Week in Review

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Week in Review

12/07/2024

For the week 12/2-12/6

[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,337

Yet another crazy week on Planet Earth.  We were just learning of new developments in Syria when I posted early last Friday afternoon, of which there were nonetheless few details, and I said I would comment further next time if actions warranted it.

Well, they sure do!  It’s stunning that within a few days, the Bashar Assad regime is in danger of falling.  It certainly is threatened.  And Russia does not want to lose its air and naval bases in the country, the latter giving Russia it’s only access to the Mediterranean.

Many say that Israel’s actions against Hezbollah, its severe losses, as well as Israeli strikes on Iranian military commanders in Syria, and Russia’s war in Ukraine, played a part in the decision by the militants, who heretofore had been biding their time in Idlib (northwest corner of the country), to make their sudden unexpected move on Aleppo, and beyond.

Others believe it was Russia and Syria’s recent bombing of the rebels’ position in Idlib that precipitated their action.

It’s the most significant change in the balance of power in Syria in eight years. 

And then there was South Korea. Who would’ve thunk that the president would declare martial law to target the political opposition, and not because of some action by North Korea.  For the few hours this was a huge story, Kim Jong Un could have exploited the chaos and disarray in South Korea’s military leadership, for one, but he didn’t, thankfully.  [Probably because it was so early in the morning, he was sleeping off his latest night of partying and aides didn’t want to disturb him.]

More on both topics below.

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We had a resolution to the final House race as a Democratic former state lawmaker, Adam Gray, defeated the Republican incumbent, John Duarte, in California’s Central Valley, the race called on Tuesday.

Duarte conceded finally, trailing by only 187 votes in a contest in which more than 210,000 ballots were cast.

So this gives Republicans a whopping 220-215 margin, and we know Elise Stefanik and Michael Waltz are headed for the Trump cabinet, while Matt Gaetz resigned.  Until special elections are held, in actuality just a 217-215 margin once Stefanik and Waltz are confirmed. 

“Do the math; we’ve got nothing to spare,” Speaker Mike Johnson said during his weekly news conference.  Zero margin for error in terms of passing Trump’s agenda.

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Until Sunday night, President Biden had said, repeatedly, that he would not pardon or commute the sentence of his son, Hunter, following his conviction on three felony counts of illegally purchasing a handgun.

But Biden then issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son, using the power of his office to wave aside legal troubles.

In a statement issued by the White House, Biden said he had decided to issue the executive grant of clemency for his son “for those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.”

Biden said he did so because the charges against Hunter were politically motivated and designed to hurt the president politically.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in the statement.  “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong.”

He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution.  In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here.  Enough is enough.”

What B.S.  This from the “Bridge” president.  The man who built his career on the idea that he would never interfere with the administration of justice.  In 2020, he made the case that former President Trump should be ousted from office to restore that kind of independence in America’s democracy, and he argued the same in 2024.

He totally threw the Justice Department under the bus, adding in his statement, “I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further.”

Of course, were this true (which it isn’t), the decision was made when Hunter, Jill, and the family were together for Thanksgiving on Nantucket.

Many Democrats were furious (even if they wouldn’t say so publicly), let alone the Justice Department.  For the former, it totally took away the message that Donald Trump has made clearer than ever that his second term would be focused on retribution and revenge against Biden, Trump naming Kash Patel, a loyalist, who has vowed to go after Trump’s enemies, as FBI director.

In his statement, Biden said, “I hope Americans will understand why a father and president would come to this decision.”

Look, we all knew Biden would eventually pardon Hunter before leaving office, but the president and his spokeswoman, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, had denied for months that he had any intention of doing so.  NBC News reported Sunday that Biden had in fact decided to issue the pardon back in June.

A federal jury of Hunter Biden’s peers found him guilty of three firearm-related felonies in Delaware, and Hunter had pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax charges in Los Angeles after telling his legal team that he refused to subject his family to another round of anguish and humiliation after the gut-wrenching gun trial in Delaware earlier in the year.

The investigations went on for five years, looking into the period when Hunter bankrolled his drugs and alcohol addiction by leveraging his last name into lucrative overseas consulting contracts – and not paying taxes.  Sentencing was scheduled for mid-December.

Jonathan Chait / The Atlantic

“When President Joe Biden was running for a second term as president, he repeatedly ruled out granting a pardon to his son Hunter, who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying on a form to purchase a gun.  ‘He was very clear, very up-front, obviously very definitive,’ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of one of his many promises to this effect.

“Biden professed a willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle. But in breaking his promise, and issuing a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period, Biden has revealed his pledge to have been merely instrumental....

“It is probably true that one of the crimes charged to Hunter Biden, lying on a form to obtain a firearm, is the sort of thing an average person would be unlikely to face charges over. (Hunter affirmed on the form that he was sober, but later admitted to having been in the throes of addiction.)  The other charge, blatantly failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes, is routinely brought against people who are not political targets.  That it’s true Hunter Biden was more likely to get caught than the average tax cheat is an indictment of the tax system.  (It is also, ironically, an aspect of the system Joe Biden has set out to change by beefing up the IRS’s enforcement capacity.)

“What the president fails to note in his self-pitying statement is that Hunter Biden for years engaged in legal but wildly inappropriate behavior by running a business based on selling the perception of access to his father.  The only commodity Hunter had to offer oligarchs in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere was the belief, or hope, that he could put in a good word for them with his dad.

“Joe Biden’s defense in these cases was that he did not actually give Hunter’s clients anything of value.  There is no proof to the contrary, and extensive Republican efforts to dig up evidence that Joe shared in the profits from Hunter’s access-peddling business came up empty.

“But Joe Biden’s defense of Hunter’s influence peddling by stressing its narrow legality merely serves to highlight the hypocrisy of his fatherly indulgence.  The black letter of the law was a fence to protect Hunter from the consequences of his sleazy behavior.  And when the law itself trapped him, he simply opened a door and walked through it – a door no average American could access.

“The most bewildering passage in Biden’s pardon statement posits some amorphous conspiracy against him by Justice Department prosecutors.  ‘There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution.  In trying to break Hunter, they’re tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here.  Enough is enough.’

“Trying to break Hunter?  And his father?  To what end?

“It would be tempting, but unfair, to draw a simple equation between Joe Biden’s situational ethics and that of his successor. A willingness to evade the rule of law is the foundation of Donald Trump’s entire career in business and politics, not a nepotistic exception.  Still, principles become much harder to defend when their most famous defenders have compromised them flagrantly.  With the pardon decision, like his stubborn insistence on running for a second term he couldn’t win, Biden chose to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“How many times did President Biden or one of his press minders tell the voting public that he wouldn’t pardon his son Hunter? Now we can see how seriously the President takes his ‘word as a Biden,’ as he likes to say.  On Sunday Mr. Biden saved his son a likely prison term, and he did it in sweeping language that provides Hunter an immunity almost without precedent.

“Mr. Biden’s change of heart after the November election was predictable, and neither political party has clean hands on questionable clemency.  If Hunter is now on the straight and narrow, good for him.  Many people have enough experience of addiction to sympathize with what the Biden family went through.

“But we can’t let the President explain away the political ramifications of his pardon by rewriting what actually happened....

“President Dad has now granted Hunter the broad protection he wanted.  The unconditional pardon covers any and all offenses Hunter may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through this past weekend. This is an effort to shield Hunter from prosecution under President Trump.  The 2014 date is significant because it’s about when Hunter went into business with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that paid him money he failed to pay taxes on.

“Legal experts are saying they’ve never seen a pardon so open-ended, other than maybe Gerald Ford’s for Richard Nixon. Add this to the list of democratic norms broken by Mr. Biden, who claims to stand up for them.

“Mr. Trump is already citing it to justify the next bad precedent. He has pledged clemency for the crowd that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This is an awful idea, especially if Mr. Trump includes anybody who hit a cop that day. But get ready for the MAGA mantra: What about Hunter? Already Mr. Trump is linking this pardon with leniency for ‘the J-6 Hostages,’* as he put it on Truth Social.

“ ‘I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,’ Mr. Biden said.  As a father? Yes. But what a pitiful end to his Presidency.

“In 2020 he promised a return to normalcy, defended Hunter’s influence hustling, and claimed Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Then he tried to be FDR, encouraged the prosecution of Mr. Trump, and gave his son a ‘get out of jail free’ card.  The history books will not be kind.”

*Trump on Truth Social:

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”

Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis, on X:

“While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country.

“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.  When you become President, your role is Pater familias of the nation,” Polis continued, referencing a Latin term for head of the household.

“Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles while also acknowledging that no one is above the law, not a President and not a President’s son.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“President-elect Donald Trump is selecting radical MAGA loyalists for top national security positions, signaling his intention to upend the professionalism and independence of institutions that wield some of the federal government’s most awesome powers.  Political opponents, journalists and others could be victims.  And President Joe Biden just gave him cover.

