Week in Review

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Week in Review

06/08/2024

For the week 6/3-6/7

[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,312

The 80th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in charge of Operation Overlord.  Eisenhower, in order to boost morale and further encourage his forces to make a supreme effort, on June 5th issued his D-Day message to all of the ground, naval, and air “crusaders,” as they waited for the weather to clear.

[Punctuation is correct]

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force !

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.  The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.  In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one.  Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened.  He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944 ! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41.  The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man.  Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground.  Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned ! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory !

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory !

Good luck ! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

*In total, 156,115 Allied troops either landed by sea, onto beaches codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, or were airdropped behind German coastal defenses.  This included 83,115 British and Canadian troops and 73,000 U.S. troops, according to the United States European Command.

The Allies took approximately 10,250 casualties on D-Day – a number that includes killed, wounded and missing servicemen, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  About 4,400 were killed, 2,500 of whom were Americans.

German casualties are unknown but are estimated at between 4,000 and 9,000.

*Soldiers participating in the Normandy landings came from the United States, Britain, Canada, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Luxembourg, Greece, Czechoslovakia, New Zealand and Australia. Some 177 French commandos also took part.

*The landings and associated operations were codenamed Neptune and aimed to establish beachheads in northwest France.

*Nearly 7,000 ships and landing craft – of which 1,213 were naval warships – were deployed in Neptune and attacked German land and naval positions, landing troops and creating two artificial harbors which were towed across the Channel.

*Neptune officially ceased on June 30, 1944, by which time 850,279 men, 148,803 vehicles and 570,505 tons of supplies had been landed.

President Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984...Pointe Du Hoc, France....

“We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.  Here in Normandy the rescue began.  Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

“We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France.  The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.  At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.  Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

“The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers – on the edge of the cliffs – shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb.  They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.  When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.  They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.  Two hundred and twenty-five came here.  After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

“Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.  And before me are the men who put them there.

“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

“Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem.  You are men who in your ‘lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor.’....

“Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you.  Yet, you risked everything here. Why?  Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer.  It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.  It was the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it – that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.  You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

“You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you....

“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent....

“Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead.  Let us show them by your actions that we understand what they died for.  Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: ‘I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.’

“Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.”

President Biden, Thursday, in Normandy....

“What the Allies did here 80 years ago, far surpassed anything we could have done on our own. Together, we won the war.”

“The men who fought here became heroes – given an audacious mission, knowing the probability of dying was real.  But they did it anyway, knowing without a doubt there are things worth fighting and dying for.  Freedom is worth it.  Democracy is worth it.  America is worth it. The world is worth it. Then, now and always.”

Addressing the WWII veterans in the audience:

“On behalf of the American people and its Commander in Chief, it’s the highest honor to be able to salute you here in Normandy. All of you. God love you.”

Biden quoted Winston Churchill, saying he “called what happened here the greatest, most complicated operation ever,” and adding that the entire world waited to see the outcome of the “great crusade to free Europe from tyranny.”

The president then pivoted to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, warning that “tyrants” of today were watching closely for cracks in the transatlantic NATO defense alliance that grew out of the WW II Allied forces.  He said democracy was “more at risk now than at any point since World War II.”

Biden vowed that the U.S. and its European partners “will not bow down.”

“We cannot surrender to the bullies; it is simply unthinkable. If we do, freedom will be subjugated, all Europe will be threatened.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“(This) year’s anniversary is meaningful for more than its famous history, or the sight of the last living veterans of that day. It will mean much more if Americans and the citizens of other free nations take that day’s lessons to heart amid the growing threats from dictators and rogues around the world.

“The great sacrifices of D-Day, and those of World War II, are what is required when deterrence fails.  Wars are not merely tragic; they represent the refusal of free societies to maintain an adequate national defense. England slept in the 1930s, as Churchill famously put it, but so did the United States.

“Isolationists dominated Congress, especially the Republican Party that ignored the rise of Hitler and Tojo by passing the Neutrality Acts. The price was paid at Pearl Harbor, and then at Guadalcanal, Anzio, Okinawa, and most famously in the sands of Omaha Beach.

“Will we make the same mistake again?  There is reason to think so. The West, as we used to call it when that concept was invoked with pride, has spent the last three decades disarming.  Europe especially has been living in the comfort of its welfare states as their militaries eroded.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has awakened some on the Continent, but not enough and not in Germany in particular.

“Yet the U.S. has hardly been immune from complacent illusions about a peaceable ‘international community.’ The Obama and Biden Administrations recklessly expanded social and welfare spending while shrinking the military.  Mr. Biden has proposed four years in a row of declining defense budgets after inflation.  The emergent isolationist wing of the GOP has blocked a necessary debate over defense by putting all of its deterrent hopes in the braggadocio of Donald Trump.

“The best way to honor the memory of D-Day is to recall the eternal lesson that to preserve the peace you must prepare for war.”

Today, June 7, President Biden gave a short, but important, speech at Pointe du Hoc.

Speaking of the Army Rangers who fought on D-Day, Biden said those that fought that day would want Americans to defend freedom.

“As we gather here today, it’s not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery that day, June 6, 1944.  It’s to listen to the echo of their voices. To hear them. ...They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs.  They’re asking us to stay true to what America stands for.”

“American democracy asks the hardest of things, to believe that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.  So democracy begins in each of us, begins when one person decides there’s something more important than themselves...when they decide their country matters more than they do,” Biden said.

“Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin’s aggression here in Europe today?” he asked.  “Does anyone believe these Rangers would want America to go it alone today?...Does anyone doubt they wouldn’t move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today?”

“They believed America was the beacon of the world and I’m certain they believed it would be that way forever.”

Without naming Donald Trump, Biden was clearly criticizing the former president’s isolationist inclinations.

“The most natural instinct is to walk away, to be selfish...”

Personally, I made my pilgrimage to Normandy in the fall of 1995, waiting to go a year after the 50th anniversary commemorations, expecting far fewer crowds, and on a gorgeous Indian summer day in October, I had a driver take me all around and I felt like the only person in the cemetery and at Pointe du Hoc, and I visited Sainte-Mere-Eglise, one of the first towns the Allies liberated after storming the beaches (the town with the famous church where a paratrooper, American John Steele, got tangled up on the steeple and played dead for two hours, before the Germans took him prisoner, after which he escaped and rejoined his unit).

Having spent two nights in neighboring Bayeux (home to the world-famous tapestry that tells the story of William the Conqueror...and back then a fascinating Charles de Gaulle museum I’m not sure is still around), I fulfilled my goal of bringing back sand from both Omaha and Utah beaches, which to this day is one of my three prized possessions, sitting in a nice bottle.  [The others being a metal chariot given to me by a poor man in Cochin, India, who had been my driver on an excruciating day-long adventure; and the other an airline liquor bottle filled with coconut oil, given to me by a woman on the island of Yap who was living in a metal shed I had to climb into.]

Watching Thursday the incredibly poignant moments from Normandy, the formal passing of the Greatest Generation, it is indeed sickening that 80 years later, Europe is caught up in another horrific war, taking hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

It’s sad, and it’s a scary time.  In European Parliamentary elections this weekend, the far-right will make substantial gains.  We know how in Russia, with a 100% controlled press, that Josef Stalin has made a comeback, with Putin stoking it.  But in Italy, there is a growing faction that is doing all it can to keep Mussolini’s memory alive!  And Germany with its Hitler-loving AfD party is another menace.

It's up to some of us to keep writing and telling the truth.  And it’s up to our leaders to have a unifying message for all the people, not just in America, but around the world.

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The Wall Street Journal published an extensive report titled “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping” that many Democrats called a hatchet job, as the report cited the likes of Kevin McCarthy telling the Journal Biden was clearly slipping in some of the meetings they held, even as the same McCarthy was highly complementary in the immediate aftermath of the same meeting. 

