a moratorium, a la the letter signed by Elon Musk and some AI luminaries calling for a six-month pause on developing advanced AI systems, is misguided.

It’s a lengthy interview but I just want to focus on one question and LeCun’s response.

Q: Why are you so against the letter asking for a six-month pause in AI development?

LeCun: “I agree AI is a powerful technology and it has to be deployed and developed responsibly and safely. But I don’t think the right answer to this is stop research and development for six months.  That’s not going to help at all.  It’s also naïve because nobody is going to do it anyway.

“Let’s look at the arguments from the categories of people who have signed this letter. The first one is the most egregious one: the real doomsayer. They say we’re on the path to building machines that will eventually be as intelligent as humans. And as soon as this happens, humanity is doomed.

“I think that is preposterously stupid. And certainly mistaken. It’s based on the idea that the AI system will not be easily controllable.  That it will be very difficult to come up with objectives that are aligned with human values. We can design objectives, so that entities behave properly. [Emphasis mine.]

“The second category are people who are concerned about immediate harm. With LLMs (Large Language Models) you can produce nonsense and misinformation. Some people are worried the internet will be flooded by machine generated content that’s misleadingly wrong and that can brainwash.  I don’t believe this scenario because it already exists.  People are resilient and they learn to deal with new media.

“The third category of people are worried about the societal effects of AI systems being produced by a small number of tech companies. I don’t agree.  Partly because I work for Meta and I see from the inside what the motivations are.”

It’s this last line that infuriates me. He works for Meta…thus he says, ‘don’t worry.’

That’s why we worry. 

And to the line, We can design objectives, so that entities behave properly…you can’t control standard social media.  What are you talking about?

It’s smug all-knowing assholes like this that are so infuriating to the rest of us, who just try to lead good, moral, ethical lives.  It’s Peter Thiel-like.  Evil.

--Warner Bros. Discovery stock slid after the media company pulled back the curtain on its plans to drop “HBO” from the name of its flagship streaming service.

The company’s HBO Max service has been known for blockbuster shows such as The White Lotus and Succession (let alone The Sopranos, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm…), but now the flagship platform will go by the name Max and feature content from Discovery and the firm’s larger library of media brands.  The company hopes to reach a broader audience by dropping the premium-sounding HBO name.

Max will make its debut on May 23.

This is stupid.

--Manhattan apartment landlords are testing renters’ limits even before the market’s busiest season arrives.

The median monthly rate rose to a record-high $4,175 in March, according to a report Thursday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate.  That’s up $25 from the previous peak, reached in July, and almost 13% more than a year ago.

The median rate for one-bedroom apartments, which made up 44% of new leases in March, reached an all-time high of $4,150.

The borough’s vacancy rate rose to 2.54% last month from 1.89% a year earlier.

--Meanwhile, the office occupancy in New York City only cracked 50% in January, according to a survey from the Partnership for New York City.  I’ve noticed there are fewer cars in the two commuter parking lots I pass nearly every day than before Christmas, which has to have something to do with layoffs because Wall Street firms (for which many of these commuters work) have been cutting back.  [Otherwise, these same firms are demanding workers go into the office at least Tues.-Thurs.]

--Movie theaters have been struggling to recover from the pandemic, in part because the once-reliable family audience has slipped away.  Last year, family-oriented films – largely animation – represented 17% of worldwide ticket sales, about half of what they were in 2019.

But last weekend, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” from Universal Pictures turned out to be a huge hit, an estimated $146.4 million in ticket sales at theaters in the U.S. and Canada, for a total of $204.6 million since arriving on Wednesday, with an additional $173 million overseas, which is being called “extraordinary” by Universal officials.  The film cost roughly $100 million to make.

But box office analysts remain cautious, saying Walt Disney Studios needs to deliver a theatrical animated hit before a true recovery can be declared.

