Tag: Fed

…meanwhile…

(SCOTUS upholds Indian Child Welfare Act. Please scroll down center column.)

Blinken Meet Xi – In an effort to stem a deteriorating relationship with the U.S., Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Xi Jingping in Beijing Monday near the end of a three-day diplomatic summit to China. Blinken said Chinese officials agreed to work on stabilizing U.S.-Chinese relations, according to NPR. The secretary of state also discussed the war in Ukraine (China is a Russian ally) and the flow of fentanyl from China to the U.S. 

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Ukraine Pushes East – Ukraine says its counteroffensive against the Russian invasion is making modest gains in the east. “Our defense forces have captured more than 400 units of enemy equipment and weapons,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram Monday. More than 80 Russian troops have been captured, she said (Newsweek).

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Up on the Hill – The full Senate and House are off for the Juneteenth holiday Monday. Both will be in session Tuesday through Friday.

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Coming Tuesday – Read “Most Liberal County in Conservative States” in the left column and “Most Conservative County in Liberal States” in the right column. Both features are part of our new collaboration with Stacker.

--TL

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FRIDAY 6/16/23

Alleged Pentagon Leaker Indicted – Air National Guard member Jack Douglas Teixeira was charged with six counts of “willful retention and transmission of classified information related to national defense” Thursday in the alleged leaking of more than 100 sensitive materials, including records about the Russian invasion of Ukraine (per USA Today). The 21-year-old from North Dighton, Massachusetts was arrested in April and remains in federal custody. 

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Indian Child Welfare Act Upheld – The Supreme Court rejected, 7-2, a challenge to the constitutionality of a 1978 federal law with the unfortunate title; the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was written to keep Native American children with Native American families (per SCOTUSblog). The ICWA was enacted after a congressional investigation discovered that from the 1950s through the ‘70s more than one-third of all Native American children in the U.S. had been removed, some forcibly, and placed with non-Native families and institutions with no ties to their tribes, NPR explains. 

This might count as the second SCOTUS surprise in a week. Last week, the Supremes struck down a Republican-drawn 2022 congressional district map in Alabama, 5-4.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the only two dissents this week in Haaland v. Brackeen, with Donald J. Trump’s three appointees, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the majority opinion, joining the four Democratic presidential appointees to the court. Their decision says Congress had the power to enact the law, and rejected arguments that the law violates the 10th Amendment’s “anti-commandeering doctrine” barring the federal government from requiring states to adapt federal law,” SCOTUSblog explains. The court declined to reach a decision on two other claims, arguing that individuals and the state of Texas do not have standing in the case.

--TL

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THURSDAY 6/15/23

Fed Holds Interest Rates – After 10 consecutive increases, the Federal Reserve is holding its benchmark interest rate unchanged, Chairman Jerome Powell (above) said Wednesday. The Labor Department reported that May’s annual inflation rate fell to 4.0%, though that’s still twice the Fed’s 2% target rate, and so the Fed signaled the hold on interest rate increases will be temporary, The Wall Street Journal reports. New economic projections released after the Fed’s two-day policy meeting “strongly suggested” the Fed will ramp down the rate increases, which generally have been in the quarter-point increase rate, through the rest of the year. 

After Wednesday’s meeting, the Fed “implied” that holding the benchmark rate at 5-5.25% “might be short-lived,” according to the WSJ.

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Another Chip in Trump’s GOP Support? – Donald J. Trump’s support on Capitol Hill generally comes from the House side, its rabidly pro-MAGA Freedom Caucus members in particular. But 20 House Republicans joined Democrats in sinking a resolution to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), according to The Hill. 

As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee during the Trump administration, Schiff led the first impeachment investigation of Trump. In May, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), acolyte of the former president, introduced the censure measure against Schiff. On Wednesday, Luna brought the measure to the floor as a privileged resolution. 

But the House tabled Luna’s measure Wednesday by 225-196-7 vote. Twenty of those “aye” votes to table were Republicans. Five Democrats and two Republicans voted “present.”