But while the president has his defenders when it comes to his mental acuity, I thought Idaho Republican Senator James Risch summed it up perfectly: “What you see on TV is what you get. These people who keep talking about what a dynamo he is behind closed doors – they need to get him out from behind closed doors, because I didn’t see it.”

And I don’t see it.  But it’s not as if Donald Trump, who turns 78 next week, hasn’t had his own moments where it is easy to question his mental acuity.

So, Biden did an interview with Time Magazine and I read the transcript and it’s an embarrassment.

But on the topic of age....

Time: The last two years of Presidents, two-term President’s tenure are usually focused on foreign affairs.  You are 81 years old and would be 86 by the time you left office.  Large majorities of Americans, including in the Democratic Party, tell pollsters they think you are too old to lead.  Could you really do this job as an 85-year-old man?

Biden:  I can do it better than anybody you know.  You’re looking at me. I can take you, too.

Time: Did you consider not running again because of your age?

Biden: No, I didn’t.

Time: And what do you say to Americans who are worried about it?

Biden: Watch me.  Look, name the president that’s gotten as much done as I’ve gotten done in my first three and a half years.  When all of you wrote in Time Magazine, I couldn’t get any of it done. When you told me there’s no way, no way, no way he can get a trillion-dollar plus dollar bill done in terms of, to deal with infrastructure, where there’s no way he gets $368 billion for dealing with the environment, where there’s no way I could get the legislation passed on.

We’ve been watching, and listening, Mr. President, including at Normandy, and you aren’t fooling anyone.

In an interview with ABC News’ David Muir Thursday, Joe Biden claimed he has “known” Vladimir Putin “for over 40 years,” which is utterly impossible.  I have followed Putin’s ‘public’ career the entire 25 years through this space.

“I’ve known him for over 40 years.  He’s concerned me for 40 years,” he told Muir.

Separately, the president decided with an executive order to take action on the border, five months from the election, after not doing so for the first 43 months of his presidency.

Migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border could be denied the chance to claim asylum and could be quickly deported or turned back to Mexico under new restrictions announced Tuesday.

Under the new restrictions, which took effect immediately, once the daily average of border arrests tops 2,500 over a week, the restrictions are activated and will be paused when arrests drop below 1,500 a day...supposedly.  U.S. border arrests averaged 4,300 a day in April, according to the latest government statistics.

But there are no resources to carry this out.  And there are other major issues in the order. 

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“What do you know? ...Joe Biden has discovered the border mess.  On Tuesday he announced executive actions that he claims will stem a tidal wave of migrants.  This looks like a tactical political retreat masquerading as a battle cry.

“Polls show that the border has moved to the top of voter concerns, and a significant majority believe Donald Trump would do a better job handling it.  Perhaps because he did. Encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border have nearly tripled since 2019 and they’ve increased more than six-fold since 2018. 

“Even Democrats who run big cities say they’re overwhelmed by migrants.  Yet the Administration until Tuesday ignored their pleas for help while picking a fight with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over his efforts to protect the border. Now with Mr. Trump hammering the issue, Mr. Biden knows he must at least appear to be doing something....

“But Biden’s executive actions might help reduce the flow somewhat if they are strictly enforced, and at least he’s admitting the problem.  But the press release sounds better than the details....

“Mr. Biden’s order is sure to be challenged in court, as the ACLU has already promised.  It’s no small irony that the President invokes the same legal authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act that Mr. Trump used to impose his travel ban....

“The executive order will also run into practical difficulties.  It will require Mexico’s cooperation as well as more resources to detain migrants before their deportation.  Even the Administration concedes the order ‘cannot achieve the same results as Congressional action’ and requires more funding.

“Mr. Biden on Tuesday accused House Republicans of scuttling a bipartisan compromise negotiated by Oklahoma GOP Sen. James Lankford, which mandated the border close if the average daily crossings hit 5,000.  We supported the bill, which also would have raised the standard for claiming asylum and increased enforcement resources.

“But any fair look at the last four years makes clear that the magnitude of this border crisis has been made almost entirely in the Biden White House....

“No doubt Mr. Biden will wave his new order as a shield during his debate with Mr. Trump this month. But the transparently political timing of his order invites voter skepticism.

“No President in memory has done more harm to political support for legal immigration than Mr. Biden.  His border abdication has poisoned the chances for a compromise in Congress, and that would carry into a second term. And if Mr. Biden loses, his failures will have paved the way for Mr. Trump’s border crackdown and perhaps a disruptive mass deportation.”

George Will / Washington Post

“Presidents from both parties have become geysers of executive orders, imposing tariffs, essentially banning internal combustion vehicles, forgiving student debts, altering the legal status of millions of immigrants, etc.  What fun.

“Until it isn’t.  Until the public, taught by presidential highhandedness that presidents can do whatever they please, blames them for whatever problems persist. This is both unfair and richly deserved.  Today’s Congress, which has been well-described as cable television’s largest green room, escapes blame for the immigration disaster because the public, fixated on the presidency, knows that, for Congress, governance is a spectator sport.

“This nation, with an aging population, increasing life expectancy, declining birthrate and entitlements transferring trillions of dollars from employees to retirees, needs lots of legal immigrants to replenish its workforce.  That the government cannot provide for this is a failure second only to the nation’s fiscal shambles. In five months, Biden, who is too busy ‘saving democracy’ to attend to mundane matters of public order, might find that the immigration inundation is the most politically lethal of his multiplying failures.”

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This Week in Ukraine....

--President Volodymyr Zelensky, addressing the Shangri-La defense forum in Singapore on Sunday, accused China of helping Russia to disrupt an upcoming Swiss-organized peace conference on the war in Ukraine.  Zelensky said that China is pressuring other countries and their leaders not to attend, without identifying which ones.

“Russia, using Chinese influence in the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit,” Zelensky said at a news conference.  “Regrettably this is unfortunate that such a big independent powerful country as China is an instrument in the hands of Putin.”

China has staked out what it says is a neutral position on the war, putting it at odds with Ukraine, the United States and much of Europe.  Its trade with Russia has grown, easing the economic impact of Western sanctions.   And U.S., European and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say there is growing evidence that Chinese parts are winding up in Russian weaponry.

--Ukrainian forces used donated missiles to attack military targets inside Russia following the authorizations made public last week by officials in Europe and Washington.

That includes S-300/400 air defense systems north of Belgorod City, across the border and about 40 miles from the frontlines near Kharkiv, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.  “Russian sources widely speculated that Ukrainian forces used U.S.-provided HIMARS, but Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the strike,” ISW wrote in their Monday evening assessment.

The White House said it moved at “lightning speed” to allow Kyiv to use U.S. weaponry to strike limited targets inside Russia, but the White House has lagged repeatedly behind battlefield developments at the cost of Ukrainian lives. When Ukraine made the request on May 13 for this ability, the administration didn’t act until May 30, and that was a brutal period for attacks on the likes of Kharkiv.

Vsevolod Kozhemyako, the founder of Khartia, a Ukrainian brigade that started as a volunteer unit and whose troops have been stationed for the last three weeks in open fields near the village of Lyptsi, about five miles from the Russian border, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “We just pay with blood.”

“You can sit somewhere in an office in Washington and have a cup of tea for 10 minutes, and for 10 minutes here they can do 10 airstrikes and kill dozens of people,” Kozhemyako said.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in an interview with The Post: “The core problem is that avoidance of escalation is not a winning strategy. If we would really allow Ukraine to win this war, then all the questions would be answered much easier. ...Decisions that come late cost lives and land.”

--Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke from Singapore on Ukraine’s defensive posture in the days ahead: “I think what we’ve seen in the past weeks and months is Russia making incremental gains across the front-line trace. And we saw a concerted push here in the Kharkiv region. That activity continues, but it’s slowed a bit because in the Kharkiv region, the Russians are now starting to run into the defenses of the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians have worked hard to put in coherent defenses.”  [Defense One]

--Speaking of Kharkiv, as noted in the Wall Street Journal: “Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow appears to be planning a grinding war of attrition to empty it of its population by making life there untenable.”