--Bird flu has led to the extermination of nearly 60 million chickens and other birds in the current wave, about 10 million more than the bout in 2014 and 2015.  For American consumers, the impact has been felt in the grocery aisle, with the average price of eggs more than doubling since the beginning of 2022, though the price did fall substantially in March, according to the latest CPI report.

So as a report in Barron’s noted, the carnage has sparked debate over whether the U.S. should embrace an H5N1 poultry vaccination campaign, a vaccine being available.

Right now, that’s not in the cards, but scientists say H5N1 may already be endemic in U.S. bird populations – meaning it will regularly re-emerge – so all eyes are on this spring, a time of year when the virus typically flares, which could heat up the campaign for vaccinations.

But the poultry industry opposes a vaccination program, over fears that other countries would stop importing U.S. chicken meat over fears that vaccination could mask infections.  The country exported $6 billion worth of poultry meat in 2022.

--An explosion and fire at a west Texas dairy farm Monday evening killed a staggering 18,000 head of cattle, as the fire spread quickly through the holding pens, where thousands of dairy cows were crowded together waiting to be milked, trapped.

The 18,000 figure is nearly three times the number of cattle led to slaughter each day across the U.S. One dairy farm worker was injured.

It was the biggest single-incident death of cattle in the country since the Animal Welfare Institute, a Washington-based animal advocacy group, began tracking barn and farm fires in 2013.

The previous high was just 400 at an upstate New York dairy farm fire in 2020.

The fire was in the town of Dimmitt, about 70 miles southwest of Amarillo.

Each cow is valued at roughly $2,000, meaning the costs for the company, South Fork Dairy, could stretch into the tens of millions of dollars.  That doesn’t include equipment and structure loss. [Rick Jervis / USA TODAY]

--Tupperware warned it could go out of business.  Founded in 1946, the company said there is “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern” in a regulatory filing filed last weekend.

The New York Stock Exchange warned it could delist the stock since the company hasn’t filed an annual report for 2022.  In March, the company said its sales force fell 18% in 2022.

I’ve learned never to deliver food in a Tupperware container that you expect to be returned because you’ll never see it again.

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China/Taiwan: Recent Chinese air and sea drills simulating an encirclement of Taiwan are intended as a “serious warning” to pro-independence politicians on the self-governing island and their foreign supporters, Beijing said.

Three days of large-scale air and sea exercises named Joint Sword concluded on Monday, a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California last week.  China had warned of serious consequences if the meeting went ahead.

China sent nearly 100 aircraft around Taiwan on Monday as part of its multi-day protest of Tsai’s visit.  That included a record-high 91 Chinese aircraft, along with 12 navy ships in the waters around Taiwan, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The PLA simulated missile strikes against key targets on Taiwan and waters near it. 

On Wednesday, Taiwan’s ministry of national defense said it tracked 35 flights by PLA warplanes within the previous 24 hours, as well as eight navy vessels in the waters surrounding the island.

The Chinese military issued a threat as it concluded the exercises, saying its troops “can fight at any time to resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ and foreign interference attempts.”

Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the Chinese cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a news conference: “The People’s Liberation Army recently organized and conducted a series of counter-measures in the Taiwan Strait and surrounding waters, which is a serious warning against the collusion and provocation of Taiwan independence separatist forces and external forces.

“It is a necessary action to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said.

Zhu added: “External forces are intensifying their endeavor of containing China with Taiwan as a tool.”  She also repeated China’s assertion that its military threats are “targeted at Taiwan’s independence separatist activities and interference from external forces, and by no means at our compatriots in Taiwan.”

China has long exploited divisions in Taiwanese society, the island with a robust democracy and strong civil liberties.

A PLA Daily article written under the name “Jun Sheng” (in Mandarin, ‘the voice of the military’) said the United States cannot be relied on to defend Taiwan, as an aircraft carrier group continued with Beijing’s third and last day of planned military drills around the island.