--TL

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Another Trump Arraignment

Wednesday 6/14/23

Donald J. Trump’s Simpsonian perp drive, by giant-SUV motorcade, from Mar-a-Lago, past a gaggle of apparently well-behaved pro- and anti-Trump protestors to the Wilkie E. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse in Miami culminated in an hour-long arraignment in which the former president reportedly sat expressionless in a courtroom as Special Counsel Jack Smith looked on. 

Do we need to mention that Trump pleaded not guilty?

Trump attorney Allina Habba gave a brief press conference outside the courthouse during the arraignment, calling “President Donald J. Trump … defiant,” and said the indictment is “about the destruction of longstanding principles that have set this country apart…”

Habba said Justice Department prosecutors “do not love America … they hate Donald Trump.”

As he and his entourage proceeded from the courthouse to the airport for a flight to his Bedminster, New Jersey country club for a fundraiser, Trump dropped in a Cuban sandwich restaurant and answered a muffled question from the crowd saying, “I think it’s going great,” according to ABC News. It was not apparent what the ex-prez thought was going great, though considering the circumstances his life is not so bad. 

Federal Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman did not set a monetary bail, nor did he make Trump give up his U.S. passport. And when the trial begins, the judge will not be Goodman, but rather Judge Aileen Cannon, the post-2020 election-loss Trump appointee to the federal district court in Florida who temporarily put the brakes on the Justice Department’s investigation of documents found at Mar-a-Lago by ordering a “special master” to sift through them. In the face of Special Counsel Smith’s promise of a speedy trial, Cannon could help Trump’s legal team – whoever that will consist of – drag out the trial. Perhaps well past the November 2024 presidential election, when any of a number of Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination have promised to pardon him.

Later Tuesday evening in a speech at his country club in Bedminster, Trump finally explained why he kept boxes of classified, highly classified and top secret documents (per MSNBC).

“Those boxes were containing all types of presidential belongings,” he said, such as shirts and shoes. “I didn’t have time to go through these boxes. I’ve had a busy life. A very, very, busy life.”

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

Another ‘Too Good’ Jobs Report – Employers added 253,000 new jobs to the U.S. economy in April, the Labor Department reported Friday, lowering the unemployment rate to 3.4%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had estimated the new-jobs number would be 180,000, below an average of 345,000 jobs added per month on average from January through March, and low enough to raise the unemployment rate versus March by 0.1 point, to 3.6%. 

Fed response?: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that this week’s quarter-point increase in the interest rate could be the last amid signs the economy is cooling enough to lower inflation toward its 2% target. Now are we in for more interest rate increases?

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Ain’t Too Proud for Prison – A jury found four members of the Proud Boys extremist group, including leader Enrique Tarrio, guilty of seditious conspiracy Thursday for their roles in supporting ex-President Trump’s “Big Lie” in the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. The verdicts in Washington, D.C. federal court are the last of the Justice Department’s conspiracy cases related to January 6, according to The Guardian (though DOJ’s probe of Trump’s involvement continues). A fifth Proud Boy, Dominic Pelzola, who smashed in a Capitol window, was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy, but was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding. Members of another far-right group participating in the Capitol Attack, the Oath Keepers, were convicted of seditious conspiracy last January.

Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland: “Evidence presented at trial details the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6 and the central role these defendants played setting into motion events of that day.”

And stand by: Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, has promised to pardon supporters charged with criminal offenses in connection with their participation in the January 6 Capitol attack if he wins the 2024 election.

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Is Feinstein Saving Clarence Thomas? – Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) says she will return to the Senate after she fully recovers from her case of the shingles. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been short of her vote necessary for a Democratic majority for much of the year and has been unable to approve many of President Biden’s judicial nominees. 

More urgently, Democrats are unable to proceed with a new ethics reform bill aimed at the Supreme Court, according to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Axios reports. 

Some prominent Democrats on the Hill, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called for Feinstein, who already has ruled out running for re-election next year, to retire now. 

This comes as allegations of questionable ethics pile up on Justice Clarence Thomas. Earlier in the week, ProPublica reported that GOP megadoner Harlan Crow paid private school tuition potentially worth about $150,000, for Thomas’ grandnephew. On Friday, The Washington Post reported in an exclusive report citing documents it has received, that conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, head of the Judicial Education Project, arranged for Thomas’ wife, Ginni, to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work more than a decade ago, “specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork.”