There has been no evacuation order, but residents have been told not to ignore air-raid alerts, and to avoid public places.

--Last Saturday, Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones, damaging energy facilities in five regions across Ukraine, officials said.

“Today the Russians launched another strike on Ukrainian energy facilities. Since March it is already the sixth massive, complex, missile and drone attack against the civilian energy infrastructure,” Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo said.

Ukrainian air defense shot down 35 of 53 Russian missiles and 46 of 47 Russian drones, the air force commander said.

Since March, Russia has knocked out the bulk of the thermal and hydropower generation, causing blackouts and pushing electricity imports to record highs.

President Zelensky again called for “additional Patriot” and other modern air defense systems, as well as accelerating the delivery of F-16 fighter jets.

At week’s end, much of Kyiv has been plunged into darkness save for a few hours every day. In some parts of the city, even the traffic lights are turned off, and at night entire neighborhoods are draped in black.

“We are catastrophically short of electricity for our needs,” Serhii Kovalenko, chief executive of the Ukrainian private electricity distributor, wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

--Norway’s defense chief thinks NATO has just two to three years to rebuild its military stocks before Russia has renewed its own ability to attack alliance members in Europe, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

“At one point someone said it’ll take 10 years” for Russia to regenerate its losses from the ongoing Ukraine invasion, “but I think we’re back to less than 10 years because of the industrial base that is now running in Russia,” Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen said Monday in Oslo.  Still, he added, “it will take [Moscow] some time, which gives us a window now for the next two to three years to rebuild our forces, to rebuild our stocks at the same times as we are supporting Ukraine.”

One U.S. expert, Emma Ashford, Stimson Center, has a grim forecast: “Unfortunately for Ukraine and the West, it is increasingly clear that, with sufficient political will, even an anemic level of economic growth can likely sustain the Russian war effort for years to come  The most plausible range of scenarios for the war suggests grinding conflict that moderately advantages Russia, but only in the costly conquest of tiny amounts of territory,” she wrote in late May.  [Defense One]

--Wednesday, Vladimir Putin met with senior editors from international news agencies at Russia’s flagship annual economic forum in St. Petersburg, and a few highlights.

Russia-U.S. Relations: “For the most part, we do not care (who wins the U.S. election).”

“To say – I am speaking quite sincerely – that we believe that after the elections something will change towards Russia in American policy, I would not say so.  We don’t think so. We think that nothing really serious will happen.”

“For us, we do not think the end result holds much significance.  We will work with any president the American people elect.”

On the Trump trial: “They are burning themselves from the inside, their state, their political system... It is obvious all over the world that the prosecution of Trump, especially in court on charges that were formed on the basis of events that happened years ago, without direct proof, is simply using the judicial system in an internal political struggle.”

But Putin also warned Western nations supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles and allowing them to be used to attack inside Russia was a “dangerous step” that could prompt Moscow to reciprocate against Western targets.

“If someone thinks it possible to send such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us,” Putin said at the news conference, “then why do we not have the right to send our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world where strikes can be made on sensitive facilities of the countries that do this against Russia?”

Vlad the Impaler singled out Germany, saying that its supply of battle tanks to Ukraine had been an initial blow to Russian-German relations, but its permission to use missiles in Russia was even worse.

“Now, when they say that some missiles will appear that will strike targets on Russian territory, this, of course, is ultimately destroying Russo-German relations,” he said.

Today, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg said during a visit to Sweden that Ukraine has the right according to international law to attack legitimate military targets in Russia to defend itself.

“This is a war of attack that Russia has begun against a peaceful, democratic neighboring country, Ukraine, that at no point has been a threat to Russia,” Stoltenberg said.  “There is no question that Ukraine has the right to hit targets on Russian territory.”

--The UN human rights office said today that the civilian death toll in Ukraine in May was 174, the highest civilian toll since June 2023.

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Israel and Hamas....

--Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday there would be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas’ military and governing capabilities were destroyed, the comments in a statement published online after President Biden said that Israel had proposed a three-phase deal for a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing hostages.

“Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” the prime minister said.

“Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place.  The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” he said.

The problem for Netanyahu was that his two far-right ministers threatened to quit and collapse the governing coalition if the prime minister agrees to the ceasefire proposal unveiled by Biden last Friday.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said they were opposed to striking any deal before Hamas was destroyed.

But opposition leader Yair Lapid has pledged to back the government if Netanyahu supported the plan.

Saturday, in a post on social media, Smotrich said he told Netanyahu he would “not be part of a government that agrees to the proposed outline and ends the war without destroying Hamas and bringing back all the hostages.”

Ben-Gvir said “the deal...means the end of the war and the abandonment of the goal to destroy Hamas. This is a reckless deal, which constitutes a victory for terrorism and a security threat to the State of Israel.”

He vowed to “dissolve the government” rather than agree to the proposal.

--Prime Minister Netanyahu then reiterated that there would be no permanent ceasefire in the war against Hamas until the country’s conditions are met, which include the destruction of the militant group. 

Israel is willing to pause hostilities for the purpose of returning hostages but what happens next will be subject to further talks, Netanyahu said in a meeting with parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, according to his office.  A proposal presented by President Biden on Friday for a permanent ceasefire was only part of the package and there were details he didn’t make public, Netanyahu said, without being more specific.

Separately, in a different statement, the prime minister said Israel is working on “countless ways” to bring back hostages held by Hamas since the start of the eight-month war.  Ensuring their safe passage back from Gaza would be possible while also eliminating the Iran-backed group, he said.

--Hamas then said Tuesday it cannot agree to any deal unless Israel makes a “clear” commitment to a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a senior Hamas official said.  Qatar, which is mediating talks between Hamas and Israel along with the U.S. and Egypt, has also urged Israel to provide a clear position that has the backing of its entire government to reach a deal.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, said: “Israel only wants one phase where it takes all its hostages, then it resumes its aggression and war on our people.” 

Reminder: The three phases of the U.S./Biden plan are 1) during a six-week ceasefire Israeli forces would withdraw from “all populated areas” of Gaza and some hostages – including the elderly and women – would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.  Under that plan, Hamas and Israel would negotiate a permanent ceasefire that Biden said would last “as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments.”  2) there would be an exchange for all remaining hostages, including male soldiers, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza and the permanent ceasefire would begin.  3) a major reconstruction plan for the enclave and the return of the remains of dead hostages to their families.

Wednesday, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said Hamas will deal “seriously and positively” with any ceasefire agreement that is based on the total halt of war, complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and an Israeli hostages-Palestinian prisoners swap deal.

According to a CNN report, Qatar has given Hamas an ultimatum to accept the ceasefire deal proposed by the U.S. and Israel or face expulsion from Doha, Qatar facing its own pressures from its allies.

With no signs of progress in mediators’ efforts to reach a ceasefire, Israeli forces pounded Rafah from the air and ground overnight Thursday as tanks tried to advance further west, residents said.

Fierce gun battles between Israeli troops and Hamas-led Palestinian fighters were taking place.

--Officials from the United States, Israel and Egypt ended a meeting in Cairo on Sunday with Egypt sticking to its position that Israel must withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing for it to operate again, according to Egyptian security sources.

Egypt’s delegation at the meeting said it would be open to European monitors at the border to oversee its operation by Palestinian authorities if Palestinian authorities agreed to resume work. Israeli and U.S. officials said they would work quickly to remove the obstacles to the operation of the crossing, the Egyptian sources said.