The article accused the U.S. of using Taiwan as a pawn and creating “porcupine” islands to contain Beijing, referring to the military strategy of deterring military attacks from the mainland by making conflict too costly.

“The U.S. arms sales and military ties with Taiwan in the name of providing ‘security guarantees’ are intended to take advantage of the situation to benefit the military-industrial complex on the one hand, and to seize the opportunity to turn Taiwan into a ‘hedgehog island’ and a frontier ‘ammunition depot’ to contain China on the other.

“It is clear to see the sinister intentions of using Taiwan as a chess piece and instigating chaos on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

Emmanuel Macron has been excoriated by some in Europe, and the U.S., for his cozying up to China and President Xi Jinping in his recent visit to Beijing.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Emmanuel Macron fancies himself a Charles de Gaulle for the 21st century, which includes distancing Europe from the U.S.  But the French President picked a terrible moment this weekend for a Gaullist afflatus following his meeting with Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.

“ ‘The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,’ Mr. Macron said in an interview with a reporter from Politico and two French journalists.  ‘The question Europeans need to answer…is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan?  No.  The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.’

“No one wants a crisis over Taiwan, much less to accelerate one, but preventing one requires a credible deterrent.  Mr. Macron seemed to rule out European help with that when he told the journalists that ‘Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?  If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it.’

“If Mr. Macron wants to reduce American public support for the war against Russia, he couldn’t have said it better. Without U.S. weapons and intelligence, Russia would long ago have rolled over Ukraine and perhaps one or more NATO border countries.  Mr. Macron says he wants to make Europe less dependent on U.S. weapons and energy, which is fine. But then how about spending the money and making the policy changes to do it?

“Mr. Macron wants the U.S. to ride to Europe’s rescue against Russian aggression but apparently take a vow of neutrality against Chinese aggression in the Pacific.  Thanks a lot, mate.  His unhelpful comments will undermine U.S. and Japanese deterrence against China in the Western Pacific while encouraging U.S. politicians who want to reduce U.S. commitments in Europe to better resist China.

“If President Biden is awake, he ought to call Mr. Macron and ask if he’s trying to re-elect Donald Trump.”

Editorial / The Economist

“Mr. Macron’s comments…were worse than unhelpful: they were diplomatically dangerous and conceptually wrong.  Though he later corrected them in Europe, the damage had been done to his credibility and the West’s unity.

“France’s president was not wrong to visit Beijing. It is reasonable, too, for Europe to conduct its own policy towards China, however tricky it is to agree on a message. Having alerted fellow Europeans back in 2019 to the strategic threat, Mr. Macron is fully aware of the danger that an authoritarian China poses.  Yet he fell head-first into two traps, presumably to the delight of China’s president, Xi Jinping.

“Mr. Macron’s first error was to further China’s ambition to divide Europeans and peel Europe from America.  The choreography of the trip contributed to both.  He had hoped to display European unity, insisting to the Chinese that he bring with him Ursula von der Leyen*, head of the European Commission.  But that idea collapsed under the weight of Chinese protocol and the doveish Mr. Macron’s desire to spend hours tete-a-tete with Mr. Xi.  Mrs. von der Leyen, who arrived after making a hawkish speech, got an hour or so in their company.

“Mr. Macron’s comments reflected a worrying failure to measure their broader impact. At a time when liberal democratic powers need a coordinated show of strength, he rounded off his visit to an authoritarian ruler by stressing that in such crises Europe not be dictated to by Washington.

“The second error was to undermine allied support for Taiwan.  Diplomacy alone will not lower the risk of war.  The West also needs to bolster deterrence, without provoking the very conflict it seeks to avoid.  France, with bases in the Indo-Pacific, contributes more militarily to such efforts than any other European Union power. This weekend, amid China’s drills, it sailed a frigate through the Taiwan Strait. That is to be commended. But what could have been a display of allied unity and resolve was undermined by Mr. Macron’s suggestion that Taiwan is not Europe’s problem.