Leo reportedly instructed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25,000” and emphasized that the paperwork must have “no mention of Ginni, of course.”

Conservative backlash: Conservatives are warning these ethics attacks on Thomas are “meant to drive him off” SCOTUS, according to a Wednesday headline in The Washington Times, before WaPo’s latest story.

The Feinstein Effect: But Feinstein’s refusal to retire early has detracted from the allegations against Thomas, shifting some attention to Democrats’ infighting. If Feinstein were to retire and allow Durbin to name a replacement on Senate Judiciary in order to regain the majority necessary to review SCOTUS ethics, California Gov. Gavin Newsom would name Feinstein’s replacement. With the state’s primary for the 2024 elections about a year away, three Democratic representatives, Katie Holmes, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee have announced their candidacies. 

Newsom promised in 2021 to name a Black woman to replace Feinstein if she retired mid-term, according to the Los Angeles Times. If the governor were to hold to this commitment, he would make Rep. Lee the incumbent and give her an advantage over Holmes and Schiff next year.

--TL

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THURSDAY 5/4/23

Fed Says ‘Not Quite Yet’ – The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter-point to the 5% to 5.25% range Wednesday for its 10th straight – and potentially last -- increase. 

Ominously, the last time interest rates were this high was summer of 2007, per The New York Times.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell (above) said “a decision on a pause was not made today” adding that “we’ll approach that question in the June meeting.”

The Federal Open Market Committee issued a statement that in addition to persistent high interest rates, it will “take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial development.”

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Who’s Putin Who? – During a surprise visit to Helsinki, Finland President Volodymyr Zelinskyy denied Ukraine had anything to do with an alleged drone attack on Moscow’s Red Square, which the Kremlin called a terrorist attack and assassination attempt on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“We don’t attack Putin or Moscow,” Zelinskyy said Wednesday. “We are defending our villages and cities.”

Kremlin sez: It will “retaliate” when and where considered necessary.

BBC sez: Three Kremlin-provided videos show electronic radar assets shooting down one of the drones, per the BBC. Red Square below is getting set for Russia’s Victory Day celebration over the Nazis in World War II, which is held every May 9.

Was the attack staged as a pretext for a major Russian offensive in Ukraine for next Tuesday?

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 5/3/23

Senate Judiciary Holds Hearing on SCOTUS Ethics – But Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts “declined” an invitation to appear before the panel (per The Hill).

What Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) said: Scolded Roberts for “oblivious” response to “obvious” ethical conflicts by justices. 

“The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards. That reality is driving a crisis in public confidence in the Supreme Court. The status quo must change.”

What ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said: That the hearing is part of a “concentrated effort to delegitimize this court and cherry-pick examples to make a point.”

“I think, here’s what you’re trying to do on the Democratic side. Remember when Sen. Schumer (D-NY) went to the court and started yelling at everybody in the court? Not everybody, just pretty much our folks.”

‘Cherry-picked’: After ProPublica reported that Justice Clarence Thomas received free private jet travel, yacht trips and lavish vacations from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, Politico reported Justice Neil Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the person who purchased his $1.8-million Colorado property – the head of a law firm with multiple cases before SCOTUS, and Business Insider reported that Chief Justice Roberts’ wife, Jane, has made more than $10 million over seven years as a headhunter recruiting and placing attorneys in law firms. 

So far, no such reports on SCOTUS justices nominated by Democratic presidents.

--TL

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TUESDAY 5/2/23

May 9 for June 1 – President Biden will meet with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other top lawmakers May 9 to discuss the debt-ceiling limit, NPR reports. The White House meeting follows Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s warning Monday that the federal government could reach its limit earlier than previously calculated – possibly on June 1.

McCarthy passed a bill that would raise the ceiling in exchange for severe cuts to Biden’s budget agenda, including his hard-won Inflation Reduction Act. But the White House repeatedly has refused to negotiate over its spending programs in exchange for unrelated debt-ceiling relief. 

McCarthy’s bill passed with no votes to spare, and now he must negotiate a bill “that can win support from House Republicans and President Biden,” The Hill says. And, oh yeah, it must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate as well. 