--The Israeli military Monday said four Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 had died in captivity and their bodies are being held by the militant group. All four were filmed alive in hostage videos posted by Hamas.  The IDF believes the four were killed together in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis a “number of months” ago, according to spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Of the more than 250 people abducted on Oct. 7, about 120 remain in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.  Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.

--An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.

Facing international criticism of its conduct of the war and this latest strike on a UN school building, the Israeli military offered a full-throated defense of the operation, saying its forces were targeting a group of about 30 militants using three classrooms as a base.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel had carried out “a precise, intelligence-based strike” against “dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists hiding inside a UN school.”

Hagari said the strike in Nuseirat took place after “three days of surveillance” and was designed to destroy three specific classrooms in the school where the IDF believed roughly 30 militants were staying and planning operations.  Hagari said Israel twice delayed the strike because it had identified civilians in the area.

The IDF released the names of nine people killed in the attack it said were associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

--The Chief of General Staff for the IDF, Herzi Halevi, said Israel is ready for an offensive along the northern border with Lebanon and is nearing a decision, as Hezbollah said it was not seeking to widen the conflict but was ready to fight any war imposed on it. It has also said it will cease fire when the Israeli offensive stops in Gaza.

A spokesman for Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel was committed to ensuring the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the north.  “It is up to Hezbollah to decide if this can be accomplished by diplomatic means or by force,” said David Mencer. “We are defending this country, and no one should be surprised by our response.”

Earlier, ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich urged more military action.  “There cannot be peace in Lebanon while our land is hit and people here are evacuated,” Ben-Gvir said after visiting the northern border.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed about 300 members of Hezbollah since Oct. 7 and around 80 civilians, according to Reuters tallies of deaths announced by the group and other sources.  Attacks from Lebanon on Israel have killed 18 Israeli soldiers and 10 civilians, as of midweek.

Wednesday, a gunman wearing a shirt with an ISIS insignia, a Syrian national, opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, injuring a security guard before being wounded in return fire and apprehended.  The motive remains unclear, but the attack is far from surprising with widespread popular anger in the region over U.S. support for Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza.

---

Wall Street and the Economy

Until Friday, the bond market was rallying on some weak economic data and the renewed feeling the Federal Reserve may finally cut its benchmark interest rate come September.

Monday, the ISM manufacturing index for May came in weaker than expected, 48.7 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), and April construction spending was less than forecast, -0.1%.  Even a much stronger than expected ISM services reading, Wednesday, of 53.8, wasn’t enough to derail the bond rally and by Friday morning, prior to the May jobs report, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was down to 4.29% from last Friday’s 4.51% close.  The yield on the 2-year was 4.74%, down from 4.88%.

But then the jobs numbers were released and bond traders put on their best Homer Simpson imitation...Doh!...as the 272,000 gain in employment was way above the 182,000 consensus, while April was revised down by only 10,000.

Just as importantly, average hourly earnings rose 0.4% and 4.1% year-over-year, when 0.3% and 3.9% was expected.  [The unemployment rate ticked up to 4%.]

None of this was Fed friendly, and bond yields immediately shot higher to 4.41% on the 10-year, 4.92% on the 2-year, before finishing at 4.43% and 4.88%, respectively, as the odds on a September rate cut fell.

Next week it’s about the Fed’s Open Market Committee meeting, and before they issue their statement Wednesday, we all get to see May CPI data (PPI the following day), so that will inform the Fed’s thinking and Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at his ensuing press conference.

Will he offer any clues on when the first cut is likely?  I doubt it.  He’ll talk again about progress made, just not enough of it, yet.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for second-quarter growth is back to 3.1%.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is back below 7.00%...6.99%.

Europe and Asia

--As expected, the European Central Bank cut interest rates on Thursday but said it would take a data-dependent approach to future policy decisions.  The ECB reduced its once-negative deposit rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%, the first cut since September 2019.

“The Governing Council is determined to ensure that inflation returns to its 2.0%  medium-term target in a timely manner. It will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve this aim.  The Governing Council will continue to follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach,” the ECB said in its statement.

The ECB said it’s time to begin reducing the degree of restrictions imposed on the euro area economy by its policy but that its overall policy stance would need to remain restrictive for the foreseeable future. 

At her press conference after, ECB President Christine Lagarde said that while the “inflation outlook has improved markedly...domestic price pressures remain strong as wage growth is elevated, and inflation is likely to stay above target well into next year.”

The ECB’s staff revised upwardly its inflation projections for 2024-26, and Lagarde said, “We are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our two percent medium-term target in a timely manner.”

So, there was no clear guidance for further cuts up ahead, which is what the market was looking for.

--We had PMI readings in the eurozone for May, courtesy of S&P Global and Hamburg Commercial Bank.

The Eurozone manufacturing PMI was 47.3, a 14-month high. Non-manufacturing/Services was 53.2.  The composite reading of 52.2 was a 12-month high.

Germany: 45.4 mfg., 54.2 services
France: 46.4 mfg., 49.3 services (down from 51.3 prior)
Italy: 45.6 mfg., 54.2 services
Spain: 54.0 mfg., 56.9 services
Ireland: 49.8 mfg., 55.0 services
Netherlands: 52.5 mfg.
Greece: 54.9 mfg.

UK: 51.2 mfg., 52.9 services

Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia / Chief Economist HCB:

“The specter of recession is off the table. This is thanks to the service sector, where the upswing has recently broadened. In Germany, we can now talk of an upward trend, Italy’s business activity remains solid, and Spain has improved from an already strong position.  Only France has experienced a setback, slipping into slightly negative territory.”

Separately, April industrial producer prices in the euro area fell 1.0% in April compared with March, down 5.7% vs. April 2023.  Recall, producer prices had risen steeply in the first years after the pandemic.

April retail sales for the eurozone were down by 0.5% over March, and unchanged vs. a year ago.

Britain: With the UK’s election less than a month away, July 4, Nigel Farage, new leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform Party and thorn in the side of the governing Conservatives, who already trail in the polls by 20 points, really screwed things up for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he announced he would run in the election.

Farage, a rather charismatic figure well known to American viewers of cable news, particularly one network, is best known for having helped lead a successful campaign in 2016 for Britain to leave the European Union, Brexit, an unmitigated disaster as I said in the run-up to that fateful vote, but a certain percentage of Brits still think this was the right thing to do and praise Farage for it.

Meanwhile, Sunak then royally shot himself in the foot when he was forced to apologize for leaving D-Day commemorations early in order to give an interview attacking the Labour Party.

“After the conclusion of the British event in Normandy, I returned back to the UK,” Sunak said in a post on X.  “On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer, and I apologize.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer also attended the anniversary events and was seen talking to world leaders including Volodymyr Zelensky.  Foreign Secretary David Cameron was then seen in a group photo of Presidents Biden and Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Sunak should have been in that photo.

Fellow Conservative Party members were dismayed by Sunak’s stupidity and the deserved perception is he totally out of touch.

Turning to Asia...China’s private Caixin reading on manufacturing for the month of May was a solid 51.7 vs. 51.4 prior, while the government’s reading, a week earlier, was 49.5, which was a huge miss.  The government’s reading from the National Bureau of Statistics is of large, state-owned enterprises, while Caixin’s barometer is of small- and medium-sized businesses.

The Caixin service sector figure was 54.0 vs. 52.5 prior.

China also reported export/import data for May, exports soaring 7.6% year-on-year, beating market expectations of 6% growth.  This marked the steepest rise in outbound shipments since January, fueled by a lower base from last year and sustained overseas demand.

Exports rose just 0.2% Y/Y to the U.S., and declined 3.9% to the EU, but grew 9.7% to ASEAN countries, Hong Kong (10.8%), Taiwan (8.5%) and Latin America (10.2%). 

Imports rose 1.8% but fell 5.8% from the U.S. and 5.6% from the EU.  [General Administration of Customs.]

Japan’s manufacturing PMI for May was 50.4 vs. 49.6 in April; services 53.8 vs. 54.3.