“What happens to Taiwan matters to Europe.  If some Europeans do not want to fight a war, or are reluctant to impose sanctions should China invade, that is for closed-door talks among allies, not public musings.  Moreover, by emphasizing Europe’s autonomy from America, Mr. Macron has made life harder for those Americans defending their country’s support for Ukraine against domestic critics who wish the money were spent elsewhere.

“At stake in Taiwan is the future global balance of power, as well as the protection of democratic freedoms and advanced technologies critical to global trade.  Those interests are shared by Americans and Europeans alike.  Mr. Macron seems to think that he can successfully defend them by working independently.  That is a delusion. Together, America and Europe may or may not prevail.  Apart, they will usher in a Chinese century.”

*Ursula von der Leyen did say while in Beijing, “the threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”

Lastly, on a totally different topic, China’s “artificial sun” set a world record on Wednesday by generating and maintaining extremely hot, highly confined plasma for nearly seven minutes.

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in the city of Hefei in eastern China generated and sustained plasma for 403 seconds, breaking the previous record of 101 seconds in 2017 and marking another key step towards building high-efficiency, low-cost thermonuclear fusion reactors, according to the South China Morning Post.

State news agency Xinhua said the work laid a solid foundation for improving the technical and economic feasibility of fusion reactors.

Nuclear fusion – the same process through which our sun generates light and heat – is seen as a safe, clean and near-limitless energy source.

Get this…EAST conducted more than 120,000 experiments to reach the latest milestone.

So we congratulate Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built EAST.

Song said his team had worked day and night for an entire week to achieve the record-breaking operation, and that “tonight would be another sleepless night [for celebration].”

North Korea: Pyongyang said on Friday it has tested a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-18 to “radically promote” the country’s nuclear counterattack capability, state media reported, warning of “extreme uneasiness and horror” to enemies.

North Korea fired what appeared to be a new model ballistic missile on Thursday, South Korea said, triggering a scare in northern Japan where Hokkaido residents were told to take cover, briefly, though there turned out to be no danger.

“The development of the new-type ICBM Hwasongpho-18 will extensively reform the strategic deterrence components of the DPRK, radically promote the effectiveness of its nuclear counterattack posture and bring about a change in the practicality of its offensive military strategy,” KCNA said.

Analysts said it would mark the North’s first use of solid propellants in an intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile. Developing a solid-fuel ICBM has long been seen as a key goal for North Korea, as it could help the North deploy its missiles faster in the event of a war.  Leader Kim Jong Un guided the test and warned it will make enemies “experience a clearer security crisis, and constantly strike extreme uneasiness and horror into them by taking fatal and offensive counter-actions until they abandon their senseless thinking and reckless acts.”

Most of the North’s missiles use liquid fuel, which requires them to be loaded with propellant at their launch site – a time-consuming process.

“Solids are easier and safer for troops to operate in the field and have a much smaller logistical train that makes field-deployed solid missile units harder to detect (and thus more survivable) than liquids,” Vann Van Diepen, a former U.S. government weapons expert who now works with the 38 North project, told Reuters.  “But even liquids are highly survivable when field deployed.”

North Korea earlier conducted another test of a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone, state media said on Saturday.

Iran: The Iranian state will begin installing surveillance systems to catch women who violate the country’s strict hijab laws, local media reported Saturday.

The pro-government Tasnim news agency said police are unveiling “an innovative measure” to “prevent tension and conflicts surrounding the hijab law by using smart cameras in public places to identify people who break the norms,” according to a CNN translation.

People found violating the dress code will be sent warning messages by authorities, the report said.

Last week, the Iranian Interior Ministry doubled down on its defense of the religious laws, saying the veil is “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation.”

What a crock of s---.

The move comes after a video circulated online purportedly showing an Iranian man throwing yogurt on two women who weren’t veiled.  The women were subsequently arrested by Iranian security forces.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded adherence to the hijab law on Tuesday, claiming the public’s resistance to the draconian measures are the result of actions by “enemy spy agencies.”