“To be clear: Mr. Biden had an unquestionable legal right to pardon his son Hunter.  But in so doing on Sunday, he maligned the Justice Department and invited Mr. Trump to draw equivalence between the Hunter Biden pardon and any future moves Mr. Trump might take against the impartial administration of justice.  He risks deepening many Americans’ suspicions that the justice system is two-tiered, justifying Mr. Trump’s drive to reshape it – or, turnabout is fair play, to use it to benefit his own side....

“By implication, Mr. Biden casually impugns investigators at the IRS and the FBI, career prosecutors, Attorney General Merrick Garland and a federal judge in Delaware.  Before Mr. Garland became attorney general, Mr. Biden himself chose to keep David C. Weiss as U.S. attorney for Delaware so as not to interfere with Mr. Weiss’ ongoing investigation of the president’s son. In his statement, Mr. Biden complains that a plea deal fell apart in court last summer.  In fact, the judge did her job by questioning its irregular structure – highly favorable to Hunter Biden – and the degree to which the defendant believed it would immunize him from future prosecutions for unrelated crimes....

“Yes, Mr. Trump egregiously misused the pardon power during his first term, granting clemency to Stephen K. Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, whom he just tapped to be ambassador to France. These sent the message that Mr. Trump will get his cronies off the hook, at the risk of encouraging further unlawful behavior.  Yet, no matter the distinctions that one can draw between these cases and Hunter Biden’s, the president – and the Democrats – are the ones trying to defend the system; they damage their worthy cause if they are seen to be exploiting it for their own gain.

“Any Democrat who refuses this week to condemn Mr. Biden’s pardon will have less credibility to criticize Mr. Trump, his meddling at the Justice Department and his choices for key positions in that agency... With this one intemperate, selfish act, the president has undermined, in hindsight, the lofty rationales he offered for seeking the presidency four years ago and indelibly marred the final chapter of his political career.”

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Russia-Ukraine

--Monday, German Chancellor Scholz made an unannounced visit to Kyiv, saying Germany would remain “Ukraine’s strongest supporter in Europe,” and pledged an additional $683 million in military aid.  He was expected to meet President Zelensky.  It was his first trip to Ukraine in over two years.

--The Biden administration is racing to send weapons to Ukraine before President-elect Trump takes office on Jan. 20.  An estimated $725 million in arms was announced Monday, including “substantial quantities of artillery, rockets, and air defense capabilities,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday that there are two sources of military aid totaling nearly $10 billion still available to Ukraine.  Ryder said $6.8 billion of this is presidential drawdown authority (PDA) yet to be distributed.  The PDA support is usually delivered much faster than Security Assistance Initiative funding because “the Defense Department already has the articles or services -n-hand,” the State Department said in a statement Monday.

Ryder didn’t answer if the U.S. could deliver that much aid in such a short time.

--President Zelensky has reportedly floated a slightly different approach toward a possible future settlement with Russia over invaded territory inside Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The old and the new: “For most of the war, Zelensky had insisted that his country would keep fighting until it had reclaimed the roughly 20% of the country now under Moscow control,” the Journal writes.  But “Now, Zelensky is suggesting that he could accept a cease-fire that effectively would leave occupied territory in Moscow’s hands if the rest of Ukraine were given protection by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”

But NATO is not in any hurry to admit Ukraine into the alliance, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Monday, “The main issue with Ukraine has to be, ‘How do we get more military aid into Ukraine? That’s priority number one, two and three,” which was not a warm reception for Zelensky’s proposal.

Rutte said that in a meeting with Donald Trump last month in Mar-a-Lago, he told the president-elect that NATO countries must “make sure that whenever Zelensky – from a position of strength – is starting talks, we have an outcome which is a good deal.”

Enabling Zelensky to negotiate a good deal with Moscow is vital for more than Ukraine, Rutte said he told Trump.  “What we have to prevent is...North Korea, China, Russia and Iran to high-five each other because we got into a bad deal,” Rutte said.

Russian President Putin has given absolutely no indication that he’s abandoned his desire to subjugate Ukraine entirely.  And the idea that he would be willing to allow any part of Ukraine to join NATO is, for now, unthinkable.

The Journal noted that one big wrinkle for Russia: “The ruble has tumbled recently, pushing up inflation and interest rates and further crimping the parts of the economy not dedicated to defense.”

--Advisers to Donald Trump publicly and privately are floating proposals to end the war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future, according to a Reuters analysis of their statements and interviews with several people close to the president-elect.

One of the advisers is retired Army Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, and, along with the other two, include taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table.

Trump’s advisers would try forcing Moscow and Kyiv into negotiations with carrots and sticks, including halting military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to talk but boosting assistance if Vladimir Putin refuses.

Trump is likely to find Putin unwilling to engage, analysts and former U.S. officials said, as he has the Ukrainians on the back foot, and many have more to gain by pursuing further land grabs.

“Putin is in no hurry,” said Eugene Rumer, a former top U.S. intelligence analyst on Russia now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Putin, he said, shows no readiness to drop his conditions for a truce and talks, including Ukraine abandoning its NATO quest and surrendering the four provinces Putin claims as part of Russia but does not fully control, a demand rejected by Kyiv.

--Zelensky replaced the commander of the military’s land forces on Friday, putting Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi in charge, as Russia notches up gains in the east and Kyiv’s troops face manpower shortages.

Zelensky said “internal changes” were needed as he announced the 42-year-old would replace Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, who took the helm of the land forces in a major shake-up in February 2024.

“The main task is to increase noticeably the combat efficiency of our army, ensure the quality of servicemen training, and introduce innovative approaches to people management in Ukraine’s Armed Forces,” the president said.

Drapatyl is well respected in the army and military analysts praised his appointment.

--Ukraine has lost about 40% of the territory it captured in Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise incursion in August, as Russian forces have mounted waves of counterassaults.

--A senior U.S. administration official said on Wednesday that Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers to 18 from 25, a senior administration official said on Wednesday, putting pressure on Kyiv to bolster its fighting forces in the country’s war with Russia. 

Speaking to reporters, the official said Ukraine was not mobilizing or training enough new soldiers to replace those lost on the battlefield.

“The need right now is manpower,” he said.  “The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk... Mobilization and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today.”

A source in Zelensky’s office told Reuters that the country did not have what it needed to equip the troops it was mobilizing now.

“Right now, with our current mobilization efforts, we don’t have enough equipment, for example armored vehicles, to support all the troops we are calling up,” the source said.  “We cannot compensate for our partners’ delays in decision-making and supply chains with the lives of our soldiers and of the youngest of our guys.”

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Israel-Hezbollah...Syria...

--There were violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, but no deal breakers, yet.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed 11 people in air strikes in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah fired on a disputed border zone. The IDF characterized Hezbollah’s attack, which caused no injuries, as a violation of the ceasefire.  On Monday, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament accused Israel of violating the truce dozens of times in recent days.  The U.S. insisted that the ceasefire was broadly holding.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah’s repeated fire was “a serious violation” and vowed, “Israel will respond forcefully.”

--In Gaza on Saturday, Israel said it had killed a World Central Kitchen worker it accused of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack, in the second Israeli strike to kill workers affiliated with the aid group.

A spokeswomen for World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based group, said on Saturday that three of its contractors had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle.  In a statement, the aid group said that it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties” to the Hamas.

The Israeli military declined to comment on the two other workers WCK reported were killed.

--President-elect Trump warned Monday there will be “all hell to pay” in the Middle East if Hamas does not release every one of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration next month.

Trump, who has previously demanded Israel find a way to end the war in Gaza before the start of his term, issued his strongest threat yet against the Palestinian terrorists, warning that America would get directly involved in the war if his demands are not met.

“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” he said.

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.  RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

[Residents of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden might differ with this description, mused the editor.]

--The Israeli military shed light Wednesday on the circumstances surrounding the deaths early this year of six male hostages who were found shot in a Gaza tunnel – and whose captors were found dead at their side.

The hostages were most likely shot by militants around the time that Israeli airstrike hit near the tunnel in the city of Khan Younis on Feb. 14, the IDF said.  Israeli officials have said that Hamas militants have an order to kill captives if they feel in danger or under threat.  The hostages’ bodies were recovered from the tunnel in August.

At the time, the bodies of six militants were also found along with the hostages, but didn’t have any bullet wounds, the IDF said.  An Israeli official said the probe of the incident has determined that the militants likely suffocated from the release of gases in the airstrike.

The IDF asked family members of the hostages for forgiveness in a meeting before its findings were publicly released.

The families of hostages have said the Israeli government isn’t giving enough priority to bringing the hostages home and have called for a cease-fire to release them.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has called for “total victory,” which many hostages families fear will come at the expense of the hostages if a deal isn’t reached.

--Syria....

Last Friday I posted early due to the shortened Wall Street trading day, and I wrote of the insurgency in Aleppo, Syria, the second-largest city in the country, but said I didn’t know who comprised said insurgency.  As a fact, no one seemed to know at that moment, we just knew whoever launched it was clearly anti-Assad and the Syrian government, a reignition of the Syrian civil war.  They were just rebel forces, for all we knew.

But Saturday some details emerged, and by Sunday, the militants had taken control of large parts of Aleppo and were advancing towards Hama in the south.