April household spending rose 0.5% year-over-year.

Separately, Japan’s health ministry this week described the nation’s birth rate as “critical” as it hit a record low for the eighth straight year, with the government moving to improve support for parents.

The ministry released data showing that Japan’s birth rate – the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her life – stood at 1.20 last year, well below the 2.1 children needed to maintain the population.

The figure was down from 1.26 in 2022 and the eighth consecutive yearly decline in this country of 124 million.

But Japan’s birth rate is still above South Korea’s, which is 0.72, lowest in the world.  Yikes.

South Korea’s manufacturing PMI for May was 51.6, up from 49.4.  Taiwan’s was 50.9, best since April 2022.

Street Bytes

--The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit new record levels on Wednesday, but suffered losses the rest of the week, albeit minimal.  The S&P finished the week up 1.3%, Nasdaq 2.4%, and the Dow Jones 0.3% to 38798.

Shares in Nvidia on Wednesday closed at record highs, taking the valuation of the AI chipmaker to $3 trillion, and overtaking Apple to become the world’s second most valuable company (Microsoft #1).  But at week’s end, NVDA was back below AAPL, and also below $3T (at last calculation with the market settling out).

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 5.37%  2-yr. 4.88%  10-yr. 4.43%  30-yr. 4.55%

The 2-year ended unchanged on the week, while the yield on the 10-year fell 8 basis points.

--In a bit of a shock, crude oil dropped by more than 3% to under $74.50 per barrel on West Texas Intermediate*, Monday, reaching their lowest point in four months after the weekend’s OPEC+ meeting announced a gradual plan to ease some of its oil production cuts.

*It closed at $75.30 on Friday.

Talk about confusing.  I was reading headlines all weekend about the existing voluntary production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day being extended into 2025, without any word of a gradual reduction, but then it came.  So, beginning in October more than 500,000 bpd is expected to re-enter the market by December, with a total of 1.8 million bpd returning by June 2025.

However, OPEC+ will maintain its longstanding official reductions of additional production cuts of 3.66 million bpd until the end of 2025.

Oil has been sliding on demand-side uncertainties and concerns the Federal Reserve will prolong high interest rates, potentially slowing economic growth and reducing oil demand.

--Meanwhile, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting 17 to 25 named storms – far more than normal, there are concerns over potential significant disruptions when it comes to the energy infrastructure in the Gulf. Nearly half of U.S. fuel refining capacity sits in coastal areas of the Gulf, and Gulf terminals are handling growing exports of refined products.

“A severe storm hitting the Gulf of Mexico can do far more damage to U.S. fuel production in 2024 than at any time in the past decade,” said Tom Kloza, veteran energy analyst.

Refinery operations in Texas and Louisiana process 9 million barrels of crude oil per day, up from 7.6 million barrels in 2008.  A major hurricane hitting refiners along the Gulf Coast could knock out 1 million barrels per day of refining capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But energy companies say they’re well prepared.  ExxonMobil has elevated and reinforced facilities, especially its refining and petrochemical complex in Baytown, Tex.  Ditto Valero.

And Gulf refinery inventories are now in line with the 10-year average, providing a cushion against disruptions.

--Saudi Aramco’s $12 billion share sale sold out shortly after the deal opened on Sunday, in a boon to the government that’s seeking funds to help pay for a massive economic transformation plan. [At week’s end, the official ‘raise’ was reduced to $11.2bn.]

--On a different topic, natural gas, futures approached six-month highs driven by growing demand amid the onset of summer heat.  Forecasts point to warmer temperatures across most of the U.S., with the demand surging the most in Texas and the Eastern Region.  And the western states began to receive hot conditions. [More below on this topic.]

--Danish shipping group AP Moeller-Maersk on Monday raised its full-year profit guidance for the second time in a month on the back of strong container market demand and the crisis in the Red Sea.  Maersk now expects its underlying earnings, adjusted, to be in the range of $7 billion to $9 billion, up from its previous forecast of $4bn to $6bn.

The company, viewed as a barometer of world trade, said it now sees signs of further port congestion, especially in Asia and the Middle East, and additional increase in container freight rates.  The rise in freight prices and port congestion is expected to contribute to a stronger financial performance in the second half of the year, Maersk said.

--Related to the above, ocean freight rates from China are once again surging as exporters front-load shipments for the holiday season battered by worries about U.S. tariff increases and prolonged Red Sea disruptions.

“Shippers could be facing months of very elevated rates and increased delays as higher demand combines with restricted capacity,” Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, a global freight booking platform, said in a research note. “But the duration and scale of these disruptions and price spikes could be less severe than those unprecedented impacts seen during the pandemic.”

--United Airlines announced Tuesday it will hire fewer-than-expected employees this year due to delays in aircraft deliveries from Boeing, closer to 10,000, compared with the 13,000 to 15,000 planned earlier.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2023

6/6...107 percent of 2023 levels
6/5...108
6/4...107
6/3...106
6/2...106
6/1...109
5/31...109
5/30...107

--The New York Times first reported that “Federal regulators have reached a deal that allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, in the strongest sign of how regulatory scrutiny into the power technology has escalated....

“Under the arrangement, the Justice Department will take the lead in investigating whether the behavior of Nvidia, the biggest maker of AI chips, has violated antitrust laws, the people said. The FTC will play the lead role in examining the conduct of OpenAI, which makes the ChatGPT chatbot, and Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and made deals with other AI companies, the people said.”

--Ford Motor said Tuesday its U.S. total vehicle sales were up 11% in May to 190,014 from 170,933 a year earlier.

The automaker sold 8,966 electric vehicles in May, up nearly 65% from the previous year, and 37,208 EVs in 2024 so far, an increase of 87.8% from a year earlier, but you can see, still just 5% of total sales.

Hybrid vehicle sales in May rose about 65% as well to 17,631, while internal combustion sales were up 5.6% to 163,417 in May.

--Personal computer sales will be about flat in 2024 compared with the previous year at about 260.2 million units, according to a new forecast from market research firm International Data Corp.

The lack of growth comes despite the expected arrival in the second half of this year of a slew of new PCs capable of handling artificial-intelligence software tasks.

Analysts have been expecting PC sales to get a boost this year from both the coming termination of support for Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system software, and from buying by companies to replace hardware acquired during the early days of the pandemic.

One problem, IDC said, is weakness in China, where PC inventories “remain elevated.”  Ex-China, PC unit shipments should increase 2.6% form 2023.

Not counting China, PC sales will increase 1.6% in 2024.

--Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, on how generative artificial-intelligence software is providing superpowers to criminals, terrorists, and rogue states.

“Generative AI will democratize the esoteric knowledge it takes to be a security adversary,” Kurtz said in an interview with Barron’s.  “Of the eight billion people in the world, there are only a collective handful that have the capabilities to really understand these attacks.  Now you can take that knowledge and make it available to the masses...We’re seeing an explosion of new threat actors that may not have all the superior skills to figure this out, but they can use generative AI to advance their attacks very quickly and to make them scalable.  There’s going to be a greater proliferation of adversaries than we’ve ever seen.  And that is just going to grow, probably exponentially.”

--Lululemon Athletica late Wednesday reported stronger-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results while the athletic apparel and footwear company lifted its full-year earnings outlook, the shares rising 5%.

Earnings advanced to $2.54 a share during the quarter through April 28 from $2.28 a year ago, surpassing consensus of $2.42.  Revenue increased 10% to $2.21 billion, basically in line.

Comparable sales increased a solid 6%, driven by a 25% jump in international operations, though the Street was at 6.5%.

Lululemon raised guidance for full-year EPS of $14.27 to $14.47, compared with $14 to $14.20, previously projected, with analysts at $14.18.  The company did guide lower than Street expectations for the fiscal second quarter.