Recall, Iran recently reestablished diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.

Israel: As I have been writing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he would leave Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in place given an escalating security crisis, reversing a decision to fire the minister that triggered protests and raised alarm abroad.  He said the two had resolved their disagreement over Gallant’s public call last month for a halt to the government’s bitterly divisive judicial overhaul plan, which Gallant said had become a threat to Israel’s security.

A Sunday opinion poll from Israel’s Channel 13 News showed Netanyahu’s Likud party would lose more than a third of its seats if an election were held now, and Netanyahu would fail to gain a majority with his hard-right coalition partners. “I’m not disturbed by the poll,” Netanyahu told reporters.

His government paused legislation on the overhaul to allow for compromise discussions with opposition parties following weeks of nationwide protests, but many believe the bill will just suddenly be introduced in the Knesset.

Meanwhile, tensions remain high in the region.  Last Saturday, the Israeli military said its forces attacked targets in Syria after six rockets were launched from Syrian territory in two batches toward Israel in a rare attack from Israel’s northeastern neighbor.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: 40% approve of Biden’s job performance, 56% disapprove; 35% of independents approve (Mar. 1-23).

Rasmussen: 48% approve, 51% disapprove (April 14).

--Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced he had formed a presidential exploratory committee.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the past few months,” Scott wrote supporters on Tuesday.  And then Wednesday he released a video, appeared on Fox News and stumped in Iowa.

“I’ve been thinking about my faith, I’ve been thinking about the future of our country. And I’ve been thinking about the Left’s plan to ruin America.  From all this and through self-reflection and prayer, I’ve decided to make a major announcement tomorrow,” he wrote on Tuesday.

--The judge overseeing the Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News said on Wednesday that he was imposing a sanction on the network and would likely start an investigation into whether Fox’s legal team had withheld evidence, the New York Times reported.

In sanctioning Fox, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that if Dominion now needed to conduct additional depositions or redo any already done, that “Fox will do everything they can to make the person available, and it will be a cost to Fox,” according to the report.

Jury selection in the case began Thursday, with opening arguments beginning on Monday.

Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch, at least report, is expected to be called to the witness stand as soon as Monday.

--Former President Trump is suing Michael Cohen for more than $500 million, according to a filing in a Florida court on Wednesday.  The lawsuit accuses Cohen of violating his attorney-client relationship with Trump by revealing his “confidences” and “spreading falsehoods.”

This is absurd.  Simple witness intimidation.  But it’s Florida, so while it should be thrown out, who knows.

--Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that court officials “were crying” as he was indicted last week on business fraud charges.  Trump said many of the staff at the Manhattan court “were in tears or close to it.

Trump described how he was processed at the criminal court by officials, including police.  He said “tears were pouring down their eyes.”

“They were incredible,” he said of the staff.  “When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you people were crying.

“People that work there.  Professionally work there that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody.

“It’s a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying.  They said, ‘I’m sorry.’  They said, ‘2024, sir, 2024.’ And tears were pouring down their eyes.”

All total bullshit.

The interview was ironic given that Carlson, along with Sean Hannity and multiple Fox executives are witnesses in the defamation suit brought by Dominion.  Carlson in internal emails and texts expressed his private contempt for Trump and derided the claims of fraud and vote flipping being brought by his lawyers – views he never shared with his audience.

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson said about Trump in a text to a colleague on Jan. 4, 2021.

Yet during the interview, Tuesday, Carlson never challenged or pushed back against any of Trump’s assertions, including an unusual exchange about the Biden administration’s alleged failure to rescue German shepherds from Afghanistan.

“They left everything,” Trump said of Biden’s disastrous pullout.  “They left in the dark of night.  They left the lights on.  They left the dogs, by the way.”

“They left the dogs?” Carlson asked.

“They left the dogs,” Trump responded.  “You know, the dog lovers, and you know there are a lot of them. I love dogs.  You love dogs.”