The surprise offensive prompted the first Russian strikes on Aleppo since 2016 and saw Syria’s military withdraw its troops from the city.

The attack, we then learned, was led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Who is HTS?

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder: HTS was “formerly known as Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.  But the bottom line is they are still a designated terrorist organization,” he told reporters Monday.

HTS is led by a 42-year-old insurgent veteran named Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, who first surfaced in the early years of the Syrian Civil War.  The group has been around for nearly 14 years.  The Wall Street Journal noted in a profile Monday, “The militant leader broke with Islamic State in 2012. He cut ties with al Qaeda in 2016, and since then he has fought both organizations in bloody campaigns.”

Jawlani has allegedly said he is not interested in international jihad.  “Instead of the banner of Islam, HTS troops choose to fight under the Syrian flag that dates back to the republic that existed before the 1963 Baath Party revolution that eventually brought the Assad family to power,” the Journal reports.  “Jawlani is not a cleric, he is a politician who is ready to strike deals and is very compromising on a lot of things – except fighting against the regime.  Don’t underestimate this guy’s ambition,” one expert advised.

The fact that Syria’s resistance “appears to be spearheaded by HTS is yet another reminder of something we learned many times during the war-on-terror,” that is “that the single richest ‘growth medium’ for violent extremism is anywhere a population loses faith in its own government,” Mike Nagata, a retired Army three-star told Defense One’s Patrick Tucker on Monday.  “The Syrian people today, in places like Aleppo, hate their government more than any other predation they must suffer,” with the Syrian people viewing “a violent Islamist group as preferable to Assad,” Nagata said.

--The Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister wrote on social media Tuesday: Over the course of six days, “Syria’s armed opposition has captured 237 cities, towns, villages & military bases – more than doubling the territory in its control.”

But Lister also added that the advances are “not the result of Israel’s weakening of Iran and Hezbollah,” nor are they “the result of Russia having ‘withdrawn’ from Syria (it hasn’t).  It’s the result of a profoundly fragile regime & fragmented ‘military,’” he wrote Sunday on social media.  [Defense One]

--Syrian state media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, had infiltrated parts of Aleppo.

On a state TV morning show Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s assistance will repel the “terrorists groups,” blaming Turkey for supporting the insurgents’ push into Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted a Russian Defense Ministry official as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday.

--By Sunday, the rebels reportedly controlled a broad patch across the provinces of Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, in the west and northwest of Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that government troops were battling to defend Hama and that reinforcements had arrived to man defensive lines around the city and nearby cities.  Syrian government warplanes bombed territory now held by the rebels, including targets across Aleppo, causing dozens of civilian casualties, the monitor said.

Since the offensive began on Wednesday, SOHR said more than 370 people had been killed – including at least 20 civilians.

--Monday, the SOHR said Iranian-backed Iraqi militias deployed in Syria to back the government’s counteroffensive against HTS.  Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met with Assad on Sunday, saying, “I clearly announced full-fledged support to President Assad, government, army, and people by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Syrian and Russian airstrikes on rebel positions continued mostly in Hama and Idlib provinces.

HTS leader Jawlani told Iraqis not to come to Syria to help the fight, according to a video released Wednesday. 

--Thursday, Syrian rebels said they had started pushing into Hama, Syria’s 4th-largest city where pro-government forces backed by intense Russian air strikes were trying to stave off a new rebel victory and halt the insurgents’ lightning advance.

By day’s end, though, government troops confirmed they had departed, as reported by al-Jazeera on location.

The New York Times reported it wasn’t just HTS in Hama, Aleppo, and the Idlib countryside: “Other groups backed by Turkey and based in Syrian territory just south of the Turkish border have also joined in the fight.”

It was then on to Homs, roughly halfway on the road between Aleppo and Damascus.  And today, Friday, thousands of people were fleeing the city, the SOHR observed.

This is just startling.  The people in Homs are fleeing to the western coastal region, a government stronghold where Russia has its air and naval base.

Russian bombing overnight Thursday destroyed a key bridge along the M5 highway, the main route to Homs, to prevent rebels using it.  Government forces were bringing reinforcements to the area.

HTS was urging Homs residents to rise up, saying: “Your time has come,” per an online post.

Friday morning, Israel hit two border crossings between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanon’s transport minister said, Israel saying the crossings were used for arms smuggling.

--David Ignatius / Washington Post

“Before last week’s explosive resurgence of Syria’s civil war, the Biden administration and Arab allies were quietly exploring a deal with Damascus to block Iranian delivery of weapons to the militant group Hezbollah, in exchange for a relaxation of U.S. sanctions, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

“The back-channel contact, conducted in the past weeks through moderate Gulf states, appears to have been derailed by the Syrian opposition’s startling offensive and its capture last weekend of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.  Though the diplomatic foray appears dead for now, it was a sign of the dizzying changes in the Middle East following Israel’s assault on Hezbollah, Hamas and other Iranian proxies....

“The moderate Arab countries had been urging Syria to move away from Iran in the wake of Hezbollah’s defeat by Israeli operations in Lebanon.  They hoped that President Bashar al-Assad was tiring of Tehran’s tutelage and was ready to make a break if Washington would reduce its sanctions, which block the international assets of Assad and other officials and restrict investment and trading with the country. But now that Assad is facing a renewed opposition threat, it appears that he needs the Iranians more than ever....

“What may have triggered the rebel assault was a recent increase in Syrian bombardment of their headquarters Idlib, just south of the Turkish border.  The opposition dubbed its offensive ‘Deterring Aggression,’ according to Arab media reports. As the rebels pushed south, the Syrian army collapsed, and the attack ‘snowballed’ until it reached Aleppo, a Biden administration official said....

“The Assad regime had seemed to be recovering its balance over the past several years.  But that stability was fragile, dependent on Russia, Iran and Hezbollah’s military muscle.  Those props didn’t stop the rebels from seizing Aleppo, and Assad now faces a bloody assault to recapture the city.  It’s sadly characteristic of the Middle East that as soon as one war ends, another starts.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“It’s tempting to wish for the fall of Bashar Assad given the massacres he has endorsed against his own people. But the Islamist groups that would oust him aren’t allies of democracy or the West. Turkey may be helping them for its own purposes, which includes killing anti-Turk Kurds who hold positions inside Syria.

“The main U.S. interest is preventing the spread of mayhem into Israel or Iraq that might lead to the revival of Islamic State.  The U.S. has some 900 or so soldiers in western Syria, far from the fighting in Aleppo, to keep ISIS under control. As long as the U.S. positions can be safely defended, the presence is useful for intelligence gathering and counterterror operations.

“The Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, and Russia and Iran filled the vacuum after the Obama Administration chose not to support democratic forces.  Anyone who thinks the end of Pax Americana leads to a better world, take a look at Syria.  The U.S. is now a bystander, but the renewed fighting is another reason to keep backing Israel, a rare friend in a deadly region.”

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Wall Street and the Economy

Ahead of the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on interest rate policy, Dec. 17-18, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, a permanent voting member on the FOMC, said Monday that even though declines in inflation have been stalling, he is still leaning toward lowering interest rates further this month.

In prepared remarks for a conference, Waller said that while the recent uptick in inflation does raise concern that price growth could get stuck above the Fed’s 2% goal, he doesn’t want to overreact. Even though core-PCE rose to 2.8% for October, Waller said he still believes that based on the economic data available, it makes sense to cut.

Looking ahead, Waller expects rate cuts to continue over the next year until rates approach a more neutral rate, which neither stimulates nor suppresses the economy.

But Waller did note that his final decision on rate policy this month will depend on the incoming economic data, including the jobs report and a CPI reading next week.  If either contains surprises that would alter the forecast for the path of inflation, he would consider a pause on rate cuts.  That said, Waller noted the level of demand in the economy has moderated significantly over the past year, and there is strong evidence that monetary policy is still restrictive.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking Wednesday at the New York Times Dealbook Summit in New York, said he and his colleagues can afford to be cautious as they lower rates toward a neutral level – one that neither stimulates nor holds back the economy.

Powell added that inflation is still not quite back to the central bank’s 2% target, but he saw no reason the economy couldn’t continue growing.

Powell was asked to comment on the impact of incoming president-elect Trump’s policies, none of which of course have been enacted yet, such as on tariffs, and Powell said the Fed can’t anticipate how potential immigration, tax, or regulatory campaign promises might affect the economy or inflation.

Speaking of Treasury nominee Scott Bessent, Powell said he’s “confident that I will have the same kind of relationship with him once he’s confirmed as I’ve had with other Treasury secretaries.”

Bessent has backed the idea of nominating a “shadow Fed chair” well in advance of the end of Powell’s term in 2026, a move that would effectively undermine the Fed leader’s influence with financial markets.

But Powell said he didn’t believe the incoming administration would pursue that idea.

So, it remained all about the data and today we had an important jobs report for November.

And it was solid...227,000 for nonfarm payrolls vs. consensus of 210,000, with October’s number revised upward to 36,000 from 12,000.  The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.  Average hourly earnings were up 0.4%, 4% year-over-year, also good.

Nothing to complain about.  Stocks initially rose and bonds rallied, the yield on the 10-year falling to 4.15%.