--Dollar Tree shares fell 4% Wednesday after the company reported adjusted earnings of $1.43 per share, down from $1.47 a year ago, and consensus of $1.43.  Revenue for the quarter ended May 4 was $7.63 billion, up from $7.32 billion, with analysts expecting $7.67 billion.

The company expects full-year fiscal 2024 adjusted earnings of $6.50 to $7 per share, with the Street at $6.90.  Dollar Tree reiterated its net sales forecast range of $31 billion to $32 billion for the year.

But DLTR also said it was exploring options, including a potential sale or spinoff of its Family Dollar banner, as the retailer looks to restructure its business amid stiff competition and strained consumer spending.

Dollar Tree and its peer, Dollar General, have been grappling with weak demand as rivals Walmart, Target and Chinese e-commerce platform Temu are also offering products at lower price points to attract inflation-hit customers.

Family Dollar, which Dollar Tree bought for $8.5 billion in 2015, has been the main underperformer for the company.  Last November, the company said it was going to review the business and outlined plans earlier in 2024 to shutter 970 of its Family Dollar stores.  The company said on Wednesday it would close an additional 150 stores by the end of fiscal 2024.

Family Dollar operates 8,359 stores and 10 distribution centers, as of Feb. 3. Dollar Tree operated more than 16,000 stores.

--Campbell Soup on Wednesday beat quarterly estimates and raised its forecast for annual net sales growth, banking on a recovery in demand for its soups and frozen meals and a boost from its purchase of Rao’s sauce maker Sovos Brands.

After several quarters of declines, Campbell’s volumes showed sequential improvement this year helped by softer price hikes as well as recovery in consumer spending as inflationary pressures cool.

Campbell expects an annual net sales growth of 3% to 4%, compared with a previous forecast of a fall of 0.5% to a rise of 1.5%.

Adjusted profit for the quarter ended April 28, posted a profit of 75 cents per share, ahead of analysts’ estimates of 70 cents.  Net income came in at $133 million. Revenue rose 6.3% to $2.37 billion, aided by the Sovos acquisition.

--Shares in GameStop ripped higher Monday, hitting $40.50 after closing last Friday at $23.14, as meme-stock leader Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, came under scrutiny over growing concerns about stock manipulation around his recent purchases of the company.

Shortly before Gill reignited a meme-stock craze in May, he bought a large volume of GameStop options on E*Trade, according to reports.  This week, Gil posted screenshots of an E*Trade account showing he owns GameStop shares now valued at $140 million and a new set of options that expire later this month.  His total gains in the positions were at $85.5 million, he posted late Monday.

The stock hit $64.80 on May 14 after he reemerged and fell to $19.70 three days later. They closed this week at $27.50 after hitting $65 in today’s pre-opening!

--Going back to a week ago Thursday and the verdict in the Manhattan criminal case against former president Trump, Fox News scored the biggest audience for breaking coverage of the 34 guilty counts, pulling in 4.7 million viewers from 5 to 6 p.m., according to Nielsen.  That is a huge viewership for a weekday afternoon and easily outstripped the audiences for CNN, MSNBC and the broadcast networks that cut into regular programming with special reports.

In the evening, though, viewership surged for MSNBC.  In a rare prime-time victory, the left-leaning channel outranked Fox News, in both total viewers and adults ages 25 to 54, the most important demographic for advertisers.

From 8 to 11 p.m., MSNBC programs averaged 3.4 million viewers, edging Fox News’ 3.1 million.  CNN averaged 1.3 million.  [Michael Grynbaum / New York Times]

--Ticketmaster owner Live Nation confirmed “unauthorized activity” on its database after a group of hackers said they had stolen the personal details of 560 million customers.

ShinyHunters, the group claiming responsibility, says the stolen data includes names, addresses, phone numbers and partial credit card details from Ticketmaster users worldwide.

The hacking group is reportedly demanding a $500,000 ransom payment to prevent the data from being sold to other parties.

--“Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak did his last show Friday, 41 seasons and 8,010 episodes, holding the Guinness Book of World Records spot for longest-running host on the same show.

The end of an era.  Congratulations, Pat...and Vanna.

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China: China’s defense minister, Dong Jun, said on Sunday that Beijing was committed to a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but that this prospect was being eroded by foreign forces and by “separatists” on the island.  “We will take resolute actions to curb Taiwan independence and make sure such a plot never succeeds,” Dong said at the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore.

Dong added: “Those separatists recently made fanatical statements that show their betrayal of the Chinese nation and their ancestors.  They will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.”

A U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Dong’s speech covered little new ground.

“Every year for three years, a new Chinese defense minister has come to Shangri-La,” the official said.  “And every year, they’ve given a speech at complete odds with the reality of the PLA’s coercive activity across the region. This year was no different.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the gathering of security officials the day before that war with China was neither imminent nor unavoidable, despite rapidly escalating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, stressing the importance of renewed dialogue between him and his Chinese counterpart in avoiding “miscalculations and misunderstandings.”

Austin met with Dong for more than an hour, the first in-person meeting between the two since contacts between the American and Chinese militaries broke down in 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, infuriating Beijing.

Addressing the same forum last Friday night, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. bluntly outlined what could be at stake, when it comes to the tensions in the South China Sea.  If a Filipino were killed as China confronts his country’s coast guard and merchant fleet to press its claims, it would be “very, very close to what we define as an act of war and therefore we will respond accordingly.”

Marcos added that he assumed the Philippines’ treaty partners, including the U.S., “hold the same standard.”

In his own speech the following day, Austin praised Marcos for speaking “so powerfully about how the Philippines is standing up to its sovereign rights under international law.”  But the secretary, when pressed later, would not say how the U.S. may react if a Filipino were killed in a confrontation with China.  He did say the U.S. commitment to the Philippines as a treaty partner is “ironclad,” while again stressing the importance of dialogue with China.  Austin said, “our goal is to make sure that we don’t allow things to spiral out of control unnecessarily.”

In response to Marcos’ remarks, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged countries around the South China Sea to be wary of Washington’s “geopolitical self-interest” and maintain autonomy to keep the region stable. The foreign ministry then said the Philippines was “solely responsible” for the recent escalation in the sea.

It also took aim at the United States, saying the country had played “an extremely dishonorable role” by supporting Manila.

Needless to say, this is all rather troubling.

--The U.S. military’s new cyber chief and the head of the nation’s main electronic spy agency, Gen. Timothy Haugh, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the Singapore security conference, that while he was concerned about China’s clandestine efforts to steal sensitive American data and weapons know-how, he is also contending with a different Chinese threat, the threat to our infrastructure.

“We see it as very unique and different – and also concerning,” Haugh said.  “And the concern is both in what is being targeted and then how it is being targeted.”

“We see attempts to be latent in a network that is critical infrastructure, that has no intelligence value, which is why it is so concerning,” he said.

China is in essence prepositioning, with U.S. officials worrying that in a conflict over Taiwan, for example, China could use its latent access to launch damaging cyberattacks against key pieces of infrastructure in America or allied countries – ranging from water supplies and power grids to transportation services – disrupting lives and potentially injuring civilian populations.

--China landed on the moon’s far side for a second time and began collecting rock samples from the oldest lunar basin to bring back to Earth.

The Chang’e-6 lander successfully touched down in the northeastern part of the South Pole-Aitken basin on Sunday, the China National Space Administratoin (CNSA) announced.

The lander then completed a two-day surface operation, collecting rock samples, and then Chang’e-6 lifted off the far side of the moon, starting its journey back towards Earth, state media announced on Tuesday.

This is a big achievement and is troubling to the United States.  Will China claim this part of the moon as its own, let alone the technological prowess China is displaying with this mission.

--Lastly, June 4th was the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, and in the past, Hong Kong was the only place in China where commemorations took place, with tens of thousands gathering each year in a vigil.