Trump then continued to ramble on about the topic, and yet everyone knows, Trump hates dogs.

--Trump derided ex-Attorney General William Barr as “slovenly and pathetic” after the onetime close ally said the feds have strong evidence in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation.

“While he correctly puts down [Manhattan] case, he plays up the equally ridiculous BOXES HOAX, where Biden should have the problem, not me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Barr said on Sunday that he believes special counsel Jack Smith has built a strong case against Trump, particularly for obstructing justice after he defied a subpoena to return the documents.

He said Trump “had no claim” to the documents and was “jerking the government around.”

--Trump’s Easter message on Truth Social was all-caps:

“HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DREAM ENDLESSLY OF DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY BECAUSE THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF DREAMING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

“THOSE THAT ARE SO INCOMPETENT THEY DON’T REALIZE THAT HAVING A BORDER AND POWERFUL WALL IS A GOOD THING, AND HAVING VOTER I.D., ALL PAPER BALLOTS, & SAME DAY VOTING WILL QUICKLY END MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD, & TO ALL THOSE WEAK & PATHETIC RINOS, RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS, SOCIALIST MARXISTS, & COMMUNISTS WHO ARE KILLING OUR NATION, REMEMBER, WE WILL BE BACK!”

Very inspiring and moving, I think you’d agree.

Pope Francis in his Easter Vigil Mass Saturday said that even when people felt the wellspring of hope had dried up, it was important not to be frozen in a sense of defeat but to seek an “interior resurrection” with God’s help.

A slight contrast to the words of the Orange One.

--Trump was grilled for nearly seven hours Thursday during his second deposition in the $250 million civil case brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump was “not only willing but also eager to testify” during the meeting with James’ lawyers who questioned him about his company’s business practices, his attorney Alina Habba said as Trump headed into the attorney general’s Manhattan office.

“He remains resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the immense success of his multi-billion dollar company,” Habba said.

James claimed Trump and three of his children lied to banks about his net worth and overvalued his assets including his hotels and golf courses by billions.

--California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein to resign in a tweet, due to her mental issues…as in she’s basically no longer a participating member of the Senate.  It’s a travesty.

“It’s time for @SenFeinstein to resign. We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty. While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties.  Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.”

Feinstein, recuperating from a bout of shingles, then said her return to the Senate has been delayed and she would temporarily step down from the Judiciary Committee.  The 89-year-old has not voted in the narrowly divided Senate since mid-February, and she said she would continue to work from home in San Francisco while receiving treatment.  “I intend to return as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it’s safe for me to travel,” Feinstein said.

This can’t go on until a new senator is elected in Nov. 2024. Resign!  [And this debate also refocuses Democrats to look even more closely at their leader in the White House.]

--As the New York Post put it, President Biden was “gallivanting” around Ireland with Hunter and the rest of the family in Ireland.  I understand the importance of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and Biden’s need to be there, but zero was accomplished and there remains no power-sharing arrangement after the latest boycott by the Democratic Unionists in February 2022.  Without a true government, there will be none of the hoped for economic progress in Northern Ireland, even as scores of U.S. corporations have announced they are ready to invest in the region.

Biden had a very brief chat/tea with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak while in Belfast, and he gave a speech to the Irish parliament in Dublin.

Of course, many of us were cringing at the inevitable gaffes that would follow and for about 24 hours, everything seemed to be going OK, albeit nothing substantive.

And then on Wednesday, while paying tribute to his cousin, Patrick Kearney, a rugby player whose Irish squad defeated the dominant All Blacks team of New Zealand in 2016, he instead referred to “Black and Tans,” the pejorative name given to British police recruits assigned to fight the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s.

“He was a hell of a rugby player, and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” Biden said in remarks at a pub in Dundalk.

The White House later corrected the “Black and Tans” error in the official transcript of the president’s remarks, Biden’s team having experience in such matters, like Old Bill, the sweeper at the end of Peabody and Sherman bits.