Next week important CPI/PPI data for the Fed to chew on before they gather the following week.

Following the jobs report, some Fed governors expressed caution on future action on rates, so we’ll see what the CPI numbers bring.

In other economic data this week, we had the ISM readings on manufacturing, 48.4, and services, 52.1 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), the services figure down from 56.0 prior.

October construction spending was up 0.4%, factory orders rose 0.2%.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for fourth-quarter growth is 3.3%.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.69%, down from 6.84% two weeks ago.

As for the Thanksgiving weekend shopping statistics, Mastercard SpendingPulse said sales rose 3.4% on Black Friday compared with last year.  Online sales rose 14.6%, while in-store sales grew 0.7%. The figures exclude sales of automobiles and gasoline.

Cyber Monday sales were up 6.1% over 2023, according to Adobe Analytics.  Adobe had Black Friday sales up 10.2% over last year.

The National Retail Federation still expects sales in November and December to rise between 2.5% and 3.5% compared with the same period last year, when sales rose 3.9%.

Europe and Asia

We had the November PMI readings for the eurozone, the composite at 48.3, a 10-month low, with manufacturing at 45.2, services 49.5. [S&P Global / Hamburg Commercial Bank]

Germany: mfg. 43.0, services 49.3 (9-mo. low)
France: mfg. 43.1, services 46.9
Italy: mfg. 44.5, services 49.2
Spain: mfg. 53.1, services also 53.1
Ireland: mfg. 49.9, services 58.3 (no problems here)
Netherlands: mfg. 46.6 (11-mo. low)
Greece: mfg. 50.9

UK: mfg. 48. 0 (9-mo. low), services 50.8

Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia / HCB

“These numbers look terrible.  It’s like the eurozone’s manufacturing recession is never going to end.  As new orders fell fast and at an accelerated pace, there’s no sign of a recovery anytime soon. According to our nowcast, the manufacturing sector’s output is going to decrease by 0.7% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter.  This slump is likely going to drag into next year.

“The downturn is widespread, hitting all of the top three eurozone countries.  Germany and France are faring the worst, and Italy is not doing much better....

“Companies continue to trim their staff. While the official unemployment rate has trended down for a few years and stabilized at 6.3%, the PMI and the cost-cutting plans of many companies suggest we are headed for higher unemployment rates....

“An early recovery in the services sector doesn’t seem likely, as new business has dropped for the third consecutive month.”

As an aside, Dr. de la Rubia says that regarding Spain’s manufacturing growth, it is most likely linked to the heavy floods there, “where an estimated 100,000 cars were destroyed and need to be replaced,” thus a boom that won’t last.

Eurostat then released an estimate for third-quarter GDP in the eurozone, up 0.4% compared with the prior quarter, and up 0.9% vs. Q3 2023.

Q3 2024 vs. Q3 2023

Germany -0.3%, France 1.2%, Italy 0.4%, Spain 3.4%, Netherlands 1.7%, Greece 2.4%. [Ireland’s GDP calculations are wacky and thus I never report them.]

Separately, the euro area unemployment rate for October was 6.3%, down from 6.6% in October 2023, courtesy of Eurostat.

Germany 3.4%, France 7.6%, Italy 5.8%, Spain 11.2%, Netherlands 3.7%,
Ireland 4.2%, Greece 9.8%.

Industrial producer prices in the EA20 for October increased by 0.4% compared with September.  Versus Oct. 2023, prices decreased by 3.2%.

October retail trade decreased by 0.5% in the euro area from September, up 1.9% from a year ago.

France: President Emmanuel Macron is looking for a new prime minister, after Michel Barnier failed to survive a ‘no-confidence’ vote.

As expected, France’s minority government collapsed, the no-confidence vote set in motion by left-wing and hard-right parties.  The lower house of Parliament passed the measure with 331 votes – well above the required majority of 288 votes – after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally joined the chamber’s leftist coalition.

It is the first time the National Assembly has brought down a government since 1962.

The move leaves France without a clear path to a new budget and threatens to further unsettle credit markets.  It also creates a wider opening for Le Pen and her party, National Rally becoming the largest single party in the lower house in a June snap election*, transforming her into Paris’s most influential power broker.

*Recall, it was Macron who stupidly called for the snap election, thinking it would demonstrate National Rally’s limited support – and the move backfired.

Barnier is likely to remain as a caretaker until Macron names a new PM, but weeks of instability are on the horizon.

While the left has called on Macron to resign, he can’t be forced out of his job. The next presidential election is set for 2027 and Le Pen remains the frontrunner, according to polls.

Macron promised to appoint a new prime minister in the coming days.

It is critical to pass a 2025 budget by year-end or use untested emergency legislation to avoid a shutdown.  And as Reuters reported Thursday, the collapse of the government “could re-ignite Europe’s energy crisis.

“The relatively low cost of French nuclear generation means the country is by far the region’s biggest electricity supplier, providing Germany and Italy, in particular, with cheap power. But the state-owned utility that runs France’s nuclear power sector, EDF, needs regular investment.

“Any forced cuts to France’s power generation tied to budget tussles could quickly curtail electricity exports and drive up prices in a region still dealing with the loss of Russian gas supplies since the outbreak of war.”

The turmoil in France – just weeks after the collapse of the German government – threatens to leave two of Europe’s most powerful nations rudderless, at a time when President-elect Trump could unleash a trade war, let alone slash aid for Ukraine.

Ireland: After elections last weekend, voters have set the stage for a return of the grand coalition government that has led the country since 2020, resisting an anti-incumbent wave that has swept the United States and Europe.

Ireland’s two main center-right parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail (I never know the difference the two), have entered coalition talks – a process that could take weeks before the full shape of the government is clear...you know, who holds what cabinet positions, power-sharing at the top, etc.

Turning to Asia...China reported out its PMI readings for November, with the official government numbers at 50.3 on manufacturing, 50.0 for services, while the private Caixin readings had manufacturing at 51.5, a 5-mo. high, and services at 51.5 as well.

Separately, China’s central bank governor reaffirmed plans for a supportive monetary policy to promote growth next year, as the economy faces fresh challenges from a looming trade war with the U.S.

The People’s Bank of China will “adhere to an accommodative monetary policy stance and orientation” in 2025, Governor Pan Gongsheng said at a financial forum in Beijing on Monday.

Japan’s manufacturing PMI for November was 49.0, with services at 50.5.

October household spending was down 1.3% year-on-year.

South Korea’s November manufacturing PMI was 50.6, up from 48.3.  Taiwan’s was 51.5 vs. 50.2 prior. 

Street Bytes

--Further records were set this week, as the market believes the Trump administration will dismantle the regulatory state, which would spur further economic growth.  But as the Wall Street Journal opines below, the markets are rather frothy these days.

Nonetheless, for now, ‘Party on Wayne’.... ‘Party on Garth.’

The Dow Jones finished the week down 0.6% to 44642, but earlier hit a closing record high of 45014 on Wednesday.

The S&P 500, up 1.0% for the week, and Nasdaq, up 3.3%, hit one high after another, finishing the week at all-time marks of 6090 and 19859, respectively.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 4.34%  2-yr. 4.10%  10-yr. 4.15%  30-yr. 4.33%

Sticky inflation be damned...the bond rally continued, the 10-year yield down another 5 basis points on the week.

But next week’s CPI report could upset the apple cart. 

--OPEC+ held a virtual meeting on Thursday and opted to further push back an oil-production increase planned for January by three months amid softer prices and market concerns of an impending glut.

The group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, which pumps more than half of the world’s crude oil, agreed to extend voluntary production cuts of 2.2 million barrels a day until the end of March, with the full amount set to be returned to the market over 18 months until the end of September 2026.

The gradual rollback of voluntary cuts – originally set to start in October – had already been delayed twice.

OPEC+ members are currently cutting output by a total of around 5.85 million barrels a day.

But the decision to delay restoring halted production failed to lift market sentiment amid expectations of oversupply next year, and the price of crude closed the week below $68 ($67.15 on WTI).

--The price of Bitcoin surged to over $100,000 Wednesday evening, early Thursday, after Donald Trump selected Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin hitting a high of $103,800 on Thursday.

Atkins is CEO and founder of risk consultancy Patomak Global Partners, and a former SEC commissioner.  Current Chair Gary Gensler has announced he will depart the position at the end of President Biden’s term.

Atkins, a big crypto advocate, will reverse Gensler’s’ course of tightening regulation of Wall Street firms and levying hefty fines against the SEC’s enforcement targets.

Atkins currently serves as co-chair of the Token Alliance, an initiative of the crypto lobbying group the Chamber of Digital Commerce.  On behalf of the group, he has argued that SEC enforcement has hampered development of the crypto industry in the U.S.

The appointment was widely praised, including from the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry group, which I used to be quite familiar with.

Trump then named venture capitalist David Sacks of Craft Ventures LLC to serve as his artificial intelligence and crypto czar, a newly created position.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“If financial conditions are as restrictive as Federal Reserve governors claim, markets haven’t received the message. Bitcoin surged past $100,000 for a day this week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is near 45,000.  Investors are partying like the high times won’t end, and it’s hard to blame them when the Fed has promised more lubrication. 