In 2020, blaming Covid, officials banned the vigil – but 20,000 people gathered anyway.  The central government in Beijing then imposed sweeping new security legislation and the event has in effect been banned since.  This year, instead of candles, pro-Beijing groups organized a carnival with food trucks.

Most of the past commemoration organizers are in jail.  Monday, police arrested the eighth suspect in the past two weeks for breaking the new security law, apparently because of social-media posts about the anniversary.  Get this, even wearing black on June 4th risks arrest.

Iran: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels admitted last weekend that the joint British-U.S. airstrikes targeting them killed at least 16 and wounded 42 others, the highest publicly acknowledged death toll from the multiple rounds of strikes carried out over the rebels’ attacks on shipping.

Separately, the Associated Press reported today that at least nine Yemeni employees of United Nations agencies had been detained by the Houthis under unclear circumstances.  Those held include staff from the UN human rights agency, its development program, the World Food Program and one working for the office of its special envoy.

The Houthis have been cracking down on dissent at home, including recently sentencing 44 people to death.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency formally rebuked Iran over advances in its nuclear program and failure to cooperate with the body, a measure that Tehran has threatened to retaliate against.

The rebuke – the first formal censure resolution of Iran by the agency’s board of member states since November 2022 – was led by European governments.

As I wrote last week, the Biden administration opposed the move and threatened to abstain but ultimately voted in favor.

Russia and China opposed the resolution, but they have no veto on the 35-member IAEA board.  The measure passed by a vote of 20 to 2, with 12 abstentions and one member not voting.

Iranian officials said in recent days that they would take fresh steps to advance their nuclear program or reduce IAEA oversight if the censure resolution is approved.

Iran’s representative at the IAEA, Mohsen Naziri Asi, told Iranian media that the Europeans “bear responsibility for any kind of consequences” from any Iranian reaction to the vote.

Iran had already stripped back the agency’s access to nuclear-related sites and enrichment facilities, banning some IAEA staff from the country.

For its part, the IAEA says it can no longer provide assurance that the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful, partly because it has lost what it calls continuity of knowledge over important activities, such as the number of centrifuges Iran has produced.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi went to Tehran last month and presented a list of concrete measures that he hoped Iran would take to improve cooperation, and none of those steps have been taken.

Mexico: Claudia Sheinbaum romped in Mexico’s presidential election and will become the first woman president, and first Jewish president, in the country’s 200-year history.

“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, speaking to supporters after electoral authorities gave her the news.  “I don’t make it alone. We’ve all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”

“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections,” she said.

Well, not quite.  At least 30 local officials were killed by drug gangs during the campaign.

Sheinbaum won with an estimated 60% of the vote, 30 points or more higher than her main opponent, Xochitl Galvez.  A third candidate, Jorge Alvarez Maynez, won about 10%.

Sheinbaum’s Morena party was also projected to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.  She has her work cut out for her, starting with crime and dealing with the powerful cartels.  And relations with the U.S., the economy...all manner of stuff.

India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed a third term in office on Tuesday as early results in India’s massive general election delivered a far narrower than expected victory for the Modi party.  So, for the first time, he will need to rely on smaller parties in a coalition to form a government.

In the 2019 election, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.) won 303 of the 543 seats in Parliament, after winning a majority in 2014, and Modi’s party predicted it would win 400 this time around, well over the 272 it needed to rule on its own.  But early results indicated it would win 240 seats.

The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, was doing better than expected, indicating a sharp turnaround for the once dominant political force.

More than 50 people have died as a result of the brutal heat spell I’ve been describing recently in this space.  The federal health ministry says that there had been at least 56 confirmed heat stroke deaths, with 25,000 heatstroke cases reported this spring. 

But state-wide figures suggest the number could be much, much higher. For example, the Times of India reported that in the state of Rajasthan alone, there were 55 heat-related deaths in seven days a week ago.

And the water situation is so bad in Delhi that officials have instituted a 2,000-rupee ($24) fine for wasting drinking water.  Television channels have aired footage in the past few weeks of people in urban slums lining up for hours and mobbing water trucks.

South Africa: Like in India, the African National Congress lost its political monopoly after election results on Saturday showed that with almost all of the votes counted, the party had received only about 40 percent, falling short of winning an absolute majority for the first time since vanquishing Africa’s last, white-led regime 30 years ago.

South Africans face one of the world’s highest unemployment rates, shortages of electricity and water and rampant crime, yet the ANC still bested its competitors while falling well short of the nearly 58 percent of the vote it won in the last election, in 2019.

It’s coalition building time, and the ANC doesn’t have a lot of time to do so.

Georgia: The parliament’s speaker signed into law on Monday the bill on “foreign agents” that has caused a political crisis in the South Caucasus country and drawn sharp criticism from Western allies.  Also known as the “Russia law,” will Georgia maintain its western orientation or move closer to Russia? Will October’s parliamentary elections still take place?

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Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings....

Gallup: 39% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 56% disapprove; 34% of independents approve (May 1-23).

Rasmussen: 45% approve, 54% disapprove (June 7).

--I said I wasn’t interested in instant polls on the impact of the Trump verdict in Manhattan on voters, but for the record, the first big one that came out in the days after, a Reuters Ipsos survey, had 25% of registered independent voters saying Trump’s conviction made them less likely to support him in November, compared to 18% who said they were more likely and 56% who said the conviction would have no impact on their decision.

Overall, in the national poll, Biden receives 41% to 39% for Trump, with one in five saying they are undecided, leaning toward a third-party candidate or might not vote at all.

--A CBS News/YouGov poll asked 989 Americans the question, “Did Donald Trump get a fair trial?”

56% said he did.

44% said the trial was unfair.

On the Trump conviction, the jury reached...

The right verdict, 57%.
The wrong verdict, 43%.

Democrats by a 96-4 margin thought it was a fair trial and it was the right verdict.

Republicans by an 86-14, and 82-18 margin, thought it was an unfair trial and the wrong verdict, respectively.

Independents by margins of 54-46, and 56-44, thought it was a fair trial and the right verdict.

--Trump and the Republican National Committee collected a combined $141 million in May, campaign officials said on Monday, an enormous haul, with some $70 million reportedly in the first 24 hours after the verdict came in, the second straight month Trump and the RNC outraised President Biden and the Democratic Party.  The $141 million matched what Biden and the DNC did in March and April combined.

As I go to post, I have yet to see the DNC’s May numbers.

--Donald Trump joined TikTok, the app that he tried to ban during his presidency but that he has recently embraced as he and his campaign try to reach younger voters.

Trump’s first video was Saturday night, at an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout in New Jersey, where he received a raucous ovation.

By Sunday, he had amassed more than 1.1 million followers and the post had garnered more than 24 million views.

--Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of committing “political malpractice” by pursuing criminal charges against Donald Trump.

“Bragg should have settled the case against Trump, as would have been the normal procedure.  But he made a political decision,” the staunch Trump critic told his biographer, Atlantic write McKay Coppins.

“Bragg may have won the battle, for now, but he may have lost the political war,” he added.  “Democrats think they can put out the Trump fire with oxygen.  It’s political malpractice.”

Last month, Romney voiced bewilderment at why President Biden didn’t pardon his predecessor as soon as the federal indictments came down, saying “he should have fought like crazy” to keep them from moving forward.

As I wrote before, Romney, in an interview on MSNBC, said pardoning Trump would have made President Biden the big guy and the person [who] pardoned a little guy.

I couldn’t agree more with Romney on his point about Bragg.

--In the aftermath of the Trump conviction, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Democratic strategist David Axelrod and Republican strategist Mike Murphy for their “Hacks on Tap” podcast last week that too much attention was being paid to how a guilty verdict would affect voters.