We’re listening to her, now: The Hill quotes “McCarthy critic-turned-ally” Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) who said of the speaker’s task; “I’m sure it’s going to be tougher.”

Meanwhile: The underlying attitude from libertarian-leaning Republicans on the Hill seems to be that if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling in time, the crashing economy will be blamed on the Biden White House. But it cannot be repeated too often that a federal default will crash the global economy, and no one will come out politically alive.

--TL

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This Week, Meanwhile

MAY DAY 2023

UPDATE: First Republic No More – JP Morgan Chase Bank purchased First Republic Bank over the weekend after California regulators shut it down, NPR reports. First Republic has been wobbling since the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March. Chase gets Republic’s approximately $92 billion in deposits, $173 billion of loans and approximately $30 billion in securities, according to Morning Edition. 

First Republic's failure is the second-largest in U.S. banking history.

Chase paid about $10 billion to purchase Republic, and will receive about $50 billion in FDIC funding over five years to aid the purchase.

First Republic’s 84 branches in eight states were to open as usual Monday under new branding, according to NPR. CEO Jamie Dimon says Chase’s takeover will “minimize costs” to the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund to about $13 billion.

Fundamentally sound?: “The banking system remains sound and resilient, and Americans should feel confident in the safety of their deposits and the ability of the banking system to fulfill its essential function of providing credit to businesses and families,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.

Fed, Regulate Thyself – If the spate of recent freight train derailments was not enough to raise the question of whether federal regulations and enforcement have grown too lax in recent decades, there is last Friday’s admission by the Federal Reserve that it had caught its regulators napping before the March 10 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Banking regulation supervisors did not fully appreciate SVB’s vulnerabilities, and when they did, failed to act sufficiently, Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, said in his report. The self-criticism signals a “broad push” to toughen rules on the banking industry, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A separate report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, also issued Friday, says it was slow to ramp up addressing issues it identified for Signature, a bank that failed two days after SVB, on March 12. A third report from the Government Accountability Office – also issued Friday – said regulators found problems at both SVB and Signature in recent years but did not ramp up supervisory actions in time. 

On Friday, the Fed’s Barr called for restoring rules that apply to banks with more than $100 billion in assets and said regulators must re-evaluate how they treat deposits above the $250,000 limit insured by the FDIC. SVB and Signature both had a large amount of such deposits, the WSJ says.

Upshot: Republican presidents and congressional leaders have successfully been pushing back against what conservatives consider excessive federal regulation since the Reagan administration. As part of his return-to-the-New Deal agenda, President Biden has raised the issue of fixing lax federal regulation, especially after the high-profile freight train derailment in eastern Ohio. But the Fed’s report is likely to get more pushback than attention, particularly from Republicans, at least until the debt ceiling crisis is handled – we hope -- by early this summer.

What do you think?: Time for some regulatory crackdowns, or do you prefer a laissez-faire attitude toward the Fed’s report?

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Marcos Visits White House – President Biden hosts Philippines President Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos, Jr. Monday over growing concerns about the Chinese Navy’s harassment of Philippines vessels in the South China Sea, according to The Hill. The U.S. and Philippines conducted their largest war drills just last week, and air forces of the two countries were to hold Monday their first joint fighter jet training since 1990.

Before he left Manila Sunday, Marcos said he is “determined to forge an even stronger relationship with the United States in a wide range of areas that not only address the concerns of our times but also those that are critical to advancing our core interests.”

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Up on the Hill – The full Senate is in session Monday through Thursday of this week. The House of Representatives is out.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

…meanwhile…

FRIDAY 3/24/23

(The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the ninth consecutive time since the beginning of last year. Chairman Jerome Powell, pictured, called the U.S. banking system “sound and resilient,” while signaling this could be the final increase in its efforts to reduce the inflation rate back to 2%, according to NPR.)

Border Deal to the North – President Biden announced a new rule that will allow Canada to turn back migrants who cross from the U.S. at unofficial, but popular, border crossings – and who cross them from Canada into the U.S. – NPR reports. Biden announced the rule, which takes effect Saturday and will be published in the Federal Register, to Canada’s parliament on Friday, the second day of his visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

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Defense Was Down During Attack in Syria – The main air defense system was “not fully operational” at a coalition military base in northeast Syria attacked by a suspected Iranian drone Thursday, two U.S. officials told The New York Times Friday. An American contractor was killed and six other Americans were injured in the attack.