“Our friends in the financial press are chalking up the Bitcoin rally as a bet on a more crypto-friendly Trump Administration.  No doubt the prospect of friendlier regulators contributed to the cryptocurrency’s 124% surge this year. But asset prices are high across the board – gold, junk bonds, stocks – often fueled by speculative and leveraged bets....

“Fed officials are signaling they’ll cut another 25 basis points this month, but we’re hard pressed to recall a central bank that cut rates with inflation this sticky, growth this strong and asset prices this gaudy.  Caution is advised.”

--Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger “retired” from the company last weekend, after the board of directors felt Gelsinger’s costly and ambitious plan to turn Intel around was not working and the progress of change not fast enough.  The board told Gelsinger he could retire or be removed, and he chose the former, according to various reports on how it all went down.

The company named two senior leaders, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, as interim co-CEOs while the board begins a search for a new CEO.

Gelsinger had focused on regaining Intel’s leadership in the industry, but that effort has been slow.  Intel won’t achieve its target of $500 million in revenue from its own AI chip this year.

Intel’s new CEO may be faced with a choice that Gelsinger was reluctant to make: selling off pieces of the company, such as its 88% stake in Mobileye’s self-driving chip business, worth  about $13 billion.

Intel has turned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to manufacture some of its chips, for the first time going to an external vendor.  Intel continues to pin its hopes on its own manufacturing lines that are due to launch in mid-2025.

--Salesforce shares rose sharply to a record high after reporting quarterly revenue that topped analysts’ estimates, boosted by investor hopes that the company’s much-hyped strategy for artificial intelligence products will lift financial results.

Sales increased 8.3% to $9.44 billion in the period ended Oct. 31, the company said Tuesday in a statement.  Consensus was at $9.35 billion.  Earnings per share of $2.41, however, were shy of the expected $2.44.

But the company slightly raised its guidance for fiscal year 2025 to between $37.8 billion and $38 billion from its previous guidance of $37.7bn and $38bn.

Salesforce, the top seller of customer relations management software, pivoted its AI strategy this year to focus on tools called agents, which are designed to complete tasks such as customer support or sales development without human supervision.  The San Francisco-based company launched its product, dubbed Agentforce, in October, with initial pricing of about $2 per agent conversation.

CEO Marc Benioff said last month that he was so confident in Agentforce that Salesforce would add 1,000 employees to sell it.  That planned hiring surge follows almost two years of cost cuts at the company, including job reductions, as Benioff worked to control expenses and improve profitability after pressure from activist investors.

The company has signed a “good number” of deals related to Agentforce, Executive Vice President Mike Spencer said in an interview after the earnings release.  Still, these deals are largely initial rollouts and will take time to show up in the company’s results, he added.

Benioff said the numbers for the quarter weren’t what the company is excited about, but “the real excitement is really what is hitting with the technology.”

--China announced it would restrict its exports of minerals crucial to the tech trade to the United States on Tuesday – one day after Washington unveiled new restrictions limiting Beijing’s capacity to design and produce advanced semiconductors – as both countries leverage their comparative advantages in an ongoing rivalry over who will reign supreme in the invaluable sector.

In a notice on Tuesday, the Ministry of Commerce said it has banned the export of items categorized as “dual-use” – products or materials which carry both civilian and military applications – to any U.S. military end-users.

Effective immediately, the move prohibits “in principle” all exports to the U.S. of gallium, germanium, and superhard materials – essential elements in military and technological production.

--President-elect Trump said on Monday night that he would block Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel upon taking office, declaring that he would not allow the iconic American business to be owned by a foreign firm. 

This is incredibly idiotic, as I have said since Nippon first made the offer. 

“I am totally against the once great and powerful U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company, in this case Nippon Steel of Japan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  “As President, I will block this deal from happening.  Buyer Beware!!!”

Both President Biden and Vice President Harris had also indicated this year that they opposed Nippon’s $15 billion bid for U.S. Steel, and the White House had appeared poised to block the transaction in September ahead of the election.  Amid concerns that the review process was being politicized, the Biden administration agreed to grant a request by Nippon to resubmit its filing with the agency running the review, which is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS).

--TikTok is one step closer to disappearing in the United States after a panel of federal judges on Friday upheld a new law that could lead to the banning of the popular Chinese-owned video app by mid-January.

The three judges, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law.  The decision could be a death blow for the app in one of its biggest markets. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok, with some deriving their income from it.

The decision also raises new questions for President-elect Trump, who has repeatedly signaled his support for the app.

The law, signed in April, requires TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company by Jan. 19 or face a ban in the U.S.

--Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (he of the mid-1970s hits “It Only Takes a Minute” and “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel”) resigned abruptly on Sunday, two months after a profit warning. 

Tavares clashed with Stellantis’ board over his plans to quickly turn around the ailing U.S. business by cutting costs, rather than focusing on long-term strategy, investors and bankers familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Shares in the Jeep, Fiat and Peugeot manufacturer slumped as much as 10%, hitting their lowest since July 2022, as investors worried about the vacuum left at the top of the world’s No. 4 carmaker following his resignation.

Stellantis is struggling to get rid of overcapacity and bloated inventory in its key North American market, at a time when global demand remains sluggish and competition from Chinese rivals, especially in electric vehicles, is intensifying.

--General Motors is writing off some long-held investments in China, the company announcing after the close on Tuesday that it would write down the value of a 50-50 joint venture with SAIC Motor, taking a one-time charge of about $2.8 billion, with an additional $2.7bn restructuring charge as the joint venture tries to improve profitability.  The $5.5 billion in expenses will hit fourth-quarter numbers.

In prior years, the joint venture generated roughly $500 million in profit for GM each quarter.  Over the past year, it has generated less than one-tenth of that amount.

One reason for the declining profitability is the structure of the Chinese car market.  As it has become increasingly electric, less room has been left for traditional cars, leaving the industry with too much capacity.

According to Citi analyst Jeff Chung, Chinese car buyers will purchase about 23 million new vehicles in 2024, up from 20 million five years ago.  Only about 12 million of those vehicles will be solely powered by gasoline, down from 20 million five years ago.  All-electric car sales have jumped to about 6 million from 600,000.  Plug-in hybrid sales have jumped to almost 5 million from less than 200,000.

Battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are expected to make up 75% of the market by 2026.

--Airbus announced it was laying off 2,043 workers in its Defense and Space business, what the company is calling “overhead positions.”  The reductions represent about 5% of that business.

The Airbus cuts come weeks after new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg announced plans to reduce Boeing’s global workforce by about 10%, or some 17,000 workers.

Airbus is expected to deliver about 760 jets in 2024, shy of the record 863 delivered in 2019, as supply-chain problems continue to constrain aerospace production.

Boeing is expected to deliver about 360 jets in 2024, far shy of the 806 BA delivered in 2018, the year before the second tragic 737 MAX crash that grounded the jet worldwide between March 2019 and November 2020.

Wall Street doesn’t expect Boeing to ship more than 800 jets in a year until 2028.

--JetBlue shares rose after the company raised its revenue guidance for the year with bookings in November and December that were higher than anticipated.  The airline also said demand for close-in bookings, or ones made close to the date of travel, improved over Thanksgiving week and boosted revenue.  In-quarter bookings for travel in the month of December exceeded expectations too.

Revenue for the year is now expected to be down 3.5% to 4.5%, rather than 4% to 5% as previously forecast.  For Q4, the decline is now likely going to be 2% to 5% instead of 3% to 7%, JetBlue said.

--Southwest Airlines followed JetBlue in lifting its revenue guidance for the final quarter of the year as travel demand holds steady. The carrier said Thursday it now expects a key revenue metric (revenue per available seat mile) to rise 5.5% to 7% in the fourth quarter, up from previous guidance for 3.5% to 5.5% growth.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2023

12/5...102 percent of 2023 levels
12/4...106
12/3...124
12/2...125
12/1...133 (Sunday)...a record...3,087,393*
11/30...151
11/29...103
11/28...68

*TSA has been saying for the past year that ‘X’ day would see 3 million, and we finally hit the target.  Now we’ll have more ‘real’ comparisons through Christmas and New Year’s.

--The business world was shocked when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated outside a midtown Manhattan hotel early Wednesday morning in an apparent hit job.  He was to speak at an annual investor day about an hour later.

His wife commented that he had been receiving threats, and, the Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealth, where Thompson was stationed, has seen large protests in the past few months on the alleged “epidemic” of claims denials, the Wall Street Journal reported.

During a July protest, eleven demonstrators were arrested, including people from multiple states.

The People’s Action Institute, which led some of the protests, said while it was shocked by Thompson’s death, it still highlighted a “crisis of denials” in America “by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth.”

Going back to February, Thompson had exercised options and sold shares worth $15.1 million, less than two weeks before news of a federal antitrust probe went public, according to a Crain’s New York Business report from April.