“It’s not just what impact it will have on voters that’s important,” Christie said, “but it’s what impact it will have on him because he will get angrier and more paranoid. And I don’t think that makes him an attractive candidate to the very narrow swath of voters that he has to try to win in order to get the presidency back.”

--An appeals court in Georgia has delayed Donald Trump’s election interference trial until it rules on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can remain on the case.

Lawyers for the former president have repeatedly sought to have Ms. Willis removed from the case, with good reason, but the judge overseeing the case said the court found no conflict of interest and allowed the case to proceed, pending Trump’s appeal.  Wednesday’s decision will prevent the case from proceeding until the appeal ruling on Willis.

The Georgia Court of Appeals currently is scheduled to hear arguments on October 4, making it highly unlikely that the case will be settled ahead of the election.

This was the case that should have been a layup.  The evidence you have all heard and seen is overwhelming.  But D.A. Willis, is, to put it simply, an idiot.

--Indicted Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) filed for reelection as an independent on Monday.   The decision came a day before New Jersey’s primary in which three Democrats and four Republicans were vying for their parties’ nominations for the seat he currently holds.

Menendez is currently facing federal corruption charges and is on trial in New York City.  He had announced in March that he would not run for a fourth full term as a Democrat but left open the possibility of an independent bid if exonerated.

Democrats are desperate to hold their narrow majority in the Senate and this could really screw things up for them, as they already face a difficult election map in the fall.

[Rep. Andy Kim received the Democratic nomination. Curtis Bashaw beat the Trump-endorsed candidate on the GOP side.  I voted for Bashaw.]

--I couldn’t care less about the Hunter Biden gun trial in Delaware, but September’s trial in California on tax evasion should be interesting.

House Republicans issued criminal referrals Wednesday against Hunter and Joe Biden’s brother, James, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of a yearlong impeachment inquiry.

--Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic measure that would protect access to contraception nationwide, in a vote designed to show the contrast between the two parties on women’s reproductive choices headed into the fall election.

The bill, which included protections for emergency contraception pills, such as Plan B, was backed by 51 senators, with 39 opposed, short of the 60 votes needed to advance under chamber rules.

The measure was the first in a series of votes planned by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to paint Republicans as not only against abortion but opposed to contraception and in vitro fertilization as well; part of a strategy intended to galvanize suburban women.

Two Republicans – centrist Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine – crossed party lines to support advancing the bill.  “I sent a message that says I support women’s access to contraception.  If this is a messaging vote, that’s my message,” Murkowski said.  “This is contraception! We thought we resolved this 50, 60 years ago!”

Next up for Schumer, he said, is a bill to establish a statutory right to access IVF services.

--Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal...on how these days, “we don’t mind disliking each other... We like it.  That’s the new thing, that we’re enjoying the estrangement.”

But....

“The tragedy is that one of two old men, neither of them great, neither of them distinguished in terms of character or intellect, who are each in his way an embarrassment, and whom two-thirds of voters do not want as presidential candidates, will be chosen, in this crucial historical moment in which the stakes could not be higher, to lead the most powerful nation on earth.

“One will likely fail physically in coming years – he’s failing now – and be replaced by a vice president who is wholly unsuited for the presidency because she is wholly unserious, who has had four years to prove herself in a baseline way and failed to meet even the modest standards by which vice presidents are judged. The other may, on being elected or even before then, be thrown into the slammer for one of the felony charges against him, including those connected to attempting to overthrow a democratic national election.

“This is a tragedy – that this is what we’ve got, these are our choices.

“When you’ve got a major hate on, you don’t have to notice.”

[Noonan wrote her piece before the Georgia case ruling.]

--Covid-19 is still around, cases growing in the Los Angeles area, for example, though not worrisomely so.  According to the CDC, Covid is still killing people at a higher rate than the flu, with more than 43,000 deaths reported since Oct. 1, compared to an estimated 25,000 for the latter.  The risk remains high for the elderly or immunocompromised, and in my area, I still see quite a few older folks wearing masks in grocery stores.

But based on CDC data from back in February, more than 95% of those hospitalized with Covid had not received an updated vaccine, which was introduced in September.  If you are in the high-risk category, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get one.   A new version is apparently coming out next September as well.

--The Denver area saw at least golf ball-sized hail last weekend and the significance was, as a local meteorologist, Chris Bianchi estimated, it was the fourth hailstorm to hit the area with at least $1 billion in damage since 2017.

Some believe that warming temperatures may be, in effect, making hail stones larger, while also perhaps diminishing the likelihood of smaller hail. And the spread of population across the country means it’s more likely those hail stones fall on structures or vehicles, causing extensive damage.

“It’s going to be a very painful year for insurers,” said Victor Gensini, an associate professor at Northern Illinois University.  “When the bull’s eye starts getting bigger, you’re going to start hitting it more.”

--The European Union’s climate change monitoring service, Copernicus, said on Wednesday that each of the past 12 months ranked as the warmest on record in year-on-year comparisons, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for urgent action to avert “climate hell.”

The average global temperature for the 12-month period to the end of May was 1.63 degrees Celsius (2.9-degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average – making it the warmest such period since record-keeping began in 1940.

In the U.S., the first heat wave of the year hit the Southwest, with records tumbling Thursday, temperatures soaring past 110 F from southeast California to Arizona.  Temperatures in many areas were 10 to 15 degrees above normal.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix, where the new record high of 113 F Thursday leap-frogged the old mark of 111 set in 2016, called the temperatures “dangerously hot,” and you saw the result for some waiting outside for a Trump rally Thursday afternoon.

Las Vegas yesterday set a new record of 111 F, equaling the earliest time of year the high reached at least 110.  Nine were hospitalized for heat exposure in Clark County.

--Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.

A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.

Starliner then docked with the ISS Thursday around noon after helium leaks detected on the spacecraft showed fresh problems in the crucial test mission, rendering unusable some of its 28 thrusters used to maneuver in space.  But there are backup thrusters to compensate for the loss.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before climbing back into Starliner for a remote desert touchdown in the western U.S. on June 14.

Boeing was hired alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX a decade ago to ferry NASA’s astronauts to and from the space station.  SpaceX launched astronauts into orbit in 2020, becoming the first private business to achieve what only three countries – Russia, the U.S. and China – had mastered.  It has taken nine crews to the space station for NASA and three private groups for a Houston company that charters flights.

Also Thursday, SpaceX launched its giant Starship rocket for a fourth test flight, and it accomplished a set of ambitious goals set out before the flight.

While not a perfect success, the upper-stage Starship vehicle was lifted into space, coasted halfway around the world, survived the searing heat of re-entry and then made a water landing in the Indian Ocean, as planned.

I was watching online on SpaceX’s channel and it was spectacular...including the footage of the re-entry, live, where you thought it was breaking up, but as Elon Musk wrote on X, “Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!”

NASA is counting on a version of Starship to take astronauts to the surface of the moon during its Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for late 2026...Mars then the ultimate goal.

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

We note the death of Robert Persichitti, 102, who died while traveling to France to participate in the D-Day commemorations.

According to WHEC News 10, an NBC affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., Persichitti flew overseas with a group connected to the National World War II Museum and a companion.

Persichitti witnessed the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima.  RIP, Mr. Persichitti, and thank you.  You were indeed the Best of America.

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Gold $2309
Oil $75.30

Bitcoin: $69,200

Regular Gas: $3.47; Diesel: $3.82 [$3.55 - $3.91 a yr. ago]

Returns for the week 6/3-6/7

Dow Jones  +0.3%  [38798]
S&P 500  +1.3%  [5346]
S&P MidCap  -2.1%
Russell 2000  -2.0%
Nasdaq  +2.4%  [17133]

Returns for the period 1/1/24-6/7/24

Dow Jones  +2.9%
S&P 500  +12.1%
S&P MidCap +5.0%
Russell 2000  +0.1%
Nasdaq  +14.1%

Bulls 57.6
Bears 18.2

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

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