And, as Joey Garrison of USA TODAY reported:

“After Biden touted the values instilled in him by his Irish-American mother, he said the ‘saving grace’ of his father, whose lineage traces to England, was ‘a quarter of his family was Hanafees from Galway.’  He added, ‘You know, Biden is English. I hate to tell you that.  I don’t hate to – I’m joking – but it’s true.’

“While 10 of Biden’s great-great grandparents from his mother’s side are Irish, his father, Joseph R. Biden Sr., has English and French ancestry.

“The British tabloid The Daily Mail highlighted Biden’s comments, and pointed to past remarks he’s made about the United Kingdom, with the headline: ‘All the time, President Joe Biden has shown disdain for his UK heritage.’”

--The 2024 Democratic National Convention is slated to take place in Chicago, which won out over New York and Atlanta.

--Former Tennessee Democratic state representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were reinstated as interim members of the state House, after being expelled from the body by the GOP-dominated chamber after the two (and Rep. Gloria Johnson, who wasn’t expelled) called for gun reform on the chamber floor, but while using a bullhorn.

--A federal appeals court preserved access to the abortion pill mifepristone for now but reduced the period of pregnancy when the drug can be used and said it could not be dispensed by mail.

The ruling late Wednesday temporarily narrowed a decision by a lower court judge in Texas that had completely blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the nation’s most commonly used method of abortion.  The Texas order unsettled abortion providers less than a year after the reversal of Roe v. Wade already dramatically curtailed abortion access.

The case may now be headed for the Supreme Court, though no way do they want the case. They’ve made it clear that states should decide these issues.

Mifepristone was approved for use by the FDA more than two decades ago and is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

Last week, a federal judge blocked the FDA’s approval of the pill following a lawsuit by the drug’s opponents, yet there is no precedent for a lone judge overturning the regulator’s medical recommendations.

The ruling was put on pause to allow an appeal.

Just before midnight Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans then ruled that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone in 2000 could remain in effect.

But in the 2-1 vote, the panel of judges put on hold changes made by the regulator since 2016 that relaxed the rules for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone.  Those included extending the period of pregnancy when the drug can be used from seven weeks to 10, and also allowing it to be dispensed by mail, without any need to visit a doctor’s office.

Either side, or both could take the case to the Supreme Court. Opponents could seek to keep the lower court ruling in effect.  The Biden administration, meanwhile, asked the high court to block limits set by lower courts and allow all the FDA changes to remain in place while the case continues to play out.

*And then late this afternoon, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily halted lower court rulings that set limits on access to the abortion bill mifepristone, giving the court time to weigh a bid by the Biden administration to defend the medication from a challenge by anti-abortion groups.

The action by the conservative justice, who handles emergency matters arising from a group of states including Texas, freezes the litigation and maintains the current availability of mifepristone in the market…but only for five days, until it is assumed the Supreme Court will rule further.

Alito said plaintiffs have until noon ET Tuesday to respond.  The order is stayed until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

--Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill Thursday that would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, after the legislature passed the bill earlier in the day.  The measure cuts off what has become a critical access point for abortion care in the South since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Florida’s existing law allows abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, a time period in which the vast majority of abortions take place.  The six-week ban – which includes exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies and “fatal fetal abnormalities” – outlaws the procedure before many people know they’re pregnant.

Patients from across the South have been traveling to Florida for abortions since the Supreme Court decision in June, which triggered abortion bans across the region.

--California officials said the flood risk is substantial, particularly in the Tulare Lake basin and the San Joaquin River basin after the historic snowfall this winter; with the state saying there is now more water contained in California’s snowpack than the capacity of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.  And the risk could linger through much of the year

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the San Joaquin Valley could “start to have significant flooding in the coming days…(but) that is just a taste of what is likely to come.”