The stock price dropped sharply after the revelation that the Department of Justice was investigating whether the company had made acquisitions that consolidated its market position in violation of antitrust laws, a source familiar with the probe told the outlet.  Thompson and other executives were/are being investigated for insider trading.

Thompson has been CEO of the insurance division of the giant healthcare conglomerate since 2021, overseeing a period of substantial profits. The division reported $281 billion in revenues last year, providing coverage to millions of Americans through the health plans it sold to individuals, employers and people under government programs like Medicare. The division employs roughly 140,000 people.

The gunman is still at large, but more and more evidence is being gathered.

The insurance industry has been shaken to its core.

--A Delaware judge on Monday affirmed an earlier ruling that rescinded a giant pay package that Tesla had awarded CEO Elon Musk.

The pay, in the form of stock options, was worth more than $50 billion, and is now worth $100 billion after Tesla’s jump in share price in recent weeks.

The judge, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery, struck down the award in January, ruling that shareholders had not been properly informed of its details and that members of Tesla’s board were not sufficiently independent.

But lawyers for Tesla and Musk argued that a second shareholder vote in June in favor of the package cleared the way for effectively reinstating it.

--Canada’s unemployment rate rose more than expected to 6.8% in November, a near-eight-year high excluding the pandemic years, even as the economy added a net 50,000 jobs, data showed Friday, boosting the chances for a large interest rate cut next week.

--AT&T shares rose as CEO John Stankey continued to reverse course, having spun off its Warner Bros. unit and unloaded satellite company DirecTV.  Tuesday, Stankey and his team outlined new long-term financial goals powered by its wireless and broadband services as it works to wind down its legacy landlines.

AT&T’s balance sheet, once smothered by debt, is throwing off enough cash to make share buybacks and acquisitions viable options. The company said Tuesday it expects to return more than $40 billion to shareholders over the next three years through stock buybacks and its existing dividend payouts.

--Federal authorities on Tuesday urged telecommunication companies to boost network security following a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign that I’ve written of extensively, which is giving officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.

Officials who briefed reporters on the recommendations said the U.S. still doesn’t know the true scope of China’s attack or the extent to which Chinese hackers still have access to U.S. networks.

The hackers succeeded in retrieving the actual audio files of calls and content from texts from a much smaller number of victims.  The FBI has contacted victims in this group, many of whom work in government or politics, but officials said it is up to telecom companies to notify customers included in the first, larger group.

--Kroger topped quarterly same-store expectations on Thursday, benefiting from a surge in customers shopping for its lower priced and freshly sourced groceries at its stores and online.

The U.S. grocer, which competes with retail giants Walmart and Amazon.com, has been ramping up its e-commerce investments to keep pace with customers who prefer shopping online.

Kroger attempted to match Walmart’s deals, such as selling Thanksgiving meals for less than $5 and launching a 12-day deal from Dec. 4 where customers can avail a coupon every day on its website or mobile app.

KR’s third-quarter comparable sales, ex-fuel, rose 2.3%, beating expectations of 1.8%, while its adjusted earnings per share of 98 cents was in line with estimates.

The recall of meat produced by Boar’s Head hurt quarterly sales and would remain a near-term overhang, interim CFO Todd Foley said on the earnings call.

Kroger expects fiscal 2024 comp sales to grow between 1.2% and 1.5%, compared with a prior forecast of 0.75% to 1.75%.

Separately, CEO Rodney McMullen said Kroger is committed to closing its $25 billion mega merger with Albertsons.  The companies are waiting for a decision following the anti-trust trial in September where the FTC and several states opposed the deal.

--Dollar Tree Inc. sales improved in the third quarter, a sign the discounter is making headway in fending off competition and drawing in more shoppers.

“Customers continue to seek value, and many are focused on buying for need and buying closer to the time of that need,” Interim CEO Michael Creedon said Wednesday on a call with analysts.

Lower-income consumers are under pressure and continue to tighten their budgets, he said.  After curtailing big purchases, middle- and higher-income shoppers are having fewer or smaller gatherings.  Overall, shoppers are also eating more at home, which is helping to drive up sales of food and other frequently purchased products.

The company reported comparable sales for both Dollar Tree and Family Dollar grew 1.8% in the three months ended Nov. 2, better than what Wall Street expected.  Traffic grew during the latest quarter and shoppers spent slightly more per trip.

The stock rose on the better news, but prior to the release had been down 49% for the year.   DLTR also said its CFO was stepping down early next year.  The prior CEO had stepped down for health reasons.

--Lululemon shares soared after the apparel company reported third-quarter results that beat on both the top and bottom lines.  The company also raised its full-year sales and profit forecasts for 2024, though at or below current consensus.

Sales growth in North America once again declined as the retailer grapples with concerns over increased competition heading into the holiday shopping season.

Revenue came in at $2.4 billion, an increase from the $2.2bn reported in the third quarter of 2023.  Consensus was at $2.36 billion.  Earnings beat estimates of $2.75 a share to hit $2.87, also ahead of the $2.53 EPS the company reported a year ago.

The 8% to 9% rebound in the shares Friday needs to be weighed against the 30% drop prior to the release in 2024, as newer brands like Alo and Vuori capture market share with trendier styles and products.

--Eli Lilly & Co. said its weight-loss drug Zepbound outperformed rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy in the first head-to-head trial of the two blockbusters.

In a study sponsored by Lilly, people treated with Zepbound lost an average of 20% of their body weight – or about 50 pounds – over 72 weeks, while those who got Wegovy shed 14%.  The results confirm earlier trials of the two drugs that indicated a stronger impact from Zepbound.

Whie Novo was first to start selling GLP-1 drugs to fight obesity, the findings offer Lilly an opportunity to catch up in what has become the fastest-growing corner of the pharmaceutical industry, a market that’s expected to hit $130 billion by the end of the decade.  Studies like these can be used by drug companies to argue that their products are superior alternatives.

On Wednesday, Novo pointed to its own clinical trial that showed Wegovy was able to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other major cardiovascular events by 20% compared with a placebo.  This change was shown “regardless of change in weight,” the company said in a statement.

--Shares in Super Micro Computer soared 28% Monday after the company released the results of an investigation into its accounts by a board-appointed independent committee.

The server maker had been facing delisting for failing to file its financial reports on time.  During the delay, its auditor Ernst & Young resigned, citing an unwillingness “to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management,” Super Micro said in a securities filing in late October.

But Monday the committee’s probe into the circumstances behind the resignation found no evidence of fraud or misconduct.

Independent auditor BDO is reviewing the company’s financials following Ernst & Young’s resignation.

--Sales of Huawei Technologies’ latest flagship Mate 70-series smartphones are expected to fall short of the demand generated by the Mate 60, according to analysts, citing the new model’s weaker processor performance and heightened supply chain risks amid geopolitical tensions.

The Mate 70 was launched last Tuesday at an event in Shenzhen, and Huawei touted the new series as “the most powerful Mate phones in history.”  But they didn’t mention any details about the processor that powers them and why the new series’ release was delayed until after Singles’ Day, the world’s largest annual shopping festival.

But Canadian semiconductor research firm TechInsights, said the processors powering the Mate 70 series “underperform” compared to the latest processors from Qualcomm and MediaTek.

--Cargill Inc. is cutting thousands of jobs globally after the largest privately held company in the U.S. missed profit targets.

The Minneapolis-based firm, the world’s largest agricultural commodities trader, will cut about 5% of its 164,000-strong workforce as part of its 2030 strategy, according to an internal memo. 

Cargill and crop-trading rivals such as Bunge Global SA and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. have seen earnings shrink after bumper crops sent corn and soybean prices tumbling. For Cargill, the squeeze has been compounded by the smallest U.S. cattle herd in seven decades.  The company has spent much of the past decade turning itself into the third-largest U.S. beef processor.

The company’s profits fell to $2.48 billion in the year through the end of May, the lowest since 2015-16, Bloomberg reported.  That’s less than half the record net profit of about $6.7 billion it made in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

--The CDC said at least 68 people have fallen ill after a salmonella outbreak in bad cucumbers, across 19 states.

The CDC cautioned that “the true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses.”

The agency advised consumers to look for a sticker that shows “SunFed Mexico” as the place where the cucumbers were grown and to throw away or return any recalled cucumbers.

The CDC also advised consumers to throw out any cucumbers bought between Oct. 12 and Nov. 26 if they do not know where they were grown.

Kind of like Chip Monck said at Woodstock ’69: “The warning that I received, you may take with however many grains of salt you wish, that the brown acid that is circulating around us, is specifically not too good.  It’s suggested that you do stay away from that; of course, it’s your own trip, so, by my guest.”

--It was a great Thanksgiving weekend for Hollywood studios, an estimated $420 million in box office receipts, the strongest-ever Thanksgiving stretch.

Walt Disney Animated Studios’ “Moana 2” “obliterated expectations,” surging to the top of the North American box office with an estimated $221 million in ticket sales over its first five days, according to Comscore.  It beat out the previous highest-ever opening weekend, by Disney’s “Frozen II,” which sold $127 million domestically in 2019.

“Moana 2” is the sequel to the 2016 animated adventure that grossed more than $643 million worldwide.  An estimated 44% of Moana’s audience was under 17 years old, according to EntTelligence.