According to the report, it is unclear why the defense system failed, and whether the attackers had detected the vulnerability. U.S. forces have been on high alert since January 2021. There have been 78 such attacks by Iranian-backed militias since then, according to the NYT.

--TL

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THURSDAY 3/23/23

Oh, Canada – President Biden travels to Ottawa Thursday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Haiti, with Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau (NPR).

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TikTok Testimony – Chew Shou Zi, CEO of the popular Chinese-owned social media site, testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce beginning 10 a.m. Eastern Thursday. Ahead of his appearance, Chew promised to wall off U.S. users’ data and make further safety and security improvements, Semafor reports.

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Trump Lawyers Must Turn Over Documents – A three-judge panel for the D.C. Court of Appeals rejected attempts by Donald J. Trump’s legal team challenging a court ruling last Friday that orders the former president’s own lawyers to turn over documents related to the Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe, according to The Hill. Last Friday’s ruling removes attorney-client privilege between Trump and Evan Corcoran as the former president is believed to have lied to his legal team over whether he returned all the documents from Mar-a-Lago.

Meanwhile: As we await potential Manhattan grand jury charges in another of the former president’s cases, the one involving a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, Trump has raised $1.5 million, MSNBC reports, for his 2024 presidential campaign after he said on his own social media site last Sunday that he would be arrested Tuesday.

As Trump’s GOP Lead Grows: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be facing a backlash against his veiled criticism of the former president. In Morning Consult’s latest poll on the 2024 GOP race, 54% of Republicans polled said they preferred Trump for president, versus 26% for DeSantis. Ex-Veep Mike Pence came in third at 7%, with Nikki Haley edging out former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), 4% to 3%. 

A raft of other undeclared candidates all polled at 1% or less, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Woke, Inc.author Vivek Ramaswamy. 

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 3/22/23

UPDATE: Fed Raises Interest Rate 0.25% -- Citing “modest growth in spending and production,” increasing job gains in recent months and inflation remaining elevated, the Federal Reserve raised its interest rate by 25 basis points Wednesday to a range of 4.75% to 5%. 

Prior to the 2 p.m. (Eastern) announcement some economists had expected the Fed to stop raising interest rates for the first time since the beginning of 2022 after failures this month of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. But the Fed said in its statement following the increase “The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.

“Recent developments are likely to result in lighter credit conditions for households and businesses and to weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation. The extent of these effects is uncertain. The (Fed) Committee remains highly attentive to inflation risks.”

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Will They or Won’t They? – There’s nervous anticipation and angst among economists waiting to find out whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates Wednesday afternoon by a quarter-point, half of what was expected to fight inflation before banks began collapsing or whether it will wave off any increase for now. It began with the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank nearly two weeks ago and continued when America’s banking giants had to bail out First Republic Bank with more than $30 billion in emergency funds.

Cuffs for Trump? – Donald J. Trump has told his advisors he “wants to be handcuffed” for an expected court appearance before a Manhattan grand jury, according to The Guardian. The former president is willing to play political martyr for his small, vociferous group of hardcore MAGAtarians who remain sufficiently significant to maintain Trump’s status as the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination for president.

Trump reasons that if he needs to surrender himself to a Manhattan courthouse for fingerprints and mug shots anyway, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle.”

Uh, yeah, it could become a spectacle.

No Attorney-Client Privilege?: A district court judge has written that “compelling preliminary evidence” uncovered by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office – you know, the one investigating Mar-a-Lagogate – proves Donald J. Trump “knowingly and deliberately misled” his own lawyers about whether he returned all classified material uncovered at his Florida compound, thus removing attorney-client privilege, ABC News reports. U.S. Judge Beryl Howell wrote last Friday, March 17, before stepping down as D.C. district court judge that prosecutors in the special counsel’s office have made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations,” and orders attorney Evan Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena to testify on six separate lines of inquiry for which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege. 

The report cites “sources who described” the judge’s order to ABC News.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news