“In fact,” Swain said, “somewhere around 98% of the snow that was up there at the peak is still there, and is still going to melt, and is still going to become runoff and fill rivers, reservoirs and probably floodplains,” he said.

--The scenes out of the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, area are unimaginable after nearly 26 inches of rain in about seven hours, swamping cars on highways, shutting down the city’s airport and closing schools for days.

Early Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service expected up to six inches of rain but ultimately at least one location at the airport saw four times that.

The preliminary report of 25.91 inches measured at a station at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, if verified, would break the state’s 24-hour rain record by 2.63 inches.

City officials said Fort Lauderdale’s stormwater system was built to handle 3 inches of rain within 24 hours, but more than a foot fell across broad swaths of the city.

With hundreds of flights a day cancelled late Wednesday through Friday, imagine the chaos with the cruise industry, which is so big in that area.

And imagine if this had hit at the height of spring break a few weeks earlier.  Shockingly, there are zero fatalities that I’ve seen thus far, as first responders did their usual heroic job in evacuating the elderly from rising water in their homes.

--Among Thursday’s record high temperatures was Chicago at 83, New York 90, and nearby Newark 92.  For April 13…not June or July 13.

--Rutgers University is in the midst of its first strike in the university’s 257-year existence, as 9,000 faculty members walked out.  The school receives significant state funding: about 20% of its $5 billion annual budget. That includes state funding for campus operations and money to help cover benefits costs for employees.

This the largest public sector strike in New Jersey history, according to experts.  Union officials said the strike is the first to involve tenured and tenure-track faculty at a Big Ten university.

--New York City Mayor Eric Adams hired a “rat czar,” Kathleen Corradi, at a salary of $155,000. 

“There’s a new sheriff in town,” Corradi said in a news conference Wednesday at one of the newest “rat mitigation zones” in Harlem.

Adams said about 900 people applied for the position, announced in November with the eye-catching job description that called for a “bloodthirsty” bureaucrat committed to the “wholesale slaughter” of rodents.

Corradi will be charged with looking into innovative mitigation strategies, according to the mayor, who pointed to a recent experiment with a carbon monoxide pump used with apparent success on the Upper East Side.

“It’s many rivers that feed the sea of rats,” Adams said.

--Prince Harry will attend the Coronation next month of his father King Charles, but Meghan will not.  President Biden is not attending but Jill Biden is.  I’m not attending.  Never was a Charles fan (I mean, seriously, who is?).  For me, it was all about the Queen.

---

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

Pray for Ukraine.

God bless America.

---

Gold $2019
Oil $82.63…highest since Dec.

Regular Gas: $3.66*; Diesel: $4.21 [$4.07 / $5.01 yr. ago]

*Up 20 cents in a month.

Returns for the week 4/10-4/14

Dow Jones  +1.2%  [33886]
S&P 500   +0.8%  [4137]
S&P MidCap  +1.7%
Russell 2000  +1.5%
Nasdaq  +0.3%

Returns for the period 1/1/23-4/14/23

Dow Jones  +2.2%
S&P 500  +7.8%
S&P MidCap  +2.4%
Russell 2000  +1.1%
Nasdaq   +15.8%

Bulls 48.7
Bears 24.3

Finally, on a personal note, long-time readers know that for about nine consecutive years I went down to beautiful Kiawah, S.C., in December to run the half-marathon there.  Dr. W., an old friend and fraternity brother from Wake Forest (and terrific supporter of this site), and I would play the Ocean Course the day before, and then his wife, Connie, and I ran the race the next morning.  I think Connie beat me 8 out of 9 times.

The three of us had a blast, and occasionally I’d meet one of their terrific children.

Connie died the other day after a yearslong battle with cancer.  She was one of the best women I’ve ever met, a real friend, a terrific wife (as Dr. W. told me countless times), beautiful, funny, smart, caring, you name it.

RIP, Connie.  You are already deeply missed.

Hang in there, Brother Whit.

Brian Trumbore

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