“Wicked” raked in another $80 million in its second weekend, and “Gladiator II” hauled in an extra $30.7 million in its second weekend.

Together, they helped lift this year’s domestic box office total to $7.78 billion in ticket sales through Sunday, making the yearly total only 6.4% lower that at the same point in 2023.  Just one week ago they were 10.6% lower than last year.

“Moana 2” hauled in another $165.3 million from international audiences, for a total worldwide estimate of $386.3 million, according to Comscore.

“Wicked” has grossed an estimated $262.4 million domestically and $359.3 million worldwide cumulatively.

“Gladiator II’s” cumulative take is more than $111.2 million domestically and $320 million globally.

--Lastly, we note the passing of Wall Street legend Art Cashin, a renowned market pundit and the UBS director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange.  He was 83.

Cashin, once dubbed “Wall Street’s version of Walter Cronkite” by the Washington Post, was a regular on CNBC, delivering stock market commentary and analysis for more than 25 years.  His Wall Street career spanned more than six decades.

Cashin, in addition to his role at UBS, was renowned for his daily newsletter, Cashin’s Comments, which was published for over 25 years with a daily circulation of more than 100,000 readers.  He was also a regular on CNBC’s “Art Cashin on the Markets,” a segment airing several times a week over more than two decades.

Cashin was born in Jersey City, N.J., and began his business career at Thomson McKinnon Securities in 1959 (I forgot this part, having started there myself) and in 1964, at age 23, he became a member of the NYSE and a partner of P.R. Herzig & Co.

In 1980, Cashin joined PaineWebber and managed their floor operation.  PaineWebber was acquired by UBS in 2000.

Cashin was also a regular at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse in Manhattan, where he held court after the market closed.  His usual drink was a Dewar’s on ice, and the restaurant would have his first ready for him within five minutes of the closing bell.

Art Cashin is already missed.

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China: On the first day of a highly sensitive visit to the U.S., Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (aka William Lai) sent a conciliatory message to both China and the incoming Trump administration: While Taipei doesn’t seek a war with Beijing, it is counting on U.S. support to deter any aggression from its larger neighbor.

“Peace is priceless, and war has no winners, we have to fight, fight together to prevent war,” Lai said at a speech in Honolulu, in the presence of members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation, former U.S. officials and state lawmakers.

Lai’s two-day stopover in Hawaii was part of a Pacific tour that is his first international trip as president.

Taiwan officials visit the U.S. in what are officially referred to as transits, careful arrangements between Washington and Taipei to allow its leaders to engage with each other on American soil.

Lai’s transit comes as the threat of Chinese aggression looms – Beijing condemned the trip and could launch military drills near Taiwan in response – and as questions swirl around the support the Trump administration would offer Taipei in case of an invasion.

In a speech he gave before departing Taiwan, Lai emphasized Taiwan’s democratic values – an implicit rebuke to China’s system.

“The world can see that Taiwan is not only a model of democracy but also a key force in promoting global peace, stability and prosperity,” he said.

Lai was also stopping in Guam, and various islands in the South Pacific (Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu...three of the 12 states that still have official relations with Taiwan).

Meanwhile, former Hong Kong media boss Jimmy Lai was questioned at his high-profile trial on Wednesday over remarks he made in the weeks leading up to the Beijing-imposed national security law’s enactment in June 2020.

Lai, 77, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the national security law and a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications in break of colonial-era legislation.

On Tuesday, the court watched three interviews the founder of the now-closed Apple Daily tabloid newspaper gave to foreign media, in which he urged the American government to slap sanctions on Chinese technology products and Chinese officials involved in enacting the law by freezing their bank accounts in the United States.

South Korea: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, with an approval rating of about 20% amid a bitter budget showdown with the opposition, startled his nation in an unannounced late-night TV address Tuesday (4:00 a.m. local time), accusing the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and of anti-state activities.  Yoon declared martial law.

He did not say what measures would be taken, but cited a motion by the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal.

Yoon did ban “all political activities” and enabled him to take command of the news media.

“To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements... I hereby declare emergency martial law,” Yoon said in the TV address.

“Through this martial law, I will rebuild and protect the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into the depth of national ruin,” Yoon said.  He asked the people to believe in him and tolerate “some inconveniences.”

Yoon has also been dismissing calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals.

Immediately, thousands of protesters appeared outside the National Assembly complex in a largely peaceful demonstration.  Legislators tried to outrace police and any soldiers complying with the order to the complex.

But six hours later, Yoon said he would lift the emergency declaration as soon as he could convene his cabinet, bowing to pressure after the National Assembly passed a resolution demanding it end by a 190-0 vote in the 300-member assembly.  By law, Yoon needed to convene his cabinet to lift martial law.

Yoon’s attempt to suspend South Korea’s democratic institutions will cost him his job and opposition politicians planned to start impeachment proceedings.  The opposition is just eight votes short of the two thirds majority needed to impeach him and some members of his own People Power Party have condemned Yoon’s martial law declaration.

If the motion passes, the constitutional court will conduct a trial to determine if Yoon violated the constitution or any other law, a process that could take months.  In the meantime, the president would be suspended from exercising his powers and the prime minister would become acting head of state and government.

The secretary general of the National Assembly, Kim Min-ki, condemned the military on Wednesday morning for breaking into the legislature during Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law, saying that nearly 300 troops had stormed the compound.

About 230 troops were flown by helicopter onto the assembly grounds, and roughly 50 others jumped fences to gain entry, said Kim.

The defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, resigned over his role in the chaos.

The police opened an investigation into the role of the president and three other officials, including Kim in the alleged coup.

Legislative aides from both major parties barricaded entrances to the building with chairs and desks, apparently to give lawmakers time to pass their resolution.  The military soon retreated from the compound.

The opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, said it may be difficult to garner enough support from the ruling party to impeach Yoon.  While Lee’s Democratic Party controls a majority in parliament, the needed eight votes from Yoon’s People Power Party to move forward with the motion to oust the president will be tough to find.  As Lee said, “they would need to go against the party line, which puts them in a bit of a difficult situation.”

But Friday, President Yoon lost the support of a key ally, Han Dong-hoon – head of Yoon’s ruling People Power party – who called for the president to be suspended from office quickly.  Citing credible evidence that Yoon ordered the arrest of key politicians on the night he declared martial law, Han told parliament that it would be dangerous to allow the president to stay in office.

Han said: “If Yoon continues to serve as the president of the Republic of Korea, there is a high risk that extreme actions such as this emergency martial law will be repeated, and that this will put the Republic of Korea and its people at great risk.”

There were reports Yoon wanted to arrest Han!

Yoon’s approval rating is down to 13%.  Impeachment proceedings are due to begin Saturday, local time.

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Even if the immediate crisis in Seoul has passed, the political fallout will play out for some time... South Koreans sacrificed to preserve their freedom against the North and in the 1980s to end strongman rule.  Tuesday’s events suggest the culture of democracy has taken root, which is reassuring in one of America’s vital allies in the Asia-Pacific.”

Meanwhile, in North Korea, Kim Jong Un vowed his country will “invariably support” Russia’s war in Ukraine as he met Russia’s defense chief, the North’s state media reported last Saturday.

A Russian military delegation led by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov arrived in Pyongyang amid growing international concern about the two countries’ expanding cooperation.

Romania: Authorities here have revealed details of what appears to be a major attempt to interfere in the country’s presidential elections using TikTok, and with a series of cyberattacks.

Romania’s intelligence service says there are signs the effort was “coordinated by a state-sponsored actor.”

Calin Georgescu, a far-right NATO-sceptic who has previously praised Vladimir Putin, was almost unknown in Romania until he won the first round of voting in the presidential election two weeks ago.

Now Romanian intelligence says his sudden and surprise surge in popularity is due to a “highly organized” and “guerrilla” campaign on social media, sharing identical messaging and using influencers.

Romanian Prime Minster Marcel Ciolacu – who came in 3rd in the presidential race – has now announced he will “fully endorse” Elena Lasconi in round two...assuming the vote this weekend (Sunday) goes ahead.

Georgia: Georgian police arrested Zurab Japaridze, an opposition leader, during a fourth consecutive night of protests.  The government said that 224 people have been detained in total.  Last week the ruling Georgian Dream party said it would halt EU accession talks until 2028; protesters accusing the government of cozying up to Russia.  The country’s pro-European president, Salome Zourabichvili, called for fresh elections.

Prime Minster Irakli Kobakhidze said the protesters had fallen victim to opposition lies and he rejected calls for a new vote.

He confirmed reports that Georgia’s ambassador to the U.S., David Zalkaliani, had become the latest senior diplomat to stand down, explaining that he had come under considerable pressure.

Zourabichvili, who has little real power, said arrested protesters had been subjected to beatings and cited lawyers who said the majority of them had sustained serious injuries. There were claims of torture.

After six nights of mass protests, more than 300 had been arrested.  One man told the BBC how he was repeatedly kicked in the head, even after he had been knocked unconscious. “When I opened my eyes a third time I couldn’t feel my legs or hands – I couldn’t even move my head,” said Avandtil Kuchava, a 28-year-old businessman.

The UN’s rights chief, Volker Turk, said the use of “unnecessary or disproportionate force...is extremely worrying.”

Another leader of one of Georgia’s four main opposition parties was detained by police in the capital Tbilisi after being knocked to the ground and falling unconscious, his party said on Wednesday.

The opposition Coalition for Change party published a video on X showing Nika Gvaramia, the party’s leader, being carried by the arms and legs by several men down some steps.

The party said that Gvaramia, a 48-year-old lawyer and media manager-turned politician, had been “thrown into a detention car as he was physically assaulted and unconscious.”

Both in Romania and Georgia, you see the work of Vlad the Impaler.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings....

Gallup: 37% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 58% disapprove; 32% of independents approve (Nov. 6-20).

Rasmussen: 42% approve, 56% disapprove (Dec. 6).

--Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had dinner with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, and in a pair of social media posts, Trump and Trudeau were upbeat, with Trump calling the meeting “very productive” and saying Trudeau pledged action.  Trump has threatened a 25% tariff on American imports from Canada and Mexico unless the neighbors each do more to stem migration and fentanyl.

“I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China,” he said. “Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devaluation of US Families.”

The two leaders also discussed several pipeline projects, including the Keystone XL line the Biden administration killed, and icebreakers, the people said.

--President-elect Trump announced on Saturday that he would name Charles Kushner, the wealthy real estate executive and father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France, handing one of his earliest and most high-profile ambassador appointments to a close family associate.

Kushner received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term for a variety of serious charges for which he served prison time.

Specifically, Kushner, 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission in a case that became a lasting source of embarrassment for the family.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie prosecuted Kushner, Christie saying Kushner had committed “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he had ever prosecuted. As part of the plea, Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister. He served two years in a Federal Prison Camp.

This is a truly pathetic appointment.

--Trump then selected Kash Patel to lead the FBI, closing one of the last remaining presidentially appointed positions available two months before taking office.

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday night.

Patel was a former public defender and later attorney for the Justice Department’s national security division and served in multiple intelligence and national security roles in the first Trump administration.

He’s known for a deep loyalty to Trump (and for being a purveyor of conspiracy theories).  Patel has called for dramatically reducing the FBI’s footprint and has suggested closing down the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”

Patel would replace Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the president and his allies.  Though the position carries a 10-year term, Wray’s removal was not unexpected given Trump’s long-running public criticism of him and the FBI, including after a search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents and two investigations that resulted in his indictment.

--Trump announced Sunday that he will tap his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law Massad Boulos as his Senior Advisor for Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

Boulos, who was born in Lebanon, runs Nigeria-based Boulos Enterprises.  His net worth is placed in the $billions, according to reports.

Tiffany tied the knot with Michael Boulos in 2022.

Massad will be in a position to negotiate all kinds of contracts for both himself and his son.

--And Trump chose Peter Navarro as a senior adviser on trade and manufacturing, installing a bombastic proponent of the president-elect’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports.

Navarro was a trade and manufacturing adviser during Trump’s first term.  He is highly unlikable, frankly.

--Elon Musk gave at least $277 million in political donations this year, plowing some of his fortune into supporting Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 campaign, according to new Federal Election Commission filings released late Thursday.

--Mexican authorities said they had seized more than a ton of fentanyl this week, their biggest-ever haul of synthetic opioids. Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, is cracking down on illegal drugs ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, after Trump threatened to impose a 255 tariff on goods from Mexico until it stops drugs and irregular migrants from crossing the border.

--Zeynep Tufekci / New York Times

“Almost five years after Covid blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck.  And with the advent of flu season, that luck may well be running out.

“The H5N1 avian flu, having mutated its way across species, is raging out of control among the nation’s cattle, infecting roughly a third of the dairy herds in California alone.  Farmworkers have so far avoided tragedy, as the virus has not yet acquired the genetic tools to spread among humans. But seasonal flu will vastly increase the chances of that outcome. As the colder weather drives us all indoors to our poorly ventilated houses and workplaces, we will be undertaking an extraordinary gamble that the nation is in no way prepared for.

“All that would be more than bad enough, but we face these threats gravely hobbled by the Biden administration’s failure – one might even say refusal – to respond adequately to this disease or to prepare us for viral outbreaks that may follow.  And the United States just registered its first known case of an exceptionally severe strain of mpox.

“As bad as the Biden administration has been on pandemic prevention, of course, it’s about to be replaced by something far worse. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s vast public health agency, has already stated he would not prioritize research or vaccine distribution were we to face another pandemic.  Kennedy may even be hastening its arrival through his advocacy for raw milk, which can carry high levels of the H5N1 virus and is considered a possible vector for its transmission.

“We might be fine.  Viruses don’t always manage to adapt to new species, despite all the opportunities.  But if there is a bird flu pandemic soon, it will be among the most foreseeable catastrophes in history.”

Ms. Tufekci’s main complaint about the Biden administration is that it did not take any real steps “to snuff out the U.S. dairy cattle infection when the outbreak was smaller and easier to address.”

Actually, a single veterinarian in the Texas Panhandle, Dr. Barb Petersen, “had the foresight and the determination to get some samples and send them to a friend at Iowa State University who could test for bird flu.”

But then you have the Department of Agriculture, led by Tom Vilsack, who was an alumnus of the Obama administration, but in between took a turn in a powerful dairy industry position.  Well, what do you think Vilsack has done now?  His department, “at a critical juncture...has put a higher value on the short-term profits of the powerful dairy farming industry than on the health of billions of people.”

Yup, if this flu develops further, it could indeed be among the most foreseeable catastrophes in history.

--The Atlantic hurricane season officially ended Nov. 30, and after a historic lull, there was a ton of deadly activity in September.

Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic flooding and widespread wind damage across large swathes of the southeast US, from Florida’s Gulf Coast to the southern Appalachians.  It ended up being the deadliest hurricane to affect the continental US since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, causing more than 240 deaths.

Helene was the first of six storms to develop in quick succession, culminating in Hurricane Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico in early October and saw its wind speeds increase by a massive 90mph in 24 hours.  It reached CAT-5 for a time, before weakening to CAT-3 and making landfall on the west coast of Florida, bringing a record tornado outbreak and a destructive storm surge, with a reported 44 deaths across Florida.

Hurricane Beryl got things started in July, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands in Texas, and more than 40 deaths.

Debby hit Florida and South Carolina in August with catastrophic rains, killing 9.

There were 18 named tropical storms in the season, with 11 reaching hurricane strength and five becoming major hurricanes – CAT 3 and above.  An average season would bring 14 storms, seven hurricanes and three major ones.

The forecasters unfortunately got the season right, even with the unusual lull in the middle of the season, normally the peak.

Overall, according to a USA TODAY analysis, at least 335 people died in the five hurricanes that made landfall on the U.S. mainland this year.

--Wide parts of the Great Lakes were pummeled with lake-effect snow over the holiday weekend and into this past week.  You didn’t have to be a weather expert to observe how warm September and October were in this region, setting us up for big snows come November and December until the lakes freeze up.

Thirty+ inches were the norm in many parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and along Lake Erie’s shore in northern Pennsylvania and western New York, and that was the start.

Parts of upstate New York received as much as 5 feet, with Barnes Corners in northern New York receiving 69.5 inches as of Monday.

--Five years after a devastating fire that shook us all, Notre Dame Cathedral, the jewel in the heart of Paris, is reopening Saturday.

Few believed it was possible to salvage, yet alone repair the 860-year-old monument in the five-year time frame President Emmanuel Macron set for the nation, but thanks to the work of 2,000 artisans and up to $900 million, much of it raised in small donations, and with significant support from Americans, we see the final, fantastic work again.

Alas, politically, Macron is still doomed.

--Finally, last time I mentioned Mikaela Shiffrin’s quest for win No. 100 on the World Cup Alpine ski tour, hoping she’d win one of the two races at Killington, Vermont, last weekend.

Alas, as most of you saw, she suffered a wicked crash in her second run of the giant slalom event Saturday, doing a somersault into the protective fencing.

Luckily, there were no broken bones or ligament damage, but she did suffer a puncture wound of some sort to the abdomen, and she is aching.  No word on her return.

Sorry, Mikaela, if I jinxed you.  Come back strong.

---

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

Pray for Ukraine.

God bless America.

---

Gold $2657
Oil $67.15

Bitcoin: $101,239

Regular Gas: $3.02; Diesel: $3.53 [$3.21 - $4.17 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 12/2-12/6

Dow Jones  -0.6%  [44642]
S&P 500  +1.0%  [6090]
S&P MidCap  -1.0%
Russell 2000  -1.1%
Nasdaq  +3.3%  [19859]

Returns for the period 1/1/24-12/6/24

Dow Jones  +18.5%
S&P 500  +27.7%
S&P MidCap  +19.8%
Russell 2000  +18.8%
Nasdaq  +32.3%

Bulls 62.9
Bears 16.1

Hang in there.  Never forget Dec. 7, 1941.

Brian Trumbore

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